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E. W. Hornung - "The Amateur Cracksman"

Charles Mackay - "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions"

Benjamin Rumford - "ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1."

Seton - "Rolf In The Woods"

The House Behind The Cedars

C >> Charles W. Chesnutt >> The House Behind The Cedars






XX

DIGGING UP ROOTS


When the first great shock of his discovery wore
off, the fact of Rena's origin lost to Tryon some of
its initial repugnance--indeed, the repugnance was
not to the woman at all, as their past relations were
evidence, but merely to the thought of her as a wife.
It could hardly have failed to occur to so reasonable
a man as Tryon that Rena's case could scarcely
be unique. Surely in the past centuries of free
manners and easy morals that had prevailed in
remote parts of the South, there must have been
many white persons whose origin would not have
borne too microscopic an investigation. Family
trees not seldom have a crooked branch; or, to use
a more apposite figure, many a flock has its black
sheep. Being a man of lively imagination, Tryon
soon found himself putting all sorts of hypothetical
questions about a matter which he had already
definitely determined. If he had married Rena in
ignorance of her secret, and had learned it afterwards,
would he have put her aside? If, knowing
her history, he had nevertheless married her, and
she had subsequently displayed some trait of
character that would suggest the negro, could he have
forgotten or forgiven the taint? Could he still
have held her in love and honor? If not, could
he have given her the outward seeming of affection,
or could he have been more than coldly tolerant?
He was glad that he had been spared this ordeal.
With an effort he put the whole matter definitely
and conclusively aside, as he had done a hundred
times already.

Returning to his home, after an absence of several
months in South Carolina, it was quite apparent
to his mother's watchful eye that he was in
serious trouble. He was absent-minded, monosyllabic,
sighed deeply and often, and could not always
conceal the traces of secret tears. For Tryon was
young, and possessed of a sensitive soul--a source
of happiness or misery, as the Fates decree. To
those thus dowered, the heights of rapture are
accessible, the abysses of despair yawn threateningly;
only the dull monotony of contentment is
denied.

Mrs. Tryon vainly sought by every gentle art
a woman knows to win her son's confidence.
"What is the matter, George, dear?" she would
ask, stroking his hot brow with her small, cool
hand as he sat moodily nursing his grief. "Tell
your mother, George. Who else could comfort
you so well as she?"

"Oh, it's nothing, mother,--nothing at all,"
he would reply, with a forced attempt at lightness.
"It's only your fond imagination, you best of
mothers."

It was Mrs. Tryon's turn to sigh and shed
a clandestine tear. Until her son had gone away
on this trip to South Carolina, he had kept no
secrets from her: his heart had been an open
book, of which she knew every page; now, some
painful story was inscribed therein which he meant
she should not read. If she could have abdicated
her empire to Blanche Leary or have shared it
with her, she would have yielded gracefully; but
very palpably some other influence than Blanche's
had driven joy from her son's countenance and
lightness from his heart.


Miss Blanche Leary, whom Tryon found in the
house upon his return, was a demure, pretty little
blonde, with an amiable disposition, a talent for
society, and a pronounced fondness for George
Tryon. A poor girl, of an excellent family
impoverished by the war, she was distantly related
to Mrs. Tryon, had for a long time enjoyed that
lady's favor, and was her choice for George's wife
when he should be old enough to marry. A woman
less interested than Miss Leary would have
perceived that there was something wrong with Tryon.
Miss Leary had no doubt that there was a woman
at the bottom of it,--for about what else should
youth worry but love? or if one's love affairs run
smoothly, why should one worry about anything
at all? Miss Leary, in the nineteen years of her
mundane existence, had not been without mild
experiences of the heart, and had hovered for some
time on the verge of disappointment with respect
to Tryon himself. A sensitive pride would have
driven more than one woman away at the sight of
the man of her preference sighing like a furnace
for some absent fair one. But Mrs. Tryon was
so cordial, and insisted so strenuously upon her
remaining, that Blanche's love, which was strong,
conquered her pride, which was no more than a
reasonable young woman ought to have who sets
success above mere sentiment. She remained in the
house and bided her opportunity. If George
practically ignored her for a time, she did not throw
herself at all in his way. She went on a visit to
some girls in the neighborhood and remained away
a week, hoping that she might be missed. Tryon
expressed no regret at her departure and no
particular satisfaction upon her return. If the house
was duller in her absence, he was but dimly conscious
of the difference. He was still fighting a
battle in which a susceptible heart and a reasonable
mind had locked horns in a well-nigh hopeless
conflict. Reason, common-sense, the instinctive
ready-made judgments of his training and environment,--
the deep-seated prejudices of race and
caste,--commanded him to dismiss Rena from
his thoughts. His stubborn heart simply would
not let go.



