Read Ebook: Hazelhurst by Hunt Enid Leigh Foulger Dorothy Illustrator

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Ebook has 1417 lines and 71467 words, and 29 pages

The present generation of the Le Mesuriers were possessed of powerful lungs, the same being a heritage.

It is true that many of the great vaulted rooms and galleries of Hazelhurst, which had rung to the clear tones of the Le Mesurier voice for some three or four hundred years, were now so empty of furniture, so devoid of thick hangings and tapestries--the very floors being stripped bare of the covering natural to well-appointed floors--so denuded, in short, of everything wherein, and behind which, the rich quality of the Le Mesurier voice might lurk and muffle itself, to ring on thinned while suffering no loss of compass, that this might, in some measure, make explanation of the seemingly exceptional strength of their vocal capacity; nay, further, might exonerate them from all charge of exceptionality, but for the fact that as children the Le Mesuriers had shouted with precisely the same lusty vigour and resonance from the lap of luxury. For it was but seven years since that the feet of the five Le Mesurier boys, with the pair belonging to the one Le Mesurier girl, had stridden or trotted, according to their respective length of limb, over deep-piled carpets, from one magnificently furnished apartment to another. They had been seated in the great oak-panelled dining-room, at a table groaning under its weight of massive silver, to feast upon the daintiest fat of the land, tended by noiseless human machines in the Le Mesurier livery. So that if, when sitting deep and well covered in the lap of luxury, the Le Mesurier voice was acknowledgedly sonorous, it is unreasonable to suppose now that it was only seemingly so, under the condition of over-much empty space wherein to resound. Besides, if further proof be needed: five-and-twenty years ago, when the first of the five Le Mesurier boys was born, Doctor Dash, a most eminent authority from London, had remarked upon the voice, and the nurses had declared they had never heard anything like it. It was further agreed to be a very beautiful voice when not raised in grief; even then its beauty remained for the mother; and each new Le Mesurier baby commanded a most interested and attentive audience, the more flattering in their attendance that they came in the full cognisance that no gracious words were to be expected, but solely in the keenness of their desire to learn whether or not the newcomer was possessed of the widely appreciated and justly valued constituent of the Le Mesurier personality.

The sixth and last baby, a girl, in no wise shamed her family nor disappointed those who attended her first summons by any deterioration in lungs. The voice, in its infancy certainly, like the rest of her, was undeniably present, clear, authoritative, cultured, albeit softer-toned than her brothers', as was seemly in a girl.

This last-born Le Mesurier, last-born at least in the direct descent, if not of the generation, while being neither a disappointment nor a disgrace, was an immense surprise. No guard left the side of the white satin-hung cradle whilst she slept, nor the little silver tub wherein she splashed, nor the soft white carpet spread over a portion of the nursery floor whereon she took her exercise, on her back, kicking, ever and anon deeming it advisable to expand the famous lungs in cooings and trills and, on occasion, exerting more lustiness in other sounds, pertaining to babyhood. I repeat, no guard left her until relieved by one equally vigilant. But for the voice, she would, despite this fact, have created serious doubts in the minds of the respective members of her family, and all connected with it, as to whether some changeling was not usurping the cradle, the tub, and the exercise ground of the rightful Le Mesurier girl.

For the child had brown hair and eyes; and the skin, though exquisitely clear and delicate, was, of necessity, darker than that which went to constitute a well-ordered, self-respecting Le Mesurier.

In the first days of her life, therefore, in spite of the love that encompassed her, the child was held to be something of an alien. The pride in the lovely little creature that overflowed the mother's heart came rather timidly, rather deprecatingly, from her lips. None of her boys had presumed to be anything but fair, the most daring among them attaining to only light brown hair, and all looked upon the world with the traditional blue eyes. The case, however, was not unprecedented; and when this fact was ascertained, the family was free to recover its natural calm and to pursue the even tenor of its way, holding its head even higher than heretofore.

One day, as Helen Le Mesurier was exhibiting the little beauty to a host of admiring friends, with a wistful and slightly apologetic manner, in which attitude she vainly sought to veil her pride, Hubert, her husband, was struck with a sudden thought. Hastily quitting the room, unnoticed, he sped in some excitement to the picture-gallery, situate in the west wing of the great house. Too impatient to brook the delay of unbarring the heavy shutters, he seized and lighted a lamp, which he held at arm's length above his head, as he eagerly and swiftly scanned row upon row of dead and gone Le Mesuriers portrayed upon the walls. Everywhere fair hair, from light brown to gold, gleamed in the lamplight, straight-featured, broad-browed, the women dazzlingly fair of skin, the men square-chinned, and, for the most part, curly-headed--one and all blue-eyed.

