Kate's thoughts, too, were busy with her young adventurers into the
world, throughout a wakeful night; only her anxieties did not concern
themselves with Jacqueline. A nature so trusting, so unconscious, so
bubbling over with friendliness toward all mankind, could not fail to
make friends for itself among strangers, among even enemies. She had
smiled to notice Jacqueline's success with the young men Thorpe had
brought to supper. Her own girlhood had been a succession of just such
triumphs. But belle as she was, many a ballroom had been spoiled for her
by the sight of girls to whom it was not a scene of triumph, to whom it
was no less than a battlefield, where the vanquished face defeat with
the fixed and piteous smile of the hopeless wallflower.
Her heart yearned over her eldest daughter. Poor, clever, pretty Jemima,
who knew so well what she wanted of life, and wanted it so determinedly!
A world of which carefree gaiety is the essential element might be very
cruel to Jemima. If Kate could have plucked out her own charm by the
roots and given it to her child for a weapon, she would have done it
thankfully.
She fell asleep at last over one of the prayers that had been
unconsciously upon her lips that day: "Make people nice to them, God!
You must see that my girls have partners, both of them, since I am not
there to attend to it myself."
Kate's relations with her Creator, while informal, were remarkably
confident, for a woman who believed herself non-religious....
It was a worn and leaden-eyed professor who returned the adventurers to
Storm late the next day.
"Take me to a bed," he demanded wearily. "No, I shall not have supper,
nor a julep, nor anything but a bed. I'd like to sleep without stirring
for a week!"
Jacqueline embraced him with the arm that was not at the moment
embracing her mother. "Poor old Goddy! Was it done to a frazzle,
turkey-trotting with all the chaperons? You ought to have seen 'em,
Mummy! Ladies as old as you are, yes, and older! hopping about like
Dervishes. I'm glad you don't do such things.--But it was glorious!
Crowds of beaux, and I tore all the lace off my petticoat, and we made
the band play 'Home, Sweet Home,' five times. You know that is what they
play when the party is over."
"Still?" murmured Kate, smiling. She had a momentary recollection of
times when she, too, had made the band repeat "Home, Sweet Home," she
with Basil Kildare....
"As for Jemmy," went on the eager, excited voice. "You just ought to
have seen her! My, my!"
"What about Jemmy?" asked the mother, quickly.
"Why, she gathered in the handsomest man in the room, simply annexed
him. He broke in on every dance and took her to a corner to talk! All
those snippy girls in the dressing-room were wild with jealousy. Don't
ask me how she did it. _I_ don't know! Tell mother how you did it, Jem."
"Oh, it was simple enough," said the other, shrugging. "I saw that I was
not going to have a very good time unless I had somebody to fall back
on, so I selected him. He wore his hair rather long and romantic. I told
him he had the face of a poet. He spent the rest of the evening reciting
original verses to me. That was all. But it looked well."
Kate gazed at her daughter with respect. Her anxiety for Jemima's future
died on the spot.
"And Jacqueline?" she murmured. "Did she, too, manage to distinguish
herself?"
"Oh, Jacky never needs to manage," said the older girl, with a pride in
her little sister that was not lacking in nobility. "Whenever I wanted
to find Jacky, I looked for the nearest crowd of men. They were like
flies around a honey-pot."
Thorpe nodded smiling confirmation. "It was like old times. More than
one person said to me, 'Kate Leigh is back again!'"
She flushed, incredulously. "They spoke of _me_?"
"Of course they did," cried Jacqueline, hugging her. "I was so proud.
All the old men told me I looked like you, and most of them tried to
kiss me when they got me alone."
"Great Heavens! I hope they didn't succeed?"
"Not all of them," said Jacqueline, demurely....
But her mother was not laughing when she followed Jemima into her room,
and closed the door behind them.
"Now tell me everything that happened. What did Jacqueline mean by
'snippy' girls? Were any of those women rude to you?"
