Bles Alwyn stared at Mrs. Harry Cresswell in surprise. He had not seen
her since that moment at the ball, and he was startled at the change.
Her abundant hair was gone; her face was pale and drawn, and there were
little wrinkles below her sunken eyes. In those eyes lurked the tired
look of the bewildered and the disappointed. It was in the lofty
waiting-room of the Washington station where Alwyn had come to meet a
friend. Mrs. Cresswell turned and recognized him with genuine pleasure.
He seemed somehow a part of the few things in the world--little and
unimportant perhaps--that counted and stood firm, and she shook his hand
cordially, not minding the staring of the people about. He took her bag
and carried it towards the gate, which made the observers breathe
easier, seeing him in servile duty. Someway, she knew not just how, she
found herself telling him of the crisis in her life before she realized;
not everything, of course, but a great deal. It was much as though she
were talking to some one from another world--an outsider; but one she
had known long, one who understood. Both from what she recounted and
what she could not tell he gathered the substance of the story, and it
bewildered him. He had not thought that white people had such troubles;
yet, he reflected, why not? They, too, were human.
"I suppose you hear from the school?" he ventured after a pause.
"Why, yes--not directly--but Zora used to speak of it."
Bles looked up quickly.
"Zora?"
"Yes. Didn't you see her while she was here? She has gone back now."
Then the gate opened, the crowd surged through, sweeping them apart, and
next moment he was alone.
Alwyn turned slowly away. He forgot the friend he was to meet. He forgot
everything but the field of the Silver Fleece. It rose shadowy there in
the pale concourse, swaying in ghostly breezes. The purple of its
flowers mingled with the silver radiance of tendrils that trembled
across the hurrying throng, like threads of mists along low hills. In
its midst rose a dark, slim, and quivering form. She had been here--here
in Washington! Why had he not known? What was she doing? "She has gone
back now"--back to the Sun and the Swamp, back to the Burden.
Why should not he go back, too? He walked on thinking. He had failed.
His apparent success had been too sudden, too overwhelming, and when he
had faced the crisis his hand had trembled. He had chosen the Right--but
the Right was ineffective, impotent, almost ludicrous. It left him
shorn, powerless, and in moral revolt. The world had suddenly left him,
as the vision of Carrie Wynn had left him, alone, a mere clerk, an
insignificant cog in the great grinding wheel of humdrum drudgery. His
chance to do and thereby to be had not come.
He thought of Zora again. Why not go back to the South where she had
gone? He shuddered as one who sees before him a cold black pool whither
his path leads. To face the proscription, the insult, the lawless hate
of the South again--never! And yet he went home and sat down and wrote a
long letter to Miss Smith.
The reply that came after some delay was almost curt. It answered few of
his questions, argued with none of his doubts, and made no mention of
Zora. Yes, there was need of a manager for the new farm and settlement.
She was not sure whether Alwyn could do the work or not. The salary was
meagre and the work hard. If he wished it, he must decide immediately.
Two weeks later found Alwyn on the train facing Southward in the Jim
Crow car. How he had decided to go back South he did not know. In fact,
he had not decided. He had sat helpless and inactive in the grip of
great and shadowed hands, and the thing was as yet incomprehensible. And
so it was that the vision Zora saw in the swamp had been real enough,
and Alwyn felt strangely disappointed that she had given no sign of
greeting on recognition.
In other ways, too, Zora, when he met her, was to him a new creature.
She came to him frankly and greeted him, her gladness shining in her
eyes, yet looking nothing more than gladness and saying nothing more.
Just what he had expected was hard to say; but he had left her on her
knees in the dirt with outstretched hands, and somehow he had expected
to return to some corresponding mental attitude. The physical change of
these three years was marvellous. The girl was a woman, well-rounded and
poised, tall, straight, and quick. And with this went mental change: a
self-mastery; a veiling of the self even in intimate talk; a subtle air
as of one looking from great and unreachable heights down on the dawn of
the world. Perhaps no one who had not known the child and the girl as he
had would have noted all this; but he saw and realized the
transformation with a pang--something had gone; the innocence and wonder
of the child, and in their place had grown up something to him
incomprehensible and occult.
Miss Smith was not to be easily questioned on the subject. She took no
hints and gave no information, and when once he hazarded some pointed
questions she turned on him abruptly, observing acidly: "If I were you
I'd think less of Zora and more of her work."
Gradually, in his spiritual perplexity, Alwyn turned to Mary Cresswell.
