Books: Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories
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Kathleen Norris >> Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories
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Rosemary suddenly leaned over to kiss her. Her eyes were curiously
satisfied.
"I see where the fairness comes in--I see it now," she said
dreamily. But even her stepmother did not catch the whisper or its
meaning.
AUSTIN'S GIRL
In the blazing heat of a July afternoon, Mrs. Cyrus Austin Phelps,
of Boston, arrived unexpectedly at the Yerba Buena rancho in
California. She was the only passenger to leave the train at the
little sun-burned platform that served as a station, and found not
even a freight agent there, of whom to ask the way to Miss Manzanita
Boone's residence. There were a few glittering lizards whisking
about on the dusty boards, and a few buzzards hanging motionless
against the cloudless pale blue of the sky overhead. Otherwise
nothing living was in sight.
The train roared on down the valley, and disappeared. Its last echo
died away. All about was the utter silence of the foot-hills. The
even spires of motionless redwood trees rose, dense and steep, to
meet the sky-line with a shimmer of heat. The sun beat down
mercilessly, there was no shadow anywhere.
Mrs. Phelps, trim, middle-aged, richly and simply dressed, typical
of her native city, was not a woman to be easily disconcerted, but
she felt quite at a loss now. She was already sorry that she had
come at all to Yerba Buena, sorry that, in coming, she had not
written Austin to meet her. She already disliked this wide, silent,
half-savage valley, and already felt out of place here. How could
she possibly imagine that there would not be shops, stables, hotels
at the station? What did other people do when they arrived here?
Mrs. Phelps crisply asked these questions of the unanswering woods
and hills.
After a while she sat down on her trunk, though with her small back
erect, and her expression uncompromisingly stern. She was sitting
there when Joe Bettancourt, a Portuguese milkman, happened to come
by with his shabby milk wagon, and his lean, shaggy horses, and--
more because Joe, not understanding English, took it calmly for
granted that she wished to drive with him, than because she liked
the arrangement--Mrs. Phelps got him to take her trunk and herself
upon their way. They drove steadily upward, through apple orchards
that stretched in hot zigzag lines, like the spokes of a great
wheel, about them, and through strips of forest, where the corduroy
road was springy beneath the wagon wheels, and past ugly low cow
sheds, where the red-brown cattle were already gathering for the
milking.
"You are taking me to Mr. Boone's residence?" Mrs. Phelps would ask,
at two-minute intervals. And Joe, hunched lazily over the reins,
would respond huskily:
"Sure. Thaz th' ole man."
And presently they did turn a corner, and find, in a great gash of
clearing, a low, rambling structure only a little better than the
cow sheds, with wide, unpainted porches all about it, and a
straggling line of out-houses near by. A Chinese cook came out of a
swinging door to stare at the arrival, two or three Portuguese
girls, evidently house-servants, entered into a cheerful, nasal
conversation with Joe Bettancourt, from their seats by the kitchen
door, and a very handsome young woman, whom Mrs. Phelps at first
thought merely another servant came running down to the wagon. This
young creature had a well-rounded figure, clad in faded, crisp blue
linen, slim ankles that showed above her heavy buckled slippers, and
a loosely-braided heavy rope of bright hair. Her eyes were a burning
blue, the lashes curled like a doll's lashes, and the brows as even
and dark as a doll's, too. She was extraordinarily pretty, even Mrs.
Phelps could find no fault with the bright perfection of her face.
"Don't say you're Mother Phelps!" cried this young person,
delightedly, lifting the older woman almost bodily from the wagon.
"But I know you are!" she continued joyously. "Do you know who I am?
I'm Manzanita Boone!"
Mrs. Phelps felt her heart grow sick within her. She had thought
herself steeled for any shock,--but not this! Stricken dumb for a
moment, she was led indoors, and found herself listening to a stream
of gay chatter, and relieved of hat and gloves, and answering
questions briefly and coldly, while all the time an agonized
undercurrent of protest filled her heart: "He cannot--he SHALL NOT
marry her!"
Austin was up at the mine, of course, but Miss Boone despatched a
messenger for him in all haste. The messenger was instructed to say
merely that Manzanita had something she wanted to show him, but the
simple little ruse failed. Austin guessed what the something was,
and before he had fairly dismounted from his wheeling buckskin, his
mother heard his eager voice: "Mater! Where are you! Where's my
mother?"
He came rushing into the ranch-house, and caught her in his arms,
laughing and eager, half wild with the joy of seeing his mother and
his girl in each other's company, and too radiant to suspect that
his mother's happiness was not as great as his own.
