CHAPTER XXXIII
GILEAD BALM
The second letter from Old Miss came in February. The Colonel hadsuddenly failed and taken to his bed. Old Miss believed that he wouldget up again,--there was, she said, no reason why he shouldn't,--but inthe mean time there he lay. He was a little wandering in his mind, andhe had taken to thinking that Hagar was in the house, and a little girlstill, and demanding to see her. Old Miss suggested that she shouldcome to Gilead Balm.
She went at once. On the train, thundering south through a snowynight, she lay awake until half of her journey was over. Scenes andmoments, occurrences of the outer and inner life, went by her mindlike some endless, shifting tapestry. Childhood, girlhood, womanhood,work and play, the daily, material task and the inner lift, lift, andever-strengthening knowledge of the impalpable--that last was nottapestry; it was height and breadth and depth, and something more. Theold, wide travel came back to her; shifting gleams of Eastern cities,deserts, time-broken temples, mountains, vineyards, haunted groves,endless surrounding, azure, murmuring seas.... Medway, white-clothedand helmeted, in his rolling chair.... The whistle shrieked; thetrain stopped with a jar at some lighted station, then, regatheringits forces, rushed and roared on through the February night. Now itwas the last three years and more: they passed in panorama beforeher. Stages and stairways and scaffoldings by which the world-spiritmight mount an inch: ferments and leavens: voices telling of democracyand fair play and care for your neighbour's freedom as for your own,your woman-neighbour and your man-neighbour. Through her mind ran allthe enormous detail of the work being pursued over all the country;countless meetings, speeches, appeals, talks to a dozen gatheredtogether or to two or three; letters and letters and letters, pressand magazine utterances, organization, the difficult raising of money,legislative work, petitions, canvassing; drudgery in myriad detail,letters and letters, voice and pen.... And all the opposition--blindbigotry to be met, and a maniac fear of change, inertia, tradition,habit, the dead past's hand, cold and heavy--and all the interestedopposition, the things whose book the movement did not suit--and allthe lethargy of womankind itself.... And in the very camp, in the huge,chaotic movement itself, as in all the past's vast human movements,recurring frictions, antagonisms, small jealousies, flags set upby individuals, pacifications and smoothings, bringing compatiblestogether, keeping incompatibles apart.... A contending with outeroppositions and inner weaknesses, resisting discouragement, fightingcynicism, acknowledging the vast road to travel, keeping on.... Sheknew nothing that was at once so weak and so mighty as the WomanMovement. One who was deep within it might feel at times a vastweariness, impatience, and despair ... but deep within it you neverleft it. Here you dealt with clay that was so cold and lumpish itseemed that no generous idea could germinate within; here you dealtwith stuff so friable, light, and disintegrative that the thoughtwould come that it were better to cast it to the winds ... but you didnot; you comforted your soul with the very much that was noble, and youhoped for the other that was not yet noble, and you went on--went on.It was all you yourself--you had within you the intractable clay andthe stuff light as chaff, inconsequent; but you went on transmuting,lifting.... There was no other hope, no other course, deep down noother wish. So with the Woman Movement.... Another station. Hagarlooked out at the lights and the hurrying forms; then, as the trainroared into the white countryside, at what could be seen of the fieldsand hills and storm-bent trees. She was thinking now of Gilead Balm andher childhood and her mother. She seemed to lie again, close besideMaria, on the big, chintz-covered sofa. At last she slept, lying so.
Captain Bob and Lisa met her at the station, three miles from GileadBalm. Captain Bob had a doleful mien. "Oh, yes, the Colonel'sbetter--but I don't think he's so much better. He's getting old--andLisa and I are getting old, too, aren't we old girl?--old like Lunaand going away pretty soon like Luna. Well, Gipsy, you're lookingnatural--No, it's been an open winter down here--not much snow." He puther in the carriage, and they drove slowly to Gilead Balm, over theheavy country road.
Old Miss was well; Serena was well; Captain Bob himself had hadrheumatism, but he was better.--The Colonel didn't look badly; it wasonly that he didn't seem to want to get out of bed, and that everylittle while he set the clock back and rambled on about things andpeople--"It's creepy to hear him," said Captain Bob. "He thinks youngDr. Bude is old Dr. Bude, and he thinks that Maria is alive, and thatshe won't let you come into the room. And then it'll change like that,and he's just as much himself as he ever was--more so, in fact.--Hi,Li-sa! let that rooster alone--"
The house cedars showed over the brown hills. "Dr. Bude wanted OldMiss to get a trained nurse because somebody's got more or less towatch at night. But Old Miss wouldn't hear to it. She don't approve ofwomen training for nurses, so she's got young Phoebe and Isham's secondwife--and I think myself," said Captain Bob, "that I wouldn't want ayoung white woman that I couldn't order round."
