at the hour when sapphira dodderidge colbert was leaving the breakfast table in her wheel-chair, a short, stalwart woman in a sunbonnet, wearing a heavy shawl over her freshly ironed calico dress, was crossing the meadows by a little path which led from the highroad to the mill house. she was a woman of thirty-six or — seven, though she looked older — looked so much like henry colbert that it was not hard to guess she was his daughter. the same set of the head, enduring yet determined, the broad, highly coloured face, the fleshy nose, anchored deeply at the nostrils. she had the miller’s grave dark eyes, too, set back under a broad forehead.
after crossing the stile at the mill house, mrs. blake took the path leading back to the negro cabins. she must stop to see aunt jezebel, the oldest of the colbert negroes, who had been failing for some time. mrs. blake was always called where there was illness. she had skill and experience in nursing; was certainly a better help to the sick than the country doctor, who had never been away to any medical school, but treated his patients from buchan’s family medicine book.
on being told that aunt jezebel was asleep, mrs. blake passed the kitchen (separated from the dwelling by thirty feet or so), and entered the house by the back door which the servants used when they carried hot food from the kitchen to the dining-room in covered metal dishes. as she went down the long carpeted passage toward mrs. colbert’s bedchamber, she heard her mother’s voice in anger — anger with no heat, a cold, sneering contempt.
“take it down this minute! you know how to do it right. take it down, i told you! hairpins do no good. now you’ve hurt me, stubborn!”
then came a smacking sound, three times: the wooden back of a hairbrush striking someone’s cheek or arm. mrs. blake’s firm mouth shut closer as she knocked. the same voice asked forbiddingly:
“who is there?”
“it’s only rachel.”
as mrs. blake opened the door, her mother spoke coolly to a young girl crouching beside her chair: “you may go now. and see that you come back in a better humour.”
the girl flitted by mrs. blake without a sound, her face averted and her shoulders drawn together.
mrs. colbert in her wheel-chair was sitting at a dressing-table before a gilt mirror, a white combing-cloth about her shoulders. this she threw off as her daughter entered.
“take a chair, rachel. you’re early.” she spoke politely, but she evidently meant “too early.”
“yes, i’m earlier than i calculated. i stopped to see old jezebel, but she was asleep, so i came right on in.”
mrs. colbert smiled. she was always amused when people behaved in character. sooner than disturb a sick negro woman, rachel had come in to disturb her at her dressing hour, when it was understood she did not welcome visits from anyone. how like rachel!
for all mrs. blake could see, her mother’s grey-and-chestnut hair was in perfect order; combed up high from the neck and braided in a flat oval on the crown, with wavy wings coming down on either side of her forehead.
“you might get me a fresh cap out of the upper drawer, rachel. i hate a frowsy head in the morning. thank you. i can arrange it.” she pinned the small frill of ribbon and starched muslin over the flat oval. “now,” she said affably, “you might turn me a little, so that i can see you.”
her chair was carved walnut, with a cane back and down-curved arms: one of the dining-room chairs, made over for her use by mr. whitford, the country carpenter and coffin-maker. he had cushioned it, and set it on a walnut platform with iron castors underneath. mrs. blake turned it so that her mother sat in the sunlight and faced the east windows instead of the looking-glass.
“well, i suppose it is a good thing jezebel can sleep so much?”
mrs. blake shook her head. “till can’t get her to eat anything. she’s weaker every day. she’ll not last long.”
mrs. colbert smiled archly at her daughter’s solemn face. “she has managed to last a good while: something into ninety years. i shouldn’t care to last that long, should you?”
“no,” mrs. blake admitted.
