* * * * *
"Then I shall leave Bermuda feeling that my beautiful dream is wholly
incomplete."
Mrs. Henry Thatcher spoke with a degree of resignation, but her tone
signified that the apparent retreat was only to gain strength for a
final advance which was sure to gain her point. She knew that this
discussion with her husband would end as all their differences of
opinion ended, and so did he. Perhaps his opposition was the inevitable
expression of his own individuality which every married man likes to
make a pretense of preserving; perhaps it pleased him to see his wife's
half-playful, half-serious attack upon his own judgment in gently
forcing him into a position where her wishes became his desires.
"Better to have your dream incomplete than his privacy invaded," was the
apparently unmoved reply. "When an owner plants a sign, 'Private
Property,' conspicuously at the entrance to his estate, he is sure to
have some idea in the back of his head which is as much to be respected
as your curiosity is to be gratified."
"It is a compliment in itself that we wish to see the grounds," she
persisted; "the owner, whoever he is, could not consider it otherwise."
"A compliment which has evidently been repeated often enough to become a
nuisance--hence the sign."
Marian Thatcher sighed heavily as she threw herself back in the
victoria. Her husband was holding out longer than usual.
"I simply must see the view from that point," she declared; "and until I
can examine that gorgeous _bougainvillea_ at closer range I refuse to
return to New York."
"There!" laughed Edith Stevens, looking mischievously into Thatcher's
face, "that is what I call an ultimatum! Come, Ricky,"--speaking to her
brother--"let us walk back to the hotel. It will be humiliating to see
Marian disciplined in public!"
"You all are making me the scapegoat," Marian protested. "You know that
you are just as eager to get inside those walls as I am. Look!" she
cried, leaning forward in the carriage. "Isn't that-- Yes, it _is_ a
century plant, and it's in bloom! Oh, Harry! you wouldn't make me wait
another hundred years to see that, would you?"
"Let me be the dove of peace," Stevens suggested, manifesting unusual
comprehension and activity as he stepped out of the carriage. "I'll run
in and beard the jolly old lion in his den."
Thatcher shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, Marian clapped her hands
with delight, and Edith Stevens smiled indulgently as they settled back
to await the result of the embassy.
This midwinter pilgrimage to Bermuda was the result of a sudden impulse
made while the Stevenses were their box-guests at the opera in New York
two weeks before. They had exhausted the superlatives forced from their
lips by the dramatic transformation from December to June--from ice and
snow to roses and oleanders; they had followed the beaten track,
touching elbows with the happy bride and the inquisitive traveler,
seeing the sights in true tourist fashion; they had passed through the
stage of quiet contentment, satisfied to sit on the broad sun-piazza of
the "Princess" in passive lassitude, watching others experience what
they had seen, learning the regulation forms of recreation indulged in
by those who settled down more permanently. From the same point of
vantage they had watched the great sails of the pleasure-boats pass so
close beside them that they could have tossed pennies upon their decks;
they saw the gorgeous sunsets behind Gibbs' Hill, with the ravishing
changes of color and light and shade thrown upon the myriad of tiny
islands scattered picturesquely throughout the bay.
Then the period of inaction turned into a desire to learn more deeply of
the beauties which the tourist never sees, and they poked through the
narrow "tribal" lanes and unfrequented roads on foot, on bicycles, or
_en voiture_, searching for the unexpected, and finding rich rewards at
the end of every quest. It was one of these expeditions which led them
to the highest rise of Spanish Point, where they stopped their carriage
before the entrance to a private estate, within the walls of which they
saw evidences of what the hand of man can do in supplementing Nature's
work.
Presently Stevens could be seen coming toward them, waving his hat as a
signal for their advance. The driver turned in through the gateway.
"He's a mighty decent sort," Stevens announced as he met the approaching
vehicle. "Can't make out whether he's English or American, but he
offered no objections whatever."
"There!" Marian cried triumphantly; "of course he feels complimented! If
his grounds were merely the commonplace no one would want to disturb his
'privacy,' as Harry calls it. Did you ever see such a spot?"
"Wonderful!" echoed Edith, equally impressed by the luxuriant bloom on
either side of the driveway. "Thank Heaven here is a man who knows how
not to vulgarize flowers."
