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border-bottom: thin solid; margin-top: 0.8em; + margin-bottom: 0.8em; margin-left: 35%; margin-right: 35%; width: 30%; } + body { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; } + p {margin-top: .55em; text-align: justify;margin-bottom: .44em; font-size: 1em; } + div.tnote {border: dashed 1px; padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; padding-right: 1em; font-size: 0.90em; } + div.bq { margin-left: 5.56%; margin-right: 5.56%; font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: 500; font-size: 2em; letter-spacing: 2px; } + h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: 600; font-size: 1.8em; letter-spacing: 2px; } + </style> + </head> + + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78915 ***</div> + + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> + <h1 class='c000'>THERE IS CONFUSION</h1> +</div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='figcenter id001'> +<span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> +<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001'> +</div> +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='xxlarge'>THERE IS CONFUSION</span></div> + <div class='c001'><span class='large'>BY</span></div> + <div class='c001'><span class='xlarge'>JESSIE REDMON FAUSET</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c003'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><i>There is confusion worse than death,</i></div> + <div class='line'><i>Trouble on trouble; pain on pain</i>,—</div> + <div class='c004'><span class='sc'>Tennyson.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div id='BL' class='c005 figcenter id002'> +<a href='images/bl.jpg'><img src='images/bl.jpg' alt='B&L Logo' class='ig001'></a> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c005'> + <div><em class='gesperrt'>BONI <span class='fss'>AND</span> LIVERIGHT</em></div> + <div><span class='sc'>Publishers</span>    ::    ::    <span class='sc'>New York</span></div> + <div>1924</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span><i>Copyright, 1924, by</i></div> + <div><span class='sc'>Boni & Liveright, Inc.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class='c006'> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c007'> + <div><i>First Printing, March, 1924</i></div> + <div><i>Second Printing, May, 1924</i></div> + <div><i>Third Printing, August, 1924</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c008'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span><span class='small'>TO MY SISTER</span></div> + <div class='c001'><span class='large'>HELEN FAUSET LANNING</span></div> + <div class='c001'><span class='small'>WHOSE PERSISTENT FAITH HAS MADE ME</span></div> + <div><span class='small'>ASHAMED TO FALTER</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c008'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span><span class='xxlarge'>THERE IS CONFUSION</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span> + <h2 id='toc' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>TABLE OF CONTENTS</span></h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> +<colgroup> +<col class='colwidth100'> +</colgroup> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap1'>CHAPTER I</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap2'>CHAPTER II</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap3'>CHAPTER III</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap4'>CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap5'>CHAPTER V</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap6'>CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap7'>CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap8'>CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap9'>CHAPTER IX</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap10'>CHAPTER X</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap11'>CHAPTER XI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap12'>CHAPTER XII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap13'>CHAPTER XIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap14'>CHAPTER XIV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap15'>CHAPTER XV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap16'>CHAPTER XVI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap17'>CHAPTER XVII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap18'>CHAPTER XVIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap19'>CHAPTER XIX</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap20'>CHAPTER XX</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap21'>CHAPTER XXI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap22'>CHAPTER XXII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap23'>CHAPTER XXIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap24'>CHAPTER XXIV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap25'>CHAPTER XXV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap26'>CHAPTER XXVI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap27'>CHAPTER XXVII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap28'>CHAPTER XXVIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap29'>CHAPTER XXIX</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap30'>CHAPTER XXX</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap31'>CHAPTER XXXI</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap32'>CHAPTER XXXII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap33'>CHAPTER XXXIII</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap34'>CHAPTER XXXIV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap35'>CHAPTER XXXV</a></td></tr> + <tr><td class='c010' colspan='1'><a href='#chap36'>CHAPTER XXXVI</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c008'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span><span class='xxlarge'>THERE IS CONFUSION</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 id='chap1' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER I</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“What sort of story?” Joel Marshall asked, willing and +anxious to please her, for she was his favorite child.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Story ’bout somebody great, Daddy. Great like I’m going +to be when I get to be a big girl.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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?’</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>But alas for poor Joel! His idea of greatness and his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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!</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>His mother knew his ideas and loved them with such a fine, +albeit somewhat uncomprehending passion and belief, that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>with the hardships of youth made Joel somewhat resigned to +his fate.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>And indeed from the very beginning Joanna showed her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>But on that certain Sunday before Joanna was five years +old she perched herself on her father’s knee and commanded +astoundingly:</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Tell me a story, Daddy, ’bout somebody great.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>subject was of some one who had overcome obstacles and +so stood out beyond his fellows.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>He took Joanna everywhere with him. One Easter Sunday +a great colored singer, a beautiful woman, sang an Easter +<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span> + <h2 id='chap2' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER II</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Which was not quite true, for Joanna was mightily interested +in people who had a “purpose” in life. Otherwise not at all. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“And don’t think anything about being colored,” he used +to say.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“All people, all countries, have their ups and downs, +Joanna,” he would tell her gravely, “and just now it’s our turn +<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span> + <h2 id='chap3' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER III</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>warped, that had gone astray and had carried Peter and Peter +Bye’s father along in its general wreckage.</p> + +<p class='c012'>It is impossible to understand the boy’s character without +some knowledge of the lives of those who had gone before +him.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>His was a strange truculent character; he hated slavery, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Which one ob dese did you say were mine?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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. <em>He</em> +was no Bye!</p> + +<p class='c012'>It was not long after this that he disappeared, a strange, +brooding, intractable figure.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 <span lang="fr">régime</span>, though there were many +vestiges of it on all sides. All he knew was that Joshua had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>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: <i>To Joshua and Belle Bye from Aaron and +Dinah Bye. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”</i></p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Isaiah showed the inscription to Meriwether, “By their +fruits ye shall know them.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Yes,” said young Merry tracing the letters with a fat +finger, “that’s our family motto.” Isaiah wanted to know what +a motto was.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Something,” Meriwether told him vaguely, “that your +whole family goes by.” The black boy thought that likely.</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>“Everybody knows Bye peaches, ain’t that so? ’Cause of +that everybody knows the Byes.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Meriwether, though impressed by this logic, didn’t think that +that was what was meant. A subsequent conversation with +his father confirmed his opinion.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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?</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>For himself he asked nothing; being content to fight his own +way “through an onfriendly world.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span> + <h2 id='chap4' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER IV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Jes’ wouldn’t work fer white folks,” Joshua used to say, +“that weren’t good enough fer him.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 <em>his</em> fruits shall ye know—<em>me</em>.” 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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>He named his boy Peter after his Uncle Peter, in whose +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>second-hand shop in Philadelphia he had spent delightful +hours.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Peter,” she said thoughtfully, “what do you want to do +when you grow up?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Oh, I don’t know,” her nephew replied, temporarily removing +<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span> + <h2 id='chap5' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER V</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 <em>his</em> fruits ye shall know—<em>me</em>,” +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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>must marry a Graves, but obviously you obtained work where +you could find it.)</p> + +<p class='c012'>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?</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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!”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span> + <h2 id='chap6' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER VI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>things as they are, and his belief that differences between people +were not made, but had to be.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>His heart jumped within him.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Thanks,” said Sylvia prettily. Maggie stared after him. +She was still the least bit bold in those days.</p> + +<p class='c012'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>“Ain’t he the best looker you ever saw, Sylvia? Such eyes! +Who is he, anyway? Not ever Joanna’s beau?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Imagine old Joanna with a beau.” Sylvia laughed. “He’s +just a new boy in her class. He <em>is</em> good looking.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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?’”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Peter raised his hand. “He looks intelligent,” she thought. +“Well, Bye you may try it.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>She knew he would fail if he didn’t know it her way, but +she let him begin.</p> + +<p class='c012'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>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!</p> + +<p class='c012'>“How’d you come to know it, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“If all the children,” said Miss Shanley, forgetting Peter’s +past, “would just get their lessons like Peter Bye and Joanna +Marshall.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“How wonderful,” she breathed, “that you should know +your physiology like that. What are you going to be when +you grow up, a doctor?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Yes,” said Peter, “I suppose I will have to study. How +did you come to know so much—did your father tell you?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“No, I didn’t know that. Perhaps you’ll sing in your +choir?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“But,” Peter objected, “colored people don’t get any chance +at that kind of thing.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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 <em>really</em> want to do.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>Peter looked at her wistfully. His practical experience and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>the memory of his father inclined him to dubiousness. But +her superb assurance carried away all his doubts.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“I don’t suppose you’ll ever think of just ordinary people +like me?”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“But you’ll be famous, too—you’ll be a wonderful doctor. +Do be. I can’t stand stupid, common people.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>“You’ll always be able to stand me,” said Peter with a fervor +which made his statement a vow.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span> + <h2 id='chap7' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER VII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c011'>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.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“Look,” said Joanna suddenly, catching at Sylvia’s hand. +“See those children dancing! Wait, I’ve got to see that!”</p> + +<p class='c012'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me?</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Sissy in the barn, join in the weddin’,</i></div> + <div class='line'><i>Sissy in the barn, join in the weddin’</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>The child in the center here chose a partner. The others +sang:</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>“<i>Sweetest l’il couple I ever did see.</i></div> + <div><i>Barn! Barn!</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>They stamped here.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>“<i>Arms all ’round me!</i></div> + <div><i>Barn!</i></div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>The two children in the center embraced each other while +the rest sang:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me?</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Then the two in the center pointed fingers at each other, +shrilling:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Stay back, girl, don’t you come near me</i></div> + <div class='line'><i>All them sassy words you say!</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Then all:</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c013'> + <div>“<i>Oh, Barn! Barn!</i></div> + <div><i>Arms all ’round me!</i></div> + <div><i>Say, little Missy, won’t you marry me?</i></div> + <div><i>Marry me?</i>”</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>The last line came as a faint echo.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna rushed forward: “I can play it! Girls let me play +it, too!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Come on, Joanna,” Sylvia called impatiently.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She came up to Sylvia flushed and excited. “We’ll play it +home, Sylvia! Wasn’t it lovely and dear? Oh, I could dance +<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>like that forever!” She went almost all the entire remaining +distance on tip-toe.