CHAPTER XIV
NEW YORK
In August--the Ashendynes being back at Gilead Balm--the "YoungPeople's Home Magazine" published Hagar's fairy story. Gilead Balm wasimpressed, but not greatly impressed. It had the aristocratic traditionas to writers; no Ashendyne had ever needed to be one. There had beeneditor Ashendynes, in the old fiery, early, and mid-century times,but editorship came out naturally from the political stream, and thepolitical, with law, planting, and soldiery, had been the Ashendynestream. The Ashendyne mind harked back to Early Georgian, even toStuart times; when you said "writer" it saw something Grub Streetish.In addition, Hagar's was, of course, only a child's story.
The two hundred dollars shrank in impressiveness from being known ofafter and not before Medway Ashendyne's letter. But to the eyes ofher grandmother and her Aunt Serena the two hundred dollars was theimpressive, the only really impressive, thing. Her grandmother advisedthat it be put in bank. Miss Serena said that, when she was Hagar'sage, she had had a watch and chain for more than two years. "What wouldyou like to do with it, Gipsy?" asked Captain Bob.
The colour came into Hagar's cheeks. "With one half I want to get mytwo winter dresses and my coat and hat, and with the other half I wantto get books."
"Books!" exclaimed the Ashendynes--the Colonel was not present. "Why,aren't there books enough here?"
"They are not the kind of books I need."
"Nonsense!" said Old Miss. "Get your winter clothes if youwish,--though I am sure that Medway means now to send the Colonel moneyfor you,--but save the rest. It will come in useful some day. Some day,child, you'll be thinking about your marriage clothes."
"Luna and I came over the hill just now with Ralph Coltsworth,"remarked Captain Bob cheerfully, apropos of nothing. "He says he'sstudying hard--means to catch up at the University and be a credit tothe family."
Miss Serena was talented in taking offence at small things. She hadevolved the watch-and-chain idea and she thought it should havereceived more consideration. In addition she had the kind of memorythat always holds the wrong things. "Books! I suppose you mean a kindof books that we certainly don't have many of here!--French novels andDarwin and the kind of books those two Northern women were reading thissummer! Even when you were a child--don't you remember, mother?--youhad a perfect talent for getting your hands on debasing literature! Isupposed you had outgrown it. I'm sure Mrs. LeGrand never encouragedit. A hundred dollars worth of books!--and I suppose you are to choosethem! Well, if I were father, I'd look over the list first."
"Aunt Serena," said Hagar, with a Spanish gravity and courtesy, "thereare times when I understand the most violent crimes.... Yes; I know youdon't know what I mean."
That was in August. September passed and part of October, and then,late in that month, Hagar went to New York.
Medway Ashendyne and his wife were travelling in the East. Next yearor the year after, they might, Medway wrote, be in America. In themeantime, Hagar must have advantages. He had not the least idea, hewrote his father, what kind of a person she was. Her letters wereformal, toneless and colourless to a degree. He hoped she had notinherited--But whatever she had inherited, she was, of course, hisdaughter, and he must take care of her, being now in a positionproperly to do so. His wife suggested, for the moment, a winter inNew York, properly chaperoned. The money would be forthcoming (therefollowed a memorandum of a handsome sum placed in bank to the Colonel'scredit). He could, he knew, leave it to his father and mother to seethat she _was_ properly chaperoned. His wife had thought of makingcertain suggestions, but upon talking it over together, they had cometo the conclusion that, at the moment, at least, it would be wisestnot to interfere with the Gilead Balm order and way of life. It wasadmirably suited, he judged, for a young girl's bringing up--muchbetter than the modern American way of doing things. Only in France--orthe Orient--was the _jeune fille_ really preserved.
