XIII

Month by month the time rolled slowly by for Mimi. She slept late in the morning, went out for walks in the afternoon or to a moving-picture show, retired early every evening. On Sundays she stole unobtrusively into the Catholic church near where she lived, varying this occasionally with attendance at the Methodist church to which the elderly couple with which she boarded belonged. They were simple, kindly people who made a comfortable living from a small catering business which kept them away from home a great deal. Mimi thus had the house to herself a large part of the time, for which she was grateful, as it relieved her of the strain of meeting and talking to people and answering embarrassing questions.

The old couple frequently speculated to themselves who and what she might be. To the woman’s indirect and friendly questions Mimi gave evasive answers which seemed to satisfy the simple and uninquisitive nature of the elderly woman. To her neighbours she said that Mimi was a young widow grieving for her dead husband, which explanation, in view of the mourning garments Mimi yet wore for Jean, was accepted in good faith. Mimi often wept at the expressions, either by word or unobtrusive actions, of sympathy which came to her from the elderly couple and their friends. And often, too, guilt assailed her, for she felt she was accepting these ministrations under false colours. There were moments when she felt she could not accept them any longer, that she must tell them the true story. Always before taking such a step, however, she restrained her impulses. She knew no one else in Philadelphia who would take her in, she was paying for her room and excellent food a ridiculously low sum, and her little store of money which had seemed so large when Mr. Hunter had given it to her, was shrinking with dismaying speed.

When the long, dreary, slushy days of winter had given way to the invigorating and friendly warmth of an early spring, she spent most of her days sitting in the park. Used to the tropical heat of New Orleans, the biting winds and driving snows of the North made her miserable and depressed, though her years in Atlanta had inured her to a degree against the cold. But she did not like cold weather, and the coming of the days when she could see the delicate green of the sprouting grass and budding trees made her very happy.

She would take with her to the park a book or more often a newspaper but she seldom read. She was content to sit and watch children at play or gaze at friendly squirrels who so ludicrously sat rapidly revolving a nut disentombed from earthy caches in their little forepaws as they bit into its hard shell.

Even the sinking of a huge vessel like the Titanic after collision with an iceberg off the Canadian coast with great loss of life could not stir her. Nor could the hectic days of an election year stir her from her apathy. A former schoolteacher from New Jersey, a prominent member of Congress, a twice-defeated candidate for the Presidency, a fat, jovial and weak President, and a vigorous ex-President were scrambling madly for nominations, but so far as Mimi was concerned, they might just as well have been struggling for the rulership of an obscure island in the South Seas.

As the time of her ordeal approached she achieved a calmness of which she had never believed herself capable. Her hatred, her contempt for Carl had passed and in its stead had come a complete lack of feeling towards him. She saw him now in perspective more and more clearly as the weak individual he had proved himself to be. She wondered why she had not seen it sooner, why traits of his which now were revealed all too clearly had been invisible to her. His indecisiveness, his succumbing to indifference and easy vices when they had first parted on Hilda’s account, should have been a clear warning to her. She did not object to his drinking or other derelictions on moral grounds. As a matter of fact Carl’s association with the girl who was déclassée had not seemed to her as a thing to be condemned. Towards the girl Mimi had had a very kindly and sympathetic feeling and she had had no word of condemnation or scorn for her. Mimi now realized that she should have seen in these little strayings from which she had saved Carl at such a cost to herself the true measure of Carl’s character. But even as she saw now what might and should have been, she knew that at the time she had been so blinded by her love for Carl she could never have realized the full importance of the things then under her very eyes.

Her sense of contentment had its roots in a deep spiritual awareness which gave her great comfort. She seldom thought now of the condemnation she was doubtless receiving in Atlanta. Instead she was happy, very happy she had acted as she had. She and the baby would get along somehow and they would be very happy together. Lacking respect, despising Carl, she would never have been happy with him, and her religion would not have allowed her to divorce him. What though her money was disappearing so rapidly? By economy she would surely have enough to last her through her confinement and permit her to spend a few weeks in the country until she was strong again. Then she could easily get a job and she and the baby would be happy together.

