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KILDARES OF STORM
by
ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY
With Frontispiece by Alonzo Kimball
New York
The Century Co.
1916
Copyright, 1916, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1916
TO AN UNFORGOTTEN MOTHER
Who moulded for others than her daughter
the standard of great womanhood
[Illustration: But for once Jacqueline of the eager lips turned her
cheek, so that her mother's kiss should not disturb the memory of
certain others]
KILDARES OF STORM
CHAPTER I
Along a pleasant Kentucky road that followed nature rather than art in
its curves and meanderings, straying beside a brook awhile before it
decided to cross, lingering in cool, leafy hollows, climbing a sudden
little hill to take a look out over the rolling countryside--along this
road a single-footing mare went steadily, carrying a woman who rode
cross-saddle, with a large china vase tucked under one arm.
People in an approaching automobile stopped talking to stare at her. She
returned their gaze calmly, while the startled mare made some effort to
climb a tree, thought better of it, and sidled by with a tremulous
effort at self-control. A man in the machine lifted his hat with some
eagerness. The woman inclined her head as a queen might acknowledge the
plaudits of the multitude.
After they passed, comments were audible.
"What a stunner! Who is she, Jack?" The voice was masculine.
"Riding cross-saddle! Jack, do you know her?" The voice was feminine.
The answer was lower, but the woman on horseback heard it. "Of course I
know her, or used to. It is the woman I was telling you about, the
famous Mrs. Kildare of Storm."
Mrs. Kildare's color did not change as she rode on. Perhaps her lips
tightened a little; otherwise the serenity of her face was unaltered.
Serenity, like patience, is a thing that must be won, a habit of mind
not easily to be broken. She reminded herself that since the invasion of
automobiles she must expect often to encounter people who had known her
before.
Her eyes, keen and gray and slightly narrowed, like all eyes that are
accustomed to gaze across wide spaces, turned from side to side with
quick, observant glances. Negroes, "worming" tobacco in a field, bent to
their work as she passed with a sudden access of zeal.
"That's right, boys," she called, smiling. "The Madam sees you!"
The negroes guffawed sheepishly in answer.
A certain warmth was in her gaze as she looked about, her, something
deeper than mere pride of possession. Her feeling for the land she owned
was curiously maternal. "My dear fields," she sometimes said to herself.
"My cattle, my trees"; and even, "my birds, my pretty, fleecy clouds up
there."
When she came to a certain cornfield, acres of thrifty stalks standing
their seven feet and more, green to the roots, plumes nodding proudly in
the breeze, she faced her mare about and saluted, as an officer might
salute his regiment.
A chuckle sounded from the other side of the road. On a bank almost
level with her head a young man lay under a beech-tree, watching her
with kindling eyes, as he had watched her ever since she rode into
sight. "Miss Kate, Miss Kate, when are you going to grow up and give
those girls of yours a chance?"
Her surprised blush took all the maturity out of her face. She might
have been twenty. "Spying on me as usual, Philip! Well, why shouldn't I
salute this corn of mine? It certainly serves me nobly."
He came down from the bank and stood beside her; a stalwart young man in
shabby riding-boots and a clerical collar, with eyes surprisingly blue
in a dark, aquiline, un-Anglo-Saxon face. They were filled just now with
a look that made the lady blush again.
He was thinking (no new thought to Kentuckians) that of all the products
of his great commonwealth, nothing equalled such women as this before
him. Erect, deep-bosomed, with the warm brown flush of her cheeks, her
level gaze, her tender mouth with the deep corners that mean humor--Kate
Kildare, from girlhood to old age, would find in eyes that gazed on her
the unconscious tribute that many women never know, and for that reason
happily do not miss. But the vital quality of her beauty was not a
matter of color, or form, or feature. It was a thing that had come to
her since her first youth, a glow from within, the sort of spiritual
fire at which a friend may warm himself. If happiness is a great
beautifier, Philip Benoix believed he knew of one greater: sorrow.
"Well, well?" she demanded, laughing. "What are you staring at, boy? Why
are you ogling me in that sentimental fashion? Have you mistaken me
for--Jacqueline, perhaps?"
If she hoped to embarrass him in turn, she was disappointed. He shook
his head. "If I were to ogle Jacqueline sentimentally, she'd slap me.
Miss Kate," he added, "don't you know that saluting your corn was just
your pagan way of thanking God? Why not come to church and do it
properly?"
