A nightmare then of feverish packing ensued; hasty meals, general house-cleaning. In order to assuage the sinking of her heart Angela plunged into it with great ardour. But at night, weary as she would be from the extra activity of the day, she could not fight off the sick dismay which overflowed her in great, submerging waves. It seemed to her she could not again endure loneliness; she could never summon the strength to seek out new friends, to establish fresh intimacies. She was twenty-six years old and the fact that after having lived all those years she was still solitary appalled her. Perhaps some curse such as one reads of in mediæval legends had fallen upon her. “Perhaps I’m not meant to have friends,” she told herself lying face downwards in her pillows on the sweltering June nights. And a great nostalgia for something real and permanent swept upon her; she wished she were either very, very young, safe and contented once more in the protection of her father’s household or failing that, very, very old.
A nature as strong, as self-reliant as hers could not remain long submerged; she had seen too many bad beginnings convert themselves into good endings. One of her most valuable native endowments lay in her ability to set herself and her difficulties objectively before her own eyes; in this way she had solved more than one problem. On the long ride in the subway back from Brooklyn whither she had accompanied Rachel on the night of the latter’s departure she resolved to pursue this course that very night. Mercifully the terrible heat had abated, a little breeze came sifting in her open windows, moving the white sash curtains, even agitating some papers on the table. Soberly she set about the business of getting supper. Once she thought of running up to Rachel’s former apartment and proffering some hospitality to Mrs. Denver. Even if the rich new tenant should not accept she’d be pleased doubtless; sooner or later she would be offering a return of courtesies, a new friendship would spring up. Again there would be possibilities. But something in her rebelled against such a procedure; these intimacies based on the sliding foundation of chance sickened her; she would not lend herself to them—not ever again. From this day on she’d devote herself to the establishing of permanencies.
Supper over, the dishes cleared away, she sat down and prepared to think. Callers were unlikely; indeed there was no one to call, since Ashley was out of town for the week-end, but the pathos of this fact left her untouched. To-night she courted loneliness.
An oft heard remark of her mother’s kept running through her mind: “You get so taken up with the problem of living, with just life itself, that by and by being coloured or not is just one thing more or less that you have to contend with.” It had been a long time since she had thought about colour; at one time it had seemed to complicate her life immensely, now it seemed to her that it might be of very little importance. But her thoughts skirted the subject warily for she knew how immensely difficult living could be made by this matter of race. But that should take a secondary place; at present life, a method of living was the main thing, she must get that problem adjusted and first she must see what she wanted. Companionship was her chief demand. No more loneliness, not even if that were the road that led to the fulfilment of vast ambition, to the realization of the loftiest hopes. And for this she was willing to make sacrifices, let go if need be of her cherished independence, lead a double life, move among two sets of acquaintances.
For deep in her heart she realized the longing to cast in her lot once more with Virginia, her little sister whom she should never have left. Virginia, it is true, showed no particular longing for her; indeed she seemed hardly cognizant of her existence; but this attitude might be a forced one. She thought, “I didn’t want her, the darling, and so she just made herself put me out of her life.” Angela was well aware of the pluck, the indomitableness that lay beneath Jinny’s babyish exterior, but there was a still deeper stratum of tenderness and love and loyalty which was the real Virginia. To this Angela would make her appeal; she would acknowledge her foolishness, her selfishness; she would bare her heart and crave her sister’s forgiveness. And then they would live together, Jinny and she and Sara Penton if need be; what a joke it would all be on Sara! And once again she would know the bliss and happiness of a home and the stabilities of friendships culled from a certain definite class of people, not friendships resulting from mere chance. There would be blessed Sunday mornings and breakfasts, long walks; lovely evenings in the autumn to be filled with reminiscences drawn from these days of separation. How Virginia would open her eyes at her tales of Paulette and Martha! She would never mention Roger. And as for colour; when it seemed best to be coloured she would be coloured; when it was best to be white she would be that. The main thing was, she would know once more the joys of ordinary living, home, companionship, loyalty, security, the bliss of possessing and being possessed. And to think it was all possible and waiting for her; it was only a matter of a few hours, a few miles.