"You got my letter about our engagement, mater? Of course,--and you
came right on to meet my girl yourself, didn't you? Good little
mater, that was perfectly great of you! This is just about the best
thing that ever--and isn't she sweet--do you blame me?" He had his
arm about Manzanita, their eyes were together, his tender and proud,
the girl's laughing and shy,--they did not see Mrs. Phelps's
expression. "And what did you think?" Austin rushed on, "Were you
surprised? Did you tell Cornelia? That's good. Did you tell every
one--have the home papers had it? You know, mother," Austin dropped
his voice confidentially, "I wasn't sure you'd be awfully glad,--
just at first, you know. I knew you would be the minute you saw
Manz'ita; but I was afraid--But now, it's all right,--and it's just
great!"
"But I thought Yerba Buena was quite a little village, dear," said
Mrs. Phelps, accusingly.
"What's the difference?" said Austin, cheerfully, much concerned
because Manzanita was silently implying that he should remove his
arm from her waist.
"Why, I thought I could stay at a hotel, or at least a boarding-
house--" began his mother. Miss Boone laughed out. She was a noisy
young creature.
"We'll 'phone the Waldorf-Astoria," said she.
"Seriously, Austin--" said Mrs. Phelps, looking annoyed.
"Seriously, mater," he met her distress comfortably, "you'll stay
here at the ranch-house. I live here, you know. Manz'ita'll love to
have you, and you'll get the best meals you ever had since you were
born! This was certainly a corking thing for you to do, mother!" he
broke off joyfully. "And you're looking awfully well!"
"I find you changed, Austin," his mother said, with a delicate
inflection that made the words significant. "You're brown, dear, and
bigger, and--heavier, aren't you?"
"Why don't you say fat?" said Manzanita, with a little push for her
affianced husband. "He was an awfully pasty-looking thing when he
came here," she confided to his mother. "But I fed him up, didn't I,
Aus?" And she rubbed her cheek against his head like a little
friendly pony.
"And he's going to marry her!" Mrs. Phelps said to herself,
heartsick. She felt suddenly old and discouraged and helpless; out
of their zone of youth and love. But on the heels of despair, her
courage rose up again. She would save Austin while there was yet
time, if human power could do it.
The three were sitting in the parlor, a small, square room, through
whose western windows the sinking sun streamed boldly. Mrs. Phelps
had never seen a room like this before. There was no note of
quaintness here; no high-boy, no heavy old mahogany drop-leaf table,
no braided rugs or small-paned windows. There was not even comfort.
The chairs were as new and shining as chairs could be; there was a
"mission style" rocker, a golden-oak rocker, a cherry rocker,
heavily upholstered. There was a walnut drop-head sewing-machine on
which a pink saucer of some black liquid fly-poison stood. There was
a "body Brussels" rug on the floor. Lastly, there was an oak
sideboard, dusty, pretentious, with its mirror cut into small
sections by little, empty shelves.
It all seemed like a nightmare to poor little Mrs. Phelps, as she
sat listening to the delighted reminiscences of the young people,
who presently reviewed their entire acquaintanceship for her
benefit. It seemed impossible that this was her Austin, this big-
voiced, brown, muscular young man! Austin had always been slender,
and rather silent. Austin had always been so close to her, so quick
to catch her point of view. He had been nearer her even than
Cornelia--
Cornelia! Her heart reached Cornelia's name with a homesick throb.
Cornelia would be home from her club or concert or afternoon at
cards now,--Mrs. Phelps did not worry herself with latitude or
longitude,--she would be having tea in the little drawing-room,
under the approving canvases of Copley and Gilbert Stuart. Her
mother could see Cornelia's well-groomed hands busy with the Spode
cups and the heavy old silver spoons; Cornelia's fine, intelligent
face and smooth dark head well set off by a background of rich
hangings and soft lights, polished surfaces, and the dull tones of
priceless rugs.
"I beg your pardon?" she said, rousing herself.
"I asked you if you didn't have a cat-fit when you realized that Aus
was going to marry a girl you never saw?" Manzanita repeated with
friendly enjoyment. Mrs. Phelps gave her only a few seconds' steady
consideration for answer, and then pointedly addressed her son.
"It sounds very strange to your mother, to have you called anything
but Austin, my son," she said.
"Manz'ita can't spare the time," he explained, adoring eyes on the
girl, whose beauty, in the level light, was quite startling enough
to hold any man's eyes.
