From Place to Place

Within a space of time to be measured by hours and almost by minutes she seemed to have aged years.

It was a mute meal and a most unhappy one for the sisters. More than once Aunt Sharley seemed on the point of saying something, but she, too, held her tongue until they had risen up from their places. From within the passageway leading to the rear porch she spoke then across the threshold of the door at the back end of the dining room.

"You, nur nobody else, can't turn me out of dis house," she warned them, and in her words was the dead weight of finality. "An' ef you does, I ain't gwine leave de premises. Ise gwine camp right dere on de sidewalk an' dere I means to stay twell de policemens teks me up fur a vagrom. De shame of it won't be no greater fur me 'n 'tis fur you. Dat's all!" And with that she was gone before they could answer, if indeed they had any answer to make.

It was the next day that the Daily Evening News announced the engagement and the date of the marriage, which would follow within four weeks. Congratulations in number were bestowed upon Emmy Lou; they came by telephone and in letters from former schoolmates, but mainly they came by word of mouth from townspeople who trooped in to say the things which people always say on such occasions—such things, for example, as that young Mr. Winslow should count himself a lucky man and that Emmy Lou would make a lovely bride; that he should be the proudest young man in the Union and she the happiest girl in the state, and all the rest of it. Under this outpouring of kindly words from kindly folk the recipient was radiant enough to all appearances, which was a tribute to her powers as an actress. Beneath the streams of her happiness coursed sombre undercurrents of distress and perplexity, roiling the waters of her joy and her pride.

For nearly a week, with no outsider becoming privy to the facts, she endured a situation which daily was marked by harassing experiences and which hourly became more intolerable. Then, in despair, seeing no way out at all, she went to a certain old white house out on Clay Street to confide in one to whom many another had turned, seeking counsel in the time of trouble. She went to see Judge William Pitman Priest, and she went alone, telling no one, not even Mildred, of the errand upon which she was bound.

The wide front porch was empty where the old Judge spent most of his leisure hours when the weather suited, and knowing as she did the custom of the house, and being, for a fact, almost as much at home beneath its roof as beneath her own, Emmy Lou, without knocking, walked into the hall and turning to the right entered the big sitting room. Its lone occupant sat up with a jerk, wiping the drowsiness out of his eyes with the back of his hand. He had been taking a cat nap on his ancient sofa; his long white back hair was tousled up comically behind his bald pink brow.

"Why, hello, honey!" he said heartily, rising to his feet and bowing with a quaint ceremonial gesture that contrasted with and yet somehow matched the homeliness of his greeting. "You slipped in so quiet on them dainty little feet of yours I never heared you comin' a-tall." He took her small hands in his broad pudgy ones, holding her off at arm's length. "And don't you look purty! Mighty nigh any woman looks cool and sweet when she's got on white fixin's, but when a girl like you puts 'em on—well, child, there ain't no use talkin', you shorely are a sight to cure sore eyes. And you git to favour your sweet mother more and more every day you live. I can't pay you no higher compliment than that. Set down in that cheer yonder, where I kin look at you whilst we visit."

"I'd rather sit here by you, sir, on the sofa, if you don't mind," she said.

"Suit yourself, honey."

She settled herself upon the sofa and he let his bulky frame down alongside her, taking one of her hands into his. Her free hand played with one of the big buttons on the front of her starched linen skirt and she looked, not at him, but at the shining disk of pearl, as he said:

"Well, Emmy Lou, whut brings you 'way out here to my house in the heat of the day?"

She turned her face full upon him then and he saw the brooding in her eyes and gave her hand a sympathetic little squeeze.

"Judge," she told him, "you went to so much trouble on my account and Mildred's when we were still minors that I hate to come now worrying you with my affairs. But somehow I felt that you were the one for me to turn to."

"Emmy Lou," he said very gravely, "your father was one of the best men that ever lived and one of the best friends ever I had on this earth. And no dearer woman than your mother ever drawed the breath of life. It was a mighty proud day fur me and fur Lew Lake when he named us two as the guardians of his children, and it was a pleasure to both of us to help look to your interests after he was took from us. Why, when your mother went too, I'd a' liked the best in the world to have adopted you two children outright." He chuckled a soft little chuckle. "I reckin I would have made the effort, too, only it seemed like that old nigger woman of yours appeared to have prior rights in the matter, and knowin' her disposition I was kind of skeered to advance the suggestion.'"

