Plum Bun

by Jessie Redmon Fauset

  His silence—for although the middle of the week had passed she had received no letter,—worried her not one whit. In the course of time he would come to her, remembering her perfect sympathy of the Sunday before and thinking that this woman was the atonement for what he considered her race. And then she would surprise him, she would tell him the truth, she would make herself inexpressibly dearer and nearer to him when he came to know that her sympathy and her tenderness were real, fixed and lasting, because they were based and rooted in the same blood, the same experiences, the same comprehension of this far-reaching, stupid, terrible race problem. How inexpressibly happy, relieved and overwhelmed he would be! She would live with him in Harlem, in Africa, anywhere, any place. She would label herself, if he asked it; she would tell every member of her little coterie of white friends about her mixed blood; she would help him keep his vow and would glory in that keeping. No sacrifice of the comforts which came to her from “passing”, of the assurance, even of the safety which the mere physical fact of whiteness in America brings, would be too great for her. She would withdraw where he withdrew, hate where he hated.

  His letter which came on Thursday interrupted her thoughts, her fine dreams of self-immolation which women so adore. It was brief and stern, and read:

  “Angèle, don’t think for one moment that I do not thank you for Sunday. . . . My heart is at your feet for what you revealed to me then. But you and I have nothing in common, have never had, and now can never have. More than race divides us. I think I shall go away. Meanwhile you are to forget me; amuse yourself, beautiful, charming, magnetic Angel with the men of your own race and leave me to my own.

  “ANTHONY.”

  It was such a strange letter; its coldness and finality struck a chill to her heart. She looked at the lonely signature, “Anthony”,—just that, no word of love or affection. And the phrase: “More than race divides us.” Its hidden significance held a menace.

  The letter was awaiting her return from work. She had come in all glowing with the promise of the future as she conceived it. And then here were these cold words killing her high hopes as an icy blast kills the too trusting blossoms of early spring. . . . Holding the letter she let her supper go untasted, unregarded, while she evolved some plan whereby she could see Anthony, talk to him. The tone of his letter did not sound as though he would yield to ordinary persuasion. And again in the midst of her bewilderment and suffering she was struck afresh with the difficulties inherent in womanhood in conducting the most ordinary and most vital affairs of life. She was still a little bruised in spirit that she had taken it upon herself to go to Anthony’s rooms Sunday; it was a step she felt conventionally, whose justification lay only in its success. As long as she had considered it successful, she had been able to relegate it to the uttermost limbo of her self-consciousness. But now that it seemed to avail nothing it loomed up before her in all its social significance. She was that creature whom men, in their selfish fear, have contrived to paint as the least attractive of human kind,—“a girl who runs after men.” It seemed to her that she could not stand the application of the phrase, no matter how unjustly, how inaptly used in her own case.

  Looking for a word of encouragement she re-read the note. The expression “My heart is at your feet” brought some reassurance; she remembered, too, his very real emotion of Sunday, only a few days before. Men, real men, men like Anthony, do not change. No, she could not let him go without one last effort. She would go to Harlem once more to his house, she would see him, reassure him, allay his fears, quench his silly apprehensions of non-compatability. As soon as he knew that they were both coloured, he’d succumb. Now he was overwrought. It had never occurred to her before that she might be glad to be coloured. . . . She put on her hat, walked slowly out the door, said to herself with a strange foreboding: “When I see this room again, I’ll either be very happy, or very, very sad. . . .” Her courage rose, braced her, but she was sick of being courageous, she wanted to be a beloved woman, dependent, fragile, sought for, feminine; after this last ordeal she would be “womanly” to the point of ineptitude. . . .

  During the long ride her spirits rose a little. After all, his attitude was almost inevitable. He thought she belonged to a race which to him stood for treachery and cruelty; he had seen her with Roger, Roger, the rich, the gay; he saw her as caring only for wealth and pleasure. Of course in his eyes she was separated from him by race and by more than race.

