The Chinaberry Tree

  “My father’s sake!”

  “Oh, yes. Women are like that. Most women love their children more than they do their husbands. But a few women love their husbands best. Both your father and mother must have been like that. Do you know anything about him?”

  She answered reluctantly, ashamed and uneasy at the turn which the conversation had taken, “Only that he had fallen in love with mother when he was a boy in college and never saw fit to break off.”

  “Break off! And break her heart!” He was trying hard to exorcise her ghost, but this obtuse-ness exasperated him. “Oh, Laurentine, what are you saying? This was a true love match, the kind you read about—Héloise and Abélard and all that kind of thing. She wasn’t a slave—she didn’t have to yield to him. He loved her in spite of her being black and she loved him in spite of his being white. I don’t advocate their line of action and yet there is something awe-inspiring. She knew—before long—that she was ruining him. He, loving her more probably than anything else in the world, knew to what he was consigning her. Yet what does he do? He acknowledges her, he provides her with a home—his building it in this town was just a flash of dare-deviltry I guess—he sees that you get an education. . . .”.

  “Seems to me you’ve learned a lot about me, young man.”

  “I had to,” he told her soberly. “You know you spoke of bad blood. . . . My dear, there’s bad blood and bad blood. . . . There’s nothing the matter with yours or with your mother’s.

  “As I see it, the two of them were defying, not the laws of God, nor the laws of man speaking universally. Simply the laws of a certain section of America. You know if she hadn’t been colored he’d have married her like a shot. Don’t you think so?”

  “I suppose so.” She hardly knew herself; the old familiar burden was loosening; someday it would disappear.

  “Everything’s all right with me you know girl. I’ve told you that once before. But I just want to say it to you this last one time. Come closer. . . . You know, Honey, I’m not interested in fathers and mothers. . . . I’m interested in sons and daughters. But I’m here to state that I’m the kind of man who will love his wife best.”

  • • • • •

  He was wonderful she told him solemnly. “I do believe I’m going to be happy, Stephen.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder. I’m beginning to think so myself.” He relapsed into boyishness.

  “I was such a miserable little girl,” she said. “I knew I was different from other children. . . . I remember once a little girl who used to play with me stopped playing. When I met her I asked her—why.” She interrupted herself. “That was the last time I ever was humble Stephen, until I met you.”

  “My dear brave girl!”

  “You know I could cry yet over what she told me. She came to me with a little toy knife—a doll’s knife made of tin, and took hold of my hand. She said: ‘My mother says you’ve got bad blood in your veins, don’t you want me to cut it out?’” Tears sprang into her eyes at the memory of that far-off little girl whose woefulness she could never heal.

  He stopped the car then, his face grave and stern, he put his arms around her. “If you want me to we’ll drive over to Morristown and get a license and get married to-morrow—Sunday. And Monday we’ll go away to New York, to Chicago where people are so busy, they’re different. My poor child, my baby!” He laid his face against hers.

  “You’re sweet Stephen—talking of marriage—we’re not even engaged I’d have you to know. When I was a very young girl, Stephen, I was sewing in some white woman’s house and she had a pile of old-fashioned paper-back novels there. One of them was called ‘Redeemed by Love.’ I read it. It was about a girl, proud and cold and indifferent and how her lover’s love changed her. I’ve never forgotten it—I thought it was so silly. . . . I understand it now, Stephen.”

  He said huskily: “You know I love you for your courage, and your mind and your beauty and your stunning figure. . . . You’re a pretty chic young woman, Laurentine . . . but above all, I’m loving you for your sweetness, baby.”

  She loved that. She, “proud Laurentine,”—she recalled the phrase in Melissa’s diary. But to Stephen she was “baby.”

  Melissa’s diary . . . and Judy. She wondered if in his far flung inquiries he had happened to hear about Judy. She did not want to think of Judy.

  • • • • •

  They drove home at last through a dusk shot with orange and rose colors. With the passing of the sun the chill came down as Aunt Sal had predicted, so that Laurentine came in at her handsomest, her beautiful head in its smart little hat nestling on the folds of her snug collar, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing, her whole body radiating happiness.

