Title image by Tina Berrier, Chantinclear, Acrylic on stretched canvas, 36″ x 36″ 2021.
The Closing Door
by Angelina Weld Grimké
(Published in two parts, in the September (pp.10-14) and October (pp. 8-12) issues of Birth Control Review, 1919.)
I WAS FIFTEEN AT the time, diffident and old far beyond my years from much knocking about from pillar to post, a yellow, scrawny, unbeautiful girl, when the big heart of Agnes Milton took pity upon me, loved me and brought me home to live with her in her tiny, sun-filled flat. We were only distantly related, very distantly, in fact, on my dead father’s side. You can see, then, there was no binding blood-tie between us, that she was under absolutely no obligation to do what she did. I have wondered time and again how many women would have opened their hearts and their homes, as Agnes Milton did, to a forlorn, unattractive, homeless girl-woman. That one fine, free, generous act of hers alone shows the wonder-quality of her soul.
Just one little word to explain me. After my father had taken one last cup too many and they had carried him, for the last time, out of the house into which he had been carried so often, my mother, being compelled to work again, returned to the rich family with whom she had been a maid before her marriage. She regarded me as seriously, I suppose, as she did anything in this world; but as it was impossible to have me with her. I was passed along from one of her relatives to another. When one tired of me, on I went to the next. Well, I can say this for each and all of them, they certainly believed in teaching me how to work! Judging by the number of homes in which I lived until I was fifteen, my mother was rich indeed in one possession—an abundance of relatives.
And then came Agnes Milton.
HAVE YOU EVER, I wonder, known a happy person? I mean a really happy one? He is as rare as a white blackbird in this sombre-faced world of ours. I have known two and only two. They were Agnes Milton and her husband Jim. And their happiness did not last. Jim was a brown, good-natured giant with a slow, most attractive smile and gleaming teeth. He spoke always in a deep sad drawl, and you would have thought him the most unhappy person imaginable until you glimpsed his black eyes fairly twinkling under their half-closed lids. He made money—what is called “easy money”—by playing ragtime for dances. He was one of a troupe that are called “social entertainers.” As far as Jim was concerned, it would have slipped away in just as easy a manner, if it hadn’t been for Agnes. For she, in spite of all her seeming carefree joyousness was a thrifty soul. As long as Jim could have good food and plenty of it, now and then the theatre, a concert or a dance, and his gold-tipped cigarettes, he didn’t care what became of his money.
“Oh, Ag!”
If I close my eyes I can hear his slow sad voice as clearly as though these ten long years had not passed by. I can hear the click of the patent lock as he closed the flat door. I can hear the bang of his hat as he hung it on the rack. I can get the whiff of his cigarette.
“Oh, Ag!”
“That you, Jim?” I can see Agnes’ happy eyes and hear her eager, soft voice.
And then after a pause, that sad voice:
“No, Ag!”
I can hear her delighted little chuckle. She very seldom laughed outright.
“Where are you, anyway?” It was the plaintive voice again.
“Here!”
AND THEN HE’D make believe he couldn’t find her and go hunting her all over that tiny flat, searching for her in every room he knew she was not. And he’d stumble over things in pretended excitement and haste and grunt and swear all in that inimitable slow way of his. And she’d stand there, her eyes shining and every once in a while giving that dear little chuckle of hers.
Finally he’d appear in the door panting and disheveled and would look at her in pretended intense surprise for a second, and then he’d say in an aggrieved voice:
” ‘S not fair, Agnes! ‘S not fair!”
She wouldn’t say a word, just stand there smiling at him. After a little, slowly, he’d begin to smile too.
That smile of theirs was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and each meeting it was the same. Their joy and love seemed to gush up and bubble over through their lips and eyes.
Presently he’d say:
“Catch!”
She’d hold up her little white apron by the corners and he’d put his hand in his pocket and bring out sometimes a big, sometimes a little, wad of greenbacks and toss it to her and she’d catch it, too, I can tell you. And her eyes would beam and dance at him over it. Oh!—she didn’t love the money for itself but him for trusting her with it.
For fear you may not understand I must tell you no more generous soul ever lived than Agnes Milton. Look at what she did for me. And she was always giving a nickel or a dime to some child, flowers or fruit to a sick woman, money to tide over a friend. No beggar was ever turned away empty, from her flat. But she managed, somehow, to increase her little hoard in the bank against that possible rainy day.
WELL, TO RETURN. At this juncture, Jim would say Oh! so sadly his eyes fairly twinkling:
“Please, m’a’m, do I get paid today too?”
And then she’d screw up her mouth and twist her head to the side and look at him and say in a most judicial manner:
“Well, now, I really can’t say as to that. It strikes me you’ll have to find that out for yourself.”
Oh! they didn’t mind me. He would reach her, it seemed, in one stride and would pick her up bodily, apron, money and all. After a space, she’d disentangle herself and say sternly, shaking the while her little forefinger before his delighted eyes:
“Jim Milton, you’ve overdrawn your wages again.”
