Chapter X: Part 10

Mrs. Vanderpool looked out upon the beautiful city. She was a little surprised at herself. She had found herself willing to sacrifice almost anything for Zora. No living soul had ever raised in her so deep an affection, and yet she knew now that, although the cost was great, she was willing to sacrifice Zora for Paris. After all, it was not too late; a rapid ride even now might secure high office for Alwyn and make Cresswell ambassador. It would be difficult but possible. But she had not the slightest inclination to attempt it, and she said aloud, half mockingly:

"You are right, Zora. I promised--and--I lied. Liars have no place in heaven and heaven is doubtless a beautiful place--but oh, Zora! you haven't seen Paris!"

Two months later they parted simply, knowing well it was forever. Mrs. Vanderpool wrote a check.

"Use this in your work," she said. "Miss Smith asked for it long ago. It is--my campaign contribution."

Zora smiled and thanked her. As she put the sealed envelope in her trunk her hand came in contact with a long untouched package. Zora took it out silently and opened it and the beauty of it lightened the room.

"It is the Silver Fleece," said Zora, and Mrs. Vanderpool kissed her and went.

Zora walked alone to the vaulted station. She did not try to buy a Pullman ticket, although the journey was thirty-six hours. She knew it would be difficult if not impossible and she preferred to share the lot of her people. Once on the foremost car, she leaned back and looked. The car seemed clean and comfortable but strangely short. Then she realized that half of it was cut off for the white smokers and as the door swung whiffs of the smoke came in. But she was content for she was almost alone.

It was eighteen little months ago that she had ridden up to the world with widening eyes. In that time what had happened? Everything. How well she remembered her coming, the first reflection of yonder gilded dome and the soaring of the capitol; the swelling of her heart, with inarticulate wonder; the pain of the thirst to know and understand. She did not know much now but she had learned how to find things out. She did not understand all, but some things she--

"Ticket"--the tone was harsh and abrupt. Zora started. She had always noted how polite conductors were to her and Mrs. Vanderpool--was it simply because Mrs. Vanderpool was evidently a great and rich lady? She held up her ticket and he snatched it from her muttering some direction.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Change at Charlotte," he snapped as he went on.

It seemed to Zora that his discourtesy was almost forced: that he was afraid he might be betrayed into some show of consideration for a black woman. She felt no anger, she simply wondered what he feared. The increasing smell of tobacco smoke started her coughing. She turned. To be sure. Not only was the door to the smoker standing open, but a white passenger was in her car, sitting by the conductor and puffing heartily. As the black porter passed her she said gently:

"Is smoking allowed in here?"

"It ain't non o' my business," he flung back at her and moved away. All day white men passed back and forward through the car as through a thoroughfare. They talked loudly and laughed and joked, and if they did not smoke they carried their lighted cigars. At her they stared and made comments, and one of them came and lounged almost over her seat, inquiring where she was going.

She did not reply; she neither looked nor stirred, but kept whispering to herself with something like awe: "This is what they must endure--my poor people!"

At Lynchburg a newsboy boarded the train with his wares. The conductor had already appropriated two seats for himself, and the newsboy routed out two colored passengers, and usurped two other seats. Then he began to be especially annoying. He joked and wrestled with the porter, and on every occasion pushed his wares at Zora, insisting on her buying.

"Ain't you got no money?" he asked. "Where you going?"

"Say," he whispered another time, "don't you want to buy these gold spectacles? I found 'em and I dassen't sell 'em open, see? They're worth ten dollars--take 'em for a dollar."

Zora sat still, keeping her eyes on the window; but her hands worked nervously, and when he threw a book with a picture of a man and half-dressed woman directly under her eyes, she took it and dropped it out the window.

The boy started to storm and demanded pay, while the conductor glared at her; but a white man in the conductor's seat whispered something, and the row suddenly stopped.

A gang of colored section hands got on, dirty and loud. They sprawled about and smoked, drank, and bought candy and cheap gewgaws. They eyed her respectfully, and with one of them she talked a little as he awkwardly fingered his cap.

As the day wore on Zora found herself strangely weary. It was not simply the unpleasant things that kept happening, but the continued apprehension of unknown possibilities. Then, too, she began to realize that she had had nothing to eat. Travelling with Mrs. Vanderpool there was always a dainty lunch to be had at call. She did not expect this, but she asked the porter:

"Do you know where I can get a lunch?"

"Search me," he answered, lounging into a seat. "Ain't no chance betwixt here and Danville as I knows on."

Zora viewed her plight with a certain dismay--twelve hours without food! How foolish of her not to have thought of this. The hours passed. She turned desperately to the gruff conductor.

"Could I buy a lunch from the dining-car?" she inquired.

"No," was the curt reply.

She made herself as comfortable as she could, and tried to put the matter from her mind. She remembered how, forgotten years ago, she had often gone a day without eating and thought little of it. Night came slowly, and she fell to dreaming until the cry came, "Charlotte! Change cars!" She scrambled out. There was no step to the platform, her bag was heavy, and the porter was busy helping the white folks to alight. She saw a dingy lunchroom marked "Colored," but she had no time to go to it for her train was ready.

There was another colored porter on this, and he was very polite and affable.

"Yes, Miss; certainly I'll fetch you a lunch--plenty of time." And he did. It did not look clean but Zora was ravenous.