She was staying with the Colonel at Cresswell Oaks. Her coming South was
supposed to be solely for reasons of health, and her appearance made
this excuse plausible. She was lonely and restless, and naturally drawn
toward the school. Her intercourse with Miss Smith was only formal, but
her interest in Zora's work grew. Down in the swamp, at the edge of the
cleared space, had risen a log cabin; long, low, spacious, overhung with
oak and pine. It was Zora's centre for her settlement-work. There she
lived, and with her a half-dozen orphan girls and children too young for
the boarding department of the school. Mrs. Cresswell easily fell into
the habit of walking by here each day, coming down the avenue of oaks
across the road and into the swamp. She saw little of Zora personally
but she saw her girls and learned much of her plans.
The rooms of the cottage were clean and light, supplied with books and
pictures, simple toys, and a phonograph. The yard was one wide green and
golden play-ground, and all day the music of children's glad crooning
and the singing of girls went echoing and trembling through the trees,
as they played and sewed and washed and worked.
From the Cresswells and the Maxwells and others came loads of clothes
for washing and mending. The Tolliver girls had simple dresses made,
embroidery was ordered from town, and soon there would be the gardens
and cotton fields. Mrs. Cresswell would saunter down of mornings.
Sometimes she would talk to the big girls and play with the children;
sometimes she would sit hidden in the forest, listening and glimpsing
and thinking, thinking, till her head whirled and the world danced red
before her eyes, today she rose wearily, for it was near noon, and
started home. She saw Alwyn swing along the road to the school
dining-room where he had charge of the students at the noonday meal.
Alwyn wanted Mrs. Cresswell's judgment and advice. He was growing
doubtful of his own estimate of women. Evidently something about his
standards was wrong; consequently he made opportunities to talk with
Mrs. Cresswell when she was about, hoping she would bring up the subject
of Zora of her own accord. But she did not. She was too full of her own
cares and troubles, and she was only too glad of willing and sympathetic
ears into which to pour her thoughts. Miss Smith soon began to look on
these conversations with some uneasiness. Black men and white women
cannot talk together casually in the South and she did not know how far
the North had put notions in Alwyn's head.
Today both met each other almost eagerly.
Mrs. Cresswell had just had a bit of news which only he would fully
appreciate.
"Have you heard of the Vanderpools?" she asked.
"No--except that he was appointed and confirmed at last."
"Well, they had only arrived in France when he died of apoplexy. I do
not know," added Mrs. Cresswell, "I may be wrong and--I hope I'm not
glad." Then there leapt to her mind a hypothetical question which had to
do with her own curious situation. It was characteristic of her to brood
and then restlessly to seek relief in consulting the one person near who
knew her story. She started to open the subject again today.
But Alwyn, his own mind full, spoke first and rapidly. He, too, had
turned to her as he saw her come from Zora's home. He must know more
about the girl. He could no longer endure this silence. Zora beneath her
apparent frankness was impenetrable, and he felt that she carefully
avoided him, although she did it so deftly that he felt rather than
observed it. Miss Smith still systematically snubbed him when he
broached the subject of Zora. With others he did not speak; the matter
seemed too delicate and sacred, and he always had an awful dread lest
sometime, somewhere, a chance and fatal word would be dropped, a breath
of evil gossip which would shatter all. He had hated to obtrude his
troubles on Mrs. Cresswell, who seemed so torn in soul. But today he
must speak, although time pressed.
"Mrs. Cresswell," he began hurriedly, "there's a matter--a personal
matter of which I have wanted to speak--a long time--I--" The
dinner-bell rang, and he stopped, vexed.
"Come up to the house this afternoon," she said; "Colonel Cresswell will
be away--" Then she paused abruptly. A strange startling thought flashed
through her brain. Alwyn noticed nothing. He thanked her cordially and
hurried toward the dining-hall, meeting Colonel Cresswell on horseback
just as he turned into the school gate.
Mary Cresswell walked slowly on, flushing and paling by turns. Could it
be that this Negro had dared to misunderstand her--had presumed? She
reviewed her conduct. Perhaps she had been indiscreet in thus making a
confidant of him in her trouble. She had thought of him as a boy--an old
student, a sort of confidential servant; but what had he thought? She
remembered Miss Smith's warning of years before--and he had been North
since and acquired Northern notions of freedom and equality. She bit her
lip cruelly.
