Hagar 55

Hagar 55

Silence again; then Hagar leaned across and took up her grandmother's

work. "What is it? An afghan? It's lovely soft wool."

 

"When," asked Old Miss, "are you going to marry--and whom?"

 

"I do not know, grandmother, that I am going to marry, or whom."

 

"You should have married Ralph.... All these years have you had any

other offers?"

 

"Yes, grandmother."

 

"While you were with Medway?"

 

"Yes, grandmother."

 

"Have you had any since you set up in this remarkable way for yourself?"

 

Hagar laughed. "No, grandmother--unless you except Ralph."

 

"Ha!" said Old Miss in grim triumph; "I knew you wouldn't!"

 

Miss Serena came to the door. "Father's awake and he wants to see

Hagar."

 

But when Hagar went down and into the big room and up to the great bed,

the Colonel declared her to be Maria, grew excited, and said that she

shouldn't keep his grandchild from him. "I tell you, woman, Medway and

I are going to use authority! The child's Medway's--Medway's next of

kin by every law in the land! He can take her from you, and, by God! he

shall do it!"

 

"Father," said Miss Serena, "this is Hagar, grown up."

 

But the Colonel grew violently angry. "You are all lying!--a man's

family conspiring against him! That woman's my daughter-in-law--my

son's wife, dependent on me for her bread and shelter and setting

up her will against mine! And now she's all for keeping from me my

grandchild--she's hiding Gipsy in closets and under the stairs--You

have no right. It's not your child, it's Medway's child! That's law.

You ought to be whipped!"

 

"Grandfather," said Hagar, "do you remember Alexandria and the mosques

and the Place Mahomet Ali?"

 

"Why, exactly," said the Colonel. "Well, Gipsy, we always wanted to

travel, didn't we? That dragoman seems to know his business--we're

going down to Cairo to-day and out to see the pyramids. Want to come

along?"

 

Day followed day at Gilead Balm. Sometimes the Colonel's mind wandered

over the seas of creation, with the pilot asleep at the helm; sometimes

the pilot suddenly awoke, though it was not apt to be for long. It was

eerie when the pilot awoke; when he suddenly sat there, gaunt, with a

parchment face and beak-like nose and straying white hair, and in a

cool, drawling voice asked intelligent questions about the hour and the

season and the plantation happenings.

 

At such times, if Hagar were not already in the room, he demanded to

see her. She came, sat by him in the great chair, offered to read to

him. He was not infrequently willing for her to do this. She read

both prose and verse to him this winter. Sometimes he did not wish

her to read; he wanted to talk. When this was the case--the pilot

being awake--it was her life away from Gilead Balm that he oftenest

chose to comment upon. That he knew the content of her life hardly

at all mattered, as little to the Colonel as it mattered to Old Miss

and Miss Serena. They were going to let fly their arrows; if there

was no target in the direction in which they shot, at least they

were in sublime ignorance of the fact. Hagar let them talk. Not only

the Colonel--Gilead Balm was dying.... In the middle of a sarcastic

sentence the pilot would drop asleep again; in a moment the barque

was at the mercy of every wandering wind. Hagar became Maria and he

gibbered at her.

 

Young Dr. Bude came and went. February grew old and passed into March;

March, cold and sunny, with high winds, wheeled by; April came with

tender light, with Judas trees and bloodroot, and the white cherry

trees in a mist of bloom; and still the Colonel lay there, and now the

pilot waked and now the pilot slept.

 

May came. Dr. Bude stayed in the house. One evening at dusk the

Colonel suddenly opened his eyes upon his family gathered about his

bed. Old Miss was sitting, upright and still, in the great chair at

the bed-head. Miss Serena had a low chair at the foot, and Captain Bob

was near, his old, grey head buried in his hands. There was also an

Ashendyne close kinsman, and a Coltsworth--not Ralph. Dr. Bude waited

in the background. Hagar stood behind Miss Serena.

 

Colonel Argall Ashendyne looked out from his pillow. "Wasn't the

Canal good enough? Who wants their Railroad--damn them! And after the

Railroad there'll be something else.... Public Schools, too!... This

country's getting too damnably democratic!" His eyes closed, his face

seemed to sink together. Dr. Bude came from the hearth and, bending

over, laid his finger upon the pulse. The Colonel again opened his

eyes. They were fastened now on Hagar, standing behind Miss Serena.

