Hagar Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  MR. LAYDON

  The winter was so open, so mild and warm, that a few pale roses clungto their stems through half of December. Christmas proved a greenChristmas; neither snow nor ice, but soft, Indian summer weather.Eglantine always gave two weeks' holiday at Christmas. It was a greatplace for holidays. Right and left went the girls. Those whose ownhomes were too far away went with roommates or bosom friends to theirs;hardly a pupil was left to mope in the rooms that grew so still. Mostof the teachers went away. The scattering was general.

  But Hagar remained at Eglantine. Gilead Balm was a good long way off.She had gone home last Christmas and the Christmas before, but thisyear--she hardly knew how--she had missed it. In the most recentlyreceived of his rare letters her grandfather had explicitly statedthat, though he was prepared to pay for her schooling and to supporther until she married, she must, on her side, get along with as littlemoney as possible. It was criminal that he had so little nowadays, butsuch was the melancholy fact. The whole world was going to the dogs. Hesometimes felt a cold doubt as to whether he could hold Gilead Balm.He wished to die there, at any rate. Hagar had been very unhappy overthat letter, and it set her to wondering more strongly than ever aboutmoney, and to longing to make it. In her return letters he suggestedthat she stay at Eglantine this Christmas, and so save travellingexpenses. And in order that Gilead Balm might not feel that she wouldbe too dreadfully disappointed, she said that it was very pleasantat Eglantine, and that several of the girls were going to stay, andthat she would be quite happy and wouldn't mind it much, though ofcourse she wanted to see them all at Gilead Balm. The plan was of hersuggesting, but she had not realized that they might fall in with it.When her grandmother answered at length, explaining losses that theColonel had sustained, and agreeing that this year it might be best forher to stay at Eglantine, she tried not to feel desperately hurt anddespondent. She loved Gilead Balm, loved it as much as her mother hadhated it. Old Miss's letter had shown her own disappointment, but--"Youare getting to be a woman and must consider the family. Ashendyne andColtsworth women, I am glad to say, have always known their duty to thefamily and have lived up to it." The last half of the letter had a gooddeal to say of Ralph Coltsworth who was at the University.

  Hagar was here at Eglantine, and it was two days before Christmas, andmost of the girls were gone. Sylvie was gone. The teacher whom sheliked best--Miss Gage--was gone. Mrs. LeGrand, who liked holidays, too,was going. Mrs. Lane and Miss Bedford and the housekeeper were notgoing, and they and the servants would look after Eglantine. Besidesthese there would be left the books in the book-room, and Hagar wouldhave leave to be out of doors, in the winding walks and beneath thetrees, alone and whenever she pleased. The weather was dreamy still;everywhere a warm amethyst haze.

  This morning had come a box from Gilead Balm. Her grandmother hadfilled it with good things to eat and the Colonel sent his love anda small gold-piece. There was a pretty belt from Captain Bob and ahand-painted plate and a soft pink wool, shell-pattern, crocheted"fascinator" from Miss Serena. Mrs. Green sent a hemstitchedhandkerchief, and the servants sent a Christmas card. Through the boxwere scattered little sprays from the Gilead Balm cedars, and there wasa bunch of white and red and button chrysanthemums. Hagar, sitting onthe hearth-rug, unpacked everything; then went off into a brown study,the chrysanthemums in her lap.

  Later in the morning she arranged upon the hand-painted plate somepieces of home-made candy, several slices of fruitcake, three or fourlady apples, and a number of Old Miss's exquisitely thin and crispwafers, and with it in her hand went downstairs to Mrs. LeGrand's room,knocked at the door, and was bidden to enter. Mrs. LeGrand half-raisedherself from a flowery couch near the fire, put the novel that shewas reading behind her pillow, and stretched out her hand. "Ah,Hagar!--Goodies from Gilead Balm? How nice! Thank you, my dear!" Shetook a piece of cocoanut candy, then waved the hand-painted plate tothe round table. "Put it there, dear child! Now sit down for a minuteand keep me company."

