The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories (25 page)

Clare answered gravely: “Yes. It is twelve years. But I’m not surprised to see you, ’Rene. That is, not so very. In fact, ever since I’ve been here, I’ve more or less hoped that I should, or someone. Preferably you, though. Still, I imagine that’s because I’ve thought of you often and often, while you—I’ll wager you’ve never given me a thought.”

It was true, of course. After the first speculations and indictments, Clare had gone completely from Irene’s thoughts. And from the
thoughts of others too—if their conversation was any indication of their thoughts.

Besides, Clare had never been exactly one of the group, just as she’d never been merely the janitor’s daughter, but the daughter of Mr. Bob Kendry, who, it was true, was a janitor, but who also, it seemed, had been in college with some of their fathers. Just how or why he happened to be a janitor, and a very inefficient one at that, they none of them quite knew. One of Irene’s brothers, who had put the question to their father, had been told: “That’s something that doesn’t concern you,” and given him the advice to be careful not to end in the same manner as “poor Bob.”

No, Irene hadn’t thought of Clare Kendry. Her own life had been too crowded. So, she supposed, had the lives of other people. She defended her—their—forgetfulness. “You know how it is. Everybody’s so busy. People leave, drop out, maybe for a little while there’s talk about them, or questions; then, gradually they’re forgotten.”

“Yes, that’s natural,” Clare agreed. And what, she inquired, had they said of her for that little while at the beginning before they’d forgotten her altogether?

Irene looked away. She felt the telltale color rising in her cheeks. “You can’t,” she evaded, “expect me to remember trifles like that over twelve years of marriages, births, deaths, and the war.”

There followed that trill of notes that was Clare Kendry’s laugh, small and clear and the very essence of mockery.

“Oh, ’Rene!” she cried. “Of course you remember! But I won’t make you tell me, because I know just as well as if I’d been there and heard every unkind word. Oh, I know, I know. Frank Danton saw me in the Shelby one night. Don’t tell me he didn’t broadcast that, and with embroidery. Others may have seen me at other times. I don’t know. But once I met Margaret Hammer in Marshall Field’s. I’d have spoken, was on the very point of doing it, but she cut me dead. My dear ’Rene, I assure you that, from the way she looked through me, even I was uncertain whether I was actually there in the flesh or not. I remember it clearly, too clearly. It was that very thing which, in a way, finally decided me not to go out and see you one
last time before I went away to stay. Somehow, good as all of you, the whole family, had always been to the poor forlorn child that was me, I felt I shouldn’t be able to bear that. I mean if any of you, your mother or the boys or—Oh, well, I just felt I’d rather not know it if you did. And so I stayed away. Silly, I suppose. Sometimes I’ve been sorry I didn’t go.”

Irene wondered if it was tears that made Clare’s eyes so luminous.

“And now, ’Rene, I want to hear all about you and everybody and everything. You’re married, I s’pose?”

Irene nodded.

“Yes,” Clare said knowingly, “you would be. Tell me about it.”

And so for an hour or more they had sat there smoking and drinking tea and filling in the gap of twelve years with talk. That is, Irene did. She told Clare about her marriage and removal to New York, about her husband, and about her two sons, who were having their first experience of being separated from their parents at a summer camp, about her mother’s death, about the marriages of her two brothers. She told of the marriages, births, and deaths in other families that Clare had known, opening up, for her, new vistas on the lives of old friends and acquaintances.

Clare drank it all in, these things which for so long she had wanted to know and hadn’t been able to learn. She sat motionless, her bright lips slightly parted, her whole face lit by the radiance of her happy eyes. Now and then she put a question, but for the most part she was silent.

Somewhere outside, a clock struck. Brought back to the present, Irene looked down at her watch and exclaimed: “Oh, I must go, Clare!”

A moment passed during which she was the prey of uneasiness. It had suddenly occurred to her that she hadn’t asked Clare anything about her own life and that she had a very definite unwillingness to do so. And she was quite well aware of the reason for that reluctance. But, she asked herself, wouldn’t it, all things considered, be the kindest thing not to ask? If things with Clare were as she—as they all—had suspected, wouldn’t it be more tactful to seem to forget to inquire how she had spent those twelve years?

