THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING
Mrs. Anglesea was up with the sun the next morning. She replenished the
smoldering fire from wood that she found in a box at the bottom of the
closet. Then she threw open the front and side windows of her corner room,
and looked out on the bright, crisp, winter morning.
The ground and the bare trees were glistening with white frost, and beyond
and below stretched the blue waters of the bay, intensely blue now under
the clear, winter sky.
"It's a pretty place, but, whewew! how cold!" she said, with a shudder, as
she pulled down the sash of the last window and turned to the fire.
She could hardly persuade herself to leave it, but, fearing she might be
late for breakfast, she at length arose, and made her toilet, hastily and
carelessly, with a few splashes of water on her face and neck and a hasty
drying, interrupted in the middle to press the lavender-scented white
damask to her face to inhale its fragrance. Then she ran a comb through
the thick locks of her curly hair, which she finally bunched up into a big
mass at the back of her head. At last she put on her clothes, and left her
room, noisily banging the door in closing it.
There was no one in the upper hall. All the chamber doors leading from it
were shut.
"I reckon they are all at breakfast, and the coffee will be stark cold
when I get there. I wish they had waked me up, but I reckon they thought I
was tired. I am never too tired to eat," she muttered to herself as she
went downstairs.
She hurried directly to the dining room, where she found a fine, open fire
burning, and Luce engaged in setting the table.
"Why, Lord!" said the visitor. "Ain't you had breakfast yet? I thought as
I should be ever so late!"
"Dear me, ma'am! Is it you? W'y didn't you ring?" inquired, in turn, the
surprised negro woman.
"Ring? What should I ring for?" demanded the visitor, drawing a chair
before the blazing fire, seating herself, putting her feet upon the
fender, and pulling up the edge of her skirt to toast her shins.
Luce paused in her task of placing the knives and forks to look at the
vandal.
"Why, ma'am, for somebody to come an' wait on yer, an' fix the fire, an'
fetch hot water, an' that," she said.
"Fiddle-de-dee! Wait on your granny!" said the stranger, holding her
chubby hands over the fire, and rubbing them, with a sense of comfort.
But Luce had finished placing the knives and forks, and was now bringing
china from a corner buffet.
"What's that you have got in your hand there? Is it the sugar pot?" asked
the intruder.
"Yes, ma'am," answered the perplexed woman.
"Hold it here to me."
Luce complied, and the visitor took the sugar bowl and poured from it a
handful of white lumps, and returned it, saying:
"I reckon I'll champ this sugar to pass away the time while I'm waiting
for 'em to come down."
"Ain't you afeared it will take away your appetite for breakfast, ma'am?"
inquired Luce.
"Take away my appetite? Ho! ho! ho! That's a good un!" chuckled the guest,
as she crunched the sugar in her strong, white teeth.
"Don't yer think as yer'd be more comferable in de parlor, ma'am? Dere's a
splendid fire burning dere," suggested Luce.
"No. I'm all right here. I feel just as 'snug as a bug in a rug.' Don't
mind, nigger. Go on and do your work."
"Nigger!" Luce had never been so insulted in all her life before, yet she
saw that the good-natured creature who was toasting herself before the
fire did not mean to insult her.
"Say! I s'pose you've heard all about me, haven't you?" inquired the
latter.
"Ma'am?" questioned Luce, hardly knowing how to answer.
"I say, you know who I am, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am. You are Col. Anglesea's lady," promptly replied Luce.
"'Col. Anglesea's lady?' What do you mean by that, nigger? I am Col.
Anglesea's wife, I'd have you to know! Now, what did you mean by 'lady'?"
demanded the stranger, with spirit.
"I am sure, ma'am, I didn't mean no offense wotsomdever. I meant to be
more 'spectful in sayin' lady," soothingly replied Luce.
"Well, then, never do you call me a 'lady.' 'Lady' is too unsartain a
word. I'm that man's wife, not 'lady.'"
"That's true, ma'am, an' I'm sorry as I made a mistake," said Luce, more
humbly, because of a secret irony.
"I s'pose you've heard all about that rumpus in the church?"
