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Hendrik van Loon - "The Story of Mankind"

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The House Behind The Cedars

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




The buggy paused at the top of the hill, and
Frank, shading his eyes with his hand, thought he
could see her turn and look behind. Look back,
dear child, towards your home and those who love
you! For who knows more than this faithful
worshiper what threads of the past Fate is weaving
into your future, or whether happiness or misery
lies before you?



XXV

BALANCE ALL


The road to Sampson County lay for the most
part over the pine-clad sandhills,--an alternation
of gentle rises and gradual descents, with now and
then a swamp of greater or less extent. Long
stretches of the highway led through the virgin
forest, for miles unbroken by a clearing or sign of
human habitation.

They traveled slowly, with frequent pauses in
shady places, for the weather was hot. The journey,
made leisurely, required more than a day,
and might with slight effort be prolonged into
two. They stopped for the night at a small
village, where Wain found lodging for Rena with an
acquaintance of his, and for himself with another,
while a third took charge of the horse, the
accommodation for travelers being limited. Rena's
appearance and manners were the subject of much
comment. It was necessary to explain to several
curious white people that Rena was a woman of
color. A white woman might have driven with
Wain without attracting remark,--most white
ladies had negro coachmen. That a woman of
Rena's complexion should eat at a negro's table, or
sleep beneath a negro's roof, was a seeming breach
of caste which only black blood could excuse. The
explanation was never questioned. No white person
of sound mind would ever claim to be a
negro.

They resumed their journey somewhat late in the
morning. Rena would willingly have hastened, for
she was anxious to plunge into her new work; but
Wain seemed disposed to prolong the pleasant drive,
and beguiled the way for a time with stories of
wonderful things he had done and strange experiences
of a somewhat checkered career. He was shrewd
enough to avoid any subject which would offend a
modest young woman, but too obtuse to perceive
that much of what he said would not commend
him to a person of refinement. He made little
reference to his possessions, concerning which so
much had been said at Patesville; and this
reticence was a point in his favor. If he had not
been so much upon his guard and Rena so much
absorbed by thoughts of her future work, such a
drive would have furnished a person of her discernment
a very fair measure of the man's character.
To these distractions must be added the entire
absence of any idea that Wain might have amorous
designs upon her; and any shortcomings of
manners or speech were excused by the broad
mantle of charity which Rena in her new-found zeal for
the welfare of her people was willing to throw over
all their faults. They were the victims of
oppression; they were not responsible for its results.

Toward the end of the second day, while nearing
their destination, the travelers passed a large
white house standing back from the road at the
foot of a lane. Around it grew widespreading
trees and well-kept shrubbery. The fences were
in good repair. Behind the house and across the
road stretched extensive fields of cotton and
waving corn. They had passed no other place that
showed such signs of thrift and prosperity.

"Oh, what a lovely place!" exclaimed Rena.
"That is yours, isn't it?"

"No; we ain't got to my house yet," he
answered. "Dat house b'longs ter de riches' people
roun' here. Dat house is over in de nex' county.
We're right close to de line now."

Shortly afterwards they turned off from the
main highway they had been pursuing, and struck
into a narrower road to the left.

"De main road," explained Wain, "goes on to
Clinton, 'bout five miles er mo' away. Dis one
we're turnin' inter now will take us to my place,
which is 'bout three miles fu'ther on. We'll git
dere now in an hour er so."

Wain lived in an old plantation house, somewhat
dilapidated, and surrounded by an air of neglect
and shiftlessness, but still preserving a remnant
of dignity in its outlines and comfort in its interior
arrangements. Rena was assigned a large room on
the second floor. She was somewhat surprised at
the make-up of the household. Wain's mother--
an old woman, much darker than her son--kept
house for him. A sister with two children lived
in the house. The element of surprise lay in the
presence of two small children left by Wain's wife,
of whom Rena now heard for the first time. He
had lost his wife, he informed Rena sadly, a couple
of years before.

"Yas, Miss Rena," she sighed, "de Lawd give
her, an' de Lawd tuck her away. Blessed be de
name er de Lawd." He accompanied this sententious
quotation with a wicked look from under his
half-closed eyelids that Rena did not see.

