"I have practically nothing to do for the next hour. Please consider it yours."
Betty stole a glance at him. He was leaning back in his chair regarding her intently. It was impossible to say whether his eyes had softened or not, but he looked kind and interested.
"I never have told you that your father was a great friend of mine," he said. "You really have a claim on me." In spite of the fact that the Congressional Directory gave him sixty years, he looked anything but fatherly. Although there never was the slightest affectation of youth in his dress or manner, he suggested threescore years as little. So strong was his individuality that Betty could not imagine him having been at any time other than he was now. He was Senator North, that was the rounded fact; years had nothing to do with him.
"Well, I"m glad you knew papa; it will help you to understand. I--But perhaps you had better read this."
She took the clergyman"s letter from her m.u.f.f, and Senator North put on a pair of steel-rimmed eyegla.s.ses and read it. When he had finished he put the eyegla.s.ses in his pocket, folded the letter, and handed it to her. He had read the contents with equal deliberation. It seemed impossible that he would act otherwise in any circ.u.mstance.
"Well?" he said, looking keenly at her. "What are you going to do about it?"
"I am ashamed to tell you how I have felt. But we Southerners feel so strongly on--on--that subject--it is difficult to explain!"
"We Northerners know exactly how you feel," he said dryly. "We should be singularly obtuse if we did not. However, do not for a moment imagine that I am unsympathetic. We all have our prejudices, and the strongest one is a part of us. And for the matter of that, the average American is no more anxious to marry a woman with negro blood in her than the Southerner is, and looks down upon the Black from almost as lofty a height. Only our prejudice is pa.s.sive, for he is not the constant source of annoyance and anxiety with us that he is with you."
"Then you understand how repulsive it is to me to have a sister who is white by accident only, and how torn I am between pity for her and a physical antipathy that I cannot overcome?"
"I understand perfectly."
"That is why I have come to you--to ask you what I _must_ do. This is the first time I have been confronted by a real problem; my life has been so smooth and my trials so petty. It is too great a problem for me to solve by myself, and I could not think of anybody"s advice but yours that--that I would take," she finished, with her first flash of humour.
"I fully expect you to take the advice I am going to give you. Your duty is plain; you must do all you can for this girl. But by no means receive her into your house until you have made her acquaintance. Take the ten o"clock B. & O. to-morrow morning and go to St. Andrew; it is about four hours" journey and on the line of the railroad. Spend several hours with the girl, and, if she is worth the trouble, bring her back with you and do all you can for her: it would be cruel and heartless to refuse her consolation if she is all this old man describes--and you are not cruel and heartless. And if this drop of black blood is abhorrent to you, think what it must be to her. It is enough to torment a high-strung woman into insanity or suicide. On the other hand, if she is common, or looks as if she had a violent temper, or is conceited and self-sufficient like so many of that hybrid race, settle an income on her and send her to Europe: in placing her above temptation you will have done your duty."
"But that is the whole point--to be sure that _you_ do the right thing."
"I almost hope she will be impossible, so that I can wipe her off the slate at once. Otherwise it will be a terrible problem."
"It is no problem at all. There is no problem in plain duty. Problems exist princ.i.p.ally in works of fiction and in the minds of unoccupied women. If you meet each development of every question in the most natural and reasonable manner,--presupposing that you possess that highest attribute of civilization, common-sense,--no question will ever resolve itself into a problem. And difficulties usually disappear as the range of vision contracts. If your house takes fire, you save what you can, not what you have elaborately planned to save in case of fire.
Train your common-sense and let the windy a.n.a.lysis pertaining to problems alone."
"But how can I ever get over the horror of the thing, Mr. North?"
"You will forget all about it when she has been your daily companion for a few weeks. If she lacked a nose, you would as soon cease to remember it. If this girl is worth liking, you will like her, and soon cease to feel tragic. Leave that to her!"
"I know that you are right, and of course I shall take your advice. I did not come here to trouble you for nothing. But if I liked her at first and not afterward--"
"Pack her off to Europe. Europe will console an American woman for every ill in life. If you take the right att.i.tude in the beginning, it all rests with her after that. You will have but one duty further. If she wishes to marry, you must tell the man the truth, if she will not.
Don"t hesitate on that point a moment. Her children are liable to be coal-black. That African blood seems to have a curse on it, and the curse is usually visited on the unoffending."
"I will, I will," said Betty. She rose, and he rose also and took her hand in both of his. She felt an almost irresistible desire to put her head on his shoulder, for she was tired and depressed.
"Your att.i.tude in the matter is the important thing to me," he said.
"That is why I have spoken so emphatically. You are a child yet, in spite of your twenty-seven years and your admirable intelligence. This is practically your first trial, the first time you have been called upon to make a decision which, either way, is bound to have a strong effect on your character, and to affect still greater decisions you may be called upon to make in the future. You have only one defect; you are not quite serious enough--yet."
"I feel very serious just now," said Betty, with a sigh; and in truth she did, and her new-found sister was not the only thing that perplexed her.
"One of these days you will be a singularly perfect woman," he added, and then he dropped her hand and walked to the door. As he was about to open it, she touched his arm timidly.