  For long years she was unable to reconstruct that scene; her mind was always too tired, too sore to re-enact it.

  As in a dream she saw Anthony’s set, stern face, heard his firm, stern voice: “Angel-girl,—Angèle I told you not to come back. I told you it was all impossible.”

  She found herself clutching at his arm, blurting out the truth, forgetting all her elaborate plans, her carefully pre-concerted drama. “But, Anthony, Anthony, listen, everything’s all right. I’m coloured; I’ve suffered too; nothing has to come between us.”

  For a moment off his guard he wavered. “Angèle, I didn’t think you’d lie to me.”

  She was in tears, desperate. “I’m not lying, Anthony. It’s perfectly true.”

  “I saw that picture of your mother, a white woman if I ever saw one,——”

  “Yes, but a white coloured woman. My father was black, perfectly black and I have a sister, she’s brown. My mother and I used to ‘pass’ sometimes just for the fun of it; she didn’t mind being coloured. But I minded it terribly,—until very recently. So I left my home,—in Philadelphia,—and came here to live,—oh, going for white makes life so much easier. You know it, Anthony.” His face wan and terrible frightened her. “It doesn’t make you angry, does it? You’ve passed yourself, you told me you had. Oh Anthony, Anthony, don’t look at me like that! What is it?”

  She caught at his hand, following him as he withdrew to the shiny couch where they both sat breathless for a moment. “God!” he said suddenly; he raised his arms, beating the void like a madman. “You in your foolishness, I in my carelessness, ‘passing, passing’ and life sitting back laughing, splitting her sides at the joke of it. Oh, it was all right for you,—but I didn’t care whether people thought I was white or coloured,—if we’d only known,——”

  “What on earth are you talking about? It’s all right now.”

  “It isn’t all right; it’s worse than ever.” He caught her wrist. “Angel, you’re sure you’re not fooling me?”

  “Of course I’m not. I have proof, I’ve a sister right here in New York; she’s away just now. But when she comes back, I’ll have you meet her. She is brown and lovely,—you’ll want to paint her—don’t you believe me, Anthony?”

  “Oh yes, I believe you,” he raised his arms again in a beautiful, fluid gesture, let them fall. “Oh, damn life, damn it, I say . . . isn’t there any end to pain!”

  Frightened, she got on her knees beside him. “Anthony, what’s the matter? Everything’s going to be all right; we’re going to be happy.”

  “You may be. I’ll never be happy. You were the woman I wanted,—I thought you were white. For my father’s sake I couldn’t marry a white girl. So I gave you up.”

  “And I wouldn’t stay given up. See, here I am back again. You’ll never be able to send me away.” Laughing but shamefaced, she tried to thrust herself into his arms.

  “No, Angel, no! You don’t understand. There’s, there’s somebody else——”

  She couldn’t take it in. “Somebody else. You mean,—you’re married? Oh Anthony, you don’t mean you’re married!”

  “No, of course not, of course not! But I’m engaged.”

  “Engaged, engaged and not to me,—to another girl? And you kissed me, went around with me? I knew other men did that, but I never thought that of you! I thought you were like my father!” And she began to cry like a little girl.

  Shame-faced, he looked on, jamming his hands tightly into his pockets. “I never meant to harm you; I never thought until that day in the park tha
t you would care. And I cared so terribly! Think, I had given you up, Angèle,—I suppose that isn’t your name really, is it?—all of a sudden, you came walking back into my life and I said, ‘I’ll have the laugh on this dammed mess after all. I’ll spend a few days with her, love her a little, just a little. She’ll never know, and I’ll have a golden memory!’ Oh, I had it coming to me, Angel! But the minute I saw you were beginning to care I broke off short.”

