The Chinaberry Tree

by Jessie Redmon Fauset

  “I have all of them except the last,” she thought wincing a little. But she had that too she remembered. She personally had been as pure as snow, as chaste as a nun . . . no girl whose mother had been married by a hundred priests before a thousand witnesses could lay claim to a more spotless life than she.

  For the first time she understood the lines which she had repeated parrot-fashion, a girl in High School :

  “The rank is but the guinea’s stamp

  The man’s the man for a’ that.”

  At about quarter of nine the bell rang. She heard her mother go to the door. Straining she heard Asshur Lane’s deep tones, heard Melissa, obedient to instruction, invite him somewhat without enthusiasm she thought into the dining-room. Of course they wouldn’t have the piano to-night, but Asshur had probably brought his ukelele. He did so often. But if he had they weren’t playing, they were very quiet she thought, missing the peals of laughter which usually floated up from any room which these two were occupying. Perhaps they were studying. Melissa was capable every now and then of intense spells of seriousness. . . . She was really a nice girl—her presence hadn’t been in the slightest way embarrassing. Indeed she had brought life and pleasure into this too quiet house.

  The next ring must be Phil’s. My but he was late. But Saturday was probably a difficult night for him.

  At eleven o’clock she took off her earrings, her beads, her slippers. He wouldn’t be coming now—she understood perfectly his meticulous observance of the conventions where she was concerned. She slipped off the red gown and hung it on its scented hanger in her orderly closet. Very carefully, with unconsciously exaggerated attention to details she braided her hair, washed the rouge off her face and prepared for bed. It was intensely cold out, she would open only one window, the window opening on the side yard. Perhaps she’d better put on her robe—br-rh how chilly!

  She stood by the window looking down as she had earlier in the evening on the icy skeleton of the Chinaberry Tree. Presently the side door opened and Melissa stepped out with Asshur. She could hear his voice—unusually small and quiet, so different from its ordinary heartiness—telling her to run back and get a coat. Melissa obeyed, came out again and the two descended the steps, and stood for a moment in the radius of the shade which would have been cast by the Tree. Only now in place of the shade lay a carpet of uncheckered moonlight.

  With no sense of spying she kept looking down on them, saw Asshur bend his tall figure, saw Melissa’s hand on his sleeve.

  “Now, now, they will kiss,” she thought poignantly. But Melissa said merely in a dull, toneless voice, “I’m awfully sorry Asshur. . . . I must go in now. Good-night.”

  She could not hear his voice but she could see him mounting the side path without his usual springiness. She lost sight of him for two or three moments, then the gate clicked and the tall lean figure went slowly down the road. . . . Melissa came up to her own room.

  Laurentine got into bed and lay there sleepless and tearless, sensationless. All she was conscious of was the sudden overwhelming realization that she had never stood under the Chinaberry Tree with Philip Hackett.

  CHAPTER XI

  HER mother she knew was watching her. She knew that look in her mother’s eyes, patient, dog-like, faithful, yet somehow impersonal as though her mother were saying: “Even though I’m watching, I’m not really aware.”

  She was so sorry for her mother. She knew that her mother took upon herself the blame for everything which had gone awry in her sorry, hateful, bitter, futile life. Her life that was like a spoonful of nauseous medicine which she had to take every morning on arising, on awakening. And the medicine making her no better.

  And once her mother stopping outside her door and asking timidly: “Is there anything I can do daughter?”

  And her own falsely surprised answer: “Do for me? Why there’s nothing the matter with me mother!”

  But she was sick. Sick not only with wounded pride and bewilderment, but with something far worse than that—hopelessness. For what could she expect? She would live like this always, seeing herself ripen, ripen—she was twenty-four, there were many years of cruel, burning, unsatisfied life still before her. Yes she would ripen—some poet had said it—“ripen, fall and cease.” It would be exactly as though she had never been; like a leaf that had fallen too early; like a flower that some one had picked and deliberately thrown away,—no worse, had carelessly dropped to be trampled on, withered. So had her mother and Colonel Halloway dropped her and she was being trampled on, withered.

  • • • • •

  A week, two weeks, three weeks. She who so rarely left the house never of course saw Phil Hackett. She went to church one Sunday to still the madness creeping on her from her monotonous thoughts. She hoped he wouldn’t be there. Hating him as she did now, without effort or volition she never wanted to see him again.

  On a Tuesday Judge Manners’ wife whose daughter was to be married the next day sent her motor for her to come and attend to some rebellious folds which would yield only to her skilled fingers.

  She sat in the car thinking, thinking, revolving ceaselessly those last hours. Phil had taken her sleighing on a Thursday, they had talked, they had been happy. His words had been a promise, if ever words constituted a promise. On Friday he had telephoned, and his flowers had come. They hadn’t died when she had tossed them out into the snow—she was so glad they were there for her to throw out. On Saturday like a fool, like a fool, she had been so happy. She pictured herself sitting blissfully in the sewing-room building dreams. Johnasteen was chattering about some boys quarreling; Matilda had suddenly pricked. . . .

