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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Her whole attitude toward Manzanita might have softened sometimes,
if long years of custom had not made the little things of life
vitally important to her. A misused or mispronounced word was like a
blow to her; inner forces over which she had no control forced her
to discuss it and correct it. She had a quick, horrified pity for
Manzanita's ignorance on matters which should be part of a lady's
instinctive knowledge. She winced at the girl's cheerful
acknowledgement of that ignorance. No woman in Mrs. Phelps's own
circle at home ever for one instant admitted ignorance of any
important point of any sort; what she did not know she could
superbly imply was not worth knowing. Even though she might be
secretly enjoying the universal, warm hospitality of the rancho,
Mrs. Phelps never lost sight of the fact that Manzanita was not the
wife for Austin, and that the marriage would be the ruin of his
life. She told herself that her opposition was for Manzanita's
happiness as well as for his, and plotted without ceasing against
their plans.
"I've had a really remarkable letter from Uncle William, dear!" she
said, one afternoon, when by some rare chance she was alone with her
son.
"Good for you!" said Austin, absently, clicking the cock of the gun
he was cleaning. "Give the old boy my love when you write."
"He sends you a message, dear. He wants to know--but you're not
listening," Mrs. Phelps paused. Austin looked up.
"Oh, I'm listening. I hear every word."
"You seem so far from me these days, Austin," said his mother,
plaintively. But--" she brightened, "I hope dear Uncle William's
plan will change all that. He wants you to come home, dear. He
offers you the junior partnership, Austin." She brought it out very
quietly.
"Offers me the--WHAT?"
"The junior partnership,--yes, dear. Think of it, at your age,
Austin! What would your dear father have said! How proud he would
have been! Yes. Stafford has gone into law, you know, and Keith
Curtis will live abroad when Isabel inherits. So you see!"
"Mighty kind of Uncle William," mused Austin, "but of course there's
nothing in it for me!" He avoided her gaze, and went on cleaning his
gun. "I'm fixed here, you know. This suits me."
"I hope you are not serious, my son." Austin knew that voice. He
braced himself for unpleasantness.
"Manzanita," he said simply. There was a throbbing silence.
"You disappoint one of my lifelong hopes for my only son, Austin,"
his mother said very quietly.
"I know it, mother. I'm sorry."
"For the first time, Austin, I wish I had another son. I am going to
beg you--to beg you to believe that I can see your happiness clearer
than you can just now!" Mrs. Phelps's voice was calm, but she was
trembling with feeling.
"Don't put it that way, mater. Anyway, I never liked office work
much, you know."
"Austin, don't think your old mammy is trying to manage you," Mrs.
Phelps was suddenly mild and affectionate. "But THINK, dear. Taylor
says the salary is not less than fifteen thousand. You could have a
lovely home, near me. Think of the opera, of having a really formal
dinner again, of going to Cousin Robert Stokes's for Christmas, and
yachting with Taylor and Gerry."
Austin was still now, evidently he WAS thinking.
"My idea," his mother went on reasonably, "would be to have you come
on with me now, at once. See Uncle William,--we mustn't keep his
kindness waiting, must we?--get used to the new work, make sure of
yourself. Then come back for Manzanita, or have her come on--" She
paused, her eyes a question.
"I'd hate to leave Yerba Buena--" Austin visibly hesitated.
"But, Austin, you must sooner or later." Mrs. Phelps was framing a
triumphant letter to Cornelia in her mind.
But just then Manzanita came running around the corner of the house,
and seeing them, took the porch steps in two bounds, and came to
lean on Austin's shoulder.
"Austin!" she burst out excitedly. "I want you to ride straight down
to the stock pens,--they've got a thousand steers on the flats there
going through from Portland, and the men say they aren't to leave
the cars to-night! I told them they would HAVE to turn them out and
water them, and they just laughed! Will you go down?" She was
breathing hard like an impatient child, her cheeks two poppies, her
eyes blazing. "Will you? Will you?"
"Sure I will, if you'll do something for me." Austin pulled her
toward him.
"Well, there!" She gave him a child's impersonal kiss. "You'll make
them water them, won't you, Austin?"
"Oh, yes. I'll 'tend to them." Austin got up, his arm about her.
"Look here," said he. "How'd you like to come and live in Boston?"
Her eyes went quickly from him to his mother.
"I wouldn't!" she said, breathing quickly and defiantly.
"Never?"
"Never, never, never! Unless it was just to visit. Why, Austin--"
her reproachful eyes accused him, "you said we needn't, ever! You
KNOW I couldn't live in a street!"