As they reached the front of the coraline stone house the owner stepped
forward to greet them. He was a man of striking appearance, and his
visitors found their attention at once diverted from the beauty
surrounding them to the personality which manifested itself even in this
brief moment of their meeting. He was fairly tall, but slight, the
narrowness of his face being accentuated by the closely-cropped beard.
As he removed his broad panama he disclosed a heavy head of hair, well
turned to grey, which, with the darkness of his complexion, was set off
by the white doe-skin suit he wore. As he came nearer his visitors were
instinctively impressed by the expression of his face, for the high
forehead, the deep, restless, yet penetrating eyes, the refined yet
unsatisfied lines of the mouth, belonged to the ascetic rather than to
the cottager, to the spiritual seeker for the unattainable rather than
to the owner of an estate such as this.
"I am glad you discounted my apparent inhospitality," he said, with
pleasant dignity. "The tourists would overrun me if I did not take some
such measure to protect myself; but I am always glad to welcome any one
whose interest is more than curiosity."
"It is good of you to make a virtue out of our presumption," Marian
replied as their host assisted them to alight. Then their eyes met and
there was instant recognition.
"Philip!" she cried in utter amazement. "Is it possible that this is
you--here?"
The man bowed until his face almost touched the hand he still held, and
the surprise seemed for the moment to deprive him of power of speech. He
courteously motioned his guests to precede him through an arbor of
_poinsettia_ into a tropical garden on a cliff overhanging the water.
"Harry," Marian continued, still excited by her experience, "this is
Philip Hamlen--you've heard me speak so many times of him. My husband,
Mr. Thatcher, Philip," she added, as the two men shook hands; then she
presented him to the Stevenses.
Outwardly Hamlen showed none of the confusion which Marian so plainly
manifested. He was the self-contained host, seemingly interested in the
coincidence of the unexpected meeting, but by no means exercised over
it.
"Welcome to my Garden of Eden," he said, smiling, as the magnificent
expanse of cliff and sea greeted them--"thrice welcome, since to two of
us this is in the nature of a reunion."
It was a revelation even in spite of their expectations. Involuntarily
the eye first took in the turquoise water and the crumbling, broken
shore-line undershot by the caves formed by the pounding of centuries of
waves against the layers of animal formation. Except for the great
dry-dock and the naval barracks across the entrance to Hamilton Harbor,
all seemed as Nature had intended it.
Then, as the vision narrowed to its immediate surroundings, the visitors
realized how much art had accomplished in making the garden into which
their host had shown them seem so completely in harmony with the
brilliant setting of its location. They had thought of Bermuda as the
home of the Easter lily, not realizing that this is but a seasonal
incident; they could not have believed it possible to make the luxuriant
bloom of the tropical trees, shrubs, and flowers so subservient to the
beauty of their foliage, yet so marvelous a finish to the brilliancy of
the whole. The great rubber-tree extended its awkward branches in
exactly the right directions to add quaint picturesqueness; the
_poincianas_, as graceful as the rubber-tree was _gauche_, lifted their
smooth, bare branches like elephant trunks, from which the great leaves
hung down in magnificent clusters; the calabash, with its own ungainly
beauty, proved its right by exactly fitting into the landscape at its
own particular corner and the row of giant cabbage-palms stood like
sentinels, adding a quiet dignity suggestive of the East. Between these
and other massive trunks the smaller trees and flowering shrubs were
interspersed in so original and bewildering a manner that each glance
forced a new exclamation of delight. The night-blooming cereus crawled
like an ugly reptile in and out among the branches of the giant cedars,
but the bursting buds gave evidence that at nightfall they would redeem
the hideous suggestiveness of the trailing vine. Cacti and sago-palms
formed brilliant backgrounds for the lilies of novel shapes and colors,
and for the other flowers which vied with one another for preference in
the eye of their beholder.
The conversation was commonplace in its nature, and in it Marian took
little part. The vivacity which usually made her conspicuous in any
group had entirely left her. Her interest in the view from the Point and
in the magnificent vegetation had vanished, and her eyes followed Hamlen
as he indicated each special beauty to his guests. Edith Stevens was the
only one who sensed the unusual; the men were too discreet or too
occupied by the novelty of their experience.