XXI

A GILDED OPPORTUNITY


Although the whole fabric of Rena's new life
toppled and fell with her lover's defection, her
sympathies, broadened by culture and still more by
her recent emotional experience, did not shrink, as
would have been the case with a more selfish soul,
to the mere limits of her personal sorrow, great as
this seemed at the moment. She had learned to
love, and when the love of one man failed her, she
turned to humanity, as a stream obstructed in its
course overflows the adjacent country. Her early
training had not directed her thoughts to the darker
people with whose fate her own was bound up so
closely, but rather away from them. She had been
taught to despise them because they were not so
white as she was, and had been slaves while she was
free. Her life in her brother's home, by removing
her from immediate contact with them, had given
her a different point of view,--one which emphasized
their shortcomings, and thereby made vastly
clearer to her the gulf that separated them from
the new world in which she lived; so that when
misfortune threw her back upon them, the reaction
brought her nearer than before. Where once she
had seemed able to escape from them, they were
now, it appeared, her inalienable race. Thus doubly
equipped, she was able to view them at once with
the mental eye of an outsider and the sympathy
of a sister: she could see their faults, and judge
them charitably; she knew and appreciated their
good qualities. With her quickened intelligence
she could perceive how great was their need and
how small their opportunity; and with this illumination
came the desire to contribute to their help.
She had not the breadth or culture to see in all its
ramifications the great problem which still puzzles
statesmen and philosophers; but she was conscious
of the wish, and of the power, in a small way, to do
something for the advancement of those who had
just set their feet upon the ladder of progress.

This new-born desire to be of service to her
rediscovered people was not long without an
opportunity for expression. Yet the Fates willed that
her future should be but another link in a connected
chain: she was to be as powerless to put
aside her recent past as she had been to escape
from the influence of her earlier life. There are
sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die,
and imagine they have lived. But Rena's life
since her great awakening had been that of the
emotions, and her temperament made of it a
continuous life. Her successive states of
consciousness were not detachable, but united to form a
single if not an entirely harmonious whole. To
her sensitive spirit to-day was born of yesterday,
to-morrow would be but the offspring of to day.

One day, along toward noon, her mother
received a visit from Mary B. Pettifoot, a second
cousin, who lived on Back Street, only a short
distance from the house behind the cedars. Rena
had gone out, so that the visitor found Mis' Molly
alone.

"I heared you say, Cousin Molly," said Mary
B. (no one ever knew what the B. in Mary's name
stood for,--it was a mere ornamental flourish),
"that Rena was talkin' 'bout teachin' school. I've
got a good chance fer her, ef she keers ter take
it. My cousin Jeff Wain 'rived in town this
mo'nin', f'm 'way down in Sampson County, ter
git a teacher fer the nigger school in his deestric'.
I s'pose he mought 'a' got one f'm 'roun' Newbern,
er Goldsboro, er some er them places eas', but he
'lowed he'd like to visit some er his kin an' ole
frien's, an' so kill two birds with one stone."

"I seed a strange mulatter man, with a bay hoss
an' a new buggy, drivin' by here this mo'nin' early,
from down to'ds the river," rejoined Mis' Molly.
"I wonder if that wuz him?"

"Did he have on a linen duster?" asked Mary B.

"Yas, an' 'peared to be a very well sot up man,"
replied Mis' Molly, " 'bout thirty-five years old, I
should reckon."

"That wuz him," assented Mary B. "He's got
a fine hoss an' buggy, an' a gol' watch an' chain,
an' a big plantation, an' lots er hosses an' mules
an' cows an' hawgs. He raise' fifty bales er cotton
las' year, an' he's be'n ter the legislatur'."

" My gracious!" exclaimed Mis' Molly, struck
with awe at this catalogue of the stranger's possessions--
he was evidently worth more than a great
many "rich" white people,--all white people in
North Carolina in those days were either "rich" or
"poor," the distinction being one of caste rather
than of wealth. "Is he married?" she inquired
with interest?

"No,--single. You mought 'low it was quare
that he should n' be married at his age; but he
was crossed in love oncet,"--Mary B. heaved a
self-conscious sigh,--"an' has stayed single ever
sence. That wuz ten years ago, but as some
husban's is long-lived, an' there ain' no mo' chance
fer 'im now than there wuz then, I reckon some
nice gal mought stan' a good show er ketchin' 'im,
ef she'd play her kyards right."