The white smoker now had few occupants, but the white train crew proceeded to use the colored coach as a lounging-room and sleeping-car. There was no passenger except Zora. They took off their coats, stretched themselves on the seats, and exchanged jokes; but Zora was too tired to notice much, and she was dozing wearily when she felt a touch on the arm and found the porter in the seat beside her with his arm thrown familiarly behind her along the top of the back. She rose abruptly to her feet and he started up.

"I beg pardon," he said, grinning.

Zora sat slowly down as he got up and left. She determined to sleep no more. Yet a vast vision sank on her weary spirit--the vision of a dark cloud that dropped and dropped upon her, and lay as lead along her straining shoulders. She must lift it, she knew, though it were big as a world, and she put her strength to it and groaned as the porter cried in the ghostly morning light:

"Atlanta! All change!"

Away yonder at the school near Toomsville, Miss Smith sat waiting for the coming of Zora, absently attending the duties of the office. Dark little heads and hands bobbed by and soft voices called:

"Miss Smith, I wants a penny pencil."

"Miss Smith, is yo' got a speller fo' ten cents?"

"Miss Smith, mammy say please lemme come to school this week and she'll sho' pay Sata'day."

Yet the little voices that summoned her back to earth were less clamorous than in other years, for the school was far from full, and Miss Smith observed the falling off with grave eyes. This condition was patently the result of the cotton corner and the subsequent manipulation. When cotton rose, the tenants had already sold their cotton; when cotton fell the landlords squeezed the rations and lowered the wages. When cotton rose again, up went the new Spring rent contracts. So it was that the bewildered black serf dawdled in listless inability to understand. The Cresswells in their new wealth, the Maxwells and Tollivers in the new pinch of poverty, stretched long arms to gather in the tenants and their children. Excuse after excuse came to the school.

"I can't send the chilluns dis term, Miss Smith; dey has to work."

"Mr. Cresswell won't allow Will to go to school this term."

"Mr. Tolliver done put Sam in the field."

And so Miss Smith contemplated many empty desks.

Slowly a sort of fatal inaction seized her. The school went on; daily the dark little cloud of scholars rose up from hill and vale and settled in the white buildings; the hum of voices and the busy movements of industrious teachers filled the day; the office work went on methodically; but back of it all Miss Smith sat half hopeless. It cost five thousand a year to run the school, and this sum she raised with increasingly greater difficulty. Extra and heart-straining effort had been needed to raise the eight hundred dollars additional for interest money on the mortgage last year. Next year it might have to come out of the regular income and thus cut off two teachers. Beyond all this the raising of ten thousand dollars to satisfy the mortgage seemed simply impossible, and Miss Smith sat in fatal resignation, awaiting the coming day.

"It's the Lord's work. I've done what I could. I guess if He wants it to go on, He'll find a way. And if He doesn't--" She looked off across the swamp and was silent.

Then came Zora's letter, simple and brief, but breathing youth and strength of purpose. Miss Smith seized upon it as an omen of salvation. In vain her shrewd New England reason asked: "What can a half-taught black girl do in this wilderness?" Her heart answered back: "What is impossible to youth and resolution?" Let the shabbiness increase; let the debts pile up; let the boarders complain and the teachers gossip--Zora was coming. And somehow she and Zora would find a way.

And Zora came just as the sun threw its last crimson through the black swamp; came and gathered the frail and white-haired woman in her arms; and they wept together. Long and low they talked, far into the soft Southern night; sitting shaded beneath the stars, while nearby blinked the drowsy lights of the girls' dormitory. At last Miss Smith said, rising stiffly:

"I forgot to ask about Mrs. Vanderpool. How is she, and where?"

Zora murmured some answer; but as she went to bed in her little white room she sat wondering sadly. Where was the poor spoiled woman? Who was putting her to bed and smoothing the pillow? Who was caring for her, and what was she doing? And Zora strained her eyes Northward through the night.

At this moment, Mrs. Vanderpool, rising from a gala dinner in the brilliant drawing-room of her Lake George mansion, was reading the evening paper which her husband had put into her hands. With startled eyes she caught the impudent headlines:

VANDERPOOL DROPPED

Senate Refuses to Confirm

Todd Insurgents Muster Enough Votes to Defeat

Confirmation of President's Nominee

Rumored Revenge for Machine's Defeat of Child Labor

Bill Amendment.

The paper trembled in her jewelled hands. She glanced down the column.

"Todd asks: Who is Vanderpool, anyhow? What did he ever do? He is known only as a selfish millionaire who thinks more of horses than of men."

Carelessly Mrs. Vanderpool threw the paper to the floor and bit her lips as the angry blood dyed her face.

"They _shall_ confirm him," she whispered, "if I have to mortgage my immortal soul!" And she rang up long distance on the telephone.

_Thirty-one_

A PARTING OF WAYS

"Was the child born dead?"

"Worse than dead!"

Somehow, somewhere, Mary Cresswell had heard these words; long, long, ago, down there in the great pain-swept shadows of utter agony, where Earth seemed slipping its moorings; and now, today, she lay repeating them mechanically, grasping vaguely at their meaning. Long she had wrestled with them as they twisted and turned and knotted themselves, and she worked and toiled so hard as she lay there to make the thing clear--to understand.

"Was the child born dead?"

"Worse than dead!"

Then faint and fainter whisperings: what could be worse than death? She had tried to ask the grey old doctor, but he soothed her like a child each day and left her lying there. Today she was stronger, and for the first time sitting up, looking listlessly out across the world--a queer world. Why had they not let her see the child--just one look at its little dead face? That would have been something. And again, as the doctor cheerily turned to go, she sought to repeat the old question. He looked at her sharply, then interrupted, saying kindly:

"There, now; you've been dreaming. You must rest quietly now." And with a nod he passed into the other room to talk with her husband.

