Hagar 11

Hagar 11

and that she liked to tell herself stories. As she lay here now, she

was not thinking of Roger Michael's talk, though she had thought of

it for the first twenty minutes after she had put out the lamp. It

had been very interesting, and it had stirred her while it was in the

saying, but the grappling hook had not finally held; she was not ready

for it. She had let it slip from her mind in favour of the rose and

purple and deep violin humming of one of her romances. She had lain

for an hour in a great wood, like a wood in Xanadu, beneath trees that

touched the sky, and like an elfin stream had gone by knights and

ladies.... The great clock down in the hall struck twelve. She turned

her slender body, and the bed being pushed against the window, laid her

outstretched hands upon the window-sill, and looked up, between the

spectral sycamore boughs, to where Sirius blazed. Dream wood and dream

shapes took flight. She lay with parted lips, her mind quiet, her soul

awake. Minutes passed; a cloud drove behind the sycamore branches and

hid the star. First blankness came and then again unrest. She sat up in

bed, pushing her two heavy braids of hair back over her shoulders. The

small clock upon the mantel ticked and ticked. The little room looked

cold in the watery moonlight. Hagar was not dreaming or imagining

now; she was thinking back. She sat very still for five minutes,

tears slowly gathering in her eyes. At last she turned and lay face

down upon the bed, her outstretched hands against the wooden frame.

Her tears wet the sleeve of her gown. "_Carcassonne--Aigues-Mortes.

Carcassonne--Aigues-Mortes_...."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

MR. LAYDON

 

 

The winter was so open, so mild and warm, that a few pale roses clung

to their stems through half of December. Christmas proved a green

Christmas; neither snow nor ice, but soft, Indian summer weather.

Eglantine always gave two weeks' holiday at Christmas. It was a great

place for holidays. Right and left went the girls. Those whose own

homes 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. Most

of 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 this

year--she hardly knew how--she had missed it. In the most recently

received of his rare letters her grandfather had explicitly stated

that, though he was prepared to pay for her schooling and to support

her until she married, she must, on her side, get along with as little

money as possible. It was criminal that he had so little nowadays, but

such was the melancholy fact. The whole world was going to the dogs. He

sometimes 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 over

that letter, and it set her to wondering more strongly than ever about

money, and to longing to make it. In her return letters he suggested

that she stay at Eglantine this Christmas, and so save travelling

expenses. And in order that Gilead Balm might not feel that she would

be too dreadfully disappointed, she said that it was very pleasant

at Eglantine, and that several of the girls were going to stay, and

that she would be quite happy and wouldn't mind it much, though of

course she wanted to see them all at Gilead Balm. The plan was of her

suggesting, but she had not realized that they might fall in with it.

When her grandmother answered at length, explaining losses that the

Colonel had sustained, and agreeing that this year it might be best for

her to stay at Eglantine, she tried not to feel desperately hurt and

despondent. She loved Gilead Balm, loved it as much as her mother had

hated it. Old Miss's letter had shown her own disappointment, but--"You

are getting to be a woman and must consider the family. Ashendyne and

Coltsworth women, I am glad to say, have always known their duty to the

family and have lived up to it." The last half of the letter had a good

deal to say of Ralph Coltsworth who was at the University.

 

Hagar was here at Eglantine, and it was two days before Christmas, and

most of the girls were gone. Sylvie was gone. The teacher whom she

liked best--Miss Gage--was gone. Mrs. LeGrand, who liked holidays, too,

was going. Mrs. Lane and Miss Bedford and the housekeeper were not

going, and they and the servants would look after Eglantine. Besides

these there would be left the books in the book-room, and Hagar would

have leave to be out of doors, in the winding walks and beneath the

trees, 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 had

filled it with good things to eat and the Colonel sent his love and

a small gold-piece. There was a pretty belt from Captain Bob and a

hand-painted plate and a soft pink wool, shell-pattern, crocheted

"fascinator" from Miss Serena. Mrs. Green sent a hemstitched

handkerchief, and the servants sent a Christmas card. Through the box

were scattered little sprays from the Gilead Balm cedars, and there was

a bunch of white and red and button chrysanthemums. Hagar, sitting on

the 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 some

pieces of home-made candy, several slices of fruitcake, three or four

lady apples, and a number of Old Miss's exquisitely thin and crisp

wafers, 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-raised

herself from a flowery couch near the fire, put the novel that she

was reading behind her pillow, and stretched out her hand. "Ah,

Hagar!--Goodies from Gilead Balm? How nice! Thank you, my dear!" She

took a piece of cocoanut candy, then waved the hand-painted plate to

the round table. "Put it there, dear child! Now sit down for a minute

and keep me company."

