It was so rarely that the Madam overslept herself that her servants had
no precedent to follow in the matter. The housewoman, who finally
entered on tiptoe to remove the placidly protesting Kitty, reported the
Madam sleeping "like a daid pusson, and mighty peaked-lookin' in the
face." So it was decided not to disturb her; and the morning was well
advanced before Kate reached the Rectory, where her thoughts had been
hovering since her first waking moment.
The counsels of the night had taught her a new humility. She came to
Jacqueline as a suppliant, begging to be forgiven not only for her
moment of cruel anger but for her stupid and bungling interference in
her child's life. Nothing was very clear in her mind except that Philip
must be told the truth, and that, whatever happened, she and her child
would bear it together.
She was disappointed to find that both Jacqueline and Philip were out,
Jacqueline having driven away soon after Philip left the house.
"Driven? She was not riding?" asked Kate in some surprise. Jacqueline,
like her mother, rarely used a vehicle if a saddle-horse was at hand.
"She tooken de buggy, an' she tooken Lige, too," explained Ella. "No'm,
I dunno whar she went at, kase I wa'n't here when dey lef', but I reckon
she'll be gone a right smart while, 'cause she lef' me word jes what I
was to feed dat puppy. As ef a pusson raised at Sto'm wouldn't know how
to take keer of puppy-dawgs!" She exchanged with her former mistress a
smile of indulgent amusement. "I 'lows she's goin' to tek her dinner
with you-all like she ginally does, ain't she?"
Kate doubted it, after what had passed; but she went back to her house
and waited, hopefully.
At about the dinner-hour she was called to the telephone, and for a
moment failed to recognize Philip's voice over the wire. It sounded
unnatural.
"Is Jacqueline there?"
"Why, no. Not yet. Is she coming?"
"I--I don't know. Look here!--don't worry, but she's been gone for some
hours, and she 's taken a trunk with her."
"A trunk?" cried Kate.
"Yes. Do you know anything about it? Has she spoken to you of making a
visit, or anything?" He repeated his question, patiently; but Kate could
not find her voice to answer. A premonition of disaster struck her dumb.
"You're not to worry," said Philip again. "Lige drove her over to the
trolley-line, and he should be back soon. I'll telephone you what he has
to say."
But Kate could not wait. She ran out to the stables and saddled a horse
with her own hands, impatiently pushing aside the slower negroes.
Halfway to the rectory she met Philip, in the Ark. He held out to her an
open letter.
"Lige brought it back to me. It's from Jacqueline. Read it," he said,
dully.
Seated upon a restive horse that backed and filled nervously about the
puffing engine, the paper fluttering in her fingers, Kate read aloud
Jacqueline's farewell to her husband, only half grasping its meaning:
I didn't mean to be dishonorable, darling Philip; I didn't know I
was being, till mother told me. I never thought. I only thought,
suppose I have a baby, and it's a poor little thing without a
father, like Mag's, that nobody wants except me, and that mother
and Jemmy and everybody would be ashamed of? I couldn't bear
it!--And I didn't know mother asked you to marry me--I thought you
wanted to, because you were unhappy and wanted me for
company--we're so used to each other. Truly, I thought that! And I
thought you knew, Philip. It seemed to me that you knew, without my
telling you.
Kate looked up here. "Did you know?" she asked.
He nodded, without speaking.
Kate's head drooped over the letter. "And her mother didn't," she
thought.
But it's all been wrong, somehow, and the only way I know to make
it right is to go away, as your father did. Please, please let that
make it right! You don't believe in divorce, of course, but I know
enough to know this marriage of ours is not a real marriage, and
could be put aside if people knew what sort of girl I have been.
The Bishop will help you, I am sure. So I have written him all
about it.
Kate gasped; but the courage of it brought up her drooping head again.
You must forgive me if you can, darling Philip, and thank you,
thank you, thank you for being so sweet to me always! You must
never worry about me, either. I am not going to die or anything
like that. There is somebody who will help me, who always would
have, only I didn't know it. I did him an injustice. Mother did not
tell me. I can't forgive mother for that quite yet, but I will some
day; and some day, perhaps, she will forgive me. You'll make her,
won't you, Phil?
Oh, I do love you both so much! It nearly breaks my heart to go
away from the precious little house, and the puppy, and Storm, and
baby Kitty, and everything. I've never been away before.--You won't
take off your winter flannels till the frost is out of the ground,
will you? Promise me! And don't try to find me, because I _don't
want to be found_. Only don't let mother fret about me. I shall
think about you always, no matter where I am.
JACQUELINE.
The two stared at each other for a moment without a word. Then Philip
said hoarsely, "She means Channing, of course!"
"No, no!" muttered the mother, shrinking, fighting against her own
conviction. "She loves you too much for that. It is you she loves, now.
She couldn't! She must have gone to Jemima. Oh, I am sure she has gone
to Jemima! Come, we'll telegraph."
She started for the Rectory at a gallop, her thoughts as usual
translating themselves into action. Over the telephone she dictated a
long wire to Jemima, carefully worded so that the curiosity of a country
telegraph operator should not be aroused. Her brain never worked better
than in an emergency.
"Now," she said briskly, turning to the dazed and silent Philip, "come
up and show me what you want in your bag."
"Where am I to go?" he asked vaguely.
"I'll tell you as soon as I hear from Jemima. But there is no time to
waste."
He stood quite idle in the little rose and white bower he had prepared
for his bride, watching Kate hurrying about his own room beyond, packing
necessities into his worn old leather satchel, somewhat hampered by the
activities of Jacqueline's puppy, who made constant playful lunges at
her feet.