"Well, Gipsy!" he said with cheerfulness, "It's a pretty comfortable

boat, eh? We'll make the voyage before we know it." His hands touched

the bed. "Steamer chairs! I don't think I was ever in one before. Lean

back and see the wide ocean stretch before you! The wide ocean ... the

wide ocean ...

 

"'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!'

 

"That's Byron, you know, Gipsy.... The wide ocean...."

 

His eyes glazed. He sank back. Dr. Bude touched the wrist again; then,

straightening himself, turned and spoke to Old Miss.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXIV

 

BRITTANY

 

 

"She hasn't had a holiday for nearly four years," said Molly. "I'm glad

she's gone for this summer. She wouldn't take Thomasine--she said she

wanted to be all, all alone, just for three months. Then she would come

back to work."

 

"Brittany--"

 

"Yes. A little place on the coast that she knew. She said she wanted

the sea. I thought perhaps that she had written to you--"

 

"Not since May," said John Fay. "There was a proposed extension of a

piece of work of mine in the West. I was called out there to see about

it, and I had to go. I was kept for weeks. I tried to get back, but I

couldn't--I was in honour bound. Then when I came her boat had sailed.

And now I--"

 

He measured the table with his fingers. "Do you think she would hate me

if I turned up in that place in Brittany?"

 

Molly considered it. "She's a reasonable being. Brittany isn't for the

benefit of just one person."

 

"Ah, but you see I should want to talk to her."

 

Molly pondered that, too. "Well, I should try, I think. If she doesn't

want to talk she will tell you so...."

 

Hagar's village was a small village, a grey patch of time-worn houses,

set like a lichen against a cliff with a heath above. Before it ran a

great and far stretch of brown sands. There was a tiny harbour where

the fishing-boats came in, and all beyond the thundering sea. The place

boasted a small inn, but she did not stay there. The widow of the curé

had to let a clean large room, overlooking a windy garden, and the

widow and her one servant set a table with simple, well-cooked fare.

Hagar stayed here, though most of the time, indeed, she stayed out upon

the brown, shell-strewn, far-stretching sands.

 

She walked for miles, or, down with the women at evening, she watched

the boats come one by one to haven, or, far from the village, beneath

some dune-like heap of sand, she sat with her hands about her knees

and watched the shifting colour of the sea. She had a book with her;

sometimes she read in it, and sometimes it lay unopened. All the

colours went over the sea, the surf murmured, the sea-birds flew, the

salt wind bent the sparse grass at the top of the dune. On such an

afternoon, after long, motionless dreaming, she changed her posture,

turning her eyes toward the distant village. A man was walking toward

her, over the firm sand. She watched him at first dreamily, then,

suddenly, with a quickened breath. While the distance between them was

yet great, she knew it to be Fay.

 

He came up to her and held out his hand. She put hers in it. "Did I

startle you?" he said. "If you don't want me, I will go away."

 

"I thought you were bridge-building in the West."

 

"I could get away at last. I crossed the Atlantic because I wanted to

see you. Do you mind, very much?"

 

"Do I mind seeing you here, in Brittany? No, I do not know that I mind

that.... Sit down and tell me about America. America has seemed so far

away, these still, still days ... farther away than the sun and the

moon."

 

Long and clean-limbed, with his sea-blue eyes and quizzical look, Fay

threw himself down upon the sand beside her. They talked that day of

people at home, of the work he had been doing and of her long absence

at Gilead Balm. She made him see the place--the old man who had

died--and Old Miss and Miss Serena and Captain Bob and the servants and

Lisa.

 

"They are going to live on there?"

 

"Yes. Just as they have done, until they, too, die.... Oh, Gilead Balm!"

 

Late in the afternoon, the sun making a red path across the waters,

and the red-sailed boats growing larger, coming toward the land,

they walked back to the village together. He left her at the door of

the curé's house. He himself was staying at the inn. She did not ask

him how long he would stay, or if he was on his way to other, larger

places. The situation accepted itself.

 

There followed some days of wandering together, through the little grey

town, or over the green headland to a country beyond of pine trees and

Druid stones, or, in the evening light, along the sands. They found a