April 1946
Silvie stacked the breakfast dishes in the sink and heaved a long, drawn-out sigh. “I declare, Amethyst, I believe those boys are gonna be the death of me yet.”
“What do you mean?” Amethyst folded the newspaper and looked up at her. “They’re barely more than children, Silvie. I know they can be a little wild and rough sometimes, but they’re good at heart.”
“You go on believing that, if you want to,” Silvie muttered. “I’m gonna watch my back.”
“Has one of those boys said something to you?” Amethyst leaned forward intently. “They should know by now that you’re a member of this household just as well as I am. If any one of them has been rude to you—”
“It’s got nothing to do with rudeness.” Silvie shook her head and turned back to the dishes. Amethyst wouldn’t understand, no matter how much she tried to explain it. For years, since they were little girls, she and Amethyst had lived like sisters. Amethyst had called her own daddy “Uncle Enoch,” God rest his soul, and the two families had shared this land for generations. But none of that mattered beyond the doors of Noble House. Out there, in the real world, Silvie was a colored maid, and Amethyst a white lady.
No, the boys hadn’t been rude to her—not directly, anyway. But she had seen the way that Dooley Layton followed her with his eyes, leering at her—never mind that she was old enough to be his mama, and then some. He had a look about him, that snobbish, superior expression some white men got when they looked at a black woman. It made her skin crawl. It was the same kind of look, come to think about it, that old Mr. Mansfield used to have years ago when she worked for him at the hotel restaurant. An expression that said, “You’re mine for the taking, whenever I want you. You’re property, and don’t you forget it.”
And she had overheard some of their conversations—at least enough to know that all of them, Conrad included, regularly talked about Negroes in demeaning language. Only last week, an old Negro man had been shot over in Dudley County just for walking on the road in front of a white man’s place, and the murderer hadn’t even been arrested. The sheriff said the man had the right to protect his land, and that was the end of it. Conrad and his friends had laughed about it, saying it was a lesson to all of them to stay where they belonged.
Amethyst, dear heart that she was, would like to believe that slavery had ended eighty years ago. But Silvie’s own daddy had been a slave, and had told stories about his terror of the pattyrollers. The beast was still out there, prowling around at night, only this time it wore a white sheet and burned crosses in people’s front yards.
“Silvie? Are you listening?”
Silvie jerked back to the present. “Sorry, Amethyst.”
“I asked if any of the boys have been rude to you. Because if they have—”
“No. It’s just that—” She gave up, waving her hands in frustration.
Amethyst slapped one palm down on the table. “If you’ve got something to say, Silvie, why don’t you just come out and say it?”
“Because you won’t understand. And you won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
Silvie heaved a ragged sigh and sank down in a chair opposite Amethyst. “All right. None of the boys have said a word to me, other than ’pass the potatoes.’”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“That’s just the point, Amethyst. They don’t talk to me; they don’t relate to me in any way except as a servant. A slave. They don’t see me. Except maybe for Dooley Layton, who looks at me as if he’s ready to drag me out to the woods and have his way with me.”
“You don’t mean it! Silvie, you’re nearly fifty years old!” Amethyst laughed out loud, then stifled her mirth when she saw that Silvie was not amused. “You do mean it.”
“I mean it. I’ve seen the look before, and I’d recognize it if I was ninety years old.”
“Well, I know you’re still a beautiful woman, Silvie, but a college boy? Please!”
“It has nothing to do with my age, Amethyst, or whether or not I’m still attractive. It has to do with power—a white man’s power over a black woman. Or over a black man, for that matter.”
Amethyst blinked. “Race has never mattered in this house. You should know that.”
Silvie struggled against her anger—not at Amethyst, particularly, but at the whole of society. “Outside this house,” she said in a measured voice, “things are quite different.”
“I don’t understand.”
Silvie picked up the newspaper and scanned the front page. “Remember the Negro man who got shot last week across the county line?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know his murderer walked free? No arrest, no trial, not even so much as a slap on the wrist or a fine?” She laid the paper down in front of Amethyst. “Here’s the story.”
Amethyst looked at the newspaper for a full minute. “There’s no story about that shooting.”
“Exactly. That’s my point, Amethyst. Black folks are invisible. Rape us, shoot us, beat us to death, drag us behind a car—it doesn’t matter. We don’t count.”
“You count to me,” Amethyst murmured.
Silvie felt her heart melt, and she reached out and patted Amethyst’s arm. “I know that, hon. I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about—”
“About the Klan?”
