AUSTIN RETURNS
A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze
of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely
behind.
"Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I'm not a man of
fashion, happily, or you would have struck the seat of them. How are
you?"
That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long absence.
Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the hunger of one who
had been in the wilderness five years.
"The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. The free Briton
is to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot. The Aristocracy has had a
cycle's notice to quit. The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out;
Demos and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you
see, your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five years,
and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general
upset, an equality made perfect by universal prostration."
Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about ourselves. How
is old Ricky?"
"You know of his--what do they call it when greenhorns are licenced
to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?--a very charming little
woman she makes, by the way--presentable! quite old Anacreon's rose
in milk. Well! everybody thought the System must die of it. Not a
bit. It continued to flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now,
though--emaciated, lean, raw, spectral! I've this morning escaped
from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have brought our genial
uncle Hippias to town--a delightful companion! I said to him: 'We've
had a fine Spring.' 'Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come
to think the Spring old.' You should have heard how he trained out
the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to hear him.
In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle Hippias has
been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's guard ourselves there, and
go and order dinner."
"But where's Ricky now, and what is he doing?" said Austin.
"Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone and got a baby!"
"A child? Richard has one?" Austin's clear eyes shone with pleasure.
"I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages. He has one:
one as big as two. That has been the death-blow to the System. It
bore the marriage--the baby was too much for it. Could it swallow
the baby, 'twould live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a
large boy. I assure you it's quite amusing to see the System opening
its mouth every hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, aware that
it would be a consummate cure, or happy release."
By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and smiled
sadly.
"How has Ricky turned out?" he asked. "What sort of a character has
he?"
"The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it.
Character? he has the character of a bullet with a treble charge of
powder behind it. Enthusiasm is the powder. That boy could get up an
enthusiasm for the maiden days of Ops! He was going to reform the
world, after your fashion, Austin,--you have something to answer
for. Unfortunately he began with the feminine side of it. Cupid
proud of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to people his
kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the
guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. Oh,
horror! he never expected that. Conceive the System in the flesh,
and you have our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri
refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open for him,
the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one awaits him fruitful
within. We heard of him last that he was trying the German
waters--preparatory to his undertaking the release of Italy from the
subjugation of the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the
company of Lady Judith Felle--your old friend, the ardent female
Radical who married the decrepit lord to carry out her principles.
They always marry English lords, or foreign princes. I admire their
tactics."
"Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was
always too sentimental," said Austin.
"Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her _for_
her sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and
die fat. Feeling, that's the slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the
cajolery of existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she
is enviable. Would that I had more!"
"You're not much changed, Adrian."
"I'm not a Radical, Austin."
Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative speech,
instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a
posture of statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive
his daughter-in-law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the
efforts of the System to swallow the baby.
"We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will extricate us, I
presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?"
Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place of residence.
"We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian.
"I shall go and see her now," said Austin.
"Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz."
"Give me her address."
"Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," Adrian
objected. "Don't you care what you eat?" he roared hoarsely, looking
humorously hurt. "I daresay not. A slice out of him that's
handy--sauce du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at
seven."
Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled off to do
the better thing.
Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup.
Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had
vaulted lightly and thereby indicated that he was positively coming
the next day. She forgot him in the bustle of her duties and the
absorption of her faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger
Lucy had presented to the world, till a knock at the street-door
reminded her. "There he is!" she cried, as she ran to open to him.
"There's my stranger come!" Never was a woman's faith in omens so
justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. Richard Feverel. He
said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped her
hands, exclaiming, "Come at last!" and ran bolt out of the house to
look up and down the street. Presently she returned with many
excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see her comin'
home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her
blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with nursemaids for
her! She _is_ a mother! and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though
her heart's so low."
Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the
young couple, and her participation in it, and admired the beard.
"Though I'd swear you don't wear it for ornament, now!" she said,
having in the first impulse designed a stroke at man's vanity.
Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with
dejected head and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard.
While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came
in, preceding the baby.
"I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. They read each
other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship.
"Your name is Lucy?"
She affirmed it softly.
"And mine is Austin, as you know."
Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, and
presented Richard's representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered
himself to be contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and
knocking at the doors of Nature for something that was due to him.
"Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't he like his own
father? There can't be no doubt about zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at
his fists. Ain't he got passion? Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!"
and she went off rapturously into baby-language.
A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further
proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their being dumplings.
Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of
the room.
"She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's no prettier
sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He's off in
his heroics--he want to be doin' all sort o' things: I say he'll
never do anything grander than that baby. You should 'a seen her
uncle over that baby--he came here, for I said, you _shall_ see your
own fam'ly, my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed over
the baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did. You
should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth--a friend o' Mr.
