CHAPTER XXII
HAGAR IN LONDON
"I have been re-reading Humboldt," said Medway Ashendyne. "Whatdo you say, Gipsy, to risking a South American Revolution?Venezuela--Colombia--Sail from New York in September--and if you wantedten days at Gilead Balm--"
Their drawing-room looked pleasantly out over gardens; indeed, soclosely came the trees, there was a green and shimmering light inthe room. It was May, and the sounds of the London streets floatedpleasantly in at the open windows with the pleasant morning breeze.The waiter had taken away Medway's breakfast paraphernalia. Hagarhad breakfasted much earlier. Thomson stood at the back of the roomarranging upon a small table, which presently would be moved withinreach of Medway's hand, smoking apparatus, papers, magazines, and whatnot. That eight-years-past prolonged sojourn and convalescence in Egypthad produced a liking for Mahomet, and Medway had annexed him as heannexed all possible things that he liked and that could serve him.Mahomet, speaking English now, but still in the costume of the East,had just brought in a pannier of flowers. They were all over the room,in tall vases. "Too many," said Hagar's eyes; but Medway who, when hewas in search of the rarefied pleasure of adventure and novelty instrange and barbarous places, could be as ascetic as a red Indian onthe warpath, loved, when he rocked in the trough of the waves, to rockin a bower.
"Cartagena would be our port. There's a railroad, I believe, toCalamar. Then up the Magdalena by some kind of a steamboat to Giradot.Then get to Bogot? as best we might. There's an interesting life there,eight thousand feet above the sea, with schools and letters, andgovernments in and governments out, and cool mountain water runningdownwards through the city, and the houses built low because of theearthquakes. Let us go up the Magdalena and across to Bogot?, Gipsy!"
He sat in the wheel-chair he had himself designed, a wonderfully lightand graceful affair,--considering,--with wonderful places alongside andbeneath for wonderful things. His crutches were there, slung alongside,ready to his hand, and wicker detachable receptacles for writing-thingsand sketching-block and pencils and the book he was reading and soforth. Where he travelled now, the wheel-chair must travel. He was goodwith crutches for a hundred paces or two; then he must sit down andgather force for the next hundred. He suffered at times--not at allconstantly--a good deal of pain. But with all of this understood, heyet looked a vigorous person,--fresh, hale, well-favoured, with not agrey hair,--a young man still.
"Bogot?," he said, "An archiepiscopal see--universities, libraries, anda botanic garden. Shut-in and in-growing meridional culture, temperedby revolutions. By all means let us go to Bogot?, Gipsy!"
Hagar smiled, sat without speaking, waiting, her eyes upon Thomsonputting the last touches to the table, and Mahomet thrustinglong-stemmed irises into the vases, the faces of both discreetlymasking whatever interest they might feel in the proposed itinerary.
When, after another minute or two, they were gone from the room, "Wereyou waiting for them to go? Why, who keeps anything from Thomson? Heknows my innermost soul. I told him this morning I was thinking ofSouth America."
Hagar rose, and with her hands behind her head, began slowly to pacethe large room. "Bogot? _qua_ Bogot? is all right. You've the surestinstinct, of course, when it comes to matching your mood with yourplace. You're a marvel there, as you are in so many ways, father! AndThomson and Mahomet would like it, too, I think."
"Do you mean that you won't like it?"
"No. I should like it very much. But I am not going, father."
Medway made an impatient movement, "We have had this before--"
"Yes, but not so determinedly.... Why not agree that the battle isover? It _is_ over."
"And you rest the conqueror?"
"In this--yes."
"I could see," said Medway, "some point in it if the existence you leadwith me made the fulfilment of your undoubted talent--your genius,perhaps--impossible. But you write wherever we go. You work steadily."
"Yes," said Hagar, "but the work by which you live is not all of life."
"It seems to me that you have touched life at a good many points inthese eight years."
