Nella Larsen

by Passing

  Clare Kendry! So that was it! Impossible. It couldn’t be.

  In the mirror before her she saw that he was still regarding her with that air of slight amazement. She dropped her eyes to the jars and bottles on the table and began to fumble among them with hands whose fingers shook slightly.

  “Of course,” she said carefully, “I’m glad you did. And in spite of my recent remarks, Clare does add to any party. She’s so easy on the eyes.”

  When she looked again, the surprise had gone from his face and the expectancy from his bearing.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Well, I guess I’ll run along. One of us ought to be down, I s’pose.”

  “You’re right. One of us ought to.” She was surprised that it was in her normal tones she spoke, caught as she was by the heart since that dull indefinite fear had grown suddenly into sharp panic. “I’ll be down before you know it,” she promised.

  “All right.” But he still lingered. “You’re quite certain. You don’t mind my asking her? Not awfully, I mean? I see now that I ought to have spoken to you. Trust women to have their reasons for everything.”

  She made a little pretence at looking at him, managed a tiny smile, and turned away. Clare! How sickening!

  “Yes, don’t they?” she said, striving to keep her voice casual. Within her she felt a hardness from feeling, not absent, but repressed. And that hardness was rising, swelling. Why didn’t he go? Why didn’t he?

  He had opened the door at last. “You won’t be long?” he asked, admonished.

  She shook her head, unable to speak, for there was a choking in her throat, and the confusion in her mind was like the beating of wings. Behind her she heard the gentle impact of the door as it closed behind him, and knew that he had gone. Down to Clare.

  For a long minute she sat in strained stiffness. The face in the mirror vanished from her sight, blotted out by this thing which had so suddenly flashed across her groping mind. Impossible for her to put it immediately into words or give it outline, for, prompted by some impulse of self-protection, she recoiled from exact expression.

  She closed her unseeing eyes and clenched her fists. She tried not to cry. But her lips tightened and no effort could check the hot tears of rage and shame that sprang into her eyes and flowed down her cheeks; so she laid her face in her arms and wept silently.

  When she was sure that she had done crying, she wiped away the warm remaining tears and got up. After bathing her swollen face in cold, refreshing water and carefully applying a stinging splash of toilet water, she went back to the mirror and regarded herself gravely. Satisfied that there lingered no betraying evidence of weeping, she dusted a little powder on her dark-white face and again examined it carefully, and with a kind of ridiculing contempt.

  “I do think,” she confided to it, “that you’ve been something—oh, very much—of a damned fool.”

  Downstairs the ritual of tea gave her some busy moments, and that, she decided, was a blessing. She wanted no empty spaces of time in which her mind would immediately return to that horror which she had not yet gathered sufficient courage to face. Pouring tea properly and nicely was an occupation that required a kind of well-balanced attention.

  In the room beyond, a clock chimed. A single sound. Fifteen minutes past five o’clock. That was all! And yet in the short space of half an hour all of life had changed, lost its colour, its vividness, its whole meaning. No, she reflected, it wasn’t that that had happened. Life about her, apparently, went on exactly as before.

  “Oh, Mrs. Runyon… . So nice to see you… . Two? … Really? … How exciting! … Yes, I think Tuesday’s all right… .”

  Yes, life went on precisely as before. It was only she that had changed. Knowing, stumbling on this thing, had changed her. It was as if in a house long dim, a match had been struck, showing ghastly shapes where had been only blurred shadows.

  Chatter, chatter, chatter. Someone asked her a question. She glanced up with what she felt was a rigid smile.

  “Yes … Brian picked it up last winter in Haiti. Terribly weird, isn’t it? … It is rather marvellous in its own hideous way… . Practically nothing, I believe. A few cents… .”

  Hideous. A great weariness came over her. Even the small exertion of pouring golden tea into thin old cups seemed almost too much for her. She went on pouring. Made repetitions of her smile. Answered questions. Manufactured conversation. She thought: “I feel like the oldest person in the world with the longest stretch of life before me.”

