XIII

The vacation sped as vacations will. Peter played in the awful cabaret, saved his money and adored Joanna. Joanna practiced trills, danced, thought of Peter and allowed him to adore her. As the early September days spread their golden haze over Harlem and Morningside Park, she actually shivered a little when she realized that when the month was over she and Peter would be miles apart.

It is hard to say just how much Joanna cared for Peter at this time. Certainly the boy worshipped her. He dreamed wordless dreams of her at night sitting in the noisy cabaret. His visit to her was the one objective point in his day. When the inexorable moment of separation came it cost him actual physical pain to bid her goodbye.

Joanna was hardly like that. She had a very real, very ardent feeling for Peter. But it was still small, if one may speak of a feeling by size. Her love for him was a new experience, a fresh interest in her already crowded life, but it had not pushed aside the other interests. At nineteen she looked at love as a man of forty might⁠—as “a thing apart.” This was due partly to her hard unripeness, partly to her deliberate self-training. Joanna had read of too many able women who had “counted the world well lost for love,” until it was too late. “Poor, silly sheep,” she dubbed them.

She could not, it is true, bundle up her thoughts of Peter and say, “I’ll think of you tomorrow at three,” but she did achieve a concentration in her work that made it almost impossible for him to remain too long in her thoughts. And at nights when he tossed sleepless on his bed, dreaming fragrant dreams and seeing golden visions, she was sleeping the perfect sleep of healthy weariness.

The last days were hard for her, however, as they were for Peter. For Joanna was doomed by her very makeup to a sort of perpetual loneliness. Sylvia had her own interests, she had Brian and many, many friends. She was the most popular of all the Marshalls. Alec and Joanna had never been thrown much together. Philip, once her great confidant, was usually away from home. And on his return he was apt to relapse during these days into a rapt sadness.

It followed, then, that while Joanna was Peter’s sweetheart, his heart’s dear queen, Peter was at once her lover whom she didn’t need very much⁠—at least she did not realize that need⁠—and more than that her companion and friend whom she needed greatly. The prospect of the days stretched long and dreary before her. Even the concert tour, a remarkable booking for one so young, did not entirely console her.

The two talked about it on the day before Peter left for Philadelphia. They were in Van Cortlandt Park in a little tangled grove. It was noon and the September sun streamed down on them making the green wooden bench on which they sat pleasantly warm. But the leaves about them were going a little sere; in the shade the air felt chill, and the sunshine, though warm, was thin and white.

“ ‘The summer is ended.’ ” Joanna quoted softly; she sighed. Peter looked at her, there were tears in her eyes.

“Dear, beautiful Joanna,” said Peter, and his own beautiful face was full of the woe of parting, “how can I leave you tomorrow? Janna, don’t send me away, tell me I’m not to go.” He put his arms around her and she clung to him.

“Peter, you must go, you must, really. We⁠—we can’t go on like this. We’ve got to prepare ourselves while we’re young for the future.”

“Yes,” said Peter and his ardor chilled a little at the touch of her cool practicality. But a moment later her light touch rekindled him.

“You love me, Janna? You know I love you?”

“Yes, Peter dear, but we mustn’t say anything more about it.”

“I know, Joanna, I’m not going to worry you any more just now, but you’ll let me speak sometime?”

“Yes, oh, yes!”

“Dearest girl! Kiss me, Joanna.”

She touched his lips with a light, lingering kiss. He looked at her, his face haggard with his gusty, boyish passion.

“Ah, Joanna, I’ll never forget that kiss.”

Neither would she, her heart told her. It was the first time she had ever kissed him.

They walked through the deserted park, their arms frankly about each other, like children. The dry grass and brittle leaves crackled beneath their feet, the air hung over them like a thin, misty veil. Joanna sang a bit from an old Italian song:

“If from Heaven we could but borrow
One day longer of fond affection
It would lessen then our sorrow,
Give fresh joys for recollection.”