"Do you mind, Harry," Marian said aloud, turning to her husband, "if the
gardener shows you around the grounds? It has been years since I last
saw Mr. Hamlen, and there are some matters I simply must talk over with
him."
Nothing Marian Thatcher asked or did ever surprised her husband or her
friends. The abruptness of the question, and the certainty she
manifested that her request would at once be complied with, were
characteristic. In the present instance, however, it was obvious that
the unexpected meeting touched some hidden spring which took her back to
a time in her life before they themselves had claims upon her, and they
respected her desire to be alone with her revived friendship. A few
moments later, with jocose chidings that she had appropriated for
herself the chief attraction of the estate, they moved off under the
guidance of the gardener, who was proud of the interest manifested in
the results of his work in carrying out his master's plans.
"Please don't come back for at least half an hour," Marian called after
them. Then she turned to her companion.
"So this is where you disappeared to?"
Hamlen bowed his head. He was not so careful now to conceal his
emotions, and it was evident that old memories were stirred within him,
as well.
"Could I have found a more beautiful exile?" he asked.
"How many years have you been here?" she demanded.
"I left New York the week following the announcement of your engagement
to Mr. Thatcher. Perhaps you can figure it out better than I. Time has
come to mean nothing to me here."
"That was in ninety-three," Marian said, reflecting,--"over twenty years
ago! You have been here ever since?"
Hamlen hesitated before he answered. "I have been back to the States
only once--when my father died. I have made short excursions to London,
to Paris, to Berlin, to Vienna; but the world is all the same, and I was
always glad to return here, to this retreat."
"Twenty years of solitude!" Marian repeated. "Don't tell me that it was
because of--"
"I came here because I wanted to get away from every old association,"
Hamlen interrupted hastily. "I settled down here because I loved this
beautiful island--and I love it still."
"But your friends, Philip--"
A tinge of bitterness crept into his voice. "Friends?" he repeated after
her. "What friends did I ever have whom I could regret to leave behind?"
"I know," she admitted, striving to ease the pain her words had
inflicted; "but your father--and your classmates."
"Yes--my father. I was wrong to leave him. Had I waited but two years
longer, I should have left behind me no ties of any kind. But the good
old pater understood me; he was the only one who ever did."
"Haven't you kept in touch with any one at home?"
"This is 'home,'" he corrected.
"Not for you, Philip," she insisted. "This is a Garden of Eden, as you
yourself called it, this is a dream life of sunshine and the fragrance
of flowers, this is the home of the lotus-eaters, for the present moment
enticing men--and women, too--away from the stern pursuits of life; but
it is not 'home' for such as you."
"I have found it all you say and more," Hamlen replied firmly; "but it
has not been the life of inactivity which you suggest. The very things
which tempted you to turn in here from your drive show that my years of
patient study and experiment have not been altogether in vain. Inside
the house I have my library, which can scarcely be equaled in the
States. There I keep up my work more assiduously than I could possibly
have done elsewhere. The literature of the past belongs to me, for I
have made it part of myself. I know Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare,
not as books only, but almost word for word. I can speak five languages
as well as my own. Is this the existence of the lotus-eater, Marian? Is
this merely the dream life of sunshine and of flowers?"
She looked at him long before replying. Then she rested her hand gently
upon his arm.
"It's the same Philip, isn't it?--the same old Philip who refused, over
twenty years ago, to recognize the real significance of life? The same
Philip--older, more refined by the chastening of time, more polished by
the refinement of accomplishment, but with his eyes still closed to the
difference between the means and the end."
The expression on Hamlen's face showed that he failed utterly to
comprehend.
"Why had you no friends to leave behind you?" she asked abruptly,
realizing the cruelty of her question, but determined to make him see
her point.
"Because no one understood me," he answered doggedly.
"Was it their failure to understand you, or your failure to give them
the opportunity?"
"Both, perhaps. I had no time to fritter away in college; most of the
men did."
"There you are! Can't you see what I mean? The particular things the
fellows did there were forgotten within twenty-four hours, but the
friendships formed while doing them have endured throughout their lives.
