Eleanor Mercein Kelly

“ Joan rather enjoyed being part and parcel of this murmuring, meandering community. She liked to feel in touch with the people about her, like any Miss Gracie or Miss Ella with a beau—particularly when it cost no effort. She had but to lend her company, and Archibald would do the rest. He asked no more from her than her presence.
Each time he came for her, Lizzie had acquired some new elegance; dust-covers, a side-mirror, a voice that sounded like a Packard's, at least. Not a car on the road exhibited brighter brasswork than hers. ”

“ There came again to Joan, for the first time in weeks, something of the glamour, the sense of promise, which had touched her in the summer past when she walked at night with her father through the strange city where he had once been young. It was as if Romance brushed her in passing with shadowy skirts, and Joan felt that she must catch at them, cling to them, before it was too late. Youth is so short, so short!...
Ellen, too, felt the witchery of the soft night; but to the Ellens, Romance comes only vicariously. ”

“ For some time the hills had been marching toward them, and at last they reached the first. It was low, and covered with juniper-bushes. On the crest of it stood a house, grim and stanch as when the pioneer Kildare built it, facing undaunted through the years the brunt of every storm that swept the plateau. Its trees were bent and twisted by the giant grasp of many winds.
"You see why they call it 'Storm,'" said Benoix.
Kildare had left them, spurring forward with sudden eagerness, whistling. Crashing down through the underbrush came two enormous bloodhounds, baying like mad things. ”

“ A gibbous harvest-moon was gazing down at them with its wry face when the two awoke to the fact that the hour was late and cold, particularly for a girl dressed airily in chiffon. Joan gazed ruefully at the wreck of her prettiest gown, limp with dew and crushed beyond recognition. She felt rather limp and crushed herself, though withal triumphant. One does not get engaged every night, and it was fitting that certain sacrifices honor the event.
The lovers had little to say to each other, as the canoe slipped back down the whispering river under that gibbous moon. ”

“ Her eyes took on a starry softness quite different from their usual glint of mischief, the rich blood in her cheeks came and went with her thoughts, her very hair had a sort of sheen upon it like the luster on the wings of pigeons in the spring. Blossom time, that comes once in life to every woman, with its perilous short gift of the power that moves the world, had come in turn to Jacqueline. It is a moment when a girl most needs her mother; but Kate's thoughts were elsewhere. ”

“ Joan could not recall any other home she had lived in without some attempt at a garden, were it only a few geraniums in the window-box.
"Mamma must have been very tired," she thought, soberly; and realized that, far from dreading her mother's absence in that dingy, dreary house, she was almost glad of it. When one is as tired as Mrs. Darcy, rest is the great boon—rest from hopeless hoping, rest from making homes out of patience and courage and a few old sticks of furniture, rest from the anxious sorrow of loving. ”

“ Oh, Kate Kildare, whatever manhood I may have I owe—"
"To your father," she said.
"Perhaps. But whatever good there is in me, you kept alive."
"Dear, dear! And that's why," she cried, with an attempt at lightness, "you feel it your duty to strike attitudes in your pulpit and keep the good alive in the rest of us?"
"That's why," he said, soberly, "But not you, Miss Kate. I do not preach to you. No man alive is good enough to preach to you." ”

“ Only this was a Joan who played harder than her younger self had ever played, entering into the gaiety of the school, the basket-ball, the charades, the skating-matches, the fancy-dress impromptus, with a feverish eagerness which saddened the good ladies to see. Strange, vivid, restless young creature—what she had learned of life in the short while she had been away from them! Love, motherhood, and loss—the loss that is saddest of all losses to women, be they wives or maids or religieuses. ”

“ It is disconcerting to discover that one is no longer the parent of children, but of women grown.
She had the weary, bruised feeling of one who has traveled too far—and indeed it was a long journey she had made that day, from her own wistful and eager young womanhood to that of her daughters. She brushed her hands across her eyes to clear them of memories and dreams alike.
Introspection is always a difficult matter to direct and simple natures, such as Kate Kildare's, but she forced herself to it now. Had she in any way failed her children, as Jemima seemed to imply? ”