  Aunt Sal was expecting them. There was a clear thin clam chowder for dinner, with lots of clams in it made as only Aunt Sal could; fried oysters, hot biscuits, mashed potatoes like cream, stewed tomatoes with green peppers, after a recipe of Lauren-tine’s, pickles, a sharp, tart, salad, marvelous coffee, damson jelly richly reflecting light, apple pie and cheese. A fire crackled on the hearth and the table was drawn up near it after a fashion which delighted Melissa who found nothing more charming in Aunt Sal’s and Laurentine’s manner of living than the matter of fact way in which they changed furniture about to meet a temporary convenience. Melissa’s satisfaction was further increased by the fact that Johnasteen Stede’s cousin Pelasgie who worked sometimes for Kitty Brown’s mother was there to wait on table. Pelasgie had been among the girls with whom Melissa had infrequently hobnobbed upon her very first coming to Red Brook. But after the memorable Ice Carnival, Miss Pelasgie had seen fit to withdraw the light of her countenance.

  Melissa had spent a pleasant and profitable afternoon. She had walked with Malory and she had succeeded in charming him from one of the most despondent moods in which she’d ever seen him, into one of comparative peace and sunniness. Feeling then in her rich secrecy, her contentment and her temporary triumph over Pelasgie, very much like the cat that had swallowed the canary, she turned her attention to a leisurely contemplation of Laurentine and her new-found happiness and of Dr. Denleigh, whom she rightly judged to be the source of that happiness.

  He was pretty nice, she thought, helping herself heavily to the damson jelly which, though it made several rounds of the table, always came to a halt conveniently near. Rather oldish, but looks as though he might be somebody. Laurentine’s doing pretty well, but of course she’s had to wait forever for it. She surveyed her aunt and cousin and Dr. Denleigh with an equal and serene objectivity, answering the few remarks addressed to her by the visitor with the brief and uninterested politeness of a very little girl.

  Laurentine’s really beautiful to-night, she went on in her inner conversation, coolly eating hot biscuits along with the jelly. Funny how she can get that elegant foreign look without making any fuss about it. Aunt Sal is right good-looking too, she must have been a stunning girl. I believe those two will branch out wonderfully now that they’re going to be happy. Laurentine’s going to be happy and I know that will pep up Aunt Sal.

  Well she would be happy too—with Malory. Laurentine and Dr. Denleigh could stay here in Red Brook and be stolidly, narrowly content. But she and Malory would travel . . . she remembered a phrase of Kitty Brown’s . . . they would go places and do things. . . . Her whole face radiated a sudden content. Denleigh, happening to glance at her just then was startled at the transformation. He had seen her two or three times before; she had opened the door for him, he had passed her on the street and would have failed to notice her had it not been for her pleasant nod.

  But to-night she was different somehow. No wonder the Red Brook lads flocked about her . . . what was it he had heard about one of them in connection with her?

  Laurentine saw him to the door. “Oh, Stephen, it’s been such a perfect day!”

  “And such a perfect ending—you don’t know what all this means to a lonely man. Warmth, comfort, cheer and the three of you so beautiful. Your mother
’s so handsome and of course you’ve always been the Queen of the May . . . and even the little one—she’s not hard to look at either is she? I never noticed her before.”

  “What little one—oh you mean Melissa—my cousin?”

  He half echoed Mrs. Brown’s words. “That’s right she is your cousin, isn’t she? I knew she lived here with you but I’d forgotten the relationship.” He frowned momentarily. What was it he had heard? . . . Well, no matter.

  He stooped and kissed her, “Good-night, Lauren-tine. See you to-morrow.”

  “Good-night, Stephen.” She watched him get into his car. . . . She was happy, happy. But that night she woke up suddenly and remembered his slight frown. If only Melissa had remained in Philadelphia!

  CHAPTER XXV

  WINTER came slowly that year to Red Brook. The days were sharp and clear but with a bright, thin, curiously gold sunshine that picked out the bare branches and sparse leaves of trees and made them stand like etchings against the sky. And sometimes in the middle of the day there were unexpected little gusts of balminess that permitted men to go about with their overcoats unfastened and butcher’s and grocer’s boys to run down the street on their deliveries with no overcoats at all.