Austin laughed again. "Well, that settles Uncle William!" he
announced comfortably. "I'll write him to-morrow, mother. Come on,
now, we'll settle this other trouble!"
And he and Manzanita disappeared in the direction of the stable.
Mrs. Phelps sat thinking, deep red spots burning in her cheeks.
Things could not go on this way. Yet she would not give up. She
suddenly determined to try an idea of Cornelia's.
So the word went all over the ranch-house next day that Mrs. Phelps
was ill. The nature of the illness was not specified, but she could
not leave her bed. Austin was all filial sympathy, Manzanita an
untiring nurse. Hong Fat sent up all sorts of kitchen delicacies,
the boys brought trout, and rare ferns, and wild blackberries in
from their daily excursions, for her especial benefit, and before
two days were over, every hour found some distant neighbor at the
rancho with offers of sympathy and assistance. An old doctor came up
from Emville at once, and Jose and Marty accompanied him all the
twenty miles back into town for medicines.
But days went by, and the invalid was no better. She lay, quiet and
uncomplaining, in the airy bedroom, while October walked over the
mountain ranges, and the grapes were gathered, and the apples
brought in. She took the doctor's medicine, and his advice, and
agreed pleasantly with him that she would soon be well enough to go
home, and would be better off there. But she would not try to get
up.
One afternoon, while she was lying with closed eyes, she heard the
rattle of the doctor's old buggy outside, and heard Manzanita greet
him from where she was labelling jelly glasses on the porch. Mrs.
Phelps could trace the old man's panting approach to a porch chair,
and heard Manzanita go into the house with a promise of lemonade and
crullers. In a few minutes she was back again, and the clink of ice
against glass sounded pleasantly in the hot afternoon.
"Well, how is she?" said the doctor, presently, with a long, wet
gasp of satisfaction.
"She's asleep," answered Manzanita. "I just peeked in.--There's more
of that," she added, in apparent reference to the iced drink. And
then, with a change of tone, she added, "What's the matter with her,
anyway, Doc' Jim?"
To which the old doctor with great simplicity responded:
"You've got me, Manz'ita. I can diagnose as good as any one," he
went on after a pause, "when folks have GOT something. If you mashed
your hand in a food cutter, or c't something poisonous, or come down
with scarlet fever, I'd know what to do for ye. But, these rich
women--"
"Well, you know, I could prescribe for her, and cure her, too," said
Manzanita. "All I'd do is tell her she'd got to go home right off.
I'd say that this climate was too bracing for her, or something."
"Shucks! I did say that," interrupted the doctor.
"Yes, but you didn't say you thought she'd ought to take her son
along in case of need," the girl added significantly. There was a
long pause.
"She don't want ye to marry him, hey?" said the doctor, ending it.
Manzanita evidently indicated an assent, for he presently resumed
indignantly: "Who does she want for him--Adelina Patti?" He
marvelled over a third glass. "Well, what do you know about that!"
he murmured. Then, "Well, I'll be a long time prescribing that."
"No, I want you to send her off, and send him with her," said
Manzanita, decidedly, "that's why I'm telling you this. I've thought
it all over. I don't want to be mean about it. She thinks that if he
saw his sister, and his old friends, and his old life, he'd get to
hate the Yerba Buena. At first I laughed at her, and so did Aus.
But, I don't know, Doc' Jim, she may be right!"
"Shucks!" said the doctor, incredulously.
"No, of course she isn't!" the girl said, after a pause. "I know
Aus. But let her take him, and try. Then, if he comes back, she
can't blame me. And--" She laughed. "This is a funny thing," she
said, "for she doesn't like me. But I like her. I have no mother and
no aunts, you know, and I like having an old lady 'round. I always
wanted some one to stay with me, and perhaps, if Aus comes back some
day, she'll get to liking me, too. She'll remember," her tone grew a
little wistful, "that I couldn't help his loving me! And besides--
"and the tone was suddenly confident again--"I AM good--as good as
his sister! And I'm learning things. I learn something new from her
every day! And I'd LIKE to feel that he went away from me--and had
to come back!"
"Don't you be a fool," cautioned the doctor. "A feller gets among
his friends for a year or two, and where are ye? Minnie Ferguson's
feller never come back to her and she was a real pretty, good girl,
too."
"Oh, I think he'll come back," the girl said softly, as if to
herself.
"I only hope, if he don't show up on the minute, you'll marry
somebody else so quick it'll make her head spin!" said the doctor,
fervently. Manzanita laughed out, and the sound of it made Mrs.
Phelps wince, and shut her eyes.
"Maybe I will!" the girl said hardily. "You'll suggest his taking
her home, anyway, won't you, Doc' Jim?" she asked.
