"I never realized before just what a lie meant," said Zora.
The paper in Mrs. Vanderpool's hands fell quickly to her lap, and she
gazed across the toilet-table.
As she gazed that odd mirage of other days haunted her again. She did
not seem to see her maid, nor the white and satin morning-room. She saw,
with some long inner sight, a vast hall with mighty pillars; a smooth,
marbled floor and a great throng whose silent eyes looked curiously upon
her. Strange carven beasts gazed on from a setting of rich, barbaric
splendor and she herself--the Liar--lay in rags before the gold and
ivory of that lofty throne whereon sat Zora.
The foolish phantasy passed with the second of time that brought it, and
Mrs. Vanderpool's eyes dropped again to her paper, to those lines,--
"The President has sent the following nominations to the Senate ... To
be ambassador to France, John Vanderpool, Esq."
The first feeling of triumph thrilled faintly again until the low voice
of Zora startled her. It was so low and calm, it came as though
journeying from great distances and weary with travel.
"I used to think a lie a little thing, a convenience; but now I see. It
is a great No and it kills things. You remember that day when Mr.
Easterly called?"
"Yes," replied Mrs. Vanderpool, faintly.
"I heard all he said. I could not help it; my transom was open. And
then, too, after he mentioned--Mr. Alwyn's name, I wanted to hear. I
knew that his appointment would cost you the embassy--unless Bles was
tempted and should fall. So I came to you to say--to say you mustn't pay
the price."
"And I lied," said Mrs. Vanderpool. "I told you that he should be
appointed and remain a man. I meant to make him see that he could yield
without great cost. But I let you think I was giving up the embassy when
I never intended to."
She spoke coldly, yet Zora knew. She reached out and took the white,
still hands in hers, and over the lady's face again flitted that
stricken look of age.
"I do not blame you," said Zora gently. "I blame the world."
"I am the world," Mrs. Vanderpool uttered harshly, then suddenly
laughed. But Zora went on:
"It bewildered me when I first read the news early this morning; the
world--everything--seemed wrong. You see, my plan was all so splendid.
Just as I turned away from him, back to my people, I was to help him to
the highest. I was so afraid he would miss it and think that Right
didn't win in Life, that I wrote him--"
"You wrote him? So did I."
Zora glanced at her quickly.
"Yes," said Mrs. Vanderpool. "I thought I knew him. He seemed an
ordinary, rather priggish, opinionated country boy, and I wrote and
said--Oh, I said that the world is the world; take it as it is. You
wrote differently, and he obeyed you."
"No; he did not know it was I. I was just a Voice from nowhere calling
to him. I thought I was right. I wrote each day, sometimes twice,
sending bits of verse, quotations, references, all saying the same
thing: Right always triumphs. But it doesn't, does it?"
"No. It never does save by accident."
"I do not think that is quite so," Zora pondered aloud, "and I am a
little puzzled. I do not belong in this world where Right and Wrong get
so mixed. With us yonder there is wrong, but we call it wrong--mostly.
Oh, I don't know; even there things are mixed." She looked sadly at Mrs.
Vanderpool, and the fear that had been hovering behind her mistress's
eyes became visible.
"It was so beautiful," said Zora. "I expected a great thing of you--a
sacrifice. I do not blame you because you could not do it; and yet--yet,
after this,--don't you see?--I cannot stay here."
Mrs. Vanderpool arose and walked over to her. She stood above her, in
her silken morning-gown, her brown and gray sprinkled hair rising above
the pale, strong-lined face.
"Zora," she faltered, "will you leave me?"
Zora answered, "Yes." It was a soft "yes," a "yes" full of pity and
regret, but a "yes" that Mrs. Vanderpool knew in her soul to be final.
She sat down again on the lounge and her fingers crept along the
cushions.
"Ambassadorships come--high," she said with a catch in her voice. Then
after a pause: "When will you go, Zora?"
"When you leave for the summer."
Mrs. Vanderpool looked out upon the beautiful city. She was a little
surprised at herself. She had found herself willing to sacrifice almost
anything for Zora. No living soul had ever raised in her so deep an
affection, and yet she knew now that, although the cost was great, she
was willing to sacrifice Zora for Paris. After all, it was not too
late; a rapid ride even now might secure high office for Alwyn and make
Cresswell ambassador. It would be difficult but possible. But she had
not the slightest inclination to attempt it, and she said aloud, half
mockingly:
"You are right, Zora. I promised--and--I lied. Liars have no place in
heaven and heaven is doubtless a beautiful place--but oh, Zora! you
haven't seen Paris!"
