Nobody's Child. Dejeans Elizabeth
looked at him, innate coquetry in her eyes. "If you'll stand aside, suh, I can step down."
Baird answered the look in the fashion natural to him. He took her by the waist, held her up long enough to prove the strength of his arms, then set her down; his lips pressed her cheek and his breath warmed her neck as he did so. "Arms like mine are made for reaching – and for holding," he said.
The color swept into Ann's face, and her eyes widened into brilliancy. For an instant Baird did not know what to think. Then her lashes dropped and she held the key out to him. "You know where to find it now," she said softly.
"I'll come again – I'm staying at the Hunt Club," he answered swiftly. He took her hand as well as the key; he had flushed as deeply as she.
The tacit invitation had struck Baird as involuntary, and so did her answer, a sudden inclination and as quick a shrinking; the color fled from her face. "No!" she said decidedly, and pulling her hand away sped to the house.
Baird started in pursuit, the first step, before he remembered where he was. Then he stopped. "Whew!" he said, under his breath.
He went back to the gate and unlocked it, led his horse through, and returned the key to its hiding-place. Before he mounted, he gave the house a long scrutiny. "We'll see!" he said, his eyes grayed to coldness, his cheeks still hot.
He rode for half a mile before he regained his usual aspect. Then he laughed shortly: "That was funny – she regularly took hold on me."
VII
THE WESTMORES OF WESTMORE
Baird thought, when he sat down to dinner that night, that he had never looked on a better favored company or on a more interesting setting.
They were twenty-five in all, with the great mahogany table drawn crosswise of the room to allow passage between silver-laden sideboards and china-cupboards whose aged mahogany was brightened by arrays of dull blue and gold-banded Worcester and the pinky red of platters and plates of Indian Tree pattern which Judith told him had been presented, in 1735, by Lord Westmore to his colonial cousin, the first Westmore of Westmore. From where Baird sat he could look across the hall into the drawing-room, a glimpse of dark paneling, wide fireplace, and above it the two portraits, Edward Stratton Westmore, first Westmore of Westmore, and his cousin, Lord Edward Stratton Westmore, of Stratton House, Hampshire, England.
Westmore was typically a southern colonial mansion, a spacious central building with two wings and with a collection of outbuildings for the housing of servants. The ballroom and the plantation office were in one wing, the kitchens in the other. Westmore's massive brick walls had withstood time, as had the heavy oak paneling of dining-room, hall and drawing-room. There were no modern touches to disturb the Georgian atmosphere; this was 1905, yet Westmore was still the Westmore of 1735.
And with the picturesque additions of frilled wrist-bands, perukes, looped skirts and powdered coiffures, Baird thought this might well have been a clan gathering of a hundred years ago. In the hour before dinner, Baird had met them all, Westmores, Copeleys, Dickensons and Morrisons. The Dickensons were from the city, the others were all of the county – had always been of the county, and all were interrelated.
Conscious of his own too muscular neck and shoulders and massive jaw, Baird had noticed that there was not a paunched or bull-necked man in this family. He was not fat, thank heaven! and did not intend to be, but he would never be able to attain the nice muscles and graceful carriage that, in this family, seemed to be inherent. Even old Colonel Ridley Dickenson had a perfect boot-leg. Most of the younger men were too long-backed for great strength, good horsemen but poor wrestlers, Baird judged, and the two boys of twenty who represented the third generation were inclined to be weedy and hatchet-faced; but, on the whole, they were a clean-limbed and exceedingly well-featured collection.
The women struck Baird as delicately pretty rather than beautiful or handsome. Though in several delicacy was pronounced enough to suggest ill-health, the Westmore features predominated, fine brows, dark hair, clear skin, slimness and roundness combined. The only golden-haired girl of the company was Elizabeth Dickenson, and it was easy to see how she came by her fairness; her mother was not of the clan, a somewhat hard-faced, blonde New Yorker, who had brought money to her husband, and modern social proclivities as well. Elizabeth Dickenson was more like the Chicago girls Baird had met, more striking and self-assertive than her county kin, and far more fashionably gowned.
But Judith Westmore was easily the beauty of the entire collection. There was something joyous about her mien this evening; perhaps because for the first time in many years Westmore was like the Westmore of old. Baird had gathered from the conversation he had over-heard between Mrs. Dickenson and Mrs. Copeley that this was the inauguration of a new era at Westmore.
"Edward's money – " Mrs. Dickenson had said significantly. "Judith will make the best of it."
"And who deserves it more than Judith!" Mrs. Copeley returned warmly. "When I think of all Judith has gone through! Where would Westmore be but for Judith? Sold to some carpetbagger, years ago! It nearly went, I can tell you, Cousin Mary."
"If Garvin would follow Edward's example now, and marry a girl with money," Mrs. Dickenson had remarked.
Mrs. Copeley had said nothing.
"But, then, Garvin Westmore is not Edward – any more than Sarah Westmore is Judith," Mrs. Dickenson had concluded dryly. From the cloud that settled on Mrs. Copeley's face, Baird judged that the reference was not a happy one. Who Sarah Westmore was he did not know; she was not of the assembled party.
Mrs. Dickenson was evidently giving thought to Westmore's new prosperity, for it was she who asked Edward, across the table, "Ed, while you are getting things, why don't you get an automobile? You'd look particularly well in an automobile." She had a carrying voice; it reached Baird at his end of the table.
Edward sat at the head of the table, Judith at the foot; Baird was at Judith's left, with Elizabeth Dickenson as his dinner partner. Garvin was on the other side of the table, and both he and Elizabeth Dickenson ceased to talk and waited for Edward's answer.
Baird thought that he had never seen a more smileless and at the same time a more attentive host than Edward Westmore. The man's white face was carven, his eyes melancholy, yet he talked easily and gracefully. In spite of his pallor, he was the most distinguished-looking man in this gathering of well-favored men, perhaps because he lacked their local flavor. He looked what he was, a much-traveled man with a fund of experience.
He did not smile at Mrs. Dickenson, though he answered pleasantly, "Not for me, Cousin Mary – but Garvin may have a machine if he wants it."
Garvin flushed but said nothing. It was little Priscilla Copeley who exclaimed, "Do you mean it, Cousin Ed?"
"Take him up on it, Garvin! Take him up quick!" Colonel Dickenson cut in mischievously. "By George, suh, you'd be the most popular spark in the county – with the ladies! Every man whose horse you scared could cuss you all the way to limbo. Hot water you'd be in! and that's what you like… Go ahead, suh!" He might have been hallooing on the hounds. The colonel was a keen sportsman, and a bon-vivant, a member of two hunt clubs and several city clubs – his wife's money had given him both the leisure and the opportunity.
Garvin was not allowed an immediate hearing. "Oh, Garve! I can see you making a Nebuchadnezzar of yourself under that machine!" Elizabeth Dickenson exclaimed, and one of the Copeley boys added: "I'd rather have it than the sorrel, Garve. George Pettee told me there were two hundred automobiles now in the city – every fellow wants one. Yours would be the first out here – unless father'll get us one. Will you, suh?"
Mr. Copeley was a tall white-haired man, second cousin to the Westmores, and markedly a Westmore. He had looked his surprise at Edward's offer, then had looked thoughtful. "No, suh," he said quietly. "I don't like them. If the county's goin' to be overrun with them, I'll move… Garvin, you'll have to get to work on that two miles of road from here to the Post-Road befo' you can run a machine over it – that would be the most sensible thing you've done in years. I reckon Edward would like you to get to work at something – it doesn't matter much what… You wouldn't be furnishing a chauffeur, would you, Ed?"
"No,"