_Thirty-four_
THE RETURN OF ALWYN
Bles Alwyn stared at Mrs. Harry Cresswell in surprise. He had not seenher since that moment at the ball, and he was startled at the change.Her abundant hair was gone; her face was pale and drawn, and there werelittle wrinkles below her sunken eyes. In those eyes lurked the tiredlook of the bewildered and the disappointed. It was in the loftywaiting-room of the Washington station where Alwyn had come to meet afriend. Mrs. Cresswell turned and recognized him with genuine pleasure.He seemed somehow a part of the few things in the world--little andunimportant perhaps--that counted and stood firm, and she shook his handcordially, not minding the staring of the people about. He took her bagand carried it towards the gate, which made the observers breatheeasier, seeing him in servile duty. Someway, she knew not just how, shefound herself telling him of the crisis in her life before she realized;not everything, of course, but a great deal. It was much as though shewere talking to some one from another world--an outsider; but one shehad known long, one who understood. Both from what she recounted andwhat she could not tell he gathered the substance of the story, and itbewildered him. He had not thought that white people had such troubles;yet, he reflected, why not? They, too, were human.
"I suppose you hear from the school?" he ventured after a pause.
"Why, yes--not directly--but Zora used to speak of it."
Bles looked up quickly.
"Zora?"
"Yes. Didn't you see her while she was here? She has gone back now."
Then the gate opened, the crowd surged through, sweeping them apart, andnext moment he was alone.
Alwyn turned slowly away. He forgot the friend he was to meet. He forgoteverything but the field of the Silver Fleece. It rose shadowy there inthe pale concourse, swaying in ghostly breezes. The purple of itsflowers mingled with the silver radiance of tendrils that trembledacross the hurrying throng, like threads of mists along low hills. Inits midst rose a dark, slim, and quivering form. She had been here--herein Washington! Why had he not known? What was she doing? "She has goneback now"--back to the Sun and the Swamp, back to the Burden.
Why should not he go back, too? He walked on thinking. He had failed.His apparent success had been too sudden, too overwhelming, and when hehad faced the crisis his hand had trembled. He had chosen the Right--butthe Right was ineffective, impotent, almost ludicrous. It left himshorn, powerless, and in moral revolt. The world had suddenly left him,as the vision of Carrie Wynn had left him, alone, a mere clerk, aninsignificant cog in the great grinding wheel of humdrum drudgery. Hischance to do and thereby to be had not come.
He thought of Zora again. Why not go back to the South where she hadgone? He shuddered as one who sees before him a cold black pool whitherhis path leads. To face the proscription, the insult, the lawless hateof the South again--never! And yet he went home and sat down and wrote along letter to Miss Smith.
The reply that came after some delay was almost curt. It answered few ofhis questions, argued with none of his doubts, and made no mention ofZora. Yes, there was need of a manager for the new farm and settlement.She was not sure whether Alwyn could do the work or not. The salary wasmeagre and the work hard. If he wished it, he must decide immediately.
Two weeks later found Alwyn on the train facing Southward in the JimCrow car. How he had decided to go back South he did not know. In fact,he had not decided. He had sat helpless and inactive in the grip ofgreat and shadowed hands, and the thing was as yet incomprehensible. Andso it was that the vision Zora saw in the swamp had been real enough,and Alwyn felt strangely disappointed that she had given no sign ofgreeting on recognition.
In other ways, too, Zora, when he met her, was to him a new creature.She came to him frankly and greeted him, her gladness shining in hereyes, yet looking nothing more than gladness and saying nothing more.Just what he had expected was hard to say; but he had left her on herknees in the dirt with outstretched hands, and somehow he had expectedto return to some corresponding mental attitude. The physical change ofthese three years was marvellous. The girl was a woman, well-rounded andpoised, tall, straight, and quick. And with this went mental change: aself-mastery; a veiling of the self even in intimate talk; a subtle airas of one looking from great and unreachable heights down on the dawn ofthe world. Perhaps no one who had not known the child and the girl as hehad would have noted all this; but he saw and realized thetransformation with a pang--something had gone; the innocence and wonderof the child, and in their place had grown up something to himincomprehensible and occult.
Miss Smith was not to be easily questioned on the subject. She took nohints and gave no information, and when once he hazarded some pointedquestions she turned on him abruptly, observing acidly: "If I were youI'd think less of Zora and more of her work."