She was not satisfied. She had not been dreaming. She would tell Harry to ask him--she did not often see her husband, but she must ask him now and she arose unsteadily and swayed noiselessly across the floor. A moment she leaned against the door, then opened it slightly. From the other side the words came distinctly and clearly:

"--other children, doctor?"

"You must have no other children, Mr. Cresswell."

"Why?"

"Because the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation."

Slowly, softly, she crept away. Her mind seemed very clear. And she began a long journey to reach her window and chair--a long, long journey; but at last she sank into the chair again and sat dry-eyed, wondering who had conceived this world and made it, and why.

A long time afterward she found herself lying in bed, awake, conscious, clear-minded. Yet she thought as little as possible, for that was pain; but she listened gladly, for without she heard the solemn beating of the sea, the mighty rhythmic beating of the sea. Long days she lay, and sat and walked beside those vast and speaking waters, till at last she knew their voice and they spoke to her and the sea-calm soothed her soul.

For one brief moment of her life she saw herself clearly: a well-meaning woman, ambitious, but curiously narrow; not willing to work long for the Vision, but leaping at it rashly, blindly, with a deep-seated sense of duty which she made a source of offence by preening and parading it, and forcing it to ill-timed notice. She saw that she had looked on her husband as a means not an end. She had wished to absorb him and his work for her own glory. She had idealized for her own uses a very human man whose life had been full of sin and fault. She must atone.

No sooner, in this brief moment, did she see herself honestly than her old habits swept her on tumultuously. No ordinary atonement would do. The sacrifice must be vast; the world must stand in wonder before this clever woman sinking her soul in another and raising him by sheer will to the highest.

So after six endless months Mary Cresswell walked into her Washington home again. She knew she had changed in appearance, but she had forgotten to note how much until she saw the stare--almost the recoil--of her husband, the muttered exclamation, the studied, almost overdone welcome. Then she went up to her mirror and looked long, and knew.

She was strong; she felt well; but she was slight, almost scrawny, and her beauty was gone forever. It had been of that blonde white-and-pink type that fades in a flash, and its going left her body flattened and angular, her skin drawn and dead white, her eyes sunken. From the radiant girl whom Cresswell had met three years earlier the change was startling, and yet the contrast seemed even greater than it was, for her glory then had been her abundant and almost golden hair. Now that hair was faded, and falling so fast that at last the doctor advised her to cut it short. This left her ill-shaped head exposed and emphasized the sunken hollows of her face. She knew that she was changed but she did not quite realize how changed, until now as she stood and gazed.

Yet she did not hesitate but from that moment set herself to her new life task. Characteristically, she started dramatically and largely. She was to make her life an endless sacrifice; she was to revivify the manhood in Harry Cresswell, and all this for no return, no partnership of soul--all was to be complete sacrifice and sinking soul in soul.

If Mary Cresswell had attempted less she would have accomplished more. As it was, she began well; she went to work tactfully, seeming to note no change in his manner toward her; but his manner had changed. He was studiously, scrupulously polite in private, and in public devoted; but there was no feeling, no passion, no love. The polished shell of his clan reflected conventional light even more carefully than formerly because the shell was cold and empty. There were no little flashes of anger now, no poutings nor sweet reconciliations. Life ran very smoothly and courteously; and while she did not try to regain the affection, she strove to enthrall his intellect. She supplied a sub-committee upon which he was serving--not directly, but through him--with figures, with reports, books, and papers, so that he received special commendations; a praise that piqued as well as pleased him, because it implied a certain surprise that he was able to do it.

"The damned Yankees!" he sneered. "They think they've got the brains of the nation."

"Why not make a speech on the subject?" she suggested.

He laughed. The matter under discussion was the cotton-goods schedule of the new tariff bill, about which really he knew a little; his wife placed every temptation to knowledge before him, even inspiring Senator Smith to ask him to defend that schedule against the low-tariff advocate. Mary Cresswell worked with redoubled energy, and for nearly a week Harry staid at home nights and studied. Thanks to his wife the speech was unusually informing and well put, and the fact that a prominent free-trader spoke the same afternoon gave it publicity, while Mr. Easterly saw to the press despatches.

Cresswell subscribed to a clipping-bureau and tasted the sweets of dawning notoriety, and Mrs. Cresswell arranged a select dinner-party which included a cabinet officer, a foreign ambassador, two millionaires, and the leading Southern Congressmen. The talk came around to the failure of the Senate to confirm Mr. Vanderpool, and it was generally assumed that the President would not force the issue.

Who, then, should be nominated? There were several suggestions, but the knot of Southern Congressmen about Mrs. Cresswell declared emphatically that it must be a Southerner. Not since the war had a prominent Southerner represented America at a first-class foreign court; it was shameful; the time was ripe for change. But who? Here opinions differed widely. Nearly every one mentioned a candidate, and those who did not seemed to refrain from motives of personal modesty.

