Part 7

Digby sprang to her, and Paul groaned inwardly as he marked the fervour of the young man's greeting, albeit he found comfort in noting the girl's cool reception of, and most inadequate response to, the same; for she withdrew her hand from the devout clasp that held it, so soon as the orthodox number of moments to be devoted to that ceremony was ended. Nor did her eyes rest upon his face longer than the one direct look--of Hazel's peculiar directness--that kindly interest and innate courtesy alike dictated.

"Why didn't you bring some one with you?" she asked, somewhat severely. "It is not very polite to oblige Mr. Charteris to stand in the sun."

"There was the luggage," faltered Digby. "There was not much room, you know."

He glanced sheepishly at Paul, but there was understanding without sympathy to be read in Paul's countenance; and young Travers inwardly dubbed this old acquaintance and near neighbour of the Le Mesuriers, hard and callous of disposition.

"Well, I'll hold the horse," Hazel said, descending the steps and taking the bridle from Paul's hand, "and perhaps you two would not mind lifting up the trunk. It is not so heavy as it looks."

This matter dexterously accomplished, Digby Travers got to his seat again, expecting Paul to help Hazel to her allotted place, frankly eager to be gone. He was somewhat taken aback when the girl, who had disappeared for the space of a few moments, returned with an enormous umbrella of sombre green hue, which she opened with some difficulty, and proffered to him with both hands, gravely matter-of-fact.

"I shall not be long," she announced, "but I want to see mother again before we start, and--and I did not know Mr. Charteris had called. You don't mind, do you?" she added, "It is rather heavy, but the stick is so tall that you can rest the handle on the seat beside you if you take your hat off, and, though ugly, it casts a cool and restful light."

So saying she re-entered the house, followed by Paul, leaving poor Digby disconsolate beneath an extensive shade; so extensive, indeed, that though noonday was approaching and the sun was high in the heavens, the quadruped also enjoyed the benefit of it, over its hind quarters, well to its middle.

"Have you been here long?" Hazel asked of her companion, as the two paused in the hall, at the foot of the stairway.

The girl's usually bright spirit was clouded for the moment. A while since all had been bustle and excitement--she had made her small plans and arrangements with much of interest and ardour--had packed her small wardrobe with a keen sense of anticipatory pleasure. There had been something of the stirring nature of the heroic in yesterday's farewells to the elongated Monday faces of her brothers; and her tender solicitude was not unmixed with youthful elation at the thought that her mother would miss her right sorely. Now, of a sudden, all this seemed changed. Without doubt or question, she did not want to go, and the vague consciousness that Paul did not wish it either, that he too would miss her, did not tend to lift the girl's despondency; for she was tender, true, and pure womanly, and, being so, knew nothing of the malicious joy of that perversity wherein so many of Eve's daughters delight.

She sank down upon the first stair, rather listlessly, and looked to Paul for his answer.

"An hour," he said, "when you appeared. But Hazel," he added commiseratingly, "you have tired yourself over all that packing. Could not one of the maids have done it?"

"I am not tired, thank you," she answered absently, "at least, I do not think I am."

Paul did not look satisfied. The girl was pale, and the small hands, usually nervous-looking and energetic, lay limp before her.

"I am sorry," she continued, "I did not know. Miles could not have known, or he would have sent us a message. You must have been very dull."

"I wanted _you_, of course," Paul admitted truthfully, "but I would not have had you disturbed. I ought not to have expected more of your company than the few minutes you could give me on leave-taking."

So saying, Paul Charteris seated himself beside her upon the broad, shallow step, and possessed himself of one of the passive hands.

"What have you been doing?" he asked gently.

Hazel regarded the captive hand, or rather its prison, but her thoughts were not of it.

"Mr. Charteris," she said, timidly lifting her eyes to his, as with an effort she decided to speak her mind, "do you think--would it be very odd, if I sat behind in the phaeton, with--with the trunk, you know? Do you suppose Digby would mind, or think me very rude?"