Gradually, in his spiritual perplexity, Alwyn turned to Mary Cresswell.She was staying with the Colonel at Cresswell Oaks. Her coming South wassupposed to be solely for reasons of health, and her appearance madethis excuse plausible. She was lonely and restless, and naturally drawntoward the school. Her intercourse with Miss Smith was only formal, buther interest in Zora's work grew. Down in the swamp, at the edge of thecleared space, had risen a log cabin; long, low, spacious, overhung withoak and pine. It was Zora's centre for her settlement-work. There shelived, and with her a half-dozen orphan girls and children too young forthe boarding department of the school. Mrs. Cresswell easily fell intothe habit of walking by here each day, coming down the avenue of oaksacross the road and into the swamp. She saw little of Zora personallybut she saw her girls and learned much of her plans.
The rooms of the cottage were clean and light, supplied with books andpictures, simple toys, and a phonograph. The yard was one wide green andgolden play-ground, and all day the music of children's glad crooningand the singing of girls went echoing and trembling through the trees,as they played and sewed and washed and worked.
From the Cresswells and the Maxwells and others came loads of clothesfor washing and mending. The Tolliver girls had simple dresses made,embroidery was ordered from town, and soon there would be the gardensand cotton fields. Mrs. Cresswell would saunter down of mornings.Sometimes she would talk to the big girls and play with the children;sometimes she would sit hidden in the forest, listening and glimpsingand thinking, thinking, till her head whirled and the world danced redbefore her eyes, today she rose wearily, for it was near noon, andstarted home. She saw Alwyn swing along the road to the schooldining-room where he had charge of the students at the noonday meal.
Alwyn wanted Mrs. Cresswell's judgment and advice. He was growingdoubtful of his own estimate of women. Evidently something about hisstandards was wrong; consequently he made opportunities to talk withMrs. Cresswell when she was about, hoping she would bring up the subjectof Zora of her own accord. But she did not. She was too full of her owncares and troubles, and she was only too glad of willing and sympatheticears into which to pour her thoughts. Miss Smith soon began to look onthese conversations with some uneasiness. Black men and white womencannot talk together casually in the South and she did not know how farthe North had put notions in Alwyn's head.
Today both met each other almost eagerly.
Mrs. Cresswell had just had a bit of news which only he would fullyappreciate.
"Have you heard of the Vanderpools?" she asked.
"No--except that he was appointed and confirmed at last."
"Well, they had only arrived in France when he died of apoplexy. I donot know," added Mrs. Cresswell, "I may be wrong and--I hope I'm notglad." Then there leapt to her mind a hypothetical question which had todo with her own curious situation. It was characteristic of her to broodand then restlessly to seek relief in consulting the one person near whoknew her story. She started to open the subject again today.
But Alwyn, his own mind full, spoke first and rapidly. He, too, hadturned to her as he saw her come from Zora's home. He must know moreabout the girl. He could no longer endure this silence. Zora beneath herappare
nt frankness was impenetrable, and he felt that she carefullyavoided him, although she did it so deftly that he felt rather thanobserved it. Miss Smith still systematically snubbed him when hebroached the subject of Zora. With others he did not speak; the matterseemed too delicate and sacred, and he always had an awful dread lestsometime, somewhere, a chance and fatal word would be dropped, a breathof evil gossip which would shatter all. He had hated to obtrude histroubles on Mrs. Cresswell, who seemed so torn in soul. But today hemust speak, although time pressed.
"Mrs. Cresswell," he began hurriedly, "there's a matter--a personalmatter of which I have wanted to speak--a long time--I--" Thedinner-bell rang, and he stopped, vexed.
"Come up to the house this afternoon," she said; "Colonel Cresswell willbe away--" Then she paused abruptly. A strange startling thought flashedthrough her brain. Alwyn noticed nothing. He thanked her cordially andhurried toward the dining-hall, meeting Colonel Cresswell on horsebackjust as he turned into the school gate.
Mary Cresswell walked slowly on, flushing and paling by turns. Could itbe that this Negro had dared to misunderstand her--had presumed? Shereviewed her conduct. Perhaps she had been indiscreet in thus making aconfidant of him in her trouble. She had thought of him as a boy--an oldstudent, a sort of confidential servant; but what had he thought? Sheremembered Miss Smith's warning of years before--and he had been Northsince and acquired Northern notions of freedom and equality. She bit herlip cruelly.
