Hagar Read online

  CHAPTER X

  GILEAD BALM

  The March winds shook the rusty cedars and tossed the pink peachbranches, and carried a fleet of clouds swiftly overhead through theblue a?rial sea. They rattled the windows of Gilead Balm and bent thechimney smoke aslant like streamers. The winds were rough but not cold.Now and again they sank into the sunniest of calms, little periods ofstillness, small doldrums punctuating the stormiest sentences. Thenwith a whistle, shriller and shriller, they mounted again, tremendouslyexhilarated, sweeping earth and sky.

  On the ridge back of Gilead Balm the buds of the cucumber tree wereswelling, the grass beneath was growing green, the ants were out in thesunshine. Up in the branches a bluebird was exploring building-sites.

  Hagar came wandering over the ridge. The wind wrapped her old browndress about her limbs and blew her dark hair into locks and tendrils.Luna followed her, but Luna in no frolicsome mood. Luna was old, old,and to-day dispirited because Captain Bob had gone to a meeting ofDemocrats in the neighbouring town and had left her behind. Depressionwas writ in every line of Luna's body, and an old, experiencedweariness and disillusionment in the eye with which she looked askanceat a brand-new white butterfly on a brand-new dandelion.

  Hagar stood with her back to the cucumber tree and surveyed the scene.The hills, scurried over by the shadows of the driven clouds, theriver--the river winding down to the sea, and the ditch where used tobe the canal; and away, away, the white plume of a passenger train. Shewas mad for travel, for wandering, for the open road; all the worldsung to her as with a thousand tongues in the books she read. Pictures,cathedrals, statues, cities, snow on mountains, the ocean, deserts,torrid lands, France, Spain, Italy, England--oh, to go, to go! Shewould have liked to fling herself on the blowing wind and go with itover land and sea.

  She looked with hot, sombre eyes at Gilead Balm. It was the home shehad always known and she loved it; it was home,--yes, it was home; butit was not so pleasant at home just now. March--and the Colonel hadwithdrawn her from Eglantine, ordered her home, the first of January!January, February, a part of March--and her grandfather still eatenwith a cold anger every time he looked at her, and her grandmother,outraged at her suddenly manifested likeness to Maria and Maria's"ways," almost as bad! Aunt Serena gave her no sympathy; Aunt Serenahad become almost violent on the subject. If you were going to rebeland disobey, Aunt Serena told her, if you were going to be forward andalmost fast, and rebel and disobey, you needn't look for any sympathyfrom her! Colonel Ashendyne had been explicit enough back in January."When you send about his business that second-rate person you've chosento entangle yourself with, then and not till then will you be 'Gipsy'again to me!"

  Hagar put out her arms to the wind. "I want to go away! I want to goaway! I'm tired of it all--tired of living here--"