Mary Cresswell sped her departing guests with a distinct purpose in mind. She must make herself leader of the Southern set in Washington and concentrate its whole force on the appointment of Harry Cresswell as ambassador to France. Quick reward and promotion were essential to Harry's success. He was not one to keep up the strain of effort a long time. Unless, then, tangible results came and came quickly, he was liable to relapse into old habits. Therefore he must succeed and succeed at once. She would have preferred a less ornamental position than the ambassadorship, but there were no other openings. The Alabama senators were firmly seated for at least four years and the Governorship had been carefully arranged for. A term of four years abroad, however, might bring Harry Cresswell back in time for greater advancement. At any rate, it was the only tangible offering, and Mary Cresswell silently determined to work for it.

Here it was that she made her mistake. It was one thing for her to be a tactful hostess, pleasing her husband and his guests; it was another for her to aim openly at social leadership and political influence. She had at first all the insignia of success. Her dinners became of real political significance and her husband figured more and more as a leading Southerner. The result was two-fold. Cresswell, on the one hand, with his usual selfishness, took his rising popularity as a matter of course and as the fruits of his own work; he was rising, he was making valuable speeches, he was becoming a social power, and his only handicap was his plain and over-ambitious wife. But on the other hand Mrs. Cresswell forgot two pitfalls: the cleft between the old Southern aristocracy and the pushing new Southerners; and above all, her own Northern birth and presumably pro-Negro sympathies.

What Mrs. Cresswell forgot Mrs. Vanderpool sensed unerringly. She had heard with uneasiness of Cresswell's renewed candidacy for the Paris ambassadorship, and she set herself to block it. She had worked hard. The President stood ready to send her husband's appointment again to the Senate whenever Easterly could assure him of favorable action. Easterly had long and satisfactory interviews with several senators, while the Todd insurgents were losing heart at the prospect of choosing between Vanderpool and Cresswell. At present four Southern votes were needed to confirm Vanderpool; but if they could not be had, Easterly declared it would be good politics to nominate Cresswell and give him Republican support. Manifestly, then, Mrs. Vanderpool's task was to discredit the Cresswells with the Southerners. It was not a work to her liking, but the die was cast and she refused to contemplate defeat.

The result was that while Mrs. Cresswell was giving large and brilliant parties to the whole Southern contingent, Mrs. Vanderpool was engineering exclusive dinners where old New York met stately Charleston and gossiped interestingly. On such occasions it was hinted not once, but many times, that the Cresswells were well enough, but who was that upstart wife who presumed to take social precedence?

It was not, however, until Mrs. Cresswell's plan for an all-Southern art exhibit in Washington that Mrs. Vanderpool, in a flash of inspiration, saw her chance. In the annual exhibit of the Corcoran Art Gallery, a Southern girl had nearly won first prize over a Western man. The concensus of Southern opinion was that the judgment had been unfair, and Mrs. Cresswell was convinced of this. With quick intuition she suggested a Southern exhibit with such social prestige back of it as to impress the country.

The proposal caught the imagination of the Southern set. None suspected a possible intrusion of the eternal race issue for no Negroes were allowed in the Corcoran exhibit or school. This Mrs. Vanderpool easily ascertained and a certain sense of justice combined in a curious way with her political intrigue to bring about the undoing of Mary Cresswell.

Mrs. Vanderpool's very first cautious inquiries by way of the back stairs brought gratifying response--for did not all black Washington know well of the work in sculpture done by Mrs. Samuel Stillings, _nee_ Wynn? Mrs. Vanderpool remembered Mrs. Stillings perfectly, and she walked, that evening, through unobtrusive thoroughfares and called on Mrs. Stillings. Had Mrs. Stillings heard of the new art movement? Did she intend to exhibit? Mrs. Stillings did not intend to exhibit as she was sure she would not be welcome. She had had a bust accepted by the Corcoran Art Gallery once, and when they found she was colored they returned it. But if she were especially invited? That would make a difference, although even then the line would be drawn somehow.

"Would it not be worth a fight?" suggested Mrs. Vanderpool with a little heightening of color in her pale cheek.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Stillings, as she brought out some specimens of her work.

Mrs. Vanderpool was both ashamed and grateful. With money and leisure Mrs. Stillings had been able to get in New York and Boston the training she had been denied in Washington on account of her color. The things she exhibited really had merit and one curiously original group appealed to Mrs. Vanderpool tremendously.

"Send it," she counseled with strangely contradictory feelings of enthusiasm, and added: "Enter it under the name of Wynn."

In addition to the general invitations to the art exhibit numbers of special ones were issued to promising Southern amateurs who had never exhibited. For these a prize of a long-term scholarship and other smaller prizes were offered. When Mrs. Vanderpool suggested the name of "Miss Wynn" to Mrs. Cresswell among a dozen others, for special invitation, there was nothing in its sound to distinguish it from the rest of the names, and the invitation went duly. As a result there came to the exhibit a little group called "The Outcasts," which was really a masterly thing and sent the director, Signor Alberni, into hysterical commendation.

In the private view and award of prizes which preceded the larger social function the jury hesitated long between "The Outcasts" and a painting from Georgia. Mrs. Cresswell was enthusiastic and voluble for the bit of sculpture, and it finally won the vote for the first prize.

All was ready for the great day. The President was coming and most of the diplomatic corps, high officers of the army, and all the social leaders. Congress would be well represented, and the boom for Cresswell as ambassador to France was almost visible in the air.

Mary Cresswell paused a moment in triumph looking back at the darkened hall, when a little woman fluttered up to her and whispered:

"Mrs. Cresswell, have you heard the gossip?"

"No--what?"

"That Wynn woman they say is a nigger. Some are whispering that you brought her in purposely to force social equality. They say you used to teach darkies. Of course, I don't believe all their talk, but I thought you ought to know." She talked a while longer, then fluttered furtively away.

