DAN’S MONEY RETURNED—THE DOCTOR CONQUERED.
The twins, who were now about thirteen years of age, had great
difficulty in fathoming the secret regarding Susie, for, being the
youngest of the children, they were still babies in the eyes of the
family. They were not long in “nosing out,” as Leila called it, the real
difficulty, and they discussed the subject together in a naive way that
would have been amusing but for the heartlessness they displayed; still
it was the heartlessness of the kitten over the agonies of a captive
mouse, and perhaps implied no real cruelty of purpose beyond a certain
spitefulness that they were not considered of sufficient importance to
be taken into anybody’s confidence. Even Dinah snubbed them in a
supercilious way when they attempted to obtain information from her, and
they revenged themselves in a thousand nameless ways. Susie meanwhile
had recovered from her illness occasioned by the shock she had received,
and made superhuman efforts to win some little show of sympathy from
Mrs. Forest. Clara had talked Miss Marston over to her side in a
measure, so that she manifested a good deal of kindness to poor Susie,
whose position was very difficult to endure. The twins, taking their cue
from their mother, ignored Susie’s existence completely, more especially
Leila, who, though in the habit of shirking every duty upon the willing
hands of Susie, informed “Miss Dykes,” as she called her one day for the
first time, that she need not come into her room any more to do the
chamber-work. Susie looked at her with mild, sorrowful eyes, set down
the water she had brought, and left the room without a word. Linnie,
being softer in her feelings, said, “I think you are too bad, Leila. Did
you see how she looked at you?”
“No, nor I don’t care. She’s a nasty thing.”
“I don’t see much difference between her now and a week ago, when you
used to kiss her when you wanted her to do anything for you.” Leila
flared up, and a very sisterly fight ensued. Linnie was no match for the
hardheaded Leila in a contest of words, but in revenge, later in the
day, she told Clara how Susie had been treated. This happened to be a
good policy, though not intended as such. Clara drew her arm about
Linnie, saying, “I am glad, sister dear, that you show some feeling. I
knew you would, and I have wanted to take you into my confidence, for
you are more mature for your age than Leila is; but mamma thought it not
best. I think she is wrong, and I am going to tell you the truth. You
have guessed it already. Susie, you know, has loved Dan since she was
your age, and she has been foolish of course; but I want you to remember
that she was a poor, ignorant, neglected child, and Dan was engaged to
marry her. I blame him infinitely more than I do her. He was very
selfish and unprincipled.”
“So I think, sissy. I thought it must be Dan—the mean thing. I’m real
sorry for Susie; but what a goose she must be to care so for _him_.” And
so another friend was won over to Susie. Linnie grew immensely important
in her own eyes after this confidence of Clara, who told her, among
other pretty compliments, that she was “right womanly” in her
sentiments.
On one of those weary days, when Susie felt like destroying her life
despite the kindness and sympathy of Clara and her father, she received
a note from Dan. It was written in a cold, heartless style that she
could scarcely believe him capable of after all she knew of him, and
ended: “I don’t want you to be disgraced through me, and I am willing to
marry you. Name the time and place, and I will be on hand. It is no use
to palaver and swear I shall be supremely happy, and all that; but you
are ‘ruined,’ of course, if I don’t, and I’m willing to do it, and ought
to for the prospective brat’s sake, at least.” The letter enclosed a
cheque for fifty dollars. Susie regarded the money greedily. She had
never had half as much in her whole life, and this would buy so many
things she needed, and then she read Dan’s heartless letter again,
crying bitterly. Not one word of tenderness; nothing of the old love was
left, only pity and an offer to sacrifice himself to save her. Disgust
with her weakness, self-reproach, indignation, possessed her by turns,
and the result was sending back the letter and the cheque, with only
these words: “I can beg in the streets for myself or for your child much
easier than I can accept charity from you. O my God! that I should come
to this—to have money thrown at me like a bone to a dog, from one, too,
whom I have so loved and trusted. Believe me, the only favor I ask, is
that you may forget that I ever cared for you, for—
‘I am shamed through all my being
To have loved so weak a thing.’”