Two months later they parted simply, knowing well it was forever. Mrs.
Vanderpool wrote a check.
"Use this in your work," she said. "Miss Smith asked for it long ago. It
is--my campaign contribution."
Zora smiled and thanked her. As she put the sealed envelope in her trunk
her hand came in contact with a long untouched package. Zora took it out
silently and opened it and the beauty of it lightened the room.
"It is the Silver Fleece," said Zora, and Mrs. Vanderpool kissed her and
went.
Zora walked alone to the vaulted station. She did not try to buy a
Pullman ticket, although the journey was thirty-six hours. She knew it
would be difficult if not impossible and she preferred to share the lot
of her people. Once on the foremost car, she leaned back and looked. The
car seemed clean and comfortable but strangely short. Then she realized
that half of it was cut off for the white smokers and as the door swung
whiffs of the smoke came in. But she was content for she was almost
alone.
It was eighteen little months ago that she had ridden up to the world
with widening eyes. In that time what had happened? Everything. How well
she remembered her coming, the first reflection of yonder gilded dome
and the soaring of the capitol; the swelling of her heart, with
inarticulate wonder; the pain of the thirst to know and understand. She
did not know much now but she had learned how to find things out. She
did not understand all, but some things she--
"Ticket"--the tone was harsh and abrupt. Zora started. She had always
noted how polite conductors were to her and Mrs. Vanderpool--was it
simply because Mrs. Vanderpool was evidently a great and rich lady? She
held up her ticket and he snatched it from her muttering some direction.
"I beg your pardon?" she said.
"Change at Charlotte," he snapped as he went on.
It seemed to Zora that his discourtesy was almost forced: that he was
afraid he might be betrayed into some show of consideration for a black
woman. She felt no anger, she simply wondered what he feared. The
increasing smell of tobacco smoke started her coughing. She turned. To
be sure. Not only was the door to the smoker standing open, but a white
passenger was in her car, sitting by the conductor and puffing heartily.
As the black porter passed her she said gently:
"Is smoking allowed in here?"
"It ain't non o' my business," he flung back at her and moved away. All
day white men passed back and forward through the car as through a
thoroughfare. They talked loudly and laughed and joked, and if they did
not smoke they carried their lighted cigars. At her they stared and made
comments, and one of them came and lounged almost over her seat,
inquiring where she was going.
She did not reply; she neither looked nor stirred, but kept whispering
to herself with something like awe: "This is what they must endure--my
poor people!"
At Lynchburg a newsboy boarded the train with his wares. The conductor
had already appropriated two seats for himself, and the newsboy routed
out two colored passengers, and usurped two other seats. Then he began
to be especially annoying. He joked and wrestled with the porter, and on
every occasion pushed his wares at Zora, insisting on her buying.
"Ain't you got no money?" he asked. "Where you going?"
"Say," he whispered another time, "don't you want to buy these gold
spectacles? I found 'em and I dassen't sell 'em open, see? They're
worth ten dollars--take 'em for a dollar."
Zora sat still, keeping her eyes on the window; but her hands worked
nervously, and when he threw a book with a picture of a man and
half-dressed woman directly under her eyes, she took it and dropped it
out the window.
The boy started to storm and demanded pay, while the conductor glared at
her; but a white man in the conductor's seat whispered something, and
the row suddenly stopped.
A gang of colored section hands got on, dirty and loud. They sprawled
about and smoked, drank, and bought candy and cheap gewgaws. They eyed
her respectfully, and with one of them she talked a little as he
awkwardly fingered his cap.
As the day wore on Zora found herself strangely weary. It was not simply
the unpleasant things that kept happening, but the continued
apprehension of unknown possibilities. Then, too, she began to realize
that she had had nothing to eat. Travelling with Mrs. Vanderpool there
was always a dainty lunch to be had at call. She did not expect this,
but she asked the porter:
"Do you know where I can get a lunch?"
"Search me," he answered, lounging into a seat. "Ain't no chance betwixt
here and Danville as I knows on."
Zora viewed her plight with a certain dismay--twelve hours without food!
How foolish of her not to have thought of this. The hours passed. She
turned desperately to the gruff conductor.
"Could I buy a lunch from the dining-car?" she inquired.
"No," was the curt reply.
She made herself as comfortable as she could, and tried to put the
matter from her mind. She remembered how, forgotten years ago, she had
often gone a day without eating and thought little of it. Night came
slowly, and she fell to dreaming until the cry came, "Charlotte! Change
cars!" She scrambled out. There was no step to the platform, her bag
was heavy, and the porter was busy helping the white folks to alight.