  “A green Christmas,” oldest inhabitants said. Mr. Stede repeated it to Aunt Sal lugubriously. “A green Christmas,” he sighed, looking at her unseeingly with his strange, faded eyes. “We all knows what that means,” he went on intoning, “it means a full graveyard.”

  Aunt Sal smiled at him, cheerfully, almost joyously. “Let’s hope not this year, Mr. Stede.” She stood up straight from the table over which she had been bending, chopping suet for mincemeat. Christmas was two weeks off and she was extremely forehanded. “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to us this year, of all years,—not to anybody.”

  They were going to have the kind of Christmas which she had so long desired. Not only full and plenty—she had known that as long as she had known Francis Halloway—but peace and happiness, friendship. Not only the knowledge of these qualities but the outward and visible signs of them. They were having company, real company to dinner. Dr. Denleigh and Dr. and Mrs. Ismay. The night before, on Christmas Eve, they would have a Christmas tree. On Christmas afternoon, after dinner, Melissa was to go to Kitty Brown’s to a house dance, and she,—Aunt Sal—Laurentine and the three guests were all to go driving.

  “Motoring, if it’s clear like this. Sleighing if any snow should come,” Denleigh had said.

  It was like the old days in old Mr. Halloway’s house years ago. There had been plans and parties and young voices. And Frank had come home and had glanced at her once, at her trim gracious figure, her fine dark face with its small features. . . . At dinner while she was waiting table she had found his blue eyes fixed on her whenever she glanced his way. He had said “thank you,” every time she offered him a course, every time she set a dish in front of him. After dinner the others had rushed from the dining-room. But he had come back and professed to look for a handkerchief. It was there too, carefully disposed on the floor under his chair. His flaxen head and her black one both leaned over to pick it up—his white hand touched her reddish brown one, small and roughened—she had moved it away quickly. She had seen “fresh” young white men before.

  And the next day he had come hunting her up to mend a rather obviously ripped glove. “Dad said you would know where the needles and things were. . . .” Old Mrs. Halloway had gone away. . . . He had come up and stood very close to her as she mended the glove, and presently, do what she would, her hands began to flutter and tremble. He had put his own fine firm one over hers. . . .

  Oh, she had known happiness, terrible devastating happiness. “Happiness like fiah,” she had told herself more than once. It had been a special kind of happiness which many other people would have mistaken for suffering, pain and disgrace. “But it suited me,” she thought, smiling impenitently within her wayward heart, whose wilfulness she had long since learned to smother for the sake of Laurentine.

  Now she wanted Laurentine to be happy in the safe, normal way which she craved, because safe and normal ways were the only ways Laurentine understood. “She couldn’t be happy in my way or Frank’s,” her mother thought still smiling within herself, listening with unregistering attention to the old man’s endless memories about the winter when there was no snow and all his cousins died.

  “Wiped out same as though a plague had lit on ’em. But there! it wuz the will of Pentecost,” he mumbled, his head sinking, his wispy beard spreading circularwise over his grayish limp collar.

  When Mr. Stede began to talk about Pentecost there was only one way of stemming him. Aunt Sal filled a cup with the delicious mincemeat, poured a little cider over it. “If you don’t think it will hurt you so early in the morning, Mr. Stede, you might try this and tell me what you think of it.”

  He took it eagerly in his horny hands that were so hard. Melissa used to wonder sometimes how he could make contact with the various implements of his various callings.

  “No, this won’t hurt me Mis’ Strange, thank you kindly. Seems like it don’t make no dif’funce whether I eats my dessert before or after. It’s a mighty good arrangement, fer sometimes Pentecost directs me to the solids fust and sometimes to the dainties. You know how I am Mis’ Strange, don’t never ask for nuthin’—now bread, I sh’d imagine would just about cut the richness of this yere stuff.”

  Still smiling she cut him two or three thick slices of bread, offered him some butter.

