The year slipped by. Virginia seemed in no haste to marry. Anthony whom Angela saw occasionally at the Art School shared apparently in this cool deliberateness. Yet there was nothing in his action or manner to make her feel that he was anticipating a change. Rather, if she judged him correctly he, like herself, tired of the snarl into which the three of them had been drawn, had settled down to a resigned acceptance of fate. If conceivable, he was quieter, more reserved than ever, yet radiating a strange restfulness and the peace which comes from surrender.
In May the prizes for the contest were announced. Angela received the John T. Stewart Prize for her “Fourteenth Street Types”; her extreme satisfaction was doubled by the knowledge that the Nehemiah Sloan Prize, of equal value, had been awarded Miss Powell for her picture entitled “A Street in Harlem”. The coloured girl was still difficult and reserved, but under Angela’s persistent efforts at friendship, her frank and sympathetic interest and comprehension of her class-mate’s difficulties, the latter had finally begun to thaw a little. They were not planning to live together in France, their tastes were not sufficiently common for that closeness, but both were looking forward to a year of pleasure, of inspiring work, to a life that would be “different”. Angela was relieved, but Miss Powell was triumphant; not unpleasantly, she gave the impression of having justified not only her calling but herself and, in a lesser degree, her race. The self-consciousness of colour, racial responsibility, lay, Angela had discovered, deep upon her.
The passage money to France was paid. Through the terms offered by the committee of the School for Americans at Fontainebleau, an appreciable saving had been effected. The girls were to sail in June. As the time drew nearer Angela felt herself becoming more and more enthusiastic. She had at first looked upon her sojourn abroad as a heaven-sent break in the montony and difficulties of her own personal problems, but lately, with the involuntary reaction of youth, she was beginning to recover her sense of embarking on a great adventure. Her spirits mounted steadily.
One evening she went around to Martha Burden’s to discuss the trip; she wanted information about money, clothes, possible tips.
“Everything you can think of, Martha,” she said with something of her former vital manner. “This is an old story to you,—you’ve been abroad so many times you ought to write an encyclopædia on “What to take to Europe”. I mean to follow your advice blindly and the next time I see Miss Powell I’ll pass it along to her.”
“No need to,” said Martha laconically and sombrely. “She isn’t going.”
“Not going! Why she was going two weeks ago.”
“Yes, but she’s not going this week nor any other week I’m afraid; at least not through the good offices of the American Committee for the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. They’ve returned her passage money. Didn’t you know it? I thought everybody had heard of it.”
Angela fought against a momentary nausea. “No, I didn’t know it. I haven’t seen her for ages. I’m so busy getting myself together. Martha, what’s it all about? Is it because she’s coloured? You don’t mean it’s because she’s coloured?”
“Well, it is. They said they themselves were without prejudice, but that they were sure the enforced contact on the boat would be unpleasant to many of the students, garnered as they would be from all parts of the United States. Furthermore they couldn’t help but think that such contact would be embarrassing to Miss Powell too. Oh, there’s no end to the ridiculous piffle which they’ve written and said. I’ve had a little committee of students and instructors going about, trying to stir up public sentiment. Mr. Cross has been helping and Paget too. I wish Paulette were here; she’d get some yellow journal publicity. Van Meier has come out with some biting editorials; he’s shown up a lot of their silly old letters. I shouldn’t be surprised but what if we kept at it long enough we’d get somewhere.”
She reflected a moment. “Funny thing is we’re having such a hard time in making Miss Powell show any fight. I don’t understand that girl.”
Angela murmured that perhaps she had no hope of making an impression on prejudice. “It’s so unreasonable and far-reaching. Maybe she doesn’t want to sacrifice her peace of mind for what she considers a futile struggle.”
“That’s what Mr. Cross said. He’s been wonderful to her and an indefatigable worker. Of course you’ll be leaving soon since none of this touches you, but come into a committee meeting or two, won’t you? We’re meeting here. I’ll give you a ring.”
“Well,” said Angela to herself that night after she had regained her room. “I wonder what I ought to do now?” Even yet she was receiving an occasional reporter; the pleasant little stir of publicity attendant on her prize had not yet died away. Suppose she sent for one of them and announced her unwillingness to accept the terms of the American Committee inasmuch as they had withdrawn their aid from Miss Powell. Suppose she should finish calmly: “I, too, am a Negro”. What would happen? The withdrawal of the assistance without which her trip abroad, its hoped for healing, its broadening horizons would be impossible. Evidently, there was no end to the problems into which this matter of colour could involve one, some of them merely superficial, as in this instance, some of them gravely physical. Her head ached with the futility of trying to find a solution to these interminable puzzles.
As a child she and Jinny had been forbidden to read the five and ten cent literature of their day. But somehow a copy of a mystery story entitled “Who killed Dr. Cronlin?” found its way into their hands, a gruesome story all full of bearded men, hands preserved in alcohol, shadows on window curtains. Shivering with fascination, they had devoured it after midnight or early in the morning while their trusting parents still slumbered. Every page they hoped would disclose the mystery. But their patience went unrewarded for the last sentence of the last page still read: “Who killed Dr. Cronlin?”