And then he’d look oh! so contrite and so upset and so shocked at being caught in such a gigantic piece of attempted fraud.
“No?” he’d say. If you only could have heard the mournful drawl of him.
“No? Now, is that so? I’m really at heart an honest, hard-working man. I’ll have to pay it back.”
He did. I can vouch for it.
Sometimes after this, he’d swing her up onto his shoulder and they’d go dashing and prancing and shrieking and laughing all over the little flat. Once after I had seen scared faces appearing at various windows, at times like these, I used to rush around and shut the windows down tight. Two happy children, that’s what they were then—younger even than I.
There was just the merest suspicion of a cloud over their happiness, these days; they had been married five years and had no children.
IT WAS THE mother heart of Agnes that had yearned over me, had pity upon me, loved me and brought me to live in the only home I have ever known. I have cared for people. I care for Jim; but Agnes Milton is the only person I have ever really loved. I love her still. And before it was too late, I used to pray that in some way I might change places with her and go into that darkness where though, still living, one forgets sun and moon and stars and flowers and winds—and love itself, and existence means dark, foul-smelling cages, hollow clanging doors, hollow monotonous days. But a month ago when Jim and I went to see her, she had changed—she had receded even from us. She seemed—how can I express it?—blank, empty, a grey automaton, a mere shell. No soul looked out at us through her vacant eyes.
We did not utter a word during our long journey homeward. Jim had unlocked the door before I spoke.
“Jim,” I said, “they may still have the poor husk of her cooped up there but her soul, thank God, at least for that, is free at last!”
And Jim, I cannot tell of his face, said never a word but turned away and went heavily down the stairs. And I, I went into Agnes Milton’s flat and closed the door. You would never have dreamed it was the same place. For a long time I stood amid all the brightness and mockery of her sun-drenched rooms. And I prayed. Night and day I have prayed since, the same prayer—that God, if he knows any pity at all, may soon, soon release the poor spent body of hers.
I wish I might show you Agnes Milton of those far off happy days. She wasn’t tall and she wasn’t short; she wasn’t stout and she wasn’t thin. Her back was straight and her head high. She was rather graceful, I thought. In coloring she was Spanish or Italian. Her hair was not very long but it was soft and silky and black. Her features were not too sharp, her eyes clear and dark, a warm leaf brown in fact. Her mouth was really beautiful. This doesn’t give her I find. It was the shining beauty and gayety of her soul that lighted up her whole body and somehow made her her. And she was generally smiling or chuckling. Her eyes almost closed when she did so and there were the most delightful crinkles all about them. Under her left eye there was a small scar, a reminder of some childhood escapade, that became, when she smiled, the most adorable of dimples.
ONE DAY, I remember, we were standing at the window in the bright sunlight. Some excitement in the street below had drawn us. I turned to her—the reason has gone from me now—and called out suddenly:
“Agnes Milton!”
“Heavens! What is it?”
“Why, you’re wrinkling!”
“Wrinkling! Where?” And she began inspecting the smooth freshness of her housedress.
“No, your face,” I exclaimed. “Honest! Stand still there in that light. Now! Just look at them all around your eyes.”
She chuckled.
“How you ever expect me to see them I don’t know, without a glass or anything!”
And her face crinkled up into a smile.
“There! That’s it!—That’s how you get them.”
“How?”
“Smiling too much.”
“Oh, no! Lucy, child, that’s impossible.”
“How do you mean impossible? You didn’t get them that way? Just wait till I get a glass.”
“No, don’t,” and she stopped me with a detaining hand. “I’m not doubting you. What I mean is—it’s absolutely impossible to smile too much.”
I felt my eyes stretching with surprise.
“You mean,” I said, “you don’t mind being wrinkled? You, a woman?”
She shook her head at me many times, smiling and chuckling softly the while.
“NOT THE VERY littlest, tiniest bit-not this much,” and she showed me just the barest tip of her pink tongue between her white teeth. She smiled, then, and there was the dimple.
“And you only twenty-five?” I exclaimed.
She didn’t answer for a moment and when she did she spoke quietly:
“Lucy, child, we’ve all got to wrinkle sometime, somehow, if we live long enough. I’d much rather know mine were smile ones than frown ones.”
She waited a second and then looked at me with her beautiful clear eyes and added, “Wouldn’t you?”
For reply I leaned forward and kissed them. I loved them from that time on.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Here is another memory of her—perhaps the loveliest of them all and yet, as you will see, tingled with the first sadness. It came near the end of our happy days. It was a May dusk. I had been sewing all the afternoon and was as close to the window as I could get to catch the last of the failing light. I was trying to thread a needle—had been trying for several minutes, in fact, and was just in the very act of succeeding when two soft hands were clapped over my eyes.
“Oh, Agnes!” I said none too pleasantly. It was provoking. “There! You’ve made me lose my needle.”
“Bother your old needle, cross patch!” she said close to my ear. She still held her hands over my eyes.
I waited a moment or so.
“Well,” I said, “what’s the idea?”
“PLEASE DON’T BE cross,” came the soft voice still close to my ear.
“I’m not.”