"Oh, no, Mother, not rude, of course." The lift of Jemima's chin said
quite plainly, "I should not have permitted that."
"But they were not nice to you?"
The girl hesitated. Slowly the blood mounted up her delicate cheeks to
the roots of her hair. Kate saw with dismay that her lips were
trembling.
"My child!"--she took a step toward her.
But Jemima drew back, mastering herself. "Somebody ought to have told
us, you or Professor Jim, or somebody," she said, quaveringly, "Perhaps
you didn't know, but--Oh, Mother we made a dreadful mistake!"
"In going?" Kate clenched her hands. The look on her set face boded ill
for people who had hurt her children.
"Those ball dresses!" Jemima brought it out with a despairing sob. "How
was I to know? The magazines didn't say anything about it, and nobody
told me. But all the other girls wore hats and high necks! Some of them
even had on coat suits!"
Kate stared. "Is that all?" Suddenly she threw back her head, and
laughed until she cried. She tried to stop, realizing that the thing was
no less than a tragedy to ambitious Jemima. But the relief after what
she had feared for them was too great.
"It seems to amuse you, Mother," said the girl, with dignity. "Perhaps
you are above such things. Jacqueline and I are not. It was not pleasant
to be thought country green-horns by all those strange, staring people.
That author, Mr. Channing, was there, too,--and never came near me,
though I think he did dance once or twice with Jacqueline.--There is
nothing, nothing in this world," she said passionately, "as terrible as
being different!"
Somewhere in Kate's reading she had come across a phrase that stuck,
"The Herd-spirit, which shuns abnormality." She searched for the words
to comfort her child, and found them.
"My dear, since the world began people of unusual ability have found
themselves 'different,' and have suffered because of it. It is not a
matter of dress, or manner, or any outside thing, and assuredly it is
not a difference to be ashamed of. People like us," she said quietly,
"must learn to smile at the Herd-spirit."
Jemima's eyes met hers squarely. An answering gleam came into them; and
for the moment the barrier between mother and daughter was down. They
recognized each other.
The following week brought a pleasant surprise, and Jemima was comforted
further. It was a letter from an old school friend of Mrs. Kildare's,
Mrs. Lawrence, reminding her of their early intimacy, speaking of the
pleasure it had been to meet her two lovely daughters, and inviting them
to visit her in Lexington at a date named, that they might share with
her own daughters some of the gaieties of town life.
Kate suspected Thorpe's hand in this invitation. For twenty years Mrs.
Lawrence had lived within an hour's railroad journey of Storm, and this
was the first reminder of their friendship. But far from resenting the
belated kindness, she was deeply grateful for it; a fact which caused
young Jemima's pride to wince for her mother. She herself, in such
circumstances, would have returned the letter without comment.
Nevertheless, it was she who decided her mother to accept the
invitation. Kate had hesitated, dreading to expose her children for the
second time unprotected to the mercies of people who had ostracized her.
But Jemima said with her usual decision, "We must go, of course, since
you have no personal objection. It would be foolish to decline any
opportunity that offers. That is what Professor Jim gave us the party
for; to create opportunities."
"Is it?" asked Kate. "I thought it was to make friends."
"The same thing," explained Jemima. "One has to consider the future."
To the amaze of both, however, Jacqueline flatly declined to visit Mrs.
Lawrence on any terms whatsoever.
"I'd rather stay here," was her calm response to all her sister's
pleading.
"But, Jacky, we must get to know some girls!"
"Why must we? Silly, giggling, whispering creatures--you go and make the
girl friends, Jemmy! I'd rather have beaux."
"And how are you to find any around here, I'd like to know?"
Jacqueline smiled demurely. "Perhaps they'll come and find me." Jemima
could cheerfully have shaken her. "Anyway, I'd rather stay with mummy,
and baby Kitty, and the colts, and all. You go and do the society act
for both of us, sister," she coaxed. "You do it so beautifully. Think
how you annexed that beautiful young man all those girls were smitten
with! And you know how to be politely rude to people. I don't."
