THIS is the tale of Suso who was the daughter of a very rich man, a very
kind-hearted one, too. Never was beggar turned from his door, nor in the
length and breadth of his land was there hunger or want. And he loved
Suso no less than she loved him. She was very close to his heart and all
that could be done to make her happy he did. As for her, there was no
pleasure in her day if she was not assured of his happiness.
When her sister had left home to be married, Suso and her father had
gone about planning a great park which Suso was to have for her own, a
park of terraced, flowered hills. And when it was finished, both birds
and animals came to live there and the air was full of song. So in that
place Suso played with her companions, and their hearts were in tune
with the beauty all about. It was a never-ending pleasure to seek out
new places in the great park, cool nooks in which were little waterfalls
whose silver music mingled with the whispering of the leaves, or shaded
spots where were ponds of crystal water and fountains and seats and
bright green carpets of moss.
For a long time there was happiness, until, indeed, her father married
again, for her mother had died when Suso was a small child. Then one day
there was a cloud of grief in the maiden’s heart, because on a silent,
moonlit night she had walked with her father and he had told her that he
was troubled with a wasting sickness and feared that he had not long to
live. Some enemy, he said, had cast a spell on him, so that day by day
he grew weaker and weaker and weaker. Wise men and doctors had looked
into the matter, had sat solemnly and thought, had guessed and wondered,
but had agreed on one thing only—that something was wrong. What that
something was they did not know, but they agreed that if the thing that
was wrong could be discovered and removed, all would go well again.
Because of what her father had told her, Suso was sad and often wandered
to a quiet place where she could tell her troubles to the trees.
The stepmother was not at all fair in her ways and not only disliked
Suso, but was very mean and treacherous, hiding her hatred from the
father and petting Suso when he was near, stroking her hair and saying
pretty things. So well did the wicked woman play her part that nothing
could have made the father believe other than that she loved Suso quite
as much as he did. For instance, on that moonlit night when he had told
his daughter of his trouble, seeing her tears, for she had wept
bitterly, he had said:
“But Suso, my dove, your mother will care for you tenderly when I am
dead, for she loves you dearly.”
At that the girl stifled her sobs and dried her tears, lest the father
she loved so well should be wounded by her grief, and seeing her calmed
he had supposed that all was well and that his words had soothed her.
But see how it really was with Suso and her stepmother. There was one
day, not long after, when father and stepmother and daughter were
standing by the fountain, watching the wavering shadows flying across
the green, when the man suddenly felt a clutching pain at his heart and
was forced to sit down for very weakness. When he felt a little better
and the first sharpness of the pain had gone, Suso walked with him to
the house, and when he was comfortably seated and had a feather robe
cast about him, he bade her return to her stepmother. That she did,
because she was bid, although her wish would have been to sit at his
feet. Because of her unwillingness and her grief she went softly, and
not singing and dancing, as was her fashion. And what was her terror
when she saw and heard the wicked woman talking to a great horned owl
that sat in the hollow of an old tree! So terrible that seemed, that
Suso could find nothing to say, but stood with clasped hands, her heart
a-flutter. Seeing Suso, the woman motioned to the owl and the bird said
no more, but sat listening, its head on one side. Then the stepmother
took Suso by the hand and drew her into a place where they could be seen
by the father, but far enough away to be out of earshot. But the father,
seeing the woman and the maiden standing thus together, was happy,
thinking that his daughter had a friend. It made him happier still to
see the woman take Suso’s arm and pull it gently about her waist. But he
did not hear what was said, for had he heard, it would have cut him to
the heart.
This is what the woman said, and her voice was like a poison-dart as she
whispered loud enough for the owl to hear:
“Suso, stand thus with your arm about my waist so that your father may
see us together. Thus he will think that I love you.” Then she hissed in
the girl’s ear: “But I hate you, hate you, hate you.”
And the owl lifted his head, blew a little and repeated softly: “Hate
you—Hoo!—Hoo!”
From far off in the woods came the sound of an answering owl like an
echo: “Hate you—Hoo!—Hoo!” and it seemed to Suso that all the world
hated her for no cause, for the screeching parrots, too, repeated the
cry. As for the sweet feathered things that she loved, they had all fled
from that place.
Soon the stepmother spoke again and the owl dropped to a lower branch
the better to hear. “Suso,” said the woman, “your father cannot live
much longer. The spell is upon him and day by day he nears his death.
Because of that I am glad, for when he dies, all this land, the house,
and all its riches, must be mine.”
Hearing that vicious speech Suso was well nigh faint with fear and
horror and would have sped to her father to warn him. But the woman
caught her by the wrist, twisting it painfully, and pinched the soft
place on her arm with her other hand, and stooping again so that it
seemed to the watching father that she kissed Suso, she said:
“But see to it that you say no word, for the moment that you say
anything but good of me, that moment your father will fall dead.”
So what was Suso to do?
Thus it was that Suso crept to quiet places and told her tale to the
whispering leaves and to the evening breeze, and thus it was that in the
midst of all that beauty of golden sunlight and silver-glinted waters
and flower-twined forest she could not but be sad. For there were tears
in her heart, and everything that her father did for her was as nothing
and like a crumbling tower.
But she had told the trees (and trees bend their tops though they are
foot-fast, and leaves, too, whisper one to another), so that the tale
went abroad, though of this, Suso knew nothing.