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>it already. Here I’ll do it by myself; all of you stand back.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Stand back, boy, don’t you come near me!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Joanna has the faith that moves mountains,” laughed Peter. +“If anybody can make it she can.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>“I think,” said Miss Graves, eyeing Joanna’s mother with +her clear, square gaze, “that my boy has spoken to me of you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Mrs. Marshall looked puzzled. She thought this was a +<em>Miss</em> Graves.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter Bye,” his aunt continued, “he’s my nephew. He +often speaks of Joanna Marshall.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>“Colored people will be going big pretty soon. We’ll have +to get in it, too, Pa.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The night that Joanna taught them all the barn dance, +Peter maneuvered until he got Harry Portor at the piano, and +said:</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>“How does that part go, Joanna? Here I am in the center. +Then I take you in. Then——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Put your arms around her,” said Sylvia. “That’s it. +Now,——</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><i>Barn! Barn!</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>He went home and fairly babbled to his aunt about it. +“Joanna is the most wonderful!”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span> + <h2 id='chap8' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER VIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“She wan’t nobuddy. Jes’ a little teeny slip of ole white gal. +No money, no fambly, no nuthin’.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Where’d he meet her then?” asked Mrs. Ellersley, uninterested +but polite.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Mis’ Sparrow was unmoved by the irrelevant allusion to +Maggie. Where would she get such a chance?</p> + +<p class='c015'>“’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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What she marry him for then?” asked Maggie Ellersley, +aged twelve, and an interested listener.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I will not always live like this, Ma—I’ll get out of it +some way.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Aw quit your kiddin!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>But she came slowly to realize that here was a way out. +If she could only grow up—if she were—say—seventeen.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ma,” she spoke out of her brown study, “are there any +very rich colored men?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m going to meet one,” said Maggie solemnly, and henceforth +she thought, she dreamed of nothing else.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie stared at him, her gray eyes going black in the +yellow oval of her face.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There’s only one thing I want, Mr. Howe, and you couldn’t +give me that.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I could try. What is it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There are houses for colored people up in Fifty-third +Street, and decent folks living in them.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But my goodness, Maggie, it costs a fortune to rent one +of those houses.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I know, oh, I know. But if we could just get started. +Mother could fill the house with roomers. Why there’ve been +<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But you’ve no furniture.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He would, he told her, convinced by her earnestness. “What +exactly do you want me to do, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>hole</em>, we’ll +have something to put on the furniture.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I guess you’re right,” said Howe, “I’ll speak to your mother +about it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Fortunately she had Howe to back her. “She’s right, Mrs. +Ellersley, and this is no place for a young girl to grow up. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’re a new girl, aren’t you? Want me to show you your +way around?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I wish you would,” said Maggie.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“My mother is going to entertain the new folks whom I +get to join. Will you join?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie would and so went to Sylvia’s home as her mother’s +guest.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“At last I’m getting to know decent people,” she told her +mother.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span> + <h2 id='chap9' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER IX</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>SHE played her cards with an odd mixture of deliberation +and spontaneity.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Maggie adores you, Sylvia,” said Joanna.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I think she does,” Sylvia replied modestly. “I don’t know +why, I’m sure. She certainly is nice to me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her mother saw the justice of that. “I suppose I have +one or two things. There’s that old brown Henrietta of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>mine and the silk poplin. How’ll she get them made over +though, Sylvia? Now don’t expect me to help.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It’s too pretty to wear in the house. Oh, don’t let’s have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>to wait till to-morrow. Mamma, couldn’t the boys take us +to the matinée? Maggie, have you seen Peter Pan?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie, it transpired, had seen nothing, had never been +inside a theater.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What fun!” Sylvia’s native delicacy hit on the right expression. +“Fancy going to your first matinée. Can you spare +us, Mother dear?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Phil.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie interposed happily. She was +beginning to have her good time like other people. Oh, God +bless John Howe!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>They needed help from time to time. If Mr. Marshall would +assist her in getting some work. She was young and strong +and willing.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Awfully jolly being out late like this by ourselves, isn’t it, +Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She would nod him a smiling yes. “Some day,” she thought, +“he must say more.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I hope you didn’t go,” he replied quickly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, I didn’t, Maggie didn’t, either. But there’s no reason +why I shouldn’t have. She goes with him sometimes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But that’s different. Maggie’s known different people from +any you’ve ever known. She can take care of herself.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’s the matter?” Joanna asked, putting her head in +the door. “What’s old Phil so excited about?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span> + <h2 id='chap10' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER X</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Many a small boy unconsciously stored away a memory of +the erect wholesome figure as a possible exemplar for future +consideration.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia groaned. “Oh, no, mamma, I don’t deserve that!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Clothes, however, had not quite compensated Mrs. Marshall +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And you wore a grayish-brownish-greenery-yallery round +straw hat,” interposed Joanna.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Don’t you talk,” Philip jeered at them, “I remember two +poke bonnets, reddish, with fuzzy stuff sticking up over +them.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, and you,” said Sandy, assuming a solemn countenance. +“Looking dejectedly out of the window, your face propped in +your hands!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Notable women of color,” laughed Joanna. “I adored +Sunday.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“If only he knew <em>what</em> he wanted,” she half sighed.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna was the soloist of the choir these days, sole <i><span lang="fr">raison +d’être</span></i> of <em>her</em> church-going. Her mezzo voice full and pulsing +and gold brought throngs to the church every Sunday.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There is a green hill far away,” she sang, and the puzzled, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>At times like these Peter Bye felt his very heart leap toward +her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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....</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The four young people turned the corner and prepared to +separate.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Brian is coming to the house for dinner,” said Joanna. +“You coming, Maggie and Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>Maggie had an engagement for the afternoon. Peter refused, +too, sulkily, to Joanna’s vast satisfaction.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Sorry if I spoked his wheel,” said Brian, “but you just +have to take pity on me, Jan, I’m so lonely without Sylvia.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“About as much as <em>I’d</em> 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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“How long will he be away?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Six or seven years!” said Brian disregarding anything else. +“Golly what a wait! It would kill any girl but you, Janna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>“Sylvia didn’t die while you were in Harvard,” Joanna returned +meanly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why, I am,” cried Joanna, astonished. “You don’t think +I want to forsake—<em>us</em>. Not at all. But I want to show <em>us</em> +to the world. I am colored, of course, but American first. +Why shouldn’t I speak to all America?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Twenty. He lost a lot of time when he was little. That’s +why he’s so late entering college.”<a id='tn008'></a></p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well look here, what are you going to do with him?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I may not have a chance to do anything with him, Mr. +Busybody.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Phew, isn’t it hot! Thank goodness here’s the house. Run +along and get your brother-in-law a long, cold drink.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It’s cool here,” said Joel, handing him a cigar. “Light up +and tell me how’s Harlem?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>“Yes, sir, I will. Has—er—Sylvia said anything to you +about me? I’m getting along pretty well now, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What should she say? Here Joanna, come take this lovesick +boy off my hands!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m ready, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The two went off and heard a gracious, mellow-voiced +woman fill a hall with sound that made them forget the heat.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“My collar’s wringing wet, and I never thought of it. Wonderful +how music can make people forget.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It certainly sounds nice. Only we mustn’t forget Philip. +Don’t ring the bell, here’s the key.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He took it. “All right about Philip. Maggie is fond of +music, too.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna, in the act of entering the door, stepped back and +faced him sharply. “What’s Maggie got to do with it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, she and Phil. They’ve always paired off together, +haven’t they? Just like you and Peter, just like Sylvia and +me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“She wouldn’t dare,” said Joanna fiercely. “Why, Philip—he’s +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You talk like a silly book. What’s that got to do with +it? And, anyway, you can’t stop it now.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’s the reason I can’t?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’d she say, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, you know we were coming home from church and you +and Bye were ahead and I said, ‘Look at the lucky pair.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, never mind me. Well, well?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And she said, ‘You miss Sylvia, don’t you, Brian?’ ‘You +bet,’ I told her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And she looked at me—you know how Maggie can look—she +said, ‘Just like I miss Philip, I guess.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna grew visibly taller. “You let her say that, Brian +Spencer?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, how could I stop her? Of course she misses Phil. +And quit acting ‘offended pride,’ Joanna. Heavens, doesn’t +Sylvia sometimes do sewing?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, but that’s different, she creates, she’s an artist——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Artist your grandmother! Sleep it off, Janna. Good +night.” He went off, striding down the quiet street.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He, too, had been bitten by the desire to make the most +of his life. And now here was Maggie Ellersley.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Rushing over to her little desk, she pulled out a piece of +tan stationery and began a note.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Dear Maggie——”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span> + <h2 id='chap11' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>the one man through whom she wanted to secure that respectability +was Philip Marshall. She loved him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Still it was hot, and if there were any air to be got they’d +catch it in an automobile.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She ran up the subway steps and hurried toward Fifty-third +Street. Somehow she didn’t care to keep Mr. Neal +waiting.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>But she looked anything but somber as she ran to the +door at the whirr of the motor.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Going, Ma,” she called back. Mr. Neal climbed out of +the car and helped her in.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Thinkin’ I ain’t so bad maybe, Miss Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She blushed, confused, not so much at his catching her eye +as at the completeness with which he had read her thought.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You certainly look nice in that suit, Mr. Neal. It’s different +from what most men wear, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Likely as not. I picked it up in London last time I crossed +the big pond.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’ve been to Europe?” asked Maggie all ears.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes to England, France, Spain, Germany <em>and</em> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He spoke with a heavy emphasis on the last word which +lent a curious whimsicality to his speech.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>“This is the first time you’ve ever talked about yourself, +Mr. Neal. Tell me some more, it’s mighty interesting.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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’.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He had a nice smile, Maggie thought.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Know of him, Miss Maggie, know of him. Son’s a real-estate +agent, ain’t he?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Reckon you don’t need to use no such preparation, Miss +Maggie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Let’s stop talking about me,” said Maggie with sudden +confusion. “Don’t you want to hear about my mother?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>“Well, not as much as about some others.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>She sighed.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>stood there a minute, his powerful dark figure looming over +her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She came home, hot and deliciously tired.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She slit the envelope.</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“Dear Maggie: [the letter ran]</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>aims would only be a hindrance to him. Philip Marshall cannot +marry a hair-dresser!”