The weeks that followed were the most contented of Kate Kildare's life,
despite her loneliness in her great house, with no companion except the
negro servants and Mag's baby. She felt like a captain who has carried
his ship into port after a stormy passage. Her children were provided
for; they were safe; life, which had treated her so harshly, was
powerless to hurt them now. It was an attitude of mind that is apt to be
rather tempting to the gods....
Jacqueline entered into her new rôle with touching eagerness. Somewhat
to his surprise, Philip found her quite invaluable in his parochial
work. She took much of the visiting off his hands, held Mothers'
Meetings and Bible classes; taught Sunday-school; busied her
unaccustomed needle quite happily with altar-cloths and vestments, and
even more happily with socks and buttons. She discussed housekeeping
matters very seriously with her mother and Jemima, more seriously than
she practised them, perhaps, for Ella, trained by the Madam, had taken
her two "young folks" into her protection with a capable thoroughness
that is the acme of good African service, and proceeded to create such
an atmosphere of comfort in the rectory as Philip had not thought
possible.
He had always found his little home a pleasant place to come to; but now
it was more than pleasant, with Jacqueline's eager face watching for him
at the window, or her beautiful voice mingling in the twilight with the
tinkling notes of his old piano. The punching-bag and other purely
masculine paraphernalia had been banished to his own room, and the
living-room, alas! had lost its aspect of meticulous neatness. But when
Philip found a darning-basket spilled into his usual chair, or a
riding-glove of Jacqueline's lying among the scattered sheets of his
half-finished sermon, he did not frown. He told himself he would get
used to it presently. In fact, he rather liked it. And he decidedly
liked her funny little maternal airs with his clothes, and his health
(which was excellent), and his finances (which were not).
Mrs. Kildare had insisted upon continuing Jacqueline's usual allowance
until her coming of age; and Philip had felt it not quite fair to the
girl herself to refuse; but Jacqueline knew better than to use the
smallest part of that allowance toward expenses which Philip might
consider his. So she consulted anxiously with her mother on the cost of
food-supply, and was very firm with Ella in the matter of flour and
eggs; somewhat to the amusement of both older women.
Others besides Philip realized the charm of that picturesque cabin with
its young and hospitable mistress. Farwell was a faithful visitor, and
even some of the "victims" respectfully renewed their allegiance, to
Jacqueline's frank pleasure. The Thorpes came out from town very often,
with an automobile filled with friends; Jemima having come to appreciate
more fully at a distance something of the unusual atmosphere of her
former home. It was no rare thing for Philip to return from an afternoon
gallop and find his house full of guests, drinking tea or toddies
according to their sex, and unmistakably grouped around Jacqueline as
the central figure. The party usually adjourned to Storm for supper, to
the huge delight of Big Liza and the quiet pleasure of the Madam
herself, who looked forward to these incursions of Jemima's with a
combination of dread and eagerness.
Jacqueline, on these occasions, was surprised to note the ease with
which Philip entered into the duties of host, making his guests
comfortable with the sort of effortless charm that usually comes only
with much experience of entertaining. She realized it was the same
adaptability he had shown among the mountain folk, and among the simple
people of his own parish; and she began to be very proud of her husband.
Invitations poured in on them from Lexington and Frankfort and the
surrounding Bluegrass country. "Why don't we go to some of these
parties!" he suggested one day. "Of course I'm not a dancing-man, but I
could take you very easily, thanks to the Ark, and once there I daresay
you will not lack for beaux, you staid old married woman!"
"Do you _want_ to go to parties?" she asked, rather wistfully.
"I love to see you enjoy yourself."
"Oh, but I enjoy myself without parties," she said; adding quickly,
"Would it be better for the parish if I went?"
He laughed and put an arm around her. "No, Mrs. Rector. It's not that
kind of parish, thank goodness!"
"Then--" she nestled against him--"I'd rather stay home at night.
Wouldn't you?"
Philip admitted that he would.
