Mrs. Austin

“ Mrs. Austin consented freely, and Mr. Austin only reserved the right to inquire into his character. Neither of them mentioned his income or prospects, and Jenkin, overcome by their disinterestedness, exclaimed in one of his letters, 'Are these people the same as other people?' Thus permitted, he addressed himself to Annie, and was nearly rejected for his pains. Miss Austin seems to have resented his courtship of her parents first; but the mother's favour, and his own spirited behaviour, saved him, and won her consent. ”

“ All of her writings are in a finished style, remarkable alike for delicacy, purity and clearness of expression, and her work is distinctly American.
Personally Mrs. Austin is a charming woman, much beloved by those who know her best. She has three children, and her home is with a married daughter at Roxbury, Massachusetts; but she spends much of her time in Boston. ”

“ Barbara. Why, madam, I did think it was a case with Mr. Austin.
Miss Foster. With Mr. Austin? why, how very rustic! The attentions of a gentleman like Mr. Austin, child, are not supposed to lead to matrimony. He is a feature of society: an ornament: a personage: a private gentleman by birth, but a kind of king by habit and reputation. What woman could he marry? Those to whom he might properly aspire are all too far below him. I have known George Austin too long, child, and I understand that the very greatness of his success condemns him to remain unmarried. ”

“ Well, Austin, and what are you reading now?"
"Aunt Charlotte's face," laughed Austin, sauntering up. "She looks as though you had been giving her absolution, Mr Sheepshanks—so beaming and refreshed. Why, what's it all about?"
"I expect you want more absolution than your aunt," said the vicar, humorously. "A sad useless fellow you are, I'm afraid. You and I must have a little serious talk together some day, Austin. I really want you to do something—for your own sake, you know. Now, how would you like to take a class in the Sunday-school, for instance? ”

“ Mrs. Austin was overjoyed. She shed tears again, not for sorrow now, but for joy. "How little I knew when I took you in, Miss Anderson," she said, "that I should be entertaining an angel unawares!"
Then Doris asked Mrs. Austin if she would come to Hastings with her son, in order to be present at the wedding, and this the widow joyfully consented to do, saying:
"I would go further than that, miss, to see you married, and so would my Sam. We'll come to your wedding, if we have to walk every inch of the way."
"That's right," said Bernard; "that's the right spirit! ”

“ Austin obeyed, a comical look of grievance on his face. 'I declare you order me about just as you did when I came here first, a miserable little muff of [Pg 17] fourteen. You'll never get another like me, Mrs. Thornimett. As if I had not enough outdoor work every day in the week! And I don't know where on earth to go to. It's like turning a fellow out of house and home!'
'You are going out for me, Austin. The master left a message for the Lowland farm, and you shall take it over, and stay the day with them. They will make as much of you as they would of a king. ”

“ She could not deny that what he said was true. "Can such things really be?" she uttered under her breath.
"Dear auntie, they are," said Austin. "I've been conscious of it for months, and lately I've had the proof. Indeed, I've had more than one. There are people all round us, only it isn't given to everybody to see them. And it isn't really very astonishing that it should be so, when one comes to think of it."
From that day forward Aunt Charlotte watched Austin with a sense of something akin to awe. ”

“ Austin, with some of his workmen who had remained—the greater portion of them were pursuing the vanquished—raised Abel White. His head was cut, his body bruised, but no serious damage appeared to have been done. 'Can you walk with assistance as far as Mr. Rice's shop?' asked Austin.
'I daresay I can, sir, in a minute: I'm a bit giddy now,' was White's reply, as he leaned his back against the wall, being supported on either side. 'Sir, what a mercy that you had that light with you!'
'Ay,' shortly replied Austin. 'Quale, there's the blood dripping upon your sleeve. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Austin should have a percentage of the pay, for the use of the materials. That settled, it became necessary to arrange where the work should be done; for both Doris's bedroom and the little front parlour, where she sat and had her meals, were too dark for the purpose.
Mrs. Austin was equal to the occasion. "Why shouldn't you have the top attic, where my boy used to paint?" she said. "There's a sky-light, you know; and my Silas always said the light fell beautiful in his study, or studio, as he used to call it. Do come upstairs and see what it is like?" ”