"Well, durn it, I'd jest as soon," agreed the doctor. "I don't know
as you're so crazy about him!"
"And you'll stay to dinner?" Manzanita instantly changed the
subject. "There's ducks. Of course the season's over, but a string
of them came up to Jose and Marty, and pushed themselves against
their guns--you know how it is."
"Sure, I'll stay," said the doctor. "Go see if she's awake,
Manz'ita, that's a good girl. If she ain't--I'll walk up to the mine
for a spell."
So Manzanita tiptoed to the door of Mrs. Phelps's room and
noiselessly opened it, and smiled when she saw the invalid's open
eyes.
"Well, have a nice nap?" she asked, coming to put a daughterly
little hand over the older woman's hand. "Want more light? Your
books have come."
"I'm much better, dear," said Mrs. Phelps. The Boston woman's tone
would always be incisive, her words clear. But she kept Manzanita's
hand. "I think I will get up for dinner. I've been lying here
thinking that I've wasted quite enough time, if we are to have a
wedding here before I go home--"
Manzanita stared at her. Then she knelt down beside the bed and
began to cry.
On a certain Thursday afternoon more than a year later, Mrs. Phelps
happened to be alone in her daughter's Boston home. Cornelia was
attending the regular meeting of a small informal club whose reason
for being was the study of American composers. Mrs. Phelps might
have attended this, too, or she might have gone to several other
club meetings, or she might have been playing cards, or making
calls, but she had been a little bit out of humor with all these
things of late, and hence was alone in the great, silent house. The
rain was falling heavily outside, and in the library there was a
great coal fire. Now and then a noiseless maid came in and
replenished it.
Cornelia was always out in the afternoons. She belonged to a great
many clubs, social, literary, musical and civic clubs, and card
clubs. Cornelia was an exceptionally capable young woman. She had
two nice children, in the selection of whose governesses and
companions she exercised very keen judgment, and she had a fine
husband, a Harvard man of course, a silent, sweet-tempered man some
years her senior, whose one passion in life was his yacht, and whose
great desire was that his wife and children should have everything
in life of the very best. Altogether, Cornelia's life was quite
perfect, well-ordered, harmonious, and beautiful. She attended the
funeral of a relative or friend with the same decorous serenity with
which she welcomed her nearest and dearest to a big family dinner at
Christmas or Thanksgiving. She knew what life expected of her, and
she gave it with calm readiness.
The library in her beautiful home, where her mother was sitting now,
was like all the other drawing-rooms Cornelia entered. Its mahogany
reading-table bore a priceless lamp, and was crossed by a strip of
wonderful Chinese embroidery. There were heavy antique brass
candlesticks on the mantel, flanking a great mirror whose carved
frame showed against its gold rare touches of Florentine blue. The
rugs on the floor were a silken blend of Oriental tones, the books
in the cases were bound in full leather. An oil portrait of Taylor
hung where his wife's dutiful eyes would often find it, lovely
pictures of the children filled silver frames on a low book-case.
Eleanor, the ten-year-old, presently came into the room, with
Fraulein Hinz following her. Eleanor was a nice child, and the only
young life in the house since Taylor Junior had been sent off to
boarding-school.
"Here you are, grandmother," said she, with a kiss. "Uncle Edward
brought us home. It's horrid out. Several of the girls didn't come
at all to-day."
"And what have you to do now, dear?" Mrs. Phelps knew she had
something to do.
"German for to-morrow. But it's easy. And then Dorothy's coming
over, for mamma is going out. We'll do our history together, and
have dinner upstairs. She's not to go home until eight!"
"That's nice," said Mrs. Phelps, claiming another kiss before the
child went away. She had grown quite used to seeing Eleanor only for
a moment now and then.
When she was alone again, she sat staring dreamily into the fire, a
smile coming and going in her eyes. She had left Manzanita's letter
upstairs, but after all, she knew the ten closely covered pages by
heart. It had come a week ago, and had been read several times a day
since. It was a wonderful letter.
They wanted her--in California. In fact, they had always wanted her,
from the day she came away. She had stayed to see the new house
built, and had stayed for the wedding, and then had come back to
Boston, thinking her duty to Austin done, and herself free to take
up the old life with a clear conscience. But almost the first
letters from the rancho demanded her! Little Rafael had painfully
written to know where he could find this poem and that to which she
had introduced him. Marty had sent her a bird's nest, running over
with ants when it was opened in Cornelia's breakfast-room, but he
never knew that. Jose had written for advice as to seeds for
Manzanita's garden. And Austin had written he missed her, it was
"rotten" not to find mater waiting for them, when they came back
from their honeymoon.