"Being with you," said Hagar, "has been a liberal education." Shelaughed with soft, deliberate merriment, but she meant what shesaid. From a slender green vase she took an iris, and coming to thewheel-chair knelt down and drew the long stalk through the appropriatebuttonhole. "You must have as large a bouquet as that!" she said. "Yes,a university and a training-ship! I can never be sufficiently grateful!"
They both laughed. "Well, you've paid your way!" he said; "literallyand metaphorically. I suppose two gratitudes cancel each other--"
"Leaving an understanding friendship." She grew graver. "A good deal oflove, too. I want you to realize that." She laughed again. "I do notalways approve you, you know, but, thank God! I can love without alwaysapproving!"
Medway nodded. "I like a tolerant woman."
She rose and stood, regarding him with a twisted smile, affectionateand pitying. "I think that you are a fearfully selfish man--to quoteStevenson, quoted by Henley, 'an unconscious, easy, selfish person.'And I think that, of your own brand, you have grit and pluck andstamina for twenty men. There's no malice or envy in you, and you'reintellectually honest, and you can be the best company in the world. Iam very fond of you."
"Aren't you the selfish person not to be willing to go to Bogot??"
"Perhaps--perhaps--" said Hagar Ashendyne, "but I am not willing."
"What is it that you do want?"
"That is the first time you have asked me that.... Wandering is good,but it is not good for all of life. I want to return to my own countryand to live there. I want to grow in my native forest and serve in myown place."
"To live at Gilead Balm with Bob and Serena?"
"No; I do not mean that precisely." Hagar pushed back her heavy hair."I haven't thought it out perfectly. But it has grown to be wrong tome, personally, to wander, wander forever like this--irresponsible,brushing life with moth wings.... If I saw any end to it ... but I donot--"
"And you wish to cut the painter? This comes," said Medway, "of thedamned modern independence of women. If you couldn't write--couldn'tearn--you'd trot along quietly enough! The pivotal mistake was lettingwomen learn the alphabet."
"I could always have taken a position as housemaid," said Hagarserenely. "You can't make me angry, and so get the best of me. Andyou like me better, knowing the alphabet, and there's no use in yourdenying it.... If only you would conceive that it were possible for youto return to America, to take a house, to _live_ there. And still youcould travel--sometimes with me, sometimes without me--travel often ifyou pleased and far and wide.... Would it be so distasteful?"
"Profoundly so," said Medway. "It is idle to talk of it. I should bebored to extinction.--What is your alternative?"
"I shall be glad to spend three months out of every year with you."
"Is that your last word?"
"Yes."
"Suppose you do not begin the arrangement until next year? Then we canstill go to Bogot?."
"Are you so wild to go to Bogot??"
"All life," said Medway, "is based upon compromise."
Hagar, pacing to and fro, in her soft dull-green cotton with itsfine deep collar of valenciennes, stopped now before the purpleirises and now before the white. "Had I not appeared by your bedsidein Alexandria, eight years ago, had I not been at hand during thatconvalescence for you to grow a little fond of, you would have, allthese years, taken Thomson and Mahomet and gone to every place wherewe have gone, just the same,--just the same,--and with, I hardlydoubt, just as full enjoyment. If you had not liked me, you would,with the entirest equanimity, have bidden me good-bye and seen mereturn with grandfather to Gilead Balm, and you would have travelledon, finding and making friends, acquaintances, and servants as you doto so remarkable a degree, missing not one station or event. If I diedto-day, you would do every proper thing--and in the autumn proceed toBogot?."
"Granting all that," said Medway, "it
remains that I find and havefound in the past a pleasure in your company.--I am going to remind youagain, Gipsy, that all life is compromise."
Hagar, at the window, in the green and shimmering light like the bottomof the sea, leaned her forehead against the sash and looked across intothe leafy gardens. Children were there, playing and calling. A younggirl passed, carrying smart bandboxes; then an old woman, stooping,using a cane, with her a great dog and a young woman in the dress of anurse. The soft rumble and crying of the city droned in together witha bee that made for the nearest flower. Hagar turned. "I will go withyou for another year, father, but after that, I will go home."
