The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen

by Nella Larsen

  “Please, not so soon, ’Rene,” Clare begged, not moving.

  Irene thought: “She’s really almost too good-looking. It’s hardly any wonder that she—”

  “And now, ’Rene dear, that I’ve found you, I mean to see lots and lots of you. We’re here for a month at least. Jack, that’s my husband, is here on business. Poor dear! In this heat. Isn’t it beastly? Come to dinner with us tonight, won’t you?” And she gave Irene a curious little sidelong glance and a sly, ironical smile peeped out on her full red lips, as if she had been in the secret of the other’s thoughts and was mocking her.

  Irene was conscious of a sharp intake of breath, but whether it was relief or chagrin that she felt, she herself could not have told. She said hastily: “I’m afraid I can’t, Clare. I’m filled up. Dinner and bridge. I’m so sorry.”

  “Come tomorrow instead, to tea,” Clare insisted. “Then you’ll see Margery—she’s just ten—and Jack too, maybe, if he hasn’t got an appointment or something.”

  From Irene came an uneasy little laugh. She had an engagement for tomorrow also and she was afraid that Clare would not believe it. Suddenly, now, that possibility disturbed her. Therefore it was with a half-vexed feeling at the sense of undeserved guilt that had come upon her that she explained that it wouldn’t be possible because she wouldn’t be free for tea, or for luncheon or dinner either. “And the next day’s Friday when I’ll be going away for the weekend, Idlewild, you know. It’s quite the thing now.” And then she had an inspiration.

  “Clare!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you come up with me? Our place is probably full up—Jim’s wife has a way of collecting mobs of the most impossible people—but we can always manage to find room for one more. And you’ll see absolutely everybody.”

  In the very moment of giving the invitation she regretted it. What a foolish, what an idiotic impulse to have given way to! She groaned inwardly as she thought of the endless explanations in which it would involve her, of the curiosity, and the talk, and the lifted eyebrows. It wasn’t, she assured herself, that she was a snob, that she cared greatly for the petty restrictions and distinctions with which what called itself Negro society chose to hedge itself about; but that she had a natural and deeply rooted aversion to the kind of front-page notoriety that Clare Kendry’s presence in Idlewild, as her guest, would expose her to. And here she was, perversely and against all reason, inviting her.

  But Clare shook her head. “Really, I’d love to, ’Rene,” she said, a little mournfully. “There’s nothing I’d like better. But I couldn’t. I mustn’t, you see. It wouldn’t do at all. I’m sure you understand. I’m simply crazy to go, but I can’t.” The dark eyes glistened and there was a suspicion of a quaver in the husky voice. “And believe me, ’Rene, I do thank you for asking me. Don’t think I’ve entirely forgotten just what it would mean for you if I went. That is, if you still care about such things.”

  All indication of tears had gone from her eyes and voice, and Irene Redfield, searching her face, had an offended feeling that behind what was now only an ivory mask lurked a scornful amusement. She looked away, at the wall far beyond Clare. Well, she deserved it, for, as she acknowledged to herself, she was relieved. And for the very reason at which Clare had hinted. The fact that Clare had guessed her perturbation did not, however, in any degree lessen that relief. She was annoyed at having been detected in what might seem to be an insincerity; but that was all.

  The waiter came with Clare’s change. Irene reminded herself that she ought immediately to go. But she didn’t move.

  The truth was, she was curious. There were things that she wanted to ask Clare Kendry. She wished to find out about this hazardous business of “passing,” this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly. What, for example, one did about background, how one accounted for oneself. And how one felt when one came into contact with other Negroes. But she couldn’t. She was unable to think of a single question that in its context or its phrasing was not too frankly curious, if not actually impertinent.

  As if aware of her desire and her hesitation, Clare remarked thoughtfully: “You know, ’Rene, I’ve often wondered why more colored girls, girls like you and Margaret Hammer and Esther Dawson and—oh, lots of others—never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve.”