  Matilda had pricked her and Johnasteen had become abruptly reticent! Who had quarreled? Harry Robbins and Asshur. About, of course, about Melissa. She remembered her cousin’s sudden listlessness, her apathy. And Phil with his fear, which she had always sensed rather than known of being caught in the toils of her—she had to face the words—disreputable family.

  She spoke a sudden sharp word to Mrs. Manners’ chauffeur.

  “Hurry.”

  When she returned Melissa had not yet come in from school. And if she did question her would she tell the truth? Standing in her room, removing her hat she saw Mr. Stede moving about in the yard engaged in one of his innumerable chores. Perhaps he would be pruning the trees—no, it was too early to prune trees. What did she care what he was doing?

  She ran down stairs seized a large tin tray, piled on it thick slices of bread and butter, some cold beef, a cup of execrable coffee.

  Mr. Stede always looked well-nourished but he said that he never sought or asked for food or sustenance. He waited, he said mysteriously, for Pentecost. If food was brought to him he ate, if not he did without. Aunt Sal often humored him. To-day she would play the part of Mr. Stede’s Pentecost which she suspected was his name for Providence.

  He came immediately at her call, walked to the sink and futilely washed his horny hands. Not all the soaps of all the world’s advertisements would remove the grime in those ridges. Laurentine sat at the end of the table and watched him while he ate. For a man professing to care so little for food he certainly showed appreciation when he received it.

  He was drinking his second cup of the muddy coffee, looking at her steadily, with his faded light eyes. Even in her wretchedness, she found herself wondering whether they’d been in his youth dark and had faded light, or had been light to start with and faded lighter: In his dark face with its wispy circular beard they looked so strange. He spoke to her in his brittle voice.

  “Yore ma back yet?”

  “I didn’t know she was out. Have something more Mr. Stede.”

  “I hev told you Laurentine thet I don’t never ast for no food. Of course if suthin’ sweet was set before me—” His dignified voice trailed off.

  “Mr. Stede, tell me. . . .”

  “’Bout what Laurentine?” His old lashless eyes held hers.

  “What happened at the Carnival, what’d
the boys fight about Mr. Stede?”

  His intent expression filmed ever so slightly as though he had drawn a curtain.

  “Nuthin’ you need know about. And anyways I wasn’t there.”

  “No, but I’m sure you know all about it.”

  “Ain’t Johnasteen told you?”

  “She tried to but I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Humph ’n I told her to keep her tongue in her head. Whut’s the matter with these young folks thet they can’t keep a tongue in their head?” He pondered over it as though it were an actual problem in engineering.

  “Who was there in the crowd, Mr. Stede? I know there must have been a crowd.”

  He liked to gossip, it was the one passion of his old age. Struggling with his better self he hesitated, succumbed.

  “Well there was them colored doctors Brown and Isma, Asma, whatever he calls hisse’f and their wives and one of their gals and Mr. Hackett.” His unwavering glance met hers equally steady. “’N a whole passel of these young high school kids, the colored ones I mean, ’n Mr. Reamer.”

  “Mr. Reamer?”

  “Yes Laurentine.”

  “That’s Mrs.—Mrs. Halloway’s brother, isn’t it?”

  “Yes Laurentine.”

  “The boys were quarreling about Melissa. What did they say?”

  “Asshur ain’t said nothin’ fur’s I kin make out, only smashed this Robbins boy’s face in and tell him to shet his dirty mouf. That boy sho’ has got a dirty mouf. His father had it before him. I remember ”

  “What did he say Mr. Stede?”

  He was old, he had been born at the very end of slavery. He had known suffering and pain and sorrow all his life. Neither life nor persons had ever spared him anything. But he was man enough to spare her.

  “Whut he said don’t make no dif’funce, Lauren-tine. Things don’t happen, e’fects don’t happen because a man sez this or that. They jist happen because this is for you and thet for me.” He sat lost in his newly discovered fatalism.

  “He spoke about—about my mother?”

  He was silent.

  “And Melissa’s mother?” He was still silent.

  “And all those colored people, the high school boys and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Ismay heard him?”

  He stirred himself—“No come to think of it, f’um what I was told, none of them real hinckty culled folks was in the crowd. And ez for the kids they on’y heerd what they’d already heered many’s the time.”

  “You mean the others didn’t hear at all?”

  “No, nobody but the right young gal and ”

  “And Mr. Hackett.”

  “’N Mr. Hackett. I always called him Phil myself.”

  He glanced about the empty table, sighed, “Well, guess I’ll go back to my job.”

  • • • • •

  So it was Melissa after all. Her first premonitions had been right. Phil had almost never seen Melissa. If she had not come to Red Brook he need never have known, never have heard of her.

  • • • • •

  Aunt Sal was taking off her hat in the sewing-room. Something about her manner caught Laurentine’s attention.

  “Where’ve you been, mother?”

  “Out,” she said vaguely.

  Laurentine went round to her, placed her hand on her arm.

  “You haven’t been to see Phil Hackett, mother? Mother listen, you haven’t done this thing to me?”

  Her tone said, in addition to the wrongs you’ve already heaped on me.

  Sal looked suddenly small and shrunken. “I thought if I saw him—I thought if I went to him as a mother—oh Laurentine, if I could only have been your father too!”