"You may just as well give it up. I shall never go to church. I don't
like church, so there! Stop talking shop, and come home to supper with
me. What are you doing here, anyway, lolling about like a man of
leisure, as if there were no souls to be saved?"
"I was lying in wait for yours. I knew you were out on a tour of
inspection, and bound to pass this way."
"Did you want to see me especially?"
"I always do."
She flicked him with her riding-crop, "You're more Irish than French
to-day! And where's your horse?"
"Well, old Tom seemed so comfortable and tired, munching away in his
stall, that I hadn't the heart--"
"So you walked. Of course _you_ weren't tired! Oh, Phil, Phil, you are
your father's own son; too soft-hearted for this 'miserable and naughty
world.' It won't be able to resist taking a whack at you."
A little silence fell between them. Both were thinking of a man who was
no longer quite of this miserable and naughty world.
"Take my stirrup and trot along beside me, boy," she said. "We'll go
faster that way. I wish you were still small enough to climb up behind
me as you used to do--remember?"
His face suddenly quivered. "Are you asking me if I remember!--You have
never let me tell you how well I remember, nor what your kindness meant
to me, in those first days"--He spoke haltingly, yet with a sudden rush,
as men speak whose hearts are full. "I was the loneliest little chap in
the world, I think. Father and I had always been such friends. They
tried to be kind, there at school; but they acted as if I were something
strange; they watched me. I knew they were pitying me, remembering
father, studying me for signs of inheritance. The son of a 'killer.' It
was a dangerous time for a boy to be going through alone.... And then
you came and brought me home with you; made me play with those babies of
yours, took me with you wherever you went, read with me and discussed
things with me as if I were an equal, talked to me about father, too. Do
you think I don't know all it meant to you? Do you think I did not
realize, even then, what people were saying?"
"I have never been much afraid," said Kate Kildare quietly, "of what
people were saying."
"No. And because of you, I dared not be afraid, either. Because of you I
knew that I must stay and make my fight here, here where my father had
failed. Oh, Kate Kildare, whatever manhood I may have I owe--"
"To your father," she said.
"Perhaps. But whatever good there is in me, you kept alive."
"Dear, dear! And that's why," she cried, with an attempt at lightness,
"you feel it your duty to strike attitudes in your pulpit and keep the
good alive in the rest of us?"
"That's why," he said, soberly, "But not you, Miss Kate. I do not preach
to you. No man alive is good enough to preach to you."
"Good Heavens! When you have just been doing it!" Her laugh was rather
tremulous. "What is this--a declaration? Are you making love to me,
boy?"
He nodded without speaking.
The flush and the laughter died out of her face, leaving it very pale.
"Look here," she said haltingly, "I'd like to accept your hero-worship,
dear--it's sweet. But--If I've not been a very good woman, at least
I've always been an honest one. You said even at that time you realized
what people were saying. Did it never occur to you that what they
said--might be true?"
He met her gaze unfalteringly. "I know you," he answered.
Her eyes went dim. Blindly she stooped and drew his head to her and
kissed him.
At that moment a plaintive negro voice spoke close at hand. "Gawd sakes,
Miss Kate, whar you gwine at wif my prize? Huccom you took'n hit away
fum me?"
Unnoticed, an old, shambling negro had approached across the field, and
was gazing in wide-eyed dismay at the china vase under her arm.
Mrs. Kildare welcomed the interruption. She did not often encourage her
emotions.
"Aha! Well met, Ezekiel," she said dramatically. "Search your heart,
search your black heart, I say, and tell me whether a magnificent trophy
like this deserves no better resting place than a cabin whose door-yard
looks like a pig-sty."
"But ain't I done won it?" insisted the negro. "Ain't I done won it fa'r
and squar'? Wan't my do'-yahd de purtiest in de whole Physick League?"
"It was, two weeks ago; and now what is it? A desert, a Sahara strewn
with tomato-cans and ashes. No, no, Ezekiel. Winning a prize isn't
enough for the Civic League--nor for God," she announced, sententiously.
"You've got to keep it won."
She moved on, resistless, like Fate. The negro gazed after her, his
month quivering childishly.
"She's a hard 'ooman, the Madam, a mighty hard 'ooman! Huccom she
kissin' Mr. Philip Benoix dataway? Him a preacher, too!" Suddenly his
eye gleamed with a forgotten memory. "De French doctor's boy--my Lawd!
De French doctor's own chile!" He shook his fist after the retreating
pair. "White 'ooman, white 'ooman, ain't you got no shame 't all?" he
muttered--but very low, for the Madam had good ears.