Kildares of Storm Part 24

"Humph! Rather a high-handed proceeding, that."

"Oh, no--I don't think Mag really wants a baby much, not like I do.

She's fond of it in a way, just as cats are fond of their kittens; but they soon outgrow it, you know. Why, once we had a cat who ate her kittens!"

"Shocking of her," said Channing.

"I suppose it was because she didn't want to have them--any more than Mag did. She never had a husband, you see, and that makes it so awkward."

"Meaning the cat?" murmured Channing.

The author of erotic novels was rather pink about the gills. He wondered how much of the girl's navete was natural and how much pose. On the whole, judging from her antecedents and environment, he decided that it was largely pose, but thought none the less of her for that. The artificial always interested him more than the natural.

He looked at the baby again with a certain distaste. He had heard from Farwell the story of Mag's adoption into the Storm household, and it had rather shocked him. What was the woman thinking of to surround her young daughters with such influences? Naturally one would not expect prudery, conventionality, from the mistress of Storm, but in his experience quite _declasee_ women guarded more carefully than this the morals of their young.

"I can't think why you want to keep the infant," he said.

Jacqueline looked at him in surprise. "Why, she's perfectly sweet! Look at her precious little curls, and her chubby feet, and all!" She gathered the small Kitty up in her arms protectively. "Didn't the bad old man admire her, then? Bless its heart! Just shows what a stupid he is--Why, Mr. Channing, everybody wants a baby!"

He murmured, "Yes? But in the natural course of events, surely--"

"I might have some of my own, you mean? I hope so--oh, I do hope so!

Lots and lots of them. But I might not, you know. The natural course of events doesn't always happen. I might be an old maid. Or I might be wedded to my Art. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.' Have you ever thought how perfectly _awful_ it would be to go through life without any children at all?"

Mr. Channing admitted that he had not, and changed the subject. "What particular Art are you thinking of being wedded to?"

Jacqueline looked at him reproachfully, hurt. "I should think you'd know. Didn't you hear me practising?"

The author did not smile. Crude and untrained as it was, he had recognized in that young contralto a quality that made him start. He was always very quick to recognize talent.

"I was going to speak to you about that," he said seriously. "Do you know that you have quite a remarkable voice, Miss Jacqueline?"

"Of course I know it! But what's the use if n.o.body else does? A voice with n.o.body to listen to it is--is like being pretty with n.o.body to tell you so."

"Does n.o.body tell you _that_?" he murmured.

She dimpled again, flus.h.i.+ng under his frank gaze. "They think I'm too young for compliments! As for my voice, it's getting so strong that Mummy and the Blossom are always saying to me, 'Not so loud.' If I let it out in the house, they put their fingers in their ears. If I let it out in church, Jemmy says I'm drowning the soprano--and so I am. What can I do?"

"Learn to use it," said Channing. "You must have lessons, of course."

"Oh, I've had them. The best singing-teacher in Lexington came here once a week all last winter."

"Lexington!" Channing smiled.

"You think I ought to have one from Louisville or Cincinnati?" she asked anxiously. "I didn't really seem to learn very much from the Lexington one."

Channing smiled again. "I'm afraid you won't get the sort of training you need this side of Europe. Your mother must send you to Germany, or at least to New York."

She made a gesture of despair. "Then there's no use talking about it.

I'll never leave mother, never! I'll just have to go on practising out here as best I can, with n.o.body to listen to me."

"I'll listen to you," consoled Channing, "whenever you'll let me."

"But you'll be going away soon."

"Not very soon," he said. He did not add that he had decided on the moment to remain Farwell's guest until he had exhausted this new interest thoroughly. Channing was not the man to deny himself the luxury of any pa.s.sing sensation.

He had found himself pleasurably wakeful during the night, thinking of the picture the girl made as she rode into the glare of lamplight, skirts and hair in disarray, laughing like a young Bacchante, the spirit of youth and joy incarnate. Now he drew her out very skilfully, so that he might watch the changing expressions on her vivid face as she talked, or smiled, or bent broodingly over the child in her arms. Here, he thought, was temperament as well as talent. Properly handled, the girl had a career before her.

Nor was his curiosity about her entirely impersonal. Channing, as a rule, felt rather at a loss with girls. Occasionally in his work he found it necessary to introduce the young person, chiefly by way of contrast, and then he did extravagant justice to her rose-white flesh and her budding curves, and got her as speedily as possible into the arms of the villain; after which she became interesting. His natural taste in heroines was for the lady with a past, preferably several pasts. The blot on the woman's character was as piquant to him as the mole upon her shoulder. He had spent an impressionable youth in Paris.

But this Bouncing Bet of the Banister, as he had called her, this young wildwoods creature with all the instincts and none of the experience of his own cla.s.s, gave an effect of warmth, of vitality, that thrilled him.

