by Dorothy West
That had been September. And now in October Serena wanted to write some neighbor to take a peep at Robert and Pa and tell her how things were with them. Cleo, who on recovery had read Robert’s lies for what they were, said with quiet reproach: “Where’s your faith in the husband you claim you love? Why would you send a neighbor to nose in his business? Robert told you plain he’d tell you when to come. It takes time and money to buy a house. You’re young and impatient. Don’t make Robert think you’re trying to push him beyond his strength. You always say he’s a shamefaced man. Don’t shame his pride. Let him know you’re satisfied to stay with me for as long as need be.”
Serena looked as if she was trapped between two fires. “But how can I go on staying here in Mr. Judson’s house? How can one man’s shoulders stand so many burdens?”
“It’s my house!” Cleo cried angrily. “Mr. Judson and I got that settled between us the night before I rented it. He runs his store, I run my house without interference.” Her voice softened. “Don’t ever call yourself a burden again. How can my baby sister be a burden? You don’t eat more than a bird, for all my pleading. And a little boy like Tim can’t put away but so much, no matter how much he eats. If Mr. Judson didn’t want you here, he’d tell me quick enough. He wouldn’t bite his tongue. And after all, I’m his wife, as well as your sister. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt his pocketbook. Don’t forget he’s a rich man. He can afford to throw away what you’d set aside for Sunday dinner. Just you put your faith in me and Robert, and let time take care of the rest.”
In November there was one more letter from Robert. The bandage was off Pa’s hand. He could use it good enough to do for himself. And Robert was leaving town. That job hadn’t turned out as steady as the boss had promised it would. He was going to get a better one some place where folks didn’t know him and what he was used to working for. There were only a few more payments due on the house before it was theirs. That’s why he wasn’t going to tarry, taking piddling jobs here and there. She’d hear from him as soon as he got wherever there were good wages. If she could hold on a while longer, he’d send for her and Tim in time for Christmas.
December came, and no word from Robert. And Pa couldn’t write even without his bandage. Serena had taught him to sign his name. But the rest of a letter would have to stay blank if Pa was the one had to fill it in. He didn’t know how to spell the words he wanted to spell, and Serena wished she had taught him. Three easy words — I miss you.
Every once in a while Cleo gave her a dollar or two to put in an envelope for Pa. The doctor had cautioned him that his hand couldn’t earn before January. And Cleo said easily, “Pa’s eating, isn’t he? What more can he want unless he wants you to come and feed him like a baby.”
Soon it was mid-December, and Cleo said gaily: “Christmas is right on top of us. The children’s first Christmas together. Serena, don’t let them see you with a long face. Don’t spoil their happiness.”
Then it was Christmas Eve. Serena, standing at the window, trying to see across the world, knew in her anguished heart that wherever Robert was, he was homeless. He who had been conceived as carelessly as if two dogs had met, whose growing had been slow starvation, whose life had been shadowed by his shame, God, help him, Serena prayed, God, give him a home in your bosom.
CHAPTER 18
THE DUCHESS stood at her bedroom window in the Cambridge house, dressed in white brocade, with her pale hair in a Psyche knot. Her wedding ring had been Simeon’s mother’s. She had left it to him to give to the woman he would choose for a wife. On the day of his choice, in all probability she had revolved in her grave. Above her wedding band the Duchess wore a diamond of singular beauty. The solitaire on her right hand was of the same size and flawlessness. They were only a fractional part of the treasure that Corinne had acquired in those months when she designed her daughter’s destiny.
Outside, the snow was beginning to fall in a blinding swirl, obscuring the sky and the star which had guided the wise men. Between heaven and earth there was now a white shroud. The Duchess could not discern which way wisdom would travel that night.
Behind her, blue flames glowed in hand-painted globes, giving light and heightened shadow to the room. Nothing had been changed since the first Lenore had died on the massive bed, with her namesake and her namesake’s mother far removed from the lofty thoughts her last earthly moments inspired. The Duchess had added to the room only the crucifix on the wall and the Virgin Mother enshrined, she who had conceived without benefit of banns, holding in her arms the child, whom Joseph had not sired, who would have been nameless if God had not named him God the Son.