When Dan received this, he was surprised, to say the least, and chewed
his moustache viciously. Beyond all his pique at the way his offer was
received, there was a dawning respect for the girl he had ruined, as he
thought; but Susie was not quite ruined yet, thanks to the generous
sympathy of Dr. Forest and his daughter; and losing her respect for Dan,
through finding out how soulless and unworthy he was, her heart-aches on
account of his faithlessness gradually began to subside. Pretty soon
another letter came, containing one hundred dollars in greenbacks. This
time he confessed admiration for her “pluck,” as he called it, but swore
that if she sent back this money he would burn it, leaving enough of the
notes to show her he had kept his word. This was why he had sent
greenbacks, which, if destroyed, could not be made good like a bank
cheque.
Susie resolved to show this letter to Clara, and ask her advice,
apologizing for not doing so with the first one. In fact Susie had
enjoyed, in a bitter way, her answer, knowing it would wound Dan’s
vanity, and she had feared that Clara’s advice would interfere with this
satisfaction. The letter was written in a moment of exaltation, and was
the wisest thing Susie could have done; but yet after it was in the
post-office and beyond recall, the poor girl suffered new tortures lest
her words should alienate him still further from her; for she had to own
that, after all, she had not utterly given up the hope that he was only
temporarily under some new influence, that made him act so dishonorably
toward her. Love is not only blind, but absolutely idiotic, in its
faith. When once we are even partially free from his gilded toils, how
wide our eyes are opened! How microscopic their power to detect and
measure infinitesimal quantities of meanness in the lover.
Clara was away when the second letter came, and Mrs. Forest and her
visitor were out riding. Just as she had folded and put away Dan’s
second letter, the doctor came in. He greeted her pleasantly, and threw
himself wearily on the lounge in the dining-room. Upon his inquiring for
Clara, Susie told him she was out. “But cannot I take her place, just
for once?” she asked. “You want your bath, I know, for you always say
that nothing rests you so much;” and not waiting for any verbal assent,
Susie ran and pumped the water from the rain-cistern into the bath-tub,
and added a pail of hot water from Dinah’s range. The bath refreshed
him, as it always did, and when he came back Susie had his pipe filled
for him, and a cup of fresh coffee beside it.
“What a grand sachem I am, to be so coddled by nice women. Now come and
talk to me, Susie,” he said, stretching himself on the lounge. Susie sat
down beside him on a low stool, and showed him Dan’s first letter and a
copy of her answer.
“Good for your answer, Susie. I rather like it, though it is a little
romantic. Yes, I like it; but your sending back the money—ah! that was
too romantic by far. He’s a spendthrift, and the best possible use he
can make of his money is to give it to you. Don’t you do it
again—hear?—if he sends you any more.”
Susie listened to the doctor, but could not tell him just then that Dan
had sent more, having stubbornly determined to refuse it, as she had the
first; but she would consult Clara first. Seeing her silent, the doctor
said:
“‘Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.’
“See! I am romantic, too. I also quote Tennyson. You’ve borne up
bravely, Susie, these last days, and by and by all will be right. I am
going to find you a place with some patient of mine, as near here as
possible.” Susie’s face beamed at this. She felt that she could not
possibly stay much longer in the doctor’s house, for she knew how Mrs.
Forest felt toward her. He left her no time to thank him before he
added, “I trust you are cultivating a healthy contempt for your rascally
lover?”
“Do you think he will never, never care for Susie any more?” she asked.
“See! he commences even this letter ‘_Dear Susie_,’” and she looked up
inquiringly to the doctor, who answered, after a long pause:
“What dry husks a hungry heart will feed upon! Pitiful, pitiful!” and
the doctor uttered a heavy sigh. “Why, no; he cares nothing for you
beyond a feeling of pity, which no one could possibly withhold who had
any natural feeling. I say this because the sooner you give up all hope
that his disaffection is an accident, the better it will be for you.”
