Kildares of Storm Part 54

Jacqueline had waited all that day for news from Channing, disappointed, more than a little humiliated, to think that he had failed where she had not, but making every allowance for him as a city-bred man not accustomed to storms such as that of the night before. Perhaps he had taken for granted that she would not venture out in it herself.

Then, as no word came from him, either by note or by telephone, she began to worry. The lightning had been very bad. After all, storms can be dangerous. Possibly he had met with an accident.

At last she could restrain herself no longer, and telephoned to Holiday Hill.

A noncommittal man-servant informed her that Mr. Farwell was still away (he had gone to Cincinnati on business for several days), and that the other gentleman had left unexpectedly the night before. He did not add that the household was all agog with the extreme unexpectedness of his leaving.

Jacqueline asked, rather tremulously, whether he would be returning soon. The servant thought not, as he had since telegraphed for all his luggage to be sent on to New York.

It was then that she began to realize what had happened to her. She still made excuses for him to herself. He had been thinking of her--he had decided that he could not accept her sacrifice. Perhaps he had been thinking a little of her mother, too, left alone there at Storm. Yes, she was sure he had been thinking a little of her mother, whom he so greatly admired, not understanding how eager Mrs. Kildare was for her children's happiness.--He would write, of course, and explain....

She dared not think of the blank and dreary future, but lived from hour to hour, watching for the mails. When the postman stopped on his daily round at the foot of Storm Hill, she was always waiting for him.

Sometimes she met him down the road, in her eagerness. But there was never a letter for her, except now and then a line from the traveling Mrs. Thorpe.

Kate saw this eager watchfulness, and her heart smote her, and her secret lay heavy on her breast. But she made no comment, even when she noticed that the girl was neglecting her food in a manner unprecedented, and heard her prowling about the house at night, when she should have been asleep, like an unhappy little ghost.

"I must give her time, poor girlie," she thought, and wished that she might consult Philip.

Philip, however, was doing some observing on his own account. He had come across a phrase in a book recently that recurred to him whenever he saw Jacqueline nowadays: "G.o.d gives us our eyes, our parents gives us our noses, but we make our own mouths."

It occurred to him that Jacqueline was "making her mouth" far too rapidly. Of a sudden the lips had lost all their childish softness and were settling into a firm, curved line of great beauty, but which had more than a hint of pathos. "She has no right to such a mouth at her age!" he thought.

The fact of Channing's final disappearance was known to him, though not the manner of it; and at first it had filled him with satisfaction. Now, however, he realized that to get Channing out of sight was by no means to get him out of mind. His thoughts went back over the constant and secret companions.h.i.+p of many weeks, reaching as a climax the night the two had lost themselves in the mountains. He was uneasy--far more uneasy than Kate, who had in view a consolation for Jacqueline which Philip did not as yet suspect.

One day he happened in at Storm, to find Farwell making one of his frequent visits there. Jacqueline was chatting and laughing with him with her usual gaiety, but Philip, even as he entered, sensed a certain air of distress about the girl. It was Farwell's first call since Channing's disappearance.

"h.e.l.lo, dominie," the actor greeted him cheerfully, evidently relieved by his arrival. "We've just been discussing the mysterious Percival. You knew, of course, that he'd gone without so much as a by-your-leave to me? Not that only, but took my favorite car and left it running in the mud, simply shaking itself to pieces. A queer devil!--I had gone to Cincinnati for a day or two, and when I got back, not a sign of my guest, neither hair nor hide of him!"

"Rude enough," commented Benoix.

"Oh, rude! Channing and I are old pals, and dropped our manners long ago. But unfriendly, that's what I call it! Leaving me in the lurch in that gloomy young barn of mine, without giving me a chance to get somebody in his place.--I tell you, this thing of being a country gentleman's the loneliest job I ever tackled! Do come and give me a cheering word now and then, Benoix.--And the only explanation the rotter made," he continued resentfully, "was a mere line saying he had been called to New York on urgent business. Urgent tommyrot! The only business he knows by sight is his own pleasure."

