The blue room, as he discovered presently, contained a few rather fine pieces of old mahogany, a grandfather's chair, with a freshly laundered chintz cover, and a rag carpet made after the "log cabin" pattern. Of the colour from which it had taken its name, there was visible only a faded sampler worked elaborately in peacock blue worsteds, by one "Margaret, aged nine." Beyond this the walls were bare of decoration, though an oblong streak upon the plaster suggested to Ordway that a family portrait had probably been removed in the hurried preparations for his arrival.
After remarking that she hoped he would "make himself quite at home," Mrs. Brooke was glancing inquiringly about the room with her large, pale, rather prominent eyes, when a flash of purple in the doorway preceded the announcement that "Marse Beverly done turn right green wid de dizziness, en wus axin' kinder faintlike fur his lemonade."
"My poor husband," explained the exhausted wife, "contracted a chronic heart trouble in the War, and he suffers so patiently that at times we are in danger of forgetting it."
Pressing her aching head, she hurried downstairs to prepare Beverly's drink, while Ordway, after closing the broken latch of the door, walked slowly up and down the large, cool, barely furnished room. After his cramped chamber at Mrs. Twine's his eyes rested with contentment upon the high white ceiling overhead, and then descended leisurely to the stately bedstead, with its old French canopy above, and to the broad, red brick hearth freshly filled with odorous boughs of cedar. The cleanly quiet of the place restored to him at once the peace which he had missed in the last few days in Tappahannock, and his nerves, which had revolted from Mrs. Twine's scolding voice and slovenly table, became composed again in the ample space of these high white walls. Even "Margaret, aged nine," delivered a soothing message to him in the faded blues of her crewel work.
When he had unpacked his bag, he drew the chintz-covered chair to the window, and leaning his elbow on the sill, looked out gratefully upon the overgrown lawn filled with sheepmint and clover. Though it was already twilight under the cedars, the lawn was still bright with sunshine, and beyond the dwindling clump of cabbage roses in the centre, he saw that the solitary cow had not yet finished her evening meal. As he watched her, his ears caught the sound of light footsteps on the porch below, and a moment afterward, he saw Emily pass from the avenue to the edge of the lawn, where she called the cow by name in a caressing voice. Lifting her head, the animal started at a slow walk through the tangled weeds, stopping from time to time to bite a particularly tempting head of purple clover. As the setting sun was in Emily's eyes, she raised her bared arm while she waited, to shield her forehead, and Ordway was struck afresh by the vigorous grace which showed itself in her slightest movement. The blue cotton dress she wore, which had shrunk from repeated washings until it had grown scant in the waist and skirt, revealed the firm rounded curve of her bosom and her slender hips. Standing there in the faint sunshine against the blue-black cedars, he felt her charm in some mysterious way to be akin to the beauty of the hour and the scene. The sight of her blue gown was associated in his mind with a peculiar freshness of feeling—an intensified enjoyment of life.
When the cow reached her side, the girl turned back toward the barnyard, and the two passed out of sight together beyond the avenue. As he followed them with his gaze, Ordway had no longer any thought of Gus Wherry, or of his possible presence in Tappahannock upon the morrow. The evil association was withdrawn now from his consciousness, and in its place he found the tranquil pleasure which he had felt while he watched the sunshine upon the sheepmint and clover—a pleasure not unlike that he had experienced when Emily's blue cotton dress was visible against the cedars. The faces of the men who had listened to him yesterday returned to his memory; and as he saw them again seated on the rude benches among the pines, his heart expanded in an emotion which was like the melting of his will into the Divine Will which contained and enveloped all.
A knock at the door startled him back to his surroundings, and when he went to answer it, he found the small frightened servant standing outside, with an old serving tray clutched desperately to her bosom. From her excited stutter he gathered that supper awaited him upon the table, and descending hastily, he found the family already assembled in the dining-room. Beverly received him graciously, Emily quietly, and the children assured him enthusiastically that they were glad he had come to stay because now they might eat ham every night. When they had been properly suppressed by Emily, her brother took up the conversation which he carried on in a polite, rambling strain that produced upon Ordway the effect of a monologue delivered in sleep.
"I hope the birds won't annoy you at daybreak, Mr. Smith," he remarked, "the ivy at your windows harbours any number of wrens and sparrows."
"Oh, I like them," replied Ordway, "I've been sleeping under a tin roof in Tappahannock which no intelligent bird or human being would approach."
"I remember," said Mr. Beverly pensively, "that there was a tin roof on the hotel at Richmond I stayed at during the War when I first met my wife. Do you recall how very unpleasant that tin roof was, Amelia? Or were you too young at the time to notice it? You couldn't have been more than fifteen, I suppose? Yes, you must have been sixteen, because I remember when I marched past the door with my regiment, I noticed you standing on the balcony, in a long white dress, and you couldn't have worn long dresses before you were sixteen."