The Duchess was a bride of less than a month. Simeon had come to propose the day after his father’s funeral. His mood was somber as befitting both occasions. For there were three burials in a row, the least in importance Carter Binney’s, because it was only his mortal remains, and second, Simeon’s single blessedness, because from its dust was formed the man of compromise, and first, because of its frightfulness, the Catholic heart that was buried alive.
Listening to Simeon’s proposal the Duchess poised her soul between good and evil, as she saw them, knowing, from knowing her mother, that there is no interlocking of separated worlds, but inescapably forced to make the choice that would cause the most suffering, that would flog her spirit to its utmost humility, that would burden her with the cross.
But there was nothing in the imperial eyes to indicate this inherited disposition to suffer. Simeon, looking at her without awe, but using the same yardstick of her bearing and ash-blondness by which Cleo measured her aloofness — Simeon thought that she was immune to emotion.
When the brief exchanges were over, the Duchess said, “I hope you will consent to a joint account. I want very much to help The Clarion.”
Simeon rose. He said stiffly: “I am not marrying you for your money. However it may seem to you, I came to discharge a debt, not to add to it.”
She rose, too. The faintest color was in her cheeks. “I had no intention of being presumptuous. It was Mrs. Judson who suggested —”
“If you don’t mind,” Simeon interrupted, “I prefer not to discuss it further.” He crossed to her and formally extended his hand. “I hope we will make the best of our bargain.”
Her hand lay in his and he saw its exquisite modeling. A delicate fragrance came from her hair. Her dark-blue eyes and dark lashes accented her ivory skin. She was as lovely as a woman in a dream.
“I must go,” he said abruptly.
“Of course.” She withdrew her hand. “It was good of you to come at all.”
Their wedding night was spent in a cheap hotel in an unsavory section of New York, where they found overnight shelter after being refused at a half-dozen other places in a descending order of desirability. Simeon had come down from Boston a few days before to file their marriage intentions. The Duchess, too, came down from her upstate retreat to change from her sobriety to the magnificent costume that a French modiste had been fashioning for her in a celebrated establishment.
In the days preceding their marriage, the Duchess and Simeon met daily for dinner, she arriving from the Brevoort, he from the ghetto of San Juan Hill. The worried waiters tried to make themselves believe that Simeon was a visiting Arab, and hoped the equally worried patrons wouldn’t overhear his Boston accent. The sparing speech that passed between him and his bride-to-be brought them no nearer to understanding, but their successive meetings brought them nearer to a desire for understanding.
They were married on a snowy afternoon, and evening found them stranded in Grand Central Station. Train service to Boston was suspended. The storm had grown to blizzard size, and the tracks were blocked. As they went from one hotel to another in the furious night, the Duchess saw the open contempt in the eyes of the desk clerks. She saw that it was directed at her. Though reason told her that they refused to accept her as Simeon’s wife, not because of her church, but because of her color, as reason had tried to tell her ea
rlier that the outraged eye of the justice of the peace was directed at her, not because she was marrying a Protestant without a dispensation or a priest, but because she was white mating with black, still the Duchess let her conscience badger her into believing that these scornful men had second sight and saw that she had sinned.
Watching the leering bellboy back out of the bedroom door, reading in his impudent eyes his lascivious expectation of her corruption, she knew that she was no more Simeon’s wife than her mother had been Thad Tewksbury’s. She would not let Simeon relieve her of her coat. She sat as far away from him as the small room permitted to wait for day and the first train to Boston.
Simeon sat down on the lumpy bed, and felt no surprise that she did not propose to share it. Their luggage stood side by side in a corner, and staring at the soft richness of one and the rough-grained shabbiness of the other, he was struck by their dissimilarity. Looking across the room at the Duchess, he could not help but pity her for being in this sordid place, even for being his wife.