The Colonel wrote to Mrs. LeGrand. Mrs. LeGrand returned one of herlong, fluent letters. First of all, congratulations that Hagar had cometo her senses about Mr. Laydon, then--"Now as to New York--"
Sylvie was going to New York too,--going to have singing lessons,for she had a very sweet voice, and every one agreed that it wouldbe a mistake not to give it the best training. The problem of how tomanage for Sylvie had received the following solution, and Mrs. LeGrandproffered it as a possible way to manage for Hagar also. There wasPowhatan Maine's family in New York--Powhatan himself and Bessie andtheir widowed daughter, Mrs. Bolt, with her two children. They livedwell, "in our quiet, homelike, Southern fashion, of course." Powhatanwas a solid lawyer in a solid firm. Sylvie had paid them a visit oncebefore, but of course this year it was a question of her being in NewYork for months and months. Now, ordinarily, the Maines would nothave heard of such a thing, but this disastrous year, with everybodyfailing, Powhatan had lost heavily in stocks and apparently they werehaving to economize. At any rate, Bessie was willing, just for thisyear, to take Sylvie under her wing and to let her pay for her roomand board. The Maines' house was a good, big one, and Mrs. LeGrandhad very little doubt that, just as a family favour, Bessie would bewilling to receive Hagar on similar terms. Bessie would certainlystipulate that the arrangement should be a quiet one, just betweenthemselves, and that Hagar, no less than Sylvie, should be regardedmerely as a young friend and connection, visiting her that winter.This understood, Bessie would look after the two as if they were herown. It was fortunate that neither Sylvie nor Hagar was "out," for theMaines were in mourning. But Powhatan and Bessie knew a great manypeople, and the two girls would probably see company enough. "Youremember Bessie, don't you? Good-nature itself! Nothing pleases herso much as having people happy about her." Then, too, there would beRachel Bolt. She could take Hagar to the theatre and to concerts andthe picture galleries and where not. "The Maines are all members ofSt. Timothy's--the Bishop's nephew's church, you know."--In fine, Mrs.LeGrand advised that the Ashendynes write at once to Mrs. Maine. It wasdone and Hagar's winter soon arranged for.
New York!... She had dreamed of great cities, but she had neverseen one. The night on the sleeping-car--her first night on anysleeping-car--she stayed awake and watched through the window theflying clouds and the moon and stars between, and, underneath, thefugitive landscape. There was a sense of exaltation, of rushing onwith the rushing world. Now and again, as the train creaked and swung,and once, as another roared past, there came moments of fascinatedterror. Rushing train and rushing world, all galloping wildly throughthe night, and in front, surely some bottomless precipice!... She andSylvie had a section, and though Hagar had offered to take the upperberth, it had ended in their having it put back and sleeping together.Now Hagar sat up in bed, and looked at the sleeping Sylvie. There was adim, blended light, coming from the lamp above and the moonlight nightwithout. Sylvie lay, half-uncovered, fast asleep, her hair in glossybraids, her pretty face, shell-tinted, sunk in the pillow, her breastquietly rising and falling. Hagar had an intense, impersonal, abstractpassion for beauty wherever and in whatever form it resided. Now, limbsbeneath her, her arms nursing each other, she sat and regarded thesleeping Sylvie with a pure, detached admiration. The train roared intoa station; she drew the window curtain until it roared out again, thenbared the window, and sat and watched the flying dark woods and thesilver surface of some wide water. New York--New York--New York....
Sylvie was a travelled lady. Sylvie had been to New York before. Shehad been to Florida and New Orleans and Niagara and Saratoga. Shecould play sweetly, not arrogantly,--Sylvie was not arrogant, except,perhaps, a little when it came to good looks,--the part of guide andmentor to Hagar. In the Jersey City station she kept a reassuring touchupon Hagar's arm down the long platform to the gate. "The New YorkFerry has a sign over it. Even if they don't meet us, I know how tomanage--Oh, there's Cousin Powhatan!"
It was a pearl-grey morning, going over, with a mist that was almosta fog hanging upon the water and making unearthly and like a miragethe strange sky-line before them. There were not so many h
uge, tallbuildings as there would be in after years, but they were beginning.The mist drifted, opening and closing, and to the mist was added thefairy garlands and pennants of white steam. Out of the luminous hazegrew white ferryboats and low barges, and here passed an opalescentshape like a vast moth wing. "A sailboat," said Hagar under her breath.The air was chill and clinging. Sylvie and Captain Powhatan Mainepreferred to sit and talk within the cabin, but Hagar remained outside.She stood with her hands lightly touching the rail, her eyes wide.Another sailboat slipped past. She turned and looked along the wideningwater, oceanward, and in a rift of the grey pearl clouds she seemed tosee, at a great distance, a looming woman shape. A salt odour filledher nostrils. "Oh, the sea! I smell the sea!"