Red brick and brown fields and the black-green of many cedars--here wasGilead Balm, looking just as it used to look of a February. The air wascold and still, the day a grey one, the smoke from the chimneys movingupward sluggishly. Miss Serena came down the porch steps and greetedHagar as she stepped from the carriage.
"Yes, your old room. Did you have a tiresome journey?--Is your trunkcoming? Then I'll send it up as soon as they bring it. Young Phoebe,you take Miss Hagar's bag up to her room. The fire's lighted, Hagar,and Mimy shall make you a cup of coffee. We're glad to see you."
The old room, her mother's and her own! Hagar had not been in it inwinter-time for a long while. When Phoebe was gone, she sat in thewinged chair by the fire and regarded the familiar wall-paper and theold, carved wardrobe and the four-poster bed and the sofa where Mariahad lain, and, between the dimity curtains at the windows, the winterlandscape. The fire was bright and danced in the old mahogany; the oldchintz covers were upon the chair and sofa--the old pattern, only thehues faded. Hagar rose, took off her travelling dress, bathed and puton a dark, silken dressing-gown. She took the pins from her hair andlet it stream; it was like Maria's. She stood for a moment, her eyesupon the pallid day, the rusty cedars without the window, then she wentto the chintz sofa and lay down in the firelight, piling the pillowsbehind her head, taking, half-consciously, the posture that oftenestin her memory she saw Maria take. Her mother was present with her;there came an expression into her face that was her mother's. Old Missknocked at the door, and entered without waiting for the "Come in!"
Hagar rose and embraced her grandmother; then Old Miss sat down in thewinged chair and her granddaughter went back to the sofa. The two gazedat each other. Hagar did not know that she looked to-day like Maria,and Old Miss did not examine the springs and sources of a mountinganger and sense of injury. She sat very straight, with her knitting inher hand, wearing a cap upon her smoothly parted hair, in which therewere yet strands of brown, wearing a black stuff skirt and low-heeledshoes over white stockings; comely yet, and as ever, authoritative.
"I am so very sorry about grandfather," said Hagar. "Uncle Bob thinkshe is better--"
"Yes, he is better. He will be well presently. I should not," said OldMiss coldly, "have written asking you to come but that Dr. Bude advisedit."
"I was very glad to come."
"Dr. Bude is by no means the man his father was. The age is degenerate.And so"--said Old Miss--"Sylvie Maine has taken the prize right fromunder your hand."
"Oh!" said Hagar. The corners of her lips rose; her look that had beenrather still and brooding broke into sunshine. "If you call it that!--Ihope that Ralph and Sylvie will be very happy."
"They will probably be extraordinarily happy. She is not one of yournew women. I detest," said Old Miss grimly, "your new women."
Silence. Hagar lay back against the pillows and she looked more andmore to Old Miss like Maria. Old Miss's needles clicked.
"When may I see grandfather?" asked Hagar, and she kept her voicefriendly and quiet.
"He is sleeping now. When he wakes
up, if he asks for you you may goin. I wouldn't stay long.--And what have you been doing this winter?"
"Various things, grandmother. Thomasine and I have been working prettyhard. Thomasine sent her regards to every one at Gilead Balm."
"If you hadn't thrown away Medway's million dollars you wouldn't havehad to work," said Old Miss. "Maria was perfectly spendthrift, and ofcourse you take after her.--What kind of work do you mean you have beendoing?"
"I have been writing, of course. And then other work connected withmovements in which I am interested."
Old Miss's needles clicked again! "Unsexing women and unsettling theminds of working-people. I saw a piece in a paper. Preposterous! Butit's just what Maria would have liked to have done."
Silence again; then Hagar leaned across and took up her grandmother'swork. "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 anyother 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 seeHagar."
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 sheshouldn't keep his grandchild from him. "I tell you, woman, Medway andI are going to use authority! The child's Medway's--Medway's next ofkin by every law in the land! He can take her from you, and, by God! heshall do it!"
"Father," said Miss Serena, "this is Hagar, grown up."
But the Colonel grew violently angry. "You are all lying!--a man'sfamily conspiring against him! That woman's my daughter-in-law--myson's wife, dependent on me for her bread and shelter and settingup her will against mine! And now she's all for keeping from me mygrandchild--she's hiding Gipsy in closets and under the stairs--Youhave 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 mosquesand the Place Mahomet Ali?"
