Comedy_American Style

by Jessie Redmon Fauset

  Was this all there was to marriage, she wondered . . . and thought of the peace and quiet which once were hers when only she and her mother were together. Even Mrs. Nixon’s officious ministrations took on a charm seen thus in retrospect.

  For over a year she went through this stress and storm, soothing her mother, matching her wits with Olivia, solacing Christopher, nursing his father. . . . In any other circumstances she would have been encouraged to mark his obvious improvement. He was stronger, straighter, his color markedly better, his interest in things in general much greater. To no one but Phebe, did he ever refer to his losses and then only during the early morning walks.

  But by this time she herself was too dulled by fatigue and responsibility to care. She found herself wishing for a way out, any way. She, Phebe Cary, the girl who all her life had welcomed the idea of assisting the man she loved, found herself overwhelmed by the reality of the idea.

  The climax came one night when after a hectic day she came creeping, or so it seemed to her, home. She had eaten her dinner almost without a word. It took all her strength of will to force her to offer to accompany her father-in-law on his evening stroll. At any other time, she might have experienced a pleasant surprise when he assured her in unusually hearty tones that he could go by himself.

  “Thank you just the same, daughter.”

  All she could think of was that now, now she was free to rest her weary feet. . . . If only her room were not on the third floor. . . . She would undress completely, don her gown and get into bed. Heaven, she knew promised nothing sweeter. . . . She pulled the lavender-scented sheet about her young tired shoulders . . . in a moment she would be asleep. . . . She heard her mother’s indignant voice:

  “I cain’t stand it, no longer, Phebe. I jest cain’t stand it. Today she had some company . . .”

  “You mean Mrs. Cary, Mother?” Phebe tried to struggle against her overwhelming need for sleep.

  “You know I mean that . . . she-devil. . . . She had some of them wite women she’s always trailing around after. She brung ‘em in en I happened to pass by the parlor door en she sez: ‘O there you are, Sarah, just bring us a pot of tea, please, on a tray with four cups. I’ll tend to everything else.’”

  Her daughter was wide enough awake now. “What did you do, Mother? You didn’t make a scene, I trust.”

  Her mother looked at her, her thin face working. “Didn’t make a scene! I said to her, I stood in the doorway so they could all hear me and I said to her, I said: ‘If you want any tea for your poor wite trash you’ll have to fix it yo’self!’ That’s what I told her!”

  “Where is she now, Mother?”

  “Gone out and took them with her and she ain’t ben back sence. Heard her tellin’ them that I’d ben in the family a long time and that I was old and had to be indulged. Old! I’m a good ten years younger than her!” Which was halfway true.

  Phebe felt her head splitting. “I’ll talk to her in the morning, Mother.”

  To her astonishment Olivia proved recalcitrant. Phebe waited until her husband was safely out of the house, then asking her father-in-law to excuse her again this morning she nerved herself for the interview.

  “Mrs. Cary,” she said, trying to be calm, “my mother has told me of the demand which you made of her yesterday and of the manner in which you made it. I must remind you that that kind of thing will not be tolerated in this house. Please don’t try it again.”

  Olivia’s tones were equally low but venomous. She had little to say but that little told Phebe that she considered her son had demeaned both himself and his family by his marriage. “Here you have me cooped up in this ugly little street, in this Negro neighborhood. You’ve taken away my maid and yet you enjoy my furniture and the accumulations of a lifetime without making any pretense at a return. Well, I won’t stand for it.”

  She ended coarsely: “I’ll find a way, you may depend on it, of keeping your mother from insulting my guests. A black alley-cat, if ever there was one.”

  Phebe, remembering what Chris had told her about Oliver, could hardly restrain herself. She went up close to the irate woman. “Don’t you dare speak in that way of my mother . . . you murderer!” She hated herself for saying it . . . Olivia blenched, turned pale and left the room.

  CHAPTER XI

  AFTER this sordidness the shop was a haven. She began to read through her regular morning mail, welcoming even letters of complaint. The mood and the necessity for hard work were upon her. Before she could complete the little pile, she was interrupted. . . . But during her lunch hour she settled down to read the remaining letters. . . . The third one from the top was from Nicholas. She was in the midst of it before her wearied, laden brain took in its import.

