GOING FORTH TO UNFETTER.
Morlene was yet wearing mourning for Harry, and, as a consequence, Dorlan
was forced to delay the inauguration of his suit. If you think that this
procedure, or rather non-procedure, was to his liking, but ask the stars
unto whom his heart so often entrusted its secrets; ask the wee small hours
of the night who saw him restless, times without number.
Somehow his business seemed to require him to pass Morlene's house rather
often; and yet the business could not have been so very urgent, in that he
found so much time to spare, talking to Morlene in an informal way at her
gate. And, to go further, if the truth must out, Morlene's presence at that
gate at Dorlan's time of passing did happen, we must admit, rather often to
be placed in the category with usual _accidental_ occurrences.
Now and then, at rare intervals, Dorlan would pay Morlene a call on some
matter of business, he would say. On those occasions it was interesting to
note how quickly the business matter was disposed of--in fact, was so often
actually forgotten by Dorlan and, it must be confessed, by Morlene, too.
The truth of the matter is, to be plain, these two individuals had
discovered that their souls were congenial spirits, each seeming to need
the other, if it would have a sense of completeness. Now, this was the
latent Dorlan and the latent Morlene, the apparent Dorlan and the apparent
Morlene co-operating with society in its policy of adding to the duration
of the marriage vow, which reads until death, but which has been stretched
by society to an indefinite period thereafter. This discovery of a bond of
affinity, we say, was purely the work of the latent Dorlan and the latent
Morlene, for were not those two members of society abstaining from all
mention of the regard, the deep regard, the boundless----excuse us, the
period of mourning has not passed.
One day Dorlan discovered by consulting his memorandum that about the usual
time between those business (?) propositions had elapsed and he searched
his mind for a plausible excuse for making a call.
When Dorlan arrived at Morlene's home that night, imagine his feelings when
he saw on entering the parlor that she had at last laid aside her mourning
attire. The thought that she was now approachable set his soul ablaze.
What Dorlan took to be the most wicked of all demons, seemed to say to him,
"Don't declare yourself on this the very first occasion. Those gate talks
and business visits are not supposed to have been acts of courtship,
remember."
"Will you please leave me?" whispered Dorlan's soul to the imaginary
grinning demon that made the suggestion.
Utterly repudiating all thought of further delay, Dorlan drew close to
Morlene. She saw the love signals in Dorlan's eyes. Rather than have her
soul flash back replies, she inclined her head forward and looking down,
clutched the table near which she stood.
"Morlene," said Dorlan, "I really believe that my heart will burst if I do
not let out its secret. Morlene, I love you. But you know that and you know
how well. You have read this and more, too, in my countenance. Will you be
my wife?"
Those words spoken into Morlene's ear at close range were elixir unto her
soul. Looking up into Dorlan's face, her eyes told of love, deep,
boundless. This Dorlan saw. But he saw more than love. He saw despair
written so legibly upon that sweet face that it could not be misunderstood
and would not be ignored.
"Come," said Dorlan, leading Morlene to a seat. Sitting down by her side
and taking one of her lovely hands in his, he said in tones charged with
deepest emotion:
"Tell me, dear girl, that you will be my wife. May I, poor worm of the
dust, be allowed to call you my own?" plead Dorlan, bestowing on Morlene
that peculiar look born of love stirred to its depths by anxiety.
"I do not know, Mr. Warthell, I do not know. It----"
"Do not know," gasped Dorlan, dropping the hand tenderly. "My God! she does
not know!" he groaned.
"Wait but a second, and all will be plain," said Morlene, placing a hand
upon Dorlan's arm and looking eagerly into his grief-torn face.
"Wait a second," repeated Dorlan mechanically. "A second in moments like
these seems akin to an eternity. But I wait."
"Now, Mr. Warthell, be fair to yourself," said Morlene, soothingly. "You
remarked that I must have read some things in your countenance. Remember
your soul has an eyesight, and you have done some reading, too." Her eyes
were averted, her tones low, her speech halting as she made this
half-confession to Dorlan's eager ears.
Dorlan, who had been feeling more like an arctic explorer than a suitor for
a lady's hand, felt his blood running warmer from the effects of this
morsel of cheer.
"I will explain to you what it is that I do not know, Mr. Warthell. I do
not know how long it will be before conditions in the South will warrant
women of my way of thinking in becoming wives of men of your mould."
"If," said Dorlan, rising, "consideration of this matter is to be postponed
until my environments enable me to prove myself worthy of you, my doom is
certain. For the most benign influences of earth have not produced the man
that could claim your hand on the ground of merit."
"Mr. Warthell, you misapprehend. A second thought would have told you not
to place a construction on my remarks that causes them to savor of egotism
on my part. It is far from me to suggest that anything is needed to make
you worthy of any woman. To the contrary, your esteem is a tribute than
which there is nothing higher, so I feel. Now, hear me calmly," said
Morlene.
"Not until I have purged myself of contempt," said Dorlan, deferentially.
"I hold that egotism is inordinate self-esteem, esteem carried beyond what
is deserved. Under this definition, show me, please, how you could manifest
egotism. It is absolutely unthinkable from my point of view."
Morlene waved her hand deprecatingly, told Dorlan to be seated and began an
explanation of the peculiar situation in which they found themselves.
Dorlan was calmer now; he realized an undercurrent of love in all that
Morlene was saying and he knew, as all men know, that love will eventually
assert itself. So he bore Morlene's attempt to tie cords about her
affections, much in the spirit of one who might see a web woven across the
sky for the feet of the sun.