A great sense of peace, of exaltation descended upon her. Almost she could have said: “I will arise and go unto my father”.
On Sunday accordingly she betook herself to her sister’s apartment in 139th Street. Miss Penton, she thought, would be out; she had gathered from the girls’ conversation many pointed references to Sara’s great fondness, of late, for church, exceeded only by her interest in the choir. This interest in the choir was ardently encouraged by a member of that body who occasionally walked home with Sara in order more fully to discuss the art of music. Virginia no longer went to church; Sunday had become her “pick-up day”, the one period in the week which she devoted to her correspondence, her clothes and to such mysterious rites of beautifying and revitalizing as lay back of her healthy, blooming exquisiteness. This would be the first time in many months that the sisters would have been alone together and it was with high hopes that Angela, mounting the brown stone steps and ringing the bell, asked for Virginia.
Her sister was in, but so was Sara, so was a third girl, a Miss Louise Andrews. The room was full of the atmosphere of the lightness, of the badinage, of the laughter which belong to the condition either of youth or of extreme happiness. In the middle of the room stood a large trunk from whose yawning interior Jinny lifted a glowing, smiling face. Angela was almost startled at the bright ecstasy which radiated from it. Sara Penton was engaged rather negligently in folding clothes; Miss Andrews perched in magnificent ease on the daybed, struck an occasional tune from a ukelele and issued commands which nobody heeded.
“Hello,” said Virginia carelessly. “Can you get in? I was thinking of writing to you.”
“Oh,” Angela’s hopes fluttered, fell, perished. “You’re not going away?” Her heart echoed Jinny’s old cry: “And leave me—when I’m all ready to come back to you, when I need you so terribly!”
But of all this Virginia was, of course, unaware. “Nothing different,” she said briskly. “I’m going away this very afternoon to Philadelphia, Merion, points south and west, going to stay with Eda Brown.”
Angela was aghast. “I wanted to see you about something rather important, Virginia—at least,” she added humbly, “important to me.” Rather impatiently she glanced at the two girls hoping they would take the hint and leave them, but they had not even heard her, so engrossed were they in discussing the relative merits of one- and two-piece sports clothes.
Her sister was kind but not curious. “Unless it’s got something to do with your soul’s salvation I’m afraid it’ll have to wait a bit,” she said gaily. “I’m getting a two o’clock train and I must finish this trunk—Sara’s such a poor packer or I’d leave it for her. As it is she’s going to send it after me. Aren’t you, darling?” Already Angela’s request was forgotten. “After I finish this,” the gay voice went on, “I’ve got some ’phoning to do and—oh a million things.”
“Let me help you,” said Angela suddenly inspired, “then we’ll call a taxi and we can go down to the station together and we’ll have a long talk so I can explain things.”
Virginia was only half-attentive. “Miss Mory wants to go to the statio
n with me,” she said throwing a droll look at her friends. “Shall I take her along?” She vanished into the bedroom, Louise Andrews at her heels, both of them overwhelmed with laughter bubbling from some secret spring.
Cut and humiliated, Angela stood silent. Sara Penton who had been looking after the vanishing figures turned and caught her expression. “Don’t mind her craziness. She’s not responsible to-day.”
She came closer. “For heaven’s sake don’t let on I told you; she’s engaged.”
This was news. “Engaged? To whom?”
“Oh somebody she’s always been crazy about.” The inevitable phrase followed: “You wouldn’t know who he was.”
Not know who he was, not know Matthew! She began to say “Why I knew him before Virginia,” but remembering her rôle, a stupid and silly one now, caught herself, stood expectantly.
“So you see,” Sara went on mysteriously, one eye on the bedroom, “you mustn’t insist on going to the station with her; he’s going to take her down.”
“Why, is he here?”
