Wych Hazel Part 85

'What are we to do when we get there?'

'Keep house, sir. You can take one-half the bricks, and I the other. Or any proportions that may suit your views,' said Miss Hazel compliantly.

Now Mr. Falkirk did not, it is true, understand the course things had taken for the last few weeks; he was only a man; and though Wych Hazel's guardian for many years might be supposed to hold a clue to her moods, this was what Mr.

Falkirk failed to do in the present instance. But using his wits as well as he was able, he had come to the conclusion, not without some secret gratification, that Miss Hazel preferred the society of her old guardian to that of her new one. Certainly he was in no mind to cross her wish to go to the city, if she had such a wish. However, mindful of his duty, he mentioned her desire to Rollo, and asked if he had any objection to it. Rollo was silent a minute, and then gave a frank 'No.' And Mr. Falkirk wrote to make arrangements, and even went himself to perfect them. And he lost no time; by the end of October the change was made, and Wych Hazel established in a snug little house in one of the best streets on Murray Hill.

If Mr. Falkirk was misled before, his mind was not likely to clear up as the weeks went on. Whatever had come over his ward, she was unmistakably changed from her old self; as now, living in the house with her again, Mr. Falkirk could not fail to perceive. Quiet steps, a gentle voice that quite ignored its old bursts of singing; brown eyes that looked softly through things and people at something else; with a mood docile because it did not care: but _that_ he did not know.

Apparently she had not come to town for stir,--her going out was of the quietest kind. Sometimes a specially fine concert would tempt her; once in a while she made one of her radiant toilettes and went to a state dinner party, now and then to a lunch or a kettle-drum; but b.a.l.l.s and evening parties of every sort were invariably declined. Instead, she plunged into study,--went at German as if her life depended on it, took up her Italian again, and began to perfect herself in French.

Read history, knit her brows over science, and sat and drew by the hour.

Of course society could not quite be baffled so: mornings brought carriage after carriage, and evenings a run upon the door. Mr. Falkirk had little peace of his life, unless it were a reposeful thing for him to sit by and see the play.

Between whiles this winter, Hazel did a great deal of thinking: even German could not crowd it out. She knew, the minute she had said she would come to town, that she wished something could step in and keep her at Chickaree; or at least she knew that she was leaving more there than she had counted upon; and the knowledge chafed her. It was all very well to like--somebody--(name of course unknown)--to a certain degree; but when the liking made itself into bonds and ties and hindrances, then Miss Wych rebelled. She brought up all sorts of questions in the most unattractive shape, to find them suited with answers that could find no reply. It was simply unbearable, she urged upon herself, this being held in and watched and restricted,--very unbearable! Only, somehow, the person who did it all, was _not_. And the doubt whether life would be worth having, in such guardianship, started a more difficult point: what would it be worth without? And the mental efforts to shake herself into clear order, just seemed, as sometimes happens, to tie three knots where there was one before.

'It will go after a while,' she said, twisting herself about under the new form of loneliness and unrest which possessed her when she got to town. And it did: deeper in.

Mr. Falkirk, blind bat that he was (for a sharp-sighted man), was not discontented with his winter. He had Wych Hazel to himself, and she gave him no more trouble than he liked by the force of old a.s.sociations. He watched the play in which she was so prominent and so pretty a figure, and found it amusing.

It seemed safe play, so far; the fort that he was set to keep seemed quite secure from any attacks that presently threatened; and Mr. Falkirk had no suspicion that its safety was owing to a garrison within the walls. The outside he knew he watched well. It was a very quiet winter, indeed, except at such times as Miss Kennedy's doors were open to all comers; but Mr. Falkirk did not find fault with that. He had never been garrulous in his ward's company or in any other.

Certainly he liked to hear _her_ talk; and he knew that she talked far less than usual, when they were alone; but he argued with himself that Wych Hazel was growing older, was seriously engaging herself in study, after other than a school-girl's fashion; and that all this winter's development was but the sweet maturing of the fruit which in growing mature was losing somewhat of its liveliness of flavour.

They were alone one evening, rather past the middle of the winter. It was not one of Miss Kennedy's at-home nights; and in a snug little drawing-room the two were seated on opposite sides of the tea service. A fire of soft coal burning luxuriously; thick curtains drawn; warm-coloured paperhangings on the walls; silver bright in the gaslight, and Mr. Falkirk's evening papers ready at his hand. To-night Mr. Falkirk rather neglected them, and seemed to be in a meditative mood.

'Whereabouts are we in pursuit of our fortune, Miss Hazel?' he asked as he tasted his cup of hot tea.

'Rather deep down in Schiller and Dante, Sir.'

'_Il Paradiso?_' asked Mr. Falkirk meaningly.

'Pray do you call that "deep down"?' demanded Miss Hazel.

'I am merely inquiring where you are, my dear. I have heard of people's being over head and ears.'