"And you young people are very sure of yourselves, I suppose?" the
mother said, lightly, after a little pause. Austin only laughed
comfortably, but Manzanita's eyes came suddenly to meet those of the
older woman, and both knew that the first gun had been fired. A
color that was not of the sunset burned suddenly in the girl's round
cheeks. "She's not glad we're engaged!" thought Manzanita, with a
pang of utter surprise. "She knows why I came!" Mrs. Phelps said
triumphantly to herself.
For Mrs. Phelps was a determined woman, and in some ways a merciless
one. She had been born with Bostonian prejudices strong within her.
She had made her children familiar, in their very nursery days, with
the great names of their ancestors. Cornelia, when a plain,
distinguished-looking child of six, was aware that her nose was "all
Slocumb," and her forehead just like "great-aunt Hannah Maria Rand
Babcock's." Austin learned that he was a Phelps in disposition, but
"the image of the Bonds and the Baldwins." The children often went
to distinguished gatherings composed entirely of their near and
distant kinspeople, ate their porridge from silver bowls a hundred
years old, and even at dancing-school were able to discriminate
against the beruffled and white-clad infants whose parents "mother
didn't know." In due time Austin went to a college in whose archives
the names of his kinsmen bore an honorable part; and Cornelia,
having skated and studied German cheerfully for several years, with
spectacles on her near-sighted eyes, her hair in a club, and a metal
band across her big white teeth, suddenly blossomed into a handsome
and dignified woman, who calmly selected one Taylor Putnam Underwood
as the most eligible of several possible husbands, and proceeded to
set up an irreproachable establishment of her own.
All this was as it should be. Mrs. Phelps, a bustling little figure
in her handsome rich silks, with her crisp black hair severely
arranged, and her crisp voice growing more and more pleasantly
positive as years went by, fitted herself with dignity into the role
of mother-in-law and grandmother. Cornelia had been married several
years. When Austin came home from college, and while taking him
proudly with her on a round of dinners and calls, his mother
naturally cast her eye about her for the pearl of women, who should
become his wife.
Austin, it was understood, was to go into Uncle Hubbard
Frothingham's office. All the young sons and nephews and cousins in
the family started there. When Austin, agreeing in the main to the
proposal, suggested that he be put in the San Francisco branch of
the business, Mrs. Phelps was only mildly disturbed. He had
everything to lose and nothing to gain by going West, she explained,
but if he wanted to, let him try California.
So Austin went, and quite distinguished himself in his new work for
about a year. Then suddenly out of a clear sky came the astounding
news that he had left the firm,--actually resigned from Frothingham,
Curtis, and Frothingham!--and had gone up into the mountains, to
manage a mine for some unknown person named Boone! Mrs. Phelps shut
her lips into a severe line when she heard this news, and for
several weeks she did not write to Austin. But as months went by,
and he seemed always well and busy, and full of plans for a visit
home, she forgave him, and wrote him twice weekly again,--charming,
motherly letters, in which newspaper clippings and concert
programmes likely to interest him were enclosed, and amateur
photographs,--snapshots of Cornelia in her furs, laughing against a
background of snowy Common, snapshots of Cornelia's children with
old Kelly in the motor-car, and of dear Taylor and Cornelia with
Sally Middleton on the yacht. Did Austin remember dear Sally? She
had grown so pretty and had so many admirers.
It was Cornelia who suggested, when the staggering news of Austin's
engagement came to Boston, that her mother should go to California,
stay at some "pretty, quiet farm-house near by," meet this Miss
Manzanita Boone, whoever she was, and quietly effect, as mothers and
sisters have hoped to effect since time began, a change of heart in
Austin.
And so she had arrived here, to find that there was no such thing in
the entire valley as the colonial farmhouse of her dreams, to find
that, far from estranging Austin from the Boone family, she must
actually be their guest while she stayed at Yerba Buena, to find
that her coming was interpreted by this infatuated pair to be a sign
of her entire sympathy with their plans. And added to all this,
Austin was different, noisier, bigger, younger than she remembered
him: Manzanita was worse than her worst fears, and the rancho,
bounded only by the far-distant mountain ridges, with its canyons,
its river, its wooded valleys and trackless ranges, struck actual
terror to her homesick soul.
"Well, what do you think of her? Isn't she a darling?" demanded
Austin, when he and his mother were alone on the porch, just before
dinner.
"She's very PRETTY, dear. She's not a college girl, of course?"
"College? Lord, no! Why, she wouldn't even go away to boarding-
school." Austin was evidently proud of her independent spirit. "She
and her brothers went to this little school over here at Eucalyptus,
and I guess Manz'ita ran things pretty much her own way. You'll like
the kids. They have no mother, you know, and old Boone just adores
Manzanita. He's a nice old boy, too."