To take her mind off where she was, to shorten the hours for her, he began to talk. Because the night’s expedition was uppermost in his mind, he told her of The Clarion, and why and how it had come into being. He talked of the agonies and hopes of blacks, of the courage and cowardice of whites, and of his passion to work toward man’s salvation.
The Duchess listened with the stillness that had become part of her in the quiet of the convent, in the empty days after her homecoming, in the nights when men were too intent on the turn of a wheel to know her beyond her imperial presence, and so recently in the retreat. And this stillness spread out like a delicate net to enmesh Simeon’s mind. His thoughts tumbled into it. In this strange room, with this woman who was almost a stranger, he felt a peace he had never before experienced. He felt close to something he could not identify.
In the weeks since their marriage, Simeon had come to look forward to his quiet evenings with his wife. She listened with compassion and increasing understanding when he described the poor and oppressed and his moral responsibility to rouse the ingrown intelligence of colored Bostonians to a consciousness of the brotherhood of black men and their common fate.
He felt that if he could reach Lenore, whose life, as he saw it, had been devoted to selfish ends, he need not despair of persuading the others to emerge from the narrow rut of Negro society to a larger perception of social man. The South End, which had accepted his marriage to the notorious Duchess with a sullen expectation that she would turn him to her ways, would see that he had brought her to the hard knowledge of hunger.
The Duchess never referred to her money again. A time must come when the needs of the poor would take precedence over his pride. Simeon was converting her. And there was beginning to grow in her the tremulous hope that she might convert him. She would wait until he had learned to love her. It was conceivable now that he would. When he was ready for their lives to be wholly shared, she would unearth her Catholic heart. She would persuade him to a priest. She would confess her sin. They would have a true marriage. They would have children. Then would begin the abundant life of the family. The world would be shut out.
Belowstairs the bellpull sounded. The Duchess heard Simeon’s quick step in the hall outstrip the maid’s unexcited pace. The front door was flung open. There was a rush of cold air. Simeon’s voice rose with it to the upper floor.
“Thea, come in, come in. It’s turned into a wretched night. Cole, shut the door, old fellow. Thea’s shivering.”
Upstairs the Duchess shivered a little, too. Then she went out into the hall and down the stairs to meet her new sister-in-law.
The season but not its spirit had prompted Thea to come to dinner. She and the Duchess were to be guests at Cleo’s Christmas night. She did not want to be introduced to her sister-in-law before interested onlookers who would relish their first meeting. Her opinion of the Duchess was her private affair.
Cleo’s invitation was the first that the Duchess had accepted. It was the first that had been extended. Simeon had never been a social person, and hostesses had grown tired of his ignoring their bids. His unannounced marriage had obligated no one to entertain for his bride.
Thea’s social life had been almost wholly curtailed since her father’s death. Her quiet marriage to Cole had occurred sooner than planned because of the illness of Cole’s mother, who wanted to see them married before she died. But Mrs. Hartnett’s illness had not proved fatal. Death had settled for slow decay. Her fretful invalidism, which had made such a stylish start with a day and night nurse, now had to content itself with Thea’s well-intentioned but middling care. For the most part Thea fluttered helplessly over her helpless patient.
She had handled her inheritance with the same incompetence. Simeon had refused to touch a penny. He was marrying a rich woman. She was marrying a poor doctor. She put the money in the bank and accepted a checkbook. That, of course, was her undoing. She was not ungenerous. On one of her weekly visits to The Clarion to turn in her copy of society jottings, she sent Simeon out on some pretext and industriously wrote checks for a sheaf of overdue bills. She hired a day and night nurse for Mrs. Hartnett. Then had to hire someone to help her cook, because, with the nurses’ trays and Mrs. Hartnett’s special diet and Cole’s meals, she hovered near collapse. When Mrs. Hartnett’s infirmity turned into a lingering one, the night nurse was let go, but Thea increased the cook’s wages to include cleaning. The back and front parlors were being turned into inner and outer offices for Cole. They would have to be kept immaculate, which was quite beyond Thea’s powers. But before the inner office was completely equipped, an irate salesman returned a check marked No Funds.
Now the nurse was gone, the cook-housekeeper was gone, and their duties devolved upon Thea. And she did not even have a new dress to make her look better than she felt. The money had vanished before she had had time to buy anything for herself.
As the Duchess descended the stairs, Thea saw the beauty of her carriage and her gown, the lovely hair and magnificent eyes, the blazing diamonds, and felt neither envy nor admiration, and very little curiosity. She had been born a Binney, and the Duchess would only die one.
The Duchess, seeing the proud indifference on Thea’s face, seeing Simeon’s eyes on his sister and his inscrutable smile, prayed silently, Merciful God, let Simeon never have to choose between us.
She came forward with her hand outstretched, but she was not offering an olive branch. She was simply prepared to conceal from Simeon any hesitation on Thea’s part to extend her hand first.
Their hands clasped lightly. The Duchess said composedly, “We do not need to be introduced. I am glad that you could come.”
“You are very kind,” Thea said mechanically.
Cole took the Duchess’s hand in the second that Thea meant to leave it dangling. He owed his education to his hostess. He had not forgotten. “May I give you my tardy but very best wishes for many years of happiness?”
Simeon said, again with that half-amused smile, “There’s an excellent fire in the library, and some excellent whiskey. I think Thea could do with a little more thawing.”
The whiskey had a most agreeable effect on Cole, who never had any money to spend on sociability. He leaned back in his chair in an attitude of unconstraint that had become rare with him in the past month or so of mental stress.
Cole had a dream of healing, of giving his heart and soul to the study of cancer. He preferred the laboratory and the poor ward of the hospital, where he spent most of his time, to keeping his office hours and building up a general practice. But the dream was dying inside him. His helpless wife and his helpless mother could not be fed with the experiments that were his only sustenance.
He said, the drink expanding inside him, and the subject dearest to him seeming an exciting conversational piece, “I made a rather remarkable discovery in the lab today. One of my rabbits —”
Thea, her own tongue loosening, said sharply: “It’s Christmas Eve, Cole. I don’t
want to hear about your sick rabbits. Cole forgets,” she explained piteously to Simeon, “that most of my time is spent with his sick mother and the rest with his sick patients, hearing them tell me their symptoms while they wait for the doctor. I don’t want to complain. I’m proud to be a doctor’s wife. But living in Brighton, as we do, we’re near none of our friends. I look forward to the evenings with Cole. And Cole comes home and talks shop.”
“I’m really very sorry, Thea,” Cole said tightly. “I shall try to remember to keep my mouth shut.” He straightened up and took a generous gulp of his drink, but it had no potency. The feeling of good-fellowship was gone.
Simeon said paternally: “You’re both under strain. The first year of marriage, the first year of struggle to establish a practice in a white neighborhood are full of trials that will not seem so formidable in retrospect. I’m very glad that Jewish neighbor will stay with Mrs. Hartnett again tomorrow. It will do you good to see your friends and forget your problems for an evening.”
“I hope,” said Thea, who was not entirely comforted, “that Cleo won’t hand the evening over to this dean of yours. He’ll talk shop, too, and I shan’t be interested. I know nothing about colored colleges except that I don’t approve of segregation. I shouldn’t mind if the storm held him up. When is he due?”
“He’ll telephone me tomorrow from South Station,” Simeon answered. “His first letter gave an earlier date, but then there was a second letter, a rather guarded one. I gathered he’d had a little difficulty getting a ticket North. As for his talking shop, I’m hoping the man will be a spellbinder.”
He got up and began to move about the room, too fired with enthusiasm to sit still. “I could read enough between the lines to know that something big is in preparation. I wouldn’t be surprised — indeed, I’m expecting that the whole student body and every faculty member are planning to strike against some injustice of the South. You don’t believe in segregation, Thea. Neither do colored Southerners. If Dean Galloway has some plan of action, I am very much at his service.”