"Why, exactly," said the Colonel. "Well, Gipsy, we always wanted totravel, didn't we? That dragoman seems to know his business--we'regoing down to Cairo to-day and out to see the pyramids. Want to comealong?"
Day followed day at Gilead Balm. Sometimes the Colonel's mind wanderedover the seas of creation, with the pilot asleep at the helm; sometimesthe pilot suddenly awoke, though it was not apt to be for long. It waseerie when the pilot awoke; when he suddenly sat there, gaunt, with aparchment face and beak-like nose and straying white hair, and in acool, drawling voice asked intelligent questions about the hour and theseason and the plantation happenings.
At such times, if Hagar were not already in the room, he demanded tosee her. She came, sat by him in the great chair, offered to read tohim. He was not infrequently willing for her to do this. She readboth prose and verse to him this winter. Sometimes he did not wishher to read; he wanted to talk. When this was the case--the pilotbeing awake--it was her life away from Gilead Balm that he oftenestchose to comment upon. That he knew the content of her life hardlyat all mattered, as little to the Colonel as it mattered to Old Missand Miss Serena. They were going to let fly their arrows; if therewas no target in the direction in which they shot, at least theywere in sublime ignorance of the fact. Hagar let them talk. Not onlythe Colonel--Gilead Balm was dying.... In the middle of a sarcasticsentence the pilot would drop asleep again; in a moment the barquewas at the mercy of every wandering wind. Hagar became Maria and hegibbered 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 withtender light, with Judas trees and bloodroot, and the white cherrytrees in a mist of bloom; and still the Colonel lay there, and now thepilot waked and now the pilot slept.
May came. Dr. Bude stayed in the house. One evening at dusk theColonel suddenly opened his eyes upon his family gathered about hisbed. Old Miss was sitting, upright and still, in the great chair atthe bed-head. Miss Serena had a low chair at the foot, and Captain Bobwas near, his old, grey head buried in his hands. There was also anAshendyne close kinsman, and a Coltsworth--not Ralph. Dr. Bude waitedin the background. Hagar stood behind Miss Serena.
Colonel Argall Ashendyne looked out from his pillow. "Wasn't theCanal good enough? Who wants their Railroad--damn them! And after theRailroad there'll be something else.... Public Schools, too!... Thiscountry's getting too damnably democratic!" His eyes closed, his faceseemed to sink together. Dr. Bude came from the hearth and, bendingover, laid his finger upon the pulse. The Colonel again opened hiseyes. They were fastened now on Hagar, standing behind Miss Serena."Well, Gipsy!" he said with cheerfulness, "It's a pretty comfortableboat, eh? We'll make the voyage before we know it." His hands touchedthe bed. "Steamer chairs! I don't think I was ever in one before. Leanback and see the wide ocean stretch before you! The wide ocean ... thewide 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 gladshe's gone for this summer. She wouldn't take Thomasine--she said shewanted to be all, all alone, just for three months. Then she would comeback to work."
"Brittany--"
"Yes. A little place on the coast that she knew. She said she wantedthe sea. I thought perhaps that she had written to you--"
"Not since May," said John Fay. "There was a proposed extension of apiece of work of mine in the West. I was called out there to see aboutit, and I had to go. I was kept for weeks. I tried to get back, but Icouldn'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 meif I turned up in that place in Brittany?"
Molly considered it. "She's a reasonable being. Brittany isn't for thebenefit 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'twant 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 agreat and far stretch of brown sands. There was a tiny harbour wherethe fishing-boats came in, and all beyond the thundering sea. The placeboasted a small inn, but she did not stay there. The widow of the cur?had to let a clean large room, overlooking a windy garden, and thewidow and her one servant set a table with simple, well-cooked fare.Hagar stayed here, though most of the time, indeed, she stayed out uponthe brown, shell-strewn, far-stretching sands.
She walked for miles, or, down with the women at evening, she watchedthe boats come one by one to haven, or, far from the village, beneathsome dune-like heap of sand, she sat with her hands about her kneesand watched the shifting colour of the sea. She had a book with her;sometimes she read in it, and sometimes it lay unopened. All thecolours went over the sea, the surf murmured, the sea-birds flew, thesalt wind bent the sparse grass at the top of the dune. On such anafternoon, after long, motionless dreaming, she changed her posture,turning her eyes toward the distant village. A man was walking towardher, over the firm sand. She watched him at first dreamily, then,suddenly, with a quickened breath. While the distance between them wasyet great, she knew it to be Fay.
He came up to her and held out his hand. She put hers in it. "Did Istartle
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 tosee you. Do you mind, very much?"
