regularly to be with his wife. Louella Paxton, the family’s longtime cook-housekeeper, was just setting a basket of homemade biscuits down on the table when Maggy came into view.
Maggy checked almost imperceptibly as she saw the assembled company, and let her injured wrist drop to her side despite the shooting pain that made her grit her teeth. She had too much pride to reveal her injury to these people, who might be her in-laws but were never her friends. She was very much the outsider in this close-knit clan, despite twelve years as the titular mistress of the house. In reality, Windermere remained the family home of the Forrests, just as it had been for generations. The only reason she was even tolerated by them was because of David. Which, when she thought about it, was fair enough, because David was the only reason she tolerated them.
Chin up, Maggy continued on. What other choice did she have? She couldn’t very well turn on her heel and head the other way, which was what she really wanted to do.
“Good morning, Virginia. Good morning, Lucy, Ham. I didn’t realize you’d arrived already.” Maggy addressed this last to her brother-in-law, who was a good-looking man of fifty-nine. He was not much taller than her own height of five feet eight, and he had kept his waistline youthfully slim. He sported a very natural-looking black hairpiece, and a dyed-to-match moustache decorated his upper lip. This morning he was dressed in a navy sport coat, white open-necked shirt, and gray slacks, and he looked as though he had just flown in from New York’s Madison Avenue rather than Houston.
“I got in late last night. How are you, honey?” Ham’s thick-as-syrup southern drawl had charmed Maggy when she had first met him. Now she knew exactly what lay beneath that courtly exterior, and she was charmed no longer. Still, she managed not to grimace as he gallantly rose, pushing his chair back from the round table with its gay red-and-white-checked cloth. She even presented a cheek for the obligatory kiss between such close relations.
To think she had once thought this family so civilized,so elegantly affectionate with their gentle endearments and air kisses! That had been long ago when she was young and unable to tell fool’s gold from the real thing.
She had grown wiser since.
“David just went up to his room. Were you looking for him?” Though Lucy knew that she didn’t have to fear Maggy as a rival for her husband’s attentions, she was nonetheless fiercely jealous of anyone in whom Ham exhibited an interest. As a result, Lucy’s voice was cool, as was her gaze as it fixed on Maggy. Lyle’s sister was a large-boned woman, angular and almost awkward in her movements, with iron-gray hair that she scorned to dye cut in a short, boyish style that, like her bright madras-plaid shirt-dress, did not become her. Unlike Lyle, Lucy, two years his senior, wore her age badly. She looked older than her husband, a fact of which she was painfully aware. Lucy had never liked her young sister-in-law, and made no pretense that she did. Still, she was outwardly polite, and that was all Maggy had cared about for some time now.
“I was looking for David,” Maggy said, making the effort and achieving what she felt was a credible smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go up after him.”
“You won’t join us for breakfast?”
From his tone, Maggy would have thought Ham genuinely disappointed. However, she knew better. She shook her head, and started to move away through the open French doors that led from the porch into the kitchen.
“Maggy, did you hurt your arm?” Virginia spoke sharply. Startled, Maggy glanced over her shoulder at her mother-in-law, who was frail and looked small in the wheelchair to which her heart trouble more and more confined her. Like Lucy, Virginia had once been tall and large-boned, but age and two heart attacks in the past year had left her both physically and spiritually diminished. As always,
Maggy checked almost imperceptibly as she saw the assembled company, and let her injured wrist drop to her side despite the shooting pain that made her grit her teeth. She had too much pride to reveal her injury to these people, who might be her in-laws but were never her friends. She was very much the outsider in this close-knit clan, despite twelve years as the titular mistress of the house. In reality, Windermere remained the family home of the Forrests, just as it had been for generations. The only reason she was even tolerated by them was because of David. Which, when she thought about it, was fair enough, because David was the only reason she tolerated them.
Chin up, Maggy continued on. What other choice did she have? She couldn’t very well turn on her heel and head the other way, which was what she really wanted to do.
“Good morning, Virginia. Good morning, Lucy, Ham. I didn’t realize you’d arrived already.” Maggy addressed this last to her brother-in-law, who was a good-looking man of fifty-nine. He was not much taller than her own height of five feet eight, and he had kept his waistline youthfully slim. He sported a very natural-looking black hairpiece, and a dyed-to-match moustache decorated his upper lip. This morning he was dressed in a navy sport coat, white open-necked shirt, and gray slacks, and he looked as though he had just flown in from New York’s Madison Avenue rather than Houston.
“I got in late last night. How are you, honey?” Ham’s thick-as-syrup southern drawl had charmed Maggy when she had first met him. Now she knew exactly what lay beneath that courtly exterior, and she was charmed no longer. Still, she managed not to grimace as he gallantly rose, pushing his chair back from the round table with its gay red-and-white-checked cloth. She even presented a cheek for the obligatory kiss between such close relations.
To think she had once thought this family so civilized,so elegantly affectionate with their gentle endearments and air kisses! That had been long ago when she was young and unable to tell fool’s gold from the real thing.
She had grown wiser since.
“David just went up to his room. Were you looking for him?” Though Lucy knew that she didn’t have to fear Maggy as a rival for her husband’s attentions, she was nonetheless fiercely jealous of anyone in whom Ham exhibited an interest. As a result, Lucy’s voice was cool, as was her gaze as it fixed on Maggy. Lyle’s sister was a large-boned woman, angular and almost awkward in her movements, with iron-gray hair that she scorned to dye cut in a short, boyish style that, like her bright madras-plaid shirt-dress, did not become her. Unlike Lyle, Lucy, two years his senior, wore her age badly. She looked older than her husband, a fact of which she was painfully aware. Lucy had never liked her young sister-in-law, and made no pretense that she did. Still, she was outwardly polite, and that was all Maggy had cared about for some time now.
“I was looking for David,” Maggy said, making the effort and achieving what she felt was a credible smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go up after him.”
“You won’t join us for breakfast?”
From his tone, Maggy would have thought Ham genuinely disappointed. However, she knew better. She shook her head, and started to move away through the open French doors that led from the porch into the kitchen.
“Maggy, did you hurt your arm?” Virginia spoke sharply. Startled, Maggy glanced over her shoulder at her mother-in-law, who was frail and looked small in the wheelchair to which her heart trouble more and more confined her. Like Lucy, Virginia had once been tall and large-boned, but age and two heart attacks in the past year had left her both physically and spiritually diminished. As always,
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