She turned her face away, but listened while he read the letter. “He did not love me,” she cried angrily, when he had finished, “or he would not have cast me off–he would not have looked at me so. The law would have let him marry me. I seemed as white as he did. He might have gone anywhere with me, and no one would have stared at us curiously; no one need have known. The world is wide–there must be some place where a man could live happily with the woman he loved.”
“Yes, Rena, there is; and the world is wide enough for you to get along without Tryon.”
“For a day or two,” she went on, “I hoped he might come back. But his expression in that awful moment grew upon me, haunted me day and night, until I shuddered at the thought that I might ever see him again. He looked at me as though I were not even a human being. I do not love him any longer, John; I would not marry him if I were white, or he were as I am. He did not love me–or he would have acted differently. He might have loved me and have left me–he could not have loved me and have looked at me so!”
She was weeping hysterically. There was little he could say to comfort her. Presently she dried her tears. Warwick was reluctant to leave her in Patesville. Her childish happiness had been that of ignorance; she could never be happy there again. She had flowered in the sunlight; she must not pine away in the shade.
“If you won’t come back with me, Rena, I’ll send you to some school at the North, where you can acquire a liberal education, and prepare yourself for some career of usefulness. You may marry a better man than even Tryon.”
“No,” she replied firmly, “I shall never marry any man, and I’ll not leave mother again. God is against it; I’ll stay with my own people.”
“God has nothing to do with it,” retorted Warwick. “God is too often a convenient stalking- horse for human selfishness. If there is anything to be done, so unjust, so despicable, so wicked that human reason revolts at it, there is always some smug hypocrite to exclaim, `It is the will of God.'”
“God made us all,” continued Rena dreamily, “and for some good purpose, though we may not always see it. He made some people white, and strong, and masterful, and–heartless. He made others black and homely, and poor and weak”–
“And a lot of others `poor white’ and shiftless,” smiled Warwick.
“He made us, too,” continued Rena, intent upon her own thought, “and He must have had a reason for it. Perhaps He meant us to bring the others together in his own good time. A man may make a new place for himself–a woman is born and bound to hers. God must have meant me to stay here, or He would not have sent me back. I shall accept things as they are. Why should I seek the society of people whose friendship–and love– one little word can turn to scorn? I was right, John; I ought to have told him. Suppose he had married me and then had found it out?”
To Rena’s argument of divine foreordination Warwick attached no weight whatever. He had seen God’s heel planted for four long years upon the land which had nourished slavery. Had God ordained the crime that the punishment might follow? It would have been easier for Omnipotence to prevent the crime. The experience of his sister had stirred up a certain bitterness against white people–a feeling which he had put aside years ago, with his dark blood, but which sprang anew into life when the fact of his own origin was brought home to him so forcibly through his sister’s misfortune. His sworn friend and promised brother-in- law had thrown him over promptly, upon the discovery of the hidden drop of dark blood. How many others of his friends would do the same, if they but knew of it? He had begun to feel a little of the spiritual estrangement from his associates that he had noticed in Rena during her life at Clarence. The fact that several persons knew his secret had spoiled the fine flavor of perfect security hitherto marking his position. George Tryon was a man of honor among white men, and had deigned to extend the protection of his honor to Warwick as a man, though no longer as a friend; to Rena as a woman, but not as a wife. Tryon, however, was only human, and who could tell when their paths in life might cross again, or what future temptation Tryon might feel to use a damaging secret to their disadvantage? Warwick had cherished certain ambitions, but these he must now put behind him. In the obscurity of private life, his past would be of little moment; in the glare of a political career, one’s antecedents are public property, and too great a reserve in regard to one’s past is regarded as a confession of something discreditable. Frank, too, knew the secret –a good, faithful fellow, even where there was no obligation of fidelity; he ought to do something for Frank to show their appreciation of his conduct. But what assurance was there that Frank would always be discreet about the affairs of others? Judge Straight knew the whole story, and old men are sometimes garrulous. Dr. Green suspected the secret; he had a wife and daughters. If old Judge Straight could have known Warwick’s thoughts, he would have realized the fulfillment of his prophecy. Warwick, who had builded so well for himself, had weakened the structure of his own life by trying to share his good fortune with his sister.
” Listen, Rena,” he said, with a sudden impulse, “we’ll go to the North or West–I’ll go with you–far away from the South and the Southern people, and start life over again. It will be easier for you, it will not be hard for me–I am young, and have means. There are no strong ties to bind me to the South. I would have a larger outlook elsewhere.”
“And what about our mother?” asked Rena.
It would be necessary to leave her behind, they both perceived clearly enough, unless they were prepared to surrender the advantage of their whiteness and drop back to the lower rank. The mother bore the mark of the Ethiopian–not pronouncedly, but distinctly; neither would Mis’ Molly, in all probability, care to leave home and friends and the graves of her loved ones. She had no mental resources to supply the place of these; she was, moreover, too old to be transplanted; she would not fit into Warwick’s scheme for a new life.
“I left her once,” said Rena, “and it brought pain and sorrow to all three of us. She is not strong, and I will not leave her here to die alone. This shall be my home while she lives, and if I leave it again, it shall be for only a short time, to go where I can write to her freely, and hear from her often. Don’t worry about me, John,–I shall do very well.”
Warwick sighed. He was sincerely sorry to leave his sister, and yet he saw that for the time being her resolution was not to be shaken. He must bide his time. Perhaps, in a few months, she would tire of the old life. His door would be always open to her, and he would charge himself with her future.
“Well, then,” he said, concluding the argument, “we’ll say no more about it for the present. I’ll write to you later. I was afraid that you might not care to go back just now, and so I brought your trunk along with me.”
He gave his mother the baggage-check. She took it across to Frank, who, during the day, brought the trunk from the depot. Mis’ Molly offered to pay him for the service, but he would accept nothing.
“Lawd, no, Mis’ Molly; I did n’ hafter go out’n my way ter git dat trunk. I had a load er sperrit- bairls ter haul ter de still, an’ de depot wuz right on my way back. It’d be robbin’ you ter take pay fer a little thing lack dat.”
“My son John’s here,” said Mis’ Molly “an’ he wants to see you. Come into the settin’-room. We don’t want folks to know he’s in town; but you know all our secrets, an’ we can trust you like one er the family.”
“I’m glad to see you again, Frank,” said Warwick, extending his hand and clasping Frank’s warmly. “You’ve grown up since I saw you last, but it seems you are still our good friend.”
“Our very good friend,” interjected Rena.
Frank threw her a grateful glance. “Yas, suh,” he said, looking Warwick over with a friendly eye, “an’ you is growed some, too. I seed you, you know, down dere where you live; but I did n’ let on, fer you an’ Mis’ Rena wuz w’ite as anybody; an’ eve’ybody said you wuz good ter cullud folks, an’ he’ped ’em in deir lawsuits an’ one way er ‘nuther, an’ I wuz jes’ plum’ glad ter see you gettin’ ‘long so fine, dat I wuz, certain sho’, an’ no mistake about it.”
“Thank you, Frank, and I want you to understand how much I appreciate”–
“How much we all appreciate,” corrected Rena.
“Yes, how much we all appreciate, and how grateful we all are for your kindness to mother for so many years. I know from her and from my sister how good you’ve been to them.”
“Lawd, suh!” returned Frank deprecatingly, “you’re makin’ a mountain out’n a molehill. I ain’t done nuthin’ ter speak of–not half ez much ez I would ‘a’ done. I wuz glad ter do w’at little I could, fer frien’ship’s sake.”
“We value your friendship, Frank, and we’ll not forget it.”
“No, Frank,” added Rena, “we will never forget it, and you shall always be our good friend.”
Frank left the room and crossed the street with swelling heart. He would have given his life for Rena. A kind word was doubly sweet from her lips; no service would be too great to pay for her friendship.
When Frank went out to the stable next morning to feed his mule, his eyes opened wide with astonishment. In place of the decrepit, one-eyed army mule he had put up the night before, a fat, sleek specimen of vigorous mulehood greeted his arrival with the sonorous hehaw of lusty youth. Hanging on a peg near by was a set of fine new harness, and standing under the adjoining shed, as he perceived, a handsome new cart.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Frank; “ef I did n’ mos’ know whar dis mule, an’ dis kyart, an’ dis harness come from, I’d ‘low dere ‘d be’n witcheraf’ er cunjin’ wukkin’ here. But, oh my, dat is a fine mule!–I mos’ wush I could keep ‘im.”
