The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen

by Nella Larsen

  Surely she was going mad with fear and suspicion. She must not work herself up. She must not! Where were all the self-control, the common sense, that she was so proud of? Now, if ever, was the time for it.

  Clare would soon be there. She must hurry or she would be late again, and those two would wait for her downstairs together, as they had done so often since that first time, which now seemed so long ago. Had it been really only last October? Why, she felt years, not months, older.

  Drearily she rose from her chair and went upstairs to set about the business of dressing to go out when she would far rather have remained at home. During the process she wondered, for the hundredth time, why she hadn’t told Brian about herself and Felise running into Bellew the day before, and for the hundredth time she turned away from acknowledging to herself the real reason for keeping back the information.

  When Clare arrived, radiant in a shining red gown, Irene had not finished dressing. But her smile scarcely hesitated as she greeted her, saying: “I always seem to keep C.P. time, don’t I? We hardly expected you to be able to come. Felise will be pleased. How nice you look.”

  Clare kissed a bare shoulder, seeming not to notice a slight shrinking.

  “I hadn’t an idea in the world, myself, that I’d be able to make it; but Jack had to run down to Philadelphia unexpectedly. So here I am.”

  Irene looked up, a flood of speech on her lips. “Philadelphia. That’s not very far, is it? Clare, I—?”

  She stopped, one of her hands clutching the side of her stool, the other lying clenched on the dressing table. Why didn’t she go on and tell Clare about meeting Bellew? Why couldn’t she?

  But Clare didn’t notice the unfinished sentence. She laughed and said lightly: “It’s far enough for me. Anywhere, away from me, is far enough. I’m not particular.”

  Irene passed a hand over her eyes to shut out the accusing face in the glass before her. With one corner of her mind she wondered how long she had looked like that, drawn and haggard and—yes, frightened. Or was it only imagination?

  “Clare,” she asked, “have you ever seriously thought what it would mean if he should find you out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh! You have! And what you’d do in that case?”

  “Yes.” And having said it, Clare Kendry smiled quickly, a smile that came and went like a flash, leaving untouched the gravity of her face.

  That smile and the quiet resolution of that one word, “Yes,” filled Irene with a primitive paralyzing dread. Her hands were numb, her feet like ice, her heart like a stone weight. Even her tongue was like a heavy dying thing. There were long spaces between the words as she asked: “And what should you do?”

  Clare, who was sunk in a deep chair, her eyes far away, seemed wrapped in some pleasant impenetrable reflection. To Irene, sitting expectantly upright, it was an interminable time before she dragged herself back to the present to say calmly: “I’d do what I want to do more than anything else right now. I’d come up here to live. Harlem, I mean. Then I’d be able to do as I please, when I please.”

  Irene leaned forward, cold and tense. “And what about Margery?” Her voice was a strained whisper.

  “Margery?” Clare repeated, letting her eyes flutter over Irene’s concerned face. “Just this, ’Rene. If it wasn’t for her, I’d do it anyway. She’s all that holds me back. But if Jack finds out, if our marriage is broken, that lets me out. Doesn’t it?”

  Her gentle resigned tone, her air of innocent candor, appeared, to her listener, spurious. A conviction that the words were intended as a warning took possession of Irene. She remembered that Clare Kendry had always seemed to know what other people were thinking. Her compressed lips grew firm and obdurate. Well, she wouldn’t know this time.

  She said: “Do go downstairs and talk to Brian. He’s got a mad on.”

  Though she had determined that Clare should not get at her thoughts and fears, the words had sprung, unthought of, to her lips. It was as if they had come from some outer layer of callousness that had no relation to her tortured heart. And they had been, she realized, precisely the right words for her purpose.

  For as Clare got up and went out she saw that that arrangement was as good as her first plan of keeping her waiting up there while she dressed—or better. She would only have hindered and rasped her. And what matter if those two spent one hour, more or less, alone together, one or many, now that everything had happened between them?

  Ah! The first time that she had allowed herself to admit to herself that everything had happened, had not forced herself to believe, to hope, that nothing irrevocable had been consummated! Well, it had happened. She knew it, and knew that she knew it.

  She was surprised that, having thought the thought, conceded the fact, she was no more hurt, cared no more, than during her previous frenzied endeavors to escape it. And this absence of acute, unbearable pain seemed to her unjust, as if she had been denied some exquisite solace of suffering which the full acknowledgment should have given her.

  Was it, perhaps, that she had endured all that a woman could endure of tormenting humiliation and fear? Or was it that she lacked the capacity for the acme of suffering? “No, no!” she denied fiercely. “I’m human like everybody else. It’s just that I’m so tired, so worn out, I can’t feel any more.” But she did not really believe that.

  Security. Was it just a word? If not, then was it only by the sacrifice of other things, happiness, love, or some wild ecstasy that she had never known, that it could be obtained? And did too much striving, too much faith in safety and permanence, unfit one for these other things?

