“I feel honored to be in Miss Dawson’s thoughts at all,” I said, “but tell me, is the love of an up-to-date, modern girl worth having? Or, if worth having, is there any way in which to be sure of it?”
“Now you’re too deep for me, Old Grouchy.”
And with this answer Caroline bade me good night, and ran down to her own room, whence I could hear Genevieve’s voice raised in tones of expostulation and reproof.
I have not seen Jeffreys for several days, in fact, but once since the night of the dance. From something Mrs. Rhodes said, I think he is in Baltimore. Personally, I should like it better if he were not in this house. But, after all, I suspect that is a selfish desire. Though I express it, I am duly ashamed of it.
This is a dreadfully long letter, and, as I look it over, seems rather full of Caroline, perhaps too much so to be interesting to you. If you knew the young lady herself, you would realize how hard it is to control her in letters or anywhere else. I am going to a rather nice dance this week Friday. The Merry Coterie is giving a “dove” party, but inviting the menfolks to come late to dance and eat. It sounds promising, for it’s a lively bunch, and I expect to meet a good many people I have been wanting to know.
Be good to yourself. I am glad the people up that way are beginning to appreciate you. It’s a true saying, Buddie, that “you can’t keep a good man down”! So long until next time!
Davy
Sunday, A.M., October 29, 1922
Dear Bob:
I am happy to note that you survived my last letter. You must be a glutton for punishment to come back for more. While I am not sure I agree with your “diagnosis” concerning my friends, and especially your estimate of Miss Barton, still I am glad that I have succeeded in making you see them somewhat vividly, even if a trifle out of focus. I don’t remember all that I wrote about Miss Barton, and, though I admit that one or two of my experiences with her might suggest the flirt, you would have to see her for yourself to get a total effect which would be reasonably just.
So you like Caroline best? I guess that’s because I have written more about her, and I have written more because she is always around, and because she has a rather aggressive—I was about to say “obtrusive”—personality. But, my dearest friend, if you should at any one time see Caroline, and Lillian Barton, and Mary Hale, and Tommie Dawson—not to mention Genevieve and a half dozen others I have met—I’ll wager you would have a brainstorm such as you have never experienced. I should give quite a tidy sum to see you in such a pickle.
Last Tuesday I spent the early part of the evening with Don Verney and I tried to get his ideas regarding the present phase of our social life in cities like Washington and New York. His views are certainly interesting, though I am not quite prepared to say that I agree with him completely.
According to Don, we are suffering—and especially those of us who call ourselves the “best people”—with a dreadful “inferiority complex,” to use the phrase of the celebrated Dr. Freud. We imitate the white American in everything, except the few points in which he really excels. Indeed, we have a gift for picking the wrong things to imitate. For example, we (our so-called “best people,” I mean) have run wild on lavish spending and frivolous pleasures, in the modern American fashion, but we have not learned the art of hard work which underlies these things in the typically American life. Socially we are beginning to imitate the rather “sporty” classes of Americans, such as infest the ordinary summer resorts and are obtrusively present in all places of public entertainment, under the erroneous impression that these people are typical Americans, whereas in fact they are only the parasites who live on the great body of the American social organism. They spend from their superfluity, which has been piled up often through the efforts of generations of toilers, of which this present generation is but the last bitter dregs. Our women spend as much for a gown as a white woman with many times as great resources, and the wives of men with limited salaries feel constrained to make the conspicuous display which in the case of white Americans would be made only by the very rich or by irresponsible women of the underworld, who live but for the hour. Pretty dresses are all very well, and most of us realize their aesthetic and social value, but no middle-class group seems to be justified in any great amount of display for its own sake, and quite apart from real needs. For example, during the festivities attendant upon the last inauguration, when there were many elaborate functions given within the space of a few days, one local lady wore five different costumes, each one expensive, to five successive dress affairs, and yet her husband is a man living on a salary which, to a white American of the business world, would be moderate indeed. We have the lavishness of Jews, without their acquisitive ability, and the love of pleasure of the tropical races, while trying to compete with the hardest-headed and most energetic people in the world, the Yankee Anglo-Saxon. Since the law does not permit Sunday dances, one hall on You Street advertises dances to begin at midnight Sunday, and last until dawn on Monday, as if an eighteen-hour day is not long enough to satisfy our lust for pleasure. In no similar middle-class community among any other race in the world could such performances be made to pay, but the midnight show is a regular institution in colored Washington and New York.