The following morning Wain drove her in his
buggy over to the county town, where she took the
teacher's examination. She was given a seat in a
room with a number of other candidates for
certificates, but the fact leaking out from some remark
of Wain's that she was a colored girl, objection
was quietly made by several of the would-be teachers
to her presence in the room, and she was requested
to retire until the white teachers should
have been examined. An hour or two later she
was given a separate examination, which she passed
without difficulty. The examiner, a gentleman of
local standing, was dimly conscious that she might
not have found her exclusion pleasant, and was
especially polite. It would have been strange,
indeed, if he had not been impressed by her sweet
face and air of modest dignity, which were all the
more striking because of her social disability. He
fell into conversation with her, became interested
in her hopes and aims, and very cordially offered
to be of service, if at any time he might, in
connection with her school.

"You have the satisfaction," he said, "of
receiving the only first-grade certificate issued to-day.
You might teach a higher grade of pupils than you
will find at Sandy Run, but let us hope that you
may in time raise them to your own level."

"Which I doubt very much," he muttered to
himself, as she went away with Wain. "What a
pity that such a woman should be a nigger! If
she were anything to me, though, I should hate
to trust her anywhere near that saddle-colored
scoundrel. He's a thoroughly bad lot, and will
bear watching."

Rena, however, was serenely ignorant of any
danger from the accommodating Wain. Absorbed
in her own thoughts and plans, she had not sought
to look beneath the surface of his somewhat overdone
politeness. In a few days she began her work
as teacher, and sought to forget in the service of
others the dull sorrow that still gnawed at her heart.



XXVI

THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS


Blanche Leary, closely observant of Tryon's
moods, marked a decided change in his manner
after his return from his trip to Patesville. His
former moroseness had given way to a certain
defiant lightness, broken now and then by an
involuntary sigh, but maintained so well, on the
whole, that his mother detected no lapses whatever.
The change was characterized by another feature
agreeable to both the women: Tryon showed
decidedly more interest than ever before in Miss
Leary's society. Within a week he asked her
several times to play a selection on the piano,
displaying, as she noticed, a decided preference for
gay and cheerful music, and several times suggesting
a change when she chose pieces of a sentimental
cast. More than once, during the second week
after his return, he went out riding with her; she
was a graceful horsewoman, perfectly at home in
the saddle, and appearing to advantage in a riding-
habit. She was aware that Tryon watched her now
and then, with an eye rather critical than indulgent.

"He is comparing me with some other girl,"
she surmised. "I seem to stand the test very well.
I wonder who the other is, and what was the
trouble?"

Miss Leary exerted all her powers to interest
and amuse the man she had set out to win, and
who seemed nearer than ever before. Tryon, to
his pleased surprise, discovered in her mind depths
that he had never suspected. She displayed a
singular affinity for the tastes that were his--he
could not, of course, know how carefully she had
studied them. The old wound, recently reopened,
seemed to be healing rapidly, under conditions
more conducive than before to perfect recovery.
No longer, indeed, was he pursued by the picture
of Rena discovered and unmasked--this he had
definitely banished from the realm of sentiment to
that of reason. The haunting image of Rena loving
and beloved, amid the harmonious surroundings
of her brother's home, was not so readily displaced.
Nevertheless, he reached in several weeks a point
from which he could consider her as one thinks of
a dear one removed by the hand of death, or smitten
by some incurable ailment of mind or body.
Erelong, he fondly believed, the recovery would
be so far complete that he could consign to the
tomb of pleasant memories even the most thrilling
episodes of his ill-starred courtship.

"George," said Mrs. Tryon one morning while
her son was in this cheerful mood, "I'm sending
Blanche over to Major McLeod's to do an errand
for me. Would you mind driving her over? The
road may be rough after the storm last night, and
Blanche has an idea that no one drives so well as
you."

"Why, yes, mother, I'll be glad to drive Blanche
over. I want to see the major myself."

They were soon bowling along between the pines,
behind the handsome mare that had carried Tryon
so well at the Clarence tournament. Presently he
drew up sharply.

"A tree has fallen squarely across the road," he
exclaimed. "We shall have to turn back a little
way and go around."

They drove back a quarter of a mile and turned
into a by-road leading to the right through the
woods. The solemn silence of the pine forest is
soothing or oppressive, according to one's mood.
Beneath the cool arcade of the tall, overarching
trees a deep peace stole over Tryon's heart. He
had put aside indefinitely and forever an unhappy
and impossible love. The pretty and affectionate
girl beside him would make an ideal wife. Of
her family and blood he was sure. She was his
mother's choice, and his mother had set her heart
upon their marriage. Why not speak to her now,
and thus give himself the best possible protection
against stray flames of love?

