There Is Confusion/Chapter 15

Sylvia was arranging the smallest birthday cake in the world. It bore one very small candle and it was for the very small baby who, propped up in a high chair, sat and watched the birthday proceedings with round solemn eyes. A three-year-old youngster, whose nose just rose above the edge of the table, watched, too, with eyes no less round and far more interested.

"Look at the darlings!" said Sylvia. "They know just what their mother's doing. Aren't my children intelligent, Brian?"

"What you mistake for intelligence is hunger, much more likely," laughed her husband. "I've seen Roger look that way before when there wasn't any birthday cake, but when there certainly were eats."

"You watch them," said Sylvia, "and I'll see if mother and father are ready to come. I had a telegram from Joanna this afternoon, so I know she can't make it." Her voice floated up to him as she ran down the back stairs.

The five years of Sylvia's married life had brought their changes to the Marshall household. Mrs. Marshall had insisted on Sylvia's and Brian's remaining with them.

"Else we'd be lonely," she complained, "what with Sandy gone for good, and Philip and Joanna everlastingly 'on the road,' as they express it."

Alexander and Helena Arnold, after seeing each other constantly and unresponsively for ten years, suddenly fell completely in love on that night of the Pierce Day Nursery dance. Sandy proved himself an impulsive wooer, for he won ​Helena's consent and would have married her before Sylvia's and Brian's wedding came off.

"Gracious, don't spoil my thunder," Sylvia had begged him aghast.

"Well, I'm the oldest," Sandy had retorted. "It's really my place to marry first."

Helena, unaware of all this, announced that she wanted to be bridesmaid at Sylvia's wedding, so Alec must wait till after. "Think of all the extra clothes I can get. Besides, I couldn't possibly finish my trousseau before."

The two had married the June following Sylvia's wedding and had moved into a house of their own. The household had hardly become adjusted to Alexander's absence, when Philip started on his long tours which kept him away from home a good part of the year.

He had been graduated from Harvard, with honors and with his coveted Phi Beta Kappa key. He had come home, happy though not as radiant, Joanna thought for one, as in the old days. Then he had evolved his new scheme. He proposed that an organization be started among the colored people which should reach all over the country.

"White and colored people alike may belong to it," said Philip, his eyes kindling to his vision, "but it is to favor primarily the interests of colored people. No, I'm wrong there," he corrected himself. "It is to favor primarily the interests of the country."

He was speaking to a group of both white and black enthusiasts. "How shall we start it?" someone asked.

They all liked the plan. He had his project well mapped out, for he had thought of little else for the past three years. There were to be a national board and a national office, supported by local boards and membership. There would be need of organized publicity; he might suggest a magazine or a ​weekly newspaper. A huge campaign must be got underway, an effort at nation-wide support.

"Its objects will be," he enumerated them on his long brown fingers, "the suppression of lynching and peonage, the restoration of the ballot, equal schools and a share in civic rights."

"A large order," said Barney Kirchner, Philip's classmate, "but I like it. I'll get my uncle behind it." Barney was wealthy in his own right, but his uncle, an Austrian Jew, had built up an immense fortune which had since supported many a notable cause.

The little nucleus worked well. From that meeting grew up all that Philip predicted, rather weak and tottering at first, but the five years had seen the awakening of a great racial consciousness. There were still tremendous possibilities almost untouched.

The organization had a magazine, "The Spur," of which Philip was editor. But he was constantly called to exercise his vision and judgment in the field. His observation, his constant scrutiny of his own people helped him here, but he was the born organizer in any event.

Joanna already started on her concert tours, often met him on the "road." Sometimes they were booked at the same place for the same night. Each was the other's supporting attraction.

"Oh, is this Mr. Marshall?" Joanna would gush when he met her train. She put an imaginary lorgnette to her eye. "Any relation to the eminent Miss Joanna Marshall, the world-famous mezzo?"

"Never heard of her. Haven't the least idea who she is. Come along, Silly. Now, Joanna, do be on time and don't stop to primp. Mind, I won't wait for you a minute."

"Not the littlest, teeniest one?" It was hard to say which was prouder of the other.

Joanna was in fine feather in those days. She had youth ​and a certain grave beauty which did not strike the observer at first as did Sylvia's or even poor Maggie's. But it grew on one and remained. Young men, though they liked to be seen with a star, were a little afraid of her queenliness, her faint condescension. She took herself so seriously! Her own folks and Peter often teased her about this, but they adored it in her. And she, in turn, adored her little fame, the footlights, the adulation. Even the smallest church in the quietest backwoods, with a group of patient dark faces peering at her out of the often smoky background, had its appeal. At such times, strange to say, she was at her best, gave of her finest. She would come on the stage, trailing clouds of glory, and lean toward them—a rosy brown vision. In some misty colorful robe of Sylvia's designing, her thick crinkling hair piled high on her head as the Spanish woman had taught her, she seemed to say:

"I am no better than you. You are no worse than I. Whatever I am, you, in your children, may be. Whatever you are, I in my father have been."

She was absolutely sincere in her estimation of her art, or of any art. It was only in its relation to the other things of life that she lost her vision and sense of proportion.

She liked most to go to Philadelphia, where she was in great favor. There she had had three great triumphs, once in Association Hall, twice at the Academy of Music. Both she and Peter had thrilled when she came from the Academy the second time. She sent her flowers and her stage-gown home in the car of a friend, while she and Peter were whirled in a taxi out to Fairmount Park.

They had driven to the Green Street entrance, and then dismissing the cab had walked around the drive, up the steps, in front of the mansion and on to Lemon Hill. It was one of those last, warm, almost hot nights of Indian Summer. The slopes of the park lay deserted before them, deep in velvety ​shadow, with here and there a gold patch bright as day under the watching arc-light.

They sat down on the dry, short grass. "Like that other evening in Morningside, long, long ago. How long, Joanna?"

"Oh, ages! How'd I sing, Peter?"

"Divinely. You looked like an angel, Janna. No, not an angel, more like a siren in that yellow dress. Where'd you get it, dearest?"

"Yellow nothing! That was orange—deep, deep orange. Sylvia planned it out for me. Isn't she a genius? Through me she certainly is teaching these colored people how to dress. We will not wear these conventional colors—grays, taupe, beige—poor boy, you don't know what they are, do you? They're all right for these palefaces. But colored people need color, life, vividness."

"George! I guess you're right. How'd you come to think of it?"

"I didn't. It was Sylvia. I started out in a white dress. You should have seen me looking like an icebergish angel."

"You are one, you know Janna."

"Which? Iceberg or angel?"

"Both. One makes me adore you, the other says 'hands off'."

"Not a bad thing, do you think, considering all the men I meet?"

"I hate them. Sure you don't like any of 'em better than me?"

"No, dear, I like you best."

"'No, dear, I like you best'," he mimicked. "For God's sake, Jan, can't you say, 'Peter, I love you always'? Say it."

She hesitated, sighed a little. "Peter I love you."

"Why'd you leave off 'always'?"

"Dear little boy, how can I say it? I do when I think of it. But, Peter, I have so much to think about—my tour, my ​booking, you know, my lessons in French and Italian, my dancing. I still keep that up; I'd really rather do that than sing. Dancing makes me———"

"Oh, damn the dancing!"

"Why, Peter!" She looked at his flushed face in amazement.

"Hang it all, talking to me about dancing, when I'm talking to you about love—love, Joanna—and there's nothing to keep us from getting married. Some fellows and girls ball their lives up so they can't ever get them straightened out. But here we are 'all set' as the fellows say. And you talk to me about dancing! Suppose I were to talk to you about Materia Medica!"

"I think it would be a good thing if you would."

He was honestly aggrieved at that.

She leaned over and kissed him. "See how brazen I am. That's the second time I've given you a kiss. Oh, Peter, you big baby!"

"Dear Janna, I love you so! Great Scott! aren't girls funny! You can't guess how hard it is for me to be letting all these stupid years go by. Sometimes I've half a mind to chuck it all."

"You'd never get me then."

"I don't suppose I would. Well, I have you now."

"Dear Peter, we must be going home. Cousin Parthenia will rave."

"Pshaw, she knows you're with me. Love me, darling?"

"You know I do, you dear, dear boy."

"Come, sit up on the bench. There, that's it." He knelt before her. "Know what I'm going to give you to-night?" He felt in his pocket. "Like it, Janna?"

He showed her a ring, a tiny gold chased ring, whose facets gleamed like diamonds.

"Peter, it's too beautiful. Oh, I love you for it."

He slipped it on her finger, got up and sat beside her, ​kissing her little cold hands. She leaned against his shoulder,—he put his arm about her. A poignant sweetness seemed to flood in on them out of the solemn, mellow night.

Peter was the first to stir. "I must get you home, darling. Oh, Joanna, aren't you too happy? I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if we were resting like this, our arms close about each other, in our grave."

The inevitable separation came the next day. Joanna was cold, almost indifferent. It was the way she had taught herself to endure pain. She hated always to leave Peter, particularly if she were returning to New York. The excitement of visiting other places healed her loneliness. Sometimes she wished she weren't going to see Peter for these brief visits which lacerated her so.

Unfortunately her lover did not understand this. "How can she melt like she did last night and then leave me so cool and composed this morning?" he wondered, staring dejectedly after the departing express. He had not ridden to West Philadelphia with her because he had to be at a hospital at Sixteenth Street at one o'clock and it was now noon.

"She used to cry when we separated." He stood uncertainly a moment on the corner of Fifteenth and Market. "Guess I'll go over to that little Automat on Juniper Street and snatch a mouthful. I won't feel like eating after I see Carpenter start in on that slashing. Golly, what a steady hand he has."

He walked through the City Hall Arcade to Juniper Street, crossed in front of Wanamaker's and forced a passage through the teeming little by-way

The Automat was crowded. "Have to eat standing," he thought, drawing a glass of water and seizing a knife and fork. "No, there's an empty table." He collected his food and began to eat.

​Someone put a plate on the table beside him, rested a hand there a moment. Peter glanced at it.

"Colored. What a nice hand! Ought to have a peach of a face to match that."

He looked up. "Maggie Ellersley! I had heard you lived here. I thought I saw you once, why—four years ago—one New Year's night on Twentieth Street. You've been here ever since?"

"Yes, Peter. Oh, it's so nice to see you!"

"Isn't it, though! I mean isn't it great to see somebody from home? I've just seen Joanna off."

Her face stiffened at that. But he was busy looking at his watch.

"Ten minutes more! Look here, Maggie, what'd you drop us all that way for? How's your husband?"

She answered his second question. "I haven't any."

He glanced at her apologetically, ashamed of his levity. "Is he dead?"

"No," said Maggie woodenly. "I've left him!"

"Oh!" he was embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Maggie. Got to run now. When may I see you again?"

His engaging manner brought back the old days. "Peter, you aren't ashamed of me?"

"My dear girl!" He was younger than she and for that reason he adopted a paternal air, patting her on the shoulder. "How can you ask that?"

"Would you come to see me to-night, Peter? Come to dinner?"

"Try me. What's the address?"

She gave it to him. "That's Fifteenth and Fitzwater."

"Yes, I know. I'll see you at six sharp. Until then, Maggie." He bared his curly head and flashed out the side door.

He tapped at her door at six.

​"I didn't hear you ring," said Maggie. "Come in. This is nice, Peter."

"I should say so. Jolly little place you've got here." He settled back on the couch, stretched out his long legs. "All these years I've been tramping about Philadelphia, a poor homeless beggar, when I might have been coming to see you. How long have you been alone, Maggie?"

"Four and a half years."

"Four and a half years! Why that's—look here, how long have you been married?"

"Five years last June. I left him almost right away, or rather he left me."

"Deserted you, you mean?"

