Rena was convalescent from a two-weeks' illness when her brother came
to see her. He arrived at Patesville by an early morning train before
the town was awake, and walked unnoticed from the station to his
mother's house. His meeting with his sister was not without emotion:
he embraced her tenderly, and Rena became for a few minutes a very
Niobe of grief.
"Oh, it was cruel, cruel!" she sobbed. "I shall never get over it."
"I know it, my dear," replied Warwick soothingly,--"I know it, and I'm
to blame for it. If I had never taken you away from here, you would
have escaped this painful experience. But do not despair; all is not
lost. Tryon will not marry you, as I hoped he might, while I feared
the contrary; but he is a gentleman, and will be silent. Come back and
try again."
"No, John. I couldn't go through it a second time. I managed very
well before, when I thought our secret was unknown; but now I could
never be sure. It would be borne on every wind, for aught I knew, and
every rustling leaf might whisper it. The law, you said, made us
white; but not the law, nor even love, can conquer prejudice. HE spoke
of my beauty, my grace, my sweetness! I looked into his eyes and
believed him. And yet he left me without a word! What would I do in
Clarence now? I came away engaged to be married, with even the day
set; I should go back forsaken and discredited; even the servants would
pity me."
"Little Albert is pining for you," suggested Warwick. "We could make
some explanation that would spare your feelings."
"Ah, do not tempt me, John! I love the child, and am grieved to leave
him. I'm grateful, too, John, for what you have done for me. I am not
sorry that I tried it. It opened my eyes, and I would rather die of
knowledge than live in ignorance. But I could not go through it again,
John; I am not strong enough. I could do you no good; I have made you
trouble enough already. Get a mother for Albert--Mrs. Newberry would
marry you, secret and all, and would be good to the child. Forget me,
John, and take care of yourself. Your friend has found you out through
me--he may have told a dozen people. You think he will be silent;--I
thought he loved me, and he left me without a word, and with a look
that told me how he hated and despised me. I would not have believed
it--even of a white man."
"You do him an injustice," said her brother, producing Tryon's letter.
"He did not get off unscathed. He sent you a message."
She turned her face away, but listened while he read the letter. "He
did not love me," she cried angrily, when he had finished, "or he would
not have cast me off--he would not have looked at me so. The law would
have let him marry me. I seemed as white as he did. He might have
gone anywhere with me, and no one would have stared at us curiously; no
one need have known. The world is wide--there must be some place where
a man could live happily with the woman he loved."
"Yes, Rena, there is; and the world is wide enough for you to get along
without Tryon."
"For a day or two," she went on, "I hoped he might come back. But his
expression in that awful moment grew upon me, haunted me day and night,
until I shuddered at the thought that I might ever see him again. He
looked at me as though I were not even a human being. I do not love
him any longer, John; I would not marry him if I were white, or he were
as I am. He did not love me--or he would have acted differently. He
might have loved me and have left me--he could not have loved me and
have looked at me so!"
She was weeping hysterically. There was little he could say to comfort
her. Presently she dried her tears. Warwick was reluctant to leave
her in Patesville. Her childish happiness had been that of ignorance;
she could never be happy there again. She had flowered in the sunlight;
she must not pine away in the shade.
"If you won't come back with me, Rena, I'll send you to some school at
the North, where you can acquire a liberal education, and prepare
yourself for some career of usefulness. You may marry a better man
than even Tryon."
"No," she replied firmly, "I shall never marry any man, and I'll not
leave mother again. God is against it; I'll stay with my own people."
"God has nothing to do with it," retorted Warwick. "God is too often a
convenient stalking-horse for human selfishness. If there is anything
to be done, so unjust, so despicable, so wicked that human reason
revolts at it, there is always some smug hypocrite to exclaim, 'It is
the will of God.'"
"God made us all," continued Rena dreamily, "and for some good purpose,
though we may not always see it. He made some people white, and
strong, and masterful, and--heartless. He made others black and
homely, and poor and weak"--
"And a lot of others 'poor white' and shiftless," smiled Warwick.
"He made us, too," continued Rena, intent upon her own thought, "and He
must have had a reason for it. Perhaps He meant us to bring the others
together in his own good time. A man may make a new place for
himself--a woman is born and bound to hers. God must have meant me to
stay here, or He would not have sent me back. I shall accept things as
they are. Why should I seek the society of people whose
friendship--and love--one little word can turn to scorn? I was right,
John; I ought to have told him. Suppose he had married me and then had
found it out?"
