CHAPTER VI

Never before did an October boast so many wonderful mornings. Sometimes it rained in the night, but the rising sun dispersed the clouds and brought a golden day to Hertha's world. And as she went about her tasks, her brief playtime over, she still sensed the fragrant orange grove and moved among the trees, her lover by her side. Deftly helping Miss Patty with her hair or dress, guiding Miss Witherspoon in her embroidery, cheering Pomona through an intricate dinner, his voice was in her ears and his touch upon her cheek. From morning until night was a lovely, precious, fearsome dream.

For there was reality in the dream that brought fear. Her lover wanted so much. She was content to stand on the threshold, but each day he asked that they might enter within the gates. It was hard to resist his pleading. If for a moment he had been rough, if he had endeavored to take by force what she hesitated to give, she could have resisted him; but his gentleness was his power. And each morning as she saw him leave her to go into the world of white men and women, a world as irrevocably closed to her as the world of light is closed to the blind, her fear took form. Would he remain faithful if she failed to give him all that he desired? If she dallied, if she strove to keep him at love's portal, some time he might not be there when she turned from her path to make her way among the orange trees. If that should happen, if he should neglect her, she would die of angry shame. Within her nature there was modesty and self-effacement, but also pride that could not brook a slight. She had never wooed; it had been he who had called, beckoning her from her place among the cabins in the pines. She had not given a glance or said a word to draw him from his favored place; he had come because he loved her beauty and her shy reserve. To hold him and yet not to sacrifice herself. This was the problem, when fear crept into her heart.

She had pushed it from her day after day, but she could not wholly ignore it; and this autumn morning as she sat in church, seemingly intent upon the preacher's word, she told herself that she must decide what she was willing to give. He had pleaded with her to meet him that night within the orange grove, promising to wait for her near the cypress where her world met his. His pa.s.sion was in the ascendant; he begged her to trust him, to give herself to his keeping.

"An' de mantle ob Elijah was blue wid de blue ob de eternal heaben,"

cried out the preacher, "an' de linin' was rose wid de blood ob de Lamb."

Could she go? Why did the world give her such a terrible problem? Why, why was she colored! She felt a momentary revulsion to be listening to an ignorant preacher amid these clumsy black folk. It was wicked that a few drops of Negro blood forced her to this seat when she should be yonder with the white people where the clergyman read the beautiful service of the Church of England. Why was she not at Lee Merryvale's side? As Ellen had said, she was no maid; she was his equal, and only those drops of colored blood kept her here. No, not the drops of blood, but the hideous morality of a cruel race.

But the world was here as the white people had made it, and you had to accept it and then decide what you should do. Perhaps he was holding the hymnal now and Miss Witherspoon was singing with him from the same book.

There would always be some one like that to come between him and herself. Always a white face, but no whiter than her own; always a world that claimed him and despised her. But if she gave herself to him, if she trusted that he would love and protect her as he so pa.s.sionately promised; if she left mother and sister and brother for his sake; then no other face would blot out hers. What her life would be she could not picture, but it would not be a life without him.

The service over, she walked with her mother and sister among the cabins that Ellen so loved. The people standing outside their doorways were dressed in their best and a pleasant Sunday air pervaded the place.

Every one was decorous, and yet with an undercurrent of jollity; for the sermon had stirred their imaginations, and ahead was a good dinner.

Uncle Ebenezer talked with authority of Elijah and eagerly awaited the preacher's presence that he might discuss his theory of the color of the mantle of the prophet. "It were white as de wool ob de Lamb," he declaimed as he saw the man of G.o.d in his long black coat walking up to him. "Jes' riccolec', Brudder, de waters dat it smote apart an' dat wash it whiter'n snow." Aunt Lucindy was on ahead, a little boy's hand in hers, a waif for whom she was caring; for, though old and frail, Aunt Lucindy was always mothering some child. One of Ellen's pupils walked proudly at his teacher's side, carrying her Bible. "I knows what I's gwine ter be when I grows up, teacher," he said. "I's gwine ter be a preacher; I's gwine ter preach de word o' G.o.d." "I hope you will, Joshua," Ellen answered, "but remember you must first practise what you preach." "Yes'm, I know dat;" and then, proudly, "I's practising ter pray an' holler right now. I can holler as good as Aunt Lucindy when she gits happy." Mammy had gone ahead to visit Granny Rose, who was too feeble to attend church. It was all usual to Hertha; she had seen such Sundays without comment all her life. She let the scene slip by as she tried to make her choice.