  The wind blew past her with its long cry; then it suddenly sank, andthere came almost a half-hour of bright calm, warm stillness, astralgold. Hagar sat down between the roots of the cucumber tree andtook her head within her arms. By degrees, in the sunshine, emotionsubsided; she began to think and dream. Her mind sent the shuttlefar and fast, it touched here and touched there, and in the courseof its weaving it touched Eglantine, touched and quit and touchedagain. Laydon was still at Eglantine. He had been a very satisfactoryProfessor of Belles-Lettres; Mrs. LeGrand really did not know where,in mid-season, to find such another. He had behaved wretchedly, butthe mischief was done, and there was--on consideration--no need totell the world about it, no especial need, indeed, of proclaimingit at Eglantine or to Eglantine patrons at large. He was not--Mrs.LeGrand did him that justice--he was not at all a "fast" man or likelyto give further trouble upon this line. And he was a good teacher, agood talker, in demand for lectures on cultural subjects before localliterary societies, popular and pleasing, a creditable figure amongthe Eglantine faculty. Much of this matter was probably Hagar's fault.She had made eyes at him, little fool! When the Colonel declared hisdetermination,--with no reflections on Eglantine, my dear friend!--tobring to an end his granddaughter's formal education, and to take herback to Gilead Balm where this infatuation would soon disappear,--Mrs.LeGrand saw daylight. She had an interview with Colonel Ashendyne.He was profoundly contemptuous of what Mr. Laydon did for a livingor where he did it, of whom he taught or what he taught, so long asthere was distance between him and an Ashendyne. "You know--you know,my dear friend, that I have always had in mind Ralph Coltsworth!" Shehad an interview--concert pitch--with Laydon. She had a smooth, quiettalk with her teachers. She mentioned casually, to one after anotherof the girls, that Mrs. Ashendyne at Gilead Balm was not as youngas she had been, nor as strong, and that Colonel Ashendyne thoughtthat Hagar should be at home with her grandmother. She, Mrs. LeGrand,regretted it, but every girl's duty to her family was paramount. Theywould miss Hagar sadly,--she was a dear girl and a clever girl,--butit seemed right that she should go. Hagar went and Laydon stayed,and without a word from any principal in the affair, every girl atEglantine knew that Mr. Laydon had kissed Hagar, and that Hagar hadsaid that she would love him forever, and that Colonel Ashendyne wasvery angry, and was probably keeping Hagar on bread and water at thatinstant, and that it was all very romantic.... And then at Eglantineexaminations came on, and dreams of Easter holiday, and after that ofCommencement, and Mr. Laydon taught with an entire correctness and animpassive attitude toward all young ladies; and Miss Bedford, who hadbeen very bitter at first and had said things, grew amiable again andreopened her Browning. The ripple smoothed out as all things smoothedout at Eglantine. The place resumed its pristine "sweetness." It wasbelieved among the girls that Mr. Laydon and Hagar "corresponded," butit was not certainly known. Mr. Laydon wrapped himself in dignity as ina mantle. As for Hagar, she had always been rather far away.

  Up on the ridge to-day, Hagar's mind dwelt somewhat on Eglantine, butnot overmuch. It was not precisely Eglantine that she was missing. Wasshe missing Laydon? Certainly, at this period, she would have answeredthat she was--though, to be perfectly truthful, she might have added,"But I do not think of that all the time--not nearly all the time."She was unhappy, and on occasions her fancy brooded over that nightin the Eglantine parlour when he read of love, and the flames becamejewelled and alive, and she saw the turret on the plain, "by the caperoverrooted, by the gourd overscored," and suddenly a warmth and lightwrapped them both. The warmth and light certainly still dwelt over thatscene and that moment. To a lesser extent it abided over and aroundthe next morning, the west porch, the syringa alley. Very strangely,as she was dimly aware, it stretched only thinly over the followingdays, over even the night of "Romeo and Juliet." There was there amixed and wavering light, changing, for the hour that immediatelyfollowed,--the hour when she faced her grandfather, and he spoke withknives as he was able to do, when he laid his hands upon her and saiduntrue and unjust things to Laydon,--into an angry glow. That hour wasbright and hot like a ruby. How much was love, and how much outragedpride and a burning sense of wrong, she was not skilled to know, norhow much was actual chivalric defence of her partner in iniquity....The parting interview, when she and Laydon, having stood upon theirrights, obtained a strange half-hour in the Eglantine parlour--strangeand stiff, with "Of course, if I love you, I'll be faithful," repeatedon her part some five times, with, on his part, Byronic fervour,volcanic utterances. Had he not gone over them to himself afterwards,in his homely, cheerfully commonplace room in the brown cottage outsidethe Eglantine grounds? They had been fine; from the point of view ofBelles-Lettres they could not have been bettered. He felt a glow as herecognized that fact, followed by a mental shot at the great Seat ofLearning where he wished to be. "By George! that's the place I'm fittedfor! The man they've got isn't in the same class--".... The partinginterview--to the girl on the ridge a cloud seemed to hang over that,a cloud that was here and there rose-flushed, but just as often fadinginto grey. Hagar drove her thoughts back to the first evening andthe jewelled fire; that was a clear, fair memory, innocent, rich andsincere. The others had, so strangel
y, a certain pain and dulness.

