Flight, page 12
With a bound he crossed the room and sat beside her.
“You—love—me—too?” he asked, amazement, doubt that he had heard aright in his voice.
Mimi, her eyes filled with tears of happiness, could only nod.
“Oh, Mimi darling,” Carl half sobbed, and pillowed his face on her breast while she pressed him close to her, holding him with all the cenderness that had been pent up within her, holding him as though he would fly away never to return if she relaxed for an instant the tightness of her grasp …
It seemed years later when Carl left.
“Mimi, I wonder if we have done right?” he asked as he stood at the door, his voice worried, uncertain.
Mimi only smiled as she kissed him …
She had been asleep for a long time when Jean and his wife returned.
After she had undressed and turned out the light she lay in bed and thought of Carl. Life was funny, she mused. People came into one’s life, flickered like the figures in a movie thrown on an imperfect screen and passed out of one’s consciousness leaving no memories of importance behind them. Most people were like that but every so often there came those, always few in number, who stayed and, by staying, created all sorts of difficult and unpleasant or pleasant complications. She wondered why nearly everybody she knew or had read about made simple little problems into tremendous ones and harried themselves with things which, seen later, were of such slight worth. Conscience? Right? Honout? Justice? Truth? What were all these except little shibboleths which man had created in his own mind like little gods and before which he prostrated himself in abject groveling? Truth? She remembered the thing Carl had once quoted to her from Spinoza—truth is made up of the lies grown hoary with age.
But after all there must be something in these things men had lived by and for which they had died. She wondered what it all could be. Were they worth all the agony and bloodshed and sacrifice they had brought?
Here I am, she mused, a woman, a Negro. Life for me if I were white would be hard enough, but it’s going to be doubly so when I have race problems added to my own difficulties as a woman. She toyed idly with the notion as to what her lot would have been if she had been born white—if she were to cross over the line and forget the Negro blood in her body. The idea was not attractive. In New Orleans the women who attracted her most and whom she admired above all others were not white—at least, they were not Anglo-Saxon. They all lived in the Creole quarter and Jean had pointed out many of them who had Negro blood, some of them knowing it and others in ignorance of it. She had not needed Jean’s telling her to pick them out there was something tangible yet intangible about them which indicated it to the observant eye—a warmth, a delicate humanness, an attractiveness which did not belong to the women who lived north of Canal Street
And here in Atlanta she had watched them, noting the subtle differences even in those like herself whose skins were fair. No wonder that in New Orleans in the old days, as she had read in the books of French travelers, the men often deserted the balls where their wives and daughters were, and slipped away to those more resplendent ones where quadroon women held sway. Mimi remembered a comparison one of them had made between these who had Negro blood with the American women—“frank, warm-hearted … with manners more interesting than the Americans … the roundness and beauty of shape in the women also contrasting with the straightness and angularity of American figures.”
She had asked Jean, in her innocence, to tell her about these balls but for some reason she could not explain he had evaded her question and seemed to be somewhat embarrassed by it. No, she concluded, with all its faults and petty unpleasant features, she would rather remain with her own people. They got, apparently, so much more out of the life they lived with all its barriers than those who had more but seemed infinitely less happy with it.
Her thoughts, she realized, revolved always in a circle of which the exact centre was Carl. She wondered why he and she had not ended their worries sooner by acceptance of the love which had come to them. It had all been so futile, so childish, and Mimi, with the reluctance of youth to think of itself as youthful, felt rather ashamed that they had acted in such callow and infantile manner. Now that she had stopped fighting against the love for Carl which she realized had been in her heart all the time, her fretful and worried air left her. She lay in her narrow bed and smiled tenderly as she felt again his lips from which his kisses at first had fallen upon hers like gentle, soft blows. She stirred happily as she felt once more the rough possessiveness to which his lips had changed she was not conscious of hurt until now when she realized her own lips were swollen slightly where he had pressed her close to him, while she had yielded happily. She was wondering where it would all end as she fell asleep …
It seemed to her she had hardly closed her eyes when she was rudely awakened. Mrs. Daquin was shaking her roughly, a dressing-gown thrown hastily over her night-dress.