“ But what does it matter?" He spoke half to himself, with his little shrug. "This manifestation or the next—we shall not be apart always."
"No, no!" she cried, catching at his hand. "That is too ethereal, too mystic for me—I can't bear it, Stefan! I want the people I love with me now, in this 'manifestation,' as you call it, where I can talk with them, and touch them, and hold on to them—I am not all spirit. I thought I was, but—I'm not. Oh, my dear, aren't you human at all?"
He did not reply; and Joan, looking at him through swimming tears, saw that it was because he could not. ”

“ She knew—she had always known—that only the childhood of her girls could belong to her. Their womanhood, their future, they must face unaided.
It is a bitter moment for all mothers, but more especially for Kate Kildare, who knew better than most what pitfalls lie in wait for young and hurrying feet, and whose nightmare was inheritance.
Then a consoling thought came to her; came in the shape of Jacques Benoix' son, Philip, with the steady eyes, and the great, tender heart of his father. Inheritance is not always a nightmare. The future of little Jacqueline, at least, was secure. ”

“ For a nickel—or at most a dime—all Nature is yours to command; beechwoods in their autumn field of the cloth of gold; little whispering streams breaking their winter silence, fireflies dancing—to the tune of the 'Merry Widow' waltz," (as that melody of the moment made itself audible from the house beyond) . "What a twilight! Fireflies, an afterglow, and the moonrise set to music, all at once," he said under his breath. "And some one to share them with!"
Joan was silent, flattered by the knowledge that this whimsical gentleman was letting her into his thoughts. ”

“ She was one of the women to whom weakness is a thing irresistible. Her moment of ugly doubt when her lover showed panic under fire had passed instantly with a realization of his dependence upon her. To give is the instinct of such natures, maternal in their very essence. The fact that Channing seemed to need her had always been his chief hold on her fancy.
She walked beside him most of the way, leading her mule, so that she might hold his hand; yearning over him, suffering far more than he suffered, crooning tender words of encouragement. ”

“ Effie May suddenly screamed again. "They're going to shoot!"
And as if at a signal for which they had been waiting, two shots barked out.
The Major, still finely erect, thrust the negro behind him, and at the same moment Joan sprang out of the car to go to his defense; two instinctive acts which proved them father and child, and also proved indubitably the Darcy right to pride of race.
His steady voice reached her again as she struggled through the milling crowd; "You poor fools, look to what your folly has already led you! You've shot the wrong man. You've shot me!" ”

“ These mountaineers cling to the old traditions."
They laughed together, her slight barrier of shyness gone down in the intimacy of sharing a common peril.
"But were you ever so close to the moon, before?" she asked dreamily. "It is right face to face with us now. I believe we could step off into it."
"As if it were a great golden door, opening into—who knows where?—Suppose we try, Jacqueline? If we follow this ravine at our feet, it will lead us to the edge of the mountain, and so to the threshold of the moon, without a doubt. Only we must hurry if we are to get there before the door closes." ”

“ Joan came out to them, a little untidy as to dress and hair (why is it that the Muse can never be pursued in perfect neatness?) and moving vaguely, as if half in a dream. There was a faint vertical wrinkle between her brows which was new to Nikolai, but her pallor had given place to warm tan, and both face and figure showed a slight suggestion of fullness, a little matronly poise that was more charming than her Botticelli maigre had been. ”

“ Jacqueline's volatile thoughts had taken a new direction. "That means Jemmy is going away to live. 'Way off to Lexington."
Kate sighed. "Farther than that, if I know Jemima."
"Then," said the girl, slowly, "when—if—I ever go away, you'd be here all alone, Mummy!"
"Mothers expect that, dear. Always we know that some day we shall be left alone. But we do not mind, we are even glad. We risk our lives to give life to our children, and we want them to have it all, life at its fullest. Otherwise we feel that we have been failures, somehow. ”

“ Joan was not yet quite the hard young egotist she intended to become.
And so when toward the end of her journey the train slid into a pleasant country, mellow with the evening sun, long reaches of rolling pasture and hill and fertile bottom-land that meant Kentucky, something welled up in the girl's heart deeper than glamour of place, stronger than regret for her sheltered little past, than fear and hope for her unguessed future; perhaps the deepest and strongest feeling life plants in the human soul—the blood-tie. ”