The ferryboat glided into its slip, the bell rang, the chains rattled;out resonantly, from the lower deck, passed the great dray horses andheavy wagons; the passengers disembarked; a crowd hurried, in column,toward the Elevated. Half-bewildered, Hagar found herself mounting longflights of steps, passing through a gateway, entering a train, whichat once, with a shriek, began to run upon a level with second-storywindows. She saw dingy red-brick factory and tenement buildings close,close to her face; fire-escapes and staring windows with squalid orhorribly tawdry rooms beyond; on the window-sills spindling, starvedplants in ancient, battered tin cans, children's faces, women leaningout, children, children, children--"We have to go quite far uptown,"said Captain Maine. "Well, and what do you girls want to see first?"
He was a short, stout, gallant gentleman with a fierce grey mustache.Sylvie talked for both. Hagar nodded her head or commanded a smilewhen manners seemed to indicate it, but her mind was dealing with anightmare. "Was this--was this New York?" Once she turned her headtoward their escort, but something told her that if, indeed, she askedthe absurd question, he would say, "Why, yes! Don't you like it?"
Where were the domes and colonnades? Where the cleanness andfairness--where the order and beauty? Where was the noble, great city?Where were the happy people? She tried to tell herself, first, that allthese were there, that this was but a chance ugly street the train wasgoing through ... but they went through it for miles, and she caughtglimpses of so many other streets that seemed no better! And then shetried to tell herself, that, after all, she must have known it would besomething like this. She had seen before, on a small scale, in a smallcity, decrepit buildings and decrepit people of all ages. Poverty,dirt, and disease.... One city would be like another, only larger....She must have known. But knowing did not seem to have helped--orperhaps she had never really seen, nor thought it out. She was tiredand overstrained; a horror came upon her. She looked through a windowinto a room hung with a ghastly green, torn, and soiled paper. Men andwomen were working in it, bent over a long table, working haggardlyand fast, the shirts of the men, the bodices of the women, open atthe throat. Another window--a wretched, blowsy woman and a young manwith a bloated, unwholesome face;--another, and an old, old woman witha crying child, whom she struck;--then mere blank windows or windowswith starveling geraniums in broken pots; and beneath and around andeverywhere voices and heavy wheels, and the train rushing on upon itstrestle high in the air. Something black and cold and hopeless rolledover Hagar's soul. It was as though the train were droning, droning, amelancholy text.
"Hagar! What is the matter? You looked as though you were going tofaint!"
But Hagar wasn't going to faint. She pulled herself together. "No, no!It isn't anything! I was tired, I suppose--"
"Mustn't faint in New York," said Captain Maine genially. "You'll getrun over if you do."
On went the Elevated, and the walls of windows grew vaguely better--orthe shock of surprise was over--or the armoured being withinshouldered away a hampering unhappiness. _New York--New York--NewYork!_ Hope and vision sprang afresh. The windows and the houses inwhich they were set decidedly bettered. There were distant glimpses offine buildings, spires of churches, trees that must be in a park. Thesun, which had been all morning hidden by clouds, came suddenly forthand flooded the world with October gold. The gulf between what she haddreamed and what she saw perceptibly narrowed, though it was stillthere and though it still ached. "Here we are!" said Captain Maine,and folded his newspaper. Out of the train upon a platform--then morestairs, this time running downward--then a block or two of walking, inthe crisp air, then a very different street from those the train hadrushed through and very different houses. "Here we are!" said theirhost again, and they mounted a brownstone stoop. A coloured maid openedthe door--they passed into a narrow reception hall with the Maines'ancestral tall clock standing by the stair and on the opposing wallsengravings of Southern generals; thence, through folding doors, into acool, deep parlour and the embrace of Mrs. Maine.