"It was about Aunt Sharley that I came to see you to-day, Judge Priest."

"That so? I had a visit from her here the other day."

"What other day?" she asked, startled.

"Oh, it must have been a matter of three weeks ago—fully. Shall I tell you whut she come to see me about? You'll laugh when you hear it. It tickled me right smartly at the time. She wanted to know what I knew about this here young Mr. Winslow—yes, that was it. She said all the visible signs p'inted to a serious affair 'twixt you two young people, and she said before it went any further she wanted to know ef he was the kind of a young man to be gittin' hisself engaged to a member of the Dabney family, and she wanted to know ef his folks were the real quality folks and not this here codfish aristocracy: That was the very term she used—'codfish aristocracy.' Well, I was able to reasshore her. You see, honey, I'd took it on myself to do a little inquirin' round about Mr. Winslow on my own responsibility—not that I wanted to be pryin' into your business and not because I aimed to be tryin' to come between you and the young man ef I wasn't altogether satisfied with the accounts I got of him, but because I loved you and wanted to make sure in my own mind that Tom Dabney's child wasn't makin' the wrong choice. You understand, don't you? You see, ez fur back ez a month and a half ago, or mebbe even further back than that, I was kind of given to understand that you and this young man were gittin' deeply interested in each other."

"Why, how could you?" inquired Emmy Lou. "We weren't even engaged then. Who could have circulated such a report about us?"

"The very first time I seen you two young folks walkin' up Franklin Street together you both were circulatin' it," he said, chuckling again. "You may not 'a' knowed it, but you were. I may be gittin' old, but my eyesight ain't entirely failed up on me yit—I could read the signs when I was still half a block away frum you. It was right after that that I started my own little private investigation. So you see I was qualified to reasshore Aunt Sharley. I told her all the available information on the subject proved the young gentleman in question was not only a mighty clever, up-standin', manly young feller, but that where he hailed from he belonged to the quality folks, which really was the p'int she seemed most anxious about. That's whut I told her, and I was monstrous glad to be able to tell her. A stranger might have thought it was pure impudence on her part, but of course we both know, you and me, whut was in the back part of her old kinky head. And when I'd got done tellin' her she went down the street from here with her head throwed away back, singin' till you could 'a' heard her half a mile off, I reckin."

"I never guessed it. She never told me she'd been to see you. And you didn't tell me, either, when you came the other night to wish me joy, Judge."

"I kind of figgered she wanted the matter treated confidential," explained Judge Priest. "So I respected whut I took to be her wishes in the matter. But wasn't it fur all the world jest like that old black woman?"

"Yes, it was just like her," agreed Emmy Lou, her face shadowed with deepening distress. "And because it was just like her and because I know now better than ever before how much she really loves me, those things make it all the harder to tell you what I came here to tell you—make it all the harder for me to decide what I should do and to ask your advice before I do decide."

"Oh, I reckin it can't be so serious ez all that," said Judge Priest comfortingly. "Betwixt us we oughter be able to find a way out of the difficulty, whutever it is. S'pose, honey, you start in at the beginnin' and give me all the facts in the matter that's worryin' you."

She started then and, though her voice broke several times, she kept on until she came to the end of her tragic little recital. To Emmy Lou it was very tragic indeed.

"So you see, Judge Priest, just how it is," she stated at the conclusion. "From both sides I am catching the brunt of the whole thing. Aunt Sharley won't budge an inch from the attitude she's taken, and neither will Harvey budge an inch. He says she must go; she tells me every day she won't go. This has been going on for a week now and I'm almost distracted. At what should be the happiest time in a girl's life I'm being made terribly unhappy. Why, it breaks my heart every time I look at her. I know how much we owe her—I know I can never hope to repay her for all she has done for me and my sister.

"But oh, Judge, I do want to be the right kind of wife to Harvey. All my life long I mean to obey him and to look up to him; I don't want to begin now by disobeying him—by going counter to his wishes. And I can understand his position too. To him she's just an unreasonable, meddlesome, officious, contrary old negro woman who would insist on running the household of which he should be the head. She would too.

