THE CIRCUS
Tom was right. That moment was the turning-point for Sue Penrose. When
she saw that group on the familiar door-step across the way, something
seemed to clutch at her heart, something seemed to fall from her eyes.
What did this all mean? There were her friends, her dear old friends,
with their honest faces and their clear, kind, true eyes. She had seen
the longing look in Mary's eyes, and Tom's grave glance which seemed
to say that he was sorry for her. It was the afternoon playtime, and
they were all going to play together some of the happy boy-and-girl
plays in which she, Sue, had always been the leader; and she was not
with them. She had lost them all, and for what? All at once, Clarice's
giggle, her whispered talk of dresses and parties and "gentlemen
friends" sounded flat and silly and meaningless. What did Sue care for
such stuff? How could she ever have thought she cared? What would she
not give for a good romp in the orchard, and a talk with Mary
afterward! A small voice said in her heart: "Go back! A kiss to Mary,
a word to the boys, and all will be forgotten. Go back now, before it
is too late!"
But two other voices spoke louder in Sue's ear, drowning the voice of
her heart. One was pride. "Go back?" it said. "Confess that you have
been wicked and silly? Let the boys and Lily see you humbling
yourself--you, who have always been the proud one? Never!" The other
was loyalty, or rather a kind of chivalry that was a part of Sue. "You
cannot desert Clarice," said this voice. "She is a stranger here, and
she depends upon you. She is delicate and sensitive, and you are the
only person who understands her; she says so. She isn't exactly nice
in some ways, but the others are hard on her, and you must stand by
her. You cannot go back!"
So when Clarice tittered, and whispered something about Mary's dress,
Sue pressed her arm, and straightened herself and walked on, looking
steadfastly before her.
"My! Sue, what is the matter?" her companion asked. "You look as cross
as a meat-ax. No wonder! I call the way that boy stared at you
downright impudent. They seem to have taken up with Lily, now that
they can't get you. He, he!"
And a new sting was planted in Sue's heart, already sore enough. Yes;
they had taken up with Lily; Lily was filling her place.
Sue took the pain home with her, and carried it about all day, and
many a day. The little sister had never been much to her, as we have
seen. Her own life had been so overflowing with matters that seemed to
her of vital importance that she had never had much time to bestow on
the child who was too old to be set down with blocks and doll and told
to amuse herself, and yet was too young--or so Sue thought--to share
the plays of the older children. She had "wished to goodness" that
Lily had some friend of her own age; and "Don't bother!" was the
answer that rose most frequently to her lips when Lily begged to be
allowed to play with her and Mary.
"Don't bother, Lily. Run along and amuse yourself; that's a good girl!
We are busy just now." She had never meant to be unkind; she just
hadn't thought, that was all.
Well, Lily did not have to be told now not to bother. There was no
danger of her asking to join Sue and Clarice, for the latter had from
the first shown a dislike to the child which was heartily returned.
People who "think children are a nuisance" are not apt to be troubled
by their company.
After the morning hour during which she sat with their mother, reading
to her and helping her in various ways (how was it, by the way, that
Lily had got into the way of doing this? she, Sue, had never had time,
or had never thought of it!), Lily was always over at the Harts' in
these days. Often when Sue and Clarice were sitting upstairs,
talking,--oh, such weary, empty, stupid talk, it seemed now!--the
sound of Lily's happy laughter would come from over the way and ring
in her sister's ears.
They were playing Indians again, were they? "The Last of the
Mohicans"! Tom was Hawkeye, of course; but who was Uncas in her stead?
She had always been Uncas. She knew a good many of his speeches by
heart. Ah! she thrilled, recalling the tremendous moment when the
Delawares discover the tortoise tattooed on the breast of the young
hero. She recalled how "for a single instant Uncas enjoyed his
triumph, smiling calmly on the scene. Then motioning the crowd away
with a high and haughty sweep of the arm, he advanced in front of the
nation with the air of a king, and spoke in a voice louder than the
murmur of admiration that ran through the multitude.
"'Men of the Lenni-Lenape,' he said, 'my race upholds the earth. Your
feeble tribe stands on my shell. What fire that a Delaware can light
would burn the child of my fathers?' he added, pointing proudly to the
simple blazonry on his skin. 'The blood that came from such a stock
would smother your flames!'"
Ah! and then the last speech, that she always spoke leaning against a
tree, with her arms folded on her breast, and her gaze fixed haughtily
on the awe-struck spectators: "Pale-face! I die before my heart is
soft!" and so on. They all said she did that splendidly--better than
any one else.
What was Clarice saying?