Morlene said: "Mr. Warthell, to my mind it is the function of the wife to
idealize the aims of a husband, to quicken the energies that would flag, to
be at once the incentive and perennial inspiration of his noble
achievements, to point him to the stars and steady his hand as he carves
his name upon the skies. In the South the Negro wife is robbed of this holy
task. We are being taught in certain high quarters that self-repression is
the Negro's chiefest virtue. Our bodies are free--they no longer wear the
chains, but our spirits are yet in fetters. I have firmly resolved, Mr.
Warthell, to accept no place by a husband's side until I can say to his
spirit, 'Go forth to fill the earth with goodness and glory.'"
Morlene paused for an instant.
"Mr. Warthell, in you may slumber the genius of a Pericles, but a wife in
the South dare not urge upon you to become a town constable or a justice of
the peace. Talk about slavery! Ah! the chains that fetter the body are but
as ropes of down when compared to those that fetter the mind, the spirit of
man. And think ye I would enter your home simply to inspire that great soul
of yours to restlessness and fruitless tuggings at its chains! In the day
when a Negro has a man's chance in the race of life, I will let my heart
say to you, Mr. Warthell, all that it wishes to say."
Morlene ceased speaking and the two sat long in silence. Dorlan was the
first to speak.
"Morlene, I confess I am a slave. My neighbors, my white fellow citizens,
have formed a pen, have drawn a zigzag line about me and told me that I
must not step across on pain of death. Having a mind as other men, such
arbitrary restrictions are galling. I am then a slave, limited not by my
capacity to feel and do, but by the color of my skin. You do not wish to
marry a slave; refuse him for his own good. All of that is clear to me, and
I chide you not. Come! There are lands where a man's color places no
restrictions on his aspirations for what is high and useful. Let us flee
thither!"
"No, no, no, Mr. Warthell! Let us not flee. At least, not yet. Our dignity
as a people demands that the manhood rights of the race be recognized on
every foot of soil on which the sun sees fit to cast his rays."
"Now, Morlene," said Dorlan, "you as good as tell me that you will never be
my wife. Pray, tell me, why am I so rudely tossed about upon the bosom of
life's heaving ocean?" These words were spoken in tones of utter despair.
"I have not said that I would not be your wife, Dorlan. I am trying every
day I live to devise a solution for our Southern problem."
"She called me Dorlan, she called me Dorlan," said he to himself, rejoicing
inwardly over this fresh burst of sunshine just as his gloom was deepening.
Suddenly his face showed the illumination of a great hope.
"Morlene! Morlene!" cried Dorlan, in a rush of enthusiasm, "Suppose I,
Dorlan Warthell, solve this problem; suppose I unfetter the mind of the
Negro and allow it full scope for operation; suppose I offer to you a
thoroughly substantial hope of racial regeneration, will you----" Here
Dorlan paused and looked lovingly into the sweet face upturned to his. "If
I do these things," he resumed in sober tone, "will you be my wife?"
"Mr. Warthell, if you can open the way for me to really be your wife, there
is nothing in my heart that bids me shrink from the love you offer."
Dorlan's mind entertained one great burst of hope, then fled at once to the
great race problem that had hung pall-like over the heads of the American
people for so many generations, and now stood between himself and Morlene.
A sense of the enormity of the task that he had undertaken now overwhelmed
him. Dorlan bowed his head, the following thoughts coursing through his
agitated mind: "I am to weld two heterogeneous elements into a homogeneous
entity. I am to make a successful blend of two races that differ so widely
as do the whites and the Negroes. Each race has manifested its racial
instincts, and has shown us all, that wise planning must take account of
these. The problem is inherently a difficult one and of a highly complex
nature. But with an incentive such as I have, surely it can be solved.
Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln said the problem was incapable of
solution, that the two races could not live together on terms of equality.
They were great and wise, but not infallible. With Morlene as a prize, I
shall prove them wrong." Morlene, taking advantage of his abstraction,
bestowed on him an unreserved look of pitying love.
Dorlan looked up suddenly from his reverie, and their eyes met once more.
There was no reserve now and Dorlan's joy was so keen that it seemed to
pain him. Arising to go, he said: "I go from you consecrating my whole
power to the task before me. Fortunate it is, indeed, for the South that
she has at least one man so surrounded that he cannot be happy himself
until he makes this wilderness of woe blossom as a rose. Farewell."
Dorlan now left and walked slowly toward his home. He reflected, "I will
have no business at her home now until this problem is solved. Suppose I do
not solve it."
Dorlan's fears began to assert themselves. "I may never, never see that
face again. Think of it!" he said. This thought was too much for Dorlan. He
paused, leaned upon the fence, thrust his hat back from his fevered brow.
He turned and retraced his steps to Morlene's home. She met him at the door
and was not surprised at his return. Her heart was craving for just another
sight of its exiled lord. Re-entering the parlor, they stood facing each
other.
"Morlene," said Dorlan, "I have come to ask a boon of you. I can labor so
much better with a full assurance of your love. From your eyes, from your
words, I say humbly, I have come to feel that you have honored me with that
love. But the testimony is incomplete. Will you grant unto me the one
remaining assurance? Will you seal our most holy compact with a kiss?"
Morlene's lips parted not, but she attempted an answer, nevertheless. Her
queenlike head was shaking negatively, saying, "Please do not require
that." But those telltale eyes were saying, "Why, young man the whole
matter rests with you." Morlene was conscious that her eyes were
contradicting the negative answer that her head was giving. To punish the
two beautiful traitors she turned them away from Dorlan and made them look
at the carpet. Morlene in this attitude was so exquisitely beautiful that
Dorlan was powerless to resist the impulse that made him take her into his
arms.
One rapturous kiss, and Dorlan was gone!