doorway of the housemaster. He, too, was on hand to greet us.
I wasn’t sure about Mr. Hawley. He had a round face whose top half was nearly bald and whose bottom half was covered over with a full, tweed-colored beard. Between the top and bottom halves a pair of glasses perched on a small nose and caught the light. He made a funny face when he spied my sister: “And look what you brought along! We’ve got a couple of those creatures running around somewhere. I’ll see if they’ve been run over yet by some station wagon gone berserk.”
I was later to learn that all the intelligence and will, all the imagination and mischief in that face was revealed in the pale eyes behind the glasses, but on this first meeting, I could only bring myself to concentrate on the beard and the Kriss Kringle mouth.
Mr. Hawley, it turned out, had family in Philadelphia, so we talked about the city, and my parents described for him just exactly where we lived.
Like other St. Paul’s buildings, the Hawleys’ house had alcoves, staircases, and a courtyard, that presented to me a facade of impenetrable, almost European, privacy. The housemaster’s home was directly accessible from the dormitory, but only by going from the vestibule into the common room, then up stairs, through a heavy wooden door, into a hallway, and another, inner door. Once in the living room, I could see through the windows that we were across the street from the gray granite library, but I would not have known it had the drapes been pulled. The architecture that I so admired from the outside did not yield itself up to me from within as I had expected. I now felt disconcerted, as I had in the Rectory. Mr. Hawley wanted to know just how far one would drive along Baltimore Pike to get to Yeadon, and I, standing in his living room, had no idea where his kitchen might be.
Mrs. Hawley, a short, soft-spoken woman, appeared from the rear hallway. Like her husband, she said ironic things, but more gently. Startlingly blond children came with her, one peeking from behind her skirt.
Mr. Hawley directed us to my room and showed my father where to park by the back door so that we could unload more handily. We carried my things up from a basement entrance. Doors whooshed open and closed as other girls and their families came and went, and the halls echoed with the sounds of mothers’ heels.
My room faced east. In the afternoon it seemed dull and empty and dark.
“This’ll be lovely when you get it all fixed up,” my mother said, by which I assumed that it looked dull to her, too.
Fine dust had settled contentedly over the sturdy oak bureau and cloudy mirror, over the charming, squat little oak deskand chair and in the corners of the closet. White people, as we said, were not personally fastidious (any black woman who’d ever been a maid could tell you that, and some did, in appalling detail, so I’d heard stories). I was determined to give the place a good wash.
The casement windows matched those elsewhere on campus. My father opened one, tightened the wing nut to hold the sash in place, and stood looking out into the meadow. Then he peeked into the room next door, which was still empty, and recalled how, at Lincoln University, the first students to arrive scavenged the best furniture in the dormitory. “If there’s any furniture you don’t like, better speak now,” he joked. “I guess you wouldn’t want to do that here.”
I checked the room next door, and pronounced, with laughter but not conviction, that I’d gotten a fair bargain.
The room seemed crowded with all of us about. I found myself chattering on, very gaily, about where I would put my things. What with the windows at one end, the narrow bed against one wall, the bureau, the desk, the radiator, the closet, the door leading into the next room, the door leading in, and the economy of my possessions, there were few options, realistically, for interior design.
Still, I could not stop buzzing. So long as
I wasn’t sure about Mr. Hawley. He had a round face whose top half was nearly bald and whose bottom half was covered over with a full, tweed-colored beard. Between the top and bottom halves a pair of glasses perched on a small nose and caught the light. He made a funny face when he spied my sister: “And look what you brought along! We’ve got a couple of those creatures running around somewhere. I’ll see if they’ve been run over yet by some station wagon gone berserk.”
I was later to learn that all the intelligence and will, all the imagination and mischief in that face was revealed in the pale eyes behind the glasses, but on this first meeting, I could only bring myself to concentrate on the beard and the Kriss Kringle mouth.
Mr. Hawley, it turned out, had family in Philadelphia, so we talked about the city, and my parents described for him just exactly where we lived.
Like other St. Paul’s buildings, the Hawleys’ house had alcoves, staircases, and a courtyard, that presented to me a facade of impenetrable, almost European, privacy. The housemaster’s home was directly accessible from the dormitory, but only by going from the vestibule into the common room, then up stairs, through a heavy wooden door, into a hallway, and another, inner door. Once in the living room, I could see through the windows that we were across the street from the gray granite library, but I would not have known it had the drapes been pulled. The architecture that I so admired from the outside did not yield itself up to me from within as I had expected. I now felt disconcerted, as I had in the Rectory. Mr. Hawley wanted to know just how far one would drive along Baltimore Pike to get to Yeadon, and I, standing in his living room, had no idea where his kitchen might be.
Mrs. Hawley, a short, soft-spoken woman, appeared from the rear hallway. Like her husband, she said ironic things, but more gently. Startlingly blond children came with her, one peeking from behind her skirt.
Mr. Hawley directed us to my room and showed my father where to park by the back door so that we could unload more handily. We carried my things up from a basement entrance. Doors whooshed open and closed as other girls and their families came and went, and the halls echoed with the sounds of mothers’ heels.
My room faced east. In the afternoon it seemed dull and empty and dark.
“This’ll be lovely when you get it all fixed up,” my mother said, by which I assumed that it looked dull to her, too.
Fine dust had settled contentedly over the sturdy oak bureau and cloudy mirror, over the charming, squat little oak deskand chair and in the corners of the closet. White people, as we said, were not personally fastidious (any black woman who’d ever been a maid could tell you that, and some did, in appalling detail, so I’d heard stories). I was determined to give the place a good wash.
The casement windows matched those elsewhere on campus. My father opened one, tightened the wing nut to hold the sash in place, and stood looking out into the meadow. Then he peeked into the room next door, which was still empty, and recalled how, at Lincoln University, the first students to arrive scavenged the best furniture in the dormitory. “If there’s any furniture you don’t like, better speak now,” he joked. “I guess you wouldn’t want to do that here.”
I checked the room next door, and pronounced, with laughter but not conviction, that I’d gotten a fair bargain.
The room seemed crowded with all of us about. I found myself chattering on, very gaily, about where I would put my things. What with the windows at one end, the narrow bed against one wall, the bureau, the desk, the radiator, the closet, the door leading into the next room, the door leading in, and the economy of my possessions, there were few options, realistically, for interior design.
Still, I could not stop buzzing. So long as
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