"His writing?" commented Jacqueline, quietly. "That isn't just pleasure."

"Oh, yes, it is, or you may be sure he wouldn't be doing it! I know Channing. He's selfish to the bone. Oh, I'm done with the chap!--The fact is," he added, very careful not to look at Jacqueline, "these geniuses aren't to be relied upon, either as friends or anything else, you see. They're just--geniuses."

"That's quite enough to be expected of them, isn't it?" remarked the girl, with a steady little smile.

Farwell changed the subject, having said what he had come to say; but inwardly he thought, "She's a brick! She's a loyal, plucky little brick, and Channing is a--skunk! Perhaps she chucked him, though," he reminded himself hopefully. "Serve him good and plenty if she did."

Thereafter the master of Holiday Hill spent as much time as he possibly could at Storm, Kate looking on at Jacqueline's friendly flirtation with him with something between a smile and a sigh.

The girl was doing a good deal in the way of flirtation just then, not only with Farwell, but with several of the earlier "victims" who continued to come out from Lexington occasionally, and were encouraged to come more often. Kate had been through just such a stage of unhappiness herself, the reckless, desperate, defiant stage, when trouble is to be kept at bay only by sheer bravado. And she had been watched safely through it by the understanding eyes of Jacques Benoix, even as Jacqueline would be watched through it by the understanding eyes of his son.

For it was only with Philip the girl dared to be quite herself just then, _distraite_ and talkative by turns, subject to long silences, followed by bursts of wild gaiety. The change in his manner to her was very marked, he no longer teased and chaffed her as he had been wont to do, but treated her with a quiet affection, almost a deference; the _camaraderie_ offered to a friend who has come abreast of oneself on the hard path of life. Jacqueline in trouble, gallant and uncomplaining and piteously gay, was a Jacqueline who appealed to every instinct of chivalry in his fine nature.

If it had not been for Kate herself, the thing she so greatly desired might very well have come to pa.s.s just then. He might have fallen in love with Jacqueline. But unfortunately Kate was there, never lovelier than in her guarding, tender maternity; and for Philip other women, as women, did not exist.

Into this rather disturbed atmosphere of Storm arrived one day the new Mrs. Thorpe, quite unexpectedly and with something of a flourish.

Jacqueline, hearing outside the sound of a mellifluous horn which she did not recognize, ran to the window and reported company approaching, "But it isn't Mr. Farwell, Mummy, and it isn't victims. It's a lady all dressed up. Why, Mummy, it's--no, it can't be. Yes it is too! It's the bride and groom, in a new Ark!"

Jemima was herself engineering a smart blue-painted touring-car up the hill, somewhat cautiously but with her usual air of determination. She remarked tensely to the beaming gentleman beside her, "Wave to them, James, please. I can't spare a hand."

When the excited greetings were over, Jemima looked about her with a contented sigh. "New York was very grand and rich, but I'm glad to be back in this queer, shabby old house. Aunt Jemima asked all about everything, Mother--whether you had left the stuffed horse's head on the wall, whether the turkeys still tried to roost on the front porch, what you had done with father's old servants, especially Mahaly--she seemed to be particularly interested in Mahaly, for some reason or other. I told her everything was just as it had been always--and it is, thank goodness!" She spoke as if she had expected to find cataclysmic changes after an absence of three weeks. "Dogs overrunning the place, and Big Liza warbling at the top of her lungs in the kitchen, and you in your second-best riding skirt at this hour in the afternoon--naughty mother!

Everything just the same as if--" Her roving eyes chanced to rest on her sister's face, and she stopped short.

"So you saw your Aunt Jemima?" asked Kate quickly, to change the subject.

"Oh, yes, of course, Mother. That's one reason we went to New York." She was full of the visit to her father's aunt, and forgot for the moment her shock at the change in Jacqueline. "Such a wonderful place--a house as big as a hotel, and lawns that are evidently shaved and clipped and bathed as regularly as her pet poodle. But--think of it! She is seventy years old, and powdered and rouged like an actress!--Her manner was just a little--patronizing at first, but she soon got over that."

