Years before, when gentle Mrs. Leigh turned her back forever upon the
beloved Bluegrass town of her youth, and came to spend the remaining
years of her life at Storm--for with all her ineffectiveness she was not
the woman to leave her daughter alone in disgrace and sorrow--Kate had
tried to make the strange country more homelike for her by building an
Episcopal church. Meeting-houses of several denominations had been long
established there; but to Mrs. Leigh, with Virginia and English
antecedents, "church" meant candles on the altar, a vested choir, a
rector in robes reading the familiar service of her childhood. She was
willing to concede to Methodists, Baptists, Campbellites, other
attendants of meeting-houses, a possible place in heaven; but hardly in
the best society of heaven; and she was one of the people who cannot
worship God comfortably except in the best society.
The church Kate built was small and plain--she had found her husband's
estate heavily encumbered with debt. But it had its cross, its choir,
and its rector, a scholarly old man who persuaded Philip into the
ministry and who on his death was succeeded by him. And from the first
it had its congregation. The farming people of that section of the State
had come, or their immediate forebears had come, almost entirely from
Virginia, so that the English service was as much a part of their
traditions as of Mrs. Leigh's. The building of the first Episcopal
church in that country did more to break down the enmity toward Basil
Kildare's young widow than any of her patient efforts to win their
friendship; and this despite the fact that she herself rarely entered
it.
The little edifice stood in a grove of fine beeches between Storm and
the crossroads village; a four-square structure of field boulders, with
a modest steeple, and a gallery across the back for negroes, in the
patriarchal Virginia fashion. The mistress of Storm saw to it that this
gallery was well filled. The corner-stone bore an inscription that
excited much comment in the community, as Kate intended it should:
ERECTED IN MEMORY OF BASIL KILDARE
BY HIS TWO CHILDREN
It was the first word of her answer to the world, and it had its weight.
"It says _his_ two children. She wouldn't dare to tell a lie on stone!"
was the current opinion.
Near the church was the rectory, one of those log-cabins boarded over
and whitewashed, which are still quite common in Kentucky, sturdy
mementoes of the sturdy pioneers whom they have outlived and will
outlive for many a generation yet to come. Lilac, hollyhock, and
hydrangea bloomed in season about this cabin, and it had a door-yard
that made women linger enviously and men smile in scorn; for to these
rough, hard-working, hard-living farmers it seemed that a young man
might find better use for his leisure than the tending of flowers.
He had other weaknesses than flowers. The walls of his long living-room
were lined with books, many of them "poetry-books," and the rector was
reported to have read them all. Passers-by often heard him playing
softly on his mother's old piano, and more than once he had been
discovered in the kitchen, cooking his own dinner. The one servant he
kept was an ancient negress addicted to the use of whisky and cocaine.
To those who remonstrated with him for keeping the old woman, he
explained that he got her very cheap because of her habits; but the
community suspected other reasons, and despised him accordingly.
Their scorn of his "softness," however, failed to extend to the man
himself. Different, they found him, reserved, a little cold, unless they
happened to be in trouble; but never alien. For one thing, he had
inherited from his father a gift that made "the French doctor" long
remembered in that horse-raising community. It was an understanding of
horses, indeed of all brute creatures, that amounted almost to wizardry.
There was never a colt so unmanageable that he could not bring it to
terms, without the aid of either whip or spur; never an equine ailment
too subtle for him to discover and alleviate. At all hours of the day or
night owners of sick beasts sent for the young rector as they had sent
for his father, confident of willing assistance.
He had created his reputation by entering, against all protests, the
stall of a crazed stallion which had just mangled its groom. "I want to
look at his mouth," he explained. "Just as I thought! It's an ulcerated
tooth. Give me my lancet. No wonder the poor beast was vicious!"
Philip had made the discovery among animals made by his father among
men, that most wickedness may be traced to physical causes. He had also
been heard to say, not very originally, that horses needed more care
than people, because people had speech and religion to help them and
horses had neither; a saying which deeply endeared him to a community
that ranks its thoroughbreds with its wives.
Two other qualities of his offset, in the eyes of the neighborhood, the
matter of the flowers, the poetry-books, and the cooking. He had
courage, and he had a temper, both proved. A few years previously,
during the "tobacco-war" which upset the State, when the entire
countryside was terrified by the outrages of the Night-Riders who had
taken justice into their own hands, after the fashion of the moribund
Ku-Klux Klan, young Benoix alone, of all the pastors in his
neighborhood, did not hesitate to denounce from his pulpit Sunday after
Sunday the men who resorted to masked terrorism as sneaks, cowards, and
murderers. And this, despite the fact that the majority of his
congregation were in sympathy with the Night-Riders for the best of
reasons--kinship. Indeed, more than one man who listened to him with a
stolid face had worn the mask and wielded the whip and torch himself.
Benoix knew it; they knew that he did. They knew also that no possible
circumstance could persuade him to give up one of the names he suspected
to the law he was determined to uphold.
Anonymous letters came to him, warning, insulting, threatening his
personal safety. More than one advised him to go armed. His board of
vestrymen themselves remonstrated, counseling moderation for fear of
alienating the congregation. His reply became famous throughout the
State.