“ Kate had rarely occasion to speak to her children in such a tone, and Jacqueline looked at her, rather frightened. But she said nothing.
"Why, Jacqueline, little daughter, why should you spend your youth and your loveliness on a public that will cast you aside like an old glove when it is worn out? No, no, there's a larger purpose for you in life than any mere career. Careers are for the women who miss the other things, and who use in default the best they have. Fame, bah! It does not outlast a generation—or if it does, you will not know it. ”

“ But it was also the end of what Joan had disloyally spoken of to him as her vacation. The word stuck in her memory, and she was ashamed of it. Her heart yearned toward Archie.
The nuns bade her a delighted farewell; and all the way home she made amends for her long neglect of him by thinking of her husband constantly. By contrast with Eduard's smooth hair, his slim hands, and well-modulated, expressive voice, Archie appeared to her the very epitome of manliness. She idealized his defects into beauties, big ears, clumsiness, and all. ”

“ Channing looked at her with surprise. Was it possible that this backwoods hoyden—Bouncing Bet of the Banister, he had named her to himself, with a taste for alliteration—was it possible that she had read any of his books? She was hardly more than a child. The hair hung down her back in a thick, gleaming rope, her merry gamin's face lacked as yet all those subtleties, those nuances of expression which fascinated him in such faces as her mother's. Channing was still young enough to prefer the finished product. ”

“ She muttered, mollified, "I don't know as a single woman ought to accept such things off a gentleman."
"It's all right if her chaperon says she may," reassured Joan, keeping a straight face.
But when the old woman had gone, she said to her friend, "I'm ashamed of her, Stefan! I can't think what gets into her cranky old head!"
"It is always so at first. I have to win her confidence afresh each time. I think the faithful soul regards me as a wolf menacing the safety of her sheepfold." ”

“ Oh, I was so proud of being a Kildare, one of the Kildares of Storm; so ashamed of anything that did not quite come up to the standard of—of my father! Bah—my father! Not even man enough to take the consequences of his sin, to stand by them. My father," she cried fiercely, "was a coward! And I thought that everything that is good in me, pride and courage, and truthfulness, whatever manly virtues I may have, came from him, instead of—from you!"
"No, no—from yourself, dear," said Kate, quickly. "For everything that is best in you, you have yourself to thank." ”

“ A man alone can always manage to subsist in some fashion, but a man with a helpless female dependent on him—! Thank heaven," he said earnestly, "you can never know what it is to be a father! I thought constantly, 'What a home to bring a young lady into! What a situation for my child!' I may confess that I prayed—no gentleman need be ashamed to pray when he is in distress. And then like light in darkness the answer came to me. At whatever cost to myself, whatever sacrifice, I must provide comfort for Joan, a home suitable for the reception of a young gentlewoman. ”

“ She made a scornful gesture, "You see, it's just as I thought! Kisses and all that sort of thing have nothing to do with respect, with real liking. And if my own thrills couldn't outlast one moonlight buggy-ride, they would not do to marry on. It will be better for me to marry on respect."
"But poor Jim!" said Kate, unsteadily. "Must he, too, marry on respect?"
Jemima met her gaze candidly. "Why, no. Men are different, I think, even intellectual ones. He has thrills. I can feel him having them, when I dance with him. ”

“ For the modern woman there lies, fortunately, a life between the two extremes of domesticity and frivolity, both of which Joan had tried and found wanting. Or rather she had not found domesticity wanting so much as temporary—a period of tranquil suspense, as it were, leading up to an inevitable climax which had somehow failed to come off. Even had her babies lived, it is to be doubted whether Joan could have long satisfied herself with domesticity pure and simple; and she could no more resume it now than a cocoon may be resumed by a former occupant which has sprouted wings. ”