"Austin, DEAR!" Mrs. Phelps's protest died into a sigh.
"Well, but he is, a fine old fellow," amended Austin.
"And you think she's the sort of woman to make you happy, dear. Is
she musical? Is she fond of books?"
Austin, for the first time, looked troubled.
"Don't you LIKE her, mother?" he asked, astounded.
"Why, I've just met her, dear. I want you to tell me about her."
"Every one here is crazy about her," Austin said half sulkily.
"She's been engaged four times, and she's only twenty-two!"
"And she TOLD you that, dear? Herself?"
The boy flushed quickly.
"Why shouldn't she?" he said uncomfortably. "Every one knows it."
His mother fanned for a moment in silence.
"Can you imagine Cornelia--or Sally--engaged four times, and talking
about it?" she asked gently.
"Things are different here," Austin presently submitted, to which
Mrs. Phelps emphatically assented, "Entirely different!"
There was a pause. From the kitchen region came much slamming of
light wire door, and the sound of hissing and steaming, high-keyed
remarks from the Chinese and the Portuguese girls, and now and then
the ripple of Manzanita's laughter. A farm-hand crossed the yard,
with pails of milk, and presently a dozen or more men came down the
steep trail that led to the mine.
These were ranch-hands, cow-boys, and road-keepers, strong, good-
natured young fellows, who had their own house and their own cook
near the main ranch-house, and who now began a great washing and
splashing, at a bench under some willow trees, where there were
basins and towels. An old Spanish shepherd, with his dogs, came down
from the sheep range; other dogs lounged out from barns and stables;
there was a cheerful stir of reunion and relaxation as the hot day
dropped to its close.
A great hawk flapped across the canyon below the ranch-house, bats
began to wheel in the clear dusk, owls called in the woods. Just
before Manzanita appeared in the kitchen doorway to ring a clamorous
bell for some sixty ear-splitting seconds, her father, an immense
old man on a restless claybank mare, rode into the yard, and the
four brothers, Jose, Marty, Allen, and the little crippled youngest,
eight-year-old Rafael, appeared mysteriously from the shadows, and
announced that they were ready for dinner. Martin Boone, Senior,
gave Mrs. Phelps a vigorous welcome.
"Well, sir! I never thought I'd be glad to see the mother of the
fellow who carried off my girl," said Martin Boone, wringing Mrs.
Phelps's aching fingers, "but you and I married in our day, ma'am,
and it's the youngsters' turn. But he'll have to be a pretty fine
fellow to satisfy Manzanita!" And before the lady could even begin
the spirited retort that rose to her lips, he had led the way to the
long, overloaded dinner-table.
"I am too terribly heartsick to go into details," wrote the poor
little lady, when Manzanita had left her for the night in her bare,
big bedroom and she had opened her writing-case upon a pine table
over which hung, incongruously enough, a large electric light.
"Austin is apparently blind to everything but her beauty, which is
really noticeable, not that it matters. What is mere beauty beside
such refinement as Sally's, for instance, how far will it go with
OUR FRIENDS when they discover that Austin's wife is an untrained,
common little country girl? Even when I tell you that she uses such
words as 'swell,' and 'perfect lady,' and that she asked me who
Phillips Brooks was, and had never heard of William Morris or
Maeterlinck you can really form no idea of her ignorance! And the
dinner,--one shudders at the thought of beginning to teach her of
correct service; hors d'oeuvres, finger-bowls, butter-spreaders,
soup-spoons and salad-forks will all be mysteries to her! And her
clothes! A rowdyish-looking little tight-fitting cotton a servant
would not wear, and openwork hose, and silver bangles! It is
terrible, TERRIBLE. I don't know what we can do. She is very clever.
I think she suspects already that I do not approve, although she
began at once to call me 'Mother Phelps'--with a familiarity that is
quite typical of her. My one hope is to persuade Austin to come home
with me for a visit, and to keep him there until his wretched
infatuation has died a natural death. What possible charm this part
of the world can have for him is a mystery to me. To compare this
barn of a house to your lovely home is enough to make me long to be
there with all my heart. Instead of my beautiful rooms, and Mary's
constant attendance, imagine your mother writing in a room whose
windows have no shades, so that one has the uncomfortable sensation
that any one outside may be looking in. Of course the valley
descends very steeply from the ranch-house, and there are thousands
of acres of silent woods and hills, but I don't like it,
nevertheless, and shall undress in the dark. ...I shall certainly
speak seriously to Austin as soon as possible."