"Look here!" he cried, his blue eyes suddenly ablaze. "You want me to
shut up, do you? Then behave yourselves, and see that your sons behave
themselves. I'm talking to you, and you, and you--" he pointed direct at
several of his vestrymen. "I want you to understand that I'm a disciple
of peace. And, by God, I'm going to have peace in this parish if I have
to fight for it with my fists!"
Such a man was Philip Benoix, priest, dreamer, idealist, son of a
convicted murderer, lover of the woman who for seventeen years had been
faithful to his father. He believed his great devotion a secret.
Probably the only person within twenty miles who had not guessed it long
ago was Kate Kildare herself....
Some Sundays after his father's release from prison, Philip, striding
across the rectory garden in gown and cassock, was aware of a subdued
stir among the men who lounged at the church door, waiting for service
to begin. A light surrey was approaching which he knew well, drawn by
the Madam's favorite bay colts. It was the second Storm vehicle to
arrive that morning. Jemima and Jacqueline were already within; Jemima
at the organ, which she manipulated capably if unemotionally; Jacqueline
marshaling her choir of farm boys and girls into a whispering, giggling
semblance of order. In the gallery sat the usual quota of Storm
servants, for Kate Kildare's household took its religion each week as
faithfully as it took its tonics and calomel in due season.
With a throb of the heart, Philip realised that it must be his lady
herself who drove those prancing bays. He thought over his sermon
hastily.--Yes, it was good enough.
She drew the colts up on their haunches, flung the lines with a smile to
the nearest bystander, and walked up the aisle with her free, swinging
step, followed by a girl carrying a baby. The girl was Mag Henderson.
The sensation caused by this double appearance was immense. It was the
first time many of the congregation had seen the Madam since the
much-talked-of disappearance of Dr. Benoix, and they were eager to see
how she took it. From all appearances she seemed to be taking it very
calmly; a little paler than usual, perhaps; her eyes extraordinarily
dark, but nothing to suggest the illness that had been rumored. Rather
disappointed, they turned their eyes upon her companion; and then the
whispering broke out like the buzzing of a swarm of angry bees.
Mrs. Kildare had brought Mag's baby to be baptized. Philip wondered why
she had come without warning. He did not guess that only an impulse of
sudden courage had brought her there at all. She remembered too keenly
the last time she had come to church with a baby to be baptized.
That was why, perhaps, she so rarely honored with her presence the
church she had built; but she could not explain this reluctance to
Philip. "Church is too small for me," she said to him, airily. "My soul
doesn't breathe between walls very well. I have to do my praying in the
open."
It had long been her custom on Sunday mornings to ride among the
deserted fields with her dogs, taking note of what had been accomplished
during the week past, planning work for the week to come, visiting such
of her tenants or laborers as were sick or incapacitated. Sometimes as
she passed she heard Philip's voice in the pulpit, and stopped for a
while to listen to him. It was no unusual thing for him to see her
there, framed in the sunny square of the open doorway, sitting her
restive horse, surrounded by dogs who leaped and gamboled eagerly, but
in perfect silence, out of respect for the long whip she carried. At
such moments his congregation nudged each other in sympathetic
amusement. Without turning to see, they knew by his flush and his
halting speech who was outside.
But to-day there was no flushing or faltering of speech. Unprepared as
he was, the priest in Philip woke to the necessity, and in his message
the messenger forgot himself. Noting the women's curious, hostile
glances, the buzzing whispers, the stiff-necked anger of the men,
several of whom did not enter the church at all, he laid aside the text
he had prepared and spoke to his people directly and very simply of that
most dramatic episode in history, when Christ said to the crowd in the
streets, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."
While he spoke, he watched the girl sitting beside Mrs. Kildare, and at
the first sign of shrinking, of embarrassment, he would have slipped at
once into another theme. But there was no shrinking in that pretty,
empty face. Indeed, after the first few moments of shyness before so
large an audience, the girl looked about her openly, bridling, pleased
with the attention she was attracting in her new dress and with her new
baby. If there was menace in those staring faces, the Madam was there to
protect her. It was no new thing to the girl to be prayed over; this had
come to be an attention she expected from preachers. Young as she was,
there had been good reason for her leaving the town from which she came
to Storm. But a whole sermon about herself, right out in church! It was
a proud moment for Mag.
Benoix, his eyes on her face, sighed even as he spoke, realizing the
probable hopelessness of Mrs. Kildare's effort.
The congregation was free to leave at the close of the regular service,
without waiting for the christening. But it did not leave. For one
thing, there was the Madam to be welcomed to church--excuse enough for
those who needed excuse. To their shocked surprise the child was
christened by the Madam's own name, "Katherine."
Afterwards, to each of the women who shook her hand, Kate said some such
thing as this:
"You know Mag Henderson here, don't you? We've discovered that she is
quite a wonderful dressmaker. Yes, she made the dress I have on, and
those my girls are wearing. She is a stranger among us, too, so that of
course we must find her plenty of work. That is only hospitable."