But best of all, Manzanita had written, and, ah, it was sweet to be
wanted as Manzanita wanted her! News of all the neighbors, of the
women at the mine, pressed wildflowers, scraps of new gowns, and
questions of every sort; Manzanita's letters brimmed with them. She
could have her own rooms, her own bath, she could have everything
she liked, but she must come back!
"I am the only woman here at the house," wrote Manzanita, "and it's
no fun. I'd go about ever so much more, if you were here to go with
me. I want to start a club for the women at the mine, but I never
belonged to a club, and I don't know how. Rose Harrison wants you to
come on in time for her wedding, and Alice has a new baby. And old
Mrs. Larabee says to tell you--"
And so on and on. They didn't forget her, on the Yerba Buena, as the
months went by. Mrs. Phelps grew to look eagerly for the letters.
And now came this one, and the greatest news in the world--! And
now, it was as it should be, Manzanita wanted her more than ever!
Cornelia came in upon her happy musing, to kiss her mother, send her
hat and furs upstairs, ring for tea, and turn on the lights, all in
the space of some sixty seconds.
"It was so interesting to-day, mater," reported Cornelia. "Cousin
Emily asked for you, and Edith and the Butlers sent love. Helen is
giving a bridge lunch for Mrs. Marye; she's come up for Frances'
wedding on the tenth. And Anna's mother is better; the nurse says
you can see her on Wednesday. Don't forget the Shaw lecture
Wednesday, though. And there is to be a meeting of this auxiliary of
the political study club,--I don't know what it's all about, but one
feels one must go. I declare," Cornelia poured a second cup, "next
winter I'm going to try to do less. There isn't a single morning or
afternoon that I'm not attending some meeting or going to some
affair. Between pure milk and politics and charities and luncheons,-
-it's just too much! Belle says that women do all the work of the
world, in these days--"
"And yet we don't GET AT anything," said Mrs. Phelps, in her brisk,
impatient little way. "I attend meetings, I listen to reports, I sit
on boards--But what comes of it all! Trained nurses and paid workers
do all the actual work--"
"But mother, dear, a great deal will come of it all," Cornelia was
mildly reproachful. "You couldn't inspect babies and do nursing
yourself, dear! Investigating and tabulating and reporting are very
difficult things to do!"
"Sometimes I think, Cornelia, that the world was much pleasanter for
women when things were more primitive. When they just had households
and babies to look out for, when every one was personally NEEDED."
"Mother, DEAR!" Cornelia protested indulgently. "Then we haven't
progressed at all since MAYFLOWER days?"
"Oh, perhaps we have!" Mrs. Phelps shrugged doubtfully. "But I am
sometimes sorry," she went on, half to herself, "that birth and
wealth and position have kept me all my life from REAL things! I
can't help my friends in sickness or trouble, Cornelia, I don't know
what's coming on my own table for dinner, or what the woman next
door looks like! I can only keep on the surface of things, dressing
a certain way, eating certain things, writing notes, sending
flowers, making calls!"
"All of which our class--the rich and cultivated people of the
world--have been struggling to achieve for generations!" Cornelia
reminded her. "Do you mean you would like to be a laborer's mother,
mater, with all sorts of annoying economies to practice, and all
sorts of inconveniences to contend with?"
"Yes, perhaps I would!" her mother laughed defiantly.
"I can see you've had another letter from California," said
Cornelia, pleasantly, after a puzzled moment. "You are still a
pioneer in spite of the ten generations, mater. Austin's wife is NOT
a lady, Austin is absolutely different from what he was, the people
out there are actually COMMON, and yet, just because they like to
have you, and think you are intelligent and instructive, you want to
go. Go if you want to, but I will think you are mad if you do! A
girl who confused 'La Boheme' with 'The Bohemian Girl,' and wants an
enlarged crayon portrait of Austin in her drawing-room! Really,
it's--well, it's remarkable to me. I don't know what you see in it!"
"Crayon portraits used to be considered quite attractive, and may be
again," said Mrs. Phelps, mildly. "And some day your children will
think Puccini and Strauss as old-fashioned as you think 'Faust' and
Offenbach. But there are other things, like the things that a woman
loves to do, for instance, when her children are grown, and her
husband is dead, that never change!"
Cornelia was silent, frankly puzzled.
"Wouldn't you rather do nothing than take up the stupid routine work
of a woman who has no money, no position, and no education?" she
asked presently.