  “Josephine Baker?1 … No. I’ve never seen her… . Well, she might have been in Shuffle Along 2 when I saw it, but if she was, I don’t remember her… . Oh, but you’re wrong! … I do think Ethel Waters3 is awfully good… .”

  There were the familiar little tinkling sounds of spoons striking against frail cups, the soft running sounds of inconsequential talk, punctuated now and then with laughter. In irregular small groups, disintegrating, coalescing, striking just the right note of disharmony, disorder in the big room, which Irene had furnished with a sparingness that was almost chaste, moved the guests with that slight familiarity that makes a party a success. On the floor and the walls the sinking sun threw long, fantastic shadows.

  So like many other tea-parties she had had. So unlike any of those others. But she mustn’t think yet. Time enough for that after. All the time in the world. She had a second’s flashing knowledge of what those words might portend. Time with Brian. Time without him. It was gone, leaving in its place an almost uncontrollable impulse to laugh, to scream, to hurl things about. She wanted, suddenly, to shock people, to hurt them, to make them notice her, to be aware of her suffering.

  “Hello, Dave… . Felise… . Really your clothes are the despair of half the women in Harlem… . How do you do it? … Lovely, is it Worth or Lanvin? … Oh, a mere Babani….”4

  “Merely that,” Felise Freeland acknowledged. “Come out of it, Irene, whatever it is. You look like the second gravedigger.”

  “Thanks, for the hint, Felise. I’m not feeling quite up to par. The weather, I guess.”

  “Buy yourself an expensive new frock, child. It always helps. Any time this child gets the blues, it means money out of Dave’s pocket. How’re those boys of yours?”

  The boys! For once she’d forgotten them.

  They were, she told Felise, very well. Felise mumbled something about that being awfully nice, and said she’d have to fly, because for a wonder she saw Mrs. Bellew sitting by herself, “and I’ve been trying to get her alone all afternoon. I want her for a party. Isn’t she stunning today?”

  Clare was. Irene couldn’t remember ever having seen her look better. She was wearing a superlatively simple cinnamon-brown frock which brought out all her vivid beauty, and a little golden bowl of a hat. Around her neck hung a string of amber beads that would easily have made six or eight like one Irene owned. Yes, she was stunning.

  The ripple of talk flowed on. The fire roared. The shadows stretched longer.

  Across the room was Hugh. He wasn’t, Irene hoped, being too bored. He seemed as he always did, a bit aloof, a little amused, and somewhat weary. And as usual he was hovering before the book-shelves. But he was not, she noticed, looking at the book he had taken down. Instead, his dull amber eyes were held by something across the room. They were a little scornful. Well, Hugh had never cared for Clare Kendry. For a minute Irene hesitated, then turned her head, though she knew what it was that held Hugh’s gaze. Clare, who had suddenly clouded all her days. Brian, the father of Ted and Junior.

  Clare’s ivory face was what it always was, beautiful and caressing. Or maybe today a little masked. Unrevealing. Unaltered and undisturbed by any emotion within or without. Brian’s seemed to Irene to be pitiably bare. Or was it too as it always was? That half-effaced seeking look, did he always have that? Queer, that now she didn’t know, couldn’t recall. Then she saw him smile, and the smile made his face all eager and shining. Impelled by some inner urge of loyalty to herself, she glanced away. But only
for a moment. And when she turned towards them again, she thought that the look on his face was the most melancholy and yet the most scoffing that she had ever seen upon it.

  In the next quarter of an hour she promised herself to Bianca Wentworth in Sixty-second Street, Jane Tenant at Seventh Avenue and a Hundred and Fiftieth Street, and the Dashields in Brooklyn for dinner all on the same evening and at almost the same hour.

  Oh well, what did it matter? She had no thoughts at all now, and all she felt was a great fatigue. Before her tired eyes Clare Kendry was talking to Dave Freeland.5 Scraps of their conversation, in Clare’s husky voice, floated over to her: “… always admired you … so much about you long ago … everybody says so … no one but you… .” And more of the same. The man hung rapt on her words, though he was the husband of Felise Freeland, and the author of novels that revealed a man of perception and a devastating irony. And he fell for such pish-posh! And all because Clare had a trick of sliding down ivory lids over astonishing black eyes and then lifting them suddenly and turning on a caressing smile. Men like Dave Freeland fell for it. And Brian.

