Part 13 (2/2)
”I'm so glad for you, dear,” Ellen said.
She had been told the story and was sitting very soberly by the window.
”This colored world is too hard and ugly for you. I don't mind much because I'm so busy, but if I stopped to think about it I'd go half mad.
I have felt that way for you at times. I want you to have everything that's fine and beautiful and you'll have a chance to now.”
”I suppose white people have ugly lives,” Hertha put in.
”Yes, but they have a chance for something else, while when you're colored you might have the genius of a Shakespeare but it wouldn't give you the opportunity to be a playwright. Or if you wrote a play, they wouldn't let you into the theater to see it. And it's just the same with everything else. You were shut out because you were black. But you won't be shut out any longer now; you're free and I'm so glad.”
She showed her gladness by breaking down. Hertha had not seen her cry since she was a child. Even at her father's death she had kept dry-eyed while she comforted the others; but now she sobbed pitifully. ”I'm glad,” she reiterated through her tears. ”I'd give my life for you, and I reckon that's what it'll be. It won't seem like living when you've said good-by.”
”It's going to be awful,” Hertha said choking over the words: ”you've always advised and encouraged me, Sister. I wouldn't have kept on in school but for you; and now I'll have to go ahead alone. I feel lost.”
Ellen, much ashamed of her emotion, dried her eyes. ”I've done all I can, Hertha,” she said solemnly, ”after this you'll have to go alone.”
A step was heard on the porch and a voice asked: ”Is Miss Hertha there?”
”Yes, Mr. Lee,” Mammy's voice answered; ”Miss Hertha, she's right hyar.
Was you wantin' ter speak wid her?”
”Tell her I came to fetch her up to the house. My aunt is expecting her.”
”I won't go,” Hertha whispered. ”Tell him I won't go.”
Ellen rose and left the room. Hertha heard her explain to the young man that the white girl could not go away yet. ”She is very tired, Mr. Lee,”
she declared, ”and wants to remain here at present.”
Lee seemed to demur but after a few minutes he left the house.
When he had gone Hertha walked into the living-room. There was the familiar table, the straight-backed chairs, and the comfortable rocker; there was the reading-lamp with its green shade and the china with the pink flowers set upon the sideboard; there were the books upon the shelf; and yet everything seemed strange. Did her own thoughts give it unreality, her thoughts that roamed continually through the white world that she was soon to enter, or was it the two people whom she so loved who were already oddly constrained? ”Miss Hertha,” she had heard her black mother say--the mother who had cared for her, had fed and clothed her, had watched by her bedside in her illnesses. ”Miss Hertha”! Was her home to slip from her like this?
”Ellen,” she cried, ”I shall have to go away before long, I know that, but don't push me out upon the Merryvales because I don't want to go.”
”I'll do what I can,” Ellen answered.
”Honey,” her mammy exclaimed, ”it don't seem like we could eber let you leab us. Dis home been you's mo'n our own. But you is white, now, baby, an' you can't be wid colored folks no mo'.”
”Why can't I if I choose to?” Hertha asked, her mouth quivering. ”I want to stay here until I leave. I have to visit that lawyer soon and get my money, and then, I suppose, I'll go somewhere up North. But while I'm in Merryvale I want to be with you.”
”Baby, I's feared it ain't de right way.”
”Have you had anything to eat, Sister?” Ellen inquired. ”This must have been a terribly exciting day for you. I'll hurry and get supper.”
Hertha rose to help but her black mother pushed her back into her chair.
”You jes' stay hyar while Ellen an' me gits de t'ings.”
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