Cissie Dildine's conviction that marriage would cure Peter of his
mission persisted in the mulatto's mind long after the glamour of the
girl had faded and his room had regained the bleak emptiness of a
bachelor's bedchamber.
Cissie had been so brief and positive in her statement that Peter, who
had not thought on the point at all, grew more than half convinced she
was right.
Now that he pondered over it, it seemed there was a difference between
the outlook of a bachelor and that of a married man. The former
considered humanity as a balloonist surveys a throng,--immediately and
without perspective,--but the latter always sees mankind through the
frame of his family. A single man tends naturally to philosophy and
reform; a married man to administration and statesmanship. There have
been no great unmarried statesmen; there have been no great married
philosophers or reformers.
Now that Cissie had pointed out this universal rule, Peter saw it very
clearly. And Peter suspected that beneath this rough classification, and
conditioning it, lay a plexus of obscure mental and physical reactions
set up by the relations between husband and wife. It might very well be
there was a difference between the actual cerebral and nervous structure
of a married man and that of a single man.
At any rate, after these reflections, Peter now felt sure that marriage
would cure him of his mission; but how had Cissie known it? How had she
struck out so involved a theory, one might say, in the toss of a head?
The more Peter thought it over the more extraordinary it became. It was
another one of those explosive ideas which Cissie, apparently, had the
faculty of creating out of a pure mental vacuum.
All this philosophy aside, Cissie's appearance just in the nick of his
inspiration, her surprising proposal of marriage, and his refusal, had
accomplished one thing: it had committed Peter to the program he had
outlined to the girl.
Indeed, there seemed something fatalistic in such a concatenation of
events. Siner wondered whether or not he would have obeyed his vision
without this added impulse from Cissie. He did not know; but now, since
it had all come about just as it had, he suspected he would have been
neglectful. He felt as if a dangerous but splendid channel had been
opened before his eyes, and almost at the same instant a hand had
reached down and directed his life into it. This fancy moved the
mulatto. As he got himself ready for bed, he kept thinking:
"Well, my life is settled at last. There is nothing else for me to do.
Even if this should end terribly for me, as Cissie imagines, my life
won't be wasted."
Next morning Peter Siner was awakened by old Rose Hobbett thrusting her
head in at his door, staring around, and finally, seeing Peter in bed,
grumbling:
"Why is you still heah, black man?"
The secretary opened his eyes in astonishment.
"Why shouldn't I be here?"
"Nobody wuz 'speckin' you to be heah." The crone withdrew her head and
vanished.
Peter wondered at this unaccustomed interest of Rose, then hurried out
of bed, supposing himself late for breakfast.
A dense fog had come up from the river, and the moisture floating into
his open windows had dampened his whole room. Peter stepped briskly to
the screen and began splashing himself. It was only in the midst of his
ablutions that he remembered his inspiration and resolve of the previous
evening. As he squeezed the water over his powerfully molded body, he
recalled it almost impersonally. It might have happened to some third
person. He did not even recall distinctly the threads of the logic which
had lifted him to such a Pisgah, and showed him the whole South as a new
and promised land. However, he knew that he could start his train of
thought again, and again ascend the mountain.
Floating through the fog into his open window came the noises of the
village as it set about living another day, precisely as it had lived
innumerable days in the past. The blast of the six-o'clock whistle from
the planing-mill made the loose sashes of his windows rattle. Came a
lowing of cows and a clucking of hens, a woman's calling. The voices of
men in conversation came so distinctly through the pall that it seemed a
number of persons must be moving about their morning work, talking and
shouting, right in the Renfrew yard.
But the thing that impressed Peter most was the solidity and stability
of this Southern village that he could hear moving around him, and its
certainty to go on in the future precisely as it had gone on in the
past. It was a tremendous force. The very old manor about him seemed
huge and intrenched in long traditions, while he, Peter Siner, was just
a brown man, naked behind a screen and rather cold from the fog and damp
of the morning.
He listened to old Rose clashing the kitchen utensils. As he drew on his
damp underwear, he wondered what he could say to old Rose that would
persuade her into a little kindliness and tolerance for the white
people. As he listened he felt hopeless; he could never explain to the
old creature that her own happiness depended upon the charity she
extended to others. She could never understand it. She would live and
die precisely the same bitter old beldam that she was, and nothing could
ever assuage her.
While Peter was thinking of the old creature, she came shuffling along
the back piazza with his breakfast. She let herself in by lifting one
knee to a horizontal, balancing the tray on it, then opening the door
with her freed hand.
When the shutter swung open, it displayed the crone standing on one
foot, wearing a man's grimy sock, which had fallen down over a broken,
run-down shoe.
In Peter's mood the thought of this wretched old woman putting on such
garments morning after morning was unspeakably pathetic. He thought of
his own mother, who had lived and died only a shade or two removed from
the old crone's condition.
