Sonya Wilde plays Bernice Lee, a young light-skinned woman of mixed race lineage who falls in love with and marries a rich young white man, Rick Leyton, played by Franciscus. Bernice loves Rick and never musters the courage to tell him about her mixed parentage, deciding that the important thing is that she loves him. But when Bernice becomes pregnant with their child, she worries obsessively about it "looking black" and betraying her secret.
Bernice then schemes to run away with a female confidante to give birth to the baby and if the baby "looks black", she plans to give Rick the opportunity to have nothing more to do with her or the child. But fate intervenes and in an emergency, she is taken to the hospital, where she delivers the baby. In a post-partum delirium, she asks a nurse if "the baby is black", unaware that Rick is in the room. Rick tells her that the baby did not live; later, she is allowed to see the dead baby, which obviously looks white.
Rick misunderstands the situation and assumes that Bernice's worry about the racial characteristics of the baby were because Bernice had an affair with a black man. She admits to lying, but insists that the baby was Rick's. Unable to believe her, Rick leaves to stay overnight at a hotel and think about their situation. Bernice goes to the airport and returns home to her family, with Rick remaining ignorant of the truth of her lineage.
No comments:
Post a Comment