'Only hearsay evidence, sir?' said Miss Hazel recklessly. But then she was not going to stand up and be shot at!

'I should like to know, merely as a satisfaction to my own mind, whether the quest is ended, Miss Hazel? Has Cinderella's gla.s.s slipper been fitted on? or has Quickear seized the singing bird and the golden water?'

'Princes are scarce!' said the girl derisively, but not without a rising blush.

'The true one not found yet, my dear?' said Mr. Falkirk with an amused glance across the table. 'What is to be our next move in search of him?'

'That is one way of putting it,' said Wych Hazel. 'I should think, sir, you had taken lessons of your devotee, Miss Fisher.'

'I am glad _you_ don't,' said Mr. Falkirk earnestly. 'Miss Hazel, I should prefer that when _such_ princesses are in the parlour, Cinderella should keep to her kitchen. It is the court end in such a case.'

Kitty Fisher's name brought up visions. Hazel was silent.

'Do you ever hear from Chickaree?' her guardian asked presently.

'No one to write, sir, but Mrs. Byw.a.n.k,--and she, you know, is not a scribe. I understand that the kitten is well.'

'That is important,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'She hasn't told you lately anything about your friend Rollo?'

'No, sir. Have you given up your share in his friendship?'

inquired Miss Hazel.

Mr. Falkirk made no answer to this query, and seemed to have forgotten it presently in his musings. Hazel glanced at him furtively, choosing her form of attack; for Mr. Falkirk's manner seemed to say that he _had_ heard.

'You always played into each other's hands so delightfully, sir,' she began, with a very _degage_ air,--'it is of course natural that he should keep you posted as to his own important proceedings. And a little ungrateful in you, Mr. Falkirk, I must say, to fling him off in this fashion.'

'I've nothing on my conscience respecting him,' said Mr.

Falkirk, eating his toast with a contented air. 'I'm not _his_ guardian, nor ever was.'

'What a pity!' said Wych Hazel. 'Both of us together might have made your life more lively than my una.s.sisted efforts could do.'

Mr. Falkirk grunted, and went on with his tea; and sent his cup to be refilled.

Hazel pondered.

'You seem depressed, Mr. Falkirk,' she said. 'Shall I give you an additional lump of sugar?'

Now Mr. Falkirk in truth seemed anything but depressed; and he raised his head to look at his questioner.

'I am quite satisfied with things as they are, Miss Hazel.'

'Are you, sir? I am delighted!' said Hazel. 'But I never even supposed such a thing possible. How are "things"--if I may be allowed to inquire?'

Some things are new,' returned her guardian. 'And I should not be satisfied with them, if they concerned me. Which I take for granted they do not. I saw Dr. Arthur down town to-day; and he told me some odd news about Rollo.' Mr. Falkirk was finishing his tea in a leisurely way, evidently _not_ thinking that the news, whatever it was, concerned either of them seriously.

'Why did you not bring Dr. Arthur home to tea?' inquired his ward.

'I did not think of it, Miss Hazel. But he volunteered a visit in the course of the evening.'

'That will be delightful,--I like Dr. Arthur,' said Hazel, feeling that somehow or other she must get a glimpse of his news before he came.

'Well, if what he said gave you so much pleasure, why don't you repeat it to me, Mr. Falkirk,' she ventured.

'I do not remember that I said anything gave me pleasure,'

returned her guardian. 'This don't. By what he says, Rollo has lost his wits. I thought him a shrewd man of business; and he was that, when your affairs were in his hand last summer; but if what Dr. Arthur tells me is true, and it must be, he has done a very strange thing with his own fortune.'

'Dear me! I hope he did not hurt himself looking after mine!'

said Wych Hazel innocently. 'Are fortune and wits both in peril, Mr. Falkirk?'

'Not yours, I hope,' said her guardian. 'I should be very uneasy if I thought that. _I_ should have no power to interfere.

The will gives him absolute control, supposing that he had control at all.'

Perhaps it was just as well that at this moment Dr. Arthur was announced. Alas, not only Dr. Arthur, but Mrs. Coles! And Hazel, giving greetings to one and welcome to the other; insisting that they should come to the tea table, late as it was; went on all the while looking after her own wits and picking up her energies with all speed. She had need; for the harmless-seeming eyes of Mrs. Coles were always to her neighbours' interests. Very graciously now they watched Wych Hazel.

There was a great deal to talk about, in Miss Kennedy's house and winter and engagements; and in Dr. Maryland's house, and Primrose, and her school. An endless succession of points of talk, that ought to have been very interesting, to judge by the spirit with which they were discussed. All the while, Wych Hazel was watching for something else; and Prudentia, was she keeping the best for the last? She was extremely affable; she enjoyed her tea; she took off her bonnet and displayed the pale bandeaux of hair which were inevitably a.s.sociated in Miss Kennedy's mind with one particular day and conversation; she admired the furniture; she discoursed on the advantages of city life. Dr. Maryland was, perforce, rather silent.