“then i don’t think we need make long faces. she has been well taken care of in her old age and her last sickness. i mean to go out to see her; perhaps today. rachel, i have a letter here from sister sarah i must read you.” mrs. colbert took out her glasses from a reticule attached to the arm of her chair. she read the letter from winchester chiefly to put an end to conversation. she knew her daughter must have heard her correcting nancy, and therefore would be glum and disapproving. never having owned any servants herself, rachel didn’t at all know how to deal with them. rachel had always been difficult, — rebellious toward the fixed ways which satisfied other folk. mrs. colbert had been heartily glad to get her married and out of the house at seventeen.
while the letter was being read, mrs. blake sat regarding her mother and thought she looked very well for a woman who had been dropsical nearly five years. true, her malady had taken away her colour; she was always pale now, and, in the morning, something puffy under the eyes. but the eyes themselves were clear; a lively greenish blue, with no depth. her face was pleasant, very attractive to people who were not irked by the slight shade of placid self-esteem. she bore her disablement with courage; seldom referred to it, sat in her crude invalid’s chair as if it were a seat of privilege. she could stand on her feet with a good air when visitors came, could walk to the private closet behind her bedroom on the arm of her maid. her speech, like her handwriting, was more cultivated than was common in this back-country district. her daughter sometimes felt a kind of false pleasantness in the voice. yet, she reflected as she listened to the letter, it was scarcely false — it was the only kind of pleasantness her mother had, — not very warm.
as mrs. colbert finished reading, mrs. blake said heartily: “that is surely a good letter. aunt sarah always writes a good letter.”
mrs. colbert took off her glasses, glancing at her daughter with a mischievous smile. “you are not put out because she makes fun of your baptists a little?”
“no. she’s a right to. i’d never have joined with the baptists if i could have got to winchester to our own church. but a body likes to have some place to worship. and the baptists are good people.”
“so your father thinks. but then he never did mind to forgather with common people. i suppose that goes with a miller’s business.”
“yes, the common folks hereabouts have got to have flour and meal, and there’s only one mill for them to come to.” mrs. blake’s voice was rather tart. she wished it hadn’t been, when her mother said unexpectedly and quite graciously:
“well, you’ve surely been a good friend to them, rachel.”
mrs. blake bade her mother good-bye and hurried down the passage. at times she had to speak out for the faith that was in her; faith in the baptists not so much as a sect (she still read her english prayer book every day), but as well-meaning men and women.
leaving the house by the back way, she saw the laundry door open, and nancy inside at the ironing-board. she turned from her path and went into the laundry cabin.
“well, nancy, how are you getting on?” she habitually spoke to people of nancy’s world with a resolute cheerfulness which she did not always feel.
the yellow girl flashed a delighted smile, showing all her white teeth. “purty well, mam, purty well. oh, do set down, miz’ blake.” she pushed a chair with a broken back in front of her ironing-board. her eyes brightened with eager affection, though the lids were still red from crying.
“go on with your ironing, child. i won’t hinder you. is that one of mother’s caps?” pointing to a handful of damp lace which lay on the white sheet.
“yes’m. this is one of her comp’ny ones. i likes to have ’em nice.” she shook out the ball of crumpled lace, blew on it, and began to run a tiny iron about in the gathers. “this is a lil’ child’s iron. i coaxed it of miss sadie garrett. she didn’t use it for nothin’, an’ it’s mighty handy fur the caps.”
“yes, i see it is. you’re a good ironer, nancy.”
“thank you, mam.”
mrs. blake sat watching nancy’s slender, nimble hands, so flexible that one would say there were no hard bones in them at all: they seemed compressible, like a child’s. they were just a shade darker than her face. if her cheeks were pale gold, her hands were what mrs. blake called “old gold.” she was considering nancy’s case as she sat there (the red marks of the hairbrush were still on the girl’s right arm), wondering how much she grieved over the way things were going. nancy had fallen out of favour with her mistress. everyone knew it, and no one knew why. self-respecting negroes never complained of harsh treatment. they made a joke of it, and laughed about it among themselves, as the rough mountain boys did about the lickings they got at school. nancy had not been trained to humility. until lately mrs. colbert had shown her marked favouritism; gave her pretty clothes to set off her pretty face, and liked to have her in attendance when she had guests or drove abroad.
“well, child, i must be going,” mrs. blake said presently. she left the laundry and walked about the negro quarters to look at the multitude of green jonquil spears thrusting up in the beds before the cabins. they would soon be in bloom.
“easter flowers” was her name for them, but the darkies called them “smoke pipes,” because the yellow blossoms were attached to the green stalk at exactly the angle which the bowl of their clay pipes made with the stem.
