Nobody's Child Part 11

"What is it?" Baird asked, only half awake as yet.

"Miss Judith done send you a cup of coffee, suh, an' she says fo' you to res' till dinner if you feels like it. I tol' her I thought you was movin'--I didn't go fo' to wake you."

Baird was still dazed, for at the mention of Judith's name the events of the dark hours had rushed over him. It was difficult to connect them with this brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, or this collected ebony statue with the weeping, cringing creature of the night before.

Baird sprang up; he was fully awake now. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Hit's mos' ten, suh."

"Lord! Why didn't some one wake me before! I don't deserve any breakfast. The family--I hope n.o.body waited for me?"

"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 suns.h.i.+ne 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."

Judith did not urge him, and Baird decided that their determination to drive four miles to church when they were both still ridden by anxiety and drooping with fatigue must also be with purpose, a still further maintaining of appearances; doubtless others beside himself were to be kept in the dark. They were heroic in their methods, these people. They were quite capable of sitting in church with heads high, knowing meantime that something ghastly lay in the disused office. His eyes had not deceived him the night before.

Baird was thinking of it, when, suddenly, heavy steps sounded on the veranda, followed by the tumbling and whining of several hounds, and a voice he knew well said sharply: "Be off, now! Get out!" Then the rear door opened and shut and a man strode through the hall, his spurs jingling as he came.

It was Garvin Westmore.

At the first sound, Judith had half risen; then she dropped back, and the next moment Garvin came in, in riding clothes, booted and spurred, clean-shaven but haggard. Baird was astounded to say the least. Had he been a nervous person, he would have been shocked. His surmises had fallen flat.

Garvin tossed aside his cap. "Still at breakfast?" he said casually.

"h.e.l.lo, Baird." He drew up a chair and sat down.

Baird did not know how the other two looked; he was conscious that he was staring. "h.e.l.lo--" he returned blankly.

"You'll have coffee, Garvin--" Judith was saying, "and what else?"

"Anything. I'm not hungry."

He looked infinitely tired. His eyes harbored melancholy easily, as did Edward's; he looked somberly at Judith as he tossed a folded slip of paper across to her. "From Ed," he said briefly. Judith glanced at it, then set it aside.

Baird's brain was working again. So Edward had gone--where? And why?

"Is it going to be hot, Garvin?" Mrs. Morrison asked.

"It is already hot, Aunt Carlotta." His voice was too even for sarcasm.

"Aunt Carlotta and I are going to church, and Mr. Baird thinks he must go back to the club. What are you going to do?" Judith said, in the same clear way in which she had spoken to her own people the night before.

Garvin straightened a little under its warning note. "I? I am going to ride--if I can have Black Betty--the bay is about done. You and Aunt Carlotta can represent the family at church, and I'll show myself at the village. I'll ride as far as the Post-Road with you, Baird." He spoke more heartily, though his always disdainful lip curled.

Judith's anxious eyes said that he looked a fitter subject for bed than for the saddle, but she made no comment. For her sake, Baird excused himself and rose. "I'll get things into my bag, then."

XII

A VENDETTA

They went together, as far as the County Road, Judith and Mrs. Morrison driving and Baird and Garvin riding beside them. There the two men turned into the extension of the Westmore Road that skirted the Mine Banks, the shortest way to the Post-Road, leaving Judith and Mrs.

Morrison to go by the more roundabout way; the disused Mine Banks Road was possible only to riders.

Judith reached from the buggy to shake hands with Baird, and there was the same sweetness in her voice as there had been when she parted from him the night before. "You must come to see us very soon, Mr. Baird. I shall expect you," and her eyes said, "Welcome you."

And Garvin's voice also had a kinder note when he parted with her, as if he had his worn nerves under better control. "I'll be back for dinner, Judy."

"Be sure you are," she returned brightly.

"Poor Judith!" Garvin said, as he and Baird rode on. "She has the world on her shoulders--or, rather, the Westmore family--and it's something of a weight, I a.s.sure you." He sighed impatiently and looked up at the looming conglomeration of sear undergrowth and trees and bald red patches which they were approaching. "Ever been up there?" he asked.

"No, but I'm going."

"Well, don't go without a guide--there are some ugly pitfalls about....

That was a steep broad hill once, dug down and muddled into what it is by the picks and shovels of English convicts. If all that's said is true, they fared worse under my great-great-grandfather's rule than the n.i.g.g.e.rs did. It's not easy to make slaves of Englishmen.... For the last hundred years it's been simply a game warren. There are caves and underground pa.s.sages and ore-pits full of water up there, and some soft little hollows, too, where the pines and cedars have grown up. I know every inch of it. It always fascinated me, but there are some of our family who couldn't be driven to set foot in the place, and there's not a n.i.g.g.e.r in the county will go near it. And that's a good thing--keeps it free of pests." He laughed shortly. "Lord! I've slept off more than one drunk up there--and played with a girl there, too, on occasion, and only the moon the wiser for it." He spoke steadily, carelessly, but with an undercurrent of feeling.

Edward's exclamation still rang in Baird's ears. Garvin had not been drunk the night before; that he knew. When he and Judith went down to the terraces Garvin was dancing with Priscilla Copeley, and with an air of enjoyment.