But Hubert passed these by, for some vague memory had awakened within him. Surely his father had once shown him, as a child, the portrait of a dark-eyed girl, half in pride, half in apology. If his memory were not tricking him, such a portrait must be in existence. He made his way directly to the more secluded parts of the room. His diligence was soon rewarded, for there, within a corner niche, almost at his feet, he discovered the object of his search: a small portrait of a lovely little girl, scarcely above miniature size, surrounded by an oak frame. Her hair, of a nut-brown, waved and rippled to her waist, and a pair of wide brown eyes looked out, mischievously, upon the beholder; the wonderfully clear and delicate skin was warm of tone.

Setting down the lamp, Hubert, his fingers trembling with eagerness, unfastened the picture, and, turning it, read upon the back: "Hazel Le Mesurier, aged five years, 1671."

Thus it was that the Le Mesurier girl came to be named Hazel.

At five years of age a painting was made of her head and shoulders, in like pose, on the same sized canvas as that of her namesake, and, behold, the two faces, allowing for the dissimilarities of style arising from the difference of the schools of painting of so remote a period from those of the present time, were as like, one to the other, as two--hazelnuts!

When his daughter had attained to her ninth year, Hubert Le Mesurier fell ill and died, being then in the forty-fifth year of his age.

The twenty-and-odd years of his majority had been one hard struggle to redeem the heavily mortgaged estate inherited from a spendthrift father and grandfather. His endeavours ended in failure; he had speculated deeply for many years, keeping his fortunes, with few fluctuations, at the same dreary level. On his demise came the inevitable crash: the foreclosure of the mortgage. Other debts there were; so that, when Helen and her eldest boy, Guy, of some nineteen or twenty years, who, having the ordering of these things, had quieted and pacified even the loudest crying among their creditors, and were once more enabled to breathe freely, now that so heavy a burden as debt was removed from the delicate shoulders of the mother and the youthful ones of the son--so inapposite a load for either to bear--they found the great house a very barrack in its echoing bareness, being, indeed, divested of many things.

Heavy oak furniture, some dating from Queen Anne's time, covered in decent palls, was moved away in vans down the gloomy avenue of great trees, with funeral gait. Also much valuable plate and almost priceless china.

But the mourners who had sustained this loss were left rejoicing in that the portrait gallery, sacred to the Le Mesuriers, doubly sacred to Helen as her husband's dying trust, was left inviolate; and as the poor thing stood, surrounded by her five sons, in the huge marble-paved entrance hall, she exclaimed, tears of very thankfulness coursing down her cheeks:

"Why should we grieve while we have each other? While together we can protect what my Hubert, what your father held so dear."

Each Le Mesurier boy, in varied pose of heroic resolve, protested his loyalty and devotion to his father's memory, and to the honoured name of ancient lineage which he bore; and each Le Mesurier boy's heart beat strong and fast according to the stage of development in which his inherent pride of race had found expression and proportionally to the valorous and chivalric feeling that stirred in the depth of each affectionate Le Mesurier boy's nature toward his lady mother.

Hazel, with outspread skirts, gravely danced, twirled and pirouetted with light, quick feet in the background; but on hearing the tears in her mother's voice, with a little caressing cry she flew to Helen's side, flung her arms about her and, looking up into her face, cried:

The stables and carriage-house were emptied. Then came the disbandment of the company of servants. Many wept, and, refusing the wage due to them, took sorrowful leave of their mistress and the young masters whose infancy they had tended.

Two, however, there were who did not weep and who, on the almost indignantly named plea of having left their former beloved master and mistress, Helen's parents, for the express purpose of following the fortunes of Helen herself, on her marriage with Hubert Le Mesurier, stood their ground in the most literal sense, by obstinately declining to go. These two were Miles the butler and Martha Doidge, who, kitchenmaid in her early youth, at thirty--the age of her exodus with Helen--had been raised step by step till now, at fifty, the good woman had attained to the dignity of housekeeper at Hazelhurst.

