CHAPTER XIX
ALEXANDRIA
"My master," said the valet, "is fond of Cairo and detests Alexandria.As soon as he is able to be moved, if not sooner, he will wish to bemoved."
"He is not able now," said Hagar.
"No, Miss. He is still delirious."
"The doctor says that he is very ill."
"Yes, Miss. But if I may make so bold, I think Mr. Ashendyne willrecover. I have lived with him a long time, Miss."
"What is your name?"
"Thomson, Miss."
The Colonel entered. "He didn't know me. Nor would I have known him.He is pretty badly knocked to pieces.--What have you got there? Tea? Iwant coffee." Thomson moved to the bell, and gave the order to the Arabwho appeared with the swiftness of a genie. "Is there anything else,sir?"
"No, not now."
"The English papers are upon the small table, sir." And Thomson glidedfrom the room.
The Colonel looked about him. "Humph! Millionaires fix themselvesluxuriously."
"I keep seeing her," said Hagar. "Her body lying drowned there."
The Colonel glanced at her. "Pull yourself together, Gipsy! Whateveryou do, don't get morbid."
"I won't," Hagar answered. "I'm like you there, grandfather. I hate it.But it isn't morbidness to think a little of her."
The Arab brought the coffee. "Turkish coffee!" said the Colonel, notwithout relish in his voice. "I always wanted to taste--" He did so,appreciatively. "Ah, it's good--" He leaned back in the deep wickerchair and gazed upon the latest attendant. "And what may be your name?"
The figure spread its hands and said something unintelligible. "Humph!Comment vous nommez-vous?"
"Mahomet, Monsieur."
"We've come, Gipsy," said the Colonel, "far from old Virginia. Well,I always wanted to travel, but I never could. I had a sense ofresponsibility."
It struck Hagar with the force of novelty that what he said was true.He had such a sense. There had always been times when she did notlike her grandfather, and times when she did. But during the last twoweeks, filled with a certain loneliness and strangeness for them both,she had felt nearer to him than ever before. There had chanced to beon the boat few people whom he found congenial. He had been forcedto fall back upon his granddaughter's companionship, and in doing sohe had made the discovery that the child had a mind. He liked mind.Of old, when he was most sarcastically harsh toward Maria, he hadyet grudgingly admitted that she had mind--only, which was the deepdamnation, she used it so wrongheadedly! But Gipsy--Gipsy wouldn'thave those notions! The Laydon matter had been just a foolish girl'saffair. She had been obstinate, but she had seen her mistake. As forRalph--Ralph would get her yet. The Colonel had been careful, in theirintercourse during the voyage, to bring forward none of her mother'snotions. He found that she knew really an amazing amount of geographyand history, that to a certain extent she followed public events, thatshe knew Byron and could quote Milton, and that though she had no Greek(he had forgotten most of his), she was familiar with translationsand could not only give a connected account of the Olympian family,but could follow in their windings the minor myths. The long voyage,the hours when they reclined side by side in their steamer chairs,or with the country need for exercise paced from prow to stern, andfrom stern to prow, taught him more about his granddaughter than haddone the years at Gilead Balm. She told him of the acceptance of "TheLame Duck" and the sending of "The Mortal," and he was indulgenttoward her prospects. "There have been women who have done very goodwork of a certain type. It's limited, but it's good of its kind. Asletter-writers they have always excelled. Of course, it isn't necessaryfor you to write, and in the Old South, at least, we've always ratherdeprecated that kind of thing for a woman."
The Colonel drank his thick coffee from its little metal cup withundeniable and undenied pleasure. He was not hypocritical, and he nevercanted. His only son lay in a large bedroom of this luxurious suite,maimed and hardly conscious, and whether he would live or die no oneknew. But the Colonel had never wept over Medway in the past and hewas not going to weep now. He drank his coffee leisurely, and when itwas done Mahomet took salver and cup away. Rising, the Colonel walkedto one of the windows and stood looking out at a bougainvill?a-coveredwall, a shaggy eucalyptus tree, and a seated beggar, fearful to theeye. It was afternoon, and they had been in Alexandria since eighto'clock. "I sent a cable to your grandmother. The doctors think he'sholding his own, but I don't know. It looks pretty bad. They've got anurse from a hospital here,--two, in fact,--and that man Thomson isinvaluable.... I've seen, too, this morning, before they let me intothe room, his wife's brother. It seems that he was in London at thetime, and came on and has very properly waited here for our arrival.We walked through the Place Mahomet Ali, and he took me to a verygood club, where we sat and talked.... Her will--it's rather curious.I suppose Medway, if he lives, will be disappointed. And yet, withcare, he'll have enough." The Colonel laughed, rather grimly. "We'dthink in Virginia, that a million was a good livelihood, but standardsare changing, and doubtless he's been feeling many times that amountbetween his fingers. It occurred to me that they must have quarrelled.It's like a woman to fling off and do a thing like that hastily.Her brother says, however, that he believes they were really happytogether. He fancies that she had some feminine scruple or other asto the way her first husband obtained his wealth,--as the world goes,entirely honourable transactions, I believe,--and that she had an ideaof 'restoring' it. She made this last will in London, just before theystarted on this long trip that's ended so. It's been read. There's astring of bequests to servants and so on. She leaves just one million,well invested, to Medway. The rest, and it's an enormous rest, goesinto a fund, for erecting model lodging-houses and workmen's dwellings.Philanthropy mad!" said the Colonel. "Her brother's got, I understand,some millions of his own, and he could afford to smile. Also, he's beensupposing for a year that it would all go to Medway. Well, that's whereMedway is--if he lives. Fifty thousand or so a year," said the Colonel,regarding the beggar, "is not an income to be despised. I should behappy if I saw, each year, in clear money, an eighth as much."
