The Ways of White Folks Page 7

  Of course, there were a few who left, but their places were soon filled by others more truly mystic in the primitive sense than those whose arteries had already hardened, and who somehow couldn’t follow a modern path to happiness, or sit on African stools. Clarence Lochard, for one, with his spine, had needed actual medical treatment not to be found at the Colony of Joy. And Mrs. J. Northcliff Hill, in the seventies, was a little too old for even the simple exercises that led to center-swaying. But for the two or three who went away, four or five came. And the house was full of life and soul. Every morning, ensemble, they lifted up their hands to the sun when the earth-drums rang out—and the sun was Lesche, standing right there.

  Lesche was called the New Leader. The Negro bandmaster was known as Happy Man. The dancers were called the Primitives. The drummer was ritualized as Earth-Drummer. And the devotees were called New Men, New Women—for the Yale man had written in one of the lectures, “and the age-old rhythm of the earth as expressed by the drums is also the ever new rhythm of life. And all you who walk to it, dance to it, live to it, are New Men and New Women. You shall call one another, not by the old names but only New Man, New Woman, New One, forgetting the past.”

  They called Lesche, Dear New Leader.

  “For,” continued the gist of that particular lecture, “newness, eternal renewal, is the source of all growth, all life, and as we grow from day to day here in this colony, we shall be ever new, ever joyous and new.”

  “Gimme sweet jazz on that line,” Lesche had instructed at rehearsals. So on the thrilling morning of that lecture, the saxophones and clarinets moaned so beautiful and low, the drum beats called behind the palms with such wistful syncopation, that everybody felt impelled to move a new way as Lesche said, “Let us rise this morning and do a new dance, the dance of our new selves.” And thirty-nine life-centers began to sway with the greatest of confidence in the palm court, for by now many inhibitions had fallen away, and the first exercise had been learned perfectly.

  Who knows how long all might have gone on splendidly with Lesche and Sol and their Colony of Joy had not a most unhappy monster entered in to plague them. “The monster that’s in every man,” wrote the Yale man later in his diary, “the monster of jealousy—came to break down joy.”

  For the various New Ones became jealous of Lesche.

  “It’s your fault,” stormed Sol. “Your fault. I told you to treat ’em all the same. I told you if you had to walk in the snow by moonlight, walk with your used-to-be wife, and leave the rest of these ladies alone. You know how women are. I told you not to start that Private Hour in the afternoon. I knew it would make trouble, create jealousy.”

  For out of the Private Hour devoted to the problems of each New One once a fortnight, where Lesche never advised (he couldn’t) but merely received alone in confidence their troubles for contemplation, out of this private hour erelong, howls, screams, and recriminations were heard to issue almost daily. And in late March, New Woman Althouse was known to have thrown an African mask at New Leader Lesche because he kept her waiting a whole hour overtime while he devoted his attentions to the Meadow Brook heiress, New Woman Reeves.

  “My Gawd!” said Sol, “the house is buzzing with scandal—I heard it all from Vankulmer Jones.”

  “These damn women,” said Lesche, “I got to get rid of some of these women.”

  “You can’t,” said Sol. “They’ve all paid.”

  “Well, I will,” said Lesche, “I’m tired! Why even my divorced wife’s in love with me again. Fire her, will you?”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Sol, “she’s a good secretary.”

  “Well, I’m gonna quit,” said Lesche.

  “You can’t,” said Sol. “I got you under contract.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Lesche. “Too much is enough! And sometimes enough is too much! I’m tired, I tell you.”

  So they fell out. But Lesche didn’t quit. It might have been better if he had, for Spring that year was all too sudden and full of implications. The very earth seemed to moan with excess of joy. Life was just too much to bear alone. It needed to be shared, its beauty given to others, taken in return. Its eternal newness united.