Rose put down her foot, and entered the room with her lips poked out,
ready to make instant attack if Peter mentioned his lack of supper the
night before.
"Aunt Rose," asked the secretary, with his friendly intent in his tones,
"how came you to look in this morning and say you didn't expect to find
me in my room?"
She gave an unintelligible grunt, pushed the lamp to one side, and eased
her tray to the table.
Peter finished touching his tie before one of those old-fashioned
mirrors, not of cut-glass, yet perfectly true. He came from the mirror
and moved his chair, out of force of habit, so he could look up the
street toward the Arkwrights'.
"Aunt Rose," said the young man, wistfully, "why are you always angry?"
She bridled at this extraordinary inquiry.
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
She hesitated a moment, thinking how she could make her reply a personal
assault on Peter.
"'Cause you come heah, 'sputin' my rights, da' 's' why."
"No," demurred Peter, "you were quarreling in the kitchen the first
morning I came here, and you didn't know I was on the place."
"Well--I got my tribulations," she snapped, staring suspiciously at
these unusual questions.
There was a pause; then Peter said placatingly:
"I was just thinking, Aunt Rose, you might forget your tribulations if
you didn't ride them all the time."
"Hoccum! What you mean, ridin' my tribulations?"
"Thinking about them. The old Captain, for instance; you are no happier
always abusing the old Captain."
The old virago gave a sniff, tossed her head, but kept her eyes rolled
suspiciously on Peter.
"Very often the way we think and act makes us happy or unhappy,"
moralized Peter, broadly.
"Look heah, nigger, you ain't no preacher sont out by de Lawd to me!"
"Anyway, I am sure you would feel more friendly toward the Captain if
you acted openly with him; for instance, if you didn't take off all his
cold victuals, and handkerchiefs and socks, soap, kitchenware--"
The cook snorted.
"I'd feel dat much mo' nekked an' hongry, dat's how I'd feel."
"Perhaps, if you'd start over, he might give you a better wage."
"Huh!" she snorted in an access of irony. "I see dat skinflint gib'n' me
a better wage. Puuh!" The suddenly she realized where the conversation
had wandered, and stared at the secretary with widening eyes "Good Lawd!
Did dat fool Cap'n set up a nigger in dis bedroom winder jes to ketch
ole Rose packin' off a few ole lef'-overs?" Peter began a hurried
denial, but she rushed on: "'Fo' Gawd, I hopes his viddles chokes him! I
hope his ole smoke-house falls down on his ole haid. I hope to Jesus--"
Peter pleaded with her not to think the Captain was behind his
observations, but the hag rushed out of the bedroom, swinging her head
from side to side, uttering the most terrible maledictions. She would
show him! She wouldn't put another foot in his old kitchen. Wild horses
couldn't drag her into his smoke-house again.
Peter ran to the door and called after her down the piazza, trying to
exonerate the Captain: but she either did not or would not hear, and
vanished into the kitchen, still furious.
Old Rose made Peter so uneasy that he deserted his breakfast midway and
hurried to the library. In the solemn old room he found the Captain
alone and in rather a pleased mood. The old gentleman stood patting and
alining a pile of manuscript. As the mulatto entered he exclaimed:
"Well, here's Peter again!" as if his secretary had been off on a long
journey. Immediately afterward he added, "Peter, guess what I did last
night." His voice was full of triumph.
Peter was thinking about Aunt Rose, and stood looking at the Captain
without the slightest idea.
"I wrote all of this,"--he indicated his manuscript,--"over a hundred
pages."
Peter considered the work without much enthusiasm.
"You must have worked all night."
The old attorney rubbed his hands.
"I think I may claim a touch of inspiration last night, Peter.
Reminiscences rippled from under my pen, propitious words, prosperous
sentences. Er--the fact is, Peter, you will see, when you begin copying,
I had come to a matter--a--a matter of some moment in my life. Every
life contains such moments, Peter. I had meant to write something in the
nature of a defen--an explanation, Peter. But after you left the library
last night it suddenly occurred to me just to give each fact as it took
place, quite frankly. So I did that--not--not what I meant to write, at
all--ah. As you copy it, you may find it not entirely without some
interest to yourself, Peter."
"To me?" repeated Peter, after the fashion of the unattentative.
"Yes, to yourself." The Captain was oddly moved. He took his hands off
the script, walked a little away from the table, came back to it. "It--
ah--may explain a good many things that--er--may have puzzled you." He
cleared his throat and shifted his subject briskly. "We ought to be
thinking about a publisher. What publisher shall we have publish these
reminiscences? Make some stir in Tennessee's political circles,
Peter; tremendous sales; clear up questions everybody is interested in.
H-m--well, I'll walk down town and you"--he motioned to the script--
"begin copying--"
"By the way, Captain," said Peter as the old gentleman turned for the
door, "has Rose said anything to you yet?"
The old man detached his mind from his script with an obvious effort.
