“Merry Christmas,” she murmured perfunctorily, as, in the holiday absence of a maid, she turned toward the business of the Bishop’s breakfast. The raised slide of the dumb-waiter made a gap in the solid paneling of dark cupboards occupying one wall. Like other dining-rooms on River Street, the room had two long windows looking toward the water. There was a wide piazza beyond them, hung with the gnarly ropes of leafless Virginia creeper. It was a dark-wainscoted room, but now the level eastern sun flooded it, and there was a great crimson spot of roses at the Bishop’s plate. The table was set for one, he noticed; when Maria was away, Mrs. Graham insisted on serving him with her own hands, instead of settling comfortably into her usual seat. In the silent room, only the sound of the dumb waiter that creaked and rattled, but the Bishop was waiting to speak, after the long patience of three years. When his breakfast had been set forth to her satisfaction, Mrs. Graham sank upon the edge of a chair near the window, keeping an alert eye on the Bishop’s needs, but having also an air of absence.
“Well,” she burst out at last, “so it’s Christmas again!”
“Yes,” the Bishop smiled, “‘again.’ It comes around pretty often, doesn’t it? This is your third Christmas in Westbury.”
“I wonder how many more I’ll have, in Westbury.”
“Is it such a bad place to spend Christmas in then, Westbury?”
“Bad for me, yes! After Fair Orchard!”
“But I had hoped you had begun to feel at home in Westbury.”
“Me! At home! In Westbury! No, I’ve no place here and never can have. I see that plain enough,—just a housekeeper, anyway! I’ve no place in the place, I mean, like at home! Oh, there’s no harm in Westbury! It’s not as bad as some towns. There’s show here, but it’s not showy; there’s money, but there’s manners, too! Only there’s no heart in the place! How could there be, with Dr. Newbold running the church and Mrs. Hollister running society?”
“They both have hearts, I am sure, Mrs. Graham.”
“Maybe. Not for plain people, or poor people, though. Maybe for you. Although Dr. Newbold—” she broke off sharply, teeth on lip, while her eyes, too full and bright with meaning, changed before the Bishop’s gaze, and she altered her unspoken sentence, concluding, “Dr. Newbold suits the place all right. He don’t suit me, that’s all. It’s kind of spoiled church for me, going to St. John’s, and church in Fair Orchard was such a lot to me. It’s queer when you always hear about Westbury being such a strong church place that it should have spoiled church for me. It’s all right when you preach, of course, Bishop, but it’s something else I’m talking about. It was different at home—oh,” her rosy face darkened savagely, “sometimes it seems as if my church was just another of the things she’s taken from me along with my home and my boy!”