She hummed a line here, then her voice rose again in the thin, shimmering air:

“⁠—The future, dark and lonely!
Dearest Loved One, dearest Loved One
Parting makes these joys so dear!
Ah!⁠—”

“Don’t, Joanna; it’s too sweet. You’ll make me cry.”

“I know it. Oh, Peter, go away and come back great and when you come back, speak to me.”

She went with him to the train next morning and to his amazement no less than her own, broke down and sobbed into her handkerchief.

He bent over her. “To think of your crying for me, Joanna! Goodbye, goodbye, my sweet. Remember, I’ll be back Christmas.”

He vanished through the gates, was borne out of her vision. A strange exaltation possessed him. He was sad, but his sadness was as nothing to his joy, his sense of satisfaction. Joanna loved him. She had been unusually capricious since that night in Morningside Park. But now he was sure of her. He smiled steadily from Manhattan Transfer Station to North Philadelphia.

His cousin Louis Boyd met him at Broad Street Station and took him to his great-uncle Peter’s in South Eighteenth Street. The old man almost cried over him.

“You’re Meriwether’s son, but you’re more like your grandfather, Isaiah. He was darker than you, but he held his head high like yours, and you’re going to do what he wanted his son to do. It’s good to see you, boy.”

He registered at the University the next day, consulted catalogues, met professors, wrote a glowing letter to Joanna. By the end of the week he was desperately homesick. He would have gone over to New York if he had not been so ashamed, and if he had not been expected to dinner at Louis Boyd’s.

“Tell you what’s the matter with you, fellow,” said Louis when Peter had told him of his nostalgia, “you want to meet a few girls. We’ll start out after dinner.”

Peter did not think this would help much. He wanted Joanna, though he said nothing about that to Louis. Astonishingly, however, the cure worked.

Louis seemed to know half of colored Philadelphia. “Mighty nice girls in this man’s town, I can tell you. They’ll take to you, Peter, because, of course, you’re a Bye. Mentioned your name to old Mrs. Viny the other day and she told me to be sure to bring you around. She’d like to meet an ‘old Philadelphian,’ even if he had been living a while in New York.”

The girls deserved the nice things Louis said about them. They were pretty, nicely dressed and a shining contrast to the dingy streets and old-fashioned houses in which most of them lived. Peter was pleasantly struck, too, by the apparent lack of aspiration on the part of most of them. They seemed to be pretty well satisfied with being girls. A few were able to live home, many sewed, a number of others taught. There was no talk of art, of fame, of preparation for the future among them. Peter spoke of it to Arabelle Morton, the last girl to whose house Louis took him.

“Well, of course we want to get married, and we’re not spoiling our chances by being highbrows. Wouldn’t you like to come and play cards next Friday night, Mr. Bye? There’ll be just two tables, then afterwards we might dance. I’m sure you’d like it.”

Peter thought so, too. He liked Arabelle already and her friendly shallowness. He wrote to Joanna:

“Tell you what, Jan, I think I’m going to like Philly very much. Being Isaiah Bye’s grandson seems to help me no end. They actually consider me an ‘old Philadelphian’ and on the strength of that alone I’ve had four dinner invitations from elderly people to meet other ‘old Philadelphians.’ Some of them old enough, too, I’ll say. However, the dinners are fine and come in very handy for a struggling student. I don’t board at Uncle Peter’s, you see.

“There’re lots of jolly girls here. Of course, they’re not like yours and Sylvia’s crowd, bent on climbing to the top of a profession⁠—well, Sylvia wasn’t that way so much⁠—but they’re a very nice bunch and they have been most kind to your humble servant.⁠ ⁠…

“Do you remember that day in the Park? Joanna darling, what are you going to say to me when I come back Christmas?

His letters to Joanna reacted to his own advantage. He felt he must be able to tell her truthfully of his success in his studies, of his ability to fit into this new life. Joanna was interested in him with a deep personal interest such as she had never exhibited before, and he meant to keep it alive. These were with one exception the most wholesome, most formative days of Peter’s life. He had youth, he had inspiration, he had the promise of love, with much hard labor to keep it.