The 'things' were the means, the experience was the end. What
friendships can you have here?"
Instead of answering her, Hamlen rose and motioned silently that she
precede him through the arbor and up the path to the edge of the cliff.
"Do you think I can be lonely while I hear the surge of that great ocean
upon my shore?" he demanded. "Do you think I miss the friendships which
so often bring sorrow in their wake while I can conjure up from the past
the most glorious friends the world has ever known, visit with them,
argue over my pet theories, and give them all this setting here whose
counterpart can never be surpassed?"
She smiled sadly in reply. "You have built your life upon the same basis
as this island itself," she said--"upon the foundations of what is dead
and past. You have argued with yourself until you have come to believe
the fallacy you preach--that you, an Anglo-Saxon, can be content with
such a life as this. Are you true to your responsibilities? Are you--"
"What do I owe the world?" he interrupted. "I ask from it nothing but
peace and solitude, and surely even the most insignificant has a right
to that without incurring responsibilities. Why, Marian, I stand here
upon this Point, as the little steamers leave their trail of smoke
behind them, and thank God that for one day, three days, a week, we are
cut off from the world. There is nothing I love so much as this
separation from my fellow-men."
"Then how fortunate, after all--" she began, but he interrupted her.
"That is another story," he insisted. "I am speaking of what life means
to me to-day, not what it might have meant under other circumstances."
They strolled slowly back into the garden and settled themselves upon a
stone seat which commanded a superb view of the surrounding country. It
was her heart rather than her eyes which controlled Marian now, and she
saw before her nothing but this man-grown boy, who at an earlier time in
her life had exercised an absorbing influence upon her. It was her
heart, still loyal to the friendship which remained, struggling to find
the right word which should start in motion the machinery to bring the
latent potentiality into action.
"Your ideas are no different now than then," she said at length, "except
that time has intensified them. You used to compare what you found in
books with what you found in life, to the distinct disadvantage of the
realities."
"Yes," Hamlen admitted; "and it is just as true to-day."
"Do you know why?" she demanded pointedly.
"Because life is so full of insincerity."
"No," she protested, "you are wrong, absolutely wrong. The real reason
lies in you. You have always given of yourself in your intellectual
pursuits, and have received in kind. In your relations with life you
have never given of yourself, and again you have received in kind.
Philip, Philip! why don't you study yourself as you do your books, and
even now learn the lesson you need to know?"
"Was that why--back there--" he began.
She paused for a moment as the conversation took her back to the earlier
days.
"You thought me changeable," she evaded the question; "but for that you
yourself were responsible. You drew me to you with irresistible force,
then repelled me by your intolerance of all those lighter interests
which were natural to youth of our age. Your letters stimulated my
ambition, your conversation stirred in me all that was best; but as soon
as we were separated I felt a lack which for a long time I was unable to
understand."
"Why did you come," he asked, "to awaken these memories I have tried so
hard to forget?" but she seemed not to hear him.
"Then I realized what a dream it was," she continued. "Music to you
meant canon and fugue, counterpoint and diminished sevenths; to me it
was the invitation to dance. You had no friends, and I was frightened
by your willingness to be alone. You had nothing in common with me
or my friends; you gave my heart nothing to feed upon except
intellect--intellect, and I found myself one moment beneath its hypnotic
influence, the next striving to break away from its oppression. Perhaps
this was what you had in mind, Philip, that we two run off to some
island such as this, to spend our lives in Utopia, alone except for
ourselves and your books."
"For me, that would have been all I could have asked."
"But no one, Philip, can live on that alone. We need to draw from our
companionship with others in order to give of it to each other. And you
forget"--she smiled mischievously--"that when Aristotle begins to bore
you he can be placed back upon the shelf. You couldn't do that with a
wife! Admit, dear friend, that I or any other woman would have made you
utterly wretched."
"I will admit that of any woman other than you."
They rose as by mutual impulse and strolled about the garden for several
moments in silence, the thoughts of each centered upon the past.
"See this wild honey." Hamlen touched the curiously formed leaf. "It
took me months to make it twine about that tree."
"How long would it have taken to make a baby's fingers twine about your
heart?" Marian asked meaningly.