Yet, she mused, she was herself to blame. She had unwittingly made theintimacy and he was but a Negro, looking on every white woman as agoddess and ready to fawn at the slightest encouragement. There had beenno one else here to confide in. She could not tell Miss Smith hertroubles, although she knew Miss Smith must suspect. Harry Cresswell,apparently, had written nothing home of their quarrel. All the neighborsbehaved as if her excuse of ill-health were sufficient to account forher return South to escape the rigors of a Northern winter. Alwyn, andAlwyn alone, really knew. Well, it was her blindness, and she must rightit quietly and quickly with hard ruthless plainness. She blushed againat the shame of it; then she began to excuse.
After all, which was worse--a Cresswell or an Alwyn? It was no sin thatAlwyn had done; it was simply ignorant presumption, and she must correcthim firmly, but gently, like a child. What a crazy muddle the world was!She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp.She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. Shethought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn and given her herself a verybad quarter of an hour. What a world it was, and after all how far wasthis black boy wrong? Just then Colonel Cresswell rode up behind andgreeted her.
She started almost guiltily, and again a sense of the awkwardness of herposition reddened her face and neck. The Colonel dismounted, despite herprotest, and walked beside her. They chatted along indifferently, of thecrops, her brother's new baby, the proposed mill.
"Mary," his voice abruptly struck a new note. "I don't like the way youtalk with that Alwyn nigger."
She was silent.
"Of course," he continued, "you're Northern born and you have been ateacher in this school and feel differently from us in some ways; butmark what I say, a nigger will presume on the slightest pretext, and youmust keep them in their place. Then, too, you are a Cresswell now--"
She smiled bitterly; he noticed it, but went on:
"You are a Cresswell, even if you have caught Harry up to some of hisdeviltry,"--she started,--"and got miffed about it. It'll all come outright. You're a Cresswell, and you must hold yourself too high to'Mister' a nigger or let him dream of any sort of equality."
He spoke pleasantly, but with a certain sharp insistence that struck anote of fear in Mary's heart. For a moment she thought of writing Alwynnot to call. But, no; a note would be unwise. She and Colonel Cresswelllunched rather silently.
"Well, I must get to town," he finally announced. "The mill directorsmeet today. If Maxwell calls by about that lumber tell him I'll see himin town." And away he went.
He had scarcely reached the highway and ridden a quarter of a mile orso when he spied Bles Alwyn hurrying across the field toward theCresswell Oaks. He frowned and rode on. Then reining in his horse, hestopped in the shadow of the trees and watched Alwyn.
It was here that Zora saw him as she came up from her house. She, too,stopped, and soon saw whom he was watching. She had been planning to seeMr. Cresswell about the cut timber on her land. By legal right it washers but she knew he would claim half, treating her like a mere tenant.Seeing him watching Alwyn she paused in the shadow and waited, fearingtrouble. She, too, had felt that the continued conversations of Alwynand Mrs. Cresswell were indiscreet, but she hoped that they hadattracted no one else's attention. Now she feared the Colonel wassuspicious and her heart sank. Alwyn went straight toward the house anddisappeared in the oak avenue. Still Colonel Cresswell waited but Zorawaited no longer. Alwyn must be warned. She must reach Cresswell'smansion before Cresswell did and without him seeing her. This meant along detour of the swamp to approach the Oaks from the west. Shesilently gathered up her skirts and walked quickly and carefully away.
She was a strong woman, lithe and vigorous, living in the open air andused to walking. Once out of hearing she threw away her hat and bendingforward ran through the swamp. For a while she ran easily and swiftly.Then for a moment she grew dizzy and it seemed as though she wasstanding still and the swamp in solemn grandeur marching past--in solemnmocking grandeur. She loosened her dress at the neck and flew on.
She sped at last through the oaks, up the terraces, and slowing down toan unsteady walk, staggered into the house. No one would wonder at herbeing there. She came up now and then and sorted the linen and piled thebaskets for her girls. She entered a side door and listened. TheColonel's voice sounded impatiently in the front hall.
"Mary! Mary?"
A pause, then an answer:
"Yes, father!"
He started up the front stairway and Zora hurried up the narrow backstairs, almost overturning a servant.
"I'm after the clothes," she explained. She reached the back landingjust in time to see Colonel Cresswell's head rising up the frontstaircase. With a quick bound she almost fell into the first room at thetop of the stairs.
