At none of these assemblies did Joanna find what she was looking for—a sight of Peter. She had gone at first out of sheer graciousness—a willingness to do something for these brave men. But later, there was another reason; something happened which led her to expect to see Peter at any moment, at any turn. She met Vera Manning.
“Vera, you imp! Telling those people that you had gone to school with me to learn democracy; I nearly died! Where’ve you been this long while? How wonderful you look! And how different!”
“Oh, Joanna, Joanna, I was coming to see you! First of all I’ve been South. I got sick of going about with those white people, so I cast about for something to do. You remember they mobbed some colored soldiers in Arkansas because they’d worn their uniforms in the street? Well, it made me sick, it made me think of—of Harley. So I rushed to a newspaper, Barney Kirchner is the manager—wasn’t he one of Philip’s friends? And I told them: ‘I’m colored, see, but nobody would guess it; send me down there. See if I can’t get a line on those people.’ ”
“Mercy,” said Joanna, “what an idea!”
“And they sent me. And, oh, Joanna, it was wonderful to see how our folks, those colored people, trusted me and shielded me when they found I was one of them. And those white bullies, thinking I was one of them, told me the most bloodcurdling, most fiendish tales. I really got an investigation started. Mr. Kirchner has taken it up. Oh, Joanna, I’m glad I’m colored—there’s something terrible, terrible about white people.”
She had seen a side of life which had first amazed, then frightened, then incited her. Joanna had never seen her friend like this, so roused and quickened, so purposeful. “It was as though at last I had found some excuse for being what I am, looking like one race and belonging to another. It made me feel like—don’t laugh—like a ministering angel. Oh, I hated myself so for having spent all those foolish months, years even, away from my own folks when I might have been consecrated to them, serving them, helping them, healing them. You can’t understand just how I feel, Janna dear. You’ve always had a definite something before you to make out of your life. I tell you I feel as though I had found a new heaven and a new earth.”
“Wasn’t it awfully dangerous, Vera?”
“Awfully, and funny, too. Exciting! I’ll never be able to get back to Little Rock again. They found me out, suspected me. I really had to make a quick getaway. Something so rotten happened, I just couldn’t control myself.”
She told her friend that she had finished the investigation on hand and was quietly preparing to go. It happened that on her last night at the hotel where she was staying, the hotel management was approached on the subject of having sold liquor to two young white women, the questionable guests of three or four white men. Vera, secretly amused to realize that she had been staying at such a resort, thought nothing of the disturbance until she learned that the colored bell boys were charged with aiding and abetting the women in violation of the law.
“So I followed it up, Joanna. And what do you think happened? When the case came up for trial, the girls who had been taken up on charges of assignation were adjudged not guilty, but the two bellhops were held for serving liquor under orders, and aiding in a crime which this same court says never was committed. Isn’t it all too absurd! I made so much row about it that they became suspicious. A colored woman whom I had never seen before passed me on the street and handed me a note, in which she told me that my actions had made ‘them’ highly suspicious of me. Someone suggested that perhaps I was a ‘yaller nigger passin’,’ and if so I’d better look out. So I got out. Oh, there was plenty of excitement, but it was worth it. I’m going to play the same game somewhere else, just as soon as I can. Do you know, I’m—I’m almost glad that I am forced to devote the rest of my life to it.”
“Forced to devote your life to it,” Joanna repeated, bewildered. “Why, what do you mean?”
A subtle change came over Vera’s face. It was almost as though one could see her marshaling her inner forces, her spiritual resources. Despair, resolve, pride, courage—her friend could descry each in turn. Then she laughed her old confident laugh.
“Well, it’s like this, Janna. I’ve had a message—indirectly—from Harley. He—” she bit her lip, “he isn’t coming back to America. He managed to get his discharge in France and he’s made up his mind to live there. Isn’t it great for him? It means he’ll have to start his training all over again, but he says he’d rather do that than waste his life bucking this color business any more. And there’s all sorts of work for a dentist in those little French towns. Just imagine old Harley’s being free to come and go as he pleases. No more insults for him, no more lynching news. Why, it’ll be life all over for him, won’t it, Jan? And I can’t blame him,” she broke off breathlessly, “once I might have thought the thing for him to do was to stay with his own folks, but life cheats us colored people so. I wish I had understood that earlier. White and colored people! No wonder Peter used to rave as he did.” She ended astoundingly: “I suppose you and he have made up.”
“Who?” asked Joanna stupidly. “Peter and—and me? Why, I haven’t seen him. Why, he’s going to marry Maggie Ellersley!”
“Marry Maggie nothing!