Occasionally her young sister's powers of observation surprised Jemima.
She heaved a sigh. "I suppose I shall have to go alone, then," she said.
"Somebody will always do your share of the world's work, Jacky,"--but
she kissed her sister even as she scolded her.
Kate was more than a little puzzled. With a return of her old
shrewdness, she sought for possible reasons that might be keeping this
joyous, pleasure-loving replica of her young self from the scene of
further triumphs. Was it simply shyness? But Jacqueline had never been
self-conscious enough to be shy. Had something occurred to rouse in her
the fierce Kildare pride? Kate dismissed that fear promptly. Snubs and
slights would fall harmless from such an armor of confidence in the
world's friendly intentions toward her. Jacqueline would not recognize
an insult if she saw it.
Her study of the girl made her aware for the first time of the change
that had taken place in her. She saw, startled, that tender, radiant,
exquisite young woman who had replaced her little daughter.
Instantly her thoughts went to Philip. Could it be Philip who was
keeping her at home?
Kate's heart leaped in her breast. This marriage, planned in
Jacqueline's infancy to clear her name and her children's from at least
one stigma that rested upon it, had never been out of her mind. Now it
was the one thing toward which her hopes, so lately torn from their
rooted hold, were still straining. Jacques' son and her daughter--at
least there should be that tie between herself and the man she loved.
Some day perhaps her grandson would look at her with the eyes of
Jacques....
The girl, she had believed, must be still too young for any thought of
marriage. But was she? Was she? The Leigh women matured early. She
herself had been quite ready for marriage at seventeen. As for Philip,
how was it with him?
From the day she had brought him home with her from his boarding-school,
a sensitive, lonely lad of fourteen, he had been like a big brother to
her children; at first their guardian playfellow, sharing with them his
lore of field and wood and stream; later their tutor, during the months
when he was not absent at the seminary which the old rector of the
parish had persuaded him to enter; later still, their spiritual adviser
and director, exercising over them a certain quiet authority which
amused their mother but which was not resented in the least by either of
the high-spirited girls. He and Jemima were excellent friends, or had
been until her recent discovery about his father. It was to the older
girl he turned for assistance in parish matters, and Kate realized that
Jemima was far better fitted than her light-hearted sister for the
manifold duties of a clergyman's wife. But from the first, little
Jacqueline had been his especial pet and comrade--possibly because of
her resemblance to her mother. They rode together, sang together, read
together, even quarreled together, with a familiarity which shocked
Jemima's inborn respect for "the Cloth".... Had there been always in
this marked favoritism the germ of love? the mother wondered.
Of late Philip had been more at the house even than usual. He dropped in
at all hours of the day with the excuse of books to be brought, new
music to be tried, matters of many sorts to be discussed. It reminded
Kate a little sadly of the days when his father had found just such
excuses to spend his time at Storm. To be sure, he rarely found
Jacqueline at home, and as Jemima systematically avoided him nowadays,
he was thrown almost entirely upon her own companionship. But Kate
easily persuaded herself that this was merely an accident, and one which
she might in future control.
Now that she had thought of it, she had twice lately met Philip with
Jacqueline, riding very slowly and in earnest conversation--those two,
who usually took the roads and the fields at a flying gallop, daring
each other on to further recklessness. Also, she recalled the last miles
of that journey from Frankfort, when the girl sat between them, playing
with hands, lips, and crooning voice her self-appointed rôle of
comforter. It would be a stony-hearted celibate indeed who resisted
little Jacqueline in the rôle of comforter.
Kate Kildare smiled to herself, content. At least one of her dreams was
coming true. The old lying scandal would die in time and be forgotten.
Fate, her enemy--what match was it for three such allies as propinquity,
nature, and a wise mother?