He crossed the road to the house behind the cedars, and found Mis’ Molly in the kitchen. “Mis’ Molly,” he protested, “I ain’t done nuthin’ ter deserve dat mule. W’at little I done fer you wa’n’t done fer pay. I’d ruther not keep dem things.”
“Fer goodness’ sake, Frank!” exclaimed his neighbor, with a well-simulated air of mystification, “what are you talkin’ about?”
“You knows w’at I’m talkin’ about, Mis’ Molly; you knows well ernuff I’m talkin’ about dat fine mule an’ kyart an’ harness over dere in my stable.”
“How should I know anything about ’em?” she asked.
“Now, Mis’ Molly! You folks is jes’ tryin’ ter fool me, an’ make me take somethin’ fer nuthin’. I lef’ my ole mule an’ kyart an’ harness in de stable las’ night, an’ dis mawnin’ dey ‘re gone, an’ new ones in deir place. Co’se you knows whar dey come from!”
“Well, now, Frank, sence you mention it, I did see a witch flyin’ roun’ here las’ night on a broom- stick, an’ it ‘peared ter me she lit on yo’r barn, an’ I s’pose she turned yo’r old things into new ones. I wouldn’t bother my mind about it if I was you, for she may turn ’em back any night, you know; an’ you might as well have the use of ’em in the mean while.”
“Dat’s all foolishness, Mis’ Molly, an’ I’m gwine ter fetch dat mule right over here an’ tell yo’ son ter gimme my ole one back.”
“My son’s gone,” she replied, “an’ I don’t know nothin’ about yo’r old mule. And what would I do with a mule, anyhow? I ain’t got no barn to put him in.”
“I suspect you don’t care much for us after all, Frank,” said Rena reproachfully–she had come in while they were talking. “You meet with a piece of good luck, and you’re afraid of it, lest it might have come from us.”
“Now, Miss Rena, you oughtn’t ter say dat,” expostulated Frank, his reluctance yielding immediately. “I’ll keep de mule an’ de kyart an’ de
harness–fac’, I’ll have ter keep ’em, ’cause I ain’t got no others. But dey ‘re gwine ter be yo’n ez much ez mine. W’enever you wants anything hauled, er wants yo’ lot ploughed, er anything– dat’s yo’ mule, an’ I’m yo’ man an’ yo’ mammy’s.”
So Frank went back to the stable, where he feasted his eyes on his new possessions, fed and watered the mule, and curried and brushed his coat until it shone like a looking-glass.
“Now dat,” remarked Peter, at the breakfast- table, when informed of the transaction, “is somethin’ lack rale w’ite folks.”
No real white person had ever given Peter a mule or a cart. He had rendered one of them unpaid service for half a lifetime, and had paid for the other half; and some of them owed him substantial sums for work performed. But “to him that hath shall be given”–Warwick paid for the mule, and the real white folks got most of the credit.
XX
DIGGING UP ROOTS
When the first great shock of his discovery wore off, the fact of Rena’s origin lost to Tryon some of its initial repugnance–indeed, the repugnance was not to the woman at all, as their past relations were evidence, but merely to the thought of her as a wife. It could hardly have failed to occur to so reasonable a man as Tryon that Rena’s case could scarcely be unique. Surely in the past centuries of free manners and easy morals that had prevailed in remote parts of the South, there must have been many white persons whose origin would not have borne too microscopic an investigation. Family trees not seldom have a crooked branch; or, to use a more apposite figure, many a flock has its black sheep. Being a man of lively imagination, Tryon soon found himself putting all sorts of hypothetical questions about a matter which he had already definitely determined. If he had married Rena in ignorance of her secret, and had learned it afterwards, would he have put her aside? If, knowing her history, he had nevertheless married her, and she had subsequently displayed some trait of character that would suggest the negro, could he have forgotten or forgiven the taint? Could he still have held her in love and honor? If not, could he have given her the outward seeming of affection, or could he have been more than coldly tolerant? He was glad that he had been spared this ordeal. With an effort he put the whole matter definitely and conclusively aside, as he had done a hundred times already.
Returning to his home, after an absence of several months in South Carolina, it was quite apparent to his mother’s watchful eye that he was in serious trouble. He was absent-minded, monosyllabic, sighed deeply and often, and could not always conceal the traces of secret tears. For Tryon was young, and possessed of a sensitive soul–a source of happiness or misery, as the Fates decree. To those thus dowered, the heights of rapture are accessible, the abysses of despair yawn threateningly; only the dull monotony of contentment is denied.
Mrs. Tryon vainly sought by every gentle art a woman knows to win her son’s confidence. “What is the matter, George, dear?” she would ask, stroking his hot brow with her small, cool hand as he sat moodily nursing his grief. “Tell your mother, George. Who else could comfort you so well as she?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, mother,–nothing at all,” he would reply, with a forced attempt at lightness. “It’s only your fond imagination, you best of mothers.”
It was Mrs. Tryon’s turn to sigh and shed a clandestine tear. Until her son had gone away on this trip to South Carolina, he had kept no secrets from her: his heart had been an open book, of which she knew every page; now, some painful story was inscribed therein which he meant she should not read. If she could have abdicated her empire to Blanche Leary or have shared it with her, she would have yielded gracefully; but very palpably some other influence than Blanche’s had driven joy from her son’s countenance and lightness from his heart.
Miss Blanche Leary, whom Tryon found in the house upon his return, was a demure, pretty little blonde, with an amiable disposition, a talent for society, and a pronounced fondness for George Tryon. A poor girl, of an excellent family impoverished by the war, she was distantly related to Mrs. Tryon, had for a long time enjoyed that lady’s favor, and was her choice for George’s wife when he should be old enough to marry. A woman less interested than Miss Leary would have perceived that there was something wrong with Tryon. Miss Leary had no doubt that there was a woman at the bottom of it,–for about what else should youth worry but love? or if one’s love affairs run smoothly, why should one worry about anything at all? Miss Leary, in the nineteen years of her mundane existence, had not been without mild experiences of the heart, and had hovered for some time on the verge of disappointment with respect to Tryon himself. A sensitive pride would have driven more than one woman away at the sight of the man of her preference sighing like a furnace for some absent fair one. But Mrs. Tryon was so cordial, and insisted so strenuously upon her remaining, that Blanche’s love, which was strong, conquered her pride, which was no more than a reasonable young woman ought to have who sets success above mere sentiment. She remained in the house and bided her opportunity. If George practically ignored her for a time, she did not throw herself at all in his way. She went on a visit to some girls in the neighborhood and remained away a week, hoping that she might be missed. Tryon expressed no regret at her departure and no particular satisfaction upon her return. If the house was duller in her absence, he was but dimly conscious of the difference. He was still fighting a battle in which a susceptible heart and a reasonable mind had locked horns in a well-nigh hopeless conflict. Reason, common-sense, the instinctive ready-made judgments of his training and environment,– the deep-seated prejudices of race and
caste,–commanded him to dismiss Rena from his thoughts. His stubborn heart simply would not let go.
XXI
A GILDED OPPORTUNITY
Although the whole fabric of Rena’s new life toppled and fell with her lover’s defection, her sympathies, broadened by culture and still more by her recent emotional experience, did not shrink, as would have been the case with a more selfish soul, to the mere limits of her personal sorrow, great as this seemed at the moment. She had learned to love, and when the love of one man failed her, she turned to humanity, as a stream obstructed in its course overflows the adjacent country. Her early training had not directed her thoughts to the darker people with whose fate her own was bound up so closely, but rather away from them. She had been taught to despise them because they were not so white as she was, and had been slaves while she was free. Her life in her brother’s home, by removing her from immediate contact with them, had given her a different point of view,–one which emphasized their shortcomings, and thereby made vastly clearer to her the gulf that separated them from the new world in which she lived; so that when misfortune threw her back upon them, the reaction brought her nearer than before. Where once she had seemed able to escape from them, they were now, it appeared, her inalienable race. Thus doubly equipped, she was able to view them at once with the mental eye of an outsider and the sympathy of a sister: she could see their faults, and judge them charitably; she knew and appreciated their good qualities. With her quickened intelligence she could perceive how great was their need and how small their opportunity; and with this illumination came the desire to contribute to their help. She had not the breadth or culture to see in all its ramifications the great problem which still puzzles statesmen and philosophers; but she was conscious of the wish, and of the power, in a small way, to do something for the advancement of those who had just set their feet upon the ladder of progress.
