Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and others Part 50

"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 a.s.sented, "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, b.u.t.ter-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 ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sionate 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts alone seem to keep them in touch with everything new,"

wrote Mrs. Phelps.

Her whole att.i.tude 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 misp.r.o.nounced 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 c.o.c.k 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."