Mrs. Cresswell sat down limply. She saw ruin ahead--to think of a black girl taking a prize at an all-Southern art exhibit! But there was still a chance, and she leaped to action. This colored woman was doubtless some poor deserving creature. She would call on her immediately, and by an offer of abundant help induce her to withdraw quietly.

Entering her motor, she drove near the address and then proceeded on foot. The street was a prominent one, the block one of the best, the house almost pretentious. She glanced at her memorandum again to see if she was mistaken. Perhaps the woman was a domestic; probably she was, for the name on the door was Stillings. It occurred to her that she had heard that name before--but where? She looked again at her memorandum and at the house.

She rang the bell, asking the trim black maid: "Is there a person named Caroline Wynn living in this house?"

The girl smiled and hesitated.

"Yes, ma'am," she finally replied. "Won't you come in?" She was shown into the parlor, where she sat down. The room was most interesting, furnished in unimpeachable taste. A few good pictures were on the walls, and Mrs. Cresswell was examining one when she heard the swish of silken skirts. A lady with gold brown face and straight hair stood before her with pleasant smile. Where had Mrs. Cresswell seen her before? She tried to remember, but could not.

"You wished to see--Caroline Wynn?"

"Yes."

"What can I do for you?"

Mrs. Cresswell groped for her proper cue, but the brown lady merely offered a chair and sat down silently. Mrs. Cresswell's perplexity increased. She had been planning to descend graciously but authoritatively upon some shrinking girl, but this woman not only seemed to assume equality but actually looked it. From a rapid survey, Mrs. Cresswell saw a black silk stocking, a bit of lace, a tailor-made gown, and a head with two full black eyes that waited in calmly polite expectancy.

Something had to be said.

"I--er--came; that is, I believe you sent a group to the art exhibit?"

"Yes."

"It was good--very good."

Miss Wynn said nothing, but sat calmly looking at her visitor. Mrs. Cresswell felt irritated.

"Of course," she managed to continue, "we are very sorry that we cannot receive it."

"Indeed? I understood it had taken the first prize."

Mrs. Cresswell was aghast. Who had rushed the news to this woman? She realized that there were depths to this matter that she did not understand and her irritation increased.

"You know that we could not give the prize to a--Negro."

"Why not?"

"That is quite immaterial. Social equality cannot be forced. At the same time I recognize the injustice, and I have come to say that if you will withdraw your exhibit you will be given a scholarship in a Boston school."

"I do not wish it."

"Well, what do you want?"

"I was not aware that I had asked for anything."

Mrs. Cresswell felt herself getting angry.

"Why did you send your exhibit when you knew it was not wanted?"

"Because you asked me to."

"We did not ask for colored people."

"You asked all Southern-born persons. I am a person and I am Southern born. Moreover, you sent me a personal letter."

Mrs. Cresswell was sure that this was a lie and was thoroughly incensed.

"You cannot have the prize," she almost snapped. "If you will withdraw I will pay you any reasonable sum."

"Thank you. I do not want money; I want justice."

Mrs. Cresswell arose and her face was white.

"That is the trouble with you Negroes: you wish to get above your places and force yourselves where you are not wanted. It does no good, it only makes trouble and enemies." Mrs. Cresswell stopped, for the colored woman had gone quietly out of the room and in a moment the maid entered and stood ready. Mrs. Cresswell walked slowly to the door and stepped out. Then she turned.

"What does Miss Wynn do for a living?"

The girl tittered.

"She used to teach school but she don't do nothing now. She's just married; her husband is Mr. Stillings, Register of the Treasury."

Mrs. Cresswell saw light as she turned to go down the steps. There was but one resource--she must keep the matter out of the newspapers, and see Stillings, whom she now remembered well.

"I beg pardon, does the Miss Wynn live here who got the prize in the art exhibition?"

Mrs. Cresswell turned in amazement. It was evidently a reporter, and the maid was admitting him. The news would reach the papers and be blazoned to-morrow. Slowly she caught her motor and fell wearily back on its cushions.

"Where to, Madame?" asked the chauffeur.

"I don't care," returned Madame; so the chauffeur took her home.

She walked slowly up the stairs. All her carefully laid plans seemed about to be thwarted and her castles were leaning toward ruin.

Yet all was not lost, if her husband continued to believe in her. If, as she feared, he should suspect her on account of this Negro woman, and quarrel with her--

But he must not. This very night, before the morning papers came out, she must explain. He must see; he must appreciate her efforts.

She rushed into her dressing-room and called her maid. Contrary to her Puritan notions, she frankly sought to beautify herself. She remembered that it was the anniversary of her coming to this house. She got out her wedding-dress, and although it hung loosely, the maid draped the Silver Fleece beautifully about her.

She heard her husband enter and come up-stairs. Quickly finishing her toilet, she hurried down to arrange the flowers, for they were alone that night. The telephone rang. She knew it would ring up-stairs in his room, but she usually answered it for he disliked to. She raised the receiver and started to speak when she realized that she had broken into the midst of a conversation.

"--committee won't meet tonight, Harry."

"So? All right. Anything on?"

"Yes--big spree at Nell's. Will you go?"

"Sure thing; you know me! What time?"

"Meet us at the Willard by nine. S'long."

"Good-bye."

