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."