"I don't believe I would," her mother answered, smiling. "Perhaps
I've changed. Or perhaps I never sat down and seriously thought
things out before. I took it for granted that our way of doing
things was the only way. Of course I don't expect every one to see
it as I do. But it seems to me now that I belong there. When she
first called me 'Mother Phelps,' it made me angry, but what sweeter
thing could she have said, after all? She has no mother. And she
needs one, now. I don't think you have ever needed me in your life,
Cornelia--actually NEEDED me, my hands and my eyes and my brain."
"Oh, you are incorrigible!" said Cornelia, still with an air of
lenience. "Now," she stopped for a kiss, "we're going out to-night,
so I brought you The Patricians to read; it's charming. And you read
it, and be a good mater, and don't think any more about going out to
stay on that awful, uncivilized ranch. Visit there in a year or two,
if you like, but don't strike roots. I'll come in and see you when
I'm dressed."
And she was gone. But Mrs. Phelps felt satisfied that enough had
been said to make her begin to realize that she was serious, and she
contentedly resumed her dreaming over the fire.
The years, many or few, stretched pleasantly before her. She smiled
into the coals. She was still young enough to enjoy the thought of
service, of healthy fatigue, of busy days and quiet evenings, and
long nights of deep sleep, with slumbering Yerba Buena lying beneath
the moon outside her open window. There would be Austin close beside
her and other friends almost as near, to whom she would be sometimes
necessary, and always welcome.
And there would be Manzanita, and the child,--and after a while,
other children. There would be little bibs to tie, little prayers to
hear, deep consultations over teeth and measles, over morals and
manners. And who but Grandmother could fill Grandmother's place?
Mrs. Phelps leaned back in her chair, and shut her eyes. She saw
visions. After a while a tear slipped from between her lashes.
RISING WATER
If only my poor child had a sensible mother," said Mrs. Tressady,
calmly, "I suppose we would get Big Hong's 'carshen' for him, and
that would do perfectly! But I will not have a Chinese man for
Timothy's nurse! It seems all wrong, somehow."
"Big Hong hasn't got a female cousin, I suppose?" said Timothy's
father; "a Chinese woman wouldn't be so bad." "Oh, I think it would
be as bad--nearly," Mrs. Tressady returned with vivacity. "Anyway,
this particular carshen is a man--'My carshen lun floot store'--
that's who it is!"
"Will you kindly explain what 'My carshen lun floot store' means?"
asked a young man who was lying in a hammock that he lazily moved
now and then by means of a white-shod foot. This was Peter Porter,
who, with his wife, completed the little group on the Tressadys'
roomy, shady side porch.
"It means my cousin who runs a fruit store," supplied Mrs. Porter--a
big-boned, superb blonde who was in a deep chair sewing buttons on
Timothy Tressady's new rompers. "Even I can see that--if I'm not a
native of California."
"Yes, that's it," Mrs. Tressady said absently. "Go back and read
those Situations Wanted over again, Jerry," she commanded with a
decisive snip of the elastic she was cunningly inserting into more
new rompers for Timothy.
Jerry Tressady obediently sat up in his steamer chair and flattened
a copy of the Emville Mail upon his knee.
The problem under discussion this morning was that of getting a
nurse for Timothy Tressady, aged two years. Elma, the silent,
undemonstrative Swedish woman who had been with the family since
Timothy's birth, had started back to Stockholm two months ago, and
since then at least a dozen unsatisfactory applicants for her
position had taken their turn at the Rising Water Ranch.
Mrs. Tressady, born and brought up in New York, sometimes sighed as
she thought of her mother's capped and aproned maids; of Aunt Anna's
maids; of her sister Lydia's maids. Sometimes in the hot summer,
when the sun hung directly over the California bungalow for seven
hours every day, and the grass on the low, rolling hills all about
was dry and slippery, when Joe Parlona forgot to drive out from
Emville with ice and mail, and Elma complained that Timmy could not
eat his luncheon on the porch because of buzzing "jellow yackets,"
Molly Tressady found herself thinking other treasonable thoughts--
thoughts of packing, of final telegrams, of the Pullman sleeper, of
Chicago in a blowing mist of rain, of the Grand Central at twilight,
with the lights of taxicabs beginning to move one by one into the
current of Forty-second Street--and her heart grew sick with
longings. And sometimes in winter, when rain splashed all day from
the bungalow eaves, and Beaver Creek rose and flooded its banks and
crept inch by inch toward the garden gate, and when from the late
dawn to the early darkness not a soul came near the ranch--she would
have sudden homesick memories of Fifth Avenue, three thousand miles
away, with its motor-cars and its furred women and its brilliant
tea-rooms. She would suddenly remember the opera-house and the long
line of carriages in the snow, and the boys calling the opera
scores.
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