As they jogged along, man and mare at the same easy foot-pace, Benoix
said, "Are you sure that vase doesn't really belong to old Zeke, Miss
Kate?"
"No, I'm not," she answered frankly. "I suppose it does belong to him,
as a matter of fact. But the whole purpose of the Civic League I formed
among the village negroes was to keep their quarters decent. If it fails
of that--Well, the Madam giveth, and the Madam taketh away." She shot
him a mischievous glance. "Evidently you don't approve of me, Philip?"
"Of you. Not of your ethics, perhaps. They 're rather--feminine."
She shrugged. "Oh, well--feminine ethics are enough for Storm village.
They have to be," she said, succinctly.
Before them, outlined against the red round of the low sun, stood the
rambling gray outlines of a house, topping a small hill. From one of its
huge chimneys a pennant of smoke waved hospitably. The mare whinnied,
and chafed a little against the bit.
"Clover smells her oats," said Mrs. Kildare, "and I smell Big Liza's
ginger-bread. It makes me hungry. Let's go faster."
He did not seem to hear her. She glanced at his preoccupied face,
wondering at this unusual indifference to Big Liza's ginger-bread. "What
is it, Philip?"
"I have been thinking how to begin," he said slowly. "I've got to talk
to you about something disagreeable."
"Surely you can talk to me about anything, without 'beginning'?"
"Well--I want to ask you to do something very unpleasant. To evict a
tenant. Mag Henderson."
"That girl? But why?"
"Your agent says she's months behind in her rent."
"Smith talks too much. What if she is? I can afford to be patient with
her. The girl has had a hard time. Her father seems to have deserted
her. Oh, I know they're a shiftless pair, but half the prejudice against
them is that they are strangers. I know what that is," she added
bitterly. "I've been a stranger myself in a rural community. You'll have
to give me a better reason than that, Philip."
"I can," he said.
She lifted her eyebrows. "There's talk then? I suppose so. There's
always talk, if a girl 's pretty enough and unprotected enough. The poor
little foolish Mag Hendersons of the world! Oh," she cried, "I wonder
that men _dare_ to speak of them!"
"I dare," said Benoix, quietly. "I've my parish to think of. The girl's
a plague-spot. Vice is as contagious as any other disease. Besides, it
's a question of her own safety. She's been threatened. That's why the
father left."
"What?" cried Mrs. Kildare. "The 'Possum-Hunters'? You mean they are
trying to run my affairs again?"
It was several years since men in masks had waged their anonymous
warfare against certain tobacco planters whose plans did not accord with
the sentiment of the community. The organization of Night Riders was
supposed to be repressed. But power without penalty is too heady a draft
to be relinquished easily, by men who have once known the taste of it.
Benoix nodded. "She has had warning."
Mrs. Kildare's lips set in a straight line. "Let them come! They'll try
that sort of thing once too often."
"Yes--but it might be once too often for Mag, too. She--have you seen
her lately?"
The other looked at him quickly. "Oh," she said, "oh! Well, she sha'n't
suffer alone. Who's the man?"
"She will not tell."
"Loves him--poor thing!"
For a moment the priest showed in young Benoix' face. "Miss Kate! You
speak as if that made a difference," he said sternly.
"And doesn't it, doesn't it? Good Lord, how young you are! You'd better
pray that the years may teach you a little human weakness. I tell you,
Mag sha'n't bear it all. Whoever's concerned in this thing shall suffer
with her."
"I am afraid," said Benoix, reluctantly, "that would be--rather a large
order."
"Oh! It isn't--love, then." For a moment Mrs. Kildare stared straight in
front of her. Then she wheeled her horse, the pity in her face hardened
into disgust. "Go on, will you? And tell the girls to save me some of
that ginger-bread."
"Where are you going?"
"To evict Mag Henderson."
He protested. "But why to-night? Surely one night more! It will be very
hard. Why not let Smith attend to it?"
She gave him a bleak little smile. "My dear boy, if I had left all the
hard things to my manager to do, Storm to-day would be just where Basil
Kildare left it."