To Mis' Molly this was news of considerable
importance. She had not thought a great deal of
Rena's plan to teach; she considered it lowering
for Rena, after having been white, to go among
the negroes any more than was unavoidable. This
opportunity, however, meant more than mere
employment for her daughter. She had felt Rena's
disappointment keenly, from the practical point of
view, and, blaming herself for it, held herself all
the more bound to retrieve the misfortune in any
possible way. If she had not been sick, Rena
would not have dreamed the fateful dream that
had brought her to Patesville; for the connection
between the vision and the reality was even closer in
Mis' Molly's eyes than in Rena's. If the mother
had not sent the letter announcing her illness and
confirming the dream, Rena would not have ruined
her promising future by coming to Patesville. But
the harm had been done, and she was responsible,
ignorantly of course, but none the less truly, and
it only remained for her to make amends, as far as
possible. Her highest ambition, since Rena had
grown up, had been to see her married and
comfortably settled in life. She had no hope that
Tryon would come back. Rena had declared that
she would make no further effort to get away from
her people; and, furthermore, that she would never
marry. To this latter statement Mis' Molly secretly
attached but little importance. That a woman
should go single from the cradle to the grave did
not accord with her experience in life of the customs
of North Carolina. She respected a grief she could
not entirely fathom, yet did not for a moment
believe that Rena would remain unmarried.

"You'd better fetch him roun' to see me, Ma'y
B.," she said, "an' let's see what he looks like.
I'm pertic'lar 'bout my gal. She says she ain't
goin' to marry nobody; but of co'se we know that's
all foolishness."

"I'll fetch him roun' this evenin' 'bout three
o'clock," said the visitor, rising. "I mus' hurry
back now an' keep him comp'ny. Tell Rena ter
put on her bes' bib an' tucker; for Mr. Wain is
pertic'lar too, an' I've already be'n braggin' 'bout
her looks."

When Mary B., at the appointed hour, knocked
at Mis' Molly's front door,--the visit being one of
ceremony, she had taken her cousin round to the
Front Street entrance and through the flower
garden,--Mis' Molly was prepared to receive them.
After a decent interval, long enough to suggest
that she had not been watching their approach and
was not over-eager about the visit, she answered
the knock and admitted them into the parlor. Mr.
Wain was formally introduced, and seated himself
on the ancient haircloth sofa, under the framed
fashion-plate, while Mary B. sat by the open door
and fanned herself with a palm-leaf fan.

Mis' Molly's impression of Wain was favorable.
His complexion was of a light brown--not quite
so fair as Mis' Molly would have preferred; but
any deficiency in this regard, or in the matter of
the stranger's features, which, while not unpleasing,
leaned toward the broad mulatto type, was
more than compensated in her eyes by very
straight black hair, and, as soon appeared, a great
facility of complimentary speech. On his introduction
Mr. Wain bowed low, assumed an air of great
admiration, and expressed his extreme delight in
making the acquaintance of so distinguished-looking a lady.

"You're flatt'rin' me, Mr. Wain," returned Mis'
Molly, with a gratified smile. "But you want to
meet my daughter befo' you commence th'owin'
bokays. Excuse my leavin' you--I'll go an' fetch
her."

She returned in a moment, followed by Rena.
"Mr. Wain, 'low me to int'oduce you to my daughter
Rena. Rena, this is Ma'y B.'s cousin on her
pappy's side, who's come up from Sampson to git
a school-teacher."

Rena bowed gracefully. Wain stared a moment
in genuine astonishment, and then bent himself
nearly double, keeping his eyes fixed meanwhile
upon Rena's face. He had expected to see a pretty
yellow girl, but had been prepared for no such
radiant vision of beauty as this which now confronted him.

"Does--does you mean ter say, Mis' Walden,
dat--dat dis young lady is yo' own daughter?"
he stammered, rallying his forces for action.

"Why not, Mr. Wain?" asked Mis' Molly,
bridling with mock resentment. "Do you mean
ter 'low that she wuz changed in her cradle, er is
she too good-lookin' to be my daughter?"

"My deah Mis' Walden! it 'ud be wastin' wo'ds
fer me ter say dat dey ain' no young lady too good-
lookin' ter be yo' daughter; but you're lookin'
so young yo'sef dat I'd ruther take her fer yo'
sister."

"Yas," rejoined Mis' Molly, with animation,
"they ain't many years between us. I wuz ruther
young myself when she wuz bo'n."

"An', mo'over," Wain went on, "it takes me
a minute er so ter git my min' use' ter thinkin' er
Mis' Rena as a cullud young lady. I mought 'a'
seed her a hund'ed times, an' I'd 'a' never dreamt
but w'at she wuz a w'ite young lady, f'm one er de
bes' families."

