MAMBA’S DAUGHTERS

BOOKS BY DU BOSE HEYWARD

ANGEL SKYLINES AND HORIZONS MAMBA’S DAUGHTERS PORGY: A NOVEL PORGY: A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS (WITH DOROTHY HEYWARD) CAROLINA CHANSONS (WITH HERVEY ALLEN)

DU BOSE HEYWARD

MAMBA’S DAUGHTERS

A NOVEL OF CHARLESTON

THE LITERARY GUILD NEW YORK 1929

COPYRIGHT, 1929 BY DU BOSE HEYWARD COPYRIGHT, 1928 BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY. N. Y.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Because I believe that regional literature, even though it be avowedly fictional, should be unequivocal in its identification with its locale, I have not hesitated in this novel to apply the correct names to the city, streets, and outlying districts of which I write. Lest this course should lead the reader into confusing the narrative with either history or biography, I desire to stress the fact that the work is purely imaginative and is concerned only with certain social and spiritual values existing in Charleston and its environs. For the purposes of the novel the material has been subjected to an intense synthesis. Thus the phosphate mining camp stands not merely as an exposition of an isolated industry, but as a focal point for the drawing together of a number of mental attitudes and incidents typical of the industrial black belt. With the exception of allusions to people whose correct names are used, and who will be readily recognized, the characters who appear in the book are fictional creations and are not intended as representations of actual characters either living or dead.

Du Bose Heyward.

Charleston, South Carolina, October, 1928.

PART I

[2]

PART I

It was no mere chance that, during the first decade of the new century, brought Mamba out of the darkness of the underworld into the light of the Wentworths’ kitchen. Casual as that event seemed, there is good evidence for the belief that it had its origin in some obscure recess of the woman’s mind; or in perhaps some deep and but half comprehended instinct that drove her, against the reasoning of her brain, to embark upon what must have seemed a fantastically hopeless venture. For Mamba had arrived at an age that lay on the downhill side of fifty, and her habitat had always been the waterfront.

The amazing thing is that, having arrived at her decision, she was able to muster the courage necessary to take the step.

In the Charleston of Mamba’s day the negro population might have been divided into two general classes: the upper, consisting of those who had white folks, belonged to the negro quality and enjoyed a certain dolorous respectability; and the lower class, members of which had no white folks and were little better than outcasts.

How long Mamba had incubated her amazing plan there is no way of knowing. It is quite certain, however, that she reinforced the initial whisper with a “cunjer” that promised success, and that then, armed only with an enormous and devious experience and a remarkable histrionic talent, she selected her point of attack. But in the last step she showed the genius that was to predestine her to ultimate success.

The Wentworths, as was well known, had been wealthy plantation people before the war. But that fate which arranges the rise and fall of aristocracies had placed the original grant from the[4] British Crown directly across the line of march to be taken six generations later by General Sherman. The condition of the Wentworths after the army had passed through their plantation was a sustained corroboration of the general’s famous definition. Immediately after the war the family had abandoned the charred remnants of what had once been the ancestral home, sold the land to liquidate old debts, and moved to Charleston. There they settled in the little brick dwelling near the Battery that they still occupied when they were elected by Mamba as her point of attack.

At that time there were four members of the family. Mrs. Wentworth was a widow in the early forties, possessed of intelligence, unquenchable industry, and a personal charm that the exigent years were stiffening into a manner almost too rigid for so soft a word. It was so desperately important for her children to hold their place in the society in which they had been born. It was as though, knowing the material odds against her, she dared not give an inch. The boy, St. Julien de Chatigny Wentworth, was now fourteen years of age. He had inherited an ancestral curse in the nickname of Saint, and was at the stage of being torn between a genuine desire for knowledge and the frustrating public-school system of the period. Polly, the girl, was altogether charming. A slender blonde of twelve, she was now in attendance at the Misses Sass’s school for young gentlewomen, on Legaré Street, and in accordance with the custom of the old city was just beginning to attend her first dancing-school soirées in the company of her brother. The fourth and by no means the least important member of the

family was Maum Netta. She was a small intensely black woman of great delicacy of feeling, and with a sense of social values that was infallible. If she lacked anything that one had a right to expect it was, strangely enough for her race, a sense of humour, and one shrewdly suspected that she had deliberately suppressed this quality as jeopardising the dignity of her position. It is certain that she[5] requited the Wentworths for their protection and love with a loyalty, devotion, and faith that imposed upon the two children an obligation of fulfilment almost as deep as that implicit in the relationship of child to parent.