Kate knew her people when she appealed to their hospitality. Many a
village gossip, many a virtuous farmer's wife who had pursed her lips
and kept her skirts from degrading contact with the notorious Mag
Henderson, found herself pledged to employ the Madam's protégée for her
next dressmaking.
"It does beat all," Mrs. Sykes was heard to murmur helplessly, "how that
woman gets folks to do whatever she wants 'em to! 'Birds of a feather,'
_I_ say. But there! If she's willin' to give that misbegotten child her
own Christian name, it won't do for the rest of us to be too
toploftical. And them girls," she added, "certainly do dress stylish."
Philip usually took his Sunday dinner at Storm, and the congregation had
the further privilege of watching their rector drive away in the same
surrey with the Madam and Mag, apparently upon the most intimate and
cordial relations with Mag's infant.
Mrs. Kildare, more sensitive of disapproving eyes for her friends than
for herself, suggested that he come home with Jemima and Jacqueline
instead.
"I'm a little uneasy about the mare Jacqueline is driving," she said,
for an excuse.
"Pooh! Jacqueline can handle anything I can," Philip smiled. "Besides, I
want to speak to you about something in particular."
"You usually do," murmured Kate, teasingly. She found his open
partiality for her society rather amusing.
He was silent until they had passed the long line of homeward-bound
vehicles, drawn respectfully out of the Madam's way. Then he said in a
low voice, "Henderson is back in his cabin. Did you know it?"
Low as he spoke, the girl on the back seat heard him. "Not Pappy?" she
cried. "Oh, oh, he's come for me agin! Please don't let me go back to
him, _please_ don't! I don't want to, I don't want to!"
"Why?" demanded Kate, sharply. "Was he cruel to you, Mag?"
"No'm, he wa'n't. He was always real kind, even if he was drunk; never
kicked me, nor cussed me, nor nuthin'. But I don't want to go back to
him. I'd ruther stay with you. Hit don't matter so much about me--I'm
spiled anyway--but I don't never want Pappy to git my baby!"
Kate gave Philip a puzzled glance, which he met gravely. "Let her
explain to you," he said.
"Is it because you are more comfortable that you want to stay with me?"
asked Mrs. Kildare. "Is it that?"
"That ain't all." The girl's hands were working together. "'Tain't safe
for Pappy here, noways. Them Night Riders'll git him, shore. And he's so
po'ly he couldn't stand a whippin'. It'd kill him. Oh, please, you make
him go 'way, Miss Kate! Tell him I'll send him money soon as ever I git
work, but make him go 'way. He shan't have my baby, he shan't!" She
began to sob.
"There, there, Mag, don't be foolish. What would he want with your
baby?"
"She's a gal."
Vaguely, understanding began to drift in to Kate. Her voice shook
suddenly as she said, "What do you mean about the Night Riders getting
your father? He is in no danger from them with you not there. It was you
they threatened."
"No'm, 't were Pappy. That's how he come to run away. They got down on
him fer makin' me do like I done."
"_Making_ you--?" gasped Kate Kildare.
"Yes'm! It were him what found the men and brought 'em round. But it
wa'n't no business of them Night Riders," said the girl resentfully. "I
didn't mind. It were a easy way of makin' money, easier 'n workin'.
Pappy's so po'ly, he ain't got the strength to work hisself. Only--" she
began to cry again--"I know it ain't nice, and I don't want my baby
should do that-a-way, not ever. I want she should grow up a lady, like
you."
Kate was shivering uncontrollably. Over the brooding Sabbath stillness
of her fields it seemed to her that a strange miasma was creeping, which
shadowed the light of the sun. She had read of such horrors as this. She
had thought of that strange traffic, the White Slave trade, as of some
hideous, modern depravity that belonged to another and harsher world
than her own. Yet here, almost within sight of the home that sheltered
her children, here in the domain where her will was law, where she had
believed herself cognizant of the doings of every man and woman and
child--the thing had been going on unknown to her; the sacrifice of a
little girl creature, not in the name of love (her tolerant mind found
it difficult to condemn the sinning of stupid, healthy young human
animals) but in the name of filial piety.--"Filial piety!" Always
afterward the smug phrase was hideous to her.
"Well," said Philip, rather hoarsely, "what are we to do with this--this
man?"
"Let the Night Riders have him, and welcome!"
But Mag intervened once more in her father's behalf. "No, no, they'd
kill him, shore! He's so sickly. Don't you let 'em git him, Miss Kate,
don't you! He's always been real kind to me, even when he's drunk. Don't
you let 'em git him!"
"Do you love him, Mag?" asked Kate, wonderingly.
"In co'se I do. He's my Pappy."
The others could not speak for a moment. Her unexpected loyalty to the
father who had been "real kind" to her got them by the throat.
"What do you want me to do with him?" Mrs. Kildare asked at last.
"Jes' make him go away. Tell him he dassent come back no more. I reckon
he thinks you'll take keer of him 'cause you're takin' keer of me. Ef he
knows you ain't a-goin' to, he'll go away."
"Very well," said the other, gently, "he shall go away. And, Mag--" she
reached back to grip the girl's hand strongly with hers--"he shall never
have your baby. She shall grow up as nearly a 'lady' as I can make her.
You have my word for that."