"It isn't that he feels unkindly toward her—he's too good and too generous for that. Why, it was Harvey who suggested that wages should go on just the same after she leaves us—he has even offered to double them if it will make her any better satisfied with the move. I'm sure, though, it can't be the question of money that figures with her. She never tells anyone about her own private affairs, but after all these years she must have a nice little sum saved up. I can't remember when she spent anything on herself—she was always so thrifty about money. At least she was careful about our expenditures, and of course she must have been about her own. So it can't be that. Harvey puts it down to plain stubbornness. He says after the first wrench of the separation is over she ought to be happier, when she's taking things easy in her own little house, than she is now, trying to do all the work in our house. He says he wants several servants in our home—a butler, and a maid to wait on me and Mildred, and a housemaid and a cook. He says we can't have them if we keep Aunt Sharley. And we can't, either—she'd drive them off the place. No darky could get along with her a week. Oh, I just don't know what to do!"

"And whut does Aunt Sharley say?" asked the Judge.

"I told you. Sometimes she says she won't go and sometimes she says she can't go. But she won't tell why she can't—just keeps on declaring up and down that she can't. She makes a different excuse or she gives a different reason every morning; she seems to spend her nights thinking them up. Sometimes I think she is keeping something back from me—that she isn't telling me the real cause for her refusal to accept the situation and make the best of it. You know how secretive our coloured people can be sometimes."

"All the time, you mean," amended the old man. "Northerners never seem to be able to git it through their heads that a darky kin be loud-mouthed and close-mouthed at the same time. Now you take that black boy Jeff of mine. Jeff knows more about me—my habits, my likes and my dislikes, my private business and my private thoughts and all—than I know myself. And I know jest egsactly ez much about his real self—whut he thinks and whut he does behind my back—ez he wants me to know, no more and no less. I judge it's much the same way with your Aunt Sharley, and with all the rest of their race too. We understand how to live with 'em, but that ain't sayin' we understand how they live."

He looked steadfastly at his late ward.

"Honey, when you come to cast up the account you do owe a lot to that old nigger woman, don't you?—you and your sister both. Mebbe you owe even more than you think you do. There ain't many left like her in this new generation of darkies that's growed up—she belongs to a species that's mighty nigh extinct, ez you might say. Us Southern people are powerfully given, some of us, to tellin' whut we've done fur the black race—and we have done a lot, I'll admit—but sometimes I think we're prone to furgit some of the things they've done fur us. Hold on, honey," he added hastily, seeing that she was about to speak in her own defence. "I ain't takin' issue with you aginst you nor yit aginst the young man you're fixin' to marry. After all, you've got your own lives to live. I was jest sort of studyin' out loud—not offerin' an argument in opposition."

Still looking straight at her he asked a question:

"Tell me one thing, Emmy Lou, jest to satisfy my curiosity and before we go any further with this here bothersome affair that's makin' you unhappy. It seems like to me I heared somewheres that you first met this young man of yours whilst you and little Mildred were off at Knollwood Seminary finishin' your educations. Is that so or ain't it?"

"Yes, sir, that's true," she answered. "You see, when we first went to Knollwood, Harvey had just been sent South to take a place in the office of the trolley road at Knollwood.

"His people were interested in the line; he was assistant to the general manager then. I met him there. And he—he was interested in me, I suppose, and afterward, when he had worked his way up and had been promoted to the superintendency, his company bought our line in, too, and he induced them to transfer him here—I mean to say he was transferred here. So that's how it all happened."

"I see," he said musingly. "You met him down there and he got interested—'interested' was the word you used, wasn't it, honey?—and then after a spell when you had left there he followed you here—or rather it jest so happened by a coincidence that he was sent here. Well, I don't know ez I blame him—for being interested, I mean. It strikes me that in addition to bein' an enterprisin' young man he's also got excellent taste and fine discrimination. He ought to go quite a ways in the world—whut with coincidences favourin' him and everything."

The whimsical note died out of his voice. His tone became serious.

"Child," he said gently, "whut would you say—and whut's even more important, whut would you do—ef I was to tell you that ef it hadn't a-been fur old Aunt Sharley this great thing that's come into your life probably never would have come into it? What ef I was to tell you that if it hadn't a-been fur her you never would have knowed Mr. Harvey Winslow in the first place—and natchelly wouldn't be engaged to marry him now?"

