Hagar Read online

  CHAPTER II

  GILEAD BALM

  At the Gilead Balm landing waited Captain Bob with a negro man tocarry up to the house the Colonel's portmanteau and Miss Serena'ssmall leather trunk. The packet-boat came in sight, white and slow asa deliberate swan, drew reflectively down the shining reach of water,and sidled to the landing. The Colonel shook hands with all the countrygentlemen and bowed to the ladies, and the country gentlemen bowed toMiss Serena, who in turn bent her head and smiled, and the captain saidgood-bye, and the Colonel gave the attendant darky a quarter, and thewoman with the baby came to that side of the boat and held for a momentthe hand of the dark little girl, and then the gangplank was placed andthe three Ashendynes passed over to the Colonel's land. The horn blewagain, long, melodious; the negro on the towpath said, "Get up!" to themule. Amid a waving of hands and a chorus of slow, agreeable voices thepacket-boat glided from the landing and proceeded down the pink waterbetween the willows and sycamores.

  Captain Bob, with his hound Luna at his heels, greeted the returningmembers of the family: "Well, Serena, did you have a pleasant visit?Hey, Gipsy, you've grown a week! Well, Colonel?"

  The Colonel shook hands with his brother. "Very pleasant time, Bob!Good old-time people, too good for this damned new-fangled world!But--" he breathed deep. "I am glad to get home. I am always glad toget home. Well? Everything all right?"

  "Right as a trivet! The Bishop's here, and Mrs. LeGrand. Came on thestage yesterday."

  "That's good news," said the Colonel. "The Bishop's always welcome, andMrs. LeGrand is most welcome."

  The four began to walk toward the house, half a mile away, just visibleamong great trees. The dark little girl walked beside the hound, butthe hound kept her nose in Captain Bob's palm. She was fond of Hagar,but Captain Bob was her god. As for Captain Bob himself, he walked likea curious, unfinished, somewhat flawed and shortened suggestion ofhis brother. He was shorter than the Colonel and broader; hair, nose,eyes, mouth were nothing like so fine; carriage and port were quitedifferent; he lacked the _cachet_, he lacked the _grand air_. For allthat, the fact that they were brothers was evident enough. Captain Bobloved dogs and hunting, and read the county newspaper and the sportingalmanac. He was not complex. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred heacted from instinct and habit, and the puzzling hundredth time he beatabout for tradition and precedent. He was good-natured and spendthrift,with brains enough for not too distant purposes. Emotionally, he wasstrongest in family affection. "Missed you all!" he now observedcheerfully. "Gilead Balm's been like a graveyard."

  "How is mother?" asked Miss Serena. She was picking her way delicatelythrough the green lane, between the evening primroses, the grey-greendelaine held just right. "She wrote me that she burned her hand tryingthe strawberry preserves."

  "It's all right now. Never saw Old Miss looking better!"

  The dark little girl turned her dark eyes on Captain Bob. "How is mymother?"

  "Maria? Well, I should say that she was all right, too. I haven't heardher complain."

  "Gad! I wish she would complain," ejaculated the Colonel. "Then onecould tell her there was nothing to complain about. I hate these womenwho go through life with a smile on their lips and an indictment intheir eyes--when there's only the usual up and down of living toindict. I had rather they would whine--though I hate them to whine,too. But women are all cowards. No woman knows how to take the world."

  The dark little girl, who had been walking between the Colonel andCaptain Bob, began to tremble. "Whoever else's a coward, my mother'snot--"

  "I don't think, father, you ought--"

  Captain Bob was stronger yet. He was fond of Gipsy, and he thoughtthat sometimes the family bore too hardly on Maria. Now and then hedid a small bit of cloudy thinking, and when he did it he alwaysbrought forth the result with a certain curious clearing of the throatand nodding of the head, as though the birth of an idea was attendedwith considerable physical strain. "No, Colonel," now he said, "yououghtn't! Damn it, where'd we be but for women anyhow? As for Maria--Ithink you're too hard on Maria. The chief trouble with Maria is thatshe isn't herself an Ashendyne. Of course, she can't help that, but Ithink it is a pity. Always did think that men ought to marry at leastfifth or sixth cousins. Bring women in without blood and traditions ofpeople they've got to live with--of course, there's trouble adapting.Seen it a score of times. Maria's just like the rest when they're notcousins. Ought somehow to be cousins."

  "Bob, you are a perfect fool," remarked the Colonel.

  He walked on, between the primroses, his hands behind him, tall andeasy in his black, wide-skirted coat and his soft black hat. The earthwas in shadow, but the sky glowed carnation. Against it stood out thelong, low red-brick house of Gilead Balm. At either gable end rosepyramidal cedars, high and dark against the vivid sky. In the lanethere was the smell of dewy grass, and on either hand, back from thevine-draped rail fences, rolled the violet fields. Somewhere in thedistance sounded the tinkling of cow bells. The ardent sky began topale; the swallows were circling above the chimneys of Gilead Balm, andnow the silver Venus came out clear.