Many of the colored boys lived in West Philadelphia. They had a fraternity, and though according to their laws he could not be taken in during his freshman year, it was plain that this honor would be extended to him as soon as he became a sophomore. He was pretty well liked, and was constantly receiving invitations to spend the night across the river. One or two of the boys lived in the dormitories and he was frequently offered a chance to see something of this side of college life.

But his steadiness surprised himself. He got his meals in a restaurant on Woodland Avenue, worked faithfully in the Library between classes, and completed the rest of his assignments at night in his Uncle’s sitting room. The old fellow loved to see him there. He pictured in Peter the restoration of the Bye family in Philadelphia.

To eke out his scanty bank account, he played three nights a week in a dance hall at Sixteenth and South Streets. Saturday afternoons he did track work. Friday and Sunday he spent at Arabelle Morton’s or at Lawyer Talbert’s on Christian Street. This latter and his family consisting of two sons and two daughters, were the relatives with whom the Marshalls stayed on their visits to Philadelphia. He found them very enjoyable. One of the boys was an undertaker but with a disposition far less lugubrious than his calling. The other was in the Wharton School of Finance at Pennsylvania and was to read law later at Harvard. Both girls were young and both were engaged. They were very much in love, but as their fiancés were studying medicine at Howard University, they welcomed Peter with much acclaim.

Thanks to them and Louis, he was soon enrolled in the social calendar, and if he chose to be lonely, it was his own fault.

At Christmas he went back to New York; Joanna met him at the station and took him home in her father’s car. Joel was one of the first ten colored men in Harlem to possess an automobile. The distance between his house and his business rendered it almost a necessity, and he was old enough to deserve release from the noise of the subway and the weary climbing to the elevated.

Joanna had grown very good-looking, Peter thought. More than that, she looked even distinguished. Her purposefulness gave her a quality which he had missed in the Philadelphia girls. His ardor had not cooled in the least, but he had had to force it into second place. Now it surged uppermost in his heart again.

He was glad that he had been in another city, had seen so many other girls. It only confirmed his conviction that Joanna was the only woman in the world for him. He hoped she possessed the same singleness of desire for him.

“There’s lots going on,” Joanna told him, sitting arm in arm with him in the car. “Sylvia and Brian are to be married Easter, so mother’s formally announcing it now. There’ll be luncheons⁠—not for you I’m afraid, Peter. Then our dancing class is giving a benefit for the Pierce Day Nursery. There’ll be fancy dancing on the stage, in which your humble servant will star. And we’re to have a Christmas tree at our house and a house party. I’m asking you now, Peter. Isn’t it great being grown up?”

“You bet. Which of these functions comes off first?”

“Sylvia’s engagement party.”

“So she and Spencer are actually going to pull it off. They’ve waited a long time, haven’t they?”

“Yes, that’s because Brian insisted on getting a good start before he married. Sylvia would have married him the day after they became engaged. But I think Brian’s right.”

“They’re both right, but Sylvia’s way is the best. That’s the only attitude for anyone to have towards marriage. I’m afraid you lack it, my child. You want to begin with a mansion and three cars.”

“You mean thing! I don’t care about money as money one bit and you know it. But I do care about success. And a house or a car usually implies that. Any girl likes her man to look well in the eyes of other men.”

“This man’s going to look well.” He yearned toward her. “Kiss me, sweetheart.”

“Sir, you insult me. People shouldn’t kiss unless they’re engaged.”

“Then be engaged to me, dearest Joanna. Great Scott, are we here?”

Joanna evaded him after that. Christmas was Tuesday, but as he had saved his cuts for Saturday classes, he had managed to come away the preceding Friday night. On Christmas morning he caught her before daybreak. They had arranged to go to an early service in a large Episcopal church where Joanna had recently been engaged as a soloist. He was waiting for her in the dark hall.

“Good! There you are, Peter. We must fly.”

“Not until you’ve told me you love me.”

“I love you, Peter. Come on.”