This new-born desire to be of service to her rediscovered people was not long without an opportunity for expression. Yet the Fates willed that her future should be but another link in a connected chain: she was to be as powerless to put aside her recent past as she had been to escape from the influence of her earlier life. There are sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die, and imagine they have lived. But Rena’s life since her great awakening had been that of the emotions, and her temperament made of it a continuous life. Her successive states of consciousness were not detachable, but united to form a single if not an entirely harmonious whole. To her sensitive spirit to-day was born of yesterday, to-morrow would be but the offspring of to day.
One day, along toward noon, her mother received a visit from Mary B. Pettifoot, a second cousin, who lived on Back Street, only a short distance from the house behind the cedars. Rena had gone out, so that the visitor found Mis’ Molly alone.
“I heared you say, Cousin Molly,” said Mary B. (no one ever knew what the B. in Mary’s name stood for,–it was a mere ornamental flourish), “that Rena was talkin’ ’bout teachin’ school. I’ve got a good chance fer her, ef she keers ter take it. My cousin Jeff Wain ‘rived in town this mo’nin’, f’m ‘way down in Sampson County, ter git a teacher fer the nigger school in his deestric’. I s’pose he mought ‘a’ got one f’m ‘roun’ Newbern, er Goldsboro, er some er them places eas’, but he ‘lowed he’d like to visit some er his kin an’ ole frien’s, an’ so kill two birds with one stone.”
“I seed a strange mulatter man, with a bay hoss an’ a new buggy, drivin’ by here this mo’nin’ early, from down to’ds the river,” rejoined Mis’ Molly. “I wonder if that wuz him?”
“Did he have on a linen duster?” asked Mary B.
“Yas, an’ ‘peared to be a very well sot up man,” replied Mis’ Molly, ” ’bout thirty-five years old, I should reckon.”
“That wuz him,” assented Mary B. “He’s got a fine hoss an’ buggy, an’ a gol’ watch an’ chain, an’ a big plantation, an’ lots er hosses an’ mules an’ cows an’ hawgs. He raise’ fifty bales er cotton las’ year, an’ he’s be’n ter the legislatur’.”
” My gracious!” exclaimed Mis’ Molly, struck with awe at this catalogue of the stranger’s possessions– he was evidently worth more than a great many “rich” white people,–all white people in North Carolina in those days were either “rich” or “poor,” the distinction being one of caste rather than of wealth. “Is he married?” she inquired with interest?
“No,–single. You mought ‘low it was quare that he should n’ be married at his age; but he was crossed in love oncet,”–Mary B. heaved a self-conscious sigh,–“an’ has stayed single ever sence. That wuz ten years ago, but as some husban’s is long-lived, an’ there ain’ no mo’ chance fer ‘im now than there wuz then, I reckon some nice gal mought stan’ a good show er ketchin’ ‘im, ef she’d play her kyards right.”
To Mis’ Molly this was news of considerable importance. She had not thought a great deal of Rena’s plan to teach; she considered it lowering for Rena, after having been white, to go among the negroes any more than was unavoidable. This opportunity, however, meant more than mere employment for her daughter. She had felt Rena’s disappointment keenly, from the practical point of view, and, blaming herself for it, held herself all the more bound to retrieve the misfortune in any possible way. If she had not been sick, Rena would not have dreamed the fateful dream that had brought her to Patesville; for the connection between the vision and the reality was even closer in Mis’ Molly’s eyes than in Rena’s. If the mother had not sent the letter announcing her illness and confirming the dream, Rena would not have ruined her promising future by coming to Patesville. But the harm had been done, and she was responsible, ignorantly of course, but none the less truly, and it only remained for her to make amends, as far as possible. Her highest ambition, since Rena had grown up, had been to see her married and comfortably settled in life. She had no hope that Tryon would come back. Rena had declared that she would make no further effort to get away from her people; and, furthermore, that she would never marry. To this latter statement Mis’ Molly secretly attached but little importance. That a woman should go single from the cradle to the grave did not accord with her experience in life of the customs of North Carolina. She respected a grief she could not entirely fathom, yet did not for a moment believe that Rena would remain unmarried.
“You’d better fetch him roun’ to see me, Ma’y B.,” she said, “an’ let’s see what he looks like. I’m pertic’lar ’bout my gal. She says she ain’t goin’ to marry nobody; but of co’se we know that’s all foolishness.”
“I’ll fetch him roun’ this evenin’ ’bout three o’clock,” said the visitor, rising. “I mus’ hurry back now an’ keep him comp’ny. Tell Rena ter put on her bes’ bib an’ tucker; for Mr. Wain is pertic’lar too, an’ I’ve already be’n braggin’ ’bout her looks.”
When Mary B., at the appointed hour, knocked at Mis’ Molly’s front door,–the visit being one of ceremony, she had taken her cousin round to the Front Street entrance and through the flower garden,–Mis’ Molly was prepared to receive them. After a decent interval, long enough to suggest that she had not been watching their approach and was not over-eager about the visit, she answered the knock and admitted them into the parlor. Mr. Wain was formally introduced, and seated himself on the ancient haircloth sofa, under the framed fashion-plate, while Mary B. sat by the open door and fanned herself with a palm-leaf fan.
Mis’ Molly’s impression of Wain was favorable. His complexion was of a light brown–not quite so fair as Mis’ Molly would have preferred; but any deficiency in this regard, or in the matter of the stranger’s features, which, while not unpleasing, leaned toward the broad mulatto type, was more than compensated in her eyes by very straight black hair, and, as soon appeared, a great facility of complimentary speech. On his introduction Mr. Wain bowed low, assumed an air of great admiration, and expressed his extreme delight in making the acquaintance of so distinguished-looking a lady.
“You’re flatt’rin’ me, Mr. Wain,” returned Mis’ Molly, with a gratified smile. “But you want to meet my daughter befo’ you commence th’owin’ bokays. Excuse my leavin’ you–I’ll go an’ fetch her.”
She returned in a moment, followed by Rena. “Mr. Wain, ‘low me to int’oduce you to my daughter Rena. Rena, this is Ma’y B.’s cousin on her pappy’s side, who’s come up from Sampson to git a school-teacher.”
Rena bowed gracefully. Wain stared a moment in genuine astonishment, and then bent himself nearly double, keeping his eyes fixed meanwhile upon Rena’s face. He had expected to see a pretty yellow girl, but had been prepared for no such radiant vision of beauty as this which now confronted him.
“Does–does you mean ter say, Mis’ Walden, dat–dat dis young lady is yo’ own daughter?” he stammered, rallying his forces for action.
“Why not, Mr. Wain?” asked Mis’ Molly, bridling with mock resentment. “Do you mean ter ‘low that she wuz changed in her cradle, er is she too good-lookin’ to be my daughter?”
“My deah Mis’ Walden! it ‘ud be wastin’ wo’ds fer me ter say dat dey ain’ no young lady too good- lookin’ ter be yo’ daughter; but you’re lookin’ so young yo’sef dat I’d ruther take her fer yo’ sister.”
“Yas,” rejoined Mis’ Molly, with animation, “they ain’t many years between us. I wuz ruther young myself when she wuz bo’n.”
“An’, mo’over,” Wain went on, “it takes me a minute er so ter git my min’ use’ ter thinkin’ er Mis’ Rena as a cullud young lady. I mought ‘a’ seed her a hund’ed times, an’ I’d ‘a’ never dreamt but w’at she wuz a w’ite young lady, f’m one er de bes’ families.”
“Yas, Mr. Wain,” replied Mis’ Molly
complacently, “all three er my child’en wuz white, an’ one of ’em has be’n on the other side fer many long years. Rena has be’n to school, an’ has traveled, an’ has had chances–better chances than anybody roun’ here knows.”
“She’s jes’ de lady I’m lookin’ fer, ter teach ou’ school,” rejoined Wain, with emphasis. “Wid her schoolin’ an’ my riccommen’, she kin git a fus’- class ce’tifikit an’ draw fo’ty dollars a month; an’ a lady er her color kin keep a lot er little niggers straighter ‘n a darker lady could. We jus’ got ter have her ter teach ou’ school–ef we kin git her.”
Rena’s interest in the prospect of employment at her chosen work was so great that she paid little attention to Wain’s compliments. Mis’ Molly led Mary B. away to the kitchen on some pretext, and left Rena to entertain the gentleman. She questioned him eagerly about the school, and he gave the most glowing accounts of the elegant school- house, the bright pupils, and the congenial society of the neighborhood. He spoke almost entirely in superlatives, and, after making due allowance for what Rena perceived to be a temperamental tendency to exaggeration, she concluded that she would find in the school a worthy field of usefulness, and in this polite and good-natured though somewhat wordy man a coadjutor upon whom she could rely in her first efforts; for she was not over-confident of her powers, which seemed to grow less as the way opened for their exercise.