"Why, Judge Priest, how could that be?" Her widened eyes betokened a blank incredulity.

"Emmy Lou," he answered slowly, "in tellin' you whut I'm about to tell you I'm breakin' a solemn pledge, and that's a thing I ain't much given to doin'. But this time I figger the circumstances justify me. Now listen: You remember, don't you, that in the first year or two following after the time your mother left us, the estate was sort of snarled up? Well, it was worse snarled up than you two children had any idea of. Two or three of the heaviest investments your father made in the later years of his life weren't turnin' out very well. The taxes on 'em amounted to mighty nigh ez much ez whut the income frum 'em did. We didn't aim to pester you two girls with all the details, so we sort of kept 'em to ourselves and done the best we could. You lived simple and there was enough to take care of you and to keep up your home, and we knowed we could depend on Aunt Sharley to manage careful. Really, she knowed more about the true condition of things than you did. Still, even so, you no doubt got an inklin' sometimes of how things stood with regards to your finances."

She nodded, saying nothing, and he went on:

"Well, jest about that time, one day in the early part of the summer I had a visit frum Aunt Sharley. She come to me in my office down at the courthouse, and I sent Jeff to fetch Lew Lake, and we both set down there together with that old nigger woman, and she told us whut she had to say. She told us that you children had growed up with the idea that you'd go off to boardin' school somewheres after you were done with our local schools, and that you were beginnin' to talk about goin' and that it was high time fur you to be gittin' ready to go, and, in brief, she wanted to know whut about it? We told her jest how things stood—that under the terms of your father's will practically everything you owned was entailed—held in trust by us—until both of the heirs had come of age. We told her that, with your consent or without it, we didn't have the power to sell off any part of the estate, and so, that bein' the case, the necessary money to send you off to school jest natchelly couldn't be provided noways, and that, since there was jest barely enough money comin' in to run the home and, by stintin', to care fur you and Mildred, any outside and special expense comin' on top of the regular expenses couldn't possibly be considered—or, in other words, that you two couldn't hope to go to boardin' school.

"I reckin you kin guess fur yourself whut that old woman done then. She flared up and showed all her teeth. She said that the quality always sent their daughters off to boardin' school to give 'em the final polish that made fine ladies of 'em. She said her Ole Miss—meanin' your grandmother—had gone to Knollwood and that your mother had gone there, and that you two girls were goin' there, too, whether or no. We tried to explain to her that some of the finest young ladies in the land and some of the best-born ones never had the advantages of a college education, but she said she didn't keer whut people somewheres else might do—that the daughters of her kind of quality folks went to college and that you two were goin', so that all through your lives you could hold up your heads with the finest in the land. You never seen anybody so set and determined about a thing ez that old woman was. We tried explainin' to her and we tried arguin' with her, and Lew Lake tried losin' his temper with her, him bein' somewhat hot-headed, but nothin' we could say seemed to have any effect on her at all. She jest set there with her old skinny arms folded on her breast like a major-general, and that old under lip of hers stuck out and her neck bowed, sayin' over and over agin that you girls were goin' to that boardin' school same ez the Dabneys and the Helms had always done. So finally we throwed up our hands and told her we were at the end of our rope and she'd kindly have to show us the way to bring it all about.

"And then she up and showed us. You remember the night me and Lew Lake come up to your house to talk over the matter of your college education and I told you to call Aunt Sharley into the conference—you remember that, don't you? And you remember she come out strong in favour of Knollwood and that after a while we seemed to give in? Well, child, I've got a little confession to make to you now along with a bigger one later on: That was all a little piece of by-play that had been planned out in advance. We knowed beforehand that Aunt Sharley was goin' to favour Knollwood and that we were goin' to fall into line with her notions about it at the end. She'd already licked us to a standstill there in my office, and we were jest tryin' to save our faces.

"So you went to college and you both stayed there two full years. And I mout ez well tell you right now that the principal reason why you had so many purty fixin's to wear whilst you was away and why you had ez much pin money to spend ez any other two girls there was because that old woman lived on less'n it would take, seemin'ly, to keep a bird alive, savin' every cent she could scrape up, and bringin' it to me to be sent on to you ez part of your allowance."