"Yas, Mr. Wain," replied Mis' Molly
complacently, "all three er my child'en wuz white, an'
one of 'em has be'n on the other side fer many
long years. Rena has be'n to school, an' has
traveled, an' has had chances--better chances than
anybody roun' here knows."

"She's jes' de lady I'm lookin' fer, ter teach ou'
school," rejoined Wain, with emphasis. "Wid
her schoolin' an' my riccommen', she kin git a fus'-
class ce'tifikit an' draw fo'ty dollars a month; an'
a lady er her color kin keep a lot er little niggers
straighter 'n a darker lady could. We jus' got ter
have her ter teach ou' school--ef we kin git her."

Rena's interest in the prospect of employment
at her chosen work was so great that she paid little
attention to Wain's compliments. Mis' Molly led
Mary B. away to the kitchen on some pretext, and
left Rena to entertain the gentleman. She questioned
him eagerly about the school, and he gave
the most glowing accounts of the elegant school-
house, the bright pupils, and the congenial society
of the neighborhood. He spoke almost entirely in
superlatives, and, after making due allowance for
what Rena perceived to be a temperamental tendency
to exaggeration, she concluded that she would
find in the school a worthy field of usefulness, and
in this polite and good-natured though somewhat
wordy man a coadjutor upon whom she could rely
in her first efforts; for she was not over-confident
of her powers, which seemed to grow less as the
way opened for their exercise.

"Do you think I'm competent to teach the
school?" she asked of the visitor, after stating
some of her qualifications.

"Oh, dere 's no doubt about it, Miss Rena,"
replied Wain, who had listened with an air of great
wisdom, though secretly aware that he was too
ignorant of letters to form a judgment; "you kin
teach de school all right, an' could ef you didn't
know half ez much. You won't have no trouble
managin' de child'en, nuther. Ef any of 'em gits
onruly, jes' call on me fer he'p, an' I'll make 'em
walk Spanish. I'm chuhman er de school committee,
an' I'll lam de hide off'n any scholar dat
don' behave. You kin trus' me fer dat, sho' ez
I'm a-settin' here."

"Then," said Rena, "I'll undertake it, and do
my best. I'm sure you'll not be too exacting."

"Yo' bes', Miss Rena,'ll be de bes' dey is.
Don' you worry ner fret. Dem niggers won't
have no other teacher after dey've once laid eyes
on you: I'll guarantee dat. Dere won't be no
trouble, not a bit."

"Well, Cousin Molly," said Mary B. to Mis'
Molly in the kitchen, "how does the plan strike
you?"

"Ef Rena's satisfied, I am," replied Mis' Molly.
"But you'd better say nothin' about ketchin' a
beau, or any such foolishness, er else she'd be just
as likely not to go nigh Sampson County."

"Befo' Cousin Jeff goes back," confided Mary
B., "I'd like ter give 'im a party, but my house
is too small. I wuz wonderin'," she added tentatively,
"ef I could n' borry yo' house."

"Shorely, Ma'y B. I'm int'rested in Mr.
Wain on Rena's account, an' it's as little as I kin
do to let you use my house an' help you git things
ready."

The date of the party was set for Thursday
night, as Wain was to leave Patesville on Friday
morning, taking with him the new teacher. The
party would serve the double purpose of a compliment
to the guest and a farewell to Rena, and it
might prove the precursor, the mother secretly
hoped, of other festivities to follow at some later
date.



XXII

IMPERATIVE BUSINESS


One Wednesday morning, about six weeks after
his return home, Tryon received a letter from
Judge Straight with reference to the note left
with him at Patesville for collection. This
communication properly required an answer, which
might have been made in writing within the compass
of ten lines. No sooner, however, had Tryon
read the letter than he began to perceive reasons
why it should be answered in person. He had
left Patesville under extremely painful circumstances,
vowing that he would never return; and
yet now the barest pretext, by which no one could
have been deceived except willingly, was sufficient
to turn his footsteps thither again. He explained
to his mother--with a vagueness which she found
somewhat puzzling, but ascribed to her own feminine
obtuseness in matters of business--the reasons
that imperatively demanded his presence in
Patesville. With an early start he could drive
there in one day,--he had an excellent roadster,
a light buggy, and a recent rain had left the road
in good condition,--a day would suffice for the
transaction of his business, and the third day
would bring him home again. He set out on
his journey on Thursday morning, with this programme
very clearly outlined.