To Rena's argument of divine foreordination Warwick attached no weight
whatever. He had seen God's heel planted for four long years upon the
land which had nourished slavery. Had God ordained the crime that the
punishment might follow? It would have been easier for Omnipotence to
prevent the crime. The experience of his sister had stirred up a
certain bitterness against white people--a feeling which he had put
aside years ago, with his dark blood, but which sprang anew into life
when the fact of his own origin was brought home to him so forcibly
through his sister's misfortune. His sworn friend and promised
brother-in-law had thrown him over promptly, upon the discovery of the
hidden drop of dark blood. How many others of his friends would do the
same, if they but knew of it? He had begun to feel a little of the
spiritual estrangement from his associates that he had noticed in Rena
during her life at Clarence. The fact that several persons knew his
secret had spoiled the fine flavor of perfect security hitherto marking
his position. George Tryon was a man of honor among white men, and had
deigned to extend the protection of his honor to Warwick as a man,
though no longer as a friend; to Rena as a woman, but not as a wife.
Tryon, however, was only human, and who could tell when their paths in
life might cross again, or what future temptation Tryon might feel to
use a damaging secret to their disadvantage? Warwick had cherished
certain ambitions, but these he must now put behind him. In the
obscurity of private life, his past would be of little moment; in the
glare of a political career, one's antecedents are public property, and
too great a reserve in regard to one's past is regarded as a confession
of something discreditable. Frank, too, knew the secret--a good,
faithful fellow, even where there was no obligation of fidelity; he
ought to do something for Frank to show their appreciation of his
conduct. But what assurance was there that Frank would always be
discreet about the affairs of others? Judge Straight knew the whole
story, and old men are sometimes garrulous. Dr. Green suspected the
secret; he had a wife and daughters. If old Judge Straight could have
known Warwick's thoughts, he would have realized the fulfillment of his
prophecy. Warwick, who had builded so well for himself, had weakened
the structure of his own life by trying to share his good fortune with
his sister.
"Listen, Rena," he said, with a sudden impulse, "we'll go to the North
or West--I'll go with you--far away from the South and the Southern
people, and start life over again. It will be easier for you, it will
not be hard for me--I am young, and have means. There are no strong
ties to bind me to the South. I would have a larger outlook elsewhere."
"And what about our mother?" asked Rena.
It would be necessary to leave her behind, they both perceived clearly
enough, unless they were prepared to surrender the advantage of their
whiteness and drop back to the lower rank. The mother bore the mark of
the Ethiopian--not pronouncedly, but distinctly; neither would Mis'
Molly, in all probability, care to leave home and friends and the
graves of her loved ones. She had no mental resources to supply the
place of these; she was, moreover, too old to be transplanted; she
would not fit into Warwick's scheme for a new life.
"I left her once," said Rena, "and it brought pain and sorrow to all
three of us. She is not strong, and I will not leave her here to die
alone. This shall be my home while she lives, and if I leave it again,
it shall be for only a short time, to go where I can write to her
freely, and hear from her often. Don't worry about me, John,--I shall
do very well."
Warwick sighed. He was sincerely sorry to leave his sister, and yet he
saw that for the time being her resolution was not to be shaken. He
must bide his time. Perhaps, in a few months, she would tire of the
old life. His door would be always open to her, and he would charge
himself with her future.
"Well, then," he said, concluding the argument, "we'll say no more
about it for the present. I'll write to you later. I was afraid that
you might not care to go back just now, and so I brought your trunk
along with me."
He gave his mother the baggage-check. She took it across to Frank,
who, during the day, brought the trunk from the depot. Mis' Molly
offered to pay him for the service, but he would accept nothing.
"Lawd, no, Mis' Molly; I did n' hafter go out'n my way ter git dat
trunk. I had a load er sperrit-bairls ter haul ter de still, an' de
depot wuz right on my way back. It'd be robbin' you ter take pay fer a
little thing lack dat."
"My son John's here," said Mis' Molly "an' he wants to see you. Come
into the settin'-room. We don't want folks to know he's in town; but
you know all our secrets, an' we can trust you like one er the family."
"I'm glad to see you again, Frank," said Warwick, extending his hand
and clasping Frank's warmly. "You've grown up since I saw you last,
but it seems you are still our good friend."
"Our very good friend," interjected Rena.