"Blanche," he said, looking at her kindly.

"Yes, George?" Her voice was very gentle,
and slightly tremulous. Could she have divined
his thought? Love is a great clairvoyant.

"Blanche, dear, I"--

A clatter of voices broke upon the stillness of
the forest and interrupted Tryon's speech. A
sudden turn to the left brought the buggy to a
little clearing, in the midst of which stood a small
log schoolhouse. Out of the schoolhouse a swarm
of colored children were emerging, the suppressed
energy of the school hour finding vent in vocal
exercise of various sorts. A group had already
formed a ring, and were singing with great volume
and vigor:--

"Miss Jane, she loves sugar an' tea,
Miss Jane, she loves candy.
Miss Jane, she can whirl all around
An' kiss her love quite handy.

"De oak grows tall,
De pine grows slim,
So rise you up, my true love,
An' let me come in."


"What a funny little darkey!" exclaimed Miss
Leary, pointing to a diminutive lad who was walking
on his hands, with his feet balanced in the air.
At sight of the buggy and its occupants this sable
acrobat, still retaining his inverted position, moved
toward the newcomers, and, reversing himself with
a sudden spring, brought up standing beside the
buggy.

"Hoddy, Mars Geo'ge!" he exclaimed, bobbing
his head and kicking his heel out behind in
approved plantation style.

"Hello, Plato," replied the young man, "what
are you doing here?"

"Gwine ter school, Mars Geo'ge," replied the
lad; "larnin' ter read an' write, suh, lack de w'ite
folks."

"Wat you callin' dat w'ite man marster fur?"
whispered a tall yellow boy to the acrobat addressed
as Plato. "You don' b'long ter him no mo'; you're
free, an' ain' got sense ernuff ter know it."

Tryon threw a small coin to Plato, and holding
another in his hand suggestively, smiled toward the
tall yellow boy, who looked regretfully at the coin,
but stood his ground; he would call no man master,
not even for a piece of money.

During this little colloquy, Miss Leary had kept
her face turned toward the schoolhouse.

"What a pretty girl!" she exclaimed. "There,"
she added, as Tryon turned his head toward her,
"you are too late. She has retired into her castle.
Oh, Plato!"

"Yas, missis," replied Plato, who was prancing
round the buggy in great glee, on the strength of
his acquaintance with the white folks.

"Is your teacher white?"

"No, ma'm, she ain't w'ite; she's black. She
looks lack she's w'ite, but she's black."

Tryon had not seen the teacher's face, but the
incident had jarred the old wound; Miss Leary's
description of the teacher, together with Plato's
characterization, had stirred lightly sleeping
memories. He was more or less abstracted during the
remainder of the drive, and did not recur to the
conversation that had been interrupted by coming
upon the schoolhouse.

The teacher, glancing for a moment through the
open door of the schoolhouse, had seen a handsome
young lady staring at her,--Miss Leary had
a curiously intent look when she was interested in
anything, with no intention whatever to be rude,--
and beyond the lady the back and shoulder of a
man, whose face was turned the other way. There
was a vague suggestion of something familiar about
the equipage, but Rena shrank from this close
scrutiny and withdrew out of sight before she had
had an opportunity to identify the vague resemblance
to something she had known.

Miss Leary had missed by a hair's-breadth the
psychological moment, and felt some resentment
toward the little negroes who had interrupted her
lover's train of thought. Negroes have caused a
great deal of trouble among white people. How
deeply the shadow of the Ethiopian had fallen
upon her own happiness, Miss Leary of course
could not guess.



XXVII

AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE


A few days later, Rena looked out of the
window near her desk and saw a low basket phaeton,
drawn by a sorrel pony, driven sharply into the
clearing and drawn up beside an oak sapling.
The occupant of the phaeton, a tall, handsome,
well-preserved lady in middle life, with slightly
gray hair, alighted briskly from the phaeton, tied
the pony to the sapling with a hitching-strap, and
advanced to the schoolhouse door.

Rena wondered who the lady might be. She
had a benevolent aspect, however, and came forward
to the desk with a smile, not at all embarrassed
by the wide-eyed inspection of the entire
school.

"How do you do?" she said, extending her
hand to the teacher. "I live in the neighborhood
and am interested in the colored people--a good
many of them once belonged to me. I heard
something of your school, and thought I should
like to make your acquaintance."

