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diff --git a/78915-0.txt b/78915-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9956a0d --- /dev/null +++ b/78915-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10100 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78915 *** + + + + + THERE IS CONFUSION + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + THERE IS CONFUSION + + BY + + JESSIE REDMON FAUSET + + + + + There is confusion worse than death, + Trouble on trouble; pain on pain,— + TENNYSON. + + + BONI AND LIVERIGHT + PUBLISHERS :: :: NEW YORK + 1924 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + Copyright, 1924, by + BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. + + ------- + + Printed in the United States of America + + First Printing, March, 1924 + Second Printing, May, 1924 + Third Printing, August, 1924 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TO MY SISTER + + HELEN FAUSET LANNING + + WHOSE PERSISTENT FAITH HAS MADE ME + ASHAMED TO FALTER + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + THERE IS CONFUSION + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I + CHAPTER II + CHAPTER III + CHAPTER IV + CHAPTER V + CHAPTER VI + CHAPTER VII + CHAPTER VIII + CHAPTER IX + CHAPTER X + CHAPTER XI + CHAPTER XII + CHAPTER XIII + CHAPTER XIV + CHAPTER XV + CHAPTER XVI + CHAPTER XVII + CHAPTER XVIII + CHAPTER XIX + CHAPTER XX + CHAPTER XXI + CHAPTER XXII + CHAPTER XXIII + CHAPTER XXIV + CHAPTER XXV + CHAPTER XXVI + CHAPTER XXVII + CHAPTER XXVIII + CHAPTER XXIX + CHAPTER XXX + CHAPTER XXXI + CHAPTER XXXII + CHAPTER XXXIII + CHAPTER XXXIV + CHAPTER XXXV + CHAPTER XXXVI + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + THERE IS CONFUSION + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER I + + +JOANNA’S first consciousness of the close understanding which existed +between herself and her father dated back to a time when she was very +young. Her mother, her brothers and her sister had gone to church, and +Joanna, suffering from some slight childish complaint, had been left +home. She had climbed upon her father’s knee demanding a story. + +“What sort of story?” Joel Marshall asked, willing and anxious to please +her, for she was his favorite child. + +“Story ’bout somebody great, Daddy. Great like I’m going to be when I +get to be a big girl.” + +He stared at her amazed and adoring. She was like a little, living echo +out of his own forgotten past. Joel Marshall, born a slave and the son +of a slave in Richmond, Virginia, had felt as a little boy that same +impulse to greatness. + +“As a little tyke,” his mother used to tell her friends, “he was always +pesterin’ me: ‘Mammy, I’ll be a great man some day, won’t I? Mammy, +you’re gonna help me to be great?’ + +“But that was a long time ago, just a year or so after the war,” said +Mammy, rocking complacently in her comfortable chair. “How wuz I to know +he’d be a great caterer, feedin’ bank presidents and everything? Once +you know they had him fix a banquet fur President Grant. Sent all the +way to Richmond fur ’im. That’s howcome he settled yere in New York; +yassuh, my son is sure a great man.” + +But alas for poor Joel! His idea of greatness and his Mammy’s were +totally at variance. The kind of greatness he had envisaged had been +that which gets one before the public eye, which makes one a leader of +causes, a “man among men.” He loved such phrases! At night the little +boy in the tiny half-story room in that tiny house in Virginia picked +out the stories of Napoleon, Lincoln and Garrison, all white men, it is +true; but Lincoln had been poor and Napoleon unknown and yet they had +risen to the highest possible state. At least he could rise to +comparative fame. And when he was older and came to know of Frederick +Douglass and Toussaint L’Ouverture, he knew if he could but burst his +bonds he, too, could write his name in glory. + +This was no selfish wish. If he wanted to be great he also wanted to do +honestly and faithfully the things that bring greatness. He was to that +end dependable and thorough in all that he did, but even as a boy he +used to feel a sick despair,—he had so much against him. His color, his +poverty, meant nothing to his ardent heart; those were nature’s +limitations, placed deliberately about one, he could see dimly, to try +one’s strength on. But that he should have a father broken and sickened +by slavery who lingered on and on! That after that father’s death the +little house should burn down! + +He was fifteen when that happened and he and his mother both went to +work in the service of Harvey Carter, a wealthy Virginian, whose wife +entertained on a large scale. It was here that Joel learned from an +expert chef how to cook. His wages were small even for those days, but +still he contrived to save, for he had set his heart on attending a +theological seminary. Some day he would be a minister, a man with a +great name and a healing tongue. These were the dreams he dreamed as he +basted Mrs. Carter’s chickens or methodically mixed salad dressing. + +His mother knew his ideas and loved them with such a fine, albeit +somewhat uncomprehending passion and belief, that in grateful return he +made her the one other consideration of his life, weaving unconsciously +about himself a web of such loyalty and regard for her that he could not +have broken through it if he would. Her very sympathy defeated his +purpose. So that when she, too, fell ill on a day with what seemed for +years an incurable affection, Joel shut his teeth and put his frustrated +plans behind him. + +He drew his small savings from the bank and rented a tiny two and a half +room shack in the front room of which he opened a restaurant,—really a +little lunchstand. He was patronized at first only,—and that +sparingly—by his own people. But gradually the fame of his wonderful +sandwiches, his inimitable pastries, his pancakes, brought him first +more black customers, then white ones, then outside orders. In five +years’ time Joel’s catering became known state wide. He conquered +poverty and came to know the meaning of comfort. The Grant incident +created a reputation for him in New York and he was shrewd enough to +take advantage of it and move there. + +Ten years too late old Mrs. Marshall was pronounced cured by the +doctors. She never understood what her defection had cost her son. His +material success, his position in the church, in the community at large +and in the colored business world,—all these things meant “power.” To +her, her son was already great. Joel did not undertake to explain to her +that his lack of education would be a bar forever between him and the +kind of greatness for which his heart had yearned. + +It was after he moved to New York and after the death of his mother that +Joel married. His wife had been a school teacher, and her precision of +language and exactitude in small matters made Joel think again of the +education and subsequent greatness which were to have been his. His wife +was kind and sweet, but fundamentally unambitious, and for a time the +pleasure of having a home and in contrasting these days of ease with the +hardships of youth made Joel somewhat resigned to his fate. + +“Besides, it’s too late now,” he used to tell himself. “What could I +be?” So he contented himself with putting by his money, and attending +church, where he was a steward and really the unacknowledged head. + +His first child brought back the old keen longing. It was a boy and +Joel, bending over the small, warm, brown bundle, felt a gleam of hope. +He would name it Joel and would instil, or more likely, stimulate the +ambition which he felt must be already in that tiny brain. But his wife +wouldn’t hear of the name Joel. + +“It’s hard enough for him to be colored,” she said jealously guarding +her young, “and to call him a stiff old-fashioned name like that would +finish his bad luck. I am going to name him Alexander.” + +Alec, as he was usually called, did not resemble his father in the +least. He was the average baby and the average boy, interested in +marbles, in playing hookey, in parachutes, but with no determination to +be a dark Napoleon or a Frederick Douglass. Two other children, Philip +and Sylvia, resembled him, and Joel Marshall, now a man of forty, gave +up his old ideas completely and decided to be a good business man, +husband and father; not a bad decision if he had but known it. + +Then Joanna came; Joanna with a fluff of thick, black hair, and solemn, +earnest eyes and an infinite capacity for spending long moments in +thought. “She’s like you, Joel,” Mrs. Marshall said. And because the +novelty of choosing names for babies had somewhat worn off, she made no +objection to the name Joanna, which Joel hesitatingly proposed for her. +“She certainly should have been named for you,” the mother told him a +month later; “see how she follows you with her eyes. She’d rather watch +you than eat.” + +And indeed from the very beginning Joanna showed her preference for her +father. The two seemed to have a secret understanding. After the first +child, Mrs. Marshall had fretted somewhat over the time and strength +expended in caring for the other little Marshalls, but she never had any +occasion to worry about Joanna. Joel had his office in his residence, +and after Joanna was dressed and fed, all she wanted was to lie in her +carriage and later to ride about on the kiddie-car of that day in her +father’s office, where she watched him with her solemn eyes. + +Joel never forgot the first time she asked him for a story. He was in +the habit of regaling his youngsters with tales of his early life, of +himself, of boys who had grown up with him, of ball-games and boyish +pranks. The three older children had a fine catholicity of taste. “Tell +us a story,” was all they asked, its subject made no difference to them. + +But on that certain Sunday before Joanna was five years old she perched +herself on her father’s knee and commanded astoundingly: + +“Tell me a story, Daddy, ’bout somebody great.” + +Joel didn’t know what she meant at first, so far removed was he from the +thought of his old dream. And yet the question did seem something like +an echo, faint but recognizable of a longing that had once loomed large +in his life. + +“Great,” he repeated. “How do you mean great, Baby? Tall, great big man, +like Daddy, hey?” He stood six feet and was broad with it. + +Joanna shook a dissenting head. “No, not great that way. I want to hear +about a man who did things nobody else could do,—maybe he put out a +fire,” she ended doubtfully, “but I mean something greater than that.” + +Joel had her taught to read after that. She was a little frail for +school, and did not start until later than the other children, though +she was far the most studious. So she had three or four years of solid +reading, and always her choice of subject was of some one who had +overcome obstacles and so stood out beyond his fellows. + +At first she thought nothing of color, and it was not until she had gone +to school and learned something of discrimination that she began to +ponder. + +“Didn’t colored people ever do anything, Daddy?” But Joel was prepared +for that. He told her himself of Douglass and Vesey and Turner. There +were great women, too, Harriet Tubman, Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner +Truth, women who had been slaves, he explained to her, but had won their +way to fame and freedom through their own efforts. + +Joanna had a fine sense of relativity. Young as she was, she could +understand that the bravery and courage exercised by these slave women +was a much finer and different thing from that exercised for instance by +Florence Nightingale. “They were like Joan of Arc,” she thought to +herself, “Joan, wonderful Joan with the name almost like mine.” Only an +innate, almost too meticulous sense of honesty had kept her from +changing her own name to the shorter form. + +She used to lie in her bed at night, straight and still with her eyes +fixed on the stretch of sky visible even from a house in Fifty-ninth +Street and dream dreams. “I’ll be great, too,” she told herself. “I’m +not sure how. I can’t be like those wonderful women, Harriet and +Sojourner, but at least I won’t be ordinary.” + +She spoke to her father like a little piping echo from the past, “Daddy, +you’ll help me to be a great woman, somebody you’ll be proud of?” + +Her words made him so happy; they renewed his life. She was so +completely like himself, and he could help her. “Thank God,” he used to +murmur over his books that daily showed an increase in his earnings. + +He took Joanna everywhere with him. One Easter Sunday a great colored +singer, a beautiful woman, sang an Easter anthem in his church, lifting +up a golden voice among the tall white lilies. Afterwards she went home +with Mr. and Mrs. Marshall and stayed to dinner. Joanna never moved her +eyes from her during the ride home. + +After dinner she stood in front of the singer in the comfortable +living-room. “I can sing like you,” she said gravely, “and I can +remember the tune of most of that hymn you sang this morning. Listen.” + +And with no further introduction she sang most of the anthem. She was +only ten then, yet her voice was already free of the shrillness of +childhood and beginning to assume that liquid golden quality which so +distinguished it later. + +Madame Caldwell gasped. She had won her own laurels through bitter +experience in various studios, meeting insult, indifference and +unkindness with an unyielding front, which brought her finally +consideration, a grudging interest, sometimes a genuine appreciation. + +She was well on her way to recognition now. Colored people acclaimed her +all over the country and she had some local reputation in her home town +where black and white alike were very proud of her. + +“But no daughter of mine,” she used to say bitterly, “if she has the +voice of an angel shall go through what I have suffered.” + +Yet when she heard Joanna sing that Easter Sunday, she seized Joel +Marshall’s arm. “Get her a teacher, Mr. Marshall. She has a voice in ten +thousand. Poor child, how you will have to work!” + +But Joanna wasn’t listening, her eyes sought her father’s. Both of them +knew at once that the road to glory was stretching out before her. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER II + + +JOANNA was like her father not only so far as ambition was concerned but +also in her willingness to work. She had a fine serious mind, a little +slow-moving at first, but working with a splendid precision that helped +her through many a hard place. Her quality of being able to stick to a +problem until she was satisfied served in the long run as well as her +sister Sylvia’s greater quickness and versatility. Eventually, too, +Joanna’s laboriousness and native exactness produced in her the result +of an oft-sharpened knife. The method which she applied to one study, +she remembered to apply to another, and if this failed then she was able +to make combinations. + +Usually she had to have things explained to her from the very beginning, +either by a teacher or through directions in a book. But to offset this +slowness she had a good sense of logic, a strong power of concentration, +and a remarkably retentive and visualizing memory. + +Sylvia and she, destined to be such perfect friends in their maturity, +were not very sympathetic in their childhood. The older girl was +thoughtless, quick to jump at conclusions, natively witty and strongly +disinclined toward seriousness. “Joanna makes me sick,” was her constant +cry, “always thinking of her lessons and how important she’s going to be +when she’s grown-up. So tiresome, too, wanting to talk about what she’s +going to do all the time, with no interest in your affairs.” + +Which was not quite true, for Joanna was mightily interested in people +who had a “purpose” in life. Otherwise not at all. This was where she +differed most from her father. With Joel success and distinction had +been his dream, his dearest wish. But always he had realized that there +were other things which might interfere. With Joanna success and +distinction were an obsession. It never occurred to her that life was +anything but what a man chose to make it, provided, of course, he did +choose to make it something. Her brothers’ and Sylvia’s haphazard +methods were always incomprehensible to her, and this gave her the least +touch of the “holier than thou” manner. + +Her mother insisted on each child’s learning to do housework. Even the +boys were not exempt from this, indeed they rather liked it. Sylvia made +no complaint though she occasionally bribed Alec or Philip to do her +stint for her. Joanna never complained, either, yet she made up her mind +early that as a woman she would never do this kind of work. Not that she +despised it, she simply considered it labor lost for a person who like +herself might be spending her time in more beautiful and more graceful +activities. Yet in spite of her dislike, she always lingered longest +over her work, and the room or the silver which she had cleaned always +looked the best. It is true she never learned to iron especially well, +but this was about the only thing in which she yielded place to Sylvia. + +Sylvia was like a fire-fly in comparison with Joanna’s steady beaconlike +flood of light. Sylvia dashed about, worked as quickly as she thought +and produced immediate and usually rather striking results. Sylvia with +a ribbon, or a piece of lace and a ready needle and thread could give +the effect of possessing two dresses, whereas she had only the one. +Sylvia dressed the dolls, hiring Joanna’s remarkable and usually +disregarded assembly of these so that she might make them new clothes. +She drove an honest bargain. If Joanna would let her play store with her +dolls for a week, one of them could keep the new dress which Sylvia +would have made for her; Joanna’s dolls were usually in Sylvia’s care. + +Yet when Joanna did sew or knit, her stitches and pieces bore inspection +much better than Sylvia’s. By the same token, however, they missed +Sylvia’s dash. + +In one thing only did Joanna show real abandon, that was in dancing. +Sylvia was as light as thistle-down on her feet, but Joanna was like the +spirit of dancing. She had grace, the very poetry of motion, and she +could dance any step however intricate if she saw it once. + +“If you want to get Joanna to play,” Maggie Ellersley, Sylvia’s chum and +school-mate would say impatiently, “you must start some singing or +dancing game. She wouldn’t play ‘I Spy’ or ‘Pussy wants a corner’ with +you for worlds.” + +Any sort of folk-song or dance, though she did not know them by that +name, delighted the child. Usually she held herself aloof, but in summer +down on Fifty-ninth Street Joanna was one with the children in the +street, singing, dancing, jumping rope in unexpected and fancy ways. + +Sylvia’s and Maggie’s and even her brothers’ rougher scoffing affected +her not at all, not only because she had the calm self-assurance which +is the first step toward success, but also because of old Joel’s strong +belief in her. + +Joel believed that all things were possible. “Nothing in reason,” he +used to tell Joanna, “is impossible. Forty years ago I was almost a +pauper in Richmond. Look at me to-day. I spend more on you in a month, +Joanna, than my mother and I ever saw in a five-year stretch. One +hundred years ago and nearly all of us were slaves. See what we are now. +Ten years ago people would have laughed at the thought of colored people +on the stage. Look at the bill-boards on Broadway.” + +It was in the first part of the century when Williams and Walker, Cole +and Johnson, Ada Overton and others were at their zenith. Old Joel +believed them the precursors of greater things. Since Joanna’s gifts +were those of singing and dancing, he hoped to make her famous the +country over. Of course he would have preferred a more serious form of +endowment. But such as it was, it was Joanna’s, and must be developed. +Joel Marshall believed in using the gifts nearest at hand. + +“And don’t think anything about being colored,” he used to say. + +“It might be different if you lived in some other part of the country, +but here in this section it may not interfere much more than being poor, +or having some slight deformity. I have often noticed,” said Joel, who +had used his powers of observation to no small advantage, “that having +some natural drawback often pushes you forward, that is if you’ve got +anything in you to start with. It might even happen,” he added, launched +now on his favorite theme, “that your color would add to your success. +Depend on it if you’ve got something which these white folks haven’t +got, or can do something better than they can, they’ll call on you fast +enough and your color will only make you more noticeable.” + +Joanna used to listen interestedly. Not that in those early years she +always understood fully everything her father said, but his talk created +for her a kind of atmosphere which created in turn a feeling of +assurance and self-confidence which was really superb. + +Another theory of Joel’s which he had worked out for himself, and which +in no small degree contributed to Joanna’s education was his early +understanding of the natural rights of men inherent in the mere fact of +living. He told Joanna that no class of men remained static throughout +the ages,—he had not used these words, it is true, but he had come +pretty near it. Somewhere in those early days of his in odd scraps of +reading he had learned that Greece had once been enslaved; that Russia +had but recently freed her serfs; that England possessed a submerged +class. + +“All people, all countries, have their ups and downs, Joanna,” he would +tell her gravely, “and just now it’s our turn to be down, but it will +soon roll round for our time to be up, or rather we must see to it that +we do get up. So everyone of us has something to do for the race. Never +forget that, little girl.” + +Joanna was a memorable type in these days. A grave child, brown without +that peculiar luminosity of appearance which she was to have later on, +and which Sylvia already possessed. She had a mop of thick black hair +which was actually heavy, so much so that the back of her head bulged. +Joanna knew next to nothing at this time of those first aids to colored +people in this country in the matter of conforming to average +appearance. If she had known them, it is doubtful if she would have used +them, for she had the variety of honesty which made her hesitate and +even dislike to do or adopt anything artificial, no matter how much it +might improve her general appearance. No hair straighteners, nor even +curling kids for her. + +“Joanna’s ways are so straight, they almost sway back,” Sylvia used to +say aptly. And indeed Joanna wanted one to see her at her very worst. +She did not like to take people by surprise. But as her worst included a +pair of very nice brown eyes, with thick, if somewhat short, and curling +lashes, an unobtrusive nose, small square hands and exquisite feet, it +was not hard to look at. She was always intensely susceptible to +beautiful people and to beautiful things. It was the beauty inherent in +Joel’s ideals, and in all ideals which really underlie success, that +most attracted her. And this passion for beauty while informing and +indeed molding her character, yet by a strange twist influenced +adversely and warped her sympathies. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER III + + +IT was Joanna’s love for beauty that made her consciously see Peter Bye. +It is true that almost as soon as she saw him she lost sight of him +again, for the boy did not come up to her requirements which, even at +the early age at which these two met, were quite crystallized. Joanna +liked first of all fixity of purpose. The phrase “When I grow up, I’m +going to be” was constantly on her lips. She got into the habit of +measuring people, “sizing them up” Joel would have said, in accordance +with the amount of steadfastness, perseverance and ambition which they +displayed. She had little time for shiftless or “do-less” persons. +Sylvia used to say, half angrily, “Joanna, when the bad man gets you, he +isn’t going to torture you. He’s just going to shut you up with lazy, +good-for-nothing folks. That will be torture enough for you.” + +Peter Bye, in spite of the dark arresting beauty which first drew +Joanna’s glance to him across the other white and pink faces in the +crowded schoolroom, was undoubtedly shiftless. “Not lazy,” Joanna said +to herself, looking at him from under level brows before she dismissed +him forever from her busy mind. “It’s just that he doesn’t care; he just +doesn’t want to be anybody.” + +She was too young to understand the power of that great force, heredity. +She had no notion of the part which it played in her own life. Peter was +the legitimate result of a heredity that had become a tradition, of a +tradition that had become warped, that had gone astray and had carried +Peter and Peter Bye’s father along in its general wreckage. + +It is impossible to understand the boy’s character without some +knowledge of the lives of those who had gone before him. + +As far back as the last decades of the eighteenth century there had been +white Byes and black Byes in Philadelphia. The black Byes were known to +be the chattels of Aaron and Dinah Bye, Quakers, who without reluctance +had set free their slaves, among them black Joshua Bye, the +great-grandfather of Peter. This was done in 1780 according to the laws +of Pennsylvania, which thus allowed the Quakers to salve their +consciences without offending their thrifty instincts. + +Aaron Bye, most people said, was unusually good to his slaves. He had +something of the patriarchal instinct and liked to think of himself as +ruler over the destiny of many people, his wife’s, his children’s and +more completely that of his slaves. Certainly he was very kind to +Joshua’s mother, Judy. She was a tall, straight, steely, black woman +with fine inscrutable eyes, a thin-lipped mouth and a large but shapely +nose. She bore about her a quality of brooding, of mystery, embodying +the attraction which she exercised for many men, white and black. But +apparently she knew little of this. Her only weakness, if such it might +be called, was an inexplicable attachment to the white Bye family. She +married, a few years before receiving her freedom, a man named Ceazer, a +proud, surly, handsome individual, who refused to adopt the surname of +his master; he had belonged to white people named Morton. Since even +after freedom Judy would not hear to leaving the Bye family, Aaron Bye +greatly pleased by this loyalty offered the position of coachman to +Ceazer, which the latter, with his customary surliness, accepted. Later +he not only threw up his job, but ran away, vanishing finally into +legend. + +His was a strange truculent character; he hated slavery, hated all white +people, hated particularly the Mortons, hated ineffably Aaron Bye. He +wanted nothing at his hands. Once he knocked down another Negro who +referred to him as “Mist’ Bye’s man.” He was no man’s man, he assured +the stricken narrator, least of all the man of that damn Quaker. His +enmity went to ridiculous lengths. Aaron Bye taught Joshua how to write +and gave him a little black testament for a prize. In it he wrote “The +gift of Aaron Bye.” Joshua, delighted, wrote his own name under the +inscription and ran and showed it to his mother. She, it turned out, had +not been watching his making of pothooks without purpose. Underneath her +boy’s name she fashioned in halting crazy characters her single attempt +at writing, her own name, Judy Bye. Nothing would serve Joshua then but +that he must have Ceazer’s name in the book, too. Remembering that his +father could not write, Joshua wrote out himself with a fine flourish +“Ceazer Bye” and showed the name to its owner, entreating him to make +his mark beside it. Ceazer took up the pen in his strong, wiry fingers. + +“Which one ob dese did you say were mine?” + +Joshua pointed it out, waiting for the cross. Ceazer made a mark, it was +true, but it was a thick broad line drawn through his name with a fury +which almost tore the thin page. _He_ was no Bye! + +It was not long after this that he disappeared, a strange, brooding, +intractable figure. + +Joshua, although born in slavery, had never known the institution in its +more hideous aspects. He had been a very little boy when his freedom +came to him. And Ceazer, old Judy told him, had fought in the +Revolution! So that Joshua knew more of warfare to set people free than +of slavery for which war was later to be waged. From him his son Isaiah +heard almost nothing of the old régime, though there were many vestiges +of it on all sides. All he knew was that Joshua had kept on working for +Dinah and Aaron Bye after his emancipation, and that they had given him +on the occasion of his marriage to Belle Potter a huge Family Bible, +bound in leather and with an Apocrypha. On the title-page was written in +a fine old script: _To Joshua and Belle Bye from Aaron and Dinah Bye. +“By their fruits ye shall know them.”_ + +For a long time to Isaiah, who used to pore absorbedly as a boy over +this book with its pictures and long old-fashioned S, this inscription +savored of vineyards and orchards. The white Byes, as a matter of fact, +were the possessors of very fine peach-orchards in the neighborhood of +what is now known as Bryn Mawr, and Isaiah, even as a little fellow, had +been taken out there to pick peaches. + +His father Joshua had spent his life in making those orchards what they +were; a born agriculturist, he had an uncanny knowledge of planting, of +grafting, of fertilizing. Many a farmer tried to inveigle him from Aaron +Bye. But although Joshua’s wages were small, he had inherited his +mother’s blind, invincible attachment for the Byes. His place was with +Aaron. + +It was young white Meriwether Bye, youngest son of Aaron’s and Dinah’s +ten children, who told Isaiah what the inscription meant. Joshua had not +married until he was nearly fifty and his single son, black Isaiah, and +white Meriwether were boys together. Meriwether used to come to the Bye +house at Fourth and Coates Streets, which is now Fairmount Avenue, as +often as Isaiah used to appear at the Bye house at Fourth and Spruce. + +Isaiah showed the inscription to Meriwether, “By their fruits ye shall +know them.” + +“Yes,” said young Merry tracing the letters with a fat finger, “that’s +our family motto.” Isaiah wanted to know what a motto was. + +“Something,” Meriwether told him vaguely, “that your whole family goes +by.” The black boy thought that likely. + +“Everybody knows Bye peaches, ain’t that so? ’Cause of that everybody +knows the Byes.” + +Meriwether, though impressed by this logic, didn’t think that that was +what was meant. A subsequent conversation with his father confirmed his +opinion. + +“It means this, Ziah,” he said one hot July afternoon walking home with +the colored boy from the brickyard where Isaiah worked, “it means it +shows the kind of stuff you are. It means—now—you see a bare tree in the +winter time don’t you, and you don’t know what it is? But you do perhaps +know an apple blossom when you see it, or a peach blossom. In the spring +you see that tree covered, let’s say, with apple blossoms. Well, you +know it’s an apple tree.” + +“But what’s that got to do with us?” Isaiah wanted to know. He was +interested, he could not tell why, but his slow-working mind clung to +its first idea. “Your father wrote it in the book he gave my father. My +father hasn’t any fruit trees.” + +Isaiah never forgot the answer Meriwether made him in the unconscious +cruelty of youth. “When it comes to people,” said the young Quaker, “it +means pretty much the same thing. Now when I grow up, I’m going to be a +great doctor,” his chest swelled, “but nobody will be surprised. They’ll +all say, ‘Of course, he’s the son of Aaron Bye, the rich peach-merchant. +Good stock there,’” he involuntarily mimicked his pompous father; “and +I’ll be good fruit. That’s the way it always is: good trees, good fruit; +rich, important people, rich important sons.” + +“What’ll I be?” asked Isaiah Bye, grotesquely tragic in his tattered +clothes, the sweat rolling off his shiny face, so intent was his +interest. + +“Well,” Meriwether countered judicially, “what could you be?” He +pondered a moment, his own position so secure that he was willing to do +his best by this serious case. “Your father and your father’s father +were slaves. ’Course your father’s free now but he’s just a servant. +He’s not what you’d call his own man. So I s’pose that’s what you’ll be, +a good servant. Tell you what, Isaiah, you can be my coachman. I’ll be +good to you. And when you’re grown up,” said Meriwether with more +imagination than he usually displayed, “I’ll point you out to some +famous doctor from France and say, ‘His father was a good servant to my +father, and he’s been a good servant to my father’s son.’ How’ll you +like that?” Meriwether tapped him fondly if somewhat condescendingly on +the arm. + +“You’ll never,” said Isaiah Bye, drawing back from the familiar touch, +“you’ll never be able to say that about me.” And he turned and ran down +the hot street, leaving Meriwether Bye gaping on the sidewalk. + +After that his father could never persuade him to enter again the Bye +house, or the Bye orchards. Fortunately his mother upheld him here. +“’Tain’t as though he had to work for them old Byes,” she said +straightening up her already straight shoulders. “He makes just as much +and more in the brick-yard and in helpin’ Amos White haul.” + +“I know that,” Joshua would reply impatiently, “but old Mist’ Aaron +says—now—he likes to have his own people workin’ roun’ him. And I don’t +like to disappoint him.” + +Belle Bye told Isaiah. “I’m not one of his own people, Ma,” he answered +stubbornly, “and after that I’m not ever goin’ back.” Belle was rejoiced +to hear this. She would have been an insurgent in any walk of life. +Joshua was the genuine peasant type—the type, black or white, which +believes in a superior class and yields blindly to its mandates. But +Belle had seen too many changes even in her thirty-five years—she was +far younger than Joshua—not to know that many things are possible if one +just has courage. + +Isaiah, on being questioned, told his mother with considerable +reluctance about his conversation with Meriwether. Belle, while +regretting the breach, understood. She had been glad to have her boy the +associate of young white Bye. Without expressing it to herself in so +many words she had realized that association with Meriwether was an +education for Isaiah. Already he was talking more correctly than other +colored boys in his group, his manners were good, and though his work +was of the roughest kind, his vision was broad, he knew there were other +things. + +“I don’t believe,” his mother told him wisely, “that you kin go as fur +as you dream. Too many things agin you fur that, boy. But you kin die +much further along the road than when you was born. Never forget that.” + +So Isaiah was saved from the initial mistake of aiming too high and of +coming utterly to smash. Yet he accomplished wonders. Who shall say how +he increased his slender store of knowledge? How he learned to read wise +books borrowed and bought as best he might? How he learned geography and +history that made his heart-beats go wild since it told him of the +French Revolution and how a whole nation once practically enslaved arose +to a fuller, richer life? + +The inspiration for all this lay in those careless words of young +Meriwether. Although Isaiah met the young fellow many times after that +incident, and apparently with friendliness, he never in his heart +forgave him. Like Ceazer he developed a dislike for white people and +their ways which developed, however, into a sturdy independence and an +unyielding pride. No amount of contumely ever made him ashamed of his +slave ancestry. On the contrary, to measure himself against old Ceazer +and Judy gave him ground for honest pride. “See what they were and how +far I’ve gone,” he used to say, pleasantly boastful. + +He resented as few sons of freedmen did the assurance with which the +white Byes took their wealth and position and power. “Hoisted themselves +on the backs of the black Byes.” He resented especially the ingratitude +of Aaron Bye to Joshua. For himself he asked nothing; being content to +fight his own way “through an onfriendly world.” + +The white Byes had gone far, but the black Byes having now that greatest +of all gifts, freedom, would go far, too. They would be leaders of other +black men. + +The upshot of all this was that Isaiah Bye opened a school for colored +youth down on Vine Street. No name and no figure in colored life in +Philadelphia was ever better beloved and more revered than his. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + +ISAIAH did not marry until he was thirty-one, which was an advanced age +for his times. Even then he had married earlier than his father. Old +Joshua, who died long before Isaiah’s marriage, had been inordinately +proud of his one son. + +“Jes’ wouldn’t work fer white folks,” Joshua used to say, “that weren’t +good enough fer him.” + +Isaiah and Miriam Sayres Bye had one son. “Meriwether,” Isaiah wrote in +Aaron and Dinah Bye’s old gift, and under it in a script as fine and +characteristic as that of the original inscription: “By _his_ fruits +shall ye know—_me_.” It was a strange but not unnatural bit of pride, +the same pride which had made him name this squirming bundle of +potentialities, “Meriwether,—Meriwether Bye,” a boy with the same name +which old white Aaron Bye’s son had borne and with as good chances. The +Civil War was on the horizon then and Isaiah Bye, with that calm +expectation of the unexpected which was his mother’s chiefest legacy, +was sure that in that grand mêlée all his people would know freedom. So +black Meriwether Bye, born like himself in freedom, would know nothing +but that estate when he began to have understanding. + +Isaiah had accumulated a little, though how that was possible, no one +aware of his tiny stipend could guess. It is true he not only taught +school, but he had outside pupils, ex-slaves, freedmen, men like himself +born in freedom, but unable through economic pressure to enjoy it except +in name,—all these crowded his home at night on Vine Street, and sweated +mightily over primers and pothooks and the abacus. Twenty-five cents an +hour he charged them, giving each a meticulous care such as would bring +a modern tutor many dollars. He wrote letters, pamphlets, too, for that +marvelous organization already well established, the A. M. E. Church. +His wife had a sister whose husband kept a second-hand shop and from +this source he earned an occasional dollar. When Meriwether was eight, +Isaiah owned two houses in Pearl Street, the house in Vine Street, a +half interest in his brother-in-law’s store and a plot in Mount Olivet +Cemetery. + +From the very beginning Meriwether knew he was to be a great man—a +doctor, his father had said emphatically. And Meriwether repeated it by +rote. He was a clever enough child though without his father’s solid +trait of concentration. But he liked the idea of greatness—that and the +profession of medicine came to be synonymous with him as it was already +with his father. Otherwise it is likely that both of them would have +seen earlier the boy’s inaptitude for the calling thus thrust upon him. + +Meriwether went to his father’s school, to Mr. Jonas Howard’s catering +establishment, which he loved, to Sunday-School and to his Uncle Peter’s +second-hand store. In any one of these places he was at home. He might +have made a good teacher, caterer, minister or storekeeper. Yet he +meandered on, doing absolutely mediocre work, never failing, never +shining, and always rather purposely waiting the day which should bring +him to the Medical School. + +He was waiting for something else, too, though this Isaiah never +guessed. He was waiting for some sign of help or recognition from the +white Byes. His father had told him of the slaveholder’s great debt to +old Joshua; he had taken him riding past the Bryn Mawr peach orchards. +“By rights part of them ought to belong to us. But I don’t mind, no +sir-ee! Let ’em have ’em. See where we are to-day without their help. +Think of it!” + +Meriwether did think of it and did mind it. He learned that he had been +named after the son of his grandfather’s patron and somehow it seemed +impossible to him that that mere fact should not result in something +tangibly advantageous. He lacked the imagination to understand the pride +which actuated Isaiah to name his boy as he had. The year before +Meriwether was to enter medical school, Isaiah, fortunately for himself, +died. + +A few months later Miriam died, too. Meriwether was left sole heir to +the three houses and two or three hundred dollars. He was tired of +school and not at all displeased with the idea of being his own master. +He would like a little vacation, he fancied, and a chance to see the +world. Somebody told him of a good way to do this—why not get a job as +train porter? The idea pleased him; there was travel, easy money, +besides his little property in Philadelphia. And afterwards perhaps +there would be the patron for whom he had been named, Dr. Meriwether Bye +of Bryn Mawr. + +Isaiah’s mother, Belle Bye, used to say, “Things you do expect and +things you don’t expect are sure to come to pass.” It took Isaiah many +years to see the reasonableness of this apparently unreasoned statement. +Certainly one of the things he never expected to come to pass was that +his boy Meriwether should, first, give up altogether his project of +studying medicine and, second, that bit by bit, through sickness, +gambling, and a hitherto unsuspected penchant for sheer laziness, he +should run through his Philadelphia property, thus wiping away all that +edifice of respectability and good citizenship which Isaiah Bye had so +carefully built up. + +Colored Philadelphia society is organized as definitely as, and even a +little more carefully than, Philadelphia white society. One wasn’t “in” +in those old days unless one were, first, “an old citizen,” and, second, +unless one were eminently respectable,—almost it might be said +God-fearing. Meriwether having been born to this estate suffered all the +inconveniences coming to a member of a group at that time small and +closely welded. His business was everybody’s business. His Uncle Peter +had upbraided him for not studying medicine. Jonas Howard, the caterer, +knew about his first real estate transfer. The young Howards and his +cousins knew about his gambling and rebuked him admiringly. On one of +his “runs” Meriwether spent a week in New York. This was in 1889. Not a +single colored person knew him or cared about him. He rented a room in +Fifty-third Street and made that his headquarters. Later he rented two +rooms and married a young seamstress who died in 1891 when her boy was +born. + +Meriwether did do two things after that. First he wrote to Dr. +Meriwether Bye telling him who he was and implying he would not disdain +a little aid. It is doubtful if the doctor, who at that time was +traveling in Europe with his tiny grandson, ever received the letter. +Second, he took to drink. More than anything else he fell into a deep, +ineluctable mood of melancholia. Here he was, Meriwether Bye, destined +to be a great man, a famous physician. Why, he had been a man of +property once, with money in the bank! And now he was just a poor +nobody, picking up odd jobs, paying his room rent fearfully from week to +week, sometimes pawning Isaiah Bye’s chased gold watch. + +How he worked it out he himself could not have told. But he saw himself +a martyr, “driven by fate” from the high eminence of his father’s dreams +to his own poor realities. Think how he had struggled, sacrificed—he +believed it—the fun and freedom of youth to come to this! “How,” said +Meriwether Bye harking back to Sunday-School days, “how are the mighty +fallen!” And how easily might they have remained mighty. + +He named his boy Peter after his Uncle Peter, in whose second-hand shop +in Philadelphia he had spent delightful hours. + +Now see the perversity of human nature. Just as his father Isaiah Bye +had talked to his son Meriwether about the reward of effort and faithful +toil, just so Meriwether talked to Peter about the futility of labor and +ambition. And in particular he talked to him about the ingratitude of +the white Byes—of all white people. + +“It makes no difference, Peter, what you do or how hard you work. The +rewards of life are only for such or such. You may pour your heart’s +blood out,”—he had a fine gift of rhetoric—“and still achieve nothing. +Think of your great-grandfather. Fate favors those whom she chooses. +Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.” + +Or, “Peter, if life has any favors for you, she’ll give them to you +without your asking for them. The world owes you a living, let it come +to you, don’t bother going after it.” + +How completely his son might be absorbing all this, Meriwether never +knew, for Peter, vocal enough with his playmates and others, maintained +an owlish silence when his father thus harangued him. + +But his aunt knew. She was a tall, stout, yellow woman, with that +ineffable look of sadness in her eyes characteristic of a certain type +of colored people. She was the sister of Peter’s mother, and when +Peter’s father died, suddenly, inconsequently, she accepted +uncomplainingly his son along with her other burdens. + +Peter was then twelve; extraordinarily handsome, vivid and alert. Miss +Susan Graves riding home from the cemetery reflected that he might be +not such a burden after all. Clearly he would soon want to be taking +care of himself. + +“Peter,” she said thoughtfully, “what do you want to do when you grow +up?” + +“Oh, I don’t know,” her nephew replied, temporarily removing his gaze +from the window-pane where it had been glued for twenty minutes. “I’m +not bothered about that, Aunt Susan. You see the world owes me a +living.” + +She noticed in him then the first fruits of his father’s shiftlessness. +But far more deeply rooted than that was his deep dislike for white +people. He did not believe that any of them were kind or just or even +human. And although he could not himself have told what he wanted from +the white Byes, if indeed he wanted anything, he grew up with the +feeling that he and his had been unusually badly treated. His +grandfather’s connection with white people resulted in pride, his +father’s in shiftlessness; in Peter it took the form of a constant and +increasing bitterness. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER V + + +IT may seem a cold-blooded thing to say, but the dying of Meriwether Bye +was about the best thing he could have done for his son, Peter. +Certainly that was what Miss Susan Graves thought as she viewed rather +grimly the small and motley collection of belongings which Peter +transferred to her home in his little express wagon from his father’s +former landlady, Mrs. Reading. The collection consisted of a well-worn +extra suit of clothes, another pair of shoes, some underwear in sad need +of patching, some books chiefly on physiology and anatomy, the Bye +Family Bible, a little old black testament, and a box of letters. There +was also a big railroad map which Peter lugged along under his arm and +from which he stubbornly refused to be parted. Meriwether, in his +brighter moods, used to refer to his “runs” as “business-trips” and +would point out to Peter just where he would go on such and such a date. +The boy learned a lot of geography in this way, and was talking to his +playmates about Duluth and Jacksonville, Sacramento and Denver, before +most of them knew that they personally were living in the country’s +metropolis. + +The books on medicine and anatomy had been well thumbed by Peter, too. +Meriwether had received them from old Isaiah, his father, and had +carried them around on his runs to impress his co-workers in the Pullman +service. + +Later he got into the habit of reading from them to Peter who always +listened in the grave silence which he usually reserved for his father’s +effusions. For some reason the little boy’s brain retained the various +and amazing things which his father read to him from the dry old books. +Long before he knew his multiplication tables he knew the names of the +principal bones of the body and the course of the food. In fact these +books were his first readers, for Meriwether, more interested in this +dry stuff, now that it was too late to profit him anything, taught his +boy how to pronounce the difficult names, so that the latter could read +to him. Perhaps the poor fellow, dissolute and weak failure though he +was, thought that some of the old “greatness” might still accrue to him +by this fiction of studying at medicine. + +The Bible was the one thing that Peter knew least about. He looked into +it once or twice and hitting on Isaiah Bye’s tragically proud +inscription: “By _his_ fruits ye shall know—_me_,” spelled it out +laboriously,—he always had trouble in reading script,—and asked his +father with some natural perplexity what it meant. But Meriwether +snatched the book away from him with such a black look and took such +pains to put it out of his reach, that Peter for a long time thought the +Bible, or at any rate that inscription, must be something decidedly off +color. He waited until his father had gone on his next “business-trip” +before investigating again, but finding the book nowhere as exciting as +his beloved Anatomy, he gave up the puzzle and attributed his father’s +defection to the inscrutable whims and vagaries of the genus called +parents. He valued that old Bible the least of all his possessions. That +was the bitterest day of his life when he found out what it ought to +mean to him. + +Miss Susan, though not an “old Philadelphian” herself, knew something of +colored Philadelphia’s pride in the possession of family and tradition. +She would have been glad of course if Meriwether Bye had left Peter some +money. But of the two she would very much rather have had the Bible with +its absolute assurance of the former standing and respectability of the +black Byes. She had a family tradition of her own, for she was a member +of the Graves family of Gravestown, New Jersey, a clan well known to +colored people not only in that vicinity, but also throughout +Pennsylvania. + +The story is that two white sisters in the middle of the eighteenth +century fell in love with two of their father’s black slaves. The +Negroes may have been African Princes for all any one knows to the +contrary. Since nothing they could do or say would win their father’s +consent to such a union, the girls ran away with their lovers, and +married them, with or without benefit of clergy it is impossible to +relate. Nature and God alike, instead of being disconcerted at this +utter contravention of the laws of man, presented each couple with +numerous children. When these reached mating age, finding themselves out +of favor with both black and white of their community, the cousins +solved the problem by marrying each other. The children of each +generation did the same, whether driven to it by like necessity or not, +history does not say. But by the time the next brood appeared a +precedent had been established, and Graves married Graves not only as a +matter of course, but as a matter of pride. They were able to do this, +being automatically rendered free by the fact that a white woman had +married a black man. + +Miss Susan Graves had not married for the simple and sufficient reason +that in her day there were not enough male Graves to go around. She +would as soon have thought of marrying outside her family as a Spanish +grandee would have thought of marrying an English cockney. In those days +the position of old maid had its decided disadvantages—few people if any +gave her the benefit of the doubt that she might have remained single +from choice. Yet Miss Susan Graves, in spite of three other offers, +soared on family pride above all this and made her career that of +housekeeper for the family of a wealthy merchant on Girard Avenue, in +Philadelphia. (You must marry a Graves, but obviously you obtained work +where you could find it.) + +There was a younger sister, Alice Graves, not as direct in purpose as +Susan, yet in some respects curiously strong. She had always considered +the Graves’ tradition silly: it was so unexciting marrying someone whom +you had known and seen all your life. What was marriage for if not for a +change? + +When the oldest son of Merchant Sharples of Girard Avenue married and +went to New York, Susan Graves went along as housekeeper. And thither +Alice Graves followed shortly to do sewing for that intricate but +orderly household. Meriwether Bye, who had known both ladies in +Philadelphia—for Miss Susan Bye was a frequent visitor both at his +father’s and his Uncle Peter’s house—came to see them in his rare fits +of loneliness, and between runs courted Alice Graves in Central Park. Of +course it would have been better if Alice could have married a Graves, +but Susan resigned herself easily to the matter—for Bye belonged to old +stock and must, she thought, make good eventually. But she developed a +strong dislike for him before his death, and took Peter not only for his +mother’s sake but also to dispel if possible his father’s doubtless +harmful influence. + +Peter was a surprise to his aunt. She found him kind but thoughtless, +industrious on occasions but unspeakably shiftless, not too proud, not +very grateful and with no sense of responsibility. His father of course +spoke there. Yet the boy was indubitably charming, never complained, and +usually did as he was told. Miss Susan found herself between two +minds—she had an impulse to work her fingers to the bone and thus spare +Alice’s beautiful son the tussle with poverty which he must know, and +again a desire to speak and act forcibly and drive him into an +acknowledgment of what her loyalty to her sister was leading her to do +for a homeless, friendless lad. Actually she struck a medium, made him +keep clean, insisted on his regular attendance at school, took him to +Sunday-School and Church entertainments and induced him to work on +Saturdays and holidays by refusing pocket-money to “a boy as big as +you.” + +She could not understand why he chose a job in a butcher’s shop. +Doubtless Peter hardly knew himself. “I like to watch the man saw the +bones,” he would have said vaguely. “I can do it, too. I can cut up a +chicken or a rabbit just as neatly!” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + +IT was Joanna who first acquainted Peter with himself. But neither of +the children knew this at the time. And although Peter came to realize +it later it was many years before he told her so. For, though he went +through many changes and though these two came to speak of many things, +he kept a certain inarticulateness all his lifetime. + +Joanna and all the older Marshalls went to a school in West Fifty-second +Street, one after another like little steps, with Joanna at first quite +some distance behind. They were known throughout the school. “Those +Marshall children, you know those colored children that always dress so +well and as though they had someone to take care of them. Pretty nice +looking children, too, if only they weren’t colored. Their father is a +caterer, has that place over there on Fifty-ninth Street. Makes a lot of +money for a colored man.” + +Peter, unlike Joanna, had gone to school, one might almost say, all over +New York, and nowhere for any great length of time. Meriwether had +stayed longest at Mrs. Reading’s but as, in later years, he more and +more went off on his runs without paying his bills, Mrs. Reading +frequently refused to let Peter leave the house until his father’s +return. + +“For all I know he may be joinin’ his father on the outside and the two +of them go off together. Then where’d I be? For them few rags that Mr. +Bye keeps in his room wouldn’t be no good to nobody.” + +This enforced truancy was the least of Peter’s troubles. He did not like +school,—too many white people and consequently, as he saw it, too much +chance for petty injustice. The result of this was that Peter at twelve, +possessed it is true of a large assortment of really useful facts, +lacked the fine precision, if the doubtful usefulness, of Joanna’s +knowledge at ten. When Miss Susan settled in the Marshalls’ neighborhood +and brought Peter to the school in Fifty-second Street he was found to +be lacking and yet curiously in advance. “We’ll try him,” said the +principal doubtfully, “in the fifth grade. I’ll take him to Miss +Shanley’s room.” + +Miss Shanley was Joanna’s teacher. She greeted Peter without enthusiasm, +not because he was colored but because he was clearly a problem. Joanna +spied him immediately. He was too handsome with his brown-red skin, his +black silky hair that curled alluringly, his dark, almost almond-shaped +eyes, to escape her notice. But she forgot about him, too, almost +immediately, for the first time Miss Shanley called on him he failed +rather ignominiously. Joanna did not like stupid people and thereafter +to her he simply was not. + +On the contrary, Joanna had caught and retained Peter’s attention. She +was the only other colored person in the room and therefore to him the +only one worth considering. And though at that time Joanna was still +rather plain, she already had an air. Everything about her was of an +exquisite perfection. Her hair was brushed till it shone, her skin +glowed not only with health but obviously with cleanliness, her shoes +were brown and shiny, with perfectly level heels. She wore that first +week a very fine soft sage-green middy suit with a wide buff tie. The +nails which finished off the rather square-tipped fingers of her small +square hands, were even and rounded and shining. Peter had seen little +girls with this perfection and assurance on Chestnut Street in +Philadelphia and on Fifth Avenue in New York, but they had been white. +He had not yet envisaged this sort of thing for his own. Perhaps he +inherited his great-grandfather Joshua’s spiritless acceptance of things +as they are, and his belief that differences between people were not +made, but had to be. + +Joanna clearly stood for something in the class. Peter noted a little +enviously the quality of the tone in which Miss Shanley addressed her. +To other children she said, “Gertrude, can you tell me about the +Articles of Confederation?” Usually she implied a doubt, which Gertrude +usually justified. But she was sure of Joanna. The tenseness of her +attitude might be seen to relax; her mentality prepared momentarily for +a rest. “Joanna will now tell us,—” she would announce. For Joanna, +having a purpose and having been drilled by Joel to the effect that +final perfection is built on small intermediate perfections, got her +lessons completely and in detail every day. + +It was at this time and for many years thereafter characteristic of +Peter that he, too, wanted to shine, but did not realize that one shone +only as a result of much mental polishing personally applied. Joanna’s +assurance, her air of purposefulness, her indifference intrigued him and +piqued him. He sidled across to the blackboard nearest her—if they were +both sent to the board—cleaned hers off if she gave him a chance, +managed to speak a word to her now and then. He even contrived to wait +for her one day at the Girls’ entrance. Joanna threw him a glance of +recognition, swept by, returned. + +His heart jumped within him. + +“If you see my sister Sylvia,—you know her?