Mrs. Maine was large and sleepy and quiet and dark, with a nebulouspersonality. Everybody who knew her said that she was extremelygood-natured, while a few added that she was too indolent to beirascible, and a fair number called it native kindliness andadduced a range of respectable incidents. No one ever hinted atintellectuality, and she certainly did not shine in conversation; shewas not, apparently, socially ambitious, and nobody could be said totake less trouble--and yet a number of people--chiefly Southernersdwelling in New York, the more decorative and prosperous of St.Timothy's congregation, and Powhatan Maine's legal associates andacquaintances--exhibited a certain partiality for the Maine house.Powhatan told good war stories and darky stories; almost always thereappeared something good to eat, with a Southern name and flavour; andMrs. Maine was as unobtrusive and comfortable to get on with as theall-pervasive ether. There was nothing riotous nor especially buoyantin the house; it was rather dim and dull and staid; but people who hadbegun to visit the Maines twenty years before visited still. Perhapsmost of them were dim and dull and staid themselves. Others, perhaps,liked the occasional salt of an environment which was not habituallytheirs. The house itself was deep and for a New York dwellingwide, cool, high-ceilinged, and dark, with a gleam of white marblemantel-pieces and antiquated crystal chandeliers, with some ancientVirginia furniture and some ebony and walnut abominations of the'seventies. Everything was a little worn, tending toward shabbiness;but a shabbiness not extreme, as yet only comfortable, though with aglance toward a more helpless old age. There were a fair number ofbooks, some portraits and good, time-yellowed engravings. There werefour coloured servants beside the nurse for Mrs. Bolt's children. Thechildren, Charley and Betty, were pudgy, quaint elves of three andfive. Charley, the younger, had been blind from birth.
That evening, Rachel Bolt came before bedtime into Hagar's room. "MayI sit and talk a little while? Sylvie and mother and father and DickDabney, who came in a little while ago, are playing duplicate whist."
"Of course you may. It's such a pleasant room you've given me."
Rachel turned in her chair and regarded it from wall to wall somewhatcynically. "Well, I suppose at the first blush it may seem so. It is,however, rather shabby. We meant to do it over again this year, buttimes are so tremendously hard that we gave it up with a lot of otherthings.--What I really came in for was to ask what kind of things andplaces and people you'd like to see this winter. It's agreed with yourgrandfather that I'm to take you around."
"It is good of you to be willing to do it--"
"Oh, I'm to be paid for doing it! I'll be spinning my springoutfit and Betty's and Charley's while we gallivant. But I do notmean"--she laughed--"that it is going to be hard or disagreeable work,unless"--she ended coolly--"you want to go to places where I don't wantto go."
"To those places," said Hagar seriously, "I will go alone."
"Then," said Rachel, "we will get along very well.... What do you wantto do anyhow?"
"I want to feel around for a while. And I'd like to be shown how to goand how to manage, just at first. But after that I hope you won't mindif I just wander about by myself." She lifted her long arms above herhead in a gesture, harassed and restless. "I think there are people towhom solitude means as much as food or sleep."
"Do y
ou want me to get up and say good-night?" asked Rachel promptly.
Hagar gave a warm little laugh. "Not yet awhile. I'm not that greedyand sleepy. I strive to be temperate.... What I want to see firstare pictures. I have never seen any--barring those at home and atEglantine."
"Well, we can go to the Metropolitan to-morrow."
"I should like that. Then I want to hear music. I have never heard anyto count."
"There'll be concerts and the opera later. The opera is, of course,very expensive, but I understand that your father wants you to dopretty well what you wish. If you don't mind being high up, we can doa good deal of it reasonably."
"Then let us go high up."
"At the moment there aren't even concerts. We might find an organrecital, and on Sundays there is music in the park."
"Day after to-morrow is Sunday. I'll go and hear that. Then I want togo to the theatre."
"Most of that will come later, too. Are you fond of the theatre?"
"I don't know. That is why I want to go--to find out. I have never seenbut three plays."
"What an awfully lucky person! What were they?"
"One--I was a little girl and I went to Richmond for two days--was'Maria Stuart.' Janauschek played it. The next was in the small townnear where I live. It was rather terribly done, I believe, and it keptme awake for a week afterward. I was fifteen. It was 'The CorsicanBrothers.' Then"--said Hagar, "last winter I saw 'Romeo and Juliet.'...They didn't seem like plays. They seemed like life,--sometimes terribleand sometimes beautiful. I want to go to find out if it is always so."
"It isn't," said Rachel. "You are inexperienced."
"There is a natural history museum here, isn't there?"