At that she chuckled.
“Well!” I said.
“I’m trying to tell you something. Sh! not so loud.”
“Well, go ahead then; and why must I sh!”
“Because you must.”
I waited.
“Well!” I said a third time, but in a whisper to humor her. We were alone in the flat, there was no reason I could see for this tremendous secrecy.
“I’m waiting for you to be sweet to me.”
“I am. But why I should have to lose my needle and my temper and be blinded and sweet just to hear something—is beyond me.”
“Because I don’t wish you to see me while I say it.”
Her soft lips were kissing my ear.
“Well, I’m very sweet now. What is it?”
There was another little pause and during it her fingers over my eyes trembled a little. She was breathing quicker too.
“Agnes Milton, what is it?”
“Wait, I’m just trying to think how to tell you. Are you sure you’re very sweet?”
“Sure.”
I loved the feel of her hands and sat very still.
“Lucy!”
“Yes.”
“What do you think would be the loveliest, loveliest thing for you to know was—was —there—close—just under your heart?”
BUT I WAITED for no more. I took her hands from my eyes and turned to look at her. The beauty of her face made me catch my breath.
At last I said:
“You mean—” I didn’t need to finish.
“Yes! Yes! And I’m so happy, happy, happy! And so is Jim.”
“Agnes, Oh my dear, and so am I!” And I kissed her two dear eyes. “But why mustn’t I whoop? I’ve simply got to,” I added.
“No! No! No! Oh, sh!” And for the very first time I saw fear in her eyes.
“Agnes,” I said, “what is it?”
“I’m—I’m just a little afraid, I believe.”
“Afraid!” I had cried out in surprise.
“Sh! Lucy!—Yes.”
“But of what?” I spoke in a half whisper too. “You mean you’re afraid you may die?”
“Oh, no, not that.”
“What, then?”
“Lucy,” her answer came slowly a little abstractedly, “there’s—such—a thing—as being—too happy,—too happy.”
“Nonsense,” I answered.
BUT SHE ONLY shook her head at me slowly many times and her great wistful eyes came to mine and seemed to cling to them. It made my heart fairly ache and I turned my head away so that she couldn’t see her fears were affecting me. And then quite suddenly I felt a disagreeable little chill run up and down my back.
“Lucy,” she said after a little.
“Yes,” I was looking out of the window and not at her.
“Do you remember Kipling’s Without Benefit of Clergy?”
I did and I said so. Agnes had Kipling bound in ten beautiful volumes. She loved him. At first that had been enough for me, and then I had come to love him for himself. I had read all of those ten volumes through from cover to cover, poetry and all.
“You haven’t forgotten Ameera, then?”
“No.”
“Poor Ameera!” She was thoughtful a moment and then went on: “She knew what it was to be too happy. Do you remember what she said once to Holden?”
Again I felt that queer little shiver.
“She said many things, as I remember, Agnes. Which?”
“This was after Tota’s death.”
“Well!”
“They were on the roof—she and Holden—under the night.”
Her eyes suddenly widened and darkened and then she went on:
SHE TURNED TO Holden and said: “We must make no protestations of delight but go softly underneath the stars, lest God find us out.’” She paused. “Do you remember?”
“Yes,” I answered; but I couldn’t look at her.
“Well,” she spoke slowly and quietly, “I have a feeling here, Lucy,” and she placed her left hand against her heart, “here, that Jim and you and I must go softly—very softly—underneath the stars.”
Again I felt that unpleasant chill up and down my back. She stood just where she was for a little space, her hand still against her heart and her eyes wide, dark and unseeing, fixed straight ahead of her. Then suddenly and without a sound she turned and went towards the door and opened it.
I started to follow her; but she put up her hand. “No, Lucy, please—I wish to be alone—for a little.”
And with that she went and shut the door very slowly, quite noiselessly behind her. The closing was so slow, so silent, that I could not tell just when it shut. I found myself trembling violently. A sudden and inexplicable terror filled me as that door closed behind her.
We were to become accustomed to it, Jim and I, as much as it was possible to do so, in those terrible days that were to follow. We were to become used to entering a room in search of Agnes, only to find it empty and the door opposite closing, closing, almost imperceptibly, noiselessly—and, yes, at last irrevocably—between us. And each time it happened the terror was as fresh upon me as at the very first.
THE DAYS THAT immediately followed I cannot say were really unhappy ones. More to humor Agnes at first than anything else “we went softly.” But as time passed even we became infected. Literally and figuratively we began to go “softly under the stars.” We came to feel that each of us moved ever with a finger to his lips. There came to be also a sort of expectancy upon us, a listening, a waiting. Even the neighbors noticed the difference. Jim still played his ragtime and sang, but softly; we laughed and joked, but quietly. We got so we even washed the dishes and pots and pans quietly. Sometimes Jim and I forgot, but as certainly as we did there was Agnes in the door, dark-eyed, a little pale and her, “Oh, Jim!—Oh, Lucy! Sh!”