His gaze kindled as he watched her. She promised to be even lovelier than she was, never as beautiful as the mother, perhaps, but quite beautiful enough to be disturbing, with her soft, thick-lashed eyes, her tender mouth, her slender, straight, finely molded body; no finished product this, but a bit of virgin soul-clay waiting to be modeled; an empty, exquisite vase waiting to be filled with life.

He thought suddenly of that matchless nude of Ingres', "La Source."

Young Jacqueline Kildare might have posed for it.

Percival Channing; at thirty-four, had moments of regretting that he had not conserved his energies more carefully, been more truly "wedded to his Art," to use the girl's quaint phrase. He felt latterly a little stale, a little jaded and world-worn. It had occurred to him during the night that contact with so vital a personality might refresh him, might do for him what contact with the earth did for the giant Antaeus. Indeed, to his imagination she suggested the earth, field and pasture and wooded stream, nature in her abundance, promise. She was the very essence of this Kentucky, this half-tamed wilderness that he had come to study and to portray.

There is no more charming companion than your temperamentalist, when once the spark is struck. Jacqueline for the first time in her life enjoyed that most subtle flattery of being understood. Here was a person, a thoroughly "grown-up" person, who did not pet and humor her, and tease her as if she were a child; who on the other hand did not demand of her the impossible formalities of young ladyhood. Famous author as he was, he accepted her just as he found her, and liked her that way. She compared him with Philip, always suggesting some change, always trying to improve her; and after all Philip was nothing but a country clergyman!

When she had exhausted her own eager confidences, Mr. Channing paid her the compliment of talking about himself. He made confidences in return.

She learned that he, like her, had suffered and was still suffering from a lack of sympathy on the part of his family. They failed completely to appreciate the necessities, the difficulties, of the artistic temperament. In fact, he had practically given up his family, and was a homeless wanderer upon the face of the earth, seeking his encouragement among strangers.

"But surely they must appreciate you now," cried Jacqueline. "Why, you are famous!"

He admitted it, rather sadly. "Famous--and lonely," he said.

She gave him an impulsive hand by way of sympathy. "I'd be willing to be lonely, if I could be famous. But I wouldn't be willing to have mother lonely," she added. "I never could make up my mind to leave her here alone."

"Alone? But there's your sister."

"No, there isn't. Not now. She's here, of course, but--" The girl's face shadowed, but she did not explain. The shock of that terrible scene between the two beings she loved best was a thing that did not bear thinking of, much less speaking of. Sometimes at night she woke trembling and sobbing with the memory of it, as from a nightmare. But by day she put it from her determinedly, and tried to pretend that everything was as it always had been in her home.

"Have you told your mother about this ambition of yours?" he asked curiously.

She shook her head. "No. I've hinted, but they--they laughed at me, and Jemmy said that it wouldn't be lady-like to go on the stage, even in grand opera."

Channing smiled. "The standards of the world, fortunately, vary somewhat from the standards of rural Kentucky. Some of the greatest 'ladies' I have known happened to be on the stage, and not always in grand opera."

He went on to speak of various singers and actors and painters and writers of his acquaintance, of studios and greenrooms, customs in European countries, famous friends.h.i.+ps between royalty and artists; and she had her first glimpse of a world that made her own seem as barren and desolate as some desert isle.

Certain racial inheritances awoke in her and clamored. Her mother's family had been people of culture and travel and wide social affiliations. It had not occurred to her before that her life was singularly empty. She would have said that her friends were legion. The horses, the dogs, the negroes, the humbler country folk of the neighborhood, the tenants on her mother's property--all accepted the Madam's youngest daughter as one of themselves, and loved her accordingly. But of intercourse with her own kind, she had none. Her mother, Philip, Professor Thorpe, even Jemima--regarded Jacqueline as a playful, happy, charming tomboy, whose sole duty in life was to amuse herself and them. Philip, indeed, was beginning to observe the deeper instincts stirring in her; but Charming was the first of her equals to treat her quite as an equal, and the fact that she looked upon him as a dazzlingly superior order of being made his recognition of her as a kindred spirit a rather heady thing. Jacqueline was capable, as only seventeen may be, of a vast and uncritical hero-wors.h.i.+p, that gave with both hands and never tired of giving.

"Oh!" she said at last, with a long sigh. "Listening to you is just like reading the most exciting book, all about crowned heads, and far countries, and society, and things like that. Jemmy ought to hear you. I wonder why Professor Jim has never sent us any of your novels? He is always giving us books."

"I told you," remarked Charming, "that my family did not appreciate me."

He was not quite sure whether it was a disappointment or a relief to realize that this wide-eyed girl had not, after all, read his books.