—tell her not to wait for me. +I have to go early to my music-lesson. She’ll be right out.” + +Sylvia didn’t appear for half an hour and Peter should have been at the +butcher’s, but he waited. Sylvia and Maggie Ellersley came out laughing +and glowing. Peter gave the message. + +“Thanks,” said Sylvia prettily. Maggie stared after him. She was still +the least bit bold in those days. + +“Ain’t he the best looker you ever saw, Sylvia? Such eyes! Who is he, +anyway? Not ever Joanna’s beau?” + +“Imagine old Joanna with a beau.” Sylvia laughed. “He’s just a new boy +in her class. He _is_ good looking.” + +Some important examinations were to take place shortly and Miss Shanley +planned extensive reviews. She was a thorough if somewhat unimaginative +teacher and she meant to have no loose threads. So she devoted two days +to geography, two more to grammar, another to history, one to the rather +puzzling consideration of that mysterious study, physiology. Perhaps by +now the class was a bit fed up with cramming, perhaps the children +weren’t really interested in physiological processes. Joanna wasn’t, but +she always got lessons like these doggedly, thinking “Soon we’ll be past +all this,” or “I’m going to forget this old stuff as soon as I grow up.” +Poor Miss Shanley was in despair. She could not call on Joanna for +everything. Pupil after pupil had failed. Her eye roved over the room +and fell on Peter’s black head. + +She sighed. He had not even been a member of the class when she had +taught this particular physiological phenomenon. “Can’t anyone besides +Joanna Marshall give me the ‘Course of the Food?’” + +Peter raised his hand. “He looks intelligent,” she thought. “Well, Bye +you may try it.” + +“I don’t think I can give it to you the way the others say it,”—the +children had been reciting by rote, “but I know what happens to the +food.” + +She knew he would fail if he didn’t know it her way, but she let him +begin. + +This was old ground for Peter. “Look, I can draw it. See, you take the +food in your mouth,” he drew a rough sketch of lips, mouth cavity and +gullet, “then you must chew it, masticate, I think you said.” He went on +varying from his own simplified interpretation of Meriwether Bye’s early +instructions, past difficult names like pancreatic juice and thoracic +duct, and while he talked he drew, recalling pictures from those old +anatomies; expounding, flourishing. Miss Shanley stared at him in +amazement. This jewel, this undiscovered diamond! + +“How’d you come to know it, Peter?” + +“I read it, I studied it.” He did not say when. “But it’s so easy to +learn things about the body. It’s yourself.” + +She quizzed him then while the other children, Joanna among them, stared +open-eyed. But he knew all the simple ground which she had already +covered, and much, much beyond. + +“If all the children,” said Miss Shanley, forgetting Peter’s past, +“would just get their lessons like Peter Bye and Joanna Marshall.” + +She had coupled their names together! And after school Joanna was +waiting for him. He walked up the street with her, pleasantly conscious +of her interest, her frank admiration. + +“How wonderful,” she breathed, “that you should know your physiology +like that. What are you going to be when you grow up, a doctor?” + +“A surgeon,” said Peter forgetting his old formula and expressing a +resolve which her question had engendered in him just that second. He +saw himself on the instant, a tall distinguished-looking man, wielding +scissors and knife with deft nervous fingers. Joanna would be hovering +somewhere—he was not sure how—in the offing. And she would be looking at +him with this same admiration. + +“My, won’t you have to study?” Joanna could have told an aspirant almost +to the day and measure the amount of time and effort it would take him +to become a surgeon, a dentist, a lawyer, an engineer. All these things +Joel discussed about his table with the intense seriousness which +colored men feel when they speak of their children’s futures. Alexander +and Philip were to have their choice of any calling within reason. They +were seventeen and fifteen now and the house swarmed with college +catalogues. Schools, terms, degrees of prejudice, fields of +practice,—Joanna knew them all. + +“Yes,” said Peter, “I suppose I will have to study. How did you come to +know so much—did your father tell you?” + +“Why, I get it out of books, of course.” Joanna was highly indignant: “I +never go to bed without getting my lessons. In fact, all I do is to get +lessons of some kind—school lessons or music. You know I’m to be a great +singer.” + +“No, I didn’t know that. Perhaps you’ll sing in your choir?” + +Then Joanna astonished him. “In my choir—I sing there already! No! +Everywhere, anywhere, Carnegie Hall and in Boston and London. You see, +I’m to be famous.” + +“But,” Peter objected, “colored people don’t get any chance at that kind +of thing.” + +“Colored people,” Joanna quoted from her extensive reading, “can do +everything that anybody else can do. They’ve already done it. Some one +colored person somewhere in the world does as good a job as anyone +else,—perhaps a better one. They’ve been kings and queens and poets and +teachers and doctors and everything. I’m going to be the one colored +person who sings best in these days, and I never, never, never mean to +let color interfere with anything I _really_ want to do.” + +“I dance, too,” she interrupted herself, “and I’ll probably do that +besides. Not ordinary dancing, you know, but queer beautiful things that +are different from what we see around here; perhaps I’ll make them up +myself. You’ll see! They’ll have on the bill-board, ‘Joanna Marshall, +the famous artist,’—” She was almost dancing along the sidewalk now, her +eyes and cheeks glowing. + +Peter looked at her wistfully. His practical experience and the memory +of his father inclined him to dubiousness. But her superb assurance +carried away all his doubts. + +“I don’t suppose you’ll ever think of just ordinary people like me?” + +“But you’ll be famous, too—you’ll be a wonderful doctor. Do be. I can’t +stand stupid, common people.” + +“You’ll always be able to stand me,” said Peter with a fervor which made +his statement a vow. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + +SYLVIA and Joanna, walking through Sixty-third Street on an errand for +their mother, came upon groups of children playing games. Italians, +Jews, colored Americans, white Americans were there disporting +themselves with more or less abandon, according to their peculiar +temperament. + +“Look,” said Joanna suddenly, catching at Sylvia’s hand. “See those +children dancing! Wait, I’ve got to see that!” + +Out in the middle of the street a band of colored children were dancing +and acting a game. With no thought of spectators they joined hands, took +a few steps, separated, spun around, smote hands sharply, and then flung +them above their heads. One girl stood in the middle, singing too, but +with an attentive air. Presently she darted forward, seized a member of +the ring: + + “Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me?” + +Their voices were treble and sweet, though shrill, and rang with a +peculiar, piercing quality above the street noises and the sounds of the +other children’s games. The little players were absorbed, enraptured +with the spirit of the dance and the abandon of the music. Joanna, too, +was in a transport. She watched them going through the motions several +times. Presently she caught all the words: + + “Sissy in the barn, join in the weddin’, + Sissy in the barn, join in the weddin’” + +The child in the center here chose a partner. The others sang: + + “Sweetest l’il couple I ever did see. + Barn! Barn! + +They stamped here. + + “Arms all ’round me! + Barn! + +The two children in the center embraced each other while the rest sang: + + “Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me?” + +Then the two in the center pointed fingers at each other, shrilling: + + “Stay back, girl, don’t you come near me + All them sassy words you say! + +Then all: + + “Oh, Barn! Barn! + Arms all ’round me! + Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me? + Marry me?” + +The last line came as a faint echo. + +Joanna rushed forward: “I can play it! Girls let me play it, too!” + +The children stared at her a moment, then, with the instinct of +childhood for a kindred spirit, two of them unclasped hands and took +Joanna in. She outdid them all in the fervor and grace of her acting. +Two white settlement workers stopped and looked at her. + +“Come on, Joanna,” Sylvia called impatiently. + +Joanna came running, a string of the children after her. She bade them +good-by. “I must go now, but I’m coming back sometime soon, to learn +some more.” She blew them a kiss, “good-by, oh, good-by!” + +She came up to Sylvia flushed and excited. “We’ll play it home, Sylvia! +Wasn’t it lovely and dear? Oh, I could dance like that forever!” She +went almost all the entire remaining distance on tip-toe. + +Life in Joel Marshall’s house was not always a serious discussion of the +Marshall children’s future. Like many of the better class of colored +people, the Marshalls did not meet with the grosser forms of color +prejudice, because they kept away from the places where it might be +shown. This was bad from the standpoint of development of civic pride +and interest. But it had its good results along another line. The +children took most of their pleasures in their house or in those of +their friends and devoted their wits and young originality to indoor +pastimes. + +The Marshall house was a great center for this kind of thing, and +already Friday and Saturday nights were being regularly set apart for +the children’s amusement and for the reception and entertainment of the +various young people who dropped in. + +Joanna taught her dance. Sylvia and Philip and Alexander were willing +pupils; Joanna was magnetic when in this kind of mood. By the time Harry +Portor and Maggie Ellersley arrived, they were all singing and stamping +and twirling. Peter came in late, held up by the butcher. “Had to go on +an errand for the grand white folks,” he explained briefly. + +“You’ll wear out my carpet to-night for sure,” said Mrs. Marshall, but +she loved the dancing as much as any of them, and got up and took a +turn. Joanna taught the tune to Peter, who had a good ear, and he ran +over to the old-fashioned square piano and rattled it off to a wild +thumping accompaniment. When Brian Spencer came in, who even in those +days was pretty sure to be where Sylvia was—the fun was at its height. +Peter, strumming a haunting, atavistic measure; Joanna, dancing like a +faun, instructed Maggie Ellersley. + +“Now, Maggie, dance up to one of them. All right, take Philip. You point +your finger at him,—no both of you. Yes, you’re right, Peter. I forgot +that. See, Phil, Peter’s learned it already. Here I’ll do it by myself; +all of you stand back.” + +She went through an elaborate pantomime, stretching out her hands as +though clasping a partner on each side. She described an imaginary +circle for the ring and ran into the midst of it. An imaginary partner +was before her and she drew him in, pointed a slim, brown finger at him, +rested both hands on her young hips, pirouetted, sang to him gayly: + +“Stand back, boy, don’t you come near me!” + +“My,” laughed Brian Spencer, clapping loudly. “Can’t you see it all just +as plainly? Really, Jan, you ought to go on the stage as an +impersonator, I don’t believe you could be beat.” He was a tall dark boy +with fine proud features that looked chiseled. He and Alexander were +home from college for the Easter vacation. + +Maggie Ellersley, as it happened, had been at a matinée the week before. +“It was vaudeville, Joanna, and there was an actress there who took off +different people and then she did some Irish folk dances, but she +couldn’t hold a candle to you. Too bad we’re colored.” + +“It’s not going to make any difference to me,” said Joanna determinedly. +“Mother and father are willing. If I want to go on the stage I’ll get +there.” + +“Joanna has the faith that moves mountains,” laughed Peter. “If anybody +can make it she can.” + +Peter was a regular visitor at the Marshall home now. Ever since that +day four years before when he had told Joanna of his new-born +determination to be a surgeon, he had spent all his spare time near her. +Miss Susan Graves did not like this at first, not that she resented +Peter’s absence from her so much, but he was a Bye and she did not +choose to have him associate too much with people whom she did not know. +It was no part of her plan for Peter to retrograde into the wreck which +Meriwether had become. She made it her business to meet Mrs. Marshall at +a church affair. + +“I think,” said Miss Graves, eyeing Joanna’s mother with her clear, +square gaze, “that my boy has spoken to me of you.” + +Mrs. Marshall looked puzzled. She thought this was a _Miss_ Graves. + +“Peter Bye,” his aunt continued, “he’s my nephew. He often speaks of +Joanna Marshall.” + +“Oh, Peter! Yes, we like to have him at the house. The girls find him +great fun. So you’re his aunt. You must come to see us, too. Get him to +bring you.” + +Miss Graves came and was impressed enough to let Peter continue, though +he would have continued without her permission. But Miss Susan, like +Belle Bye nearly a century ago, recognized atmosphere when she saw it. +She was poor; Peter was penniless. These were the sort of people her +nephew ought to know. She liked Joel’s success, his pride, his air of +being somebody. She estimated rightly the correctness of the +old-fashioned walnut furniture, the heavy curtains, the kidney table in +the parlor, the massive silver service and good linen. It is true Sylvia +changed much of this—except the silver—for cretonnes and wicker chairs +and gay rugs. But as Miss Susan went to the house only a few times she +did not know of this. + +What she especially liked was the spirit of life, of ambition and +hopefulness that pulsed in that household. As Miss Graves grew older, +she began to see that her younger sister had had some pretty good views +after all, that it did not do to stick to settled views,—“this for me, +and that quite other thing for you.” The great things of life were for +the taking, it was true, but the result of deliberate planning. One did +not simply stumble into success. She had lived too long with “the best +white people” not to find that out. + +Joel knew this, too, she realized. His whole life was devoted to the +mapping out of his children’s future. His own and Joanna’s high +enthusiasms had borne fruit. Of late the boys, Philip and Alexander, had +talked good solid man-talk. + +“Colored people will be going big pretty soon. We’ll have to get in it, +too, Pa.” + +Miss Susan decided this was a good place for Peter. Even if she had the +money to do so, she could not send him to a school where he would meet +with more inspiration in both precept and actual concrete example. +Already in the lesser things this association was bearing fruit. Peter +was too handsome, too graceful, too charming ever to be considered a +boor. But he had lacked finish, that fine courtliness of manner which +Miss Susan noted could convert a man of most ordinary appearance into a +prince. She had marked it among Jacob Sharples’ grandsons. Peter had not +possessed a knowledge of that delicacy, of that attention to trifles +which, once gained by a man, gives him passport everywhere. Miss Susan +had noticed, to her regret, the boy’s tendency to let her carry bundles, +to look after even the heavier household duties. It had never occurred +to him if the weather were cold or stormy, to offer to go errands for +her. And his aunt, practical though she was, shrank from calling his +attention to these things. She did not want him to think of her as +exacting a return for her kindness. + +Now the Marshall boys were fine gentlemen. Joel had made them so by +teaching, as well as by his attitude toward their mother and sisters. +Joanna and Sylvia, particularly Sylvia, helped the boys out with an +occasional stitch, an occasional sewing on of a button. When Alexander +was getting ready for college, and was working at nights to help with +his expenses, Sylvia used to arrange sandwiches and milk for him when he +came in late. And Joanna had recopied his chemistry and history notes. +These were only kind trivialities, but the boys treated their sisters +like queens. Philip was a little like Sylvia, only neither as handsome +nor as lithe and quick. Alexander—Alec, Sandy, the girls called him +variously—was slower, like Joanna. Both boys were tall and well set-up. +The girls used to thrill a little—sisters to them though they were—over +the very real and thoughtful gallantry of these two young men. + +Miss Susan had remarked this quality as soon as she met them. And she +was beginning now to see its reflection in Peter. And as he had beauty +and great personal charm to go with it, it distinguished him even more +than the Marshall boys. She half way suspected a conscious assumption of +this on his part. + +“But if he keeps it up, it will become part of him,” she thought to +herself, “and then—girls be careful.” She would have been a little +fearful for Joanna had she not noticed immediately in the young girl +that indomitable desire for distinction. “Joanna will never fall in love +with anybody,” she said once to a common friend of herself and the +Marshalls. “She’ll never be able to take her mind off long enough from +her high falutin dreams.” + +Of course Peter had no conception why his aunt liked him to visit the +Marshalls. He was only too glad that she didn’t disapprove. He was +seventeen now and beginning to know himself in some ways pretty well. He +liked Sandy and Philip and Sylvia Marshall—liked them very well, and +Joanna! It could hardly be said that he loved her at this time. But he +knew that what he liked best of all in the world was to be near her, to +watch her, and to listen to her plans. She had little shadowy gleams in +her dark thick hair, glints of light that ended abruptly in wavy +blackness. He would like to touch it. He remembered that he had once +pulled her hair. He had done it often! But now, though she was only +fifteen, he did not dare. Yet he often touched Sylvia’s. + +The night that Joanna taught them all the barn dance, Peter maneuvered +until he got Harry Portor at the piano, and said: + +“How does that part go, Joanna? Here I am in the center. Then I take you +in. Then——” + +“Put your arms around her,” said Sylvia. “That’s it. Now,—— + + Barn! Barn!” + +He went home and fairly babbled to his aunt about it. “Joanna is the +most wonderful!” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + +IF Peter was unconscious of the utter desirability of association with +the young Marshalls, Maggie Ellersley was not. Ever since her childhood +when she had overheard a conversation between a cousin and her mother, +she had made up her mind to attach herself to some such family and see +what came of it. + +The cousin and her mother worked together for some wealthy white people. +Maggie’s mother was a laundress, a spare hard-working woman to whom life +had meant nothing but poverty and confusion. On Thursdays and Fridays of +each week she washed and ironed and gossiped with “my cousin Mis’ +Sparrow” who was cook at the house on Madison Avenue. Maggie used to +come there for dinner and go home with her mother. + +“Mis’ Sparrow,” small and spidery, had a perpetual complaint against the +world. In particular she experienced envy toward those who were better +off than herself. Her jaundiced disposition may be excused, however, +when one reflects that hers was a lot which had been hard ever since she +could remember. She was poor, she was weak, she was ignorant. Add to +that the fact that she was black in a country where color is a crime and +you have her “complex.” Some people would say she had really done well +in one sense with her life. She had attained by her own unaided efforts +to a comfortable, even if menial, position, where she had heat, light +and enough to eat. They would ask: Considering her beginnings what more +could she want? Alas, in that dull soul unknown aspirations stirred, +amazing questions took form. “Why, why, why?” asked Mis’ Sparrow in her +own peculiar dialect, “are all the sweetness and light of life showered +on some and utterly denied to me?” + +At present Mis’ Sparrow had fastened a resentful eye on Mrs. Proctor, +the bride of the son of the “white folks” for whom she worked. Edmonia +the maid had told her about the newcomer, and over the supper table she +retailed it to Mrs. Ellersley. + +“She wan’t nobuddy. Jes’ a little teeny slip of ole white gal. No money, +no fambly, no nuthin’.” + +“Where’d he meet her then?” asked Mrs. Ellersley, uninterested but +polite. + +“Young Mr. Proctor’s sister met her in boardin’-school, poorest thing +there,” replied Mis’ Sparrow, wiping a puckered mouth with her apron. +“’Monia says Miss Dorothy sorry for her and got her a job in her +father’s office. Mr. Harry was jes’ home f’um college; he saw her, took +a fancy to her and jes’ married her. Jes’ wouldn’t listen to nobuddy +a-tall.” + +“Don’t it beat all,” pondered Mrs. Ellersley, “how some people have all +the luck? Now if that kind of thing could just happen to my Maggie.” + +Mis’ Sparrow was unmoved by the irrelevant allusion to Maggie. Where +would she get such a chance? + +“’Monia says she don’t even love him. Liked some young travelin’ +salesman she’d known all her life. ’Monia declares she cries about him +when she’s by herself.” + +“What she marry him for then?” asked Maggie Ellersley, aged twelve, and +an interested listener. + +“H’m child, wouldn’t you do anything to get away f’um hard work, an’ +ugly cloes an’ bills? Some w’ite folks has it most as bad as us poor +colored people. On’y thing is they has more opporchunities.” + +Maggie, visualizing the life which she and her mother endured, thought +she probably would. She thought it again after they had reached the +tenement in Thirty-fifth Street where the two of them lived. It was the +famous “Tenderloin” of those days and Maggie’s spirit revolted with a +revulsion of feeling which never ceased to amaze her mother against the +sordidness of that place. There were three rooms. The front one looked +on the street and so was well lighted, but the other two got light only +from the air-shaft. Mrs. Ellersley, a widow who considered herself +fortunate to be one, rented the front room out, usually to train-men +(perhaps some of Meriwether’s acquaintances were among them), +occasionally to a married couple. + +She and Maggie slept and lived in the two wretchedly ventilated rooms, +in a perpetual gloom penetrated ever so slightly by a flickering blue +flame. A confusion of clothes, obscene old furniture, boxes, stale +newspapers was littered about them. For some reason the rooms were +everlastingly damp, perhaps because, although rain could get down the +air-shaft, the sunlight never could. The rooms gave Maggie a constantly +eerie feeling, which in later more fortunate years she was always able +to recall by the sight of a gas-flame burning low and blue. + +They never, in those days, enjoyed a really bright flame. Saving was +Mrs. Ellersley’s insistent because necessary fetish. Maggie’s tea was +always weak, and never sweet enough. The bread—baker’s with holes in it, +yesterday’s, two loaves for five cents—was always stale; the meat +usually salt and sometimes tainted. + +Out of it all Maggie bloomed—a strange word but somehow true. She was +like a yellow calla lily in the deep cream of her skin, the slim +straightness of her body. She had a mass of fine, wiry hair which hung +like a cloud, a mist over two gray eyes. Her lips, in spite of her +constant malnutrition, persisted unbelievably red. When she met +excitement those gray eyes darkened and shone, her cheeks flushed a +little, her small hands fluttered. And she was nearly always excited. +Something within her frail bosom pulsed in a constant revolt against the +spirit of things that kept her in these conditions. + +“I will not always live like this, Ma—I’ll get out of it some way.” + +And her mother, though always scoffing, believed her with a dreary +hopefulness. “If there’s a way to be found out, Maggie’ll find it.” + +Maggie found early that one avenue of escape lay through men. They were +stronger than women, they made money. They did not give the impression +of shrinking from spending the last penny lest when that cent was gone +there should be no more. All the train-men liked her. She could not get +much order in that abominable home, but she could and did keep herself +clean and neat. She washed her few garments over night; she wound a +stray ribbon, from a box of cigars or a box of candy, through her hair. +Some of the men, young students, “on the road” during their summer +vacations, used to flirt with her. + +“Hurry and grow up, Mag. When I get through school I’ll come back and +marry you. How’d you like to live in a little house—not like this!—in +Washington?” Or Wilmington or Savannah as the case might be. “I’d give +you pretty dresses.” + +Poor Maggie. Her calla-lily charm visibly lessened in those days when +she opened her pretty mouth. She disclosed herself then for what she +was, a true daughter of the Tenderloin. + +“Aw quit your kiddin!” + +But she came slowly to realize that here was a way out. If she could +only grow up—if she were—say—seventeen. + +She was persistently frail, else her mother might have put her to work. +As it was she was sent to school very regularly—to save fuel and gas. +Evenings she went to the houses where her mother worked and got her +dinner. + +On the night after she had listened to Mis’ Sparrow’s comments about +young Mrs. Proctor, she sat thoughtful a long time. She had sense enough +to know that very often these train-men stayed poor. They made pretty +good money—they did, too, in those days—but not enough to save their +wives from labor. Maggie did not want to wash and iron, to go through +the dreary existence which had been her mother’s when her father was +living; he had run on the road. + +Suppose, just suppose, there were some colored men who were fortunate, +successful, who had enough to eat, who could give their wives help. Her +mother knew of ministers like that. There were colored doctors and +lawyers somewhere. Their very titles connoted prosperity. + +“Ma,” she spoke out of her brown study, “are there any very rich colored +men?” + +“Not any very rich ones, I don’t think,” Mrs. Ellersley replied +thoughtfully, “but lots very well off, comfortable, with servants to +wait on ’em.” She sighed. + +“I’m going to meet one,” said Maggie solemnly, and henceforth she +thought, she dreamed of nothing else. + +When she was fourteen young John Howe, who was occupying the front room, +came down with a spell of typhoid fever. He begged Mrs. Ellersley not to +send him to the hospital, and it was impossible to get him to his home +in Oklahoma. He had enough money to see him through, and he put his +fortunes and his case into her withered hands. All the train-men knew of +Mrs. Ellersley’s absolute honesty. She did what she could for him, sat +up long nights, gave him his medicine faithfully, “counted out his +money.” + +But it was Maggie who gave real service. She stayed out of school to +attend him. The doctor gave her a list of directions which she followed +with meticulous care. In that shabby house down in that terrible +district John Howe met with an attention, a devotion from the humble +woman and her delicate daughter, such as no money could have bought him +in the seats of the mighty. + +John Howe was a Lincoln divinity student, intermittently working his way +through college. He sat up gaunt and weak in the scratched bed of cheap +cherry wood and picked with long skeleton fingers at the thin blue and +white checked coverlet. + +“Maggie, you and your mother’ve been mighty good to me. Look here, I’ve +got to pay you back somehow. After this illness I’ll have to stay out of +school a year. What do you want?” + +Maggie stared at him, her gray eyes going black in the yellow oval of +her face. + +“There’s only one thing I want, Mr. Howe, and you couldn’t give me +that.” + +“I could try. What is it?” + +“Oh Mr. Howe, if you could just get us out of this awful place, this +house, this street! If I could just get to know some decent folks——” + +“Well, I don’t see how I could arrange about the folks. Where do you +want to live, if you go from here? There’re not many places for colored +folks in New York.” + +“There are houses for colored people up in Fifty-third Street, and +decent folks living in them.” + +“But my goodness, Maggie, it costs a fortune to rent one of those +houses.” + +“I know, oh, I know. But if we could just get started. Mother could fill +the house with roomers. Why there’ve been twelve men here for this room +since you’ve been sick. The rest of the rooms aren’t much, but mother +always keeps this room tidy, and we’re honest. They all know that. Never +missed a penny here, any of them. And they tell their friends about us. +Lots of times they tell Ma if she only had more room she’d have all the +roomers she wanted.” + +“But you’ve no furniture.” + +“We could buy on the instalment plan.” She had her scheme all worked +out. Clearly she had nursed her project. “Mr. Howe, if you could just +help us to begin.” + +He would, he told her, convinced by her earnestness. “What exactly do +you want me to do, Maggie?” + +She wanted him to make his headquarters with them for the year, and to +pay as much as he could in advance. It was still early summer. He must +write and tell other men, who would want rooms, and get a few of them to +pay in advance, too. “Train-men won’t mind that,” she told him shrewdly, +“they’ll like to know they have some place to go to when they’ve cleaned +themselves out at cards, or whatever it is they do. That will pay a +month’s rent, and leave something, and with what we pay on this—this +_hole_, we’ll have something to put on the furniture.” + +“I guess you’re right,” said Howe, “I’ll speak to your mother about it.” + +But that was useless. Mrs. Ellersley was sure of her livelihood, her +mere existence here, but she was doubtful about a great venture. “Of +course, for Maggie’s sake I’d like to get away.” + +“Oh, Ma, do—do, Ma,” Maggie had pleaded in an ecstasy of longing. “This +is our one chance. You see if we don’t take this we’ll never get away.” + +Fortunately she had Howe to back her. “She’s right, Mrs. Ellersley, and +this is no place for a young girl to grow up. You can count on me. I’ll +go look for a house, and see about some furniture. I know plenty of +fellows would be glad to come.” + +Miraculously the scheme worked. It gave Maggie her first insight into +the workings of life. If you wanted things, you thought and thought +about them, and when an opportunity offered, there you were with your +mind made up to jump at it. + +Of course they were poor, but at least they were decent. John Howe, +staying for that year in New York, realizing more and more how truly he +was indebted to Maggie and her mother, took a proprietary interest. He +laid the cheap rugs, he set up the cots, three in a room, he did +mysterious jobs in the bath-room which to Maggie was always so +marvelous. He bought tools and fixed window-cords which the landlord +neglected. Maggie darned his socks for him, and he bought some +wall-paper, cheap but clean and virginal, a soft yellow, and papered her +square box of a room. A good job he made of it, too. Another roomer at +his instigation made a dressing table out of a packing box which Mrs. +Ellersley, re-invigorated, covered with scrim. + +Gradually, word of her rooming-house spread among the better class of +transients. All her lodgers gave her their mending to do, she washed for +some of them, gave breakfast to a few chosen spirits, and they paid +willingly and well. + +Maggie was in transports. This was something like a home. Of course, she +had to attend school in the district. Her mother took her as soon as +matters were settled. She looked fresh and neat in a dark blue serge +dress trimmed with black braid, the gift of melancholy Mis’ Sparrow who +in turn had had it from young Mrs. Proctor. The dress was worn, but it +was whole, and Maggie had tacked a tiny turnover of white lace in the +high collar. + +She was assigned to the eighth grade. There were two of them in the +school. Her star was in the ascendant, for she was assigned to the one +of which Sylvia Marshall was a member. She would have fared differently +if it had been Joanna, for unless she were markedly clever, Joanna, who +was intellectually a snob, would probably never have seen her. But +Sylvia spied her at once. She came over to Maggie at recess. + +“You’re a new girl, aren’t you? Want me to show you your way around?” + +Maggie looked at the pretty girl, charming in a soft dark red cashmere +dress made with a wide pleated skirt. She had on little patent leather, +buttoned shoes with cloth tops, and a big red bow perched butterfly +fashion on her dark head. Joanna wore her hair rather primly back from +her face, but Sylvia’s was parted and rolled in waves over her ears, +then it was caught up and confined by the bow. She had a thin gold +bracelet on one arm. And about her hung the aura of well-being and easy +self-assurance which marked all the Marshall children. + +“I wish you would,” said Maggie. + +Sylvia in those days was an ardent worker in Old Zion Sunday School and +had promised to help in a campaign for more students. She told Maggie +about it within the next two or three days. + +“My mother is going to entertain the new folks whom I get to join. Will +you join?” + +Maggie would and so went to Sylvia’s home as her mother’s guest. + +She never forgot that home with its quiet dignity and atmosphere of +prosperity. The Marshall children were a revelation to her. She had not +known of colored people like these. + +“At last I’m getting to know decent people,” she told her mother. + +She had a passion for respectability and decency quite apart from what +they connoted of comparative ease and comfort, though she coveted these +latter, too, and meant some day to have them. + +“Two months ago,” she thought, “I was still in that horrible house on +Thirty-fifth Street, and I got away. If that could happen, anything +could happen.” She lay in her bed at nights in the little yellow room +and saw visions. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + +SHE played her cards with an odd mixture of deliberation and +spontaneity. + +“Maggie adores you, Sylvia,” said Joanna. + +“I think she does,” Sylvia replied modestly. “I don’t know why, I’m +sure. She certainly is nice to me.” + +Maggie’s obvious admiration and Sylvia’s naïve acceptance made the way +easy. It is hard not to be nice to someone who shows plainly that you +are her ideal, your company her supreme satisfaction. Maggie wore her +hair like Sylvia’s, she copied when she could her manner of dressing, +she spent half her time at the Marshall house. + +She saw the value of absolute honesty. No need to pose when telling the +exact truth brought what one wanted without the strain of living up to a +false position. The Marshalls soon knew of Maggie’s poverty, of the +quick wit and determination which had brought them from that +“dump-heap”—Maggie’s word—to the respectable and comfortable if still +cheap boarding-house. Sylvia used to talk to her mother about it. Mrs. +Marshall suggested that she hand over to Maggie one or two of her +perfectly good but discarded dresses. + +But Sylvia objected with a very real delicacy. “She goes to the same +school I go to and to Sunday-School. I wouldn’t want the other children +to see her in my things, she’d feel so badly.” + +Her mother saw the justice of that. “I suppose I have one or two things. +There’s that old brown Henrietta of mine and the silk poplin. How’ll she +get them made over though, Sylvia? Now don’t expect me to help.” + +“Oh, mamma, you darling! You really are a brick! That poplin is old +rose, isn’t it? She ought to look lovely in it. I can fix them. You know +how I love to fix things over and Maggie knows how to sew on the +machine. If she stayed here three or four days, the rest of this week, +we could finish them.” + +Mrs. Marshall agreed, Maggie’s mother was consulted, Maggie came in an +ecstasy. Her first sojourn away from home! And what a sojourn! Naturally +neat though she was, she learned of toilet mysteries, of rites of which +she had never dreamed. Nightly hair-brushings and the discovery that of +course each one had her own brush and comb! Frequent washings of both, +talcum powders! Joanna the ascetic used scentless ones, but Sylvia’s +were highly fragrant. These Maggie preferred. A bath every night. + +“If you don’t mind,” said Sylvia, “I’ll take mine first and then you can +stay in as long as you like. I hope that pig Joanna hasn’t used up all +the hot water!” + +Delicacies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! Dinner at six instead of +the middle of the day! Mrs. Marshall complained of a headache Saturday +morning and Joanna took her breakfast up to her on a silver tray. Mr. +Marshall kept box on box of cigars in his den. Sandy and Philip wore +superlatively blackened shoes. + +Maggie looked, listened, stored in her memory. The dresses were a +success. The rose poplin, being the prettier, was finished first; Sylvia +had longed so to get her hands on it. Maggie put it on Saturday morning +and stood in front of the cheval mirror in Mrs. Marshall’s room admiring +her own and Sylvia’s handiwork, and herself with it. + +“It’s too pretty to wear in the house. Oh, don’t let’s have to wait till +to-morrow. Mamma, couldn’t the boys take us to the matinée? Maggie, have +you seen Peter Pan?” + +Maggie, it transpired, had seen nothing, had never been inside a +theater. + +“What fun!” Sylvia’s native delicacy hit on the right expression. “Fancy +going to your first matinée. Can you spare us, Mother dear?” + +The party could be arranged. Philip and Alexander expressed their +willingness. Joanna did not care to go, to Maggie’s astonishment, which +increased when she saw how wonderful the theater was. But there were +other things. The girl never forgot the thrill that came over her as +Philip took her arm and led her over dangerous crossings, arranged her +seat and program for her, took off her coat. He held it during the +performance and wrinkled it shamelessly. Sylvia scolded him. + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Phil.” + +“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie interposed happily. She was beginning to +have her good time like other people. Oh, God bless John Howe! + +The acquaintanceship progressed. All through the high school the two +were nearly inseparable. It is true, Maggie sought Sylvia more than +Sylvia sought her, but on the other hand Maggie’s presence was taken as +a matter of course by the Marshalls and their friends. Maggie went to +parties with Sylvia, the two escorted by Brian Spencer and Philip. Often +she slept at her house after the parties and at Christmas time and +week-ends. Once, when Mrs. Marshall took Joanna to visit relatives in +Philadelphia, Maggie stayed with Sylvia a whole month. + +In her junior year in the high school she had a long talk with Mr. +Marshall. Of course they were still poor, the house just kept them in +comfort. Maggie had become addicted to the wearing of good clothes. Her +mother was getting older. They needed help from time to time. If Mr. +Marshall would assist her in getting some work. She was young and strong +and willing. + +“No, no, Mr. Marshall!” she objected as Joel—they were sitting in his +office—spoke of a loan and reached for his check-book. “Not that! When +could I ever pay you back? No, I mean work, real work. I could take +orders, count the silver, look after the napery, pay off the men if +you’d care to trust me.” + +Perhaps a man of another race might have stopped to consider such a +proposition coming from the lips of a young and dainty girl. He might +have been suspicious and realized that his younger son was working in +the business with him just then and the boy and girl would be bound to +be thrown together. But colored men of old Joel’s type are obsessed with +the idea of a progressing younger generation. “They must advance,” +thinks the older man, “I must do all in my power to help them. This is +my contribution to mine own.” + +Joel taught her his simple system of bookkeeping and installed her. She +proved herself efficient, willing, and—her mother’s teachings spoke +here—absolutely honest. Her energy and interest were surprising. “You +might think it was her own business,” said Joel. He had no desire to see +either her or any of his children become caterers, but he did like to +see a job well done. Philip was the only one who had evinced any +interest in the business, and that was only during his last year before +entering college. He had to make some extra money somehow—both he and +Sandy had a healthy dislike of burdening their father with their college +expenses—and since he had to work he preferred to spend his time and +energy in his father’s interests. + +His chief work consisted in directing his father’s various squads of +waiters. He met them at the house where Joel was catering, started them +off, checked over necessities, looked after the thousand details which +lent to Joel’s service the perfection that so justly brought him fame. +Maggie often accompanied Philip on these trips. Sometimes she went to +one house and he to another, and he would call for her and take her +home. She pondered deeply over the possibility of these meetings. + +He was usually jolly, unsentimental, almost brotherly. Maggie took care +to follow his lead. But to her great surprise she was beginning to be +conscious of a deep affection for him. At first she had only yearned for +respectability and comfort, and Philip represented such a convenient +short cut to her heart’s desire. But now things were different. + +Sometimes when they came home quite late he would take her arm and the +two would walk slowly and silently down the strangely quiet streets. A +curious little sense of intimacy used to brood over them at times like +these. Philip would laugh a little nervously. + +“Awfully jolly being out late like this by ourselves, isn’t it, Maggie?” + +She would nod him a smiling yes. “Some day,” she thought, “he must say +more.” + +Her studies, her work and these trips with Philip took up most of her +time just now. She and Sylvia of course still saw a great deal of each +other and once in a while went out together. She went to the theater +still more rarely, or to a church festival with Henderson Neal, one of +her mother’s boarders. A mysterious tall brown figure of a man, twenty +years older than Maggie and a thousand years older in experience, he +caught and not infrequently held her attention. He had lived with them +two years, paid his bills regularly, asked no questions and vouchsafed +no explanations. + +Maggie wondered what he did. Whatever his occupation, it certainly paid +him well. More than once she had seen him display without ostentation a +huge roll of bills, which apparently was static in bulk. His speech was +often ungrammatical, but so deliberate that one thought he must be +speaking correctly. He had a rather grand air, and listened to both Mrs. +Ellersley and her daughter with a somewhat ponderous attention. Maggie +thought he was rather interesting for such an old man—he must be nearly +forty! She was a little afraid of him, though, and decided it would be +rather unpleasant for any one who chanced to make him angry. + +Once he met Sylvia and Maggie on the street and offered to take them to +the matinée. His interest was clearly in Maggie but he politely included +her friend. Sylvia later told Philip about it. + +“I hope you didn’t go,” he replied quickly. + +“No, I didn’t, Maggie didn’t, either. But there’s no reason why I +shouldn’t have. She goes with him sometimes.” + +“But that’s different. Maggie’s known different people from any you’ve +ever known. She can take care of herself.” + +“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked, putting her head in the door. “What’s +old Phil so excited about?” + +“You might just as well hear this, too, Jan. I won’t have you and Sylvia +going about with a man like Henderson Neal. Maggie can go with men that +my sisters can’t afford to associate with.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER X + + +SUNDAY was always an important day in the Marshall household. Its +importance, it is true, took on a different character as the years sped. +In the early days Mr. Marshall looked forward to it as the outward and +visible sign of an inward worth. He was a steward in his church, Old +Zion, and on Sundays in a long frock coat with a correct collar, a black +Ascot tie surmounted by a gold horseshoe, he passed the collection box +from pew to pew. He liked to bend his rather stately iron-gray head in +recognition of various greetings. He felt he looked the part, as indeed +he did, of an upright, ambitious, aspiring citizen. + +Many a small boy unconsciously stored away a memory of the erect +wholesome figure as a possible exemplar for future consideration. + +His wife found Sunday a rather distracting day. It was eminently +satisfying, doubtless, to be able to show off such a number of stylish +costumes. Joel had always been able to have her dress well. There was +one wine-colored cashmere with a polonaise and bustle which she had +considered particularly fetching. + +“I never put the dress on in the old days,” she said to her girls, +showing them the truly awe-inspiring picture, “without thinking to +myself: ‘I certainly am glad I married Joel.’ I always did love fine +clothes. Sylvia, I think you must have inherited my taste.” + +Sylvia groaned. “Oh, no, mamma, I don’t deserve that!” + +Clothes, however, had not quite compensated Mrs. Marshall for the +arduousness otherwise entailed in the observance of the Sabbath. There +was always company. Joel, a caterer, knew “how it ought to be done.” +Then there were the four children to dress and get off, and the constant +oversight of them when they came home to see that they did not break the +thousand inhibitions which made the day sacred. + +“I used to hate it so,” Sandy laughed. “Remember, Phil, how we used to +try to find those awful sailor collars—I think they’re called Buster +Browns now—and see if we couldn’t hide them or mark them up before the +next Sunday? Mother must have had a million of them, for we were never +able to exhaust her supply.” + +“Weren’t you sights!” Sylvia teased. “You were fat, Alec, and your face +rose large and round over your collar like a full moon. You had two eyes +set away back from your fat cheeks and you had to bend your head way +over to look down——” + +“And you wore a grayish-brownish-greenery-yallery round straw hat,” +interposed Joanna. + +“Don’t you talk,” Philip jeered at them, “I remember two poke bonnets, +reddish, with fuzzy stuff sticking up over them.” + +“Astrakhan. Yes, I remember,” Sylvia told him. “Weren’t they awful? And +the deadliness of Sunday afternoon! You boys sitting around knocking +your feet against the rungs of the chairs. Such glooms!” + +“Yes, and you,” said Sandy, assuming a solemn countenance. “Looking +dejectedly out of the window, your face propped in your hands!” + +“Joanna was the only one who got anything out of those Sundays,” Philip +mused. “I can see her now flat on her tummy reading the life of some +exemplary female.” + +“Notable women of color,” laughed Joanna. “I adored Sunday.” + +Certainly no flavor of those past days spoiled the Marshalls’ enjoyment +in these later years. Rather remarkably the whole family still went to +church, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall from years of long habit, Sylvia because +she rather liked to please her mother and because it amused her to have +Brian Spencer, whom church-going bored to the point of agony, obey her +wish that he should go. Sandy, now in the real estate business, thought +it gave him standing in the community. + +Philip’s reasons were various. Chiefly he went to church as he went to +many meetings, because he was interested in seeing groups of colored +people together. He had a strong desire to sense the social +consciousness, for he was trying to learn just what stirred mass feeling +and into what channels it could be directed. A minister of the poorest +type was an unfailing source of study to him. How would this man sway +the people? And what would he ask of them once he had them ready to +listen to his will? Philip always dreamed of a leader who should +recognize that psychological moment and who would guide a whole race +forward to the realization of its steadily increasing strength. + +He dreamed many dreams sitting crosswise in the far corner of his pew, +his back partly against the wall, partly against the seat, his lean, +brown, slightly haggard face bent forward. He had already the somewhat +remote glance of the thinker, though his firm chin pronounced him no +less the man of action. Maggie Ellersley, sitting across the church from +him, watching him a little covertly under her drooping hat brim, used to +think he looked like a man who would take what he wanted. + +“If only he knew _what_ he wanted,” she half sighed. + +Joanna was the soloist of the choir these days, sole _raison d’être_ of +_her_ church-going. Her mezzo voice full and pulsing and gold brought +throngs to the church every Sunday. + +“There is a green hill far away,” she sang, and the puzzled, groping +congregation turned its sea of black and brown, yellow and white faces +toward her and knew a sudden peace. Even Philip stopped his restless +inner queries. + +At times like these Peter Bye felt his very heart leap toward her. + +Joanna with her cool eyes and steady head cared almost nothing about +this. She never saw herself in this scene. Always in her mind’s eye she +was far, far away from the church, in a great hall, in a crowded +theater. There would be tier on tier of faces rising, rising above her. +And to-morrow there would be the critics.... + +The Sundays passed thus week-end to week-end. One of them stood out in +Joanna’s memory. Philip, a Harvard junior, was home on his summer +vacation, but he and Sylvia and Sandy had gone to visit their mother’s +folks in Philadelphia. + +Joanna, Brian Spencer, Peter, and Maggie Ellersley stepped out of church +and walked down the torrid street. It was early June, but the weather +was that of August. + +“Our children are growing up,” said Mrs. Marshall to Mrs. Ellersley, +lingering a moment in the shady vestibule. “See how tall Joanna and +Maggie have grown. They were the littlest things!” + +Mrs. Ellersley followed the group with a wistful eye. Of late she had +begun to have some idea of Maggie’s unspoken desires. She wished it were +Philip instead of Brian walking down the street with her daughter. She +was very tired, tired enough to die, but she could not, she felt, leave +Maggie alone, unplaced in the world. + +The four young people turned the corner and prepared to separate. + +“Brian is coming to the house for dinner,” said Joanna. “You coming, +Maggie and Peter?” + +Maggie had an engagement for the afternoon. Peter refused, too, sulkily, +to Joanna’s vast satisfaction. + +“Jealous,” she thought with some pride. It was an exhibition with which +she seldom met. Most of the young men of her acquaintance were a little +afraid of Joanna with her intent and serious air. “High-brow” they +called her and she knew it, liked it, too, though it had its +inconveniences. + +“Peter’s mad,” she laughed as the two moved off, “because I told him I +was going to the benefit concert with you, Brian, and so he couldn’t +come to-night.” + +“Sorry if I spoked his wheel,” said Brian, “but you just have to take +pity on me, Jan, I’m so lonely without Sylvia.” + +“Of course. Isn’t it funny that he doesn’t realize that? He thinks you +are making up to me. As though I would come between you and Sylvia. +Great chance I’d have.” + +“About as much as _I’d_ have, trying to come between you and Peter. Not +that I know anything about you, Janna. Heaven only knows what you mean +to do with the boy. But I wouldn’t want to face Peter, if I were aiming +to be his rival. Wonder what he’ll do when he goes to the University in +Philadelphia. What’s he going off there for, anyway? Can’t he do just as +well here?” + +“The penalty of being colored,” said Joanna soberly. “He can get much +better hospital work in Philadelphia. Of course he could take his +pre-medic work here, but he thinks it best to begin where he plans to +finish.” + +“How long will he be away?” + +“Forever and ever, six or seven years, I think. Of course, we both have +relatives in Philadelphia. His great-uncle Peter, for whom he was named, +is still there, you know. Peter’s counting on living with him. It will +save expense.” + +“Six or seven years!” said Brian disregarding anything else. “Golly what +a wait! It would kill any girl but you, Janna.” + +“Sylvia didn’t die while you were in Harvard,” Joanna returned meanly. + +“Not much she didn’t! But she kept me in the back of her head, I’ll +swear. While you with your singing and dancing and your wildcat schemes +of getting on the stage! Better stick to your own Janna, and build up +colored art.” + +“Why, I am,” cried Joanna, astonished. “You don’t think I want to +forsake—_us_. Not at all. But I want to show _us_ to the world. I am +colored, of course, but American first. Why shouldn’t I speak to all +America?” + +“H’m, I suppose you’re right. You ought to win out if anyone can. You +work hard enough, Janna. You’re eighteen now, aren’t you? Well, you’ve +got a good ways to go. How old is Peter?” + +“Twenty. He lost a lot of time when he was little. That’s why he’s so +late entering college.” + +“Well look here, what are you going to do with him?” + +“I may not have a chance to do anything with him, Mr. Busybody.” + +“Phew, isn’t it hot! Thank goodness here’s the house. Run along and get +your brother-in-law a long, cold drink.” + +He stayed after dinner—they had it on Sundays at three—and talked away +the rest of the afternoon to Joel in the long dark dining room. + +“It’s cool here,” said Joel, handing him a cigar. “Light up and tell me +how’s Harlem?” + +“Great, sir. It’s the place for colored people. Let us get you a house +up there. Pick you up something fine in One Hundred and Thirty-first +Street.” Brian, too, had gone into real estate as Alexander’s partner. + +Joel rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Don’t +know but what I might. This neighborhood’s gone down. Let me see your +house.” + +“Yes, sir, I will. Has—er—Sylvia said anything to you about me? I’m +getting along pretty well now, sir.” + +“What should she say? Here Joanna, come take this lovesick boy off my +hands!” + +Joanna came, serene and cool, a little prim in her pale yellow dress and +soft floppy hat of tan chiffon. She handed Brian his Panama. + +“I’m ready, Brian.” + +Joel stopped them for a moment, clapped the boy on the shoulder. “It’s +all right as far as her mother and I are concerned, Brian.” + +The two went off and heard a gracious, mellow-voiced woman fill a hall +with sound that made them forget the heat. + +“My collar’s wringing wet, and I never thought of it. Wonderful how +music can make people forget.” + +“Even color,” said Joanna thoughtfully. “Did you see that white woman +next to me edge away when I sat down? But when she heard me humming +after it was over, she leaned over and asked me if I knew the words.” + +“I wondered what you were talking about. Awfully jolly of you to have +taken pity on me to-night, Janna dear. You marry Peter and all four of +us will go to these concerts and sit in the gallery and come home +praising God from whom all blessings flow.” + +“It certainly sounds nice. Only we mustn’t forget Philip. Don’t ring the +bell, here’s the key.” + +He took it. “All right about Philip. Maggie is fond of music, too.” + +Joanna, in the act of entering the door, stepped back and faced him +sharply. “What’s Maggie got to do with it?” + +“Well, she and Phil. They’ve always paired off together, haven’t they? +Just like you and Peter, just like Sylvia and me.” + +“She wouldn’t dare,” said Joanna fiercely. “Why, Philip—he’s going to be +somebody great, wonderful, a Garibaldi, a Toussaint! And Maggie, +Maggie’s just nobody, Brian. Why, do you know what she’s taking up? Hair +work, straightening hair, salves and shampoos and curling-irons.” + +“Joanna, you’re an utter snob. I always knew you looked down on people +unless they were following some mad will o’ the wisp. Maggie’s as good +as any of us. Why look here, she graduated from high school with Sylvia. +You can’t look down on her.” + +“Sylvia’s my sister, thank you. She’s Joel Marshall’s daughter. She has +background, she knows good music and pictures and worth while people.” + +“You talk like a silly book. What’s that got to do with it? And, anyway, +you can’t stop it now.” + +“What’s the reason I can’t?” + +“Well, good Lord, it must be as good as settled. Why Maggie thinks—only +to-day—Oh—here, I’ve said enough. Thanks awfully for a nice evening, +Jan——” + +“What’d she say, Brian?” + +“Well, you know we were coming home from church and you and Bye were +ahead and I said, ‘Look at the lucky pair.’” + +“Yes, never mind me. Well, well?” + +“And she said, ‘You miss Sylvia, don’t you, Brian?’ ‘You bet,’ I told +her. + +“And she looked at me—you know how Maggie can look—she said, ‘Just like +I miss Philip, I guess.’” + +Joanna grew visibly taller. “You let her say that, Brian Spencer?” + +“Well, how could I stop her? Of course she misses Phil. And quit acting +‘offended pride,’ Joanna. Heavens, doesn’t Sylvia sometimes do sewing?” + +“Oh, but that’s different, she creates, she’s an artist——” + +“Artist your grandmother! Sleep it off, Janna. Good night.” He went off, +striding down the quiet street. + +Joanna closed the door and crept quietly up to her room. Seated in a +wicker arm-chair in a stream of gold summer moonlight, she spent a long +time in deep thought. + +Maggie and Philip! Maggie! Of late she and Philip had had many a long +talk. He’d lean against the mantelpiece—his restless fingers caressing a +little black statuette: + +“Jan, I’ll talk to you, because you’ve always cared about this kind of +thing. Raise a monument—more-enduring-than-bronze sort of business, you +know. When I graduate—by the way, I think I’ll be elected Phi Beta Kappa +next year—I’ve got a scheme, I’ve got a plan that will work all right. +Father will be proud of me, you’ll see. And you, too, old girl, you’ve +always been a bright beacon light. You stick to this stage business, +you’ll win out. There’ll be a twin star constellation. ‘The well known +Marshalls, Joanna and Philip.’ We’ll make the whole world realize what +colored people can do. Nothing short of ‘battle, murder or sudden death’ +is to interfere.” + +He, too, had been bitten by the desire to make the most of his life. And +now here was Maggie Ellersley. + +“What ambition has she?” Joanna asked herself fiercely, forgetting to +measure the depth of the abyss of poverty and wretchedness from which +Maggie had sprung. “She shan’t spoil my brother’s chances.” + +Rushing over to her little desk, she pulled out a piece of tan +stationery and began a note. + +“Dear Maggie——” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +PETER had accompanied Maggie as far as the subway station. “You won’t +mind if I don’t go all the way home with you, Maggie? Fact is, I don’t +feel so well to-day, so if you’ll excuse me——” His voice trailed +indeterminately. + +Maggie smiled at him nicely. She was oddly happy at this moment. Linking +her name with Philip’s, as she had, gave her an odd sense of freedom, of +sureness. “And Brian didn’t seem at all surprised,” she kept thinking to +herself over and over. + +She answered out loud, “That’s all right, Peter. Go home and rest. I’m +going to be in the house only a minute, anyway.” She looked at him +meaningly. “I guess both of us have a lot to think of. Good-by.” She +flashed down the steps, looked back; a second later a slender golden +hand waved to him from the gloom of the subway. + +“Now I don’t know what she meant,” thought Peter, pushing his hat back +from his hot forehead, and immediately turning to another idea. “I’d +like to punch that fresh Brian’s head. Oh, Janna, how could you go off +with him?” + +Down in the subway train Maggie sat smiling a little inanely. Of late, +her feeling for Philip had taken a definite form; she wanted, as always, +desperately to marry, and to marry well in order to secure for herself +the decent respectability for which those first arid fourteen years of +her life had created an almost morbid obsession. But she knew now that +the one man through whom she wanted to secure that respectability was +Philip Marshall. She loved him. + +“If the way I wanted him at first, dear God, was a sin, you must forgive +me. Oh, Philip, Philip, have a good time in Philadelphia to-day. I bet +you’re at a meeting of some kind this minute.” The picture of his +favorite attitude came before her, and she smiled more broadly. + +A white man sitting opposite mistook the smile and leaned forward, +leering a little. She turned her head quickly, noting as she did so that +something about his build made her think of Henderson Neal, her mother’s +roomer. + +She was to go motoring with him this afternoon. He had asked her very +often of late. Usually she spent Sundays with Philip and Sylvia and +Brian, sometimes with Joanna and Peter. But since the first two were +away, she might just as well spend the time with Mr. Henderson. He would +have a nice car, she knew; twice before he had taken herself and her +mother out. It had really been very nice. She rather fancied he must +work in a garage, he came riding up to the house so often. She wished a +little nervously that she hadn’t promised to go, it would be nice to sit +quietly in her room or in the long, sparsely furnished parlor and think. + +Still it was hot, and if there were any air to be got they’d catch it in +an automobile. + +She ran up the subway steps and hurried toward Fifty-third Street. +Somehow she didn’t care to keep Mr. Neal waiting. + +There was still a quarter of an hour before he might be expected. She +bathed her face, shook out her short, thick hair, twisted it back from +her forehead. Next she crowned her oval, deep-cream face with a wide +black hat, whose somberness was repeated in a broad velvet ribbon around +the waist of her white dress. + +But she looked anything but somber as she ran to the door at the whirr +of the motor. + +“Going, Ma,” she called back. Mr. Neal climbed out of the car and helped +her in. + +He didn’t look so old—elderly—to-day, she thought to herself, noting the +straightness of his flat back and the smooth bronze of his closely +shaven cheek. Evidently his beard was very strong and this had lent +hitherto a somewhat heavy cast to his face. But to-day he was shaven to +the blood. Maggie was used to studying men. It was a legacy from the old +days, when failure to analyze a prospective roomer’s appearance might +jeopardize a week’s rent. She noticed Neal’s hands at the wheel, +powerful and sinewy with broad square finger-tips. He was still +baffling, but not so bad, she thought. + +“Of course, not like Philip, but nice enough to go around with, and this +is a dandy car.” She looked at him again sideways. He caught her glance. + +“Thinkin’ I ain’t so bad maybe, Miss Maggie?” + +She blushed, confused, not so much at his catching her eye as at the +completeness with which he had read her thought. + +“You certainly look nice in that suit, Mr. Neal. It’s different from +what most men wear, isn’t it?” + +“Likely as not. I picked it up in London last time I crossed the big +pond.” + +“You’ve been to Europe?” asked Maggie all ears. + +“Yes to England, France, Spain, Germany _and_ Italy. They was a time,” +he said in his deliberately incorrect way, “when I thought I’d stay in +them parts forever, but I come back. Used to valet for a rich white +fellow. Took me everywhere with him. Wanted to carry me to Africa +lion-hunting. But I quit him cold. If you want to hunt lions, go to it. +Me, I’m a-goin’ t’stay right here.” + +He spoke with a heavy emphasis on the last word which lent a curious +whimsicality to his speech. + +“This is the first time you’ve ever talked about yourself, Mr. Neal. +Tell me some more, it’s mighty interesting.” + +He had been everything from a farmer to a chauffeur, he told her, +confirming her idea that his present occupation was concerned with the +manipulation of cars. + +“And I’ve been a lot of places and I’ve seen a lot of people. But you +don’t want to hear about me, Miss Maggie. They ain’t nothing in me to +interest a little lady like you. Now, on the other hand, seems to me, +you might make real interestin’ talkin’.” + +He had a nice smile, Maggie thought. + +“There isn’t much to tell,” she smiled back at him. “There’s just my +mother and me. I’m twenty-one and I’ve been out of school three years. I +work in the office of Mr. Marshall, the caterer; you know him?” + +“Know of him, Miss Maggie, know of him. Son’s a real-estate agent, ain’t +he?” + +“Yes. Well, I’m a sort of overseer-bookkeeper. In my spare time I’m +taking up a course in hair-dressing. You know there’s a Madame Harkness +who’s invented a method of softening hair, and of taking the harshness +out of your folks’ locks.” She laughed at him. “You know I think there’s +a big future in it. It ought to mean a lot to us. Everybody wants to be +beautiful, and every woman looks better if her hair is soft and +manageable.” + +“Reckon you don’t need to use no such preparation, Miss Maggie.” + +“No, I don’t, fortunately, but I’ll be glad to help those that do. I +love to see people look nice; like to look nice myself.” + +“You sure do, you’re like a little yellow flower, growin’ in that +house.” He gave her a keen level glance whose boldness was softened by +his serious manner. + +“Let’s stop talking about me,” said Maggie with sudden confusion. “Don’t +you want to hear about my mother?” + +“Well, not as much as about some others.” + +“Anyway, she’s been a wonderful mother. My father died when I was about +eight, and left us nothing. Mother has been hard put to it at times. +That’s why I want to learn the hair-trade. I want to set up a business +for myself some day. If I succeed, both mother and I can live on easy +street.” + +“You’d ought to be living there now. A delicate little girl like you’s +got no business having to worry her pretty head about taking care of +herself.” He bent on her a long considering look. “There’s many a man +would be willing to take that job off your hands. I bet I know of one.” +An odd bashfulness seemed to descend upon him. + +“Perhaps he’s going to propose,” thought Maggie innocently enraptured, +“wouldn’t that be great?” She pictured Sylvia’s surprise when she should +tell her. His clumsy circumlocution, his heavy deference, delighted her. +Philip of course was wonderful, but he was inclined, like all the +Marshalls, to be a little superior. Well, why shouldn’t they be? + +She sighed. + +Her silence seemed to put an end to his sentimental maunderings, for he +began to talk about the car, explaining its mechanism. Once, too, he +turned and swore fluently at a motorist who passed him too closely. At +the sudden passion which convulsed his face Maggie drew back, a little +frightened. He noticed it, and immediately ironed out the lines of +anger. + +“You must forgive me, Miss Maggie. It made me so angry to think that +that fool might have caused an accident which would have injured you.” + +She thought with the ignorant pride of a young girl that it would be +very easy for her to manage him. Shortly after that they turned around +and came home. Maggie was glad when they reached the house, for she had +many things to think about. Shutting off the motor, he followed her into +the hall and they stood there a minute, his powerful dark figure looming +over her. + +She thanked him prettily. “It was very nice of you, Mr. Neal. You’ve +been most kind to mother and me.” As she sped lightly up the stairs she +forgot him completely. + +Her windows were open and a full moon flooded her room with light. “Oh, +Philip if I only knew how you felt,” she murmured, getting up and +leaning out the window, gazing into the still, hot air. The people next +door were in their back yard; one of their boys was playing an +accordion. A little thin tinkle of voices floated up to her. How content +other people seemed! + +Her mind was feverish—she had concentrated so on her other desires, a +decent home, a reasonable education, the means of making a little extra +money. It seemed to her she couldn’t find the strength to focus the +flame of her ambition on Philip’s kind but immobile attitude. He was so +uncomprehending. She turned back to the room again and stretched her +arms to the shadowy wall. + +“If you’d only say one word, Philip. I’d wait forever.” It was the +uncertainty that sickened her spirit. “Yet,” she thought, growing +suddenly cold, “suppose I should be made certain—the wrong way. Perhaps +you’ve met a girl in Philadelphia.” + +She determined the suspense was best. “You’ve been my hope so long, if +you should fail me what would I do? Besides, I love you, Philip.” + +She lay half the night, very still and very wakeful in her white iron +bed. The morning brought back her old sanguineness, she was to have a +very full day; until early forenoon there was work in Mr. Marshall’s +office, and in the late afternoon Madame Harkness’ Method of Hair +Culture claimed her. + +She came home, hot and deliciously tired. + +“There’s a letter for you,” her mother told her. “Wash your face and eat +your supper first. I want to get through’s quick as I can. Mis’ Sparrow +and me, we’re going to a meeting.” + +Maggie spied the letter in the gloom of the hall. It was from Sylvia +probably; her heart hoped it was from Philip. But she put the thought +away from her as too audacious. “Now just for that,” she told herself +whimsically, “I won’t let you touch that letter till after supper.” +Smiling, she washed her face and changed into something cool and old +that she could lounge in later up in her room, while she read Sylvia’s +letter. + +Supper over, the dishes washed and her mother started in the direction +of Mis’ Sparrow’s residence, Maggie went for her letter. Even in the +half gloom she descried with a sudden pang that the superscription was +unfamiliar. “Not from Philip, not even from Sylvia. Well, why should +they write me?” she chided herself bravely. + +In the waning but clear light in her room she could see plainly that the +letter must be from a stranger. Yet there was something vaguely familiar +about the writing after all. + +She slit the envelope. + + “Dear Maggie: [the letter ran] + + “You’ll be surprised to get this letter, yet something tells me + I should write it. It’s about you and Philip. [‘What’s this?’ + said Maggie, startled.] I have learned, Maggie, that you are + taking Philip’s kindnesses to you too seriously, that perhaps + you are thinking of marrying him. + + “I think you ought to know that such an arrangement would not be + at all pleasing to our family, nor would it be good for Philip. + I’ve often heard my mother say that only people of like position + should marry each other, and I hardly think that would be true + in the case of you and Philip. Then you must consider the + future. My father is very ambitious for us and lately Philip has + shown that he means to embark on a real career. You can see that + a girl of your lowly aims would only be a hindrance to him. + Philip Marshall cannot marry a hair-dresser!” + +The childish cruel words ran on: + + “Then, too, I am sure he does not care for you in the way you + care for him. Don’t you go around sometimes with a Mr. + Henderson, or somebody like that? Sylvia met him somehow and + Phil didn’t like it and raised a big fuss. Sylvia told him that + you knew him and went out with him and Philip said ‘That’s + different. Maggie Ellersley can do things that my sisters + mustn’t do.’ That doesn’t sound as though he had any serious + feeling for you, does it? + + “I guess this will be sort of hard for you to read, but I + believe” [Joanna wrote virtuously] “that some day you will thank + me for these words. + + “Wouldn’t it be just as well if you didn’t see him for some time + after his return? + + “Yours, + + “JOANNA MARSHALL.” + + “P. S. Papa is thinking of buying a house in One Hundred and + Thirty-first Street, in Harlem, you know. So we may move after + Sylvia and the others come back from Philadelphia. Papa would + still keep his office in Fifty-ninth Street. That puts us pretty + far away, so if you shouldn’t come up so often, no one would + think anything of it.” + +Maggie folded the letter carefully and put it on her mantelpiece. Then, +fully dressed as she still was, she lay down on her bed. + +“You poor idiot,” she thought to herself, “you simpleton, you fool, why +should the Marshalls want you? They’re rich, respected! Mr. Joel +Marshall—you see the name at the head of every committee of colored +citizens, and you are nobody, the daughter of a worthless father, and a +poor ex-laundress!” + +Her mind dwelt briefly on her mother. “Poor Mamma, she expected so much +of me! Yet if Philip really cared about me, he wouldn’t care a rap if +they did object.” She remembered then his slighting words. + +“I hate him,” she said fiercely, “and Joanna and her everlasting +ambitions and the pride of all of them. Why, you’re just a beggar to +them.” She resumed her merciless self-attack. + +Presently she began to cry great, scalding tears that burned her cheeks +and hurt her throat. At eleven o’clock she heard her mother’s step and +forced herself to an aching quiet. About midnight she realized that her +head ached, that her throat was so dry and parched that it almost +rasped. + +“To think I should care like this,” she told herself. “Oh, Maggie, +Maggie, they’re proud, can’t you copy their pride?” + +There were some lemons on the table in the dining room, she remembered. +At least she could ease her tortured throat. Hot though it was she put +on her felt bedroom slippers, so that her step on the creaking stairs +might not disturb her mother. + +The quiet lower rooms struck her with their awful solemnity, added to +her woe. She sat there at the dining room table, one hand clutching the +forgotten lemon, the other flung on the red-checked table cloth, above +her dark bowed head. + +Two conflicts were raging within her. A two-fold stream of +disappointment overwhelmed. Not only had Philip not made love to her but +he had despised her, not considered her the peer of his sisters. And how +was she to mend her precarious fortunes? She was not strong, her mother +was aging; suppose, before she got on her feet, she should fall back +into the old hateful abyss. As it was she would never enter Mr. +Marshall’s office again. + +Her shame and despair heavy upon her, she buried her face deeper on her +arm. Some one seemed to say, “Miss Maggie!” + +She imagined it, she knew, but even if it were real she did not want to +lift that heavy, heavy head. + +A powerful but kind hand strove to lift it for her. She looked up then, +a blinking figure of misery in the flickering gas flame. + +“But Miss Maggie, t’aint ever you. Was you asleep or—was you crying?” +Henderson Neal had come in, and spying the light in the dining room had +come to investigate. + +She blinked at him stupidly. + +“Little Miss Maggie, what’s happened to you? You ain’t in trouble?” + +“In awful trouble.” Her lips shaped the words stiffly. + +His mind, accustomed to the ways of men, jumped to one dread conclusion. +“You mean some good for nothin’ feller’s took advantage of you?” + +She didn’t understand him at first. “What? Oh, that! No, of course not!” +A spasm of horrible amusement crossed her tightly drawn features. “He—he +wouldn’t touch me.” + +She broke into passionate yet stifled weeping. Her mother must not hear +her. + +Neal’s face twitched. He picked her up in his steely arms, sat down in +an old cavernous morris chair and held her back against him like a baby. + +“Tell me about it, Miss Maggie; some of them tony fellers bothering you +to marry them?” + +The supposition was balm to her spirit, but she had schooled herself to +honesty. “No, not that—one of them, oh, he never knew—I hoped, oh, Mr. +Neal, you see I wanted him to like me——” + +“And he doesn’t, and he’s been leading you on? The damned skunk. I’d +like to kill him.” + +“Don’t say that. He was just being kind. He’d probably be all right if +he ever thought about me. You see, it’s his sisters, his sister,” she +corrected herself, “she doesn’t consider me good enough.” + +“Well, what’s she got to do with it? Can’t the feller speak for +himself?” + +“That’s just it, I used to go to see them, they don’t come to see me. If +the sisters don’t want me, there’s no way I can reach him, particularly +since he isn’t interested. I had just hoped that if he kept on seeing +me, some day he would grow to like me.” + +Neal was nonplussed. This was a puzzle. + +“What are you going to do now?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. And I’m losing my job now. I got it through them.” + +“I see.” He sat silent, studying her a moment. “Look here, Maggie, +whyn’t you marry me? I’m old and I’m rough and you see I ain’t no +book-learnin’. But I can take care of you—you and your mother, too, and +I can dress you pretty, like you’d ought to be, and with money and fine +clothes you can do a little lordin’ on your own.” + +She hated to offend him. He was so kind. “Mother would never hear of +it,” she quavered for lack of a better answer. + +“You don’t have to let her know about it,” he said, encouraged by her +failure to refuse him flatly. “I’ll get a license in the morning and +we’ll slip out after she goes to work. You won’t be sorry. I’ll be kind +to you Maggie—girl. I’ve always wanted you to give me a chance.” He +added a cunning afterthought. + +“Show these stuck-up friends of yourn, and show ’em quick that you don’t +have to go beggin’ for favors. There’s others, yes, not a man that comes +into this house that wouldn’t be proud to marry you.” + +She began to toy with the idea. Marriage with Neal was not what she +wanted, but it represented to her security, a home for herself and her +mother, freedom from all the little nagging worries that beset the woman +who fights her own way through the world. Perhaps she had aimed too +high. This was the sort of person with whom she had grown up; he would +not, because he could not, look down on her lowliness. On the contrary, +he would place her on a pedestal. + +“I’ll think about it,” she promised him finally. + +But he knew if she did not take him now, she would never take him. She +knew it, too. + +He set her gently in the chair, and knelt in front of her, barring her +escape with his powerful body. + +“Listen, Maggie, marry me now, to-morrow. We’ll go to Atlantic City for +a few weeks, and come back and go to housekeeping. I don’t have to live +here. I just stayed on, first because it was clean and your mother was +honest and then because I liked you. I ain’t no lawyer, nor doctor, nor +in none of the fine positions your friends hold, but I handle a good bit +of money and I’ll get you everything you want.” + +He did have money, she knew that. She supposed she ought to find out +exactly how he made it. But of course he was honest. And anyway she was +too tired, too weak to bother. She could feel his strong will impinging +on her own, beating hers down. + +“I’ll do it, Mr. Neal.” + +“My name’s Henderson, Maggie. You will, you mean it?” + +“Yes, to-morrow. But I ought to let my mother know.” + +“Oh, no, she might object—mothers hate to see their daughters leave +them. But after she sees how well fixed and happy you are, she won’t +mind.” + +“I guess you’re right. I—I don’t see how I can ever pack. I’m so tired.” +Her figure slacked weakly against the chair. + +“You don’t need to. Just wear something dark and quiet. We’ll get +everything you want in Atlantic City, or maybe Philadelphia.” + +“No, no—not in Philadelphia, we won’t stop there now,” she told him +feverishly. + +“All right. Now run up to bed. Kiss me, Maggie.” + +She gave him her cold, stiff lips. + +“Good girl! To-morrow at ten. You ain’t foolin’ me?” + +“Oh, no, Mr. Neal!” + +“Henderson’s my name. Good night, little girl.” + +Shaking, she got up to her room to lie vacant-eyed across the bed, +watching the darkness deepen, shade into gray, vanish. The sun came +bringing a new day, to her a new life. + +She wrote her mother a note, then dressed herself carefully in a little +tan poplin suit, a small brown hat and a white veil. “Brides wear +veils,” she thought to herself numbly. “Oh, I didn’t think I’d be a +bride like this!” + +Well, it was too late now. At quarter of nine she went down stairs. Her +mother had left long since. Presently she heard a taxi drive up and +Neal, heavy but immaculate, got out. He was coming for her. She walked +stiffly to meet him; they entered the cab together and were whirled +away. + +“This was marriage,” she thought, murmuring some words later to a +Justice of the Peace. They entered the waiting taxi again and drove to +the Pennsylvania station. A surprising number of the red-caps seemed to +know Mr. Neal—her husband. Well, of course, of course why shouldn’t +they? They walked down the steps past car after car. Neal ushered her +finally into a drawing-room. She had never dreamed of traveling like +this. As the train pulled out Neal hailed a passing waiter. “Bring us +something to eat as soon as possible.” + +He sat down beside her, immaculate in a gray suit, gray tie, carefully +brushed low shoes. His tan overcoat rested in the corner of the seat. He +put his arms around her. + +“Poor, sleepy, frightened Maggie,” he said tenderly. + +She burst into sharp, strangling sobs, burying her head against his +shoulder. + +So she left New York, weeping, to return to it one day dry-eyed but with +a bitterness that was worse than tears. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + +“Really, Joanna, you ought to treat me better. You know I’m staying in +New York just on account of you!” + +“How do you want me to treat you, Peter?” + +“Oh, hang it all. Why can’t you be nicer to me? When Brian comes to see +Sylvia she runs to meet him, puts her arms about his neck.” + +“But Sylvia and Brian are engaged. You and I are just friends.” + +“Just friends! Joanna, have a heart. What do you think I spend all my +spare time with you for? You know how I feel.” + +Joanna raised a slim, protesting hand. “None of that, Peter! You come to +see me because both of us are interested in the same things. Each of us +is going to be an artist in different ways. What other girl is there in +New York who would let you talk to her about the joys of surgery?” + +“What other girl would want me to?” + +Joanna, looking at the long brown figure lying full length on the grass, +thought it highly improbable that any other girl would. She had seen +other girls in the company of Peter, and watched quite without jealousy +their ways with him. She rather prided herself on her own aloofness from +such tactics. Of course, some day she might let Peter talk to her about +things other than work and art, and she might answer him, but at present +the big things of life must be arranged. Love was an after +consideration, she felt, and as far as she knew she meant it. + +It was a Saturday afternoon in July and the two were in Van Cortlandt +Park. Peter was to go to school in Philadelphia in the fall, and it was +important for him to earn as much money as possible for his expenses. He +might have gone with a group of other boys to one of the watering places +and worked in a hotel. But that took him too far away from Joanna. +Ragtime was coming into vogue then, and Peter proved himself an adept at +it. The butcher shop was of course a thing long since of the past. + +“Here’s where I put my gift of strumming to some use,” he laughed to +Joanna. “You ought to see how glad they were to take me on at that +cabaret.” + +“I hope you won’t learn anything you shouldn’t in that atmosphere,” she +had answered primly. + +“Oh, of course I won’t,” he returned, thinking how amazed she would be +if she ever looked down from her pinnacle long enough to understand what +life really was. He would have liked her to see that cabaret with its +jostling crowds and blaring lights, and the host of noisy good-hearted +dancing girls. He tried to give her some description of it. But Joanna +turned away. + +“Men and women are like that, just the same,” he protested. “Everybody +isn’t living on the mountain-tops like you, Janna. I can’t live there of +my own accord myself. That’s why I haunt you so because you do keep me +on the heights, dear.” She liked that. + +“But just the same,” he resumed, rolling over on the short grass like a +lithe handsome animal, “all the big things of life smack of the earth. +Your poet has to eat, or he can’t write poetry. Well, so does the +commonest laboring-man. The queen has children, in agony, Janna, just +like the poorest charwoman. And love is the—the driving force for both +of them.” He mused a little. “Love is the most natural and ordinary +thing in the world.” + +But Joanna didn’t believe that. “Love is a wonderful, rare thing, very +beautiful, very sweet, but you can do without it.” + +“Not much you can’t. Better not try it, Joanna. You have to found your +life on love, then you can do all these other things.” + +“Don’t talk like a silly, Peter. You know perfectly well that for a +woman love usually means a household of children, the getting of a +thousand meals, picking up laundry, no time to herself for meditation, +or reading or——” + +“Dancing! That’s through poor management. Marry a man who understands +you, Janna, and he’ll see that you have time for anything you want. +Where is such a man? Behold him!” He struck his chest dramatically. + +“Peter Bye! How you talk!” + +“All right, I’ll choose something else. Tell me why is it that though +I’ve elected to stay in New York in all this hot weather just to be at +your side, I see less of you than at any time since I’ve been coming to +your house.” + +“Does seem queer, doesn’t it? It must be because I have so much work to +do. I am taking extra singing lessons from Brailoff now. And my dancing +takes up a lot of my time; my classes come at such inconvenient hours, +7:30 to 10:00 three times a week.” + +“That _is_ bad. Funny time to give dancing lessons. Where’d you say you +took them?” + +“At Bertully’s.” + +“Bertully’s! That’s in Twenty-ninth Street, isn’t it? How’d you ever +make it? I didn’t suppose a colored girl got a chance to stick her nose +in there.” + +“She wouldn’t ordinarily. Bertully refused Helena Arnold last year. ‘I’m +sorry, Mees, but the white Americans like not to study with the brown +Americans. Vair seely, but so. I am a poor man, I must follow the +weeshes of my clients!’” Joanna shrugged her shoulders, spread her +hands. + +“You’re a born impersonator, Jan. I can see that little Frenchman now. +How’d you ever get in, then?” + +“Helena and I went back this year and asked if he would take a separate +class of colored girls, if we got it up for him. He was very decent, +said he’d be glad to. So we got up a class of eight, he only asked for +six. Of course, we had to take his hours.” + +“Who are in it besides you and Helena?” + +“Oh, all our crowd.” She named the daughters of several prominent +colored men, a physician, a lawyer, a journalist, a real-estate man +among them. “There’s Gertrude Moseley, Vera and Alice Manning, Elizabeth +Beckett, Sylvia, Helena, and I.” + +“That’s seven.” + +“Oh, yes, Sylvia meant to ask Maggie Ellersley.” + +“H’m, she had other things in her head without bothering about fancy +dancing, hadn’t she? Funny how she went off and married without telling +any of us about it, wasn’t it?” + +“Yes,” said Joanna uneasily. + +“You’d have thought she’d have let old Phil in on it. I wonder if they +had a falling out of any kind! Philip seemed rather hard hit when he +heard the news.” + +“Not a bit of it. Why should he be?” Joanna spoke stoutly. But her tone +belied her convictions. She hadn’t forgotten Philip’s expression the day +Sylvia had come rushing in with the astounding news: + +“What do you think? I just met Mrs. Ellersley. Maggie’s +married—married—think of it! She ran away with that man at her house, +that Mr. Neal. And they’re going to live in Philadelphia.” + +Philip’s haggard face had turned a trifle more wan, Joanna had thought. +“Has she written to you, Sylvia?” he asked her quickly. + +“Not a word. I can’t imagine why she said nothing to me about it. She +must have planned it for ages. If that isn’t the funniest!” + +Later Joanna heard Philip asking his mother if she were sure she had +given him all the mail that had come for him while he was in +Philadelphia. Still later he had announced his intention of teaching +summer school in South Carolina. + +“Fellow whose place I’m going to fill is sick. They’ve been at me a long +time to come. I think I ought to go, father. It will give me a chance to +see the South.” + +Joanna’s throat constricted a little at the thought of Philip’s look, +his general listlessness. She wished she hadn’t written that letter. +Though that couldn’t have brought about the marriage. People don’t +arrange to be married over night. As Sylvia said, it must have been on +Maggie’s mind long since. And then, anyway, Philip couldn’t really have +cared for a girl like Maggie. + +“I don’t believe Philip was the least bit interested in Maggie,” she +voiced her thought to Peter. “Well, anyway, Mr. Bye, that’s why my +company is so scarce. Goodness, what are you frowning about?” + +“Well, I’m mad to think you swallowed that Frenchman’s insult. To think +of your taking lessons from him after that!” + +“But, Peter, he didn’t insult us. He can’t help this stupid prejudice. +‘In my country, Mademoiselle Maréchal,’—he always calls me that—‘you’d +be an honor to any class.’ He says I’ve got a great future. That if +there’s anything that will break down prejudice it will be equality or +perhaps even superiority on the part of colored people in the arts. And +I agree with him.” + +“But to be set apart like that!” + +“What do I care?” asked Joanna, the practical. “You’ve got to take life +as you find it, Peter. The way I figure it is this. If all I needed to +get on the stage was the mastery of a difficult step, I’d get there, +wouldn’t I? For somehow, sometime, I’d learn how to overcome that +difficulty.” + +“You bet you would.” + +“Very well, then. Now my problem is how to master, how to get around +prejudice. It _is_ an awful nuisance; in some parts of this country it +is more than a nuisance, it’s a veritable menace. Philip says he’s going +to change all that some day. First, I’m going to get my training up to +the last notch, then I’m going to watch for an opportunity and squeeze +in.” + +“You’ll never get it.” + +“Oh, yes, I will. Some white people are kind, some of them are so truly +artistic that they’ll put themselves to great trouble for the sake of +art. Look at Bertully. It works him much harder than it does us to hold +those extra classes.” + +“Bertully’s one man in a thousand. Besides, he’s a foreigner. Where’ll +you find a white American like that?” + +“You blessed pessimist. I know of people like that already. That’s how +Helena Arnold got to Bertully in the first place. A Miss Sharples—why, +they’re the people your Aunt Susan works for, aren’t they? Your aunt +told Miss Sharples about Helena, and Miss Sharples took her, herself, to +Bertully.” + +“That was awfully decent, I must say. Of course, the Sharples are +Philadelphia Quaker stock. Not that that makes much difference. The +white Byes were Quakers, and see how they left us stranded, though my +father told me old black Joshua Bye practically coined them their money. +Not many people like those Sharples.” + +“There doesn’t need to be. The point is there’s _one_. Miss Sharples’ +family, by the way, may have been Quakers, but there’s nothing Quakerish +about her. Helena says she goes with the Greenwich Village group all the +time, and for all their craziness, they’ve got some mighty big ideas.” + +“Can’t get anything to eat, if you’re colored, down in their dinky old +restaurants.” + +“Awful, isn’t it? Well, we’ll let some other colored person pound away +at that side of it. Me, I’m going to break into art. The public wants +novelty, and _I_ want fame. I’ve got to have it, Peter.” + +“You talk about going on the stage as though you had a signed contract +in your hand. How’ll you get the stage-presence?” + +“I’m to go on a recital tour next fall among colored people. I’m used to +singing in the choir. If I can stand before them I can stand before any +audience in the world.” + +“Yes, we are mighty critical.” + +“I should say so. Get up, Peter Bye. We’ve got to go home.” + +They started on the long trip back. + +“But see here, Joanna,” Peter pleaded when they reached the house, “you +will give me a little more time, won’t you? I don’t have to work in the +morning, you know. And I don’t work Wednesday nights. Promise me that, +won’t you?” + +“Yes,” said Joanna, her heart warming to his glowing beauty. “We’ll +remember this summer, Peter, the last before we go off trying our wings +for further flights.” + +That was an enchanted season. Peter used to call for her in the morning, +and the two would go off exploring. Joanna liked the foreign quarters, +but she had never cared to stand around too long in those teeming, +exotic streets. She was too conspicuous, attracted too many inquiring +glances. With Peter she felt safe to stand for long moments watching the +children play, to enter queer dark shops, to taste strange messes. +Sometimes she spoke to the women about their dresses, their headgear. +One Spanish woman, grown used to the sight of this dark American girl +and the good-looking boy at her side, took them into her quarters one +day and showed Joanna how she dressed her hair. Another time she taught +her an intricate Spanish dance. + +“I’m going to do a dance representing all the nations, some day,” Joanna +told Peter. + +They planned for Wednesday nights very carefully at first, but gradually +as the torrid weather increased, Joanna’s desire for the theater and +other indoor forms of amusement yielded to the desire to be cool at any +cost. Central Park claimed them then, and later Morningside, since it +was just a few moments’ stroll from the Marshalls’ new house. + +Morningside was usually crowded. The seats were always taken when they +arrived. + +“I wonder what time the people come,” Joanna murmured. But they didn’t +mind. The grass, the sloping hillside, was good enough for them. Joanna +would sit down, her dainty summer dress spread around her, her +splendidly poised head turned at first so she could see the passers-by. +She was forever studying types, and eyed them with a grave deliberation. + +“You’ll get your head knocked off yet, Joanna,” Peter would remonstrate, +“staring at people so.” + +He liked it better when later on in the evening she turned toward the +slope of the hill and looked down at the city, laughing in its myriad +twinkling lights. Her face at that time took on a grave wistfulness +which he could not analyze. Joanna herself could not define the feeling +which prompted that expression. + +Peter, leaning on his elbow, would lie beside her, his curly black head +bent toward her, one slender brown hand touching her dress ever so +lightly. He would have given the world to believe she was thinking about +him, but he knew she was not. He would have been astounded if he could +have dreamed of the maze of her thoughts. Joanna was really most human +at moments like these. Through her mind was floating a series of little +detached pictures. She saw a glittering stage, Peter, herself, some +little children. She felt a hazy, nebulous, mystical joy. + +Peter adored her at moments like these, but he was afraid of her, too. + +One night she astonished him. “Peter,” she said suddenly, “sit up. So. +I’m tired. I’ve had a hard day. Do you mind if I rest my head on your +shoulder?” + +Would he mind if she offered him a king’s estate? + +He was too ecstatic, too—yes—scared, to speak. He sat as she directed, +he stretched his thin tense arm around her fine young body. He even put +up one hand and pressed her head closer against his shoulder, touched +her hair, let his fingers trail ever so lightly over her cheek. Joanna +in his arms! Joanna! + +She felt him trembling. “Am I too heavy, Peter?” + +He could hardly articulate, but she heard his ardent “no” and moved +imperceptibly closer. + +His breath stirred her thick, dark hair. He let it caress his chin. Its +soft heaviness was a revelation to him, a rapture. + +She lay so quietly against him he thought she must be asleep. So he +whispered, “Are you asleep, Joanna?” + +“No,” she whispered back, “only very, very tired.” + +“Oh, Joanna, Joanna,” he breathed, “be tired forever.” + +Somewhere out of the heavenly silence, a girl’s voice, a foreign voice, +broke into song high and shrill. Russian, Peter thought. It was just a +snatch, poignant and sweet, that died away leaving a faint lingering +sadness. + +She put her head back then. She opened her dark eyes and looked full +into his. + +Their lips were so near, so near. In a second he had pressed his against +hers, briefly yet with passion. She sat up and drew a little away from +him, dazed. But he put his arms around her and held her close. Presently +they walked home, speechless. When they came to an arc-light, they +looked at each other’s faces, eager to study and to reveal these new +selves. Their glances met and clung with a sweet enchantment. Something +leaped, something fluttered within their hearts, like a fettered, +struggling wing. And it was beautifully, it was magically, first love! + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + +THE vacation sped as vacations will. Peter played in the awful cabaret, +saved his money and adored Joanna. Joanna practiced trills, danced, +thought of Peter and allowed him to adore her. As the early September +days spread their golden haze over Harlem and Morningside Park, she +actually shivered a little when she realized that when the month was +over she and Peter would be miles apart. + +It is hard to say just how much Joanna cared for Peter at this time. +Certainly the boy worshipped her. He dreamed wordless dreams of her at +night sitting in the noisy cabaret. His visit to her was the one +objective point in his day. When the inexorable moment of separation +came it cost him actual physical pain to bid her good-by. + +Joanna was hardly like that. She had a very real, very ardent feeling +for Peter. But it was still small, if one may speak of a feeling by +size. Her love for him was a new experience, a fresh interest in her +already crowded life, but it had not pushed aside the other interests. +At nineteen she looked at love as a man of forty might—as “a thing +apart.” This was due partly to her hard unripeness, partly to her +deliberate self-training. Joanna had read of too many able women who had +“counted the world well lost for love,” until it was too late. “Poor, +silly sheep,” she dubbed them. + +She could not, it is true, bundle up her thoughts of Peter and say, +“I’ll think of you to-morrow at three,” but she did achieve a +concentration in her work that made it almost impossible for him to +remain too long in her thoughts. And at nights when he tossed sleepless +on his bed, dreaming fragrant dreams and seeing golden visions, she was +sleeping the perfect sleep of healthy weariness. + +The last days were hard for her, however, as they were for Peter. For +Joanna was doomed by her very make-up to a sort of perpetual loneliness. +Sylvia had her own interests, she had Brian and many, many friends. She +was the most popular of all the Marshalls. Alec and Joanna had never +been thrown much together. Philip, once her great confidant, was usually +away from home. And on his return he was apt to relapse during these +days into a rapt sadness. + +It followed, then, that while Joanna was Peter’s sweetheart, his heart’s +dear queen, Peter was at once her lover whom she didn’t need very +much—at least she did not realize that need—and more than that her +companion and friend whom she needed greatly. The prospect of the days +stretched long and dreary before her. Even the concert tour, a +remarkable booking for one so young, did not entirely console her. + +The two talked about it on the day before Peter left for Philadelphia. +They were in Van Cortlandt Park in a little tangled grove. It was noon +and the September sun streamed down on them making the green wooden +bench on which they sat pleasantly warm. But the leaves about them were +going a little sere; in the shade the air felt chill, and the sunshine, +though warm, was thin and white. + +“‘The summer is ended.’” Joanna quoted softly; she sighed. Peter looked +at her, there were tears in her eyes. + +“Dear, beautiful Joanna,” said Peter, and his own beautiful face was +full of the woe of parting, “how can I leave you to-morrow? Janna, don’t +send me away, tell me I’m not to go.” He put his arms around her and she +clung to him. + +“Peter, you must go, you must, really. We—we can’t go on like this. +We’ve got to prepare ourselves while we’re young for the future.” + +“Yes,” said Peter and his ardor chilled a little at the touch of her +cool practicality. But a moment later her light touch rekindled him. + +“You love me, Janna? You know I love you?” + +“Yes, Peter dear, but we mustn’t say anything more about it.” + +“I know, Joanna, I’m not going to worry you any more just now, but +you’ll let me speak sometime?” + +“Yes, oh, yes!” + +“Dearest girl! Kiss me, Joanna.” + +She touched his lips with a light, lingering kiss. He looked at her, his +face haggard with his gusty, boyish passion. + +“Ah, Joanna, I’ll never forget that kiss.” + +Neither would she, her heart told her. It was the first time she had +ever kissed him. + +They walked through the deserted park, their arms frankly about each +other, like children. The dry grass and brittle leaves crackled beneath +their feet, the air hung over them like a thin, misty veil. Joanna sang +a bit from an old Italian song: + + “If from Heaven we could but borrow + One day longer of fond affection + It would lessen then our sorrow, + Give fresh joys for recollection.” + +She hummed a line here, then her voice rose again in the thin, +shimmering air: + + “—The future, dark and lonely! + Dearest Loved One, dearest Loved One + Parting makes these joys so dear! + Ah!—” + +“Don’t, Joanna; it’s too sweet. You’ll make me cry.” + +“I know it. Oh, Peter, go away and come back great and when you come +back, speak to me.” + +She went with him to the train next morning and to his amazement no less +than her own, broke down and sobbed into her handkerchief. + +He bent over her. “To think of your crying for me, Joanna! Good-by, +good-by, my sweet. Remember, I’ll be back Christmas.” + +He vanished through the gates, was borne out of her vision. A strange +exaltation possessed him. He was sad, but his sadness was as nothing to +his joy, his sense of satisfaction. Joanna loved him. She had been +unusually capricious since that night in Morningside Park. But now he +was sure of her. He smiled steadily from Manhattan Transfer Station to +North Philadelphia. + +His cousin Louis Boyd met him at Broad Street Station and took him to +his great-uncle Peter’s in South Eighteenth Street. The old man almost +cried over him. + +“You’re Meriwether’s son, but you’re more like your grandfather, Isaiah. +He was darker than you, but he held his head high like yours, and you’re +going to do what he wanted his son to do. It’s good to see you, boy.” + +He registered at the University the next day, consulted catalogues, met +professors, wrote a glowing letter to Joanna. By the end of the week he +was desperately homesick. He would have gone over to New York if he had +not been so ashamed, and if he had not been expected to dinner at Louis +Boyd’s. + +“Tell you what’s the matter with you, fellow,” said Louis when Peter had +told him of his nostalgia, “you want to meet a few girls. We’ll start +out after dinner.” + +Peter did not think this would help much. He wanted Joanna, though he +said nothing about that to Louis. Astonishingly, however, the cure +worked. + +Louis seemed to know half of colored Philadelphia. “Mighty nice girls in +this man’s town, I can tell you. They’ll take to you, Peter, because, of +course, you’re a Bye. Mentioned your name to old Mrs. Viny the other day +and she told me to be sure to bring you around. She’d like to meet an +‘old Philadelphian,’ even if he had been living a while in New York.” + +The girls deserved the nice things Louis said about them. They were +pretty, nicely dressed and a shining contrast to the dingy streets and +old-fashioned houses in which most of them lived. Peter was pleasantly +struck, too, by the apparent lack of aspiration on the part of most of +them. They seemed to be pretty well satisfied with being girls. A few +were able to live home, many sewed, a number of others taught. There was +no talk of art, of fame, of preparation for the future among them. Peter +spoke of it to Arabelle Morton, the last girl to whose house Louis took +him. + +“Well, of course we want to get married, and we’re not spoiling our +chances by being high-brows. Wouldn’t you like to come and play cards +next Friday night, Mr. Bye? There’ll be just two tables, then afterwards +we might dance. I’m sure you’d like it.” + +Peter thought so, too. He liked Arabelle already and her friendly +shallowness. He wrote to Joanna: + + “Tell you what, Jan, I think I’m going to like Philly very much. + Being Isaiah Bye’s grandson seems to help me no end. They + actually consider me an ‘old Philadelphian’ and on the strength + of that alone I’ve had four dinner invitations from elderly + people to meet other ‘old Philadelphians.’ Some of them old + enough, too, I’ll say. However, the dinners are fine and come in + very handy for a struggling student. I don’t board at Uncle + Peter’s, you see. + + “There’re lots of jolly girls here. Of course, they’re not like + yours and Sylvia’s crowd, bent on climbing to the top of a + profession—well, Sylvia wasn’t that way so much—but they’re a + very nice bunch and they have been most kind to your humble + servant.... + + “Do you remember that day in the Park? Joanna darling, what are + you going to say to me when I come back Christmas? + + “PETER.” + + “N. B. These x’s are kisses.” [There was a long string of them.] + +His letters to Joanna reacted to his own advantage. He felt he must be +able to tell her truthfully of his success in his studies, of his +ability to fit into this new life. Joanna was interested in him with a +deep personal interest such as she had never exhibited before, and he +meant to keep it alive. These were with one exception the most +wholesome, most formative days of Peter’s life. He had youth, he had +inspiration, he had the promise of love, with much hard labor to keep +it. + +Many of the colored boys lived in West Philadelphia. They had a +fraternity, and though according to their laws he could not be taken in +during his freshman year, it was plain that this honor would be extended +to him as soon as he became a sophomore. He was pretty well liked, and +was constantly receiving invitations to spend the night across the +river. One or two of the boys lived in the dormitories and he was +frequently offered a chance to see something of this side of college +life. + +But his steadiness surprised himself. He got his meals in a restaurant +on Woodland Avenue, worked faithfully in the Library between classes, +and completed the rest of his assignments at night in his Uncle’s +sitting room. The old fellow loved to see him there. He pictured in +Peter the restoration of the Bye family in Philadelphia. + +To eke out his scanty bank account, he played three nights a week in a +dance hall at Sixteenth and South Streets. Saturday afternoons he did +track work. Friday and Sunday he spent at Arabelle Morton’s or at Lawyer +Talbert’s on Christian Street. This latter and his family consisting of +two sons and two daughters, were the relatives with whom the Marshalls +stayed on their visits to Philadelphia. He found them very enjoyable. +One of the boys was an undertaker but with a disposition far less +lugubrious than his calling. The other was in the Wharton School of +Finance at Pennsylvania and was to read law later at Harvard. Both girls +were young and both were engaged. They were very much in love, but as +their fiancés were studying medicine at Howard University, they welcomed +Peter with much acclaim. + +Thanks to them and Louis, he was soon enrolled in the social calendar, +and if he chose to be lonely, it was his own fault. + +At Christmas he went back to New York; Joanna met him at the station and +took him home in her father’s car. Joel was one of the first ten colored +men in Harlem to possess an automobile. The distance between his house +and his business rendered it almost a necessity, and he was old enough +to deserve release from the noise of the subway and the weary climbing +to the elevated. + +Joanna had grown very good-looking, Peter thought. More than that, she +looked even distinguished. Her purposefulness gave her a quality which +he had missed in the Philadelphia girls. His ardor had not cooled in the +least, but he had had to force it into second place. Now it surged +uppermost in his heart again. + +He was glad that he had been in another city, had seen so many other +girls. It only confirmed his conviction that Joanna was the only woman +in the world for him. He hoped she possessed the same singleness of +desire for him. + +“There’s lots going on,” Joanna told him, sitting arm in arm with him in +the car. “Sylvia and Brian are to be married Easter, so mother’s +formally announcing it now. There’ll be luncheons—not for you I’m +afraid, Peter. Then our dancing class is giving a benefit for the Pierce +Day Nursery. There’ll be fancy dancing on the stage, in which your +humble servant will star. And we’re to have a Christmas tree at our +house and a house party. I’m asking you now, Peter. Isn’t it great being +grown up?” + +“You bet. Which of these functions comes off first?” + +“Sylvia’s engagement party.” + +“So she and Spencer are actually going to pull it off. They’ve waited a +long time, haven’t they?” + +“Yes, that’s because Brian insisted on getting a good start before he +married. Sylvia would have married him the day after they became +engaged. But I think Brian’s right.” + +“They’re both right, but Sylvia’s way is the best. That’s the only +attitude for anyone to have towards marriage. I’m afraid you lack it, my +child. You want to begin with a mansion and three cars.” + +“You mean thing! I don’t care about money as money one bit and you know +it. But I do care about success. And a house or a car usually implies +that. Any girl likes her man to look well in the eyes of other men.” + +“This man’s going to look well.” He yearned toward her. “Kiss me, +sweetheart.” + +“Sir, you insult me. People shouldn’t kiss unless they’re engaged.” + +“Then be engaged to me, dearest Joanna. Great Scott, are we here?” + +Joanna evaded him after that. Christmas was Tuesday, but as he had saved +his cuts for Saturday classes, he had managed to come away the preceding +Friday night. On Christmas morning he caught her before daybreak. They +had arranged to go to an early service in a large Episcopal church where +Joanna had recently been engaged as a soloist. He was waiting for her in +the dark hall. + +“Good! There you are, Peter. We must fly.” + +“Not until you’ve told me you love me.” + +“I love you, Peter. Come on.” + +“No, sir, put your little arms around my neck. So. Now say, ‘Dear Peter, +I love you and I’m going to marry you.’” + +“Oh, I can’t say that. Let me go, Peter.” + +“Not one step.” He held her so close that she had to poise herself +against him, breathlessly, exquisitely. A clock in the house boomed +five. + +“Peter, ask me to-night.” + +“I’m asking you now. Answer me this minute, Joanna. Not one step will we +stir till you do.” He shook her gently. “Say it, darling.” + +She still had her arms around his neck. “Dear Peter,” she began, her +voice breaking a little, “I love you and I’m going to marry you.” + +“You’ve got a smudge on your face,” he told her solemnly. + +She burst into hysterical tears at that. “I never thought I’d become +engaged with a smudge on my face.” + +“I know you didn’t. I’ll try to overlook it.” He got down on his knees +and kissed her hands. “Darling Joanna, I’ll love you always.” + +Between them, they wiped away the traces of the smudge and of her tears. +Then they found their way out, and walked through the dark silent +streets singing “Joy to the World,” like a pair of Christmas waifs. + +The lovers found it hard to see each other. There were too many things +going on for that. Peter could have found time, but Joanna, he realized +with a pang, seemed to think of nothing but her dance. When she wasn’t +at a party, or dressing, she was at a rehearsal. The affair for the Day +Nursery was to come off New Year’s Eve. + +Monsieur Bertully’s seven pupils danced, swayed, pirouetted. Their slim +silken limbs flashed and twinkled through a series of poses and groups +until one thought of an animated Greek frieze. At the end the seven +girls appeared as school children. Joanna as their leader was teaching +them a game. Peter watched her flashing in a red dress across the stage, +dancing, leaping, twirling. The orchestra struck up something vaguely +familiar. Why, it was Joanna’s old dance, “Barn! Barn!” + +She swayed, she balanced, she stamped her foot. + + “Stay back, girl, don’t you come near me!” + +Miss Sharples was there with a group of Greenwich Village folks, Helena +Arnold told them afterwards. + +Peter had to leave on New Year’s Day. It was bitterly cold and the +Marshalls had dinner guests, but Joanna went to the station with him. +She didn’t cry this time, Peter noticed. She didn’t tell him that it was +because of the pain raging at her heart. + +“I’ll have to get used to his leaving me,” she told herself stubbornly. +“I’ve got it to stand, for years and years. Talking about it won’t do +any good.” + +She had fixed up a box of delicious sandwiches and other goodies for +him, and there was a little letter in the box. But Peter didn’t know +that, so in spite of her wan face he felt aggrieved as he stepped on the +train, for she had barely pressed his hand and her lips were cold. + +She cried herself into a headache on her way back. + +It was bitter in Philadelphia, too. Peter got off the train at West +Philadelphia. He would call on some of the boys on Sansom Street. + +“They’re all out I think,” the landlady, Mrs. Larrabee, told him. She +gave him a friendly smile. “You can run up, though, and see.” She was +right, they were out, but the rooms were warm and comfortable. + +“I think I’ll stay up here and thaw out,” he called down. + +He sat in a comfortable chair, smoked a cigarette or two, read a few +pages in a novel. Then he remembered Joanna’s box, and opened it. There +was the letter on top. + + “Dear Peter,” he read, “isn’t it awful to have to separate this + way? I have a secret I was saving for you. I’m to sing in + Philadelphia very shortly. Aren’t you glad? I love you, Peter. + + “JAN.” + +His spirits went up, up. + +“Good-night,” he called to Mrs. Larrabee. “Happy New Year.” + +It wasn’t so cold after all, he thought. Anyway, it wouldn’t do him any +harm to stretch his legs a bit. He’d swing across town through the +University grounds and take a car on Spruce Street. + +The car jolted down over the bridge, turned one corner into a dingy side +street, then another, slid ponderously into Lombard Street. It stopped +to let the Twentieth Street car go by. Idly, Peter glanced out of the +window. On the corner stood a woman, neatly, even carefully dressed. +Something about her dejected pose made Peter look at her closely. She +turned just then, and the street light fell full on an old-gold, oval +face, haggard and disillusioned. Peter saw it was Maggie Ellersley. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + + +POOR Maggie! How relentlessly and completely had her illusions flown! + +She had enjoyed the ride to Atlantic City. Her husband had surrounded +her with magazines, fruit, candy, even books. She had had a wonderful +dinner and when they got to Atlantic City, he took her to a very +respectable, clean boarding-house. It was nice to be protected, she +realized that. And, when, the day after they were married, he gave her +seventy-five dollars, and told her to send part of it to her mother, her +spirits, which had not yet recovered from the shock of the past two +days, rose considerably. + +She thought Mr. Neal remarkably kind and gentle. And he was always +clean. On the whole, while she was not the least bit in love with him, +she considered he did pretty well, though she did wish he knew a little +more about English grammar. His deliberate incorrectness made her +ashamed of him and because he was so kind to her, this feeling on her +part made her a little ashamed of herself. + +He was the soul of generosity. Besides giving her money, he had taken +her to two of the best stores, and bought her whatever she wanted. He +would have liked to buy her a complete outfit, but the prices made her +demur. + +“Wait till we get to New York again. We can do better there.” But she +did let him buy her a few things: There were a blue silk dress, a white +satin skirt, two or three smart, delicately tinted blouses, a wonderful +wrap, light but warm; tan and white shoes and stockings. + +Atlantic City was a revelation to her. She had literally never been out +of New York City, except once to a funeral in Brooklyn in company with +the lugubrious Mis’ Sparrow. This fairyland by the sea with its colored +lights, its human kaleidoscope, its boardwalk, its shops! She did not +know the world held such as these. + +But she was more interested in the Atlantic City that lay on the north +side of Atlantic Avenue. There were many cottages here, a score of +restaurants, a good drug store, all of them patronized by colored +people. They were the kind of people Maggie wanted to know, she could +see that at a glance. In the restaurant which she and her husband most +frequented, she sat and watched the happy, laughing faces. They were +like one big family although they came from Washington, Philadelphia, +and Baltimore. She realized then how completely she had depended on the +Marshalls and their immediate entourage. Cut off from them, she had no +way of meeting these people, she possessed no background. + +Some of the visitors seemed to know others hailing from the most remote +places. One woman said, “Oh, there’s Annie Mackinaw, she’s been in San +Francisco for five years you know, I must speak to her.” Surely, Maggie +thought, her husband must have met some of these people somewhere. But +although an occasional man nodded to him, even came up and spoke, not +one brought over his wife or daughters. The women looked at Maggie, a +little curiously; once she thought as she passed a large party at a +table that they stopped talking with that queer suddenness which made +her sure they were discussing her. They looked at her clothes, +appraising them, but she could never catch their direct gaze. + +She sought to find solace in the theaters, of which she was very fond. +This was an opportunity, plenty of leisure and a willing companion ready +and able to take her whenever and wherever she wished. But Atlantic City +theaters make no secret of their unwillingness to serve colored patrons. +After being told at the ticket office that there were no more balcony +seats, only to see them calmly handed out to the next white person in +line; after enduring an evening in the poorly ventilated gallery with a +feeling of resentment rankling in her breast; above all after seeing how +these mischances awoke her husband’s passionate but futile anger, she +desisted. He had a terrible, devastating temper, which left her +speechless and cowering even though it was not directed toward her. +Better do without the theater forever, she thought, than be the cause of +awakening his savage wrath. + +She returned to her survey of the colored visitors. Her husband found +some friends and went off on mysterious trips with them, from which he +returned amiable and pleasant and usually with some small gift for her. +In his absence she sat on the piazza watching happy groups go by, or sat +alone in the pavilion far down the boardwalk, where the colored people +bathed. In time she came to know the characteristics of certain groups, +could even tell from what city they came. + +Philadelphians were not as a rule as strikingly dressed as the folks, +say, from Washington, but they had a better time. They seemed bound by +some kind of tie, family, perhaps—which made it possible for them to +group together incongruously but with evident enjoyment. Old women and +young girls, young girls and elderly men, young men and almost +middle-aged women, laughed and bathed and gossiped like brothers and +sisters. These were the hardest to approach; it was impossible to invade +their solidarity. They made the status of the outsider very clear. + +The Baltimore people were somewhat like these, only gayer. They were +clannish, too, but more willing to let down bars. Clearly they were a +cross between the Philadelphians and the gay Washingtonians who played +about in very distinct groups, superb in their fashionable clothes and +their deep assurance. + +Maggie’s landlady introduced her to one girl, a Miss Talbert from +Philadelphia, who came up on the piazza one day to inquire for a former +boarder. She was brown, not pretty, rather plainly but well dressed, +with a beautiful manner. An atmosphere of niceness hung about her. + +She acknowledged the introduction pleasantly. “You’re from New York, +Mrs. Neal—I wonder if you know my cousin Sylvia Marshall?” + +Maggie could have jumped for joy. “She’s my best friend.” + +Things went a little better, then. Miss Talbert asked her to go in +bathing, introduced her to a few people, beckoned her over to her table +at lunch. But she and her party were staying for only three days more, +and Maggie was almost as badly off as ever when she left. + +Her husband took her down to the pavilion the next day, and left her +there. A sharp-faced old woman wearing a plain sad-colored dress and a +formidable false front, beckoned to her. + +“What does your husband do?” she asked the girl, looking at her over +sloping glasses. + +Maggie, confused, said he was in the motor-business. The old woman +turned incredulously away. + +She determined to ask her husband about his work. But he gave her no +satisfaction. + +“You wouldn’t understand it. Too much explaining to it. I make money +enough for you, don’t I, girl?” He laid a heavy hand on her frail +shoulder. + +He thought he’d go to Philadelphia to live. “Feller told me of some good +prospects there. We’ll just room for a while. If we don’t like it, we +can go back to New York.” + +She was satisfied. She didn’t want to return to New York, she realized. +Her mother could make out with the money which, Neal had assured her, +she could send regularly. And it made her sick to think of the +Marshalls. + +Without regrets she mounted the train with him one day and went to the +big, sprawling city. Its size, its long stretches of streets appalled +her. The awful silence which seemed to descend over the town when she +got below Walnut Street frightened her. One could be very lonely here, +no doubt. + +The “rooming” of which her husband had spoken proved to mean the second +floor of a house in South Fifteenth Street. There were three rooms and a +bath. She liked this because it gave her something to do. She kept them +clean, arranged and rearranged the charming furniture which Neal gave +her, and prepared their simple meals. + +It was the first time she had had a really attractive setting. And she +was soothed, bewitched by its effect. Her rather simple plan of life +contained, it must be remembered, only three ideas,—comfort, +respectability, and love. This last had been added to her list very +recently. She would have married Philip any time during the last five +years without loving him, for the sake of the security which he could +have brought her. So it is not strange, then, that she and Neal sailed +their little craft so smoothly. It is true that marriage did not in +reality prove as interesting and picturesque as she in common with most +girls had conceived it to be. But marriage was marriage, and she must +make the best of it. Neal was still kind, almost fatherly, very +generous, clean, and, as far as she could see, had no bad habits. He +smoked one cigar after each meal, and almost never drank. + +“Can’t afford it in my business,” she heard him say often. His business! +If only he hadn’t been so mysterious about that. Still it must be all +right. Men called on him pretty often and he would see them in the +middle room, which Maggie had turned into a restful living room. +Certainly he made plenty of money. + +She had comfort then and she did not feel the lack of love. Occasionally +it occurred to her, it would be nice to be performing some of her +housewifely duties for Philip. She thought he would enjoy doing some of +them with her. But perhaps that was because he was young. Things seemed +to change so when one became old,—at least elderly. And she did not +think Philip would have been out as much as Neal. + +Her passion, however, was for respectable company,—for more than that if +she had but known it. She wanted friends, impeccable young women with +whom she could talk over things, and exchange patterns and recipes, or +go to the matinée. Once she met Miss Talbert on Christian Street. The +girl greeted her kindly but a bit doubtfully, spoke about the weather. +Then came the query: + +“What did you say your husband’s name was, Mrs. Neal?” + +“Why Neal, of course, oh, Henderson, Henderson Neal.” + +Miss Talbert looked at her a little sadly, exchanged a few more +banalities, and went on her assured way. + +“I did hope she’d ask me to call,” Maggie murmured. “How am I ever to +get to know anybody in this great town?” + +On the floor above her lived a girl and her brother, Annie and Thomas +Mason. The brother played and the girl sewed and kept house. Once Annie +got a letter of Neal’s by mistake and brought it down to Maggie. She was +in her living-room trying to shorten a skirt when Annie tapped. + +She stepped to the door. “Oh, come in.” + +Miss Mason came in, nothing loth. “I got your husband’s letter by +mistake. He’s Mr. H. Neal ain’t he?” She held out the letter glancing +about the room. “You’ve fixed it up real pretty here. The last roomers +kept the place looking so bad. You going to stay long?” + +Maggie didn’t know. She was transported at the sight of the +pleasant-voiced friendly girl and the North Pennsylvania accent which +carried with it something very wholesome and grateful. + +Miss Mason was frankly curious. “You here alone all day? What do you do +while your husband’s to work?” + +“Oh, clean, and sew and—and nap,” Maggie laughed a little. “Don’t you +want to come to see me sometime, now, this afternoon?” + +Miss Mason thought she “might’s well, your room seems bigger’n mine +’cause we’ve got a piano and you’ve got a table there. Say, s’pose I was +to bring my sewing down, and I could help you even off your skirt.” + +After that they spent a great deal of time together. They walked in the +quiet autumn evenings down dingy Fifteenth Street, past the hideousness +of Washington Avenue, down, down the stretch of unswerving street to +Tasker or Morris, through to Broad Street which is really Fourteenth. +They sauntered back arm in arm under young but fading trees, past the +hurry of flying automobiles, under the soft silver of the street lights. +Then they turned up Catherine Street, stopped at the bakery for +ice-cream or a bag of cakes and so to the house to bed. + +It was a pleasant, almost a bucolic friendship. Both girls had rather +simple tastes. Sometimes they went further up Broad Street to the +theaters, choosing the ones where they met with the least +discrimination. Once Maggie took Annie to the Academy of Music. They +stood in line for their seats and Maggie looked at the bill-boards. One +of them read: + + COMING! + THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA + MR. HUBERT SANDERSON + CONDUCTOR + DECEMBER 27TH, 1910 + MR. THOMAS MORSE + WILL PRESENT + MISS JOANNA MARSHALL + MEZZO-SOPRANO OF NEW YORK + +She turned away, a little sick. + +Maggie usually paid for their outings. Annie’s brother made a pretty +fair salary, his sister told Maggie, for he played at private dances for +wealthy white people in West Philadelphia, Rosemont, Sharon, Chestnut +Hill and various other suburbs. + +“But he don’t give me much ’cause he wants to leave the country for good +sometime. I keep house for him and he pays for the lodgings and for most +of our food. I make what little extra I can by taking in plain sewing. +Your husband’s right open-handed, ain’t he?” + +“Yes,” said Maggie heartily. “He’s very generous and very kind.” She +wanted to change the subject, for Annie was inquisitive—one never knew +what she’d ask next. + +“Funny, ain’t it,” pursued Annie, her mouth full of pins—she was at her +everlasting sewing, turning up the hem of a bath-robe—“I ain’t never +seen him yet, no, nor Tom neither.” + +“Well, you will. Come and walk up to South Street with me. I want to get +some postal cards.” + +It was an aimless existence, but it had its points. Her mother was +comfortable, she herself had ease, a husband and a companion. + +She went out to market one chilly November morning and came back later +than she expected. She had scarcely got in before Annie appeared, an +unusual flush on her yellow, freckled cheeks. Annie had reddish, +crinkled hair, which she wore brushed stiffly back from her high +forehead into a hard, ungraceful knob; “rhiny” hair, Maggie knew Sylvia +and the boys would call it. She could imagine how they would talk about +Annie in their pleasant, unmalicious way. Joanna would strike her +attitude and imitate her accent. Annie broke into these reminiscences. + +“I been down here two or three times a’ready. Kind o’ rawish like.” + +“Yes, I think it’s going to rain. I’ll light the gas-heater and we can +sit here and thaw out. I enjoy a chilly day if it’s warm inside.” + +“Kind o’ that way myself.” + +“Oh, you said you’d been here before. Want to see me about anything +special?” + +“Oh, aimed I’d come set with you a spell. Me and Tom—now—we saw your +husband last night.” + +“That so? Where? How’d you guess it was he?” + +“Near Bainbridge Street, then we watched him come in here. Why, Tom +knowed him a’ready. I didn’t know his name was Henderson. I’d heard of +him before myself.” + +Outside a steady soaking rain had begun to fall in the gray somberness +of the November afternoon. The gas-heater cast a ruddy oblong of light +on the white ceiling. Maggie, who had been straightening out a paper +pattern, crossed the room and threw her slight figure on the couch, +huddling close against the wall. She shivered a little in the luxurious +warmth. + +“Isn’t it grand to be indoors? Where did you ever hear of my husband?” + +She was becoming drowsy and did not notice at first that Annie had not +answered her. When she did, she looked up suddenly to catch the girl’s +dog-like brown eyes fixed wistfully on hers. + +“What’s the matter Annie?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Oh, but there is. Are you sick? Has Tom been unkind to you?” + +“Oh, it isn’t me. It’s you! Oh, Maggie, how could you?” + +“What about me? How could I what?” + +“Marry him?” + +“Marry whom? my husband,—why shouldn’t I?” + +“Didn’t you know?” + +“For God’s sake speak up, Annie Mason. What is it you know about him? +Has he got another wife? Is he an escaped convict?” + +“He’s a gambler.” + +“A what?” + +“A gambler. Tom knows him well. And I guess I musta saw him when I was a +little girl. He used to live up around Stroudsburg. They run him out of +town.” + +“I’ll never believe it.” But in her heart she did. That money—why, of +course, his long hours, especially at night, his reticence—all this +combined to make her recognize the truth. + +“You poor thing. Of course you don’t want to believe it. That’s what I +said to Tom. I said, ‘That poor thing, she’s got no notion of it.’” + +It was intolerable, such pity! “Where is your brother, Annie?” + +“Who, Tom! Prob’ly up stairs, he don’t go out to rehearsal till four.” + +“Tell him to come here.” + +Annie went out, whimpering a little, twisting her fingers in the folds +of her white apron. She came back followed by a tall thin young man, +dark, with kind, soft brown eyes. Maggie noticed that the hair in front +of his ears was unshaven to form flat side-whiskers. “Siders” the boys +used to call them. They had teased Sandy about them, for he had affected +them in his college days. + +She was standing by the table holding the envelope of the paper pattern +in her hand. “Mr. Mason, what’s this you know about my husband?” + +“Annie shouldn’t have told you, ma’am,” he said abjectly. “It was none +of her business.” + +“Well, she has. Sit down, please, and tell me all you know.” + +“I’d rather stand, thank you, ma’am. Well if I must. Even when I was a +little boy, Henderson Neal was knowed to be a card-sharp. There wasn’t +nobody could stand against him. Used to wait for the men on a Saturday +night, white and colored. He’d meet ’em in the bar and treat, and then +ask ’em in on a little game. And they’d play, till they was cleaned out. +Then he’d give ’em another drink, and clap ’em on the back. Perhaps he’d +hand ’em back a dollar. ‘Better luck next time old man!’ And they’d come +back the next Saturday night, the poor fools. Some of them blowed their +brains out, they got so far back in their debts.” + +She was tearing the envelope into bits, but her voice was steady. +“You’re sure of this?” + +“My uncle was one of them that killed theirselves. They was a colored +minister come to Stroudsburg and he run him out of town. Then he crossed +over to Phillipsburg, then down to Trenton. They made things too hot for +him there, too. Then he got in with a white saloon-keeper in the mining +districts in Pennsylvania. Finally things got too hot for him and he +left the country for a while, was servant to an actor. He come back in +about five years with another name.” + +“An alias,” murmured Annie who read the papers. + +“But pretty soon he started out again under his own name. You see he got +some political protection in New York, and I guess he’s got the same +here. Most people know about him a’ready. I’m sorry I had to tell you, +ma’am.” + +“Yes, yes, I’m sure. Would—would you mind leaving me now? You, too, +Annie—please.” + +She didn’t lie down and moan and cry as she had done—was it less than +six months ago?—when she received Joanna’s letter. That was child’s +trouble compared to this. She had wanted so to be decent, and she was a +gambler’s wife. God! how funny! + +Now she must think, she must think. Oh, what was she to do? Leave him, +she knew that. But afterwards? She had no money. He had given her her +very clothes. Her old ones were at her mother’s. Her mother! + +“Poor Mamma!” she said again as on a former occasion. “What a hell her +life’s always been!” + +No wonder those people, those men in Atlantic City who knew him didn’t +introduce their women folks to her. + +“I suppose they thought ‘You thief! Dressing that girl on other men’s +money!’” + +Pretty soon he’d be home for dinner. She heard him presently coming up +the stairs. There! He had stepped on the creaky one. That meant he +was—now—just outside the door. He stepped in. + +“Nice and warm in here.” + +She barely allowed him time to take off his overcoat. “Henderson, I know +how you make your money. You’re a gambler.” + +He didn’t deny it. “Who told you that?” + +“The nephew of that man, that Mr. Mason (she hazarded the name) who shot +himself in Stroudsburg.” + +“Where’d you see him?” + +“What difference does that make? And I’ve been living like a queen off +stolen money. I want you to know I’m leaving you this instant.” + +He caught her by the arm. “Don’t be a fool, Maggie!” + +She could see the blood mounting, as his temper rose, shadowing his dark +face. + +“That’s what I’m trying to do—stop being a fool.” + +“Where will you go, how can you live? Off my money? You’ve none of your +own.” + +“I’ll make some.” + +“I’ll never let you go. I’ll kill you first.” He crushed both slender +wrists in his brutal hand and she went ashen with pain. + +“I wish you would kill me.” + +He flung her away from him then and she leaned back against the wall, +breathing hard. + +“I suppose you’ll go back to that man, that fine gentleman that didn’t +want you.” + +“Isn’t it likely he’d want me now? I was a nice girl then, not the wife +of a gambler.” + +He broke down suddenly at that, sank in a chair, buried his head in his +hands. + +“What do you want me to do?” + +“I want you to let me go.” Her voice was hard. + +He lifted a wretched face. “You wouldn’t stay even if I was to do +something else—something decent?” + +But she couldn’t forgive him for dragging her into this abyss, this +slough of degradation. + +“You couldn’t change now, and anyway I wouldn’t live with you.” + +To her amazement he got up, took his hat and coat and started for the +door. + +“I’ll go. You’re not the one to be turned out. You know I pay for these +rooms a quarter in advance. This here’s the beginning of the second +quarter. There’s some money in the top bureau drawer.” + +“I don’t want the money. Take it with you.” She got it and stuffed a +handful of bills—yellow ones—in the pocket of his overcoat. “I don’t +want your rooms, either.” + +“You’ll have to keep them. You’ve no money and you’ve no place to go. +You ain’t got a friend in Philadelphia, and you can’t walk to New York. +If you walk around the streets long enough, you’ll find there’s worse +things can happen than being a gambler’s wife.” He straightened up. “If +you don’t promise me to stay, I’ll tag around after you everywheres you +go.” + +“If I stay—for a while—will you promise me not to come back?” + +“I promise.” + +“Pooh, the promise of a gambler!” She hated him. + +“I’ll show you. Best not to try me too far though, Maggie.” + +“Well, are you going?” + +He walked out, closing the door very quietly after him. She had not shed +a tear, she did not now. Instead she sat, with her brow wrinkled, trying +to recall something. + +“Oh, yes,” she sprang up and rushed to the closet, pulling with nervous, +shaking fingers at the garments hanging there. In the pocket of her +little poplin suit, the suit in which she was married, she found what +she was looking for. + +It was an oblong business card, slightly soiled around the edges. She +had come across it in Atlantic City and for some reason had kept it. +Across the front ran a neat superscription + + MADAME HARKNESS + Hair Culturist + 270 West 137th Street + New York City + +Her glance dropped to the left-hand corner. Yes, she was right, there it +was: Branch offices—Washington, D. C., 1307 U Street, N. W.; Baltimore, +1816 Druid Hill Avenue; Philadelphia, 2021 South Street. + +She sat all night brooding wide eyed over the purring gas-stove. In the +morning she made herself tidy and walked up to Twentieth and South. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + +SYLVIA was arranging the smallest birthday cake in the world. It bore +one very small candle and it was for the very small baby who, propped up +in a high chair, sat and watched the birthday proceedings with round +solemn eyes. A three-year-old youngster, whose nose just rose above the +edge of the table, watched, too, with eyes no less round and far more +interested. + +“Look at the darlings!” said Sylvia. “They know just what their mother’s +doing. Aren’t my children intelligent, Brian?” + +“What you mistake for intelligence is hunger, much more likely,” laughed +her husband. “I’ve seen Roger look that way before when there wasn’t any +birthday cake, but when there certainly were eats.” + +“You watch them,” said Sylvia, “and I’ll see if mother and father are +ready to come. I had a telegram from Joanna this afternoon, so I know +she can’t make it.” Her voice floated up to him as she ran down the back +stairs. + +The five years of Sylvia’s married life had brought their changes to the +Marshall household. Mrs. Marshall had insisted on Sylvia’s and Brian’s +remaining with them. + +“Else we’d be lonely,” she complained, “what with Sandy gone for good, +and Philip and Joanna everlastingly ‘on the road,’ as they express it.” + +Alexander and Helena Arnold, after seeing each other constantly and +unresponsively for ten years, suddenly fell completely in love on that +night of the Pierce Day Nursery dance. Sandy proved himself an impulsive +wooer, for he won Helena’s consent and would have married her before +Sylvia’s and Brian’s wedding came off. + +“Gracious, don’t spoil my thunder,” Sylvia had begged him aghast. + +“Well, I’m the oldest,” Sandy had retorted. “It’s really my place to +marry first.” + +Helena, unaware of all this, announced that she wanted to be bridesmaid +at Sylvia’s wedding, so Alec must wait till after. “Think of all the +extra clothes I can get. Besides, I couldn’t possibly finish my +trousseau before.” + +The two had married the June following Sylvia’s wedding and had moved +into a house of their own. The household had hardly become adjusted to +Alexander’s absence, when Philip started on his long tours which kept +him away from home a good part of the year. + +He had been graduated from Harvard, with honors and with his coveted Phi +Beta Kappa key. He had come home, happy though not as radiant, Joanna +thought for one, as in the old days. Then he had evolved his new scheme. +He proposed that an organization be started among the colored people +which should reach all over the country. + +“White and colored people alike may belong to it,” said Philip, his eyes +kindling to his vision, “but it is to favor primarily the interests of +colored people. No, I’m wrong there,” he corrected himself. “It is to +favor primarily the interests of the country.” + +He was speaking to a group of both white and black enthusiasts. “How +shall we start it?” someone asked. + +They all liked the plan. He had his project well mapped out, for he had +thought of little else for the past three years. There were to be a +national board and a national office, supported by local boards and +membership. There would be need of organized publicity; he might suggest +a magazine or a weekly newspaper. A huge campaign must be got underway, +an effort at nation-wide support. + +“Its objects will be,” he enumerated them on his long brown fingers, +“the suppression of lynching and peonage, the restoration of the ballot, +equal schools and a share in civic rights.” + +“A large order,” said Barney Kirchner, Philip’s classmate, “but I like +it. I’ll get my uncle behind it.” Barney was wealthy in his own right, +but his uncle, an Austrian Jew, had built up an immense fortune which +had since supported many a notable cause. + +The little nucleus worked well. From that meeting grew up all that +Philip predicted, rather weak and tottering at first, but the five years +had seen the awakening of a great racial consciousness. There were still +tremendous possibilities almost untouched. + +The organization had a magazine, “The Spur,” of which Philip was editor. +But he was constantly called to exercise his vision and judgment in the +field. His observation, his constant scrutiny of his own people helped +him here, but he was the born organizer in any event. + +Joanna, already started on her concert tours, often met him on the +“road.” Sometimes they were booked at the same place for the same night. +Each was the other’s supporting attraction. + +“Oh, is this Mr. Marshall?” Joanna would gush when he met her train. She +put an imaginary lorgnette to her eye. “Any relation to the eminent Miss +Joanna Marshall, the world-famous mezzo?” + +“Never heard of her. Haven’t the least idea who she is. Come along, +Silly. Now, Joanna, do be on time and don’t stop to primp. Mind, I won’t +wait for you a minute.” + +“Not the littlest, teeniest one?” It was hard to say which was prouder +of the other. + +Joanna was in fine feather in those days. She had youth and a certain +grave beauty which did not strike the observer at first as did Sylvia’s +or even poor Maggie’s. But it grew on one and remained. Young men, +though they liked to be seen with a star, were a little afraid of her +queenliness, her faint condescension. She took herself so seriously! Her +own folks and Peter often teased her about this, but they adored it in +her. And she, in turn, adored her little fame, the footlights, the +adulation. Even the smallest church in the quietest backwoods, with a +group of patient dark faces peering at her out of the often smoky +background, had its appeal. At such times, strange to say, she was at +her best, gave of her finest. She would come on the stage, trailing +clouds of glory, and lean toward them—a rosy brown vision. In some misty +colorful robe of Sylvia’s designing, her thick crinkling hair piled high +on her head as the Spanish woman had taught her, she seemed to say: + +“I am no better than you. You are no worse than I. Whatever I am, you, +in your children, may be. Whatever you are, I in my father have been.” + +She was absolutely sincere in her estimation of her art, or of any art. +It was only in its relation to the other things of life that she lost +her vision and sense of proportion. + +She liked most to go to Philadelphia, where she was in great favor. +There she had had three great triumphs, once in Association Hall, twice +at the Academy of Music. Both she and Peter had thrilled when she came +from the Academy the second time. She sent her flowers and her +stage-gown home in the car of a friend, while she and Peter were whirled +in a taxi out to Fairmount Park. + +They had driven to the Green Street entrance, and then dismissing the +cab had walked around the drive, up the steps, in front of the mansion +and on to Lemon Hill. It was one of those last, warm, almost hot nights +of Indian Summer. The slopes of the park lay deserted before them, deep +in velvety shadow, with here and there a gold patch bright as day under +the watching arc-light. + +They sat down on the dry, short grass. “Like that other evening in +Morningside, long, long ago. How long, Joanna?” + +“Oh, ages! How’d I sing, Peter?” + +“Divinely. You looked like an angel, Janna. No, not an angel, more like +a siren in that yellow dress. Where’d you get it, dearest?” + +“Yellow nothing! That was orange—deep, deep orange. Sylvia planned it +out for me. Isn’t she a genius? Through me she certainly is teaching +these colored people how to dress. We will not wear these conventional +colors—grays, taupe, beige—poor boy, you don’t know what they are, do +you? They’re all right for these palefaces. But colored people need +color, life, vividness.” + +“George! I guess you’re right. How’d you come to think of it?” + +“I didn’t. It was Sylvia. I started out in a white dress. You should +have seen me looking like an icebergish angel.” + +“You are one, you know Janna.” + +“Which? Iceberg or angel?” + +“Both. One makes me adore you, the other says ‘hands off’.” + +“Not a bad thing, do you think, considering all the men I meet?” + +“I hate them. Sure you don’t like any of ’em better than me?” + +“No, dear, I like you best.” + +“‘No, dear, I like you best’,” he mimicked. “For God’s sake, Jan, can’t +you say, ‘Peter, I love you always’? Say it.” + +She hesitated, sighed a little. “Peter I love you.” + +“Why’d you leave off ‘always’?” + +“Dear little boy, how can I say it? I do when I think of it. But, Peter, +I have so much to think about—my tour, my booking, you know, my lessons +in French and Italian, my dancing. I still keep that up; I’d really +rather do that than sing. Dancing makes me——” + +“Oh, damn the dancing!” + +“Why, Peter!” She looked at his flushed face in amazement. + +“Hang it all, talking to me about dancing, when I’m talking to you about +love—_love_, Joanna—and there’s nothing to keep us from getting married. +Some fellows and girls ball their lives up so they can’t ever get them +straightened out. But here we are ‘all set’ as the fellows say. And you +talk to me about dancing! Suppose I were to talk to you about _Materia +Medica_!” + +“I think it would be a good thing if you would.” + +He was honestly aggrieved at that. + +She leaned over and kissed him. “See how brazen I am. That’s the second +time I’ve given you a kiss. Oh, Peter, you big baby!” + +“Dear Janna, I love you so! Great Scott! aren’t girls funny! You can’t +guess how hard it is for me to be letting all these stupid years go by. +Sometimes I’ve half a mind to chuck it all.” + +“You’d never get me then.” + +“I don’t suppose I would. Well, I have you now.” + +“Dear Peter, we must be going home. Cousin Parthenia will rave.” + +“Pshaw, she knows you’re with me. Love me, darling?” + +“You know I do, you dear, dear boy.” + +“Come, sit up on the bench. There, that’s it.” He knelt before her. +“Know what I’m going to give you to-night?” He felt in his pocket. “Like +it, Janna?” + +He showed her a ring, a tiny gold chased ring, whose facets gleamed like +diamonds. + +“Peter, it’s too beautiful. Oh, I love you for it.” + +He slipped it on her finger, got up and sat beside her, kissing her +little cold hands. She leaned against his shoulder,—he put his arm about +her. A poignant sweetness seemed to flood in on them out of the solemn, +mellow night. + +Peter was the first to stir. “I must get you home, darling. Oh, Joanna, +aren’t you too happy? I wonder if we wouldn’t be better off if we were +resting like this, our arms close about each other, in our grave.” + +The inevitable separation came the next day. Joanna was cold, almost +indifferent. It was the way she had taught herself to endure pain. She +hated always to leave Peter, particularly if she were returning to New +York. The excitement of visiting other places healed her loneliness. +Sometimes she wished she weren’t going to see Peter for these brief +visits which lacerated her so. + +Unfortunately her lover did not understand this. “How can she melt like +she did last night and then leave me so cool and composed this morning?” +he wondered, staring dejectedly after the departing express. He had not +ridden to West Philadelphia with her because he had to be at a hospital +at Sixteenth Street at one o’clock and it was now noon. + +“She used to cry when we separated.” He stood uncertainly a moment on +the corner of Fifteenth and Market. “Guess I’ll go over to that little +Automat on Juniper Street and snatch a mouthful. I won’t feel like +eating after I see Carpenter start in on that slashing. Golly, what a +steady hand he has.” + +He walked through the City Hall Arcade to Juniper Street, crossed in +front of Wanamaker’s and forced a passage through the teeming little +by-way. + +The Automat was crowded. “Have to eat standing,” he thought, drawing a +glass of water and seizing a knife and fork. “No, there’s an empty +table.” He collected his food and began to eat. + +Someone put a plate on the table beside him, rested a hand there a +moment. Peter glanced at it. + +“Colored. What a nice hand! Ought to have a peach of a face to match +that.” + +He looked up. “Maggie Ellersley! I had heard you lived here. I thought I +saw you once, why—four years ago—one New Year’s night on Twentieth +Street. You’ve been here ever since?” + +“Yes, Peter. Oh, it’s so nice to see you!” + +“Isn’t it, though! I mean isn’t it great to see somebody from home? I’ve +just seen Joanna off.” + +Her face stiffened at that. But he was busy looking at his watch. + +“Ten minutes more! Look here, Maggie, what’d you drop us all that way +for? How’s your husband?” + +She answered his second question. “I haven’t any.” + +He glanced at her apologetically, ashamed of his levity. “Is he dead?” + +“No,” said Maggie woodenly. “I’ve left him!” + +“Oh!” he was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Maggie. Got to run now. When may I +see you again?” + +His engaging manner brought back the old days. “Peter, you aren’t +ashamed of me?” + +“My dear girl!” He was younger than she and for that reason he adopted a +paternal air, patting her on the shoulder. “How can you ask that?” + +“Would you come to see me to-night, Peter? Come to dinner?” + +“Try me. What’s the address?” + +She gave it to him. “That’s Fifteenth and Fitzwater.” + +“Yes, I know. I’ll see you at six sharp. Until then, Maggie.” He bared +his curly head and flashed out the side door. + +He tapped at her door at six. + +“I didn’t hear you ring,” said Maggie. “Come in. This _is_ nice, Peter.” + +“I should say so. Jolly little place you’ve got here.” He settled back +on the couch, stretched out his long legs. “All these years I’ve been +tramping about Philadelphia, a poor homeless beggar, when I might have +been coming to see you. How long have you been alone, Maggie?” + +“Four and a half years.” + +“Four and a half years! Why that’s—look here, how long have you been +married?” + +“Five years last June. I left him almost right away, or rather he left +me.” + +“Deserted you, you mean?” + +“No, no, not that. He wanted to stay. I—I couldn’t let him.” She told +him all about it. “Peter, think of it, I’d married a gambler, a common +gambler. And I’d wanted so to be decent!” She wept painfully. + +He put his arm about her slender shoulders. “There, there now, Maggie.” + +“It’s the first time I’ve shed a tear about it. Seeing you, someone out +of the old happy days, upset me. Sit here, Peter.” + +“They were wonderful days, weren’t they? Remember what a bunch we were? +And now we’re scattered everywhere. Joanna and Philip romping all over +the country; Sylvia and Brian married; Sandy too, did you know it?” + +“Yes, I read of it in the _Amsterdam News_.” + +“You and I here. Harry Portor—do you remember him?” + +“Ye—es, big square fellow, wore glasses. He used to go skating with us, +didn’t he?” + +“Yes, that’s the fellow. He studied medicine, too, at Harvard. Went to +Washington as interne in the Freedmen’s Hospital. I haven’t seen him for +ages. What’d you leave us for so suddenly, Maggie?” + +She couldn’t tell _him_, of all people, about Joanna. + +“Oh, I don’t know, girls are crazy, I think. Well, I’m not complaining. +I’m better off than I’ve ever been. That Madame Harkness—you know whom I +mean?” + +“The hair-woman—what about her?” + +“She’s made me supervisor of three of her branch stores, here in +Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D. C. I have my little home +here, my salary’s good. I make more than enough to live on. My mother +doesn’t have to do anything if she doesn’t want to. And above all, I’m +practically free.” + +“How do you mean free?” + +“I’m suing for a divorce. Lawyer Talbert has my case.” + +“Oh, Mrs. Marshall’s cousin. Have you ever seen your—Mr. Neal since he +left?” + +“About once a year. I hadn’t seen him for a long time though, until he +came here six weeks ago, just before I started divorce proceedings.” Her +face changed at the thought of it. + +“He didn’t threaten you, Maggie?” + +“Yes and no. In his way he cares about me, though not as much as for his +gambling. He’s—he’s got it in his head that I care about somebody else, +and every now and then he writes me a threatening letter. That’s why he +came to see me this last time.” + +“You oughtn’t to let him in.” + +“Oh, I have to. This Mrs. Davis, from whom I rent these rooms, doesn’t +know there’s any trouble, she thinks he’s a steward on a boat, and I +never have told her differently. She thinks I’m with him when I go away +on these trips. Last time he was here, he stayed half the night right on +that couch. He had a wretched cold, and it was raining!” + +“I should think you’d have been afraid.” + +“That’s why I let him stay. He’d been harboring such jealous thoughts +toward me. He—he has an idea that I like another man. And he has a +terrific temper. You can’t imagine how it smolders and sulks. He wasn’t +so bad about my sending him away, but since he’s had this suspicion I’ve +really been afraid. I expect he’ll be really violent some day.” + +“Well, Great Scott, won’t my coming to see you be dangerous? I was just +thinking what good times we’d have.” + +“We will. No, you’re all right. He wouldn’t be interested in you after +he once knew who you were. And there’s Thomas Mason upstairs; he’s not +bothered about him either, though Tom and his sister are in here all the +time.” + +Peter pushed his chair back. “That was a mighty good dinner, Maggie. +Mind if I smoke?” He lit a cigarette. “Well, you’ve had hard luck, +haven’t you? But never mind, it’s bound to break even, sooner or later. +That’s what I keep saying to myself.” + +“You in trouble too, Peter? I’ve been running on so about my affairs. +Tell me about yours. Studying the way you have to must be an awful +strain.” + +He noticed gratefully how quick and ready was her sympathy. That was +just it. Studying itself wasn’t so bad, working wasn’t bad. But the +combination, the struggle to make ends meet, his few social obligations, +and color! + +“Why, it’s awful. I’m on the rack all the time.” + +“If you could stop for a year or so and take a little rest, do something +entirely different.” + +He glanced at her, amused but touched. “Joanna ought to hear you say +that. She’d faint away. She can’t understand anybody’s wanting to let +up.” + +Maggie said with a faint bitterness that you must always be top notch +for Joanna. + +“I should say so. Here, I’ll help you with the dishes. Well,—if you +really don’t want me.” She washed and wiped so fast that the room seemed +cleared by magic. It had turned cooler and Maggie lit her little +gas-stove. + +Peter smoked and relapsed into a moody silence, which he broke now and +then with an account of his struggles. His Uncle Peter had died during +his third year and the house had been inherited by his daughter, Mrs. +Boyd. Of course he couldn’t expect anything of her. Her father was only +his great-uncle, and she had her own children to look after. He had +moved to Mrs. Larrabee’s in West Philadelphia, with some of his +fraternity brothers. Somehow his money sped. His books were expensive, +the cost of his instruments pure robbery. + +“I do what playing I can, but I confess I’m up against it,” he ended +ruefully. + +“Lots of the boys do waiting, don’t they?” asked Maggie. “Why don’t you +do that?” + +He just couldn’t, he told her. + +“I never could endure standing around ‘grand white folks.’” Both of them +smiled at the childhood’s phrase. “‘Yes, sir, thank you—Oh, no, sir.’ +Then some lazy white banker, or some fat white woman that never did a +day’s work in her life, puts a hand in a pocket and offers you a dime. +God, how I hate it! I did it once at Asbury Park, Phil did, too. We both +said, ‘Never again!’” + +“Where do you play?” + +“At different dance-halls. They don’t pay as well here as in New York, +though. What’s that, Maggie?” + +A thin stream of music, played on a violin, floated down to them. + +“That’s good fiddling. Is it in this house?” + +“Yes. It’s Tom Mason, the man I told you about. The very thing for you! +He makes barrels of money. Come on, Peter.” + +She led him, bewildered, up to the third floor, tapped on a door and was +admitted to a room much like the one she had just left. A young woman +with red crinkled hair and a yellow freckled face sat sewing on a white +apron. The young man who let them in had been putting some resin on his +bow. Against the wall stood a battered, time-worn piano. + +“Hello, Annie,” said Maggie. “Hello, Tom. This is my friend Mr. Bye. +I’ve brought him up to hear you play.” + +“But I can’t, Miss Maggie. I’ve no accompanist.” He turned soft brown +eyes upon her. “Unless your friend here plays the piano.” + +“Well, I do admit to tickling the ivories occasionally,” laughed Peter. +“Let’s see your score.” + +He sat down to the piano, ran his brown limber fingers over the keys, +and began to play the accompaniment to a typical syncopated melody, +accenting the time with staccato nods of his well-shaped head. + +“Oh, great, that’s great!” cried Tom after a few minutes. “Wait till I +get my violin.” + +Together they made some wonderful sounds. “Play that passage again, will +you?” Tom pointed it out with his bow. + +“That’s the best accompanist you’ve ever had, isn’t it, Tom?” Annie +asked. + +“I should say so. Don’t suppose you’d ever consent to doin’ this sort of +thing in public, Mr. Bye?” + +“That depends on the price and the hours,” said Peter. + +Tom told him about himself. He played, had all the work he could do, for +the wealthy folks of the town and suburbs. The pay was first-rate. Only +he had never been able to keep a good accompanist. + +“They’re so do-less,” he complained. “What’s your regular line?” + +Peter explained that he was a student. + +Mason liked that. “Then you’d be workin’ because you’d really need the +fun’s. Nothin’ like having a purpose. Do you think you could go out to +Sharon Hill with me to-morrow night and play that? There’d be a few +other odds and ends. Though them white folks don’t let me play nothin’ +much but that, once I get started. You might drop in for an hour +to-morrow and take a peep at the others. You can do them easy, if you +can read that.” He pointed to the piece they’d already played. + +“Honey-Babe,” declaimed Peter. “Well, Mr. Mason, if we can come to +terms, I’m your man.” + +Mason took him aside then, and whispered a few words. + +“All right,” Peter told him, shaking hands. “That listens pretty. See +you to-morrow, say at four. Good-night folks. You coming too, Maggie?” + +Downstairs he stopped at the landing. “Maggie, you jewel! How well +you’ve managed! No, I won’t come in. You see what was worrying me most +was my operating set. The price of those little steel knives and forceps +is going to touch the sky pretty soon. Wow! This confounded war is +taking everything across seas. Fellow told me to get my order in before +Christmas even if I didn’t pay for them till next year. But where was I +going to raise all that money? Now the way looks clearer.” + +“I’m so glad, Peter.” + +“It’s me that’s glad, Maggie. Best thing in the world for me that I met +you to-day. Such a piece of fortune! Cheer up, child! Perhaps we’ll +bring each other luck!” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + +THE house on South Fifteenth Street saw Peter often after that. Mason +could have given him work every night if he had wanted it. As it was he +gave him enough to cause him to come for rehearsals three and four times +a week. Usually Peter terminated his practice with a visit to Maggie, +who got home regularly at five-thirty when she was in town. + +She appreciated Peter’s company, for she had been very lonely in this +big city with its impregnable social fortresses. “It’s a wonder you come +to see me so often, Peter,” she told him wistfully. “Being a Bye gives +you the entrance everywhere among the oldest of these ‘old +Philadelphians.’” + +“Yes,” said Peter cheerfully, “but home-folks are best. And then you +make it so pleasant for me, Maggie. Why, I’ve never eaten in my life +anything so wonderful as that dinner Sunday. You certainly have the +knack of making a fellow feel comfortable.” + +She was proud to have him there, he was so handsome and charming, but +much more than that, so clearly a personage. She enjoyed being seen with +him. He took her out occasionally to the park, to the theaters on Broad +Street, once to a bazaar given by some fine ladies at the Y. M. C. A. on +Christian Street. She recognized some of the women as among those whom +she had seen at Atlantic City. The startled stare of Alice Talbert, who +happened to be there that evening, afforded her endless satisfaction. +Maggie realized she spoke to her with a sort of wondering respect. + +“Wonder what she thought,” she said to herself. “Well, she can think +anything she pleases.” She had not forgotten Miss Talbert’s cool +reception when she called at Lawyer Talbert’s office on the corner of +Fifteenth and Lombard. Alice was her father’s secretary. She was quite +remote on seeing Maggie, until she learned that the latter’s business +was with the lawyer. + +Peter was making money these days, real money he told Maggie. + +“I’m better off financially than I’ve ever been in my life. Why, I could +make a real living at this sort of thing. Mason’s got a wonderful +clientele!” As usual he was lounging in Maggie’s little living-room, +smoking, watching her move about in her sober house-dress, arranging her +accounts and orders. She had bought a little typewriter and had learned +to use it. Peter was surprised to find her so methodical. He realized +that she would have been a great help to Philip. + +He felt a little guilty about coming to Maggie’s so often. “But it’s so +confoundedly uncomfortable in my room. Of course I could do better now, +but it’s a lot of trouble to move. It’s way up at the top of the house, +clean enough, but with just a few sticks of furniture in it, a green +iron-bed—ugh!—some books and the Bye family Bible. Don’t know why I +lugged that along with me. I never look in it. Well, so long, Maggie, +see you to-morrow or next day.” + +“All right, Peter. You’re sure you won’t have me fix a cup of cocoa for +you before you go? You poor, neglected boy! Two buttons off that +overcoat. Bring it in the next time you come and I’ll put them on for +you. I’ll find some that will match up here on South Street.” He said he +could attend to it himself, but she told him no, that wasn’t a man’s +job. + +“You certainly are some girl!” He took her hand in his for a moment. +“I’ll bring it with bells. Here, turn me out. I’ve got to get up at six +to-morrow morning. Haven’t put my nose inside of Carter’s classes this +week. Playing out so late with Mason puts me out of commission, you +bet.” + +“Carter, Carter, that’s the Professor of Surgery, isn’t it?” + +“No! no! That’s Davenant. I never miss one of his classes. Eat it up in +gobs. The old boy’s fond of me. Says I’m his pet carver. Wanted to take +me to see an operation in a private hospital last week—white of +course—but Carter interfered. ‘Not the place for Bye, Dr. Davenant,’ he +said. I hate him with his confounded hypocritical patronage. I’d like to +chuck him in a minute.” + +Her sympathy was instant. + +“Well, why don’t you, Peter? After all, your music really is in good +shape. All this steady practice these long years must count for +something. Tom says you’re a wonder. He’d like to go into partnership +with you, I’m sure. He says there’s heaps of money in it.” + +“Oodles! Absolutely! But nothing doing, Maggie. Too mediocre for Miss +Joanna Marshall. But she deserves the best, she’s the best herself,” he +added in quick loyalty. “Well, that was a false start I made before, +wasn’t it? I’m really going this time. Mr. Peter Bye, exit this way.” + +He walked up to Lombard Street, thinking. “That girl can certainly see +along with you. Nice to meet some one with a disposition like that. Of +course I’d rather be a surgeon. But I’m tired of this everlasting +digging. I’ve been nothing but a slave for nearly seven years. And poor +as the deuce in the bargain. Good Lord, when I think of all the money I +might have made out of you!” He looked at his fine slender hands with +their firm square-tipped fingers. + +“Ideal surgeon hands,” Doctor Davenant had told his assistant. + +An idea struck Peter. “I wonder what Joanna would say to that!” He +rushed in the house, seized a piece of paper and a pen and told her +about it. + + “Of course, Jan, I don’t expect you to marry me if I can’t take + care of you. You wouldn’t anyway, you’re not like Sylvia. That’s + not a slam, dearest, that’s just a plain statement of facts. But + I’m making a lot of money right now—guess how?—with my music, + playing for ‘grand white folks’ at all the swell society + functions. Of course it takes me out of my classes sometimes, + but I don’t care, I’m fed up with all that. I’ve got such a + Negro-loving bunch of professors, except my surgical men. + + “What say, Joanna, if I quit this, and we get married and I go + about the country with you as your accompanist? That ought to + suit you, for I don’t suppose you ever dream of settling down. + + “Did I tell you I met Maggie Ellersley? I see her very often. + The fellow I play with lives in the same house she does. In + fact, Maggie introduced me to him. She’s been no end kind to me. + You’ll be interested to know she’s getting a divorce from that + beast she married. See what Philip has to say when you tell him. + + “Mind you write me right away what you think about this.” + +The answer came post-haste. + + “What I think about this,” [wrote Joanna, infuriated] “is that I + don’t want and won’t have a husband who is just an ordinary + strumming accompanist, playing one, two, three, one, two, three. + Sometimes, Peter, I think you must be crazy.” + +A number of irritable and irritating notes followed on both sides until +a couple of weeks before Christmas, when both sank into a mutinous +silence. + +What Peter did not understand and what Joanna never knew he needed +explained to him was that she wanted Peter to be somebody for his own +sake. She was really paying him a sincere compliment when she told him +that she did not want an accompanist for a husband. Like many a woman of +strong and purposeful character, she hated a weak man. It followed then +that the man who won Joanna must be even stronger, more determined than +she. + +She did not know much about marriage. She had not only the usual +virginal ignorance of many American girls, she had also a remarkable +lack of curiosity on the matter. But she knew vaguely that the man was +supposed to be the head. How could she, Joanna Marshall, ever surrender +to a man who was less than she in any respect? Her dominating nature +craved one still more dominant. But neither Peter nor she knew this, she +least of all. Youth, egotistic though it be, is notably free from this +kind of introspection. + +Since American customs of courtship give the girl largely the upper +hand, Joanna was instinctively, if unanalytically, using Peter’s love +for her, and her own desirability, as a whip to goad him on. It was hard +for her, too, much harder than Peter knew, or than she realized. For she +was beginning at last to feel the tug of passion at her heart strings. +It would never have occurred to her to marry Peter before he was in +their common estimation “on his feet,” she would never have asked it of +him, she did not expect him to ask it of her. But unconsciously she was +yearning for the day when the two might join hands and enter the portals +which lead to the house of life. + +Very often she found herself vaguely glad that she had her work. Without +it, what would she have done? What _did_ girls do while they waited for +their young men? Heavens, how awful to be sitting around listlessly from +day to day, waiting, waiting! Anything was better than that, even +pounding a typewriter in a box of an office. It was this lack of +interest and purpose on the part of girls which brought about so many +hasty marriages which terminated in—no, not poverty—mediocrity. Joanna +hated the word; with her visual mind she saw it embodied in broken +chairs, cold gravy, dingy linen, sticky children. She would never mind +poverty half so much; she would contrive somehow to climb out of that. +But ordinary tame mediocrity! + +Besides, colored people had had enough of that. Not for Joanna! + +It must not be thought that at this time she had any intention of +relinquishing her work after marriage. But it was for that reason that +she wanted Peter to come out of the herd. She saw the two of them +together, gracious, shining, perfect! She heard whispers: + +“That’s Peter Bye, the distinguished surgeon! His wife is unusual, too, +she was Joanna Marshall. You must have heard of her. Why, she sings all +over the country!” + +And here was Peter offering her the vision of herself, standing +glorious, resplendent in her stage clothes, while he trailed across to +the piano, her music portfolio under his arm: + +“That’s Peter Bye!” + +“Peter Bye? Who’s he?” + +“The husband of Joanna Marshall, the artist.” + +She would never endure it. + +“And I don’t thank Maggie Ellersley the least bit for introducing him to +this music man, whoever he is,” she told herself after she had read the +letter. “Tell Philip she’s getting a divorce indeed! How much would any +decent man be interested in her after that?” + +Poor inexperienced Joanna! + +Peter’s vagaries were not her only worries. She was undergoing just now +what she would have termed a really serious disappointment. Her dancing, +on which she had spent so many years, so much of her father’s and her +own money, on which she had built so many high hopes, was destined, it +seemed, to avail her nothing. + +She had been so sure. Her art was so perfect, so complete that even +Bertully, cynic though he was, believed that in her case the American +stage must let down the bars. + +“They have but to see you, Mademoiselle, to _réaliser_ zat you are +somebody, zat you have ze great gift. And when they see you to danse, +v’la!” He snapped his thin fingers. Joanna, he told his assistant, +Madame Céleste, was the best pupil he’d ever had. + +“You look at her and she is ze child, so grave, so _sage_. In another +moment she is like a wild creature, a Bacchante. Onless zey are all +fools, these _Américains_, they take her up, _hein_ Céleste?” + +Madame Céleste nodded a dark, assenting head. + +Bertully himself accompanied her. There were three or four managers for +whom he had done favors. + +They went first to a Mr. Abrams, who received Joanna kindly. “I’m sure +of your ability, my dear girl, and you ought to go. You’re young. I can +see you could be made into a beauty. With Bertully recommending you as +he does, you must be a wizard. But the white American public ain’t ready +for you yet, they won’t have you.” + +He looked at her reflectively a few seconds. + +“I know the day is coming, but not for some time yet. That don’t console +you much, does it? I’ve got an idea of my own, if I think I can put it +over, I’ll send for you.” + +“Courage,” said Bertully, helping her into the taxi, “there are some +others.” + +The next manager, David Kohler, was explicit and to the point. “Couldn’t +make any money out of you. America doesn’t want to see a colored dancer +in the rôle of a _première danseuse_. How’s that accent, Bertully? She +wants you to be absurd, grotesque. Of course,” tentatively, “you +couldn’t consider being corked up—you’re brown but you’re too light as +you are—and doing a break-down?” + +“No,” said Joanna shortly, “I couldn’t. Shall we go, Monsieur?” + +By the time they reached the third manager, Joanna for all her natural +assurance had become a little timid. Bertully’s name had gained them +almost instant admission to the manager, but it was hard in the short +wait to listen to the scarcely veiled comments of the office girls and +the other applicants. + +“Say, what do you suppose she is?” + +“Must be a South American.” + +“She ain’t, she’s a nigger or I don’t know one.” + +“Say, she’s got her nerve comin’ here. Think Snyder’ll give her +anything?” + +“Will he? Not a chance!” + +Her cheeks were so flushed when she went in that she really was +beautiful. But Snyder gave her one look, checked himself in the act of +raising his hat, swung around to the Frenchman. + +“This your great find, Bertully?” + +“_Mais oui_,” the old man began excitedly. + +The other calmly lit a big black cigar. + +“You needn’t wait, Miss. Like to oblige you, Bertully, but I couldn’t do +a thing for you.” He walked across the office, held the door open for +them, bent over Bertully’s ear. “You’ll ruin your trade teachin’ +niggers, Bertully. Better take my tip.” + +They rode down in the elevator in silence. Joanna, scarlet to the ears, +saw the conjectures written in the eyes of the other passengers as they +observed her and the Frenchman’s elaborate courtesies. She would take up +no more of his time, she told him, thanking him for his kindness; she +would go home now. He understood and beckoned her a taxi, into which he +helped her with another elaborate display of courtesy, much to the +interest of several spectators. + +“So silly of me to mind this,” Joanna scolded herself. But she did mind +it. How could it be possible that she, Joanna Marshall, was meeting with +rebuffs? Not that she was conceited. The point was that she had grown up +in her own and Joel’s belief,—namely, that honest effort led invariably +to success. This was probably the first time in her life that she had +been thwarted. She was like a spoiled child, bewildered and indignant at +being suddenly brought to book. + +The week before Christmas a note came from Peter. + +“Of course I’ve been planning as usual to come home, Jan. But we haven’t +been hitting it off so well lately. Thought I’d better write and see if +you really wanted me to.” + +She wrote him. “Of course I want you.” Heavens, what would Christmas be +without Peter! + +He told her on what train he was arriving and asked her to meet it. She +might have done so, but her day was as usual very full and she had a +rehearsal at six—of indefinite length. She would have to cut out +something. Too bad it had to be meeting Peter. But he surely would come +up to the house at once. + +Her accompanist appeared promptly and they put in a hard two hours. +Joanna, her ear unconsciously straining for the telephone or the +doorbell, was not up to her usual mark. Eight o’clock and Peter not here +and his train in at four! Well, he wasn’t coming then. She plunged into +hard work. Her father came by the door and watched her, thinking what a +picture she made in her pretty dress. She had put on one of her old +stage frocks, for she usually did better work if she created for +herself, as nearly as possible, the atmosphere of the stage. At +nine-thirty the accompanist left. + +“We went rather slowly at first, but you came out splendidly at the end, +Miss Marshall. You were a little bit tired, perhaps.” + +“That must have been it. Thank you and good-night, Miss Eggleston.” + +Still no Peter! “Mean thing, I’ll fix him for that.” + +The bell buzzed softly, she could barely hear it. Yes, that was he. She +heard her father’s voice, “In the back parlor, Bye.” + +He came in, came toward her. “Well, Joanna, here’s the wanderer +returned.” He bent to kiss her. + +She turned him a cold cheek, which to her surprise he kissed without +expostulation. + +He crossed the room, sat down and looked at her. “H’m, how stagy we are +in that get-up!” + +He was different somehow, she thought, vaguely hurt by his remark. One +of her reasons for putting on the dress had been so that she might +please him. She asked him a question to hide her chagrin. + +“Where’ve you been, Peter? I thought your train got in at four?” + +“It did, but since you weren’t there to meet me, I supposed you didn’t +care whether I came late or early, or not at all. I met Vera Manning in +the station and took her to a movie.” + +Her spirits went up at that. This was just pique, sheer pique. + +“How lovely for Vera! And now I’ve got to send you home almost right +away. I’ve had a hard day and I’m dreadfully tired. Tell you what, dear +boy, come to luncheon to-morrow. We’ll have it together, just we two.” + +She thought after he had gone that he had looked at her critically, +impersonally. + +“As though he were contrasting me with some one,” she murmured. + +The next day confirmed her impression. Joanna asked him to praise the +luncheon. + +“I fixed it every bit myself.” + +“I should think so, so feminine and knickknackish.” His tone said: “I’m +used to having my taste consulted.” + +Joanna did not like the remark, but there was nothing really to be said +about it. She sprang up lightly, began to clear away. + +“Come on, lazy Peter Bye, don’t leave everything for me to do.” + +He lounged in his chair. “Oh, come, Joanna, I’m used to being waited on, +not doing the waiting.” + +She stared at him then. “Well, good heavens! What on earth has been +happening to you in Philadelphia?” + +He spoke from a contented reminiscence. “When I have dinner at Maggie +Neal’s, she’s not everlastingly asking me to do this and do that. ‘Sit +still, Peter,’ she says, ‘this isn’t a man’s work.’” + +“Maggie Neal has her own methods with her men friends. Personally I +prefer to have mine wait on me.” + +He rose to his feet. “Oh, yes, Queen Joanna must be served.” + +They finished and went to the parlor. Joanna sang one or two of her +songs to his accompaniment. The incident rankled, though she wouldn’t +let herself speak about it. + +“But he certainly is changed,” she said to herself in an angry +bewilderment. + +She had to sing in Orange that night and did not intend to return until +the next morning. + +“What do we do to-morrow?” Peter asked. + +“Remember you said you wanted to hear _Aïda_? I ’phoned them to reserve +tickets for us for to-morrow’s matinée. But they have to be called for. +Better go down there first thing in the morning, Peter.” + +He twisted around on the piano stool. “You’ll be down town to-morrow +morning coming from Orange. Why don’t you stop for them?” + +She couldn’t believe her ears. “Peter Bye, you _are_ spoilt,” she +flamed. “You’re—why you’re absolutely disgusting. We’ll never hear +_Aïda_ if you depend on my getting the tickets. As long as he was well +and not busy, there’s no man in the world I’d do it for.” + +“Married women do it for their husbands.” + +“Sylvia doesn’t do it for Brian. He wouldn’t dream of asking her. +Besides, that’s different. And, anyway, we’re not married yet. Nor +likely to be, if we don’t get along any better than this. Whatever’s +come over you, Peter?” + +He shrugged his shoulders. “I think you make a lot of fuss over nothing, +Joanna. But all right, I’ll get you the tickets. See you at one-thirty?” + +She sat a long time in her room after he had gone, her hands and eyes +busy with her day’s mail, which Sylvia always placed on her writing +table. But her mind could not take in the written words, it was too full +of something else. + +But Peter, Peter of all men to act like this! Both she and Sylvia had +always known that Maggie was unexacting. The marvel was, however, that +Peter should take so quickly to this kind of treatment. Well, she’d just +have to hold him that much closer to the mark. He’d see that there were +some girls who knew what was due them. + +It was time for her to dress. As she looked into the mirror she voiced +her real regret. “Two days of the vacation gone, and we’ve done nothing +but quarrel. To-day he didn’t even ask me for a kiss. Peter, you wretch. +Just wait till you come to your senses!” + +They were a little stiff next day on the way to the matinée, talking +politely and impersonally about the weather in Philadelphia and New +York, Joanna’s concert, and Sylvia’s children. Walking up Broadway, +however, they thawed a little. Joanna as usual was looking trim. She +wore that winter an extremely trig tobacco-brown suit, with a fur turban +and a narrow neckpiece of raccoon, the light part setting off the bronze +distinction of her face. But Peter was superlative. His financial +success with Tom Mason had made it possible for him to indulge in a new +outfit which emphasized the distinction of his carriage, set off his +handsome face. Several people looked at him on the crowded street. +Joanna herself stole several glances sidewise. + +He caught her at it. “Joanna Marshall, if you look at me again like +that, just once more, mind you, I’ll snatch you up in my arms this +minute and kiss you.” + +“You wouldn’t dare.” + +“I dare you to try it. I’d do it no matter how much you kicked and +struggled. Wouldn’t the people stare?” + +Joanna giggled. “Can’t you see the headlines in the papers to-morrow? +‘Burly Negro Attacks Strapping Negress on Broadway!’” + +“Yes, and the small type underneath, ‘An interested crowd gathered about +a pair of dusky combatants yesterday. A Negro and Negress——’” + +Joanna interrupted: “Both of them spelt with a small ‘n,’ remember! Here +we are at the Opera.” + +He caught her hand. “Just because you jockeyed me out of that kiss that +time, clever Joanna, doesn’t mean that I’m going to do without it +forever.” + +In her heart she loved him. “Oh, Peter, be like this always,” she +prayed. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + +THEY enjoyed the opera and sang snatches of it coming home as they +walked to the subway. Once in the express train, however, Joanna lapsed +into sadness. + +“I don’t think my voice is as big as that prima donna’s, but those +dancing girls! I should have been right up there with them! Oh, Peter, I +believe I’m the least bit discouraged.” + +She told him of her trips with Bertully. “I didn’t mind those girls +calling me ‘nigger.’ That was sheer ill-breeding. Remember what we used +to say when we were children when they called us names?” She recited it: +“‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.’ +What I minded was that they couldn’t dream of my being accepted. Thought +I had a nerve even to ask it.” + +She mounted the steps. “Come in, Peter.” + +After dinner they sat in the back parlor and Joanna went on with her +story, Peter listening closely. + +“I’m glad you’re telling me about this, Joanna,” he said seriously. “Now +you’ll understand my case better. You know how I feel about white people +and their everlasting unfairness. As though the world and all that is in +it belonged to them! I tell you, Jan, I’m sick of the whole +business,—college, my everlasting grind, my poverty, this confounded +prejudice. If I want to get a chance to study a certain case and it’s in +a white hospital you’d think I’d committed a crime. As though diseases +picked out different races! I’m a good surgeon, I’ll swear I am, but +I’ve got so I don’t care whether I get my degree or not. You can’t +imagine all the petty unfairness about me. Only the other day the barber +refused to shave me in the college barber-shop. Your own cousin, John +Talbert, is a Zeta Gamma man if ever there was one—that’s the equivalent +to Phi Beta Kappa in his school, you know. Do you think he got it? No, +they black-balled him out.” + +Joanna sat silent, stunned by this avalanche. And to think she had +precipitated it! + +“Arabelle Morton’s sister, Selma,” Peter went on morosely, “took her +Master’s degree last year. The candidates sat in alphabetical order. +Selma sat in her seat wondering whom the chair on the left of her +belonged to—it was vacant. At the last moment a girl came in, a Miss +Nelson, who had been in one or two of her classes. Selma knew she was a +Southerner. ‘Oh, I just can’t sit there,’ Selma heard her say, not too +much under her breath. And some friend of hers went to the Professor in +charge of the exercises and he let her change her place, though it threw +the whole line out of order.” + +He paused, still brooding. + +“Another colored girl—can’t think of her name—paid for a seat in one of +the Seminary rooms. The white girl next to her, apparently a very +pleasant person, had her books all over her own desk space and this one, +too. They were the best seats in the room. The colored girl asked her to +move them. She just looked at her. Then this Miss—Miss Taylor, that was +her name, took it from one authority to another, finally to the +professor in charge of the Library. He assigned her another seat. Said +the girl had been there four years, and that anyway, she—the white +girl—resented the colored girl’s manner toward her. The damned petty +injustice!” + +“But, Peter,” Joanna argued, “you wouldn’t let that interfere with your +whole career, change your whole life?” + +“Why shouldn’t I? There’re plenty of pleasanter ways to earn a living. +Why should I take any more of their selfish dog-in-the-manger +foolishness? I can make all the money I want with Tom Mason. If you +aren’t satisfied for me to be an accompanist, I could go into +partnership with him and we could form and place orchestras. It’s a +perfectly feasible plan, Joanna. Why shouldn’t I pick the job that comes +handiest, since the world owes me a living?” + +He frowned, meditating. “Isn’t it funny, I felt just then as though I’d +been through all this before. It’s just as though I’d heard myself say +that very thing some other time. Well, what do you say, Joanna?” + +“That I don’t want a coward and a shirker for a husband. As though that +weren’t the thing those white people—those mean ones—wanted! Not all +white people are that way. Both of us know it, Peter. And it’s up to us, +to you and me, Peter Bye, to show them we can stick to our last as well +as anybody else. If they can take the time to be petty, we can take the +time to walk past it. Oh, we must fight it when we can, but we mustn’t +let it hold us back. Buck up, Peter, be a man. You’ve got to be one if +you’re going to marry me.” + +He shrugged his shoulders. “May I light a cigarette?” But she noticed he +did it with trembling fingers. “Just as you say, Joanna.” + +She rose and faced him, this new Peter—this old Peter if she did but +know it, with the early shiftlessness, the irresoluteness of his father, +Meriwether Bye, the ancient grudge of his grandfather, Isaiah Bye, +rearing up, bearing full and perfect fruit in his heart. Both rage and +despair possessed her, as she saw the beautiful fabric of their future +felled wantonly to the ground. For the sake of a few narrow pedants! + +“Peter, Peter, we’ve got to make our own lives. We can’t let these +people ruin us.” She felt her knees trembling under her. “We’re both +tired and beside ourselves. Come and see me to-morrow, will you?” + +What should she say to him now, she wondered next day after a long white +night. And once she had only to raise her finger and he was willing, +glad to do her bidding. Could it be that after all these years she had +failed to touch his pride, worse yet that he had no pride? She had been +longing so for a cessation from all this bickering, so that they might +have time for a touch of tenderness. But she could not afford that now. +His love for her was her strongest hold over him. She was sure she could +bring him back to reason. Perhaps she had been a little severe last +night, calling him a coward. + +“I musn’t lose my temper,” she told herself. Yet that was the very thing +she did. The matter took such a sudden, such a grotesque turn. + +He came in about eleven, his handsome face haggard, his eyes bloodshot. +She was astounded at his appearance. + +“Peter, you look dreadful!” + +He glanced over the top of her head at his reflection in the mirror, +lounged to the sofa, threw himself in the corner of it. + +“Guess I’m due to look a fright after staying up all night. Didn’t get +to bed till five this morning.” + +She thought he’d been worrying over their quarrel. “You poor boy, you +didn’t need to take it that hard.” + +He stared at her. “Take what, that hard? Oh, our talk! That didn’t keep +me awake. I spent the night at ‘Jake’s.’” + +“Jake’s” was the cabaret, a cheap one, in which he had played years ago. + +She couldn’t understand him. “I thought you had plenty of money without +playing there.” + +“I have. I didn’t play there. I was a visitor like anybody else, like +Harry Portor; he spent the night there, too. There was a whole gang of +us.” + +Clearly she must get to the bottom of this. While she had been tossing +sleepless, he had been in a cabaret, dancing with cheap women, laughing, +drinking perhaps. + +“You mean you deliberately went there to have a good time and stayed all +night? You and Harry Portor and the rest drank, I suppose?” + +“I don’t think Portor did. He’s a full-fledged doctor now, though he’s +hardly any practice yet. But the rest of us did. There’s nothing in +that, Joanna, fellow’s got to get to know the world.” + +Her anger rose, broke. She lost her dignity. + +“I suppose Maggie Ellersley taught you that, too.” + +“What’s that?” His handsome face lowered. “Say, how’d Maggie Ellersley +get into this? No, she never taught me anything. But I can tell you +what, if a fellow were going with her and went during his holidays to +have a spree at a cabaret she wouldn’t nag him about it, like you nag +me. Yes, about that and about a thousand other things.” + +She turned into ice. “I’ll never nag you again. Here, take this thing!” +She drew off the little ring. “I don’t want it.” + +A pin dropping would have crashed in that silence. + +His voice came back to him. “You don’t mean this, Joanna,—you can’t.” + +“I do. Here, take it.” + +“You—you mean the engagement is broken?” He ignored her outstretched +hand. + +She dropped the ring in his pocket. “I mean I can’t consider a man for a +husband who throws away his career because of the meanness of a few +white men. Of a man who sits all night in a low cabaret where every +loafer in New York can point him out and say, ‘That’s the kind of fellow +Joanna Marshall goes about with.’” + +“Oh, I see, it isn’t for my sweet sake, then!” + +She pushed him toward the door. “Go, Peter! Go!” + +On New Year’s morning he came back, humble, contrite. “I was a fool, +Joanna. I must have been mad. Please forgive me.” + +“Of course I do, Peter.” + +He fumbled in his pocket, held out the ring. “Will you take this back?” + +“I can’t do that.” + +“When will you?” + +“I don’t know if ever.” + +There was a long silence. He came over and put his hand on the back of +her chair, afraid to touch her. + +“Joanna, I don’t deserve your love. But you still do love me?” + +She nodded slowly. + +His face brightened at that. “But you won’t take back the ring?” + +“No, Peter, I can’t take back the ring.” + +He knelt and kissed her hands. + +“Good-by, sweetheart, I must go to Philadelphia to-day. Happy New Year, +Joanna.” + +She let him go then. None of their other partings had ever been like +this. Safe in her room she cried herself sick. “Oh, Peter,” she murmured +to herself, “come back like the boy I used to know.” She wished now that +she had been easier with him. + +“And yet if I were, he’d let go entirely. Well, it must come out all +right.” But her heart was heavy. + +The very next day she got a letter. Peter must have written her as soon +as he arrived in Philadelphia. + +“Joanna, I was wrong,” he had written contritely, “I confess I had got +away somewhat from your manner of thinking, and I suppose I was a little +sore, too,—your life seems so full. Sometimes I think there is nothing I +can bring you. But I do love you, Joanna. You must always believe that +and I think you love me, too. We were meant for each other. I am sure +life would hold for us the deepest, most irremediable sorrow if we +separated. Whether we are engaged or not, just tell me that you love me +still and I can be happy.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + +IF she had only answered the letter, then, that very moment! + +But she had said to her impulse: “No, I must wait. I can’t let him off +too easily.” Perhaps, too, there was a little sense of satisfaction at +having him again at her knees, suing for her favors, but this was +secondary. Joanna was really sick at heart to think that her beautiful +dreams of success for both of them might not be realized. She wanted to +be great herself, but she did not want that greatness to overshadow +Peter. + +Somehow the week slipped by, quickly enough, too. There was always +plenty to do. Love,—the desire to give it and receive it was tugging +persistently at the cords of her being, but she had been too long the +slave of Ambition to listen consciously to that. Yet she found herself +lying awake nights thinking, thinking, more about Peter than about her +singing engagements during the New Year, or about her plan to make her +mightiest efforts just now to enter the dancing world. Yet whatever she +might ponder by night, she spent all her time and strength by day going +to see performances, practicing, inventing new steps and new rhythms. + +Through Helena Arnold and indirectly through Vera Sharples she obtained +the promise of an interview with one of the season’s favorites. + +“I’ll be able to see you early Thursday evening,” the famous woman +wrote. “You may expect either a note or a telephone call from me.” At +one time such a promise would have sent Joanna into the seventh ecstasy, +without impairing her confidence. But recent discouragements, +persistent—and for her unusual, phenomena—had rendered her timid. She +was nervous. Her assurance wavered. She spent the whole day going +through her repertory. Sometimes she danced like a mænad. Then she +adopted a slow Greek rhythm, posturing and undulating. She struck +attitudes before the mirror, standing in one position for long moments. + +“For Heaven’s sake,” said Sylvia, putting her head inside the door on +one of these occasions, “go out and take a walk, Joanna.” She was as +nervous as her sister. + +“Not a bad idea, Sylvia, I believe I will. You can answer the phone. +Have you seen my brown cape?” + +She came back a little after five, refreshed and soothed. + +“No phone message,” Sylvia told her, “but here’s a note. What’s she got +to say, Janna?” She came and looked over her sister’s arm. + +“So sorry not to be able to see you to-night,” the noted _artiste_ had +written. “I’m halfway expecting an old friend of mine and must keep the +evening free. I shall try to arrange to have you call, just the same, +not this month I’m afraid, but certainly in February.” She ended with a +meaningless expression of “good wishes.” + +“Mercy,” said Sylvia, “why didn’t she say next year?” + +Joanna was bitter. “Or next eternity? Sylvia, I wonder if I’m not a darn +fool!” She walked upstairs trailing her long brown cape after her. + +All her life she had known and seen success. When she was born her +father was a successful caterer, almost a wealthy man. It is true that +she had seen her own people hindered, checked on account of color, but +hardly any of the things she had greatly wanted had been affected for +that cause. She had had money enough to have her dancing and music +lessons—the very fact that she had had to take separate and special +lessons from Bertully meant to her that some special and separate way +would be arranged whereby she would become a dancer on the stage. + +She did not know how to envisage disappointment. + +Strangely enough, the defection of the _artiste_ struck home to her more +keenly than the reception which she had had from the stage-managers. She +refused Sylvia’s invitation to come back downstairs and spend the +evening with her and Brian. + +“We might go to a movie,” Sylvia had said tentatively. But Joanna had +only made an impatient gesture of refusal, and walking into her room had +closed the door very carefully after her. + +She did not cry or throw herself across the bed. It might have been +better for her if she had. Joanna’s creed was that one kept a stiff +upper lip even to oneself. She had not had many occasions to try out +that creed. + +There she sat, stiffly, on the spindling chair in front of her small +flat-topped writing desk and brooded over the future which suddenly +stretched dull, stale, and uninvigorating before her. She would never be +able to stand it. + +The thought of her marriage flashed across her mind. + +“And Peter,” she said to herself aloud, “willing to be ordinary and +second-rate! Where is that letter of his? I might just as well answer it +now as at any other time.” + +In spite of her ugly mood a little wave of tenderness welled up in her +heart as she read,—“Just tell me that you do love me still,——” + +“Oh, Peter, Peter,” she murmured, “if I tell you that you’ll never +change, never push on. If only you could be strong and let me bring my +troubles to you.” + +It would never do to let him know how completely she was discouraged. +And equally she could not let him know how dear, weakness and all, he +was to her. She would make her love conditional. “If you want me to love +you, Peter,——” + +She hated that, but some day they would both be glad of it. She actually +cried for the two of them as she wrote her stern little fiction: + + “DEAR PETER: + + “No, I don’t love you as you are. The man I marry must be a man + worth while like my father or Philip. I couldn’t stand the + thought of spending my life with some one ordinary. + + “But I want to love you, Peter. Write me soon and say you are + going to get to work in earnest. Happy New Year. + + “Sincerely, + + “JOANNA.” + +She read it over and over, totally blind to its supreme egotism. Then +she sealed it and, sniffling a little—more like a child than like an +artist—went to bed. + +In the morning she awoke with a sense of impending disaster. The phrase +is trite but so, alas, is disaster. At first, as she lay there, her +slender brown arms stretched above her tumbled head, she mused to +herself about it. + +“Let’s see why I do feel so rotten? What’s the matter?” + +She remembered her engagement with the _artiste_. “But that’s not what’s +making me sick,” she told herself after a momentary probing of her +self-consciousness. Then recalling the letter to Peter, she got up and +walked bare-footed across the room to the desk, shivering a little as +the chilly January morning air struck at her, billowing her thin +nightdress. She thought she would read it again, but the envelope was +sealed. It slipped out of her hand and she ran back to bed again, +cuddling luxuriously. + +“Oh, well!” Afterwards when she rose and closed the windows she promised +herself: “If I do send it I’ll write him a sweet, sweet letter soon.” + +After breakfast she posted it. It fell with a heaviness into the box +that made her uneasy. “I’ll write him again to-night,” she thought. +“Poor Peter! He’ll be disappointed, I suppose.” + +But the night brought her several offers to sing in Southern schools +which she thought she might just as well accept. Apparently nothing was +to come of her dancing. She had about a week in which to get ready. + +Just before she left, a little surprised that she had not already heard +from Peter, she wrote him a long letter, her first long love-letter. + + “Dearest Peter [she began] + + “You can’t think how awfully I want to see you. If you were here + to-night I shouldn’t quarrel with you one moment.” + +She quoted lines from one of Goethe’s poems. + + “Ein Blick von deinen Augen in die meinen, + Ein Kuss von deinem Mund auf meinem Munde: + +She hesitated a moment, a little aghast at this disclosure of her +feelings. “But I might just as well, he deserves it. Dear, dear Peter, +if I could just see you!” + +She ended, smiling shamefacedly at her own abandon—— + + “Mein einzig Glück auf Erden ist dein Wille”—— + +She might have stopped in Philadelphia on her way South, but she +couldn’t after that letter. In Richmond she received a note from Peter +which Sylvia had forwarded. + + “My dear Joanna [she was surprised at the formality] + + “I have both your letters. I cannot tell you how surprised I was + at receiving the first or how much I cherished the second. + Joanna, I would give ten years of my life if you had written the + second one first. I am very busy now but I am going to write you + a final letter very soon. + + “Sincerely, + + “PETER.” + +“‘A final letter,’” she quoted to herself. “What a funny thing to say! +Oh, Peter! And I wanted, I needed a real letter, a love-letter!” Her +natural reasonableness helped her. “It’s my own fault. I suppose he +feels like I feel sometimes, don’t-care-y. But ‘a final letter.’ I +wonder what he meant!” + +But she did not puzzle long. Richmond was appreciative and gay. Some one +wrote her from Hampton and asked her to do an interpretative dance. +Partly because of the interest and excitement, partly because she had +forced herself to do so often, she resolutely put Peter out of her mind. + +“He’ll know when I write him again,” she told herself ruefully. + +Two weeks, a month passed; she came into her room one day to find a +bulky letter from Sylvia. “He doesn’t mean it, Joanna, of course, but I +had to send it.” Thus her sister’s note. Puzzled, she read the +inclosure, which turned out to be a letter from Peter to Sylvia. + + “DEAR SYLVIA: + + “I am writing to let you know that I am to be married in June. + Joanna told me she didn’t love me and so I am going to marry + Maggie Neal; she’s crazy about me. Tell Joanna not to bother + sending back any of the things I’ve given her. + + “Sincerely, + + “PETER.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + +ONE of the mysteries of the ages will be solved with the answer to the +question: Why do men consider women incalculable? Peter had been hurt by +Joanna’s indifference again and again, she had refused a dozen times to +marry him, she had scolded him, teased him, slighted him. Yet she had +always come back to his eager arms. In spite of this he had been unable +to see in her attitude at Christmas and in the unkind letter which she +had written the logical outcome of her earlier acts—all of which by +enduring he had tacitly indorsed. + +He read the letter in a maze of anger and wounded pride. Before he knew +it he had caught up his cap and started for Maggie’s house. By the time +the long, yellow, crawling car had jolted him over the uneven reaches of +Lombard Street and set him down at Fifteenth he was in a fever of +bitterness, resentment and self-pity. Maggie hardly knew him when he +entered her little sitting-room. + +“Oh, Peter,” she went up to him swiftly, “something awful has happened.” + +He showed her the letter, striding up and down the room as she read it. + +She lifted her head to say to him: “She doesn’t mean it; you know +Joanna, always making a mountain out of a molehill.” + +Instead she heard herself saying: “How could she possibly write such +things to you—you’ve always been so kind.” + +“Too kind,” he muttered. “I tell you what, Maggie, Joanna’s got no +heart, she’s all head, all ideas and if you don’t see and act her way, +she’s got no use for you.” + +“I do think she thinks herself a lot better than any one else,” Maggie +said slowly, remembering Joanna’s letter to her about Philip. + +“Well, she is, you know,” he put in unexpectedly. “Oh, Lord, what am I +going to do without her!” + +Genuinely touched, she sat down on the little box-couch beside him and +slid her arm around his shoulder. “After all, you’ve still got me, +Peter.” + +He looked up at her, feeling the surge of a new idea in his heart. If he +could only punish Joanna—no not punish exactly, you couldn’t punish her, +she was always too remote for that—but shock her, let her see, as his +boyhood’s phrase would have had it, that she was not the only pebble on +the beach. Besides, what a revenge to cut loose altogether from the +influence of her ideals and ally himself with one whom she would have +characterized as having no ideals at all. + +Before the thought was even shaped in his brain he was speaking: + +“Of course I always have you, Maggie. How—how would you like to spend +your future with me?” + +“What do you mean, Peter?” + +“I mean, Joanna’s chucked me. You and I get along famously, you’ve got +your divorce from Neal. Why not marry me?” + +It was plain that though surprised she liked the idea. She saw herself +suddenly transformed in this inhospitable snobbish city from Maggie +Neal, alone and _déclassée_, into Mrs. Peter Bye, a model of +respectability. + +That he had no money, no accepted means of making a livelihood she +understood would mean nothing. He was a Bye and she as his wife could go +anywhere. She would show Alice Talbert! And afterwards when he got his +degree! + +But because she had once loved Philip she could judge what Peter might +mean to Joanna. To her credit she hesitated. + +“Joanna probably doesn’t mean to let you go, Peter, she’s just angry and +disappointed. She takes things harder than Sylvia or I. You know she +really cares about you, and so do you about her.” + +But he assured her that he did not. “She’s too exacting. Now there’s one +thing about you, Maggie—maybe it’s because you’ve already been +married—you know how to treat a man. Joanna makes you feel as though you +were in a strait-jacket all the time. I always feel ordinary when I’m +with you.” + +Neither of them noticed the doubtfulness of the compliment. In the end +she accepted him. After all, she owed nothing to Joanna, who certainly +had not considered her. How surprised she would be to think that Peter +could so quickly find solace in her—Maggie’s—arms! And Joanna should +learn, too, that he could become a success without everlastingly being +pushed and prodded. + +Hard on this thought came another. “Peter, you won’t have to work so +hard now to get through school. I’ll help you. You know I’m doing very +well with the hair-work.” + +He dismissed the theme airily, one hand on her shoulder, the other +fumbling for a cigarette. + +“Oh, I’m going to give medicine up. I’ll just keep on with Tom and the +music. Heavens, it’s so nice to know you won’t mind, Maggie. Can’t think +why I’ve stuck to the old school as long as I have, when here I am all +set with this nice easy job to my hand. Might as well get along with as +little trouble as possible. The world owes me a living.” + + * * * * * + +Afterwards, back in his room with the green iron bedstead and the Bye +Bible, he felt a difference, a sense of let-down-ness. He threw himself +across the bed and groaned. + +“Joanna, how could you?” + +She could, that was evident. He was stupefied at the turn in his +affairs. Five hours ago he had expected some day to be a physician and +to marry Joanna Marshall. Now it seemed that he was going to be a +musician and marry Maggie Neal. + +“It isn’t true,” he told himself, fiercely. But it was true. There on +the dresser were some cookies wrapped up in a red and white fringed +napkin, Maggie’s gift when he left her. + +“I made them for you, hoping you would come in. Now you’ll be in often, +often, won’t you? Oh, Peter, I’ll be good to you. I’ll be as unlike +Joanna as possible.” He did not want her to be unlike Joanna. In fact, +he did not want her at all. + +He might as well take her, though, for Joanna did not want him. That was +it, no matter how many women he unaccountably married, Joanna might be +shocked but she would never really care. Or suppose she did care a +little while, she would soon forget it with her singing and dancing. +Still, he supposed he must tell her. He would write her a gay, mocking +letter. “I hope you’ll be as happy with your art as I feel I shall be +with Maggie. She suits me perfectly.” + +After he had littered his desk and the floor beside it vainly with a +veritable snow-storm of torn bits of paper, he let his head drop on his +lean brown hands and went to sleep. Perhaps it would not be exact to say +he cried himself to sleep, but there were certainly tears that burnt and +scalded behind his eyelids. + +His landlady complained of the torn paper the next morning. “’Tisn’t as +though you didn’t have a nice waste-paper basket ready and waitin’, Mr. +Bye.” As she finished speaking she handed him Joanna’s letter containing +Goethe’s poem. The tenderness, the real love that blazed in the +beautiful lines overwhelmed him. He could not tell her the truth after a +letter like that. So he wrote her, postponing but hinting, he fondly +believed, at the news which he must soon break to her. A month later, +finding himself still unequal to the task, he wrote to Sylvia. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + +SYLVIA had written. “He doesn’t mean it, of course”—— + +But Joanna knew better. Even while dumbfounded she stood staring at the +note, trying to believe there must be some mistake, her heart, her every +sense was telling her it was too true. + +Peter had given her up. He was going to marry Maggie. _He had given her +up._ That was the important thing. For if he was not to marry her, what +difference did it make whom he married? + +She had never been religious, she had never been dramatic. Rather she +somewhat despised any emphatically emotional display. “People don’t +really act that way,” she told herself. + +Yet she dropped on her knees beside the pine bedstead in the sparsely +furnished room. Her hands clutched at the counterpane. She could feel +her throat constricting. A scalding hotness seared her nostrils, her +mouth became dry, her eyeballs burned. + +“Oh, God! Oh, Peter!” She repeated the two phrases again and again in a +sick agony. + +“God, you couldn’t let it be true. You know I always loved him, I didn’t +hide it from you. You knew my heart.” + +At first she thought she would go to him. Then the fear that he might +not want to see her, might even refuse to see her, overcame her. That +humiliation she could never endure. + +She sat down and wrote him a long letter, her pen flying over the page +like something bewitched. It could not move fast enough to empty her +heart of all she had to tell. If she could only make clear to him that +she had “chastened” him because she loved him. How patronizing, how +silly she had been. She said aloud, “How he and Maggie must have laughed +at me, setting myself up above them and their ideas as though I were +some goddess! Oh, God, why did you let me do it? You knew what I really +meant.” + +Her tears almost blotted out her words. + +The post-office was a mile away but she trudged the distance +mechanically, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, absorbed and drowned in +the black sorrow which overwhelmed her. + +Peter’s answer, which came in four days, brought no solace. She had +never dwelt on any pages as she did on those of his last letter. The +curt, stern phrases both cut her and awakened a new respect for him. + +With a sense of responsibility which Joanna had never seen in him +before, he insisted on honoring the claim which Maggie’s complete and +unexacting love made upon him. “Even if I wanted to give her up,” he +wrote in a sort of anguished virtuousness, “I would not, she has been +too kind to me. But I don’t want to give her up, Joanna. Besides, I’ve +got to consider the public. She has told several people that we are +engaged.” + +Joanna cried aloud: “If you had only been like this before, ever before, +only once, I’d have known I couldn’t trifle with you. Oh, Peter, you +deceived me.” The tears stood, great wells of water about her eyes. + +She finished her engagement in the quiet Southern city before an +audience which wondered vaguely what had happened to make Joanna +Marshall different. Somehow she packed her trunk, thanked the persistent +youth who had constituted himself her cavalier, and boarded the Jim Crow +car. Her cavalier for all his persistence had been unable to obtain for +her Pullman accommodations. After Washington she fell to wondering what +it used to be like in other days, less than a year ago, when she would +be coming up this way, through Baltimore, Wilmington, past Chester, +secure in the knowledge that Peter would be waiting for her at West +Philadelphia. He would never be there again! How could she endure it? It +was not possible that anyone could stand this thing. No wonder people +“crossed in love”—she dwelt on the phrase distastefully—killed +themselves. She toyed with the idea. Of course _she_ couldn’t; that sort +of relief was not for her. In the first place it was cowardly. With her +usual mental clarity she visualized the colored papers of Harlem. There +would be notices telling how the “gifted singer, Joanna Marshall, +daughter of Joel Marshall, died by her own hand——” + +Her mind lingered over it, painting in new details, consciously +withdrawing as far as possible from the real cause of her grief. + +As the train slid into the long shed at West Philadelphia she pressed +her face against the window-pane and strained out into the dusk. +Sometimes miracles did occur. Perhaps he was there, perhaps none of it +was true. Her tears crept down the glass, the man behind her watching +curiously. + +Sylvia met her in New York, got her home and finally to bed. Mr. and +Mrs. Marshall knew nothing of the matter and Sylvia had told even Brian +very little. The two girls said nothing about Peter directly. + +“Help me to get to sleep, Sylvia,” Joanna said suddenly after a rambling +account of her trip. Her roving eyes and twitching hands had already +betrayed her need. “Help me to get to sleep or I think I shall go mad.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + +JOANNA was in agony. Her life, hitherto a thing of light and laughter +and pleasant work, became a nightmare of regret and morbid +introspection. She could not blame herself enough. Nothing that Sylvia +could say would make her speak unkindly of Peter. + +“No, Sylvia, it wasn’t his fault, really, it was all mine. Of course I +think he was a little stupid not to see that my very interest in him, my +constant fault-finding grew out of my wish to have him perfect. And I +wanted him to be perfect because I loved him. But if I had ever dreamed +how much I was hurting him, I’d never have said a word to him. I’d +rather have had him exactly as he was, faults and all, than to lose him +altogether.” + +She suffered intensely, too, from wounded pride. “Just think, Sylvia, he +didn’t, he couldn’t have loved me after all. He just wanted to get +married. See how easily he turned from me. Oh, if I had known that was +all he wished, I’d have been different. I’d have been just the kind of +woman he wanted.” + +Her humble sincerity almost made Sylvia cry. + +Another girl in Joanna’s place might not have suffered so intensely. But +Joanna, poor creature, was doomed by her very virtues. That same +single-mindedness which had made her so engrossed in her art, now proved +her undoing. Her mind, shocked out of its normal complacence, perceived +and dwelt on a new aspect of life, an entirely different and undreamed +of sense of values. For the first time in her life she saw the +importance of human relationships. What did a knowledge of singing, +dancing, of any of the arts amount to without people, without parents, +brothers, sisters, lovers to share one’s failures, one’s triumphs? + +She remembered how interested, how faithfully interested all her family +had been in her small career. Even Brian Spencer, now that her own +brothers were away, felt responsible for her, shifted engagements to get +her to the station on time, met trains at ghastly, inconvenient hours of +the night. And Peter had been her slave, her willing, unquestioning +slave, eager to accomplish any task no matter how troublesome, for a +word of appreciation from her. + +And without a thought she had taken all this as her due. + +She had failed to realize happiness when she saw it. The bird had been +in her grasp and she had let it go. This was her constant thought. Of +course, she still had her own people. And she was considerate of them +now, painfully anxious to show her gratitude. She tried to stammer out +an apology to Sylvia for her past remissness. + +But her sister threw an arm about her and strained her close. “Don’t be +so thoughtful, so good, Jan. You break my heart. I’d rather have you +your old thoughtless, impatient self.” + +Of course, this expression of gratitude was really only a gesture to +life, to fate. “If Peter could come back to me now, he’d see how truly I +cared about him. God, couldn’t you let him come back?” Joanna, who had +hardly uttered a prayer outside of “Now I lay me,” spent most of her +thoughts at this time in communion with God—“You Great Power, you great +force, you whatever it is that rules things.” Walking, riding, any +action at all mechanical she utilized in concentrating on her “desire to +have everything come right.” + +In the mornings, weak and spent with the wakefulness of her white night, +she picked up her little slim Bible and read portions of the Psalms. The +beautiful words not only soothed her but brought with them a wonderment +at the passion and pain which they revealed. “David, you, too, suffered. +Help me, help me now.” So intense was her thought that she would hardly +have been surprised if she had looked up and seen the Psalmist bending +over her. + +She hated the mornings even more than the nights. In spite of her +wakefulness, she was sure that there were some moments when she lapsed +into unconsciousness. But the morning brought with it the promise of +another day of pain, of unprofitable preoccupation. Sometimes after she +had read her Psalm, despite the fact that she had been tossing, tossing +on her pillow, she yielded to an overwhelming sense of apathy and lay +there motionless for hours in the security of her bed. + +Her mental agony was so great at times that it seemed almost physical. + +Her condition surprised Sylvia greatly. “I never had any idea that Jan +cared so much for Peter,” she told Brian. She had had to share her +sister’s secret with him. Joanna’s persistent sleeplessness had led +Sylvia in her protecting eagerness to pretend to Harry Portor that she +herself was in need of a sedative and Harry had spoken to Brian about +it. There had to be explanations. + +Brian was not at all surprised at Joanna’s suffering. “A girl like +Joanna would be bound to feel deeply or not at all. I knew she must have +really cared for Peter, else she’d have chucked him long ago. Joanna did +nag at him, but Peter is really the one to blame, for standing for it. +If he’d given her a piece of his mind now and then she’d have understood +whom she had to deal with; Joanna thought she could treat him as she +pleased. Then when he got tired of it he threw up the whole thing +without any warning, the silly ass.” + +“Better not let Joanna hear you call him that,” Sylvia interrupted. + +He went on unnoticing. “Of course, what Joanna doesn’t realize is that +she’s up against the complex of color in Peter’s life. It comes to every +colored man and every colored woman, too, who has any ambition. Jan will +feel it herself one day. Peter’s got it worse than most of us because +he’s got such a terrible ‘mad’ on white people to start with. But every +colored man feels it sooner or later. It gets in the way of his dreams, +of his education, of his marriage, of the rearing of his children. The +time comes when he thinks, ‘I might just as well fall back; there’s no +use pushing on. A colored man just can’t make any headway in this awful +country.’ Of course, it’s a fallacy. And if a fellow sticks it out he +finally gets past it, but not before it has worked considerable +confusion in his life. To have the ordinary job of living is bad enough, +but to add to it all the thousand and one difficulties which follow +simply in the train of being colored—well, all I’ve got to say, Sylvia, +is we’re some wonderful people to live through it all and keep our +sanity.” + +Sylvia agreed soberly that he was right. + +“Now, Peter,” said Brian, warming to his subject, “had a lot of natural +handicaps, he was poor, he had no sense of responsibility, he was never +too fond of work unless he had some one to spur him on to it. In +addition to that he falls in love with a girl who has everything in the +world which he lacks, especially comparative ease and overwhelming +ambition. Jan doesn’t see Peter and herself as two ordinary human +beings, she thinks they have a high destiny to perform and so she drives +Peter into a course of action which left to himself he would never +pursue. I’ll bet a month’s salary Peter had no intention of studying +surgery until he found out he had to do something extraordinary to win +Joanna. Now, just when each needs the most sympathy from the other, when +Joanna’s plans are, I suspect, going awry, and when Peter is suffering +most from his color complex, the two let their frazzled nerves carry +them into a jangle and bang, Peter flies to the first woman who promises +to let him take life easy! Maggie doesn’t see life in the large, she’s +too much taken up with getting what she wants out of her own life. +Perhaps she’s right.” + +“I don’t see how you can say that, Brian.” + +“Well, it all depends on one’s viewpoint. Personally, I think Peter will +get what he deserves if he marries Maggie. She’s the one that astonishes +me. Of course, if Peter and Jan really are through with each other, he’s +got a perfect right to marry whom he pleases, but I should think +Maggie’s old friendship for you two girls would have held her back +awhile.” A memory stirred vaguely within him. “Or—no, that would really +be too rotten.” + +“What would?” + +“Maggie, you know. Remember how suddenly she married Neal? I’ve always +thought Joanna had something to do with that. Just the Sunday before, +Maggie had given me a look-in on her feelings for Philip and I happened +to tell Jan about it. My, how she raved! A few days later Maggie married +her gambler.” + +This was all news to Sylvia. + +“Well, I won’t tell Joanna. She’s got enough to bear.” + +Joanna was indeed bearing more than Sylvia could guess. She was feeling +the pull of awakened and unsatisfied passion. It is doubtful if she +could thus have analyzed it, for she had rather deliberately withheld +her attention from the basic facts of life. “Plenty of time for that,” +she had told herself gayly, a little proud perhaps of a virginal +fastidiousness which kept her ignorant as well as innocent. Yet bit by +bit she had built up the idea of a shrine into which, not unwillingly, +she should enter with Peter some day. She had never even vaguely thought +of any one else as a companion. Her whole concept of love and marriage +for herself centered about Peter Bye. + +And now Peter was gone—and his departure had opened up this sea, this +bottomless pit of torment. This, this was life. “This is being grown +up,” she told herself through endless midnight watches. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + +TEN months later Tom Mason leaned back against the red plush of the car +seat and jingled some coins in his pocket. + +“Tell you what, Bye, we really are cleaning up. I hadn’t expected +anything like this run of engagements. Now suppose you beat it along to +Mrs. Lea’s and find out what special arrangements she wants made for the +musicians to-night and I’ll go on to Mrs. Lawlor and see about +to-morrow.” + +Peter stared moodily at the flying landscape. “I wish you’d come +yourself, Mason. I hate to talk to these white people. Their damned +patronizing airs make me sick.” + +“What do you care about their patronizin’? All I’m interested in is +gettin’ what I can out of them. When I’ve made my pile, if I can’t spend +it here the way I please, Annie and me can pick up and go to South +America or France. I hear they treat colored people all right there.” + +“‘Treat colored people all right,’” Peter mimicked. “What business has +any one ‘treating’ us, anyway? The world’s ours as much as it is theirs. +And I don’t want to leave America. It’s mine, my people helped make it. +These very orchards we’re passing now used to be the famous Bye +orchards. My grandfather and great-grandfather helped to cultivate +them.” + +“Is that so? Honest?” Tom showed a sudden respectful interest. “How’d +they come to lose them?” + +“Lose them? They never owned them. The black Byes were slaves of the +white Byes.” + +“Oh, slaves! Oh, you mean they worked in the fields? Well, I guess +that’s different. Come on, here we are.” + +Peter flung himself out of the car after Tom and followed him up a +tree-lined street. The suburban town stretched calm, peaceful and +superior about them. Clearly this was the home of the rich and +well-born. It is true that a few ordinary mortals lived here, but mainly +to do the bidding of the wealthy. A group of young white girls, passing +the two men, glanced at them a little curiously. + +“Entertainers for the Lea affair,” one of them said, making no effort to +keep from being overheard. + +Peter stopped short. “That’s what I hate,” he said fiercely. “Labeled +because we’re black.” + +“Ain’t you got a grouch, though!” Tom spoke almost admiringly. He told +his sister afterwards: “Bye’s got this here—now—temper’ment. Never can +tell how it’s goin’ to take him. Seems different since he started +keeping company with Maggie, don’t you think so?” + +Annie admitted she did. + +At present Tom patted Peter on the shoulder, and starting him up the +driveway which led to Mrs. Lea’s large low white house, went on himself +to Mrs. Lawlor. + +Mrs. Lea received Peter in a small morning-room. She was pretty, a +genuine blonde, with small delicate features and beautiful fluffy hair. +But as Peter did not like fair types, his mind simply registered +“washed-out,” and took no further stock of her looks. What he did notice +was that she was dressed in a lacey, too transparent floating robe, too +low in the neck, and too short in the skirt. + +“Something she would wear only before some one for whom she cared very +much, or some one whom she didn’t think worth considering,” he told +himself, lowering. + +Mrs. Lea, leading him into the ballroom beyond, barely glanced at him. +“See, the musicians are to sit behind those palms and the piano will be +completely banked with flowers. I’m expecting the decorators every +moment. Your men will have to get here very early so as to get behind +all this without being seen. I want the effect of music instead of +perfume pouring out of the flowers. Do you get the idea—er—what did you +say your name was?” + +“Yes, I understand,” said Peter shortly. “My name is Bye.” + +“I meant your first name—Bye—why, that’s the name of a family in Bryn +Mawr, who used to own half of the land about here. There’re a Dr. +Meriwether Bye and his grandfather, Dr. Meriwether Bye, living in the +old Bye house now. Where do you come from?” + +“I was born in Philadelphia like my father and grandfather and his +father before him.” + +She stated the obvious conclusion: “Probably your parents belonged to +the Bryn Mawr Byes.” + +“So my father told me,” replied Peter, affecting a composure equal to +her own. “His name was Meriwether Bye.” + +She did not like that. She decided she did not like him either—eyeing +his straight, fine figure and meeting his unyielding look. These niggers +with their uppish ways! Besides this one looked, looked—indefinably he +reminded her of young Meriwether Bye. She spoke to him: + +“I don’t want you to leave to-night before I get a chance to point you +out to young Dr. Bye. He’ll be so interested.” She looked at Peter +again. Yes, he was intelligent enough to get the full force of what she +wanted to say. “It’s so in keeping with things that the grandson of the +man who was slave to his grandfather should be his entertainer +to-night.” + +Peter felt his skin tightening. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. I’m +a medical student, not an entertainer. I came here for Mr. Mason, who is +very busy. You may be sure I’ll give him your instructions. Good-day, +Mrs. Lea.” + +He rushed out of the house, down to the station where, without waiting +for Tom, he boarded the train. Not far from the West Philadelphia depot +he pushed the bell of a certain house, flung open the unlocked door and +rushed up a flight of stairs. + +In a small room to his left he found the person he was seeking, a short, +almost black young fellow who lifted a dejected and then an amazed +countenance toward him. + +“Am I seeing things? Where’d you blow in from, Pete? Thought you’d +chucked us all, the old school and all the rest of it.” + +“I haven’t, I’ve been a fool, a damned fool, but I’m back to my senses. +I’m going back to my classes and I tell you, Ed Morgan, I’ll clean up. +See here, you’ve got to do me a favor.” + +“Name it.” + +“You know Mason, Tom Mason on Fifteenth Street? I’ve been playing for +him. But I can’t stick it any longer. Tom’s all right, but I can’t stand +his customers. Besides, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m quitting this +minute—see. But Tom’s got a big dance on, near Bryn Mawr to-night at a +Mrs.—Mrs. Lea,” he gulped. “Good pay and all that. You can play as well +as I can, Ed. Easy stuff, you can read it. You got to do it.” + +“Do it! Man, lead me to that job. I’m broke, see, stony broke, busted.” +He turned his pockets inside out. “I was just wondering what I could +pawn. And I need instruments—Oh, Lord!” + +Peter gave him some money. “Take this, you can pay me any time. Only +rush down to Tom’s and tell him I can’t come. I’m dead—see?—drowned, +fallen in the Schuylkill. And see here, old fellow, afterwards we’ll +have a talk. I want everything, everything, mind you, that you can +remember, every note, every bit of paper that bears on the work of these +last ten months. And I’ll show them—” he seemed to forget Morgan—“with +their damned talk of entertainers.” Down the stairs he ran, still +talking. + +“Mad, quite mad,” said little Morgan, staring. “Glad he’s coming back to +work, though. Now, where’d I put that cap?” + +Still at white heat, Peter walked the few short blocks to his boarding +house. Once inside his room he shut himself in and paced the floor. + +“The grandson—that’s me—of the man who was his grandfather’s slave +should be his—that’s Meriwether Bye, young Dr. Meriwether Bye—should be +his entertainer, his hired entertainer. + +“My grandfather didn’t have a chance, but here I am half a century after +and I’m still a slave, an entertainer. My grandfather. Let’s see, which +one of the Byes was that?” + +He went to the closet, pushed some books and papers aside and hauled +down the old Bye Bible. The leaves, streaked and brown, stuck together. +With clumsy, unaccustomed fingers he turned them, until at last between +the Old Testament and the Apocrypha he found what he was looking for: +“Record of Births and Deaths.” + +The old, stiff, faded writing with the long German _s_, the work of +hands long since still, smote him with a sense of worthlessness. These +people, according to their lights, must have considered themselves +“people of importance,” else why this careful record of dates? + +His lean brown finger traced the lines. “Joshua Bye, born about +1780”—heavens, that must have been his great-great-grandfather. No, +maybe he was just a “great,” for the black Byes, he remembered hearing +his father Meriwether say, lived long and married late. + +“Isaiah Bye, born 1830—a child of freedom.” How proud they had been of +that! Yes, that was his grandfather, he remembered now. And he had made +a great deal of that freedom. Meriwether had often dwelt with pride on +Isaiah’s learning, his school, his property, his “half-interest,” +Meriwether had said grandiloquently, in a bookshop. Peter could hear his +father talking now. + +“A child of freedom”—Peter was that but what had he made of it? He +wondered what Isaiah in turn had written on the occasion of Meriwether’s +birth. His finger ran down the page, and found it, stopped. + +There it was—“Meriwether,” the inscription read, “by _his_ fruits shall +ye know—_me_.” + +At first Peter thought it was a mistake. Then gradually it dawned on +him—his fine old grandfather, proud of his achievements, seeing his son +as a monument to himself, seeing each Bye son doubtless as a monument to +each Bye father. Poor Isaiah, perhaps happy Isaiah, for having died +before he realized how worthless, how anything but monumental _his_ son +had really been, except as a failure. And now he, Peter, was following +in that son’s footsteps. + +He remembered an old daguerreotype of his grandfather that he had seen +at his great-uncle Peter’s. The face, perfectly black, looked out from +its faded red-plush frame with that immobile look of dignity which only +black people can attain. “I have made the most of myself,” the proud old +face seemed to say. “My father was a slave, but I am a teacher, a leader +of men. My son shall be a great healer and my son’s son——” + +Peter put the open Bible carefully on the table and took out a +cigarette. But he held it a long time unlighted. + +So far as he could remember he had never had any desire to rise, “to be +somebody,” as Isaiah, he rightly guessed, would have phrased it. He saw +himself after his mother’s death, a small placid boy, perfectly willing +to stay out of school. Until he met Joanna. There was his term of +service in the butcher-shop and himself again perfectly willing to be +the butcher’s assistant. Until Joanna’s questioning had made him declare +for surgery. Once in college his whole impulse had been to get away from +it all, not because he hadn’t liked the work; he adored it, was +fascinated by it. But the obstacles, prejudice, his very real dislike +for white people, his poverty, all or any of these had seemed to him +sufficient cause for dropping his studies and becoming a musician. Not +an artist, but an entertainer, a player in what might be termed “a +strolling orchestra,” picking up jobs, receiving tips, going down in the +servants’ dining room for meals. And when Joanna had objected, he +thought she was “funny,” “bossy.” + +And as soon as he had broken with her, he had given up striving +altogether. He had been nothing without Joanna. He wondered humbly if +she had seen something in him which he had not recognized in himself. + +How different they had been! After all, Joanna, though she had not had +to contend with poverty, had had as hard a fight as he. “She’d have been +on the stage long ago if she’d been white,” he murmured. “And see how +she takes it!” + +Well, he would show her and Isaiah, yes, and Mrs. Lea, too, that there +was something to him. But chiefly Joanna. Some day he’d go to her and +say, “Joanna, what I am, you made me.” + +His landlady called up to him: + +“Telephone for you, Mr. Bye.” + +He went downstairs, took down the receiver. + +“Hello, this is Mr. Bye, yes, this is Peter. Who’s this speaking, +please?... + +“Oh—oh, yes, of course. Why—why, Maggie!” + +He had forgotten all about her! + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + +IT had been increasingly easy for him to forget her. When he had first +broken with Joanna, when he had written her that virtuous letter, +Maggie’s rooms, Maggie’s arms were a haven. She was always ready to +listen, always sympathetic. She met his advances half way; if he asked +for a kiss he got it at once. There was none of Joanna’s half-real, +half-coquettish withdrawal. No one could accuse Maggie of a lack of +modesty. Peter would have been the first to fight such an accuser, but +he found himself half-wishing that she were not quite so easy to +approach. + +Somehow life grew less stimulating. Presently they were settling down +into the cosy, prosy existence of the long married couple. In the +afternoons Peter came in—he was usually playing with Tom at night—they +exchanged a word of greeting. Maggie gave him a dutiful kiss; there +would be a word or two about the weather, his playing engagements, then +silence. Presently Peter would say: “Mind if I look over the paper a +moment, Maggie? I got up late this morning.” + +And Maggie’s bright answer: “Oh, of course not, I’ve got my accounts to +run over.” + +Somehow all the easy, “understanding” conversation had vanished. Joanna, +Maggie had soon learned, was not a welcome topic. And Peter no longer +went to his classes, so there was no possible theme there. Peter to his +disgust found himself drawing unwilling contrasts between these seances +and similar moments spent with Joanna. Had there ever been any silences? +If there were they were filled with all sorts of tingling thoughts and +meanings. There was the night when Joanna leaned against him in +Morningside Park. They had said nothing. But the very air about them was +pulsing. How long ago all that seemed! Had it ever been true? Why had he +never felt like that when Maggie, as she frequently did, rested her head +on his shoulder? + +He would shake himself angrily out of his reverie. “Silly ass,” his lips +formed. + +Maggie seeing his lips move would ask him interestedly: “What’s the +matter, Peter?” + +“Nothing at all,” he’d tell her contritely. What should be the matter +with his dear Maggie so near? Sometimes he put an arm around her +shoulder. “Look here, I’ve got an hour yet. Like to go out?” + +That never failed to please her. She loved to be seen with him. She had +a very charming, flattering air of deference, of dependence when she was +out. It was singularly pleasing and yet puzzling to Peter. Joanna now +was just as likely to cross the street as not, without waiting for a +guiding hand, a protecting arm. If she had once visited a locality she +knew quite as much about getting away from it as her escort. But Maggie +was helpless, dependent. Strange when they were all growing up together +he would have said she was quite as independent in her way as Joanna, +and she was decidedly capable in her hair-dressing work. Madame +Harkness’ business had increased considerably in Philadelphia and +Baltimore. + +Peter had often mused over this. + +He had known for some time that he did not love Maggie. But he could not +tell whether or not she loved him. Certainly she had appeared to at +first, and certainly even now she clung to him. Her very submissiveness +would seem to indicate some depth of feeling. He remembered Maggie as +being anything but yielding in their earlier days, and she had never +apparently changed one iota in her resentment toward her husband. She +was making a remarkably good living from her connection with Madame +Harkness, had bought the house in New York and was contributing to her +mother. She could not be marrying him to be taken care of. + +Of course he knew nothing of her _flair_, her passion for being +connected with “real” people—for “class” as he would have called it. And +if he had known this, it would have explained nothing to him, for he +never thought of himself in this sense. His most frequent source of +worry consisted in wondering if Maggie realized how lukewarm his feeling +was for her. Apparently she never suspected it. + +Maggie may not have let Peter realize it, but she was completely aware +that he did not love her. She understood, had always understood, that +Joanna was the one woman in the world for him. Having loved Joanna once +there was no possibility of his caring about any one else. She had +recognized in Peter’s turning to her a manifestation of the state of +mind which had led her at the time of her marriage to turn to Henderson +Neal. + +Her acceptance of Peter had been almost spontaneous, yet it was governed +subconsciously by two or three motives. First of all, while she thought +it extremely probable that Joanna liked, even loved Peter, she did not +believe that Joanna would ever consider marriage with him as important +as her art. Therefore she might just as well take him. Then she enjoyed +the artistic fitness of showing Joanna that a girl whom the latter did +not consider worthy to marry her brother was deemed worthy to marry her +lover. And last and most important, Maggie saw through Peter a second +means of entrance into the society of “real” people. She had glimpsed +this once through the possibility of marriage with Philip. Instead +Henderson Neal had closed this entrance to her, she had once believed, +forever. She must not fail to take advantage of this new avenue. + +Already she was beginning to reap its value. Miss Alice Talbert, it is +true, became colder than ever when Maggie’s engagement to Peter was +known. She told Arabelle Morton that she considered “Peter done for, +ruined, if he married that gambler’s wife. Cousin Joanna did well to get +rid of him.” But Arabelle herself had laughed, had said she wanted to +meet the girl who had captured “that good-looking Bye boy.” She had come +to see Maggie, had invited her to the Morton house. Her good-natured +shallowness, her frank determination not to be a “high-brow” and her +complete social assurance captivated Maggie. Arabelle was of as +unimpeachable standing as Miss Talbert, though her choice of friends was +not so exclusive. Maggie was “taken up” by the young women of Arabelle’s +set and henceforth her lines were comparatively easy. Still she met with +an occasional snub from the older women. Mrs. Viny, who turned out to be +the terrible old lady who had asked her about Mr. Neal in Atlantic City, +refused grimly to recognize her and gave it as her opinion that “Peter’s +doings would make Isaiah Bye turn over in his grave—yet. You mark my +word.” + +Her hearers got a vision of the dust and nothingness which, for many +years, had been Isaiah Bye, slowly shifting its position in the narrow +quarters of his tomb. + +Maggie had her own plans. She did not mean to have Peter following +forever in Tom Mason’s train. But after they had married she would bring +about a change. She was sure she could coax him. It would never do to +let Joanna think, she would tell him, that he could not achieve +distinction without _her_. And when Peter Bye became Dr. Bye, the famous +surgeon, Philadelphia would find that Mrs. Peter Bye had a long memory. + +Only Peter, who at first had agreed to marry in June, now some months +later seemed in no haste to marry at all—that was the rub. + +When she telephoned him on the day on which he had had his interview +with Mrs. Lea, she made up her mind to hasten the marriage. + +He came to see her the next afternoon full of his scheme of returning to +his classes. Maggie noticed a difference. + +“You look as though you’d inherited a fortune or found a million +dollars.” + +“I have. My senses have come back to me. What do you think, Maggie? I’ve +chucked all this foolishness with Tom Mason. My, I bet he’s cursing mad. +I’m getting down to brass tacks; went back to my classes this morning.” + +Surprise and something else altered her face. + +“What’s the matter, you don’t like it?” + +“Yes—of course—only, but Peter, can’t you see how hard all this is for +me?” + +He got up, fiddled with the things on the mantel, turned about and faced +her, the knuckles straining a little in the hand with which he grasped +the back of a chair. + +“Just what do you mean, Maggie? What’s hard?” + +She told him then that his going back to school naturally meant a +postponement of their marriage. “Oh, Peter, can’t you see I want to be +safe like other women, with a home and protection? I met Henderson, +Henderson Neal, uptown Saturday—I didn’t mean to tell you—but he glared +at me. He made me shiver, I wished you were with me. I’m afraid of him, +Peter, I’ll never be safe till we’re married.” + +His level voice answered her: “I can see to your safety, Maggie; if Neal +really frightens you, I can have him bound over to keep the peace. But +we can’t marry now, dear. I want to be able to take care of my—my wife. +And if I go back to my classes, I’ll need all the money I can lay hands +on. I’ve lost so much time that I can’t afford to do any outside work. +I’ll just live on what I’ve made with Mason. But that will leave me +pretty poor. You see, I’ve got to have five hundred dollars cold for my +instruments.” + +She looked at him speechless, her gray eyes going black in the pale gold +of her face, her hands submissively folded. + +He took out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “If you don’t +mind, Maggie, I think we’d better discuss this later. Suppose we think +it over for two or three days, and then we’ll settle upon something.” +His voice, infinitely gentle, infinitely sorry for her, trailed off into +silence. + +She said listlessly: “I think I’ll go to New York for a while. I think +I’d like to be with my mother.” + +He ignored the pathos of this. “That would be fine. How soon do you want +to go?” + +“To-morrow,” she told him. “You needn’t come to the station with me, +Peter, you’d hardly have time to make it. I won’t take much, so I can +manage.” + +He felt himself a cad for agreeing with her. “It’s too bad I have to go +now, but I’ve got to read over some notes with Morgan. So this is +good-by for the present. Aren’t you going to kiss me, Maggie?” + +She held up her face for her dutiful kiss. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + +JOANNA stood on the steps of the New York Public Library, gazing at the +paralysis of traffic which at the bidding of an autocratic policeman had +fallen on the massed ranks of vehicles. Subconsciously she thought of a +German story, “Germelshausen,” in which all the life of the village +suddenly ceased, leaving the people statues of flesh and blood. Fifth +Avenue coming to life again, she fell quite consciously to wondering +where she could get a good dinner. All about her flashed the lights of +restaurants, but she was not sure of their reception of colored patrons +and being in a slightly irritable mood, she wanted consciously to spare +herself any contact which would be more annoying. She needed more than +the cup of chocolate and sandwich which she might easily have had at one +of the two drug stores near by. And of course she could get something +expensive, but satisfying, in the station which towered not far away. +But of late the restaurant management in that particular station had +shown a tendency to place its colored patrons in remote and isolated +corners. + +Joanna had spent the morning shopping. In one of the more exclusive +stores on Forty-fourth Street she had asked to look at coats. The +saleswoman had been very pleasant, but she had seated Joanna well in the +rear of the store quite away from the lighted front windows and the +mirrors which were so adjusted as to give all possible views of the +figure. + +Joanna had not noticed this at first but when she did she proposed going +toward the front of the store “where there was more light.” + +“Why not come this way?” proposed the still affable saleswoman, pointing +to the windows in the rear wall which also let in daylight. Yet when +Joanna without answering had walked on to the front, she offered no +further comment. + +The incident was a slight one, possessing possibly no significance, but +Joanna had walked out of the store hot and raging, the more so because +she was not completely sure whether the slight was intentional or not. +It had not helped her frame of mind to purchase a less becoming coat in +a department store where she was known and liked by one of the +salesgirls. Gradually she worked herself into a state of contemptuous +indifference, but she meant to be careful in selecting a place in which +to get her dinner. She had to work too hard these days to bring on her +good spirits, she was not going to have them dissipated by galling if +petty discriminations. + +Well, there was no help for it, she would have to go over to the +Pennsylvania station at Thirty-third Street. She was sure of pleasant +treatment there. After this solid afternoon of work in the gloomy +library, the walk would do her good. + +A hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned to find beside her Vera +Manning, one of the members of her old dancing-class. This surprised +her, for of late hardly any one of Joanna’s group had seen Vera. The +report in Harlem was that she was passing for white and had no desire to +be recognized by her colored acquaintances. + +“It’s been ages since I’ve seen you, Joanna,” Vera began confidently. “I +was sitting in the library waiting for a ‘date’—doesn’t that sound +awful?—and then all of a sudden I thought, ‘pshaw, I don’t want to be +bothered!’ Just then you hove on the scene. Where you going?” + +“Some place to get a good dinner,” Joanna told her, wondering why she +looked different from the Vera Manning she used to know. Her clothes +showed her usual careful, even modish taste, but her face looked +hard—“reckless”—Joanna suddenly decided; that was the word. She went on +quickly: “See here, you work somewhere down in this neighborhood, don’t +you? Where do you suppose I can get something to eat, without walking a +thousand miles for it?” + +Vera frowned thoughtfully. “You see, I’m ‘passing’ just now—I know +you’ve heard of it—and so I go into any of these places around here, but +I never see any colored people. Of course you could try the Automat.” + +But Joanna didn’t want that. + +“Their food’s all right when you feel like eating it, but I want a +regular dinner—waiter, service, and all the rest of it. Pick out a good +place for me and I’ll take you to dinner, too. Nothing could be fairer +than that.” + +Vera agreed smilingly that it couldn’t. “There’s a place over on +Forty-second Street. I remember now I have seen some colored people in +there and they get decent treatment. We could go there—” she checked +herself a moment. “Oh, no, I forgot.” + +“Forgot what?” + +“Look here, Janna, I might as well be frank, we were all of us children +together—doesn’t it seem ages ago? You know I wouldn’t ever try to fool +you. But the truth of it is I go to that particular restaurant often +with the other girls in my office and of course the restaurant people +think I’m—I’m white. See? I don’t know just what they’d think if they +saw me with you—some one who definitely showed color—or what might come +of it. You don’t think I’m a pig, Joanna?” + +“I think I’d be a pig if I did think so,” Joanna told her heartily. +“Come on and take dinner with me over at the Pennsy station. It’ll be +nice to have a talk.” + +The two girls moved down Fortieth Street in the direction of Seventh +Avenue. + +“You’d understand it better if you worked among them—white people you +know,” Vera told her seriously. “Of course I suppose there must be some +decent ones, not the high-brow philanthropists and all that crowd, but +people who have too much breeding, too much innate—well, niceness, I +guess you’d call it, to make light of folks just because they’re +different. But that crowd in my office, they never think of being +courteous to a colored person. If they want the janitor it’s ‘Where’s +that darky?’ or ‘I saw a coon in the subway this morning wearing a red +tie, made me think of Jim here,’ always something like that. Of course +they don’t say it to the man’s face. There’d be a fight if they did.” + +“I don’t see how you stand it,” Joanna puzzled. “What put it in your +head to work with white people, anyhow?” + +“Oh, to get away from everybody and everything I’d ever known.” They +were at the table in the dining-room now and Vera was making criss-cross +marks with her fork on the white cloth, frowning absorbedly. + +“You know, Joanna, I wasn’t like you—not one of us girls was. I was more +like Sylvia, I wanted a good time, but most of all I wanted, I expected +to marry. You remember Harley Alexander?” + +Joanna did remember him, indeed, a tall personable youth about her own +color, a companion of Harry Portor, Brian Spencer, and to a less degree +of her own brother Alec. But what she especially remembered was that he +had been the constant shadow of Vera Manning. + +“Of course I remember him, Vera. He’s a dentist now, isn’t he? Didn’t he +graduate the same year as Harry Portor?” + +“Yes, that’s the fellow. Joanna, we really loved each other, and we +planned even before he went to college to get married as soon as he came +out. But as soon as my mother—you know how color-struck she is—realized +we were in earnest, up she went in the air. None of her children should +marry a dark man. It only meant unhappiness. If Harley and I should have +children they’d be brown and would have to be humiliated like all other +colored children.” + +She fell to drawing more designs. + +“We had a terrible time. I was completely alone in my fight. Father +always follows mother’s lead. Brother Tom refused to commit himself. +Alice is just like mother—she really liked, I’m sure of it, John +Hamilton, but because he was dark, she let him go for Howard Morris, +whom I can’t stand. For a long time I managed to keep it from Harley but +the Christmas of his last year in college, mother told him she didn’t +favor his attentions to me, and told him why.” + +“Goodness,” Joanna breathed, “that must have been awful.” + +“Awful! It was unspeakable. And nothing I could say to Harley could +destroy the effect of what she said. She must have put it up to him as +to whether he thought he could compensate a wife for the estrangement of +her family. You know how Harley was. We had always been a remarkably +united family up to that time. He said: ‘If your mother objected to my +being poor I could tell her that I could change that, but when it comes +to my color, I can’t do anything with that and, by God, I wouldn’t if I +could.’ + +“So that,” Vera ended wryly, “was the end of my young romance.” + +Bit by bit she made Joanna see the picture of her life since her break +with her lover. Before then she had worked in her father’s office, but +now she was secretary to one of the heads of a big advertising agency. +As she was an unusually swift stenographer and had a level head, she was +getting along famously. + +“Of course they think I’m white. There are a lot of young men in the +office and I flirt with them outrageously. At first I did it only to +annoy mother, she hated it so. You know, the funny thing is she doesn’t +like white people any better than I do—she just didn’t want me to marry +a dark man because, she says, in this country a white skin is such an +asset.” + +“Do you enjoy yourself going about?” + +“Yes and no. When I began I did immensely. You can’t imagine—I +couldn’t—the almost unlimited opportunities that those people have for +work, for pleasure, for anything. As a white girl I’ve seen sights and +places, yes, and eaten food that I never even knew about when I used to +go out with Harley. And then, too, Jan, you can’t imagine the +blessedness of no longer being uncertain whether you can enter such and +such a hotel, or of getting a decent berth if you’re going traveling or +of little things like that, the sudden removal of thousands of +pin-pricks, not only that, of inconveniences.” + +“You must be very happy,” Joanna said wistfully. + +“No, I’m not. They aren’t, either. That’s the funny part. Oh, of course +I suppose nobody is actually happy, but I do think that colored people, +when they’re let alone long enough to have a good time, know how to +enjoy themselves better than any other people in the world. It’s a +gift.” + +“I should think you’d drop it all, Vera.” + +“I would if it weren’t for the sense of freedom. It’s wonderful to be +able to do as you like. Sometimes I think I will drop it, then I think: +‘Oh, pshaw, what difference does it make?’ Without Harley I’m bound to +be unhappy, anyway, even if I do go back to my own. Since I can’t have +happiness I might just as well take up my abode where I can have the +most fun and comfort even though it’s making me—well, no saint, I can +tell you.” She laughed recklessly. “I wish I were like you, Joanna.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Well, you know—here ever since you were little you’ve had Peter Bye +right at your beck and call—you must have loved him, Jan, he was so +everlastingly good-looking, and charming, too, we all thought. I +remember he took me to a movie one Christmas. Then you fussed with him +or something—some of your high-brow stuff I suppose—and you send him off +without winking an eyelash. How do you stand it?” + +Joanna was cautious. “Of course I have my work. I do miss Peter +though—sometimes.” + +“Sometimes! Girl, you aren’t human. Well, being heartless isn’t bad! +What do you want to do, go to the ‘Dance of The Nations’ down at the +District Line Theater?” + +But Joanna wanted a chance to think, so on the pretext of having to +return to the Library, she left Vera. She realized the tragedy of her +friend’s case, the awful emptiness that had come into her life. Hadn’t +her own life been affected in the same way? + +A bus stopped before her and she mounted it, her thoughts weaving +mechanically. She did not blame Vera at all for the change in her mode +of living. In those first few months after Peter had left her she had +wondered often how she could go on with life. For a long while she had +existed simply from day to day, paying an exaggerated attention to small +happenings, making engagements with people whom she had scarcely noticed +before, doing anything to get away from the weariness of her thoughts. +Many a night she had spent meditating on some _coup_, some reckless +expenditure of energy and interest no matter how silly, how scandalous, +so long as it took her out of herself. + +She had even tried flirting, a field hitherto unthought of. As it was +she had been too kind to Harry Portor; of late she had consciously +avoided him because she knew only too well what he meant to ask of her +the next time they were alone. She hated to hurt him but that seemed +inevitable, for her heart held not the slightest fraction of love for +him. + +Oh, Peter! Peter! + +As she rode up Fifth Avenue under the starry reaches of the sky, beneath +the tender budding of April trees, her desperate longing quickened to a +sudden resolve. She would write to Maggie—Maggie, who could not possibly +love Peter. And even if she did, she could not love him as +she—Joanna—loved him. Why, there had been Philip once, and then +Henderson Neal!—Whereas Peter had been the only love of her own life. + +She would write to Maggie, very clearly, very frankly and she would beg +her to let him go. It all seemed simple enough. And then she and Peter +would be happy. She would make him love her again, worship her. And +“Peter,” she would tell him, “never another unkind word, I’ll be a new +Joanna, darling.” + +Her father’s house, its windows darkened, loomed up before her. Straight +up to her own room she sped, not stopping to enter Sylvia’s apartments, +although the sound of laughing voices penetrated to her. + +Alone at the little flat-topped desk, she took out pen and paper and +began the letter—“Dear Maggie”—But that was what she had done years +ago,—written to Maggie to give up Philip. That was in the unconscious +selfishness of youth. Now was she to write her again to give up Peter? +Her courage oozed away, left her helpless. She looked at the pen, put it +carefully away on the rack, slipped the sheet of paper back in the +pigeonhole. She might go down to Philadelphia to visit Alice Talbert. +Yes, she would do that very soon. And then maybe she would see Maggie +Ellersley—on the street, or even go and call on her. Undoubtedly it was +better to discuss such personal matters face to face. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + + +WHILE Joanna was sitting at her desk, Maggie Ellersley some fifty blocks +away brooded over plans of her own. She had hoped, vainly as it turned +out, that her absence from Philadelphia would quicken Peter’s need of +her. His very real regard for her hospitality and kindness had long +since been evident. She knew that he considered the little apartment on +South Fifteenth Street his nearest approach to a home in Philadelphia, +and she had hoped that the loneliness caused by her departure would +induce him to urge her to come back. But Peter’s letters had not been in +the least melancholy. Once a week he had written to her regularly during +the four weeks of her stay in New York, but though he had been kind and +pleasant, not once had he expressed a desire to see her, or even a +passing curiosity as to the date of her return. + +When she had first come back to New York, she had had a feeling of shame +and despondency as she thought of her effort in Philadelphia to induce +Peter to take a definite stand about their wedding. But her stay here +with her mother had dissipated all that feeling. The prosy, +uninteresting life which Mrs. Ellersley and Mis’ Sparrow led, the troop +of commonplace, albeit kindly and dependable roomers made her turn again +to Peter for a way out. More than ever she was in the same trap in which +she had found herself years ago when as a little girl she walked home +with her mother from the dinners which she had eaten in some employer’s +house. Now, it was true, her surroundings were no longer dirty and she +was no longer poor—she and her mother had all the money they needed and +almost all that they wanted. Of lowly stock, Maggie had never cared in +the least for the possession of riches. But the old loneliness, the old +sense of unworthiness, of being nobody was strong upon her. + +In earlier days she had frequented the Marshalls’ house; plenty of other +girls had frequented it, too. It was to be presumed that the Marshalls +from time to time had returned such visits. But somehow she had never +contrived to be on really intimate terms with those others. They were +all polite, more than polite, even cordial to Maggie, and yet she knew +that while moving with that group, she was not of it. + +The difficulty had been, had always been, that she had no background. + +Other girls’ fathers and mothers were “somebodies.” Alice and Vera +Manning’s father was a remarkably successful business man, old Joel +Marshall was as famous in his way, she guessed, as Delmonico. Even Peter +Bye—as poor almost, she correctly imagined, as she herself in the old +days—boasted a long, a _bona fide_ ancestry. And, besides, he was a man. + +From as far back as she could remember she had had one passion, one +desire unique in its singleness. And that had been to “be” somebody. And +long ago she had realized that the only way out for her was marriage +with a man of distinction. The distinction might consist in a career, in +family, in business,—it made no difference to her. At first she thought +she could achieve her desire through Philip—and she had loved him, too. + +She dwelt on this a moment. How wonderful such a marriage would have +been! Loving him as she did she would have let her desire for mere +respectability sink into second place, discounting the fact that she +would have gained it anyhow by such a union. But Joanna had interfered, +and then she had married Henderson Neal, a gambler, a _gambler_ who had +plunged her further back than ever into the obscurity from which she was +beginning to emerge. + +“What a fool I was to consider Joanna’s letter. Philip might, just +possibly, have come to like me better—to love me.” She reminded herself +then, a little spasm of pain twitching across her face, that he had +never since her marriage, not even since her divorce, made any attempt +to get in touch with her. “And he could have a thousand times,” she +whispered to herself. + +Now here was Peter. She rose from the couch on which she had been lying +and walked restlessly, aimlessly around the room. The light from a +cluster of electric bulbs on the wall struck at and brought out little +flashes of radiance from the silver butterflies which chased each other +up and down across the heavy folds of her black silk kimono. Her hair, +parted in the middle and brushed to a smooth luster, hung in two thick +short braids one over each shoulder. She caught her lip in her teeth, +whitening that mysterious redness which was the only note of color in +the golden oval of her face. + +A mirror caught her attention and she stopped before it. + +“Oh, Peter, Peter,” she whispered unseeingly to the image in the glass, +“dear Peter, don’t you see you’re my only chance? You’ve got to help me. +It isn’t as though Joanna really wanted you, or as though you’d ever go +back to her.” + +Just as Joanna had resolved a few hours ago to cast herself on Maggie’s +mercy, so Maggie determined to open up her heart to Peter and beg him to +remove her forever from the distastefulness of this life. + +Her mother tapped on the door and came in, followed by Mis’ Sparrow. The +two of them, great “jiners,” had just returned from one of their +innumerable lodge meetings. + +“It was a great sight, Maggie. You’d ought to have been there. Can’t see +why you mope so about the house, anyway. Don’t believe you’ve been +anywhere since you’ve been here this trip—’cept to Madam Harkness’.” + +Maggie murmured that she didn’t care to go out, she had come home to +rest. + +“Well, stay in the house all you want, chile. Long’s I got Cousin Jinny +Sparrow to go around with me I ain’t carin’. Reckon we’ve done our share +of stayin’ in the house in our time, ain’t we, Jinny?” + +Mis’ Sparrow thus addressed admitted she had: “An’ I don’t propose to do +it no more. Come on, Sallie, I c’n see Maggie’s got somethin’ on her +mind.” + +Maggie protested, but only faintly. She loved and was deeply attached to +the two thin wrinkled ladies, but they and she had nothing in common. +They lived a separate life from hers entirely, a life which included +much attention to churches, strawberry festivals, lodge meetings, bits +of gossip, funerals, visits to ladies similarly faded and wizened, and a +sort of shrewd indiscriminate charity. Maggie used to envy them their +utter and complete absorption in these matters. + +“I’m not the one who wants to be to herself, it’s you who want to get +off and talk over your secrets.” She shook a playful finger. Long after +they had gone, curled up on her couch, she sat watching, as she used to +watch in Philadelphia, the gas-heater cast its ruddy glow on the high +white ceiling. + +The morning brought her a momentary shock of pleasure. It was the day +for Peter’s letter. He had written: “I am coming to see you next week.” +Her spirits leaped at that. But afterwards he explained; one of his +classmates had warned him to get his instruments as quickly as possible, +there was going to be a great demand for steel, so he was coming to New +York to see about the things he had ordered. “I’m in deadly earnest this +time, Maggie, and though I don’t like my professors any better than I +did before, I’m making the most of my return. There’s only one thing +that would keep me from finishing and that would be war. It seems +foolish for a colored man to fight for America, but I believe I’d like +to do it. Only I want to pick up a commission somewhere. Not a chance +for a colored fellow at Plattsburg, but some of the boys are whispering +of a training camp for Negro officers at Des Moines. This is still _sub +rosa_, so don’t mention it.” + +Her hopes rose, fell, rose again as she scanned the letter. + +“He must make some definite plans about me, if he’s thinking of war.” + +The next Thursday saw him striding along Fifty-third Street in the +direction of Maggie’s house. His nervous glance at his watch justified +his fear of being late. That was because he had stopped at his Aunt +Susan’s little apartment to talk over his plans. She was just the same +as ever—stout, sane, energetic, ready to be fond of Peter. Before the +afternoon was over she was worshiping him inwardly. For her nephew, +suddenly conscious of his debt to her and realizing as he climbed the +stairs to her rooms that here was his only real home, had taken her at +the door into his arms with a burst of genuinely filial affection. She +had, as she put it, “scared up” something for him to eat, and the two +sitting at the little dinner table had entered into a silent +appreciation of kinship such as lonely Miss Susan had wanted ever since +her sister’s death. Peter had told her of his break with Joanna. “I +can’t talk much about that, Aunt Susan—maybe some other time——” + +Her kind hand on his steadied him. + +“For a while I kept on playing ducks and drakes with my life—that was +really why Joanna chucked me, you know—but all of a sudden I came to my +senses, and now I’ve gone back to studying and I’ll be all right yet, +Aunt Sue. You and I’ll have a nice little house somewhere. You’ll see.” +He checked himself: “Unless this war intervenes. Of course I’d have to +go into that. America makes me sick, you know, like I used to make you I +guess, but darn it all, she is my country. My folks helped make her what +she is even if they were slaves.” + +Aunt Susan beamed on him. “Your great-grandfather fought in the +Revolution, Peter, and two of your uncles, my brothers, were in the +Civil War. If you enlist you’ll only be following their example.” + +He looked at his watch. “I must go, dear. Do you know, it’s as though I +had just discovered you to-day.” Her hands were in his and he caught +them up and kissed them, bending his shapely curly head a little. “If I +have to go away suddenly, I’ll send you a few of my things, the Bye +Bible and all that, you know. But you’ll see me again.” + +He caught up his hat and ran out. + +“That Joanna is a fool and a minx,” said the old lady ungratefully. “I +hope he didn’t suffer much. It’s a wonder some other girl hasn’t got him +now.” + +Peter had not told her about Maggie. “Not worth while,” he muttered to +himself, taking the subway steps in four leaps. “Maggie’s got to let me +off. I’ll ask her, I’ll explain. God, what a cad I feel!” He tugged at +his collar. “But she’ll be better off. I know she will. Now I wonder why +she married that Neal fellow instead of waiting to give Philip a +chance?” + +He mused over this sitting in the subway train with his watch in his +hand. “I shouldn’t have spent so much time with Aunt Susan.” He had +arranged with Morgan and some other students for a comprehensive review +at his house that same night. It would never do for him not to show up +on time, they were all busy fellows. + +Everything depended on Maggie. + +He rushed out of the subway and came swinging along the street looking +for her number. As he turned abruptly toward the house he caromed into a +tall, heavily set man standing idly and yet purposefully at the bottom +of the steps. Peter rang the bell, conscious as he did so that the man +had received his apologies only with an odd glare. One last glance over +his shoulder just before he went in showed the stranger staring fixedly +at the front door as though to see who opened it. + +Mis’ Sparrow let him in. Maggie was in the “settin’ room” at the head of +the stairs, she told him as she herself went out. He ran up to arrive at +a landing so dark that he knocked over a chair. The door was only +slightly open, so he knocked. + +“Come in,” Maggie called listlessly. “Oh, is that you, Peter? I’d been +expecting you all day and then finally gave you up. Was that you +stumbling on the landing? I’m always at mother to keep the light going +there. I don’t know why she won’t. Here, I’ll turn it on now.” + +But Peter, unwilling to lose more time, begged her not to bother. “Come +over here and sit down, Maggie. We’ve lots to talk about.” + +He hadn’t kissed her, she noticed, observing his nervousness. + +“What’s the matter, Peter? You seem so excited.” + +“Do I? Well, I’ve had a full day—early breakfast, the trip, and walking +around downtown—and then visiting Aunt Susan and breaking my neck to get +here. That’s moving pretty swift, isn’t it?” + +To control her own lack of composure she asked him to let her see his +instruments. “My, aren’t they shiny and pretty and sharp? And each one +with your name on it? That’s splendid. No chance of having them stolen.” + +“No,” he replied absently, taking the little leather case from her hand +and placing it still open on the table. “No, not a chance. Listen, +Maggie, I’ve—I’ve got to go pretty soon, must be back in Philadelphia by +nine o’clock, I—I want to talk to you frankly for a moment or two, about +ourselves.” + +She sat expectantly. “Maggie, I don’t want you to think me a cad—I’m not +that really—but even if you do think me one I’ve come to ask you to +release me. We—our affair has been a mistake, I had no business dragging +you into it. I am sure you don’t love me—why should you love anyone +who’s trifled with his life as I have? And I—I don’t—you understand, +Maggie, I have and always shall have the highest regard for you. There’s +nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you, for a girl of your fine +qualities——” + +“Except marry her,” she thought. + +“But I find—it was unspeakable of me to make the mistake—I find I don’t +love you, Maggie, as a man should love his—his wife. And that’s a bad +way to start a marriage, don’t you think?” He thought he read scorn in +her watching eyes, and hastened to fortify his excuse. “You know, I’ve +been in love once, I know what it ought to be.” + +She said in a level, absolutely emotionless voice, “You want to go back +to Joanna.” + +That name steadied him. “No, not that, Maggie dear. She wouldn’t take me +back; I’m not worthy of Joanna; she was quite right. I shall probably +never see her again until we are both quite old. Not a chance for me +there,” he ended sadly. + +Curiously enough, if he had himself dared to think of returning to +Joanna, if he had told Maggie so, she would have released him instantly. +It was not part of her plan to interfere with love. But if Peter, who +would never love any one but Joanna, were to be left drifting for some +other woman to pick up ten, five years from now, perhaps even +immediately after the war! He would never be able to do the service for +any woman in this world that he could do for her. + +He misunderstood her silence. “It isn’t as though you cared such a lot +about me, Maggie. My leaving wouldn’t really mean anything to you.” + +“It would mean my death,” she told him. And indeed it did seem to her +that if he left her alone with nothing in her life but Madame Harkness +and those two poor old ladies—her mother and Mis’ Sparrow—she would die +of it. She would die of sheer disappointment at being balked this second +time of her constant desire. + +Peter stared at her in sick astonishment. “You mean it?” he whispered. +It had never crossed his mind that she cared for him like this. +Subconsciously he thought, “Suppose this had been Joanna.” + +Before Maggie could speak again, someone knocked on the door; one of +Mrs. Ellersley’s roomers stuck in a tousled head. + +“’Scuse me, Miss Maggie, I heard you-all talkin’ in here, en they ain’t +no one else in the house. Jest wanted to tell you I’m runnin’ down to +the corner a minute en as I mislaid my key I’m goin’ t’ leave the latch +up, if you-all don’t mind.” + +Maggie stared blankly. “Oh, certainly Mr. Simpson, certainly.” + +They heard Mr. Simpson shuffling down the stairs and knew by the sound +of the slamming door that he had gone out. + +What they did not know was that a moment later a tall, heavily built +man, who had been lounging sidewise against the wall of a neighboring +house, came forward swiftly and ran up the steps. He tried the door +gently and finding to his surprise that it yielded, walked in and closed +it softly behind him. For two weeks, unnoticed, fingering a door-key in +his pocket, he had kept watch on that house and its inmates, until he +had become acquainted with the hours of the coming and going of each. He +knew Maggie was at home in the afternoons; his purpose was to wait for a +time when all of them should be out but her. One by one he had watched +them emerge, Mrs. Ellersley and Mis’ Sparrow finally within fifteen +minutes of each other. + +“Those old birds,” he murmured to himself, “they’re just as likely as +not to join up somewheres and go to one of their protracted meetin’s.” + +Gradually the house had emptied itself with the exception of Maggie and +this tousel-headed Mr. Simpson who usually left later than this. He had +not seen Bye come out, but thought it likely the visitor had left in the +quarter of an hour he had spent in the saloon around the corner where he +had swallowed an unaccustomed dram to fortify his intention. + +In the hall he stood blinking a moment in the darkness, then as the +sound of voices penetrated to him from above he withdrew into the +obscurity of the narrow oblong parlor. Evidently the fellow had not gone +yet. There was plenty of time, he could wait. + +Upstairs Maggie was pouring out to Peter her great obsession. + +“I know I am amazing you, Peter, but I can’t endure this life, this +utter separation from people who mean something. Take me away from it. +I’ll be eternally grateful to you.” + +“But, good God, Maggie, what can I do? I’m only a penniless student with +my way to make. We’d be poor for years. And, anyway, where do you get +the idea that my name carries with it any social asset?” + +She murmured something about his long line of ancestors; years ago in +her presence his Aunt Susan had spoken to Mrs. Marshall about it. + +“You know how your name gave you the entrance into the best families in +Philadelphia.” + +He stared at her. Of all the crazy complexes, this was the craziest. It +was indecent, this situation, agony for both of them. He tried to be +firm, faltered, was lost. + +“You know I think all this is idiotic, Maggie. If you think +marriage with me would help you because I know the names of my +great-grandparents—why, it’s absurd, ridiculous. I had a lot of +foreparents—we all did—but they were nobodies most of them, only +slaves.” + +“That’s what they all were.” + +“All who?” + +“All the early settlers, weren’t they, the white ones, too, indentured +servants, outcasts, outlaws, men driven for one reason or other from +their own countries? But certain ones of them have always stood out, +attained prominence.” + +Overcome by this interpretation of history, he could make no suitable +answer. He moved over to the little table, picked up his hat. + +“Obviously all this will have to be gone over again. If you like I’ll +send my Aunt Susan to see you, she knows all sorts of people both here +and in Philadelphia. If you ask her no doubt she’ll manage to make it +very pleasant for you. I really must go, Maggie. And of course—that is, +if you insist on it—remember that I shall always be at your service.” + +He held her hand a moment, passed out and ran sideways, after the manner +of men, down the wide staircase. + +The front door closed after him. + +Maggie walked back through the room. This was her great interview. Peter +had been here; to prove it there was his box of instruments on the +table—she ran out in the hall again, perhaps she could catch him, for he +could hardly have turned the corner. + +An iron hand shot out of the darkness of the landing, caught her wrist +in an agonizing vise. Then some one dragged her back into the room and +she looked up into the raging somber eyes of Henderson Neal. She had not +been frightened at first, but the sight of that face with its snarling +lips and its bloodshot eyes unnerved her. In an instinctive gesture of +fear she threw up her free hand which held the little case. It slipped +from her grasp and some of the knives fell on the floor. + +Still holding her he stooped and picked one up. + +Her self-control ebbed back to her. Somehow she had never been seriously +afraid of Neal. Her scorn had been too great for that. One does not fear +what one scorns. + +She said to him evenly, “Henderson, let me go.” + +But he pulled her closer to him. “I’ll never let you go again. Either +you’ll come with me, or I’ll——” + +“You’ll what?” + +“I’ll kill you.” But the thought obviously had just come to him. + +“Pooh!” she made a face at him. A trace of her old-time slanginess +returned: “What’s all the excitement?” + +His heavy countenance lowered, darkened. “He actually looks black,” she +thought to herself. + +“You know you can’t fool me, Maggie girl. You had me believing you +divorced me because I gambled, when what you wanted was to get back to +that high-brow feller of yours!” + +“What high-brow fellow?” She knew he was confusing Peter with Philip, +but she must engage him in talk until Simpson could return. + +“As though you didn’t know. The one who just left here. Are you gonna +give him up, Maggie?” + +“I am not.” Her cool decision drove him beside himself. + +“You think I’m foolin’, don’t you? I’ll show you. I know you’re alone in +the house. I’ll give you just three seconds to tell me you’ll come back +to me.” + +“I’ll let you kill me first.” + +She saw him look at the knife, Peter’s knife, which he was still holding +in his hand. A look of determination settled in his eyes. + +Even then she was not frightened. People—the people one knows never do +that sort of thing. + +With a flash-like movement he leaned closer and brought the keen, +glittering piece of steel down toward her. When she saw he was in +earnest she threw her arm forward close over her breast. But the knife +bit down, down into the soft flesh. Bewildered she saw the red blood +spurting, gushing over her arm, her dress, a soft green dress which she +had donned for Peter. Now it was turning in spots to a vivid red. + +He let go of the arm, looking at her with fascinated gaze. Slowly she +sank, turned her eyes toward him, saw him drop the knife and rush +headlong out of the room. + +So she was going to die, killed in a brawl with her divorced husband. +The fires of her life were to go out, extinguished under the waters of +commonness and degradation. After all, what did it matter? Her thoughts +took an odd turn as she felt herself slipping, slipping into the +blackness of what must be death. + +“He must have loved me even more than I loved Philip. What a pity that I +have to die without letting Philip know how dearly I loved him.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + + +A FEW moments later Mr. Simpson came rushing up the front steps. He +tried the door gingerly and found to his relief that it was not locked. +That meant Mrs. Ellersley had not yet returned to chide him for his +carelessness. Miss Maggie now was different; she would never carry on, +no matter what a fellow did. It would be just as well for him to stop at +the room at the head of the stairs and let her know he had returned. + +The landing was still dark, but long experience had taught him to +navigate the troublesome chair. Without mishap he reached the door of +the sitting-room. Everything was absolutely silent, still he would just +put his head inside to make sure. + +He was concluding there was nobody there when his eye caught something +protruding from the other side of the table which stood in the center of +the room. A chair, too, had been overturned, and scattered about on the +floor were several little bright shiny things. He picked one up, looked +at the legend on the handle, “Chilled steel, England, Peter Bye.” + +The name of the maker evidently. Queer doings here. Half afraid, wholly +curious, he ventured in further, especially intrigued by that light +brown object which protruded from beyond the table and which +looked—though this, he knew, was imagination—like a hand. He bent over +it, touched it, followed it with eyes and fingers to an arm dripping and +scarlet with blood and beyond the arm a face golden and immobile. Beyond +the head lay still another of those small strange objects. Only this was +neither bright nor shining; it was red, a vivid red and the handle which +he touched with a shaking finger was sticky. + +He sprang backwards, his face ghostly under its brown skin, his eyes +goggling. This was—Death. “Oh, God! Help! Murder! Police! Miss Maggie!” +Down the stairs he tore, his hands twisted and fumbled at the locks. The +door opened to disclose Joanna standing on the door-step about to ring +the bell. + +She looked past him into the dim hall. “Do you know if Miss Ellersley is +in?” + +His eyes widened in horror. “For Christ’s sake, lady, keep out. Don’t go +in there, she’s dead, pore girl, murdered.” + +“Nonsense! Maggie murdered! What do you mean?” + +Stammering and shrinking he told her of his ghastly find. “Don’t go in +there, lady, don’t know nothin’ about it. _I_ don’t mean to.” + +She caught his arm. “Here, come on, you must take me to it—to her; she +can’t be left like this. Be a man.” But for all her brave words her +knees were shaking. + +Unwillingly he led her to the quiet form in the green and red-soaked +dress. Joanna dropping beside it put her hand on Maggie’s wrist. A faint +pulse fluttered. + +“She’s alive. I must get this dress off her arm and shoulder. Got a +knife?” + +“Ain’t they a million of ’em layin’ around you, lady?” + +Shudderingly she turned from the red one. “How queer! How awful! Hand me +that clean one over there.” Her eye fell, as she took it from him, on +the handle—“Chilled steel, England, Peter Bye”—rested there stricken. + +“Ought to be able to trace the murderer awful quick, don’t you think, +ma’am? This man Bye would know who he sold them knives to.” + +Without answering she cut away the cloth, used her +handkerchief—worthless for this—to stanch the blood. “Find me a towel, +there must be one somewhere.” If Peter had done this she must save +Maggie in order to save him. And if this were Peter’s work—he did not +love Maggie. + +Ashamed of her thought she bent closer. “There’s a bad cut below the +shoulder but the cut in the arm is worse. Have you a large soft +handkerchief? Quick, I must stop the bleeding. I can’t manage with this +stiff towel.” He was off and back in a jiffy with three handkerchiefs, +immense and happily clean, the testimony of Mrs. Ellersley’s +supervision. + +She twisted one of them. “Now a pencil?” Somewhere out of the past +floated a memory of Miss Shanley’s direction how to make a tourniquet, +one of the things Joanna had meant to forget after she grew up. +Subconscious memories guided her fingers. “Now where’s a bedroom? Help +me to carry her there.” + +She had already dispatched him to a telephone to get, if possible, Harry +Portor, whose office was in the San Juan district. Puzzled by Mr. +Simpson’s incoherence, the doctor promised to come at once and soon the +chug-chug of his little Ford rose above the sounds of the noisy street. + +Joanna ran down to let him in, meeting his astonishment as the two +climbed the stairs with breathless information. Harry praised her +tourniquet. “Good work, Joanna. Fortunately it’s a clean cut, no +jaggedness. I suppose he was trying to get at her heart. Where’s the +knife it was done with?” He busied himself with fresh bandages and +restoratives. + +“I don’t know,” she told him faintly. Why had she not thought of this? +Now she must keep him out of the sitting-room. Her confusion escaped +him, but Mr. Simpson hovering in the background had heard the question +and slipping out returned with the knife. + +“Here it is, doc. I was just tellin’ the lady, ought sure to be able to +catch that ’sassin; man who sold him the knife’s done got his name +stamped on the handle.” + +Harry took it. “H’m, a surgeon’s knife.” He turned it over. “Where’s the +name? Peter—why look here, Joanna, did you see this?” + +“There’s a whole case in the other room, sir.” + +“Yes, go get it and bring it to me. What do you suppose this means, +Joanna?” + +She whispered, “Wait till that man goes.” + +“All right, I’ll send him off.” He sent the willing Simpson on his +return with the case, to the druggist. + +“Now, Joanna?” + +She had her story ready. “I came to see Maggie about—about Peter, Harry. +One of the girls who works at Madame Harkness, saw Sylvia last night and +told her Maggie was in town.” This much was true. “So I came to see her. +Just before I came, it seems, Peter came. She told me about it. I +couldn’t stand it. And I caught up one of his little knives—he’d left +his case here—and cut her. I must have been crazy.” + +“You must still be crazy to think I’d believe that. You’re not a good +liar, Joanna. Now tell me the truth, dear. Were you here when he stabbed +her?” + +She stuck to her story. “He didn’t stab her.” + +The quiet figure on the bed moved ever so slightly, opened its lips, +moaned faintly. “What’s the matter with my arm?” + +Harry leaned over her. “A bad cut, Maggie! How’d you come to get it?” +Her attention wandered. “Who’s that standing over there?” Joanna +retreated further into the shadows. “Who are you? Oh, it hurts me here, +too.” She laid her hand on her breast. + +“I’m the doctor, Harry Portor, you remember me, don’t you?” + +He could see her make an effort. “You’re sure Henderson’s not here? It +would make him angry to see you. Peter was here a little while ago—we’re +going to be married, you know. That’s why Henderson cut me.” Her voice +grew stronger. “I thought he had killed me.” + +Harry cast Joanna a fleeting look. “Wait down in my car,” his lips +formed. She slipped down the stairs out of the house. + +She sat in the car a long time while the street darkened. She saw Mr. +Simpson return and hard on his footsteps Mrs. Ellersley. He must have +told the news just inside the hall, for Joanna heard a shriek cut short +by the closing door. Presently Harry came running down the steps, +peering short-sightedly through his thick glasses at her crouching +figure. + +He said briefly, “A bad business, but she’s not in any danger unless +there’s a breakdown from nervous shock.” + +The words were meaningless to her, reviewing Maggie’s statement: “Peter +was here, we’re going to be married, you know.” + +When they got to her house Joanna politely asked him to come in. + +“No, but wait a moment. I want to tell you something.” He fiddled with +the brake a moment. “Joanna, you’ve been avoiding me lately because you +know I love you and you were afraid I’d ask you to marry me. Don’t avoid +me any more. I’ve got my answer. When a girl loves a man as you do Peter +Bye, so much so that she’ll accuse herself for his sake—oh, it makes no +difference that he was innocent—well, nobody else need think there’s a +chance for him. But I’m your friend, Joanna, believe that.” + +She thanked him sadly. “Good-night, Harry.” + +Sylvia sent Roger up to her room to tell her that Miss Vera—Vera—“I +forget her other name, Aunt Janna,” had called up. She would call again +the next day. + +Joanna thanked him indifferently. “All right, darling, tell Mamma I’ll +look out for her.” + +She thought to herself as he pattered down stairs: “Peter and Maggie, +here in New York ... I won’t think of them, I’m not going through all +that sick agony again. I believe I’ll go South to-morrow.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + + +THE day’s excitement made Joanna sleep soundly, and in the morning she +awoke strongly refreshed and rested. No gesture that she could make to +Fate would ever restore Peter. She had been willing to make the greatest +sacrifice of all—to surrender her pride—and even as she was about to do +this, absolute evidence was given that her sacrifice was useless. The +whole affair was over, finished, dead; henceforth Peter was to be in her +life what other men were to other girls when they spoke of them as “old +beaux.” That was the way for her to speak of Peter now. She practiced it +with stiff lips: “Peter Bye, oh, yes, he used to be an old beau of +mine.” + +Her romance would hereafter lie behind her. From this day on she would +dedicate herself to one interest, which should be the fixed purpose of +her life; now that she thought of it she would give up the idea of +dancing, too. Her former lover and her former ambition alike were +unattainable; they had merely been means of enriching her experience. +Now she would get down to the business of living; no more sighs, no more +backward glances. And the first thing she would do would be to offer her +services as a director of music to a colored school in the South. Many a +principal before whose school she had sung would extend her a cordial +welcome. Even though the school year was almost near its close she might +get a chance to map out arrangements for the work of the following year. +Her preference would be one of the less-known, poorly endowed schools +where there would be lots of work. + +She lay there and watched the April sun mounting slowly, slowly up the +walls of her room. From outside rose the myriad sounds of Harlem; a +huckster calling unintelligibly, some school children on their way to P. +S. 89, shrilling their Iliad of school affairs; from far away came the +echo of a spiritual whistled meditatively, almost reverently. Over +herself crept a sense of peace, of finality, the sort of let-downness +that comes to one voluntarily relaxing from difficult strain. She had +not known such a feeling since when as girls she and Sylvia had been +sent on a vacation trip into the country. The life was lonely for the +two citified youngsters and they sought solace in taking long +walks,—“voyages of discovery” Joanna called them. Once after a tramp of +two or three hours they had come about four o’clock to a little lumpy +field in whose center stood a cluster of trees. Breathless and weary +Joanna had scrambled over the wooden bars and had lain down on the short +stiff stubble in the refreshing shade. All about stretched only sky, +earth, and in the distance rows of trees rimming their pasture. There +was nothing, no one in the world but herself and Sylvia. She felt her +senses lulled by the quiet security into a deep sense of peace. + +Now this came back to her and other thoughts, too: their return from the +country to New York—her mother and Peter were at the station. But she +would not think of that. She must get up, write letters, explain to her +father and mother, make arrangements. + +Essie, a fixture in the service of the Marshalls, brought her a +breakfast of rolls and chocolate. Joanna devoured it. + +“You don’t look bright, Essie.” + +“No’m. Got lots to worry about. Them white folks where my girl Myrtle +goes to school act so mean all the time, always discouragin’ her. +‘What’s the good of you comin’ to high school’? they ses. ‘What’re you +gonna do when you finish?’” + +How quickly once she would have rejoined with one of her sweeping +platitudes which to her were not platitudes because they represented a +fresh and virile belief: “Don’t let her become discouraged, Essie; just +have her keep on. Success always comes if you work hard enough for it.” +But to-day, remembering her plans for the stage and her courtship with +Peter—both rendered frustrate through this hopeless obstacle of +color—she could only murmur: “Yes, yes, I know. White people are hard to +get along with. Better times coming, I hope, Essie.” + +After a bath she slipped into a flame-colored dressing gown and sat down +to her letters. Sylvia coming up noiselessly put her head in the door. + +“Not dressed yet, Joanna? She’ll be here soon. It’s 10:30.” + +Joanna lifted a startled face. “Who’ll be here?” + +“Miss Sharples, Miss Vera Sharples. I sent Roger up to tell you.” + +“Yes, he did, but you know how he forgets names. He said ‘Miss Vera’ and +I thought he meant Vera Manning. Wonder what Miss Sharples wants to see +me about?” + +“One of her pet charities probably. Get a move on. Here, wear your green +dress.” Joanna, whose thoughts had flown to Peter via Miss Susan Graves +via Miss Sharples, took the green dress absent-mindedly, then dropped it +with a shudder. Maggie had worn such a dress yesterday, a soft dull +green, horribly, fantastically adorned with bright and sticky red. + +“No, not that.” + +“You _are_ nervous, Joanna. What do you feel like wearing?” + +Together they chose a crêpe silk dress of straight and simple lines. The +bodice as flaming as the dressing gown was long, like a Russian blouse. +Its end terminated by hem-stitching into a black shallow-pleated skirt. +A narrow ropelike cord confined the waist. + +“Stunning,” Sylvia said, spinning her around. She had designed the +dress. “If Brian just wouldn’t treat me right we’d run away to Paris, +Jan, and set up a dressmaking establishment. You should be my manikin.” + +A restatement of Roger’s imperfect message revealed the fact that Miss +Sharples would call at eleven. Sylvia let her in and ran back to tell +her sister who was outlining her plans to her father and mother in the +dining room. + +“There’s your ‘grand white folks’ Janna. My Heavens, where _do_ you +suppose she finds her clothes? She hasn’t a bit of color in her face and +there she’s wearing a stone gray suit and a gray hat with a brown, a +_brown_ scarf around it. Her hair is as straight as a poker and she +wears it bobbed.” Sylvia shuddered. + +“Oh well, she’s a good sort,” Joanna remonstrated, smiling, “and she +doesn’t say ‘you people.’” + +Strange how realization falls short of anticipation. Joanna was about to +scale the path which led to her highest ambition, but she had no sense +of premonition. Instead, she looked at Vera Sharples sitting +insignificantly and drably in an armchair, her graying bobbed hair +straggling a bit over her mannish tweed coat, her feet encased in solid +tan boots. Only her eyes, looking straightforwardly and appraisingly +from under the unbecoming hat, kept her from being dubbed a “freak.” + +Joanna, who had not seen her for some years, thought amusedly as she +came with swift rhythmic steps down the long room: “It would be fun to +turn Sylvia loose on her and make her dress worthy of her eyes.” + +The two were standing looking at each other now, Miss Vera still +appraisingly. Then the older woman held out her hand. Joanna had +neglected to do this, having, like most colored people of her class, +carefully schooled herself in the matter of repression where white +people were concerned. However, she took the extended hand and gave it a +hearty pressure. + +“Yes,” said Miss Sharples as though checking up the colored girl’s +points by a pattern which she carried in her head, “yes, you are the +one. I was sure I hadn’t confused you with anyone else. I haven’t seen +you for several years, you know, not since that Christmas when you +danced for the Day Nursery with Helena Arnold. Do you remember?” + +Joanna, slightly nonplussed, nodded yes. As though she could forget that +Christmas when she had become engaged to Peter! + +Miss Sharples, still pursuing some train of thought known only to +herself, meandered on. “I said, ‘I know there must be somebody who could +do it,’ and then I thought of you, but I didn’t know your name. So I +called up Helena and she told me. Do you still dance as divinely as you +did that night, my dear?” + +“Better,” Joanna told her confidently, “although it doesn’t get me +anywhere. Would you mind telling me what all this is about?” + +Her visitor settled herself comfortably in a chair, crossed one leg over +the other, and took out a cigarette. “Mind if I smoke?” Joanna watched +her wide-eyed, picturing her father’s surprise if he should happen to +look in on them. + +“It’s a long story. You may or may not know that I am one of the +directors of the District Line Theater. Lately we’ve been putting on a +production called ‘The Dance of the Nations’—dances of the nations it +really should be called. Well, we have one woman to represent France, +another England, etc.; we aren’t featuring Germany or any of her allies. +When it came to America we had to have two or three dances represented, +one for the white element, one for the black and one for the red. Of +course that made the woman representing America practically a star. +Well, she’s all right as a white American, or as a red one, but when it +comes to the colored American, she simply lays down on her job.” Miss +Sharples’ eloquence drowned her sense of grammar. + +“You know,” she went on vigorously, “art to my eye is art, and there’s +no sense in letting a foolish prejudice interfere with it. This girl +won’t darken her face and hasn’t a notion, so far as dancing like +colored people is concerned, beyond the cake-walk. Well, I told my Board +I didn’t believe that was either adequate or accurate. I’d seen Helena +Arnold dance, you know, and I’d seen you, and I figured that your way +was the right way,” she concluded sensibly, “because you were colored. +Miss Ashby’s contract expires this week and I persuaded the Board to let +me try to find someone else. What do you think about it?” She paused, +still regarding Joanna shrewdly. + +“You mean,” said Joel Marshall’s daughter, “that you are offering me a +chance to dance at the District Line Theater?” She thought: “I know this +isn’t real.” + +“Well, yes, if you suit. It would be an experiment. To be frank, my +dear, some of the directors are doubtful about the success of a colored +girl on the stage, but if you dance as well as you did five or six years +ago, I should say there would be no difficulty. Suppose you come with me +now, there’s a rehearsal at the theater this afternoon. Are you free?” + +Was she free? She dashed off to get her wraps and stumbled into Sylvia +on the second floor. “Isn’t she long-winded? What’d she come to see you +about?” + +Joanna took her by both shoulders and shook her. “About my dancing at +the District Line Theater in the ‘Dance of the Nations.’ Oh, Sylvia, if +I’m dreaming, don’t let me wake up.” + +Down in Greenwich Village on the south side of Washington Square, Joanna +found Miss Susan’s “Board.” They were occupying, scattered around, a +large dilapidated room of magnificent proportions and they were talking +of art, of dancing with an enthusiasm and accuracy, an amazing precision +such as Joanna had never heard equaled. + +“Valvinov is good, more than good, excellent in her conception of the +dance and the way she carries it out, but her ankles are too clumsy, it +makes me sick to look at her legs.” A short, stocky young man seated at +the piano delivered this dictum. He was very pale, with thick black hair +which he wore plastered back from a low square forehead. His hair was +long, Joanna noticed, and ran in unbroken strands from his forehead to +the top of his coat collar. He spoke absolutely unaccented English, and +his clothes were sharply American, but he was unlike any American the +girl had even seen before. + +Miss Sharples introduced her briskly. “This is Miss Marshall,” she said +to the room in general, “the dancer I was telling you of.” Joanna +inclined her head slightly, but the men all rose and bowed gravely, and +the two other women in the room—a Miss Rosen and a Miss Phelps as they +turned out to be—bowed also noncommittally but without hostility. + +Evidently the place had frequently been used for rehearsals, for there +was a narrow platform running across the far end of the room. Here Miss +Sharples stationed Joanna. “Just to give them an idea of what you can +do, my dear. There isn’t much space, but I don’t think that will bother +you.” + +“No,” said Joanna confidently, “the thing is the music.” She glanced at +the pale young man who had spoken about the Russian dancer’s thick +ankles. “Can you play by ear?” + +“I think I could manage it,” he told her seriously. They were all +serious, as unconscious of self and as tremendously interested as though +they were assisting at an affair of national moment. Joanna felt the +atmosphere enveloping, quickening her. She stepped down from the +platform. + +“Well, now listen. I’m supposed to have a ring of children around me. I +sing and they answer. At first I’ll have to sing both parts, but +afterwards you can play their answers. See, this is the way it goes.” +She sat down at the piano, and ran through the melody of “Barn! Barn!” +singing it in her beautiful, full voice. + +“That’s it, that’s got the lilt,” a tall, dark man said to Miss Rosen. + +Joanna yielded the piano to the pale young man—Francis—everyone called +him. He ran over her sketch, filling in with deep, rich chords, while +she flew back to the little platform. + +“Now then, you’ve got it. Ready! + + “Sissy in the barn! Join in the weddin’!” + +Her voice rang out, her slender flaming body turned and twinkled, her +lovely graceful limbs flashed and darted and pirouetted. She was +everywhere at once, acting the part of leader, of individual children, +of the whole, singing, stamping circle. + +The Board applauded. “Oh, but that’s great, that’s genius,” cried Miss +Phelps. + +“If I could only have some real children,” Joanna suggested, “colored +children. Are there any around here?” + +“About five thousand down there in Minetta Lane,” Francis told her +gravely. “Want me to get you some?” + +“Oh, if you only would.” He and Miss Rosen disappeared and were back in +fifteen minutes with ten colored children, of every type and shade, +black and brown and yellow, some with stiff pigtails and others with +bobbed curling locks. Most of them knew the game already, all of them +took to Joanna and threw themselves with radiant, eager good nature into +the spirit of what she was trying to display. + +The tall dark man, Mr. Hale, came over to her. “You’re all right, Miss +Marshall, if you’re willing, we’ll try you. America’s got some foolish +prejudices, but we’ll try her with a sensation, and you’ll be all of +that. I’ll leave you with Miss Sharples and Miss Rosen, our secretary, +to make final arrangements, while Francis and I go out to see what we +can do about taking on these kids. I suppose you’ll need them.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + + +THE District Line Theater was jammed every night now. People came from +all over New York and all its suburbs to see the new dancer—Joanna +Marshall. Her success and fame were instant. The newspapers featured +her, the “colyumists” wrote her up, her face appeared with other members +of the cast, but never alone, on the billboards outside the little +ramshackle theater. Special writers came to see her, took snapshots of +herself and of Sylvia which they never published, and speculated on the +amount of white blood which she had in her veins. + +Mr. Hale had taken her on in May. The piece ran all summer with Joanna +as the great attraction, although not the acknowledged star. Miss Ashby, +the girl who danced as an Indian and as an American, was that. From the +first she had resented the colored girl’s success and had held jealously +to all her rights and privileges. But the public, surprisingly loyal to +this new and original plaything, never varied in the expression of its +enjoyment of Joanna. Now that her changed contract was again about to +expire, Miss Ashby announced her inability to remain with the play. + +“I’ve really been violating my principles in staying this long,” she +told Mr. Hale with meaning. + +Even Miss Sharples was overcome at this news. Joanna could be cast +without any difficulty as an Indian, a wig and grease paint would +accomplish that. But Joanna could hardly pose as a white American. She +was too dark. + +Sylvia had a suggestion here. “America” was supposed to come on last as +a regal, symbolic figure, but Miss Ashby had paid more attention to the +dancing than to the symbolism. + +“Why not,” asked Sylvia, “have a mask made for Joanna? She could then be +made as typically American as anyone could wish and no one need know the +difference.” + +That was the basis on which Mr. Hale worked. On the first night on which +the new “America” was introduced, an inveterate theater-goer in the +first row of the orchestra insisted on encoring her. Joanna returned, +bowed and bowed, was encored. + +Somehow the habitué guessed the truth. “Pull off your mask, America,” he +shouted. The house took it up. “Let’s see your face, America!” + +Mr. Hale, Miss Sharples, Francis, Miss Rosen and Miss Phelps held a +hurried consultation behind the scenes. “There’s nothing to be done,” +Hale said, “quick, off with your mask, Miss Marshall.” And breathless, +somewhat with the air of a man bracing himself, he led Joanna again on +the stage. + +There was a moment’s silence, a moment’s tenseness. Then Joanna smiled +and spoke. “I hardly need to tell you that there is no one in the +audience more American than I am. My great-grandfather fought in the +Revolution, my uncle fought in the Civil War and my brother is ‘over +there’ now.” + +Perhaps it would not have succeeded anywhere else but in New York, and +perhaps not even there but in Greenwich Village, but the tightly packed +audience took up the applause again and Joanna was a star. + +The very next week Mr. Hale moved the production to Broadway. + +Joanna found herself becoming a sensation. Through Miss Sharples, who +was besieged with requests to meet her protégée, she came in contact +with groups of writers, dramatists, “thinkers,” that vast, friendly, +changing kaleidoscope of New York dwellers who take their mental life +seriously. Occasionally, too, she was invited to grace an “occasion,” an +afternoon at the house of a rich society woman. Once at one of these +affairs she met Vera Manning, who grinned at her impishly and announced +to the room that she and Miss Marshall were old friends. They had been +schoolmates. + +“When I was a child,” said Vera impudently, “my mother sent me to public +school for almost a year. She said she wanted me to be a real democrat.” + +She threw Joanna a droll look. When the afternoon was over, Vera asked +her to go on to tea with her. + +Joanna was perfect: “That’s very kind of you, Miss Manning, and I don’t +know but what I will. There are several things I’d like to interest you +in. When I think of the illimitable power for good which you white +people possess——” + +Once outside the door the two girls went off into gusts of +inextinguishable laughter. + +Joanna did not like these affairs and soon she adopted the habit of +refusing such invitations. She preferred Miss Sharples’ artist +friends—because among them she sensed attempts, more or less tentative +perhaps, toward reality. True, paradoxically enough it was a reality +based on art, rather than on living. But the girl was beginning to feel +the need of something with which to fill her life. Whether her +disastrous love affair, or the frequent discouragements with which she +met, had changed or reshaped her vision she did not know. But life, she +began to realize, was not a matter of sufficient raiment, food, or even +success. There must be something more filling, more insistent, more +permeating—the sort of thing that left no room for boredom or +introspection. + +For in spite of her vogue, her unbelievably decided successes, Joanna +frequently tasted the depths of ennui. She saw life as a ghastly +skeleton and herself feverishly trying to cover up its bare bones with +the garish trappings of her art, her lessons, her practice, her +press-clippings. + +Miss Sharples put her up for membership in a club whose members were +mostly people that “did” something. And Joanna fell in the habit of +taking her lunch and frequently her dinner, too, at this club, just to +lose herself in the atmosphere which she found there. + +Undoubtedly the contact did her good. Joanna, while lacking Peter’s +singularly active dislike for white people, was not on the other hand a +“good mixer.” Following the natural reaction at this time of her racial +group, she had tended to seek all her ideals among colored people and +where these were lacking to create them for herself. As a result of this +attitude, injurious in the long run to both whites and blacks, she was +hardening into a singularly narrow, even though self-reliant egocentric. +She had never met in her family with much opposition to her chosen +career, but then neither with the exception of Joel’s and that of her +teachers had she met with much coöperation. + +Now to her astonishment she found herself in a setting where people, +without being considered “different,” “high-brow,” “affected,”—and not +greatly caring if they were—talked, breathed, lived for and submerged +themselves and others, too, in their calling. She met girls not as old +as she, who had already “arrived” in their chosen profession; +incredibly young editors, artists—exponents of new and inexplicable +schools of drawing,—women with causes,—birth-control, single tax, +psychiatry,—teachers of dancing, radical high school teachers. + +There were men to be met, too, really eminent men, but Joanna was not +much interested. Following the American idea, she had been too carefully +trained to care for the company of white men. Between them and herself +the barrier was too impassable. Besides, it was women who had the real +difficulties to overcome, disabilities of sex and of tradition. + +For a while she was puzzled, a little ashamed when she realized that so +many of these women had outstripped her so early; some of them were +poor, some had responsibilities. There were not many of these last. It +was a long time before the solution occurred to her and when it did the +result was her first real rebellion against the stupidity of prejudice. + +These women had not been compelled to endure her long, heartrending +struggle against color. Those who had had means had been able to plunge +immediately into the sea of preparation; they had had their choice of +teachers; as soon as they were equipped they had been able to approach +the guardians of literary and artistic portals. Joanna thought of her +many futile efforts with Bertully and sighed at the pity of it all. +Sometimes she felt like a battle-scarred veteran among all these +successful, happy, chattering people, who, no matter how seriously, how +deeply they took their success, yet never regarded it with the same +degree of wonder, almost of awe with which she regarded hers. + +She realized for the first time how completely colored Americans were +mere on-lookers at the possibilities of life. She spent a few happy +months with these people; they made pleasant and stimulating company for +her; she herself suspected that she had made good “copy” for some of +them. They were for the most part unconscious of race, not at all +inclined to patronize, and generous with praise and suggestion. One +woman, it is true, told Joanna that she had always liked colored people. + +“My father would insist on having colored servants. He preferred them.” + +Joanna had made an impish reply. “My father employs both white and +colored servants. But he prefers the colored ones. However, it doesn’t +make any difference to me.” + +Still that had been a rare encounter. Life on the whole smiled on her. +Yet she was not happy. But is anybody so? she wondered. She had +forgotten to sorrow for her break with Peter, her life was too full for +that, even for a new love. Vera Manning’s brother Tom, brought into her +entourage by the flood of publicity and popularity that engulfed her, +asked her to marry him. She liked him; found him charming and +sympathetic, but he was too white and she did not want a marriage which +would keep the difficulties of color more than ever before her eyes. +What she did want, she decided, was to be needed, to be useful, to be +devoting her time, her concentration and her remarkable singlemindedness +to some worthy visible end. After all, she had worked hard and striven +tremendously—to be what? A dancer. + +“Is this really what you wanted me to be?” she asked her father +abruptly. They were driving home from the theater, their nightly custom. +“Is this your idea of real greatness?” + +And Joel, his voice half glad, half sorry, told her that he, too, had +hoped for something different. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + + +AT first the war presented itself to Peter in a purely personal aspect. +It was a long time before he envisaged the struggle as a great +stupendous whole. Boyishly egotistic, he saw it simply as the next big +moment in the panorama of his life following on his break with Joanna +and his puzzling relationship with Maggie. And always he saw it in +relation to the things which were happening to him like a series of +living pictures against a great impersonal background. + +Ignorant of Neal’s attack on Maggie he had returned to Philadelphia, +completed his work and had gone to Des Moines. He sent his books to his +Aunt Susan,—all but one little black testament which bore written on the +fly leaf his father’s and grandfather’s and _his_ father’s names. There +was another name, too, “Judy Bye.” But Peter could not recall this. + +“More ancestors,” he said to himself, thinking ruefully of Maggie. He +could not bear to think of their last talk: even the thought of his +forgotten instruments could not induce him to write to her. + +In Des Moines he had met Philip. And from that meeting resulted that +first indelible picture. He had rushed forward to Philip, his hand +outstretched. + +“Marshall! Say, fellow, this is really great!” + +He could hear his voice ringing even now. And then Philip’s contemptuous +rejoinder: “I don’t shake hands with any such damned light of love.” + +He thought he must have misunderstood at first. But there was the angry +scorn in Philip’s eyes and there was his hand hanging clenched by his +side. + +The contemptuous epithet made him flinch. Of course, Philip’s bitterness +and scorn arose from two sources. Peter had broken off with his sister +and had taken up with the one girl in whom he had ever shown any +interest. + +“But hang it all,” Peter said to himself in angry bewilderment. “Why +didn’t he try for Maggie himself, if he wanted her? But no, first he +lets that gambler win her and then he leaves her to me.” + +Here again ignorance was the cause. Philip did not know of Maggie’s +divorce until she had become engaged to Peter. Joanna had never told him +and he, considering her first marriage as an answer to his rather +lackadaisical courtship, had not thought it worth while to make +inquiries about her. His own liking for Maggie had taken possession of +him so slowly that he had not realized himself until too late what she +meant to him. + +The result of the encounter was to drive Peter back on himself and to +confuse his issues more and more. He did not know which way to turn. +More than ever if Philip loved Maggie, he himself wanted to be freed of +his obligation. Freedom—that was what he wanted—from obligations, from +prejudice, from too lofty idealism. It seemed to him as though the last +two years of his life had been spent in struggling to reconcile ideals. +First his efforts to win Joanna and then his need to get away from +Maggie. He went through the motions of the long days of drill and +preparation, thinking incoherent, unrelated thoughts. + +“Poor Maggie, I’ve got her into this. I can’t just chuck her.” +Responsibility began feebly to awaken within him. “But what does she see +in me? Yet she’ll die if I leave her. Joanna, you’ve messed up all our +lives. Oh, damn all women! I hope to God I get killed in France!” + +Still in a dream he left Des Moines for Camp Upton and left the camp for +overseas. He was a good sailor and therefore was free to devote himself +to men who were less fortunate than himself. On an afternoon he came on +deck with Harley Alexander. The two had become “buddies” in the camp and +now on the trip over the long days of inaction were awakening one of +those strange intensive friendships between two people, in which each +tries to bare his heart to the utmost before the other. Harley had told +Peter about his disastrous courtship of Vera Manning and Peter had +reluctantly, inevitably returned the confidence. + +“Well,” said Harley, “I’ll be doggone. I suppose Joanna did use to queen +it over you, but what’d you go make a door-mat of yourself for? She gave +you what you were biddin’ for. But now as far as this Miss Ellersley’s +concerned—I can’t seem to remember her, Peter—she’s got no claim on you +that I can see. If she’s any sense at all she knows that you came to her +on sheer impulse. If you don’t love her, don’t you marry her. You’ll +regret it all your life if you do. Gee, I’m sick of this boat. Don’t you +s’pose we’re ever really goin’ to get into this man’s war?” + +He lurched suddenly and violently against Peter, who dragged him to the +rail where he became horribly and thoroughly seasick. There he remained, +spent and helpless. Peter tried to drag him back to a steamer chair, but +he was too much in a state of collapse to help himself and too heavy for +Peter to drag across the deck. A white officer, a lieutenant whom Peter +had noticed infrequently sitting near the door, was standing looking +gravely on. He came forward. + +“Here, let me help you.” Together the two men got Alexander into the +chair. He was the type with whom any physical indisposition goes hard. +Peter noticed he was shivering. + +“Wait, I’ll get a rug,” he said, starting toward the door. Alexander +groaned, “Bye, for God’s sake don’t leave me. I’m as weak as a cat.” + +“Oh, you’ll be all right,” Peter called back, and left him with the +white lieutenant standing silently by. + +Shortly after his return Harley, declaring himself much better, went +below to his room. But first he thanked the lieutenant who bowed with +his pleasantly grave air. Peter, about to sink into the vacant seat, +looked up and caught the intent glance of the white officer who smiled +and nodded and came leisurely toward him. + +“May I sit beside you a moment?” he asked pleasantly. + +“Yes,” Peter replied shortly. He thought: “I know what you make me think +of. Of myself that first day I put on my uniform. Now why?” It was true +that while there was no facial resemblance, the two men were built +almost exactly alike, tall, with broad shoulders, flat backs and lean +thighs. Peter was at first glance the more comely, his head was more +shapely and his hair so crisply curling gave him a certain persistent +boyishness. The other man, a little older and plainer, had nevertheless +a certain whimsical melancholy about his eyes and mouth which attracted +Peter. + +“I heard your friend call you Bye,” he said still pleasantly. Peter +nodded briefly. “That’s my name, too. Bye, Meriwether Bye. I was +wondering where you came from.” + +Meriwether Bye! Peter felt his face growing hot as he remembered the +circumstances in which he had last heard that name. “Dr. Meriwether Bye +of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, I suppose.” + +Meriwether without surprise acknowledged this. “You know of me then. May +I ask how?” + +“I’ve always known of you indirectly,” Peter told him coldly. “My +great-grandfather spent all his life working for yours—for nothing. +There was a black Meriwether Bye, my father, named after him, though I’m +sure,” he added with rude inconsequence, “I can’t imagine why.” + +Meriwether looked at him with a sort of gentle understanding. “I’ve +often wondered about those black Byes,” he said musingly. “My +grandfather, Dr. Meriwether Bye—he’s an old, old man now—used to tell me +about them. He was very fond of one of them, Isaiah Bye. Isn’t it +strange that we, the grandsons of those two men, friends way back in +those days, should be meeting here on our way to France to fight for our +country?” + +Something, some aching tiger of resentment and dislike, which always +crouched in Peter ready to spring at the approach of a white man, lay +down momentarily appeased. + +“Friends! Say, that’s the first time I ever heard a white man speak that +way of the relation between a slave-owner and his slave. You can’t +guess,” he said abruptly, “how I first heard of you.” And he told +Meriwether of his experience with Mrs. Lea, while the doctor watched him +with keen, melancholy eyes. + +“I’ll wager you were angry, mad clear through and through. You had a +right to be. Mrs. Lea,” as he pronounced her name his gentle voice grew +a little gentler, Peter thought, “didn’t realize what she was saying. +She’s like many another of us, totally unaware of our shame and your +merits. I hope this war will teach us something.” + +He had a nice way with him. “A regular fellow,” Peter thought, listening +to his quiet, unaffected disquisition on many subjects. He had been +literally everywhere, even to Greenland, and had seen all sorts of +people. He had a theory that while not all individuals were equal, all +races averaged the same. Some men were bound to be superior. + +“And the differences between the races are a matter of relativity,” he +finished. “I confess my own interest in colored people is very keen.” He +raised a fine hand to disparage Peter’s slight movement. “Yes, I know +you are sick of that and the patronage it implies. But I mean it, Bye, +and when you get back home you must go out to Bryn Mawr and see whether +or not I have tried to express that interest.” + +“I should think,” Peter looked at him squarely, “all things considered, +you or your family would have shown some interest in us black Byes. You +are rich men, your family is a powerful one——” + +“Was a powerful one,” Meriwether interrupted him. He had flushed a +little. “I suppose you know that my great-grandfather, Aaron Bye, had +ten sons. But only four of them had sons and all of them except my +father died in the Civil War. Isn’t that some compensation? My own +father died when I was very young and I grew up with his father. He was +the one who told me about the black Byes and how he when a boy used to +play about Philadelphia with Isaiah. ‘Proud as Isaiah Bye,’ I’ve heard +him say. Bye,” said Meriwether earnestly, “I tried my best when I became +a man to find if there were any of you left in Philadelphia. It seemed +to me a monstrous thing to have our family and our fortune—for my +grandfather is still a very rich man—reared on the backs of those other +Byes.” He struck the table with a vehement hand. “That whole system was +barbarous.” + +“I wish,” Peter told him, “I had known you sooner.” Just to hear this +expression of penitence seemed to ease the long resentment of the years. + +“Without those slaves,” Meriwether resumed, “Aaron Bye would never have +got on his feet. His father was just a poor farmer, a Quaker, running +away from England to escape religious persecution. He came over and +received a grant of land. But he could have done nothing without labor, +and free labor at that. He and a friend bought a wretched slave between +them, worked a bit of land, then that old Bye bought out the other man’s +share of the slave; presently he bought a woman. Ah, it’s a rotten +story.” Peter saw melancholy like a veil settle upon his finely drawn +features. + +“You really feel it? I didn’t suppose any white man felt like that. +Well, you needn’t mind about me or about any of the black Byes,” he +surprised himself by saying. “After all, it isn’t as though we were +related. It’s just the fortunes of—well, not of war—but of life.” + +“No,” Meriwether returned, “we’re not related. Thank God there’s none of +that unutterable mix-up. I don’t think I could have forgiven those +Quaker Byes that. But sometimes it seems to me that just because those +black Byes and thousands of others like them had no claim, that they had +every claim.” + +After that day they met daily; Meriwether expounding, explaining, +unconsciously teaching; Peter listening and absorbing. “I’m surprised,” +the young white man said, giving Peter a calculating look, “that you +were content with being an entertainer.” + +Peter flushed and explained. It was only a temporary phase in his life. +He had been broken-up, crazy. Haltingly he spoke of Joanna and finally +of Maggie. + +Meriwether thought it a bad business. “Stupid of you not to see that the +first girl had your interest at heart. Why, man, by your own account she +had brought you out of the butcher-shop to the University. Well, life +permits these things.” Bit by bit he told Peter of his own love-life. He +had loved Mrs. Lea for years even before her marriage when they were boy +and girl together, but her hard, uncomprehending attitude toward “lesser +peoples” chilled him, really frightened him. He knew he could not live +with a woman like that. + +To Peter’s surprise Meriwether was a fatalist. He had strong +premonitions and allowed himself to be guided by them. “From the +outset,” he told Peter, gravely, “I knew that you meant something to me. +That was why I used to watch you so closely. I used to wonder and +speculate about you. Something in you made me think of myself. It was as +though you, all unrelated even racially, represented something which +might have been a part of myself, as though you,” he said dreamily, +“were living actively what I was thinking of passively. I have often +tried to picture my life as a colored man. I think if there had been any +of that selfish admixture of blood between the white and black Byes and +I had heard of it, I’d have gone the United States over but what I’d +have found my relatives, and have claimed them, too, before all the +world.” + +One of Meriwether’s strange fantasies was that he would never return +from the war. “I knew it when I came away from America. And listen, Bye, +when I die,” Peter marveled at the sureness of that “when,” “I want you +after you get back home to go to my grandfather and tell him who you are +and how you met me. You are to give him this.” He took a little case +from his pocket in which were the pictures of a man and +woman,—old-fashioned pictures. + +“Your father,” Peter exclaimed involuntarily, “you can see he’s a Bye——” + +“And my mother,” Meriwether finished. He drew a locket suspended on a +thin gold chain from around his neck. “And take this to Mrs. Lea. She +loves me,” he said very simply. “Here, you might just as well take them +now.” Peter accepted them reluctantly. + +He wished he had a picture of Joanna. Death seemed suddenly very near, +very possible. He did not care if he died, but he would like Joanna to +know that he thought of her. But he had nothing to leave for her. Yes, +there was the Testament. He took it from his inside breast-pocket and +showed it to Meriwether. Indeed he looked at it closely for the first +time himself. The two heads so like yet so different bent over the old +faded script. On the top of the page in a beautiful clear hand was +written Aaron Bye, then underneath in crazy drunken letters, Judy Bye. + +“I can’t guess who she was,” said Peter. + +A little below a familiar name appeared, Joshua Bye, and above it, +evidently written, in the same hand, Ceazer Bye. But through this entry +a firm black line was drawn, drawn with a pen that dug down into the +thin paper. After Joshua’s name came the names Isaiah and then +Meriwether. + +“My father,” Peter explained, feeling somehow very near to him. “I guess +I’d better put my name in, too.” He wrote it in his small compact hand. +“I wonder who those two were, Judy and Ceazer,” he mused, smiling a +little at the quaint spelling. “I don’t seem ever to have heard of them; +I thought we started with Joshua.” But Meriwether professed dimly to +remember some mention of Judy. + +“I’m sure I’ve heard my grandfather mention her name years ago and +Ceazer’s, too; he was her husband, seems to me. I suppose Aaron Bye gave +them the Testament.” + +The little incident threw them into a deeper intimacy. Meriwether +professed himself to be as interested in and as bewildered at the +workings of the color question as Peter himself, though naturally he +lacked his new friend’s bitterness. + +“It is amazing into what confusion slavery threw American life,” he +said, launched on one of their interminable discussions. “Here America +was founded for the sake of liberty and the establishment of an asylum +for all who were oppressed. And no land has more actively engaged in the +suppression of liberty, or in keeping down those who were already +oppressed. So that a white boy raised on all sorts of high falutin +idealism finds himself when he grows up completely at sea. I confess, +Bye, when I came to realize that all my wealth and all the combination +of environment and position which has made life hitherto so beautiful +and perfect, were founded quite specifically on the backs of broken, +beaten slaves, I got a shock from which I think sometimes I’ll never +recover. It’s robbed me of happiness forever.” + +“I like to hear you acknowledge your indebtedness,” said Peter frankly, +“but I don’t think you should take on your shoulders the penitence of +the whole white nation.” + +“No, I don’t think I should, either,” Meriwether returned unexpectedly, +“but that sort of extremeness seems to be inherent in the question of +color. Either you concern yourself with it violently as the Southerner +does and so let slip by all the other important issues of life; or you +are indifferent and callous like the average Northerner and grow +hardened to all sorts of atrocities; or you steep yourself in it like +the sentimentalist—that’s my class—and find yourself paralyzed by the +vastness of the problem.” + +He slipped into a familiar mood of melancholy brooding. It was at such a +time that he spoke to Peter of his willingness, of his absolute +determination to lose his life in the Great War. For this reason he had +gone into the ranks instead of the medical corps where he would have +been comparatively safe. “Don’t think I’m a fanatic, Peter. I see this +war as the greatest gesture the world has ever made for Freedom. If I +can give up my life in this cause I shall feel that I have paid my +debt.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + + +THE interminable voyage was over and Peter debarked to spend still more +interminable days at Brest. Dr. Meriwether Bye left immediately for La +Courtine, where Peter later caught sight of him once more on his way to +the front. The somewhat exalted mood to which his long and intimate +talks with Meriwether had raised him vanished completely under the +strain of the dirt, the racial and national clashes, and above all the +persistent bad weather of Brest. + +This town, the end of Brittany and the furthest western outpost of +France, always remained in Peter’s memory as a horrible prelude to a +most horrible war. Brest up to the time that Europe had gone so +completely and so suddenly insane, had been the typical, stupid, +monotonous French town with picturesquely irregular pavements, narrow +tortuous streets, dark, nestling little shops and the inevitable public +square. Around and about the city to all sides stretched well ordered +farms. + +Then came the march of two million American soldiers across the town and +the surrounding country. Under their careless feet the farms became mud, +so that the name Brest recalls to the minds of thousands nothing if not +a picture of the deepest, slimiest, stickiest mud that the world has +known. All about were people, people, too many people, French and +Americans. And finally the relations between the two nations, allies +though they were, developed from misunderstandings into hot irritations, +from irritations into clashes. First white Americans and Frenchmen +clashed; separate restaurants and accommodations had to be arranged. +Then came the inevitable clash between white and colored Americans; +petty jealousies and meannesses arose over the courtesies of Frenchwomen +and the lack of discrimination in the French cafés. The Americans found +a new and inexplicable irritation in the French colored colonials. Food +was bad, prices were exorbitant; officers became tyrants. Everyone was +at once in Brest and constantly about to leave it; real understanding +and acquaintanceship were impossible. + +Peter thought Dante might well have included this place in the +description of his Inferno. Here were Disease and Death, Mutilation and +Murder. Stevedores and even soldiers became cattle and beasts of burden. +Many black men were slaves. The thing from which France was to be +defended could hardly be worse than this welter of human +misunderstandings, the clashing of unknown tongues, the cynical +investigations of the government, the immanence of war and the awful, +persistent wretchedness of the weather. + +The long wait turned into sudden activity and Peter’s outfit was ordered +to Lathus, thence to La Courtine, one of the large training centers. It +was at this latter place that he caught sight once more of Meriwether +Bye. He seemed unusually alert and cheerful, Peter thought, and when the +two got a chance to speak to each other, this impression was confirmed. +The young white physician had the look of a man who sees before him a +speedy deliverance. + +“He thinks he’s going to die and chuck this whole infernal business,” +Peter said to himself. “Wish I could be as sure of getting out of it as +he is.” Somehow the brief encounter left him more dispirited than ever. +“Come out of it, ole hoss,” Harley Alexander used to say to him. “What’d +your ‘grand white’ friend do to you?” + +“Oh, you shut up!” Peter barked at him. + +His real depression, however, dated back to the time immediately after +his company had left Brest. The awful condition of things in the seaport +town was general rather than specific, and for the first time since +Peter had entered the war he was feeling comparatively calm. His long +and intimate talks with Meriwether had produced their effect. He had not +realized that any such man as the young Quaker physician had existed in +the white world. He had too much sense and too many cruel experiences to +believe that there were many of Meriwether’s kind to be found in a +lifetime’s journey, but somehow his long bitterness of the years had +been assuaged. Henceforth, he told himself, he would try to be more +generous in his thoughts of white men—perhaps his attitude invited +trouble which he was usually only too willing to meet halfway. + +At Lathus, Harley Alexander met him in the little _place_. “Seems to me +you’re got up regardless,” Peter had commented. Alexander, one of the +trimmest men in the regiment, was looking unusually shipshape, almost +dapper. + +The other struck him familiarly across the shoulder. “And that ain’t +all. Say, fellow, there’s a band concert to-night right here in this +little old square. I’m goin’ and I’m goin’ to take a lady.” + +“Lady! Where’d you get her?” + +“Right here. These girls are all right. Not afraid of a dark skin. ‘How +should we have fear, m’soo,’ one of them says to me, ‘when you fight for +our _patrie_ and when you are so _beau_?’ ‘_Beau_’ that’s handsome, +ain’t it? Say this is some country to fight for; got some sense of +appreciation. Better come along, old scout. There’s a pile of loots +getting ready to come, each with a French dame in tow.” + +“I’ll be there,” Peter told him, laughing. “But count me out with the +ladies. I can’t get along with the domestic brand and I know I’ll be out +of luck with the foreign ones.” + +Some passing thought wiped the joy of anticipation from Harley’s face. +“My experience is that these foreign ones are a damn sight less foolish +than some domestic ones I’ve met. Well, me for the concert.” + +But that band concert never came off. At sunset a company of white +American Southerners marched into Lathus down the main street, past the +little _place_. There was a sudden uproar. + +“Look! Darkies and white women! Come on, fellows, kill the damned +niggers!” + +There was a hasty onslaught in which the colored soldiers even taken by +surprise gave as good as they took. Between these two groups from the +same soil there was grimmer, more determined fighting than was seen at +Verdun. The French civil population stood on the church-steps opposite +the square and watched with amazement. + +“_Nom de dieu!_ Are they crazy, then, these Americans, that they kill +each other!” + +The next day saw Peter’s company on its way to La Courtine, a training +center, where there were no women. Thence they moved presently to the +front in the Metz Sector. + +The injustice and indignity rendered the colored troupes at Lathus, plus +the momentary glimpses which he caught of Meriwether and his exaltation, +plunged Peter into a morass of melancholy and bitter self-communing +which shut him off as effectually as a smoke-screen from any real +appreciation of the dangers which surrounded him on the front. + +In the midst of all that ineffable danger, that hellish noise, he was +harassed by the inextricable confusion, the untidiness of his own life. +God, to get rid of it all! Once he spent forty-eight hours with nine +other men on the ridge of a hill under fire. The other fellows told +stories and swapped confidences. But he stayed unmoved through it all, +impervious alike to the danger and the good man-talk going on about him. + +When the call came for a reconnoitering party, he was one of the first +to step forward. He went out that night into the blackness, the +hellishness of No Man’s Land. He saw a dark figure rise in front of him, +heard a guttural sound and the next moment his left arm, drenched with +blood, hung useless at his side. Raising himself he shot at the legs +which showed a solid blackness against the thinner surrounding darkness. +Wriggling on his belly, he pushed forward to where he thought he heard +sounds, a struggle. “Something doing,” he told himself, “might as well +get in on that.” + +But when he drew near the darkness was so intense that he did not dare +interfere. Two men, at least, were struggling terribly but he could not +tell which was which. They were breathing in terrific grunts, so heavily +that they had not noticed the approach of his smoothly sliding body. +Suddenly what he had hoped for, happened. A rocket shot up in the air +flared briefly and showed him the two men. One was Meriwether Bye, the +other was a German, his hand in the act of throwing a hand grenade. + +Peter lurched forward and at that ghastly short range shot the German +through the stomach. But he was too late, the grenade had left the man’s +hand. The earth rocked about him, he could see Meriwether fall, a +toppling darkness in the darkness. He started toward him but his foot +caught in a depression and he himself fell sideways on his wounded arm. +There was a moment of exquisite pain and then the darkness grew even +more dark about him, the silent night more silent. + +When he came to, it was still dark, though the day, he felt, rather than +saw, was approaching. His arm hurt unmercifully. He had never known such +pain. He raised himself on his one arm, and felt around with his foot. +Yes, there was a body, he prayed it might not be the German. Crawling +forward he plunged his hand into blood, a depthless pool of sticky +blood. Sickened, he drew back and dried it, wiping it on his coat. More +cautiously, then, he reached out again, searching for the face, yes, +that was Meriwether’s nose. Those canny finger-tips of his recognized +the facial structure. His hand came back to Meriwether’s chest. The +heart was beating faintly and just above it was a hole, with the blood +gushing, spurting, hot and thick. + +He sat upright and wrenching open his tunic tore at his shirt. The stuff +was hard to tear but it finally gave way under the onslaught of teeth +and fingers. Faint with the pain of his left arm and the loss of his own +blood, he set his lips hard, concentrating with all his strength on the +determination not to lose consciousness again. Finally grunting, +swearing, almost crying, he got Meriwether’s head against his knee, then +against his shoulder, and staunched the wound with the harsh, unyielding +khaki. His canteen was full and he drenched the chilly, helpless face +with its contents. All this time he was sitting with no support for his +back and the strain was telling on him. + +Against the surrounding gray of the coming morning, southward toward his +own lines, he caught sight of darker shapes, trees perhaps, perhaps +men—if he could only get to them! Placing Meriwether’s face upwards he +caught him about his lean waist, buckling him to his side with an arm of +steel, and rising to his knees he crawled for what seemed a mile toward +that persistent blackness. Twice he fell, once he struck his left arm +against a dead man’s boot. The awful throbbing in his shoulder +increased. But at last he was there, at last in the shelter of a clump +of low, stunted trees. With a sob he braced himself against them, +letting Meriwether’s head and shoulders rest against his knees. The +blood had begun to spurt again and Meriwether stirred. Peter whispered: + +“Bye, for God’s sake, speak to me. This is Peter, Peter Bye, you +remember?” + +The young doctor repeated the name thickly. “Yes, Peter. I know. I’m +dying.” + +“Not yet. Man, it’s almost day, they’ll come to us. Pull yourself +together. We’ll save you somehow.” + +Meriwether whispered, “I’m cold.” + +Could he get his coat off? How could he ever pull it off that shattered +arm? Still he achieved even this, wrapping it around the white man’s +shivering form, raising that face, gray as the gray day above them, high +on his chest, cradling him like a baby. + +The chill was the chill of death, a horrible death. Meriwether coughed +and choked; Peter could feel the life struggling within the poor torn +body. Once the cold lips said: “Peter, you’re a good scout.” + +Just before a merciful unconsciousness enveloped him for the last time, +Meriwether sat upright in the awful agony of death. “Grandfather,” he +called in a terrible voice, “this is the last of the Byes.” + +When the stretcher-bearers found them, Meriwether was lying across +Peter’s knees, his face turned childwise toward Peter’s breast. The +colored man’s head had dropped low over the fair one and his black curly +hair fell forward straight and stringy, caked in the blood which lay in +a well above Meriwether’s heart. + +“Cripes!” said one of the rescue men, “I’ve seen many a sight in this +war, but none ever give me the turn I got seein’ that smoke’s hair +dabblin’ in the other fellow’s blood.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + + +CHAMBÉRY, the capital of Savoy, a town situated toward the south of the +extreme east of France, has not always been as well known to America as +its more important neighbors, Grenoble and Lyons. Up to a few years ago +it was celebrated chiefly because it was the location of the chateau of +the old dukes of Savoy and the birthplace of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Now +it is known to thousands and thousands of Americans because during the +great War it was metamorphosed into a rest center for colored soldiers. + +To the tourist’s mind it might stand out for three reasons: as a city in +which it is well nigh impossible to get a lost telegram repeated; as a +place where one may procure at very little expense the most excellent of +manicures and the most delicious of little cakes. And, thirdly, as the +scene of a novel by Henri Bordeaux, “La Peur de Vivre,” the story of a +young girl who, afraid to face the perils of life, forfeited therefore +its pleasures. + +Certainly Alice Du Laurens, the young woman of Bordeaux’ novel, would +have been no more astonished to find herself in New York than Maggie +Ellersley, whom she so closely resembled in character, was to find +herself in Chambéry. The nervous shock which Harry Portor had predicted +from her encounter with Neal followed only too surely, but for another +reason. The flesh wound itself had been negligible and she might have +recovered without the nervous breakdown, had not Mr. Simpson in an agony +of remorse at the danger to which he had so unwittingly exposed her, +subjected her again with equally complete unconscious thoroughness to +another shock. He was always presenting her with flowers, magazines, and +journals, his eyes silently beseeching her forgiveness. For Maggie had +never betrayed his share in the disaster and had thus made him her eager +servitor forever. + +Two weeks after the accident he brought her an evening paper. “Just +picked this up as I come along, Miss Maggie. But there’s some flowers +comin’ later on.” + +She took the folded paper listlessly and let her eyes travel over the +front sheet. A tiny paragraph leaped at her from the bottom of a column. +“Negro Leaps In Front Of Subway Train.” + +“A Negro, later identified as Henderson Neal, was killed instantly this +afternoon——” + +They found it hard to quiet her. “I killed him,” she moaned to Harry +Portor, hastily summoned. “His death is as much due to me as though I +had poisoned him. I did poison his life.” + +Portor was at his wits’ end. She was too weak to be sent away from home +by herself. Her mother could not leave the house, for Maggie’s illness +had decidedly crippled her resources. And once more they were dependent +on lodgers for their livelihood. + +Once Portor spoke to her of Peter, thinking to comfort her, but the +allusion only made her worse. “Peter! I was getting ready to ruin his +life, too. Oh, how awful everything is. If I could only see him again!” + +It was all very odd, Harry thought, wondering if Joanna could interpret +this. The situation was too complex for him to handle. + +It was her first cry of penitence, and as she lay there day after day +reviewing her life she came to understand and to analyze for what it was +that quality of hers, that tendency to climb to the position she wanted +over the needs and claims of others. Now that she had no strength, now +that life stretched around her a dreary procession of sullen, useless +days, she realized the beauty inherent in life itself, the miracle of +health and sane nerves, of the ability to make a living, of being +helpful to others. + +“Why, Henderson, even Henderson—if I could have taken him back that +first time, I might have changed him, got him to work at something +profitable and interesting. Maybe,” she thought, for the first time +since her marriage, “we might have had a child. And what difference did +it make if I didn’t go with those—‘dickties?’ I could have had a nice +time; I used to have nice times, lovely cosy times with Anna and Tom.” + +That brought her to the thought of Peter. “Of course, he didn’t want me. +And I never loved him. He always did and always will love Joanna. +Whether he gets her or not, she’s the woman for him. He needs her as I +need Philip.” She lay quite still then, concentrating, probing her +inmost spirit. “As I need no one,” she said to herself aloud. “If I ever +get well again I shall be what I want to be without depending on +anybody. And I shall always be content.” + +Who shall explain the relation between mind and spirit? She grew better +after that, began to sit up and, joining one of her mother’s myriad +committees, engaged in the preparation of outfits for the men overseas. +Very slowly, almost reluctantly her interest in life came creeping back +with her strength. She grew to be like the little girl she had been +long, long ago, before her overpowering desire got possession of her. +But she needed the stimulus of an occupation which would take her out of +herself. + +“If I could find something which would make me forget everything that is +past, Harry,” she told the young doctor. He had fallen into the habit of +taking her on his rounds two and three times a week. The air did her +good and the occasion gave him a chance to study her. + +“It will turn up, the right thing always does,” he comforted her. “You +know you are lots better already.” + +“Yes, so much better than you can guess,” she returned, leaving him +slightly mystified at the peculiar expression with which she was +regarding him. He would have been more astonished if he could have read +her thought. “Once,” she said to herself, “I might have tried to make +him like me, tried to get him to marry me and lift me out of my +obscurity. My, I’m glad that’s over.” + +Once on her return from one of these trips her mother came rushing to +her. “Guess who’s here, Maggie? But, pshaw, you’d never guess. John +Howe, do you remember?” + +John Howe who had come to her rescue in the early days! “Now you just +set still,” her mother fussed about her, “and I’ll bring him up. He’s +the Reverend John Howe now. I’ll bet he’ll do you good.” + +Ministers for some reason are either fat or lean. John Howe ran to the +lean type. He came in looking very much as usual, to stay only “five +minutes,” he told Mrs. Ellersley. + +He stayed five hours and Maggie poured out her heart, her first liking +for Philip, her marriage, her discovery of her husband’s “profession,” +her engagement to Peter and her insensate determination to hold on to +him. + +“And then Henderson killed himself. Oh, John, I’ve been a wicked, wicked +creature.” + +“Not as bad as all that, Maggie, but life has been as unkind to you as +though you had been. That’s the trouble,—whether you burn yourself +intentionally or not, you get hurt all the same. And it’s all over now, +you’ve quite decided to let—to break with this Bye fellow?” + +“You were right at first. To let him go. Yes.” + +“H’m, what do you suppose he’ll do then, go back to this other girl?” + +“It sounds so funny to hear you talk of her that way, so slightingly, +almost,” said Maggie, a little surprised. + +“Well, of course, she’s nothing to me. Daresay she’s a nice enough girl, +though she sounds a bit priggish. Do you think she’ll take him back?” + +“Oh, I hardly think so. You see, she’s the only one of us who’s kept on +and got what she wanted out of life. She’s on the stage, a dancer, the +success of the season! Peter’s just barely through school, if indeed he +did get through, and, anyway, he’s still as poor as a church mouse. And +I’m just Miss Nobody. The thing is—if Peter wants to go to her, he can.” + +“And what will you do?” + +“I don’t know. I can’t guess. Something I hope very different that will +take me as completely out of myself as though I had been transposed to a +fourth dimension. Can’t you think of something, John?” + +“I don’t know, I believe I have a sort of idea. Are you pretty strong +now, Maggie?” + +“The Doctor says I’m as strong as I’ll ever be without change of +interests and surroundings. Let’s hear about your idea.” + +“No, that’s enough for to-day. Besides, I’m not sure enough of it.” But +he came back the next day fortified. The Young Men’s Christian +Association had decided to send a few colored women workers among the +colored men at the front. Two had already gone, but more were needed. If +he could get the position for Maggie it would prove just the change she +needed. Did she think she could go? + +“Me,” Maggie breathed, “go to France! To help the poor boys! Oh, I’d +love it, John.” + +It was the thing for her. Of course, its accomplishment took time and +much handling of red tape, but it did come to pass and Maggie, leaving +behind her an apprehensive mother and cousin—for the day of submarines +was not yet over—set sail for France. She landed at Brest, from Brest +she went to Paris, where she was summoned to Chambéry to help Mrs. +Terry, the colored worker, in charge of the leave-center in the Savoyard +capital. + +Maggie was taken out of herself completely. The voyage, the danger, the +foreign language and new customs went to her head like wine. The need of +the men overwhelmed and staggered her. They were pathetically proud of +her—and of Mrs. Terry, too,—glad to be allowed a sight of her bright +face, to exchange a word. To be permitted to dance with her sent any one +of them into a delirium of ecstatic pride. They were brave fellows, +conducting themselves as became soldiers, persistently cheerful in the +face of the hateful prejudice that followed and flayed them in the very +act of laying down their lives for their country. For a time the Negro +soldiers had been permitted to go over to Aix-les-Bains once a week, to +reap the benefit of the baths, but a white American woman seeing in this +an approach to “social equality,” contrived to start a protest which +resulted in a withdrawal of this permission and the black men were +confined strictly to Chambéry. + +A new sense of values came to Maggie, living now in the midst of scenes +like these. The determinedly cheerful though somewhat cynical attitude +of “the boys” in such conditions seemed to her the most wonderful thing +she had ever witnessed. It was as though they said to hostile forces: +“Oh, yes, we know you’ll do for us in every possible way, slight us, +cheat us, betray us, but you can’t kill the real life within us, the +essential us. You may make us distrustful, incredulous, disillusioned, +but you can’t make us despair or corrode us with bitterness. Call us +children if you like, but in spite of everything, life _is_ worth +living, and we mean to live it to the full.” + +So many impressions, so many happenings crowded in on Maggie during +those days that she failed to differentiate between the strange and the +unusual, the calculable and the unexpected. So that on the night when a +new detachment of men filed into the canteen and she glanced up to find +that the tall lieutenant to whom she was handing a cup of cocoa was +Peter, she did not feel at first astonished. Afterwards it came to her +that, subconsciously, she had noticed how subdued, how cautious his +greeting to her had been. His manner toward Mrs. Terry, whom he had +known slightly in New York, seemed by contrast almost effusive. + +“That,” she told herself later, angrily, “was because he didn’t want to +encourage me. How he dreads me! Poor Peter. I’ll put him at his ease.” + +She was to make arrangements the next day for a trip to Lake Bourget. On +her way to the station she spied Peter sitting, a desolate and lonely +figure, in the little parkway that ran through the broad street. He did +not see her advancing and she had a chance to examine him. His face, +still handsome, was thin and lined and his eyes were hopeless. She held +out her hand. + +He let it drop after a brief pressure. + +“I was thinking of you, Maggie.” + +“And I of you. How wretched you look, Peter!” + +He told her, then, of his wound and of his stay in a hospital in Toul. +“My arm is all right now. I’ve even been in another engagement. In a +month at the most, I expect to return to the front again.” + +“Do you dread it?” + +He looked at her in surprise. “Dread it? My goodness, no. I think I +prefer war to ordinary living. It is so quick and decisive. Of course, +there are some tiresome delays. We were held up for six weeks at Brest +and the transportation overseas was very slow. But I didn’t care, I made +a fine friend on account of it. I wish I’d met him sooner.” He didn’t +tell her the name. That, he thought morosely, would only start her off +again on his social standing. “He was killed,” he ended hastily. + +“I’m so sorry. That’s why you’re so dismal.” + +“Perhaps, and then, I don’t understand anything more. Life is all a maze +and I can’t find my way out. I hope I get killed in my next engagement.” + +She bit her lip at that. How blind she had been! “Well, I’m going to +obviate one difficulty for you, Peter. I’ve decided not to +marry—anybody. I think I want to try life on my own. No, don’t say +anything. You can’t very well thank me and there’s no use pretending +you’re sorry. It was a bad business, Peter, and I’m glad it’s over.” + +Before he could speak she had left him. His wound and the loss of +Meriwether, his constant brooding, had wrought in him an habitual +dejection. But he was conscious of a slight lifting of the pall which +hung over him, a loosening of the web. + +They saw very little of each other in the five or six days before his +departure. Maggie was rather glad of this. She wanted no reminders to +spoil her feeling of having begun everything anew with a clean slate. +Her new-found independence was a source of the greatest joy. Each night +she mapped out afresh her future life. When she returned to America she +would start her hair work again, she would inaugurate a chain of Beauty +Shops. First-class ones. Of her ability to make a good living she had no +doubt. And she would gather about her, friends, simple kindly people +whom she liked for themselves: who would seek her company with no +thought of patronage. She would stand on her two feet, Maggie Ellersley, +serene, independent, self-reliant. The idea exalted her and she went +about her work the picture of optimism and happiness. + +The boys called her “Sunlight.” They all liked her and she was kind to +them. Some of them were fine fellows, well educated and successful. It +was Maggie’s greatest secret triumph that in these particularly +favorable conditions she felt no impulse to attempt to realize that old +insistent ambition. + +On the utmost peak of the Mont du Nivrolet, which towers east of +Chambéry, directly opposite the _Chaîne de l’Epine_, gleams an immense +cross twenty-five meters high, visible from all the surrounding country. +At sunset it stood out boldly and Maggie, looking at it daily at that +hour, came to regard it as a sort of luminous symbol of faith. “Oh, God, +you have brought me peace; perhaps some day I shall know happiness.