“Mimi, come quickly!” she was calling. “Something’s happened to your father.”
“What’s the matter? Have you called the doctor?” asked Mimi as she hurried down the hall after Mrs. Daquin. Mimi was now thoroughly awake, a strange fear in her heart.
“Yes, he’s on the way here,” the older woman whispered as they entered Jean’s bedroom.
Jean was lying on the bed stretched at full length. His breath came with difficulty and his face was covered with a cold, clammy perspiration. Mimi with a little cry of distress and fear, quickly checked, flung herself on her knees beside the bed. She tried to feel Jean’s pulse but could find no trace. She pressed her head against Jean’s breast, trying to hear or feel his heart beating. An icy terror came over her when she could feel no throbbing. Jean groaned heavily as though in great pain. Mimi was happy to hear it—at least, that was a sign that Jean was not dead.
The doctor found her there beside the bed while Mrs. Daquin stood at the foot, weeping and wringing her hands, all her efficiency and forthrighteousness filed in the face of this phenomenon. He gently led them from the room.
For hours, it seemed, they waited there. Once the door opened hastily and they heard the doctor, who had rushed past them without speaking, telephone another physician, speaking ominously of strychnine and nitroglycerine.
As he re-entered the sick-room he muttered in answer to Mimi’s question something about Jean’s heart. “He’s a sick man—a very sick man,” floated back to the two women as he closed the door …
Morning found them waiting. For the first time Mimi felt close to Mrs. Daquin. Unconsciously they had clung together, brought close by the spectre which hovered over them. Mrs. Daquin brought a wrap and put it around Mimi and Mimi smiled her thanks. It seemed quite a natural thing that Mrs. Daquin should let her arm remain around the girl’s shoulders when she had placed the wrap there. Mimi snuggled near her and in her embrace Mimi felt a security from the dreadful thing in the room where Jean lay.
The door opened and the two doctors, haggard from their work, anxiety and loss of sleep, emerged, closed the door softly behind them. Dr. Adams led them to the lower floor before speaking.
“Mr. Daquin has had a very serious attack. Heart trouble. Brought on by acute indigestion. We’ve given him a double injection of strychnine and nitroglycerine to speed up his heart action. At first I couldn’t get any heart action even with my stethoscope. Thought he was gone. He’s resting now. Keep him quiet. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Mimi felt, as Dr. Adams uttered his crisp, staccato sentences, as though she were a condemned criminal standing before a judge, hearing a terrible sentence pronounced upon her. Jean—her Jean—gentle, uncomplaining, always kind—dangerously ill. It didn’t seem possible.
“I’ll tell Mrs. Adams and Hilda to come over and do what they can to help you,” Dr. Adams promised as he left the house …
The news of Jean’s illness spread rapidly. Before Mimi and Mrs. Daquin could finish dressing they began to come with offers of help. Mrs. Adams and Hilda were the first. Hilda and Mimi held each other close, all differences melted away by the sadness which had come to Mimi. For a long time now Hilda had known from Carl’s attitude that her hopes were of no avail. She had freely unburdened her woes at last to her mother and in the telling of them and the ready sympathy which she received from Mrs. Adams had found the peace of resignation. She knew through some psychic means that Carl loved Mimi and her new-found calm enabled her to feel thoroughly happy for their sakes …
All day they came. Mimi never knew there could be so much solicitude, so much genuine kindness. One came and prepared a meal, another tidied the house, another volunteered to do errands. Mimi felt ashamed of her dislike for some of them in the past. Affliction had shown her the real worth which lay beneath the petty malice, the ignominious bickerings and jealousies which to her had seemed the outstanding characteristics of many of these folks.
Jean slept the greater part of the day. Late in the afternoon Dr. Adams gave him another stimulant. Mimi had begun to show the strain through which she had been and he urged her to go for a walk. Returning, she found Mrs. Daquin waiting for her in the hall.