There came a knock at the door and the physician entered. He was anAmerican, a young, fresh-coloured man with an air of strength andcapability. He had lunched with the two Ashendynes, and now came in asone at home. He looked graver now than then; there was a plain cloudupon his brow. "I don't believe he can hold out," he said abruptly."He has a magnificent constitution, and his body is making a splendidfight, but--It may come at any minute with a quick collapse. Of course,I'm not saying that it will be so. But if Miss Ashendyne wishes to seehim, or to be with him if it should happen to be the end--"
Hagar turned deadly pale. The Colonel, not usually considerate ofher or given to thinking that she needed consideration, was somehowdifferent to-day. "If you'd rather not, Gipsy--? Indeed, I think thatyou had better not. It isn't as though you had been always with him."He turned to the physician. "She has seen very little of her fathersince baby-hood."
But Hagar had steadied herself and risen from her chair. "Thank you,grandfather, but I would rather go with you." It was almost sunset,and the splendid western light flooded the chamber where the sick manlay. He lay low upon the pillows, with only a light covering. Therehad been, beside injuries to spine and limb, and some internal hurt,a bad blow over the head. This was bandaged; fold after fold of gauzewrapped around forehead and crown. "Oh," thought Hagar, "it is like thewhite helmet in that dream!" But the features below were not flushedwith health; they were grey and drawn. The second physician, standingat the bed-head, lifted his hand from the pulse and moved to the sideof the first. "A little stronger." The nurse placed a chair for Hagar.Thomson, at the windows, raised the jalousies higher, and the lightevening breeze blew through the room. "It may or it may not be," saidthe first doctor in a low voice to the Colonel. "If he pulls throughto-night, I'll say he wins."
The amber, almost red, light of the sun bathed the bed. When the sunsank, a violet light covered it. When
the short twilight was gone, andthe large, mild stars shone out, they brought shaded lamps, and the bedlay half in that light and half in the shadow. In the room, throughthe slow passing hours, hushed, infrequent movements took place, thedoctors relieving each other in the watch by the bed, the night nursearriving, the giving of stimulants, whispered consultations by thewindow. The adjoining room was prepared for rest and relaxation; therewas a table with bread and cold meat and wine. The Colonel came andwent, noiseless as a shadow, but a restless shadow. Once or twiceduring the night his touch upon her shoulder or his hand beckoning fromthe doorway drew Hagar forth. "You'd better rest, child. Here, drinkthis wine!" Each time she stayed half an hour or so, either in theroom or out upon the balcony which gave upon a garden, but then shestole back into the bedroom.
She sat in a big chair which she had drawn aside and out of the way.She could, however, see the bed and the figure upon it; not clearly,because the lights were low, but dimly. She rather felt than saw it;it was as though a sixth sense were busy. She sat very still. Herfather.... Through her mind, automatically, without any consciouswilling, drifted words and images that spoke of father and child. Itmight be a Bible verse, it might be a line from a younger poet, itmight be an image from some story or history. Father and child--fatherand daughter--father and daughter.... To sit and see her fatherdie, and to feel no deep sorrow, no rending sense of companionshipdeparting, no abject, suffocating pulsing of a stricken heart, nolifted hope and faith or terror for him, no transcending sense ofself-relinquishment, while the loved one flew farther and swifter andhigher out of her sight, away from this life's low level.... She couldnot feel any of that. As little as the Colonel did she believe in orpractise cant. She knew that she could not feel it thus, and knew why.But there was a great forlornness in sitting there and watching thisstranger die.