She cantered back along the road and turned up a weed-grown lane, her
face set and frowning. Despite her words to Benoix, at times like this
she felt a very feminine need of a man, and scorned herself for the
feeling.
Coming to a whitewashed log-cabin overgrown with morning-glories--the
only crop the shiftless Hendersons had been able to raise--she pounded
on the closed door with the butt of her crop. She heard a faint sound
within, but nobody came to answer.
"I hear you in there. Don't keep me waiting, Mag."
Still no answer. But once again the faint sound came. It might have been
the whining of an animal.
Mrs. Kildare jumped impatiently from her horse, and a few well-aimed
blows of fist and knee sent the frail lock flying. The door was
barricaded within by a bureau and a table and chairs--Mag's poor little
defense, evidently, against the "Possum-Hunters."
"Where are you, my girl?" demanded Mrs. Kildare less impatiently,
pushing her way to the back room. "It's not night-riders. It's the
Madam."
A little slim creature, hardly more than a child, writhed on a cot in
the corner, her eyes bright and fixed like the eyes of a rabbit Kate had
once seen caught in a trap, both fists stuffed into her mouth to stifle
the groans that burst out in spite of them.
"Git out!" the girl panted fiercely. "Lemme be! I don' want none of ye
'round, not none of ye. You go way from here!"
The change in Mrs. Kildare's face was wonderful. "Why, child, what's the
matter?" she said gently, even as she stripped off her gauntlets. For
she knew very well what was the matter. In a widely separated rural
community where doctors and nurses are scarce, the word "neighbor"
becomes more than a mere honorary title.
In a few moments she had a fire going, water boiling, what few clean
rags she could find sterilized. While she worked she talked, quietly and
cheerfully, watching the girl with experienced eyes. She did not like
her pulse nor her color. She saw that she was going to need help.
"I'll be back in ten minutes," she said presently. "I'm going to the
nearest telephone to get the doctor. Keep up your courage, Mag. Only ten
minutes!"
But the girl was clinging to her, by this time, moaning, begging,
praying as if to God. "No, no--you cain't leave me, you cain't! I been
alone so long. _Don'_ leave me alone! I know I'm bad, but O Gawd, I'm
skeert! Don' leave me to die all alone. You wouldn't leave a dawg die
all alone!"
Mrs. Kildare soothed her with touch and word, wondering what was to be
done. Through the open door she sent her strong voice ringing out across
the twilight fields, again and again. There was nobody to hear. All the
world had gone indoors to supper. Her waiting horse pawed the earth with
a soft, reproachful nicker, to remind her that horses, too, have their
time for supper. It gave her an idea.
"The children will be frightened, but I can't help that. I must have
somebody here," she murmured, and slapped the mare sharply on the flank.
"Home, Clover. Oats! Branmash! Hurry, pet!"
Obediently the startled creature broke into a trot, which presently, as
she realized that she was riderless, became a panic-stricken gallop.
Mrs. Kildare went back to her vigil.
It is a terrible experience to watch, helpless, the agony of a fellow
creature. She knelt beside the dirty pallet, her face as white as the
girl's, beads of sweat on her brow, paralyzed by her utter inability to
render aid--a new sensation to Mrs. Kildare. Maternity as she had known
it was a thing of awe, of dread, a great brooding shadow that had for
its reverse the most exquisite happiness God allows to the earth-born.
But maternity as it came to Mag Henderson! None of the preparations here
that women love to make, no little white-hung cradle, no piles of snowy
flannel, none of the precious small garments sewn with dreams; only
squalor, and shame, and fear unutterable.
Never a religious woman, Mrs. Kildare found herself presently engaged in
one of her rare conversations with the Almighty, explaining to Him how
young, how ignorant was this child to suffer so; how unfair that she
should be suffering alone; how wicked it was to send souls into the
world unwanted.
"You could do something about it, and You ought to," she urged, aloud.
"Oh, God, what a pity You are not a woman!"
Even in her agony, it seemed a queer sort of prayer to Mag Henderson.
