Comedy_American Style

by Jessie Redmon Fauset

  But what the two women liked most were their excursions to the Horse, Wine, and Flower Markets, conducted on a scale of which they had never dreamed. . . . And afterwards there was the mellow enjoyment to be found in the consumption of the justly famous pastries of Toulouse, eaten in little tea-shops in the surprisingly twisted streets. At times like these the young man’s wit and whimsies lent just the fillip to their appetites. . . .

  Only, he made clear in a somewhat shamefaced séance with Olivia, he was poor. . . . The war had swept away all their little savings, he had nothing but his little house which really belonged to chère Maman, and his little salary. . . . No, he wanted nothing for his pains, but if Madame could arrange for expenses, transportation, meals, etc., on their little excursions . . .

  About this he seemed quite sincere; driving hard bargains with chauffeurs and inn-keepers; figuring out just the correct pourboire; advising them to postpone the purchase of this or that trinket or souvenir for the next town where it could be bought at beaucoup meilleur marché . He would jump out and return with his spoils at an invariably lower price, as happy as though he had achieved a victory of some note. His whimsicalness, his unfailing good humor, his devotion added immensely to what might have been an interesting but slightly monotonous trip.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THERE was no doubt in Olivia’s mind as to his ultimate intentions with regard to Teresa. . . . For herself she was more than satisfied. . . . Here there would be no complexities. Nothing to make Teresa feel that she was abandoning her own . . . her own were not here to be abandoned. And if she clung to her wild ideas of mingling with colored people, here in France they would certainly be acceptable.

  Her mind went on to her own plans. . . . Aristide, to be sure, was poor. Unless Dr. Cary came to the rescue Teresa would have to live very simply indeed. She had seen the little house in the Faubourg Arnaud-Bernaud .It was indeed a very little house but it was the kind that appealed to Teresa, who thought it “too darling” and who had gone into raptures over its walled garden, sunnier and larger than any to which she had ever had access in West Philadelphia.

  But in Olivia’s mind the main thing was, with Aristide and Teresa in the background, maybe her husband could afford to let her have a little place of her own in one of these exquisite Riviera towns, Villefranche or Juan-les-Pins. . . . She could invite Mrs. Sturtevant over to stay indefinitely at her “villa.” Mrs. Sturtevant, a woman of independent means, was acquainted with everybody, simply everybody . . . she had numerous friends who visited the Riviera every year. . . .

  Olivia saw herself a gracious hostess, her little house teeming with interesting people from America . . . “my son-in-law; he is a professor at the University of Toulouse” . . . all of these people would be white . . . she would be white.

  She could not answer for her daughter, she told Aristide. He would have to do his own wooing. But the wooing would have her approval, she told him graciously. Oh, yes, and one thing more. Her husband, she knew, would never consent to bestowing a dot. . . . But Teresa was his only daughter, his favorite child. She was sure there would be many presents. . . .

  “Presents?” Aristide echoed dubiously, smoothing back his already sleek hair with long nervous fingers.

  “Of money,” Olivia went on. “Her father would always want her to be comfortable.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said eagerly, succeeding in keeping the relief out of his voice. “When you spoke of presents I was thinking of duties, which I might not be able to pay . . . they are very high. . . . That would be most embarrassing.”

  Teresa listened to him, carefully, a little coolly. Certainly she did not love him. Certainly he failed to stir in her any of that ardor which she had felt at Henry’s least touch, his least word. . . . His cool white skin, his long white fingers, chilled her a little and she wished he were taller. . . . But unquestionably he loved her; his nervousness, his trembling hands, his reiterated “Je t’aime,” in French and English told her that.

  Strange how differently she felt from that time when Henry and she became engaged. Before he had said a word about marriage he had held her in his arms and kissed her again and again. Indeed, hadn’t they taken it for granted and begun to talk at once about their plans! This man was so desperately respectful . . . but that was as it should be. At twenty-three, she thought, poor child, that no man could ever awaken in her again the warmth, the strength of her first love. She might just as well marry this little Frenchman.