Richard's, and a very modest-minded young gentleman--he worships her
in his innocence. It's a sight to see him with that baby. My belief
is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be nurse-maid to him. O Mr.
Wentworth! what _do_ you think of her, sir?"
Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech could make
it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry
prepared the way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry
ran to Lucy, and the house buzzed with new life. The simple
creatures felt in Austin's presence something good among them. "He
don't speak much," said Mrs. Berry, "but I see by his eye he mean a
deal. He ain't one o' yer long-word gentry, who's all gay deceivers,
every one of 'em."
Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I wonder what he
thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him
before I saw him. I knew what his face was like."
"He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for a
virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight _through_ the
hair with him. Think! he'll think what any _man_'d think--you
a-suckin' spite o' all your sorrow, my sweet,--and my Berry talkin'
of his Roman matrons!--here's a English wife'll match 'em all!
that's what he thinks. And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll
clear, my darlin', now he've come."
Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the
peace she had in being near Richard's best friend. When she sat down
to tea it was with a sense that the little room that held her was
her home perhaps for many a day.
A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's dinner.
During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels.
Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic
weakness of hers was gone.
Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups--I goes no further," and Lucy had
rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick
of a Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller.
"I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?"
Lucy hesitated, and then said, "Yes," decisively, to which Mrs.
Berry added, that she was not a "luggage-woman."
"There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin remarked,
consulting his watch.
The two women were silent.
"Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?"
Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.
Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer.
Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping hands.
"Joy and deliverance!" she exclaimed with a foundering voice.
"Will you come?" Austin kindly asked again.
Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, "Yes." Mrs.
Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones
with a mighty whisper: "She's thinking what's to be done with baby."
"He must learn to travel," said Austin.
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Berry, "and I'll be his nuss, and bear him, a
sweet! Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once more at Raynham
Abbey! but it's nurse-woman now, you must say. Let us be goin' on
the spot."
She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would cool the
heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eying his watch and Lucy
alternately. She was wishing to ask a multitude of questions. His
face reassured her, and saying: "I will be dressed instantly," she
also left the room. Talking, bustling, preparing, wrapping up my
lord, and looking to their neatnesses, they were nevertheless ready
within the time prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood humming
over the baby. "He'll sleep it through," she said. "He's had enough
for an alderman, and goes to sleep sound after his dinner, he do, a
duck!" Before they departed, Lucy ran up to Lady Feverel. She
returned for the small one.
"One moment, Mr. Wentworth!"
"Just two," said Austin.
Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back her eyes were
full of tears.
"She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth."
"She shall," Austin said simply.
Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to dwell at all
upon the great act of courage she was performing.
"I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude.
"He!" cries nurse-woman Berry from the rear, "his little tum-tum's
_as_ tight _as_ he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird! a beauty! and ye
may take yer oath he never wakes till that's slack. He've got
character of his own, a blessed!"
There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be taken by
storm. The baronet sat alone in his library, sick of resistance, and
rejoicing in the pride of no surrender; a terror to his friends and
to himself. Hearing Austin's name sonorously pronounced by the man
of calves, he looked up from his book, and held out his hand. "Glad
to see you, Austin." His appearance betokened complete security. The
next minute he found himself escaladed.
It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in the room
besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the lamp; Mrs. Berry
close to the door. The door was half open, and passing through it
might be seen the petrified figure of a fine man. The baronet
glancing over the lamp rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a
woman's personality. Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by the
hand. "I have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said with a pleased,
perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. Very pale
and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two hands taken, and heard a
kind voice. Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father
of her husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands were still
detained. The baronet contemplated Richard's choice. Had he ever had
a rivalry with those pure eyes? He saw the pain of her position
shooting across her brows, and, uttering gentle inquiries as to her
health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had already fallen into a
chair.
"What aspect do you like for your bedroom?--East?" said the baronet.
Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: "Am I to stay?"
"Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at once," he pursued.
"You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and will
feel more at home."
Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who
should say, "The day is ours!" Undoubtedly--strange as it was to
think it--the fortress was carried.
"Lucy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her Christian name
thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes.
The baronet was about to touch the bell. "But have you come alone?"
he asked.
At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to
require effort for her to move, and when she was within the region
of the lamp, her agitation could not escape notice. The blissful
bundle shook in her arms.
"By the way, what is he to me?" Austin inquired generally as he went
and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. "My relationship is not so
defined as yours, sir."
An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his
grandson with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to
compliment the mother of anybody's child.
"I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed. Lucy looked: I
am sure he is!
"As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa
not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. "And he's
as healthy as his father was, Sir Austin--spite o' the might 'a
beens. Reg'lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he come. We
knows the hour o' the day, and _of_ the night."