Yet, she mused, she was herself to blame. She had unwittingly made the
intimacy and he was but a Negro, looking on every white woman as a
goddess and ready to fawn at the slightest encouragement. There had been
no one else here to confide in. She could not tell Miss Smith her
troubles, although she knew Miss Smith must suspect. Harry Cresswell,
apparently, had written nothing home of their quarrel. All the neighbors
behaved as if her excuse of ill-health were sufficient to account for
her return South to escape the rigors of a Northern winter. Alwyn, and
Alwyn alone, really knew. Well, it was her blindness, and she must right
it quietly and quickly with hard ruthless plainness. She blushed again
at the shame of it; then she began to excuse.
After all, which was worse--a Cresswell or an Alwyn? It was no sin that
Alwyn had done; it was simply ignorant presumption, and she must correct
him firmly, but gently, like a child. What a crazy muddle the world was!
She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp.
She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. She
thought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn and given her herself a very
bad quarter of an hour. What a world it was, and after all how far was
this black boy wrong? Just then Colonel Cresswell rode up behind and
greeted her.
She started almost guiltily, and again a sense of the awkwardness of her
position reddened her face and neck. The Colonel dismounted, despite her
protest, and walked beside her. They chatted along indifferently, of the
crops, her brother's new baby, the proposed mill.
"Mary," his voice abruptly struck a new note. "I don't like the way you
talk with that Alwyn nigger."
She was silent.
"Of course," he continued, "you're Northern born and you have been a
teacher in this school and feel differently from us in some ways; but
mark what I say, a nigger will presume on the slightest pretext, and you
must keep them in their place. Then, too, you are a Cresswell now--"
She smiled bitterly; he noticed it, but went on:
"You are a Cresswell, even if you have caught Harry up to some of his
deviltry,"--she started,--"and got miffed about it. It'll all come out
right. You're a Cresswell, and you must hold yourself too high to
'Mister' a nigger or let him dream of any sort of equality."
He spoke pleasantly, but with a certain sharp insistence that struck a
note of fear in Mary's heart. For a moment she thought of writing Alwyn
not to call. But, no; a note would be unwise. She and Colonel Cresswell
lunched rather silently.
"Well, I must get to town," he finally announced. "The mill directors
meet today. If Maxwell calls by about that lumber tell him I'll see him
in town." And away he went.
He had scarcely reached the highway and ridden a quarter of a mile or
so when he spied Bles Alwyn hurrying across the field toward the
Cresswell Oaks. He frowned and rode on. Then reining in his horse, he
stopped in the shadow of the trees and watched Alwyn.
It was here that Zora saw him as she came up from her house. She, too,
stopped, and soon saw whom he was watching. She had been planning to see
Mr. Cresswell about the cut timber on her land. By legal right it was
hers but she knew he would claim half, treating her like a mere tenant.
Seeing him watching Alwyn she paused in the shadow and waited, fearing
trouble. She, too, had felt that the continued conversations of Alwyn
and Mrs. Cresswell were indiscreet, but she hoped that they had
attracted no one else's attention. Now she feared the Colonel was
suspicious and her heart sank. Alwyn went straight toward the house and
disappeared in the oak avenue. Still Colonel Cresswell waited but Zora
waited no longer. Alwyn must be warned. She must reach Cresswell's
mansion before Cresswell did and without him seeing her. This meant a
long detour of the swamp to approach the Oaks from the west. She
silently gathered up her skirts and walked quickly and carefully away.
She was a strong woman, lithe and vigorous, living in the open air and
used to walking. Once out of hearing she threw away her hat and bending
forward ran through the swamp. For a while she ran easily and swiftly.
Then for a moment she grew dizzy and it seemed as though she was
standing still and the swamp in solemn grandeur marching past--in solemn
mocking grandeur. She loosened her dress at the neck and flew on.
She sped at last through the oaks, up the terraces, and slowing down to
an unsteady walk, staggered into the house. No one would wonder at her
being there. She came up now and then and sorted the linen and piled the
baskets for her girls. She entered a side door and listened. The
Colonel's voice sounded impatiently in the front hall.
"Mary! Mary?"
A pause, then an answer:
"Yes, father!"
He started up the front stairway and Zora hurried up the narrow back
stairs, almost overturning a servant.
"I'm after the clothes," she explained. She reached the back landing
just in time to see Colonel Cresswell's head rising up the front
staircase. With a quick bound she almost fell into the first room at the
top of the stairs.
Bles Alwyn had hurried through his dinner duties and hastened to the
Oaks. The questions, the doubts, the uncertainty within him were
clamoring for utterance. How much had Mrs. Cresswell ever known of Zora?