On one of the cabin steps sat an untidy, ragged girl who turned and went inside as she saw Ellen draw near. Maranthy, Sam Peter's daughter, was one of Ellen's failures. She was a bold, ignorant young woman of eighteen, who worked as little as she could and, brazenly open in her ways, strove to allure the growing boys whom their teacher was training in health and cleanliness and decent living. She looked maliciously at both the sisters as she went within her house.

Slipping away from her sister, Hertha sought one of the little paths in the sand that led toward the river. It brought her out behind the small, ecclesiastical-looking church at which the white people worshiped.

Stopping to listen, she could hear Mr. Merryvale's voice through the open window reading from the prayerbook. Often the little settlement was without a clergyman and the owner of the place himself conducted the service. Now there was the rustle of people rising to their feet and the morning's devotion was done.

In the background where she could see, yet not be seen, Hertha watched the congregation as it emerged from the church. It was a small group--the Merryvales and some dozen neighbors from up and down the river. She knew them all, and yet this morning they took on sinister significance. The stylishly dressed women, the men in their well-fitting clothes, the gestures and modulations of voice, these were not of her world. As they went down the path she saw one of the women beckon to Lee Merryvale, who turned, all attention, to listen to what she had to tell him. With head bent toward his companion, he walked on and at a turn of the path was gone. Soon their voices, too, died away and there was nothing left but the empty path and the endless murmur of the wind among the pines.

Erect, head thrown back, hands clenched, the colored girl stood for a moment staring down the path. Her lips parted as though to cry out against the cruelty that denied her the right to walk among these white people, white herself, by the side of the man she loved. But no cry came, and presently her hands relaxed, her face resumed its pallor, and with drooping head she turned toward home.

Always quiet, at the afternoon dinner her preoccupation was so noticeable that her mother, the dishes cleared away, tried to draw her from it.

"Come an' sit wid me on de step, honey," she called. "You don' want ter go an' do mo' work like Ellen. I neber knowed a chile befo' so greedy.

She can't help eatin' up oder folks' jobs. You come hyar an' talk ter yo' mammy."

"You talk to me," Hertha said.

"What woll I talk 'bout?"

"Tell me about it again. Tell me about how I came to you."

The mother gave a big happy laugh. "You allays likes dat story, don'

you, honey? An' I likes it too. Reckon dis would hab been a poor home widout you was in it. Well, sit hyar an' I tell it ter yer, jes' as 'twas."

Looking down on the little garden, gay with autumnal flowers, Hertha took the step below her mother's on the porch so that she might lean against her. As she sat there, listening to the rich drawling voice, she rested as she had not rested before that day. With mammy one felt safe.

Both she and Tom had noticed it.

"Well, honey, it were twenty-t'ree year ago las' September----"

"The twenty-ninth," Hertha interrupted.

"De twenty-nine. You' pappy, Ellen an' me, we gwine ter de church fer a celebration. We was spectin' ter git home early in de ebenin', but it done pour so we wait round till it were night. Den we see de rain weren't gwine ter stop, not fer t'ree 'fraid-cats, so we start off. My, how de trees shake in de roarin' wind. Ellen, she hung close ter daddy, an' once she give a lil' sniffle, like she want awful ter cry, but jes'

wouldn't."

"I know," Hertha broke in, "Ellen is like that now. If I'd been there, I'd have cried and daddy would have taken me in his arms, wouldn't he?"

"I reckon so. You was a delicate chile an' dere weren't not'in' he wouldn't do fer you. But you weren't dere, an' we jes' push on till de house were in sight. We went in by de kitchen do' an' fer a s.p.a.ce stan'

by de fire, our coats drippin' pails o' water on de flo'. Den, when we was feelin' mo' like libin', I leabes de odder two an' goes inter de bedroom."