  “You can’t imagine,” the letter ran, “how long and hard I’ve fought against writing this. . . . It must be that I’m a coward . . . otherwise I’d have stayed in Philadelphia and taken a chance about our color. Do you remember my saying to you the last day I saw you that I was perfectly aware that never again in my life would I find such love, such tenderness, as you offered. . . . I was speaking more truly than I knew.

  “Would you come to see me, Phebe? . . . It is wiser for you to come here than for me to go there. You could go to a hotel and I could come to see you . . . or you could come to my office . . . I’m practicing now . . . Phebe, I just want to look at you, touch your hand, hear you . . . talk to you about my trees. . . . Yours with devotion, Nicholas.”

  If he had not mentioned the trees she might have withstood it.

  It was easy enough to get to New York . . . a note to Chris about business—if she stayed two days she’d telephone him, she said. Madame Rémy was delighted to think she would go over in person to take Mrs. Meeropol’s order. She had sent Nicholas a telegram announcing the time of her arrival and he was at the station with his smart little coupé, Marise’s gift, he told her later.

  Once in the car he surveyed her with undisguised pleasure and with a new humility which touched her even while it displeased her.

  “I knew you’d be wearing blue, Phebe.” He was, himself, wearing her favorite, a dark blue suit, but of much better cut and quality than she’d ever seen on him. . . . He looked at her searchingly. “But aren’t you a little too thin, a little too strained?”

  “I guess I am,” she acquiesced carelessly. “I was thinking the same about you. Chris looks the same way. I suppose it’s the life you doctors lead, though I must say he doesn’t come anywhere near you in clothes and general appearance. What do you ask your patients, a thousand dollars a visit?”

  He looked down at himself, his face hardening a little. “Oh, this get-up! . . . All this comes from Marise. I wanted to live on my earnings . . . it was bad enough to be living in her house but I didn’t feel I could take her away from all that comfort, especially since it would be years before I could make it up to her. But in every other respect, I would prefer to make my own way, which wouldn’t mean a suit like this, I can tell you, or a Pierce Arrow either. I’m just a poor struggling doctor, Phebe, and if my income let me run to a Ford and a couple of suits off One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, I’d be grateful. . . . But you can’t be married to the hit of theatrical New York and look like a hick . . . or so Marise tells me!

  “Do you remember all my tall talk about not being willing for my wife to help me? God! Help me! My wife does everything for me. I wanted an office in a side street, but Marise bought me a three story house on Seventh Avenue because she wants me to have a sanitarium some day. . . . She won’t give me a chance to try my strength.”

  He paused to light one of his eternal cigarettes. “I’m a cad to be talking about her. . . . Darling, come and have supper with me.”

  She was herself a doctor’s wife. “But your appointments?” she asked in surprise.

  “I have none that I have to keep,” he said dryly. “But if I did have them, I’d let them go for you. I’ve missed you too terribly, Phebe, to let you go now that I have you again. Com
e on, let me show you New York.”

  They dined down in Greenwich Village in a deliberately quaint restaurant. A great many glances were directed toward the pair, but they were glances merely of curiosity or even of admiration for the striking couple, glances without an ounce of hostility. Phebe, sensitive since Nicholas’ complaint, remarked on this rather timidly.

  Her companion nodded. “I know,” he assented morosely. “It’s different here in New York. . . . I was an ignorant fool, Phebe. . . . Although even here there are occasional embarrassments, but then too there are compensations. . . . Darling, let me drive you up to Van Courtlandt Park. There is a spot there where I’ve sat many times to dream of you.”

  She knew she should not go. And yet she yielded; it was too great a temptation to have Nicholas, urging her, begging her for her favors. . . . She never knew to what part of the Park they drove. All she knew was that at last she was crushed close in his arms, feeling his hot kisses, sensing the ardor of which she had once dreamed. . . . It was so sweet to rest against his heart, to know that this man whom she had loved so long, so vainly, now desired her greatly.