"Do I mind seeing you here, in Brittany? No, I do not know that I mindthat.... Sit down and tell me about America. America has seemed so faraway, these still, still days ... farther away than the sun and themoon."
Long and clean-limbed, with his sea-blue eyes and quizzical look, Faythrew himself down upon the sand beside her. They talked that day ofpeople at home, of the work he had been doing and of her long absenceat Gilead Balm. She made him see the place--the old man who haddied--and Old Miss and Miss Serena and Captain Bob and the servants andLisa.
"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 ofthe cur?'s house. He himself was staying at the inn. She did not askhim how long he would stay, or if he was on his way to other, largerplaces. The situation accepted itself.
There followed some days of wandering together, through the little greytown, or over the green headland to a country beyond of pine trees andDruid stones, or, in the evening light, along the sands. They found asailboat, with an old, hale boatman, for hire, and they went out inthis boat. Sometimes the wind carried them along, swift as a leaf;sometimes they went as in a sea-revery, so dreamily. The boatman knewall the legends of the sea; he told them stories of the King of Ysand the false Ah?s, and then he talked of the Pardons of his youth.Sometimes they skirted the coast, sometimes they went so far out thatthe land was but an eastward-lying shadow. The next day, perhaps, theywandered inland, over the heath among dolmens and menhirs, or, seatedon old wreckage upon the sands, the dark blue sea before them, nowthey talked and now they kept company with silence. They talked littlerather than much. The place was taciturn, and her mood made for quiet.
It was not until the fourth day that he told her for what he had come."But you know for what I came."
"Yes, I know."
"If you could--"
"I want," said Hagar, "more time. Will you let it all rest for a littlelonger? I don't think I could tell you truly to-day."
"As long as you wish," he said, "if only, in the end--"
Two days after this they went out in the afternoon in the boat. It hadbeen a warm day, with murk in the air. At the little landing-place Fay,after a glance at the dim, hot arch of the sky, asked the boatman ifbad weather might be brewing. But the Breton was positive.
"Nothing to-day--nothing to-day! To-morrow, perhaps, m'sieu."
They went sailing far out, until the land sunk from sight. An hour ortwo passed, pleasantly, pleasantly. Then suddenly the wind, where theywere, dropped like a stone. They lay for an hour with flapping sailand watched the blue sky grow pallid and then darken. A puff of wind,hot and heavy, lifted the hair from their brows. It increased; the skydarkened yet more; with an appalling might and swiftness the worststorm of the half-year burst upon them. The wind blew a hurricane; thesea rose; suddenly the mast went. Fay and the Breton battled with thewreckage, cut it loose--the boat righted. But she had shipped waterand her timbers were straining and creaking. The wind was whipping heraway to the open sea, and the waves, continually mounting, battered herside. There was a perceptible list. Night was oncoming, and the furyabove increasing.
Hagar braided her long hair that the wind had loosened from itsfastening. "We are in danger," she said to Fay.
"Yes. Can you swim?"
"Yes. But there would be no long swimming in this sea."
They sat in the darkness of the storm. When the lightnings flashed eachhad a vision of the other's face, tense and still. There was nothingthat could be done. The sailor, who was hardy enough, now mutteredprayers and now objurgations upon the faithless weather. He tried toassure his passengers that not St. Anne herself could have foreseenwhat was going to occur that afternoon. Certainly Jean Gouillou hadnot. "That's understood," said Hagar, smiling at him in a flash oflightning; and, "Just do your best now," said Fay.
The wild storm continued. Wind and wave tossed and drove the helplessboat. Now it laboured in the black trough of the waves, now itstaggered upon the summits; and always it laboured more heavily, andalways it was more laggard in rising. The Breton and Fay took turns inbailing the water out. It was now, save for the lightning, dark night.At last it was seen--though still they worked on--that there was littleuse in bailing. The boat grew heavier, more distressed. The sea wasrunning high.
"Some wave will swamp us?"
"Yes. It is a matter of time--and not long time, I think."
Hagar put out her hands to him. "Then I will tell you now--"
He took her hands. "Is it your answer?"
"Yes, my dear.... Yes, my dear."
They bent toward each other--their lips met. "Now, whether we live orwhether we die--"
The wild storm continued. The slow sands of the night ran on, andstill the boat lived, though always more weakly, with the end morecertainly before her. The Breton crossed himself and prayed. Hagar andFay sat close together, hand in hand. After midnight the storm suddenlydecreased in force. The lightning and thunder ceased, the clouds beganto part. In another hour there would be a sky all stars. The wind thathad been so loud and wild sank to a lingering, steady moaning. Therewas left the tumultuous, lifted sea, and the boat sunken now almost toher gunwales.