</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>The childish cruel words ran on:</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Wouldn’t it be just as well if you didn’t see him for some time +after his return?</p> + +<div class='c017'>“Yours,</div> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Joanna Marshall</span>.”</div> + +<p class='c015'>“P. S.<a id='tn006'></a> 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.”</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie folded the letter carefully and put it on her mantelpiece. +Then, fully dressed as she still was, she lay down on +her bed.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“To think I should care like this,” she told herself. “Oh, +Maggie, Maggie, they’re proud, can’t you copy their pride?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her shame and despair heavy upon her, she buried her face +deeper on her arm. Some one seemed to say, “Miss Maggie!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She imagined it, she knew, but even if it were real she did +not want to lift that heavy, heavy head.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She blinked at him stupidly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Little Miss Maggie, what’s happened to you? You ain’t +in trouble?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“In awful trouble.” Her lips shaped the words stiffly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She broke into passionate yet stifled weeping. Her mother +must not hear her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Tell me about it, Miss Maggie; some of them tony fellers +bothering you to marry them?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And he doesn’t, and he’s been leading you on? The +damned skunk. I’d like to kill him.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, what’s she got to do with it? Can’t the feller speak +for himself?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Neal was nonplussed. This was a puzzle.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What are you going to do now?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, I don’t know. And I’m losing my job now. I got +it through them.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She hated to offend him. He was so kind. “Mother would +never hear of it,” she quavered for lack of a better answer.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ll think about it,” she promised him finally.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>But he knew if she did not take him now, she would never +take him. She knew it, too.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He set her gently in the chair, and knelt in front of her, +barring her escape with his powerful body.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ll do it, Mr. Neal.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“My name’s Henderson, Maggie. You will, you mean it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, to-morrow. But I ought to let my mother know.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You don’t need to. Just wear something dark and quiet. +We’ll get everything you want in Atlantic City, or maybe +Philadelphia.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, no—not in Philadelphia, we won’t stop there now,” +she told him feverishly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“All right. Now run up to bed. Kiss me, Maggie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She gave him her cold, stiff lips.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Good girl! To-morrow at ten. You ain’t foolin’ me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, no, Mr. Neal!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Henderson’s my name. Good night, little girl.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Poor, sleepy, frightened Maggie,” he said tenderly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She burst into sharp, strangling sobs, burying her head +against his shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c015'>So she left New York, weeping, to return to it one day dry-eyed +but with a bitterness that was worse than tears.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span> + <h2 id='chap12' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c016'>“Really, Joanna, you ought to treat me better. You +know I’m staying in New York just on account of +you!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“How do you want me to treat you, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But Sylvia and Brian are engaged. You and I are just +friends.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Just friends! Joanna, have a heart. What do you think +I spend all my spare time with you for? You know how +I feel.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What other girl would want me to?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>an after consideration, she felt, and as far as she knew she +meant it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I hope you won’t learn anything you shouldn’t in that +atmosphere,” she had answered primly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>mused a little. “Love is the most natural and ordinary thing +in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>But Joanna didn’t believe that. “Love is a wonderful, rare +thing, very beautiful, very sweet, but you can do without it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter Bye! How you talk!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That <em>is</em> bad. Funny time to give dancing lessons. Where’d +you say you took them?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“At Bertully’s.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>I am a poor man, I must follow the weeshes of my clients!’” +Joanna shrugged her shoulders, spread her hands.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’re a born impersonator, Jan. I can see that little +Frenchman now. How’d you ever get in, then?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Who are in it besides you and Helena?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s seven.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, yes, Sylvia meant to ask Maggie Ellersley.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes,” said Joanna uneasily.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Philip’s haggard face had turned a trifle more wan, Joanna +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>had thought. “Has she written to you, Sylvia?” he asked +her quickly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, I’m mad to think you swallowed that Frenchman’s +insult. To think of your taking lessons from him after that!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But to be set apart like that!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What do I care?” asked Joanna, the practical. “You’ve +<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You bet you would.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Very well, then. Now my problem is how to master, how +to get around prejudice. It <em>is</em> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’ll never get it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Bertully’s one man in a thousand. Besides, he’s a foreigner. +Where’ll you find a white American like that?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There doesn’t need to be. The point is there’s <em>one</em>. 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>“Can’t get anything to eat, if you’re colored, down in their +dinky old restaurants.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 <em>I</em> want fame. I’ve +got to have it, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You talk about going on the stage as though you had a +signed contract in your hand. How’ll you get the stage-presence?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, we are mighty critical.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I should say so. Get up, Peter Bye. We’ve got to go +home.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>They started on the long trip back.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m going to do a dance representing all the nations, some +day,” Joanna told Peter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Morningside was usually crowded. The seats were always +taken when they arrived.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’ll get your head knocked off yet, Joanna,” Peter would +remonstrate, “staring at people so.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter adored her at moments like these, but he was afraid +of her, too.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Would he mind if she offered him a king’s estate?</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>She felt him trembling. “Am I too heavy, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He could hardly articulate, but she heard his ardent “no” +and moved imperceptibly closer.</p> + +<p class='c015'>His breath stirred her thick, dark hair. He let it caress +his chin. Its soft heaviness was a revelation to him, a rapture.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She lay so quietly against him he thought she must be +asleep. So he whispered, “Are you asleep, Joanna?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No,” she whispered back, “only very, very tired.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, Joanna, Joanna,” he breathed, “be tired forever.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She put her head back then. She opened her dark eyes +and looked full into his.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Their lips were so near, so near. In a second he had pressed +his against hers, briefly yet with passion. She sat up and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>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!</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span> + <h2 id='chap13' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>nights when he tossed sleepless on his bed, dreaming fragrant +dreams and seeing golden visions, she was sleeping the perfect +sleep of healthy weariness.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“‘The summer is ended.’” Joanna quoted softly; she +sighed. Peter looked at her, there were tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You love me, Janna? You know I love you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, Peter dear, but we mustn’t say anything more +about it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I know, Joanna, I’m not going to worry you any more +just now, but you’ll let me speak sometime?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, oh, yes!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Dearest girl! Kiss me, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She touched his lips with a light, lingering kiss. He looked +at her, his face haggard with his gusty, boyish passion.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ah, Joanna, I’ll never forget that kiss.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Neither would she, her heart told her. It was the first time +she had ever kissed him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“If from Heaven we could but borrow</div> + <div class='line'>One day longer of fond affection</div> + <div class='line'>It would lessen then our sorrow,</div> + <div class='line'>Give fresh joys for recollection.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>She hummed a line here, then her voice rose again in the +thin, shimmering air:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“—The future, dark and lonely!</div> + <div class='line'>Dearest Loved One, dearest Loved One</div> + <div class='line'>Parting makes these joys so dear!</div> + <div class='line'>Ah!—”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>“Don’t, Joanna; it’s too sweet. You’ll make me cry.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>“I know it. Oh, Peter, go away and come back great and +when you come back, speak to me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He bent over her. “To think of your crying for me, Joanna! +Good-by, good-by, my sweet. Remember, I’ll be back +Christmas.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter did not think this would help much. He wanted +Joanna, though he said nothing about that to Louis. Astonishingly, +however, the cure worked.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Louis seemed to know half of colored Philadelphia. “Mighty +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter thought so, too. He liked Arabelle already and her +friendly shallowness. He wrote to Joanna:</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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....</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Do you remember that day in the Park? Joanna darling, what are +you going to say to me when I come back Christmas?</p> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Peter.</span>”</div> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>“N. B. These x’s are kisses.” [There was a long string of them.]</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>and a house party. I’m asking you now, Peter. Isn’t it great +being grown up?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You bet. Which of these functions comes off first?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Sylvia’s engagement party.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“So she and Spencer are actually going to pull it off. +They’ve waited a long time, haven’t they?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“This man’s going to look well.” He yearned toward her. +“Kiss me, sweetheart.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Sir, you insult me. People shouldn’t kiss unless they’re +engaged.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Then be engaged to me, dearest Joanna. Great Scott, are +we here?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Good! There you are, Peter. We must fly.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not until you’ve told me you love me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I love you, Peter. Come on.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, sir, put your little arms around my neck. So. Now +<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>say, ‘Dear Peter, I love you and I’m going to marry you.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, I can’t say that. Let me go, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter, ask me to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’ve got a smudge on your face,” he told her solemnly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She burst into hysterical tears at that. “I never thought +I’d become engaged with a smudge on my face.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>leaping, twirling. The orchestra struck up something vaguely +familiar. Why, it was Joanna’s old dance, “Barn! Barn!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She swayed, she balanced, she stamped her foot.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Stay back, girl, don’t you come near me!</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Miss Sharples was there with a group of Greenwich Village +folks, Helena Arnold told them afterwards.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She cried herself into a headache on her way back.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I think I’ll stay up here and thaw out,” he called down.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span></div> +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Jan.</span>”</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>His spirits went up, up.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Good-night,” he called to Mrs. Larrabee. “Happy New +Year.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span> + <h2 id='chap14' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XIV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>POOR Maggie! How relentlessly and completely had +her illusions flown!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She acknowledged the introduction pleasantly. “You’re +from New York, Mrs. Neal—I wonder if you know my cousin +Sylvia Marshall?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie could have jumped for joy. “She’s my best friend.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What does your husband do?” she asked the girl, looking +at her over sloping glasses.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie, confused, said he was in the motor-business. The +old woman turned incredulously away.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She determined to ask her husband about his work. But +he gave her no satisfaction.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Without regrets she mounted the train with him one day +<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What did you say your husband’s name was, Mrs. Neal?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why Neal, of course, oh, Henderson, Henderson Neal.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Miss Talbert looked at her a little sadly, exchanged a few +more banalities, and went on her assured way.