  A line from an old text was running through her head, rendering her speechless, inattentive. She was a little girl back in the church again in Philadelphia; the minister was intoning “All we like sheep have gone astray”. He used to put the emphasis on the first word and Jinny and she would look at each other and exchange meaning smiles; he was a West Indian and West Indians had a way of misplacing the emphasis. The line sounded so funny: “All we like sheep,——” but perhaps it wasn’t so funny after all; perhaps he had read it like that not because he was a West Indian but because he knew life and human nature. Certainly she had gone astray,—with Roger. And now here was Anthony, Anthony who had always loved her so well. Yet in his background there was a girl and he was engaged.

  This brought her to a consideration of the unknown fiancée,—her rival. Deliberately she chose the word, for she was not through yet. This unknown, unguessed at woman who had stolen in like a thief in the night. . . .

  “Have you known her long?” she asked him sharply.

  “Who? Oh my,—my friend. No, not as long as I’ve known you.”

  A newcomer, an upstart. Well at least she, Angela, had the advantage of precedence.

  “She’s coloured, of course?”

  “Of course.”

  They sat in a weary silence. Suddenly he caught her in his arms and buried his head in her neck. A quick pang penetrated to the very core of her being. He must have been an adorable baby. . . . Anthony and babies!

  “Now God, Life, whatever it is that has power, this time you must help me!” cried her heart. She spoke to him gently.

  “Anthony, you know I love you. Do you still love me?”

  “Always, always, Angel.”

  “Do you—Oh, Anthony, I don’t deserve it, but do you by any chance worship me?”

  “Yes, that’s it, that’s just it, I worship you. I adore you. You are God to me. Oh, Angèle, if you’d only let me know. But it’s too late now.”

  “No, no don’t say that, perhaps it isn’t too late. It all depends on this. Do you worship her, Anthony?” He lifted his haggard face.

  “No—but she worships me. I’m God to her do you see? If I fail her she won’t say anything, she’ll just fall back like a little weak kitten, like a lost sheep, like a baby. She’ll die.” He said as though unaware of his listener. “She’s such a little thing. And sweet.”

  Angela said gently: “Tell me about her. Isn’t it all very sudden? You said you hadn’t known her long.”

  He began obediently. “It was not long after I—I lost you. She came to me out of nowhere, came walking to me into my room by mistake; she didn’t see me. And she put her head down on her hands and began to cry terribly. I had been crying too—in my heart, you understand,—and for a moment I thought she might be the echo of that cry, might be the cry itself. You see, I’d been drinking a little,—you were so far removed, white and all that sort of thing. I couldn’t marry a white woman, you know, not a white American. I owed that to my father.

  “But at last I saw it was a girl, a real girl and I went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder and said: ‘Little girl, what’s the matter?’

  “And she lifted her head, still hidden in the crook of her arm, you know the way a child does and said: ‘I’ve lost my sister’. At first I thought she meant lost in the street and I said “Well, come with me to the police station, I’ll go with you, we’ll give them a description and you’ll find her again. People don’t stay lost in this day and time’. I got her head on my shoulder, I almost took her on my knee, Angèle, she was so simple and forlorn. And presently she said: ‘No, I don’t mean lost that way; I mean she’s left me, she doesn’t want me any more. She wants other people’. And I’ve never been able to get anything else out of her. The next morning I called her up and somehow I got to seeing her, for her sake, you know. But afterwards when she grew happier,—she was so blithe, so lovely, so healing and blessed like the sun or a flower,—then I saw she was getting fond of me and I stayed away.

  “Well, I ran across you and that Fielding fellow that night at the Van Meier lecture. And you were so happy and radiant, and Fielding so possessive,—damn him!—damn him!—he—you didn’t let him hurt you Angèle?”

  As though anything that had ever happened in her life could hurt her like this! She had never known what pain was before. White-lipped, she shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”

  “Well, I went to see her the next day. She came into the room like a shadow,—I realized she was getting thin. She was kind and sweet and far-off; impalpable, tenuous and yet there. I could see she was dying for me. And all of a sudden it came to me how wonderful it would be to have someone care like that. I went to her; I took her in my arms and I said: ‘Child, child, I’m not bringing you a whole heart but could you love me?’ You see I couldn’t let her go after that.”

