The Gilded Years

by Karin Tanabe

  Miss Hemmings, I want you to know that you will always be welcome at Clavedon Hall, and rest assured that Miss Taylor will not be.

  Do stay in touch and call on me when you are in New York. I would very much like to see you again, especially now that we can speak candidly. That will be delightful for us both, I’m sure of it.

  Yours faithfully,

  Marchmont Rhinelander

  CHAPTER 30

  It was two months later, when she was concentrating on acting with the utmost decorum in order to keep her new job, that Anita made an unexpected acquaintance. Busy with her cataloguing one morning, she looked up as a fashionably dressed man with a long, confident gait approached her, carrying a large book.

  “Are you Miss Hemmings?” he asked, gripping his hat firmly with his other hand.

  “I am,” said Anita, happy to speak to someone who did not already recognize her from the newspapers. In the months since she had been employed at the library, there had been many who, in recognizing her, gave their unsolicited opinions on what she had done, and through those interactions, Anita had grown even more reserved and hesitant in her demeanor.

  “My name is Dr. Andrew Love,” said the man, his voice deep but amiable. “I was told you might be able to help me with this physiology book. It’s been mental gymnastics for me for the past few hours, as I’m afraid my Greek is not what it used to be before I took up my medical studies. It has been quite a few years since I did undergraduate work and read more than a line or two in Greek.”

  Anita took the book from him, sat down as it was quite heavy, and flipped through the pages. The medical terminology was daunting, but she gestured to him to join her at the table by one of the library’s large windows.

  Anita helped him for just shy of an hour—she translating the small print aloud, he taking dictation—before he paused and laid down his pen. Feeling his eyes on her, she continued reading, not sure what else to do.

  “Miss Hemmings,” he said, interrupting her. “Please pardon my ill manners but I must confess something to you,” he said as she lifted her eyes from the book. “I came here to the library with the intention of meeting you. I have been reading about you in the newspapers, and I told myself that I must make the acquaintance of this brave, intelligent woman.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Anita, standing up quickly. “But I do not wish to speak about the stories in the newspapers, and it would be most inappropriate to do so at my place of employment. I’ll have to ask you to leave my section at once. I’m sure you can find someone else to help you with your translation.” Anita knew it wasn’t correct to speak to a patron this way, but she could not bear one more conversation about her passing at Vassar, even if the man in question was congratulatory of her actions.

  She turned to leave, but Andrew Love moved with her, closer than a shadow.

  “I apologize for upsetting you,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have spoken so forthrightly, or even come here seeking you out. But you see, I wanted to meet you, and I thought it might be helpful for you to meet me, because I—” He took a step back as Anita moved as if to sprint away from him.

  “I have a great amount of respect you for, Miss Hemmings,” he said changing his approach. “For what you did to receive the best education you could. And furthermore, what I should have disclosed initially is, I am the same as you, Miss Hemmings. I am a Negro, like you,” he said in a whisper. “And I thought to myself, this bold young woman might not have met anyone like herself before. A well-educated Negro who knows what it is to live as colored and as white.” He looked down while fiddling with the brim of his hat, suddenly seeming as nervous as she was. “You see, I am in Boston readying myself to attend Harvard as a Negro student, but at times I have lived otherwise. I have practiced medicine both as a Negro and as white.”

  “You are a Negro?” Anita asked softly, bending her head, too.

  “I am,” said Andrew Love, who though clearly several years her senior, still had a youthful roundness to his face. “If you would please sit back down with me, I will be happy to tell you more about myself. If you might find that of interest. But if not, I will leave at once and apologize for my impertinence.”

  Anita gestured to the table and sat down with him again, now anxious in a very different way.

  Situated at a respectable distance from Anita, and speaking with half the volume he had before, Andrew said, “My full name is Andrew Jackson Love. I was not born in Massachusetts, nor have I been here for very long.” He cleared his throat and dropped his voice even more. “I was born into a family of twelve children, by two different women, my mother and my father’s second wife, in Canton, Mississippi. That’s right in the heart of poverty-stricken Madison County, north of Jackson, east of Yazoo City. Have you ever been to Mississippi, Miss Hemmings?” he asked, taking small glances to his left and right to make sure they were still alone.

  “I have not. I have never been further south than New York City.”

  “And I had never been north of Tennessee until this year,” he explained. “My father was, and still is, a farm laborer down in Mississippi. But he always said we, his children, should amount to more. Sadly, that wish is difficult to make a reality when you are poor and Negro in Mississippi. He was born in Virginia like your parents, but he went south instead of going north like he should have.”

  His mention of her parents reminded Anita how much the newspapers had printed about her private life and she felt a stroke of panic flush through her body. Still, she could not bring herself to stop Andrew from speaking, and she looked at his pale face with more interest than she hoped to show.

  “My brothers, many are farm laborers,” he continued, “yet I knew I would do something different, something with medicine, even if it took me a long time to find my way. And as you can see, I was light-skinned enough to pass as white if I chose to. Many of my siblings are not.”