I haven’t spoken of this before because it wasn’t necessary. Agnes had a brother called Bob. He was her favorite of all her brothers and sisters. He was younger than she, five years, I think, a handsome, harum-scarum, happy-go-lucky, restless, reckless daredevil, but sweet-tempered and good hearted and lovable withal. I don’t believe he knew what fear was. His home was in Mississippi, a small town there. It was the family home, in fact. Agnes had lived there herself until she was seventeen or eighteen. He had visited us two or three times and you can imagine the pandemonium that reigned at such times, for he had come during our happy days. Well, he was very fond of Agnes and, as irresponsible as he seemed, one thing he never failed to do and that was to write her a letter every single week. Each Tuesday morning, just like clockwork, the very first mail there was his letter. Other mornings Agnes was not so particular; but Tuesday mornings she always went herself to the mailbox in the hall.
IT WAS A Tuesday morning about four months, maybe, after my first experience with the closing door. The bell rang three times, the postman’s signal when he had left a letter, Agnes came to her feet, her eyes sparkling:
“My letter from Bob,” she said and made for the door.
She came back slowly, I noticed, and her face was a little pale and worried. She had an opened and an unopened letter in her hand.
“Well, what does Bob say?” I asked.
“This—this isn’t from Bob,” she said slowly. “It’s only a bill.”
“Well, go ahead and open his letter,” I said.
“There—there wasn’t any, Lucy.”
“What!” I exclaimed. I was surprised.
“No. I don’t know what it means.”
“It will come probably in the second mail,” I said. “It has sometimes.”
“Yes,” she said, I thought rather listlessly.
It didn’t come in the second mail nor in the third.
“Agnes,” I said. “There’s some good explanation. It’s not like Bob to fail you.”
“No.”
“He’s busy or got a girl maybe.”
She was a little jealous of him and I hoped this last would rouse her, but it didn’t.
“Yes, maybe that’s it,” she said without any life.
“Well, I hope you’re not going to let this interfere with your walk,” I said.
“I had thought—” she began, but I cut her off.
“You promised Jim you’d go out every single day,” I reminded her.
“All right, Agnes Milton’s conscience,” she said smiling a little. “I’ll go, then.”
SHE HADN’T BEEN gone fifteen minutes when the electric bell began shrilling continuously throughout the flat.
Somehow I knew it meant trouble. My mind immediately flew to Agnes. It took me a second or so to get myself together and then I went to the tube.
“Well,” I called. My voice sounded strange and high.
A boy’s voice answered:
“Lady here named Mrs. James Milton?”
“Yes.” I managed to say.
“Telegram fo’ you’se.”
It wasn’t Agnes, after all. I drew a deep breath. Nothing else seemed to matter for a minute.
“Say!” the voice called up from below. “Wot’s de mattah wid you’se up dere?”
“Bring it up.” I said at last. “Third floor, front.”
I opened the door and waited.
The boy was taking his time and whistling as he came.
“Here!” I called out as he reached our floor.
It was inside his cap and he had to take it off to give it to me.
I saw him eyeing me rather curiously.
“You Mrs. Milton?” he asked.
“No, but this is her flat. I’ll sign for it. She’s out. Where do I sign? There? Have you a pencil?”
With the door shut behind me again, I began to think out what I had better do. Jim was not to be home until late that night. Within five minutes I had decided. I tore open the yellow envelope and read the message.
It ran: “Bob died suddenly. Under no circumstances come. Father.”
THE REST OF that day was a nightmare to me. I concealed the telegram in my waist. Agnes came home finally and was so alarmed at my appearance, I pleaded a frightful sick headache and went to bed. When Jim came home late that night Agnes was asleep. I caught him in the hall and gave him the telegram. She had to be told, we decided, because a letter from Mississippi might come at any time. He broke it to her the next morning. We were all hard hit, but Agnes from that time on was a changed woman.
Day after day dragged by and the letter of explanation did not come. It was strange, to say the least.
The Sunday afternoon following, we were all sitting, after dinner, in the little parlor. None of us had been saying much.
Suddenly Agnes said:
“Jim!”
“Yes!”
“Wasn’t it strange that father never said how or when Bob died?”
“Would have made the telegram too long and expensive, perhaps,” Jim replied.
WE WERE ALL thinking, in the pause that followed, the same thing, I dare say. Agnes’ father was not poor and it did seem he might have done that much.
“And why, do you suppose I was not to come under any circumstances? And why don’t they write?”
Just then the bell rang and there was no chance for a reply.
Jim got up in his leisurely way and went to the tube.
Agnes and I both listened—a little tensely, I remember.
“Yes!” we heard Jim say, and then with spaces in between:
“Joe?—Joe who?—I think you must have made a mistake. No, I can’t say that I do know anyone called Joe. What? Milton? Yes, that’s my name! What? Oh! Brooks. Joe Brooks?—”
But Agnes waited for no more. She rushed by me into the hall.
“Jim! Jim! It’s my brother Joe.”
[To be continued in the October Issue…]
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
[Continued from the September issue…]
“LOOK HERE! ARE you Agnes’ brother, Joe?” Jim called quickly for him. “Great Jehoshaphat! Man! Come up! What a mess I’ve made of this.”