  The little girl named Hagar lagged a little going up the low hill onwhich the house stood. She was growing fast, and all journeys wereexciting, and she was taking iron because she wasn't very strong,and she had had a week of change and had been thinking hard and wastired. She wanted to see her mother, and indeed she wanted to see allat Gilead Balm, for, unlike her mother, she loved Gilead Balm, butgoing up the hill she lagged a little. Partly it was to look at thestar and to listen to the distant bells. She was not aware that sheobserved that which we call Nature with a deep passion and curiosity,that beauty was the breath of her nostrils, and that she hungeredand thirsted after the righteousness of knowledge. She only cameslowly, after many years, into that much knowledge of herself. To-dayshe was but an undeveloped child, her mind a nebula just beginningto spiral. In conversation she would have applied the word "pretty"indiscriminately to the flushed sky, the star, the wheeling swallows,the yellow primroses. But within, already, the primroses struck onenote, and the wheeling swallows another, and the sky another, and thestar another, and, combined, they made a chord that was like no otherchord. Already her moments were distinguished, and each time she sawGilead Balm she saw, and dimly knew that she saw, a different GileadBalm.

  She climbed the hill a little stumblingly, a dark, thin child withbraided, dusky hair. She was so tired that things went into a kindof mist--the house and the packet-boat and the lock and the convictand the piping frogs and the cat-tails in a marsh and the word"evolution."... And then, up on the low hilltop, Dilsey and Plutus litthe lamps, and the house had a row of topaz eyes;--and here was thecedar at the little gate, and the smell of box--box smell was always ofa very especial character, dark in hue, cool in temperature, and quiteunfathomably old. The four passed through the house gate and went upthe winding path between the box and the old, old blush roses--and herewas the old house dog Roger fawning on the Colonel--and the topaz eyeswere growing bigger, bigger....

  "I am glad to get home," said Miss Serena, in front. "It's curious how,every time you go from home, something happens to cure you of a rovingdisposition."

  Captain Bob laughed. "Never knew you had a roving disposition, Serena!Luna here, now,--Luna's got a roving disposition--haven't you, oldgirl?"

  "Luna," replied Miss Serena with some asperity, "Luna makes no effortto alter her disposition. I do. Everybody's got tendencies and notionsthat it is their bounden duty to suppress. If they don't, it leads toall kind of changes and upheavals.--And that is what I criticize inMaria. She makes no effort, either. It's most unfortunate."

  The Colonel, in front of them all, moved on with a fine serenity. Hehad taken off his hat, and in the yet warm glow the grey-amber of hishair seemed fairly luminous. As he walked he looked appreciativelyup at the evening star. He read poetry with a fine, discriminating,masculine taste, and now, with a gesture toward the star, he repeateda line of Byron. Maria and her idiosyncrasies troubled
him only whenthey stood actually athwart his path; certainly he had never broodedupon them, nor turned them over in his hand and looked at them. Shewas his son's wife--more, he was inclined to think, the pity! Shewas, therefore, Ashendyne, and she was housed at Gilead Balm. He wasinclined to be fond of the child Hagar. As for his son--the Colonel, inhis cooler moments, supposed, damn it! that he and Medway were too muchalike to get on together. At any rate, whatever the reason, they didnot get on together. Gilead Balm had not seen the younger Ashendyne forsome years. He was in Europe, whence he wrote, at very long intervals,an amiable traveller's letter. Neither had he and Maria gotten on welltogether.

  The house grew large, filling all the foreground. The topaz eyeschanged to a wide, soft, diffused light, pouring from windows andthe open hall door. In it now appeared the figures of the elder Mrs.Ashendyne, of the Bishop, and Mrs. LeGrand, coming out upon the porchto welcome the travellers.

  Hagar took her grandmother's kiss and Mrs. LeGrand's kiss and theBishop's kiss, and then, after a few moments of standing still in thehall while the agreeable, southern voices rose and fell, she stoleaway, went up the shallow, worn stairway, turned to the left, andopened the door of her mother's room. She opened it softly. "UnclePlutus says you've got a headache."

  Maria's voice came from the sofa in the window. "Yes, I have. Shut thedoor softly, and don't let us have any light. But I don't mind yoursitting by me."

  The couch was deep and heaped with pillows. Maria's slight, smallform was drawn up in a corner, her head high, her hands twisted andlocked about her knees. She wore a soft white wrapper, tied beneath herbreast with a purple ribbon. She had beautiful hair. Thick and longand dusky, it was now loosened and spread until it made a coveringfor the pillows. Out from its waves looked her small face, still andexhausted. The headache, after having lasted all day, was going awaynow at twilight. She just turned her dark eyes upon her daughter. "Idon't mind your lying down beside me," she said. "There's room. Onlydon't jar my head--" Hagar lay carefully down upon the couch, her headin the hollow of her mother's arm. "Did you have a good time?"