She loved the restless stirring within her body, she was happy at the signs of creation. It was a sensation at times beautiful, at other times she was overwhelmed with the marvellousness of it all. She experienced little surges of exultant joy that within herself she too had spiritual reserves which kept her soul free and intact despite what the world might say. Gone was the sense of being a depraved, a disgraced, a low creature which had assailed her those last few days in Atlanta. She was free! Free! Free!

Round and round she twisted the wide gold band on her left hand. This she was ashamed of after a fashion. Mrs. Manning, with whom she lived, had glanced significantly one day at her left hand as she sought gently to induce Mimi to talk. To avoid suspicion Mimi had gone to a pawnshop on South Street into whose windows she often glanced as she passed, fascinated by the clusters of knives and revolvers and boxing-gloves and baseball-mitts. Subconsciously a small sign had impressed itself upon her memory. It read:

Large Assortment of Wedding Rings for Sale Cheap

She knew that the bearded Jew who sold her the ring guessed her secret, her guilt had made her so nervous. She had taken the first one that fitted her finger, paid him to his joy and amazement the first price he had named, and hurried from the shop. It was a cheap and awkward-looking affair but it was an orthodox wedding ring. Whenever she glanced at it or felt it on her finger a wave of guilt, a depressing sense of her dishonesty, swept over her, but she kept it on whenever she emerged from her room, for it saved her embarrassing questions and kept down talk.⁠ ⁠…

One question occupied her more than any other. What her future and that of the child might be did not worry her half so much as did the sex of this stranger from another world who soon would be with her. She wanted it to be a girl on some days, more often she eagerly wished for a boy. Marriage for herself was now obviously out of the question⁠—a boy would be less trouble and there would be fewer people to demand of him the story of his parentage than would be the case with a girl. Day after day this speculation went on endlessly, and she always came back to the exact spot in her reasoning from which she had begun.⁠ ⁠…

It was a boy. A hot night in early July saw his entry into the world after two days and two nights of pain which tore Mimi’s body with its burning shafts of agony. When it was all over she lay in her narrow cot in the maternity ward of the public hospital and passed her hand lovingly over the tiny, shapeless mass of red flesh. There had never been any question in her mind regarding the name she should give him⁠ ⁠… Jean, of course. For his sake she had cheerfully lied in answering the usual form questions.⁠ ⁠… She had hoped to take at least a private room. But she had spent her money faster than she had realized and the private room would have made the weeks in the country impossible.⁠ ⁠…

She was glad afterwards she had put up with the lack of privacy and the other inconveniences of the public ward. Mr. Manning had arranged for her to stay with a friend of theirs in New Jersey and there Mimi was so contented, so happy, in the little cottage near Camden, she wished she could have remained there always. She loved to give Jean his bath, to feed him, to shower on him little attentions and superfluous affections. His clutching hands dug into her flesh as he nursed and the exquisite pain of it sent deliriously exhilarating tingles throughout her body. And she talked to him as though he were old enough to understand, whenever she was certain no one could overhear her.

“You’re mine, baby Jean, all mine.⁠ ⁠… No other person owns any part of you.⁠ ⁠… I’ll work for you, sacrifice everything for you⁠ ⁠… and we’ll be happy, so happy, together.⁠ ⁠… You’ll never know the agony your mother went through.⁠ ⁠… I’ll give everything gladly to save you and keep you free.⁠ ⁠…”

All too soon she was forced to return to Philadelphia. Up to this time Mimi had refused to permit herself to worry over the problem of earning a living for herself and little Jean. She told the Mannings frankly of her financial condition. They so readily showed their willingness to help her, it brought tears of gratitude that could not be checked. Her regular hours during the long months when she was awaiting Jean’s arrival, the willingness she had always shown to help with any task around the house, her regular church attendance, had all combined to endear her to the elderly couple who had no children of their own.