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I did hope she’d ask me to call,” Maggie murmured. “How +am I ever to get to know anybody in this great town?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She stepped to the door. “Oh, come in.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Miss Mason was frankly curious. “You here alone all +day? What do you do while your husband’s to work?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>“Oh, clean, and sew and—and nap,” Maggie laughed a little. +“Don’t you want to come to see me sometime, now, this afternoon?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>COMING!</div> + <div>THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA</div> + <div>MR. HUBERT SANDERSON</div> + <div>CONDUCTOR</div> + <div><span class='sc'>DECEMBER 27th, 1910</span></div> + <div>MR. THOMAS MORSE</div> + <div>WILL PRESENT</div> + <div>MISS JOANNA MARSHALL</div> + <div>MEZZO-SOPRANO OF NEW YORK</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>She turned away, a little sick.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie usually paid for their outings. Annie’s brother +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, you will. Come and walk up to South Street with +me. I want to get some postal cards.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>It was an aimless existence, but it had its points. Her mother +was comfortable, she herself had ease, a husband and a companion.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I been down here two or three times a’ready. Kind o’ rawish +like.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, I think it’s going to rain. I’ll light the gas-heater +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>and we can sit here and thaw out. I enjoy a chilly day if it’s +warm inside.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Kind o’ that way myself.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, you said you’d been here before. Want to see me +about anything special?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, aimed I’d come set with you a spell. Me and Tom—now—we +saw your husband last night.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That so? Where? How’d you guess it was he?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Isn’t it grand to be indoors? Where did you ever hear of +my husband?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’s the matter Annie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, but there is. Are you sick? Has Tom been unkind +to you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, it isn’t me. It’s you! Oh, Maggie, how could you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What about me? How could I what?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Marry him?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Marry whom? my husband,—why shouldn’t I?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Didn’t you know?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“For God’s sake speak up, Annie Mason. What is it you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>know about him? Has he got another wife? Is he an escaped +convict?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“He’s a gambler.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“A what?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>It was intolerable, such pity! “Where is your brother, +Annie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Who, Tom! Prob’ly up stairs, he don’t go out to rehearsal +till four.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Tell him to come here.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Annie shouldn’t have told you, ma’am,” he said abjectly. +“It was none of her business.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, she has. Sit down, please, and tell me all you know.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She was tearing the envelope into bits, but her voice was +steady. “You’re sure of this?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“An alias,” murmured Annie who read the papers.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, yes, I’m sure. Would—would you mind leaving me +now? You, too, Annie—please.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>“Poor Mamma!” she said again as on a former occasion. +“What a hell her life’s always been!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>No wonder those people, those men in Atlantic City who +knew him didn’t introduce their women folks to her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I suppose they thought ‘You thief! Dressing that girl on +other men’s money!’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Nice and warm in here.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She barely allowed him time to take off his overcoat. “Henderson, +I know how you make your money. You’re a gambler.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He didn’t deny it. “Who told you that?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“The nephew of that man, that Mr. Mason (she hazarded +the name) who shot himself in Stroudsburg.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Where’d you see him?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He caught her by the arm. “Don’t be a fool, Maggie!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She could see the blood mounting, as his temper rose, +shadowing his dark face.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s what I’m trying to do—stop being a fool.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Where will you go, how can you live? Off my money? +You’ve none of your own.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ll make some.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I wish you would kill me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He flung her away from him then and she leaned back +against the wall, breathing hard.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>“I suppose you’ll go back to that man, that fine gentleman +that didn’t want you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Isn’t it likely he’d want me now? I was a nice girl then, +not the wife of a gambler.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He broke down suddenly at that, sank in a chair, buried his +head in his hands.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What do you want me to do?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I want you to let me go.” Her voice was hard.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He lifted a wretched face. “You wouldn’t stay even if I +was to do something else—something decent?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>But she couldn’t forgive him for dragging her into this +abyss, this slough of degradation.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You couldn’t change now, and anyway I wouldn’t live +with you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>To her amazement he got up, took his hat and coat and +started for the door.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“If I stay—for a while—will you promise me not to come +back?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I promise.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Pooh, the promise of a gambler!” She hated him.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>“I’ll show you. Best not to try me too far though, Maggie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, are you going?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>MADAME HARKNESS</div> + <div>Hair Culturist</div> + <div>270 West 137th Street</div> + <div>New York City</div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span> + <h2 id='chap15' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Look at the darlings!” said Sylvia. “They know just what +their mother’s doing. Aren’t my children intelligent, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>Helena’s consent and would have married her before Sylvia’s +and Brian’s wedding came off.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Gracious, don’t spoil my thunder,” Sylvia had begged him +aghast.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, I’m the oldest,” Sandy had retorted. “It’s really my +place to marry first.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He was speaking to a group of both white and black enthusiasts. +“How shall we start it?” someone asked.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>weekly newspaper. A huge campaign must be got underway, +an effort at nation-wide support.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna<a id='tn011'></a>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not the littlest, teeniest one?” It was hard to say which +was prouder of the other.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna was in fine feather in those days. She had youth +<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>shadow, with here and there a gold patch bright as day under +the watching arc-light.</p> + +<p class='c015'>They sat down on the dry, short grass. “Like that other +evening in Morningside, long, long ago. How long, Joanna?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, ages! How’d I sing, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“George! I guess you’re right. How’d you come to think +of it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I didn’t. It was Sylvia. I started out in a white dress. +You should have seen me looking like an icebergish angel.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You are one, you know Janna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Which? Iceberg or angel?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Both. One makes me adore you, the other says ‘hands +off’.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not a bad thing, do you think, considering all the men +I meet?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I hate them. Sure you don’t like any of ’em better than +me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, dear, I like you best.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“‘No, dear, I like you best’,” he mimicked. “For God’s +sake, Jan, can’t you say, ‘Peter, I love you always’? Say it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She hesitated, sighed a little. “Peter I love you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why’d you leave off ‘always’?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, damn the dancing!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why, Peter!” She looked at his flushed face in amazement.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Hang it all, talking to me about dancing, when I’m talking +to you about love—<em>love</em>, 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 <i><span lang="la">Materia +Medica</span></i>!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I think it would be a good thing if you would.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He was honestly aggrieved at that.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’d never get me then.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I don’t suppose I would. Well, I have you now.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Dear Peter, we must be going home. Cousin Parthenia +will rave.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Pshaw, she knows you’re with me. Love me, darling?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You know I do, you dear, dear boy.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He showed her a ring, a tiny gold chased ring, whose +facets gleamed like diamonds.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter, it’s too beautiful. Oh, I love you for it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He slipped it on her finger, got up and sat beside her, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>Someone put a plate on the table beside him, rested a hand +there a moment. Peter glanced at it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Colored. What a nice hand! Ought to have a peach of +a face to match that.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, Peter. Oh, it’s so nice to see you!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Isn’t it, though! I mean isn’t it great to see somebody from +home? I’ve just seen Joanna off.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her face stiffened at that. But he was busy looking at his +watch.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ten minutes more! Look here, Maggie, what’d you drop +us all that way for? How’s your husband?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She answered his second question. “I haven’t any.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He glanced at her apologetically, ashamed of his levity. +“Is he dead?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No,” said Maggie woodenly. “I’ve left him!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh!” he was embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Maggie. Got to +run now. When may I see you again?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>His engaging manner brought back the old days. “Peter, +you aren’t ashamed of me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Would you come to see me to-night, Peter? Come to +dinner?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Try me. What’s the address?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She gave it to him. “That’s Fifteenth and Fitzwater.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, I know. I’ll see you at six sharp. Until then, Maggie.” +He bared his curly head and flashed out the side door.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He tapped at her door at six.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>“I didn’t hear you ring,” said Maggie. “Come in. This +<em>is</em> nice, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Four and a half years.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Four and a half years! Why that’s—look here, how long +have you been married?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Five years last June. I left him almost right away, or +rather he left me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Deserted you, you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He put his arm about her slender shoulders. “There, there +now, Maggie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, I read of it in the <i>Amsterdam News</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You and I here. Harry Portor—do you remember him?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ye—es, big square fellow, wore glasses. He used to go +skating with us, didn’t he?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She couldn’t tell <em>him</em>, of all people, about Joanna.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“The hair-woman—what about her?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“How do you mean free?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m suing for a divorce. Lawyer Talbert has my case.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, Mrs. Marshall’s cousin. Have you ever seen your—Mr. +Neal since he left?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“He didn’t threaten you, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You oughtn’t to let him in.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I should think you’d have been afraid.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>sending him away, but since he’s had this suspicion I’ve really +been afraid. I expect he’ll be really violent some day.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, Great Scott, won’t my coming to see you be +dangerous? I was just thinking what good times we’d have.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why, it’s awful. I’m on the rack all the time.<a id='tn001'></a>”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“If you could stop for a year or so and take a little rest, +do something entirely different.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie said with a faint bitterness that you must always +be top notch for Joanna.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter smoked and relapsed into a moody silence, which he +broke now and then with an account of his struggles. His +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I do what playing I can, but I confess I’m up against it,” +he ended ruefully.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Lots of the boys do waiting, don’t they?” asked Maggie. +“Why don’t you do that?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He just couldn’t, he told her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Where do you play?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“At different dance-halls. They don’t pay as well here as +in New York, though. What’s that, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>A thin stream of music, played on a violin, floated down to +them.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s good fiddling. Is it in this house?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes. It’s Tom Mason, the man I told you about. The +very thing for you! He makes barrels of money. Come on, +Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>who let them in had been putting some resin on his bow. +Against the wall stood a battered, time-worn piano.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Hello, Annie,” said Maggie. “Hello, Tom. This is my +friend Mr. Bye. I’ve brought him up to hear you play.