Part 54 (1/2)
Jacqueline had waited all that day for news from Channing, disappointed, more than a little humiliated, to think that he had failed where she had not, but making every allowance for him as a city-bred man not accustomed to storms such as that of the night before. Perhaps he had taken for granted that she would not venture out in it herself.
Then, as no word came from him, either by note or by telephone, she began to worry. The lightning had been very bad. After all, storms can be dangerous. Possibly he had met with an accident.
At last she could restrain herself no longer, and telephoned to Holiday Hill.
A noncommittal man-servant informed her that Mr. Farwell was still away (he had gone to Cincinnati on business for several days), and that the other gentleman had left unexpectedly the night before. He did not add that the household was all agog with the extreme unexpectedness of his leaving.
Jacqueline asked, rather tremulously, whether he would be returning soon. The servant thought not, as he had since telegraphed for all his luggage to be sent on to New York.
It was then that she began to realize what had happened to her. She still made excuses for him to herself. He had been thinking of her--he had decided that he could not accept her sacrifice. Perhaps he had been thinking a little of her mother, too, left alone there at Storm. Yes, she was sure he had been thinking a little of her mother, whom he so greatly admired, not understanding how eager Mrs. Kildare was for her children's happiness.--He would write, of course, and explain....
She dared not think of the blank and dreary future, but lived from hour to hour, watching for the mails. When the postman stopped on his daily round at the foot of Storm Hill, she was always waiting for him.
Sometimes she met him down the road, in her eagerness. But there was never a letter for her, except now and then a line from the traveling Mrs. Thorpe.
Kate saw this eager watchfulness, and her heart smote her, and her secret lay heavy on her breast. But she made no comment, even when she noticed that the girl was neglecting her food in a manner unprecedented, and heard her prowling about the house at night, when she should have been asleep, like an unhappy little ghost.
”I must give her time, poor girlie,” she thought, and wished that she might consult Philip.
Philip, however, was doing some observing on his own account. He had come across a phrase in a book recently that recurred to him whenever he saw Jacqueline nowadays: ”G.o.d gives us our eyes, our parents gives us our noses, but we make our own mouths.”
It occurred to him that Jacqueline was ”making her mouth” far too rapidly. Of a sudden the lips had lost all their childish softness and were settling into a firm, curved line of great beauty, but which had more than a hint of pathos. ”She has no right to such a mouth at her age!” he thought.
The fact of Channing's final disappearance was known to him, though not the manner of it; and at first it had filled him with satisfaction. Now, however, he realized that to get Channing out of sight was by no means to get him out of mind. His thoughts went back over the constant and secret companions.h.i.+p of many weeks, reaching as a climax the night the two had lost themselves in the mountains. He was uneasy--far more uneasy than Kate, who had in view a consolation for Jacqueline which Philip did not as yet suspect.
One day he happened in at Storm, to find Farwell making one of his frequent visits there. Jacqueline was chatting and laughing with him with her usual gaiety, but Philip, even as he entered, sensed a certain air of distress about the girl. It was Farwell's first call since Channing's disappearance.
”h.e.l.lo, dominie,” the actor greeted him cheerfully, evidently relieved by his arrival. ”We've just been discussing the mysterious Percival. You knew, of course, that he'd gone without so much as a by-your-leave to me? Not that only, but took my favorite car and left it running in the mud, simply shaking itself to pieces. A queer devil!--I had gone to Cincinnati for a day or two, and when I got back, not a sign of my guest, neither hair nor hide of him!”
”Rude enough,” commented Benoix.
”Oh, rude! Channing and I are old pals, and dropped our manners long ago. But unfriendly, that's what I call it! Leaving me in the lurch in that gloomy young barn of mine, without giving me a chance to get somebody in his place.--I tell you, this thing of being a country gentleman's the loneliest job I ever tackled! Do come and give me a cheering word now and then, Benoix.--And the only explanation the rotter made,” he continued resentfully, ”was a mere line saying he had been called to New York on urgent business. Urgent tommyrot! The only business he knows by sight is his own pleasure.”
”His writing?” commented Jacqueline, quietly. ”That isn't just pleasure.”
”Oh, yes, it is, or you may be sure he wouldn't be doing it! I know Channing. He's selfish to the bone. Oh, I'm done with the chap!--The fact is,” he added, very careful not to look at Jacqueline, ”these geniuses aren't to be relied upon, either as friends or anything else, you see. They're just--geniuses.”
”That's quite enough to be expected of them, isn't it?” remarked the girl, with a steady little smile.
Farwell changed the subject, having said what he had come to say; but inwardly he thought, ”She's a brick! She's a loyal, plucky little brick, and Channing is a--skunk! Perhaps she chucked him, though,” he reminded himself hopefully. ”Serve him good and plenty if she did.”
Thereafter the master of Holiday Hill spent as much time as he possibly could at Storm, Kate looking on at Jacqueline's friendly flirtation with him with something between a smile and a sigh.
The girl was doing a good deal in the way of flirtation just then, not only with Farwell, but with several of the earlier ”victims” who continued to come out from Lexington occasionally, and were encouraged to come more often. Kate had been through just such a stage of unhappiness herself, the reckless, desperate, defiant stage, when trouble is to be kept at bay only by sheer bravado. And she had been watched safely through it by the understanding eyes of Jacques Benoix, even as Jacqueline would be watched through it by the understanding eyes of his son.
For it was only with Philip the girl dared to be quite herself just then, _distraite_ and talkative by turns, subject to long silences, followed by bursts of wild gaiety. The change in his manner to her was very marked, he no longer teased and chaffed her as he had been wont to do, but treated her with a quiet affection, almost a deference; the _camaraderie_ offered to a friend who has come abreast of oneself on the hard path of life. Jacqueline in trouble, gallant and uncomplaining and piteously gay, was a Jacqueline who appealed to every instinct of chivalry in his fine nature.
If it had not been for Kate herself, the thing she so greatly desired might very well have come to pa.s.s just then. He might have fallen in love with Jacqueline. But unfortunately Kate was there, never lovelier than in her guarding, tender maternity; and for Philip other women, as women, did not exist.
Into this rather disturbed atmosphere of Storm arrived one day the new Mrs. Thorpe, quite unexpectedly and with something of a flourish.
Jacqueline, hearing outside the sound of a mellifluous horn which she did not recognize, ran to the window and reported company approaching, ”But it isn't Mr. Farwell, Mummy, and it isn't victims. It's a lady all dressed up. Why, Mummy, it's--no, it can't be. Yes it is too! It's the bride and groom, in a new Ark!”