  Hagar took the straight chair on the other side of the hearth. Thebright, leaping flame was between the two. It made a kind of softerdaylight, and full in the heart of it showed Mrs. LeGrand's handsome,not yet elderly countenance, the ripe fullness of her bust, coveredby a figured silk dressing-sacque, and her smooth, well-shaped,carefully tended hands. Hagar conceived that it was her duty to thinkwell and highly of Mrs. LeGrand, who was such an old friend of thefamily, and who, she knew, out of these same friendly considerations,was keeping her at Eglantine on the easiest of terms. Yes, it wascertainly her duty to love and admire Mrs. LeGrand. That she did notdo so caused her qualms of conscience. Many of the girls raved aboutMrs. LeGrand, and so did Miss Carlisle and Miss Bedford. Hagar supposedwith a sigh that there was something wrong with her own heart. To-day,as she sat in the straight chair, her hands folded in her lap, sheexperienced a resurgence of an old childhood dislike. She saw againthe Gilead Balm library, and the pool of sunlight on the floor and the"Descent of Man," and heard again Mrs. LeGrand telling the Bishop thatshe--Hagar--was reading an improper book. Time between then and nowsimply took itself away like a painted drop-scene. Six years rolledthemselves up as with a spring, and that hour seamlessly adjoined thishour.

  "I'm afraid," said Mrs. LeGrand, "that you'll be a little lonely, dearchild, but it won't be for long. Time flies so!"

  "I don't exactly get lonely," said Hagar gravely. "You are going downthe river, aren't you?"

  "Yes, for ten days. My dear friends at Idlewood won't hear of my notcoming. They were my dear husband's dearest cousins. Mrs. Lane and MissBedford, together with Mrs. Brown, will take, I am sure, the best ofcare of things here."

  "Yes, of course. We'll get on beautifully," said Hagar. "Mr. Laydon isnot going away either. His mother is ill and he will not leave her. Hesays that if we like to listen, he will come over in the evenings andread aloud to us."

  Mr. Laydon was teacher of Belles-Lettres at Eglantine, a well-lookingyoung gentleman, with a good voice, and apparently a sincere devotionto the best literature. Eglantine and Mr. Laydon alike believed inthe future of Mr. Laydon. It was understood that his acceptance of aposition here was of the nature of a makeshift, a mere pot-boiler onhis road to high places. He and his mother were domiciled with a cousinfrom whose doorstep you might toss a pebble into the Eglantine grounds.In the past few years the neighbouring town had begun to grow; it hadthrown out a street which all but touched the osage-orange hedge.

  Mrs. LeGrand made a slight motion with her hand on which was herwedding-ring, with an old pearl ring for guard. "I shall tell Mrs. Lanenot to let him do that too often. I have a great esteem for Mr. Laydon,but Eglantine cannot be too careful. No one with girls in their chargecan be too careful!--What is the Gilead Balm news?"

  "The letter was from grandmother. She is well, and so is grandfather.They have had a great deal of company. Uncle Bob has had rheumatism,but he goes hunting just the same. The Hawk Nest Coltsworths are comingfor Christmas--all except Ralph. He is going home with a classmate.Grandmother says he is the handsomest man at the University, and thatif I hear tales of his wildness I am not to believe them. She saysall men are a little wild at first. Aunt Serena is learning how toilluminate texts. Mrs. Green has gone to see her daughter, who hassomething the matter with her spine. Thomasine's uncle in New York isgoing to have her visit him, and grandmother thinks he means to getThomasine a place in a store. Grandmother says no girl ought to workin a store, but Thomasine's people are very poor, and I don't see whatshe can do. She's got to live. Corker has a place, but he isn't doingvery well. Car'line and Isham have put a porch to their cabin, and MaryMagazine has gotten religion."

  "Girls of Thomasine's station," said Mrs. LeGrand, "are beginningmore and more, I'm sorry to see, to leave home to work for pay. It'sspreading, too; it's not confined to girls of her class. Only yesterdayI heard that a bright, pretty girl that I used to know at the White hadgone to Philadelphia to study to be a nurse, and there's Nellie Wynnetrying to be a jour
nalist! A journalist! There isn't the least excusefor either of those cases. One of those girls has a brother and theother a father quite able to support them."

