The Marriage Morning
Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool watched Zora as she came up the path beneath the oaks. ‚ÄúShe walks well,‚Äù she observed. And laying aside her book, she waited with a marked curiosity.
The girl’s greeting was brief, almost curt, but unintentionally so, as one could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger; she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stood straight and tall with her eyes squarely on the lady.
In the depths of Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool‚Äôs heart something strange‚ÅÝ‚Äînot new, but very old‚ÅÝ‚Äîstirred. Before her stood this tall black girl, quietly returning her look. Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool had a most uncomfortable sense of being judged, of being weighed‚ÅÝ‚Äîand there arose within her an impulse to self-justification.
She smiled and said sweetly, ‚ÄúWon‚Äôt you sit?‚Äù But despite all this, her mind seemed leaping backward a thousand years; back to a simpler, primal day when she herself, white, frail, and fettered, stood before the dusky magnificence of some bejewelled barbarian queen and sought to justify herself. She shook off the fantasy‚ÅÝ‚Äîand yet how well the girl stood. It was not everyone that could stand still and well.
‚ÄúPlease sit down,‚Äù she repeated with her softest charm, not dreaming that outside the school white persons did not ask this girl to sit in their presence. But even this did not move Zora. She sat down. There was in her, walking, standing, sitting, a simple directness which Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool sensed and met.