What kind of a woman was Zora now? Mrs. Cresswell had seen her and had
talked to her and watched her. What did she think? Thus he formulated
his questions as he went, half timid, and fearful in putting them and
yet determined to know.
Mrs. Cresswell, waiting for him, was almost panic-stricken. Probably he
would beat round the bush seeking further encouragement; but at the
slightest indication she must crush him ruthlessly and at the same time
point the path of duty. He ought to marry some good girl--not Zora, but
some one. Somehow Zora seemed too unusual and strange for him--too
inhuman, as Mary Cresswell judged humanity. She glanced out from her
seat on the upper verandah over the front porch and saw Alwyn coming.
Where should she receive him? On the porch and have Mr. Maxwell ride up?
In the parlor and have the servants astounded and talking? If she took
him up to her own sitting-room the servants would think he was doing
some work or fetching something for the school. She greeted him briefly
and asked him in.
"Good-afternoon, Bles"--using his first name to show him his place, and
then inwardly recoiling at its note of familiarity. She preceded him
up-stairs to the sitting-room, where, leaving the door ajar, she seated
herself on the opposite side of the room and waited.
He fidgeted, then spoke rapidly.
"Mrs. Cresswell--this is a personal affair." She reddened angrily. "A
love affair"--she paled with something like fear--"and I"--she started
to speak, but could not--"I want to know what you think about Zora?"
"About Zora!" she gasped weakly. The sudden reaction, the revulsion of
her agitated feelings, left her breathless.
"About Zora. You know I loved her dearly as a boy--how dearly I have
only just begun to realize: I've been wondering if I understood--if I
wasn't--"
Mrs. Cresswell got angrily to her feet.
"You have come here to speak to me of that--that--" she choked, and Bles
thought his worst fears realized.
"Mary, Mary!" Colonel Cresswell's voice broke suddenly in upon them.
With a start of fear Mrs. Cresswell rushed out into the hall and closed
the door.
"Mary, has that Alwyn nigger been here this afternoon?" Mr. Cresswell
was coming up-stairs, carrying his riding whip.
"Why, no!" she answered, lying instinctively before she quite realized
what her lie meant. She hesitated. "That is, I haven't seen him. I must
have nodded over my book,"--looking toward the little verandah at the
front of the upper hall, where her easy chair stood with her book. Then
with an awful flash of enlightenment she realized what her lie might
mean, and her heart paused.
Cresswell strode up.
"I saw him come up--he must have entered. He's nowhere downstairs," he
wavered and scowled. "Have you been in your sitting-room?" And then, not
waiting for a reply, he strode to the door.
"But the damned scoundrel wouldn't dare!"
He deliberately placed his hand in his right-hand hip-pocket and threw
open the door.
Mary Cresswell stood frozen. The full horror of the thing burst upon
her. Her own silly misapprehension, the infatuation of Alwyn for Zora,
her thoughtless--no, vindictive--betrayal of him to something worse than
death. She listened for the crack of doom. She heard a bird singing far
down in the swamp; she heard the soft raising of a window and the
closing of a door. And then--great God in heaven! must she live forever
in this agony?--and then, she heard the door bang and Mr. Cresswell's
gruff voice--
"Well, where is he?--he isn't in there!"
Mary Cresswell felt that something was giving way within. She swayed and
would have crashed to the bottom of the staircase if just then she had
not seen at the opposite end of the hall, near the back stairs, Zora and
Alwyn emerge calmly from a room, carrying a basket full of clothes.
Colonel Cresswell stared at them, and Zora instinctively put up her hand
and fastened her dress at the throat. The Colonel scowled, for it was
all clear to him now.
"Look here," he angrily opened upon them, "if you niggers want to meet
around keep out of this house; hereafter I'll send the clothes down. By
God, if you want to make love go to the swamp!" He stamped down the
stairs while an ashy paleness stole beneath the dark-red bronze of
Zora's face.
They walked silently down the road together--the old familiar road.
Alwyn was staring moodily ahead.
"We must get married--before Christmas, Zora," he presently avowed, not
looking at her. He felt the basket pause and he glanced up. Her dark
eyes were full upon him and he saw something in their depths that
brought him to himself and made him realize his blunder.
"Zora!" he stammered, "forgive me! Will you marry me?"
She looked at him calmly with infinite compassion. But her reply was
uttered unhesitantly; distinct, direct.
"No, Bles."
_Thirty-five_