WHAT A KISS DID.
We are within the folds of night, and Elbridge Noral is once more a
visitor at the home of Dolly Smith. We have the same dimly lighted room
and the same parties to the conversation.
"Mrs. Smith," began Noral very excitedly, "I come to ask you in the name
of heaven to prevent a catastrophe and to unravel a puzzle that racks my
brain. I wish for you to prevent Erma Wysong from becoming a servant
girl; and I further beg of you to tell me why she seeks to become one."
"Explain, Mr. Noral, wherein becoming a servant girl is such a
catastrophe. Is not work honorable?" asked Dolly, in evident
astonishment.
"Yes, yes, but ah! the atmosphere surrounding the Negro service girl!
She is away from her own people, not allowed social contact with the
family of her employer, and usually resides in solitude in a little
house in the back yard, with alleyways as the only approach. Such a
state of affairs puts a premium on male companionship, which may be ever
so frequent, or at improper hours, without the fear of any adverse
comment thereon, and, in fact, without its being known. This condition
of things, as might reasonably be expected, generates a great deal of
immorality. While there are service girls of sterling worth, a bad odor
attaches to the calling. If Erma goes into service in such fashion, the
very atmosphere will breed insults for her. White youths will feel that
she has no further claims to respectability, and will proceed to deal
with her accordingly. So much for the catastrophe. The puzzling thing to
me is as to why Erma should contemplate such a course." These remarks
were delivered by Noral with unwonted energy.
"Well, Mr. Noral, Erma simply needs money, I presume, to supply her
natural wants and satisfy reasonable and legitimate desire. Such
stations as her talents peculiarly fit her for are denied to her because
she is a Negro girl. There is no honorable course open to her save the
one that she has pursued. Away goes the puzzle. As to the catastrophe,
Mr. Noral, opinions may differ, according to the view point. I fancy
that I see in her determination to enter service the surest means to the
accomplishment of your purpose."
Noral's face betokened a wrathful storm; his voice gave sign of its
coming.
"Mrs. Smith, do I understand you to intimate that I am such a sensual
degenerate that I am willing to see Erma degraded by others as a sort of
preparation for me?"
"Be calm, Mr. Noral. My meaning was far from that, as you will soon
discover. My plan of action is as follows: Now that Erma is determined
to enter service, you select a place where you may become a frequent
visitor and can contrive to see Erma without exciting her suspicions as
to your ultimate purposes. Erma is one of the purest girls in the world,
and you must first establish yourself in her good graces as a necessary
prelude to my part of the work. If you can inspire regard, I will give
the necessary downward turn."
"A capital idea, Dolly, a capital idea! Now, let me see where Erma might
go."
"How about Mrs. Turner who lives adjoining you?"
"What!" said Noral, rising to his feet hurriedly. "Where do I live? Who
told you where I lived?" he said, retreating from Dolly as he spoke, and
adjusting his mask to his face. Dolly saw at once that she had committed
a monstrous error, and was much perplexed, for a moment, as to how to
extricate herself.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Noral, I have known who you were from the
very first."
"Known me from the first! Have you had spies tracking me, you she
devil?"
"She devil, heh! she devil!" hissed Dolly Smith in a tone that was full
of venom. Her head shaking with violent emotion, she walked up to Noral
and said: "She devil, did you say? But who made me a she devil? Who
destroyed my soul? Who first started me on the damnable mission of
polluting the entire stream of the virtue of my race? Who did this? Will
you tell me? say, will you tell me? Oh, you don't know, do you? Well,
you shall know, James Benson Lawson! Yes, you shall know!"
Lawson's anger disappeared in his surprise at the torrent of invective
that Dolly Smith poured upon him. He answered not a word, but stood with
folded arms, looking at Dolly Smith. He discovered that he had a tigress
to deal with, and that at the bottom of the heart of this cold-blooded,
callous schemer there were fires as hot as those of the reputed lower
regions, and it did not take much fanning to cause them to blaze up.