  “What about background? Family, I mean. Surely you can’t just drop down on people from nowhere and expect them to receive you with open arms, can you?”

  “Almost,” Clare asserted. “You’d be surprised, ’Rene, how much easier that is with white people than with us. Maybe because there are so many more of them, or maybe because they are secure and so don’t have to bother. I’ve never quite decided.”

  Irene was inclined to be incredulous. “You mean that you didn’t have to explain where you came from? It seems impossible.”

  Clare cast a glance of repressed amusement across the table at her. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t. Though I suppose under any other circumstances I might have had to provide some plausible tale to account for myself. I’ve a good imagination, so I’m sure I could have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But it wasn’t necessary. There were my aunts, you see, respectable and authentic enough for anything or anybody.”

  “I see. They were ‘passing’ too.”

  “No. They weren’t. They were white.”

  “Oh!” And in the next instant it came back to Irene that she had heard this mentioned before; by her father or, more likely, her mother. They were Bob Kendry’s aunts. He had been a son of their brother’s, on the left hand. A wild oat.

  “They were nice old ladies,” Clare explained, “very religious and as poor as church mice. That adored brother of theirs, my grandfather, got through every penny they had after he’d finished his own little bit.”

  Clare paused in her narrative to light another cigarette. Her smile, her expression, Irene noticed, was faintly resentful.

  “Being good Christians,” she continued, “when Dad came to his tipsy end, they did their duty and gave me a home of sorts. I was, it was true, expected to earn my keep by doing all the housework and most of the washing. But do you realize, ’Rene, that if it hadn’t been for them I shouldn’t have had a home in the world?”

  Irene’s nod and little murmur were comprehensive, understanding.

  Clare made a small mischievous grimace and proceeded. “Besides, to their notion, hard labor was good for me. I had Negro blood and they belonged to the generation that had written and read long articles headed: ‘Will the Blacks Work?’ Too, they weren’t quite sure that the good God hadn’t intended the sons and daughters of Ham to sweat because he had poked fun at old man Noah once when he had taken a drop too much. I remember the aunts telling me that that old drunkard had cursed Ham and his sons for all time.”

  Irene laughed. But Clare remained quite serious.

  “It was more than a joke, I assure you, ’Rene. It was a hard life for a girl of sixteen. Still, I had a roof over my head, and food, and clothes—such as they were. And there were the Scriptures, and talks on morals and thrift and industry and the loving-kindness of the good Lord.”

  “Have you ever stopped to think, Clare,” Irene demanded, “how much unhappiness and downright cruelty are laid to the loving-kindness of the Lord? And always by His most ardent followers, it seems.”

  “Have I?” Clare exclaimed. “It, they, made me what I am today. For, of course, I was determined to get away, to be a person and not a charity or a problem, or even a daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I wanted things. I knew I wasn’t bad-looking and that I could ‘pass.’ You can’t know, ’Rene, how, when I used to go over to the South Side, I used almost to hate all of you. You had all the things I wanted and never had had. It made me all the more determined to get them, and others. Do you, can you understand what
I felt?”

  She looked up with a pointed and appealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympathetic expression on Irene’s face sufficient answer, went on. “The aunts were queer. For all their Bibles and praying and ranting about honesty, they didn’t want anyone to know that their darling brother had seduced—ruined, they called it—a Negro girl. They could excuse the ruin, but they couldn’t forgive the tar brush. They forbade me to mention Negroes to the neighbors, or even to mention the South Side. You may be sure that I didn’t. I’ll bet they were good and sorry afterwards.”

  She laughed and the ringing bells in her laugh had a hard metallic sound.

  “When the chance to get away came, that omission was of great value to me. When Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some people in the neighborhood, turned up from South America with untold gold, there was no one to tell him that I was colored, and many to tell him about the severity and the religiousness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slipping off to the South Side and slipped off to meet him instead. I couldn’t manage both. In the end I had no great difficulty in convincing him that it was useless to talk marriage to the aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen we went off and were married. So that’s that. Nothing could have been easier.”

