Kildares of Storm Part 48

The girl went to the window and stood looking out, over the garden that merged into a pasture, and so down gradually into the ravine where the ruined slave-house stood.

"Suppose," she asked in a m.u.f.fled voice, "suppose I couldn't marry? What then?"

Kate believed she understood. The affair with Channing had left more of a hurt than she had realized. Jacqueline, at seventeen, doubtless considered herself a blighted being.--She controlled the smile that twitched at her lips, and said cheerfully, "Then you will just have to be a prop for my declining years. You won't begrudge me a prop, dear?

Surely _you_ don't want to go away from me?"

The unconscious emphasis on the p.r.o.noun went to Jacqueline's heart. She remembered the day Jemima had shut them out into the world of people who were not Kildares, she and her mother together....

She came back at a run, and plumped herself down on Kate's knees, great girl that she was, hiding her face in that sheltering breast, holding her mother tight, tight, as if she could never let her go.

Kate returned the embrace with interest. She, too, remembered.

"It will be something bigger than a career that takes you away from your mother!" she whispered.

"Something bigger than a career," echoed Jacqueline, clinging closer.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

Kate broached the subject of the New York trip at supper that night, but met with no encouragement whatever from her elder daughter, somewhat to her surprise.

"What is the use of buying an expensive trousseau? Mag sews quite well enough, and anyway I have more clothes now than I know what to do with,"

she argued practically. "If you think I haven't enough lingerie and all that, I can take some of Jacky's. It seems rather mean to desert a man just as soon as you get engaged to him. Besides, James and I shall be going to New York next month, on our wedding-trip."

"Next month?" cried Kate.

"Why, yes, Mother. There's no use putting it off, I think. James has been alone so many years; and he certainly needs some one to look after him. If you could see the pile of perfectly good socks in his closet that only need a little darning!" She spoke unsentimentally as ever; but there was a tone in her voice that made her mother give her hand a little squeeze.

"Very well, dear. You shall be married to-morrow, if you like."

"To-morrow is a little soon. Suppose we say three weeks from to-day?"

Kate gasped, but consented.

Preparations for the wedding went on apace at Storm, though it was to be a very quiet affair, not the fashionable ceremony, with bridesmaids and champagne, for which Jemima's heart privately yearned.

"I don't know any girls well enough to ask them to be bridesmaids," she explained wistfully to her fiance, who made a mental note to supply her with young women friends hereafter, if he had to hire them.

Nevertheless, it was something of a ceremony. The Madam did not have a daughter married every day. For days beforehand the negroes were busy indoors and out, cleaning, painting and whitewashing, exhibiting a tendency to burst into syncopated strains of Lohengrin whenever Jemima or the Professor came into view. The kitchen chimney belched forth smoke like a factory; for though no invitations were sent out, it was inevitable that the countryside, white and black, would arrive to pay its respects to the newly wedded, and Big Liza, with an able corps of a.s.sistants, was preparing to welcome them in truly feudal fashion.

Gifts began to arrive, silver and gla.s.s and china from friends of the Professor and business connections of Mrs. Kildare. A magnificent service of plate came from Jemima's great-aunt, for whom she was named.

("We must make friends with Aunt Jemima, James," was the bride's thoughtful comment on the arrival of this present.) Philip could not afford to buy a handsome enough gift, and so parted with the bronze candelabra which Farwell had so covetously admired; a sacrifice which did much to break down the hauteur of the bride's recent manner with him. She knew how well he loved his few Lares and Penates.

There were other presentations of less conventional nature. These Professor Thorpe, whom the panting Ark conveyed nightly from the university to Storm and back again, eyed with a mixture of interest and dismay.

"This suckling pig, now," he murmured. "How are we to accommodate him in a city apartment, Jemima? And that highly decorative rooster--I fear we shall have some difficulty in persuading my janitor to accept him as an inmate. Do you suppose _all_ your mother's tenants will feel called upon to supply us with livestock?"

"Oh, no, G.o.ddy! Look at this crazy quilt," chuckled Jacqueline, busily unwrapping parcels, "It is made of the Sunday dresses of all Mrs. Sykes'

friends and relations. She thought it might remind Jemmy of home. It will. Oh, it will! You've only to look at it and you'll see the entire congregation nodding over one of Phil's sermons!" She made a little face at the cleric, who responded by rumpling her hair. "Then the Housewives'

League mother organized has crocheted enough perfectly hideous lace for all the sheets and things. Your bed-linen is going to bristle with it like a porcupine."

"It's very good of them," said Jemima, reprovingly. "As for the livestock, James, we can eat it.--Look at this barrel of potatoes, and these home-cured hams, and all the pickle. Stop laughing at my friends!"

Thorpe murmured meek apologies.

The evening before the wedding, Big Liza came striding into the hall where the family sat a.s.sembled, bearing aloft a large round object wrapped in newspaper.

"Huh! Look at what dat 'ooman Mahaly had the owdaciosity to bring fo' a bridal gif'!" she snorted, swelling with indignation. "Reck'n she 'lows dey ain't nary a cook at Sto'm good enough to make no bride-cake. Allus was a biggity, uppity piece, dat Mahaly!"

She placed it on a table, and waddled scornfully out again.

The professor undid the wrappings in a somewhat gingerly manner. There was an element of the unexpected about his wedding-gifts which intrigued curiosity. This time he gave a rather startled exclamation, blushed and backed away.

It was a mammoth white cake, which bore, besides certain garlands and other decorations of a distinctly Cubist tendency, the legend done in silver candies: FOR THE BABY.

"D-dear me!" murmured the professor, hastily shrouding it once more in its wrappings.

"That means Jemima," smiled Kate. "To Mahaly, Jemmy has always been 'The Baby.' She nursed her, you know."

"Nursed me--that mulatto woman who lives in the white people's neighborhood? I never knew that," said the girl. "How strange! She never comes here with the other old servants, even at Christmas time, and I've never gone to see her. Why was I not told?"

Kate did not answer.

"Did you have to dismiss her, Mother--was it that? Was she dishonest, or something of the sort?"

"No," said Kate, with an odd reluctance. "She was a very good servant in every way, and perfectly devoted to you and to little Katharine."

Jemima looked at her in surprise. It was very unlike the Madam to lose touch with any creature, human or otherwise, who had once faithfully served her. She waited for an explanation.

"Mahaly has never come to Storm," said Kate in a low voice, "since your father's death. She was his servant for many years before I came here."

"Oh!" said Jemima. The negress had evidently been one of her father's loyal supporters, resenting what she must have seen at Storm. "I see! In that case, Mother, I should like to do something for her. People who are faithful to my father--"

There was an uncomfortable stir in the room.

"Mahaly has been given the cottage in which she lives, as a present from you and little Katharine," interrupted Kate.

"I am glad of that," said the girl with a certain stateliness. "I was going to say that people who are faithful to my father must never be forgotten by his children."

"Nor by his wife," said Kate, with quiet dignity....

Despite the preoccupation of the wedding, Kate did not make the mistake of neglecting Jacqueline's affairs. She had had her warning. Moreover, though she would have denied it even to herself, the younger girl had come to occupy a far larger share of her heart than had even been given to the self-reliant Jemima. She had felt, lately (and the thought frightened her) that in watching Jacqueline she was watching her own youth over again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and pa.s.sion and unselfish service, she knew as do those who have been the victims of such natures themselves. Jacqueline, if it were in human possibility to compa.s.s it, should profit by her mother's bitter mistakes.

She redoubled her vigilance on learning that Channing had after all not left the vicinity. Philip had pa.s.sed him one day in one of Farwell's machines, and hastened to report the encounter at Storm.

"Perhaps he has come back for your wedding," she said thoughtfully to Thorpe.