"And I said to him, I said: 'I don't know what you mean,' I said. 'Oh,
yes, you do,' he said. 'No, I don't,' I said. 'I think you're real
silly,' I said. And he said: 'Oh, don't say that,' he said. 'Well, I
shall,' I said. 'You're just as silly as you can be!'" And so on and
so on, till Sue could have fallen asleep for sheer weariness, save for
those merry voices in her ear and the pain at her heart.
But when Clarice was gone, Sue unlocked her journal and wrote:
"I am very unhappy, and no one cares. I am alone in the world, and I
feel that I have not long to live. My cheek is hollow, and my eyes
gleam with an unnatural light; but I shall rest in the grave and no
one will morn for me. I hear the voices of my former friends, but they
think no more of the lonely outcast. I do hope that if I should live
to be fifteen I shall have more sense than some people have; but she
is all I have left in the world, and I will be faithful to death. They
have taken my sister from me--" But when she had written these last
words Sue blushed hotly, and drew her pen through them; for she was an
honest child, and she knew they were not true.
Then she went downstairs. Her room was too lonely, and everything in
it spoke too plainly of Mary. She could not stay there.
Mrs. Penrose looked up as she entered the sitting-room. "Oh! it is
you, Sue," she said, with her little weary air; "I thought it was
Lily."
"Would you like me to read to you, Mamma?" asked Sue, with a sudden
impulse.
"Thank you, my dear," said Mrs. Penrose, doubtfully; "isn't Clarice
here? Yes, I should like it very much, Sue. My eyes are rather bad
to-day."
Sue read for an hour, and forgot the pain at her heart. When the
reading was over, her mother said: "Thank you, my dear; that was a
real treat. How well you read, Sue!"
"Let me read to you every day, Mother," said Sue. She kissed her
mother warmly; and, standing near her, noticed for the first time how
very pale and thin she was, how transparent her cheek and hands. Her
heart smote her with a new pain. How much more she saw, now that she
was unhappy herself! She had never thought much about her mother's ill
health. She was an "invalid," and that seemed to account for
everything. At least, she could be a better daughter while she lived,
and could help her mother in the afternoon, as Lily did in the
morning.
* * * * *
The day of the circus came. A week ago, how Sue had looked forward to
it! It was to be the crowning joy of the season, the great, the
triumphal day. But now all was changed. She had no thought of "backing
out"; an engagement once made was a sacred thing with Sue; but she no
longer saw it wreathed in imaginary glories. The circus was fun, of
course; but she was not going in the right way, she knew--in fact, she
was going in a very naughty way; and Clarice was no longer the
enchanting companion she had once seemed, who could cast a glamour
over everything she spoke of. Sue even suggested their consulting Mr.
Packard; but Clarice raised a shrill clamor.
"Sue, don't speak of such a thing! Puppa would lock me up if he had
any idea; he's awfully strict, you know. And we have both vowed never
to tell; you know we have, Sue. You vowed on this sacred relic; you
know you did!"
The sacred relic was a battered little medal that Clarice said had
come from Jerusalem and been blessed by the Pope. As this was almost
the only flight of fancy she had ever shown, Sue clung to the idea,
and had made the vow with all possible solemnity, feeling like
Hannibal and Robert of Normandy in one. This was not, however, until
after she had told Mary of the plan; but, somehow, she had not
mentioned that to Clarice. Mary would not tell, of course; perhaps, at
the bottom of her heart, Sue almost wished she would.
The day was bright and sunny, and Sue tried hard to feel as if she
were going to have a great and glorious time; yet when the hour came
at which she had promised to go to the hotel, she felt rather as if
she were going to execution. She hung round the door of her mother's
room. Could this be Sue, the foundling, the deserted child of cloudy
British princes?
"If you need me, Mamma, I won't go!" she said several times; but Mrs.
Penrose did not notice the wistful intonation in her voice, and she
had not yet become accustomed to needing Sue.
"No, dear!" she said. "Run along, and have a happy day. Lily and Katy
will do all I need." Then, with an impulse she hardly understood
herself, for she was an undemonstrative woman, she added: "Give me a
kiss before you go, Susie!"
Sue hung round her neck in a passionate embrace. "Mamma!" she
exclaimed, "Mamma! if I were very, very wicked, could you forgive
me?--if I were very dreadfully wicked?"
"I hope so, dear!" said Mrs. Penrose, settling her hair. She had
pretty hair, and did not like to have it disarranged. "But you are not
wicked, Sue. What is the matter, my dear?"
But Sue, after one more almost strangling embrace, ran out of the
room. She felt suffocated. She must have one moment of relief before
she went. Dashing back to her room, she flung herself upon her
journal.