  “No,” Angela’s voice was dull, lifeless. “You couldn’t. She’d die.”

  “Yes, that’s it; that’s just it. And I know you won’t die, Angel.”

  “No, you’re quite right. I won’t die.”

  An icy hand was on her heart. At his first words: “She came walking into my room,——” an icy echo stirred a memory deep, deep within her inner consciousness. She heard Jinny saying: “I went walking into his room,——”

  Something stricken, mortally stricken in her face fixed his attention. “Don’t look like that, my girl, my dear Angel. . . . There are three of us in this terrible plight,—if I had only known. . . . I don’t deserve the love of either of you but if one of you two must suffer it might as well be she as you. Come, we’ll go away; even unhappiness, even remorse will mean something to us as long as we’re together.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s impossible,—if it were someone else, I don’t know, perhaps—I’m so sick of unhappiness,—maybe I’d take a chance. But in her case it’s impossible.”

  He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean ‘in her case’?”

  “Isn’t her name Virginia Murray?”

  “Yes, yes! How did you guess it? Do you know her?”

  “She’s my sister. Angèle Mory,—Angela Murray, don’t you see. It’s the same name. And it’s all my fault. I pushed her, sent her deliberately into your arms.”

  He could only stare.

  “I’m the unkind sister who didn’t want her. Oh, can’t you understand? That night she came walking into your room by mistake it was because I had gone to the station to meet her and Roger Fielding came along. I didn’t want him to know that I was coloured and I,—I didn’t acknowledge her, I cut her.”

  “Oh,” he said surprised and inadequate. “I don’t see how you could have done that to a little girl like Virginia. Did she know New York?”

  “No.” She drooped visibly. Even the loss of him was nothing compared to this rebuke. There seemed nothing further to be said.

  Presently he put his arm about her. “Poor Angèle. As though you could foresee! It’s what life does to us, leads us into pitfalls apparently so shallow, so harmless and when we turn around there we are, caught, fettered,——”

  Her miserable eyes sought his. “I was sorry right away, Anthony. I tried my best to get in touch with her that very evening. But I couldn’t find her;—already you see, life was getting even with me, she had strayed into your room.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I remember it all so plainly. I was getting ready to go out, was all prepared as a matter of fact. Indeed I moved that very night. But I loitered on and on, thinking of you.

  “The worst of it is I’ll always be thinki
ng of you. Oh Angèle, what does it matter, what does anything matter if we just have each other? This damned business of colour, is it going to ruin all chances of happiness? I’ve known trouble, pain, terrible devastating pain all my life. You’ve suffered too. Together perhaps we could find peace. We’d go to your sister and explain. She is kind and sweet; surely she’d understand.”

  He put his arms about her and the two clung to each other, solemnly, desperately, like children.

  “I’m sick of pain, too, Anthony, sick of longing and loneliness. You can’t imagine how I’ve suffered from loneliness.”

  “Yes, yes I can. I guessed it. I used to watch you. I thought you were probably lonely inside, you were so different from Miss Lister and Mrs. Starr. Come away with me and we’ll share our loneliness together, somewhere where we’ll forget——”

  “And Virginia? You said yourself she’d die,——”

  “She’s so young, she—she could get over it.” But his tone was doubtful, wavering.

  She tore herself from him. “No, I took her sister away from her; I won’t take her lover. Kiss me good-bye, Anthony.”

  They sat on the hard sofa. “To think we should find one another only to lose each other! To think that everything, every single thing was all right for us but that we were kept apart by the stupidity of fate. I’d almost rather we’d never learned the truth. Put your dear arms about me closer, Angel, Angel. I want the warmth, the sweetness of you to penetrate into my heart. I want to keep it there forever. Darling, how can I let you go?”