“Don’t you worry one little bit, honey,” Mrs. Manning told her. “You’ll never have to worry about rent or food⁠—so long’s we’ve got anything to eat and a roof over our heads you’ve them too.”

They sat in the dining-room until long after midnight the evening Mimi returned from the country, devising ways and means of Mimi’s earning in some way enough to supply the needs of herself and “Petit Jean,” as she called the baby, to differentiate him from the Jean who had gone. Mr. Manning scratched his white head and pursed his lips as he gazed at the ceiling.

“You say you haven’t been taught a trade⁠—you’re too good for housework⁠—hm⁠—let me see⁠—let me see‑e‑e,” he spoke half to himself, half to the two women. Mimi volunteered the information that she could sew rather well. “You can? Why’n’t you tell me that before? Why, that settles it all! I’ll speak to some of my customers and get you plenty of work doing sewing by the day.” A smile, beautiful in its radiant joy at solution of the vexing problem, wreathed his face.

“But what about the baby?” his wife inquired. Mr. Manning’s face fell, wiped as clean of its elation as a blackboard when a damp cloth is passed over it. “I’ll tell you what we can do,” Mrs. Manning went on. “Days when I’m away we can put him in a day nursery.”

Mimi was not allowed to begin her new life for some time, however. On one pretext after another her day of beginning work was deferred by the Mannings. The most frequent excuse was that most of the people who needed the services of a seamstress had gone away for the summer. Though Mimi had now been in Philadelphia more than eight months she knew little of the city. Her life before the baby was born had been so limited a one she had seldom been farther from home than a few blocks. The hugeness of the city, its teeming streets, the roar of traffic, the hurrying throngs, each person in it set on his own affairs to the exclusion of everything and everybody else, frightened her. When she ventured out alone she always had the feeling as though some huge hand had picked her up and thrown her into a raging torrent. And always she regained the haven of home with a prayer of thanksgiving in her heart that she had not been killed in the bustle by one of the wagons or trucks that rushed down upon one with such terrifying speed. Used to the somnolence of New Orleans and the lesser traffic of Atlanta, she often wondered why she had ever chosen Philadelphia as her city of refuge⁠—“City of Brotherly Love” was certainly an anachronism to a stranger like herself.

She was happy with the Mannings but her inaction worried her. Except for a few dollars she was now completely without funds. She had had to buy a number of things for the baby but even though she had made most of his clothes herself, cloth and thread and buttons cost. She did not tell the Mannings of her worries, for they invariably sought to dismiss them from her mind. But she had overheard snatches of their conversation when they did not know she was near⁠—in the small house a secret conversation was most difficult⁠—and she had noticed little economies they practised, and not because of parsimony. The two were getting old, there were fewer and fewer calls every year now for their services. Younger and more progressive people were gobbling the bulk of the catering jobs. Their older customers they yet retained, but some of these were dying off and others entertained less, for they too were getting old. Their sons and daughters who now had their own homes went to the established firms where newer and fresher and more bizarre effects could be obtained than those of the old order furnished by the Mannings.

Having always been thrifty, the Mannings had saved some money, but they knew and Mimi knew that they would need all of this in the years to come when even the little work they now did would be gone and they would be too old to do any work at all. Mimi was miserable when she thought of this and she seemed to herself to be a leech feeding off the bodies of these two who had been so generous to her, a stranger.

And this guilty feeling was added to when she thought, as she frequently did, that she had eaten of their bread under false colours. Mrs. Manning might as well have applied hot irons to Mimi’s flesh unwittingly as to mention Mimi’s “late husband.” Never was there any malice or inquisitiveness in her voice, and that lack of suspicion hurt Mimi a thousand times more than accusations and recriminations.