His suggestion had come as the result of much covert study of his little
wife. Despite her pretty, matronly airs, her contented preoccupation
with new duties, he was not altogether satisfied with the look of
Jacqueline. He saw things her mother failed to notice--a faint shadow
beneath her eyes which made them look oddly dark, a little hollowing of
the cheeks, rosy as they were; above all a certain listlessness, a sort
of abstraction that she covered by forced gaiety. She appeared to have
lost interest in many of the things that used to be her joy; sang often,
it is true, but without enthusiasm; rarely rode the fine saddle horse
that had come from Storm stables to keep old Tom company, preferring to
drive with Philip in the hitherto-despised Ark--preferring apparently
above all things to sit at home in front of the fire, with a puppy and
her sewing for company. Tomboy Jacqueline with a needle in her hands was
a sight which somehow troubled Philip even more than it amused him.
Often when he came upon her unexpectedly, he noted traces of tears about
her eyes--a signal always for the sudden flow of high spirits which
Philip found at times almost painful.
The girl was not happy. Channing had certainly left his mark.
"Damn the fellow!" said Philip to himself, most unclerically; and his
anger did not cool with time.
He redoubled his tender care of Jacqueline; considerate of every mood,
constantly praising and encouraging her, daily planning little surprises
for her pleasure (the puppy had been one of them); doing everything
possible, in fact, except make love to her. That would have been
possible, too, for she was very sweet, a true daughter of Helen; and he
a young and normal man, sorely in need of comforting. But guessing what
he did of the girl's heart, he would not have offered her the indignity
of unwelcome love-making.
"It is just like being married to a dear big brother," Jacqueline
explained naïvely to her mother. "Philip is the best friend in the
world!"
"I know. He would be, dear fellow," Kate replied, well content,
remembering with a sudden shudder, despite the years which had passed, a
husband who had never been a friend to her.
Kate was seeing very little of her new son-in-law in those days. Often
as she came to the rectory--and she had formed the habit of dropping in
once or twice a day on her way to and from her lonely house--she rarely
found Philip at home.
"What does he find to do that keeps him so busy these winter days?" she
marveled.
"Oh, sick parishioners, and ailing cows, and things like that. He's
always tearing about on horseback, or making long journeys somewhere in
the Ark--I wish Jemmy had never given it to him! He manages to find
duties that keep him out of doors just as long as there's any daylight
to see by. And as if that weren't enough, he has fixed up the choir-room
over at the church for a sort of study, because he says he can't write
sermons with me about--I'm too distracting! Did you ever hear such
nonsense? When I sit just as quiet as a mouse, and don't do a thing but
watch him, or perhaps sit on a foot-stool beside him and hold the hand
he isn't using. You don't need both hands to write a sermon!"
Kate laughed at the picture, looking at her daughter with a fond
maternal eye. She could understand that the girl might be somewhat
distracting, in her demure little house-dress turned in at the soft
throat, and her hair done neatly on top of her head as became a matron,
but escaping about her face in glinting chestnut tendrils.
"I suspect it _is_ rather difficult to be a spiritual pastor and master
and an attentive bridegroom at the same time," she commented.
She put the infrequency of Philip's appearances at Storm down to the
same cause. "Young birds to their own nest," she thought, a little
drearily. It is a rule that is rather hard on older birds.
But Jacqueline, her eyes already opened by Jemima, was more observant,
and began to realize at last that Philip was trying to avoid her mother.
The thought troubled and frightened her. What had she done? They were
her entire world now, Philip and her mother; and any world of
Jacqueline's must necessarily be a world of much loving-kindness.
She consulted her sister, distressfully.
"Humph!" said Jemima, and would have liked to add, "I told you so!"--but
did not dare.
Thoughts, however, have an annoying way of communicating themselves
independent of words, and Jacqueline nodded sadly, as though she had
spoken.
"I know. I oughtn't to have married Philip--you were right. I only
wanted to make him happier, and I thought he could go on adoring mother
just the same, with me to comfort him in between whiles. But he won't
let me,--he won't let me! And he's unhappier than ever.--Oh, Jemmy, what
shall I do?"
Jemima for once was at a loss for advice to offer. She thought harsh
things of her headstrong, single-minded mother, and yearned over this
poor, ignorant, immolated young creature who seemed destined to waste
her loveliness on those who could not value it.
"There's nothing to do," she sighed; adding with a cynicism of which she
was not aware, "Except to wait for mother to grow old. It won't be long
now. She _can't_ go on looking like a girl forever!"
"Oh, Jemmy!" exclaimed Jacqueline, shocked and flushing. "Philip's
not--that sort!"
"Every man's that sort," remarked the experienced Mrs. Thorpe.