"No, no, not that. He wanted to stay. I—I couldn't let him." She told him all about it. "Peter, think of it, I'd married a gambler, a common gambler. And I'd wanted so to be decent!" She wept painfully.

He put his arm about her slender shoulders. "There, there now, Maggie."

"It's the first time I've shed a tear about it. Seeing you, someone out of the old happy days, upset me. Sit here, Peter."

"They were wonderful days, weren't they? Remember what a bunch we were? And now we're scattered everywhere. Joanna and Philip romping all over the country; Sylvia and Brian married; Sandy too, did you know it?"

"Yes, I read of it in the Amsterdam News."

"You and I here. Harry Portor—do you remember him?"

"Ye—es, big square fellow, wore glasses. He used to go skating with us, didn't he?"

"Yes, that's the fellow. He studied medicine, too, at Harvard. Went to Washington as interne in the Freedmen's Hospital. I haven't seen him for ages. What'd you leave us for so suddenly, Maggie?"

She couldn't tell him, of all people, about Joanna.

​"Oh, I don't know, girls are crazy, I think. Well, I'm not complaining. I'm better off than I've ever been. That Madame Harkness—you know whom I mean?"

"The hair-woman—what about her?"

"She's made me supervisor of three of her branch stores, here in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D. C. I have my little home here, my salary's good. I make more than enough to live on. My mother doesn't have to do anything if she doesn't want to. And above all, I'm practically free."

"How do you mean free?"

"I'm suing for a divorce. Lawyer Talbert has my case."

"Oh, Mrs. Marshall's cousin. Have you ever seen your—Mr. Neal since he left?"

"About once a year. I hadn't seen him for a long time though, until he came here six weeks ago, just before I started divorce proceedings." Her face changed at the thought of it.

"He didn't threaten you, Maggie?"

"Yes and no. In his way he cares about me, though not as much as for his gambling. He's—he's got it in his head that I care about somebody else, and every now and then he writes me a threatening letter. That's why he came to see me this last time."

"You oughtn't to let him in."

"Oh, I have to. This Mrs. Davis, from whom I rent these rooms, doesn't know there's any trouble, she thinks he's a steward on a boat, and I never have told her differently. She thinks I'm with him when I go away on these trips. Last time he was here, he stayed half the night right on that couch. He had a wretched cold, and it was raining!"

"I should think you'd have been afraid."

"That's why I let him stay. He'd been harboring such jealous thoughts toward me. He—he has an idea that I like another man. And he has a terrific temper. You can't imagine how it smolders and sulks. He wasn't so bad about my ​sending him away, but since he's had this suspicion I've really been afraid. I expect he'll be really violent some day."

"Well, Great Scott, won't my coming to see you be dangerous? I was just thinking what good times we'd have."

"We will. No, you're all right. He wouldn't be interested in you after he once knew who you were. And there's Thomas Mason upstairs; he's not bothered about him either, though Tom and his sister are in here all the time."

Peter pushed his chair back. "That was a mighty good dinner, Maggie. Mind if I smoke?" He lit a cigarette. "Well, you've had hard luck, haven't you? But never mind, it's bound to break even, sooner or later. That's what I keep saying to myself."

"You in trouble too, Peter? I've been running on so about my affairs. Tell me about yours. Studying the way you have to must be an awful strain."

He noticed gratefully how quick and ready was her sympathy. That was just it. Studying itself wasn't so bad, working wasn't bad. But the combination, the struggle to make ends meet, his few social obligations, and color!

"Why, it's awful. I'm on the rack all the time.

"If you could stop for a year or so and take a little rest, do something entirely different."

He glanced at her, amused but touched. "Joanna ought to hear you say that. She'd faint away. She can't understand anybody's wanting to let up."

Maggie said with a faint bitterness that you must always be top notch for Joanna.

"I should say so. Here, I'll help you with the dishes. Well,—if you really don't want me." She washed and wiped so fast that the room seemed cleared by magic. It had turned cooler and Maggie lit her little gas-stove.

