Kildares of Storm Part 49

The Professor's lips closed grimly. "He is not invited to my wedding. J.

Percival and I have, so to speak, severed diplomatic relations. Look out for him, Kate!"

Philip, too, was not so certain as she that Channing was keeping to his promise with regard to Jacqueline.

But the girl was under her mother's eye all day long, excited as Jemima herself over the preparations, st.i.tching with unwonted diligence on the bridal finery, running errands, seeing visitors, happy and busy and asking nothing better than to be with Kate or her sister whatever they were about. It was a little touching to both, as if the madcap girl had suddenly realized that the old companions.h.i.+p of home was about to be broken up, and wanted to have as much of it as possible.

There was no hour in the full days when she might have seen Channing, even had she wished. And Jemima continued to watch her mail with a hawk's eye.

Channing's word of honor not to communicate with the girl would have seemed, in itself, an insufficient safeguard to Kate, had not her knowledge of men rea.s.sured her. She believed that her daughter was not the type to arouse more than a pa.s.sing interest in such a man as Channing. Her beauty, her flattered response to his attentions, her fresh, unsophisticated charm of gaiety, might well appeal to him for a time, adding the fillip of the unaccustomed to a jaded palate. But it was an appeal that must be constantly renewed, that would not outlast any continued absence. She believed that Channing, while he would accept with eagerness whatever good thing came to his hand, was too indolent and too self-centered to overcome many obstacles in the pursuit of a fancy.

Jacqueline herself was rea.s.suring, too. Her manner of receiving the news of Channing's perfidy had showed her no stranger to the Kildare pride.

She seemed to regard the affair as a closed incident.

"Do you think," said Kate proudly to Philip, "that my daughter would care to have anything to do with the man, now that she knows his utter unworthiness?"

"It is just possible that she was attracted to Channing by other qualities than worthiness," commented Philip. "Weakness, for instance.

Women have been attracted by weakness before this."

"Phil, Phil," Kate laughed, "you are an 'elderly young man,' as Jacky says! Almost as elderly and wise as our Jemima. Stop croaking and come and see the new wedding garments Mag is putting on my old chairs."

She flung an affectionate arm about him, and led him indoors, his heart beating too hard and suddenly to make further speech possible just then.--Yet there was much he wished to say, and not about Jacqueline.

These wedding preparations stirred certain yearnings in his breast, certain eager hopes. It seemed to him that his lady was warmer lately, more approachable, more present, somehow. Was she, too, stirred by all this thought and talk of marriage? It was hard to wait patiently. Yet he was too good a horseman to rush his fences.

Mag on her knees, her mouth full of pins, was cleverly fitting slips of gay-flowered cretonne over the masculine chairs and sofas, a.s.sisted, or at least not hindered, by Jacqueline.

"The old hall won't know itself, will it?" cried the latter, waving them a welcome. "All got up in ruffles and things, looking as frivolous as the lion in the circus with a bow on his tail!"

She ran after her disappearing mother with some question, and Philip, finding himself alone with Mag, was reminded of a certain duty he had to perform.

He stood a moment gazing down at her, she so intent upon her labors that she did not notice he was there. As always, the pathos of the girl moved him strongly; so young she was to be already one of life's failures, so helplessly a victim of early environment. Believed from care and hards.h.i.+p, well-fed and well-clothed and sheltered, she had grown sleek and soft and pretty as a petted kitten, and there should have been a look of content about her which he missed. Her mouth drooped a little, and now and then a visible shadow crossed her face.

He sighed. Rumor was once again busy with the name of Mag Henderson.

Sometimes Philip wearied of his job as the neighborhood's spiritual policeman.

He asked gently: "Mag, you're not happy here at Storm?"

She looked up with a start. "Why--I didn't know no one was there! Why, yes, sir. They're real good to me and baby here."

"And you like your work, don't you?"

Again he noticed the shadow on her face. "I reckon so--as well as I'd like any work." People were always frank with Philip. "A gal gits kind o' tired of workin' all the time, though. I make dresses and trim hats for most of the ladies round about, now, and they pay me good, too.