“Do you think I’m competent to teach the school?” she asked of the visitor, after stating some of her qualifications.
“Oh, dere ‘s no doubt about it, Miss Rena,” replied Wain, who had listened with an air of great wisdom, though secretly aware that he was too ignorant of letters to form a judgment; “you kin teach de school all right, an’ could ef you didn’t know half ez much. You won’t have no trouble managin’ de child’en, nuther. Ef any of ’em gits onruly, jes’ call on me fer he’p, an’ I’ll make ’em walk Spanish. I’m chuhman er de school committee, an’ I’ll lam de hide off’n any scholar dat don’ behave. You kin trus’ me fer dat, sho’ ez I’m a-settin’ here.”
“Then,” said Rena, “I’ll undertake it, and do my best. I’m sure you’ll not be too exacting.”
“Yo’ bes’, Miss Rena,’ll be de bes’ dey is. Don’ you worry ner fret. Dem niggers won’t have no other teacher after dey’ve once laid eyes on you: I’ll guarantee dat. Dere won’t be no trouble, not a bit.”
“Well, Cousin Molly,” said Mary B. to Mis’ Molly in the kitchen, “how does the plan strike you?”
“Ef Rena’s satisfied, I am,” replied Mis’ Molly. “But you’d better say nothin’ about ketchin’ a beau, or any such foolishness, er else she’d be just as likely not to go nigh Sampson County.”
“Befo’ Cousin Jeff goes back,” confided Mary B., “I’d like ter give ‘im a party, but my house is too small. I wuz wonderin’,” she added tentatively, “ef I could n’ borry yo’ house.”
“Shorely, Ma’y B. I’m int’rested in Mr. Wain on Rena’s account, an’ it’s as little as I kin do to let you use my house an’ help you git things ready.”
The date of the party was set for Thursday night, as Wain was to leave Patesville on Friday morning, taking with him the new teacher. The party would serve the double purpose of a compliment to the guest and a farewell to Rena, and it might prove the precursor, the mother secretly hoped, of other festivities to follow at some later date.
XXII
IMPERATIVE BUSINESS
One Wednesday morning, about six weeks after his return home, Tryon received a letter from Judge Straight with reference to the note left with him at Patesville for collection. This communication properly required an answer, which might have been made in writing within the compass of ten lines. No sooner, however, had Tryon read the letter than he began to perceive reasons why it should be answered in person. He had left Patesville under extremely painful circumstances, vowing that he would never return; and
yet now the barest pretext, by which no one could have been deceived except willingly, was sufficient to turn his footsteps thither again. He explained to his mother–with a vagueness which she found somewhat puzzling, but ascribed to her own feminine obtuseness in matters of business–the reasons that imperatively demanded his presence in Patesville. With an early start he could drive there in one day,–he had an excellent roadster, a light buggy, and a recent rain had left the road in good condition,–a day would suffice for the transaction of his business, and the third day would bring him home again. He set out on his journey on Thursday morning, with this programme very clearly outlined.
Tryon would not at first have admitted even to himself that Rena’s presence in Patesville had any bearing whatever upon his projected visit. The matter about which Judge Straight had written might, it was clear, be viewed in several aspects. The judge had written him concerning the one of immediate importance. It would be much easier to discuss the subject in all its bearings, and clean up the whole matter, in one comprehensive personal interview.
The importance of this business, then, seemed very urgent for the first few hours of Tryon’s journey. Ordinarily a careful driver and merciful to his beast, his eagerness to reach Patesville increased gradually until it became necessary to exercise some self-restraint in order not to urge his faithful mare beyond her powers; and soon he could no longer pretend obliviousness of the fact that some attraction stronger than the whole amount of Duncan McSwayne’s note was urging him irresistibly toward his destination. The old town beyond the distant river, his heart told him clamorously, held the object in all the world to him most dear. Memory brought up in vivid detail every moment of his brief and joyous courtship, each tender word, each enchanting smile, every fond caress. He lived his past happiness over again down to the moment of that fatal discovery. What horrible fate was it that had involved him–nay, that had caught this sweet delicate girl in such a blind alley? A wild hope flashed across his mind: perhaps the ghastly story might not be true; perhaps, after all, the girl was no more a negro than she seemed. He had heard sad stories of white children, born out of wedlock, abandoned by sinful parents to the care or adoption of colored women, who had reared them as their own, the children’s future basely sacrificed to hide the parents’ shame. He would confront this reputed mother of his darling and wring the truth from her. He was in a state of mind where any sort of a fairy tale would have seemed reasonable. He would almost have bribed some one to tell him that the woman he had loved, the woman he still loved (he felt a thrill of lawless pleasure in the confession), was not the descendant of slaves,– that he might marry her, and not have before his eyes the gruesome fear that some one of their children might show even the faintest mark of the despised race.
At noon he halted at a convenient hamlet, fed and watered his mare, and resumed his journey after an hour’s rest. By this time he had well- nigh forgotten about the legal business that formed the ostensible occasion for his journey, and was conscious only of a wild desire to see the woman whose image was beckoning him on to Patesville as fast as his horse could take him.
At sundown he stopped again, about ten miles from the town, and cared for his now tired beast. He knew her capacity, however, and calculated that she could stand the additional ten miles without injury. The mare set out with reluctance, but soon settled resignedly down into a steady jog.
Memory had hitherto assailed Tryon with the vision of past joys. As he neared the town, imagination attacked him with still more moving images. He had left her, this sweet flower of womankind–white or not, God had never made a fairer!–he had seen her fall to the hard pavement, with he knew not what resulting injury. He had left her tender frame–the touch of her finger-tips had made him thrill with happiness– to be lifted by strange hands, while he with heartless pride had driven deliberately away, without a word of sorrow or regret. He had ignored her as completely as though she had never existed. That he had been deceived was true. But had he not aided in his own deception? Had not Warwick told him distinctly that they were of no family, and was it not his own fault that he had not followed up the clue thus given him? Had not Rena compared herself to the child’s nurse, and had he not assured her that if she were the nurse, he would marry her next day? The deception had been due more to his own blindness than to any lack of honesty on the part of Rena and her brother. In the light of his present feelings they seemed to have been absurdly outspoken. He was glad that he had kept his discovery to himself. He had considered himself very magnanimous not to have exposed the fraud that was
being perpetrated upon society: it was with a very comfortable feeling that he now realized that the matter was as profound a secret as before.
“She ought to have been born white,” he muttered, adding weakly, “I would to God that I had never found her out!”
Drawing near the bridge that crossed the river to the town, he pictured to himself a pale girl, with sorrowful, tear-stained eyes, pining away in the old gray house behind the cedars for love of him, dying, perhaps, of a broken heart. He would hasten to her; he would dry her tears with kisses; he would express sorrow for his cruelty.
The tired mare had crossed the bridge and was slowly toiling up Front Street; she was near the limit of her endurance, and Tryon did not urge her.
They might talk the matter over, and if they must part, part at least they would in peace and friendship. If he could not marry her, he would never marry any one else; it would be cruel for him to seek happiness while she was denied it, for, having once given her heart to him, she could never, he was sure,–so instinctively fine was her nature,–she could never love any one less worthy than himself, and would therefore probably never marry. He knew from a Clarence acquaintance, who had written him a letter, that Rena had not reappeared in that town.
If he should discover–the chance was one in a thousand–that she was white; or if he should find it too hard to leave her–ah, well! he was a white man, one of a race born to command. He would make her white; no one beyond the old town would ever know the difference. If, perchance, their secret should be disclosed, the world was wide; a man of courage and ambition, inspired by love, might make a career anywhere. Circumstances made weak men; strong men mould circumstances to do their bidding. He would not
let his darling die of grief, whatever the price must be paid for her salvation. She was only a few rods away from him now. In a moment he would see her; he would take her tenderly in his arms, and heart to heart they would mutually forgive and forget, and, strengthened by their love, would face the future boldly and bid the world do its worst.