"He would have no right to object," Paul answered warmly, pleased that she had appealed to him. "If he annoys you, he cannot expect better treatment."

"But that is my trouble," she explained, disengaging her hand to take up and fondle a fluffy ball of a kitten. "He only annoys me by being too nice. So it seems unkind to feel annoyed. If only one could sit with one's back to the horse for fear of draughts and smuts," she went on, "as one would, with one's back to an engine! I want to sit so that he cannot look into my face every time that he says anything."

Paul hastily removed his eyes from her countenance. "Just so," he said, "very naturally." But, though indignant on the girl's behalf, he felt he could not justly blame Digby Travers for this.

"And everything he says has two or more meanings," Hazel continued impatiently. "Now, when _you_ say, 'Is it not a glorious day?' you mean: is it not a glorious day?" She paused.

"And what does Digby mean?" Paul asked quietly, the while feeling he should like to demand the answer from Travers himself.

"I don't quite know," Hazel answered, troubled. "He seems to think that he and I have reasons for thinking it much more glorious than other people. But I must go up to mother," she added, rising, "I cannot keep him waiting long, and--and I feel better, now that I have told you."

Left to himself, Paul paced up and down in deep thought. Did not Hazel's confidence in him authorise him to speak to young Travers? Yet no; Digby would not admit the authority--would ask a much greater right than that of a friend--nay, of a mere acquaintance, as he would probably pronounce Paul, who in the jealousy of his heart sought to keep others from the girl's side, to take away from him, Digby Travers, and from all men other than himself, Paul Charteris, the natural right of trying for, and the gladsome chance of obtaining, the affections of Hazel Le Mesurier. No, he must let matters take their course. He could but advise the girl to cut short her visit, should she suffer any discomfort more marked than heretofore. He would remind her that it was not incumbent upon her to put up with any discomfort whatsoever--that she need not consider herself selfish, or fear that she was wanting in strength to endure, for wishing to return home, and in acting upon that wish; for in such wise, he knew, would Hazel take herself to task: she would resist such weakness, as she would deem it, with all the power of her strong little nature--suffering much, that others should not suffer little, as was her wont. He would counsel her to tell her mother of Digby's importunities, should they become difficult to her own management, or trouble her unduly.

Soon! ah, soon, he might win the right to shield her himself--Paul's pulses stirred at the thought, his heart warmed within him--the right of lover and true knight. Soon, soon. As yet she was a trustful, affectionate child, at an age when a few months only of patient waiting, of wholesome self-restraint, might see her blossom into a loving woman, forced thereto by the very strength and warmth of his unspoken love, even as a bud expands to a flower in the eloquent ardour of perpetual and encompassing sunshine, however mute and unvoiced that sunshine perforce must be.

As he thus mused, Hazel came down again in greatly recovered spirits; for Helen had guessed more of that which disturbed her child's peace of mind than the girl herself could have told her, or had acknowledged even to herself; and with loving tact had soothed her as only a mother can.

"Don't stay away longer than you like, dearie," she had concluded, "and Hazel, you would not wish that your motherling should not miss you, or that the boys and Paul should be pleased to have you gone? They will all be glad to have you back, and will appreciate you more than ever," she added playfully, her heart telling her that there was no need of further appreciation on the part of Mr. Paul Charteris, Paul had not heard Hazel's light step upon the stair, so that she reached the hall and stood confronting him before he knew of her presence.

"I am going now," she said. "Good-bye."

He took the outstretched hand and looked into the upturned eyes.

"You have not been troubling for me," she added anxiously, "about Digby? He is very nice to me, and I don't really mind him--I thought I did, but it was mostly because I did not want to go. I--I don't like leaving mother, you know." So saying, the small hand wrung his, and withdrew itself.

The two then proceeded together across the threshold and down the steps; and, if hard upon the little victim, it was even harder upon him who led her to the sacrifice.