For the first time I saw Jim move quickly. Within a second he was out of the flat and running down the stairs. Agnes followed to the stairhead and waited there. I went back into the little parlor for I had followed her into the hall, and sat down and waited.
They all came in presently. Joe was older than Agnes but looked very much like her. He was thin, his face really haggard and his hair quite grey. I found out afterward that he was in his early thirties but he appeared much older. He was smiling, but the smile did not reach his eyes. They were strange aloof eyes. They rested on you and yet seemed to see something beyond. You felt as though they had looked upon something that could never be forgotten. When he was not smiling his face was grim, the chin firm and set. He was a man of very few words, I found.
Agnes and Jim were both talking at once and he answered them now and then in monosyllables. Agnes introduced us. He shook hands, I thought in rather a perfunctory way, without saying anything, and we all sat down.
We steered clear quite deliberately from the thoughts uppermost in all our minds. We spoke of his journey, when he left Mississippi, the length of time it had taken him to come and the weather. Suddenly Agnes jumped up:
“Joe, aren’t you famished?”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a little something, Agnes,” he answered, and then he added:
“I‘M NOT AS starved as I was traveling in the South; but I have kind of a hollow feeling.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Jim-Crow cars,” he answered laconically.
“I’d forgotten,” she said. “I’ve been away so long.”
He made no reply.
“Aren’t conditions any better at all?” she asked after a little.
“No, I can’t say as they are.”
None of us said anything. She stood there a minute or so, pulling away at the frill on her apron. She stopped suddenly, drew a long breath, and said:
“I wish you all could move away, Jim, and come North.”
For one second before he lowered his eyes I saw a strange gleam in them. He seemed to be examining his shoes carefully from all angles. His jaw looked grimmer than ever and I saw a flickering of the muscles in his cheeks.
“That would be nice,” he said at last and then added, “but we can’t, Agnes. I like my coffee strong, please.”
“Joe,” she said, going to the door. “I’m sorry, I was forgetting.”
I rose at that.
“Agnes, let me go. You stay here.”
She hesitated, but Joe spoke up:
“No, Agnes, you go. I know your cooking.”
YOU COULD HAVE heard a pin drop for a minute. Jim looked queer and so did Agnes for a second and then she tried to laugh it off.
“Don’t mind Joe. He doesn’t mean anything. He always was like that.”
And then she left us.
Well, I was hurt. Joe made no attempt to apologize or anything. He even seemed to have forgotten me. Jim looked at me and smiled, his nice smile, but I was really hurt. I came to understand, however, later. Presently Joe said:
“About Agnes! We hadn’t been told anything!”
“Didn’t she write about it?”
“No.”
“Wanted to surprise you, I guess.”
“How long?” Joe asked after a little.
“Before?”
“Yes.”
“Four months, I should say.”
“That complicates matters some.”
I got up to leave. I was so evidently in the way.
Joe looked up quietly and said:
“Oh! don’t go! It isn’t necessary.”
I sat down again.
“No, Lucy, stay.” Jim added. “What do you mean ‘complicates’?”
JOE EXAMINED HIS shoes for several moments and then looked up suddenly.
“Just where is Agnes?”
“In the kitchen, I guess,” Jim looked a trifle surprised.
“Where is that?”
“The other end of the flat near the door.”
“She can’t possibly hear anything, then?”
“No.”
“Well, then, listen Jim, and you, what’s your name? Lucy? Well, Lucy, then. Listen carefully, you two, to every single word I am going to say.” He frowned a few moments at his shoes and then went on: “Bob went out fishing in the woods near his shack; spent the night there; slept in wet clothes; it had been raining all day; came home; contracted double pneumonia and died in two days time. Have you that?”
We both nodded.
“That’s the story we are to tell Agnes.”
JIM HAD HIS mouth open to ask something, when Agnes came in. She had very evidently not heard anything, however, for there was a little color in her face and it was just a little happy again.
“I’ve been thinking about you, Joe,” she said. “What on earth are you getting so grey for?”
“Grey!” he exclaimed. “Am I grey?” There was no doubt about it, his surprise was genuine.
“Didn’t you know it?” She chuckled a little. It was the first time in days.
“No, I didn’t.”
She made him get up, at that, and drew him to the oval glass over the mantel.
“Don’t you ever look at yourself, Joe?”
“Not much, that’s the truth.” I could see his face in the mirror from where I sat. His eyes widened a trifle, I saw, and then he turned away abruptly and sat down again. He made no comment.
Agnes broke the rather little silence that followed.
“Joe!”
“Yes!”
“You haven’t been sick or anything, have you?”
“No, why?”
“You seem so much thinner. When I last saw you, you were almost stout.”
“That’s some years ago, Agnes.”
“Yes, but one ought to get stouter not thinner with age.”
AGAIN I CAUGHT that strange gleam in his eyes before he lowered them. For a moment he sat perfectly still without answering.
“You can put it down to hard work, if you like, Agnes. Isn’t that my coffee I smell boiling over?”