  To the Colony, Lesche was their Leader, their life. And they wanted him, each one, alone. In desperation, he abolished the Private Hour. But that didn’t help any. Mrs. Duveen Althouse was desperately in love with him now. (She called him Pan.) Miss Joan Reeves could not turn her eyes away. (He was her god.) Mrs. Carlos Gleed insisted that he summer at her island place in Maine. Baroness Langstrund announced quite definitely she intended to marry him—whereupon Mrs. Althouse, who had thrown the mask, threatened, without ceremony, to wring at once the Baroness’ neck. Several other New Ones stopped speaking to each other over Lesche. Even the men members were taking sides for or against Lesche, or against each other. That dear soul Vankulmer Jones said he simply couldn’t stand it any more—and left.

  In the city, the Broadway gossip columns got hold of it—this excitement over Joy—and began to wise-crack. Then suddenly a minister started a crusade against the doings of the rich at the Colony and the tabloids sent men up to get pictures. Blackmailers, scenting scandal, began to blackmail. The righteous and the racketeers both sprang into action. And violets bloomed in April.

  Sol tore his hair. “We’re ruined!”

  “Who cares?” said Lesche, “let’s go back to the Hollywood gym. We made plenty on this. And I’ve still got the Hispano Mrs. Hancock donated.”

  “But we could’ve made millions.”

  “We’ll come back to it next year,” said Lesche. “And get some fresh New Ones. I’m damn tired of these old ones.” And so they bickered.

  But the final fireworks were set off by Miss Tulane Lucas, the dusky female of the Primitives. They began over the Earth-Drummer, and really had nothing to do with the Colony. But fire, once started, often spreads beyond control.

  The drummer belonged to Miss Lucas. But when Spring came, he got a bad habit of driving down to New York after work every night and not getting back till morning.

  “Another woman,” said Tulane to herself, “after all I’ve done.” She warned him, but he paid her no mind.

  One April morning, just in time to play for the eleven o’clock lecture, with Lesche already on the platform, the little colored drummer arrived late and, without even having gone by the cottage to greet Tulane—rushed into the palm court and took his place at the earth-drums.

  “Oh, no!” said Tulane suddenly from among the palms while all the New Ones, contemplating on their African stools, started at the unwonted sound. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “You have drummed for your last time.” And she took a pistol from her bosom and shot.

  Bang!… Bang!… Bang!

  Screams rent the palm court. As the drummer fled, bang! a bullet hit somewhere near his life-center, but he kept on. Pandemonium broke out.

  “My Gawd!” said Sol. “Somebody grab that gun.” But Mrs. Duveen Althouse beat him to it. From Tulane, she snatched the weapon for herself and approached the great Lesche.

  “How right to shoot the one you love!” she cried, “How primitive, how just!” And she pointed the gun directly at their dear Leader.

  Again shots rang out. One struck the brass curve of the bass horn, glanced upward toward the ceiling, and crashed through the glass of the sun court, showering slivers on everybody.

  But by that time, Baroness Langstrund had thrown herself on Duveen Althouse. “Aw-oo!” she screamed. “You wretch, shooting the man I love.” Her fingers sought the other’s hair, her nails tore at her eyes. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carlos Gleed threw an African stool.

  Mrs. Althouse fired once more—but Lesche had gone. The final bullet hit only the marble floor, flew upward through the piano, and sounded a futile chord.

  By this time, Sol had grabbed the gun. The screams died. Somebody separated the two women. Little French maids came running with water for the fainting. Happy Lane emerged from behind the bass-viol, p
ale as an African ghost—but nobody knew where the rest of the jazz band had disappeared, nor Lesche either. They were long gone.

  There was no lecture that morning. Indeed, there were never any more lectures. That was the end of the Colony of Joy.

  The newspapers laughed about it for weeks, published pictures and names of the wealthy inmates; the columnists wisecracked. It was all very terrible! As a final touch, one of the tabloids claimed to have discovered that the great Lesche was a Negro—passing for white!

  7

  ——

  THE BLUES I’M PLAYING

  OCEOLA JONES, PIANIST, studied under Philippe in Paris. Mrs. Dora Ellsworth paid her bills. The bills included a little apartment on the Left Bank and a grand piano. Twice a year Mrs. Ellsworth came over from New York and spent part of her time with Oceola in the little apartment. The rest of her time abroad she usually spent at Biarritz or Juan les Pins, where she would see the new canvases of Antonio Bas, a young Spanish painter who also enjoyed the patronage of Mrs. Ellsworth. Bas and Oceola, the woman thought, both had genius. And whether they had genius or not, she loved them, and took good care of them.