XXIII
THE GUEST OF HONOR
The evening of the party arrived. The house had been thoroughly cleaned in preparation for the event, and decorated with the choicest treasures of the garden. By eight o’clock the guests had gathered. They were all mulattoes,–all people of
mixed blood were called “mulattoes” in North Carolina. There were dark mulattoes and bright mulattoes. Mis’ Molly’s guests were mostly of the bright class, most of them more than half white, and few of them less. In Mis’ Molly’s small circle, straight hair was the only palliative of a dark complexion. Many of the guests would not have been casually distinguishable from white people of the poorer class. Others bore unmistakable traces of Indian ancestry,–for Cherokee and Tuscarora blood was quite widely diffused among the free negroes of North Carolina, though well-nigh lost sight of by the curious custom of the white people to ignore anything but the negro blood in those who were touched by its potent current. Very few of those present had been slaves. The free colored people of Patesville were numerous enough before the war to have their own “society,” and human enough to despise those who did not possess advantages equal to their own; and at this time they still looked down upon those who had once been held in bondage. The only black man present occupied a chair which stood on a broad chest in one corner, and extracted melody from a fiddle to which a whole generation of the best people of Patesville had danced and made merry. Uncle Needham seldom played for colored gatherings, but made an exception in Mis’ Molly’s case; she was not white, but he knew her past; if she was not the rose, she had at least been near the rose. When the company had gathered, Mary B., as mistress of ceremonies, whispered to Uncle Needham, who tapped his violin sharply with the bow.
“Ladies an’ gent’emens, take yo’ pa’dners fer a Fuhginny reel!”
Mr. Wain, as the guest of honor, opened the ball with his hostess. He wore a broadcloth coat and trousers, a heavy glittering chain across the spacious front of his white waistcoat, and a large red rose in his buttonhole. If his boots were slightly run down at the heel, so trivial a detail passed unnoticed in the general splendor of his attire. Upon a close or hostile inspection there would have been some features of his ostensibly good-natured face–the shifty eye, the full and slightly drooping lower lip–which might have given a student of physiognomy food for reflection. But whatever the latent defects of Wain’s character, he proved himself this evening a model of geniality, presuming not at all upon his reputed wealth, but winning golden opinions from those who came to criticise, of whom, of course, there were a few, the company being composed of human beings.
When the dance began, Wain extended his large, soft hand to Mary B., yellow, buxom, thirty, with white and even teeth glistening behind her full red lips. A younger sister of Mary B.’s was paired with Billy Oxendine, a funny little tailor, a great gossip, and therefore a favorite among the women. Mis’ Molly graciously consented, after many protestations of lack of skill and want of practice, to stand up opposite Homer Pettifoot, Mary B.’s husband, a tall man, with a slight stoop, a bald crown, and full, dreamy eyes,–a man of much imagination and a large fund of anecdote. Two other couples completed the set; others were restrained by bashfulness or religious scruples, which did not yield until later in the evening.
The perfumed air from the garden without and the cut roses within mingled incongruously with the alien odors of musk and hair oil, of which several young barbers in the company were especially redolent. There was a play of sparkling eyes and glancing feet. Mary B. danced with the languorous grace of an Eastern odalisque, Mis’ Molly with the mincing, hesitating step of one long out of practice. Wain performed saltatory prodigies. This was a golden opportunity for the display in which his soul found delight. He introduced variations hitherto unknown to the dance. His skill and suppleness brought a glow of admiration into the eyes of the women, and spread a cloud of jealousy over the faces of several of the younger men, who saw themselves eclipsed.
Rena had announced in advance her intention to take no active part in the festivities. “I don’t feel like dancing, mamma–I shall never dance again.”
“Well, now, Rena,” answered her mother, “of co’se you’re too dignified, sence you’ve be’n ‘sociatin’ with white folks, to be hoppin’ roun’ an’ kickin’ up like Ma’y B. an’ these other yaller gals; but of co’se, too, you can’t slight the comp’ny entirely, even ef it ain’t jest exac’ly our party,– you’ll have to pay ’em some little attention, ‘specially Mr. Wain, sence you’re goin’ down yonder with ‘im.”
Rena conscientiously did what she thought politeness required. She went the round of the guests in the early part of the evening and exchanged greetings with them. To several requests for dances she replied that she was not dancing. She did not hold herself aloof because of pride; any instinctive shrinking she might have felt by reason of her recent association with persons of greater refinement was offset by her still more newly awakened zeal for humanity; they were her people, she must not despise them. But the occasion suggested painful memories of other and different scenes in which she had lately participated. Once or twice these memories were so vivid as almost to overpower her. She slipped away from the company, and kept in the background as much as possible without seeming to slight any one.
The guests as well were dimly conscious of a slight barrier between Mis’ Molly’s daughter and themselves. The time she had spent apart from these friends of her youth had rendered it impossible for her ever to meet them again upon the plane of common interests and common thoughts. It was much as though one, having acquired the vernacular of his native country, had lived in a foreign land long enough to lose the language of his childhood without acquiring fully that of his adopted country. Miss Rowena Warwick could never again become quite the Rena Walden who had left the house behind the cedars no more than a year and a half before. Upon this very difference were based her noble aspirations for usefulness,–one must stoop in order that one may lift others. Any other young woman present would have been importuned beyond her powers of resistance. Rena’s
reserve was respected.
When supper was announced, somewhat early in the evening, the dancers found seats in the hall or on the front piazza. Aunt Zilphy, assisted by Mis’ Molly and Mary B., passed around the refreshments, which consisted of fried chicken, buttered biscuits, pound-cake, and eggnog. When the first edge of appetite was taken off, the conversation waxed animated. Homer Pettifoot related, with minute detail, an old, threadbare hunting lie, dating, in slightly differing forms, from the age of Nimrod, about finding twenty-five partridges sitting in a row on a rail, and killing them all with a single buckshot, which passed through twenty-four and lodged in the body of the twenty-fifth, from which it was extracted and returned to the shot pouch for future service.
This story was followed by a murmur of incredulity–of course, the thing was possible, but Homer’s faculty for exaggeration was so well known that any statement of his was viewed with suspicion. Homer seemed hurt at this lack of faith, and was disposed to argue the point, but the sonorous voice of Mr. Wain on the other side of the room cut short his protestations, in much the same way that the rising sun extinguishes the light of lesser luminaries.
“I wuz a member er de fus’ legislatur’ after de wah,” Wain was saying. “When I went up f’m Sampson in de fall, I had to pass th’ough Smithfiel’, I got in town in de afternoon, an’ put up at de bes’ hotel. De lan’lo’d did n’ have no s’picion but what I wuz a white man, an’ he gimme a room, an’ I had supper an’ breakfas’, an’ went on ter Rolly nex’ mornin’. W’en de session wuz over, I come along back, an’ w’en I got ter Smithfiel’, I driv’ up ter de same hotel. I noticed, as soon as I got dere, dat de place had run down consid’able– dere wuz weeds growin’ in de yard, de winders wuz dirty, an’ ev’ything roun’ dere looked kinder lonesome an’ shif’less. De lan’lo’d met me at de do’; he looked mighty down in de mouth, an’ sezee:–
“`Look a-here, w’at made you come an’ stop at my place widout tellin’ me you wuz a black man? Befo’ you come th’ough dis town I had a fus’-class business. But w’en folks found out dat a nigger had put up here, business drapped right off, an’ I’ve had ter shet up my hotel. You oughter be’shamed er yo’se’f fer ruinin’ a po’ man w’at had n’ never done no harm ter you. You’ve done a mean, low-lived thing, an’ a jes’ God’ll punish you fer it.’
“De po’ man acshully bust inter tears,” continued Mr. Wain magnanimously, “an’ I felt so sorry fer ‘im–he wuz a po’ white man tryin’ ter git up in de worl’–dat I hauled out my purse an’ gin ‘im ten dollars, an’ he ‘peared monst’ous glad ter git it.”
” How good-hearted! How kin’!” murmured the ladies. “It done credit to yo’ feelin’s.”
” Don’t b’lieve a word er dem lies,” muttered one young man to another sarcastically. “He could n’ pass fer white, ‘less’n it wuz a mighty dark night.”
Upon this glorious evening of his life, Mr. Jefferson Wain had one distinctly hostile critic, of whose presence he was blissfully unconscious. Frank Fowler had not been invited to the party,– his family did not go with Mary B.’s set. Rena had suggested to her mother that he be invited, but Mis’ Molly had demurred on the ground that it was not her party, and that she had no right to issue invitations. It is quite likely that she would have sought an invitation for Frank from Mary B.; but Frank was black, and would not harmonize with the rest of the company, who would not have Mis’ Molly’s reasons for treating him well. She had compromised the matter by stepping across the way in the afternoon and suggesting that Frank might come over and sit on the back porch and look at the dancing and share in the supper.