Then, too, her remarks seemed to have been intended for him
individually, and were not mere ravings against the world at large. The
more he thought, the more puzzled he was. Dolly Smith, after this
violent outburst, grew very calm, and inwardly chided herself for having
allowed her temper to perhaps frighten away from her hook a fish on
whose capture all the soul that she had was set. She summoned all of her
adroitness and cunning in an endeavor to regain lost ground. Pushing
open the folding doors, and disappearing in the adjoining room, she
returned shortly, bearing in her hand a photograph. She brought it to
Lawson and said, "Here is the spy that tracked you. Go look at it."
Lawson took it to the gaslight and, turning on the light, examined the
picture.
"You see that it is a picture of your father. As Governor of this State,
he was more popular with the colored people than any other governor
before or since his time. True, he is a Democrat, but the colored people
love him, and his picture is in almost every Negro home. As soon as I
saw you the other night, though the room was dark, I recognized the
likeness. I knew where you lived, as the papers have been printing
pictures of the old Lawson Mansion as it has been repaired to receive
your father, just returned from his post as minister to Germany. Now,
that is the sort of spying I have done. Don't mistrust me, Mr. Lawson.
Your honor is safe in my hands. I hold some of the most terrible secrets
of your most noted families in this city, and they are as safe with me
as though they were in the grave, locked in the bosom of the dead."
Dolly Smith eyed Lawson keenly as she talked, trying to discern the
impression that her words were making. She saw that she had not
succeeded in reaching the main current of his thoughts and she planned
another effort.
"The vigor of my remarks a while ago naturally astonished you. Well, I
was once a pure girl and not wholly uneducated. Nor was I homely,
either. This corpulence has come from drinking excessively. Well, a
white woman encompassed my fall. She taught me to drink. She was such a
great white lady, I thought that if she could drink I could do so as
well. I got drunk in public and was forever disgraced. She got drunk
frequently, but the newspapers always said that she fainted or was
attacked with nervous prostration. Her wealth allows her to maintain her
social standing, among her people, while I am an outcast among mine. She
started me in this business. I hate her, though I confess I get a great
deal of fun, excitement and money out of my profession. I know I am a
she devil, but when one calls me that, I get angry from thinking of that
woman. All of this occurred when I lived in another city. My previous
history is unknown here."
Lawson was profoundly interested in Dolly Smith's recital. He had not
dreamed that a woman so depraved ever allowed her mind to wander back to
the days of purity. In fact, he did not conceive of her ever having had
such days. Thus, with these adroitly constructed fabrications, she
lulled Lawson's suspicions to sleep.
"Dolly Smith, I beg your pardon. Don't you know, I always supposed
people of your type were born destitute of moral nature. But I begin to
believe that humanity at its worst is not as bad as it seems."
Dolly Smith now saw that she had recaptured him.
"All right, Dolly, quarrelling aside, let's get down to business. Let me
see; where were we," says Noral.
"My idea is that some way ought to be found to have Erma Wysong in the
employ of Mrs. Turner, your next door neighbor. She has no male member
in her family," put in Dolly.
"Yes, but she has a servant," replied Lawson.
"And you have money. The servant went there for money, and will come
away for money. Pay her a few months' wages in advance. Ask her to get
Erma Wysong and take her to Mrs. Turner's to fill her place, and the
work is done," said Dolly.
"Oh, you are a daisy," said Lawson, and in his excess of joy at the
prospective success of his scheme, he seized Dolly Smith about the waist
and kissed her. That kiss awakened every demon in Dolly's nature. It
took her mind back to the days when the blue of her sky was interwoven
with the blackest of clouds, and the lightnings of trouble flashed forth
therefrom, ripping open her every vein, and spilling beyond recall all
the blood of her life. And she pledged in her soul, shaking like a
decayed and tottering building in the grasp of the wind, to crush James
Benson Lawson in her fall.