  Poor dear lady, she had no children of her own. Her husband was dead. And she had no interest in life now save art, and the young people who created art. She was very rich, and it gave her pleasure to share her richness with beauty. Except that she was sometimes confused as to where beauty lay—in the youngsters or in what they made, in the creators or the creation. Mrs. Ellsworth had been known to help charming young people who wrote terrible poems, blue-eyed young men who painted awful pictures. And she once turned down a garlic-smelling soprano-singing girl who, a few years later, had all the critics in New York at her feet. The girl was so sallow. And she really needed a bath, or at least a mouth wash, on the day when Mrs. Ellsworth went to hear her sing at an East Side settlement house. Mrs. Ellsworth had sent a small check and let it go at that—since, however, living to regret bitterly her lack of musical acumen in the face of garlic.

  About Oceola, though, there had been no doubt. The Negro girl had been highly recommended to her by Ormond Hunter, the music critic, who often went to Harlem to hear the church concerts there, and had thus listened twice to Oceola’s playing.

  “A most amazing tone,” he had told Mrs. Ellsworth, knowing her interest in the young and unusual. “A flair for the piano such as I have seldom encountered. All she needs is training—finish, polish, a repertoire.”

  “Where is she?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth at once. “I will hear her play.”

  By the hardest, Oceola was found. By the hardest, an appointment was made for her to come to East 63rd Street and play for Mrs. Ellsworth. Oceola had said she was busy every day. It seemed that she had pupils, rehearsed a church choir, and played almost nightly for colored house parties or dances. She made quite a good deal of money. She wasn’t tremendously interested, it seemed, in going way downtown to play for some elderly lady she had never heard of, even if the request did come from the white critic, Ormond Hunter, via the pastor of the church whose choir she rehearsed, and to which Mr. Hunter’s maid belonged.

  It was finally arranged, however. And one afternoon, promptly on time, black Miss Oceola Jones rang the door bell of white Mrs. Dora Ellsworth’s grey stone house just off Madison. A butler who actually wore brass buttons opened the door, and she was shown upstairs to the music room. (The butler had been warned of her coming.) Ormond Hunter was already there, and they shook hands. In a moment, Mrs. Ellsworth came in, a tall stately grey-haired lady in black with a scarf that sort of floated behind her. She was tremendously intrigued at meeting Oceola, never having had before amongst all her artists a black one. And she was greatly impressed that Ormond Hunter should have recommended the girl. She began right away, treating her as a protegee; that is, she began asking her a great many questions she would not dare ask anyone else at first meeting, except a protegee. She asked her how old she was and where her mother and father were and how she made her living and whose music she liked best to play and was she married and would she take one lump or two in her tea, with lemon or cream?

  After tea, Oceola played. She played the Rachmaninoff Prelude in G Sharp Minor. She played from the Liszt Études. She played the St. Louis Blues. She played Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Défunte. And then she said she had to go. She was playing that night for a dance in Brooklyn for the benefit of the Urban League.

  Mrs. Ellsworth and Ormond Hunter breathed, “How lovely!”

  Mrs. Ellsworth said, “I am quite overcome, my dear. You play so beautifully.” She went on further to say, “You must let me help you. Who is your teacher?”

  “I have none now,” Oceola replied. “I teach pupils myself. Don’t have time any more to study—nor money either.”

  “But you must have time,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, “and money, also. Come back to see me on Tuesday. We will arrange it, my dear.”

  And when the girl had gone, she turned to Ormond Hunter for advice on piano teachers to instruct those who already had genius, and need only to be developed.