Bles Alwyn had hurried through his dinner duties and hastened to theOaks. The questions, the doubts, the uncertainty within him wereclamoring for utterance. How much had Mrs. Cresswell ever known of Zora?What kind of a woman was Zora now? Mrs. Cresswell had seen her and hadtalked to her and watched her. What did she think? Thus he formulatedhis questions as he went, half timid, and fearful in putting them andyet determined to know.
Mrs. Cresswell, waiting for him, was almost panic-stricken. Probably hewould beat round the bush seeking further encouragement; but at theslightest indication she must crush him ruthlessly and at the same timepoint the path of duty. He ought to marry some good girl--not Zora, butsome one. Somehow Zora seemed too unusual and strange for him--tooinhuman, as Mary Cresswell judged humanity. She glanced out from herseat on the upper verandah over the front porch and saw Alwyn coming.Where should she receive him? On the porch and have Mr. Maxwell ride up?In the parlor and have the servants astounded and talking? If she tookhim up to her own sitting-room the servants would think he was doingsome work or fetching something for the school. She greeted him brieflyand asked him in.
"Good-afternoon, Bles"--using his first name to show him his place, andthen inwardly recoiling at its note of familiarity. She preceded himup-stairs to the sitting-room, where, leaving the door ajar, she seatedherself on the opposite side of the room and waited.
He fidgeted, then spoke rapidly.
"Mrs. Cresswell--this is a personal affair." She reddened angrily. "Alove affair"--she paled with something like fear--"and I"--she startedto speak, but could not--"I want to know what you think about Zora?"
"About Zora!" she gasped weakly. The sudden reaction, the revulsion ofher agitated feelings, left her breathless.
"Ab
out Zora. You know I loved her dearly as a boy--how dearly I haveonly just begun to realize: I've been wondering if I understood--if Iwasn't--"
Mrs. Cresswell got angrily to her feet.
"You have come here to speak to me of that--that--" she choked, and Blesthought his worst fears realized.
"Mary, Mary!" Colonel Cresswell's voice broke suddenly in upon them.With a start of fear Mrs. Cresswell rushed out into the hall and closedthe door.
"Mary, has that Alwyn nigger been here this afternoon?" Mr. Cresswellwas coming up-stairs, carrying his riding whip.
"Why, no!" she answered, lying instinctively before she quite realizedwhat her lie meant. She hesitated. "That is, I haven't seen him. I musthave nodded over my book,"--looking toward the little verandah at thefront of the upper hall, where her easy chair stood with her book. Thenwith an awful flash of enlightenment she realized what her lie mightmean, and her heart paused.
Cresswell strode up.
"I saw him come up--he must have entered. He's nowhere downstairs," hewavered and scowled. "Have you been in your sitting-room?" And then, notwaiting for a reply, he strode to the door.
"But the damned scoundrel wouldn't dare!"
He deliberately placed his hand in his right-hand hip-pocket and threwopen the door.
Mary Cresswell stood frozen. The full horror of the thing burst uponher. Her own silly misapprehension, the infatuation of Alwyn for Zora,her thoughtless--no, vindictive--betrayal of him to something worse thandeath. She listened for the crack of doom. She heard a bird singing fardown in the swamp; she heard the soft raising of a window and theclosing of a door. And then--great God in heaven! must she live foreverin this agony?--and then, she heard the door bang and Mr. Cresswell'sgruff voice--
"Well, where is he?--he isn't in there!"
Mary Cresswell felt that something was giving way within. She swayed andwould have crashed to the bottom of the staircase if just then she hadnot seen at the opposite end of the hall, near the back stairs, Zora andAlwyn emerge calmly from a room, carrying a basket full of clothes.Colonel Cresswell stared at them, and Zora instinctively put up her handand fastened her dress at the throat. The Colonel scowled, for it wasall clear to him now.
"Look here," he angrily opened upon them, "if you niggers want to meetaround keep out of this house; hereafter I'll send the clothes down. ByGod, if you want to make love go to the swamp!" He stamped down thestairs while an ashy paleness stole beneath the dark-red bronze ofZora's face.
They walked silently down the road together--the old familiar road.Alwyn was staring moodily ahead.
"We must get married--before Christmas, Zora," he presently avowed, notlooking at her. He felt the basket pause and he glanced up. Her darkeyes were full upon him and he saw something in their depths thatbrought him to himself and made him realize his blunder.
"Zora!" he stammered, "forgive me! Will you marry me?"
She looked at him calmly with infinite compassion. But her reply wasuttered unhesitantly; distinct, direct.
"No, Bles."