From as far back as she could remember she had had one passion, one desire unique in its singleness. And that had been to “be” somebody. And long ago she had realized that the only way out for her was marriage with a man of distinction. The distinction might consist in a career, in family, in business—it made no difference to her. At first she thought she could achieve her desire through Philip—and she had loved him, too.
She dwelt on this a moment. How wonderful such a marriage would have been! Loving him as she did she would have let her desire for mere respectability sink into second place, discounting the fact that she would have gained it anyhow by such a union. But Joanna had interfered, and then she had married Henderson Neal, a gambler, a gambler who had plunged her further back than ever into the obscurity from which she was beginning to emerge.
“What a fool I was to consider Joanna’s letter. Philip might, just possibly, have come to like me better—to love me.” She reminded herself then, a little spasm of pain twitching across her face, that he had never since her marriage, not even since her divorce, made any attempt to get in touch with her. “And he could have a thousand times,” she whispered to herself.
Now here was Peter. She rose from the couch on which she had been lying and walked restlessly, aimlessly around the room. The light from a cluster of electric bulbs on the wall struck at and brought out little flashes of radiance from the silver butterflies which chased each other up and down across the heavy folds of her black silk kimono. Her hair, parted in the middle and brushed to a smooth luster, hung in two thick short braids one over each shoulder. She caught her lip in her teeth, whitening that mysterious redness which was the only note of color in the golden oval of her face.
A mirror caught her attention and she stopped before it.
“Oh, Peter, Peter,” she whispered unseeingly to the image in the glass, “dear Peter, don’t you see you’re my only chance? You’ve got to help me. It isn’t as though Joanna really wanted you, or as though you’d ever go back to her.”
Just as Joanna had resolved a few hours ago to cast herself on Maggie’s mercy, so Maggie determined to open up her heart to Peter and beg him to remove her forever from the distastefulness of this life.
Her mother tapped on the door and came in, followed by Mis’ Sparrow. The two of them, great “jiners,” had just returned from one of their innumerable lodge meetings.
“It was a great sight, Maggie. You’d ought to have been there. Can’t see why you mope so about the house, anyway. Don’t believe you’ve been anywhere since you’ve been here this trip—’cept to Madam Harkness’.”
Maggie murmured that she didn’t care to go out, she had come home to rest.
“Well, stay in the house all you want, chile. Long’s I got Cousin Jinny Sparrow to go around with me I ain’t carin’. Reckon we’ve done our share of stayin’ in the house in our time, ain’t we, Jinny?”
Mis’ Sparrow thus addressed admitted she had: “An’ I don’t propose to do it no more. Come on, Sallie, I c’n see Maggie’s got somethin’ on her mind.”
Maggie protested, but only faintly. She loved and was deeply attached to the two thin wrinkled ladies, but they and she had nothing in common. They lived a separate life from hers entirely, a life which included much attention to churches, strawberry festivals, lodge meetings, bits of gossip, funerals, visits to ladies similarly faded and wizened, and a sort of shrewd indiscriminate charity. Maggie used to envy them their utter and complete absorption in these matters.
“I’m not the one who wants to be to herself, it’s you who want to get off and talk over your secrets.” She shook a playful finger. Long after they had gone, curled up on her couch, she sat watching, as she used to watch in Philadelphia, the gas-heater cast its ruddy glow on the high white ceiling.
The morning brought her a momentary shock of pleasure. It was the day for Peter’s letter. He had written: “I am coming to see you next week.” Her spirits leaped at that. But afterwards he explained; one of his classmates had warned him to get his instruments as quickly as possible, there was going to be a great demand for steel, so he was coming to New York to see about the things he had ordered. “I’m in deadly earnest this time, Maggie, and though I don’t like my professors any better than I did before, I’m making the most of my return. There’s only one thing that would keep me from finishing and that would be war. It seems foolish for a colored man to fight for America, but I believe I’d like to do it. Only I want to pick up a commission somewhere. Not a chance for a colored fellow at Plattsburg, but some of the boys are whispering of a training camp for Negro officers at Des Moines. This is still sub rosa, so don’t mention it.”
Her hopes rose, fell, rose again as she scanned the letter.
“He must make some definite plans about me, if he’s thinking of war.”
The next Thursday saw him striding along Fifty-third Street in the direction of Maggie’s house. His nervous glance at his watch justified his fear of being late. That was because he had stopped at his Aunt Susan’s little apartment to talk over his plans. She was just the same as ever—stout, sane, energetic, ready to be fond of Peter. Before the afternoon was over she was worshiping him inwardly. For her