“Yet only so little while ago he told me I was all the world to him.”
“And he wrote you often, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Sometimes twice a day,” said Susie, smiling through her tears.
“Well, when he did that he was in love. There is no sign of that
delectable state, so constant. You may lay it down as a law, _if a man
loves he writes_, and simply because he cannot avoid doing so. He _must_
be governed by the strongest impulse. When he is writing he does not
know when to stop, for being away from an object that strongly attracts
him, writing is the most effective solace. In fact, the amount a lover
writes is a very good barometer of the pressure he is under from his
passion.”
“But might he not be so busy he could not write?”
“He would take the hours for sleeping, because writing would be far
pleasanter than sleeping. Of course there are accidents, serious
illness, and so forth. I speak of natural, happy, passional attraction.”
“Why, I have not written myself sometimes because, indeed, I loved him
so much,” said Susie.
“Ah! I was calculating the motives of my own sex. I doubt if the Devil
himself could fathom all a woman’s motives.”
“I am sorry you think so, sir,” said the serious little Susie. “I mean I
could not write because I wanted so to keep his love, and feared to
reproach him, feared to be too loving, feared and distrusted my power
every way; and so I often tore up letter after letter—often brought them
back from the post-office door, and did not write perhaps for days; and
yet I loved him so, all the time, that I could not sleep.”
“Poor child!” said the doctor, taking her hand. “Don’t you see you were
but proving my rule, for in the first place you _did_ write continually,
according to your own confession; and then you remember I said _happy_
passional attraction.”
“Oh, yes. I see you are right. You are always right; but do you not
think love may sometimes return when once it goes out of the heart?”
“That’s a deep question, little woman—the rehabilitation of love. In
romances, it happens often enough; but I am an old fellow, and I never
knew a case in actual life. It is like small-pox, I suspect, and never
breaks out the second time.
“But people do love deeply the second time.”
“Yes. I see my comparison is not well chosen; well, like the water of a
river which never passes over its bed but once.”
While the doctor was conversing with Susie, Mrs. Forest was also engaged
in her service, though with motives wholly different from those
actuating the doctor, who talked to her to give her strength and
self-confidence. He had never taken the trouble to have her sit by him,
before the discovery of her sad condition, and seeing how deeply she
appreciated his attention to her, made the giving of it very pleasant to
him. Mrs. Forest, during her ride, called on old Mrs. Buzzell, who lived
a very solitary life with her one old servant, to see if she would not
receive Susie in her disgrace. Mrs. Forest was careful to mention all
Susie’s good qualities, and Mrs. Buzzell at first felt inclined to
assent because she was lonely, and had observed Susie with much interest
whenever she had visited at the doctor’s house, and felt quite attracted
to her; but some way she sniffed in the air that Mrs. Forest’s society
notions were at the bottom of this move of hers, and so her reply was
rather galling to one of Mrs. Forest’s refinement.
“Well, I will try to help her, and, as you say, no doubt the other
ladies of our church will do the same; but if your house is too highly
respectable to shelter her, of course mine is, and so there’s an end of
that.”
This was Mrs. Forest’s last call upon Mrs. Buzzell. Their friendship,
such as it was, had lasted twenty years, and thus it was brought to a
sudden end, by wounding each other’s vanity. While they confined their
mutual interests to gossip, and to superficial considerations of things
generally, they met as on a bridge; but when deeper questions arose the
bridge fell through, and they found themselves separated as by an
impassable torrent. When Mrs. Forest had gone, Mrs. Buzzell questioned
whether she herself had acted in a Christian spirit, and she was forced
to confess that she had not. She thought, indeed, that she was very
sorry, and anxious to apologize; but in fact her regret amounted to very
little, for she would have been drawn and quartered in her present mood
before she would have taken Susie in, after Mrs. Forest’s presumption.