“Yes and no. Sure, I’m scared to death of the Klan. I don’t know a single black person in Mississippi who isn’t. But it’s not just the outright acts of violence that are dangerous, Amethyst. It’s all those well-meaning, good-hearted people who just sit by and do nothing.”
She paused and groped for words. Amethyst was her best friend, and she wasn’t going to want to hear what Silvie had to say, but she had asked for the truth and deserved nothing less.
“What frightens me,” she went on, “is the look in the eye of a boy like Dooley Layton. What terrifies me is the idea that eighteen-year-old boys would applaud the sheriff who let that murderer in Dudley County go free. What appalls me is hearing them say, ’He had it coming,’ as if being a Negro were reason enough to kill someone.”
“Conrad?” Amethyst asked in a strangled whisper. “My son said that?”
Silvie gritted her teeth. “He didn’t say it,” she amended. “He just laughed when someone else did.”
Amethyst had been miserable all day, thinking about what Silvie had told her. She didn’t know what to do with Conrad, how to talk to him or what to say. He never listened to her anymore.
If he ever did, she corrected herself.
What, she wondered, made a child rebel against everything his parents stood for? It was true that Conrad had not had a father to look up to, but Amethyst had done her best, teaching him about God, trying to instill faith into his heart, encouraging him to pray and learn to trust the Lord for himself. And he certainly hadn’t grown up with racism and hatred—at least not from her.
His grandfather was a different story.
Abraham Noble, Amethyst knew, had lived and died a bitter, broken man. He blamed his dissolute life on everyone but himself—on his father Silas, who had seen into his character and hadn’t trusted him with the Noble lands. On Enoch, who in his mind had taken his place as first son and rightful heir. On his wife and daughter for chaining him to a life he hated. As a young boy, Conrad had undoubtedly been influenced by her father’s attitudes.
But she couldn’t entirely fault Abe for the way Conrad had turned out. The boy could have decided in favor of his mother’s faith rather than his grandfather’s bitterness. He’d had a choice between grace and arrogance, between compassion and cynicism. Everyone did.
In the long run, she supposed, there was no explaining how those influences sorted out. Amethyst had done all she could do, and now that he was grown, she had to let go. She had no option except to pray, and keep on praying, that one way or another, the Almighty would reach down and turn her son’s life around.
She only hoped Conrad wouldn’t have to become like his grandfather before he embraced the truth.
The dinner dishes had been dried and put away, and Amethyst was just about to sit down with a book when she heard a knock at the door. She went into the front hall to find Silvie holding the door open, as rigid as if she had just been struck by lightning.
“Silvie? Who’s there?”
The door opened a little farther and a man stepped into the hallway, holding his cap in his hand. He was a tall fellow, broad-shouldered and handsome, with soft dark eyes and skin the color of burnished oak. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said in a rumbling baritone as he caught sight of Amethyst. “I’m looking for Amethyst Noble.”
A rectangular patch over his pocket read “BLUE.” Amethyst let her gaze take in the navy uniform, the close-cropped black hair, the flashing white teeth. She had always thought Uncle Enoch was handsome, but this man gave new meaning to the word. No wonder Silvie was standing there dumbfounded.
Amethyst tugged at Silvie’s elbow and reached around her to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Amethyst. My married name is Wainwright, but people still tend to use my maiden name, even after all these years.” She shrugged. “It’s the South, you know. This is Silvie Warren.”
Silvie finally managed to come to her senses and put her jaw back in place. “Hello.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ladies,” he said with a brilliant smile in Silvie’s direction. “I’m Bailey Blue. I’ve just been discharged from the navy, and I’m looking for lodging in this area. Might you have a room available?”
Silvie took a deep breath, sort of a strangled gasp. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
He laughed—a deep, mellow sound that filled the hallway like music. “No ma’am. I’m from Washington, D.C.”
Suddenly Amethyst remembered her manners. “Come in, Mr. Blue.”
“Please, call me Bailey.” He followed them into the log cabin room and took a seat in one of the chairs next to the fireplace. “What a nice room. Very comfortable and inviting.”
“Would you like coffee?” Amethyst shot a glance at Silvie, who nodded. “Won’t take but a minute to make.”
“I would, thanks.”
Amethyst hustled Silvie into the kitchen, and as soon as the door closed behind them, Silvie grabbed the edge of the counter. “Can you believe that?”
“What? That he’s gorgeous, or that he wants to rent a room here?”
