Southern States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Miss Judith an' Mis' Morrison, they ain't had breakfus yet."
Baird pulled off his coat. "Tell them I'll be down right away--it won't
take me ten minutes to shave.... Just bring me some hot water, will
you?"
The woman served him in silence. Baird would have liked to get some hint
of the state of things before he went down, but the family reserve
seemed to reside in the black woman also. He saw now that, though
powerfully and superbly built, she was not young; she was probably an
old family servant. In the hasty minutes he required for dressing, Baird
tried to adjust himself to the perfectly normal atmosphere. What had
happened while he slept he could not guess. He could tell better when he
went down.
Judith and Mrs. Morrison were in the drawing-room, and welcomed him
exactly as he had been welcomed when he first entered Westmore. Both
bore the marks of anxiety and lack of sleep. In the bright light Mrs.
Morrison looked blanched and old, and Judith was also colorless and with
heavy shadows under her eyes, but both were gracefully vivacious; their
manner was as usual.
"It was a perfect shame to wake you!" Judith declared, when Baird
apologized. "We were so certain we heard you moving."
"Don't you worry, Mr. Baird," Mrs. Morrison said. "I only just came down
myself, and it was I told Hetty you were up--my old ears deceived me....
Let us go in, Judith--I'm ready fo' your beaten-biscuits."
It seemed that they were to breakfast alone, and with no account given
of the absent ones, though Judith did say, "Sunday breakfast is an
elastic meal at Westmore. We come down early or late, alone or in
relays, as we feel inclined, and, somehow, we manage to be fed."
"I never have been certain which a man likes best--to eat or to sleep,"
Mrs. Morrison remarked briskly. "The fascinatin'ly natural creatures
seem to like both so well--and to drink best of all."
Baird laughed. "That depends on who is ministering to us at the moment.
Just now, I should much prefer to eat."
It was all so perfectly normal and natural, with the sunshine slanting
across the floor and the windows open to the breeze, that Baird might
almost have persuaded himself that he had dreamed--except for the
consciousness that he had slept in his clothes and for the telltale
pallor and lines of anxiety in Judith's face. And he was certain that he
had been waked purposely; he was not wanted at the noonday meal. They
intended that he should depart from Westmore in ignorance.
He was soon given a chance to declare his intentions. "I am going to
ride to church this morning," Judith said. "Do you care to go, Mr.
Baird?"
"Drive to church, you mean, Judith--I'm going with you," Mrs. Morrison
intervened.
"Not this morning," Baird said. "I want to get back to the club before
noon."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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