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But I can’t, Miss Maggie. I’ve no accompanist.” He +turned soft brown eyes upon her. “Unless your friend here +plays the piano.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, I do admit to tickling the ivories occasionally,” +laughed Peter. “Let’s see your score.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, great, that’s great!” cried Tom after a few minutes. +“Wait till I get my violin.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Together they made some wonderful sounds. “Play that +passage again, will you?” Tom pointed it out with his bow.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s the best accompanist you’ve ever had, isn’t it, Tom?” +Annie asked.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I should say so. Don’t suppose you’d ever consent to +doin’ this sort of thing in public, Mr. Bye?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That depends on the price and the hours,” said Peter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“They’re so do-less,” he complained. “What’s your regular +line?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter explained that he was a student.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Honey-Babe,” declaimed Peter. “Well, Mr. Mason, if we +can come to terms, I’m your man.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Mason took him aside then, and whispered a few words.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“All right,” Peter told him, shaking hands. “That listens +pretty. See you to-morrow, say at four. Good-night folks. +You coming too, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m so glad, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span> + <h2 id='chap16' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XVI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter was making money these days, real money he told +Maggie.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>nose inside of Carter’s classes this week. Playing out so late +with Mason puts me out of commission, you bet.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Carter, Carter, that’s the Professor of Surgery, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her sympathy was instant.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ideal surgeon hands,” Doctor Davenant had told his +assistant.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span></div> +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Mind you write me right away what you think about this.”</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>The answer came post-haste.</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She did not know much about marriage. She had not only +the usual virginal ignorance of many American girls, she had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Very often she found herself vaguely glad that she had her +work. Without it, what would she have done? What <em>did</em> +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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>Besides, colored people had had enough of that. Not for +Joanna!</p> + +<p class='c015'>It must not be thought that at this time she had any intention +<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s Peter Bye!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter Bye? Who’s he?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“The husband of Joanna Marshall, the artist.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She would never endure it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Poor inexperienced Joanna!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“They have but to see you, <span lang="fr">Mademoiselle</span>, to <i><span lang="fr">réaliser</span></i> zat +you are somebody, zat you have ze great gift. And when they +see you to danse, <span lang="fr">v’la</span>!” He snapped his thin fingers. Joanna, +he told his assistant, <span lang="fr">Madame Céleste</span>, was the best pupil he’d +ever had.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>“You look at her and she is ze child, so grave, so <em>sage</em>. In +another moment she is like a wild creature, a <span lang="fr">Bacchante</span>. +Onless zey are all fools, these <i><span lang="fr">Américains</span></i>, they take her up, <i><span lang="fr">hein</span></i> +<span lang="fr">Céleste</span>?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span lang="fr">Madame Céleste</span> nodded a dark, assenting head.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Bertully himself accompanied her. There were three or +four managers for whom he had done favors.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He looked at her reflectively a few seconds.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Courage,” said Bertully, helping her into the taxi, “there +are some others.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i><span lang="fr">première danseuse</span></i>. +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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No,” said Joanna shortly, “I couldn’t. Shall we go, Monsieur?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Say, what do you suppose she is?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>“Must be a South American.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“She ain’t, she’s a nigger or I don’t know one.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Say, she’s got her nerve comin’ here. Think Snyder’ll give +her anything?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Will he? Not a chance!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“This your great find, Bertully?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<i><span lang="fr">Mais oui</span></i>,” the old man began excitedly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The other calmly lit a big black cigar.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The week before Christmas a note came from Peter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Of course I’ve been planning as usual to come home, Jan. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>But we haven’t been hitting it off so well lately. Thought +I’d better write and see if you really wanted me to.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She wrote him. “Of course I want you.” Heavens, what +would Christmas be without Peter!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“We went rather slowly at first, but you came out splendidly +at the end, Miss Marshall. You were a little bit tired, perhaps.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That must have been it. Thank you and good-night, Miss +Eggleston.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Still no Peter! “Mean thing, I’ll fix him for that.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The bell buzzed softly, she could barely hear it. Yes, that +was he. She heard her father’s voice, “In the back parlor, +Bye.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He came in, came toward her. “Well, Joanna, here’s the +wanderer returned.” He bent to kiss her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She turned him a cold cheek, which to her surprise he kissed +without expostulation.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>He crossed the room, sat down and looked at her. “H’m, +how stagy we are in that get-up!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Where’ve you been, Peter? I thought your train got in +at four?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her spirits went up at that. This was just pique, sheer +pique.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She thought after he had gone that he had looked at her +critically, impersonally.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“As though he were contrasting me with some one,” she +murmured.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The next day confirmed her impression. Joanna asked him +to praise the luncheon.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I fixed it every bit myself.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I should think so, so feminine and knickknackish.” His +tone said: “I’m used to having my taste consulted.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna did not like the remark, but there was nothing really +to be said about it. She sprang up lightly, began to clear +away.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Come on, lazy Peter Bye, don’t leave everything for me +to do.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He lounged in his chair. “Oh, come, Joanna, I’m used to +being waited on, not doing the waiting.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>She stared at him then. “Well, good heavens! What on +earth has been happening to you in Philadelphia?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Maggie Neal has her own methods with her men friends. +Personally I prefer to have mine wait on me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He rose to his feet. “Oh, yes, Queen Joanna must be +served.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But he certainly is changed,” she said to herself in an +angry bewilderment.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She had to sing in Orange that night and did not intend +to return until the next morning.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What do we do to-morrow?” Peter asked.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Remember you said you wanted to hear <i>Aïda</i>? 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She couldn’t believe her ears. “Peter Bye, you <em>are</em> spoilt,” +she flamed. “You’re—why you’re absolutely disgusting. We’ll +never hear <i>Aïda</i> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Married women do it for their husbands.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Sylvia doesn’t do it for Brian. He wouldn’t dream of +asking her. Besides, that’s different. And, anyway, we’re +<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>not married yet. Nor likely to be, if we don’t get along any +better than this. Whatever’s come over you, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He caught her at it. “Joanna Marshall, if you look at me +<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>again like that, just once more, mind you, I’ll snatch you +up in my arms this minute and kiss you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You wouldn’t dare.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I dare you to try it. I’d do it no matter how much you +kicked and struggled. Wouldn’t the people stare?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna giggled. “Can’t you see the headlines in the papers +to-morrow? ‘Burly Negro Attacks Strapping Negress on +Broadway!’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, and the small type underneath, ‘An interested crowd +gathered about a pair of dusky combatants yesterday. A +Negro and Negress——’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna interrupted: “Both of them spelt with a small ‘n,’ +remember! Here we are at the Opera.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>In her heart she loved him. “Oh, Peter, be like this always,” +she prayed.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span> + <h2 id='chap17' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XVII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She mounted the steps. “Come in, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>After dinner they sat in the back parlor and Joanna went +on with her story, Peter listening closely.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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<a id='tn014'></a> 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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna sat silent, stunned by this avalanche. And to think +she had precipitated it!</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He paused, still brooding.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But, Peter,” Joanna argued, “you wouldn’t let that interfere +with your whole career, change your whole life?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Why shouldn’t I? There’re plenty of pleasanter ways to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He shrugged his shoulders. “May I light a cigarette?” +But she noticed he did it with trembling fingers. “Just as +you say, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter, Peter, we’ve got to make our own lives. We can’t +let these people ruin us.” She felt her knees trembling under +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>her. “We’re both tired and beside ourselves. Come and see +me to-morrow, will you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He came in about eleven, his handsome face haggard, his +eyes bloodshot. She was astounded at his appearance.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter, you look dreadful!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Guess I’m due to look a fright after staying up all night. +Didn’t get to bed till five this morning.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She thought he’d been worrying over their quarrel. “You +poor boy, you didn’t need to take it that hard.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He stared at her. “Take what, that hard? Oh, our talk! +That didn’t keep me awake. I spent the night at ‘Jake’s.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Jake’s” was the cabaret, a cheap one, in which he had played +years ago.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She couldn’t understand him. “I thought you had plenty +of money without playing there.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her anger rose, broke. She lost her dignity.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I suppose Maggie Ellersley taught you that, too.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>A pin dropping would have crashed in that silence.</p> + +<p class='c015'>His voice came back to him. “You don’t mean this, Joanna,—you +can’t.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I do. Here, take it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You—you mean the engagement is broken?” He ignored +her outstretched hand.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, I see, it isn’t for my sweet sake, then!”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>She pushed him toward the door. “Go, Peter! Go!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>On New Year’s morning he came back, humble, contrite. +“I was a fool, Joanna. I must have been mad. Please forgive +me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Of course I do, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He fumbled in his pocket, held out the ring. “Will you take +this back?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I can’t do that.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“When will you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I don’t know if ever.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>There was a long silence. He came over and put his hand +on the back of her chair, afraid to touch her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Joanna, I don’t deserve your love. But you still do love +me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She nodded slowly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>His face brightened at that. “But you won’t take back the +ring?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, Peter, I can’t take back the ring.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He knelt and kissed her hands.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Good-by, sweetheart, I must go to Philadelphia to-day. +Happy New Year, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And yet if I were, he’d let go entirely. Well, it must come +out all right.” But her heart was heavy.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The very next day she got a letter. Peter must have written +her as soon as he arrived in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span> + <h2 id='chap18' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XVIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>IF she had only answered the letter, then, that very moment!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Through Helena Arnold and indirectly through Vera +Sharples she obtained the promise of an interview with one +of the season’s favorites.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not a bad idea, Sylvia, I believe I will. You can answer +the phone. Have you seen my brown cape?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She came back a little after five, refreshed and soothed.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“So sorry not to be able to see you to-night,” the noted +<i><span lang="fr">artiste</span></i> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Mercy,” said Sylvia, “why didn’t she say next year?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>lessons from Bertully meant to her that some special and +separate way would be arranged whereby she would become +a dancer on the stage.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She did not know how to envisage disappointment.