  "But if there really isn't any one?" said Hagar wistfully. "And if youfeel that you are costing a lot--" Her dreams at night were beginningto be shot with a vague but insistent "If I could write--if I couldpaint or teach--if I could earn money--"

  "There is almost always some one," answered Mrs. LeGrand. "And if agirl knows how to make the best of herself, there inevitably arrivesher own establishment and the right man to take care of her. If"--sheshrugged--"if she doesn't know how to make the best of herself, shemight as well go work in a store. No one would especially object. Thatis, they would not object except that when that kind of thing creepsup higher in the scale of society, and girls who can perfectly well besupported at home go out and work for pay, it makes an unfortunate kindof precedent and reacts and reflects upon those who do know how tomake the best of themselves."

  Hagar spoke diffidently. "But a lot of women had to work after the war.Mrs. Lane and General ----'s daughters, and you yourself--"

  "That is quite different," said Mrs. LeGrand. "Gentlewomen in reducedcircumstances may have to battle alone with the world, but they do notlike it, and it is only hard fate that has put them in that position.It's an unnatural one, and they feel it as such. What I am talkingof is that nowadays you see women--young women--actually choosing tostand alone, actually declining support, and--er--refusing generally tomake the best of themselves. It's part of the degeneracy of the timesthat you begin to see women--women of breeding--in all kinds of publicplaces, working for their living. It's positively shocking! It opensthe gate to all kinds of things."

  "Wrong things?"

  "Ideas, notions. Roger Michael's ideas, for instance,--which I mustsay are extremely wrong-headed. I regretted that I had asked her here.She was hardly feminine." Mrs. LeGrand stretched herself, rubbed herplump, firm arms, from which the figured silk had fallen back, and rosefrom the couch. "I hope that Eglantine girls will always think of thesethings as ladies should. And now, my dear, will you tell Mrs. Lane thatI want to see her?"

  Mrs. LeGrand went away from Eglantine for ten days. Of the womenteachers living in the house, all went but Mrs. Lane and Miss Bedford.All the girls went but three, and they were, first, Hagar Ashendyne;second, a pale thin girl from the Far South, a martyr to sickheadaches; and third, Francie Smythe, a girl apparently without manyhome people. Francie was sweetly dull, with small eyes and a perpetualsmile.

  How quiet seemed the great house with its many rooms! They closed thelarge dining-room and used the small room where Roger Michael hadsupped. They shut the classrooms and the study-hall and the book-room,and sat in the evenings in the bowery, flowery parlour. Here, the veryfirst evening, and the second, came Mr. Laydon with Browning in onepocket and Tennyson in the other.

  Mrs. Lane was knitting an afghan of a complicated pattern. Her lipsmoved softly, continuously, counting. Mr. Laydon, making an eloquentpause midway of "Tithonous" caught this _One--two--three--four_--andhad a fleeting expression of pain. Mrs. Lane saw the depth to which shehad sunk in his esteem and flushed over her delicate, pensive face. Forthe remainder of the hour she sat with her knitting in her lap. Butreally the afghan must be finished, and so, the second evening, sheplaced her chair so as to face not the reader but a shadowy corner, andso knit and counted in peace. Miss Bedford neither knit nor counted;she said that she adored poetry and sighed rapturously where somethingseemed to be indicated. She also adored conversation and argumentationas to this or that nice point. What did Mr. Laydon think Browningreally meant in "Childe Roland," and was Porphyria's lover really mad?Was Amy really to blame in "Locksley Hall"? Miss Bedford made play withher rather fine eyes and teased the fringe of the table-cover. The palegirl from the Far South--Lily was her name--sat by the fire and nowrubbed her forehead with a menthol pencil and now stroked Tipsy Parson,Mrs. LeGrand's big black cat. Francie Smythe had a muslin apron fullof coloured silks and was embroidering a centre-piece--yellow roseswith leaves and thorns. Francie was a great embroiderer. Hagar satupon a low stool by the hearth, over against Lily, close to the slowlyburning logs. She was a Fire-Worshipper. The flames were better to herthan jewels, and the glowing alleys and caverns below were treasurecaves and temples. She sat listening in the rosy light, her chin in herhands. She thought that Mr. Laydon read very well--very well, indeed.

  "'Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles, On the solitary pastures--'"

  Midway of the poem she turned a little so that she could see the reader.