This same day, in the early evening, after Clara was dressed for
receiving Dr. Delano, she sat awhile with Susie in the room of the
latter, and helped her in her first lesson; but they continually
wandered from the subject of nouns and articles to those lying nearer
the hearts of both. Still Susie’s recitation was very successful. She
concealed from her friend the painful effort it had cost to concentrate
her attention upon study, even for one minute, and hours had been
consumed in preparing herself so that she might not disappoint Clara.
“Now you are going to do splendidly,” said Clara, assigning her a
certain portion of history for the next day, to be read over and recited
in Susie’s own language, and a very short task in a text-book of
etymology. Clara had the true instinct of the teacher, and knew better
than to give long tasks to a beginner, lest they should discourage.
After this, Susie showed her Dan’s first letter and its answer, and
before there was any time for Clara to reprove her for returning the
money, she gave her Dan’s second letter, telling her at the same time
that she was resolved to refuse the money. Clara held the money very
closely, and said, “I shall not let you send this back. He is just
pig-headed enough to burn it as he threatens. I will write him that I
have seized it to prevent your returning it, and that I shall use it as
I think best.” This she did, and Susie was forced to yield, not being
sorry to have the responsibility thus completely removed from her own
shoulders. She then consulted Clara about going away, and this Clara
confessed was to be considered. “I do not wonder that you cannot endure
mamma’s coldness,” she said, “but do not think of it to-night. Dr.
Delano is anxious for our marriage to take place immediately, and _entre
nous_—that is, between ourselves—I am myself going to manifest what
mamma calls ‘indecent haste’ to get married, so that I may have a home
for you;” and Clara laughed gayly, to prevent Susie’s taking it
seriously, though in reality it was not wholly a pleasantry on her part.
The ring of the door-bell interrupted Clara’s speech, and she bade Susie
good-night tenderly, urging her to con over her lessons, and then go to
bed and sleep. Susie clung to her friend a moment, crying silently;
indeed, she cried so often that Clara found the best way was to not
notice it too much; but she said, “Would you like me to come back after
my friend has gone?” “Oh, do!” replied Susie. “Come and hear my lessons.
I must have something to do, or I shall go crazy. If I can only get away
from here——” “Yes, yes, I know just how you feel,” said Clara; “but it
will not be long. I am going to talk with papa, if I am up when he comes
home, and then I’ll come and tell you about it.” Susie begged Clara to
understand how deeply she regretted leaving her and the doctor, but he
would call on her, she knew. “And so shall I, every day of my life. Why,
of course I shall, to hear your lessons. But I must go now;” and with
another hasty kiss, after the manner of girls, Clara ran down-stairs.
Clara had thought to give Susie her sympathy and moral support in her
trouble, but she had not dreamed of ever really loving her as a friend.
And yet a week had not passed before she discovered qualities and
sensibilities in Susie that not only surprised her, but made her compare
most favorably with all the young friends Clara had known. The doctor
was delighted with the growing regard of his daughter for Susie, in whom
he had full faith. “Depend upon it, Clara,” he said, “Susie is a real
gem, and under your polishing, you will see how she will shine out
by-and-by. I think she will prove your best friend among women.”
The next morning the doctor had a long talk with his wife, who had
“pouted” him, as the French say, ever since their last stormy interview;
but he found it useless to try to move her. She was still as firm as a
rock, though manifesting it in a way that seemed very gentle; and by
appealing to his affection for her, by recalling the tenderness on his
part that had endured all through their married life, the happiness that
reigned in their home until he became “estranged” from her, as she said,
and especially by her tears, which he called cowardly weapons, because
she knew beforehand that he could not resist them—by all this she
succeeded in making the good doctor _feel_ that he was a brute, though
he knew perfectly well that he had acted only justly and honorably in
protecting a good girl in a disgrace caused by his own son. In the end
he petted and caressed her, and turned her tears into smiles that were a
triumph, but he saw in them only delight at his caresses.
That night Mrs. Forest appeared in the doctor’s room in a ravishing
night toilet that had been packed away in lavender since the days of
their honeymoon.
Is it possible that even virtuous married men are sometimes the victims
of artful women?