But...."

"But it's all work and no play, eh?"

"That's it," she said, grateful for his understanding. "I don't never have no fun. I ain't got no gen'leman friends, nor nothing. What's the use of havin' good clothes, and lookin' pretty and all, ef you don't get to go somewhere so that folks kin see you? I'm _tired_ of bein' looked down on," she complained fretfully. "I ain't got a friend on this place 'cep'n Miss Jacky, and now she--"

Mag stopped short. Philip wondered what she had been about to say, but he was too good a confessor to force confidences.

"You've always got the Madam," he said.

"Yes, but she don't care nothing about _me_. She's kind enough, but so's she kind to any cur dog that comes along. What am I to her?"

"You've got your baby, Mag."

But the childish, fretful face did not soften. "Babies are more trouble than company to a person. Besides, she likes Miss Jacky now bettern't her own mammy. She cries to go to her from me.--It's fun I want, like other gals. Everybody, it seems like, has fun but me, even the n.i.g.g.e.rs.

Parties, and picnics, and weddin's and all--Oh, my, but don't I _wisht_ I was Miss Jemmy!"

Evidently the wedding preparations had stirred longings in more hearts than Philip's.

"Even if she is marryin' an old man an' a cast-off beau of her ma's, look at the ring he give her! A di'mon' big as my thumb-nail. She let me put it on my finger once, and it looked grand. Oh, my, I'd do 'most anything for a ring like that!"

"Would you, really, Mag?" he asked curiously, wondering at the fascination s.h.i.+ning bits of stone possess for women far more civilized than this little savage. "Do you think a diamond ring would make you any happier?"

"In co'se it would," she said, impatiently.

"Why?"

"Oh, I dunno--it would make me look prettier, I expect."

He said, kindly: "You do not need to look any prettier. You are quite pretty enough, as it is."

Her whole expression changed. She gave him a conscious upward glance.

"Am I? Why, Mr. Philip, I never thought a preacher'd notice how a gal looked!"

It told him all and more than he wanted to know. He continued to meet her gaze with grave eyes, and after a moment her own dropped.

"'T ain't much use bein' pretty round here," she muttered. "The city's the place for pretty gals."

"Who told you that? The drummer I saw you talking with behind the village store a few days ago?"

She tossed her head. "Well, what if it was? I got the right to pa.s.s the time o' day with a fellow, ain't I? You'd suppose I was in prison!"

Philip sought out his lady again with a troubled heart. "Sorry to croak any more at this busy time, but Mag will bear watching. She's been seen about with men once or twice lately."

Kate sighed with exasperation. "'Give a dog a bad name.' I shall have to acquire the hundred eyes of Argus to keep up with my household nowadays, it seems!"

It was not the first warning that had come to her about her protegee.

Big Liza, for years her confidential friend and ally, had said to her one day: "Dat white gal ain't keerin' so much about de chile no mo', Miss Kate. She's allus a-leavin' her with me, ef Miss Jacky ain't got her. Gawd He knows I ain't complainin' about havin' a chile aroun', seein' as how I done raise nine of my own, right heah under ma kitchen stove, like so many little puppy-dawgs. But dey wuz cullud chillun, an'

dat's diffunt. Is dishyer hot kitchen any place to raise up a w'ite chile in? Now I ax you! 'Pears to me like dat gal don' keer for nothin'

no mo' but traipsin' down to de sto' an' gallivantin' roun' de roads wid her fine clo'es on. She ain't no better'n a yaller n.i.g.g.e.r gal!"

Kate asked reluctantly (she did not take kindly to spying), "Have you ever seen her with men, Liza?"

The black woman compressed her lips. "No'm, Miss Kate, I ain't nebber prezackly _seed_ 'em--but laws, honey, dat kin' ob goin's-on don't aim to be seed!"

Now that she had a more definite rumor to go by, Kate said sorrowfully to Philip, "You told me it was a mistake to bring her here in the first place. It seems to me I make a great many mistakes!" She sighed again.