Fay spoke in a low voice. "Are you afraid of death?"
"No.... You cannot kill life."
"It will not be painful, going as we shall go--if it is to happen. Andto go together--"
"I am glad that we are going together--seeing that we are to go."
"Do you believe that--when it is over--we shall be together still?"
"Consciously together?"
"Yes."
"I do not know. No one knows. No one can know--yet. But I have faiththat we shall persist, and that intelligently. I do not think thatwe shall forget or ignore our old selves. And if we wish to betogether--and we do wish it--then I think we may have power to compassit."
"It has sometimes seemed to me," said Fay, "that After Death may proveto be just Life with something like fourth dimensional powers. Allthis life a memory as of childhood, and a power and freedom and scopeundreamed of now--"
"It is possible. All things are possible--save extinction.--I think,too, it will be higher, more spiritual.... At any rate, I do not fear.I feel awe as before something unknown and high."
"And I the same."
Off in the east the stars were paling, there was coming a vague andmournful grey. The boat was sinking. The two men had torn away thethwarts and with a piece of rope lashed them together. It would belittle more than a straw to cling to, in the turbulent wide ocean,miles from land. All were cold and numbed with the wind and the rainand the sea.
Purple streaks came into the east, a chill and solemn lift to all thesea and air and the roofless ether. Hagar and Fay looked at the violetlight, at the extreme and ghostly calm of the fields of dawn. "It iscoming now," said Fay, and put his arm around her. The boat sank.
The three, clinging to the frail raft they had provided, were swungfrom wave to wave beneath the glowing dawn.... The wind was stillednow, the water, under the rising sun, smoothed itself out. Theydrifted, drifted; and now the sun was an hour high.... "Look! look!"cried the Breton, and they looked and saw a red sail coming towardthem.
A day or two later Hagar and Fay met at the gate of the cur?'s widow,and climbing through the grey town came out upon the heath above. Itwas a high, clear afternoon, with a marvellous blue sky. They walkeduntil they came to a circle of stones, raised there in the immemorial,dark past. When they had wandered among them for a while, they rested,leaning against the greatest menhir, looking out over the grey-green,f
ar-stretching heath to a line of sapphire sea. "It grows like adream," said Hagar. "Death, life--life, death.... I think we aregrowing into something that transcends both ... as we have known both."
"Hagar, do you love me?"
"Yes, I love you.... It's a quiet love, but it's deep."
They sat down in the warm grass by the huge stone, and now they talkedand now they were silent and content. Little by little they laid theirplans.
"Let us go to London. I will go to Roger Michael's. We will marryquietly there."
"Lily and Robert will want to come from Scotland."
"Well, we'll let them." Hagar laughed, a musical, sweet laugh. "Thomsonis in London with Mr. Greer. Dear old Thomson! I think he'll have tocome."
"Couldn't we have," said Fay, "a month in some old, green, still,English country place?"
"With roses to the eaves and a sunken lane to wander in and at night acricket chirping on the hearth.... We'll try."
"And in October sail for home."
"And in October sail for home."
She looked at him with eyes that smiled and yet were grave. "You'reaware that you're marrying a working-woman, who intends to continue towork?"
"I'm aware."
Her candid eyes continued to meet his. "I wish a child. While it needsme and when it needs me, I shall be there."
His hand closed over hers. "Is it as though I did not know that--"
She kissed him on the lips. "And you're aware that I shall work onthrough life for the fairer social order? And that, generally speaking,the Woman Movement has me for keeps?"
"I'm aware. I'm going to help you."
"South America--"
"I'm not wedded," said Fay, "to South American governments. There area plenty of bridges to be built in the United States."
The grey-green silent heath stretched away to the shining sea. Thegrasses waved around and between the grey altars of the past, and thesky vaulted all, azure and splendid. Two sea-birds passed overhead witha long, clarion cry. Two butterflies hung poised upon a thistle besidethem. The salt wind blew from the sea as it had blown against man andwoman when these stones were raised. They sat and talked until the sunwas low in the west, and then, hand in hand, walked back toward thevillage.
THE END
The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U. S. A
Transcriber's Notes
Obvious errors of punctuation and diacritics repaired.
Inconsistent hyphenation fixed.
P. 254: older women -> older woman.
P. 314: Englantine -> Eglatine.
P. 328: others changes appeared -> other changes appeared.
P. 335: left at table -> left at the table.
P. 349: Duplicate line removed: "Yes, and Mr. Laydon."
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