Thorpe chuckled. "My wife astonished her into a lamb-like meekness. She informed her that while she resembled the Kildare portraits to some slight degree, most of them were rather handsomer."

"Jemmy! Why, she was a famous beauty in her day!"

"Well, she isn't now; and I did not care for her manner," said the bride, calmly. "Besides, as it turned out, she liked rudeness. Some people do, you know. They think it's smart, and she's a very smart old person--likes a fast motor-car, and plays cards for money--hates to lose, too--and smokes, Mother! I kept thinking how surprised you would have been to see her."

"Pooh, that's nothing," said Jacqueline, moved to defend the honor of Storm. "Lots of women around here smoke. Why, you'll catch Big Liza with a pipe in her mouth at any time you go out in the kitchen!"

"Jacky, a pipe! The idea! Aunt Jemima has little gold-tipped cigarettes with her monogram on them. It's very much done."

"Blossom," cried Jacqueline accusingly, "did you smoke, yourself?"

The bride tossed her head, flus.h.i.+ng. "Of course. One can't be too provincial." (The _a_ in her "can't" had achieved a new and impressive breadth--which, considering that the honeymoon had been of only three weeks' duration, may serve to show something of the force and adaptability of Jemima's character.) "Still," she added, "I should not care to see mother smoking. I was rather--shocked by Aunt Jemima."

Kate smiled. She would not have been shocked. Her husband had too often spoken of his aunt as a true Kildare, and related with pride certain incidents in her career which had done their share toward creating the reputation of "the wild Kildares." It had always been a matter of astonishment to her that this wicked old woman, whose past might certainly have made for leniency in judgment, should have shown herself so hotly unforgiving toward the one episode she had selected to regard as the family scandal.

James Thorpe, the psychologist, could have told her that the recognized tolerance of innocence for vice has its complement in the approval with which unblemished reputations are regarded by those who have them not.

Also, there was an unspoken tradition among her husband's people, as in many families, that while born Kildares, male or female, might exercise their Heaven-sent prerogative of behaving as they chose, it was for their mates to maintain the balance of discretion. Poor Kate had maintained no balance.

"Oh, speaking of New York," said the bride suddenly, "whom else do you suppose I saw there? Your friend the author, Jacky! Oh, not to speak to, of course ... James has broken with him entirely. Besides, he was with a person, a very blonde and pretty person, whom I did not care to meet."

She smoothed down her skirts, the gesture of conscious rect.i.tude the world over. "I should not be surprised if she were that woman--you know!

Fay Something-or-other--"

Kate's warning glance reached her, and she bit her tongue.

Jacqueline had gone over to a window and stood looking out. "I miss the old Ark," she said after a moment. "What have you done with it?"

Jemima rushed into speech, her eyebrows flying distress signals at her mother. "Oh, that old thing? Why, when James bought the new car, I thought it would be nice to have the other painted and fixed up and give it to Philip for a present."

"Splendid!" said Kate. "It will be the greatest sort of help to him in his parochial visits--if you can persuade him to accept it. I've been trying for months to give him a decent horse to take the place of old Tom. What made you think of it?"

Jemima looked rather embarra.s.sed. "Why, you see I have not been very--nice to Phil, lately. Not friendly, at least, as I used to be. But he's gone on just the same, as if nothing were the matter, just as dignified, and kindly; marrying us so beautifully, and sending us those rare candelabra, and all ... I like that way of acting, Mother, and I like Philip. So I thought it would be nice to give him the Ark as--as a sort of apology, you see."

Kate and James Thorpe exchanged a glance of mutual congratulation.

Evidently the incipient feud was a thing of the past. Marriage was already rubbing off some of Jemima's edges.

"In that case," said Kate warmly, "I am sure Philip will accept the Ark, daughter. He would never refuse an apology.--Jacky, why don't you go and telephone him that the Thorpes are here, and that he is expected for supper?"