“What’s this?”
In entrance hall below, a lavish crimson carpet where yesterday there was a blue one, cream-white paint all over walls to-day, which yesterday were green, the wall all chiselled into, a great sheet of mirror ready to be installed where yesterday no mirror was.
Fox traverses narrow hallway, past the kitchen, through the cloakroom—this, too, redolent of fresh paint—and into little cubbyhole that had no use before.
“Good God, what’s this?”
Transfigured now to Fox’s “cosy den” (Fox wants no “cosy den”—will have none!), walls are painted, bookshelves built, a reading lamp and easy chairs in place, the Fox’s favourite books (Fox groans!) transplanted from their shelves upstairs and brought down here where Fox can never find them.
Fox bumps his head against the low doorway in going out, traverses narrow hall again, at last gets into dining-room. Seats himself at head of the long table (six women make a long table!), looks at the glass of orange juice upon his plate, does nothing to it, makes no motion towards it, just sits there waiting in a state of patient and resigned dejection, as who should say: “It’s no one but the Old Grey Mule.”
Portia enters—a plump mulatto, nearing fifty, tinged so imperceptibly with yellow that she is almost white. She enters, stops, stares at Fox sitting motionless there, and titters coyly. Fox turns slowly, catches his coat lapels, and looks at her in blank astonishment. She drops her eyelids shyly, tittering, and spreads plump fingers over her fat mouth. Fox surveys her steadily, as if trying to peer through her fingers at her face, then with a kind of no-hope expression in his eyes, he says slowly, in a sepulchral tone:
“Fruit salad.”
And Portia, anxiously:
“What fo’ you doesn’t drink yo’ orange juice, Mistah Edwands? Doesn’t you like it?”
“Fruit salad,” repeats Fox tonelessly.
“What fo’ you always eat dat ole fruit salad, Mistah Edwahds? What fo’ you wants dat ole canned stuff when we fixes you de nice fresh orange juice?”
“Fruit salad,” echoes Fox dolefully, utter resignation in his tone.
Portia departs protesting, but presently fruit salad is produced and put before him. Fox eats it, then looks round and up at Portia, and, still with no-hope resignation in his voice, says low and hoarsely:
“Is that—_all_?”
“Why, no suh, Mistah, Edwahds,” Portia replies. “You can have anything you likes if you jest lets us know. We nevah knows jest what you’s goin’ to awdah. All las’ month you awdahed fish fo’ brek-fus’—is dat what you wants?”
“Breast of guinea-hen,” says Fox tonelessly.
“Why, Mistah Edwahds!” Portia squeals. “Breas’ of guinea-hen fo’ brek-fus’?”
“Yes,” says Fox, patient and enduring.
“But, Mistah Edwahds!” Portia protests. “You know you doesn’t want breas’ of guinea-hen fo’ brek-fus’!”
“Yes,” says Fox in his hopeless tone, “I do.” And he regards her steadily with sea-misted eyes, with proud and scornful features, eloquent with patient and enduring bitterness as if to say: “Man is born of woman and is made to mourn.”
“But Mistah Edwahds,” Portia pleads with him, “fokes don’t eat breas’ of guinea-hen fo’ brek-fus’! Dey eats ham an’ aiggs, an’ toast an’ bacon—things like dat.”
Fox continues to regard her fixedly.
“Breast of guinea-hen,” he says wearily, implacably as before.
“B-b-b-but, Mistah Edwahds,” Portia stammers, thoroughly demoralised by this time, “we ain’t got no breas’ of guinea-hen.”
“We had some night before last,” says Fox.
“Yes, suh, yes, suh!” Portia almost tearfully agrees. “But dat’s all gone! We et up all dere was!...Besides, you been eatin’ breas’ of guinea-hen ev’ry night fo’ dinnah de las’ two weeks, an’ Miz Edwands—she say you had enough—she say de chillun gettin’ tired of it—she tol’ us to get somep’n else!...If you tol’ us dat you wanted guinea-hen fo’ brek-fus’, we’d a-had it. But you nevah tol’ us, Mista Edwahds.” Portia is on the verge of open tears by now. “You nevah tells us what you wants—an’ dat’s why we nevah knows. One time you wanted cream chicken fo’ yo’ brek-fus’ ev’ry mawnin’ fo’ a month…Den you changed roun’ to codfish balls, an’ had dat fo’ a long, long time…An’ now it’s guinea-hen,” she almost sobs—“an’ we ain’t got none, Mistah Edwahds. You nevah tol’ us what you wanted. We got ham an’ aiggs—we got bacon—we got—”,
“Oh, well,” says Fox wearily, “bring what you have, then—anything you like.”