But strong hands held hers close, a strong heart pounded courage into
hers; and who shall say that the helpless tears on Kate Kildare's face
were of no help to a girl who had known nothing in all her life of the
sisterhood of women?
At last came the sound of thudding hoofs in the lane, and a clear voice,
the echo of Kate's own, calling, "Mother! Where are you? _Mother!_
Answer me. I'm coming--"
Mrs. Kildare made a trumpet of her hands and shouted, "Here, Jack. Here
in Mag's cabin."
"Safe?"
"All safe."
"Phil, Phil!" called back the voice, breaking. "Come on. It's all right!
We've found her! She's safe!"
In a moment a whirlwind of pink muslin burst in at the door, and
enveloped Mrs. Kildare in an embrace which bade fair to suffocate, while
anxious hands felt and prodded her to be sure nothing was broken.
"Oh, Mummy darling," crooned the beautiful voice, "_how_ you frightened
us! You're sure no bones are smashed--nothing sprained? Poor Clover had
worked herself into a perfect panic, galloping home all alone. And the
servants screaming, and Jemima fearing the worst, as she always does.
And we didn't even know where to hunt for you, till Philip came--Oh,
_Mother_!"
"There, there, baby--it 's all right. No time for pettings now. There 's
work to be done. Why didn't Jemima come? This is no place for a madcap
like you."
Jacqueline chuckled and shivered. "The Apple Blossom"--she referred to
her elder sister, Jemima--"was turning your room into a hospital-ward
when I left, against the arrival of your mangled corpse. She had also
ordered the wagon prepared like an ambulance, mattresses, chloroform,
bandages--every gruesome detail complete. Our Jemima," she said, "is
having the time of her life--isn't she, Reverend Flip?"
Mrs. Kildare smiled in spite of herself. The description of her eldest
daughter was apt. But she said reprovingly, "Yon sound as if you were
making fun of your sister, dear. And don't call Philip 'the Reverend
Flip.' It is rude."
"Pooh! Rudeness is good for that elderly young man," murmured
Jacqueline, with an engaging smile in his direction.
But the elderly young man, standing at the door, did not notice. He was
gazing at Mrs. Kildare questioningly.
There had come a groan from the inner room.
"What's that?" cried Jacqueline. She ran to investigate. "Oh! The _poor_
thing! What's the matter with her?"
Benoix would have stopped her, but Kate said shortly, "Nonsense, Phil.
My girls were born women. You ride for the doctor."
At dawn a faint, fierce whisper came from the inner room.
"Whar's my babby? What you-all doin' with my babby? You ain't goin' to
take her away from me? No, _no_! She's mine, I tell you!"
Jacqueline hurried in to her with the tiny, whimpering bundle. "Of
course she's yours, and the sweetest, fattest darling. Oh, Mag, how I
envy you!" She kissed the other's cheek.
There was a third girl in the room, a dainty, pink and white little
person who well deserved her pet-name of the "Apple Blossom." She looked
up in quick distaste from the bandages her capable hands were preparing,
and went out to her mother.
"Isn't it like Jacqueline? To sit outside all night with her fingers
stuffed in her ears, because she couldn't stand the groaning, and then
to--kiss the creature!"
Jemima was nineteen, a most sophisticated young woman.
Her mother smiled a little. "Yes," she admitted, "it is like Jacqueline,
and that's why she's going to do poor Mag more good than either of us.
The doctor says we shall be able to take Mag and the baby home
presently."
"Home!" Philip Benoix looked at her in amaze. Like the others, his face
was drawn and pale with that strange vigil. Death does not come so close
without leaving its mark on the watchers. "Miss Kate, surely you're not
going to take Mag Henderson into your own home?"
"Where else? You wanted me to evict her. I can't evict her into space."
"But, the responsibility!"
"Yes, there is a responsibility," said Kate Kildare, musing. "I don't
know whether it's mine or God's, or whose--and I can't afford to take
any chances."
"It will be easier to look after them at home," commented the practical
Jemima.