“If your poor husband had only lived to see the baby!” or “Does the boy take after you or your husband?” she would say gently, and her innocent words would make Mimi feel like a distillation of all the Judas Iscariots, the Benedict Arnolds, the Tartuffes, the Pharisees and all the other deceivers and hypocrites of history. Now that she had regained her strength, her inaction annoyed her, the very food she ate at times almost choked her because after all it was charity and more, charity granted through deceit and lies. Time and time again she determined to blurt out the truth to the Mannings whatever the result might be, but each time she decided to put off her confession until she was earning enough money to provide for the baby at least if the Mannings should turn against her. She justified this in her own mind by assuring herself that had she been alone she would have told them her story long since whatever the consequences might have been. But when she saw “Petit Jean” cooing and kicking in the old-fashioned crib which Mr. Manning had brought down from the attic where it had lain for many years (they had had one child who was born dead), Mimi felt she could not in common sense risk the possibility of the baby’s suffering.

Her qualms of conscience were solved for her in an unexpected manner. Early in November the first sleet and snow of the year came down upon the city. Mr. Manning was returning home after a shopping tour, a heavy basket on his arm. Nearing the house, he slipped and fell. The doctor set the broken hip and announced that he would be confined to his bed for many weeks. Mimi stayed as long as she felt she was needed, she did not want Mrs. Manning to feel she would desert her when her services were needed. But she located a boarding place, arranged for Petit Jean to stay by day at a nursery, and secured work sewing by the day through scanning the want ads and inquiry through the Mannings and one of their friends. The elderly couple objected to her going but they were not adroit enough in concealing their feelings to keep from her a note of relief.⁠ ⁠…

Month after month of the drab life rolled by. At her new home Mimi realized now how kind the Mannings had really been to her. Not that her new landlady was unkind. She too was good in her way, but lacking in understanding, in sympathy. Because her income was uncertain and she knew there would be days when she would have no work, Mimi had taken a place where she could obtain lodging at the lowest figure possible and at the same time secure respectability. Early in the morning she rose, gave Jean his bath and dressed him, prepared his breakfast and her own, took him to the nursery and went to her work. Returning in the evening, she brought him home, prepared him for bed, got her dinner and soon afterwards retired. This regular schedule was broken only by the all-too-frequent days when she had no work. The one bright spot in the week was Sunday, when she kept Jean with her and took him for short walks. She gave up attendance at church, for she was envious of anything which took her away from Jean.

Of social life or recreation there was none for her. She could not afford to spend money for even moving-picture shows. She occasionally visited the Mannings, telling them glowing accounts of the ease with which she was meeting her new life, telling these little falsehoods so convincingly that they in their innocence believed her. Mr. Manning was slowly getting better but his age was against him, his bones did not knit as rapidly as they had hoped. Always they asked Mimi when she would return to them. But she could tell with no great difficulty from their voices and the worried look on their faces that things were not moving so well with them and that their invitations, while sincere, would, if accepted, have multiplied burdens already heavy. She assured them she was having no difficulties whatever, and even brought little gifts of flowers or fruit to them which meant the sacrifice of food often for herself.

She made no calls nor had she any other intimates than these. Her trials and difficulties had given a depth to Mimi’s expression which, instead of making her less attractive, had added a richness to what had been a childish, flowerlike beauty. Almost automatically she drew to her the gaze of men whom she passed on the street and she knew what these looks meant. She hurried along with downcast eyes to escape them, frightened by their boldness. She felt safe, for she seldom ventured forth after nightfall, but even in the daytime these unmistakable glances caused a nausea to well up within her. In the episode with Carl, Mimi had given herself freely and with no sense of shame or guilt but she had loved him when that had taken place. But these unsolicited attentions caused a revulsion within her which swept through her like a physical illness.

One of her best-paying customers for whom she sewed regularly every Thursday lived in Germantown. Often the work was so great she did not leave until very late but she was glad of this, for she was paid generously for her overtime and received her dinner, which meant an additional saving. One Thursday afternoon as she came down the stairs from the room where she always worked she met the husband of her employer.

“Hello,” he greeted her, “and who are you?”