“ And she threw her arms around his neck and drew his face down to hers, oblivious alike of Andre on the front seat and all the passing crowds on Fifth Avenue.
"Don't," Austin said after a moment. "We mustn't kiss each other like that when some one might see us—I forgot, for a minute, that there was any one else in the world! Besides, I'm afraid, if we do, I'll let myself go more than I mean to—it's all been stifled inside me so long—and be almost rough, and startle or hurt you. I couldn't bear to have that happen to you—again. I want you always to feel safe and shielded with me." ”

“ Austin is terrible. He pouts around and won’t say a word, and has lost all his love for me. Home will never be as it once was, for I will not give in and mind him in every little thing as if I were only a child,” Nell had confided bitterly.
“Don’t Nell, don’t talk that way. Austin is not pouting, as you think, but he is trying to help you see your mistake. He means right. You know that he does, Nell. Think of all the past, and how he has stood by you.”
“Yes, I know, Bessie, that he has done nobly by us. But he does not understand us girls, and thinks we ought to obey him like children. ”

“ And they used to sit there, he and his uncle, in this same pavilion, smoking, close hedged in from womankind. And when the old man had fallen asleep, Austin would creep out into the park, and walk there with his lovely cousin May. And on one summer day, for all the world like this, he won her heart, this gay young Harvard senior, all among the rushes by the lily-pool. And Austin had gone back into the pavilion, quaking, to tell his uncle, and found the latter very dignified and dead, a bottle of the famous Eclipse Lafite close by his elbow. ”

“ One day a great joy came to Austin. He was hobbling about the garden with his aunt, when all of a sudden he saw Roger St Aubyn approaching them across the lawn. It was with immense pride that he presented his friend to Aunt Charlotte, who, as may be remembered, had been just a little huffy that St Aubyn had never called on her before; but now that he had actually come the small grievance was forgotten in a moment, and she welcomed him with charming cordiality.
"It is all the pleasanter to meet you," she said, "as I have now an opportunity of thanking you for all your kindness to Austin. ”

“ Austin has enemies. Fortunately both sides have spared La Feria."
Law shrugged his broad shoulders. "Oh, well, the revolution isn't over! A ranch in Mexico is my idea of a bad investment." He rose and, taking his blanket, sought a favorable spot upon which to spread it. Then he helped Mrs. Austin to her feet—her muscles had stiffened until she could barely stand—after which he fetched his saddle for a pillow. ”

“ Austin nodded his head in agreement. “That’s it! Besides, she’s a girl, and girls are cranky things; a fellow never knows quite how to take ’em.”
“Not a fellow’s own sister?” queried Max, with interest.
“Bless you, no,” replied Austin, shaking his head [Pg 157] this time, and speaking with conviction. “Why, I could make out any other chap’s sister better than I can make out Frances. But of course,” he added, sitting very erect, “Frances isn’t a common girl. She’s not so understandable as the rest of the lot, even.” ”

“ Let those people keep away, then you can train the child to your own mind, and none can meddle or mar."
With which sentiments Mrs. Austin cordially agreed; and the matter was not again alluded to by either mistress or maid.
Ten peaceful years followed the arrival of Dorothy's Christmas gift at Monks Lea. Mrs. Austin had the happiness of seeing Margery's health entirely restored, and gradually the dark shadow caused by so many bereavements passed from the home. She resumed her old place in society, but, though often solicited, could not be induced to marry a second time. ”

“ If you are not the most obstinate, hardhearted, unfeeling brute in the world—which I don't take you to be—brother Austin, after that really beautiful speech of your wife's, there is not a word to be said farther. ”

