Part 66 (1/2)

Jenkins was a young man trained by herself into efficiency, who had long been anxious to a.s.sume 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. G.o.d 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.

CHAPTER XLIX

It was a very trivial and unimportant thing, to Jemima's thinking, which presently lifted Kate out of her languor into action once more. Big Liza, entering timidly one morning, as she did many times in the day, to gaze with miserable eyes at the figure on the bed, murmured to Jemima: ”They's a message come fum that 'ooman Mahaly, down in the village, sayin' she's dyin', and wants to see the Madam. She 'lows she cain't die in peace 'thout'n she sees Miss Kate.”

”Of course that's impossible,” said Jemima in the same low tone. ”Send word that we're very sorry. See that she has whatever she needs. If necessary, I'll go myself.”

”Did you say she was dying?” asked an unexpected voice from the bed.

”Yais'm, Miss Kate! but don't you keer, honey. Tain't nothin but that mulatter 'ooman, Mahaly--You 'members about _her_!” she added scornfully.--Very little had pa.s.sed among her ”white folks” that was unknown to the sovereign of the kitchen.

To the amaze of both, Kate slipped without apparent effort out of the bed where she had lain for weeks. ”Where are my clothes?” she demanded.

Jemima ran to her with a cry of protest. ”Mother, be careful! What, you aren't thinking of going to see her? You can't--you're not strong enough!”

”Mahaly must not die before I speak with her.”

”Then,” said Jemima calmly, ”I'll have her brought to you.”

”A dying woman? Jemmy, don't be silly!” Kate spoke with an asperity that brought a wide grin to Big Liza's face, because it sounded as though the Madam were come back again.

Jemima, alarmed, continued to protest; at last ran to the telephone and called Dr. Jones to her a.s.sistance. Meanwhile Kate, scolded at, fussed over, but in the end helped by her cook, got into out-door clothes; and before Doctor Jones was on his way to Storm, she had taken the road for the village.