She told him. After answering various questions regarding the length of time she had worked there and listening to his surprised comment that he had not seen her during all that time, he let her pass. But the following Thursday he was there again, this time earlier than before. He came into the room where she was hurrying through her work.

“Tell me about yourself,” he demanded, pleasantly, too pleasantly Mimi thought.

“There’s little to tell. I work for my living.”

“Your husband’s dead, then?” he remarked, looking at her black dress. Mimi yet wore mourning, partly because she could afford no new clothes. She began to gather her work to avoid his questions.

“You don’t mean to tell me you’re coloured?” he pursued, incredulously. “My wife told me about having a coloured girl sewing for her but I never expected to see anybody looking like you!”

“I am coloured.” Mimi assured him firmly as she tried to leave the room.

“Wait a minute⁠—wait a minute,” he hastened to add. “I don’t mean any harm. I was born in the South and I always liked Negroes.”

“That’s very kind of you⁠—but I’ve got to hurry home,” Mimi nervously answered as she sought to leave the room. He stood in front of her, his hands clasped behind his back, and the smile on his face made her think instinctively of a fat, sleepy-eyed and sleek cat teasing a mouse before devouring it.

“Those pretty little hands of yours are too delicate for hard work⁠—and I never saw such lovely hair⁠—do you know, I always was peculiarly susceptible to yellow hair⁠—”

He drawled the words in what doubtless seemed to him to be an effective manner. He almost purred them. Mimi did not know whether to laugh or cry. She had seen scenes like this in the movies, and the cheap melodrama of such episodes had invariably made her want to snicker at their absurdity. But here was the thing she had laughed at in mild amusement happening to her, and it wasn’t all play, she knew, nor was she unaware of the very real danger behind his smooth and would-be seductive manner. At first she had been frightened, now she had to put forth a very real effort to keep from smiling. He felt the change in her manner and mistakenly thought it to be progress on his part.

“You don’t have to work so hard if you don’t want to,” he suggested, his words becoming bolder not so much in the actual phrases he used as in their increased suggestiveness. “I have no objection to coloured girls⁠—in fact, I really prefer them⁠—”

“That’s really very nice of you⁠—very generous indeed,” Mimi observed, her amusement now rapidly conquering her apprehension.

“Oh, no, not at all⁠—not at all!” he protested, thinking her serious. “Even when I lived in the South I had none of the usual prejudice.”

“How very remarkable!” cooed Mimi. Her voice had in it the velvety smoothness of swan’s-down.

To himself he thought, this is easier than I expected, as he advanced possessively towards her.

“How soon am I going to see you?” he queried softly.

“Don’t be silly!” Mimi calmly advised him. “In the first place you are fat. In the second, you are old and bald. In the third, you are white. Fourth, you are vain and stupid and ignorant and repulsive. Don’t think I’m falling back on the sentimental melodramatics of the ‘poor working girl.’ I’m not⁠—I let you run along just to set the stage for telling you my opinion of you.”

Her voice was as dispassionate as that of a schoolgirl monotonously listing the products from Brazil. There were no heroics, no tears, but only a relentless cataloguing of the physical and mental defects of the would-be Casanova. He gasped.

“You little fool⁠—you ought to feel proud that I, a white man, would even want you⁠—a nigger!”

Her face flamed at the despised word but she kept her temper.

“I’m not surprised at your thinking that. I suppose even that such a notion is natural⁠—you’ve made your own ideas about your own attractiveness and irresistibility and you’ve told yourself so often you’re invincible you believe it yourselves. Seducers of servant-girls! A noble accomplishment!”

Infuriated at her impassivity and her ridicule, so markedly a contrast to what he had assumed was complacence, he sought to seize her. She eluded him with the same coolness and remarked as she left the room: “It doesn’t really seem wise, does it, to create a scene in your own home where your wife is within hearing distance?”

A faint, mocking laugh trailed back to him as he stood there after she had gone.⁠ ⁠…