"Yes, a large one."
"I want to go there. I want to see malachite and chrysoprase and jade,and the large blue butterflies and the apes up to man and the models ofthe pterodactyl and dinosaur and a hundred other things."
"Until now," said Rachel, "I have thought that Charley and Betty hadthe largest possible appetites. What else?"
"Am I tiring you?"
"Not a bit. Besides, it is business. I came in here to get a _catalogueraisonn?_.--It's rather curious that you should have such a passion forminerals and species and prehistoric things."
"Is it? Well, I have it," said Hagar. She put her arms again behind andabove her head. "If you want to know All, you must live All--though inhonour preferring one to the other."
Beside her, on the little table by the hearth, was a paper and pencil.Suddenly she unlocked her hands, bent over and drew a sheet of paperfrom under the book with which she had covered it on Rachel's entrance."I was trying to write something when you came in. It is rough andcrude,--just the skeleton,--but it's something like what I mean andwhat I want." She held it out; then, with a deprecating gesture and ashy flush, "If it doesn't bore you--"
Rachel took it and read.
"God that am I, I that am God, Mass and Motion and Psyche Inextricably wound! We began not; we end not; And a sole purpose have we,-- Intimately to know And exalted to taste, In wisdom and beauty Perpetually heightening, The Absolute, Infinite, One Substance Who Is! In joy to name In wisdom to know All flames and all fruits From that hearth and that tree! To name infinite modes, Eternally to name, To name as we grow, And grow as we name. And stars shall arise, Beyond stars that we see, And self-knowledge shall come, To me in God, God in me--"
Rachel put it down. "I'll think that out a little. We've never had anyone in the house just like you."
"I thought," said Hagar, "that Sunday morning I would go to theCatholic Cathedral. If you tell me the way I can find it--"
"You are not a Catholic?"
"No. But I have always wanted so to smell incense.--
"'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll--'"
"You are rich in differences," said Rachel. "I hope we'll get alongwell together. I think we will. Is there anything else you can think ofat the moment?"
"I want to see the Salvation Army."
"That may be managed, if you are willing to take it in detachments."
"And I want--oh, I want to go somewhere where I can really see theocean!"
"I'll get father to take us down to Brighton Beach. It isn't too late,this mild weather."
"This morning," said Hagar, "we came through--miles, I think--of placeswhere poor people live. I want to see all that again."
"It isn't very edifying. But we can get under the wing of someassociation and do a little mild slumming."
"I want to go down there alone and often--"
"That," said Rachel, "is impossible."
"Why?"
"It is not done. Besides, it would be dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
"You might take any disease--or get into any kind of trouble. There areall sorts of traps."
"Why should they set traps?"
"Oh, all kinds of horrors happen.--Just look at the newspapers! Agirl--alone--you'd be subjected to insult."
Hagar sighed. "I've always been alone. And I don't see that we are notsubjected to insult everywhere. I could never feel more insulted than,sometimes, I have been at home."
Rachel, turning in her chair, darted at her a lightning-like glance ofcomprehension. "Well, that's true enough, though I never heard it putinto words before! It's true.... But it remains that with our presentconventions, you must have company when you go to see how the otherhalf lives."
"The other half?"
"It's a term: One half of us doesn't know how the other half lives."
"I see," said Hagar. "Well, I'll be glad when I get out of fractions."
Both laughed. A kind of soft, friendly brightness prevailed in thethird-floor back bedroom. There was no open fire, but they sat oneither side of the little squat table, and the reading-lamp with ayellowy globe did the job of a common luminary. The light reachedout to each and linked them together. Rachel Bolt was small and darkand slender. Much of the time she passed for a cynical and rathermelancholy young woman; then, occasionally, sheaths parted likeopening wings and something showed that was vivid and deep and duskilyluminous. The next moment the rift might close, but there had beenreceived an impression of the inward depths. She had been married ateighteen, her first child born a year later. She was now twenty-five,and had been a widow for two years. In worldly wisdom and _savoirfaire_, and in several emotional experiences she was well ahead ofHagar, but in other respects the brain ways of the younger in yearswere deeper and older. Whatever differences, their planes were nearenough for a comprehension that, continually deepening, passed beforelong into the country of lasting friendship.