“Your father’s been asking for you. Dr. Adams said it would be all right for you to go in and see him but he must not be excited.”
He smiled as she entered the darkened room.
“I’m sorry I’ve caused you so much trouble,” he apologized as Mimi kissed him tenderly. As she bent over him she noticed for the first time how white his hair had become. His moustache and goatee, too, without their daily brushing and waxing, looked less magnificent than they had always seemed. Jean’s eyes were sunken, his face lined with the suffering he had been through. An ineffable pity filled her, she wished eagerly even as she knew it was futile that she could take his place.
“Do you remember that day in the St. Louis cemetery just before we came here?” Jean was asking.
“Do I remember it? I’ll never forget it,” she assured him.
“It seems a long, long time ago.”
A reminiscent, far-away look came into Jean’s eyes and he lay there, his thin hands resting on his chest, for several minutes without speaking. Mimi waited. At last he stirred, smiling again at her, this time apologetically.
“We were happy there, weren’t we, Mimi? I’ve never been satisfied here. Too much rushing about, no time for living—real living. And you and I—we haven’t had the time here for the long walks we used to take when we were home. No—no—I’m not blaming you,” he assured her as she started to speak. “We’ve both been too busy—”
But Mimi felt a sting in the words. She knew there was none intended, it was her own conscience that lashed her. She wished fervently she had not been so selfish, that she had thought more of Jean. She knew now he had never been happy in Atlanta. His leisurely, reflective nature made him unhappy, he was wholly out of place anywhere save in some easy-going place like his beloved Louisiana.
“I suppose it’s been for the best, though. Young people like you haven’t much patience for the old ways and customs—you, too, would in time have become unhappy there. But I didn’t intend to ramble off like that. It’s about you I wanted to talk … You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, Mimi,” he declared, proudly. “Every day you look more like Margot did when I first knew her. And you’ve ways like hers—only you’ve more spirit, more fire … ”
Again he lay silent and Mimi, knowing instinctively he was living again his days with Margot, hardly dared breathe lest she break the spell. The room grew dark but neither of them noticed it. From outside came the soft cries of children at play far away, the bumping of a short, fat street car as it meandered down Auburn Avenue, the shrill voice of a woman calling her child to supper.
“I’m worried, Mimi—not afraid—just worried. I’ve had these heart attacks before but I said nothing about them because I didn’t want to worry you and Mary—but this one last night was the worst one yet.”
She sought to comfort him, telling him little falsehoods about the allegedly minor importance which Dr. Adams had attached to the attack. It’ll pass over and he’ll be none the worse for it, were the words she put in the physician’s mouth.
“Did he say that really?” Jean asked anxiously, yet hopefully.
She assured him that those were the exact words. Jean leaned back on his pillow, a more peaceful look on his face which removed some of the shame she was feeling on account of the lie. She would have lied a thousand times cheerfully if they served to make him more content.
“He didn’t seem so optimistic when he was talking to me,” Jean mused. “I suppose he was trying to scare me so I would stay in bed.”
“Of course that was what he intended. Doctors assume patients will do just about half what they are told to do, so they are told to do twice what they need to do,” she encouraged him.
“I’m tired, Mimi—so tired. I think I’ll take a little nap now,” he said after a pause. “I wanted to talk to you because I didn’t know how serious this attack might be tell you to remember, whatever happened, you’re a Daquin, but now I’ve heard what the doctor said, that can wait. You’re a beautiful girl, Mimi, almost too beautiful. But you’ll come through all right—just make up your own mind what’s the right thing to do, pay no attention to what other people say, and then do what you think is right.”
Automatically she thought of Carl.