  “It’s all right mother. . . . You . . . you didn’t say I’d sent you?”

  “No, no, not that. I only said that, as your mother I thought I ought to know his intentions ”

  “Oh mother, no one, just no one does that nowadays. Even millionaires don’t question the young men who come to see their daughters

  “But it’s all right. I know you did it for the best. Don’t bother telling me what he said. I don’t want to know. But mother do you think we should keep Melissa?”

  Her mother stared: “What’s Melissa got to do with it?”

  “Everything. Why what did he say?”

  “Nothing about Melissa. Only that he couldn’t afford to do anything Mr. Reamer wouldn’t approve of.”

  “I see.” Her tone was absolutely even. “Let’s forget it mother. There are other men even in Red Brook. And I was never in love with him anyway.”

  But her mother thought, “There are things in life that matter more than love. And anyway she really did love him, I know.”

  Laurentine thought, “If it hadn’t been for Melissa this would never have happened. I wish I had never seen her. Oh God, how I could hate her!”

  CHAPTER XII

  ON that memorable night after the Ice Carnival while Laurentine in her room was waiting for Phil Hackett, Asshur Lane was visiting Melissa in the dining-room.

  It was still very cold, a penetrating rigorous night which made delightful the auxiliary glow and warmth of the gas heater masquerading in the recesses of the deep fireplace. Asshur stood in front of it, tall and strong and even severe on his young straight legs and Melissa thought for the hundredth time how handsome he was.

  His skin unmarred by Robbins’ furious defense of the preceding evening was the color of a ripe chestnut, of a tint and glossiness which colored people call a “tantalizing brown.” Underneath it the red of his blood showed hot and pulsing. His eyes were bold and laughing, his nose and chin sharply defined. But his crowning glory was his thick glossy hair, not straight as many of his group fancied, but very black and shining like a Hindu’s, only curly.

  Sometimes in spite of Melissa’s determined preferences which included a man of different profession from what Asshur’s would be and also of different color, a desire which any colored person could understand, her heart raced a little faster at the thought that this bronze hero with all his athletic perfection could be hers for the taking. But she was never less inclined toward that taking than tonight.

  She had in her some of her mother’s single-mindedness, but with more perspicuity. Melissa had seen too many lives about her ruined for lack of foresight. She did not intend for her own to be thus wasted.

  The events of the previous evening had made her determine more than ever to change that position in life in which circumstances had placed her. She had not caught all that Harry had said, had not comprehended in any way his allusion to her mother. She was grateful to Asshur for taking her part. He had, she supposed, performed a really gallant and chivalrous deed. But the commonness of the situation, the sound of the hard blows on the resilient skin of the antagonists, the jeering impertinent crowd, the knowledge that through her aunt and cousin she really was open to this sort of proceeding sickened her. She would get out of it sometime, somehow. The day would come when she would be out of the reach of these people with their horrid, narrow malice, their stupid ways, their stupider conclusions.

  “Thinking that because Aunt Sal was—irregular,”—of course that was putting it mildly, she admitted as much, “that I must be irregular too.” Oh, she would find a way out of it all, but that way would not be through Asshur.

  “You mean, you really mean you don’t love me Melissa?”

  She considered him a moment, weighing her words carefully. She was only seventeen, but she had the assurance of a woman twenty years her senior. Indeed it was doubtful that Melissa at thirty-seven would have the unshaken assurance of this inexperienced girl.

  She thought: “Here he is the best catch of any boy in town—and I can have him. Some day I’ll meet some one better than he in every way—and I can have him too.” Yet even then she thought with a fleeting sorrow that she could never meet anyone finer, more innately noble.

  Aloud she answered : “You know Asshur in a way I do love you.” Her hard little head was amazed to h
ear her lips thus pronouncing the sentiment of her heart. “But that’s not enough.”

  He told her, his young face darkling, “It’s enough for me. It should be for you.”

  “But Asshur love isn’t all there is of life. Sometimes it works just the other way, makes you miss everything else in life that is worth while. Look how many times you yourself have told me you want success, you want esteem, respect, friends.”

  “And I could give you all that—and why—because of love.”

  But she could not tell him that though she wanted these gifts she didn’t want them at his hands. She craved a larger, more brilliant setting than he with his ambitions could ever provide. So sticking to her original point she said simply:

  “Look at Laurentine.”

  He stared: “Look at Laurentine! What about her? How’s her case any different from yours?”

  “Different from mine?” she echoed astounded. “Why Asshur you know there’s no comparison between us. You’ve lived here some time. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that old story about Aunt Sal and that old white Colonel Halloway.”

  He seemed for a moment to be waiting for something more. But he only said: “His whiteness has nothing to do with it. In fact in a way it might be a sort of redeeming feature. There could be less excusable circumstances than that.”

  It was her turn to stare now, “How could it be a redeeming feature?”

  “Well,” he rejoined frowning and wrestling with a big problem. “I don’t know much about the case, and don’t care anything about it either except in so far as it might affect the welfare of some one I cared for. But now let’s see. Your aunt’s about fifty isn’t she?”