Great Short Stories by American Women (25 page)

Well, he must be prepared to answer questions if he were going to marry her. The family would want to know all about him, and Elise herself would be curious for more than her brother, Steven Vannier’s meagre account. But was he going to marry Elise? That was the question.

He sat down and buried his head in his hands. Would it be right for him to take a wife, especially such a woman as Elise, and from such a family as the Vanniers? Would it be fair? Would it be just? If they knew and were willing, it would be different. But they did not know, and they would not consent if they did. In fancy, he saw the dainty girl, whom he loved, shrinking from him as he told her of Grandmère Grabert and the village boys. This last thought made him set his teeth hard, and the hot blood rushed to his face.

Well, why not, after all, why not? What was the difference between him and the hosts of other suitors who hovered about Elise? They had money; so had he. They had education, polite training, culture, social position; so had he. But they had family traditions, and he had none. Most of them could point to a long line of family portraits with justifiable pride; while if he had had a picture of Grandmère Grabert, he would have destroyed it fearfully, lest it fall into the hands of some too curious person. This was the subtle barrier that separated them. He recalled with a sting how often he had had to sit silent and constrained when the conversation turned to ancestors and family traditions. He might be one with his companions and friends in everything but this. He must ever be on the outside, hovering at the gates, as it were. Into the inner life of his social world, he might never enter. The charming impoliteness of an intercourse begun by their fathers and grandfathers was not for him. There must always be a certain formality with him, even though they were his most intimate friends. He had not fifty cousins; therefore, as Elise phrased it, he was “out of touch with the world.”

“If ever I have a son or a daughter,” he found himself saying unconsciously, “I would try to save him from this.”

Then he laughed bitterly as he realized the irony of the thought. Well, anyway, Elise loved him. There was a sweet consolation in that. He had but to look into her frank eyes and read her soul. Perhaps she wondered why he had not spoken. Should he speak? There he was back at the old question again.

“According to the standard of the world,” he mused reflectively, “my blood is tainted in two ways. Who knows it? No one but myself, and I shall not tell. Otherwise, I am quite as good as the rest, and Elise loves me.”

But even this thought failed of its sweetness in a moment. Elise loved him because she did not know. He found a sickening anger and disgust rising in himself at a people whose prejudices made him live a life of deception. He would cater to their traditions no longer; he would be honest. Then he found himself shrinking from the alternative with a dread that made him wonder. It was the old problem of his life in the village; and the boys, both white and black and yellow, stood as before, with stones in their hands to hurl at him.

He went to bed worn out with the struggle, but still with no definite idea what to do. Sleep was impossible. He rolled and tossed miserably, and cursed the fate that had thrown him in such a position. He had never thought very seriously over the subject before. He had rather drifted with the tide and accepted what came to him as a sort of recompense the world owed him for his unhappy childhood. He had known fear, yes, and qualms now and then, and a hot resentment occasionally when the outsideness of his situation was inborn to him; but that was all. Elise had awakened a disagreeable conscientiousness within him, which he decided was as unpleasant as it was unnecessary.

He could not sleep, so he arose and, dressing, walked out and stood on the banquette. The low hum of the city came to him like the droning of some sleepy insect, and ever and anon the quick flash and fire of the gashouses, like a huge winking fiery eye, lit up the south of the city. It was inexpressibly soothing to Victor — the great unknowing city, teeming with life and with lives whose sadness mocked his own teacup tempest. He smiled and shook himself as a dog shakes off the water from his coat.

“I think a walk will help me out,” he said absently, and presently he was striding down St. Charles Avenue, around Lee Circle and down to Canal Street, where the lights and glare absorbed him for a while. He walked out the wide boulevard towards Claiborne Street, hardly thinking, hardly realizing that he was walking. When he was thoroughly worn out, he retraced his steps and dropped wearily into a restaurant near Bourbon Street.

“Hullo!” said a familiar voice from a table as he entered. Victor turned and recognized Frank Ward, a little oculist, whose office was in the same building as his own.