Frank was not without a certain honest pride. He was sensitive enough, too, not to care to go where he was not wanted. He would have curtly refused any such maimed invitation to any other place. But would he not see Rena in her best attire, and might she not perhaps, in passing, speak a word to him?
“Thank y’, Mis’ Molly,” he replied, “I’ll prob’ly come over.”
“You’re a big fool, boy,” observed his father after Mis’ Molly had gone back across the street, “ter be stickin’ roun’ dem yaller niggers ‘cross de street, an’ slobb’rin’ an’ slav’rin’ over ’em, an’ hangin’ roun’ deir back do’ wuss ‘n ef dey wuz w’ite folks. I’d see ’em dead fus’!”
Frank himself resisted the temptation for half an hour after the music began, but at length he made his way across the street and stationed himself at the window opening upon the back piazza. When Rena was in the room, he had eyes for her only, but when she was absent, he fixed his attention mainly upon Wain. With jealous clairvoyance he observed that Wain’s eyes followed Rena when she left the room, and lit up when she returned. Frank had heard that Rena was going away with this man, and he watched Wain closely, liking him less the longer he looked at him. To his fancy, Wain’s style and skill were affectation, his good-nature mere hypocrisy, and his glance at Rena the eye of the hawk upon his quarry. He had heard that Wain was unmarried, and he could not see how, this being so, he could help wishing Rena for a wife. Frank would have been content to see her marry a white man, who would have raised her to a plane worthy of her merits. In this man’s shifty eye he read the liar–his wealth and standing were probably as false as his seeming good-humor.
“Is that you, Frank?” said a soft voice near at hand.
He looked up with a joyful thrill. Rena was peering intently at him, as if trying to distinguish his features in the darkness. It was a bright moonlight night, but Frank stood in the shadow of the piazza.
“Yas ‘m, it’s me, Miss Rena. Yo’ mammy said I could come over an’ see you-all dance. You ain’ be’n out on de flo’ at all, ter-night.”
” No, Frank, I don’t care for dancing. I shall not dance to-night.”
This answer was pleasing to Frank. If he could not hope to dance with her, at least the men inside –at least this snake in the grass from down the country–should not have that privilege.
“But you must have some supper, Frank,” said Rena. “I’ll bring it myself.”
“No, Miss Rena, I don’ keer fer nothin’–I did n’ come over ter eat–r’al’y I didn’t.”
“Nonsense, Frank, there’s plenty of it. I have no appetite, and you shall have my portion.”
She brought him a slice of cake and a glass of eggnog. When Mis’ Molly, a minute later, came out upon the piazza, Frank left the yard and walked down the street toward the old canal. Rena had spoken softly to him; she had fed him with her own dainty hands. He might never hope that she would see in him anything but a friend; but he loved her, and he would watch over her and protect her, wherever she might be. He did not believe that she would ever marry the grinning hypocrite masquerading back there in Mis’ Molly’s parlor; but the man would bear watching.
Mis’ Molly had come to call her daughter into the house. “Rena,” she said, “Mr. Wain wants ter know if you won’t dance just one dance with him.”
“Yas, Rena,” pleaded Mary B., who followed Miss Molly out to the piazza, “jes’ one dance. I don’t think you’re treatin’ my comp’ny jes’ right, Cousin Rena.”
“You’re goin’ down there with ‘im,” added her mother, “an’ it ‘d be just as well to be on friendly terms with ‘im.”
Wain himself had followed the women. “Sho’ly, Miss Rena, you’re gwine ter honah me wid one dance? I’d go ‘way f’m dis pa’ty sad at hea’t ef I had n’ stood up oncet wid de young lady er de house.”
As Rena, weakly persuaded, placed her hand on Wain’s arm and entered the house, a buggy, coming up Front Street, paused a moment at the corner, and then turning slowly, drove quietly up the nameless by-street, concealed by the intervening cedars, until it reached a point from which the occupant could view, through the open front window, the interior of the parlor.
XXIV
SWING YOUR PARTNERS
Moved by tenderness and thoughts of self-sacrifice, which had occupied his mind to the momentary exclusion of all else, Tryon had scarcely noticed, as be approached the house behind the cedars, a strain of lively music, to which was added, as he drew still nearer, the accompaniment of other festive sounds. He suddenly awoke, however, to the fact that these signs of merriment came from the house at which he had intended to stop;– he had not meant that Rena should pass another sleepless night of sorrow, or that he should himself endure another needless hour of suspense.
He drew rein at the corner. Shocked surprise, a nascent anger, a vague alarm, an insistent curiosity, urged him nearer. Turning the mare into the side street and keeping close to the fence, he drove ahead in the shadow of the cedars until he reached a gap through which he could see into the open door and windows of the brightly lighted hall.
There was evidently a ball in progress. The fiddle was squeaking merrily so a tune that he remembered well,–it was associated with one of the most delightful evenings of his life, that of the tournament ball. A mellow negro voice was calling with a rhyming accompaniment the figures of a quadrille. Tryon, with parted lips and slowly hardening heart, leaned forward from the buggy- seat, gripping the rein so tightly that his nails cut into the opposing palm. Above the clatter of noisy conversation rose the fiddler’s voice:–
“Swing yo’ pa’dners; doan be shy,
Look yo’ lady in de eye!
Th’ow yo’ ahm aroun’ huh wais’; Take yo’ time–dey ain’ no has’e!”
To the middle of the floor, in full view through an open window, advanced the woman who all day long had been the burden of his thoughts–not pale with grief and hollow-eyed with weeping, but flushed with pleasure, around her waist the arm of a burly, grinning mulatto, whose face was offensively familiar to Tryon.
With a muttered curse of concentrated bitterness, Tryon struck the mare a sharp blow with the whip. The sensitive creature, spirited even in her great weariness, resented the lash and started off with the bit in her teeth. Perceiving that it would be difficult to turn in the narrow roadway without running into the ditch at the left, Tryon gave the mare rein and dashed down the street, scarcely missing, as the buggy crossed the bridge, a man standing abstractedly by the old canal, who sprang aside barely in time to avoid being run over.
Meantime Rena was passing through a trying ordeal. After the first few bars, the fiddler plunged into a well-known air, in which Rena, keenly susceptible to musical impressions, recognized the tune to which, as Queen of Love and Beauty, she had opened the dance at her entrance into the world of life and love, for it was there she had met George Tryon. The combination of music and movement brought up the scene with great distinctness. Tryon, peering angrily through the cedars, had not been more conscious than she of the external contrast between her partners on this and the former occasion. She perceived, too, as Tryon from the outside had not, the difference between Wain’s wordy flattery (only saved by his cousin’s warning from pointed and fulsome adulation), and the tenderly graceful compliment,
couched in the romantic terms of chivalry, with which the knight of the handkerchief had charmed her ear. It was only by an immense effort that she was able to keep her emotions under control until the end of the dance, when she fled to her chamber and burst into tears. It was not the cruel Tryon who had blasted her love with his deadly look that she mourned, but the gallant young knight who had worn her favor on his lance and crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty.
Tryon’s stay in Patesville was very brief. He drove to the hotel and put up for the night. During many sleepless hours his mind was in a turmoil with a very different set of thoughts from those which had occupied it on the way to town. Not the least of them was a profound self-contempt for his own lack of discernment. How had he been so blind as not to have read long ago the character of this wretched girl who had bewitched him? To-night his eyes had been opened–he had seen her with the mask thrown off, a true daughter of a race in which the sensuous enjoyment of the moment took precedence of taste or sentiment or any of the higher emotions. Her few months of boarding- school, her brief association with white people, had evidently been a mere veneer over the underlying negro, and their effects had slipped away as soon as the intercourse had ceased. With the monkey-like imitativeness of the negro she had copied the manners of white people while she lived among them, and had dropped them with equal facility when they ceased to serve a purpose. Who but a negro could have recovered so soon from what had seemed a terrible bereavement?–she herself must have felt it at the time, for otherwise she would not have swooned. A woman of sensibility, as this one had seemed to be, should naturally feel more keenly, and for a longer time than a man, an injury to the affections; but he, a son of the ruling race, had been miserable for six weeks about a girl who had so far forgotten him as already to plunge headlong into the childish amusements of her own ignorant and degraded people. What more, indeed, he asked himself savagely,–what more could be expected of the base-born child of the plaything of a gentleman’s idle hour, who to this ignoble origin added the blood of a servile race? And he, George Tryon, had honored her with his love; he had very nearly linked his fate and joined his blood to hers by the solemn sanctions of church and state. Tryon was not a devout man, but he thanked God with religious fervor that he had been saved a second time from a mistake which would have wrecked his whole future. If he had yielded to the momentary weakness of the past night,–the outcome of a sickly sentimentality to which he recognized now, in the light of reflection, that he was entirely too prone,–he would have regretted it soon enough. The black streak would have been sure to come out in some form, sooner or later, if not in the wife, then in her children. He saw clearly enough, in this hour of revulsion, that with his temperament and training such a union could never have been happy. If all the world had been ignorant of the dark secret, it would always have been in his own thoughts, or at least never far away. Each fault of hers that the close daily association of husband and wife might reveal,–the most flawless of sweethearts do not pass scathless through the long test of matrimony,–every wayward impulse of his children, every defect of mind, morals, temper, or health, would have been ascribed to the dark ancestral strain. Happiness under such conditions would have been impossible.