It will be readily seen that the Wentworths just described presented a highly vulnerable front to the invasion of the Four Hundred planned by Mamba. Had the family been larger and wealthier she could not have gained the attention of the white folks and would probably have been given scant courtesy by the new-time negroes in the kitchen. Here was a family born in the slave-holding tradition of amused and even affectionate tolerance toward the negro once that negro had detached himself from the mass and become identified as an individual. Here, too, in the person of Maum Netta was a gentle and highly competent instructor in the intricate technique that the aged tyro must acquire. True, she knew that the old servant would treat her with well-bred condescension, but, with the true spirit of the social climber, she was prepared to pocket her pride until it could be worn with dignity.

The exact moment of attack was timed to a nicety, and slipped into its place with that appearance of casualness which is the result of infinitely calculated preparation. It was spring in Charleston, and almost overnight the sudden uprush of life from the soil had transformed the town. Wisteria dropped its purple stalactites from the trees and gateposts, and the roses lifted in a foam of colour and perfume over the garden walls. Even the air had a soft velvet on it, like pollen on a petal. It was inconceivable that at such a time hearts could be hardened or harsh words spoken.

The evening was one of unusual excitement in the little brick house. Saint was to escort his sister to her first soirée. Polly was slim and lovely in her white dress with its hand-worked border made after hours by Mrs. Wentworth. But there were no flowers[6] for the début. In all the city of bloom the little brick house was without a garden, its four massive walls crowding the little lot to the limit of its accommodation.

The child was breathless with longing.

“Please, Mother, please; May, and Damaris, and the Hugers all have big gardens. It won’t take a minute to run over to Legaré Street and ask for some roses. Saint will go. Won’t you, Saint?”

But the mother said: “I am sorry, dear, you can’t, you know. We are too poor to have our own, and that is the very reason why we cannot ask. Remember what Landor says, ‘You have already paid the highest price for a thing when you have asked for it.’”

“Yes, I know. Horrid, rich old thing. I bet he never wanted anything in his life that he couldn’t run to a shop and buy.”

Saint put in: “Aw, they have millions and millions of them. It wouldn’t be really giving, they wouldn’t miss ’em.”

“I know, dears, but they will have to be offered. We cannot ask.”

Tears then—tragedy in that gay moment of departure; high-strung little nerves jumping from tears to laughter and back again. And a mist in Mrs. Wentworth’s eyes, the obstinacy of an idealist in her firm mouth and lifted chin.

And Saint: “Aw, come on. Don’t get all messed up over a few flowers.”

Maum Netta opened the door from the kitchen into the dining room where desire and ethics were grappling. “Dere’s uh ’oman outside wot say she want fuh see Missie. She ain’t berry clean. Maybe Missie better come in de kitchen fuh see um.”

The three Wentworths adjourned to the immaculate little kitchen, and there they beheld an incongruous picture. Mamba stood just within the door, and as they entered she dropped a deep courtesy. She was a woman of medium height, frail almost to a point of emaciation. She was not a full-blooded African negro, but her[7] prominent nose, and the coppery cast to her dark skin suggested a strain of American Indian rather than an admixture of white blood in her veins. Her face had reached the point at which it tells nothing of age. As it looked now with its multitudinous wrinkles, it would still look at her death. She smiled a little timidly and revealed a lonely yellow fang in the middle of her lower gum. Then she took a step forward into the full light of the kerosene lamp and looked into the face of the slender blonde girl. From the network of wrinkles the woman’s eyes, large and of a peculiar live-brown brilliance, looked startlingly out, bright with the fire of indomitable youth. Standing directly before Polly she courtesied

again and brought from behind her back a large shower of Dorothy Perkins roses. The stems were wrapped with tinfoil and tied with floss that had been fashioned into a cord with tassels exactly like those displayed in the florists’ windows on King Street.

“Ah tink how my Little Missie goin’ tuh dance tuh Miss Snowden party to-night, an’ Ah say dat de p’utties’ lady dere ought fuh hab flower.”