  Within her some errant sense of humor began to laugh. She was marrying a Frenchman because Henry had married a Mexican. . . . And for the first time she began to understand how it could have happened.

  They were married as quickly as the French law allowed . . . in the mairie at Toulouse. Her mother and two nice American girls from Virginia were present as her guests and “the cousin of the aunt” with her husband were there to represent “la belle France” and Aristide.

  Olivia had the little house redecorated as her own and her husband’s wedding-present. It cost her much more than she expected and lowered temporarily her opinion of Aristide’s business ability . . . she had left all the arrangements in his hands. That afternoon she left for Paris and subsequently for Cherbourg, whence she was to sail home.

  Teresa did not go on a wedding-trip, partly because the fall term at the University was just about to begin, partly because she felt that her sojourn in France was a trip in itself. . . . They went to the little house and Aristide had dinner sent in from the hotel. Afterwards they sat in the little drawing-room whose newly freshened walls presented such a contrast to the old shabby furniture. And still later they walked in the garden where a nightingale actually sang. . . . She thought: “It’s like a dream but a nice one. . . .”

  CHAPTER XVII

  RATHER quickly they settled into an uneventful domesticity. She had not known exactly what she had expected; she knew that on her part there was no madness of feeling such as she had felt for Henry . . . which should make her every meeting with Aristide monumental. But she did anticipate some depth, some over-emphasis of the satisfaction of companionship arising from the mere intimacy of marriage. . . .

  True Aristide remained whimsical and good-humored; but he was just as good-humored when he failed to please her, when he forgot some trifling request or engagement as he was when everything ran smoothly. . . . He was curious too; at first opening her letters with the utmost sang-froid and affecting a great surprise at her annoyed rebuke.

  And her mother-in-law, to her dismay, returned from Pau the week after her marriage. Teresa was surprised to find her a confirmed invalid, almost a cripple, with a shrewish, really a waspish tongue. She made constant demands on Rose, the maid, on Aristide when he was present, and evidently intended to make them now on her new daughter. . . . For one thing she put in a request for the room which Aristide and Teresa occupied; she had always meant to take it, she said, but had neglected to move!

  Fortunately, Rose, the maid, backed up the young wife’s wavering reluctance. “She is like that always, Madame, whenever there is anything new, she must take it. If you give in to her now, you will have to be doing it forever.” . . . So Teresa, to her own surprise, refused very bluntly to make the change and in a few days the whole episode had blown over.

  But the elder Madame Pailleron remained peevish, cross and insatiably curious; she must know the price of every purchase, she must feel the texture of every garment which her daughter-in-law donned, and inquire as to its value. Aristide was out of the house so much that the young girl through sheer lonelines was forced to keep open house for the American students at the University, for her husband seemed to have almost no friends of his own age.

  Their only other visitors were the old ladies who came to gossip endlessly with Madame Pailleron and to make inquiries about her son’s wife.

  Every time that Teresa bestowed a cup of tea on her young acquaintances, she had to expect a tirade of abuse from the older woman on her extravagance.

>   To her surprise her husband, to whom half-laughing she appealed, agreed with his mother. ”Il ne faut pas gaspiller ,” he said to her sagely. “We’ve got to economize; you must remember, my Térèse, that we are not like you other Americans, we are poor people.” . . . Her father sent her from twenty-five to fifty dollars a month which she had been hoping to lay by for the proverbial rainy day. She would use her own money hereafter, she told him. To this he made no reply, but obviously did not like it.

  His insularity amazed her. She had hoped that he would continue to make many little trips with her, as he had done during her mother’s stay. But usually he was unwilling to do this, not merely as at first, she suspected, on account of the expense involved, but because he was literally so content to remain where he was. “Why go to this place or that?” was his constant query. “On est si bien ici à Toulouse.” He was not a full professor either at the University, a fact which concerned him not at all. “I am as I am,” he would tell her with a touch of his old, but now irritating, whimsicalness.