As we talked, I noted Shands’s White and Black lying on the table. I opened it at the passage in which the author makes one of his characters, an educated colored preacher, rebuke his brethren for wanting to be white, and for wanting only the fairest mulatto or quadroon women for wives.
“What do you think of that statement?” I asked, handing him the open book.
“I guess it’s true of too many men in Washington as well as in Texas. There are circles here in which one rarely sees a woman of brown complexion, and the men choose the women, you know. Of course, the reasons and motives back of such a selection are complex. It isn’t mere color prejudice in probably most of the cases, though it is in some, no doubt. In a country with such a hellish system of discrimination, not only in social life, but in employment, in places of public entertainment and service, on railways, ships, in schools, in stores, in courts of law, in the army and navy—in every possible relation of life, in fact—the possibility of approximation to the white type becomes a very practical ideal. Who can blame a man if he wants his children to be as nearly white in appearance as possible, or, at any rate, perhaps more nearly white than he is himself?”
“From a practical viewpoint, certainly no one!” I said. “But what of those who, while living socially as colored people, in their desire to be treated as white in public places ‘cut’ their too palpably colored friends? Do you uphold them?”
“No, I don’t!” he answered. “But if I don’t uphold them, and if I could not find it in my heart to imitate them, I at least understand. Some of these people are holding government jobs which they would lose if they were known to be colored, so they have to protect themselves. They are, therefore, white downtown and colored uptown, which is a most regrettable situation, whatever the extenuating circumstances. But it is not only those who are dependent on their apparent whiteness for their chance to make a living who do this sort of dodging. There are those who do it merely because they want to be able to pass as white in restaurants, theaters, and stores. Their reason is not quite so good, but after all, they would say, and with some justice, that it is a reason. There is no doubt that, especially in the upper strata of society, and particularly among the women, a very fair skin is regarded as a distinct and indisputable evidence of superiority. Just as the Germans tried—and almost succeeded—in making the French believe that they were a degenerate people, so has white America for the moment succeeded in making some of us feel our inferiority, even though we refuse to admit it. Yes, we have—many of us—a distinct inferiority complex!”
“What would you say should be the attitude of those fair enough to ‘pass’? Should they never go anywhere where their whiteness will procure them better treatment than would be accorded them if they were known to be
colored?”
“No, I should not take such an extreme position. If that were the case, there would be very few places left for us in Washington. My rule is not so far to seek, after all. I go where I please, when the notion strikes me, and in all places where one must pay for what one gets, I accept gladly the best treatment my appearance procures for me. But if by chance any friend or acquaintance comes in whose color clearly indicates his race connection, I make it a point to treat him just as cordially as our previous intimacy would warrant.”
When you think it over, that’s a pretty good rule. Many more things Don said and many were the illustrations he gave, but I shall not overload this one letter with them. Too much solid food in one meal is a bad thing.
I believe I said in my last that I had not seen Jeffreys for several days. Well, he turned up the other evening a trifle haggard, perhaps, but more dapper and prosperous looking than ever. As Caroline would say, if it’s a question of mere clothes, he surely is “the class”! I was in the lower hall talking to Mrs. Rhodes and Caroline when he dropped out of a taxi in front of the door. To the questions as to where he had been, he gave serene and untroubled responses.
“To tell the exact truth,” he said, with his widest smile, “I have been to my tailor in Philadelphia. I was getting positively shabby, you know.”