"It is very kind of you, indeed," murmured
Rena respectfully.

"Yes," continued the lady, "I am not one of
those who sit back and blame their former slaves
because they were freed. They are free now,--it
is all decided and settled,--and they ought to be
taught enough to enable them to make good use of
their freedom. But really, my dear,--you mustn't
feel offended if I make a mistake,--I am going
to ask you something very personal." She looked
suggestively at the gaping pupils.

"The school may take the morning recess now,"
announced the teacher. The pupils filed out in
an orderly manner, most of them stationing
themselves about the grounds in such places as would
keep the teacher and the white lady in view. Very
few white persons approved of the colored schools;
no other white person had ever visited this one.

"Are you really colored?" asked the lady, when
the children had withdrawn.

A year and a half earlier, Rena would have met
the question by some display of self-consciousness.
Now, she replied simply and directly.

"Yes, ma'am, I am colored."

The lady, who had been studying her as closely
as good manners would permit, sighed regretfully.

"Well, it's a shame. No one would ever think
it. If you chose to conceal it, no one would ever
be the wiser. What is your name, child, and where
were you brought up? You must have a romantic
history."

Rena gave her name and a few facts in regard
to her past. The lady was so much interested,
and put so many and such searching questions,
that Rena really found it more difficult to suppress
the fact that she had been white, than she had
formerly had in hiding her African origin. There
was about the girl an air of real refinement that
pleased the lady,--the refinement not merely of
a fine nature, but of contact with cultured people;
a certain reserve of speech and manner quite
inconsistent with Mrs. Tryon's experience of
colored women. The lady was interested and slightly
mystified. A generous, impulsive spirit,--her
son's own mother,--she made minute inquiries
about the school and the pupils, several of whom
she knew by name. Rena stated that the two
months' term was nearing its end, and that she
was training the children in various declamations
and dialogues for the exhibition at the close.

"I shall attend it," declared the lady positively.
"I'm sure you are doing a good work, and it's
very noble of you to undertake it when you might
have a very different future. If I can serve you
at any time, don't hesitate to call upon me. I
live in the big white house just before you turn
out of the Clinton road to come this way. I'm
only a widow, but my son George lives with me
and has some influence in the neighborhood. He
drove by here yesterday with the lady he is going
to marry. It was she who told me about you."

Was it the name, or some subtle resemblance
in speech or feature, that recalled Tryon's image
to Rena's mind? It was not so far away--the
image of the loving Tryon--that any powerful
witchcraft was required to call it up. His mother
was a widow; Rena had thought, in happier days,
that she might be such a kind lady as this. But
the cruel Tryon who had left her--his mother
would be some hard, cold, proud woman, who
would regard a negro as but little better than a
dog, and who would not soil her lips by addressing
a colored person upon any other terms than as a
servant. She knew, too, that Tryon did not live
in Sampson County, though the exact location of
his home was not clear to her.

"And where are you staying, my dear?" asked
the good lady.

"I'm boarding at Mrs. Wain's," answered
Rena.

"Mrs. Wain's?"

"Yes, they live in the old Campbell place."

"Oh, yes--Aunt Nancy. She's a good enough
woman, but we don't think much of her son Jeff.
He married my Amanda after the war--she used
to belong to me, and ought to have known better.
He abused her most shamefully, and had to be
threatened with the law. She left him a year or
so ago and went away; I haven't seen her lately.
Well, good-by, child; I'm coming to your
exhibition. If you ever pass my house, come in and
see me."

The good lady had talked for half an hour, and
had brought a ray of sunshine into the teacher's
monotonous life, heretofore lighted only by the
uncertain lamp of high resolve. She had satisfied
a pardonable curiosity, and had gone away
without mentioning her name.

Rena saw Plato untying the pony as the lady
climbed into the phaeton.

"Who was the lady, Plato?" asked the teacher
when the visitor had driven away.

"Dat 'uz my ole mist'iss, ma'm," returned Plato
proudly,-- "ole Mis' 'Liza."

"Mis' 'Liza who?" asked Rena.

"Mis' 'Liza Tryon. I use' ter b'long ter her.
Dat 'uz her son, my young Mars Geo'ge, w'at driv
pas' hyuh yistiddy wid 'is sweetheart."