“Both.” Silvie sank into a chair at the kitchen table while Amethyst put the coffeepot on. “Do we have any of that chocolate cake left?”
“You must be dreaming. The boys wolfed down the rest of it at dinner tonight. And I don’t have any more ration stamps for chocolate, either.”
“Never mind the ration stamps. There must be something we can offer him.”
Amethyst nodded. “We made teacakes for tomorrow with the last of the sugar, remember? They’re on the top shelf in the pantry. I hid them so the boys wouldn’t find them.”
Silvie jumped up, retrieved the cookies, and began arranging them on a plate. Then suddenly she stopped and turned to Amethyst with a look of abject misery on her face. “What are we doing?”
“I thought we were making coffee and cookies for a new boarder.”
“Amethyst, we can’t!”
“Of course we can. We’ve still got that nice apartment on the back side of the house. And we could use the extra money.”
“Amethyst,” Silvie breathed, “he’s colored.”
“Well, I know that. What’s your point?”
“Nobody bothers me because I’ve been here forever. I grew up here, and the whole town is used to it. But if we take him—”
“It will be exactly like it was when we took in Harper and the other fellows twenty years ago. This gossipy little town will buzz about it for a while, and then everything will settle down.”
“It won’t settle down, Amethyst. Don’t you see?” Silvie shook her head and went on without waiting for an answer. “No, you don’t see. How could you? Despite everything you’ve been through, Amethyst, you’re still an innocent. You think you’ve seen trouble? You wait till you take that man into your house, and then real trouble will plant itself right on your front doorstep. Probably dressed in a white hood, with a torch in its hand.”
“He seems harmless enough to me.” Amethyst peered at Silvie. “I can’t believe you don’t want him here.”
“It’s not a matter of what I want. It’s a matter of—”
“It’s a matter of what’s right,” Amethyst interrupted.
Silvie stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a matter of what’s right,” Amethyst repeated. “You told me this morning that the world was in desperate need of changing. Well, we’ve spent the last twenty years changing what we could, and I don’t see any reason to stop now.”
“You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it. And what could happen, anyway? Some rednecks could get their boxers in a twist because we have a black boarder. Let ’em.”
Silvie let out a muffled laugh. “Amethyst, you are outrageous.”
“And I enjoy it immensely. Besides, he seems like a perfectly cultured gentleman. It might do our college boys good to have a little of that influence in their lives. My own son included.”
“Conrad won’t like it.”
“Conrad will learn to live with it.”
Silvie bit her lip. “But what if there’s trouble?”
“What kind of trouble could a nice man like that stir up? He’ll probably be the quietest boarder we’ve ever had.”
The more Bailey Blue talked, the more Amethyst liked him. He spoke in softly modulated tones, laughed easily, and had an incisive wit. Not to mention a bagful of nylons and chocolate bars.
“So, Bailey,” she asked as she poured him another cup of coffee, “what did you do in the service?”
He ran a hand across his hair and chuckled. “What most black seamen do, ma’am. Swab decks, clean latrines, scramble eggs.”
Amethyst frowned. “I don’t know much about the navy and wouldn’t recognize one uniform from another, but I just assumed you were an officer.”
“And why would you assume that?”
“Because you’re so—I don’t know. Obviously educated, intelligent, articulate. Shall I go on?”
He laughed out loud. “I’d love for you to, but modesty compels me to ask you to stop.” He fixed his dark eyes on hers. “I’m an attorney, ma’am. Howard University, class of 1940.”
“An attorney!” Silvie’s jaw dropped open again.
“That’s right. But in the navy it doesn’t much matter what a man did before he enlisted. If he’s colored, that is. I was in the service almost three years, and I never once met a black man with a rank above petty officer.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Amethyst blurted out.
“I agree. And so does the organization I work for.”
He went on talking for a while about his experiences in the navy, and how difficult it was for a Negro man to gain the rank he deserved. His voice, low and subdued, was mesmerizing, almost hypnotic. Amethyst could have listened to him for hours.
Then suddenly something he said registered. “You mentioned the organization you work for?”
“Yes ma’am. That’s why I’m in Mississippi. To try to act as catalyst for some long-overdue changes.” He paused. “I’m with a group called the National Organization for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP. Perhaps you’ve heard of us. We’re working on behalf of equal rights for Negroes—battling against job discrimination, violence, and the like. It’s a wonderful cause.”
Amethyst had heard of it, all right. And it was a wonderful cause.
Just not the cause she expected to come knocking at Noble House.