If that were the case, he surely brought home clothes enough. He had on a new fur-lined overcoat whose cost would dress an ordinary young fellow for a whole year, and then some, and a diamond ring such as only a champion pugilist or a circus owner might wear. It was easily worth the price of an ordinary automobile. I have noticed before that Jeffreys is very much given to wearing expensive jewelry, especially rings, of which he seems to have a great variety.
Well, he laughed and joked for a few minutes, fished from his bag a five-pound box of Huyler’s most expensive candy for Caroline, and ran upstairs where he spent the time before dinner getting straight. I happened to be looking at Caroline as she followed him with her eyes—a steady, half-puzzled, reflective look. She caught me watching her, and blushed, I thought, just a trifle.
Caroline, as I said, is taking evening work at the University in order to make up some needed credits on her college record. She goes to classes every evening but Saturday, all of which does not prevent her from having company after eight-thirty or nine o’clock several nights a week. Very often she comes in with some young chap who has brought her home in his car. She is indeed a popular young lady. But I should hate to have a sister of mine pawed over as she is by these modern youngsters. I heard one of the older men refer to them as cubs, and it’s a good name, when one sees them maul the girls around. The whole arrangement between girls and fellows seems to have changed since I came up in a little provincial Southern city. The girls do all the leading, a good deal of the inviting, and more than their share of the wooing, and the boys seem to expect it. When you speak to them, they laugh and say, “Oh, well, this is 1922!” That answer seems to fit almost any situation. While Caroline seems rather independent in most ways, she does let the fellows maul her about too much. I never like to see it. I am not used to it. In my early days a fellow who tried it would get called down pretty fast and pretty hard.
Caroline is taking French and history in her classes, and she often asks my help on some point or other. In fact, she has the habit of coming up to my room to study or write when I am out in the evening, for if she is in her room on the floor below, she is more likely to be disturbed. On the night of Jeffreys’s arrival, she came up about nine o’clock, having sent away her escort as soon as she reached home.
“I didn’t know you were in,” she said. “Would I bother you if I curled up here to study? Genevieve has two or three teacher friends downstairs, and if I am in sight, I can have no peace.”
I was busy writing, but I assured her that she was welcome. Before settling herself down, she looked inquiringly at Jeffreys’s door.
“Did he look as if he were going out for the evening?” she asked.
When I assured her he did, she stretched out with her book under the wall electric as if relieved, and said no more for some time. After a long while she came over and sat on the arm of my chair, which seems to be her favorite post, and asked me to translate a troublesome passage from her French text. While we looked on the book together, she leaned against me, and put her right arm over my shoulder. It was very sweet and very intimate, but I could give Saint Anthony a few pointers about temptations. When the difficulties had been satisfactorily smoothed out, and she had gone back to her place on the couch, I said, in a teasing mood, “Don’t you ever read and study in Mr. Jeffreys’s room?”
“No,” she answered quickly, looking up at me.
“Why not?” I persisted.
“Because he would not understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Well, because he might misunderstand.”
“And you think I won’t?” I continued, taking a sort of malicious satisfaction in cornering her—or rather, trying to corner her.
“No, I know you won’t.”
“But—why?”
She smiled at me serenely, and was it indulgently?
“Because Old Grouchy,you are you.”
I was checked for a moment. Then I returned to the attack.
“You have only known me a few days, let us say, and yet do you assume that you know me so precisely? Am I so transparent, so shallow as all that? May I not be, for example, a monument of deceit and duplicity? How do you know I am not? I am afraid your conclusions are not entirely flattering to me.”
She laughed a merry little laugh, and turned on her elbow to look at me.
“Old Grouchy, I thought you were old and wise. Or are you just trying to draw me out? Well, I have seen transparent water that was not shallow as far as that goes, so your analogy does not hold exactly. More than that, I am by way of being complimentary, but you, like most weak mortals, would rather be thought inscrutably wicked than naively good. And yet you have the nerve to preach to me!”