*CHAPTER VIII*

Comfort, solid comfort, best describes The Beeches, its inmates, and all appertaining to it and them. Solid comfort without luxury, ease without laziness, happiness without a positively cloying sweetness.

John Travers was not handsome, but comfortable-looking; his figure, perhaps, was becoming a thought too comfortable; but then John Travers was fifty-five, and plenty had been his lot for nigh upon eightfold of the proverbial seven years that go to make plenty a really established fact. Then, too, he gave way, perhaps somewhat injudiciously, to a liking for white waistcoats and rather large and conspicuous watch-chains.

Of Elizabeth Travers, his wife, little need be told in description, for much is learned of her ways and days in twenty-four hours. That she, too, was comfortable need hardly be said; else John, who was a devoted husband, would not have been so. But she was not in the least too comfortable to be a fitting wife for John Travers, or the truly motherly mother of his children. For surely a broad breast is the natural haven for young heads, when wearied of the very fulness of the joys of childhood, or stricken with its tragic, if fleeting griefs.

John and Elizabeth Travers had two sons and two daughters. What could be more comfortable than that? Is not "two of each" in all good things the very acme of satisfaction and contentment? The children themselves were comfortable, considering their years; for if ever there is a period more devoted than another to strange misgivings, fervent hopes, and acute sensibilities, that period is youth; and none of these characteristics can be said to be "comfortable" ones.

Digby, their first-born, now twenty-three years of age, and a student at Oxford, was enjoying the long vacation under the comfortable parental roof-tree. Of Francis, the second son, aged nineteen, was to be made what is known as a gentleman farmer--an ever-increasing interest in the somewhat laborious pursuits of tilling, ploughing, sowing, and harvesting, not to mention a love of animals, making apparent at a very early age the bent of the boy's mind. That he had not Digby's intellect was obvious to those who knew both brothers; but that Francis was going to do very well in his own line was everybody's opinion. His enthusiasm for all bucolic pursuits, together with a keen--no, not a keen; there was nothing keen about Francis--together with a good, sound judgment of all things connected with them, was marked. If his eye lacked quick observation or keen appreciation, as it lighted on some matter of interest or beauty, it was steady, honest, trustworthy, and not without a certain shrewdness. And it were hard upon him to criticise the tendency of lip to part with lip; for there was nothing of weakness or indecision about the large, well-cut mouth, which could close firmly enough at such times when depth of thought or concentration of mind were required of him. Rather should the characteristic be looked upon as the natural consequence of open-air labour, of a nature that demands more oxygen than can in reason be expected to find its way to the lungs by the nasal channel alone; if the fact that to one who frequently studies the sky for signs of changes of weather with the long, earnest scrutiny bestowed by Francis Travers, was not in itself explanation enough for an ofttimes open mouth.

The daughters, Doris and Phyllis, aged sixteen and twelve years, were slim, fair-haired maidens. Doris, the elder, looked upon life with grave eyes, seeing only its serious side, and determinedly facing that aspect with resolute lips and somewhat pale cheeks, quaint and demure. Phyllis, on the other hand, while in no way boisterous--sharing, indeed, in some part her sister's quietude of mind and demeanour--was rosily cheerful and a thorough child. It was quaint Doris's aim to keep her thus; and odd it was to note the enforcement of the staid authority which the slender four years of seniority gave to the girl in the absence of their mother, or of their governess, Miss Manifold.

Miss Manifold--nicknamed "Sins and Wickedness" by Hugh and Teddie Le Mesurier--the daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, long since deceased, was a good woman, well liked by her two pupils, whose well-being she had sincerely at heart. At the present moment she was absent from The Beeches, being once more returned into the bosom of her family for the Midsummer holidays. This fact, meaning as it did freedom of will and action, combined with the pleasing circumstance that Hazel Le Mesurier's impending visit was about to be realised, brought much rejoicing to the girls; for even sober Doris was not impervious to the delights of a few weeks' unrestricted leisure, nor unmindful of the advantages of living for that short interval without the eye of supervision upon her every movement.

