_Friendly Enemies._
It has always been a mooted question with Ensal as to whether he did or
did not sleep the night of Tiara's call at his residence. But he has
ever stood ready to take oath or affirmation that, whether waking or
sleeping, Tiara was constantly in his thoughts that night. And when
turning his face toward the window the following morning he saw streaks
of golden sunshine stretched across the floor, and realized that there
was a nameless something within him which that sunlight could not match,
he knew that the crisis in his life had come.
After a frugal meal with his mother, and the planting of a kiss of
unusual warmth upon her cheek, Ensal stepped forth for his day's duties.
As he went out of his gate he noticed a white man across the street
acting as though he was sketching his (Ensal's) home. Feeling that he
was warranted in having as much interest in the man as the man seemed to
have in that which pertained to him, Ensal walked somewhat obliquely
across the street, coming near enough to the man to receive an
explanation, if the man desired to give one, or, at any rate, near
enough to have a good view of the sketch taken.
The white man took advantage of the opportunity to get a full look at
Ensal, who felt a little uneasiness at the intense interest which the
man's whole countenance showed that he had in him. The man's eyes had an
earnest, pained expression. His cheeks were hollow and seemed to
indicate that he was just going into or emerging from a hard spell of
sickness. His hat was a faded brown derby and his suit of clothes was of
a tough, coarse fibre and much worn. Standing by him on the sidewalk was
what appeared to be a much battered drummer's case to which the man's
eye would revert oftener than the utmost caution would seem to have
rendered necessary. Ensal passed on, but somehow this strange white man
came into his mind and demanded a share in the thoughts which would
otherwise have gone undividedly to Tiara.
Ensal called at the home of Mrs. Crawford and made it possible for Tiara
to arrange for a home with her, an alliance which would at once afford
Tiara an entrance into the social life of the best Negro circles. This
much accomplished, Ensal started in the direction of the Crump's to
apprise Tiara of the arrangements.
"Why so much haste?"
Ensal turned and looked into the face of his friend, Earl Bluefield.
"Was I walking fast?" asked Ensal.
"Fast!" exclaimed Earl. "If you can induce the saints in your church to
give the devil half as much trouble to catch them as you have given me,
why they will be saved all right. Really a person who didn't know would
have thought that your mother-in-law had died and that you were hurrying
to make arrangements for her funeral," said Earl.
"By the way," said Ensal, "I am glad that I met you. A-a friend of mine
from New York, a Miss Merlow, Tiara Merlow, is in the city. I wish you
to pay her a call with me to-morrow evening. May I make the engagement?"
Earl dropped his head in meditation. His brain was exceedingly active.
Beneath this apparently simple proposal of Ensal's lay hidden many
possibilities.
Ensal and Earl represented two types in the Negro race, the conservative
and the radical. They both stood for the ultimate recognition of the
rights of the Negro as an American citizen, but their methods were
opposite. They intuitively assumed, it seemed, opposite sides on every
question that arose pertaining to the race, and championed their
respective sides with much warmth and vigor. Yet they remained friends,
were great admirers of each other, and lived each in the hope of
converting the other to his way of thinking.
On the question of racial connection Ensal was really proud of the fact
that he was a Negro, and felt that had he been entrusted with the
determining of his racial affinity he would have chosen membership in
the Negro race. Earl accepted the fact of his connection with the Negro
race as a matter of course, had no desire to alter the relationship, and
felt neither dejection nor elation on account thereof.
Ensal felt that the acceptance of slavery on the part of the Negro in
preference to extermination was evidence of adaptability to conditions
that assured the presence of the Negro on the earth in the final wind up
of things, in full possession of all the advantages that time and
progress promise. Earl rather admired the Indian and felt that the dead
Indian refusing to be enslaved was a richer heritage to the world than
the yielding and thriving Negro.
Ensal held that the course of the Negro during the Civil War in caring
for the wives and children of the men fighting for their enslavement was
a tribute to their humanity and would prove an invaluable asset in all
future reckonings. While thoroughly approving of the Negro's protection
of the women and children of the whites from violence, Earl was sorry
that the thousand torches which Grady said would have disbanded the
Southern armies were not lighted. Ensal deprecated all talk and thought
of the sword as the final arbiter of the troubles between the races.
Earl had his dreams--and his plans as well.
The procuring of the full recognition of the rights of the Negro was
such a passion with Ensal that Earl relied upon it to finally bring him
from the ranks of the conservatives to the radicals. Earl was fully
convinced within himself that all of Ensal's hopes of a satisfactory,
peaceful adjustment of matters were to be dashed to the ground, and
knowing how thoroughly Ensal's soul was committed to the advancement of
the race, he really expected Ensal to develop into the leader of the
radicals. But this looming into view of a young woman, a friend of
Ensal's, was liable, Earl thought, to complicate matters.
Earl had all along rejoiced in Ensal's determination to remain
unmarried, fearing that family life might add to his conservatism. This
accounts for the fact that Ensal's simple invitation to call on a Miss
Tiara Merlow on the following evening so deeply affected Earl.
"Yes, yes, I'll go," said Earl slowly, almost as much to himself as to
Ensal.
Ensal knew Earl so well that he could have told him the character of his
(Earl's) thoughts.
On the following evening as Ensal and Earl sat in the parlor of the
Crawford's chatting, Tiara parted the curtains shutting off an adjoining
room, and stepped in. Her hair was arranged in two rich black braids
tied up so as to extend only to her shoulders. The hair on the front
part of her head was allowed to come forward, but not enough to forbid
glimpses of a well rounded, beautiful forehead. As she stood there,
symmetrical in form, just large and tall enough to be commanding in
appearance, Ensal again inwardly declared that she was the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen, heard of or dreamed about. Her eyes
would have made a face of less regular features appear beautiful. As for
Tiara, they made her beauty simply dazzling.
When Earl's wits, swept away by Tiara's beauty, slowly returned, it
dawned upon him to his great astonishment that he was face to face with
the young woman who had ridden into Almaville with Ensal and himself.
"If she was Ensal's friend, why did he not make himself known to her on
the train?" asked Earl of himself. But this query was soon dislodged
from his mind by one of far more interest to him, to wit: "Is it not
likely that I may utilize this young woman as a means of bringing to me
a second glimpse of that girl that paid us a visit from the coach for
whites?"
Earl was introduced in due form and joined in the conversation now and
then; but it was evident to Ensal that he was, for some cause, ill at
ease. Tiara and Ensal, however, enjoyed the evening, each intently
weighing the remarks of the other.
They say that Cupid is blind. This may be true of him at some stage of
the proceedings, but when he is looking for a spot at which to let fly
an arrow, he could play schoolmaster to Argus, of the many eyes.
Ensal and Earl departed, Ensal going home to live the evening over
through the night, while Earl called upon Leroy Crutcher and engaged him
to use Tiara Merlow as a clue to trace the unknown young woman.
"Is this honorable, this forming an alliance with Leroy Crutcher, this
placing of a surveillance, as it were, on the movements of my friend's
friend?"
These questions came to Earl more than once that night and the answer of
the hot blood of his soul was: "Conditions have made me an outlaw among
my kind. Rubbish aside, am I not as much of an Anglo-Saxon as any of
them? Does not my soul respond to those things and those things only to
which their souls respond? He that is without the law shall be judged
without the law."
Judged! That is a solemn and sometimes an awful affair with nature.