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Strangely enough, the defection of the <i><span lang="fr">artiste</span></i> 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The thought of her marriage flashed across her mind.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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,——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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,——”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>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:</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Peter</span>:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“But I want to love you, Peter. Write me soon and say you are +going to get to work in earnest. Happy New Year.</p> + +<div class='c017'>“Sincerely,</div> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Joanna</span>.”</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Let’s see why I do feel so rotten? What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She remembered her engagement with the <i><span lang="fr">artiste</span></i>. “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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>After breakfast she posted it. It fell with a heaviness into +the box that made her uneasy. “I’ll write him again to-night,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>she thought. “Poor Peter! He’ll be disappointed, +I suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“Dearest Peter [she began]</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'>She quoted lines from one of Goethe’s poems.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span lang="de">Ein Blick von deinen Augen in die meinen,</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="de">Ein Kuss von deinem Mund auf meinem Munde<a id='tn013'></a>:</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She ended, smiling shamefacedly at her own abandon——</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span lang="de">Mein einzig Glück auf Erden ist dein Wille</span>”——</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“My dear Joanna [she was surprised at the formality]</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<div class='c017'>“Sincerely,</div> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Peter</span>.”</div> + +</div> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>“‘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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“He’ll know when I write him again,” she told herself ruefully.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='bq'> + +<p class='c015'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Sylvia</span>:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<div class='c017'>“Sincerely,</div> + +<div class='c018'>“<span class='sc'>Peter</span>.”</div> + +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span> + <h2 id='chap19' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XIX</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, Peter,” she went up to him swiftly, “something awful +has happened.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He showed her the letter, striding up and down the room +as she read it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She lifted her head to say to him: “She doesn’t mean it; +you know Joanna, always making a mountain out of a molehill.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Instead she heard herself saying: “How could she possibly +write such things to you—you’ve always been so kind.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I do think she thinks herself a lot better than any one +else,” Maggie said slowly, remembering Joanna’s letter to her +about Philip.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, she is, you know,” he put in unexpectedly. “Oh, +Lord, what am I going to do without her!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Before the thought was even shaped in his brain he was +speaking:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Of course I always have you, Maggie. How—how would +you like to spend your future with me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What do you mean, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I mean, Joanna’s chucked me. You and I get along famously, +you’ve got your divorce from Neal. Why not marry +me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i><span lang="fr">déclassée</span></i>, into Mrs. Peter +Bye, a model of respectability.</p> + +<p class='c015'>That he had no money, no accepted means of making a +livelihood she understood would mean nothing. He was a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>Bye and she as his wife could go anywhere. She would show +Alice Talbert! And afterwards when he got his degree!</p> + +<p class='c015'>But because she had once loved Philip she could judge +what Peter might mean to Joanna. To her credit she hesitated.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He dismissed the theme airily, one hand on her shoulder, +the other fumbling for a cigarette.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<hr class='c019'> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Joanna, how could you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span> + <h2 id='chap20' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XX</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>SYLVIA had written. “He doesn’t mean it, of +course”——</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter had given her up. He was going to marry Maggie. +<em>He had given her up.</em> That was the important thing. For +if he was not to marry her, what difference did it make whom +he married?</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, God! Oh, Peter!” She repeated the two phrases +again and again in a sick agony.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She sat down and wrote him a long letter, her pen flying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her tears almost blotted out her words.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>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 <em>she</em> 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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her mind lingered over it, painting in new details, consciously +withdrawing as far as possible from the real cause +of her grief.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span> + <h2 id='chap21' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her humble sincerity almost made Sylvia cry.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>And without a thought she had taken all this as her due.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>In the mornings, weak and spent with the wakefulness of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her mental agony was so great at times that it seemed almost +physical.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>“Better not let Joanna hear you call him that,” Sylvia +interrupted.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia agreed soberly that he was right.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I don’t see how you can say that, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What would?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>This was all news to Sylvia.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, I won’t tell Joanna. She’s got enough to bear.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span> + <h2 id='chap22' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>TEN months later Tom Mason leaned back against the +red plush of the car seat and jingled some coins in +his pocket.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“‘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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Is that so? Honest?” Tom showed a sudden respectful +interest. “How’d they come to lose them?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Lose them? They never owned them. The black Byes +were slaves of the white Byes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>“Oh, slaves! Oh, you mean they worked in the fields? +Well, I guess that’s different. Come on, here we are.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Entertainers for the Lea affair,” one of them said, making +no effort to keep from being overheard.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter stopped short. “That’s what I hate,” he said fiercely. +“Labeled because we’re black.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Annie admitted she did.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Mrs. Lea, leading him into the ballroom beyond, barely +glanced at him. “See, the musicians are to sit behind those +<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, I understand,” said Peter shortly. “My name is Bye.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I was born in Philadelphia like my father and grandfather +and his father before him.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She stated the obvious conclusion: “Probably your parents +belonged to the Bryn Mawr Byes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“So my father told me,” replied Peter, affecting a composure +equal to her own. “His name was Meriwether Bye.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He rushed out of the house, down to the station where, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Name it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>Morgan—“with their damned talk of entertainers.” Down +the stairs he ran, still talking.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Mad, quite mad,” said little Morgan, staring. “Glad he’s +coming back to work, though. Now, where’d I put that cap?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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<a id='tn007'></a> he found what he was looking for: “Record +of Births and Deaths.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The old, stiff, faded writing with the long German <em>s</em>, 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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>learning, his school, his property, his “half-interest,” Meriwether +had said grandiloquently, in a bookshop. Peter could +hear his father talking now.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>There it was—“Meriwether,” the inscription read, “by <em>his</em> +fruits shall ye know—<em>me</em>.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>his</em> son had +really been, except as a failure. And now he, Peter, was following +in that son’s footsteps.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter put the open Bible carefully on the table and took out +a cigarette. But he held it a long time unlighted.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>His landlady<a id='tn002'></a> called up to him:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Telephone for you, Mr. Bye.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He went downstairs, took down the receiver.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Hello, this is Mr. Bye, yes, this is Peter. Who’s this speaking, +please?...</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh—oh, yes, of course. Why—why, Maggie!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He had forgotten all about her!</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span> + <h2 id='chap23' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>And Maggie’s bright answer: “Oh, of course not, I’ve got +my accounts to run over.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>He would shake himself angrily out of his reverie. “Silly +ass,” his lips formed.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie seeing his lips move would ask him interestedly: +“What’s the matter, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter had often mused over this.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Of course he knew nothing of her <em>flair</em>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<em>her</em>. And when Peter Bye became Dr. Bye, the famous +surgeon, Philadelphia would find that Mrs. Peter Bye had a +long memory.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He came to see her the next afternoon full of his scheme of +returning to his classes. Maggie noticed a difference.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You look as though you’d inherited a fortune or found a +million dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Surprise and something else altered her face.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’s the matter, you don’t like it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes—of course—only, but Peter, can’t you see how hard +all this is for me?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Just what do you mean, Maggie? What’s hard?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>that will leave me pretty poor. You see, I’ve got to have five +hundred dollars cold for my instruments.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She looked at him speechless, her gray eyes going black in +the pale gold of her face, her hands submissively folded.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She said listlessly: “I think I’ll go to New York for a +while. I think I’d like to be with my mother.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He ignored the pathos of this. “That would be fine. How +soon do you want to go?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She held up her face for her dutiful kiss.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span> + <h2 id='chap24' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXIV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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, “<span lang="de">Germelshausen</span>,” 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>But Joanna didn’t want that.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Forgot what?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The two girls moved down Fortieth Street in the direction of +Seventh Avenue.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’d understand it better if you worked among them—white +people you know,” Vera told her seriously. “Of course +<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I don’t see how you stand it,” Joanna puzzled. “What +put it in your head to work with white people, anyhow?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Of course I remember him, Vera. He’s a dentist now, isn’t +he? Didn’t he graduate the same year as Harry Portor?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>should have children they’d be brown and would have to be +humiliated like all other colored children.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She fell to drawing more designs.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Goodness,” Joanna breathed, “that must have been awful.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.’</p> + +<p class='c015'>“So that,” Vera ended wryly, “was the end of my young +romance.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Do you enjoy yourself going about?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You must be very happy,” Joanna said wistfully.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I should think you’d drop it all, Vera.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna was cautious. “Of course I have my work. I do +miss Peter though—sometimes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i>coup</i>, some reckless expenditure of energy and interest +no matter how silly, how scandalous, so long as it took her +out of herself.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Oh, Peter! Peter!</p> + +<p class='c015'>As she rode up Fifth Avenue under the starry reaches of +the sky, beneath the tender budding of April trees, her desperate +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span> + <h2 id='chap25' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The difficulty had been, had always been, that she had no +background.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i>bona fide</i> ancestry. And, besides, he was a man.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>gambler</em> who had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>plunged her further back than ever into the obscurity from +which she was beginning to emerge.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>A mirror caught her attention and she stopped before it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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’.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>Maggie murmured that she didn’t care to go out, she had +come home to rest.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>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 <i>sub rosa</i>, so don’t mention it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her hopes rose, fell, rose again as she scanned the letter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“He must make some definite plans about me, if he’s thinking +of war.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Her kind hand on his steadied him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Aunt Susan beamed on him. “Your great-grandfather +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He caught up his hat and ran out.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Everything depended on Maggie.