Part 16 (1/2)
”Never mind--let me find them myself, Mr. Tibbits,” she urged. ”I'll put them down in your book. There's a customer in the back store. Do go and attend to him.”
Tibbits meekly obeyed, murmuring, ”You might find them b.u.t.tons on the shelf with the canned goods, or then agin they might be under the counter behind them bolts of mosquito-bar.”
So it happened that Jemima was on her knees behind the counter, quite invisible, when two women in sunbonnets entered, deep in a congenial discussion of their betters, such as might have been heard in a dozen homes in the vicinity that day. They had failed to recognize the buggy at the door as a Storm equipage.
”What I want to know is how's she ever goin' to manage with the two of them at once. They do say the young parson's sort of took his father's place with her.”
”Laws! I should think she'd be ashamed. Her old enough to be his mother!”
”No, she ain't, either. She wa'n't twenty, nothin' like, when Mr.
Kildare brought her here, and the French doctor's boy must a-been about ten then. Ten years or less ain't such a heap of difference, not when you hold your looks the way she does. Anyway, they been seen kissin'.”
”You don't say!”
The informer nodded, pursing her lips. ”It come to me pretty straight.
That old n.i.g.g.e.r Zeke, who does ch.o.r.es about, seen 'em with his own eyes, and tol' me about it next day when he was doin' some work in my patch.
Said he caught 'em kissin' and just carryin' on, right in the public road.”
”The idea! What for do you s'pose they want the father pardoned out, then? She got up the pet.i.tion herself. Laws, what a mix-up! I shouldn't think she'd dare have anything to do with either of them. Don't look good, does it? Him killin' her husband and all.”
It was here that the girl behind the counter, flushed and furious and just about to speak, suddenly lost her color.
”There was some that never believed he done it, Miz Sykes. If you'd ever known the French doctor--always so sort of soft and gentle in his ways, didn't believe in huntin' rabbits unless for food, used to doctor animals just as if they was folks. He didn't seem the sort of man to make a killer. But there! You never can tell with for'ners. And Kildare wa'n't the sort of man to let his wife go gallivantin' round the country with a lover, that's certain. We was s'prised he stood it long as he did. Oh, I ain't sayin' Dr. Benoix done his killin' in cold blood! He prob'ly done it in self-defense. The gentlest critter'll fight if it's got to. But killin' it certainly was. No axdent about that!”
They went toward the back store, still talking, unaware of the white-lipped girl who slipped out from behind the counter and gained the refuge of her buggy with trembling knees.
Her knees might tremble, but her lips did not. They were set in a straight, grim line, and her brows met over eyes that had grown almost black. It would have been difficult to recognize in this stricken face the pink-and-white Dresden prettiness that had won her the sobriquet of ”Apple Blossom.”
An old man, fumbling at his cap as she pa.s.sed, suddenly paused and stared after the buggy, aghast. He thought for the moment that he had seen the ghost of Basil Kildare.
She went straight to her mother's office, a small room opening off the great hall. She opened the door without knocking, and closed it after her.
”One moment, please, I am busy,” murmured Kate, glancing up from her desk in surprise. She was not often interrupted so unceremoniously. But instantly she rose to her feet. She had no need to ask what had happened. The girl's face told her.
”Mother!” Jemima's voice was hoa.r.s.e. ”Is it true that--Philip's father--is coming out of the penitentiary?”
Kate inclined her head, paling.
”And that you are getting him out?”
”Philip and I together.”
”Why?”
Kate did not answer. She was struggling to collect her wits for this sudden necessity.
Jemima came quite close, searching her face with curious grimness; and Kate saw the resemblance the old man had seen, and s.h.i.+vered.
”Mother, that was not the only news I heard at the store. I overheard some women talking. They said--”