She swung her rags about her in another courtesy, and extended the bouquet.

Polly gave a gasp of pleasure and held out her hand to take the flowers. The terrible ogre of ethics again raised its head. If one could not ask a neighbour for roses, could one accept a gift of roses that had undoubtedly been stolen over the wall of the selfsame neighbour?

“I think that we must know where those flowers came from before we take them,” Mrs. Wentworth interposed a little weakly.

“Ah gots frien’ who gardener on Legaré Street, Miss. He gib me lot ob flower.”

Saint cut the Gordian knot: “Take the old flowers and let’s go. We’ll be late, anyhow, with all this talk.” Then, seizing his sister by one arm as she caught the bouquet to her breast with the other,[8] he rushed her to the door, and before Mrs. Wentworth could say anything more, their feet had pattered into silence down the street.

The mother turned and looked at Mamba. There was a moment of silence, then the strange old woman gazed up into her face with her amazing girl’s eyes, and smiled her wide single-toothed smile. Mrs. Wentworth threw back her head and laughed. “Where did you come from?” she asked.

“Oh, not so fur. Ah been see Little Missie go by ebery day, an’ Ah jes can’t wait no longer tuh put dem flower whar day b’longs.”

Mrs. Wentworth turned with her hand on the dining-room door knob. “I am sure it was very good of you,” she said, “and now you must let Maum Netta give you some supper before you go away. It was so very odd, your coming just to-night.”

But was it odd, after all? Was it not rather one of those inevitable happenings that are so often mistaken for coincidences but are in reality the mathematical result of a premise originating in some remote but unswerving human purpose?

There was that about the invisible comings and goings of Mamba, after that first night, which tended to confirm Mrs. Wentworth’s grave misgivings. It suggested a proficiency that smacked of the professional, like a game of poker or billiards that is almost too expert for a gentleman. She would prowl about the kitchen door-yard as silent and as unswervingly watchful as a neighbourhood cat, and then, without having been seen in the house, she would leave the evidence of a visit there in some gift for Polly or service for a member of the family.

On the morning following the soirée there were fresh roses, with dew still on the petals, heaped on the girl’s breakfast plate. Mrs. Wentworth, who was a sharp observer, noticed that they had been[9] torn from the vine. Gardeners on Legaré Street were well trained and were provided with shears. Most certainly she must tell Maum Netta not to allow the woman to return. She was not of the type to be encouraged. But after breakfast, when Mrs. Wentworth repaired to the kitchen, she encountered a new complication.

Maum Netta was seated in unaccustomed ease eating her breakfast and Mamba was just drying the last of the dishes. During the moment that Mrs. Wentworth stood unobserved in the doorway, she was an eavesdropper upon a masterpiece of diplomacy. Mamba was saying: “Tek yo’ ease, Mistress Netta, tek yo’ ease. Ah knows dishwashin’ ain’t fuh de quality cullud folks. Attuh yo’ done git up, an’ comb yo’ putty gray hair, an’ cook dis fine breakfus, an’ ’splain tuh yo’ white folks what tuh do all day, yo’ ought fuh tek yo’ ease an’ studdy ’bout yo’ frien’ Gawd, while some poor-folks nigger like me cleans up attuh yo’.”

Maum Netta, with great dignity, expressing itself in a heavy lugubriousness, but already making social concessions:

“Well, it use’ tuh be dat-a-way. Dey was always kitchen niggers in de ole days. But t’ings is change’ now, t’ings is change’.”

Mrs. Wentworth’s cool high-bred syllables fell chill across the gathering warmth and requested Maum Netta’s presence in the dining room. When the door was closed she turned to the old negress.

The mistress could have bungled then. A single flat order could have done it. But instinctively she closed with a question, thereby throwing the burden on Maum Netta, and at once rebuking her and re-establishing her integrity.

“I am really provoked, Mauma” (she had not gone as far as that in years); “I was just going to ask that woman to leave the premises, and I find you accepting favours of her. You know we have no money to pay a servant. Now, what am I to do?”

[10]“Ah sorry, Miss. Dat a hahd ’oman tuh say no tuh. See if yo’ can find a ole dress or somet’ing an’ Ah’ll gib it tuh she an’ sen’ she away.”