Tryon would not at first have admitted even to
himself that Rena's presence in Patesville had any
bearing whatever upon his projected visit. The
matter about which Judge Straight had written
might, it was clear, be viewed in several aspects.
The judge had written him concerning the one of
immediate importance. It would be much easier
to discuss the subject in all its bearings, and clean
up the whole matter, in one comprehensive personal
interview.

The importance of this business, then, seemed
very urgent for the first few hours of Tryon's
journey. Ordinarily a careful driver and merciful
to his beast, his eagerness to reach Patesville
increased gradually until it became necessary to
exercise some self-restraint in order not to urge
his faithful mare beyond her powers; and soon he
could no longer pretend obliviousness of the fact
that some attraction stronger than the whole
amount of Duncan McSwayne's note was urging
him irresistibly toward his destination. The old
town beyond the distant river, his heart told him
clamorously, held the object in all the world to
him most dear. Memory brought up in vivid detail
every moment of his brief and joyous courtship,
each tender word, each enchanting smile,
every fond caress. He lived his past happiness
over again down to the moment of that fatal
discovery. What horrible fate was it that had
involved him--nay, that had caught this sweet
delicate girl in such a blind alley? A wild hope
flashed across his mind: perhaps the ghastly story
might not be true; perhaps, after all, the girl was
no more a negro than she seemed. He had heard
sad stories of white children, born out of wedlock,
abandoned by sinful parents to the care or adoption
of colored women, who had reared them as
their own, the children's future basely sacrificed to
hide the parents' shame. He would confront this
reputed mother of his darling and wring the truth
from her. He was in a state of mind where any
sort of a fairy tale would have seemed reasonable.
He would almost have bribed some one to tell him
that the woman he had loved, the woman he still
loved (he felt a thrill of lawless pleasure in the
confession), was not the descendant of slaves,--
that he might marry her, and not have before his
eyes the gruesome fear that some one of their
children might show even the faintest mark of the
despised race.

At noon he halted at a convenient hamlet, fed
and watered his mare, and resumed his journey
after an hour's rest. By this time he had well-
nigh forgotten about the legal business that formed
the ostensible occasion for his journey, and was
conscious only of a wild desire to see the woman
whose image was beckoning him on to Patesville
as fast as his horse could take him.

At sundown he stopped again, about ten miles
from the town, and cared for his now tired beast.
He knew her capacity, however, and calculated
that she could stand the additional ten miles without
injury. The mare set out with reluctance,
but soon settled resignedly down into a steady jog.

Memory had hitherto assailed Tryon with the
vision of past joys. As he neared the town,
imagination attacked him with still more moving
images. He had left her, this sweet flower of
womankind--white or not, God had never made
a fairer!--he had seen her fall to the hard
pavement, with he knew not what resulting injury.
He had left her tender frame--the touch of her
finger-tips had made him thrill with happiness--
to be lifted by strange hands, while he with heartless
pride had driven deliberately away, without a
word of sorrow or regret. He had ignored her as
completely as though she had never existed. That
he had been deceived was true. But had he not
aided in his own deception? Had not Warwick
told him distinctly that they were of no family,
and was it not his own fault that he had not
followed up the clue thus given him? Had not Rena
compared herself to the child's nurse, and had
he not assured her that if she were the nurse, he
would marry her next day? The deception had
been due more to his own blindness than to any
lack of honesty on the part of Rena and her
brother. In the light of his present feelings they
seemed to have been absurdly outspoken. He
was glad that he had kept his discovery to himself.
He had considered himself very magnanimous
not to have exposed the fraud that was
being perpetrated upon society: it was with a very
comfortable feeling that he now realized that the
matter was as profound a secret as before.

"She ought to have been born white," he
muttered, adding weakly, "I would to God that I had
never found her out!"

Drawing near the bridge that crossed the river
to the town, he pictured to himself a pale girl,
with sorrowful, tear-stained eyes, pining away in
the old gray house behind the cedars for love of
him, dying, perhaps, of a broken heart. He would
hasten to her; he would dry her tears with kisses;
he would express sorrow for his cruelty.

The tired mare had crossed the bridge and was
slowly toiling up Front Street; she was near the
limit of her endurance, and Tryon did not urge
her.

They might talk the matter over, and if they
must part, part at least they would in peace and
friendship. If he could not marry her, he would
never marry any one else; it would be cruel for
him to seek happiness while she was denied it,
for, having once given her heart to him, she could
never, he was sure,--so instinctively fine was
her nature,--she could never love any one less
worthy than himself, and would therefore probably
never marry. He knew from a Clarence acquaintance,
who had written him a letter, that Rena had
not reappeared in that town.

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