She and Phyllis were, for the fourth time this morning, taking a survey of the bedroom that had been allotted to their girl-guest--moving, changing, and rearranging articles of furniture or ornament to suit Hazel's queer taste and odd fancy. The bed they had dragged before one of the windows, for Hazel had once confided to these two friends that she liked nothing better than to sleep with her head pillowed on the sill; only that it was not often that bed and sill chanced to stand in the necessary relative position one to the other. Also the bed must needs be wide enough to permit the full stretch of her limbs, when she had twisted herself to this crosswise position. She assured Doris and Phyllis that to gaze up at the stars until you fell asleep was conducive to the dreaming of the most lovely dreams, whilst the soft fanning of the summer night-air proved most pleasant and refreshing.

"And what if it rains?" her breathless auditors had asked.

"That is nice, too, in its way," Hazel had made answer. "But once," she added ruefully, "when I was sleeping so, I was so sound asleep that it did not wake me until my hair was drenched, and I had to get up and rub it with a towel for nearly two hours."

"How your arms must have ached," Doris said, eyeing the heavy brown mane, half in admiration, half in pity.

"And I was so sleepy," Hazel continued, "that every time I stopped to rest my arms a moment I found myself nodding, with the towel in my lap."

"Didn't you have a bad cold the next day?" Phyllis asked.

"No, I never catch cold," Hazel answered. "It is being so much in the open air, I suppose."

The dressing-table, too, was never to block a window and obscure the view in Hazel's room; and there must always be flowers upon it. Having ascertained that all was to her liking, Phyllis and Doris fared forth to the garden gate, rightly judging that, had their brother found Hazel ready to accompany him, the two must long ere this have made their appearance.

It was a pretty view that stretched away before The Beeches. As they stood at the entrance gate, which faced the road, the girls looked upon a wide, sunny tract of undulating common ground, ablaze with yellow gorse. Trending toward the west in long dark line was a ridge of fir-trees sharply defined and almost black against the even blue of the sky, but merging into soft and softer gradations of consistency and colour on the wood's southern extremity, its outline finally well-nigh lost in a mist of feathery larches. To the east was a low range of hills with brown, thatched, and red-tiled cottages and farmhouses dotted at intervals at its base, whilst a rivulet that flowed past the Travers's estate, forming indeed the boundary on its right flank, wended its way in and out, twisting and twining, a white ribbon shot with sunlight, till lost to sight in the valley.

And there, round the bend came the trap. Hazel, perched high, her hands encased in Digby Travers's thick gloves, was driving, to her own evident delight and self-importance, having successfully eluded her companion's practically demonstrated teaching by declaring that she did not care what was the orthodox way of manipulating the reins; that she and the horse understood one another well enough.

Hazel was delighted with her room, and had no suggestions to offer respecting any change in the position of its furniture. Everything was perfect, she frankly told her gratified friends. Her quick eye had lighted upon a tiny escritoire standing in one corner, and a thought flashed into her mind, an idea as novel to her as it was pleasing. She grasped the delightful idea, seized upon it, and stowed it carefully away in a corner of her brain, until such time as she should have leisure to look into the alluring possibilities it suggested--to cogitate without fear of interruption.

Just now, with very active assistance from Doris and Phyllis, Hazel was removing the dust of travel from her person.

When the three girls descended to the dining-room for luncheon, they found the rest of the family already there assembled; and Hazel received a warm kiss from the motherly Mrs. Travers, whilst Mr. Travers took her right hand, and Francis possessed himself of her left; Doris and Phyllis hovered about her; Digby looked on approvingly. Having been thus duly welcomed and received into the bosom of the family, Hazel, as the party seated themselves around the table, addressed herself to Francis.

"Well, farmer," she said, with _bonne camaraderie_, "and how are the crops?"

"They are coming on all right," he replied, somewhat sheepishly. He liked Hazel; but considered her a terrible little tease. She had always laughed at his manner of walking, declaring that he swayed backwards and forwards, as a sailor will roll from side to side.