But the right moment for approaching Austin on the subject of his
return to Boston did not immediately present itself, and for several
days Manzanita, delighted at having a woman guest, took Mrs. Phelps
with her all over the countryside.
"I like lady friends," said Manzanita once, a little shyly. "You see
it's 'most always men who visit the rancho, and they're no fun!"
She used to come, uninvited but serene, into her prospective mother-
in-law's room at night, and artlessly confide in her, while she
braided the masses of her glorious hair. She showed Mrs. Phelps the
"swell" pillow she was embroidering to represent an Indian's head,
and which she intended to finish with real beads and real feathers.
She was as eagerly curious as a child about the older woman's dainty
toilet accessories, experimenting with manicure sets and creams and
powders with artless pleasure. "I'm going to have that and do it
that way!" she would announce, when impressed by some particular
little nice touch about Cornelia's letters, or some allusion that
gave her a new idea.
"If you ever come to Boston, you will be expected to know all these
things," Mrs. Phelps said to her once, a little curiously.
"Oh, but I'll never go there!" she responded confidently.
"You will have to," said the other, sharply. "Austin can hardly
spend his whole life here! His friends are there, his family. All
his traditions are there. Those may not mean much to him now, but in
time to come they will mean more."
"We'll make more money than we can spend, right here," Manzanita
said, in a troubled voice.
"Money is not everything, my dear."
"No--" Manzanita's brown fingers went slowly down to the last fine
strands of the braid she was finishing. Then she said, brightening:
"But I AM everything to Aus! I don't care what I don't know, or
can't do, HE thinks I'm fine!"
And she went off to bed in high spirits. She was too entirely normal
a young woman to let anything worry her very long,--too busy to
brood. The visitor soon learned why the ranch-house parlor presented
so dismal an aspect of unuse. It was because Manzanita was never
inside it. The girl's days were packed to the last instant with
duties and pleasures. She needed no parlor. Even her bedroom was as
bare and impersonal as her father's. She was never idle. Mrs. Phelps
more than once saw the new-born child of a rancher's or miner's wife
held in those capable young arms, she saw the children at the mine
gathering about Manzanita, the women leaving their doorways for
eager talk with her. And once, during the Eastern woman's visit,
death came to the Yerba Buena, and Manzanita and young Jose spent
the night in one of the ranch-houses, and walked home, white, tired,
and a little sobered, in the early morning, for breakfast.
Manzanita rode and drove horses of which even her brothers were
afraid; she handled a gun well, she chattered enough Spanish,
Portuguese, Indian, and Italian to make herself understood by the
ranch hands and dairy-men. And when there was a housewarming, or a
new barn to gather in, she danced all night with a passionate
enjoyment. It might be with Austin, or the post-office clerk, or a
young, sleek-haired rancher, or a miner shining from soap and water;
it mattered not to Manzanita, if he could but dance. And when she
and Mrs. Phelps drove, as they often did, to spend the day with the
gentle, keen, capable women on other ranches thereabout, it was
quite the usual thing to have them bring out bolts of silk or
gingham for Manzanita's inspection, and seriously consult her as to
fitting and cutting.
Mrs. Phelps immensely enjoyed these day-long visits, though she
would have denied it; hardly recognized the fact herself. One could
grow well acquainted in a day with the clean, big, bare ranch-
houses, the very old people in the shining kitchens, the three or
four capable companionable women who managed the family; one with a
child at her breast, perhaps another getting ready for her wedding,
a third newly widowed, but all dwelling harmoniously together and
sharing alike the care of menfolk and children. They would all make
the Eastern woman warmly welcome, eager for her talk of the world
beyond their mountains, and when she and Manzanita drove away, it
was with jars of specially chosen preserves and delicious cheeses in
their hands, pumpkins and grapes, late apples and perhaps a jug of
cider in the little wagon body, and a loaf of fresh-baked cake or
bread still warm in a white napkin. Hospitable children, dancing
about the phaeton, would shout generous offers of "bunnies" or
"kitties," Manzanita would hang at a dangerous angle over the wheel
to accept good-by kisses, and perhaps some old, old woman, limping
out to stand blinking in the sunlight, would lay a fine,
transparent, work-worn hand on Mrs. Phelps and ask her to come
again. It was an "impossible" life, of course, and yet, at the
moment, absorbing enough to the new-comer. And it was at least
surprising to find the best of magazines and books everywhere,--"the
advertisements alone seem to keep them in touch with everything
new," wrote Mrs. Phelps.
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