“You’re wrong there, little lady. I never preach to you!”
“You may call it by another name, but I choose to call it preaching! Of course it is not always expressed orally. You have very eloquent eyes, Old Grouchy, did anyone ever tell you that? You surely can look disapproval!”
She laughed, and I laughed, and I dropped the subject as being too personal.
Everyone here is talking about the Thanksgiving Day game between Howard and Lincoln. I suppose you recall how our New York friends tried to persuade us to go to Philadelphia last year. Well, this year’s game will be in Washington, and the University folks and the society folks are getting ready for “big doings.” The Rhodeses expect a house full of company to judge from the talk downstairs. Caroline is having new dresses made, and I have recently heard her complaining that her fur coat is not “fit to wear to a dogfight,” to quote her exact words. If Genevieve is making any preparations, she makes no outward display, but “little sister” is not so reticent. Mrs. Rhodes, usually so cheerful, was complaining today of the high cost of living, which in this particular case means the high cost of clothing. It seems the boy, who, as you may remember is a medical student, must have a new outfit, for his “frat” is turning on some great stunts during the Thanksgiving recess. I sympathized with her as one who knew what trouble and expense it is to bring up a boy. Well, have you not given me lots of trouble, old fellow, not to say expense? So using you as my particular burden, I listened to the good lady with the most sympathetic consideration, and thus, I hope, advanced myself several grades in her good graces. And we both know, don’t we, Buddie, that it pays—yea, even a thousandfold—to try to please one’s landlady!
Just to prove how very right I am in this last assertion, as the upshot of our conversation, I was invited to partake of some very special extra fritters, with “gobs” of butter and some heavenly syrup. Let me tell you, my friend, the Rhodes house is completely appointed for living, from t
he outermost part of the kitchen porch to the attic door. (As I have never been in the attic, I can’t say as to that.) Don’t you envy me from the very bottom of your soul? You know you do! I know that third-floor front in Harlem which you inhabit—one could hardly say you live, there!
But before I forget it—can’t you come down to the game? I know I ought not tempt you from the hard path of virtue and devotion to learning which you are now following, but this once won’t hurt. We had about decided, had we not, that you were to come Christmas anyway, but I am wondering if you might not enjoy the Thanksgiving festivities more. From what I hear, there will be college folks from everywhere and we are sure to meet many old friends. Think it over, and write me in your next, so that I can have time to make plans.
Monday, October 30, 1922
As I write these lines, it is nearly twelve o’clock, and the whole house, except Jeffreys, whom I hear whistling softly in his room, is asleep. Before me lies a note written in a pretty but not too legible hand. “Dear Old Grouchy (it says): If you don’t write me a very brief essay in your best Baton Rouge French, on ‘Rousseau and the Romantic Movement,’ I shall surely get an F, and then, of course, I shall die of mortification. Certainly you will not wish to have my untimely demise on your conscience. In serene confidence, I await your decision. Your devoted pupil, C.” Pupil—indeed. Now what—I ask for the one-hundredth time— is a poor man to do?
So I close this long, and, I fear, rather prosy, letter in order that I may write, in my “best Baton Rouge French,” an essay on “Rousseau and the Romantic Movement” for a lazy girl who is getting her beauty sleep in order that she may ensnare some other unsuspecting man tomorrow.
Don’t forget to tell me your decision about the football game. By the way, Caroline says she brought Tommie Dawson into my room yesterday when I was out—oh this plague of women!—and the handsome Miss Tommie admired your picture very much. But I have not told how my room is arranged, have I? Well, I’ll save that for next time. Do you remember that lovely brown beauty in Savannah you were so crazy about in the hectic fall of 1917? Well, Tommie Dawson has her backed off the boards! Enough said! Good night, my friend!
When Washington Was In Vogue Page 7
