Angela herself had not arrived at any genuine intimacies. Two of the girls had asked her to their homes but she had always refused; such invitations would have to be returned with similar ones and the presence of Jinny would entail explanations. The invitation of Mr. Shields, the instructor, to have tea at his wife’s at home was another matter and of this she gladly availed herself. She could not tell to just what end she was striving. She did not like teaching and longed to give it up. On the other hand she must make her living. Mr. Shields had suggested that she might be able to increase both her earning capacity and her enjoyments through a more practical application of her art. There were directorships of drawing in the public schools, positions in art schools and colleges, or, since Angela frankly acknowledged her unwillingness to instruct, there was such a thing as being buyer for the art section of a department store.
“And anyway,” said Mrs. Shields, “you never know what may be in store for you if you just have preparation.” She and her husband were both attracted to the pleasant-spoken, talented girl. Angela possessed an undeniable air, and she dressed well, even superlatively. Her parents’ death had meant the possession of half the house and half of three thousand dollars’ worth of insurance. Her salary was adequate, her expenses light. Indeed even her present mode of living gave her little cause for complaint except that her racial affiliations narrowed her confines. But she was restlessly conscious of a desire for broader horizons. She confided something like this to her new friends.
“Perfectly natural,” they agreed. “There’s no telling where your tastes and talents will lead you—to Europe perhaps and surely to the formation of new and interesting friendships. You’ll find artistic folk the broadest, most liberal people in the world.”
“There are possibilities of scholarships, too,” Mr. Shields concluded more practically. The Academy offered a few in competition. But there were others more liberally endowed and practically without restriction.
Sundays on Opal Street bore still their aspect of something different and special. Jinny sometimes went to church, sometimes packed the car with a group of laughing girls of her age and played at her father’s old game of exploring. Angela preferred to stay in the house. She liked to sleep late, get up for a leisurely bath and a meticulous toilet. Afterwards she would turn over her wardrobe, sorting and discarding; read the week’s forecast of theatres, concerts and exhibits. And finally she would begin sketching, usually ending up with a new view of Hetty Daniels’ head.
Hetty, who lived with them now in the triple capacity, as she saw it, of housekeeper, companion, and chaperone, loved to pose. It satisfied some unquenchable vanity in her unloved, empty existence. She could not conceive of being sketched because she was, in the artistic jargon, “interesting,” “paintable,” or “difficult.” Models, as she understood it, were chosen for their beauty. Square and upright she sat, regaling Angela with tales of the romantic adventures of some remote period which was her youth. She could not be very old, the young girl thought; indeed, from some of her dates she must have been at least twelve years younger than her mother. Yet Mrs. Murray had carried with her to the end some irrefragable quality of girlishness which would keep her memory forever young.
Miss Daniels’ great fetish was sex morality. “Them young fellers was always ’round me thick ez bees; wasn’t any night they wasn’t more fellows in my kitchen then you an’ Jinny ever has in yore parlour. But I never listened to none of the’ talk, jist held out agin ’em and kept my pearl of great price untarnished. I aimed then and I’m continual to aim to be a verjous woman.”
Her unslaked yearnings gleamed suddenly out of her eyes, transforming her usually rather expressionless face into something wild and avid. The dark brown immobile mask of her skin made an excellent foil for the vividness of an emotion which was so apparent, so palpable that it seemed like something superimposed upon the background of her countenance.
“If I could just get that look for Mr. Shields,” Angela said half aloud to herself, “I bet I could get any of their old scholarships. … So you had lots more beaux than we have, Hetty? Well you wouldn’t have to go far to outdo us there.”
The same half dozen young men still visited the Murray household on Sundays. None of them except Matthew Henson came as a suitor; the others looked in partly from habit, partly, Jinny used to say, for the sake of Hetty Daniels’ good gingerbread, but more than for any other reason for the sake of having a comfortable place in which to argue and someone with whom to conduct the argument.
“They certainly do argue,” Angela grumbled a little, but she didn’t care. Matthew was usually the leader in their illimitable discussions, but she much preferred him at this than at his clumsy and distasteful lovemaking. Of course she could go out, but there was no place for her to visit and no companions for her to visit with. If she made calls there would be merely a replica of what she was finding in her own household. It was true that in the ultramodern set Sunday dancing was being taken up. But she and Virginia did not fit in