“Another night owl besides myself,” laughed Ward, making room for him at his table. “Can’t you sleep too, old fellow?”

“Not very well,” said Victor, taking the proffered seat. “I believe I’m getting nerves. Think I need toning up.”

“Well, you’d have been toned up if you had been in here a few minutes ago. Why — why — ” And Ward went off into peals of laughter at the memory of the scene.

“What was it?” asked Victor.

“Why — a fellow came in here, nice sort of fellow, apparently, and wanted to have supper. Well, would you believe it, when they wouldn’t serve him, he wanted to fight everything in sight. It was positively exciting for a time.”

“Why wouldn’t the waiter serve him?” Victor tried to make his tone indifferent, but he felt the quaver in his voice.

“Why? Why, he was a darky, you know.”

“Well, what of it?” demanded Grabert fiercely. “Wasn’t he quiet, well-dressed, polite? Didn’t he have money?”

“My dear fellow,” began Ward mockingly. “Upon my word, I believe you are losing your mind. You do need toning up or something. Would you — could you — ?”

“Oh, pshaw,” broke in Grabert. “I — I — believe I am losing my mind. Really, Ward, I need something to make me sleep. My head aches.”

Ward was at once all sympathy and advice, and chiding to the waiter for his slowness in filling their order. Victor toyed with his food, and made an excuse to leave the restaurant as soon as he could decently.

“Good heavens,” he said when he was alone. “What will I do next?” His outburst of indignation at Ward’s narrative had come from his lips almost before he knew it, and he was frightened, frightened at his own unguardedness. He did not know what had come over him.

“I must be careful, I must be careful,” he muttered to himself. “I must go to the other extreme, if necessary.” He was pacing his rooms again, and, suddenly, he faced the mirror.

“You wouldn’t fare any better than the rest, if they knew,” he told the reflection. “You poor wretch, what are you?”

When he thought of Elise, he smiled. He loved her, but he hated the traditions which she represented. He was conscious of a blind fury which bade him wreak vengeance on those traditions, and of a cowardly fear which cried out to him to retain his position in the world’s and Elise’s eyes at any cost.

Mrs. Grabert was delighted to have visiting her her old school friend from Virginia, and the two spent hours laughing over their girlish escapades, and comparing notes about their little ones. Each was confident that her darling had said the cutest things, and their polite deference to each other’s opinions on the matter was a sham through which each saw without resentment.

“But, Elise,” remonstrated Mrs. Allen, “I think it so strange you don’t have a mammy for Baby Vannier. He would be so much better cared for than by that harum-scarum young white girl you have.”

“I think so too, Adelaide,” sighed Mrs. Grabert. “It seems strange for me not to have a darky maid about, but Victor can’t bear them. I cried and cried for my old mammy, but he was stern. He doesn’t like darkies, you know, and he says old mammies just frighten children, and ruin their childhood. I don’t see how he could say that, do you?” She looked wistfully to Mrs. Allen for sympathy.

“I don’t know,” mused that lady. “We were all looked after by our mammies, and I think they are the best kind of nurses.”

“And Victor won’t have any kind of darky servant either here or at the office. He says they’re shiftless and worthless and generally no-account. Of course, he knows, he’s had lots of experience with them in his business.”

Mrs. Allen folded her hands behind her head and stared hard at the ceiling. “Oh, well, men don’t know everything,” she said, “and Victor may come around to our way of thinking after all.”

It was late that evening when the lawyer came in for dinner. His eyes had acquired a habit of veiling themselves under their lashes, as if they were constantly concealing something which they feared might be wrenched from them by a stare. He was nervous and restless, with a habit of glancing about him furtively, and a twitching compressing of his lips when he had finished a sentence, which somehow reminded you of a kindhearted judge, who is forced to give a death sentence.

Elise met him at the door as was her wont, and she knew from the first glance into his eyes that something had disturbed him more than usual that day, but she forbore asking questions, for she knew he would tell her when the time had come.

They were in their room that night when the rest of the household lay in slumber. He sat for a long while gazing at the open fire, then he passed his hand over his forehead wearily.