 

Hagar took the straight chair on the other side of the hearth. The

bright, leaping flame was between the two. It made a kind of softer

daylight, and full in the heart of it showed Mrs. LeGrand's handsome,

not yet elderly countenance, the ripe fullness of her bust, covered

by a figured silk dressing-sacque, and her smooth, well-shaped,

carefully tended hands. Hagar conceived that it was her duty to think

well and highly of Mrs. LeGrand, who was such an old friend of the

family, and who, she knew, out of these same friendly considerations,

was keeping her at Eglantine on the easiest of terms. Yes, it was

certainly her duty to love and admire Mrs. LeGrand. That she did not

do so caused her qualms of conscience. Many of the girls raved about

Mrs. LeGrand, and so did Miss Carlisle and Miss Bedford. Hagar supposed

with 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, she

experienced a resurgence of an old childhood dislike. She saw again

the Gilead Balm library, and the pool of sunlight on the floor and the

"Descent of Man," and heard again Mrs. LeGrand telling the Bishop that

she--Hagar--was reading an improper book. Time between then and now

simply took itself away like a painted drop-scene. Six years rolled

themselves up as with a spring, and that hour seamlessly adjoined this

hour.

 

"I'm afraid," said Mrs. LeGrand, "that you'll be a little lonely, dear

child, but it won't be for long. Time flies so!"

 

"I don't exactly get lonely," said Hagar gravely. "You are going down

the river, aren't you?"

 

"Yes, for ten days. My dear friends at Idlewood won't hear of my not

coming. They were my dear husband's dearest cousins. Mrs. Lane and Miss

Bedford, together with Mrs. Brown, will take, I am sure, the best of

care of things here."

 

"Yes, of course. We'll get on beautifully," said Hagar. "Mr. Laydon is

not going away either. His mother is ill and he will not leave her. He

says that if we like to listen, he will come over in the evenings and

read aloud to us."

 

Mr. Laydon was teacher of Belles-Lettres at Eglantine, a well-looking

young gentleman, with a good voice, and apparently a sincere devotion

to the best literature. Eglantine and Mr. Laydon alike believed in

the future of Mr. Laydon. It was understood that his acceptance of a

position here was of the nature of a makeshift, a mere pot-boiler on

his road to high places. He and his mother were domiciled with a cousin

from whose doorstep you might toss a pebble into the Eglantine grounds.

In the past few years the neighbouring town had begun to grow; it had

thrown out a street which all but touched the osage-orange hedge.

 

Mrs. LeGrand made a slight motion with her hand on which was her

wedding-ring, with an old pearl ring for guard. "I shall tell Mrs. Lane

not 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 charge

can 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 coming

for Christmas--all except Ralph. He is going home with a classmate.

Grandmother says he is the handsomest man at the University, and that

if I hear tales of his wildness I am not to believe them. She says

all men are a little wild at first. Aunt Serena is learning how to

illuminate texts. Mrs. Green has gone to see her daughter, who has

something the matter with her spine. Thomasine's uncle in New York is

going to have her visit him, and grandmother thinks he means to get

Thomasine a place in a store. Grandmother says no girl ought to work

in a store, but Thomasine's people are very poor, and I don't see what

she can do. She's got to live. Corker has a place, but he isn't doing

very well. Car'line and Isham have put a porch to their cabin, and Mary

Magazine has gotten religion."

 

"Girls of Thomasine's station," said Mrs. LeGrand, "are beginning

more and more, I'm sorry to see, to leave home to work for pay. It's

spreading, too; it's not confined to girls of her class. Only yesterday

I heard that a bright, pretty girl that I used to know at the White had

gone to Philadelphia to study to be a nurse, and there's Nellie Wynne

trying to be a journalist! A journalist! There isn't the least excuse

for either of those cases. One of those girls has a brother and the

other a father quite able to support them."

 

"But if there really isn't any one?" said Hagar wistfully. "And if you

feel that you are costing a lot--" Her dreams at night were beginning

to be shot with a vague but insistent "If I could write--if I could paint or teach--if I could earn money--"