He could not quite realize what had happened--that Jacqueline, his
playmate, his little friend, his wife, had gone out of the safe haven of
his home back to the man who had betrayed and deserted her. It seemed
like a hideous dream from which he must soon awake. How had he failed
her? What desperate unhappiness must have hidden itself in this pretty
white room where he had hoped she might be happy!
At intervals during the night before, he had waked to hear her softly
stirring about, and wondered why she did not come to him as usual, to be
soothed into drowsiness. Once he had almost broken his custom and gone
in to her, feeling that she had need of him. How he wished now that he
had followed this impulse! Yes, and many another like it....
Looking about, he noticed that her glass lamp was quite empty of oil,
and that her darning basket stood beside it, full to overflowing with
neatly darned and rolled socks of his own. So that was how she had spent
the night, doing her best to leave him comfortable! A great lump rose in
his throat. He saw, too, that both his own photograph and that of her
mother were gone. She had taken them with her.
His daze began to break. He remembered phrases in Jacqueline's letter:
"I didn't mean to be dishonorable ... I didn't know mother _asked_ you
to marry me ... I did him an injustice."
He went in to Kate, and demanded abruptly to know how this thing had
come about.
It was a question she had been dreading, but she answered it fully and
frankly, sparing herself not at all. He listened with an oddly judicial
air, new in her experience of him. When she described her share in
Channing's disappearance, he interrupted her quickly.
"You deceived her?"
"Yes. I know now that it was wrong."
He made no comment; but when she came to her confession to Jacqueline
that it was she who had suggested their marriage and not Philip, he
interrupted her again.
"Kate," he said slowly and incredulously, "you have been cruel!"
At any other time he would have noticed how her never-idle hands were
shaking, the paleness of her lips, the dark shadow of pain in her eyes.
But just then he was not thinking of her. He was thinking of Jacqueline.
He turned away abruptly, and looked over the portmanteau she had been
packing. On the top lay the peppermint-striped silk shirt his wife had
made for him. He saw it through a sudden blur of tears.
"There's one thing you've forgotten to pack," he muttered, and slipped
into the bag something which Kate removed as soon as his back was
turned. It was a pistol.
She was startled by this. "Perhaps I'd better go after Jacqueline
myself," she suggested.
"It is my right. I am her husband," was the stern answer.
In an incredibly short space of time, the telephone rang with Jemima's
return message.
No word from Jack. P. C.'s address in New York is No. 5, Ardmore
Apartments. James and I will meet her there. Don't worry.
"Thank Heaven for Jemima!" uttered her mother, turning from the
telephone. "You'll have time to catch the evening train in Frankfort for
New York, Philip. I'll meet you at the trolley station with money and
all that."
He had not thought of money, would have started upon his quest with
empty pockets. But it was characteristic of a new era that he accepted
her financial help now quite simply, without demur, without thought,
even, as he might have accepted it from his own mother.
The last thing he saw as the train pulled out of the station was Kate's
face gazing up at him whitely from the platform, and he leaned far out
of the window to promise, "I will not come back without her!"
But not then, nor until long afterwards, did he realize that for hours
he had been with his dear lady at a time of great distress to her,
without once realizing her presence; his thoughts yearning and his heart
aching for another woman, for his wife, Jacqueline.
It was the moment of Kate's justification, of her triumph, had she but
known it. But she did not know it.
She rode home slowly and yet more slowly through the twilight world,
into which came presently a pale winter moon, serene and beautiful and
mocking. There was no longer need of action, to stimulate her. She had
reached the end of her strength.
The sensitive horse beneath her moved with increasing care, sedately and
cautiously, as if he realized that he must be brains as well as feet for
two. He was an experienced animal, and had known what it was to carry
children on his back.
When he came to the front door of Storm, he paused of his own accord,
and nickered anxiously.
So the servants found the Madam, and when they saw that she could not
dismount, it was Big Liza who lifted her down in her strong old arms, as
she had lifted her once before when she came, a bride, to Storm. She
carried her in to a couch, moaning over her, "Oh, my lamb, my po' lamb;
what is dey done to you now?"
The Madam could not answer.
* * * * *
Jemima Thorpe reached her mother's bedside two days later, greatly to
the relief of the household, and of Dr. Jones.
"No, it does not seem to have been a stroke of any sort," explained that
worthy and anxious man. "If Mrs. Kildare were an ordinary woman, I
should call it hysteria, but she's not the neurotic type. It appears to
be acute exhaustion, following, possibly, a shock of some kind." He
looked at Jemima inquisitively, but without eliciting the information he
sought. "At any rate, I am glad you have come, and I should suggest that
Benoix and his wife be sent for. I hear they've gone off on a trip to
New York?"
"To Europe," amended Jemima calmly. "They are now on the ocean, so they
can't be sent for."
The doctor's eyes widened. Journeys to Europe were not usual among his
patients. "Europe! Isn't that very sudden?"
"Very sudden," agreed Jemima. "Now shall we go in to mother?"
Perforce, he opened Mrs. Kildare's door, and announced with his
cheeriest bedside manner, "Here's your girl home again."
The heavy eyes flew open. "Jacqueline!" she whispered.
But when she saw that it was not Jacqueline, the lids closed, and it
seemed too much trouble to lift them again.
Jemima went on her knees, and laid a timid cheek on her mother's hand,
that strong, beautiful hand lying so strangely limp now upon the
counterpane. For the first time in her life she knew the feeling of
utter helplessness. Her efficiency had failed her. In this emergency,
she could not produce the thing her mother needed.
She wished with all her heart for her inefficient sister.