  She had a sturdy power of reaction against the melancholy andthe painful, and as to-day she could not, somehow, fix her mindunswervingly upon the one clear hour, and the others perplexed andhurt, her mind at last turned with decision from any contemplationwhatsoever of the round of events which lay behind her presence here,in March, upon the ridge behind Gilead Balm. Rising, she left thecucumber tree and walked along the crest of the ridge. The wind wasnot blowing now, the sunshine was very golden, the little leaves werespringing. She crossed the ribbon-like plateau to its northern edge,and stood, looking down that slope. It was somewhat heavily wooded,and in shadow. It fell steeply to a handsbreadth of sward, a purlingstreamlet, sunken boulders, a wide thicket and a wood beyond. Hagar,leaning against a young beech, gazed down the shadowed stillness. Hereyebrows lifted at their inner ends, lines came into her forehead,wistful markings about her lips. Sometimes when she knew that she wasquite alone she spoke aloud to her self. She did this now. "I haven'tbeen here since that day it happened.... Six years.... I wonder if heran away again, or if he stayed there to the end. I wonder where he isnow. Six years...."

  The wind rose and blew fiercely, rattling in the thicket andbending every tree; then it sank again. Hagar leaned against thetrunk of the beech and thought and thought. As a child she had beenspeculative, everywhere and all the time; with youth had come dreamsand imaginations, pushing the older intense querying aside. Now ofa sudden a leaf was turned. She dreamed and imagined still, but thethinker within her rose a step, gained a foot on the infinite, mountingstair. Hagar began to brood upon the state of the world. "Black andwhite stripes like a zebra.... How petty to clothe a man--a boy he wasthen--like that, mark him and brand him, until through life he seeshimself striped black and white like a zebra--on his dying bed, maybe,sees himself like that! Vindictive. And the world sees him, too, likethat, grotesque and mean and awful, and it cannot cleanse his image inits mind. It is foolish."

  The wind roared again up and down the ridge. Hagar shivered and beganto move toward the warmer side; then halted, turned, and came backto the beech. "I'll not go away until the sun comes from under thatcloud and the wind drops. It's like leaving him alone in the thicketdown there, in the cold and shadow." She waited until the sun came outand the wind dropped, then took her hand from the beech tree and wentaway. Leaving the ridge, she came to the overseer's house, hesitateda moment, then went and knocked at the kitchen door.

  "Come in!" called Mrs. Green, who was sitting by the kitchen table,in the patch of sunlight before the window, sewing together strips ofbright cloth and winding them into balls for a rag carpet. "You, Hagar?Come right in! Well, March is surely going out like a lion!"

  "It's so windy that the clouds are running like sheep," said Hagar. Shetook a small, split-bottom rocking-chair, drew it near Mrs. Green, andbegan to wind carpet rags. "Red and blue and grey--it's going to be abeautiful carpet! Have you heard from Thomasine?"

  Mrs. Green rose and took a letter from behind the clock. "Read it.She's been to a theatre and the Eden Mus?e and Brooklyn Bridge, andshe's going to visit the Statue of Liberty."

  Hagar read five pages of lined notepaper, all covered with Thomasine'spretty, precise writing. "She's having a good time.... I wish I werethere, too. I've never seen New York."

  "Never mind! You will one day," said Mrs. Green. "Yes, Thomasine'shaving a good time. Jim was born generous."

  "Is she really going to work if he can get her a place?"

  "Yes, child, she is. Times seems to me to be gettin' harder right alonginstead of easier. Girls have got to go out in the world and worknowadays, just the same as boys. I don't know as it will hurt them;anyway, they've got to do it. Food an' clothes don't ask which sect youbelong to."

  "Thomasine ought to have gone to school. Girls can go to college now,and Thomasine and I both ought to have gone to college."

  "Landsake!" said Mrs. Green. "Ain't you been to college for going onthree years?"

  But Hagar shook her head. "No. Eglantine wasn't exactly a college. Iought to have gone to a different kind of place. Thomasine likes books,too."

  "Yes, she likes them, but she don't like them nothing like as much asyou do. But Thomasine's a good child and mighty refined. I hope Jim'lltake pains to get her a place where they are nice people. He means allright, but there! men don't never quite understand."