  Her mental and physical languor receded. Brian. What did it mean? How would it affect her and the boys? The boys! She had a surge of relief. It ebbed, vanished. A feeling of absolute unimportance followed. Actually, she didn’t count. She was, to him, only the mother of his sons. That was all. Alone she was nothing. Worse. An obstacle.

  Rage boiled up in her.

  There was a slight crash. On the floor at her feet lay the shattered cup. Dark stains dotted the bright rug. Spread. The chatter stopped. Went on. Before her, Zulena gathered up the white fragments.

  As from a distance Hugh Wentworth’s clipt voice came to her, though he was, she was aware, somehow miraculously at her side. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Must have pushed you. Clumsy of me. Don’t tell me it’s priceless and irreplaceable.”

  It hurt. Dear God! How the thing hurt! But she couldn’t think of that now. Not with High sitting there mumbling apologies and lies. The significance of his words, the power of his discernment, stirred in her a sense of caution. Her pride revolted. Damn Hugh! Something would have to be done about him. Now. She couldn’t, it seemed, help his knowing. It was too late for that. But she could and would keep him from knowing that she knew. She could, she would bear it. She’d have to. There were the boys. Her whole body went taut. In that second she saw that she could bear anything, but only if no one knew that she had anything to bear. It hurt. It frightened her, but she could bear it.

  She turned to Hugh. Shook her head. Raised innocent dark eyes to his concerned pale ones. “Oh, no,” she protested, “you didn’t push me. Cross your heart, hope to die, and I’ll tell you how it happened.”

  “Done!”

  “Did you notice that cup? Well, you’re lucky. It was the ugliest thing that your ancestors, the charming Confederates ever owned. I’ve forgotten how many thousands of years ago it was that Brian’s great-great-grand-uncle owned it. But it has, or had, a good old hoary history. It was brought North by way of the subway. Oh, all right! Be English if you want to and call it the underground.6 What I’m coming to is the fact that I’ve never figured out a way of getting rid of it until about five minutes ago. I had an inspiration. I had only to break it, and I was rid of it for ever. So simple! And I’d never thought of it before.”

  Hugh nodded and his frosty smile spread over his features. Had she convinced him?

  “Still,” she went on with a little laugh that didn’t, she was sure, sound the least bit forced, “I’m perfectly willing for you to take the blame and admit that you pushed me at the wrong moment. What are friends for, if not to help bear our sins? Brian will certainly be told that it was your fault.

  “More tea, Clare? … I haven’t had a minute with you… . Yes, it is a nice party… . You’ll stay to dinner, I hope… . Oh, too bad! … I’ll be alone with the boys… . They’ll be sorry. Brian’s got a medical meeting, or something…. Nice frock you’re wearing…. Thanks…. Well, good-bye; see you soon, I hope.”

  The clock chimed. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Was it, could it be, only a little over an hour since she had come down to tea? One little hour.

  “Must you go? … Good-bye… . Thank you so much… . So nice to see you… . Yes, Wednesday… . My love to Madge… . Sorry, but I’m filled up for Tuesday… . Oh, really? … Yes… . Good-bye… . Good-bye… .”

  It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didn’t matter, if no one knew. If everything could go on as before. If the boys were safe.

  It did hurt.

  But it didn’t matter.

  TWO

  But it did matter. It mattered more than anything had ever mattered before.

  What bitterness! That the one fear, the one uncertainty, that she had felt, Brian’s ache to go somewhere else, should have dwindled to a childish triviality! And with it the quality of the courage and resolution with which she had met it. From the visions and dangers which she now perceived she shrank away. For them she had no remedy or courage. Desperately she tried to shut out the knowledge from which had risen this turmoil, which she had no power to moderate or still, within her. And half succeeded.

