Kildares of Storm Part 32

"I shall have to go ahead as best I can without charm," she told herself, soberly. "Brains always count, if you keep them hid."

To the casual observer the ambitions of young Jemima at this juncture might have seemed somewhat petty; but most beginnings are petty. There was in the girl's mind a determination that cannot be called unworthy, no matter how it manifested itself--nothing less than the reinstatement before the world of the family her mother had disgraced, the once-proud Kildares of Storm. She was going forth to do battle alone for the tarnished honor of her name, a gallant little knight-errant, tight-lipped and heavy-hearted, and far more afraid than she dared admit.

Something of this the mother sensed, and her heart yearned over her daughter. But Jemima rebuffed all overtures. She declined sympathy, and as far as possible she declined help from her mother. She had offered to return the check-book Kate gave her when she expected to go to New York, but her mother bade her keep it, saying, "It is time you learned how to handle your own money."

So Jemima did her planning and ordering without interference; and presently express boxes began to arrive from "the city," which caused much excitement in the household.

"Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as these," smiled Kate one day, looking in at the sewing-room where Mag was installed, adding deft final touches. "Where's Jacky, Jemima? Why isn't she here helping you two to run ribbons and whip on laces?"

"Oh, Jacky!" The other shrugged. "Where would she be? Galloping about the country, or playing games with herself down at her precious Ruin, I suppose. Occasionally she wanders into the sewing-room like a young cyclone, leaving havoc in her wake. I'd rather not have her a.s.sistance, thank you!"

"Miss Jacky ain't much of a hand with a needle," murmured the girl at the sewing-machine.

Kate smiled, as she always smiled when she thought of her youngest daughter. "Bless her heart! I wonder what she's about down there in the ravine. We haven't heard her singing lately. Do you suppose she has abandoned grand opera entirely? I think I must go and investigate."

Mag Henderson sat suddenly rigid. It was she who had become, inadvertently, Jacqueline's second confidante.

A few days before, she had made a discovery which she would have been torn limb from limb rather than betray; for the weakest natures are capable of one strong trait, and Mag's was loyalty. Just as she had tried to defend the father who had sold her into worse than slavery, so she would defend to the last ditch any member of the family who had rescued her--more particularly Jacqueline. For Jacqueline had done more than rescue her; she had kissed her.

She said with a sort of gasp, "Miss Jacky's awful busy, Miss Kate. She wouldn't like to be disturbed. She's--she's writin' a book."

Kate laughed. "Come now, Mag! not a _book_?"

"Yes'm, she is, 'cause I seen it."

"Well, well, what next?" cried Kate. "What sort of chicken have I hatched? There've been queer developments in the family, but never a genius that I know of. We must leave her alone, by all means. Maybe she will get over it."

Mag breathed more freely; and with the departure next day of Jemima, accompanied by two trunks and wearing an expression that said plainly, "I shall return with my shield or on it," Mag's fears for her beloved Miss Jacky were further allayed. Of late the Storm household had begun to hold Jemima's seeing eye in even more respect than the Madam's.

Mag had stumbled upon Jacqueline's secret quite by accident. After her day's work was over she liked to walk the roads with her baby, dressed in her prettiest finery, with an eager, hopeful eye out for pa.s.sing vehicles. On one of these rambles she happened into the lane which pa.s.sed the haunted ravine, and there, concealed by the drooping branches of a willow beside the road, she had discovered a deserted automobile.

It aroused her curiosity. What could an automobile be doing in that unfrequented lane, and where was the owner of it? Fearfully she entered the ravine, and ventured a few steps toward the green tangle that hid the ruined cabin. When she came in sight of it, panic conquered curiosity, and she turned to run. It was very dark and hushed there in the underbrush.

But one of the young dogs, who had followed her, suddenly p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and nosed his way to the cabin's threshold, where he paused with one foot lifted, making violent demonstrations with his tail. Mag followed him, rea.s.sured.

"A dog would have too much sense to wag hisself at ghosts," she thought....

No wonder it was still in the ravine. Birds pa.s.sing overhead forbore to sing, out of sheer sympathy. The great trees stood tiptoe, guarding with finger on lip the love-dream of the little human creature who had played so long about their feet, and whose playing days were done. Mag and the young dog were silent, too, and would have gone softly away from the place where they were not wanted.

"Miss Jacky's got her a fella!" whispered Mag enviously to herself.

"Ain't that grand?"

But the baby in her arms had as yet no conception that there might be places in the world where she was not wanted; poor little waif who had been unwanted anywhere! She recognized her usual companion wrapped in the arms of a strange man, and cooed inquiringly.

The lovers jumped apart.

"Oh!--It's only you, Mag!" gasped Jacqueline. "I thought Jemmy had caught us at last!..."

So it happened that Mag was elevated to the position of confidante; not a very wise confidante, but a very proud and trustworthy one, eager to help her Miss Jacky to happiness, such as she conceived the term--a "fella" to love her and give her presents, which might or might not include a wedding-ring.

She was pressed into willing service, carrying notes, arranging meetings, mounting guard watchfully, thrilled with eager sympathy, and dreaming a little on her own account; sordid, pathetic dreams they were, in which, alas! the baby Kitty played no part at all. As Mrs. Kildare had guessed, maternity was not enough for Mag Henderson.