"What about?"
"About leaving your service."
"No-o, not especially; she's always leaving my service."
"But in this case it was my fault; at least I brought it about. I
remonstrated with her about taking your left-over victuals and socks and
handkerchiefs and things. She was quite offended."
"Yes, it always offends her," agreed the old man, impatiently. "I never
mention it myself unless I catch her red-handed; then I storm a little
to keep her in bounds."
Naturally, Peter knew of this extraordinary system of service in the
South; nevertheless he was shocked at its implications.
"Captain," suggested Peter, "wouldn't you find it to your own interest
to give old Rose a full cash payment for her services and allow her to
buy her own things?"
The Captain dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "She's a
nigger, Peter; you can't hire a nigger not to steal. Born in 'em. Then
I'm not sure but what it would be compounding a felony, hiring a person
not to steal; might be so construed. Well, now, there's the script. Read
it carefully, my boy, and remember that in order to gain a certain
_status quo_ certain antecedents are--are absolutely necessary,
Peter. Without them my--my life would have been quite empty, Peter.
It's--it's very strange--amazing. You will understand as you read. I'll
be back to dinner, so good-by." In the strangest agitation the old
Captain walked out of the library. The last glimpse Peter had of him was
his meager old figure silhouetted against the cold gray fog that filled
the compound.
Neither the Captain's agitation nor his obvious desire that Peter should
at once read the new manuscript really got past the threshold of the
mulatto's consciousness. Peter's thoughts still hovered about old Rose,
and from that point spread to the whole system of colored service in the
South. For Rose's case was typical. The wage of cooks in small Southern
villages is a pittance--and what they can steal. The tragedy of the
mothers of a whole race working for their board and thievings came over
Peter with a rising grimness. And there was no public sentiment against
such practice. It was accepted everywhere as natural and inevitable. The
negresses were never prosecuted; no effort was made to regain the stolen
goods. The employers realized that what they paid would not keep soul
and body together; that it was steal or perish.
It was a fantastic truth that for any colored girl to hire into domestic
service in Hooker's Bend was more or less entering an apprenticeship in
peculation. What she could steal was the major portion of her wage, if
two such anomalous terms may be used in conjunction.
Yet, strange to say, the negro women of the village were quite honest in
other matters. They paid their small debts. They took their mistresses'
pocket-books to market and brought back the correct change. And if a
mistress grew too indignant about something they had stolen, they would
bring it back and say: "Here is a new one. I'd rather buy you a new one
than have you think I would take anything."
The whole system was the lees of slavery, and was surely the most
demoralizing, the most grotesque method of hiring service in the whole
civilized world. It was so absurd that its mere relation lapses into
humor, that bane of black folk.
Such painful thoughts filled the gloomy library and harassed Peter in
his copying. He took his work to the window and tried to concentrate
upon it, but his mind kept playing away.
Indeed, it seemed to Peter that to sit in this old room and rewrite the
wordy meanderings of the old gentleman's book was the very height of
emptiness. How utterly futile, when all around him, on every hand, girls
like Cissie Dildine were being indentured to corruption! And, as far as
Peter knew, he was the only person in the South who saw it or felt it or
cared anything at all about it.
When Cissie Dildine came to the surface of Peter's mind she remained
there, whirling around and around in his chaotic thoughts. He began
talking to her image, after a certain dramatic trick of his mind, and
she began offering her environment as an excuse for what had come
between them and estranged them. She stole, but she had been trained to
steal. She was a thief, the victim of an immense immorality. The charm
of Cissie, her queer, swift-working intuition, the candor of her
confession, her voluptuousness--all came rushing down on Peter,
harassing him with anger and love and desire. To copy any more script
became impossible. He lost his place; he hardly knew what he was
writing.
He flung aside the whole work, got to his feet with the imperative need
of an athlete for the open. He started out of the room, but as an
afterthought scribbled a nervous line, telling the Captain he might not
be back for dinner. Then he found his hat and coat and walked briskly
around the piazza to the front gate.
The trees and shrubs were dripping, but the fog had almost cleared away,
leaving only a haze in the air. A pale, level line of it cut across the
scarp of the Big Hill. The sun shone with a peculiar soft light through
the vapors.
As Peter passed out at the gate, the fancy came to him that he might
very well be starting on his mission. It came with a sort of surprise.
He wondered how other men had set about reforms. With unpremeditation?
He wondered to whom Jesus of Nazareth preached his first sermon. The
thought of that young Galilean, sensitive, compassionate, inexperienced,
speaking to his first hearer, filled Peter with a strange trembling
tenderness. He looked about the familiar street of Hooker's Bend, the
old trees over the pavement, the shabby village houses, and it all held
a strangeness when thus juxtaposed to the thought of Nazareth nineteen
hundred years before.
The mulatto started down the street with his footsteps quickened by a
sense of spiritual adventure.