* * * * *
"I go!" she wrote. "I go because I have sworn it, and I may not break
my word. It is a dreadful thing that I do, but it is my fate that
bekons. I don't believe I am a foundling, after all, and I don't care
if I am. Mamma is just perfectly sweet; and if I _should_ live, I
should never, never, _never_ let her know that I had found it out.
Adieu!
"The unfortunate
"SUSAN PENROSE."
After making a good flourish under her name, Sue felt a little better;
still, her heart was heavy enough as she put on her pretty hat with
the brown ostrich-feathers, which went so well with her pongee dress.
At least, she looked nice, she thought; that was some comfort.
* * * * *
The circus was a good one, and for a time Sue forgot everything else
in the joy of looking on. The tumbling! She had never dreamed of such
tumbling. And the jumping over three, four, six elephants standing
together! Each time it seemed impossible, out of the question, that
the thing could be done. Each time her heart stood still for an
instant, and then bounded furiously as the lithe, elastic form passed
like an arrow over the broad brown backs, and lighted on its feet
surely, gracefully, with a smile and a courtly gesture of triumph.
That one in the pale blue silk tights--could he really be human, and
go about on other days clad like other men?
Then, the wonderful jokes of the clown! Never was anything so funny,
Sue thought. But the great, the unspeakable part, was when the Signora
Fiorenza, the Queen of Flame, rode lightly into the arena on her
milk-white Arabian charger. Such beauty Sue had never dreamed of; and,
indeed, the Signora (whose name was Betsy Hankerson) was a handsome
young woman enough, and her riding-habit of crimson velvet, if a
little worn and rubbed, was still effective and becoming. To Sue's
eyes it seemed an imperial robe, fit for coronations and great state
banquets, or for scenes of glory like this.
Round and round the Signora rode, bending graciously from the saddle,
receiving with smiling composure the compliments of the clown.
"Well, madam! how did you manage to escape the police?"
"The police, sir?"
"Yes, madam! All the police in Chester--and a fine-looking set of men
they are--are on your track."
"Why, what have I done, sir, that the police should be after me?"
"What have you done, madam? Why, you have stolen all the roses in town
and put them in your cheeks, and you've stolen all the diamonds and
put them in your eyes; and worse than that!"
"Worse than that, sir?"
"Yes, madam. You've stolen all the young fellows' hearts and put them
in your pocket." Whack! "Get up there, Sultan!"
And he smacked the white horse with his hand, and the Signora cantered
gaily on. This was delightful; and it was all true, Sue thought, every
word of it. Oh, if she could only look like that, what would she not
give?
But now, a new wonder! The Signora had leaped lightly to her feet, and
was standing on the back of the fiery steed, always galloping,
galloping. She was unfastening the gold buttons of her riding-habit;
it fell off, and she stood transformed, a wonderful fairy in
gold-spangled gauze, with gold slippers, and a sparkling crown--had
she had it on all the time under her tall hat?--set in her beautiful
black hair. The clown shouted with glee, and Sue could have shouted
with him:
"Glory hallelujah! See the fireworks! Oh, my! somebody get my smoked
glasses; she puts my eyes clean out. Smoked glass, ladies and
gentlemen, five cents a piece! You'll all go stone-blind if you try to
look at her without it."
The music quickened its time, the snow-white steed quickened his pace.
The Signora called to him and shook the reins, and the good beast
sprang forward in response. Faster and faster, louder and louder, till
the air was palpitating with sound, and that glittering figure flashed
by like a fiery star. And now two men in livery came running out,
holding a great ring of living flame. They sprang up on two stools.
They held the ring steady while the flames leaped and danced, and Sue
fancied she could actually hear them hiss. The clown shouted and waved
his hat; the ring-master cracked his whip; the music crashed into a
maddening peal; and with a flash and a cry, horse and girl dashed
through the circle of fire.
[Illustration: AT THE CIRCUS.]
It was over. The flames were gone. The Signora was once more seated,
cantering easily round the ring, bending again to the clown's remarks.
But Sue still sat breathless, her hands clasped together, her eyes
shining. For a time she could not speak. At last she turned to Clarice
with burning cheeks and fluttering breath.
"Clarice, from this moment that is what I live for! I can do that,
Clarice, I know; I feel that I can. Do you suppose she would take me
as a pupil? Do you think she would? If I can do that just once, then I
can die happy!"
"How you talk, Sue Penrose!" said Clarice. "The idea! Who ever heard
of a young lady going into a circus? Say, don't look over opposite.
Those horrid Hart boys are over there, and they've been staring at you
as if you belonged to them. Such impudence!"