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII + + +INTO the midst of her new-found content came Philip. At first she could +hardly believe it. She supposed vaguely that he had enlisted but she was +and had been out of touch so long with the Marshall family that she knew +nothing definite of his movements. It had been years and years since she +had seen him, had in any sense been connected with him. What a long +stretch of time and events since she had received Joanna’s letter that +fateful Sunday! + +He was very much changed, not only older and graver, but weak, +physically. He had been wounded twice and had been gassed slightly. +“I’ve been discharged from the hospital as cured, Maggie, but I’m afraid +I’ll never be any good again.” He smiled with infinite gentleness. +“There was so much I wanted to do.” Fortunately his “Leave” had followed +on his stay in the rest-area at Nice. + +He had been in Chambéry for half of his _permission_ then, and the first +embarrassment attendant on their meeting had worn off. Still, both +avoided discussion of the old days, glancing away from possible points +of contact. He seemed to Maggie to be wasting by inches and even Mrs. +Terry, who had seen many cases of gassed men, thought he had come out of +the hospital too soon. Maggie, her old love mingled with a new +tenderness awakening in her, spent as much time with him as she dared. +She did not want him to be ill, but she adored his weakness, it gave her +her first chance to wait on him, to mother him, to pay back, instead of +always taking, something of what the Marshall family had brought into +her life. + +He said to her one day seated in the little parkway, “Why did you leave +us so abruptly, Maggie? Why did you marry Henderson Neal?” + +Peter had asked her the same question years ago and now as then she +could not answer: “Because of Joanna’s letter.” So she sat silent a +moment. + +“Well, Maggie?” + +“Because I was a fool, Philip. I was a silly, silly young girl. Without +the sense to know what I wanted. Without the patience to wait for it if +I had known. All young girls are silly, don’t you think? All, that is, +except Joanna. She always knew what she wanted and see, she’s got it. +Wonderful Joanna! Do you know, Philip, I think I’ll have a career, too, +a business one! A chain of Beauty Shops.” + +How wonderful to be able to talk like this without false shame to a +Marshall! How wonderful life was! How beautiful to be experienced! + +Philip said rather indifferently: + +“I’m not surprised at that. My father always said you had one of the +clearest heads for business he’d ever seen. I used to be overwhelmed +myself at your ability to handle people and things. You were always so +sure of yourself. I remember once telling Sylvia and Joanna that you +could afford to go about with people that I didn’t care to have them +meet. Your early experiences rendered you safe. I believe I told them +that when they were speaking to me of your husband, Mr. Neal. I didn’t +know he was going to be your husband then, Maggie.” + +So that was what Joanna had meant so long ago. Strange how time +dissolves mysteries. Strange how, after deciding to take life as one +finds it, life comes fawning to one’s hand. + +Several days elapsed before another talk could be managed. Then they met +in front of the _Statue des Eléphants_. Philip, examining that marvel +with meticulous care, asked her indirectly about Peter. + +“How will you combine the sort of business you contemplate and your +marriage? Seems to me you’ll have to be away from home a lot. Somehow, I +don’t picture you as a ‘new woman,’ Maggie.” + +So he was interested! And she had done nothing, not one little thing to +lead up to it. “Oh, God, let me be happy now,” she breathed. “You know I +meant to play the game straight and I really do love Philip.” Aloud she +said joyously, “I’m not going to be married, Philip, at least not to +Peter Bye, if that’s what you’re talking about. That was all a mistake. +We both realized that.” + +She glanced at him, hoping to meet an answering joy in his face, but +found instead a deepening mournfulness. + +“Philip,” she said very gently. “What is it?” + +He lifted a haggard face. “Listen, Maggie, I can speak now. I loved you +long, long ago, when we used to go off on those catering jobs for +father. Do you remember? But I didn’t know it, I didn’t think about it, +until you married. Somehow I had always thought there would be time +enough and that, anyway, matters would adjust themselves. And when I +heard you’d married that fellow, I was so amazed, thrown off my feet. I +said to myself, ‘You poor weak fool, of course, she’d prefer a man, a +real man who, no matter what his character, would have gumption to go +after the woman he loved.’ + +“I’d have come to you, but I thought you must love him; I had heard the +girls mention seeing the two of you together and I concluded it was an +affair of long standing. To ease myself, to put you completely out of my +mind, I plunged into this public work; I wouldn’t even mention your +name. And the first thing I knew you had left Neal and were engaged to +Bye. I couldn’t understand that, Maggie, since you had grown up with +Joanna and Peter, but that’s all over now. I cursed Bye out at Des +Moines, I remember.” + +Maggie, reviewing all that had preceded Peter’s departure for Des +Moines, shivered a little. “Perhaps some day I can tell you all about +it, Philip. It was mostly my fault.” + +“It doesn’t make any difference whose fault it was, Maggie; everything +is too late now. You don’t suppose I’m going to ask you, a beautiful +woman, just on the threshold of a successful future, to marry me. My +dear, I’m a wreck. I may live a year and I may live a half century. But +I’d always be good for nothing, sitting around, ailing, getting on your +nerves. I wouldn’t be able even to run your cash register for you, +Maggie. These gas cases are absolutely unpredictable.” + +“I don’t care,” she told him stubbornly. “You haven’t asked me but I’ll +tell you. I love you, Philip, I always have. And nothing would please me +more than to nurse you. Why, I love you, my dear. Manage my cash +register! We’ll get you home and Harry Portor will fix you up and then +you’ll take up your magazine again. I’ll be your secretary, your +assistant, your whole force.” + +But Philip was adamant. “You don’t know what you’re saying. No, Maggie, +after I leave here I’ll never see you again. I had my chance to win you +once and I let you go, threw you into the arms of Neal. That was bad +enough. But I won’t chain you to an invalid’s chair for life.” + +For the first time since she had known him she recognized in him a faint +bitterness. + +“You know, Maggie, I’ve never made any kick about being colored. Rather, +I looked at it as a life work ready and cut out for a man, for me, and I +rushed rather joyously into it to do battle. Now as I look back, I think +I realize for the first time what this awful business of color in +America does to a man, what it has done for me. If we weren’t so +persistently persecuted and harassed that we can think, breathe, do +nothing but consider our great obsession, you and I might have been +happy long ago. I’d have done as most men of other races do, settled my +own life and then launched on some high endeavor. But do you know as a +boy, as a young man, I never consciously let any thought of self come to +me? I was always so sure that I was going to strike a blow at this +great, towering monster. And all I’ve done has been to sacrifice myself +and to sacrifice you. And the ironic joke of it is that in the defense +of the country which insists on robbing me of my natural joys, I’ve lost +the strength to keep up even the fight for which I let everything else +of importance in the world go. I’ve been simply a fool.” + +She tried to comfort him. “You’ve been everything that is fine and brave +and noble, Philip. And don’t think your suffering, as you call it, is +due only to being colored. Life takes it out of all of us. I have never +spent five minutes in trying to help our cause. Your unselfishness and +Joanna’s persistent ambition have always amazed me. I have been a +selfish, selfish woman, always—looking out for my own personal +advantage, grasping at everything, everybody—who I thought might make +life easier for me. You don’t really know me, Philip. I’ve pursued a +course exactly opposite to yours. And yet I never knew a moment of +happiness from the time we were all children together until I came here +to Chambéry to help these boys.” She thought deeply. “Sometimes I think +no matter how one is born, no matter how one acts, there is something +out of gear with one somewhere, and that must be changed. Life at its +best is a grand corrective. + +“But now we’ve found ourselves, Philip. You have learned ordinary +personal consideration and I have learned unselfishness—to a degree. It +is not too late for us to be happy—together, Philip.” + +“How we complement each other,” he mused. His eye fell on his wasted +hand. “Ah, but, Maggie, it is too late. Everything is too late.” + +On the last day of his stay she came to him. “You love me, Philip?” He +gave a quick assent. “And you know I love you and you still won’t marry +me?” + +“Don’t torture me, Maggie. You’ve no idea what it means to be tied for +life to a peevish invalid. I—I never expect to see you again, my dear.” + +“Then,” she said, and the last tatters of her old obsession, that oldest +desire of all for sheer decency—fell from her, “then I’ll be your +mistress, Philip. For no matter where you go I’ll find you and stay with +you, you’ll never be able to send me away from you. You’ll make me the +by-word of all New York but I won’t care, Philip, for I love you. Oh, +Philip, Philip——” + +They were in the chapel of the old Dukes of Savoy and the ancient +caretaker, having stayed away the length of time which Philip’s +_pourboire_ warranted, came in, but went out again, quietly, smiling. + +For Philip had risen and drawn Maggie to him. “You really mean it, +Maggie, my Maggie! Oh, my little yellow flower, I’ll never let you go.” + +She looked at him starry-eyed. “You don’t seem so weak, Philip.” + +Outside, the cross on Nivrolet, a luminous symbol of faith, pointed +steadfastly to heaven. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII + + +THE War was over, the men were coming home. All Harlem was delirious +with excitement. Everything conceivable must be done for “the boys,” for +those boys who having fought a double battle in France, one with Germany +and one with white America, had yet marvelously, incredibly, returned +safely home. There were all sorts and conditions of black men, Harvard +graduates and Alabama farmhands. These last had seen Paris before they +had seen New York and they blessed the War which had given them a chance +to see the great capital. + +There were parties, dances, fêtes, concerts, benefits. Everybody who +possessed the least discernible “talent” was called upon; Joanna among +them. She surprised even her most intimate friends by her graciousness. +Night after night, when the performance was over, she appeared, +splendid, glowing, symbolic before those huge dark masses in some uptown +hall. The “boys,” starved for a sight of their own women with their dark +pervading beauty, went mad over her. She was indeed for them “Miss +America,” making them forget to-night the ingratitude with which their +country would meet them to-morrow. + +At none of these assemblies did Joanna find what she was looking for—a +sight of Peter. She had gone at first out of sheer graciousness—a +willingness to do something for these brave men. But later, there was +another reason; something happened which led her to expect to see Peter +at any moment, at any turn. She met Vera Manning. + +“Vera, you imp! Telling those people that you had gone to school with me +to learn democracy; I nearly died! Where’ve you been this long while? +How wonderful you look! And how different!” + +“Oh, Joanna, Joanna, I was coming to see you! First of all I’ve been +South. I got sick of going about with those white people, so I cast +about for something to do. You remember they mobbed some colored +soldiers in Arkansas because they’d worn their uniforms in the street? +Well, it made me sick, it made me think of—of Harley. So I rushed to a +newspaper, Barney Kirchner is the manager—wasn’t he one of Philip’s +friends? And I told them: ‘I’m colored, see, but nobody would guess it; +send me down there. See if I can’t get a line on those people.’” + +“Mercy,” said Joanna, “what an idea!” + +“And they sent me. And, oh, Joanna, it was wonderful to see how our +folks, those colored people, trusted me and shielded me when they found +I was one of them. And those white bullies, thinking I was one of +_them_, told me the most blood-curdling, most fiendish tales. I really +got an investigation started. Mr. Kirchner has taken it up. Oh, Joanna, +I’m glad I’m colored—there’s something terrible, terrible about white +people.” + +She had seen a side of life which had first amazed, then frightened, +then incited her. Joanna had never seen her friend like this, so roused +and quickened, so purposeful. “It was as though at last I had found some +excuse for being what I am, looking like one race and belonging to +another. It made me feel like—don’t laugh—like a ministering angel. Oh, +I hated myself so for having spent all those foolish months, years even, +away from my own folks when I might have been consecrated to them, +serving them, helping them, healing them. You can’t understand just how +I feel, Janna dear. You’ve always had a definite something before you to +make out of your life. I tell you I feel as though I had found a new +heaven and a new earth.” + +“Wasn’t it awfully dangerous, Vera?” + +“Awfully, and funny, too. Exciting! I’ll never be able to get back to +Little Rock again. They found me out, suspected me. I really had to make +a quick get-away. Something so rotten happened, I just couldn’t control +myself.” + +She told her friend that she had finished the investigation on hand and +was quietly preparing to go. It happened that on her last night at the +hotel where she was staying, the hotel management was approached on the +subject of having sold liquor to two young white women, the questionable +guests of three or four white men. Vera, secretly amused to realize that +she had been staying at such a resort, thought nothing of the +disturbance until she learned that the colored bell boys were charged +with aiding and abetting the women in violation of the law. + +“So I followed it up, Joanna. And what do you think happened? When the +case came up for trial, the girls who had been taken up on charges of +assignation were adjudged not guilty, but the two bell-hops were held +for serving liquor under orders, and aiding in a crime which this same +court says never was committed. Isn’t it all too absurd! I made so much +row about it that they became suspicious. A colored woman whom I had +never seen before passed me on the street and handed me a note, in which +she told me that my actions had made ‘them’ highly suspicious of me. +Some one suggested that perhaps I was a ‘yaller nigger passin’,’ and if +so I’d better look out. So I got out. Oh, there was plenty of +excitement, but it was worth it. I’m going to play the same game +somewhere else, just as soon as I can. Do you know, I’m—I’m almost glad +that I am forced to devote the rest of my life to it.” + +“Forced to devote your life to it,” Joanna repeated, bewildered. “Why, +what do you mean?” + +A subtle change came over Vera’s face. It was almost as though one could +see her marshaling her inner forces, her spiritual resources. Despair, +resolve, pride, courage—her friend could descry each in turn. Then she +laughed her old confident laugh. + +“Well, it’s like this, Janna. I’ve had a message—indirectly—from Harley. +He—” she bit her lip, “he isn’t coming back to America. He managed to +get his discharge in France and he’s made up his mind to live there. +Isn’t it great for him? It means he’ll have to start his training all +over again, but he says he’d rather do that than waste his life bucking +this color business any more. And there’s all sorts of work for a +dentist in those little French towns. Just imagine old Harley’s being +free to come and go as he pleases. No more insults for him, no more +lynching news. Why, it’ll be life all over for him, won’t it, Jan? And I +can’t blame him,” she broke off breathlessly, “once I might have thought +the thing for him to do was to stay with his own folks, but life cheats +us colored people so. I wish I had understood that earlier. White and +colored people! No wonder Peter used to rave as he did.” She ended +astoundingly: “I suppose you and he have made up.” + +“Who?” asked Joanna stupidly. “Peter and—and me? Why, I haven’t seen +him. Why, he’s going to marry Maggie Ellersley!” + +“Marry Maggie nothing! Here, here’s an Automat. We’ll be all right in +here. Miss Maggie Ellersley is going to marry your brother. Didn’t you +know it?” + +“No, but I’m glad of it, glad of it. How’d you know all this, Vera?” + +“Peter told me, of course. I’ve seen him. He’s the most perfect darling +in his uniform! You ought to hear him raving about France, but silent as +the tomb about the War. He says the colored soldiers were all +sold—fighting for freedom was a farce so far as they were concerned. But +France is all right if the white Americans don’t get in too much +propaganda. I’ve been meaning to write to you, to tell you you’d better +go over there. No end of chances for you on the French stage. You might +even get in French opera. Are you sure you haven’t seen Peter, sly +thing?” + +“Of course I’m sure. There was really no reason why I should. Mr. Bye +and I haven’t seen or heard from each other for three years, now.” + +“Mr. Bye! Well, good evening, Miss High and Mighty. If I see him I’ll +tell him I saw you.” + +“You’ll do nothing of the kind. Stop all this raving, Vera, and explain +to me about Harley. Are you going to France, too?” + +Vera looked at her with a too perfect astonishment. “I going? Joanna, +how did you ever get credit for being so brilliant, you’re really quite +thick-witted. Don’t you see Harley’s and my ways are going to lie +separate forever? He is going East and I am going—South.” Her gayety +forsook her. “Joanna, don’t let me cry in this awful place. I got it out +of Peter. I made him tell me. He says Harley is bitter and cynical. He +says, over and over, Peter told me: ‘Look at these little French girls, +they’re really white and they don’t seem to hate me. And yet a girl of +my own race hesitates to marry me merely because she looks like white.’” +She pressed her hand hard against her quivering mouth. “It seems he +can’t forgive me. Peter told me so I could be prepared for anything I +might hear. Oh, Janna, this terrible country with its false ideals! So +you see why I’m glad there’s the South to go to—I’ve got to choose +between life and death. Even if I should lose my life in Georgia or in +one of those other terrible places where they lynch women, too, I’ll +save it, won’t I? I must go. Kiss me good-by, dear Janna.” + +She was off in a moment in her pretty, modish costume, leaving Joanna in +a maze of pity and tenderness for her friend, and of sick bewilderment +for herself. + +Peter was free; he was, presumably, home, and he had not come near her. +Some of the old pain surged up. She was walking presently along teeming +Lenox Avenue. Some young girls passing turned and stared. “That’s Joanna +Marshall. You know, the dancer.” A dark colored girl wearing Russian +boots and a hat with three feathers sticking up straight, Indian +fashion, came along. Lenox Avenue stared, pointed, laughed and enjoyed +itself, Joanna’s admirer with the rest. + +This, this was fame—to be shared with any girl who chose to stick +feathers, Indian fashion, in her hat. An empty thing—different, so +different from what she had expected it to be. It had not occurred to +her that it would be the only thing in her life. Probing relentlessly +into an evasive subconsciousness she evolved the realization that in +those other days she had expected her singing, her dancing—her success +in a word—to be the mere integument of her life, the big handsome extra +wrap to cover her more ordinary dress,—the essential, delightful +commonplaces of living, the kernel of life, home, children, and adoring +husband. + +This was too much like examining the bones, the skull and skeleton of +living and then every day tricking it out with the one thing which could +lend it the semblance of flesh and color, though always with the vivid +knowledge that death lay hidden beneath. + +If her gift were only something useful! Even Vera Manning, a mere +butterfly, had turned the trick, had used her one specialty, her absence +of color, to the advantage of her people. But she—of course it did mean +something to prove to a skeptical world the artistry of a too little +understood people—but she could do that only in New York. After the +season closed here she was to have a brief showing in Boston, in +Philadelphia and in Chicago. Even there, as here, she would have to +appear in independent theaters. The big theatrical trusts refused her +absolutely—one had even said frankly: “We’ll try a colored man in a +white company but we won’t have any colored women.” + +Her manager, who liked and respected her, had told her only last week +that he had nothing in view for her after the brief tour. He felt there +was money in the South, but the southern newspapers had started to +editorialize against her already. “A negress,” a Georgia newspaper had +said, “in the rôle of America. Shameful!” + +“We might get a showing among colored patrons, Miss Marshall. But the +South is in an ugly mood just now. Those hoodlums might break the show +up. I’d hate to expose you to it. God, what a country!” + +It was just possible that she might get a booking in a high-class +vaudeville house. “And later on we’ll write a play around you. It would +take mighty little to make a fine actress out of you. That’s a fact, +Miss Marshall. And after we’ve had a run here we could cross the pond.” + +This, this, was her great success. She loved and hated it. But she would +not have been human if she had not wished for Peter to see her in her +triumph, empty though it might prove to be. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV + + +PETER had seen her. His first free hours in New York were spent sitting +segregated in the portion of the balcony set apart for colored people, +watching Joanna in the “Dance of the Nations.” And the result, of +course, was to make her seem farther than ever out of his reach. She was +more wonderful, more mysterious than he had conceived possible. “And why +you should think she would look at you! What if she did write and tell +you she didn’t mean it? Look at the letter you sent her in reply. Do you +suppose a woman like that would stand being thrown down and picked up +again?” + +He was living with his aunt until he could open an office. Fortunately, +he had saved up his pay and his aunt had used very little of his +allotment. As soon as possible he would get out his shingle. His first +impulse on receiving his _congé_ from Maggie had been to come back and +have at least a talk with Joanna. But after seeing her on the stage he +rejected that idea completely. + +“But I’ll work like fury. I’ll really get ahead. And then I’ll go to her +and tell her I owe it all to her. And I’ll explain to her, as Meriwether +Bye said, that all my training and instincts have been against me. And +then,” he finished to himself lamely, “we’ll always be friends.” + +He passed the state-board examinations with a flourish. Then to get an +office. He thought it best to consult Harry Portor about this. The +latter in his own office greeted him, he thought, none too cordially, +ignored his hand. + +“Thought I’d look you up, Portor. Gee, what enthusiasm! Nice greeting to +give a fellow who’s just been making your home safe for democracy.” + +“Oh, can that stuff, Bye. What I want to know is this. It’s none of my +business but I happen to be interested. What are you going to do about +Maggie Ellersley?” + +“Wha-at! Well I’ll be——” Had he been in her train, too? Was this why she +had given him his freedom? His face clouded. + +“You’re right, Harry, it _is_ none of your business. May I ask how you +horn in on this?” + +“Well, if you’ve got to know. I’m, I’m deeply interested in Miss Joanna +Marshall and—and——” + +“Hold on, I thought you were speaking of Miss Ellersley.” Their +politeness was wonderful. + +“Now see here, Bye, tell me, are you going to marry Miss Ellersley?” + +“I am not.” + +“Well, by God! you dirty cad, what do you mean by getting engaged to one +woman after another and not having any intention of marrying either?” + +Peter controlled his rising anger. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, +Portor. Miss Ellersley told me in Chambéry that she didn’t want to marry +me, she’d made a mistake.” + +“And Miss Marshall,” said Harry, his face clearing, “have you told her +yet?” + +“No, I haven’t. Miss Marshall found out she’d made a mistake three years +ago. I don’t make good with the ladies, Portor. And I’d like to know how +the devil it concerns you?” + +“It concerns me,” said Harry miserably, “because I’m pretty sure Joanna +loves you, and I want you to make her happy, or else get out of the way +and let me try to do it.” And he told Peter how Joanna, thinking him +guilty, had yet declared herself Maggie’s assailant. + +Peter’s natural surprise at Neal’s attack on Maggie vanished into +stupefied amazement at the news of Joanna’s generosity. “She did that +for me? Joanna?” + +“Yes,” Portor told him. “Where’re you going, man?” + +Peter had snatched up his cap. “You get into that little Ford I saw +standing out there and drive me up to her house. I can’t drive a Ford. +Does she still live home?” + +“Still with her father and mother. But they’ve moved on One Hundred and +Thirty-eighth Street. Joanna, I believe, wanted a whole floor for a +studio, and as Sylvia’s children are growing up, she and her parents got +out. The kids are always over at Joanna’s, though.” + +They were silent after that. Harry let him off at Joanna’s corner. +“Well, good luck, old man,” he said insincerely. + +Sylvia’s boy, Roger, let Peter in. “I know who you are,” said the tall +lieutenant. “You are Brian Spencer’s son.” + +“Yes, I am, but I don’t know you. And you’ll have to tell me your name +if you want to see my Aunt Joanna. She might not be at home.” + +“Yes, that’s what I was afraid of. See here, son, I knew your Aunt +Joanna before you were born, and I’d like to surprise her. I’ve just got +back from France. Understand, Buddy? I’ve got a German helmet around to +my house——” + +“Well,” said Roger, shamelessly, “you go right up those stairs; ’s that +helmet got a plume on it?” + +Joanna had been singing Tschaikowsky’s “Longing.” Now she was sitting +still reading the words over and over: + + Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, + Weiss was ich leide, + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + Ach! der mich liebt und kennt— + +She mused over the last line: “Peter, I’m afraid you never really knew +me or loved me.” + +He called to her softly from the door of the studio, “Joanna”. She +turned swiftly on the stool and saw him. + +“Peter!” + +What could they say? Does anyone believe that two people who have loved +dearly and have been parted can say anything adequate at such moments? +Certainly all the explanations, the pleas for forgiveness that Joanna +had meant to utter if they should ever meet again, left her. She only +sat and held his hand and called his name again and again. But he was +silent. + +Both became terribly self-conscious, indeed, were very near weeping. +Peter told Joanna long afterwards that he did not dare speak for fear of +bursting into tears. Peter, who had been in two terrible engagements, +and had brought back Meriwether Bye from No Man’s Land! + +He told Joanna about Meriwether during those first incredibly beatific +days after they had met again. But Joanna was too astounded at the +happiness which flooded the very atmosphere about them. Almost as though +she were taking a deep sea bath in bliss. + +“I used to think,” she told him, “even if Peter does come back, we never +can + + ‘recapture + that first fine careless rapture.’” + +“I don’t think we have, dear,” he told her wistfully, “for with this +happiness is the memory of that awful bitterness that lay between us. +There was nothing like this that first time.” + +He persuaded her to go to Philadelphia, to Bryn Mawr in fact. “I’ve got +to give these pictures and the locket to Dr. Meriwether Bye and to Mrs. +Lea. I’m so sorry for them. To think we’re alive and have each other——” + +“And their Meriwether is dead. Oh, Peter, if it had been you!” + +“Yet I used to long for death, Joanna. I used to wish I’d get done in at +the Front. Did you pray for me?” + +“Yes, sometimes. But I didn’t think you’d die. I used to think, though, +that you’d never come back to me. I didn’t see how Maggie could ever let +you go. She’s married Philip, you know.” + +“Yes, I know. I told Vera, hoping it would get to you.” He mused over +some mysterious memory. “Well, Maggie certainly is some girl. How’s +Philip?” + +“Better, oh, lots better. He has a fighting chance and it’s all due to +her. He’s in a sanitarium and she’s with him. She should have married +him long ago. It’s my fault she didn’t.” And she told him about the +letter. + +“Gosh!” Peter exclaimed inadequately, “don’t you do funny things when +you’re kids? Well, here we are at Bryn Mawr. You want to wait here in +the station? I don’t think I’ll be long. If I am I’ll send for you. I +don’t mind going here myself, but I don’t want you to go in until I know +how they’re going to treat you.” + +“Oh, go along,” laughed Joanna, “I’ve been in a million of their homes. +Thought you were all over that nonsense.” + +He was back in a quarter of an hour, very serious. “The old gentleman is +ill, got bronchitis and they’re afraid it might turn into flu. So I left +a message and the pictures and my address. Your address, rather, Joanna +dear, since I don’t know just when I’m going to move. Now we’ll go to +Mrs. Lea’s. She’s just the next station up the line.” + +They boarded the local. “I wish you could have seen that old butler, +Janna. He knew my grandfather. And the moment he saw me, he knew I was a +Bye. Gave me the funniest look. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘you’se the spit of both +families!’ Funny, isn’t it, Joanna; those two families, the black and +the white Byes, lived so long together that they developed similar +characteristics, like husbands and wives, you know. And they say white +and colored people are fathoms apart! Even I noticed that Meriwether Bye +and I were built alike. I’m afraid we weren’t much alike spiritually. +Well, here’s where we hop off again. I’m afraid I’ll be longer this +time. Mind waiting for me, darling?” + +“Never, if you’ll only promise to come back to me,” she whispered. + +Nothing had been said as yet about a new engagement. But he kissed her +in the Sunday quiet of the tiny station and held her close. + +When he came back at the end of an hour she could see he was deeply +stirred. + +“Hard on you, wasn’t it, Peter?” + +“Yes, and on her, too. Poor little thing. I don’t pretend to understand +white people, Joanna, but I can’t imagine what Meriwether, that big, +fine idealist, could have seen in that little ball of fluff. +Self-centered, narrow and cruel—cruel, Joanna! Oh, such people! Do you +know what she said?” + +“I can’t imagine, Peter.” + +“I gave her the locket, and she said with the tears streaming down her +face, ‘To think that the Lord would let Meriwether Bye be killed and +would let his nigger live!’” + +Joanna fell back against the red plush seat. “She didn’t, she couldn’t!” + +“You wouldn’t think so. And then she told me, ‘Go on, tell me every word +he said.’ And I did, all I could remember. He had said to me one day, ‘I +love her and she loves me,’ and I told her that and she leaned back and +moaned—moaned, Janna. I wanted to pick her up in my arms and comfort +her, and if I had, do you know what would have happened to me——” + +“Don’t, Peter.” + +“Well, this is Pennsylvania, so probably I’d have got off with +imprisonment, here, but if it had been in Georgia, and I’d have dared to +touch her——” + +She put her hand over his mouth, “Peter, you shan’t say it.” + +“Darling, all the time I was there I was thinking: ‘Suppose this were +Joanna and I were Harley Alexander, or someone, telling her about Peter +Bye!’” + +They were very sober after that. + +At the West Philadelphia station Peter remembered a restaurant on Market +Street, where he had eaten in his student days. “I guess they’ll still +accommodate us. Where do you think I’m going to take you after we eat?” + +“I can’t imagine, Peter.” + +“Out to the Park, darling. I used to dream of this in France, when I was +in that hospital.” + +Philadelphia, since the War, has changed for the worse in her attitude +toward colored people. But these two contrived to get a decent meal +after which they set out for the Park. It was October again, mellow and +beautiful. Joanna, tingling with memories of the past, asked Peter +nervously to tell her more of Meriwether Bye. + +“He was a wonderful man, Joanna, a real, real man and he made me see +life from an entirely different angle. He said white men in their fight +for freedom in America had had tremendous physical odds to face and that +black men had helped them face them. Now it was our turn to fight for +freedom, only our odds were spiritual and mental obstacles, infinitely +more difficult because less tangible. ‘And just as you black men helped +us, Bye,’ he used to say, ‘there’re plenty of white men to help you. You +don’t know it; for one thing, you’ve shut your mind to us. Oh, you’re +not to blame, lots of us aren’t to be trusted; most of us, I’m afraid. +But we’re ignorant and incredulous. Show us what manhood means, Bye.’” + +“He must have been wonderful, indeed, Peter.” + +“Yes. And yet the queerest chap. You know I told you he had made up his +mind to die. That was the difference between us. I wanted to, but he had +made up his mind to it. And he told me: ‘I knew as soon as I saw you on +the ship that my job was finished, but you would have to carry on. +You’ll have to finish up my life, Peter.’” + +Joanna felt tears in her eyes. + +“Darling, he told me something else. He said I was a fool ever to have +let you go. My dear, I’m going to try to finish up Meriwether Bye’s +life, to be the man that he would have been. But I can do nothing +without you, Joanna.” Suddenly they were back in the full tide of their +love of long ago. He knelt beside her, kissing her hands. “Sweetest +Joanna, will you take me and make a man out of me? All that is decent in +me already is your work. Are you going to marry me, Joanna?” + +An ineffable solemnity hung around them. + +“Tell me, Joanna.” + +“Of course, I’ll marry you, Peter. Dear, don’t think I don’t understand +how hard things have been for you. I was such a stupid, before, when we +were young. I didn’t allow for the difference in our temperaments. Why, +nothing in the world is so hard to face as this problem of being colored +in America. See what it does to us—sends Vera Manning South and Harley +overseas, away from everybody they’ve ever known, so that they can live +in—in a sort of bitter peace; forces you to consider giving up your +wonderful gift as a surgeon to drift into any kind of work; drives me, +and the critics call me a really great artist, Peter, to consider +ordinary vaudeville. Oh, it takes courage to fight against it, Peter, to +keep it from choking us, submerging us. But now that we have love, +Peter, we have a pattern to guide us out of the confusion. When you left +me for Maggie, I used to lie awake at night and think of all the sweet +things I might have said to you. Oh, if you’ve suffered half as much as +I have, you’ve suffered horribly. I learned that nothing in the world is +worth as much as love. For people like us, people who can and must +suffer—_Love_ is our refuge and strength.” + +He kissed her reverently. “Yes, thank God, we’ve got Love. That is the +great compensation. We’ve tried everything else, dear: you, your career; +and I, my self-indulgence. And we’ve found what we wanted was each +other. But you’re right, Joanna, it is frightful to see the havoc that +this queer intangible bugaboo of color works among us. Vera and Harley, +you and I, aren’t so badly off. We’re intelligent, we can choose our own +native land and prejudice, or freedom and a strange, untried country. We +see clearly just what we’re keeping and what we’re letting go. But when +I think of the millions of Negroes, not as lucky as we—there’s Tom +Mason, remember the fellow I used to play with in Philadelphia? I heard +from him this morning. He’s made his pile and he wants to leave the +country. But his sister can’t and won’t stand the idea of taking up a +new life with strange people and a new language. ‘Why should I give up +my country?’ she wails. ‘It _is_ my country even if my skin is black?’” + +“‘_Entbehren, sollst du_,’” Joanna quoted softly. “If you’re black in +America, you have to renounce. But that’s life, too, Peter. You’ve got +to renounce something—always.” + +“Yes, you do. Unless, like Meriwether, you renounce life itself. Of +course, that is the great burden of being colored in this day. You’ve +got to make the ordinary renunciations which life demands, and you’ve +got to make those involved in the clash of color.... + +“I’m afraid you’ll have to give up your career, dear Joanna——” + +“Of course, of course, I know it.” + +“For, if there should be children, I want, Oh, Joanna, I hope——” + +“You want them to be different from both you and me, Peter.” + +“Not so different from you. You were always so brave, so plucky. But, +Joanna, if they are like me they’ll have so much to fight, and they’ll +need you to help them.” + +“We can do anything together, Peter.” + +“And, Joanna, of course you know we will be poor at first——” + +She broke out crying then. “Oh, Peter, you won’t ever say again that I’m +different from Sylvia.” + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV + + +MAGGIE and Philip had returned from the sanitarium to New York, but +Philip undoubtedly was dying. Peter and Harry Portor were at his bedside +every day, but not because of their ability to help him. They were +simply three friends together. Philip never spoke to Peter of the +incident at Des Moines, though it is probable that he thought of it many +times, but the young doctor seemed so serenely unaware of any former +misunderstanding that Philip, with a deep sense of relief, let the whole +incident slide out of his mind. + +Joanna, meanwhile, was experiencing a little private purgatory of +remorse and grief. As she saw Philip’s joy in Maggie, his complete and +unbounded satisfaction in her presence, she became more and more +overwhelmed with the awfulness of that old unconsidered act of hers, the +sending of the letter which had caused Maggie to marry Henderson Neal. +Maggie had never told her this, but she was pretty sure that such was +the case. The mere fact that Maggie had never spoken about it to Peter, +even in the days of their engagement, led her to suspect that her +sister-in-law had attached more significance to it than she had cared to +show. There was only one thing for her, if she was ever to know any +peace, and that was to confess to Philip. + +She went to see him in the late October weather. On the way she had +passed Morningside Park and the gorgeous autumn sights and colors had +brought back to her in a sudden heady rush the memories of the old +days,—partings with Peter, concert tours and meetings with Philip, +talks, dreams, ambitions, all the activities of her assured, confident, +determined youth. If she might only relive a few brief scenes—the night +she had dismissed Peter, the time she had spent in writing that cruel +letter to Maggie—how different her memories would have been! + +Philip was in excellent spirits. He seemed quite reconciled to dying and +even spoke of it with a cheerfulness and familiarity that never failed +to bring a rush of tears to Joanna’s eyes, though this she was careful +to conceal. “Just think of the luck I’m in,” Philip would say, “I never +expected to come home at all. If Maggie hadn’t found me there in +Chambéry and taken pity on my lonesomeness, I’d probably be lying in a +French cemetery this moment with one of those little white crosses +standing above me. As it is, I’m seeing you all again and I have Maggie. +She has promised to stay with me always. It’s all right, Joanna, old +girl, I’ve had a good run for my money and except for Maggie I’m not so +sorry to chuck it all. Just think, it might have been my luck never to +have found her again at all.” + +He said something like that to Joanna on this afternoon. Sobbing she +fell on her knees beside the bed. “Oh Philip, if it hadn’t been for me, +you’d have found her long ago.” + +He was suddenly attentive, his eyes bright and keen in his thin +sharpening face as she told him about the letter. With infinite +gentleness he let his hand rest on that proud dark head which life had +taught so hardly to bow. + +“Dear Janna, dear little sister, don’t blame yourself one moment. It was +all my fault. If you’d left a hundred letters unwritten, I should hardly +have moved any more quickly. In those days I was so taken up with the +business of being colored! After I’d adjusted that I thought I’d arrange +my life. Ah, Joanna, that’s our great mistake. We must learn to look out +for life first, then color and limitations. My being colored didn’t make +me forget to provide myself with food and raiment. I shouldn’t have +allowed it to make me forget love.” His grasp on her hand tightened. + +“Learn this, Joanna, and tell the rest of our folks. Our battle is a +hard one and for a long time it will seem to be a losing one, but it +will never really be that as long as we keep the power of being happy. +And happiness has to be deliberately sought for, gained; even that +doesn’t solve the problem, but it does make it easier for us to fight. +Happiness, love, contentment in our own midst, make it possible for us +to face those foes without. ‘Happy Warriors,’ that’s the ideal for us. +Only I realized it too late.” + +That was his last long talk with Joanna. Usually he gave all his +attention to Maggie who was with him always, supplying and anticipating +his wants and radiating an ineffable peace. Her hand was in his when he +died. + +His father, remembering his intense patriotism as a child, said with a +touch of bitter pride: “He died for his country.” + +“It was what he always wanted to do,” Sylvia said gently. But Joanna +knew that Philip’s real desire envisaged _living_ for his country—to +save her from something worse than war. + +His death diffused a gentle melancholy over the others. It was the first +serious rent in the fabric of the Marshall family. Old Joel took to +indulging in long, deep reveries. Mrs. Marshall, quite dry-eyed, took +out all of Philip’s baby things, wrapped them up to send away and quite +suddenly put them back in their places. Her interest in Sylvia’s +children took on an almost feverish intensity. Sylvia herself and Joanna +and sometimes Sandy had many talks, wistful with reminiscences. + +Maggie alone remained calm and almost cheerful. “Not because she’s +unfeeling,” Joanna explained to Sylvia, “but because she is so +satisfied.” + +Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “Satisfied and Philip dead?” + +“Yes, because so easily he might have died without their ever having +come together. But they did. Oh, Sylvia, you and Brian have had such a +simple, easy, jog-trot time of it, you don’t know what it means to have +your life all broken up like Maggie’s and mine have been, and poor Vera +Manning’s.” + +Whatever the cause, Maggie spent her days serenely. Secure not only in +the knowledge that she was bulwarked by the Marshall respectability, but +also by the resolve which she had made before she saw Philip in +Chambéry, she started on the project of her Beauty Parlors. + +She said to Joel who, she knew, admired her ability: “See if you can’t +make me as great a success in business as you’ve been.” They spent many +pleasant hours in consultation. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI + + +JOANNA and Peter married and Peter came at Joel’s insistent request to +live in the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street house. It was marvelous +to see how the two old people renewed themselves in the youth of their +children. Joel was as proud of Peter as he had been of Joanna. Even Mrs. +Marshall’s long allegiance to Sylvia wavered a little. + +The first child was a boy; “Meriwether,” Peter had named him after young +Dr. Meriwether Bye. “I’m going to tempt providence,” he said to his +wife. “I hope he’ll not be the sort of Meriwether that my father was. +I’ll see to it that he isn’t. He’s going to be all and more than old +Isaiah Bye ever dreamed of,” and he quoted, to Joanna’s mystification: +“By _his_ fruits shall ye know _me_.” + +The two possessed happiness; but more than happiness they had found +peace. They were united by the very pain which each had caused the +other. And the knowledge of how greatly each could suffer created in +them a sort of whimsical tolerance. There is nothing like humor to speed +the wheels of life. + +Joanna, having come to understand the nothingness of that inordinate +craving for sheer success, surprised herself by the pleasure which came +to her out of what she had always considered the ordinary things of +life. Realizing how nearly she had lost the essentials in grasping after +the trimmings of existence, she experienced a deep, almost holy joy in +the routine of the day. To see about her, her husband and parents, +little Meriwether usually in Joel’s arms, gave her, she confessed almost +shamefacedly to Sylvia, “thoughts that lay too deep for tears.” She +rarely regretted leaving the stage and although she sang sometimes in +churches and concerts and once even went on a brief tour, she almost +never danced except in the ordinary way. + +Still, as her mentality was essentially creative, she found herself more +and more impelled toward the expression of the intense appreciation of +living which welled within her. Luckily her training in music offered +her some outlet. With her slight knowledge of composition she composed +two little songs and glimpsing future possibilities, she began to study +that most fascinating of all the sciences—harmony. + +The change in Peter was more fundamental than that in Joanna. She at +least had always had these possibilities of domesticity. Her desire for +greatness had been a sort of superimposed structure which, having been +taken off, left her her true self. It was as though her life had +expanded on the plan of Holmes’ admonition to the Chambered Nautilus: + + Leave thy low vaulted Past— + Let each new temple, + Nobler than the last, + Shut thee from Heaven + With a dome more vast + Till thou at length art free,— + +Joanna was free. + +But Peter had had to undergo a complete metamorphosis. He was a +supersensitive colored man living among hosts of indifferent white +people. Not only had he to change in every particular his theory of how +to maintain such a relationship, but indeed he had to decide what sort +of relationship was worth maintaining. At his father’s death and during +his young manhood he had been absolutely without a notion of the +responsibilities which the most average man expects to take upon +himself. He looked back with a real shame and chagrin to the many favors +which he had accepted without question from his Aunt Susan. + +Joanna, clever Joanna, helped him here. She was not only naturally +independent, but she was, for all her talent, essentially practical with +that clearheadedness which artistic people exhibit sometimes in such +unexpected fashion. Perhaps it is wrong to imply that Joanna had lost +her ambition. She was still ambitious, only the field of her ambition +lay without herself. It was Peter now whom she wished to see succeed. If +his success depended ever so little on his achievement of a sense of +responsibility, then she meant to develop that sense. To this end, she +consulted him, she took his advice, she asked him to arrange about the +few recitals which she undertook. In a thousand little ways she deferred +to him, and showed him that as a matter of course he was the arbiter of +her own and her child’s destiny, the _fons et origo_ of authority. + +So he grew both in the spirit of racial tolerance and in the spirit of +responsibility. He wanted to live in America; he wanted to get along +with his fellow man, but he no longer proposed to let circumstances +shape his career. No one but himself, not even Joanna, should captain +his ship. He meant to be a successful surgeon, a responsible husband and +father, a self-reliant man. + +The memory of Meriwether Bye, never far distant, braced him constantly. +The young physician’s words and ideas had exercised a singleness of +concentration, of influence over Peter such as a friendship of long +standing could hardly have hoped to achieve. + +For a long time he expected to hear from Meriwether’s grandfather. Then +as the months and nearly two years rolled by without a sign from Bryn +Mawr, Peter decided that the old gentleman wished to spare himself the +pain of learning more of the circumstances surrounding his grandson’s +death. + +Sylvia’s boy, Roger, captivated by his new soldier-uncle, spent most of +his time at Peter’s house serving in the purely impressionistic capacity +of office-boy. He came up to the sitting room one summer morning bearing +a bit of cardboard between his fingers. + +“Meriwether Bye,” he pronounced, handing the card to Peter. “Ain’t it +funny he should have the same name as the kid? But he’s no relation +because he’s white and as old as the hills.” + +“Meriwether’s grandfather!” Peter said in astonishment. “Come on down +with me, Joanna.” + +Together they descended to find an old, old man sitting in an absolutely +immobile silence in Peter’s office. He rose, a tall, straight, white +figure and looked at the two young people, still in silence. + +“I’m Peter Bye,” the young man said, coming forward. “Won’t you sit +down? Sit here, Joanna.” + +Together they sat in a strange, strained quiet, Joanna watching Peter in +whom she sensed the rising anew of the antagonism of all the years. +There they were, she felt, representing the last of the old order and +the first of the new, since Peter’s generation was the first to escape +the effect of the ancient régime, and he personally had not completely +escaped it. How many things this ancient, stately personage who sat +regarding them with keen though inscrutable eyes could have told them of +the circumstances which had combined to make the two of them what they +were! For this old man’s whole life and fortune had been reared on the +institution of slavery. + +Out of the puzzling silence he spoke, in the expressionless, brittle +tone of extreme old age. “Yes, I know you are a Bye, Isaiah Bye’s +grandson. And you were with Meriwether at the end. Tell me about it.” + +Very solemnly, almost pityingly, Peter began the recital of his brief, +dream-like acquaintance with Meriwether Bye. “He had quite made up his +mind beforehand that he was going to die. Perhaps you knew. So, I’m sure +he was quite reconciled to it; I don’t think you need grieve for him. +And at the very end I was with him. It turned out that we had been +fighting just a few yards apart. I think I eased him a little; I’m a +doctor, too,” said Peter simply. He put his hand in front of his eyes as +though trying to shut out the vision of the pitiful, needless death. +“His last words were to you, did I tell you, sir? He sat up suddenly +against me, his hand on my arm and called out—Oh, I can hear his voice +now: ‘Grandfather, this is the last of the Byes.’” + +They sat again in a deep silence. + +“I’m sorry,” Peter continued after a long revery, “that he hadn’t +married, and had no children. It’s hard on you, sir, you who are now the +last of the Byes.” + +“Yes,” said the old gentleman laconically, “it is. Now, suppose you tell +me something about yourself.” + +But first Peter told him about his father, Meriwether, glossing over the +dead man’s faults and irresoluteness and dwelling on his ambition. “So +you see, I had always had the idea of becoming a doctor before me. But +I’m afraid I should never have realized it if it had not been for my +wife, here.” He smiled gratefully at Joanna, who smiled back at him with +a gratitude of another sort. He had uttered no word of complaint nor of +the difficulties attendant on being a colored man in America. She was +very proud of him. He was so charming, so handsome, growing daily in +independence. + +“You have a son,” said old Meriwether. “I believe you said you had a +son, Meriwether? How would you like me to take him and educate him, +bring him up away from all he’d have to go through in this country, let +him spend his life in Paris and Vienna. Perhaps he would be a doctor, +too. When he became a man he could do as he pleased. And probably, +probably, I say, I should make him my heir.” + +Neither Joanna nor Peter had ever thought of wealth. And while neither +of them envisaged for a second the possibility of parting from little +Meriwether, they were momentarily stunned at such prospects, Joanna +especially. + +“Why,” asked Peter, his old demon of dislike and suspicion flaring up in +him, “should you at this late date show interest in a black Bye?” + +“Because,” said Meriwether Bye, getting up and beginning to pace the +floor, “because he _is_ my heir. Because he _is_ the last of the Byes. +Because when my brave boy called out ‘this is the last of the Byes,’ he +meant you, not himself. He had no way of knowing it, but he did know it. +That queer sense in him which warned him he was going to die, probably +told him. + +“You’ve heard of your grandfather Isaiah, the boy that grew up with me?” +Peter nodded. “Well, his father, black Joshua Bye, was my oldest +brother; my father—he was Aaron Bye—was his father. Joshua was really +his oldest child. His mother was Judy Bye, old Judy Bye, whom I’ve seen +often sitting in Isaiah’s house, her eyes straining, straining into the +future—perhaps she saw this, who knows?” + +“My father,” said Peter in a dangerously level voice, “told me and told +me often that much of Aaron Bye’s prosperity had been due to the loyalty +and hard work of Joshua Bye. But he never told me that Aaron was his +father. And you knew this, have known it——” + +“Not while Isaiah and I were boys. Not for many, many years afterwards. +My father,” the word seemed strange on this old man’s lips, “always +meant, I think, to do something for his—his son in his will. But he put +it off and finally just before his death he told my brother Elmer—his +oldest son by his real wife you know—told him about it. But Elmer was +all out of sympathy with the idea, and, although he did not tell my +father so, had no notion of acquainting Joshua either with his real +parentage or with the fact that he should have been one of Aaron Bye’s +heirs. Elmer was one of those men with a sharp dislike, amounting to an +obsession, almost, for Negroes, for all unfortunate people. I’m free +from it personally.” + +“Yet,” said Peter harshly, “your conduct has differed not one whit from +his. How long have _you_ known this?” + +“Since the close of the Civil War. All my brothers had died but Elmer, +and all _his_ sons were killed in the war. When Elmer was himself about +to die, he told me. He thought the loss of his sons was a curse upon him +because he had failed to obey my father’s wishes. He left their carrying +out to me. I was a young man still. I saw no reason for opening up old +wounds. Besides, I did not know what had become of Isaiah’s son. Isaiah +and Joshua were both dead. I could not see that my father had acted +differently from other slave-holders—it was the custom of the +country—and at least he did not do as many a white man had done, sell +his son into deeper and more terrible slavery.... I can see now that +whatever slavery may have done for other men it has thrown the lives of +all the Byes into confusion. Think of the farce my father’s religion +must have become to him ... and I shall never forget Elmer. Sometimes I +think the shadow of it fell across Meriwether’s life—I meant to tell +him. I know he would have made restitution. Now I shall do it for him.” + +He ceased speaking and looked at Peter curiously, wistfully. “I suppose +you find it hard to forgive us. I’m afraid I had not thought until very +recently what this might have meant to you,—to Isaiah.” + +Peter ignored this. “If you made my son your heir,” he questioned, +avoiding Joanna’s startled look, “would you be willing to publish to the +world that you were doing it because little Meriwether was your blood +relation—no matter how distant—or would this be the gift of an eccentric +philanthropist?” + +The old man’s face grew a dull red. “Surely it would not be +necessary—think of my father. What good would it do the boy to know that +Aaron Bye’s blood flowed in his veins?” + +“None,” said Peter triumphantly. He turned to Joanna. “See, dear, there +is the source of all I used to be. My ingratitude, my inability to adopt +responsibility, my very irresoluteness come from that strain of white +Bye blood. But I understand it now, I can fight against it. I’m free, +Joanna, free.” + +He walked over to Meriwether Bye, and the two tall straight men—so +alike, so different, one young, one very old—gazed for a long time at +each other. + +“I don’t want your gifts,” said Peter gently, “nor does my son want +them—neither your money nor the acknowledgment of your blood. They come +too late.” He turned to his wife after Meriwether had left the house. +“Thank God, Joanna, they have come too late. Perhaps I might have been +like that.” + +Afterwards the memory of the little black testament returned to him. He +found it and showed it to Joanna. “I’ll bet that old codger Ceazer knew +that Joshua wasn’t his son and that’s why he scratched his own name out +of the book. _He_ would have been an ancestor worth having.” + +Joanna looked at him proudly. “Peter, you are wonderful! Such a man, a +great man!” + +He sighed a little wistfully. “There spoke the real Joanna. Greatness, +even in daily living, will always be your creed, I suppose.” + +“No,” said Joanna, a shameless apostate, “my creed calls for nothing but +happiness.” + + + THE END + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + Transcriber’s Notes + + Printer’s errors, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently + corrected. + + Variations in hyphenation have been preserved + + For the reader’s convenience, a Table of Contents has been added and is + granted to the public domain + + New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the + public domain + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78915 *** |