  Once, though, he was detailed to accompany a group of students to the naval base at Toulon, and Teresa, to her great delight, went with him. The association with the young folks, the sense of being on a holiday, made her light-hearted and cheerful. She loved the blueness of the sea; the starkness of the little military town impressed and thrilled her; she saw France as the great world power which it was. . . .

  In spite of his intense insularity Pailleron was almost as familiar with the topography of this town on the Mediterranean as he was with that of his native city. As they dropped down into the Department of Var and approached Toulon, he was able to point out and call by name the great defensive structures of Mont Faron, Fort Rouge, Fort Artigues and Fort Noire, with its outlook toward the fabled Hyères. He had, of course, the Frenchman’s indubitable dramatic feeling toward these evidences of his country’s power. Under his impassioned eloquence his little group thrilled visibly.

  But he was equally at his ease in the quarters where the women were making lace, naming the various patterns and able to tell without aid of notes or book the countries to which the largest quantities would be exported.

  However, he was at his best when he was proclaiming the military prowess of his beautiful country. . . . It seemed to his young wife that his very stature increased as he pointed out to them the grim arsenal on the north side of the Petite Rade .Somehow, his pride became hers too and she was as possessive as he, and as complacent, at the sight of the magnificent, protected anchorage which could shelter the hugest fleet; its background bristling with forts and batteries. She would never forget Toulon.

  The great, black Senegalese quartered there, speaking in some instances, beautiful, unaccented French, stirred her imagination. She saw her new country stretching hands across the sea to her black brothers, welcoming them, helping them to a place in the sun. On her return to Toulouse she spoke about them to Aristide.

  But he did not share her enthusiasm. For himself he did not like “ces vilains noirs.” They were all right as cannon fodder. France it was clear, surrounded as she was by so many jealous enemies, must have some helpers if she hoped to survive at all. It was better, wiser, less costly to select them from her colonials; it pleased the colonials and it safeguarded the diminishing ranks of Frenchmen. He was quite cold-blooded about it.

  Teresa taken back, told him she hoped he did not feel that way about all people of dark blood. She knew many colored people in America, she said, whom she would like to visit her. She thought especially of Oliver but did not mention his name. . . . There was a famous dancer in New York, Marise. Perhaps he had heard of her.

  “No,” he replied, yawning inattentively, “I know nothing about her. She could hardly compare with our French dancers, I should imagine. . . . But still if she is famous in your rich New York, she would undoubtedly pay well. . . . Yes, you might have her over. . . . But no men. I do not like any of them. I saw them in the war, les Américains noirs, neither black nor white. Our women liked them too well.”

  She did not know what to make of her life. It was so strange, so different from anything she had anticipated. Was she to spend it thus forever with her vapid, unimaginative man, her scolding mother-in-law, her petty household duties? Only Rose, hardworking, stupid Rose, was kind and sympathetic. When Teresa was in the house she tried to have the maid about as much as possible. . . .

  She thought back over her life. School in Philadelphia, at Christie’s, at Smith. She dwelt in some wonder on her mother’s ambitions. Was this all it was to bring to her, life in this little southern town, bearable only with an ignorant peasant woman? . . . Absurd but true. Gradually her expectation of a change died away and she settled down into an existence that was colorless, bleak and futile.

  IV

  OLIVER’S ACT

  CHAPTER I

  OLIVER lived in a double world. But it was a long time before he realized this. If he had understood it earlier, and if, more especially, he had learned the relative merits of each, he might have been spared many a moment of pain, many an hour of bewilderment. It was a long time before it became clear to his childish mind where he belonged, and which was his actual habitat.

