The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Passing, Quicksand, and the Stories (36 page)

“I mean, did you ever go up by nigger power?”

“That’s good!” Clare laughed. “Ask ’Rene. My father was a janitor, you know, in the good old days before every ramshackle flat had its elevator. But you can’t mean we’ve got to walk up? Not here!”

“Yes, here. And Felise lives at the very top,” Irene told her.

“What on earth for?”

“I believe she claims it discourages the casual visitor.”

“And she’s probably right. Hard on herself, though.” Brian said, “Yes, a bit. But she says she’d rather be dead than bored.”

“Oh, a garden! And how lovely with that undisturbed snow!”

“Yes, isn’t it? But keep to the walk with those foolish thin shoes. You too, Irene.”

Irene walked beside them on the cleared cement path that split the whiteness of the courtyard garden. She felt a something in the air, something that had been between those two and would be again. It was like a live thing pressing against her. In a quick furtive glance she saw Clare clinging to Brian’s other arm. She was looking at him with that provocative upward glance of hers, and his eyes were fastened on her face with what seemed to Irene an expression of wistful eagerness.

“It’s this entrance, I believe,” she informed them in quite her ordinary voice.

“Mind,” Brian told Clare, “you don’t fall by the wayside before the fourth floor. They absolutely refuse to carry anyone up more than the last two flights.”

“Don’t be silly!” Irene snapped.

The party began gaily.

Dave Freeland was at his best, brilliant, crystal clear, and sparkling. Felise, too, was amusing, and not so sarcastic as usual, because she liked the dozen or so guests who dotted the long, untidy living room.
Brian was witty, though, Irene noted, his remarks were somewhat more barbed than was customary even with him. And there was Ralph Hazelton, throwing nonsensical shining things into the pool of talk, which the others, even Clare, picked up and flung back with fresh adornment.

Only Irene wasn’t merry. She sat almost silent, smiling now and then, that she might appear amused.

“What’s the matter, Irene?” someone asked. “Taken a vow never to laugh or something? You’re as sober as a judge.”

“No. It’s simply that the rest of you are so clever that I’m speechless, absolutely stunned.”

“No wonder,” Dave Freeland remarked, “that you’re on the verge of tears. You haven’t a drink. What’ll you take?”

“Thanks. If I must take something, make it a glass of ginger ale and three drops of Scotch. The Scotch first, please. Then the ice, then the ginger ale.”

“Heavens! Don’t attempt to mix that yourself, Dave darling. Have the butler in,” Felise mocked.

“Yes, do. And the footman.” Irene laughed a little, then said: “It seems dreadfully warm in here. Mind if I open this window?” With that she pushed open one of the long casement windows of which the Freelands were so proud.

It had stopped snowing some two or three hours back. The moon was just rising, and far behind the tall buildings a few stars were creeping out. Irene finished her cigarette and threw it out, watching the tiny spark drop slowly down to the white ground below.

Someone in the room had turned on the phonograph. Or was it the radio? She didn’t know which she disliked more. And nobody was listening to its blare. The talking, the laughter never for a minute ceased. Why must they have more noise?

Dave came with her drink. “You ought not,” he told her, “to stand there like that. You’ll take cold. Come along and talk to me, or listen to me gabble.” Taking her arm, he led her across the room. They had just found seats when the doorbell rang and Felise called over to him to go and answer it.

In the next moment Irene heard his voice in the hall, carelessly polite: “Your wife? Sorry. I’m afraid you’re wrong. Perhaps next—”

Then the roar of John Bellew’s voice above all the other noises of the room: “I’m
not
wrong! I’ve been to the Redfields’ and I know she’s with them. You’d better stand out of my way and save yourself trouble in the end.”

“What is it, Dave?” Felise ran out to the door.

And so did Brian. Irene heard him saying: “I’m Redfield. What the devil’s the matter with you?”

But Bellew didn’t heed him. He pushed past them all into the room and strode towards Clare. They all looked at her as she got up from her chair, backing a little from his approach.

“So you’re a nigger, a damned dirty nigger!” His voice was a snarl and a moan, an expression of rage and of pain.

Everything was in confusion. The men had sprung forward. Felise had leapt between them and Bellew. She said quickly: “Careful. You’re the only white man here.” And the silver chill of her voice, as well as her words, was a warning.

Clare stood at the window, as composed as if everyone were not staring at her in curiosity and wonder, as if the whole structure of her life were not lying in fragments before her. She seemed unaware of any danger or uncaring. There was even a faint smile on her full red lips and in her shining eyes.

It was that smile that maddened Irene. She ran across the room, her terror tinged with ferocity, and laid a hand on Clare’s bare arm. One thought possessed her. She couldn’t have Clare Kendry cast aside by Bellew. She couldn’t have her free.

Before them stood John Bellew, speechless now in his hurt and anger. Beyond them the little huddle of other people, and Brian stepping out from among them.

What happened next, Irene Redfield never afterwards allowed herself to remember. Never clearly.

One moment Clare had been there, a vital glowing thing, like a flame of red and gold. The next she was gone.

There was a gasp of horror, and above it a sound not quite human, like a beast in agony. “Nig! My God! Nig!”

A frenzied rush of feet down long flights of stairs. The slamming of distant doors. Voices.