Percival Channing, in the midst of the prettiest idyl of his experience, was bringing to it far more enthusiasm than he would have thought possible for a mere collector of impressions. He was quite pleased with himself.

"Who said I was jaded and world-worn?" he thought amusedly. His critical faculty did not become atrophied when applied to himself, as is the way of smaller critical faculties.

From week to week he prolonged his visit at Holiday Hill, to the content of Farwell, who was finding the picturesque solitude he had created for himself rather wearing. Channing thought it necessary to explain that the country furnished him just the quiet environment he needed for his work.

"And eke the inspiration?" murmured Farwell.

"And eke the inspiration," admitted his guest.

Farwell puffed at a meditative pipe. He was a tolerant man, popular with his friends because of his chariness in proffering advice and comment; so that Channing was surprised when he continued the subject.

"I fancy the little girl is quite capable of taking care of herself--these Southern beauties are that way, from the cradle. But have a care of the old 'un, my boy! There's a glint in that fine gray eye I wouldn't care to rouse, myself. She's by way of being a queen around here, you know. I'm told the law asks her permission before it makes an arrest in this neighborhood. Her subjects neither marry, nor die, nor get themselves born without her permission--fact! As for her daughters, hands off! Approach them on your knees.

"I'll give you a bit of local color, if you like. Have you noticed that long-tailed whip she carries when she's got the dogs? Well, one day I saw a couple of negroes fighting in one of the fields; big, burly brutes, one with a knife, and both full of cocaine, probably. The white man in charge danced around on the outskirts, afraid to interfere--I don't blame him! Suddenly there was a cry, 'Here comes the Madam!' And there she was, galloping into that field, h.e.l.l-for-leather, unwrapping her long-tailed whip as she came. When the negroes had had enough of it and were whimpering for mercy, she turned her attention to the foreman.

But she didn't whip him. She said, her voice as calm as a May morning, 'Go and get your time, Johnson. I've no room on the place for a timid man!'"

Farwell's eyes were lit with enthusiasm, but to Channing the story had been oddly distasteful. "Faugh! What a woman! And yet I'll swear she's a lady," he said, with an odd thought of introducing Mrs. Kildare to his rigid family circle in the role of mother-in-law.

"Of course she is! A great lady, of a type we're not familiar with, that's all. A relic of feudalism. I give you fair warning--don't monkey with the buzz-saw!"

"Nonsense!" Channing flushed. "Who's monkeying with buzz-saws? You're rather crude, you know."

"So is she. Don't you make any mistake about that! The Kildare is no parlor product. A woman who's led the life she has," drawled Farwell, "would be quite capable of protecting her children, even at the point of a pistol, I fancy."

The author gave a short, angry laugh. "You're incurably dramatic, Morty!

You will carry your stage effects into real life. What do you think I'm up to, anyway? You don't suppose I mean that pretty child any harm?"

Farwell rolled protesting eyes toward heaven. "The very suggestion shocks me," he murmured. "But I have noticed that only the juice of the orange interests you, old man. The rest of it you leave on your plate, luxurious chap that you are!..."

His warning had its effect. There were no more stolen drives about the country in Farwell's automobiles, much to Jacqueline's disappointment; and once more Channing called in state at Storm, where he was received cordially by Mrs. Kildare, and took very little notice of demure Jacqueline in the background. So little, indeed, that Kate afterwards felt it necessary to apologize for him.

"You're too young for Mr. Channing, Jacky dear. What a pity Jemima was not here to talk to him! He's just the sort of man for her," she said.

Whereat Jacqueline's dimples became riotous, and she kept silence with difficulty.

Channing's new caution, however, did not carry him to the length of giving up his daily visits to the Ruin. He needed the girl too much. His belonged to the cla.s.s of creative brain that works only under the stimulus of emotion. Channing was fond of saying that he took his material red-hot out of life itself, and his novels represented a series of personal experiences, psychological and otherwise, which perhaps accounted for their marked success with a certain public.

Channing was not without genius. He had to a great degree the poet's sensitiveness to all things exquisite, and added to that he had a gift of facile expression. Subtleties of style, that effort to find exactly the right phrase and shade of meaning which is the stumbling-block of so many conscientious writers, troubled him not at all. Given the sensation, words in which to clothe it came instinctively, faster often than he could write them down. But first he must needs experience the sensation. This type of brain suffers from one disadvantage. In time the receptive surface of it becomes dulled, calloused, and as the confirmed drug-user requires constantly increasing or varying doses to produce effect, so such an imagination requires constantly increasing or varying doses of emotion.

These young Jacqueline Kildare was supplying in full measure. To his sophisticated palate she was as refreshing as cool spring water. She roused, among impulses more familiar to his experience, certain others with which he had not credited himself, impulses of tenderness, of protection, of chivalry. He began to be aware of a pleasure that was entirely new to him in the sight of Jacqueline with Mag's baby, their very frequent companion.

"I _am_ getting primitive!" he thought. "This is going back to nature with a vengeance."

For the first time in his life, the thought of marriage came to him occasionally and was put away with some regret. "I must not lose my head," he admonished himself. "It will not last, of course. It never does."