Hertha slipped up close.

"Dere was a candle burnin' on de dresser by de bed. I was all in a wonder! I neber lef' a light burnin' in my house when I gwine out, no, sir; I don' wan ter waste no candle grease. But dere was a lil' yeller flame shinin' straight up fer me ter see. I done look hard, an' rub my eyes, an' den I look down ter where it drop its light on my bed."

Mammy made a dramatic stop, and Hertha, ready with her part, gave the knee against which she leaned an impatient shake.

"On de bed," Mammy went on, prolonging every word, "wid its head on my pillow, was a new-born chile. It were wrop in a sof white shawl, its tiny face turned ter de light. I bent ober ter look. It were fast asleep.

"I don' know how long I stayed watchin', but I heard daddy call, an'

by-'n-by he come inter de room. He gib a cry an' dat wake de baby, an'

it cry too. In course, dat bring Ellen, an' when she see de chile on de bed she jes' clap her hands an' call, 'It done come! My baby sister done come!'

"She were dat cute; wen' right up an' loosen de shawl an' croon an'

croon till it stop its cryin'. Me an' my ole man jes' look; we couldn't do a t'ing, not at fust.

"Well, by-'n-by we send Ellen away ter de kitchen ter fetch some t'ings--she don' want ter leab dat baby, not fer an instant--an' we look at one anudder an' can't say nuthin'. Den I picks up de mite, taks off de shawl, an' foun' one lil' garment unnerneath. But fasten ter dat wee slip were a letter. We tear it open an' I reckon we both tremble. But we tremble mo' when we see what it hol'--ten ten-dollar bills! Dat were it, jes' one hunnerd dollars.

"Ellen come sidlin' back an' snuggle up close ter me where I hol' de lil' ting. She done see no money, but dat wouldn't ha' made no diff'ence. What'll a chile care fer such trash? She were all eyes an'

heart fer dat bit er flesh an' blood.

"We took de baby inter de warm kitchen an' I gits Ellen ter hold it while I fin' her ole nursin' bottle, an' gibs de chile some food. My ole man move about restless-like. 'What yer mean ter do?' he ask. 'I mean ter feed an' clothe it,' I says. 'What else could I do?' He didn't make no answer, but sit down an' watch his lil' gal o' four croonin' to de baby in her arms.

"Sech a pretty baby! I done nurse a heap er babies, black an' white, but neber sech a pretty one as my baby. Jes' sof an' pink, wid sech deep eyes an' a mouf dat look like it couldn't hardly feed at its mudder's breast. Dere weren't nuttin' 'bout it ter make it seem right in a house whar black folks libed, 'cept de lil' curls on its head, an' dey mought er bin a white chile's.

"My ole man an' me, we set an' talk an' talk ater de baby been fed an'

put ter sleep an' Ellen done shut her eyes at las'. We was honest folk, maybe we hadn't oughter kep' de baby?"

Mammy bent over to kiss Hertha. "But we did, you knows dat, chile, an'

we ain't neber regret it. Dat chile's bin a blessin' eber since she open her eyes, lyin' dar in de candlelight. Dat chile were her daddy's delight an' her mammy don't know how ter go tru a day widoud her. An' as fer her sister, Ellen, she'd walk tru fire ter git her what she ought ter hab. She come into a poor home, sure 'nough, but she welcome ter all it hold."

Mammy finished her recital with a broad wave of the hand, while Hertha clasped her round the neck and gave her a hug that ruffled the pretty curls, the curls that alone linked her to the colored race.

"Now tell me about my name?" she questioned when they had settled back again.

"You asks dat, honey, an' de ain't nuthin' ter tell. Seems like I made it up, an' den agin, seems like it were meant fer Bertha, but kinder gentler an' deeper, same as you."

"You never heard any least thing about my people?"

The question was asked with a certain knowledge of the answer, and yet with a wistful interrogation. Never before had this foundling, dropped into a black preacher's cabin, desired so much to know something of the two lives that gave her birth.