“Yes, I believe it is. I just ran in to tell you I’ll be ready for you in about ten minutes.”
She went out hastily but took time to pull the portière across the door. I thought it strange at the time and looked at Jim. He didn’t seem to notice it, however, but waited, I saw, until he had heard Agnes’ heel taps going into the kitchen.
“Now,” he said, “what do you mean when you say that is the story we are to tell Agnes?”
“Just that.”
“You mean—” he paused “that it isn’t true?”
“No, it isn’t true.”
“Bob didn’t die that way?”
“No.”
I FELT MYSELF stiffening in my chair and my two hands gripping the two arms of my chair tightly. I looked at Jim. I sensed the same tensioning in him. There was a long pause. Joe was examining his shoes again. The flickering in his cheeks I saw was more noticeable.
Finally Jim brought out just one word:
“How?”
“There was a little trouble,” he began and then paused so long Jim said:
“You mean he was—injured in some way?”
Joe looked up suddenly at Jim, at that, and then down again. But his expression even in that fleeting glance set me to trembling all over. Jim, I saw, had been affected too. He sat stiffly bent forward. He had been in the act of raising his cigarette to his lips and his arm seemed as though frozen in mid-air.
“Yes,” he said, “injured.” But the way in which he said “injured” made me tremble all the more.
AGAIN THERE WAS a pause and again Jim broke it with his one word:
“How?”
“You don’t read the papers, I see,” Joe said.
“Yes, I read them.”
“It was in all the papers.”
“I missed it, then.”
“Yes.”
It was quiet again for a little.
“Have you ever lived in the South?” Joe asked.
“No.”
“Nice civilized place, the South,” Joe said.
And again I found myself trembling violently. I had to fight with might and main to keep my teeth from chattering. And yet it was not what he had said but his tone again.
“I hadn’t so heard it described,” Jim said after a little.
“NO?—YOU DIDN’T know, I suppose, that there is an unwritten law in the South that when a colored and a white person meet on the sidewalk, the colored person must get off into the street until the white one passes?”
“No, I hadn’t heard of it.”
“Well, it’s so. That was the little trouble.”
“You mean—”
“Bob refused to get off the sidewalk.”
“Well?”
“The white man pushed him off. Bob knocked him down. The white man attempted to teach the ‘damned n———’1 a lesson.” Again he paused.
“Well?”
“The lesson didn’t end properly. Bob all but killed him.”
It was so still in that room that although Jim was sitting across the room I could hear his watch ticking distinctly in his vest pocket. I had been holding my breath and when I was forced to expel it, the sound was so loud they both turned quickly towards me, startled for the second.
“That would have been Bob.” It was Jim speaking.
“Yes.”
“I suppose it didn’t end there?”
“No.”
“Go on, Joe.” Even Jim’s voice sounded strained and strange.
AND JOE WENT on. He never raised his voice, never lowered it. Throughout, his tone was entirely colorless. And yet as though it had been seared into my very soul I remember word for word, everything he said.
“An orderly mob, in an orderly manner, on a Sunday morning—I am quoting the newspapers—broke into the jail, took him out, slung him up to the limb of a tree, riddled his body with bullets, saturated it with coal oil, lighted a fire underneath him, gouged out his eyes with red hot irons, burnt him to a crisp and then sold souvenirs of him, ears, fingers, toes. His teeth brought five dollars each.”
He ceased for a moment.
“He is still hanging on that tree.—We are not allowed to have even what is left.”
There was a roaring in my ears. I seemed to be a long way off. I was sinking into a horrible black vortex that seemed to be sucking me down. I opened my eyes and saw Jim dimly.
His nostrils seemed to be two black wide holes. His face was taut, every line set. I saw him draw a great deep breath. The blackness sucked me down still deeper. And then suddenly I found myself on my feet struggling against that hideous darkness and I heard my own voice as from a great distance calling out over and over again, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”
THEY BOTH CAME running to me, and I should have fainted for the first and only time in my life but that I heard suddenly above those strange noises in my ears a little choking, strangling sound. It revived me instantly. I broke from them and tried to get to the door.
“Agnes! Agnes!” I called out.
But they were before me. Jim tore the portière aside. They caught her just as she was falling.
She lay unconscious for hours. When she did come to, she found all three of us about her bed. Her bewildered eyes went from Jim’s face to mine and then to Joe’s. They paused there; she frowned a little. And then we saw the whole thing slowly come back to her. She groaned and closed her eyes. Joe started to leave the room but she opened her eyes quickly and indicated that he was not to go. He came back. Again she closed her eyes.
And then she began to grow restless.
“Agnes!” I asked, “Is there anything you want?”
She quieted a little under my voice.
“No,” she said, “No.”
PRESENTLY SHE OPENED her eyes again. They were very bright. She looked at each of us in turn a second time.
Then she said:
“I’ve had to live all this time to find out.”
“Find out what, Agnes?” It was Jim’s voice.
“Why I’m here—why I’m here.”