“Last night, after you and Mrs. Daquin left, Carl came by the house and I called him in,” she told Jean. “He was very unhappy—I never saw him so downcast. We talked awhile—then—then—oh, Jean, he told me he loved me—and it made me mighty happy—”
“Carl’s a good boy, Mimi. A little too flighty—a little weak, too, I’m afraid—but he’ll come around all right, I think. They don’t understand him and they’re always rubbing his fur the wrong way but—Carl’s got the right stuff in him.”
Jean lapsed again into one of his retrospective moods. His eyes slowly closed and soon he fell asleep. Mimi kissed him gently, lowered the shade to keep the light from the street lamp from disturbing him, and stole softly from the room …
Chapter XI
At midnight Dr. Adams made his last call for the day. “He’s resting easily now and I think he’ll sleep through the night. Call me if you need me. And you’d better get a little sleep yourself or I’ll have two patients,” he advised Mimi as he left.
His words brought realization to Mimi that she was tired. She sent Mrs. Daquin to bed, telling her she would lock up the house and see that everything was attended to. She then tiptoed into Jean’s room and found him breathing gently, his face, with a smile upon it, turned towards the door.
When he called at seven the next morning Dr. Adams said that Jean had been dead about three hours. Mimi found on his face the same smile that had been there when she had seen him last. Mrs. Daquin came into the room weeping but for Mimi there were no tears. Death had come too suddenly upon her, its swift snatching away of her Jean had rendered her incapable of thought, of every emotion. She knelt by the bed, her head resting beside Jean’s, stunned, inarticulate. Dr. Adams tried to pull her away, telling her it would be better for her if she did not stay too long there.
“No, Doctor, I’m happier here. I’ve just a few more hours with Jean now. Leave me here alone, won’t you?”
He led the weeping Mrs. Daquin from the room and Mimi was alone with Jean. Jean dead? She couldn’t believe it was true. She touched his hand, stiffened, cold. It terrified her. How many times she might have held it, warm, pulsating, responsive.
No—she had been too busy with her own petty affairs, her own insignificant worries, to think of him—longing for his quiet old home, unhappy in an environment and among people he did not understand and whose ways were not his. She had known in an indefinite sort of way that Jean was not happy, that he and Mary grew farther and farther apart each year, each month, each day. A spasm of remorse swept through Mimi—remorse that held her in an icy, terrifying grip—when she realized now how she might have been of comfort, of consolation, to Jean, and instead had chased merrily after her own whims and fancies, giving little thought to him. She knew now that these later years must have been terribly lonely ones for him. She felt she would cheerfully have given ten years of her life to have him back for one year, for one month, even for one day. Then she would show him the quality of her love for him. Holy Mother, why did one see these things only when it was too late?
She was glad they had had their talk yesterday afternoon. It had been like old times, she and Jean had been so happy together. Even in his own illness his thoughts had been of her—he had wanted to live not for his own sake but only for hers. “You’ll come through all right,” he had said. She wondered if she would. Without Jean’s physical presence she speculated what her relations with Mrs. Daquin would be. In his quiet way Jean had had a very real control over his wife. Mimi sensed now as she had never done before that despite his gentleness, which sometimes seemed to be almost weakness, his apparent softness had had great strength behind it—strength enough to hold in check Mrs. Daquin’s aggressiveness and domineering attitude. Jean had not spoken sharply often but when he had his wife listened and obeyed. He had never had to speak twice.
Why don’t I cry, she wondered, like all women do and most men when death comes? She was conscious of a slight feeling of guilt because of her dry eyes. She wondered if she was showing proper respect. She looked at Jean’s peaceful face. Her own face was set in hard, tight lines, her teeth were clamped until the muscles of her jaws ached, but no tears came. Jean dead? No—no—no—it couldn’t be true …
They found her there, dry-eyed, when the undertaker came to prepare Jean for burial. She was calm until the dingy wicker basket, sagging with the weight of its load, was being carried through the door. She was thinking of that day Jean had referred to yesterday—that day in the St. Louis cemetery when the funeral procession passed near them. Jean had said he felt just as though his own body were in the casket. She knew now what he had meant—her own body was there in that straw container.