  “Mine, either,” Anita explained, though the newspapers had already made that clear. “My nearest brother Frederick is able to, though not as easily as I, and for the two younger ones, it is out of the question.”

  Andrew nodded in understanding and said, “Still, like you, I didn’t pass for many years. I was a schoolteacher down in Tennessee and Louisiana at Negro high schools. That was before I scraped together the means, and the confidence, to attend medical school in Tennessee. And I’m glad I did. It changed my life, even if it meant giving up seeing family for years now. That’s probably the most important place to start.”

  “Your story sounds much like my family,” said Anita. If he had not told her, she would never have known he was a Negro.

  “I read in the newspaper that Vassar had been your singular goal for many years,” he went on. “It was the same with me, Miss Hemmings. I’ve been aware since childhood that I wanted to pursue medicine. In the community where I spent my early years, there were no doctors for miles, just terrible suffering.”

  Anita nodded her head in understanding, though it was hard for her to fully understand the poverty of the rural southern Negro. Black Boston was not the South and her parents had made her aware from early on how lucky she was to be born in Massachusetts.

  “ ‘Doctor’ meant a mother, a prayer, never a licensed physician,” Andrew explained. “I watched people die around me, people who could have been so easily saved. So, like you, I focused on one goal: in my case, attending medical school. And I did. I eventually enrolled as a student at the medical department of Central Tennessee College, a medical school for Negroes only.”

  “Our doctor in Roxbury,” Anita interrupted, “he too attended a Negro medical college. Perhaps it was the same school.”

  “Perhaps,” said Andrew. “But he was intelligent enough to come north, if so. It took me much longer to do the same. After I graduated, I worked as a doctor—a colored doctor for the colored community—in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was rewarding work, but one that also gave me a new goal, to attend a medical school in New England. So I came t
o Massachusetts with my sights set on Harvard. If Harvard becomes a reality, they will have me on record as a Negro, as you can’t lie about your race if you come from a Negro school. But that may change in the future.”

  Anita thought about her luck with Northfield, and how true that statement was. “In what circumstance would that change?” she inquired. “If it is not too rude of me to ask.”

  “I don’t know precisely,” Andrew answered honestly. “The world works with you sometimes and against you at others. Passing isn’t a future goal of mine, as I know, from experience, what one has to give up in the process. But sometimes, to obtain what you think you deserve, or to advance your studies or career, the world forces you to live that way. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Hemmings?”

  “I do, of course,” she replied quietly, looking around as Andrew had done to see if they were still alone. “But when I passed at Vassar, I did not have to give up my family. You say you haven’t seen yours in many years.”

  “That’s right,” he replied, moving his hat around in a circle with his right hand. “But it’s not because of passing. It’s economics. I’m afraid I haven’t had the means, or the time, to travel back to Mississippi, as saving for Harvard has been my priority.”

  “Of course, a journey north is very expensive.”

  “It is,” said Andrew slowly. “But I see what you are touching on. Many people like us, who do not see their families for an extended period—it’s a by-product of passing.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s something that has always terrified me. At Vassar I was able to have both. It ultimately worked against me, but for four years, I could pass and I could be with them, my family, during the holidays. I’m afraid that now, outside of a college existence, that would not be the case. It would be the choice of one or the other. Or at best, I would have to visit with them in a very different, limited capacity.”

  Anita had heard stories of it before, Negro women who went on to live otherwise and had to pass off their mothers and fathers as servants, forcing them to use the maid’s entrance, the back door. When she was with Porter Hamilton, she had considered being one of them.

  “I hope I never have to fully make that choice,” said Andrew. “But as it stands now, my family understands what a person has to give up to pursue a career in medicine. A Negro person, that is. Which is time and money, and occasionally, dignity.”

  “My family understands, too,” said Anita. “To a point.”

  “I think only someone who has lived as we have can truly understand our positions,” said Andrew. “And that’s why I wanted to meet you, Miss Hemmings. I never attended school as a white person like you did, but I have lived as one. I am familiar with floating between both worlds, to be treated as white. I know what it’s like to leave behind your identity as a Negro and be confused about whether you are doing so willingly or unwillingly. And I understand the guilt that can come with securing a better life by passing. The shame. You may think, am I doing this because I am not brave enough to live as a Negro? Or am I living this way because it is the only way to pursue a career I deserve? Perhaps it is an act of bravery? Tricking them into treating you like one of their own. Have you had thoughts like these, Miss Hemmings?” Andrew paused and looked at Anita with an intensity that should have made her uncomfortable, but his words, his presence didn’t disquiet her at all. “Still,” he said, moving his body farther away from her, “I acted indiscreetly, and I apologize, but I hope you can understand. I had to meet the Negro woman who had graduated from Vassar. This brave woman.”

  Anita let the smallest of smiles form on her face and then backed away from him, too, when she spotted another cataloguer looking at them with interest.

  “My apologies,” he said, seeing Anita’s colleague. “I’m making you uncomfortable. I will go. I do hope you will allow me to call on you in the coming days. I’m afraid all of Boston knows your address after the papers published it so many times, but I do not want to come unless you would like to see me again.”