"No end of things," said Medway, "can happen in a year. I never cross abridge that's three hundred and sixty-five days away.--I'd advise you,if you haven't already done so, to read Humboldt."
He had a luncheon engagement, and at twelve vanished, Thomson andMahomet in attendance. This drawing-room, his large chamber and bath,an adjoining room with its own entrance for Thomson, quarters somewherefor Mahomet, were his; he paid for them. Hagar had two rooms, herbedroom, and a much smaller drawing-room. They were hers; she paidfor them. After the first two years she had assumed utterly her ownsupport. Medway had shrugged. "As you choose--"
Now, in her own rooms, she wrote through the early afternoon, then,rising, weighted the sheets of manuscript with a jade Buddha, put ona street dress, and went out into the divine, mild May weather. Sheknew people in London; she had acquaintances, engagements; but to-daywas free. She walked a long way, the air was so sweet, and at last shefound herself before Westminster Abbey. After a moment's hesitation shewent in. The great, crowded place was empty, almost, of the living; afew tourist figures flitted vaguely. She moved slowly, over the dustof the dead, between the dull, encumbering marbles, until she reacheda corner that she liked. Sitting here, her head a little thrown backagainst the stone, her soul opened the gates of Quiet. Rose and purplelight sifted down from the great windows; all about was the dim thoughtof dead kings and queens, soldiers, poets, men of the state. In theorgan loft some one touched the organ keys. A few chords were sounded,then the vibration ceased.
Hagar sat very still, her eyes closed. Her soul was searching,searching, not tumultuously, but quietly, quietly. It touched the past,here and there, and lighted it up; days and nights, dreams, ambitions,aspirations. Some dreams, some ambitions were in the way of fulfilment.Medway Ashendyne was within her; she, too, knew _Wanderlust_--"forto admire an' for to see." She had wandered and had seen. She wouldalways love to wander, crave for to see and to admire.... To write--toearn--to write.... Her lips curved into the slightest smile. The olddays and nights when she had wondered, wondered if that would ever cometo pass, if it ever _could_ come to pass! It had come to pass. To dobetter work, and always better work--that was a continuing impulse; butit was still and steady now, not fevered.... Her mind swept with widerwings. To know, to learn, to gain in content and in fineness, to gatherbeing, knowledge, wisdom, bliss--to gather, and then from her granaryto give the increase, that was the containing, the undying desire. Shehad a strange passion for the future, for all that might become. Shewas sensitive to the wild and scattered motion within the Whole, atomcolliding with atom, blind-man's-buff--all looking for the outlet intofreedom, power, glory; all groping, beating the air with unclutchinghands, missing the outlet, it was perhaps so small. She thought ofan expression of George Meredith's, "To see the lynx that sees thelight." To see it--to follow--to help find the opening.... What wasneeded was direction, and then unity of movement, the atoms in onestream, resistless. That, when the lightning bolt went across the sky,was what happened; corpuscles streaming freely, going side by side,not face against face, not energy dashing itself endlessly againstenergy. It was all one, physical and psychic; power lay in communityof understanding.... Public Opinion, community of understanding, mindsmoving in a like direction, power resulting, power to accomplish mightyand mightier things.... Then do your best to ennoble Public Opinion. Donot think whether your best is little or great; do your best....
She opened her eyes upon the light sifting down from the rose windows.It was shortening, the shaft; evening was at hand in the church of thegreat dead. Many who lay there had had within them a lynx that sawthe light and had tried to bring the mass of their being to follow;many had ennobled the world-mind, one this way and one that; each hadbrought to the vast granary his handful of wheat. Ruby and amethyst,the light lay athwart the pillars like an ethereal stair. The organisttouched the organ again. A verger came down the aisle; it was closingtime. Hagar rose and went out into what sunshine lay over London.