"But my dear, faithful Martha," Mrs. Le Mesurier expostulated, "you forget: there will be no field for such services as yours. Most of the rooms will be closed and your cupboards will be empty. And you, Miles, your duties have been wrested from your hands."

Such arguments were vain. Martha Doidge established herself as cook and general factotum, managing, with the help of two young girls from the neighbouring hamlet, with great dexterity and order, the domestic affairs pertaining to the habitable part of Hazelhurst.

As for Miles, who was nigh upon sixty years, he did all that a faithful, hardworking servant might, indoors and out. Five o'clock in the morning would often find him gardening assiduously, polishing windows, or engaged in some such work, attired in a dilapidated old suit, which he called his "undress"; but nine o'clock would see him serving the simple breakfast with all the old dignity and with even added respect, arrayed, as became the butler of "high family," in all the glory of the fast-growing-shabby-and-shiny full dress of his vocation.

Almost speechless was Miles with indignation, and something more, when Helen--deeply concerned for her old servant, that he should put aside all his own interests in his devotion to herself and her children--made to him the proposition that he should seek the position of butler at Earnscleugh. She had heard that the young master was about to return from his sojourning abroad, to take up his abode permanently in the home of his fathers; that great preparations were in making, and that the usual staff of servants was needed in the completion of these preparations. As for her own household, Helen urged, the two young maids could serve the simple meals that Doidge so daintily prepared; but in their adverse fortunes they could not expect to command the services of the best servant, she verily believed, in the land, nor could she wish to be instrumental in helping to deter him from his self-advancement.

Thus, by flattering and cajoling, did Helen endeavour to dissuade the old retainer from continuing in what she deemed so great a sacrifice; but she had not calculated on the very real affection that, deep-rooted, had sprung up in the old man's heart during all the years of his servitude, and when, his anger cooled, Miles pleaded, visibly affected, that to go, to turn his back on the family, would to him be leaving all honour and grateful love behind; that his only wish was to end his days in her service, she at length desisted from her efforts to render the faithful fellow more worldly wise; and pressing his hand, assured him of the affection and esteem with which she and her family regarded him; of how rejoiced they would all be to learn that, despite their recent losses, they were not to part with their old retainer; that he, who had been with them so long, was to be with them yet.

So it was that Helen soothed the poor fellow's wounded sensibilities, and Miles continued butler at Hazelhurst.

Various were his ingenuities in that capacity, and gradually Helen and her children learned to respect the innocent devices out of regard for the feelings of their perpetrator. The sideboard was ever furnished with decanters of wine, which--seeing that the cellars had been emptied of all, save the old port deemed necessary by the physician and friend of the family for Helen, in the rather delicate state of her health--might well be looked upon somewhat dubiously and hastily declined in favour of the clear, crystal water, a gourd of which Miles was careful to offer with the wine. Nor was such refusal made difficult, for Miles did not press the doubtful beverage on his young masters, seeming rather to be relieved that it should be held in disfavour among them, though he religiously continued, during luncheon and dinner, to carry it round the table, sometimes under one name, sometimes by another.

Whether the wine was procured at the village grocery or whether it was tinted water, as Hazel ingeniously suggested, remained a mystery to all but Miles himself; but certain it was that the decanters seldom needed replenishing, so that no fears were entertained of a drain upon the household disbursements or the private pocket of the Le Mesuriers' butler.

Dire was the wrath of Miles should any of the womenfolk presume to encroach upon his right. Since the day of his coming to Hazelhurst--twenty years ago, to be exact--the young footmen under his supervision were most deferential to an old retainer upon whom the family conferred so many honours, and in whom they reposed so much trust and confidence. Miles had enjoyed his power and made the most of it, ordering, regulating, and drilling his satellites with perfection of manipulation. Now, however, that Fortune had frowned, things would indeed have come to a pretty pass, to Miles's thinking, had he permitted women to fulfil the functions pertaining to the table that had hitherto been performed by men only. No; the fiat had gone forth that Miles himself undertook to wait upon the family at meals; but woe to the maid who failed to be at hand at the right moment, to bear the required dish, or to receive the whispered communication. Woe also to her, who, lacking nicety of perception in such matters, or, more blameworthy still, in mere feminine curiosity, ventured a step into the room, or stood without in such position as should discover to those at table the agency by which the butler carried out his duties with such order and precision.