  He sat in the circle of lamplight, a presentable man, well-formed,dark-eyed, and enthusiastic; fairly presentable within, too, veryfairly clean, a good son, filled with not unhonourable ambitions; good,average, human stuff with an individual touch of impressionabilityand a strong desire to be liked, as he expressed it, "for himself";young still, with the momentum and emanation of youth. The lamp hada rose and amber shade. It threw a softened, coloured, dreamy light.Everything within its range was subtly altered and enriched.

  "'And I knew--while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave To their folding, all our many tinkling fleece In such peace, And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey Melt away--'"

  Hagar sat in her corner, upon the low stool, in the firelight, asmotionless as though she were in a trance. Her eyes, large, of amarvellous hazel, beneath straight, well-pencilled brows of deepestbrown, were fixed steadily upon the man reading. Slowly, tentatively,something rich and delicate seemed to rise within her, something thatclung to soul and body, something strange, sweet and painful, somethingthat, spreading and deepening with great swiftness, suffused her beingand made her heart at once ecstatic and sorrowful. She blushed deeply,felt the crimsoning, and wished to drop her head upon her arms andbe alone in a balmy darkness. It was as though she were in a strangedream, or in one of her long romances come real.

  "'In one year they sent a million fighters forth, South and North,-- And they built their gods a brazen pillar high As the sky-- ... ... Love is best.'"

  Laydon put the book down upon the table. While he read, one of themaids, Zinia, had brought a note to Miss Bedford, and that lady hadgone away to answer it. Mrs. Lane knitted on, her lips moving, herback to the table and the hearth. Francie Smythe was sorting silks."That was a lovely piece," she said unemotionally, and went ondividing orange from lemon. The girl with the menthol pencil was moreappreciative. "Once, when I was a little girl I went with my fatherand mother to Rome. We went out on the Campagna. I remember now how itwas all green and flat and wide as the sea and still, and there weregreat arches running away--away--and a mist that they said was fever."Her voice sank. She sighed and rubbed her forehead with the menthol.Her eyes closed.

  Edgar Laydon rose and came into the circle of firelight. He was movedby his own reading, shaken with the impulse and rhythm of the poem. Hestood by the mantel and faced Hagar. She was one of his pupils, sherecited well; of the essays, the "compositions," which were producedunder his direction, hers were the best; he had told her more than oncethat her work was good; in short, he was kindly disposed toward her. Tothis instant that was all; he was scrupulously correct in his attitudetoward the young ladies whom he taught. He had for his work a kind ofunnecessary scorn; he felt that he ought to be teaching men, or atthe very least should hold a chair in some actual college for women.Eglantine was nothing but a Young Ladies' Seminary. He felt quite anenormous gulf between himself and those around him, and, as a weaknesswill sometimes quaintly do, this feeling kept him steady. Until thismoment he was as indifferent to Hagar Ashendyne, as to any one of thefifty whom he taught, and he was indifferent to them all. He had apicture in his mind of the woman whom some day he meant to find andwoo, but she wasn't in the least like any one at Eglantine.

  Now, in an instant, came a change. Hagar's eyes, very quiet and limpid,were upon him. P
erhaps, deep down, far distant from her conscious self,she willed and exercised an ancient power of her sex and charmed himto her; perhaps--in his lifted mood, the great, sensuous swing of theverse still with him, the written cry of passion faintly drummingwithin his veins--he would have suddenly linked that diffused emotionto whatever presence, young and far from unpleasing, might have risenat this moment to confront him. However that may be, Laydon's eyes andthose of Hagar met. Each gaze held the other for a breathless moment,then the lids fell, the heart beat violently, a colour surged overthe face and receded, leaving each face pale. A log, burned through,parted, striking the hearth with a sound like the click of a closingtrap.

  Mrs. Lane, having come to an easy part in the pattern, turned her faceto the rest of the room. "Aren't we going to have some more poetry?Read us some more, Mr. Laydon."

  The girl with the menthol pencil spoke dreamily. "Isn't there anotherpiece about the Campagna? I can see it plain--green like the sea andarches and tombs and a mist hanging over it, and a road going on--aroad going on--a road going on."