  Irene didn’t know, couldn’t decide, though for a long time she sat questioning and trying to understand. Yet all the while, in spite of her searchings and feeling of frustration, she was aware that, to her, security was the most important and desired thing in life. Not for any of the others, or for all of them, would she exchange it. She wanted only to be tranquil. Only, unmolested, to be allowed to direct for their own best good the lives of her sons and her husband.

  Now that she had relieved herself of what was almost like a guilty knowledge, admitted that which by some sixth sense she had long known, she could again reach out for plans. Could think again of ways to keep Brian by her side, and in New York. For she would not go to Brazil. She belonged in this land of rising towers. She was an American. She grew from this soil, and she would not be uprooted. Not even because of Clare Kendry, or a hundred Clare Kendrys.

  Brian, too, belonged here. His duty was to her and to his boys.

  Strange that she couldn’t now be sure that she had ever truly known love. Not even for Brian. He was her husband and the father of her sons. But was he anything more? Had she ever wanted or tried for more? In that hour she thought not.

  Nevertheless, she meant to keep him. Her freshly painted lips narrowed to a thin straight line. True, she had left off trying to believe that he and Clare loved and yet did not love, but she still intended to hold fast to the outer shell of her marriage, to keep her life fixed, certain. Brought to the edge of distasteful reality, her fastidious nature did not recoil. Better, far better, to share him than to lose him completely. Oh, she could close her eyes, if need be. She could bear it. She could bear anything. And there was March ahead. March and the departure of Clare.

  Horribly clear, she could now see the reason for her instinct to withhold—omit, rather—her news of the encounter with Bellew. If Clare was freed, anything might happen.

  She paused in her dressing, seeing with perfect clearness that dark truth which she had from that first October afternoon felt about Clare Kendry and of which Clare herself had once warned her—that she got the things she wanted because she met the great condition of conquest, sacrifice. If she wanted Brian, Clare wouldn’t revolt from the lack of money or place. It was as she had said, only Margery kept her from throwing all that away. And if things were taken out of her hands— Even if she was only alarmed, only suspected that such a thing was abo
ut to occur, anything might happen. Anything.

  No! At all costs, Clare was not to know of that meeting with Bellew. Nor was Brian. It would only weaken her own power to keep him.

  They would never know from her that he was on his way to suspecting the truth about his wife. And she would do anything, risk anything, to prevent him from finding out that truth. How fortunate that she had obeyed her instinct and omitted to recognize Bellew!

  • • •

  “Ever go up to the sixth floor, Clare?” Brian asked as he stopped the car and got out to open the door for them.

  “Why, of course! We’re on the seventeenth.”

  “I mean, did you ever go up by nigger power?”

  “That’s good!” Clare laughed. “Ask ’Rene. My father was a janitor, you know, in the good old days before every ramshackle flat had its elevator. But you can’t mean we’ve got to walk up? Not here!”

  “Yes, here. And Felise lives at the very top,” Irene told her.

  “What on earth for?”

  “I believe she claims it discourages the casual visitor.”

  “And she’s probably right. Hard on herself, though.” Brian said, “Yes, a bit. But she says she’d rather be dead than bored.”

  “Oh, a garden! And how lovely with that undisturbed snow!”

  “Yes, isn’t it? But keep to the walk with those foolish thin shoes. You too, Irene.”

  Irene walked beside them on the cleared cement path that split the whiteness of the courtyard garden. She felt a something in the air, something that had been between those two and would be again. It was like a live thing pressing against her. In a quick furtive glance she saw Clare clinging to Brian’s other arm. She was looking at him with that provocative upward glance of hers, and his eyes were fastened on her face with what seemed to Irene an expression of wistful eagerness.

  “It’s this entrance, I believe,” she informed them in quite her ordinary voice.

  “Mind,” Brian told Clare, “you don’t fall by the wayside before the fourth floor. They absolutely refuse to carry anyone up more than the last two flights.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Irene snapped.

  The party began gaily.

  Dave Freeland was at his best, brilliant, crystal clear, and sparkling. Felise, too, was amusing, and not so sarcastic as usual, because she liked the dozen or so guests who dotted the long, untidy living room. Brian was witty, though, Irene noted, his remarks were somewhat more barbed than was customary even with him. And there was Ralph Hazelton, throwing nonsensical shining things into the pool of talk, which the others, even Clare, picked up and flung back with fresh adornment.

  Only Irene wasn’t merry. She sat almost silent, smiling now and then, that she might appear amused.

  “What’s the matter, Irene?” someone asked. “Taken a vow never to laugh or something? You’re as sober as a judge.”

  “No. It’s simply that the rest of you are so clever that I’m speechless, absolutely stunned.”

  “No wonder,” Dave Freeland remarked, “that you’re on the verge of tears. You haven’t a drink. What’ll you take?”

  “Thanks. If I must take something, make it a glass of ginger ale and three drops of Scotch. The Scotch first, please. Then the ice, then the ginger ale.”

  “Heavens! Don’t attempt to mix that yourself, Dave darling. Have the butler in,” Felise mocked.

