Tryon's first feeling, when his mother at the dinner-table gave an
account of her visit to the schoolhouse in the woods, was one of
extreme annoyance. Why, of all created beings, should this particular
woman be chosen to teach the colored school at Sandy Run? Had she
learned that he lived in the neighborhood, and had she sought the place
hoping that he might consent to renew, on different terms, relations
which could never be resumed upon their former footing? Six weeks
before, he would not have believed her capable of following him; but
his last visit to Patesville had revealed her character in such a light
that it was difficult to predict what she might do. It was, however,
no affair of his. He was done with her; he had dismissed her from his
own life, where she had never properly belonged, and he had filled her
place, or would soon fill it, with another and worthier woman. Even
his mother, a woman of keen discernment and delicate intuitions, had
been deceived by this girl's specious exterior. She had brought away
from her interview of the morning the impression that Rena was a fine,
pure spirit, born out of place, through some freak of Fate, devoting
herself with heroic self-sacrifice to a noble cause. Well, he had
imagined her just as pure and fine, and she had deliberately, with a
negro's low cunning, deceived him into believing that she was a white
girl. The pretended confession of the brother, in which he had spoken
of the humble origin of the family, had been, consciously or
unconsciously, the most disingenuous feature of the whole miserable
performance. They had tried by a show of frankness to satisfy their
own consciences,--they doubtless had enough of white blood to give them
a rudimentary trace of such a moral organ,--and by the same act to
disarm him against future recriminations, in the event of possible
discovery. How was he to imagine that persons of their appearance and
pretensions were tainted with negro blood? The more he dwelt upon the
subject, the more angry he became with those who had surprised his
virgin heart and deflowered it by such low trickery. The man who
brought the first negro into the British colonies had committed a crime
against humanity and a worse crime against his own race. The father of
this girl had been guilty of a sin against society for which
others--for which he, George Tryon--must pay the penalty. As slaves,
negroes were tolerable. As freemen, they were an excrescence, an alien
element incapable of absorption into the body politic of white men. He
would like to send them all back to the Africa from which their
forefathers had come,--unwillingly enough, he would admit,--and he
would like especially to banish this girl from his own neighborhood;
not indeed that her presence would make any difference to him, except
as a humiliating reminder of his own folly and weakness with which he
could very well dispense.
Of this state of mind Tryon gave no visible manifestation beyond a
certain taciturnity, so much at variance with his recent liveliness
that the ladies could not fail to notice it. No effort upon the part
of either was able to affect his mood, and they both resigned
themselves to await his lordship's pleasure to be companionable.
For a day or two, Tryon sedulously kept away from the neighborhood of
the schoolhouse at Sandy Rim. He really had business which would have
taken him in that direction, but made a detour of five miles rather
than go near his abandoned and discredited sweetheart.
But George Tryon was wisely distrustful of his own impulses. Driving
one day along the road to Clinton, he overhauled a diminutive black
figure trudging along the road, occasionally turning a handspring by
way of diversion.
"Hello, Plato," called Tryon, "do you want a lift?"
"Hoddy, Mars Geo'ge. Kin I ride wid you?"
"Jump up."
Plato mounted into the buggy with the agility to be expected from a lad
of his acrobatic accomplishments. The two almost immediately fell into
conversation upon perhaps the only subject of common interest between
them. Before the town was reached, Tryon knew, so far as Plato could
make it plain, the estimation in which the teacher was held by pupils
and parents. He had learned the hours of opening and dismissal of the
school, where the teacher lived, her habits of coming to and going from
the schoolhouse, and the road she always followed.
"Does she go to church or anywhere else with Jeff Wain, Plato?" asked
Tryon.
"No, suh, she don' go nowhar wid nobody excep'n' ole Elder Johnson er
Mis' Johnson, an' de child'en. She use' ter stop at Mis' Wain's, but
she's stayin' wid Elder Johnson now. She alluz makes some er de
child'en go home wid er f'm school," said Plato, proud to find in Mars
Geo'ge an appreciative listener,--"sometimes one an' sometimes anudder.