“No, sir, put your little arms around my neck. So. Now say, ‘Dear Peter, I love you and I’m going to marry you.’ ”

“Oh, I can’t say that. Let me go, Peter.”

“Not one step.” He held her so close that she had to poise herself against him, breathlessly, exquisitely. A clock in the house boomed five.

“Peter, ask me tonight.”

“I’m asking you now. Answer me this minute, Joanna. Not one step will we stir till you do.” He shook her gently. “Say it, darling.”

She still had her arms around his neck. “Dear Peter,” she began, her voice breaking a little, “I love you and I’m going to marry you.”

“You’ve got a smudge on your face,” he told her solemnly.

She burst into hysterical tears at that. “I never thought I’d become engaged with a smudge on my face.”

“I know you didn’t. I’ll try to overlook it.” He got down on his knees and kissed her hands. “Darling Joanna, I’ll love you always.”

Between them, they wiped away the traces of the smudge and of her tears. Then they found their way out, and walked through the dark silent streets singing “Joy to the World,” like a pair of Christmas waifs.

The lovers found it hard to see each other. There were too many things going on for that. Peter could have found time, but Joanna, he realized with a pang, seemed to think of nothing but her dance. When she wasn’t at a party, or dressing, she was at a rehearsal. The affair for the Day Nursery was to come off New Year’s Eve.

Monsieur Bertully’s seven pupils danced, swayed, pirouetted. Their slim silken limbs flashed and twinkled through a series of poses and groups until one thought of an animated Greek frieze. At the end the seven girls appeared as school children. Joanna as their leader was teaching them a game. Peter watched her flashing in a red dress across the stage, dancing, leaping, twirling. The orchestra struck up something vaguely familiar. Why, it was Joanna’s old dance, “Barn! Barn!”

She swayed, she balanced, she stamped her foot.

“Stay back, girl, don’t you come near me!”

Miss Sharples was there with a group of Greenwich Village folks, Helena Arnold told them afterwards.

Peter had to leave on New Year’s Day. It was bitterly cold and the Marshalls had dinner guests, but Joanna went to the station with him. She didn’t cry this time, Peter noticed. She didn’t tell him that it was because of the pain raging at her heart.

“I’ll have to get used to his leaving me,” she told herself stubbornly. “I’ve got it to stand, for years and years. Talking about it won’t do any good.”

She had fixed up a box of delicious sandwiches and other goodies for him, and there was a little letter in the box. But Peter didn’t know that, so in spite of her wan face he felt aggrieved as he stepped on the train, for she had barely pressed his hand and her lips were cold.

She cried herself into a headache on her way back.

It was bitter in Philadelphia, too. Peter got off the train at West Philadelphia. He would call on some of the boys on Sansom Street.

“They’re all out I think,” the landlady, Mrs. Larrabee, told him. She gave him a friendly smile. “You can run up, though, and see.” She was right, they were out, but the rooms were warm and comfortable.

“I think I’ll stay up here and thaw out,” he called down.

He sat in a comfortable chair, smoked a cigarette or two, read a few pages in a novel. Then he remembered Joanna’s box, and opened it. There was the letter on top.

“Dear Peter,” he read, “isn’t it awful to have to separate this way? I have a secret I was saving for you. I’m to sing in Philadelphia very shortly. Aren’t you glad? I love you, Peter.

His spirits went up, up.

“Good night,” he called to Mrs. Larrabee. “Happy New Year.”

It wasn’t so cold after all, he thought. Anyway, it wouldn’t do him any harm to stretch his legs a bit. He’d swing across town through the University grounds and take a car on Spruce Street.

The car jolted down over the bridge, turned one corner into a dingy side street, then another, slid ponderously into Lombard Street. It stopped to let the Twentieth Street car go by. Idly, Peter glanced out of the window. On the corner stood a woman, neatly, even carefully dressed. Something about her dejected pose made Peter look at her closely. She turned just then, and the street light fell full on an old-gold, oval face, haggard and disillusioned. Peter saw it was Maggie Ellersley.