She tried to strengthen the faint memories that the past held. Was shefive or six years old the last time she had seen him? The distinctestimage was of underneath the cedars at Gilead Balm. There was a shawlspread upon the grass. Her father was lying on it, his hat tiltedover his eyes. There was a book beside him. She had been gatheringdandelions, and she came and sat down on the edge of the shawl andopened the book. She thought every book had pictures, but there werenone in that one. Then he had waked up and laughed at her, and said,"Come here!"--It flashed into her consciousness, from where it had lainunrecalled all these years, just what he had said. He had said, "Comehere, Miss Ugly, Ill-omened Name!" She had gone, and in playing withher he had accidentally burned her finger with his lighted cigar. Andthen--it came to her with an effect of warmth and sunshine, and witha feeling of wanting to laugh, with tears in her eyes--he had beenbeautifully, charmingly shocked and apologetic. He had taken her awayand made Old Miss bandage the finger, and then he had shouldered herand carried her into the orchard and broken boughs of apple blossomsfor her and told her "Jack and the Beanstalk." ... That was almost allshe could remember; or if there were one or two less agreeable things,she would not remember those now. She tried to keep the warmth abouther heart; on the whole, aided by human pity for the broken form uponthe bed, she succeeded better than she could have dreamed.
The man upon the bed!--Outside the fatherhood, outside the physicalrelation between them--there he was, a human being with death hoveringabove. It was easier to think of him just as a fellow-being; she laidhold of that thought and kept it. A fellow-mortal--a fellow-mortal.With a strange sense of relief, she let the images and words and thepainful straining for some filial feeling pass from her soul. She didnot know why she should feel toward him filially; he had not, likeher mother, suffered to give her life; he had probably never thoughtof her; she had not been to him the concern in the matter. Nor hardlysince had he acted parentally toward her. With a wry humour she hadto concede the winter in New York, the summer at the New Springs, butit hardly seemed that the sacrifice could have been great, or that theneed for gratitude was extreme. Her soul rose against any hypocrisy.She could not and she would not try to say, "Dear father--dear father!"The vision of her mother rose beside her.... But just to think of himas a human being--she could do that; a man lying there on the knifeedge of the present, with the vast, unplumbed gulf before him.... Thatdream of the blue sea and the palm trees and the low pale-colouredhouses returned to mind, but she put it from her somewhat shudderingly.He had looked so abounding in life, so vivid and vital, with the whitehat like a helmet!... A fellow-mortal, lying there, helpless andsuffering....
At three in the morning the physician in charge, who had been sittingfor some time beside the bed, rose and moved away. He nodded his headto his fellow. Hagar caught the satisfaction in the gesture evenbefore, in passing her chair, he paused to say just audibly, "I thinkyour father will recover." A short time passed, and then the Coloneltouched her arm. "They think it safe for us to go. He is stronger.Come! They'll call if there is any need, but they don't think therewill be."
Going, she stopped for a moment close beside the bed. She had not beenthis near before. Medway lay there, with his head swathed in bandages,with his lips and chin unshorn, with no colour now in his cheeks, withhis eyes closed. Hagar felt the sudden smart of tears between her ownlids. The gold thread of the dandelion day tied itself to the naturalhuman pity and awe. Her lips trembled. "Father!" she said, in thelowest of whispers. Her hand moved falteringly until, for the lightestmoment, it rested upon his.
In the outer room the physician joined them. "He'll still have to fightfor it, and there may be setbacks. It's going to be a weary, long,painful siege for him, but I don't believe he's going to die. Indeed,I think that, except in the one respect, we'll get him back to being awell man with a long life before him."
"And that respect?"
"I'm afraid, Colonel Ashendyne, that he'll never walk again. If hedoes, it will be with crutches and with great difficulty."
When, half an hour later, Hagar opened the door of her own room,the dawn was coming. It was a comfortable bedroom, large, cool, andhigh-pitched, and it, too, had a balcony. The bed invited; she wasdeadly tired; and yet she doubted if she could sleep. She stood inthe middle of the room, her hands over her eyes, then, a littlestumblingly, she went out upon the balcony. It was a small place,commanding the east. There was a chair and a little table on which youcould rest your arms, and your head upon them, sideways so that youcould see the sky. It was just grey light; there were three palm treesrustling, rustling. After a while purple came into the sky, and thenpale, pale gold. The wind fell, the palms stood still, the gold wideneduntil all the east was gold. She saw distant, strange, flat roofs, adistant dome and slender towers, all against the pale, pale gold. Theair was cool and unearthly still. Her head upon her arm, her face veryquiet, her eyes open upon the deepening light, she stayed until thegardeners came into the garden below.