If?
It was that “if” which bothered her. It might be, it might just be, in spite of all gossip and even appearances to the contrary, that there was nothing, had been nothing, that couldn’t be simply and innocently explained. Appearances, she knew now, had a way sometimes of not fitting facts, and if Clare hadn’t—Well, if they had all been wrong, then certainly she ought to express some interest in what had happened to her. It would seem queer and rude if she didn’t. But how was she to know? There was, she at last decided, no way; so she merely said again, “I must go, Clare.”

“Please, not so soon, ’Rene,” Clare begged, not moving.

Irene thought: “She’s really almost too good-looking. It’s hardly any wonder that she—”

“And now, ’Rene dear, that I’ve found you, I mean to see lots and lots of you. We’re here for a month at least. Jack, that’s my husband, is here on business. Poor dear! In this heat. Isn’t it beastly? Come to dinner with us tonight, won’t you?” And she gave Irene a curious little sidelong glance and a sly, ironical smile peeped out on her full red lips, as if she had been in the secret of the other’s thoughts and was mocking her.

Irene was conscious of a sharp intake of breath, but whether it was relief or chagrin that she felt, she herself could not have told. She said hastily: “I’m afraid I can’t, Clare. I’m filled up. Dinner and bridge. I’m so sorry.”

“Come tomorrow instead, to tea,” Clare insisted. “Then you’ll see Margery—she’s just ten—and Jack too, maybe, if he hasn’t got an appointment or something.”

From Irene came an uneasy little laugh. She had an engagement for tomorrow also and she was afraid that Clare would not believe it. Suddenly, now, that possibility disturbed her. Therefore it was with a half-vexed feeling at the sense of undeserved guilt that had come upon her that she explained that it wouldn’t be possible because she wouldn’t be free for tea, or for luncheon or dinner either. “And the next day’s Friday when I’ll be going away for the weekend, Idlewild, you know. It’s quite the thing now.” And then she had an inspiration.

“Clare!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you come up with me? Our
place is probably full up—Jim’s wife has a way of collecting mobs of the most impossible people—but we can always manage to find room for one more. And you’ll see absolutely everybody.”

In the very moment of giving the invitation she regretted it. What a foolish, what an idiotic impulse to have given way to! She groaned inwardly as she thought of the endless explanations in which it would involve her, of the curiosity, and the talk, and the lifted eyebrows. It wasn’t, she assured herself, that she was a snob, that she cared greatly for the petty restrictions and distinctions with which what called itself Negro society chose to hedge itself about; but that she had a natural and deeply rooted aversion to the kind of front-page notoriety that Clare Kendry’s presence in Idlewild, as her guest, would expose her to. And here she was, perversely and against all reason, inviting her.

But Clare shook her head. “Really, I’d love to, ’Rene,” she said, a little mournfully. “There’s nothing I’d like better. But I couldn’t. I mustn’t, you see. It wouldn’t do at all. I’m sure you understand. I’m simply crazy to go, but I can’t.” The dark eyes glistened and there was a suspicion of a quaver in the husky voice. “And believe me, ’Rene, I do thank you for asking me. Don’t think I’ve entirely forgotten just what it would mean for you if I went. That is, if you still care about such things.”

All indication of tears had gone from her eyes and voice, and Irene Redfield, searching her face, had an offended feeling that behind what was now only an ivory mask lurked a scornful amusement. She looked away, at the wall far beyond Clare. Well, she deserved it, for, as she acknowledged to herself, she
was
relieved. And for the very reason at which Clare had hinted. The fact that Clare had guessed her perturbation did not, however, in any degree lessen that relief. She was annoyed at having been detected in what might seem to be an insincerity; but that was all.

The waiter came with Clare’s change. Irene reminded herself that she ought immediately to go. But she didn’t move.

The truth was, she was curious. There were things that she wanted to ask Clare Kendry. She wished to find out about this hazardous business of “passing,” this breaking away from all that was familiar
and friendly to take one’s chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly. What, for example, one did about background, how one accounted for oneself. And how one felt when one came into contact with other Negroes. But she couldn’t. She was unable to think of a single question that in its context or its phrasing was not too frankly curious, if not actually impertinent.

As if aware of her desire and her hesitation, Clare remarked thoughtfully: “You know, ’Rene, I’ve often wondered why more colored girls, girls like you and Margaret Hammer and Esther Dawson and—oh, lots of others—never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve.”

