Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and others Part 51

"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 a.s.sistance. 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 gla.s.ses 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sent, for he presently resumed indignantly: "Who does she want for him--Adelina Patti?" He marvelled over a third gla.s.s. "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.