“Yes, of course.” Jim spoke oh! so gently, humoring her. His hand was smoothing away the damp little curls about her forehead.
“It’s no use your making believe you understand, you don’t.” It was the first time I had ever heard her speak irritably to Jim. She moved her head away from his hand.
His eyes were a little hurt and he took his hand away.
“No.” His voice was as gentle as ever. “I don’t understand, then.”
There was a pause and then she said abruptly:
“I’m an instrument.”
No one answered her.
“That’s all—an instrument.”
We merely watched her.
“One of the many.”
And then Jim in his kindly blundering way made his second mistake.
“Yes, Agnes,” he said, “Yes.”
BUT AT THAT, she took even me by surprise. She sat up in bed suddenly, her eyes wild and staring and before we could stop her, began beating her breast.
“Agnes,” I said, “Don’t! Don’t!”
“I shall,” she said in a strange high voice.
Well, we let her alone. It would have meant a struggle.
And then amid little sobbing breaths, beating her breast the while, she began to cry out: “Yes!—Yes!—I!—I!—An instrument of reproduction!—another of the many!—a colored woman—doomed!—cursed!—put here!—willing or unwilling! For what?—to bring children here—men children—for the sport—the lust—of possible orderly mobs—who go about things—in an orderly manner—on Sunday mornings!”
“Agnes,” I cried out. “Agnes! Your child will be born in the North. He need never go South.”
She had listened to me at any rate.
“Yes,” she said, “in the North. In the North.—And have there been no lynchings in the North?”
I was silenced.
“The North permits it too,” she cried. “The North is silent as well as the South.”
AND THEN AS she sat there her eyes became less wild but more terrible. They became the eyes of a seeress. When she spoke again she spoke loudly, clearly, slowly:
“There is a time coming—and soon—when no colored man—no colored woman—no colored child, born or unborn—will be safe in this country.”
“Oh Agnes,” I cried again, “Sh! sh!”
She turned her terrible eyes upon me.
“There is no more need for silence—in this house. God has found us out.”
“Oh Agnes,” the tears were frankly running down my cheeks, “we must believe that God is very pitiful. We must. He will find a way.”
She waited a moment and said simply:
“Will He?”
“Yes, Agnes! Yes!”
“I will believe you, then. I will give Him one more chance. Then, if He is not pitiful, then if He is not pitiful—”
But she did not finish. She fell back upon her pillows. She had fainted again.
AGNES DID NOT die, nor did her child. She had kept her body clean and healthy. She was up and around again, but an Agnes that never smiled, never chuckled any more. She was a grey pathetic shadow of herself. She who had loved joy so much, cared more, it seemed, for solitude than anything else in the world. That was why, when Jim or I went looking for her we found so often only the empty room and that imperceptibly closing, slowly closing, opposite door.
Joe went back to Mississippi and not one of us, ever again, mentioned Bob’s name.
And Jim, poor Jim! I wish I could tell you of how beautiful he was those days. How he never complained, never was irritable, but was always so gently, so full of understanding, that at times, I had to go out of the room for fear he might see my tears.
Only once I saw him when he thought himself alone. I had not known he was in his little den and entered it suddenly. I had made no sound, luckily, and he had not heard me. He was sitting leaning forward, his head between his hands. I stood there five minutes at least, but not once did I see him stir. I silently stole out and left him.
IT WAS A fortunate thing that Agnes had already done most of her sewing for the little expected stranger, for after Joe’s visit, she never touched a thing.
“Agnes!” I said one day, not without fear and trepidation it is true. “Isn’t there something I can do?”
“Do?” she repeated rather vaguely.
“Yes. Some sewing?”
“Oh! sewing,” she said. “No, I think not, Lucy.”
“You’ve—you’ve finished? I persisted.
“No.”
“Then—” I began.
“I hardly think we shall need any of them.” And then she added, “I hope not.”
“Agnes!” I cried out.
But she seemed to have forgotten me.
Well, time passed, it always does. And on a Sunday morning early, Agnes’ child was born. He was a beautiful, very grave baby with her great dark eyes.
As soon as they would let me, I went to her.
SHE WAS LYING very still and straight, in the quiet, darkened room, her head turned on the pillow towards the wall. Her eyes were closed.
“Agnes!” I said in the barest whisper. “Are you asleep?”
“No,” she said. And turned her head towards me and opened her eyes. I looked into her ravaged face. Agnes Milton had been down into Hell and back again.
Neither of us spoke for some time and then she said:
“Is he dead?”
“Your child?”
“Yes.”
“I should say not, he’s a perfect darling and so good.”
No smile came into her face. It remained as expressionless as before. She paled a trifle more, I thought, if such a thing was possible.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
“Agnes!” I spoke sharply. I couldn’t help it.
But she closed her eyes and made no response.
I SAT A long time looking at her. She must have felt my gaze for she slowly lifted her lids and looked at me.
“Well,” she said, “what is it, Lucy?”
“Haven’t you seen your child, Agnes?”
“No.”
“Don’t wish to see it?”
“No.”
Again it was wrung out of me:
“Agnes, Agnes, don’t tell me you don’t love it.”