  “I am not staying at home for that very reason,” said Anita, standing up. “But I would like to speak to you again.”

  No one had ever put into words so plainly the emotions she had felt for four years at Vassar. A decade ago, Mame Marshall had tried to prepare her, but Anita was still many years from understanding fully. Andrew Love was the first man she had ever met who passed for the sake of his career, for his intellectual betterment. He hadn’t passed to shed his Negro identity. She couldn’t help but feel a jolt of energy as she thought of the way he had articulated the things she had never spoken—not to Frederick, nor Bessie, not even to herself.

  Anita walked to the front desk and came back with Bessie and William’s address written on a slip of paper.

  “If you would like, you can call on me here,” she said, making sure her hand did not brush his as she gave him the note.

  “I will call on you tomorrow,” he said, placing his hat back on his head and leaving Anita as quietly as he came in.

  CHAPTER 31

  Andrew did as he said and rang the bell at the Lewises’ house the following evening.

  Bessie, who had heard only briefly about Anita’s encounter with a light-skinned man at the library, opened the door and was shocked to see someone who looked even whiter than Anita standing there, holding flowers for both her and Anita.

  “Mrs. Lewis, please excuse me, I do believe I’m ringing your bell near dinnertime. Miss Hemmings, whom I had the pleasure of meeting yesterday, told me you and Mr. Lewis would be so kind as to allow me to call on her today.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Bessie, trying to mask her surprise at his skin color as she let him in the door. “And this is a perfectly good time. If you do not have plans, you could join us for supper.”

  “Oh no, I could not impose,” said Andrew, walking into the large, comfortable house. “I would be glad to another evening, when it’s not an inconvenience.”

  “Nonsense,” said Bessie, showing him to a chair in the sitting room. “I will just fetch Anita upstairs.” She turned to her right and called for her husband, who was around the bend in the dining room, introducing the two men before she went upstairs so that her visitor was not alone.

  “I heard him come in,” said Anita as Bessie walked into her bedroom door where Anita was penning a letter to her mother. “Andrew Love.”

  “Yes!” Bessie said excitedly. “Anita, you said he was light, but this man looks positively white.”

  “But he’s not,” said Anita defensively.

  “No, of course not,” said Bessie, not having meant to offend. “What I should have said is that he is very handsome and exceedingly polite.”

  “Isn’t he?” said Anita, her excitement matching to rise Bessie’s. Since meeting Andrew the day before, she hadn’t been able to think of anything except the man who in so many ways seemed like a carbon copy of herself. Throughout her time at Vassar, no one in her Boston community had fully understood her challenges. Andrew Love did. It was as if she hadn’t realized just how alone she was until she met him.

  “Come, Anita,” said Bessie, interrupting her thoughts. “Re-pin your hair and let’s go downstairs. I’ve already invited him to stay for supper, but if it turns out that you don’t want him to, then we shall send him away at once.”

  “I don’t think it will come to that,” said Anita, smiling.

  “No, me neither,” said Bessie, crossing the room to leave. “I think we will all fall a little bit in love with Mr. Love after this evening.”

  She didn’t turn around to see Anita blush, instead leading the way downstairs, where the women greeted the two men who were speaking animatedly.

  Anita and Andrew greeted each other politely and familiarly, as if somehow their private, personal words exchanged the day before had helped them cross the boundaries into emotional intimacy very quickly.

  “Thank you for allowing me to call on you,” said Andrew, standing a respectable distance from Anita
and not offering his hand to her. “I very much wanted to see you again.”

  “Of course,” Anita replied politely before William and Andrew took up their conversation on the Negro community in Boston.

  The Lewises spoke animatedly about the people they knew in the area who were leading the charge in social change, and Andrew nodded at the familiar names.

  When they sat down to dinner a few moments later, the conversation switched to the ways of Northeastern colleges and what Andrew might expect as a Negro at Harvard, but William swung it swiftly back to social change after the main course was served.

  “We do hope Anita joins Bessie as a voice for the educated Negro woman,” William explained to Andrew after Bessie had finished describing her work with Josephine Ruffin and the Boston chapter of the National Association of Colored Women.

  “I have no doubt that she will,” said Andrew before he complimented Bessie on the meal.

  “Yes, of course that is something that interests me,” said Anita, though she had not attended a meeting with Bessie yet. She intended to, but she was still too afraid of the possible judgment on her character by such smart, proud Negro women. Not everyone thought the way Mame Marshall did. She worried they might sneer at her choice to attend Vassar as white, not look upon her with pride as they did Bessie.

  “I am sure Miss Hemmings’s commitment to the Negro community is just as strong as mine,” said Andrew. “We were able to speak at some length yesterday and I found that we have very similar values.”

  “That’s all excellent to hear,” said William, pushing aside his empty plate. “I believe there was also some talk of passing?” he said, looking at his wife.

  Shocked, Anita also looked at Bessie, whom she had confided in the night before. Clearly, Bessie had turned around and told her husband the details of their intimate conversation.