“I have had a rather unpleasant experience today,” he began.

“Yes.”

“Pavageau, again.”

His wife was brushing her hair before the mirror. At the name she turned hastily with the brush in her uplifted hand.

“I can’t understand, Victor, why you must have dealings with that man. He is constantly irritating you. I simply wouldn’t associate with him.”

“I don’t,” and he laughed at her feminine argument. “It isn’t a question of association, cherie, it’s a purely business and unsocial relation, if relation it may be called, that throws us together.”

She threw down the brush petulantly, and came to his side. “Victor,” she began hesitatingly, her arms about his neck, her face close to his, “won’t you — won’t you give up politics for me? It was ever so much nicer when you were just a lawyer and wanted only to be the best lawyer in the state, without all this worry about corruption and votes and such things. You’ve changed, oh, Victor, you’ve changed so. Baby and I won’t know you after a while.”

He put her gently on his knee. “You mustn’t blame the poor politics, darling. Don’t you think, perhaps, it’s the inevitable hardening and embittering that must come to us all as we grow older?”

“No, I don’t,” she replied emphatically. “Why do you go into this struggle, anyhow? You have nothing to gain but an empty honor. It won’t bring you more money, or make you more loved or respected. Why must you be mixed up with such — such — awful people?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily.

And in truth, he did not know. He had gone on after his marriage with Elise making one success after another. It seemed that a beneficent Providence had singled him out as the one man in the state upon whom to heap the most lavish attentions. He was popular after the fashion of those who are high in the esteem of the world; and this very fact made him tremble the more, for he feared that should some disclosure come, he could not stand the shock of public opinion that must overwhelm him.

“What disclosure?” he would say impatiently when such a thought would come to him. “Where could it come from, and then, what is there to disclose?”

Thus he would deceive himself for as much as a month at a time.

He was surprised to find awaiting him in his office one day the man Wilson, whom he remembered in the courtroom before Recorder Grant. He was surprised and annoyed. Why had the man come to his office? Had he seen the telltale flush on his face that day?

But it was soon evident that Wilson did not even remember having seen him before.

“I came to see if I could retain you in a case of mine,” he began, after the usual formalities of greeting were over.

“I am afraid, my good man,” said Grabert brusquely, “that you have mistaken the office.”

Wilson’s face flushed at the appellation, but he went on bravely. “I have not mistaken the office. I know you are the best civil lawyer in the city, and I want your services.”

“An impossible thing.”

“Why? Are you too busy? My case is a simple thing, a mere point in law, but I want the best authority and the best opinion brought to bear on it.”

“I could not give you any help — and — I fear, we do not understand each other — I do not wish to.” He turned to his desk abruptly.

“What could he have meant by coming to me?” he questioned himself fearfully, as Wilson left the office. “Do I look like a man likely to take up his impossible contentions?”

He did not look like it, nor was he. When it came to a question involving the Negro, Victor Grabert was noted for his stern, unrelenting attitude; it was simply impossible to convince him that there was anything but sheerest incapacity in that race. For him, no good could come out of this Nazareth. He was liked and respected by men of his political belief, because, even when he was a candidate for a judgeship, neither money nor the possible chance of a deluge of votes from the First and Fourth Wards could cause him to swerve one hair’s breadth from his opinion of the black inhabitants of those wards.

Pavageau, however, was his
bete noire.
⁸
Pavageau was a lawyer, a coolheaded, calculating man with steely eyes set in a grim brown face. They had first met in the courtroom in a case which involved the question whether a man may set aside the will of his father, who, disregarding the legal offspring of another race than himself, chooses to leave his property to educational institutions which would not have granted admission to that son. Pavageau represented the son. He lost, of course. The judge, the jury, the people and Grabert were against him; but he fought his fight with a grim determination which commanded Victor’s admiration and respect.

“Fools,” he said between his teeth to himself, when they were crowding about him with congratulations. “Fools, can’t they see who is the abler man of the two?”