  “Yes, I do see that for you it was easy enough. By the way! I wonder why they didn’t tell Father that you were married? He went over to find out about you when you stopped coming over to see us. I’m sure they didn’t tell him. Not that you were married.”

  Clare Kendry’s eyes were bright with tears that didn’t fall. “Oh, how lovely! To have cared enough about me to do that. The dear sweet man! Well, they couldn’t tell him because they didn’t know it. I took care of that, for I couldn’t be sure that those consciences of theirs wouldn’t begin to work on them afterward and make them let the cat out of the bag. The old things probably thought I was living in sin, wherever I was. And it would be about what they expected.”

  An amused smile lit the lovely face for the smallest fraction of a second. After a little silence she said soberly: “But I’m sorry if they told your father so. That was something I hadn’t counted on.”

  “I’m not sure that they did,” Irene told her. “He didn’t say so, anyway.”

  “He wouldn’t, ’Rene dear. Not your father.”

  “Thanks. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

  “But you’ve never answered my question. Tell me, honestly, haven’t you ever thought of ‘passing’?”

  Irene answered promptly: “No. Why should I?” And so disdainful was her voice and manner that Clare’s face flushed and her eyes glinted. Irene hastened to add: “You see, Clare, I’ve everything I want. Except, perhaps, a little more money.”

  At that Clare laughed, her spark of anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Of course,” she declared, “that’s what everybody wants, just a little more money, even the people who have it. And I must say I don’t blame them. Money’s awfully nice to have. In fact, all things considered, I think, ’Rene, that it’s even worth the price.”

  Irene could only shrug her shoulders. Her reason partly agreed, her instinct wholly rebelled. And she could not say why. And though conscious that if she didn’t hurry away, she was going to be late to dinner, she still lingered. It was as if the woman sitting on the other side of the table, a girl she had known, who had done this rather dangerous and, to Irene Redfield, abhorrent thing successfully and had announced herself well satisfied, had for her a fascination, strange and compelling.

  Clare Kendry was still leaning back in the tall chair, her sloping shoulders against the carved top. She sat with an air of indifferent assurance, as if arranged for, desired. About her clung that dim suggestion of polite insolence with which a few women are born and which some acquire with the coming of riches or importance.

  Clare, it gave Irene a little prick of satisfaction to recall, hadn’t got that by passing herself off as white. She herself had always had it.

  Just as she’d always had that pale gold hair, which, unsheared still, was drawn loosely back from a broad brow, partly hidden by the small close hat. Her lips, painted a brilliant geranium red, were sweet and sensitive and a little obstinate. A tempting mouth. The face across the forehead and cheeks was a trifle too wide, but the ivory skin had a peculiar soft luster. And the eyes were magnificent! Dark, sometimes absolutely black, always luminous, and set in long, black lashes. Arresting eyes, slow and mesmeric, and with, for all their warmth, something withdrawn and secret about them.

  Ah! Surely! They were Negro eyes! Mysterious and concealing. And set in that ivory face under that bright hair, there was about them something exotic.

  Yes, Clare Kendry’s loveliness was absolute, beyond challenge, thanks to those eyes which her grandmother and later her mother and father had given her.

  Into those eyes there came a smile and over Irene the sense of being petted and caressed. She smiled back.

  “Maybe,” Clare suggested, “you can come Monday, if you’re back. Or, if you’re not, then Tuesday.”

  With a small regretful sigh, Irene informed Clare that she was afraid she wouldn’t be back by Monday and that she was sure she had dozens of things for Tuesday, and that she was leaving Wednesday. It might be, however, that she could get out of something Tuesday.

  “Oh, do try. Do put somebody else off. The others can see you any time, while I—why, I may never see you again! Think of that, ’Rene! You’ll have to come. You’ll simply have to! I’ll never forgive you if you don’t.”