"But I don't understand yet," cried out Emmy Lou. "Why, Judge, Aunt Sharley just can write her own name. We had to print out the words in the letters we wrote her so that she could read them. I don't understand how the poor good old ignorant soul could figure out where the money which paid for our schooling could be found when both you and Doctor Lake–"

"I'm comin' to that part now," he told her. "Honey, you were right when you guessed that Aunt Sharley has been holdin' somethin' back frum you durin' this past week; but she's been tellin' you the truth too—in a way of speakin'. She ain't got any money saved up—or at least ef she's got any at all it ain't ez much ez you imagine. Whut she's got laid by kin only represent the savin's of four or five years, not of a whole lifetime. And when she said to you that she couldn't leave you to go to live in that little house that your father left her in his will she wasn't speakin' a lie. She can't go there to live because it ain't hers—she don't own it any more. Over five years ago she sold it outright, and she took the price she got fur it and to that price she added whut she'd saved up ez the fruits of a life-time of toil spent in your service and the service of your people before you, and that was the money—her money, every cent of it—which paid fur your two years at college. Now you know."

For a long half minute she stared at him, her face whitening and the great tears beginning to run down her cheeks. They ran faster and faster. She gave a great sob and then she threw her arms about the old Judge's neck and buried her face on his shoulder.

"Oh, I never dreamed it! I never dreamed it! I never had a suspicion! And I've been so cruel to her, so heartless! Oh, Judge Priest, why did you and Doctor Lake ever let her do it? Why did you let her make that sacrifice?"

He patted her shoulder gently.

"Well, honey, we did try at first to discourage her from the notion, but we mighty soon seen it wasn't any use to try, and a little later on, comin' to think it over, we decided mebbe we didn't want to try any more. There're some impulses in this world too noble to be interfered with or hampered or thwarted, and some sacrifices so fine that none of us should try to spoil 'em by settin' up ourselves and our own wills in the road. That's how I felt. That's how Lew Lake felt. That's how we both felt. And anyhow she kept p'intin' out that she wouldn' never need that there little house, because so long ez she lived she'd have a home with you two girls. That's whut she said, anyway."

"But why weren't we allowed to know before now? Why didn't we know—Mildred and I—ten days ago, so that she might have been spared the cruel thing I've done? Why didn't she come out and tell us when we went to her and I told her she must get off the place? Why didn't you tell me, Judge, before now—why didn't you give me a hint before now?"

"Honey, I couldn't. I was under a solemn promise not to tell—a promise that I've jest now broken. On the whole I think I'm glad I did break it. . . . Lemme see ef I kin remember in her own words whut she said to us? 'Gen'l'mens,' she says, 'dem chillens is of de quality an' entitled to hole up they haids wid de fines' in de land. I don't want never to have dem demeaned by lettin' dem know or by lettin' ary other pusson know dat an old black nigger woman furnished de money to help mek fine young ladies of 'em. So long ez I live,' she says, 'dey ain't never to heah it frum my lips an' you must both gimme yore word dat dey don't never heah it frum yourn. W'en I dies, an' not befo' den, dey may know de truth. De day dey lays me in de coffin you kin tell 'em both de secret—but not befo'!' she says.

"So you see, child, we were under a pledge, and till to-day I've kept that pledge. Nobody knows about the sale of that little piece of property except Aunt Sharley and Lew Lake and me and the man who bought it and the man who recorded the deed that I drew up. Even the man who bought it never learned the real name of the previous owner, and the matter of the recordin' was never made public. Whut's the good of my bein' the circuit judge of this district without I've got influence enough with the county clerk to see that a small real-estate transaction kin be kept frum pryin' eyes? So you see only five people knowed anything a-tall about that sale, and only three of them knowed the true facts, and now I've told you, and so that makes four that are sharin' the secret. . . . Don't carry on so, honey. 'Tain't ez ef you'd done somethin' that couldn't be mended. You've got all your life to make it up to her. And besides, you were in ignorance until jest now. . . . Now, Emmy Lou, I ain't goin' to advise you; but I certainly would like to hear frum your own lips whut you do aim to do?"