A twinge of pain shot across his face. "Have you--children?" he asked.
"Forgive me, Philip," she answered contritely. "Yes," in answer to his
question; "a daughter, whom you shall meet at the hotel, and a big,
strapping son. He's a senior at Harvard now, and his name is--Philip."
Hamlen suddenly seized her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Your
husband won't begrudge me that," he said, with a quaver in his voice.
"Thank God!" Marian cried unexpectedly. "It is a relief to find even a
small defect in that intellectual armor of yours! Philip, you are a
humbug, and you deceive no one but yourself! It is not solitude which
you love, it is not friendship which you despise; it is simply that you
have made a virtue out of a condition which exists because you don't
know how to change it. Let me help you now."
"How can the leopard change his spots?" he demanded incredulously.
"Go back with us when we sail for New York week after next. Leave things
here just as they are, and keep this wonderful spot as a retreat when
life becomes too strenuous. Harry and I will return here with you if you
wish us to, and will introduce so many serpents into your Garden of Eden
that you'll relegate us to the cliff while you take refuge in your
library. But between now and that time go back with us into that life
which is your life. Place yourself where you can feel the competition of
what goes on about you. Try pushing against the current, and learn the
joy of contact with something which opposes. Study the people around
you, and make friends--it's not too late, with your splendid personality
and with me to show you how. Come and get acquainted with your namesake.
Help him to learn from you what you can teach him better than any one I
know, and learn from him what his youthfulness can teach you. Will you
do it, Philip? Will you let this wonderful work you've done here be the
means and not the end? Will you put your accomplishments where they can
be of value, instead of hoarding them, as a miser does his gold?"
He stood watching her wonderful animation as she spoke with a conviction
which swept him off his feet. In the past she had listened to him, and
he could but be conscious of the domination which his mind had held over
hers; now he knew their positions to be reversed. Was this what the
world had given her? And the boy--Philip, named after him. Why was it
that the lessons he had taught himself during all these years proved so
inadequate to combat the yearning which he felt within him?
Marian was not slow to sense the conflict in his heart, nor to follow up
her advantage.
"What have you really accomplished, Philip?" she asked quietly. "Be
generous in sharing your splendid development with us."
"I could not give this up," he protested.
"Of course you couldn't, and you should not," she assented. "Give up
nothing, but simply add to what you have by assimilating from others. I
want you to know my husband, my children, and my friends, and I want
them to know you. Say that you will return with us, Philip."
He gazed at her helplessly, then turned his head aside. The emotion
against which he had fought for twenty years had escaped from his
control, and he was ashamed that another should see what he knew his
face betrayed.
"It is impossible," he said, when he was himself again; "it would not be
fair."
"To whom?" she demanded.
"To you--or to your husband--"
"Nonsense! We all understand one another too well for that! It is the
boy who needs you and whom you need."
Hamlen turned to her again. "The boy," he repeated after her--"Philip!
You would let him come into my life?"
"I desire nothing so much," she answered resolutely, a great joy surging
in her heart as she seemed to see the barrier between him and life
crumbling before her attack.
"Would the boy permit it? I might not be able--"
"Let me be judge of that," she smiled.
The man passed his hand wearily over his eyes as Mrs. Thatcher watched
his uncertainty with fearfulness and yet with eager expectancy. She knew
that she could say no more, that there was danger in bringing further
pressure upon this spirit already extended to its extremest tension; and
yet she longed to take advantage of what she had gained in awakening the
latent human element and in disturbing the complacency which habit had
established upon premises so false.
"Oh, Marian!" Hamlen cried at length, in a voice so full of suffering
that it staggered her; "the world is not to be trusted even when you
hold it up so temptingly before me. It always has been false and always
will be so for me. Each time I have given it the chance it has struck me
a harder blow than before. No, Marian, I can't expose myself again. If I
could make myself a part of some one else--if this boy-- No, no! I
couldn't take the risk. You mustn't ask me. You mean it kindly, but--"
"Trust me," Marian said softly. "Come," she continued, nodding in the
direction of the returning party. "I will tell Harry that you are dining
with us to-night at the 'Princess.'"
* * * * *