Whether Helen and her family were supposed to be in ignorance of the number and sex of their attendants, or whether matters were ordered thus by the redoubted Miles, upon the prompting of his own delicate feeling on the point, remained as zealously guarded a mystery as the wine.

On one occasion the maid from the hamlet engaged by Martha Doidge, being new to her duties, after knocking to attract the butler's attention did most unwisely and erroneously open the door and advance three steps into the sacred precincts of the dining-room, bringing some course for which Miles was not yet ready: a fact which his stern disregard of her summons should have made plain to her.

So frightened was the girl when, on turning her fascinated eyes from the table, they encountered those of the butler, who seemed to be bearing down upon her, swift and noiseless, awful in the majesty of his wrath, that, setting the dish upon the floor, she turned and fled. Miles, pausing beside the dish in momentary hesitation as to which of these barbaric proceedings he should first give attention, followed in hot pursuit, closing the door behind him.

Hazel and the boys were convulsed with stifled laughter, and Helen, herself somewhat discomposed, could only beg of them to control themselves before the faithful servant returned to the room.

The girl had evidently not retreated far, judging by the space of time that Miles was absent, judging also by the ominous sniffs that fell upon the ears of the dinner party when the door was reopened.

Miles entered, red of face and somewhat short of breath; but nothing could surpass his dignity. He lifted the dish from the ground, and renewing the plates with miraculous speed, handed it round with the utmost composure, to all outward seeming.

The meal over, Miles sought an interview with his mistress, apologising for any laxity of order that she might have noticed, assuring her that the like should not occur again; and that Mrs. Doidge had discharged the girl for her remissness. Helen had much ado to get the sentence of dismissal commuted to a month's trial.

On a bright day in late June, Hazel, now a tall slip of a girl of sixteen, was wandering through the bit of woodland that stretched from the immediate vicinage of Hazelhurst on its right flank to the boundary of the land that had been left to the Le Mesuriers when, seven years since, the greater part of the estate had been sold. Tempting offers had been tendered, both for the ground as it stood, and for the timber grown upon it; but Mrs. Le Mesurier had remained firm, and her sons had resolved that no poverty should induce them to part with this last remaining portion of their heritage.

As to Hazel, the woodland was her kingdom, her empire. She loved every inch of its leafy, winding tracks; she was acquainted with every squirrel and bird housed within its hospitable shelter; she gloried in each veteran oak and cherished each tender sapling.

To-day, as she sauntered on, her small brown hands clasped before her, pensive, her head bent, the soft brown hair falling like a mantle around her, she seemed a very wood-nymph in her simple gown--the exact shade of the gnarled trunks, in which russet tint it was her mother's fancy to clothe the girl.

Presently, wearied of pursuing the beaten pathways she turned aside to stroll over a thick, springy carpet of last year's crumpled leaves, strewn with fir cones, pine needles, acorns, and acorn cups. A squirrel ran by her, paused and looked back, with what seemed to the girl a roguish twinkling of his bright eyes; then, with a salute of his bushy tail, was gone. Birds of sorts, ceaselessly trilling their sweet notes, hopped to the lower branches as she passed; presently one or two, leaving the piping chorus for a space, fluttered to the ground near her feet and, as she paused, seemed to be considering her in a conclusive, bright-eyed way, with heads first on this side, then on that, as if questioning the cause of her muteness.

And, indeed, Hazel was unlike herself this summer morning. It was her wont to greet her subjects graciously with chirps and chirrups and all manner of sweet wood-notes. At her soft cooing a ringdove would belike perch upon her shoulder, when she was minded to have one confidante! But her "twee-twee" would create a whirr among the tree branches, and a very medley of her feathery vassals would appear on the lowest boughs, hopping, chirruping in bright-eyed questioning. In bright-eyed greed also; for they little doubted that when their liege lady had done with her clear piping to that great, greedy, black thrush, who responded with bows which would have been deferential and dignified had they only been less choppy, and if he would only have desisted from shuffling his feet and sidling restlessly up and down his perch the while performing them; when she was pleased to stop chirping caressingly to the robins and sending forth clear wood-note calls to summon the few pet woodlarks to her presence, the manchet of bread which usually bulged her pocket would surely be drawn out and dispensed in crumbs around her.