  “Yes, do. And the footman.” Irene laughed a little, then said: “It seems dreadfully warm in here. Mind if I open this window?” With that she pushed open one of the long casement windows of which the Freelands were so proud.

  It had stopped snowing some two or three hours back. The moon was just rising, and far behind the tall buildings a few stars were creeping out. Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below.

  Someone in the room had turned on the phonograph. Or was it the radio? She didn’t know which she disliked more. And nobody was listening to its blare. The talking, the laughter never for a minute ceased. Why must they have more noise?

  Dave came with her drink. “You ought not,” he told her, “to stand there like that. You’ll take cold. Come along and talk to me, or listen to me gabble.” Taking her arm, he led her across the room. They had just found seats when the doorbell rang and Felise called over to him to go and answer it.

  In the next moment Irene heard his voice in the hall, carelessly polite: “Your wife? Sorry. I’m afraid you’re wrong. Perhaps next—”

  Then the roar of John Bellew’s voice above all the other noises of the room: “I’m not wrong! I’ve been to the Redfields’ and I know she’s with them. You’d better stand out of my way and save yourself trouble in the end.”

  “What is it, Dave?” Felise ran out to the door.

  And so did Brian. Irene heard him saying: “I’m Redfield. What the devil’s the matter with you?”

  But Bellew didn’t heed him. He pushed past them all into the room and strode towards Clare. They all looked at her as she got up from her chair, backing a little from his approach.

  “So you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!” His voice was a snarl and a moan, an expression of rage and of pain.

  Everything was in confusion. The men had sprung forward. Felise had leapt between them and Bellew. She said quickly: “Careful. You’re the only white man here.” And the silver chill of her voice, as well as her words, was a warning.

  Clare stood at the window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her in curiosity and wonder, as if the whole structure of her life were not lying in fragments before her. She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full red lips and in her shining eyes.

  It was that smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare’s bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn’t have her free.

  Before them stood John Bellew, speechless now in his hurt and anger. Beyond them the little huddle of other people, and Brian stepping out from among them.

  What happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly.

  One moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.

  There was a gasp of horror, and above it a sound not quite human, like a beast in agony. “Nig! My God! Nig!”

  A frenzied rush of feet down long flights of stairs. The slamming of distant doors. Voices.

  Irene stayed behind. She sat down and remained quite still, staring at a ridiculous Japanese print on the wall across the room.

  Gone! The soft white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness that had been Clare Kendry. That beauty that had torn at Irene’s placid life. Gone! The mocking daring, the gallantry of her pose, the ringing bells of her laughter.

  Irene wasn’t sorry. She was amazed, incredulous almost.

  What would the others think? That Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately leaned backward? Certainly one or the other. Not—

  But she mustn’t, she warned herself, think of that. She was too tired, and too shocked. And, indeed, both were true. She was utterly weary, and she was violently staggered. But her thoughts reeled on. If only she could be as free of mental as she was of bodily vigor; could only put from her memory the vision of her hand on Clare’s arm!

  “It was an accident, a terrible accident,” she muttered fiercely. “It was.”

  People were coming up the stairs. Through the still open door their steps and talk sounded nearer, nearer.

  Quickly she stood up and went noiselessly into the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

  Her thoughts raced. Ought she to have stayed? Should she go back out there to them? But there would be questions. She hadn’t thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She had thought of nothing
in that sudden moment of action.

  It was cold. Icy chills ran up her spine and over her bare neck and shoulders.

  In the room outside there were voices. Dave Freeland’s and others that she did not recognize.

  Should she put on her coat? Felise had rushed down without any wrap. So had all the others. So had Brian. Brian! He mustn’t take cold. She took up his coat and left her own. At the door she paused for a moment, listening fearfully. She heard nothing. No voices. No footsteps. Very slowly she opened the door. The room was empty. She went out.

  In the hall below she heard dimly the sound of feet going down the steps, of a door being opened and closed, and of voices far away.

  Down, down, down, she went, Brian’s great coat clutched in her shivering arms and trailing a little on each step behind her.

  What was she to say to them when at last she had finished going down those endless stairs? She should have rushed out when they did. What reason could she give for her dallying behind? Even she didn’t know why she had done that. And what else would she be asked? There had been her hand reaching out towards Clare. What about that?

  In the midst of her wonderings and questionings came a thought so terrifying, so horrible, that she had had to grasp hold of the banister to save herself from pitching downwards. A cold perspiration drenched her shaking body. Her breath came short in sharp and painful gasps.

  What if Clare was not dead?

  She felt nauseated, as much at the idea of the glorious body mutilated as from fear.

  How she managed to make the rest of the journey without fainting she never knew. But at last she was down. Just at the bottom she came on the others, surrounded by a little circle of strangers. They were all speaking in whispers, or in the awed, discreetly lowered tones adapted to the presence of disaster. In the first instant she wanted to turn and rush back up the way she had come. Then a calm desperation came over her. She braced herself, physically and mentally.