Part 9 (1/2)

CHAPTER VI

Never before did an October boast so many wonderful mornings. Sometimes it rained in the night, but the rising sun dispersed the clouds and brought a golden day to Hertha's world. And as she went about her tasks, her brief playtime over, she still sensed the fragrant orange grove and moved among the trees, her lover by her side. Deftly helping Miss Patty with her hair or dress, guiding Miss Witherspoon in her embroidery, cheering Pomona through an intricate dinner, his voice was in her ears and his touch upon her cheek. From morning until night was a lovely, precious, fearsome dream.

For there was reality in the dream that brought fear. Her lover wanted so much. She was content to stand on the threshold, but each day he asked that they might enter within the gates. It was hard to resist his pleading. If for a moment he had been rough, if he had endeavored to take by force what she hesitated to give, she could have resisted him; but his gentleness was his power. And each morning as she saw him leave her to go into the world of white men and women, a world as irrevocably closed to her as the world of light is closed to the blind, her fear took form. Would he remain faithful if she failed to give him all that he desired? If she dallied, if she strove to keep him at love's portal, some time he might not be there when she turned from her path to make her way among the orange trees. If that should happen, if he should neglect her, she would die of angry shame. Within her nature there was modesty and self-effacement, but also pride that could not brook a slight. She had never wooed; it had been he who had called, beckoning her from her place among the cabins in the pines. She had not given a glance or said a word to draw him from his favored place; he had come because he loved her beauty and her shy reserve. To hold him and yet not to sacrifice herself. This was the problem, when fear crept into her heart.

She had pushed it from her day after day, but she could not wholly ignore it; and this autumn morning as she sat in church, seemingly intent upon the preacher's word, she told herself that she must decide what she was willing to give. He had pleaded with her to meet him that night within the orange grove, promising to wait for her near the cypress where her world met his. His pa.s.sion was in the ascendant; he begged her to trust him, to give herself to his keeping.

”An' de mantle ob Elijah was blue wid de blue ob de eternal heaben,”

cried out the preacher, ”an' de linin' was rose wid de blood ob de Lamb.”

Could she go? Why did the world give her such a terrible problem? Why, why was she colored! She felt a momentary revulsion to be listening to an ignorant preacher amid these clumsy black folk. It was wicked that a few drops of Negro blood forced her to this seat when she should be yonder with the white people where the clergyman read the beautiful service of the Church of England. Why was she not at Lee Merryvale's side? As Ellen had said, she was no maid; she was his equal, and only those drops of colored blood kept her here. No, not the drops of blood, but the hideous morality of a cruel race.

But the world was here as the white people had made it, and you had to accept it and then decide what you should do. Perhaps he was holding the hymnal now and Miss Witherspoon was singing with him from the same book.

There would always be some one like that to come between him and herself. Always a white face, but no whiter than her own; always a world that claimed him and despised her. But if she gave herself to him, if she trusted that he would love and protect her as he so pa.s.sionately promised; if she left mother and sister and brother for his sake; then no other face would blot out hers. What her life would be she could not picture, but it would not be a life without him.

The service over, she walked with her mother and sister among the cabins that Ellen so loved. The people standing outside their doorways were dressed in their best and a pleasant Sunday air pervaded the place.

Every one was decorous, and yet with an undercurrent of jollity; for the sermon had stirred their imaginations, and ahead was a good dinner.

Uncle Ebenezer talked with authority of Elijah and eagerly awaited the preacher's presence that he might discuss his theory of the color of the mantle of the prophet. ”It were white as de wool ob de Lamb,” he declaimed as he saw the man of G.o.d in his long black coat walking up to him. ”Jes' riccolec', Brudder, de waters dat it smote apart an' dat wash it whiter'n snow.” Aunt Lucindy was on ahead, a little boy's hand in hers, a waif for whom she was caring; for, though old and frail, Aunt Lucindy was always mothering some child. One of Ellen's pupils walked proudly at his teacher's side, carrying her Bible. ”I knows what I's gwine ter be when I grows up, teacher,” he said. ”I's gwine ter be a preacher; I's gwine ter preach de word o' G.o.d.” ”I hope you will, Joshua,” Ellen answered, ”but remember you must first practise what you preach.” ”Yes'm, I know dat;” and then, proudly, ”I's practising ter pray an' holler right now. I can holler as good as Aunt Lucindy when she gits happy.” Mammy had gone ahead to visit Granny Rose, who was too feeble to attend church. It was all usual to Hertha; she had seen such Sundays without comment all her life. She let the scene slip by as she tried to make her choice.

On one of the cabin steps sat an untidy, ragged girl who turned and went inside as she saw Ellen draw near. Maranthy, Sam Peter's daughter, was one of Ellen's failures. She was a bold, ignorant young woman of eighteen, who worked as little as she could and, brazenly open in her ways, strove to allure the growing boys whom their teacher was training in health and cleanliness and decent living. She looked maliciously at both the sisters as she went within her house.

Slipping away from her sister, Hertha sought one of the little paths in the sand that led toward the river. It brought her out behind the small, ecclesiastical-looking church at which the white people wors.h.i.+ped.

Stopping to listen, she could hear Mr. Merryvale's voice through the open window reading from the prayerbook. Often the little settlement was without a clergyman and the owner of the place himself conducted the service. Now there was the rustle of people rising to their feet and the morning's devotion was done.

In the background where she could see, yet not be seen, Hertha watched the congregation as it emerged from the church. It was a small group--the Merryvales and some dozen neighbors from up and down the river. She knew them all, and yet this morning they took on sinister significance. The stylishly dressed women, the men in their well-fitting clothes, the gestures and modulations of voice, these were not of her world. As they went down the path she saw one of the women beckon to Lee Merryvale, who turned, all attention, to listen to what she had to tell him. With head bent toward his companion, he walked on and at a turn of the path was gone. Soon their voices, too, died away and there was nothing left but the empty path and the endless murmur of the wind among the pines.

Erect, head thrown back, hands clenched, the colored girl stood for a moment staring down the path. Her lips parted as though to cry out against the cruelty that denied her the right to walk among these white people, white herself, by the side of the man she loved. But no cry came, and presently her hands relaxed, her face resumed its pallor, and with drooping head she turned toward home.

Always quiet, at the afternoon dinner her preoccupation was so noticeable that her mother, the dishes cleared away, tried to draw her from it.

”Come an' sit wid me on de step, honey,” she called. ”You don' want ter go an' do mo' work like Ellen. I neber knowed a chile befo' so greedy.

She can't help eatin' up oder folks' jobs. You come hyar an' talk ter yo' mammy.”

”You talk to me,” Hertha said.

”What woll I talk 'bout?”

”Tell me about it again. Tell me about how I came to you.”

The mother gave a big happy laugh. ”You allays likes dat story, don'

you, honey? An' I likes it too. Reckon dis would hab been a poor home widout you was in it. Well, sit hyar an' I tell it ter yer, jes' as 'twas.”

Looking down on the little garden, gay with autumnal flowers, Hertha took the step below her mother's on the porch so that she might lean against her. As she sat there, listening to the rich drawling voice, she rested as she had not rested before that day. With mammy one felt safe.

Both she and Tom had noticed it.

”Well, honey, it were twenty-t'ree year ago las' September----”

”The twenty-ninth,” Hertha interrupted.