"Somefin' of it, ma'am," discreetly observed Luce.
"Only something of it? Well, then, I will tell you all about it. It will
pass away the time while waiting for breakfast."
Luce, divided between her curiosity and her love of gossip on the one
hand, and her conscientious sense of propriety on the other, made no
direct reply.
Mrs. Anglesea began at the beginning and rehearsed all her wrongs, just as
she had done to the family in the drawing room on the previous evening.
Luce went in and out between the kitchen and the dining room, and to and
fro between the sideboard, the buffet and the table, with a:
"'Scuse, ma'am," every time she went out of hearing.
"How in the deuce can you attend to anything I am saying if you keep
jumping around so?" demanded the narrator.
"'Scuse me, ma'am; I hears yer good enough, thank yer, ma'am; an' I has to
finish settin' de table," pleaded the woman.
"But you make me fidgety, having to turn my head around every minute after
you."
"Werry sorry, ma'am, but de family will 'spect de breakfas' to be ready
for 'em. It's--it's a habit dey gibs deirselbes, yer see, ma'am," pleaded
Luce. And at the same moment Jake appeared, with a large waiter in his
hands, on which were set the hot edibles to be arranged on the table.
With the help of Luce, he put them all in place, and then took a big,
brass bell, and rang it with all his might close to the head of the
guest.
"Lord bless us! I like music, but not that sort!" cried the latter,
clapping her fat hands over the thick, black curls that covered her ears.
Mr. and Mrs. Force came in, followed by all the family, with the exception
of Odalite, who was still in bed, and little Elva, who had volunteered to
stay with her.
"Oh, you are here, Mrs. Anglesea? I did not know. I had just sent a
servant to call you to breakfast. I hope you slept well?" said the
hostess, pleasantly.
"Splendid! Never turned in my bed all night. And how are you? And how is
the young gal this morning?" inquired the visitor.
"We are all well, thank you. Will you take this seat, nearest the fire?"
"Oh, anywheres convenient. I don't care where I sit."
The other members of the family party greeted the visitor, and then seated
themselves at the table.
The visitor was voluble, as usual, praising everything she tasted, and
eating heartily of every dish.
When they all arose from the table, she shook the crumbs off her lap on
the floor, turned to her hostess, and said:
"Now, old 'oman, if you've got any sewing to do, here's the hands that can
do it. I ain't one to sit down and eat the bread of idleness, I tell you.
So, if you have got any stockings to darn, or shirts to patch, or anything
else to be done in the way of making or mending, just give it to me, and
I'll earn my keep, I tell you."
Mrs. Force was so taken by surprise at this speech that she had to pause
before replying:
"I thank you very much, but I should not like to trouble you."
"Trouble! Why, you precious ninny, it would be the greatest of pleasure to
me. Ain't I making myself at home here? Same as one of you? Go along with
you! Get me something to do!"
"Many thanks, but I fear I cannot find anything to-day."
"I'll find something, mamma," Wynnette exclaimed, coming to the rescue.
Turning to Mrs. Anglesea, she said:
"Dear ma'am, wouldn't you like to come into the schoolroom with Miss Meeke
and me and help us to tie up parcels for Christmas presents to the colored
people?"
"Of course I will, if you want me to. But, Lord, that's no work!"
"Oh, yes, it is. There are more than twenty parcels, little and big. And
all the stores are in large bundles, and we have got to divide them
fairly, and tie them up, and write the names on them. It will take us all
the morning."
"All right; I will go 'long of you, and help with the dividing and tying
up. I don't know about the names. I ain't very good at writing," said the
guest, allowing herself to be carried off by Wynnette.
"How in the name of the Inscrutable could Anglesea ever have been tempted
to marry such a woman? Was he drunk, I wonder?" whispered Abel Force to
his wife.
The lady shook her head.
"I have given it up," she replied.
Mrs. Force went upstairs, to send little Elva down to her breakfast, and
to sit beside Odalite.
Mr. Force went into the little den at the back of the hall, where he kept
his writing desk and account books and held interviews with his overseer
or his attorney.