Читать книгу Overshadowed - Sutton E. Griggs - Страница 12

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We are within the folds of night, and Elbridge Noral is once more a visitor at the home of Dolly Smith. We have the same dimly lighted room and the same parties to the conversation.

"Mrs. Smith," began Noral very excitedly, "I come to ask you in the name of heaven to prevent a catastrophe and to unravel a puzzle that racks my brain. I wish for you to prevent Erma Wysong from becoming a servant girl; and I further beg of you to tell me why she seeks to become one."

"Explain, Mr. Noral, wherein becoming a servant girl is such a catastrophe. Is not work honorable?" asked Dolly, in evident astonishment.

"Yes, yes, but ah! the atmosphere surrounding the Negro service girl! She is away from her own people, not allowed social contact with the family of her employer, and usually resides in solitude in a little house in the back yard, with alleyways as the only approach. Such a state of affairs puts a premium on male companionship, which may be ever so frequent, or at improper hours, without the fear of any adverse comment thereon, and, in fact, without its being known. This condition of things, as might reasonably be expected, generates a great deal of immorality. While there are service girls of sterling worth, a bad odor attaches to the calling. If Erma goes into service in such fashion, the very atmosphere will breed insults for her. White youths will feel that she has no further claims to respectability, and will proceed to deal with her accordingly. So much for the catastrophe. The puzzling thing to me is as to why Erma should contemplate such a course." These remarks were delivered by Noral with unwonted energy.

"Well, Mr. Noral, Erma simply needs money, I presume, to supply her natural wants and satisfy reasonable and legitimate desire. Such stations as her talents peculiarly fit her for are denied to her because she is a Negro girl. There is no honorable course open to her save the one that she has pursued. Away goes the puzzle. As to the catastrophe, Mr. Noral, opinions may differ, according to the view point. I fancy that I see in her determination to enter service the surest means to the accomplishment of your purpose."

Noral's face betokened a wrathful storm; his voice gave sign of its coming.

"Mrs. Smith, do I understand you to intimate that I am such a sensual degenerate that I am willing to see Erma degraded by others as a sort of preparation for me?"

"Be calm, Mr. Noral. My meaning was far from that, as you will soon discover. My plan of action is as follows: Now that Erma is determined to enter service, you select a place where you may become a frequent visitor and can contrive to see Erma without exciting her suspicions as to your ultimate purposes. Erma is one of the purest girls in the world, and you must first establish yourself in her good graces as a necessary prelude to my part of the work. If you can inspire regard, I will give the necessary downward turn."

"A capital idea, Dolly, a capital idea! Now, let me see where Erma might go."

"How about Mrs. Turner who lives adjoining you?"

"What!" said Noral, rising to his feet hurriedly. "Where do I live? Who told you where I lived?" he said, retreating from Dolly as he spoke, and adjusting his mask to his face. Dolly saw at once that she had committed a monstrous error, and was much perplexed, for a moment, as to how to extricate herself.

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Noral, I have known who you were from the very first."

"Known me from the first! Have you had spies tracking me, you she devil?"

"She devil, heh! she devil!" hissed Dolly Smith in a tone that was full of venom. Her head shaking with violent emotion, she walked up to Noral and said: "She devil, did you say? But who made me a she devil? Who destroyed my soul? Who first started me on the damnable mission of polluting the entire stream of the virtue of my race? Who did this? Will you tell me? say, will you tell me? Oh, you don't know, do you? Well, you shall know, James Benson Lawson! Yes, you shall know!"

Lawson's anger disappeared in his surprise at the torrent of invective that Dolly Smith poured upon him. He answered not a word, but stood with folded arms, looking at Dolly Smith. He discovered that he had a tigress to deal with, and that at the bottom of the heart of this cold-blooded, callous schemer there were fires as hot as those of the reputed lower regions, and it did not take much fanning to cause them to blaze up. Then, too, her remarks seemed to have been intended for him individually, and were not mere ravings against the world at large. The more he thought, the more puzzled he was. Dolly Smith, after this violent outburst, grew very calm, and inwardly chided herself for having allowed her temper to perhaps frighten away from her hook a fish on whose capture all the soul that she had was set. She summoned all of her adroitness and cunning in an endeavor to regain lost ground. Pushing open the folding doors, and disappearing in the adjoining room, she returned shortly, bearing in her hand a photograph. She brought it to Lawson and said, "Here is the spy that tracked you. Go look at it." Lawson took it to the gaslight and, turning on the light, examined the picture.

"You see that it is a picture of your father. As Governor of this State, he was more popular with the colored people than any other governor before or since his time. True, he is a Democrat, but the colored people love him, and his picture is in almost every Negro home. As soon as I saw you the other night, though the room was dark, I recognized the likeness. I knew where you lived, as the papers have been printing pictures of the old Lawson Mansion as it has been repaired to receive your father, just returned from his post as minister to Germany. Now, that is the sort of spying I have done. Don't mistrust me, Mr. Lawson. Your honor is safe in my hands. I hold some of the most terrible secrets of your most noted families in this city, and they are as safe with me as though they were in the grave, locked in the bosom of the dead."

Dolly Smith eyed Lawson keenly as she talked, trying to discern the impression that her words were making. She saw that she had not succeeded in reaching the main current of his thoughts and she planned another effort.

"The vigor of my remarks a while ago naturally astonished you. Well, I was once a pure girl and not wholly uneducated. Nor was I homely, either. This corpulence has come from drinking excessively. Well, a white woman encompassed my fall. She taught me to drink. She was such a great white lady, I thought that if she could drink I could do so as well. I got drunk in public and was forever disgraced. She got drunk frequently, but the newspapers always said that she fainted or was attacked with nervous prostration. Her wealth allows her to maintain her social standing, among her people, while I am an outcast among mine. She started me in this business. I hate her, though I confess I get a great deal of fun, excitement and money out of my profession. I know I am a she devil, but when one calls me that, I get angry from thinking of that woman. All of this occurred when I lived in another city. My previous history is unknown here."

Lawson was profoundly interested in Dolly Smith's recital. He had not dreamed that a woman so depraved ever allowed her mind to wander back to the days of purity. In fact, he did not conceive of her ever having had such days. Thus, with these adroitly constructed fabrications, she lulled Lawson's suspicions to sleep.

"Dolly Smith, I beg your pardon. Don't you know, I always supposed people of your type were born destitute of moral nature. But I begin to believe that humanity at its worst is not as bad as it seems."

Dolly Smith now saw that she had recaptured him.

"All right, Dolly, quarrelling aside, let's get down to business. Let me see; where were we," says Noral.

"My idea is that some way ought to be found to have Erma Wysong in the employ of Mrs. Turner, your next door neighbor. She has no male member in her family," put in Dolly.

"Yes, but she has a servant," replied Lawson.

"And you have money. The servant went there for money, and will come away for money. Pay her a few months' wages in advance. Ask her to get Erma Wysong and take her to Mrs. Turner's to fill her place, and the work is done," said Dolly.

"Oh, you are a daisy," said Lawson, and in his excess of joy at the prospective success of his scheme, he seized Dolly Smith about the waist and kissed her. That kiss awakened every demon in Dolly's nature. It took her mind back to the days when the blue of her sky was interwoven with the blackest of clouds, and the lightnings of trouble flashed forth therefrom, ripping open her every vein, and spilling beyond recall all the blood of her life. And she pledged in her soul, shaking like a decayed and tottering building in the grasp of the wind, to crush James Benson Lawson in her fall.