“To my Cousin Jethro—yes,” she laughed nervously; then added quickly, “It seems strange to call him ‘cousin.’ We’ve—we’ve never met. You got my letter? Yes. I—I want to be friends.”
Gainah didn’t answer. She only opened the door leading to the stairs. The two went up together. There was a high window halfway up, with a lattice of thick oak bars.
“No glass,” said Pamela in astonishment.
“They didn’t use glass in the days when that was cut,” Gainah said, “and the Jaynes are not people to go with new-fangled ways. Every Jayne says that what was good enough for his father is good enough for him. It’s a family not given to changing. You ought to know that; you belong to it.”
“On the mother’s side—yes,” returned the girl in a half-hearted way.
Gainah opened the door of her own bedroom. It was poorly furnished with her own furniture, which she had brought with her to Folly Corner. There was a wooden bedstead, painted clay color and touched with lines of apple-green. The washstand and drawers matched it. There was a strip or so of shabby felt carpet, and on the shelf a pair of brass candlesticks and a red china cow milked by a diminutive woman. The girl looked about her disdainfully, assertiveness getting the better of nervousness. She took off her hat and veil before the murky glass, splashed water over her face, patted her hair caressingly, arranged again the smart hat and veil. Gainah watched this pretty toying of youth with grim disapproval; even the girl’s big arms lifted to her head were an offense.
“Like a brass button in a sweep’s eye, all glitter,” the old woman mumbled to herself, as the yellow and green bracelet swung on the round wrist and the jet buckles flashed in the elaborate hat.
On the way downstairs she was afforded a peep into other bedrooms.
“I can’t let you have the best spare room,” she declared autocratically. “This is it. It’s never used, except for layin’s out and weddin’ nights, and layin’s in. All the Jaynes, right back to King Charles, have been born in that bed—and died in it afterward.”
Pamela looked at the ponderous piece of furniture and shuddered.