“ Benoix had said. Kate was remembering.
She lay dreaming of the future, thinking sometimes of her husband, not unkindly, but with pity, as one thinks of poor, blundering people who have gone through life unloving and unloved. Of his death she thought not at all. It was what he would have chosen, painless and quick, a fall from his horse within sight of his own house. So her mother found her, calm and very beautiful, placidly nursing her child.
Only once was the agitated lady able to prick her serenity. It was when she began to babble of Kildare's will. ”

“ Effie May gave a little squeal of horror, "A Jew! Well, I don't blame her for shying at the altar! Of all the men I've known in my day, I never did go with any Jew!"
"I confess I have something of the same prejudice myself," admitted the Major, "Jews and the canile.... But Mary was different, somehow. Not democratic exactly—she was one of the most fastidious women I have ever known. But people were simply people to her, particularly if they were in trouble. She and Nikolai became great friends. And of course since then he had grown to be quite a distinguished person, Jew or no Jew." ”

“ It is a terrible experience to watch, helpless, the agony of a fellow creature. She knelt beside the dirty pallet, her face as white as the girl's, beads of sweat on her brow, paralyzed by her utter inability to render aid—a new sensation to Mrs. Kildare. Maternity as she had known it was a thing of awe, of dread, a great brooding shadow that had for its reverse the most exquisite happiness God allows to the earth-born. But maternity as it came to Mag Henderson! ”

“ Mary Darcy's was not the nature to forget favors; and it occurred to her that there might be worse protectors for a girl who must one day be motherless than Our Lady of Sorrows. Not every faith is strong enough to go through life without some creed to cling to. Mary had offered her child what she could.
Lying there in the darkness, Joan understood. She wished that she might have been able to take what her mother offered. She yearned for the anodyne of simple, unquestioning prayer, for the mesmeric comfort that comes to the believing from the slipping of rosary beads between the fingers ”

“ Kate was wrong in her ideas that his poverty had much influence upon Philip. Poverty and wealth mean little to the idealist; and his faith was very strong. He knew that if God gave this beloved woman into his keeping, He would provide very surely the means of keeping her.
He was patient, too; yet lately all the talk of love and of marriage, the companionship of wistful, lovelorn Jacqueline, perhaps, the sight of James Thorpe's almost fatuous happiness, had made patience newly difficult; had stirred a restlessness in him that sometimes he believed his lady noticed. ”

“ I know the things a working girl has to do and stand for. Honest to God, I'd rather see you married!" he groaned.
Unselfish devotion could go no farther, and Joan knew it.
She suddenly found herself on the verge of tears. She was tired out, mind, soul, and body. She would have liked to put her head down on his shoulder and simply cry till she was comforted. It was such a big, broad shoulder, so amply adapted to the bearing of burdens. She could make him happy, too, poor boy! One and all, people seemed to expect nothing of her but marriage—her father, Effie May, Stefan Nikolai, and now Archie. ”

“ Kate's thoughts, too, were busy with her young adventurers into the world, throughout a wakeful night; only her anxieties did not concern themselves with Jacqueline. A nature so trusting, so unconscious, so bubbling over with friendliness toward all mankind, could not fail to make friends for itself among strangers, among even enemies. She had smiled to notice Jacqueline's success with the young men Thorpe had brought to supper. Her own girlhood had been a succession of just such triumphs. ”

“ One little placid-faced girl, stitching on a baby-dress, said quietly, "We ought to be nicer to Jews than we are, I think, girls. They're really wonderful!—so clever, you know."
"Yes," agreed Joan, "they are rather wonderful. There seems to be an intellectual force about them, a curious inner fire, that nothing can dampen, not even sweat-shops—I sometimes wish I were a Jew myself."
They stared at her in utter astonishment. "Wish you were a Jew? Why, Miss Darcy! Haven't you any prejudice against them at all?"
"Prejudice—against a race of several billion people?" Joan was astonished in her turn. ”

“ What you have to give will outlast many generations, will never die, will become part of the muscle and sinew and back-bone of your nation. Sons! Big, clean, lusty, well-born children!—Why, don't you suppose you and my clever Jemima—yes, and even my little crippled Katharine—were better gifts for me to bring the world than a mere passing pleasure in my voice?—Ah, Jacky, there's just one career open to women like you and me. ”