She slowly, half guiltily, replaced the receiver. She had not meant to listen, but now to her desperate longing to keep him home was added a new motive. Where was "Nell's"? What was "Nell's"? What was--and there was fear in her heart. At dinner she tried all her powers on him. She had his favorite dishes; she mixed his salad and selected his wine; she talked interestingly, and listened sympathetically, to him. He looked at her with more attention. Her cheeks were more brilliant, for she had touched them with rouge. Her eyes flashed; but he glanced furtively at her short hair. She saw the act; but still she strove until he was content and laughing; then coming round back of his chair, she placed her arms about his neck.

"Harry, will you do me a favor?"

"Why, yes--if--"

"It is something I want very, very much."

"Well, all right, if--"

"Harry, I feel a little--hysterical, tonight, and--you will not refuse me, will you, Harry?"

Standing there, she saw the tableau in her own mind, and it looked strange. She was afraid of herself. She knew that she would do something foolish if she did not win this battle. She felt that overpowering fanaticism back within her raging restlessly. If she was not careful--

"But what is it you want?" asked her husband.

"I don't want you to go out tonight."

He laughed awkwardly.

"Nonsense, girl! The sub-committee on the cotton schedule meets tonight--very important; otherwise--"

She shuddered at the smooth lie and clasped him closer, putting her cheek to his.

"Harry," she pleaded, "just this once--for me."

He disengaged himself, half impatiently, and rose, glancing at the clock. It was nearly nine. A feeling of desperation came over her.

"Harry," she asked again as he slipped on his coat.

"Don't be foolish," he growled.

"Just this once--Harry--I--" But the door banged to, and he was gone.

She stood looking at the closed door a moment. Something in her head was ready to snap. She went to the rack and taking his long heavy overcoat slipped it on. It nearly touched the floor. She seized a soft broad-brimmed hat and umbrella and walked out. Just what she meant to do she did not know, but somehow she must save her husband and herself from evil. She hurried to the Willard Hotel and watched, walking up and down the opposite sidewalk. A woman brushed by her and looked her in the face.

"Hell! I thought you was a man," she said. "Is this a new gag?"

Mrs. Cresswell looked down at herself involuntarily and smiled wanly. She did look like a man, with her hat and coat and short hair. The woman peered at her doubtingly. She was, as Mrs. Cresswell noticed, a young woman, once pretty, perhaps, and a little over-dressed.

"Are you walking?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Cresswell, and then in a moment it flashed upon her. She took the woman's arm and walked with her. Suddenly she stopped.

"Where's--Nell's?"

The woman frowned. "Oh, that's a swell place," she said. "Senators and millionaires. Too high for us to fly."

Mrs. Cresswell winced. "But where is it?" she asked.

"We'll walk by it if you want to."

And Mary Cresswell walked in another world. Up from the ground of the drowsy city rose pale gray forms; pale, flushed, and brilliant, in silken rags. Up and down they passed, to and fro, looking and gliding like sheeted ghosts; now dodging policemen, now accosting them familiarly.

"Hello, Elise," growled one big blue-coat.

"Hello, Jack."

"What's this?" and he peered at Mrs. Cresswell, who shrank back.

"Friend of mine. All right."

A horror crept over Mary Cresswell: where had she lived that she had seen so little before? What was Washington, and what was this fine, tall, quiet residence? Was this--"Nell's"?

"Yes, this is it--good-bye--I must--"

"Wait--what is your name?"

"I haven't any name," answered the woman suspiciously.

"Well--pardon me! Here!" and she thrust a bill into the woman's hand.

The girl stared. "Well, you're a queer one! Thanks. Guess I'll turn in."

Mary Cresswell turned to see her husband and his companions ascending the steps of the quiet mansion. She stood uncertainly and looked at the opening and closing door. Then a policeman came by and looked at her.

"Come, move on," he brusquely ordered. Her vacillation promptly vanished, and she resolutely mounted the steps. She put out her hand to ring, but the door flew silently open and a man-servant stood looking at her.

"I have some friends here," she said, speaking coarsely.

"You will have to be introduced," said the man. She hesitated and started to turn away. Thrusting her hand in her pocket it closed upon her husband's card-case. She presented a card. It worked a rapid transformation in the servant's manner, which did not escape her.

"Come in," he invited her.

She did not stop at the outstretched arm of the cloakman, but glided quickly up the stairs toward a vision of handsome women and strains of music. Harry Cresswell was sitting opposite and bending over an impudent blue-and-blonde beauty. Mary slipped straight across to him and leaned across the table. The hat fell off, but she let it go.

"Harry!" she tried to say as he looked up.

Then the table swayed gently to and fro; the room bowed and whirled about; the voices grew fainter and fainter--all the world receded suddenly far away. She extended her hands languidly, then, feeling so utterly tired, let her eyelids drop and fell asleep.

She awoke with a start, in her own bed. She was physically exhausted but her mind was clear. She must go down and meet him at breakfast and talk frankly with him. She would let bygones be bygones. She would explain that she had followed him to save him, not to betray him. She would point out the greater career before him if only he would be a man; she would show him that they had not failed. For herself she asked nothing, only his word, his confidence, his promise to try.

After his first start of surprise at seeing her at the table, Cresswell uttered nothing immediately save the commonplaces of greeting. He mentioned one or two bits of news from the paper, upon which she commented while dawdling over her egg. When the servant went out and closed the door, she paused a moment considering whether to open by appeal or explanation. His smooth tones startled her:

"Of course, after your art exhibit and the scene of last night, Mary, it will be impossible for us to live longer together."

