Hagar 45

Hagar 45

Ralph--Ralph was too insistent, she thought. He found her the next

morning, under the old sycamore by the river, and he proceeded again to

be insistent.

 

She stopped him impatiently. "Ralph, do you wish still to be friends,

or do you wish me to put you one side of the Equator and myself on the

other? I can do it."

 

"The Equator's an imaginary line."

 

"You'll find that an imaginary line can change you into a stranger."

 

"Hagar, I'm used to getting what I set my heart and brain upon."

 

"So was a gentleman named Napoleon Bonaparte. He got it--up to a

certain limit."

 

"I don't believe you are in earnest. I don't believe you have ever

really considered--And I intend one day to make you see--"

 

"See what? See my enormous advantage in marrying you? Oh, you--man!"

 

"See that you love me."

 

"How, you mean, can I help it? Oh, you--featherless biped!"

 

Ralph broke in two the bit of stick in his hands with a snapping sound.

"I'm mad for you, and I'd like to pay you out--"

 

"You are more remotely ancestral than almost any man I know!--Come,

come! let us stop this and talk as cousins and old playmates. There's

Wall Street left, and who is going to be President, and what are you

going to do with Hawk Nest."

 

"What I wanted to do with Hawk Nest was to fix it up for you."

 

"Oh, Ralph, Ralph! I should laugh at you, but I feel more like crying.

The pattern is so criss-cross!" She rose from beneath the sycamore.

"I'm going back to the house now."

 

He walked beside her. "Do you remember once I told you I was going to

make a great fortune, and you made light of it? Well, I'm a wealthy man

to-day and I shall be a much wealthier one. It grows now automatically.

And that I would be powerful. Well, I am powerful to-day, and that,

too, grows."

 

"Oh, Ralph, I wish you well! And if we don't define wealth and power

alike, still your definition is your definition. And if that's

your heart's desire, and I think it is, be happy in your heart's

desire--until it changes, and then be happier in the change!"

 

"I have told you what is my heart's desire."

 

"I will _not_ go back to that. Look! the sumach is turning red."

 

"Yes, it is very pretty.... You didn't see Sylvie Maine--Sylvie

Carter--when you were in New York?"

 

"No. I haven't seen Sylvie since that one first winter there. I wrote

to her when I heard of Jack Carter's death."

 

"That has been three years ago now. She is a very beautiful woman and

much sought after. I saw a good deal of her last winter.... Yes, that

sumach is getting red. Autumn's coming.... Hagar! I'm not in the least

going to give up."

 

"Ralph, I'm going to advise you to use your business acumen and

recognize an unprofitable enterprise when you see it.... Look at the

painted ladies on that thistle!"

 

"I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that a man can _make_ a woman love

him--"

 

"Are you? Be so good as to let me know when you succeed.--I warn you

that the Equator is getting ready to drop between."

 

When they passed the cedars and came to the porch steps, it was to find

Old Miss sitting in the large chair, her white-stockinged feet firmly

planted, her key-basket beside her, and her knitting-needles glinting.

 

"Did you have a pleasant walk?" she asked, and looked at them with a

certain massive eagerness.

 

"Ask Hagar, ma'am. She may have," answered Ralph; and took himself

into the house. They heard his rather heavy footfall upon the stair.

 

Hagar sat down on the porch step. "Ralph has, doubtless, a great many

good qualities, but he is spoiled."

 

Now Old Miss had a favourite project or projects, and that was matings

between Coltsworths and Ashendynes. Every few years for perhaps two

centuries such matings had occurred. Many had occurred in her day.

With great intensity she wanted and had wanted for years to see

a match made between her granddaughter and so promising, nay, so

accomplishing, a Coltsworth as Ralph. She was proud of Ralph--proud

of his appearance, of his ability to get on in the world and make

money and restore Hawk Nest, of his judgment and knowledge of public

affairs which seemed to her extraordinary. She wanted him to marry

Hagar, and characteristically she refused to admit the possibility of

defeat. But Ralph was no longer quite a young man--he ought to have

been married years ago. As for Hagar--Old Miss loved her granddaughter,

but she had very little patience with her. She was not patient with

women generally. She thought that, on the whole, women were a poor

lot--_witness Maria_. Maria lived for Old Miss, lived on one side

in space of her own, core of an atmosphere of smouldering, dull

resentment. If Maria had been different, Medway would have lived at

home. If Maria had known her duty, there would have been a brood of

grandchildren to match with broods of Coltsworths and others of rank

just under the first. If Maria had been different, this one grandchild

wouldn't be throwing a million dollars away and failing to love her

cousin! If Maria hadn't been a wilful piece, Hagar might have escaped

being a wilful piece. Old Miss loved her granddaughter, but that was

what she was calling her now in her mind--a wilful piece.