  For, she reasoned, what was there, what had there been, to show that she was even half correct in her tormenting notion? Nothing. She had seen nothing, heard nothing. She had no facts or proofs. She was only making herself unutterably wretched by an unfounded suspicion. It had been a case of looking for trouble and finding it in good measure. Merely that.

  With this self-assurance that she had no real knowledge, she redoubled her efforts to drive out of her mind the distressing thought of faiths broken and trusts betrayed which every mental vision of Clare, of Brian, brought with them. She could not, she would not, go again through the tearing agony that lay just behind her.

  She must, she told herself, be fair. In all their married life she had had no slightest cause to suspect her husband of any infidelity, of any serious flirtation even. If—and she doubted it—he had had his hours of outside erratic conduct, they were unknown to her. Why begin now to assume them? And on nothing more concrete than an idea that had leapt into her mind because he had told her that he had invited a friend, a friend of hers, to a party in his own house. And at a time when she had been, it was likely, more asleep than awake. How could she without anything done or said, or left undone or unsaid, so easily believe him guilty? How be so ready to renounce all confidence in the worth of their life together?

  And if, perchance, there were some small something—well, what could it mean? Nothing. There were the boys. There was John Bellew. The thought of these three gave her some slight relief. But she did not look the future in the face. She wanted to feel nothing, to think nothing; simply to believe that it was all silly invention on her part. Yet she could not. Not quite.

  Christmas, with its unreality, its hectic rush, its false gaiety, came and went. Irene was thankful for the confused unrest of the season. Its irksomeness, its crowds, its inane and insincere repetitions of genialities, pushed between her and the contemplation of her growing unhappiness.

  She was thankful, too, for the continued absence of Clare, who, John Bellew having returned from a long stay in Canada, had withdrawn to that other life of hers, remote and inaccessible. But beating against the walled prison of Irene’s thoughts was the shunned fancy that, though absent, Clare Kendry was still present, that she was close.

  Brian, too, had withdrawn. The house contained his outward self and his belongings. He came and went with his usual noiseless irregularity. He sat across from her at table. He slept in his room next to hers at night.1 But he was remote and inaccessible. No use pretending that he was happy, that things were the same as they had always been. He wasn’t and they weren’t. However, she assured herself, it needn’t necessarily be because of anything that involved Clare. It was, it must be, another manifestation of the old longing.

  But she did wish it were spring, March, so that Clare would be sailing, out o
f her life and Brian’s. Though she had come almost to believe that there was nothing but generous friendship between those two, she was very tired of Clare Kendry. She wanted to be free of her, and of her furtive comings and goings. If something would only happen, something that would make John Bellew decide on an earlier departure, or that would remove Clare. Anything. She didn’t care what. Not even if it were that Clare’s Margery were ill, or dying. Not even if Bellew should discover—

  She drew a quick, sharp breath. And for a long time sat staring down at the hands in her lap. Strange, she had not before realized how easily she could put Clare out of her life! She had only to tell John Bellew that his wife—No. Not that! But if he should somehow learn of these Harlem visits— Why should she hesitate? Why spare Clare?

  But she shrank away from the idea of telling that man, Clare Kendry’s white husband, anything that would lead him to suspect that his wife was a Negro. Nor could she write it, or telephone it, or tell it to someone else who would tell him.

  She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race. Or, it might be, all three. Nothing, she imagined, was ever more completely sardonic.

  Sitting alone in the quiet living-room in the pleasant firelight, Irene Redfield wished, for the first time in her life, that she had not been born a Negro. For the first time she suffered and rebelled because she was unable to disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one’s own account, without having to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality, and undeserved. Surely, no other people so cursed as Ham’s dark children.2

  Nevertheless, her weakness, her shrinking, her own inability to compass the thing, did not prevent her from wishing fervently that, in some way with which she had no concern, John Bellew would discover, not that his wife had a touch of the tar-brush— Irene didn’t want that—but that she was spending all the time that he was out of the city in black Harlem. Only that. It would be enough to rid her forever of Clare Kendry.