She stared at him, utterly aghast--voiceless and numb.

"I have seen the crisis approaching for some time, and the Negro business settles it," he continued. "I have now decided to send you to my home in Alabama, to my father or your brother. I am sure you will be happier there."

He rose. Bowing courteously, he waited, coldly and calmly, for her to go.

All at once she hated him and hated his aristocratic repression; this cold calm that hid hell and its fires. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and said in a voice hoarse with horror and loathing:

"You brute! You nasty brute!"

_Thirty-two_

ZORA'S WAY

Zora was looking on her world with the keener vision of one who, blind from very seeing, closes the eyes a space and looks again with wider clearer vision. Out of a nebulous cloudland she seemed to step; a land where all things floated in strange confusion, but where one thing stood steadfast, and that was love. When love was shaken all things moved, but now, at last, for the first time she seemed to know the real and mighty world that stood behind that old and shaken dream.

So she looked on the world about her with new eyes. These men and women of her childhood had hitherto walked by her like shadows; today they lived for her in flesh and blood. She saw hundreds and thousands of black men and women: crushed, half-spirited, and blind. She saw how high and clear a light Sarah Smith, for thirty years and more, had carried before them. She saw, too, how that the light had not simply shone in darkness, but had lighted answering beacons here and there in these dull souls.

There were thoughts and vague stirrings of unrest in this mass of black folk. They talked long about their firesides, and here Zora began to sit and listen, often speaking a word herself. All through the countryside she flitted, till gradually the black folk came to know her and, in silent deference to some subtle difference, they gave her the title of white folk, calling her "Miss" Zora.

Today, more than ever before, Zora sensed the vast unorganized power in this mass, and her mind was leaping here and there, scheming and testing, when voices arrested her.

It was a desolate bit of the Cresswell manor, a tiny cabin, new-boarded and bare, in front of it a blazing bonfire. A white man was tossing into the flames different household articles--a feather bed, a bedstead, two rickety chairs. A young, boyish fellow, golden-faced and curly, stood with clenched fists, while a woman with tear-stained eyes clung to him. The white man raised a cradle to dash it into the flames; the woman cried, and the yellow man raised his arm threateningly. But Zora's hand was on his shoulder.

"What's the matter, Rob?" she asked.

"They're selling us out," he muttered savagely. "Millie's been sick since the last baby died, and I had to neglect my crop to tend her and the other little ones--I didn't make much. They've took my mule, now they're burning my things to make me sign a contract and be a slave. But by--"

"There, Rob, let Millie come with me--we'll see Miss Smith. We must get land to rent and arrange somehow."

The mother sobbed, "The cradle--was baby's!"

With an oath the white man dashed the cradle into the fire, and the red flame spurted aloft.

The crimson fire flashed in Zora's eyes as she passed the overseer.

"Well, nigger, what are you going to do about it?" he growled insolently.

Zora's eyelids drooped, her upper lip quivered.

"Nothing," she answered softly. "But I hope your soul will burn in hell forever and forever."

They proceeded down the plantation road, but Zora could not speak. She pushed them slowly on, and turned aside to let the anger, the impotent, futile anger, rage itself out. Alone in the great broad spaces, she knew she could fight it down, and come back again, cool and in calm and deadly earnest, to lead these children to the light.

The sorrow in her heart was new and strange; not sorrow for herself, for of that she had tasted the uttermost; but the vast vicarious suffering for the evil of the world. The tumult and war within her fled, and a sense of helplessness sent the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She longed for rest; but the last plantation was yet to be passed. Far off she heard the yodle of the gangs of peons. She hesitated, looking for some way of escape: if she passed them she would see something--she always saw something--that would send the red blood whirling madly.

"Here, you!--loafing again, damn you!" She saw the black whip writhe and curl across the shoulders of the plough-boy. The boy crouched and snarled, and again the whip hissed and cracked.

Zora stood rigid and gray.

"My God!" her silent soul was shrieking within, "why doesn't the coward--"

And then the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came back to her senses.

"Poor child!" she gasped, as she saw the boy flying in wild terror over the fields, with hue and cry behind him.

"Poor child!--running to the penitentiary--to shame and hunger and damnation!"

She remembered the rector in Mrs. Vanderpool's library, and his question that revealed unfathomable depths of ignorance: "Really, now, how do you account for the distressing increase in crime among your people?"

She swung into the great road trembling with the woe of the world in her eyes. Cruelty, poverty, and crime she had looked in the face that morning, and the hurt of it held her heart pinched and quivering. A moment the mists in her eyes shut out the shadows of the swamp, and the roaring in her ears made a silence of the world.

Before she found herself again she dimly saw a couple sauntering along the road, but she hardly noticed their white faces until the little voice of the girl, raised timidly, greeted her.

"Howdy, Zora."

Zora looked. The girl was Emma, and beside her, smiling, stood a half-grown white man. It was Emma, Bertie's child; and yet it was not, for in the child of other days Zora saw for the first time the dawning woman.

And she saw, too, the white man. Suddenly the horror of the swamp was upon her. She swept between the couple like a gust, gripping the child's arm till she paled and almost whimpered.

"I--I was just going on an errand for Miss Smith!" she cried.

Looking down into her soul, Zora discerned its innocence and the fright shining in the child's eyes. Her own eyes softened, her grip became a caress, but her heart was hard.