There was silence in the kitchen, and the tension of impending crisis when Mrs. Wentworth returned with some old clothing thrown over her arm. In a cool, positive tone of finality which dismissed a mutual future and expunged the past, she said:

“Maum Netta will attend to those dishes. Thank you for helping us. Here are some old clothes.”

But she got no further. Mamba courtesied almost to the floor, with her rags trailing grotesquely about her. Then she raised a face that was radiant with gratitude. She started talking rapidly while she took the clothes, and her volubility increased as she backed toward the door. Twice Mrs. Wentworth attempted to stem the tide, then gave it up.

“Oh, t’ank yo’, Miss. Ah’s too t’ankful. Ah’s been too ’shame’ tuh come roun’ yo’ an’ Little Missie in dese ole rags. Now Ah’s goin’ be dat clean my own ma wouldn’t know me. Now Ah t’ink dat de nex’ time Little Missie go to dance she ain’t goin’ be ’shame’ fuh let me go long wid she an’ carry she slipper bag.”

The queer bobbing figure paused for a moment in the open door; then, with its hand on the knob, raised its head. Out of the meshed wrinkles and folds of skin looked the woman’s astounding eyes, audacious and mocking, then for a second in the closing door they caught the mood of the toothless smile and overflowed with laughter.

Two days passed and a Sunday came. No sign of Mamba. Mrs. Wentworth dismissed the whole episode as closed. The day was glorious with spring sunshine, and the air was throbbing to the music of St. Michael’s chimes. Mamba rounded a corner a block[11] away from the front door of the Wentworth residence, then stopped and lingered unobtrusively in a recessed gateway. She could not keep her feet still while the chimes were playing, and the shabby, broad toe that extended from beneath the hem of her recently acquired neat gray dress tapped gently on the pavement. She knew well the rotation of the tunes: “Shall We Gather at the River?” “There Is a Blessed Home,” and the way the music dropped an octave on a high note where a bell was missing. George Washington Christopher Gadsden, the ancient bell ringer, was a crony of hers, and she smiled now at the thought of his favourite joke on the white people in the pews. Yes, there it was, slipped in between “There Is a Blessed Home” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers”:

Two lines of the old song that the negroes loved, then on into the next hymn without missing a beat. He’d be laughing now at his joke, up there by himself in the steeple.

Suddenly the tune stopped and the bells commenced to toll. Three minutes now before service. Mamba peered from her retreat, and an expression of satisfaction overspread her features as the three Wentworths stepped from their front door and proceeded decorously toward the calling bells.

In the Wentworth kitchen Maum Netta was washing her dishes and singing a spiritual in her high, slightly cracked soprano. She reached for a high note and held it with evident pride. Then through the open window there entered a melodious contralto note that met it and rang with it in resonant chord. Maum Netta’s eyes widened with pleasure while she held her note to the limit of her lung capacity. Then she crossed to the window and looked out. Mamba was seated immediately below her on the doorstep, and she met the older woman’s gaze with an expression of awe. “My Gawd,[12] Mauma,” she half whispered, “how come nobody ain’t nebber tell me yo’ kin sing like dat?”

“Cose Ah kin sing.” Then slowly the necessity of being firm with this person began to triumph over flattered vanity. “But dat’s neider here nor dere. Ah gots orders from Miss Wentworth not fuh leabe yo’ come ’roun’ here no mo’.”

“Cos yo’ has, Mauma, cose yo’ has. Ain’t Ah knows Ah ain’t yo’ kind ob folks? Ain’t Ah knows my place? Now, don’t yo’ worry none about dat. Ah ain’t goin’ let dese feet go ober dat do’ no matter how hahd dey begs me. But sence all de white folks done gone to church, why can’t yo’ an’ me set here, jes as we is, yo’ in yo’ place, and me jes in de outdoors, an’ sing some tuhgedder. Ah jes been a-wonnerin’ if yo’ knows ‘Light in de Grabeyahd Outshine de Sun!’”

Without waiting to risk further parley, Mamba raised the tune.

Deep, tender, and true, and slurring only a little from the toothless gums, her contralto notes lifted to the window where the older woman stood, and called with that same irresistible quality of youth that shone in the woman’s eyes. Mamba was not merely singing for her supper now. The gratification of that mysterious urge that had started her on her adventure hung in the balance. She let the whole force of her longing throb in the mysterious music.