Peter smoked and relapsed into a moody silence, which he broke now and then with an account of his struggles. His ​Uncle Peter had died during his third year and the house had been inherited by his daughter, Mrs. Boyd. Of course he couldn't expect anything of her. Her father was only his great-uncle, and she had her own children to look after. He had moved to Mrs. Larrabee's in West Philadelphia, with some of his fraternity brothers. Somehow his money sped. His books were expensive, the cost of his instruments pure robbery.

"I do what playing I can, but I confess I'm up against it," he ended ruefully.

"Lots of the boys do waiting, don't they?" asked Maggie. "Why don't you do that?"

He just couldn't, he told her.

"I never could endure standing around 'grand white folks.'" Both of them smiled at the childhood's phrase. "'Yes, sir, thank you— Oh, no, sir.' Then some lazy white banker, or some fat white woman that never did a day's work in her life, puts a hand in a pocket and offers you a dime. God, how I hate it! I did it once at Asbury Park, Phil did, too. We both said, 'Never again!'"

"Where do you play?"

"At different dance-halls. They don't pay as well here as in New York, though. What's that, Maggie?"

A thin stream of music, played on a violin, floated down to them.

"That's good fiddling. Is it in this house?"

"Yes. It's Tom Mason, the man I told you about. The very thing for you! He makes barrels of money. Come on, Peter."

She led him, bewildered, up to the third floor, tapped on a door and was admitted to a room much like the one she had just left. A young woman with red crinkled hair and a yellow freckled face sat sewing on a white apron. The young man ​who let them in had been putting some resin on his bow. Against the wall stood a battered, time-worn piano.

"Hello, Annie," said Maggie. "Hello, Tom. This is my friend Mr. Bye. I've brought him up to hear you play."

"But I can't, Miss Maggie. I've no accompanist." He turned soft brown eyes upon her. "Unless your friend here plays the piano."

"Well, I do admit to tickling the ivories occasionally," laughed Peter. "Let's see your score."

He sat down to the piano, ran his brown limber fingers over the keys, and began to play the accompaniment to a typical syncopated melody, accenting the time with staccato nods of his well-shaped head.

"Oh, great, that's great!" cried Tom after a few minutes. "Wait till I get my violin."

Together they made some wonderful sounds. "Play that passage again, will you?" Tom pointed it out with his bow.

"That's the best accompanist you've ever had, isn't it, Tom?" Annie asked.

"I should say so. Don't suppose you'd ever consent to doin' this sort of thing in public, Mr. Bye?"

"That depends on the price and the hours," said Peter.

Tom told him about himself. He played, had all the work he could do, for the wealthy folks of the town and suburbs. The pay was first-rate. Only he had never been able to keep a good accompanist.

"They're so do-less," he complained. "What's your regular line?"

Peter explained that he was a student.

Mason liked that. "Then you'd be workin' because you'd really need the fun's. Nothin' like having a purpose. Do you out to Sharon Hill with me to-morrow think you could go night and play that? There'd be a few other odds and ends. Though them white folks don't let me play nothin' much but ​that, once I get started. You might drop in for an hour to-morrow and take a peep at the others. You can do them easy, if you can read that." He pointed to the piece they'd already played.

"Honey-Babe," declaimed Peter. "Well, Mr. Mason, if we can come to terms, I'm your man."

Mason took him aside then, and whispered a few words.

"All right," Peter told him, shaking hands. "That listens pretty. See you to-morrow, say at four. Good-night folks. You coming too, Maggie?"

Downstairs he stopped at the landing. "Maggie, you jewel! How well you've managed! No, I won't come in. You see what was worrying me most was my operating set. The price of those little steel knives and forceps is going to touch the sky pretty soon. Wow! This confounded war is taking everything across seas. Fellow told me to get my order in before Christmas even if I didn't pay for them till next year. But where was I going to raise all that money? Now the way looks clearer."

"I'm so glad, Peter."

"It's me that's glad, Maggie. Best thing in the world for me that I met you to-day. Such a piece of fortune! Cheer up, child! Perhaps we'll bring each other luck!"