Angela thought of it now, and smiled and sighed. “Just what is or is not ethical in this matter of colour?” she asked herself. And indeed it was a nice question. Study at Fontainebleau would have undoubtedly changed Miss Powell’s attitude toward life forever. If she had received the just reward for her painstaking study, she would have reasoned that right does triumph in essentials. Moreover the inspiration might have brought out latent talent, new possibilities. Furthermore, granted that Miss Powell had lost out by a stroke of ill-fortune, did that necessarily call for Angela’s loss? If so, to what end?
Unable to answer she fell asleep.
Absorbed in preparations she allowed two weeks to pass by, then, remembering Martha’s invitation, she went again to the Starr household on an evening when the self-appointed committee was expected to meet. She found Anthony, Mr. Paget, Ladislas and Martha present. The last was more perturbed than ever. Indeed an air of sombre discouragement lay over the whole company.
“Well,” asked the newcomer, determined to appear at ease in spite of Anthony’s propinquity, “how are things progressing?”
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Paget. “Indeed we’re about to give up the whole fight.”
Ladislas with a sort of provoked amusement explained then that Miss Powell herself had thrown up the sponge. “She’s not only withdrawn but she sends us word to-night that while she appreciates the fight we’re making she’d rather we’d leave her name out of it.”
“Did you ever hear anything to equal that?” snapped Martha crossly. “I wonder if coloured people aren’t natural born quitters. Sometimes I think I’ll never raise another finger for them.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Anthony hotly. “If you knew the ceaseless warfare which most coloured people wage, you’d understand that sometimes they have to stop their fight for the trimmings of life in order to hang on to the essentials which they’ve got to have and for which they must contend too every day just as hard as they did the first day. No, they’re not quitters, they’ve merely learned to let go so they can conserve their strength for another bad day. I’m coloured and I know.�
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There was a moment’s tense silence while the three white people stared speechless with surprise. Then Martha said in a still shocked voice: “Coloured! Why, I can’t believe it. Why, you never told us you were coloured.”
“Which is precisely why I’m telling you now,” said Anthony, coldly rude. “So you won’t be making off-hand judgments about us.” He started toward the door. “Since the object for which this meeting has been called has become null and void I take it that we are automatically dismissed. Goodnight.”
Martha hastened after him. “Oh, Mr. Cross, don’t go like that. As though it made any difference! Why should this affect our very real regard for each other?”
“Why should it indeed?” he asked a trifle enigmatically. “I’m sure I hope it won’t. But I must go.” He left the room, Paget and Ladislas both hastening on his heels.
Martha stared helplessly after him. “I suppose I haven’t said the right thing. But what could I do? I was so surprised!” She turned to Angela: “And I really can’t get over his being coloured, can you?”
“No,” said Angela solemnly, “I can’t . . .” and surprised herself and Martha by bursting into a flood of tears.
For some reason the incident steadied her determination. Perhaps Anthony was the vicarious sacrifice, she told herself and knew even as she said it that the supposition was pure bunk. Anthony did not consider that he was making a sacrifice; his confession or rather his statement with regard to his blood had the significance of the action of a person who clears his room of rubbish. Anthony did not want his mental chamber strewn with the chaff of deception and confusion. He did not label himself, but on the other hand he indulged every now and then in a general house-cleaning because he would not have the actions of his life bemused and befuddled.
As for Angela she asked for nothing better than to put all the problems of colour and their attendant difficulties behind her. She could not meet those problems in their present form in Europe; literally in every sense she would begin life all over. In France or Italy she would speak of her strain of Negro blood and abide by whatever consequences such exposition would entail. But the consequences could not engender the pain and difficulties attendant upon them here.
Somewhat diffidently she began to consider the idea of going to see Miss Powell. The horns of her dilemma resolved themselves into an unwillingness to parade her own good fortune before her disappointed classmate and an equal unwillingness to depart for France, leaving behind only the cold sympathy of words on paper. And, too, something stronger, more insistent than the mere consideration of courtesy urged her on. After all, this girl was one of her own. A whim of fate had set their paths far apart but just the same they were more than “sisters under the skin.” They were really closely connected in blood, in racial condition, in common suffering. Once again she thought of herself as she had years ago when she had seen the coloured girl refused service in the restaurant: “It might so easily have been Virginia.”
Without announcement then she betook herself up town to Harlem and found herself asking at the door of the girl’s apartment if she might see Miss Powell. The mother whom Angela had last seen so proud and happy received her with a note of sullen bafflement which to the white girl’s consciousness connoted: “Easy enough for you, all safe and sound, high and dry, to come and sympathize with my poor child.” There was no trace of gratitude or of appreciation of the spirit which had inspired Angela to pay the visit.
To her inquiry Mrs. Powell rejoined: “Yes, I guess you c’n see her. There’re three or four other people in there now pesterin’ her to death. I guess one mo’ won’t make no diffunce.”