  Because of his mother’s indifference, he had known, before he was six years old, three widely different homes. In his childish way he had made contrasts and had long since decided which home—by which at that time, he meant environment—he truly preferred. There was the old, big house on Eleventh Street where dwelt the parents of his father, Aaron and Rebecca Cary. The rooms on the first floor were huge and rather dark. It was always necessary to have a light in the dining-room when one ate, which gave to the rite a sense of special significance and mystery.

  But upstairs, the rooms, though equally large, were light and sufficiently airy. They were furnished with all sorts of objects which, young as he was, he knew perfectly well belonged to an earlier day, but to a day which was well worth preserving. He loved the life in this house, perhaps because so much of it centered around him. Grandfather and Grandmother Cary loved him with devotion and concentration; their manifestations of joy and gratitude were unlimited for this little lad who had come so miraculously to liven up their late, declining days. . . .

  And in addition to their obvious affection, they poured out upon him also, a sort of fierce protective loyalty, as though they were trying to compensate him for something that he was missing—as indeed they were, for they felt very keenly Olivia’s defection where this last, dark child of hers was concerned. . . . In those days of course, Oliver was unable to define to himself either the cause of this palpable loyalty, or indeed the feeling itself. . . . He only knew he felt it.

  At his Grandmother Blake’s in Boston a different spirit prevailed. In this dwelling there was more liveliness, more fun, more life, though never more love. His Uncle David and Aunt Janet were only two years older than his sister. They treated him exactly as Teresa and Christopher did, as a baby brother whom they alternately spoiled and “put in his place.”

  It was through his contact with them that he learned the usages which made it possible for him to take his stand in his own family. And there was a breadth and a brightness about this household, very different from the atmosphere of the old house on Eleventh Street in Philadelphia where there was only a vast, enveloping love and a strange, palpitating, invaluable pride.

  His father’s house on Thirty-eighth Street in West Philadelphia, pleased him least, though it intrigued him most. It was brighter and more modernly furnished than either of his other homes, and yet he knew, even at his tenderest age of discrimination, that it possessed less of the quality of home.

  There was neither the feeling of affection and indulgence so evident in the dwelling of Grandmother Cary, nor the vivacity and fun with which Dr. Blake’s busy establishment so teemed in Boston. . . . What was wrong, he could not say, but not until Teresa came back from Chicago the year of the summer that marked her engagement to Henry was he able to enter his father�
��s dwelling without experiencing some sense of frustration, bafflement, futility.

  Yet he was always eager to return to it. . . . This little fellow, so richly endowed by the fates at birth with beauty, ability and intellect, was gifted also with two qualities which were to prove his undoing—a great need to bestow and to receive love, and a strong instinct for family life.

  On the whole he liked best, in his early childhood at least, the passage of time and events in the house on Eleventh Street. The old people instilled in him a feeling almost of princeliness. Indeed in his own eyes he came to feel himself as someone very fine and special. He was, he knew, the youngest offspring of a family which had achieved independence and success.

  His grandfather and his great-grandfather had both been upholsterers. The latter of course had had no place of business. He had just gone about from place to place with his bag of tools, a tall, slender golden brown man with a fierce, wild face. . . . He had married one of the pale “Gould Girls” from that large settlement of Goulds near Bridgeton; she had been among the first to break the custom of marrying a cousin Gould or Pierce. . . .

  Aaron Cary was Caleb Cary’s third son of his family of twelve children, none of whom exactly resembled the other in hue. Two of the very fair ones and one of Spanish coloring had “gone white.” . . . . They had wandered off west and north away from their old connections, not so much from any set purpose as because it was more convenient. . . .

  Aaron, also fair, had married Rebecca Fidell who could “pass.” But both of these people clung to their own group. Neither one of them would have married, nor would they have wanted their sons to marry with Negroes of unmixed blood. But that was a purely personal taste manifested only in the matter of marriage. They were both strong “race people” and numbered among their friends many men and women of African strain modified only by the effects of climate and a different civilization.