Twenty-one: The Marriage Morning
Mrs. Vanderpool watched Zora as she came up the path beneath the oaks. "She walks well," she observed. And laying aside her book, she waited with a marked curiosity.
The girl's greeting was brief, almost curt, but unintentionally so, as one could easily see, for back in her eyes lurked an impatient hunger; she was not thinking of greetings. She murmured a quick word, and stood straight and tall with her eyes squarely on the lady.
In the depths of Mrs. Vanderpool's heart something strange—not new, but very old— stirred. Before her stood this tall black girl, quietly returning her look. Mrs. Vanderpool had a most uncomfortable sense of being judged, of being weighed,—and there arose within her an impulse to self-justification.
She smiled and said sweetly, "Won't you sit?" But despite all this, her mind seemed leaping backward a thousand years; back to a simpler, primal day when she herself, white, frail, and fettered, stood before the dusky magnificence of some bejewelled barbarian queen and sought to justify herself. She shook off the phantasy,—and yet how well the girl stood. It was not every one that could stand still and well.
"Please sit down," she repeated with her softest charm, not dreaming that outside the school white persons did not ask this girl to sit in their presence. But even this did not move Zora. She sat down. There was in her, walking, standing, sitting, a simple directness which Mrs. Vanderpool sensed and met.
"Zora, I need some one to help me—to do my hair and serve my coffee, and dress and take care of me. The work will not be hard, and you can travel and see the world and live well. Would you like it?"
"But I do not know how to do all these things," returned Zora, slowly. She was thinking rapidly—Was this the Way? It sounded wonderful. The World, the great mysterious World, that stretched beyond the swamp and into which Bles and the Silver Fleece had gone—did it lead to the Way? But if she went there what would she see and do, and would it be possible to become such a woman as Miss Smith pictured?
"What is the world like?" asked Zora.
Mrs. Vanderpool smiled. "Oh, I meant great active cities and buildings, myriads of people and wonderful sights."
"Yes—but back of it all, what is it really? What does it look like?"
"Heavens, child! Don't ask. Really, it isn't worth while peering back of things. One is sure to be disappointed."
"Then what's the use of seeing the world?"
"Why, one must live; and why not be happy?" answered Mrs. Vanderpool, amused, baffled, spurred for the time being from her chronic ennui.
"Are you happy?" retorted Zora, looking her over carefully, from silken stockings to garden hat. Mrs. Vanderpool laid aside her little mockery and met the situation bravely.
"No," she replied simply. Her eyes grew old and tired.
Involuntarily Zora's hand crept out protectingly and lay a moment over the white jewelled fingers. Then quickly recovering herself, she started hastily to withdraw it, but the woman's fingers closed around the darker ones, and Mrs. Vanderpool's eyes became dim.
"I need you, Zora," she said; and then, seeing the half-formed question, "Yes, and you need me; we need each other. In the world lies opportunity, and I will help you."
Zora rose abruptly, and Mrs. Vanderpool feared, with a tightening of heart, that she had lost this strangely alluring girl.
"I will come to-morrow," said Zora.
As Mrs. Vanderpool went in to lunch, reaction and lingering doubts came trouping back. To replace the daintiest of trained experts with the most baffling semi-barbarian, well!
"Have you hired a maid?" asked Helen.
"I've engaged Zora," laughed Mrs. Vanderpool, lightly; "and now I'm wondering whether I have a jewel or—a white elephant."
"Probably neither," remarked Harry Cresswell, drily; but he avoided the lady's inquiring eyes.
Next morning Zora came easily into Mrs. Vanderpool's life. There was little she knew of her duties, but little, too, that she could not learn with a deftness and divination almost startling. Her quietness, her quickness, her young strength, were like a soothing balm to the tired woman of fashion, and within a week she had sunk back contentedly into Zora's strong arms.
"It's a jewel," she decided.
With this verdict, the house agreed. The servants waited on "Miss Zora" gladly; the men scarcely saw her, and the ladies ran to her for help in all sorts. Harry Cresswell looked upon this transformation with an amused smile, but the Colonel saw in it simply evidence of dangerous obstinacy in a black girl who hitherto had refused to work.Zora had been in the house but a week when a large express package was received from John Taylor. Its unwrapping brought a cry of pleasure from the ladies. There lay a bolt of silken-like cambric of wondrous fineness and lustre, marked: "For the wedding-dress." The explanation accompanied the package, that Mary Taylor had a similar piece in the North.
Helen and Harry said nothing of the cablegram to the Paris tailor, and Helen took no steps toward having the cambric dress made, not even when the wedding invitations appeared.
"A Cresswell married in cotton!" Helen was almost in tears lest the Paris gown be delayed, and sure enough a cablegram came at last saying that there was little likelihood of the gown being ready by Easter. It would be shipped at the earliest convenience, but it could hardly catch the necessary boat. Helen had a good cry, and then came a wild rush to get John Taylor's cloth ready. Still, Helen was querulous. She decided that silk embroidery must embellish the skirt. The dressmaker was in despair.
"I haven't a single spare worker," she declared. Helen was appealing to Mrs. Vanderpool.
"I can do it," said Zora, who was in the room. "Do you know how?" asked the dressmaker. "No, but I want to know."
Mrs. Vanderpool gave a satisfied nod. "Show her," she said. The dressmaker was on the edge of rebellion. "Zora sews beautifully," added Mrs. Vanderpool.
Thus the beautiful cloth came to Zora's room, and was spread in a glossy cloud over her bed. She trembled at its beauty and felt a vague inner yearning, as if some subtle magic of the woven web were trying to tell