 

Factors that counted with the others at Gilead Balm, Hagar's very

actual detachment and independence, name and prestige and personality,

failed to count with Old Miss.

 

Such things counted in other cases; they counted in Ralph's case. But

Hagar was of the younger, therefore rightfully subordinate, generation,

and she was female. Ralph was of the younger generation, also, and

as a boy, while Old Miss spoiled him when he came to Gilead Balm,

she expected to rule him, too. But Ralph had crossed the Rubicon. As

soon as he grew from young boy to man, some mysterious force placed

him without trouble of his own in the conquering superior class whose

dicta must be accepted and whose judgment must be deferred to. The halo

appeared about his head. He came up equal with and passed ahead of old

Miss, elder generation to the contrary. But Hagar--Hagar was yet in the

class that was young and couldn't know; she was in the class of the

"poor lot." She was a wilful piece.

 

"I do not see that Ralph is spoiled," said Old Miss. "He receives a

natural recognition of his ability and success in life. He is a very

successful man, a very able man. He is giving new weight to the family

name. There was a piece in the paper the other day that said the state

ought to be proud of Ralph. I cut it out," said Old Miss, "and put it

in my scrapbook. I'll show it to you. You ought to read it. I don't see

why you aren't proud of your cousin."

 

"I hope I may be.--What are you knitting, grandmother?"

 

"Any woman might be happy to have Ralph propose to her. And any woman

but your mother's daughter might have some care for family happiness

and advantage--"

 

"Oh, grandmother, would my unhappiness in truth advantage the family?"

 

"Unhappiness! There's no need for unhappiness. That's your mother

again! Ralph is a splendid man. You ought to feel flattered. I don't

believe in marrying without love, certainly not without respect; but

when you see it is your duty and make your mind submissive you can

manage easily enough to feel both. That's the trouble with you as it

was with your mother before you. You don't see your duty and you don't

make your mind submissive. I've no patience with you."

 

"Grandmother," said Hagar, "did you ever realize that you yourself only

make your mind submissive when it comes into relation with men, or

with ideas advanced by men? I have never seen you humble-minded with a

woman."

 

Old Miss appeared to take this as a startling proposition, and to

consider it for a moment; then, "I don't know what you mean."

 

"I mean that outraged nature must be itself somewhere--else there's

annihilation."

 

Old Miss's needles clicked. "I don't pretend to be 'literary,' or to

understand literary talk. What Moses and St. Paul said and the way

we've always done in Virginia is good enough for me. You're perverse

and rebellious as Maria was before you. It's simple obstinacy, your not

caring for Ralph--and as for throwing away Medway's million dollars,

there ought to be a law to keep you from doing it!--Are you going

upstairs? My scrapbook is on the fourth shelf of the big closet. Get it

and read that piece about Ralph."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVII

 

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

 

 

But the great Gilead Balm explosion came three days later.

 

It was nearly sunset, and they were all upon the wide, front porch--the

Colonel, Old Miss, Miss Serena, Captain Bob, Mrs. LeGrand, Hagar.

Ralph was not there, he had ridden to Hawk Nest, but would return

to-night. It had been a beautiful, early September day, the sky high

and blue, the air all sunny vigour. Gilead Balm sat and enjoyed the

cool, golden, winey afternoon, the shadows lengthening over the hills,

the swallows overhead, the tinkle of the cow-bells. It was not one

of your families that were always chattering. The porch held rather

silent than otherwise. Mrs. LeGrand could, indeed, keep up a smooth,

slow flow of talk, but Mrs. LeGrand had been packing to return to

Eglantine which would "open" in another week, and she was somewhat

fatigued. The Colonel, pending the arrival of yesterday's newspaper,

was reviewing that of the day before yesterday. Captain Bob and Lisa

communed together. Old Miss knitted. Miss Serena ran a strawberry emery

bag through and through with he