XXVIII

THE LOST KNIFE


Rena had found her task not a difficult one so
far as discipline was concerned. Her pupils were
of a docile race, and school to them had all the
charm of novelty. The teacher commanded some
awe because she was a stranger, and some, perhaps,
because she was white; for the theory of blackness
as propounded by Plato could not quite counter-
balance in the young African mind the evidence of
their own senses. She combined gentleness with
firmness; and if these had not been sufficient,
she had reserves of character which would have
given her the mastery over much less plastic
material than these ignorant but eager young people.
The work of instruction was simple enough, for
most of the pupils began with the alphabet, which
they acquired from Webster's blue-backed spelling-
book, the palladium of Southern education at that
epoch. The much abused carpet-baggers had put
the spelling-book within reach of every child of
school age in North Carolina,--a fact which is
often overlooked when the carpet-baggers are held
up to public odium. Even the devil should have
his due, and is not so black as he is painted.

At the time when she learned that Tryon lived
in the neighborhood, Rena had already been subjected
for several weeks to a trying ordeal. Wain
had begun to persecute her with marked attentions.
She had at first gone to board at his house,--or,
by courtesy, with his mother. For a week or two
she had considered his attentions in no other light
than those of a member of the school committee
sharing her own zeal and interested in seeing the
school successfully carried on. In this character
Wain had driven her to the town for her examination;
he had busied himself about putting the
schoolhouse in order, and in various matters
affecting the conduct of the school. He had jocularly
offered to come and whip the children for her, and
had found it convenient to drop in occasionally,
ostensibly to see what progress the work was
making.

"Dese child'en," he would observe sonorously,
in the presence of the school, "oughter be monst'ous
glad ter have de chance er settin' under
yo' instruction, Miss Rena. I'm sho' eve'body in
dis neighbo'hood 'preciates de priv'lege er havin'
you in ou' mids'."

Though slightly embarrassing to the teacher,
these public demonstrations were endurable so long
as they could be regarded as mere official
appreciation of her work. Sincerely in earnest about
her undertaking, she had plunged into it with
all the intensity of a serious nature which love
had stirred to activity. A pessimist might have
sighed sadly or smiled cynically at the notion that
a poor, weak girl, with a dangerous beauty and a
sensitive soul, and troubles enough of her own,
should hope to accomplish anything appreciable
toward lifting the black mass still floundering
in the mud where slavery had left it, and where
emancipation had found it,--the mud in which,
for aught that could be seen to the contrary, her
little feet, too, were hopelessly entangled. It might
have seemed like expecting a man to lift himself
by his boot-straps.

But Rena was no philosopher, either sad or
cheerful. She could not even have replied to
this argument, that races must lift themselves,
and the most that can be done by others is to
give them opportunity and fair play. Hers was
a simpler reasoning,--the logic by which the
world is kept going onward and upward when
philosophers are at odds and reformers are not
forthcoming. She knew that for every child she
taught to read and write she opened, if ever so
little, the door of opportunity, and she was happy
in the consciousness of performing a duty which
seemed all the more imperative because newly
discovered. Her zeal, indeed, for the time being was
like that of an early Christian, who was more
willing than not to die for his faith. Rena had
fully and firmly made up her mind to sacrifice her
life upon this altar. Her absorption in the work
had not been without its reward, for thereby she
had been able to keep at a distance the spectre of
her lost love. Her dreams she could not control,
but she banished Tryon as far as possible from her
waking thoughts.

When Wain's attentions became obviously
personal, Rena's new vestal instinct took alarm, and
she began to apprehend his character more clearly.
She had long ago learned that his pretensions to
wealth were a sham. He was nominal owner of
a large plantation, it is true; but the land was
worn out, and mortgaged to the limit of its security
value. His reputed droves of cattle and hogs
had dwindled to a mere handful of lean and
listless brutes.

Her clear eye, when once set to take Wain's
measure, soon fathomed his shallow, selfish soul,
and detected, or at least divined, behind his mask
of good-nature a lurking brutality which filled her
with vague distrust, needing only occasion to
develop it into active apprehension,--occasion which
was not long wanting. She avoided being alone
with him at home by keeping carefully with the
women of the house. If she were left alone,--and
they soon showed a tendency to leave her on any
pretext whenever Wain came near,--she would
seek her own room and lock the door. She preferred
not to offend Wain; she was far away from home
and in a measure in his power, but she dreaded his
compliments and sickened at his smile. She was
also compelled to hear his relations sing his praises.

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