Most of the refugees had returned to their rooms, where sounds of busy salvaging could be heard. Porgy’s voice arose jubilantly announcing that the goat had been discovered, marooned upon the cook-stove; and that Peter’s old horse had belied his whinny, and was none the worse for a thorough wetting.
Serena Robbins paused before Bess, who was gathering her things preparatory to leaving the room, placed her hands upon her hips, and looked down upon her.
“Now, wut we all goin’ do wid dis po’ mudderless chile?” she said, addressing the room at large.
The other occupants of the room gathered behind Serena, but there was something about Bess’s look that held them quiet. They stood there waiting and saying nothing.
Slowly Bess straightened up, her face lowered and pressed against that of the sleeping child. Then she raised her eyes and met the gaze of the complacent older woman.
What Serena saw there was not so much the old defiance that she had expected, as it was an inflexible determination, and, behind it, a new-born element in the woman that rendered the scarred visage incandescent. She stepped back, and lowered her eyes.
Bess strained the child to her breast with an elemental intensity of possession, and spoke in a low, deep voice that vested her words with sombre meaning.
“Is Clara come back a’ready, since she dead, an’ say somet’ing ’bout ‘we’ tuh yuh ’bout dis chile?”
She put the question to the group, her eyes taking in the circle of faces as she spoke.
There was no response; and at the suggestion of a possible return of the dead, the circle drew together instinctively.