  "I wish I could earn money," said Hagar. "I wish I could."

  Mrs. Green regarded her over her spectacles. "A lot of women havewished that, child. A lot of women have wished it, and then again a lotof women haven't wished it. Some would rather do for themselves an' forothers an' some would rather be did for, and that's the world. I'venoticed it in men, too."

  "It's in my head all the time. I think mother put it there--"

  "Yes, I know," said Mrs. Green. "A lot of us have felt that way. Butit ain't so easy for women to make money. There's more ways they can'tthan they can. It's what they call 'Sentiment' fights them. Sentimentdon't mind their being industrious, but it draws the line at theirgetting money for it. It says it ought to be a free gift. It don'tgrudge--at least it don't grudge much--a little egg and butter money,but anything more--Lord!" She sewed together two strips of blueflannel. "No, it ain't easy. And a woman kind of gets discouraged.She's put her ambition to sleep so often that now with most of them itseems asleep for keeps. Them that's industrious don't expect to rise oranything to come of it, and them that's lazy gets lazier. It's a funnyworld--for women.--There's a lot of brown strips in the basket there."

  "I'm going to tell you what I've done," said Hagar, winding a red ball."I've written a fairy story--but I don't suppose it will be taken."

  "I always knew you could write," said Mrs. Green. "A fairy story!What's it about?"

  "About fairies and a boy and a girl, and a lovely land they found bygoing neither north nor south nor east nor west, and what they didthere. It seemed to me right good," said Hagar wistfully; "but I sentit off a month ago, and I've never heard a word about it."

  "Where did you send it? I never did know," said Mrs. Green, "how whatpeople writes gets printed and bound. It don't do it just of itself."

  Hagar leaned forward in her rocking-chair. Her cheeks were carmineand her eyes soft and bright. "The 'Young People's Home Magazine'offered three prizes for the three best stories--stories that it couldpublish. And I thought, 'Why not I as well as another?'--and so I wrotea fairy story and sent it. The first prize is two hundred dollars,and the second prize is one hundred dollars, and the third is fiftydollars.--If I could get even the third prize, I would be happy."

  "I should think you would!" exclaimed Mrs. Green. "Fifty dollars! Idon't know as I ever saw fifty dollars all in one lump--exceptin' warmoney. When are you going to hear?"

  "I don't know. I'm afraid I won't ever hear. I'm afraid it wasn'tgood enough--not even good enough for them to write to me and say itwouldn't do and tell me why."

  "Well, I wouldn't give up hope," said Mrs. Green. "It's my motto tocarry hope right spang through the grave." She rose, fed the fire, andfilled the tea-kettle, then returned to her rag carpet. "You're lookin'a little thin, child. Don't let them worry you up at the house."

  "I'm not," answered Hagar sombrely. The light went out of her eyes. Shestitched slowly, drawing her thread through with deliberation.

  Mrs. Green again looked over her spectacles. "They're mighty fine folk,the Ashendynes," she said at last. "They've got old blood and pridefor a dozen, and the settest heads! Ain't nothin' daunts them, neitherSatan nor the Lord. They're goin' to run their own race.--You're morelike your mother, but I wouldn't say you didn't have something of yourgrandfather in you at times. You've got a dash of Coltsworth, too."

  "Haven't I anything of my father at all?"

  Mrs. Green, leaning forward into the sunlight, threaded her needle. "Iwouldn't be bitter about my father, if I were you. People can be bornwithout a sense of obligation and responsibility just as they can beborn without other senses. I suppose it's there
somewhere, only, somany other things are atop, it ain't hardly ever stirred. Your father'sright rich in other things."

  "He's so poor he couldn't either truly love my mother or truly let hergo.--But I didn't mean to talk about him," said Hagar. She laid theball she had been winding in the basket with the other balls and stoodup, stretching her young arms above her head. "Listen to the wind! Iwish it would blow me away, neither north nor south nor east nor west!"

  "Yes, you are like your mother," said Mrs. Green. "Have you got to go?Then will you take your grandmother's big knitting-needles back to herfor me? And don't you want a winesap?--there's a basket of them behindthe door."