I's be'n home wid 'er twice, ann it'll be my tu'n ag'in befo' long."
"Plato," remarked Tryon impressively, as they drove into the town, "do
you think you could keep a secret?"
"Yas, Mars Geo'ge, ef you says I shill."
"Do you see this fifty-cent piece?" Tryon displayed a small piece of
paper money, crisp and green in its newness.
"Yas, Mars Geo'ge," replied Plato, fixing his eyes respectfully on the
government's promise to pay. Fifty cents was a large sum of money.
His acquaintance with Mars Geo'ge gave him the privilege of looking at
money. When he grew up, he would be able, in good times, to earn fifty
cents a day.
"I am going to give this to you, Plato."
Plato's eyes opened wide as saucers. "Me, Mars Geo'ge?" he asked in
amazement.
"Yes, Plato. I'm going to write a letter while I'm in town, and want
you to take it. Meet me here in half an hour, and I'll give you the
letter. Meantime, keep your mouth shut."
"Yas, Mars Geo'ge," replied Plato with a grin that distended that organ
unduly. That he did not keep it shut may be inferred from the fact
that within the next half hour he had eaten and drunk fifty cents'
worth of candy, ginger-pop, and other available delicacies that
appealed to the youthful palate. Having nothing more to spend, and the
high prices prevailing for some time after the war having left him
capable of locomotion, Plato was promptly on hand at the appointed time
and place.
Tryon placed a letter in Plato's hand, still sticky with molasses
candy,--he had inclosed it in a second cover by way of protection.
"Give that letter," he said, "to your teacher; don't say a word about
it to a living soul; bring me an answer, and give it into my own hand,
and you shall have another half dollar."
Tryon was quite aware that by a surreptitious correspondence he ran
some risk of compromising Rena. But he had felt, as soon as he had
indulged his first opportunity to talk of her, an irresistible impulse
to see her and speak to her again. He could scarcely call at her
boarding-place,--what possible proper excuse could a young white man
have for visiting a colored woman? At the schoolhouse she would be
surrounded by her pupils, and a private interview would be as
difficult, with more eyes to remark and more tongues to comment upon
it. He might address her by mail, but did not know how often she sent
to the nearest post-office. A letter mailed in the town must pass
through the hands of a postmaster notoriously inquisitive and
evil-minded, who was familiar with Tryon's handwriting and had ample
time to attend to other people's business. To meet the teacher alone
on the road seemed scarcely feasible, according to Plato's statement.
A messenger, then, was not only the least of several evils, but really
the only practicable way to communicate with Rena. He thought he could
trust Plato, though miserably aware that he could not trust himself
where this girl was concerned.
The letter handed by Tryon to Plato, and by the latter delivered with
due secrecy and precaution, ran as follows:--
DEAR MISS WARWICK,--You may think it strange that I should address you
after what has passed between us; but learning from my mother of your
presence in the neighborhood, I am constrained to believe that you do
not find my proximity embarrassing, and I cannot resist the wish to
meet you at least once more, and talk over the circumstances of our
former friendship. From a practical point of view this may seem
superfluous, as the matter has been definitely settled. I have no
desire to find fault with you; on the contrary, I wish to set myself
right with regard to my own actions, and to assure you of my good
wishes. In other words, since we must part, I would rather we parted
friends than enemies. If nature and society--or Fate, to put it
another way--have decreed that we cannot live together, it is
nevertheless possible that we may carry into the future a pleasant
though somewhat sad memory of a past friendship. Will you not grant me
one interview? I appreciate the difficulty of arranging it; I have
found it almost as hard to communicate with you by letter. I will suit
myself to your convenience and meet you at any time and place you may
designate. Please answer by bearer, who I think is trustworthy, and
believe me, whatever your answer may be,
Respectfully yours,
G. T.
The next day but one Tryon received through the mail the following
reply to his letter:--