When Tryon lay awake in the early morning, after a few brief hours of sleep, the business which had brought him to Patesville seemed, in the cold light of reason, so ridiculously inadequate that he felt almost ashamed to have set up such a pretext for his journey. The prospect, too, of meeting Dr. Green and his family, of having to explain his former sudden departure, and of running a gauntlet of inquiry concerning his marriage to the aristocratic Miss Warwick of South Carolina; the fear that some one at Patesville might have suspected a connection between Rena’s swoon and his own flight,–these considerations so moved this impressionable and impulsive young man that he called a bell-boy, demanded an early breakfast, ordered his horse, paid his reckoning, and started upon his homeward journey forthwith. A certain distrust of his own sensibility, which he felt to be curiously inconsistent with his most positive convictions, led him to seek the river bridge by a roundabout route which did not take him past the house where, a few hours before, he had seen the last fragment of his idol shattered beyond the hope of repair.
The party broke up at an early hour, since most of the guests were working-people, and the travelers were to make an early start next day. About nine in the morning, Wain drove round to Mis’ Molly’s. Rena’s trunk was strapped behind the buggy, and she set out, in the company of Wain, for her new field of labor. The school term was only two months in length, and she did not expect to return until its expiration. Just before taking her seat in the buggy, Rena felt a sudden sinking of the heart.
“Oh, mother,” she whispered, as they stood wrapped in a close embrace, “I’m afraid to leave you. I left you once, and it turned out so miserably.”
“It’ll turn out better this time, honey,” replied her mother soothingly. “Good-by, child. Take care of yo’self an’ yo’r money, and write to yo’r mammy.”
One kiss all round, and Rena was lifted into the buggy. Wain seized the reins, and under his skillful touch the pretty mare began to prance and curvet with restrained impatience. Wain could not resist the opportunity to show off before the party, which included Mary B.’s entire family and several other neighbors, who had gathered to see the travelers off.
“Good-by ter Patesville! Good-by, folkses all!” he cried, with a wave of his disengaged hand.
“Good-by, mother! Good-by, all!” cried Rena, as with tears in her heart and a brave smile on her face she left her home behind her for the second time.
When they had crossed the river bridge, the travelers came to a long stretch of rising ground, from the summit of which they could look back over the white sandy road for nearly a mile. Neither Rena nor her companion saw Frank Fowler behind the chinquapin bush at the foot of the hill, nor the gaze of mute love and longing with which he watched the buggy mount the long incline. He had not been able to trust himself to bid her farewell. He had seen her go away once before with every prospect of happiness, and come back, a dove with a wounded wing, to the old nest behind the cedars. She was going away again, with a man whom he disliked and distrusted. If she had met misfortune before, what were her prospects for happiness now?
The buggy paused at the top of the hill, and Frank, shading his eyes with his hand, thought he could see her turn and look behind. Look back, dear child, towards your home and those who love you! For who knows more than this faithful worshiper what threads of the past Fate is weaving into your future, or whether happiness or misery lies before you?
XXV
BALANCE ALL
The road to Sampson County lay for the most part over the pine-clad sandhills,–an alternation of gentle rises and gradual descents, with now and then a swamp of greater or less extent. Long stretches of the highway led through the virgin forest, for miles unbroken by a clearing or sign of human habitation.
They traveled slowly, with frequent pauses in shady places, for the weather was hot. The journey, made leisurely, required more than a day, and might with slight effort be prolonged into two. They stopped for the night at a small village, where Wain found lodging for Rena with an acquaintance of his, and for himself with another, while a third took charge of the horse, the accommodation for travelers being limited. Rena’s appearance and manners were the subject of much comment. It was necessary to explain to several curious white people that Rena was a woman of color. A white woman might have driven with Wain without attracting remark,–most white ladies had negro coachmen. That a woman of Rena’s complexion should eat at a negro’s table, or sleep beneath a negro’s roof, was a seeming breach of caste which only black blood could excuse. The explanation was never questioned. No white person of sound mind would ever claim to be a
negro.
They resumed their journey somewhat late in the morning. Rena would willingly have hastened, for she was anxious to plunge into her new work; but Wain seemed disposed to prolong the pleasant drive, and beguiled the way for a time with stories of wonderful things he had done and strange experiences of a somewhat checkered career. He was shrewd enough to avoid any subject which would offend a modest young woman, but too obtuse to perceive that much of what he said would not commend him to a person of refinement. He made little reference to his possessions, concerning which so much had been said at Patesville; and this reticence was a point in his favor. If he had not been so much upon his guard and Rena so much absorbed by thoughts of her future work, such a drive would have furnished a person of her discernment a very fair measure of the man’s character. To these distractions must be added the entire absence of any idea that Wain might have amorous designs upon her; and any shortcomings of manners or speech were excused by the broad mantle of charity which Rena in her new-found zeal for the welfare of her people was willing to throw over all their faults. They were the victims of oppression; they were not responsible for its results.
Toward the end of the second day, while nearing their destination, the travelers passed a large white house standing back from the road at the foot of a lane. Around it grew widespreading trees and well-kept shrubbery. The fences were in good repair. Behind the house and across the road stretched extensive fields of cotton and waving corn. They had passed no other place that showed such signs of thrift and prosperity.
“Oh, what a lovely place!” exclaimed Rena. “That is yours, isn’t it?”
“No; we ain’t got to my house yet,” he answered. “Dat house b’longs ter de riches’ people roun’ here. Dat house is over in de nex’ county. We’re right close to de line now.”
Shortly afterwards they turned off from the main highway they had been pursuing, and struck into a narrower road to the left.
“De main road,” explained Wain, “goes on to Clinton, ’bout five miles er mo’ away. Dis one we’re turnin’ inter now will take us to my place, which is ’bout three miles fu’ther on. We’ll git dere now in an hour er so.”
Wain lived in an old plantation house, somewhat dilapidated, and surrounded by an air of neglect and shiftlessness, but still preserving a remnant of dignity in its outlines and comfort in its interior arrangements. Rena was assigned a large room on the second floor. She was somewhat surprised at the make-up of the household. Wain’s mother– an old woman, much darker than her son–kept house for him. A sister with two children lived in the house. The element of surprise lay in the presence of two small children left by Wain’s wife, of whom Rena now heard for the first time. He had lost his wife, he informed Rena sadly, a couple of years before.
“Yas, Miss Rena,” she sighed, “de Lawd give her, an’ de Lawd tuck her away. Blessed be de name er de Lawd.” He accompanied this sententious quotation with a wicked look from under his half-closed eyelids that Rena did not see.
The following morning Wain drove her in his buggy over to the county town, where she took the teacher’s examination. She was given a seat in a room with a number of other candidates for certificates, but the fact leaking out from some remark of Wain’s that she was a colored girl, objection was quietly made by several of the would-be teachers to her presence in the room, and she was requested to retire until the white teachers should have been examined. An hour or two later she was given a separate examination, which she passed without difficulty. The examiner, a gentleman of local standing, was dimly conscious that she might not have found her exclusion pleasant, and was especially polite. It would have been strange, indeed, if he had not been impressed by her sweet face and air of modest dignity, which were all the more striking because of her social disability. He fell into conversation with her, became interested in her hopes and aims, and very cordially offered to be of service, if at any time he might, in connection with her school.
“You have the satisfaction,” he said, “of receiving the only first-grade certificate issued to-day. You might teach a higher grade of pupils than you will find at Sandy Run, but let us hope that you may in time raise them to your own level.”
“Which I doubt very much,” he muttered to himself, as she went away with Wain. “What a pity that such a woman should be a nigger! If she were anything to me, though, I should hate to trust her anywhere near that saddle-colored scoundrel. He’s a thoroughly bad lot, and will bear watching.”
Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any danger from the accommodating Wain. Absorbed in her own thoughts and plans, she had not sought to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone politeness. In a few days she began her work as teacher, and sought to forget in the service of others the dull sorrow that still gnawed at her heart.
XXVI
THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS
Blanche Leary, closely observant of Tryon’s moods, marked a decided change in his manner after his return from his trip to Patesville. His former moroseness had given way to a certain defiant lightness, broken now and then by an involuntary sigh, but maintained so well, on the whole, that his mother detected no lapses whatever. The change was characterized by another feature agreeable to both the women: Tryon showed decidedly more interest than ever before in Miss Leary’s society. Within a week he asked her several times to play a selection on the piano, displaying, as she noticed, a decided preference for gay and cheerful music, and several times suggesting a change when she chose pieces of a sentimental cast. More than once, during the second week after his return, he went out riding with her; she was a graceful horsewoman, perfectly at home in the saddle, and appearing to advantage in a riding- habit. She was aware that Tryon watched her now and then, with an eye rather critical than indulgent.
“He is comparing me with some other girl,” she surmised. “I seem to stand the test very well. I wonder who the other is, and what was the trouble?”
Miss Leary exerted all her powers to interest and amuse the man she had set out to win, and who seemed nearer than ever before. Tryon, to his pleased surprise, discovered in her mind depths that he had never suspected. She displayed a singular affinity for the tastes that were his–he could not, of course, know how carefully she had studied them. The old wound, recently reopened, seemed to be healing rapidly, under conditions more conducive than before to perfect recovery. No longer, indeed, was he pursued by the picture of Rena discovered and unmasked–this he had definitely banished from the realm of sentiment to that of reason. The haunting image of Rena loving and beloved, amid the harmonious surroundings of her brother’s home, was not so readily displaced. Nevertheless, he reached in several weeks a point from which he could consider her as one thinks of a dear one removed by the hand of death, or smitten by some incurable ailment of mind or body. Erelong, he fondly believed, the recovery would be so far complete that he could consign to the tomb of pleasant memories even the most thrilling episodes of his ill-starred courtship.
“George,” said Mrs. Tryon one morning while her son was in this cheerful mood, “I’m sending Blanche over to Major McLeod’s to do an errand for me. Would you mind driving her over? The road may be rough after the storm last night, and Blanche has an idea that no one drives so well as you.”
“Why, yes, mother, I’ll be glad to drive Blanche over. I want to see the major myself.”
They were soon bowling along between the pines, behind the handsome mare that had carried Tryon so well at the Clarence tournament. Presently he drew up sharply.
“A tree has fallen squarely across the road,” he exclaimed. “We shall have to turn back a little way and go around.”
They drove back a quarter of a mile and turned into a by-road leading to the right through the woods. The solemn silence of the pine forest is soothing or oppressive, according to one’s mood. Beneath the cool arcade of the tall, overarching trees a deep peace stole over Tryon’s heart. He had put aside indefinitely and forever an unhappy and impossible love. The pretty and affectionate girl beside him would make an ideal wife. Of her family and blood he was sure. She was his mother’s choice, and his mother had set her heart upon their marriage. Why not speak to her now, and thus give himself the best possible protection against stray flames of love?
“Blanche,” he said, looking at her kindly.
“Yes, George?” Her voice was very gentle, and slightly tremulous. Could she have divined his thought? Love is a great clairvoyant.
“Blanche, dear, I”–
A clatter of voices broke upon the stillness of the forest and interrupted Tryon’s speech. A sudden turn to the left brought the buggy to a little clearing, in the midst of which stood a small log schoolhouse. Out of the schoolhouse a swarm of colored children were emerging, the suppressed energy of the school hour finding vent in vocal exercise of various sorts. A group had already formed a ring, and were singing with great volume and vigor:–
“Miss Jane, she loves sugar an’ tea, Miss Jane, she loves candy.
Miss Jane, she can whirl all around An’ kiss her love quite handy.
“De oak grows tall,
De pine grows slim,
So rise you up, my true love, An’ let me come in.”
“What a funny little darkey!” exclaimed Miss Leary, pointing to a diminutive lad who was walking on his hands, with his feet balanced in the air. At sight of the buggy and its occupants this sable acrobat, still retaining his inverted position, moved toward the newcomers, and, reversing himself with a sudden spring, brought up standing beside the buggy.
“Hoddy, Mars Geo’ge!” he exclaimed, bobbing his head and kicking his heel out behind in approved plantation style.
“Hello, Plato,” replied the young man, “what are you doing here?”
“Gwine ter school, Mars Geo’ge,” replied the lad; “larnin’ ter read an’ write, suh, lack de w’ite folks.”
“Wat you callin’ dat w’ite man marster fur?” whispered a tall yellow boy to the acrobat addressed as Plato. “You don’ b’long ter him no mo’; you’re free, an’ ain’ got sense ernuff ter know it.”
Tryon threw a small coin to Plato, and holding another in his hand suggestively, smiled toward the tall yellow boy, who looked regretfully at the coin, but stood his ground; he would call no man master, not even for a piece of money.
During this little colloquy, Miss Leary had kept her face turned toward the schoolhouse.
“What a pretty girl!” she exclaimed. “There,” she added, as Tryon turned his head toward her, “you are too late. She has retired into her castle. Oh, Plato!”
“Yas, missis,” replied Plato, who was prancing round the buggy in great glee, on the strength of his acquaintance with the white folks.
“Is your teacher white?”
“No, ma’m, she ain’t w’ite; she’s black. She looks lack she’s w’ite, but she’s black.”
Tryon had not seen the teacher’s face, but the incident had jarred the old wound; Miss Leary’s description of the teacher, together with Plato’s characterization, had stirred lightly sleeping memories. He was more or less abstracted during the remainder of the drive, and did not recur to the conversation that had been interrupted by coming upon the schoolhouse.
The teacher, glancing for a moment through the open door of the schoolhouse, had seen a handsome young lady staring at her,–Miss Leary had a curiously intent look when she was interested in anything, with no intention whatever to be rude,– and beyond the lady the back and shoulder of a man, whose face was turned the other way. There was a vague suggestion of something familiar about the equipage, but Rena shrank from this close scrutiny and withdrew out of sight before she had had an opportunity to identify the vague resemblance to something she had known.
Miss Leary had missed by a hair’s-breadth the psychological moment, and felt some resentment toward the little negroes who had interrupted her lover’s train of thought. Negroes have caused a great deal of trouble among white people. How deeply the shadow of the Ethiopian had fallen upon her own happiness, Miss Leary of course could not guess.
XXVII
AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE
A few days later, Rena looked out of the window near her desk and saw a low basket phaeton, drawn by a sorrel pony, driven sharply into the clearing and drawn up beside an oak sapling. The occupant of the phaeton, a tall, handsome, well-preserved lady in middle life, with slightly gray hair, alighted briskly from the phaeton, tied the pony to the sapling with a hitching-strap, and advanced to the schoolhouse door.
Rena wondered who the lady might be. She had a benevolent aspect, however, and came forward to the desk with a smile, not at all embarrassed by the wide-eyed inspection of the entire school.
“How do you do?” she said, extending her hand to the teacher. “I live in the neighborhood and am interested in the colored people–a good many of them once belonged to me. I heard something of your school, and thought I should like to make your acquaintance.”
“It is very kind of you, indeed,” murmured Rena respectfully.
“Yes,” continued the lady, “I am not one of those who sit back and blame their former slaves because they were freed. They are free now,–it is all decided and settled,–and they ought to be taught enough to enable them to make good use of their freedom. But really, my dear,–you mustn’t feel offended if I make a mistake,–I am going to ask you something very personal.” She looked suggestively at the gaping pupils.
“The school may take the morning recess now,” announced the teacher. The pupils filed out in an orderly manner, most of them stationing themselves about the grounds in such places as would keep the teacher and the white lady in view. Very few white persons approved of the colored schools; no other white person had ever visited this one.
“Are you really colored?” asked the lady, when the children had withdrawn.
A year and a half earlier, Rena would have met the question by some display of self-consciousness. Now, she replied simply and directly.
“Yes, ma’am, I am colored.”
The lady, who had been studying her as closely as good manners would permit, sighed regretfully.
“Well, it’s a shame. No one would ever think it. If you chose to conceal it, no one would ever be the wiser. What is your name, child, and where were you brought up? You must have a romantic