"You nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke to Lucy, and
was satisfied on that point.
Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, fearing
the consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged her not to
wake him. "'T'd take a deal to do that," said Mrs. Berry, and
harped on Master Richard's health and the small wonder it was that
he enjoyed it, considering the superior quality of his diet, and the
lavish attentions of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a
deep sigh.
"He looks healthy," said the baronet, "but I am not a judge of
babies."
Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge its new
commandant, who was now borne away, under the directions of the
housekeeper, to occupy the room Richard had slept in when an infant.
Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet said: "She is
extremely well-looking." He replied: "A person you take to at once."
There it ended.
But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, where Lucy
and Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to talk about the
reception they had met with, and the house, and the peculiarities of
the rooms, and the solid happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry
all the while would persist in consulting the looking-glass. Her
first distinct answer was, "My dear! tell me candid, how do I look?"
"Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed he would
be so kind, so considerate?"
"I am sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry. "Oh dear! two
birds at a shot. What _do_ you think, now?"
"I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy.
"Likeness! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and hot in the
palms.
"You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?"
"Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear."
"Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft caressing
way. "I will undress you, and see to you, dear heart! You've had so
much excitement."
"Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; "she thinks it's about this
business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my darlin'. But I didn't
look for tragedy, to-night. Sleep in this house I can't, my love!"
Lucy was astonished. "Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?--Oh! why, you
silly old thing? I know."
"Do ye!" said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose.
"You're afraid of ghosts."
"Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes, and bellows
when you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my Berry!"
"Your husband?"
"Large as life!"
Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry described him as
the Colossus who had marched them into the library, and vowed that
he had recognized her and quaked. "Time ain't aged him," said Mrs.
Berry, "whereas me! he've got his excuse now. I _know_ I look a
frump."
Lucy kissed her: "You look the nicest, dearest old thing."
"You may say an old thing, my dear."
"And your husband is really here?"
"Berry's below!"
Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige of
incredulity.
"What will you do, Mrs. Berry?"
"Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. It's over atween
us, I see that. When I entered the house I felt there was something
comin' over me, and lo and behold ye! no sooner was we in the
hall-passage--if it hadn't been for that blessed infant I should 'a
dropped. I must 'a known his step, for my heart began thumpin', and
I knew I hadn't got my hair straight--that Mr. Wentworth was in such
a hurry--nor my best gown. I knew he'd scorn me. He hates frumps."
"Scorn you!" cried Lucy, angrily. "He who has behaved so wickedly!"
Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. "I may as well go at once," she
whimpered. "If I see him I shall only be disgracin' of myself. I
feel it all on my side already. Did ye mark him, my dear? I know I
was vexin' to him at times, I was. Those big men are se touchy about
their dignity--nat'ral. Hark at me! I'm goin' all soft in a minute.
Let me leave the house, my dear. I daresay it was good half my
fault. Young women don't understand men sufficient--not
altogether--and I was a young woman then; and then what they goes
and does they ain't quite answerable for: they feel, I daresay,
pushed from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go. 'Tain't in
natur' for me to sleep in the same house."
Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly fixed
her in her seat. "Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall
come to you, and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness."
"Berry on his knees!"
"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him."
"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great'll
be my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry.
"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for
the good creature that had befriended her.
Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're runnin' after
him?" she murmured faintly.
"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you
now."
"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when we met!" Mrs.
Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room.
On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black,
who stopped her and asked if she was Richard's wife, and kissed her,
passing from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin,
and related the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man, and
said: "Do you know your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw
himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested to step
upstairs, and as his young mistress at once led the way, Berry could
not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the stately edifice
aloft.
Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night.
"He began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and
plain words, Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson
short, and down he goes--down _on_ his knees. I never could 'a
believed it. I kep my dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but
that done for me. I was a ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where
I was. There's something about a fine man on his knees that's too
much for us women. And it reely was the penitent on his two knees,
not the lover on his one. If he mean it! But ah! what do you think
he begs of me, my dear?--not to make it known in the house just yet!
I can't, I can't say that look well."
Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs.
Berry did her best to look on it in that light.
"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him good-night?" she
asked. Lucy said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can,"
was Mrs. Berry's rejoinder. "And now let us pray blessings on that
simple-speaking gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so
little."
Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her
own soft heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the
baronet came into her room when all was quiet. She saw him go and
bend over Richard the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He
then went to the half-opened door of the room where Lucy slept,
leaned his ear a moment, knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. Berry
heard low words interchanging within. She could not catch a
syllable, yet she would have sworn to the context. "He've called her
his daughter, promised her happiness, and given a father's kiss to
her." When Sir Austin passed out she was in a deep sleep.