"It comes of always imagining that you are stepping over ploughed furrows," she told him, "just as a horse is trained to step high by having obstacles put in his way."

"And the live stock?" she went on.

"Flourishing, thank you," he returned.

"Hens sitting?" she asked. "And oh, Francis, did that baby pig learn to grunt properly, the one that loved wallowing in the mire?"

But here her hostess claimed the girl's attention, and Francis settled himself to the business in hand--luncheon--inwardly resolving to be even with Hazel yet.

The day passed pleasantly enough, resting with books and work in the shade during the afternoon, walking through the sunlit meadows when the heat of the day was subsiding. In the evening the young folk entertained each other with music, Hazel singing some quaint songs in her own way--an adorable little way in the opinion of Paul Charteris, an opinion shared to-night most fervently by Digby Travers.

Soon after ten o'clock Hazel found herself alone at last, with hours before her, supposing she could manage to keep awake, for meditation upon the scheme that had come to her at sight of the little writing-table. Her own room at home did not boast such a convenience, and it is to be presumed that the publicity of the position of the few desks and escritoires about the house had prevented the idea from occurring to Hazel's mind before.

She would write a story--a thrilling, exciting story--and make all the money she could possibly want! Here, all alone in the undisturbed quiet of her own room, she would write diligently, and her week's visit might result in half-a-dozen stories for Teddie to take to some editor!

Hazel was perturbed by no fear that she might lack talent and ability, but it was not long before she perceived that she was mistaken in the amount of work that she could accomplish in so short a time. She wisely refrained from installing herself at the desk that night, thinking that she could not do better in these first hours, while all was exciting and new in this plan of work, than get to bed as quickly as possible, and devote an hour or two to the evolving of a plot, and to the construction of her first story, before sleep should come upon her.

So far from thinking it hard to conjure up matter upon which to base her tale, the difficulty seemed to lie in the fact that she must perforce write only one at a time, if she wished to be conscientious and systematic. All through the washing of her face and hands, and the brushing of her hair, mechanically performed, her head was teeming with all manner of stirring incidents, which rose up in her imagination, refusing to be placed in any nice order of sequence; inconsistent with one another; contending together--obviously "copy" for many stories of widely different natures.

"And then there is my style," the would-be authoress reflected, as she sank down at length among the pillows. "I wonder what my style will be: whether I have to find one--to settle upon one of many--or whether a particular one will come to me of itself."

And this was as far as Hazel got that first night.

*CHAPTER IX*

Hazel was awakened next morning by an unaccustomed sound that seemed for some time to have penetrated her sleep-wrapped senses, without rousing them to full consciousness. She lay still, and listened with all her ears; but there was no renewal of the disturbance, and she was about to compose herself to sleep--the clock upon the mantel-shelf telling her she might do so for another half-hour--when the unwonted strains began again. They were not those of a donkey braying, nor of a horse whinnying, nor of a cock crowing, but of a young man singing.

It was not a very tuneful performance, but it was most fervently and expressively rendered; and Hazel, as it dawned upon her that she was the subject of the morning serenade, hearkened with very mixed emotions.

"I suppose he _considers_ it serenading," she said to herself; and she experienced a feeling of importance, intermingled with awe. "I thought they had gone out of fashion," she meditated. "Certainly they have in England: I suppose Digby's continental trips have given him foreign notions."

I stand at your window sighing As the weary hours go by, And the time is slowly dying

"Horribly," Hazel's reflections broke in. "Why don't you hurry up, or get some one to mark it for you?"

That once too quick did fly.

"What a good thing that he has not a guitar! It would make a dreadful jumble. You need not wail so, if the pain I have caused you is so exquisite," she apostrophised the anguished lover; and scorn took possession of her. "If you were a cat, one would pour water on you. I am not sure if one would not be justified in thinking you were a cat," and her eyes sparkled with fun and mischief.