XXV
BECAUSE SHE LOVED TOO MUCH
It was Hetty who gave Baird's letter to Judith on Monday morning, as soon as Judith returned from Fair Field. "Mr. Baird come in Saturday evenin' an' he look mighty surprised when I tol' him you was gone," Hetty said, "an' yestiddy mo'nin' Sam Jackson, he come from de club fetchin' this letter.... Honey, you ain't lookin' right smart—weren't de party no 'count?"
"Yes, the party was all right," Judith answered briefly. "I'm tired, that's all."
Hetty knew better, but what the trouble was she could not guess.
Hetty had lived with the Westmores for fifty years. She was born in a Westmore cabin and was a slave child when the war broke. On the morning when the Westmore slaves had celebrated their emancipation by departing from Westmore, Hetty had been left behind. She had clung to the family throughout the hard years, the only house-servant Westmore possessed until Edward's wife's money helped to resurrect the place. She had been mammy to all the Westmore children, had "toted" both Edward and Judith and had been sole mother to Sarah and Garvin, for Mrs. Westmore had soon faded into God's half-acre, leaving Judith to become mistress of Westmore; master of Westmore, in reality, for the colonel was no longer master of anything, least of all of himself.
Hetty had a dog's attachment to Westmore and the family, and for Judith, not merely attachment, but worship. Judith wielded the whip sometimes, her stinging, cutting tongue, and Hetty cowered under it, as on the night when she had let Sarah escape to the Mine Banks. Hetty had known that Sarah's change from gentleness to restlessness portended an out-break and was confident in the strength of her own arms, they had often restrained Sarah in the old days, but she had not had intelligence enough to circumvent cunning. Just as now, when she sensed tension in Edward, in Garvin, and in Judith, she was unable to determine the cause. As soon as Judith returned, pale and bright-eyed and with lips hard set, Hetty knew that she was in trouble of some sort. She could only wait upon her dumbly, watch her in canine fashion.
Judith did not read Baird's letter at once. She attended to her household first. When she knew she could shut herself away without fear of interruption, she opened it.
"Dear Wonder-Woman," Baird wrote.
"Though I feel that I have forfeited the joy of ever again calling you so, that you will be quite right if you decree never to see or speak to me again, I can't help thinking of you just as I always have, as the most wonderful woman I have ever known.
"You are big-natured and kind enough to forgive me for the other night? You are, aren't you? You know, don't you, that I meant no disrespect when I forgot for a moment that you are too fine, too far beyond me for me ever to touch? I've not been a very good sort, Judith—I dropped for a moment into old ways. If by my fault I have lost your friendship, I feel that I shall lose the best thing that has ever come into my life. You have kept me to decent ways—you have taught me reverence for much that I used to consider loosely. That's why you are, and always will be the Wonder-woman.
"Will you forgive me and let me try in the future to be better worthy of your friendship and your kindness? I want them both, more than I have ever wanted anything.
"Yours in sincere regret,
"Nickolas Baird."