She saw a dingy lunchroom marked "Colored," but she had no time to go to
it for her train was ready.
There was another colored porter on this, and he was very polite and
affable.
"Yes, Miss; certainly I'll fetch you a lunch--plenty of time." And he
did. It did not look clean but Zora was ravenous.
The white smoker now had few occupants, but the white train crew
proceeded to use the colored coach as a lounging-room and sleeping-car.
There was no passenger except Zora. They took off their coats, stretched
themselves on the seats, and exchanged jokes; but Zora was too tired to
notice much, and she was dozing wearily when she felt a touch on the arm
and found the porter in the seat beside her with his arm thrown
familiarly behind her along the top of the back. She rose abruptly to
her feet and he started up.
"I beg pardon," he said, grinning.
Zora sat slowly down as he got up and left. She determined to sleep no
more. Yet a vast vision sank on her weary spirit--the vision of a dark
cloud that dropped and dropped upon her, and lay as lead along her
straining shoulders. She must lift it, she knew, though it were big as a
world, and she put her strength to it and groaned as the porter cried in
the ghostly morning light:
"Atlanta! All change!"
Away yonder at the school near Toomsville, Miss Smith sat waiting for
the coming of Zora, absently attending the duties of the office. Dark
little heads and hands bobbed by and soft voices called:
"Miss Smith, I wants a penny pencil."
"Miss Smith, is yo' got a speller fo' ten cents?"
"Miss Smith, mammy say please lemme come to school this week and she'll
sho' pay Sata'day."
Yet the little voices that summoned her back to earth were less
clamorous than in other years, for the school was far from full, and
Miss Smith observed the falling off with grave eyes. This condition was
patently the result of the cotton corner and the subsequent
manipulation. When cotton rose, the tenants had already sold their
cotton; when cotton fell the landlords squeezed the rations and lowered
the wages. When cotton rose again, up went the new Spring rent
contracts. So it was that the bewildered black serf dawdled in listless
inability to understand. The Cresswells in their new wealth, the
Maxwells and Tollivers in the new pinch of poverty, stretched long arms
to gather in the tenants and their children. Excuse after excuse came to
the school.
"I can't send the chilluns dis term, Miss Smith; dey has to work."
"Mr. Cresswell won't allow Will to go to school this term."
"Mr. Tolliver done put Sam in the field."
And so Miss Smith contemplated many empty desks.
Slowly a sort of fatal inaction seized her. The school went on; daily
the dark little cloud of scholars rose up from hill and vale and settled
in the white buildings; the hum of voices and the busy movements of
industrious teachers filled the day; the office work went on
methodically; but back of it all Miss Smith sat half hopeless. It cost
five thousand a year to run the school, and this sum she raised with
increasingly greater difficulty. Extra and heart-straining effort had
been needed to raise the eight hundred dollars additional for interest
money on the mortgage last year. Next year it might have to come out of
the regular income and thus cut off two teachers. Beyond all this the
raising of ten thousand dollars to satisfy the mortgage seemed simply
impossible, and Miss Smith sat in fatal resignation, awaiting the coming
day.
"It's the Lord's work. I've done what I could. I guess if He wants it to
go on, He'll find a way. And if He doesn't--" She looked off across the
swamp and was silent.
Then came Zora's letter, simple and brief, but breathing youth and
strength of purpose. Miss Smith seized upon it as an omen of salvation.
In vain her shrewd New England reason asked: "What can a half-taught
black girl do in this wilderness?" Her heart answered back: "What is
impossible to youth and resolution?" Let the shabbiness increase; let
the debts pile up; let the boarders complain and the teachers
gossip--Zora was coming. And somehow she and Zora would find a way.
And Zora came just as the sun threw its last crimson through the black
swamp; came and gathered the frail and white-haired woman in her arms;
and they wept together. Long and low they talked, far into the soft
Southern night; sitting shaded beneath the stars, while nearby blinked
the drowsy lights of the girls' dormitory. At last Miss Smith said,
rising stiffly:
"I forgot to ask about Mrs. Vanderpool. How is she, and where?"
Zora murmured some answer; but as she went to bed in her little white
room she sat wondering sadly. Where was the poor spoiled woman? Who was
putting her to bed and smoothing the pillow? Who was caring for her, and
what was she doing? And Zora strained her eyes Northward through the
night.
At this moment, Mrs. Vanderpool, rising from a gala dinner in the
brilliant drawing-room of her Lake George mansion, was reading the
evening paper which her husband had put into her hands. With startled
eyes she caught the impudent headlines: