Kildares of Storm Part 57

Not soon, of course; not until time should have brought its blessed balm of forgetfulness, when both the girls would be married and gone, perhaps, and she in her loneliness would turn to him. Meanwhile he must be at hand to take care of her, as his father had bidden him; to watch over her un.o.btrusively, helping her as he had with Jacqueline, sharing any trouble that came to her; making himself necessary in every way possible, so that more and more he should take with her the place of his father.

Kate was wrong in her ideas that his poverty had much influence upon Philip. Poverty and wealth mean little to the idealist; and his faith was very strong. He knew that if G.o.d gave this beloved woman into his keeping, He would provide very surely the means of keeping her.

He was patient, too; yet lately all the talk of love and of marriage, the companionship of wistful, lovelorn Jacqueline, perhaps, the sight of James Thorpe's almost fatuous happiness, had made patience newly difficult; had stirred a restlessness in him that sometimes he believed his lady noticed. When she was in the room with him, whether they spoke or not, he found it almost impossible to keep his eyes from her; and when at such times their glances met, it seemed to him there was a quick flash of response in hers, an understanding look, almost of expectancy, as if she were waiting for him to say something he did not say.

Philip was of course right. Nothing of the change in him had been lost on Kate; only she attributed it unfortunately to another cause--to Jacqueline.

She was chattering desultorily about many things, as they sat there in the deepening November dusk, by the fire; but he did not hear what she was saying. He began to look covetously out of the corner of his eye toward one of her hands that lay on the arm of the chair close beside him; a big, beautiful hand like Kate herself, capable as little Jemima's, but with the warmth, the healing in its touch, of Jacqueline's own. When he pictured her to himself, he always saw first her eyes, clear and direct as a boy's; then her lovely, curved lips; then these sentient hands of hers. He wished that he had the courage to take the hand in his own, to hold it against his breast, his cheek. It had been his often enough to hold, and even to kiss; but always of her own volition. She was as generous of caresses as her youngest daughter; but it never occurred to Philip, nor had it perhaps occurred to other men who loved her, that they might venture to take what she did not offer.

Kate was the giver, always.

Even now, as if aware of his thoughts, the hand lifted, strayed over to touch the hair on his temples lightly as a b.u.t.terfly, and came to rest on his shoulder, drawing him a little closer. He sat very still, thrilling to its touch. She might as well at that moment have laid her hand on his bare heart. He wondered how many more seconds he could bear it before he flung himself on his knees beside her and buried his face in her lap....

"It's nice in here, so warm and dusky and comfy," she said. "Easier to talk here than in that bare, ugly office of mine. I'm glad I came.--Now the scolding is going to commence." The hand patted him affectionately.

"Phil, dear, are you _quite_ as frank with me as you used to be? Do you still tell me everything you think and do and are? Isn't there something you keep back nowadays?"

"Nothing," he answered in a rather choked voice, making one mental reservation.

"If I hadn't your full confidence, I should miss it more than I can say.

You've spoiled me, dear. I want to be in everything that concerns you."

"You are," breathed poor Philip.

She leaned a little toward him. "No confidences, then? Nothing to ask me, boy? Because it would be yours without asking." She waited a moment.

Silence--a very tense silence. "I don't know whether I've ever told you how much I love you, how much I admire you. Only it's more than that.

You are the sort of man--my dear, if I could have had a son like you, I should have been the proudest woman in the world! It breaks my heart to think that Jacques does not know his great boy."

She felt him trembling under her touch, and went on with her encouragement. "Think of what you have to offer the woman you love! Most men come to us soiled, with fingerprints on them which the most forgiving wife can never seem to wash quite away. But you--you are as clean as your mother left you.--Look at me, Philip! Yes, I knew it.--And what a home you will make for her! Money never made a home yet--it spoils more homes than it helps, I think, because it does away with the effort that makes anything worth while.--Oh, my dear boy, I think I shall be envious of the girl you marry!"

The voice speaking was the one she had kept, as she once told Jacqueline, to sing lullabies to her babies with--surely the most exquisite, tender, caressing voice in the world, thought Philip. He tried to listen to what she was saying, but heard only the voice. His senses were swimming in it. Suddenly he leant over and laid his cheek against her rough riding-skirt.

"Why, dearest boy!" The voice softened still more, and he felt her hands in his hair. "Did you think you could hide anything from _me_? What a goose! Don't you suppose I saw? I have been wondering for days why you didn't tell me. And then I knew. The money--is that, it? But how perfectly silly, dear! There's enough and more than enough for two, but if you prefer it, your bride shall come to you as poor as any churchmouse, glad and proud to do with whatever you are able to give her. We don't care much for--just _things_, we Kildares!"

He raised his face, incredulous, listening at last to her words; a dawning rapture in his eyes. She had seen. Was she offering herself to him, Philip, as a G.o.ddess might lean to a mortal? He could not speak....

"And then I've thought," she went on, "that perhaps the thing between your two fathers was holding you back. Don't let it, ah, don't let it!

Before that all happened, they were friends, dear friends. Your father was the one man Basil loved. And some day when we are all together somewhere, afterwards--if there is an afterwards!--I believe they will be friends again. It was all a hideous mistake. Surely mistakes can't last through eternity? That is my idea of what Heaven is; a place where we shall understand each other's mistakes, and forgive them. But you and Jacqueline--oh, Philip! Philip! try not to make any mistakes, you two! I couldn't bear that."

Philip was himself now, hearing every word. He whispered haltingly, praying that he had misunderstood, "What--was it you thought I--wished to say to you?"

She laughed a little. "I thought--and think--you were trying to summon up courage to ask me for my Jacqueline!"

He had risen to take his blow standing. In the dusk that filled the room above the fire-line, she could not see his face.

She went on after a moment, "And I can't, _can't_ tell you how happy it made me, how secure.--For a while I was so troubled. Channing, you know--I thought I should have to give up my hopes.--But now he has gone, and you are here; dear, faithful fellow, so big and true! For years I've dreamed of this, ever since she was born. You and Jacqueline, his child and mine, finding together all that we have missed. And some day, your children--Ah, my dear, don't waste your moments! Years go so fast, and they do not come back."

He made a queer, hoa.r.s.e sound in his throat. Kate peered up at him, for the first time suspecting something amiss. "Philip," she exclaimed, "why don't you say something? Aren't you glad that I am glad?"

Glad!--In the chaos that was his mind, only one thing stood out clear to him. His fingers unconsciously gripped the small gold cross that hung at his belt, and clung to it. He had dedicated his life to service, first of G.o.d and second of his fellow-men, chief of whom was the woman before him. All his life he had dreamed of serving her. In his boyish heroics he had defended her from lions, rescued her and her children from Indians, carried her on his back out of burning houses. Lonely youth and lonely man, dreams formed a greater part of his life than of most men's, and all of them centered about the great figure of his existence, Kate Kildare.

Now the opportunity was come. He was to serve her indeed, and sacrificially. He saw with a horrible clarity where his duty lay, and wondered that he had not seen it before. She needed him for Jacqueline as she would never need him for herself. Young Benoix was of the stuff of which martyrs are made; but as he stood there, gripping the little cross of his calling, he prayed wordlessly, desperately, that his cup might pa.s.s from him.

Kate had risen too, and stood dismayed by his silence, trying to read his face by the flickering light. "Philip, what is it? Have I made a mistake after all? Don't you love Jacqueline?" Her heart began to beat rather fast. Something of what was in the air she sensed, but without understanding.

What was it she was asking him? Oh, yes--whether he loved Jacqueline.

Dear little clinging, pathetic child! of course he loved her. He must answer. He made a great effort and spoke, nodding his head.

"Yes. Oh, yes. I do love her."

Kate came closer, close enough to see the dumb pain in his eyes. She exclaimed aloud, "Philip! Is it Channing then, after all? You think he has come between you--irrevocably? No, but you are wrong! That is over, absolutely over. It is for you to take out the sting.--See, Philip, I am going to be quite frank with you, franker than women generally are, even with themselves. You don't know much about girls. I do--about my own girl, at least, for I was just such a girl once.--There comes a time to young women, as to all young animals, when we look about us for our mates. We may not seek, perhaps, but we look about. And the first that comes--is very welcome, Philip.--That is all. Nature's way. If Jacqueline still thinks of Channing--well, it is only blessed human instinct to put aside the thing that hurts. But you must help her--she can't do it, alone. Only a new love drives out the hurt of the old.

Jacqueline needs you, dear."

He put out a protesting hand. She was asking him for help, his lady. He must not let her beg....

He said with stiff lips, "You think--she--would be willing--to marry me?"

Kate nodded. "I suspect she'd like to show Mr. Channing as soon as possible how little impression he has left behind him!--But it wouldn't be that, of course," she added, seriously. "Underneath the other affair, she's always been a little in love with you, Philip. Women are complex creatures, with a capacity for being attracted quite in proportion to their capacity for attracting.... And after you are once married--You know, there's really no mystery about mating, except what the poets make. Nature goes about it with a beautiful simplicity. Given two young creatures, handsome, clean, healthy, mutually sympathetic, throw them together a while without too many distractions--and there you are! It's as inevitable as that two and two make four. Don't think too much about it, dear--you're too watchful, too introspective. Just let go, and be natural. She's very sweet, my Jacqueline, very loving and tender. And you--well, you're not unattractive, you know! Don't worry.--Why, I give you my word as a mother, as a woman," she exclaimed, "that a month after you and Jacqueline are married, you will both have forgotten any ridiculous little obstacle that ever kept you apart!..."

She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Come soon," she whispered. "It will comfort the child just now to know that she is wanted."

Philip had taken the kiss with closed eyes. When he opened them again, his room was empty. He ran to the window, and saw her, a shadow shape, swing into her saddle with a shadowy wave of the hand for him. He stood there watching her out of sight, so soon out of sight; his lady, the woman he loved, so infinitely kind, and beautiful, and cruel, heedless as the G.o.ds are of homage they do not need.

He groped his way back to the chair where she had sat, leaned his cheek where hers had rested--the place was still warm--and said good-by to her....

An hour later, before his courage had a chance to fail him, he rode to Storm and asked Jacqueline to marry him.

The girl put up her lips simply as a child. "I'd love to marry you, Phil, darling. How sweet of you to ask me! And now," she said eagerly, "let's go and tell Mummy. She'll be so pleased!"

CHAPTER XLI

So there was presently another wedding at Storm, or rather in the church at Storm; and Kate could have sung with the Psalmist: "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy ways, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

Jemima, who spent as much time as her husband would spare her at Storm, in the interval between the formal engagement and the wedding, tried conscientiously to summon up courage to end in some way a situation that seemed to her impossible. But her hints and innuendoes, broad as she dared make them, had no effect upon the radiant satisfaction of her mother, nor upon Philip himself, hedged around as he was with a sort of calm serenity, an uplifted, detached air, which she had not sufficient experience to recognize as the elation that goes with martyrdom.

She began to wonder if after all she had been mistaken in Philip's feeling for her mother. He seemed quite content, even happy.

Nevertheless, there was something about him that awed Jemima a little, made her usual frankness with him quite impossible.

With Jacqueline, however, she had no such feeling of awe, and she watched her sister with amazed impatience. Her infatuation for Channing had been a thing inexplicable to the fastidious Jemima; even more inexplicable was the ease with which she appeared to forget him for another lover.

Much of the girl's gaiety had returned to her. She entered into the wedding preparations with the eagerness of a child playing with a new toy. She spoke of Philip constantly, was always watching for his arrival, greeted him when he came with the utmost enthusiasm, clinging to him, sitting on the arm of his chair, kissing him, regardless of onlookers. True, she was quite as demonstrative with her mother, with James Thorpe, even with Jemima, when permitted; but, as the older girl said to herself in distaste, she was not going to marry them!

One day, shortly before the wedding, when Jemima arrived at Storm she was met by her mother at the door with finger upon lip.

"Hush! Jacky is singing again," whispered Kate, delightedly.

It was the first time the girl had been to the piano for weeks.