  “No, I don’t want no butter, that would be too rich again.” He eyed her shrewdly, meditatively, munching away with the timed rotary movement of a machine. “Looks brighter now then I’ve saw her look in a long while,” he mused, sighing deeply to himself. “Guess I won’t talk to her yet awhile.” Far off he was able to descry the merest fraction of darkness in a clear sky, the merest pinprick of a cloud.

  “Guess I won’t say nuthin’ about it jes’ now,” he was deciding with surprising clearness in his old, tired mind.

  “It might blow over. Things don’t always hafta happen—though mostly they does.”

  The mincemeat and the bread finished, he sighed again regretfully . . . he had never really had enough to eat though no one but Melissa suspected this. He rose, glanced at Aunt Sal benignly. Crossing the broad kitchen, he rested a horny hand for a fleeting instant on her arm.

  “Yo’re awful happy, ain’t you?” he said with understanding, “I’m glad of it for ye. If I had my way you wouldn’t never be unhappy no moah.” He walked slowly out to his immaculate wood-shed, almost creaking, so stiff his motions were.

  She glanced after him thoughtfully. This morning she had thought only of her happiness—but she had known unhappiness, dreadful, despairing un-happiness. “Dear Master,” she prayed, “don’t let me know any more of it.” It was as though Mr. Stede’s horny finger had rested for that brief second on an uncovered nerve.

  • • • • •

  Melissa and Malory found in the weather only good omens. Depressed at first by their inability to see and meet each other in the ordinary way, they had fallen into an acceptance of the inevitable and daily made plans to meet as though such clandestine visits were the natural order of things.

  “You can see the gods are with us,” Malory had chuckled. “Whoever saw a December like this? It’s made it possible for us to see each other almost everyday. Still it would be awfully nice if proud Laurentine would relent and let you have me over for Christmas dinner. Think she would?”

  They were walking through the Romany Road on their way home from school. Here they would be absolutely safe for the rest of the winter and for most of the spring. Red Brook young people were not the kind to wander through the woods unless it afforded a short cut or some reward in the shape of nuts or wild grapes. The Romany Road affording neither, Malory and Melissa felt themselves as secluded as though in the privacy of their homes.

  Actually they had been seen twice, and by the same person—Dr
. Denleigh. Laurentine, if asked where her romance had begun would have pronounced unhesitatingly “in Millie Ismay’s dining-room.” But Denleigh always thought of the walk as its first setting. Often partly because he loved nature, and partly because he was an incurable romanticist, he passed through this quiet twisting path with its unexpected clearing behind tall sentinel—like evergreens. Once glancing idly through their sparse branches as he passed by in the bright September weather he had heard Malory scanning Vergil—a harmless enough diversion, he decided for a boy and girl. The lad whom he didn’t recognize had a nice open face he noticed—there was something a little feminine, womanish about it, he thought, as though it might break under strain. . . . And again he had caught sight of them far up in the clearing on a bright, windy December morning, the leaves swirling about them making a magazine picture cover as they stood almost touching each other, absorbed in feeding two very tame, very greedy squirrels.

  Ordinarily he would have thought nothing of seeing the two thus together, in fact he did think nothing of it, except to reflect that Melissa probably had duties at home and was putting them off as long as she could. But of late since he had become such an intimate of the Strange household, his mind stirred uneasily at the realization that Melissa, attractive girl as she was, seemed to have no callers. There was something suspiciously docile it seemed to him in her placid acceptance of a long evening within doors, poring, he could see through the half-open sewing-room door, over her lessons, or playing parchesi with Aunt Sal with a sort of indifferent, suspended brightness . . . as though she were, cheerfully enough, passing away the time between two periods of interest.

  “As though she were waiting for the time to pass until she could connect up with something more vital, more real,” he thought. “I wonder how often she and that young fellow meet,” he said to himself. “I wonder why he doesn’t come to the house? If I thought he was up to any tricks I’d break his neck, I don’t care whose boy he is. I wonder if I ought to tell Laurentine. I wouldn’t have this kind of worry happen to her now for anything after the life she’s had.”