Irene stayed behind. She sat down and remained quite still, staring at a ridiculous Japanese print on the wall across the room.

Gone! The soft white face, the bright hair, the disturbing scarlet mouth, the dreaming eyes, the caressing smile, the whole torturing loveliness that had been Clare Kendry. That beauty that had torn at Irene’s placid life. Gone! The mocking daring, the gallantry of her pose, the ringing bells of her laughter.

Irene wasn’t sorry. She was amazed, incredulous almost.

What would the others think? That Clare had fallen? That she had deliberately leaned backward? Certainly one or the other. Not—

But she mustn’t, she warned herself, think of that. She was too tired, and too shocked. And, indeed, both were true. She was utterly weary, and she was violently staggered. But her thoughts reeled on. If only she could be as free of mental as she was of bodily vigor; could only put from her memory the vision of her hand on Clare’s arm!

“It was an accident, a terrible accident,” she muttered fiercely. “It
was.”

People were coming up the stairs. Through the still open door their steps and talk sounded nearer, nearer.

Quickly she stood up and went noiselessly into the bedroom and closed the door softly behind her.

Her thoughts raced. Ought she to have stayed? Should she go back out there to them? But there would be questions. She hadn’t thought of them, of afterwards, of this. She had thought of nothing in that sudden moment of action.

It was cold. Icy chills ran up her spine and over her bare neck and shoulders.

In the room outside there were voices. Dave Freeland’s and others that she did not recognize.

Should she put on her coat? Felise had rushed down without any wrap. So had all the others. So had Brian. Brian! He mustn’t take cold. She took up his coat and left her own. At the door she paused
for a moment, listening fearfully. She heard nothing. No voices. No footsteps. Very slowly she opened the door. The room was empty. She went out.

In the hall below she heard dimly the sound of feet going down the steps, of a door being opened and closed, and of voices far away.

Down, down, down, she went, Brian’s great coat clutched in her shivering arms and trailing a little on each step behind her.

What was she to say to them when at last she had finished going down those endless stairs? She should have rushed out when they did. What reason could she give for her dallying behind? Even she didn’t know why she had done that. And what else would she be asked? There had been her hand reaching out towards Clare. What about that?

In the midst of her wonderings and questionings came a thought so terrifying, so horrible, that she had had to grasp hold of the banister to save herself from pitching downwards. A cold perspiration drenched her shaking body. Her breath came short in sharp and painful gasps.

What if Clare was not dead?

She felt nauseated, as much at the idea of the glorious body mutilated as from fear.

How she managed to make the rest of the journey without fainting she never knew. But at last she was down. Just at the bottom she came on the others, surrounded by a little circle of strangers. They were all speaking in whispers, or in the awed, discreetly lowered tones adapted to the presence of disaster. In the first instant she wanted to turn and rush back up the way she had come. Then a calm desperation came over her. She braced herself, physically and mentally.

“Here’s Irene now,” Dave Freeland announced, and told her that, having only just missed her, they had concluded that she had fainted or something like that, and were on the way to find out about her. Felise, she saw, was holding on to his arm, all the insolent nonchalance gone out of her, and the golden brown of her handsome face changed to a queer mauve color.

Irene made no indication that she had heard Freeland but went straight to Brian. His face looked aged and altered, and his lips were purple and trembling. She had a great longing to comfort him, to charm away his suffering and horror. But she was helpless, having so completely lost control of his mind and heart.

She stammered: “Is she—is she—?”

It was Felise who answered. “Instantly, we think.”

Irene struggled against the sob of thankfulness that rose in her throat. Choked down, it turned to a whimper, like a hurt child’s. Someone laid a hand on her shoulder in a soothing gesture. Brian wrapped his coat about her. She began to cry rackingly, her entire body heaving with convulsive sobs. He made a slight perfunctory attempt to comfort her.

“There, there, Irene. You mustn’t. You’ll make yourself sick. She’s—” His voice broke suddenly.

As from a long distance she heard Ralph Hazelton’s voice saying: “I was looking right at her. She just tumbled over and was gone before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’ Fainted, I guess. Lord! It was quick. Quickest thing I ever saw in all my life.”

“It’s impossible, I tell you! Absolutely impossible!”

It was Brian who spoke in that frenzied hoarse voice, which Irene had never heard before. Her knees quaked under her.

Dave Freeland said: “Just a minute, Brian. Irene was there beside her. Let’s hear what she has to say.”

She had a moment of stark craven fear. “Oh, God,” she thought, prayed, “help me.”

A strange man, official and authoritative, addressed her. “You’re sure she fell? Her husband didn’t give her a shove or anything like that, as Dr. Redfield seems to think?”

For the first time she was aware that Bellew was not in the little group shivering in the small hallway. What did that mean? As she began to work it out in her numbed mind, she was shaken with another hideous trembling. Not that! Oh, not that!

“No, no!” she protested. “I’m quite certain that he didn’t. I was there, too. As close as he was. She just fell, before anybody could stop her. I—”

Her quaking knees gave way under her. She moaned and sank down, moaned again. Through the great heaviness that submerged and drowned her she was dimly conscious of strong arms lifting her up. Then everything was dark.

Centuries after, she heard the strange man saying: “Death by misadventure, I’m inclined to believe. Let’s go up and have another look at that window.”