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He hadn’t kissed her, she noticed, observing his nervousness.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What’s the matter, Peter? You seem so excited.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>for you. There’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you, +for a girl of your fine qualities——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Except marry her,” she thought.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She said in a level, absolutely emotionless voice, “You want +to go back to Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter stared at her in sick astonishment. “You mean it?” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>he whispered. It had never crossed his mind that she cared +for him like this. Subconsciously he thought, “Suppose this +had been Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Before Maggie could speak again, someone knocked on the +door; one of Mrs. Ellersley’s roomers stuck in a tousled head.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“’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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie stared blankly. “Oh, certainly Mr. Simpson, certainly.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>They heard Mr. Simpson shuffling down the stairs and knew +by the sound of the slamming door that he had gone out.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>he had spent in the saloon around the corner where he had +swallowed an unaccustomed dram to fortify his intention.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Upstairs Maggie was pouring out to Peter her great obsession.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She murmured something about his long line of ancestors; +years ago in her presence his Aunt Susan had spoken to Mrs. +Marshall about it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You know how your name gave you the entrance into the +best families in Philadelphia.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s what they all were.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“All who?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“All the early settlers, weren’t they, the white ones, too, +indentured servants, outcasts, outlaws, men driven for one +<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>reason or other from their own countries? But certain ones +of them have always stood out, attained prominence.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Overcome by this interpretation of history, he could make +no suitable answer. He moved over to the little table, picked +up his hat.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He held her hand a moment, passed out and ran sideways, +after the manner of men, down the wide staircase.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The front door closed after him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Still holding her he stooped and picked one up.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She said to him evenly, “Henderson, let me go.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>But he pulled her closer to him. “I’ll never let you go +again. Either you’ll come with me, or I’ll——”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>“You’ll what?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ll kill you.” But the thought obviously had just come +to him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Pooh!” she made a face at him. A trace of her old-time +slanginess returned: “What’s all the excitement?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>His heavy countenance lowered, darkened. “He actually +looks black,” she thought to herself.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“What high-brow fellow?” She knew he was confusing +Peter with Philip, but she must engage him in talk until +Simpson could return.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“As though you didn’t know. The one who just left here. +Are you gonna give him up, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I am not.” Her cool decision drove him beside himself.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ll let you kill me first.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Even then she was not frightened. People—the people one +knows never do that sort of thing.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He let go of the arm, looking at her with fascinated gaze. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>Slowly she sank, turned her eyes toward him, saw him drop +the knife and rush headlong out of the room.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span> + <h2 id='chap26' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXVI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>She looked past him into the dim hall. “Do you know if +Miss Ellersley is in?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>His eyes widened in horror. “For Christ’s sake, lady, keep +out. Don’t go in there, she’s dead, pore girl, murdered.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Nonsense! Maggie murdered! What do you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Stammering and shrinking he told her of his ghastly find. +“Don’t go in there, lady, don’t know nothin’ about it. <em>I</em> +don’t mean to.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“She’s alive. I must get this dress off her arm and shoulder. +Got a knife?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Ain’t they a million of ’em layin’ around you, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There’s a whole case in the other room, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, go get it and bring it to me. What do you suppose +this means, Joanna?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She whispered, “Wait till that man goes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“All right, I’ll send him off.” He sent the willing Simpson +on his return with the case, to the druggist.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Now, Joanna?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She stuck to her story. “He didn’t stab her.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The quiet figure on the bed moved ever so slightly, opened +its lips, moaned faintly. “What’s the matter with my arm?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m the doctor, Harry Portor, you remember me, don’t +you?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Harry cast Joanna a fleeting look. “Wait down in my +car,” his lips formed. She slipped down the stairs out of the +house.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He said briefly, “A bad business, but she’s not in any danger +unless there’s a breakdown from nervous shock.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>The words were meaningless to her, reviewing Maggie’s +statement: “Peter was here, we’re going to be married, you +know.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>When they got to her house Joanna politely asked him to +come in.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She thanked him sadly. “Good-night, Harry.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>Joanna thanked him indifferently. “All right, darling, tell +Mamma I’ll look out for her.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span> + <h2 id='chap27' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXVII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Essie, a fixture in the service of the Marshalls, brought her a +breakfast of rolls and chocolate. Joanna devoured it.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You don’t look bright, Essie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?’”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not dressed yet, Joanna? She’ll be here soon. It’s 10:30.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna lifted a startled face. “Who’ll be here?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Miss Sharples, Miss Vera Sharples. I sent Roger up to +tell you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, not that.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You <em>are</em> nervous, Joanna. What do you feel like wearing?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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<a id='tn015'></a> skirt. A narrow ropelike +cord confined the waist.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“There’s your ‘grand white folks’ Janna. My Heavens, +where <em>do</em> 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 <em>brown</em> scarf around it. Her +hair is as straight as a poker and she wears it bobbed.” Sylvia +shuddered.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh well, she’s a good sort,” Joanna remonstrated, smiling, +“and she doesn’t say ‘you people.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>she took the extended hand and gave it a hearty pressure.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna, slightly nonplussed, nodded yes. As though she +could forget that Christmas when she had become engaged to +Peter!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Better,” Joanna told her confidently, “although it doesn’t +get me anywhere. Would you mind telling me what all this +is about?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>proportions and they were talking of art, of dancing +with an enthusiasm and accuracy, an amazing precision such +as Joanna had never heard equaled.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, now listen. I’m supposed to have a ring of children +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“That’s it, that’s got the lilt,” a tall, dark man said to Miss +Rosen.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Now then, you’ve got it. Ready!</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<i>Sissy in the barn! Join in the weddin’!</i>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The Board applauded. “Oh, but that’s great, that’s genius,” +cried Miss Phelps.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“If I could only have some real children,” Joanna suggested, +“colored children. Are there any around here?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“About five thousand down there in Minetta Lane,” Francis +told her gravely. “Want me to get you some?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The tall dark man, Mr. Hale, came over to her. “You’re +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span> + <h2 id='chap28' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXVIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’ve really been violating my principles in staying this +long,” she told Mr. Hale with meaning.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia had a suggestion here. “America” was supposed to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>come on last as a regal, symbolic figure, but Miss Ashby had +paid more attention to the dancing than to the symbolism.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Somehow the habitué guessed the truth. “Pull off your +mask, America,” he shouted. The house took it up. “Let’s +see your face, America!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The very next week Mr. Hale moved the production to +Broadway.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She threw Joanna a droll look. When the afternoon was +over, Vera asked her to go on to tea with her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Once outside the door the two girls went off into gusts of +inextinguishable laughter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>For a while she was puzzled, a little ashamed when she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“My father would insist on having colored servants. He +preferred them.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>And Joel, his voice half glad, half sorry, told her that he, too, +had hoped for something different.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span> + <h2 id='chap29' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXIX</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>his</em> father’s names. There was another +name, too, “Judy Bye.” But Peter could not recall this.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Marshall! Say, fellow, this is really great!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He thought he must have misunderstood at first. But +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>there was the angry scorn in Philip’s eyes and there was his +hand hanging clenched by his side.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Wait, I’ll get a rug,” he said, starting toward the door. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>Alexander groaned, “Bye, for God’s sake don’t leave me. +I’m as weak as a cat.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, you’ll be all right,” Peter called back, and left him +with the white lieutenant standing silently by.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“May I sit beside you a moment?” he asked pleasantly.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Meriwether without surprise acknowledged this. “You know +of me then. May I ask how?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>father, named after him, though I’m sure,” he added with +rude inconsequence, “I can’t imagine why.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>a woman. Ah, it’s a rotten story.” Peter saw melancholy +like a veil settle upon his finely drawn features.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Your father,” Peter exclaimed involuntarily, “you can see +he’s a Bye——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>beautiful clear hand was written Aaron Bye, then underneath +in crazy drunken letters, Judy Bye.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I can’t guess who she was,” said Peter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.<a id='tn003'></a>”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span> + <h2 id='chap30' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXX</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, you shut up!” Peter barked at him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>His real depression, however, dated back to the time immediately +<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>At Lathus, Harley Alexander met him in the little <em>place</em>. +“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Lady! Where’d you get her?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 <i><span lang="fr">patrie</span></i> and when you are so +<i><span lang="fr">beau</span></i>?’ ‘<i><span lang="fr">Beau</span></i>’ 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Some passing thought wiped the joy of anticipation from +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>place</em>. There was a sudden +uproar.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Look! Darkies and white women! Come on, fellows, +kill the damned niggers!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“<i><span lang="fr">Nom de dieu!</span></i> Are they crazy, then, these Americans, that +they kill each other!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>The injustice and indignity rendered the colored troupes<a id='tn016'></a> 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Bye, for God’s sake, speak to me. This is Peter, Peter +Bye, you remember?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>The young doctor repeated the name thickly. “Yes, Peter. +I know. I’m dying.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Not yet. Man, it’s almost day, they’ll come to us. Pull +yourself together. We’ll save you somehow.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Meriwether whispered, “I’m cold.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span> + <h2 id='chap31' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>CHAMBÉRY<a id='tn005'></a>, 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“A Negro, later identified as Henderson Neal, was killed +instantly this afternoon——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>It was all very odd, Harry thought, wondering if Joanna +could interpret this. The situation was too complex for him +to handle.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>and three times a week. The air did her good and the occasion +gave him a chance to study her.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It will turn up, the right thing always does,” he comforted +her. “You know you are lots better already.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And then Henderson killed himself. Oh, John, I’ve been +a wicked, wicked creature.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You were right at first. To let him go. Yes.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>“H’m, what do you suppose he’ll do then, go back to this +other girl?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It sounds so funny to hear you talk of her that way, so +slightingly, almost,” said Maggie, a little surprised.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And what will you do?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I don’t know, I believe I have a sort of idea. Are you +pretty strong now, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“The Doctor says I’m as strong as I’ll ever be without +change of interests and surroundings. Let’s hear about your +idea.