  "Yes.... Pretty good."

  "What did you do?"

  "There was another little girl named Sylvie. We played in the hayloft,and we made willow baskets, and we cut paper dolls out of a 'Godey'sLady's Book.' I named mine Lucy Ashton and Diana Vernon and Rebecca,and she didn't know any good names, so I named hers for her. We namedthem Rosalind and Cordelia and Vashti. Then there was a lady who playedbackgammon with me, and I read two books."

  "What were they?"

  "One was 'Gulliver's Travels.' I didn't like it altogether, though Iliked some of it. The other was Shelley's 'Shorter Poems.' Oh"--Hagarrose to a sitting posture--"I liked that better than anything I've_ever_ read--"

  "You are young to be reading Shelley," said her mother. She spoke withher lips only, her young, pain-stilled face high upon the pillows."What did you like best?"

  Hagar pondered it. "I liked the 'Cloud,' and I liked the 'West Wind,'and I liked the 'Spirit of Night'--"

  Some one tapped at the door, and then without waiting for an answeropened it. The elder Mrs. Ashendyne entered. Hagar slipped from thesofa and Maria changed her position, though very slightly. "Come in,"she said, though Mrs. Ashendyne was already in.

  "Old Miss," as the major part of Gilead Balm called her, Old Misscrossed the room with a stately tread and took the winged chair. Sheintended tarrying but a moment, but she was a woman who never stoodto talk. She always sat down like a regent, and the standing wasdone by others. She was a large woman, tall rather than otherwise,of a distinct comeliness, and authoritative--oh, authoritative fromher black lace cap on her still brown, smoothly parted hair, to herlow-heeled list shoes, black against her white stockings! Now shefolded her hands upon her black stuff skirt and regarded Maria. "Areyou better?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  "If you would take my advice," said Mrs. Ashendyne, "and puthorseradish leaves steeped in hot water to your forehead and the backof your neck, you would find it a great relief."

  "I had some lavender water," said Maria.

  "The horseradish would have been far better. Are you coming to supper?"

  "No, I think not. I do not care for anything. I am not hungry."

  "I will have Phoebe fetch you a little thin chipped beef and a beatenbiscuit and a cup of coffee. You must eat.--If you gave way less itwould be better for you."

  Maria looked at her with sombre eyes. At once the fingers slipped toother and deeper notes. "If I gave way less.... Well, yes, I do giveway. I have never seen how not to. I suppose if I were cleverer andbraver, I should see--"

  "What I mean," said Old Miss with dignity, "is that the Lord,for his own good purposes,--and it is _sinful_ to question hispurposes,--regulated society as it is regulated, and placed women wherethey are placed. No one claims--certainly I don't claim--that womenas women do not see a great deal of hardship. The Bible gives us tounderstand that it is their punishment. Then I say take your punishmentwith meekness. It is possible that by doing so you may help earnremission for all."

  "There was always," said Maria, "something frightful to me in the oldnotion of whipping-boys for kings and princes. How very bad to be thewhipping-boy, and how infinitely worse to be the king or prince whosewhipping-boy you were!"

  A red came into Mrs. Ashendyne's face. "You are at times positivelyblasphemous!" she said. "I do not at all see of what, personally, youhave to complain. If Medway is estranged from you, you have probablyonly yourself to thank--"

  "I never wish," said Maria, "to see Medway again."

  Medway's mother rose with stateliness from the winged chair. "When itcomes to statements like that from a wife, it is time for old-fashionedpeople like myself to take our leave.--Phoebe shall bring you yoursupper. Hagar, you had better come with me."

  "Leave Hagar here," said the other.

  "The bell will ring in ten minutes. Come, child!"

  "Stay where you are, Hagar. When the bell rings, she shall come."

  The elder Mrs. Ashendyne's voice deepened. "It is hard for me to seethe mind of my son's child perverted, filled with all manner of foolishqueries and rebellions."

  "Your son's child," answered Maria from among her pillows, "happens tobe also my child. His family has just had her for a solid week. Now,pray let me have her for an hour." Her eyes, dark and large in herthin, young face, narrowed until the lashes met. "I am perfectly awareof how deplorable is the whole situation. If I were wiser and strongerand more heroic, I suppose I should break through it. I suppose Ishould go away with Hagar. I suppose I should learn to work. I supposeI should somehow keep us both. I suppose I might live again. I supposeI might ... even ... get a divorce--"

  Her mother-in-law towered. "The Bishop shall talk to you the firstthing in the morning--"