  Presently she stirred. “You must take me to my hotel, Nick.”

  He groaned. “Phebe, how can I ever let you go?”

  “But, Nicholas, I’ve got to go home.” But even as she spoke she had a vision of that home . . . her ailing father-in-law, her tired and sullen mother, her weary, apathetic husband. And last of all Olivia with her infuriating, selfish silliness. . . . In a sudden gust of repulsion, she sagged against his shoulder. . . . He could actually feel her weakening; her moral strength ebbing with her physical.

  He repeated his question. “I expected,” she said, “to attend to a customer in the morning and leave about two o’clock. I’ll be in Philadelphia at four.”

  “Don’t go, Phebe. Don’t leave me yet, my darling. . . . If we could only be alone somewhere. Where we could talk . . . and kiss each other.”

  She knew the danger of the waters that were rising about her. . . . “I don’t think that would be wise, Nicholas,” she told him weakly. . . . But he interrupted her.

  “That was our whole trouble before. We were too wise . . . at least I was. We owe it to ourselves, Phebe, we owe it to these miserable years that are stretching before us, to have one memory. . . .”

  She was too weary physically, too sick at heart to resist him completely. In the end she weakened.

  A friend of his in San Juan Hill lived by himself in a tiny apartment. He was in the post office and absent all day. They could meet there, he explained a trifle shame-facedly. . . . The enforced secrecy of the meeting detracted, as it must always, from the anticipation.

  CHAPTER XII

  IN THE morning she went to see her customer, Mrs. Meeropol. The lady had been a former client of hers in Philadelphia; she was unable, she said, to get used to the New York stores. Now that Miss Grant was here, she might just as well place her order for her whole summer outfit. . . . It was a profitable visit.

  “Now,” Phebe said to herself, her heart fluttering, her nerves tingling, “I’m to see Nicholas.”

  Leisurely she ate her lunch, more to get herself in control than because she was hungry. But at last she entered the cab. All during the tortuous drive across town she was battling with herself.

  “But I have a right to some happiness,” she told herself fiercely. “It’s not my fault if I have to take it where I find it.” She felt her white father’s errant blood seething within her. “God knows I did everything in my power to arrange my life. And see what happened . . . I didn’t create this damnable color business.”

  She stepped out of the cab. As she was paying her fare, another cab drove up just in front of hers. A colored woman, beautifully dressed, dismounted, looked searchingly at the house, glanced sharply up and down the street and darted into the open doorway. With her suddenly quickened senses, Phebe recognized her for what she was . . . a woman keeping an assignation with her lover . . . a woman like herself.

  A sick distaste invaded her. Standing where she had dismounted from the cab, she too in her turn surveyed the house. Nicholas would be on the sixth floor awaiting her. . . . The large staring windows regarded her with weary cynicism. “So here you are too,” they seemed to signal her:

  In that moment she saw, as clearly as in a vision, her husband’s tall, shabby figure walking slowly, wearily up the path that led to their house. She saw his fatigued face shadowed with responsibility, marred with lines that had come too early. As in a mirror she beheld that glance of trust which seemed to say:

  “I’m too tired, Phebe, to tell you of my love. But you know it and I trust you.”

  She heard him speaking as he spoke that Sunday afternoon on Roosevelt Boulevard when he had said to her: “I’ll always love you, Phebe . . . with loyalty.” . . . With loyalty! The expression had seemed to her at the time, so odd, so quaint!

  And then she recalled Nicholas, so austere and remote in the days when she had loved him so dearly. But he had allowed her color to keep him from making her his wife. If he had truly loved her . . . he could never have hesitated. . . . If he had ever truly loved her he would not be asking her now to betray Christopher. Christopher who had always done as he said loved her “with loyalty.”

  And there was something else . . . oh how nearly she had been a blind fool! Nicholas had married Marise . . . he was complaining about Marise . . . he was even now planning to betray Marise. But he was remaining with her! Why? Because he had always loved her, wanted her, held himself in readiness for her beck, her call. She, Phebe had offered him the steadfastness, the loyalty of years. Marise had dallied, had flouted him, had permitted herself an array of suitors, trying them discarding them, encouraging them. And finally she had chosen Nicholas . . . and he had jumped to her bidding, made himself her thrall, hugging, even while complaining of his chains. When he could so easily have walked away!