“Came yesterday. We’ve been threatening all morning to butt in. That’s the reason she spoke as she did about your going down. She expressed herself to us, you bet, but she probably wouldn’t feel like doing that to you.”
“Probably not,” said Angela, her heart cold. Her little sister was engaged and she was learning of it from strangers. It was all she could do to hold back the tears. “But you’ve only yourself to blame,” she reminded herself valiantly.
The two girls came back; Virginia still laughing but underneath the merriment Angela was able to detect a flurry of nervousness. After all, Jinny was just a child. And she was so happy, it would never do to mar that happiness by the introduction of the slightest gloom or discomfort. Her caller rose to her feet. “I guess I’ll be going.”
Virginia made no effort to detain her, but the glance which she turned on her sister was suddenly very sweet and friendly. “Here, I’ll run down to the door with you. Sara, be a darling and pick out the best of those stockings for me, put in lots. You know how hard I am on them.”
Out in the hall she flung an impulsive arm about her sister. “Oh, Angela, I’m so happy, so happy. I’m going to write you about it right away, you’ll be so surprised.” Astonishingly she gave the older girl a great hug, kissed her again and again.
“Oh,” said Angela, the tears welling from her eyes, “Oh Jinny, you do forgive me, you do, you do? I’m so sorry about it all. I’ve been wretched for a long time. I thought I had lost you, Virginia.”
“I know,” said Jinny, “I’m a hard-hearted little wretch.” She giggled through her own tears, wiped them away with the back of her childish bronze hand. “I was just putting you through; I knew you’d get sick of Miss Anne’s folks and come back to me. Oh Angela, I’ve wanted you so. But it’s all right now. I won’t be back for ten weeks, but then we will talk! I’ve got the most marvellous plans for both of us—for all of us.” She looked like a wise baby. “You’ll get a letter from me in a few days telling you all about it. Angela, I’m so happy, but I must fly. Good-bye, darling.”
They clung for a moment in the cool, dim depths of the wide hall.
*
Angela could have danced in the street. As it was she walked gaily down Seventh Avenue to 110th Street and into the bosky reaches of the park. Jinny had forgiven her. Jinny longed for her, needed her; she had known all along that Angela was suffering, had deliberately punished her. Well, she was right, everything was right this glorious memorable day. She was to have a sister again, some one of her own, she would know the joy of sharing her little triumphs, her petty woes. Wise Jinny, wonderful Jinny!
And beautiful Jinny, too, she thought. How lovely, how dainty, how fresh and innocent her little sister seemed. This brought her mind to Matthew and his great good fortune. “I’d like to see him again,” she mused, smiling mischievously. “Doubtless he’s forgotten me. It would be great fun to make him remember.” Only, of course, now he was Jinny’s and she would never get in the way of that darling. “Not even if he were some one I really wanted with all my heart and soul. But I’d never want Matthew.” It would be fun, she thought, to see him again. He would make a nice brother, so sturdy and kind and reliable. She must be careful never to presume on that old youthful admiration of his. Smiling and happy she reached her house, actually skipped up the steps to her rooms. Her apartment no longer seemed lonely; it was not beautiful and bright like Jinny’s but it was snug and dainty. It would be fun to have Virginia and Sara down; yes, and that new girl, that Miss Andrews, too. She didn’t care what the other people in the house thought. And the girls themselves, how astonished they would be to learn the true state of affairs! Suddenly remembering Mrs. Denver, she ran up to see her; that lady, in spite of her wealth and means for self-indulgence, was palpably lonely. Angela cheered her up with mirthful accounts of her own first days in New York; she’d been lonely too, she assured her despondent hostess, sparkling and fascinating.
“I don’t see how anybody with a disposition like yours could ever be lonely,” said Mrs. Denver enviously. She’d been perilously near tears all day.