“ Miss Austin had a beautiful walk, and beautiful legs to walk on. He stared at them as she approached the desk. He always stared at them, fascinated, and she always knew he did, and she smiled that enticingly mad smile of hers that always made him want to give vent to an emotional catharsis.
God, he thought, how I'd love to psychoanalyze that woman! What a beautiful ego she must have. What a gorgeous id.
Carefully she deposited the folder on his desk, leaning forward strategically so her perfume could glide over him in intoxicating currents. ”

“ After this week her employer was to leave the farm, and as no one else knew her, she was at a loss how she could get employment. Except the shepherd, most people shunned her—it was no wonder. She had first shunned them. Still she must think of something. Her boy must not starve, even if she were reduced to beg his bread.
There was something heroic about this woman, and her devoted love for her helpless child, that touched a cord in Austin’s heart. He was a thoroughly religious man, and his mind reverted habitually, whether in sorrow or in joy, to the source of all comfort and all hope. ”

“ Oh, auntie, auntie, I shall never have faith in you again."
"You're a very disrespectful boy, that's what you are," retorted Aunt Charlotte, turning as pink as her ribbons. "The gentleman we're speaking of must be quite elderly, several years older than I am, and, for all I know, he may have a wife and half-a-dozen grown-up children by this time. You let your tongue wag a very great deal too fast, I can tell you, Austin." ”

“ Poor Austin! A boy’s love feeds on the romance of hopelessness, flourishes apace in the shadow of despair; it delights in patient waiting, in faithful fidelity, in lapses of years; but a man’s is peremptory, immediate, uncompromising. ”

“ Now that she had settled in Woodend, it was in harmony with her wishes and instincts that Frances should be to the girls such a leader as Mrs. Morland had become to their elders, and that Austin’s careless good-humour should assure his popularity. If her children had been dull and commonplace, she would have felt herself an injured person. ”

“ I know, I know, lass, and for all thy high spirit thou wert ever maiden meek and mild to thine elders. But it was not to thee I spoke just then. Yet now I will have thee to advise with me, for, truth to tell, I am a little fogged and stunned with all these matters, and since my sweet maid left me I’ve grown old and doddering—no, never mind naysaying me, I know what I know. What I will have thee tell me, Betty, is this. Shall I—would Lora have me bid Josiah bring his wife home—and let her sit in—Oh, my God! ”

“ When Austin appeared before the board they greeted him with smiles. The manly form and apparent health of the young man appealed to them, and his youth naturally proclaimed him a man without family cares. ”

“ It was nice at Haversfield, Austin. I want to stay with Mamma and you, of course, else I should like to go back. Miss Cliveden—my house-mistress—was so jolly. She used to make one feel as if one wanted to be of some good, if one could.”
“You can be of lots of good here,” said Austin comfortably. “It’s no sense a fellow having a sister if she’s away at school. Max says if he had a sister he’d think himself lucky, for she would be able to teach him how to make a bed properly. That’s a thing he often needs to do for his worst cases, and he does not quite understand it.” ”

“ On such evenings, late, if Nina and Eileen had gone to a dance, or to the opera with Boots, Austin, ruddy with well-being and shamelessly slippered, stretched luxuriously in the fire warmth, lazily discussing what was nearest to him—his children and wife, and the material comfort which continued to attend him with the blessing of that heaven which seems so largely occupied in fulfilling the desires of the good for their own commercial prosperity. ”

“ When, therefore, the neighbours called upon Mr and Mrs Austin they were not surprised to find an erect, military-looking man, but they were very much surprised to find him matched with such a fine, and even elegant-looking woman, as his wife. ”

“ I insist on your telling me how it was you happened to get out of bed just before the accident occurred, and how the bedclothes came to be pulled away and hung where they are now. There's a mystery about the whole thing, and I hate mysteries, so you'd better make a clean breast of it at once."
"Had I?" said Austin, pretending to reflect. "I wonder whether it would be wise. You see, dear auntie, you're such a sensitive creature; your nerves are so highly strung, you're so easily frightened out of your dear old wits—"
"Be done with all this nonsense!" snapped Aunt Charlotte brusquely. ”