"Will you come and see me on Sunday?" she asked. "I shall have been through a good deal between now and then, and I shall want--I shall want to talk to you."
"I will come," he said.
"Not before half-past four. My mother will be asleep then, and my cousin, Jack Emory, have gone home--there will be so many things I shall want to talk to you about."
"I shall be there at half-past four," he said. "Good-bye. Good-bye."
XI
Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would not a.n.a.lyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter reproach to her father"s shade; and she rea.s.sured herself by frankly admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of Senator North.
She bathed her eyes and went to her mother"s room. The sooner that ordeal was over, she reflected, the better. Mrs. Madison was reading an amusing novel and looked up with a smile, then pushed the book aside.
"Have you been crying, darling?" she asked. "What can be the matter?"
Betty told her story without preamble. Her mother"s nerves could stand a shock, but not three minutes of uncertainty. Mrs. Madison listened with more equanimity than Betty antic.i.p.ated.
"I suppose I may consider myself fortunate that I have not had one of his brats thrust on me before," she remarked philosophically. "What are we to do about this creature?"
"There is only one human thing to do. It is not her fault, and she is very wretched at present. And now that I know the truth I suppose I am as responsible as my father would be if he were alive. I shall go to see her to-morrow, and if she is presentable and seems good I shall bring her to Washington. Of course I shall not bring her here without your permission--it is your house. Let me read you his letter."
"Do you feel very strongly on the subject?" Mrs. Madison asked when Betty had finished.
"Oh, I do! I do! I will promise not to bring her to Washington at all if she is impossible, but if she is all I feel sure she must be, let me bring her here for a few weeks, until we have decided what to do for her. I know it is a great deal to ask--her presence cannot fail to be hateful to you--"
"My dear, I have outlived any feeling of that sort, and I have not put everything on your shoulders all these years to thwart you now, when you feel so deeply. Moreover, an old memory came to me while you were reading that letter. When I was a little girl, about eight or ten, I spent an entire summer with Aunt Mary Eager at her home in Virginia.
She had a house full, and there were five other little girls beside myself. A brook ran across the foot of the plantation, and we were very fond of playing there. Directly across was the hut of a freed slave who had a little girl about our own age. The child was a beautiful octaroon. I can see her plainly, with her honey-coloured skin, her immense black eyes, her long straight black hair, and her stiff little white frock tucked to the waist. Her mother took the greatest pride in her, and was always changing her clothes.
"Every day she used to come to the edge of her side of the brook and watch us. We never noticed her, for although we often played with the little black piccaninnies, the yellow child of a freed slave was another matter. One day--I think she had watched us for about a week--she came half-way across the bridge. We stared at each other, but took no notice of her. The next day she walked straight across and up to us, and asked us very nicely if she might play with us. We turned upon her six scarlet scandalized faces, and what we said, in what brutal child language, I do not care to repeat. The child stared at us for a moment as if she were looking into the Inferno itself, and I expect she was, poor little soul! Then she gave a cry, and tore across the bridge and up the "pike as hard as she could run. As long as we could see her she was running, and as I never saw her again--we avoided the brook after that--it seemed to me for years as if she must be running still. And for years those flying feet haunted me, and I used to long as I grew older to do penance in some way. I befriended many a poor yellow girl, hoping she might be that child. Then life grew too sad for me to remember the sins of my childhood. But I like the idea of making penance at this late day and receiving this girl for a few weeks into my house: it will be a penance, for I do not fancy sitting at the table with a woman with negro blood in her veins, I can a.s.sure you. But I shall do it. I believe if I did not I should be haunted again by those little flying feet. There is no chance of this being her daughter, for she would have been too old to attract your father"s fancy. But that is not the point. I make one condition. No one must know the truth, not even Sally or Jack. She must pa.s.s for a distant relative, left suddenly dest.i.tute." "She would probably be the last to wish the truth known. But you have taken a weight off my mind, Molly dear, and I am deeply grateful to you."
XII
The next day Betty left the train a few minutes after two o"clock and walked up the winding street of a small village to the parsonage. She pa.s.sed a number of cottages picturesquely dilapidated, a store in which a half-dozen men were smoking, and about thirty lounging negroes. On rising ground was a large house, but the village looked forlorn, neglected, almost lifeless.
The men in the store came out and stared at her; so did the women from the cottages. And the negroes stood still. Doubtless they thought her a wealthy vision; the day was cold, and she wore a brown cloth dress and a sable jacket and toque.
"What a life for an intelligent woman!" she thought, glancing about her with deep distaste. "It would be enough to induce melancholia without the "taint.""
She had made a desperate effort in the last twenty-four hours to overcome her repugnance, but had only succeeded in making sure that she could conceal it. She had recalled her interview with Senator North again and again. His indubitable interest gave her courage, and a desire to use the best that was in her. And she had turned her mind more often still to those men in the church and the sentiments they had inspired. The shutters of the parsonage were closed, there was c.r.a.pe on the door. Betty turned the k.n.o.b and entered. A number of people were in a room on the right of the hall. At the head of the room, barely out-lined in the heavy shadows, was a coffin on its trestle.