  II

  Then began one of the most interesting periods in Mrs. Ellsworth’s whole experience in aiding the arts. The period of Oceola. For the Negro girl, as time went on, began to occupy a greater and greater place in Mrs. Ellsworth’s interests, to take up more and more of her time, and to use up more and more of her money. Not that Oceola ever asked for money, but Mrs. Ellsworth herself seemed to keep thinking of so much more Oceola needed.

  At first it was hard to get Oceola to need anything. Mrs. Ellsworth had the feeling that the girl mistrusted her generosity, and Oceola did—for she had never met anybody interested in pure art before. Just to be given things for art’s sake seemed suspicious to Oceola.

  That first Tuesday, when the colored girl came back at Mrs. Ellsworth’s request, she answered the white woman’s questions with a why-look in her eyes.

  “Don’t think I’m being personal, dear,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, “but I must know your background in order to help you. Now, tell me …”

  Oceola wondered why on earth the woman wanted to help her. However, since Mrs. Ellsworth seemed interested in her life’s history, she brought it forth so as not to hinder the progress of the afternoon, for she wanted to get back to Harlem by six o’clock.

  Born in Mobile in 1903. Yes, m’am, she was older than she looked. Papa had a band, that is her step-father. Used to play for all the lodge turn-outs, picnics, dances, barbecues. You could get the best roast pig in the world in Mobile. Her mother used to play the organ in church, and when the deacons bought a piano after the big revival, her mama played that, too. Oceola played by ear for a long while until her mother taught her notes. Oceola played an organ, also, and a cornet.

  “My, my,” said Mrs. Ellsworth.

  “Yes, m’am,” said Oceola. She had played and practiced on lots of instruments in the South before her step-father died. She always went to band rehearsals with him.

  “And where was your father, dear?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth.

  “My step-father had the band,” replied Oceola. Her mother left off playing in the church to go with him traveling in Billy Kersands’ Minstrels. He had the biggest mouth in the world, Kersands did, and used to let Oceola put both her hands in it at a time and stretch it. Well, she and her mama and step-papa settled down in Houston. Sometimes her parents had jobs and sometimes they didn’t. Often they were hungry, but Oceola went to school and had a regular piano-teacher, an old German woman, who gave her what technique she had today.

  “A fine old teacher,” said Oceola. “She used to teach me half the time for nothing. God bless her.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Ellsworth. “She gave you an excellent foundation.”

  “Sure did. But my step-papa died, got cut, and after that Mama didn’t have no more use for Houston so we moved to St. Louis. Mama got a job playing for the movies in a Market Street theater, and I played for a church choir, and saved some money and went to Wilberfo
rce. Studied piano there, too. Played for all the college dances. Graduated. Came to New York and heard Rachmaninoff and was crazy about him. Then Mama died, so I’m keeping the little flat myself. One room is rented out.”

  “Is she nice,” asked Mrs. Ellsworth, “your roomer?”

  “It’s not a she,” said Oceola. “He’s a man. I hate women roomers.”

  “Oh!” said Mrs. Ellsworth. “I should think all roomers would be terrible.”

  “He’s right nice,” said Oceola. “Name’s Pete Williams.”

  “What does he do?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth.

  “A Pullman porter,” replied Oceola, “but he’s saving money to go to Med school. He’s a smart fellow.”

  But it turned out later that he wasn’t paying Oceola any rent.

  That afternoon, when Mrs. Ellsworth announced that she had made her an appointment with one of the best piano teachers in New York, the black girl seemed pleased. She recognized the name. But how, she wondered, would she find time for study, with her pupils and her choir, and all. When Mrs. Ellsworth said that she would cover her entire living expenses, Oceola’s eyes were full of that why-look, as though she didn’t believe it.

  “I have faith in your art, dear,” said Mrs. Ellsworth, at parting. But to prove it quickly, she sat down that very evening and sent Oceola the first monthly check so that she would no longer have to take in pupils or drill choirs or play at house parties. And so Oceola would have faith in art, too.

  That night Mrs. Ellsworth called up Ormond Hunter and told him what she had done. And she asked if Mr. Hunter’s maid knew Oceola, and if she supposed that that man rooming with her were anything to her. Ormond Hunter said he would inquire.