Frank threw her a grateful glance. "Yas, suh," he said, looking
Warwick over with a friendly eye, "an' you is growed some, too. I seed
you, you know, down dere where you live; but I did n' let on, fer you
an' Mis' Rena wuz w'ite as anybody; an' eve'ybody said you wuz good ter
cullud folks, an' he'ped 'em in deir lawsuits an' one way er 'nuther,
an' I wuz jes' plum' glad ter see you gettin' 'long so fine, dat I wuz,
certain sho', an' no mistake about it."
"Thank you, Frank, and I want you to understand how much I appreciate"--
"How much we all appreciate," corrected Rena.
"Yes, how much we all appreciate, and how grateful we all are for your
kindness to mother for so many years. I know from her and from my
sister how good you've been to them."
"Lawd, suh!" returned Frank deprecatingly, "you're makin' a mountain
out'n a molehill. I ain't done nuthin' ter speak of--not half ez much
ez I would 'a' done. I wuz glad ter do w'at little I could, fer
frien'ship's sake."
"We value your friendship, Frank, and we'll not forget it."
"No, Frank," added Rena, "we will never forget it, and you shall always
be our good friend."
Frank left the room and crossed the street with swelling heart. He
would have given his life for Rena. A kind word was doubly sweet from
her lips; no service would be too great to pay for her friendship.
When Frank went out to the stable next morning to feed his mule, his
eyes opened wide with astonishment. In place of the decrepit, one-eyed
army mule he had put up the night before, a fat, sleek specimen of
vigorous mulehood greeted his arrival with the sonorous hehaw of lusty
youth. Hanging on a peg near by was a set of fine new harness, and
standing under the adjoining shed, as he perceived, a handsome new cart.
"Well, well!" exclaimed Frank; "ef I did n' mos' know whar dis mule,
an' dis kyart, an' dis harness come from, I'd 'low dere 'd be'n
witcheraf' er cunjin' wukkin' here. But, oh my, dat is a fine mule!--I
mos' wush I could keep 'im."
He crossed the road to the house behind the cedars, and found Mis'
Molly in the kitchen. "Mis' Molly," he protested, "I ain't done nuthin'
ter deserve dat mule. W'at little I done fer you wa'n't done fer pay.
I'd ruther not keep dem things."
"Fer goodness' sake, Frank!" exclaimed his neighbor, with a
well-simulated air of mystification, "what are you talkin' about?"
"You knows w'at I'm talkin' about, Mis' Molly; you knows well ernuff
I'm talkin' about dat fine mule an' kyart an' harness over dere in my
stable."
"How should I know anything about 'em?" she asked.
"Now, Mis' Molly! You folks is jes' tryin' ter fool me, an' make me
take somethin' fer nuthin'. I lef' my ole mule an' kyart an' harness in
de stable las' night, an' dis mawnin' dey 're gone, an' new ones in
deir place. Co'se you knows whar dey come from!"
"Well, now, Frank, sence you mention it, I did see a witch flyin' roun'
here las' night on a broom-stick, an' it 'peared ter me she lit on yo'r
barn, an' I s'pose she turned yo'r old things into new ones. I wouldn't
bother my mind about it if I was you, for she may turn 'em back any
night, you know; an' you might as well have the use of 'em in the mean
while."
"Dat's all foolishness, Mis' Molly, an' I'm gwine ter fetch dat mule
right over here an' tell yo' son ter gimme my ole one back."
"My son's gone," she replied, "an' I don't know nothin' about yo'r old
mule. And what would I do with a mule, anyhow? I ain't got no barn to
put him in."
"I suspect you don't care much for us after all, Frank," said Rena
reproachfully--she had come in while they were talking. "You meet with
a piece of good luck, and you're afraid of it, lest it might have come
from us."
"Now, Miss Rena, you oughtn't ter say dat," expostulated Frank, his
reluctance yielding immediately. "I'll keep de mule an' de kyart an' de
harness--fac', I'll have ter keep 'em, 'cause I ain't got no others.
But dey 're gwine ter be yo'n ez much ez mine. W'enever you wants
anything hauled, er wants yo' lot ploughed, er anything--dat's yo'
mule, an' I'm yo' man an' yo' mammy's."
So Frank went back to the stable, where he feasted his eyes on his new
possessions, fed and watered the mule, and curried and brushed his coat
until it shone like a looking-glass.
"Now dat," remarked Peter, at the breakfast-table, when informed of the
transaction, "is somethin' lack rale w'ite folks."
No real white person had ever given Peter a mule or a cart. He had
rendered one of them unpaid service for half a lifetime, and had paid
for the other half; and some of them owed him substantial sums for work
performed. But "to him that hath shall be given"--Warwick paid for the
mule, and the real white folks got most of the credit.