Gone, gone was all the awful melancholy, the blueness that had hung about her like a palpable cloud. She was young, fascinating; she was going to be happy,—again. Again! She caught her breath at that. Oh, God was good! This feeling of lightness, of exaltation had been unknown to her so long; not since the days when she had first begun to go about with Roger had she felt so free, bird-like. In the evening Ralph Ashley came with his car and drove her halfway across Long Island, or so it seemed. They stopped at a gorgeous hotel and had a marvellous supper. Ashley was swept off his feet by her gay vitalness. In the doorway of the Jayne Street house she gave him her hand and a bewitching smile. “You can’t imagine how much I’ve enjoyed myself. I’ll always remember it.” And she spoke sincerely, for soon this sort of thing would be far behind her.
“You’re a witch,” said Ashley, his voice shaking a little. “You can have this sort of thing whenever you want it and you know it. Be kind to me, Angèle. I’m not a bad fellow.” Frightened, she pushed him away, ran in and slammed the door. No, no, no, her heart pounded. Roger had taught her an unforgettable lesson. Soon she’d be with Jinny and Matthew, safe, sheltered.
Chapter III
IN the middle of the night she found herself sitting up in bed. A moment before she had been asleep, but a sudden thought had pierced her consciousness so sharply that the effect was that of an icy hand laid suddenly on her shoulder. Jinny and Matthew marry—why, that meant—why, of course it meant that they would have to live in Philadelphia. How stupid she had been! And she couldn’t go back there—never, never. Not because of the difficulties which she had experienced as a child; she was perfectly willing to cast in her lot again with coloured people in New York. But that was different; there were signal injustices here, too—oh, many, many of them—but there were also signal opportunities. But Philadelphia with its traditions of liberty and its actual economic and social slavery, its iniquitous school system, its prejudiced theatres, its limited offering of occupation! A great, searing hatred arose in her for the huge, slumbering leviathan of a city which had hardly moved a muscle in the last fifty years. So hide-bound were its habits that deliberate insult could be offered to coloured people without causing the smallest ripple of condemnation or even consternation in the complacent commonwealth. Virginia in one of her expansive moments had told her of a letter received from Agnes Hallowell, now a graduate of the Women’s Medical College. Agnes was as fair as Angela, but she had talked frankly, even with pride, of her racial connections. “I had nothing to be ashamed of,” Angela could imagine her saying, her cheeks flushing, her black eyes snapping. On her graduation she had applied for an interneship at a great hospital for the insane; a position greatly craved by ardent medical graduates because of the unusually large turnover of pathological cases. But the man in charge of such appointments, looking Agnes hard in the eye told
her suavely that such a position would never be given to her “not if you passed ahead of a thousand white candidates.”
As for Angela, here was the old problem of possible loneliness back on her hands. Virginia, it was true, would hardly marry at once, perhaps they would have a few happy months together. But afterwards. . . . She lay there, wide awake now, very still, very straight in her narrow bed, watching the thick blackness grow thinner, less opaque. And suddenly as on a former occasion, she thought of marriage. Well, why not? She had thought of it once before as a source of relief from poverty, as a final barrier between herself and the wolves of prejudice; why not now as a means of avoiding loneliness? “I must look around me,” her thoughts sped on, and she blushed and smiled in the darkness at the cold-bloodedness of such an idea. But, after all, that was what men said—and did. How often had she heard the expression—“he’s ready to settle down, so he’s looking around for a wife”. If that were the procedure of men it should certainly be much more so the procedure of women since their fate was so much more deeply involved. The room was growing lighter; she could see the pictures a deeper blur against the faint blur of the wall. Her passing shame suddenly spent itself, for, after all, she knew practically no men. There was Ashley—but she was through with men of his type. The men in her office were nearly all impossible, but there were three, she told herself, coldly, unenthusiastic, who were not such terrible pills.
“But no,” she said out loud. “I’d rather stay single and lonely, too, all my life than worry along with one of them. There must be someone else.” And at once she thought of Anthony Cross. Of course there was Anthony. “I believe I’ve always had him in the back of my mind,” she spoke again to the glimmering greyness. And turning on her pillow she fell, smiling, asleep.