“What about background? Family, I mean. Surely you can’t just drop down on people from nowhere and expect them to receive you with open arms, can you?”

“Almost,” Clare asserted. “You’d be surprised, ’Rene, how much easier that is with white people than with us. Maybe because there are so many more of them, or maybe because they are secure and so don’t have to bother. I’ve never quite decided.”

Irene was inclined to be incredulous. “You mean that you didn’t have to explain where you came from? It seems impossible.”

Clare cast a glance of repressed amusement across the table at her. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t. Though I suppose under any other circumstances I might have had to provide some plausible tale to account for myself. I’ve a good imagination, so I’m sure I could have done it quite creditably, and credibly. But it wasn’t necessary. There were my aunts, you see, respectable and authentic enough for anything or anybody.”

“I see. They were ‘passing’ too.”

“No. They weren’t. They were white.”

“Oh!” And in the next instant it came back to Irene that she had heard this mentioned before; by her father or, more likely, her mother. They were Bob Kendry’s aunts. He had been a son of their brother’s, on the left hand. A wild oat.

“They were nice old ladies,” Clare explained, “very religious and
as poor as church mice. That adored brother of theirs, my grandfather, got through every penny they had after he’d finished his own little bit.”

Clare paused in her narrative to light another cigarette. Her smile, her expression, Irene noticed, was faintly resentful.

“Being good Christians,” she continued, “when Dad came to his tipsy end, they did their duty and gave me a home of sorts. I was, it was true, expected to earn my keep by doing all the housework and most of the washing. But do you realize, ’Rene, that if it hadn’t been for them I shouldn’t have had a home in the world?”

Irene’s nod and little murmur were comprehensive, understanding.

Clare made a small mischievous grimace and proceeded. “Besides, to their notion, hard labor was good for me. I had Negro blood and they belonged to the generation that had written and read long articles headed: ‘Will the Blacks Work?’ Too, they weren’t quite sure that the good God hadn’t intended the sons and daughters of Ham to sweat because he had poked fun at old man Noah once when he had taken a drop too much. I remember the aunts telling me that that old drunkard had cursed Ham and his sons for all time.”

Irene laughed. But Clare remained quite serious.

“It was more than a joke, I assure you, ’Rene. It was a hard life for a girl of sixteen. Still, I had a roof over my head, and food, and clothes—such as they were. And there were the Scriptures, and talks on morals and thrift and industry and the loving-kindness of the good Lord.”

“Have you ever stopped to think, Clare,” Irene demanded, “how much unhappiness and downright cruelty are laid to the loving-kindness of the Lord? And always by His most ardent followers, it seems.”

“Have I?” Clare exclaimed. “It, they, made me what I am today. For, of course, I was determined to get away, to be a person and not a charity or a problem, or even a daughter of the indiscreet Ham. Then, too, I wanted things. I knew I wasn’t bad-looking and that I could ‘pass.’ You can’t know, ’Rene, how, when I used to go over to the South Side, I used almost to hate all of you. You had all the things I wanted and never had had. It made me all the more determined
to get them, and others. Do you, can you understand what I felt?”

She looked up with a pointed and appealing effect, and, evidently finding the sympathetic expression on Irene’s face sufficient answer, went on. “The aunts were queer. For all their Bibles and praying and ranting about honesty, they didn’t want anyone to know that their darling brother had seduced—ruined, they called it—a Negro girl. They could excuse the ruin, but they couldn’t forgive the tar brush. They forbade me to mention Negroes to the neighbors, or even to mention the South Side. You may be sure that I didn’t. I’ll bet they were good and sorry afterwards.”

She laughed and the ringing bells in her laugh had a hard metallic sound.

“When the chance to get away came, that omission was of great value to me. When Jack, a schoolboy acquaintance of some people in the neighborhood, turned up from South America with untold gold, there was no one to tell him that I was colored, and many to tell him about the severity and the religiousness of Aunt Grace and Aunt Edna. You can guess the rest. After he came, I stopped slipping off to the South Side and slipped off to meet him instead. I couldn’t manage both. In the end I had no great difficulty in convincing him that it was useless to talk marriage to the aunts. So on the day that I was eighteen we went off and were married. So that’s that. Nothing could have been easier.”