Down a long narrow hall she led her, past two rooms whose dark interiors seemed Stygian in contrast with the bright sunlight which the visitor had just left. But the end of the hall opened into a rather large, light, plain but comfortable dining-room where Miss Powell sat entertaining, to Angela’s astonishment, three or four people, all of them white. Her astonishment, however, lessened when she perceived among them John Banky, one of the reporters who had come rather often to interview herself and her plans for France. All of them, she judged angrily, were of his profession, hoping to wring their half column out of Miss Powell’s disappointment and embarrassment.
Angela thought she had never seen the girl one half so attractive and exotic. She was wearing a thin silk dress, plainly made but of a flaming red from which the satin blackness of her neck rose, a straight column topped by her squarish, somewhat massive head. Her thin, rather flat dark lips brought into sharp contrast the dazzling perfection of her teeth; her high cheek bones showed a touch of red. To anyone whose ideals of beauty were not already set and sharply limited, she must have made a breathtaking appeal. As long as she sat quiescent in her rather sulky reticence she made a marvellous figure of repose; focussing all the attention of the little assemblage even as her dark skin and hair drew into themselves and retained the brightness which the sun, streaming through three windows, showered upon her.
As soon as she spoke she lost, however, a little of this perfection. For though a quiet dignity persisted, there were pain and bewilderment in her voice and the flat sombreness of utter despair. Clearly she did not know how to get rid of the intruders, but she managed to maintain a poise and aloofness which kept them at their distance. Surely, Angela thought, listening to the stupid, almost impertinent questions put, these things can mean nothing to them. But they kept on with their baiting rather as a small boy keeps on tormenting a lonely and dispirited animal at the Zoo.
“We were having something of an academic discussion with Miss Powell here,” said Banky, turning to Angela. “This,” he informed his co-workers, “is Miss Mory, one of the prizewinners of the Art Exhibit and a classmate of Miss Powell. I believe Miss Powell was to cross with you,—as—er—your room-mate did you say?”
“No,” said Angela, flushing a little for Miss Powell, for she thought she understood the double meaning of the question, “we weren’t intending to be room-mates. Though so far as I am concerned,” she heard herself, to her great surprise, saying: “I’d have been very glad to share Miss Powell’s state-room if she had been willing.” She wanted to get away from this aspect. “What’s this about an academic discussion?”
Miss Powell’s husky, rather mutinous voice interrupted: “There isn’t any discussion, Miss Mory, academic or otherwise. It seems Mr. Paget told these gentlemen and Miss Tilden here, that I had withdrawn definitely from the fight to induce the Committee for the American Art School abroad to allow me to take advantage of their arrangements. So they came up here to get me to make a statement and I said I had none to make other than that I was sick and tired of the whole business and I’d be glad to let it drop.”
“And I,” said Miss Tilden, a rangy young lady wearing an unbecoming grey dress and a peculiarly straight and hideous bob, “asked her if she weren’t really giving up the matter because in her heart she knew she hadn’t a leg to stand on.”
Angela felt herself growing hot. Something within her urged caution, but she answered defiantly: “What do you mean she hasn’t a leg to stand on?”
“Well, of course, this is awfully plain speaking and I hope Miss Powell won’t be offended,” resumed Miss Tilden, showing only too plainly that she didn’t care whether Miss Powell were offended or not, “but after all we do know that a great many people find the—er—Negroes objectionable and so of course no self-respecting one of them would go where she wasn’t wanted.”
Miss Powell’s mother hovering indefinitely in the background, addressing no one in particular, opined that she did not know that “that there committee owned the boat. If her daughter could only afford it she’d show them how quickly she’d go where she wanted and not ask no one no favours either.”
“Ah, but,” said Miss Tilden judicially, “there’s the fallacy. Something else is involved here. There’s a social side to this matter, inherent if not expressed. And that is the question.” She shook a thin bloodles
s finger at Miss Powell. “Back of most of the efforts which you people make to get into schools and clubs and restaurants and so on, isn’t there really this desire for social equality? Come now, Miss Powell, be frank and tell me.”
With such sharpness as to draw the attention of everyone in the room Angela said: “Come, Miss Tilden, that’s unpardonable and you know it. Miss Powell hadn’t a thought in mind about social equality. All she wanted was to get to France and to get there as cheaply as possible.”
Banky, talking in a rather affected drawl, confirmed the last speaker. “I think, too, that’s a bit too much, Miss Tilden. We’ve no right to interpret Miss Powell’s ideas for her.”
A short, red-faced young man intervened: “But just the same isn’t that the question involved? Doesn’t the whole matter resolve itself into this: Has Miss Powell or any other young coloured woman knowing conditions in America the right to thrust her company on a group of people with whom she could have nothing in common except her art? If she stops to think she must realize that not one of the prospective group of students who would be accompanying her on that ship would really welcome her presence. Here’s Miss Mory, for instance, a fellow student. What more natural under other circumstances than that she should have made arrangements to travel with Miss Powell? She knows she has to share her cabin with some one. But no; such a thought apparently never entered her head. Why? The answer is obvious. Very well then. If she, knowing Miss Powell, feels this way, how much more would it be the feeling of total strangers?”
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