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Me,” Maggie breathed, “go to France! To help the poor +boys! Oh, I’d love it, John.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>It was the thing for her. Of course, its accomplishment +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>life <em>is</em> worth living, and we mean to live it to the full.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He let it drop after a brief pressure.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I was thinking of you, Maggie.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And I of you. How wretched you look, Peter!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Do you dread it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m so sorry. That’s why you’re so dismal.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>exalted her and she went about her work the picture of optimism +and happiness.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>On the utmost peak of the Mont du Nivrolet, which towers +east of <span lang="fr">Chambéry</span>, directly opposite the <i><span lang="fr">Chaîne de l’Epine</span></i>, +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.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span> + <h2 id='chap32' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <span lang="fr">Nice</span>.</p> + +<p class='c015'>He had been in <span lang="fr">Chambéry</span> for half of his <em>permission</em> 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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>something of what the Marshall family had brought into +her life.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, Maggie?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>How wonderful to be able to talk like this without false +shame to a Marshall! How wonderful life was! How beautiful +to be experienced!</p> + +<p class='c015'>Philip said rather indifferently:</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Several days elapsed before another talk could be managed. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>Then they met in front of the <i><span lang="fr">Statue des Eléphants</span></i>. Philip, +examining that marvel with meticulous care, asked her indirectly +about Peter.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She glanced at him, hoping to meet an answering joy in his +face, but found instead a deepening mournfulness.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Philip,” she said very gently. “What is it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.’</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>grown up with Joanna and Peter, but that’s all over now. +I cursed Bye out at Des Moines, I remember.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>For the first time since she had known him she recognized +in him a faint bitterness.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“How we complement each other,” he mused. His eye fell +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>on his wasted hand. “Ah, but, Maggie, it is too late. Everything +is too late.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i><span lang="fr">pourboire</span></i> warranted, came in, but went out again, +quietly, smiling.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She looked at him starry-eyed. “You don’t seem so weak, +Philip.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Outside, the cross on <span lang="fr">Nivrolet</span>, a luminous symbol of faith, +pointed steadfastly to heaven.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span> + <h2 id='chap33' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXIII</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Mercy,” said Joanna, “what an idea!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 <em>them</em>, 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>your life. I tell you I feel as though I had found a new +heaven and a new earth.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Wasn’t it awfully dangerous, Vera?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>“Forced to devote your life to it,” Joanna repeated, bewildered. +“Why, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Who?” asked Joanna stupidly. “Peter and—and me? +Why, I haven’t seen him. Why, he’s going to marry Maggie +Ellersley!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No, but I’m glad of it, glad of it. How’d you know all +this, Vera?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Mr. Bye! Well, good evening, Miss High and Mighty. +If I see him I’ll tell him I saw you.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’ll do nothing of the kind. Stop all this raving, Vera, +and explain to me about Harley. Are you going to France, +too?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.’<a id='tn004'></a>” 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span> + <h2 id='chap34' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXIV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i><span lang="fr">congé</span></i> 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You’re right, Harry, it <em>is</em> none of your business. May I ask +how you horn in on this?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well, if you’ve got to know. I’m, I’m deeply interested in +Miss Joanna Marshall and—and——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Hold on, I thought you were speaking of Miss Ellersley.” +Their politeness was wonderful.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Now see here, Bye, tell me, are you going to marry Miss +Ellersley?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I am not.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And Miss Marshall,” said Harry, his face clearing, “have +you told her yet?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Peter’s natural surprise at Neal’s attack on Maggie vanished +<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>into stupefied amazement at the news of Joanna’s generosity. +“She did that for me? Joanna?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes,” Portor told him. “Where’re you going, man?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>They were silent after that. Harry let him off at Joanna’s +corner. “Well, good luck, old man,” he said insincerely.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia’s boy, Roger, let Peter in. “I know who you are,” said +the tall lieutenant. “You are Brian Spencer’s son.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Well,” said Roger, shamelessly, “you go right up those +stairs; ’s that helmet got a plume on it?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna had been singing Tschaikowsky’s “Longing.” Now +she was sitting still reading the words over and over:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span lang="de"><i>Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,</i></span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="de"><i>Weiss was ich leide,</i></span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="de">. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .</span></div> + <div class='line'><span lang="de"><i>Ach! der mich liebt und kennt</i>—</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>She mused over the last line: “Peter, I’m afraid you never +really knew me or loved me.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>He called to her softly from the door of the studio, “Joanna”. +She turned swiftly on the stool and saw him.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Peter!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I used to think,” she told him, “even if Peter does come +back, we never can</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line in15'>‘recapture</div> + <div class='line'>that first fine careless rapture.’”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And their Meriwether is dead. Oh, Peter, if it had been +you!”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Oh, go along,” laughed Joanna, “I’ve been in a million of +their homes. Thought you were all over that nonsense.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Never, if you’ll only promise to come back to me,” she +whispered.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>When he came back at the end of an hour she could see he +was deeply stirred.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Hard on you, wasn’t it, Peter?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I can’t imagine, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna fell back against the red plush seat. “She didn’t, +she couldn’t!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Don’t, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>She put her hand over his mouth, “Peter, you shan’t say it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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!’<a id='tn009'></a>”</p> + +<p class='c015'>They were very sober after that.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I can’t imagine, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Out to the Park, darling. I used to dream of this in +France, when I was in that hospital.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“He must have been wonderful, indeed, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes. And yet the queerest chap. You know I told you he +had made up his mind to die. That was the difference between +<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>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.’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna felt tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>An ineffable solemnity hung around them.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Tell me, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>as love. For people like us, people who can and must suffer—<em>Love</em> +is our refuge and strength.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>is</em> my +country even if my skin is black?’”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“‘<i><span lang="de">Entbehren, sollst du</span></i>,’” 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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....</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m afraid you’ll have to give up your career, dear +Joanna——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Of course, of course, I know it.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“For, if there should be children, I want, Oh, Joanna, I +hope——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“You want them to be different from both you and me, +Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“We can do anything together, Peter.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“And, Joanna, of course you know we will be poor at +first——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>She broke out crying then. “Oh, Peter, you won’t ever +say again that I’m different from Sylvia.”</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span> + <h2 id='chap35' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXV</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>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!</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>and raiment. I shouldn’t have allowed it to make me forget +love.” His grasp on her hand tightened.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>His father, remembering his intense patriotism as a child, +said with a touch of bitter pride: “He died for his country.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“It was what he always wanted to do,” Sylvia said gently. +But Joanna knew that Philip’s real desire envisaged <em>living</em> for +his country—to save her from something worse than war.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Maggie alone remained calm and almost cheerful. “Not +because she’s unfeeling,” Joanna explained to Sylvia, “but +because she is so satisfied.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “Satisfied and Philip dead?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes, because so easily he might have died without their +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span> + <h2 id='chap36' class='c009'><span class='xlarge'>CHAPTER XXXVI</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='drop-capa0_2_0_4 c016'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <em>his</em> fruits +shall ye know <em>me</em>.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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:</p> + +<div class='lg-container-b c013'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>Leave thy low vaulted Past—</div> + <div class='line'>Let each new temple,</div> + <div class='line'>Nobler than the last,</div> + <div class='line'>Shut thee from Heaven</div> + <div class='line'>With a dome more vast</div> + <div class='line'>Till thou at length art free,—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c014'>Joanna was free.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>to the many favors which he had accepted without question +from his Aunt Susan.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 <i><span lang="la">fons et origo</span></i> of authority.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>Sylvia’s boy, Roger, captivated by his new soldier-uncle, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Meriwether’s grandfather!” Peter said in astonishment. +“Come on down with me, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“I’m Peter Bye,” the young man said, coming forward. +“Won’t you sit down? Sit here, Joanna.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>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.’<a id='tn010'></a>”</p> + +<p class='c015'>They sat again in a deep silence.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yes,” said the old gentleman laconically, “it is. Now, +suppose you tell me something about yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Neither Joanna nor Peter had ever thought of wealth. And +<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>while neither of them envisaged for a second the possibility +of parting from little Meriwether, they were momentarily +stunned at such prospects, Joanna especially.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Because,” said Meriwether Bye, getting up and beginning +to pace the floor, “because he <em>is</em> my heir. Because he <em>is</em> 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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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——”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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 +<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Yet,” said Peter harshly, “your conduct has differed not +one whit from his. How long have <em>you</em> known this?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“Since the close of the Civil War. All my brothers had died +but Elmer, and all <em>his</em> 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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'><span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>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?”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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.</p> + +<p class='c015'>“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.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>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. <em>He</em> would +have been an ancestor worth having.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>Joanna looked at him proudly. “Peter, you are wonderful! +Such a man, a great man!”</p> + +<p class='c015'>He sighed a little wistfully. “There spoke the real Joanna. +Greatness, even in daily living, will always be your creed, +I suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c015'>“No,” said Joanna, a shameless apostate, “my creed calls +for nothing but happiness.”</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> +<div class='nf-center c005'> + <div><b>THE END</b></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c001'> +</div> + +<div class='tnote'> + +<div class='nf-center-c1'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div><span class='large'>Transcriber’s Notes</span></div> + </div> +</div> + + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li>Printer’s errors, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. + </li> + <li class='c001'>Variations in hyphenation have been preserved + </li> + <li class='c001'>For the reader’s convenience, a Table of Contents has been + added and is granted to the public domain + </li> + <li class='c001'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted + to the public domain + </li> + </ul> + +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78915 ***</div> +</body> +<!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i on 2026-06-21 14:29:00 GMT --> +</html> diff --git a/78915-h/images/bl.jpg b/78915-h/images/bl.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..62552e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/78915-h/images/bl.jpg diff --git a/78915-h/images/cover.jpg b/78915-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f20a1b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/78915-h/images/cover.jpg |