For the first and only time a spasm of pain went over her poor pinched face.
“Ah!” she said, “That’s it.” And she closed her eyes and her face was as expressionless as ever.
I felt as though my heart were breaking.
Again she opened her eyes.
“Tell me, Lucy,” she began.
“What, Agnes?”
“Is he—healthy?”
“Yes.”
“Quite strong?”
“Yes.”
“You think he will live, then?”
“Yes, Agnes.”
SHE CLOSED HER eyes once more. It was very still within the room.
Again she opened her eyes. There was a strange expression in them now.
“Lucy!”
“Yes.”
“You were wrong.”
“Wrong, Agnes?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You thought your God was pitiful.’
“Agnes, but I do believe it.”
After a long silence she said very slowly:
“He—is—not.”
This time, when she closed her eyes, she turned her head slowly upon the pillow to the wall. I was dismissed.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
And again Agnes did not die. Time passed and again she was up and about the flat. There was a strange, stony stillness upon her, now, I did not like, though. If we only could have understood, Jim and I, what it meant. Her love for solitude, now, had become a passion. And Jim and I knew more and more that empty room and that silently, slowly closing door.
SHE WOULD HAVE very little to do with her child. For some reason, I saw, she was afraid of it. I was its mother. I did for it, cared for it, loved it.
Twice only during these days I saw that stony stillness of hers broken.
The first time was one night. The baby was fast asleep, and she had stolen in to look at him, when she thought no one would know. I never wish to see such a tortured, hungry face again.
I was in the kitchen, the second time, when I heard strange sounds coming from my room. I rushed to it and there was Agnes, kneeling at the foot of the little crib, her head upon the spread. Great, terrible racking sobs were tearing her. The baby was lying there, all eyes, and beginning to whimper a little.
“Agnes! Oh, my dear! What is it?” The tears were streaming down my cheeks.
“Take him away! Take him away!” she gasped. “He’s been cooing, and smiling and holding out his little arms to me. I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it.”
I took him away. That was the only time I ever saw Agnes Milton weep.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
THE BABY SLEPT in my room, Agnes would not have him in hers. He was a restless little sleeper and I had to get up several times during the night to see that he was properly covered.
He was a noisy little sleeper as well. Many a night I have lain awake listening to the sound of his breathing. It is a lovely sound, a beautiful one—the breathing of a little baby in the dark.
This night, I remember, I had been up once and covered him over and had fallen off to sleep for the second time, when, for I had heard absolutely no sound, I awoke suddenly. There was upon me an overwhelming utterly paralyzing feeling not of fear but of horror. I thought, at first, I must have been having a nightmare, but strangely instead of diminishing, the longer I lay awake, the more it seemed to increase.
IT WAS A moonlight night and the light came in through the open window in a broad, white, steady stream.
A coldness seemed to settle all about my heart. What was the matter with me? I made a tremendous effort and sat up. Everything seemed peaceful and quiet enough.
The moonlight cut the room in two. It was dark where I was and dark beyond where the baby was.
One brass knob at the foot of my bed shone brilliantly, I remember, in that bright stream, and the door that led into the hall stood out fully revealed. I looked at that door and then my heart suddenly seemed to stop beating! I grew deathly cold. The door was closing slowly, imperceptibly, silently. Things were whirling around. I shut my eyes. When I opened them again the door was no longer moving; it had closed.
What had Agnes Milton wanted in my room? And the more I asked myself that question, the deeper grew the horror.
AND THEN SLOWLY, by degrees, I began to realize there was something wrong within that room, something terribly wrong. But what was it?
I tried to get out of bed; but I seemed unable to move. I strained my eyes, but I could see nothing-only that bright knob, that stream of light, that closed white door.
I listened. It was quiet, very quiet, too quiet. But why too quiet? And then as though there had been a blinding flash of lightning, I knew—the breathing wasn’t there.
Agnes Milton had taken a pillow off of my bed and smothered her child.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
One last word. Jim received word this morning. The door has finished closing for the last time—Agnes Milton is no more.
God, I think, may be pitiful, after all.
- In the original 1919 publication of the story, the “n-word” was spelled out in its entirety. ↩︎
Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958) was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a white mother and a mixed-race father. Relatives on both sides included activist abolitionists, while her paternal grandfather was a slave-owner. Grimké’s father was the second black man to graduate from Harvard Law School. Her parents divorced and Grimké had little or no contact with her mother after age seven. Grimké wrote essays, stories, poetry, and plays, much of which was published in NAACP newspapers. Although much of her work was completed prior to the Harlem Renaissance, Grimké published in several of the movement’s journals, and her social circles included many prominent figures from the Harlem Renaissance. Grimké is best known for the play Rachel (1916), which she wrote in response to the NAACP’s call for works to counter the highly popular 1915 racist film The Birth of a Nation. In both Rachel and The Closing Door, Grimké addresses racial discrimination, anti-black violence, and its impact on motherhood and the family. Grimké never married or had children. Many of her writings suggest she was lesbian or bisexual.
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