But to-day the pocket of the brown gown was suspiciously and ominously flat, and Hazel held her peace, as if she feared to render unhappy the pretty winged creatures by the sad-toned chirps and chirrups which would surely be all she could contrive this morning if she endeavoured to be sociable.

Presently the girl came upon a rugged oak-tree. She paused and looked wistfully up into its branches, watching the sunlight glinting in and out among the leaves, marking each delicate shape in relief against its background of yellow light or blue shadow, each articulation of the brown branches outlined clean and distinct, affording delicious peeps of blue sky between.

Hazel, with impulsive motion, threw her arms about the trunk, and, kissing the rough, sweet-smelling bark, turned her head and pressed her soft pink cheek against the rugged surface of this lifelong friend.

"Ah," she said aloud, yearningly, "ah!" and the brown eyes filled with tears, "I wish I could earn some money."

However strangely this admission may have sounded to any winged or bushy-tailed audience that chanced to be within hearing, they were too polite to allow their surprise to show itself, either by excited increase of trills and cooings, or by sudden cessation of all sound. The sunlight gleamed in quivering, shimmering shafts, as before; the topmost tree branches waved slightly overhead; and the mischievous squirrel, who must have been within earshot, now discovered himself and, taking his seat not far from the girl, looked upon her more in sympathy than in condemnation.

That the remark did sound out of place and somewhat mercenary is hardly to be denied, coming as it did from this brown-haired Dryad amid such pacific surroundings. For Dryads are not supposed to know the worth of money, nor to be harassed with such need: the woods wherein they dwell and have their being affording them everything of the freshest and fairest that they can possibly require. Still the wish expressed was not so unfitting in its nature as might at first appear; for this particular wood-nymph had a mother--quite a peculiarity among Dryads, it is generally understood. And this mother was less well than usual, causing much anxiety and distress to her little daughter, who, however odd it may seem, possessed a very human heart beating within her breast, an immense capacity for joy and sorrow, and a great sympathy withal; though, for her, personal acquaintance with grief was, happily, slight.

Mrs. Le Mesurier had never recovered from the shocking grief that her husband's death had caused her. For her children's sake she had mastered herself to some extent, to all outward seeming becoming once more the cheerful little mother whom they had always known and adored: ready in her sympathy with the young life around her, wise in her counsel and, in her protection, loving. But she, and she only, though the family physician could testify to the results, knew of the bitter suffering in the hours of dark and quiet, that sapped her strength and told on her vitality. Hers was a nature that could better bear a selfish indulgence of that suffering, even if it should cast an abnormal melancholy over her naturally joyous temperament, than the pent-up emotion which, when the strain became too great, burst with terrible force over the poor thing, leaving her so inert and listless that the armour of bravery, which in sheer habit she would buckle on with each new day, was sometimes very thin and worn, affording her but a poor guard against the assailing sorrow.

Of late her health had fluctuated strangely. No sufficient reason accounting for such ebb and flow, the doctor was fain to lay the charge to the strength-stealing propensities of an early, warm spring and hot summer.

Hazel had gone daily to the village in person to select a couple of choice peaches or other dainty luxury--alas! all too seldom seen now at Hazelhurst, where once upon a time great baskets of such delicacies were pressed upon the poor of the neighbourhood. But to-day the poor child had made the last disbursement from her slender store of pocket-money, and was searching her mind for some suitable means by which to make replenishment. Each of her brothers gave his mite toward the support of the household: why not she?

Guy, the eldest, through great good fortune and the exertion of influential friends, had become a private secretary in a Government office, for which post he was taken from college, and was now earning a modest income. Cecil, the second, was abroad, doing well in the Indian Civil Service. Gerald, the third, articled to a chartered accountant, was hoping to pass his examination in a couple of years. Hugh, the fourth, and Teddie, the fifth Le Mesurier boy, both at the present time "something in the City," accompanied their brother Gerald to town each Monday morning, returning to the family roof-tree for the week-end, so hungering for the simple delights of their quiet home, and for the sweet, fresh air of their beloved woods, that from the train window, as they approached their destination, each curly head would be thrust forth to catch the first sight of Hazel, who never failed to be awaiting their arrival upon the platform, her eager face and glad eyes an earnest of her welcome; and each famous pair of lungs would greedily drink in each faintest breeze wafted to them from the direction of Hazelhurst.

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