The young man laughed awkwardly and strolled away. Zora looked back at him and the paramount mission of her life formed itself in her mind. She would protect this girl; she would protect all black girls. She would make it possible for these poor beasts of burden to be decent in their toil. Out of protection of womanhood as the central thought, she must build ramparts against cruelty, poverty, and crime. All this in turn--but now and first, the innocent girlhood of this daughter of shame must be rescued from the devil. It was her duty, her heritage. She must offer this unsullied soul up unto God in mighty atonement--but how? Here now was no protection. Already lustful eyes were in wait, and the child was too ignorant to protect herself. She must be sent to boarding-school, somewhere far away; but the money? God! it was money, money, always money. Then she stopped suddenly, thrilled with the recollection of Mrs. Vanderpool's check.

She dismissed the girl with a kiss, and stood still a moment considering. Money to send Emma off to school; money to buy a school farm; money to "buy" tenants to live on it; money to furnish them rations; money--

She went straight to Miss Smith.

"Miss Smith, how much money have you?" Miss Smith's hand trembled a bit. Ah, that splendid strength of young womanhood--if only she herself had it! But perhaps Zora was the chosen one. She reached up and took down a well-worn book.

"Zora," she said slowly, "I've been going to tell you ever since you came, but I hadn't the courage. Zora," Miss Smith hesitated and gripped the book with thin white fingers, "I'm afraid--I almost know that this school is doomed."

There lay a silence in the room while the two women stared into each other's souls with startled eyes. Swallowing hard, Miss Smith spoke.

"When I thought the endowment sure, I mortgaged the school in order to buy Tolliver's land. The endowment failed, as you know, because--perhaps I was too stubborn."

But Zora's eyes snapped "No!" and Miss Smith continued:

"I borrowed ten thousand dollars. Then I tried to get the land, but Tolliver kept putting me off, and finally I learned that Colonel Cresswell had bought it. It seems that Tolliver got caught tight in the cotton corner, and that Cresswell, through John Taylor, offered him twice what he had agreed to sell to me for, and he took it. I don't suppose Taylor knew what he was doing; I hope he didn't.

"Well, there I was with ten thousand dollars idle on my hands, paying ten per cent on it and getting less than three per cent. I tried to get the bank to take the money back, but they refused. Then I was tempted--and fell." She paused, and Zora took both her hands in her own.

"You see," continued Miss Smith, "just as soon as the announcement of the prospective endowment was sent broadcast by the press, the donations from the North fell off. Letter after letter came from old friends of the school full of congratulations, but no money. I ought to have cut down the teaching force to the barest minimum, and gone North begging--but I couldn't. I guess my courage was gone. I knew how I'd have to explain and plead, and I just could not. So I used the ten thousand dollars to pay its own interest and help run the school. Already it's half gone, and when the rest goes then will come the end."

Without, the great red sun paused a moment over the edge of the swamp, and the long, low cry of night birds broke sadly on the twilight silence. Zora sat stroking the lined hands.

"Not the end," she spoke confidently. "It cannot end like this. I've got a little money that Mrs. Vanderpool gave me, and somehow we must get more. Perhaps I might go North and--beg." She shivered. Then she sat up resolutely and turned to the book.

"Let's go over matters carefully," she proposed.

Together they counted and calculated.

"The balance is four thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight dollars," said Miss Smith.

"Yes, and then there's Mrs. Vanderpool's check."

"How much is that?"

Zora paused; she did not know. In her world there was little calculation of money. Credit and not cash is the currency of the Black Belt. She had been pleased to receive the check, but she had not examined it.

"I really don't know," she presently confessed. "I think it was one thousand dollars; but I was so hurried in leaving that I didn't look carefully," and the wild thought surged in her, suppose it was more!

She ran into the other room and plunged into her trunk; beneath the clothes, beneath the beauty of the Silver Fleece, till her fingers clutched and tore the envelope. A little choking cry burst from her throat, her knees trembled so that she was obliged to sit down.

In her fingers fluttered a check for--_ten thousand dollars!_

It was not until the next day that the two women were sufficiently composed to talk matters over sanely.

"What is your plan?" asked Zora.

"To put the money in a Northern savings bank at three per cent interest; to supply the rest of the interest, and the deficit in the running expenses, from our balance, and to send you North to beg."

Zora shook her head. "It won't do," she objected. "I'd make a poor beggar; I don't know human nature well enough, and I can't talk to rich white folks the way they expect us to talk."

"It wouldn't be hypocrisy, Zora; you would be serving in a great cause. If you don't go, I--"

"Wait! You sha'n't go. If any one goes it must be me. But let's think it out: we pay off the mortgage, we get enough to run the school as it has been run. Then what? There will still be slavery and oppression all around us. The children will be kept in the cotton fields; the men will be cheated, and the women--" Zora paused and her eyes grew hard.

She began again rapidly: "We must have land--our own farm with our own tenants--to be the beginning of a free community."

Miss Smith threw up her hands impatiently.

"But sakes alive! Where, Zora? Where can we get land, with Cresswell owning every inch and bound to destroy us?"

Zora sat hugging her knees and staring out the window toward the sombre ramparts of the swamp. In her eyes lay slumbering the madness of long ago; in her brain danced all the dreams and visions of childhood.

"I'm thinking," she murmured, "of buying the swamp."

_Thirty-three_

THE BUYING OF THE SWAMP

"It's a shame," asserted John Taylor with something like real feeling. He was spending Sunday with his father-in-law, and both, over their after-dinner cigars, were gazing thoughtfully at the swamp.

"What's a shame?" asked Colonel Cresswell.