It was some time before her mother began to do much credit to Jemima's
reputation as a nurse. The nature of her illness, if illness it could be
called, was baffling. She had neither pain nor temperature, her pulse
was steady, though not strong, she ate and even slept as she was bidden,
with a docility that was one of the most alarming symptoms of all in the
Madam, hitherto impatient as a healthy man of restraint and control. She
was content, to lie day after day in her room, she who had perhaps not
spent more than a few weeks in bed during the whole course of her
previous life, and then only when her children were born.
"I can't understand it," wrote young Mrs. Thorpe to her husband--a
humiliating confession for Jemima. "She listens to me, and talks a
little, seems rather glad that I am with her. But if I were not, I think
it would not matter. She takes no interest in anything, seems hardly
aware of anything, though she always makes the right answer when one
speaks to her. Otherwise I might think.... Even Philip's letters leave
her unmoved. She never opens them; simply hands them to me and says
listlessly, 'See if he has found her.' And when I answer no, she does
not seem to care particularly.... Sometimes I feel as if it weren't
mother here beside me at all, as if she had gone away, and left just her
body and her voice and her smile--and I wish she had taken the smile
with her. It's hard to bear!... She was a little like this after Dr.
Benoix disappeared, but not so bad.--Oh, James, you don't think, do you,
that there can really be such a thing as a broken heart?"
The Professor comforted his wife with sensible and practical advice; but
he was as uneasy as herself. Psychologist that he was, he know that the
strongest natures cannot bend and bend indefinitely, without in time
reaching the breaking-point.
It was at his suggestion that a famous nerve-specialist was sent for
from a distant city, much to the relief of honest and futile Dr. Jones.
The eminent gentleman made himself extremely comfortable at Storm,
enjoyed the scenery and the Southern cooking, and occasionally conversed
upon topics of the day with Mrs. Kildare, who exerted herself according
to her traditions to put her guest at ease, even to the extent of
sitting up in bed and allowing Jemima to dress her hair in the latest
fashion.
"Mental trouble? Nonsense!" he pronounced, to Jemima's almost sick
relief. "I wish my own mentality were as sound! For years she has been
using up her nervous vitality without replacing it, that is all. This
mental torpor is Nature's way of giving her a rest. Let her alone! That
splendid body of hers will reassert itself presently. Rest is what she
needs. And happiness," he added casually, with an insight which proved
his right to the enormous fee he pocketed.
But it was a prescription rather difficult to fill.
Jemima tried conscientiously to catch her mother's attention with talk
about farm matters, business affairs, the conduct of the dairy and
stable; only to be put aside with a listless, "Better see Jenkins about
that, dear. He's very efficient."
Jenkins was a young man trained by herself into efficiency, who had long
been anxious to assume a more important part in the management of Storm,
and was rising to his opportunity very creditably.
At last a letter came from Philip which Jemima believed would rouse Kate
from her apathy. She read it--she opened all her mother's mail in those
days--and rushed into her mother's room, almost tearful with her news.
"He's found Channing at last!" she cried; "and Jacqueline was not with
him! Do you hear, Mother? Jacqueline was not with him at all! She never
had been. It was another woman--some one he has married. Oh, Mother,
_don't you understand_?"
Kate's eyes lifted very slowly to her face. "Then what," each word was
an effort, "has he done with my Jacqueline?--Is she dead?"
Jemima caught her hands. "No, no, dear! Listen!"--she spoke very
distinctly. "It was all a dreadful mistake--our mistake. She never went
to Mr. Channing at all. She simply ran away to New York to study her
singing, Philip says, and has been there all this time.--Oh, how can I
ever make it up to poor little Jacky? Imagine thinking such a thing of
her! I must have been crazy, jumping to such a _wicked_ conclusion!" In
her distress she wrung her hands. "And what must Jacqueline have been
thinking of us, leaving her alone there so long? Oh, Mother!--" a happy
idea had come to her. "Don't, let's leave her alone another day! Philip
may not have reached her yet--this letter was mailed in Paris, just
before he sailed. Let's go and find her ourselves, you and I!"
But the answering spark of eagerness she hoped for did not come.
"If Jacqueline wants me," said Kate, closing her eyes, "she will let me
know."
The coldness of the reply chilled Jemima. It seemed so utterly unlike
her impulsive, warm-hearted generous mother.
"Don't you realize how we have misunderstood her? Why, she hasn't
been--been wicked at all! She simply saw she had made a mistake, and
tried to undo it by going away--foolish, but so like Jacky, poor
darling!--Mother! You don't mean to say you're not going to _forgive_
her for running away?"
"_Forgive?_" repeated Kate wonderingly. Then she remembered that Jemima
had never been a mother.
"It is Jacqueline who cannot forgive me," she explained, in her dull and
lifeless voice.
Jemima gave up in despair. There was something about all this beyond her
understanding.
In a few days a second letter came from Philip, postmarked New York,
telling her that he had at last learned the where-abouts of his wife,
and hoped soon to be going to her. He begged Kate to have patience,
explaining that he was under promise not to reveal Jacqueline's
hiding-place.
We must humor her now (he wrote). It is only because of the
intervention of a friend she has found that she has consented to
let me come to her presently. God knows what thoughts of us who
love her and could not trust her have been in her head through
these lonely weeks! We must give her time to get over them. She is
not ready for us yet. You will understand, you who understand
everything. Wait. And meanwhile comfort yourself as I do with the
knowledge that she is safe, safe!
This letter puzzled Jemima almost unbearably, but she dared ask no
question of her mother as to what had occurred. She was grateful to see
that it at least roused the invalid to a show of interest. Kate took it
into her languid hand and read it over twice, looking for some possible
message for herself from Jacqueline, some little word of love that
Jemima might have overlooked.
But finding nothing, she relapsed into the old listlessness.