  Why what was she doing here in this hateful street about to enter this house, to take a lover, when at home her husband was awaiting her responsible, uncomplaining, loyal! . . . She turned and walked as fast as her feet could carry her down the dingy uninviting thoroughfare.

  CHAPTER XIII

  AT SIX o’clock she opened the gate of the little front yard on Haverford Avenue in Philadelphia and started up the narrow path. Her father-in-law was sitting on the porch . . . he looked curiously alert, alive, like the Dr. Cary she used to remember. Her husband was standing at the railing of the porch. Evidently he had been looking up the street for her. He came bounding down the shallow steps.

  “Phebe! My darling! My dear girl! I knew you must be coming. . . . Oh, Phebe, I’ve missed you so!” He was kissing her face, her lips, her hands. . . . The Allen girls across the street whoo-whooed in delight.

  Christopher led her into the house. “Darling, don’t ever leave me again. It’s been just hell without you. Hasn’t it, Dad?”

  “Yes,” said the elder Cary, “it’s terrible without you, daughter. You must have taken the sun away in your hair.”

  Her mother came in, looking curiously triumphant, almost happy. “I’m glad your back, daughter,” she said aloud. In her ear she murmured: “I was kinda worried about you leaving us so suddenly.”

  It was lovely to be home, in her own house with her own people, without deception, without the cloying sweetness of furtive joys . . . Christopher carried her few parcels . . . he wanted to carry her too . . . up to their room, turned on her bath . . . went to the closet and took down the blue and silver lounging robe which he liked so well. He helped her into it as she came from the bathroom . . . drew the silly blue and silver mules on her slender feet.

  “Christopher, you’re spoiling me,” she said happily. She pulled down his head and kissed his splendid forehead, smoothed back his burnished hair, looked into his dark eyes. She was so glad she could look into his eyes. “You seem worried, darling.”

  “I was a little worried about you.”

  “What do you m
ean, Chris?” she asked. Within she was startled, aghast.

  “Your mother’s fixing dinner for you on a tray. . . . Now sit still, Phebe, I’m going to bring it up here to you. I want to be alone with my wife.”

  So sweet to be eating up here in this exquisite intimacy! She offered him choice bits which he accepted with the docility of a child.

  Presently, refreshed, rested, at ease, she asked him: “Where’s your mother?”

  “Gone,” he said gravely.

  “Gone? Why, Christopher, what do you mean?”

  “Just that. . . . It seems Father heard her raising that dickens of a row with you yesterday . . . why didn’t you tell me before how much she’d been bothering you, Phebe? You didn’t have to stand for all that. Well, anyway, seems he heard all the racket yesterday and when you left he got it all out of your mother.”

  “And then?”

  “And then he told Mrs. Olivia B. Cary where she got off. When I came home he told me all about it. . . . Say, Phebe, it looks as though the Old Boy was going to be himself again. Thanks to you.”

  “But, Christopher, what about your mother?”

  “Well, she flew up. Started all her old nonsense you know . . . or no, you don’t know . . . about living in a colored neighborhood . . . about my having colored patients, about your mother . . . oh, you can guess it all for yourself. Well, Father must have said something to her pretty plainly . . . for the upshot of it is she packed a trunk or two and left.”

  “But, Chris, where? Where could she go?”

  “Where?” He seemed surprised. “Why, to Europe of course. She’s completely hipped on foreign life. I think she plans to make her home with Teresa . . . I hope she won’t go to making life miserable for her. I think she has enough to stand, poor kid. . . . Hey, Phebe, what’s the matter?”

  She was deathly white, almost fainting from sheer reaction. Her mother-in-law gone; her father-in-law recovering, herself still a decent, faithful wife! Her relief at being safe, freed from the whole hateful combination was too overwhelming. She lay back on the couch, grateful to have him there fussing about her with his calm, sure, professional touch.