  At that moment it seemed a dreadful thing to think of never seeing Clare Kendry again. Standing there under the appeal, the caress, of her eyes, Irene had the desire, the hope, that this parting wouldn’t be the last.

  “I’ll try, Clare,” she promised gently. “I’ll call you—or will you call me?”

  “I think, perhaps, I’d better call you. Your father’s in the book, I know, and the address is the same. Sixty-four eighteen. Some memory, what? Now remember, I’m going to expect you. You’ve got to be able to come.”

  Again that peculiar mellowing smile.

  “I’ll do my best, Clare.”

  Irene gathered up her gloves and bag. They stood up. She put out her hand. Clare took and held it.

  “It has been nice seeing you again, Clare. How pleased and glad Father’ll be to hear about you!”

  “Until Tuesday, then,” Clare Kendry replied. “I’ll spend every minute of the time from now on looking forward to seeing you again. Good-bye, ’Rene dear. My love to your father, and this kiss for him.”

  The sun had gone from overhead, but the streets were still like fiery furnaces. The languid breeze was still hot. And the scurrying people looked even more wilted than before Irene had fled from their contact.

  Crossing the avenue in the heat, far from the coolness of the Drayton’s roof, away from the seduction of Clare Kendry’s smile, she was aware of a sense of irritation with herself because she had been pleased and a little flattered at the other’s obvious gladness at their meeting.

  With her perspiring progress homeward this irritation grew, and she began to wonder just what had possessed her to make her promise to find time, in the crowded days that remained of her visit, to spend another afternoon with a woman whose life had so definitely and deliberately diverged from hers; and whom, as had been pointed out, she might never see again.

  Why in the world had she made such a promise?

  As she went up the steps to her father’s house, thinking with what interest and amazement he would listen to her story of the afternoon’s encounter, it came to her that Clare had omitted to mention her marriage name. She had referred to her husband as Jack. That was all. Had that, Irene asked herself, been intentional?

  Clare had only to pick up the telephone to communicate with her, or to drop her a card, or to jump into a taxi. But she couldn’t reach Clare in any way. Nor could anyone else to whom she might speak of their meeting.

  “As
if I should!”

  Her key turned in the lock. She went in. Her father, it seemed, hadn’t come in yet.

  Irene decided that she wouldn’t, after all, say anything to him about Clare Kendry. She had, she told herself, no inclination to speak of a person who held so low an opinion of her loyalty, or her discretion. And certainly she had no desire or intention of making the slightest effort about Tuesday. Nor any other day for that matter.

  She was through with Clare Kendry.

  Three

  On Tuesday morning a dome of grey sky rose over the parched city, but the stifling air was not relieved by the silvery mist that seemed to hold a promise of rain, which did not fall.

  To Irene Redfield this soft foreboding fog was another reason for doing nothing about seeing Clare Kendry that afternoon.

  But she did see her.

  The telephone. For hours it had rung like something possessed. Since nine o’clock she had been hearing its insistent jangle. Awhile she was resolute, saying firmly each time: “Not in, Liza, take the message.” And each time the servant returned with the information: “It’s the same lady, ma’am; she says she’ll call again.”

  But at noon, her nerves frayed and her conscience smiting her at the reproachful look on Liza’s ebony face as she withdrew for another denial, Irene weakened.

  “Oh, never mind. I’ll answer this time, Liza.”

  “It’s her again.”

  “Hello…. Yes.”

  “It’s Clare, ’Rene…. Where have you been? … Can you be here around four? … What? … But, ’Rene, you promised! Just for a little while…. You can if you want to.… I am so disappointed. I had counted so on seeing you…. Please be nice and come. Only for a minute. I’m sure you can manage it if you try.… I won’t beg you to stay…. Yes…. I’m going to expect you … It’s the Morgan … Oh, yes! The name’s Bellew, Mrs. John Bellew…. About four, then…. I’ll be so happy to see you! … Good-bye.”