SUSIE AND HER LOVERS.
Susie had been nearly a month in Edgeley, and a new faculty had
developed in her--a faculty that lies dormant for a life long with many
people, and that is impossible to others--the faculty of living in the
country. She had never known what that was. Not only in town, in the
midst of London, but in the strange, rigid, conventional,
severely-regulated life of the great hospital, she had spent all the
most important years of her life, and thought she knew no other way. Had
she been interrogated on the subject, Susie would have said that the
country might be very good for a change--it was, as everybody knew, the
very place for convalescents; where people ought to be sent to get
well: but for those who were well to start with, oh no! This she would
have said in all good faith, in that serene unacquaintance with what she
rejected, which is the panoply of the simple mind.
But when she got to the country, almost the first morning Susie woke up
in the quiet, in the clear air, and kind, mild sunshine which beamed out
of the skies like a smile of God, and had no stony pavement to rebound
from and turn into an oven--with a soft rapture such as all her life she
had never known before. She had thought she liked the crowd, the stir,
the perpetual call upon her, and what people called the life, which was
nowhere so vigorous, so intent, so full of change, as in town. But in a
moment she became aware that all this was a mistake, and that it was for
the country she had been born. This had been a delightful revelation to
Susie. And there had followed quickly another revelation, which never is
unimportant in a young woman’s life, but which in her peculiar existence
had been somehow eluded: and this was her own possession of that
feminine power and influence of which books are full, but which Susie
had not seen much of in ordinary life. Sometimes, indeed, there had
happened cases in which a young doctor had somehow been transported
beyond the line of his duties, by some one, perhaps a sister, most
probably a young lady on probation, or one who was playing at nursing,
as some will. And this had been at once wrong, which gave it piquancy as
an incident, and amusing. But such incidents were very rare; people in
the hospital being too busy to think of anything of the kind. Susie had
been, without knowing, the object of one or two dawning enthusiasms of
this description. In one case she had perhaps vaguely suspected the
possibility: but Mrs. Sandford gave neither opportunity nor
encouragement, and the thing had blown over.
Now, however, it had fully dawned upon her that she herself, tranquil
and simple in early maturity, no longer a girl, as she said to herself,
nor in the age of romance, had come to that moment of sovereignty which
sooner or later falls to most women, notwithstanding all statistics--the
power of actually affecting, disposing of, the life of another. It does
not always turn out to be of profound importance in a man’s life that
he has been refused by a certain woman. But for the time, at least, both
parties feel that it is of great importance: and the result of
acceptance, colouring and determining the course of two lives, cannot be
exaggerated. Susie discovered, first with amusement, afterwards with a
little fright, that the visits of Percy Spencer and of Mr. Cattley were
not without meaning. The two curates, who were so different! Their
position gave them a certain right to come, and her position as a
stranger and a temporary inhabitant exempted her, so far, at least, as
she was aware, from the remarks and criticisms to which another young
woman living alone might have been subject. But Susie had nobody to
interfere, no duenna, not even a well-trained maid to say not at home.
These visitors came in with a little preliminary knock at the parlour
door without asking if it was permitted--without any formality of
announcement. The door of the house was always open, and Sarah in the
kitchen would have thought it strange indeed to be interrupted in her
morning work by anyone ringing at the bell.
A month is a long time when it is passed in this land of intimacy.
Susie was asked frequently to the rectory, not always with Mrs.
Egerton’s free will--but there are necessities in that way which ladies
in the country cannot ignore: and it was very rarely that a day passed
without a meeting in the village street, if no more--at some cottage
where Susie had made herself useful, but most frequently in her own
little sanctuary, in the parlour so familiar to both these gentlemen, so
much more familiar to them than to her. At first they were continually
meeting there, and their meetings were not pleasant. For Percy did his
best to exasperate Mr. Cattley by a pretended deference to his old age
and antiquated notions, or by the elevation of his own standard of
churchmanship over the mild pretensions of the clergyman who did not
call himself a priest. And Mr. Cattley would retaliate by times with a
middle-aged contempt for boyish enthusiasms, by assuring his young
friend that by-and-by he would see things in a different light.
After a while, however, they fell into a system, arranging their comings
and goings with a mutual and jealous care in order that they might not
meet. And they both gave Susie a great deal of information about
themselves. She sat, and smiled, and listened, not without a subdued
pleasure in that power which she had discovered later than usual, and
which even this mutual antagonism made more flattering. Percy was full
of schemes in which he demanded her interest.
‘Everything has gone on here in the old-fashioned way,’ he said, ‘in the
famous old let-alone way. Aunt Mary has pottered about: she is the only
one that has done anything. My father never had any energy. He would
have let anyone take the reins out of his hands. And she has done it;
and she has always had old Cattley under her thumb. He has not dared to
say his soul was his own. To see him sit and stare and worship her used
to be our fun when we were boys. Jack must have told you.’
‘No, never. John saw nothing that was not perfect. He worshipped all of
you, I think.’
‘Some of us too much, perhaps--not me, I am certain,’ said Percy. ‘But
old Cattley was the greatest joke, Miss Sandford. How you would have
laughed!’ (Susie, however, did not laugh at all at this suggestion, but
sat as grave as a judge, with her eyes bent on her sewing.) ‘But nothing
could have been more unecclesiastical,’ Percy continued, recovering his
gravity. ‘It was the first thing I had to do in getting the parish into
my hands. Aunt Mary had to be put down.’
‘Has she been put down?’ said Susie, laughing a little in her turn.
‘I flatter myself, completely,’ said the young man. ‘She has learned to
keep her own place, which is everything. My father gives no trouble; he
sees how things have been neglected, and he is quite willing that I
should have it all in my own hands. I hope, especially if I have your
help, Miss Sandford, to have the cottage hospital and all the
improvements of which we have talked carried out. If I might hope that
you would set it going----’
‘But would not that be like your aunt’s interference over again, with no
right at all,’ Susie said.
‘No one can have any right--save what is given them by the clergy. And
you are not my aunt--very different! How I should love to delegate as
much as is fit of my authority to you!’ He paused a moment, with a sigh
and tender look, at which Susie secretly laughed, but outwardly took no
notice. Then he added: ‘Aunt Mary would have no delegation. She
interferes as if she thought she had a right to do it--a pretension not
tenable for a moment. But to entrust the woman’s part--to find an
Ancilla Domini, dear Miss Sandford, in you!’
Mr. Cattley was not so lively as this. He would sit for a long time by
the little work-table which had belonged to old Mrs. Sandford, and say
very little. He would sometimes relate to Susie something about her
grandparents, and talk of the pretty old lady with her white hands.
‘They were here when I first came,’ he would say. ‘I was a little lonely
when I came. I was one of the youngest of an immense family. My people
were glad to get rid of us, I think, especially the young ones, who were
of no great account. And my mother was dead. Edgeley was very pleasant
to me. I was taken up at the rectory as if I had been a son of the
house. And nobody can tell what she--what they all--were to me.’
Mr. Cattley coughed a little over the _she_, to make it look as if it
were a mistake, changing it into _they_.
‘Mrs. Egerton,’ said Susie, with a directness which brought a little
colour to the old curate’s cheek, ‘must have been very pretty then.’
‘To me she is beautiful now,’ he said, fervently, ‘and always will be. I
am not of the opinion that age has anything to do with beauty. It
becomes a different kind. It is not a girl’s or a young woman’s beauty
any longer, but it is just as beautiful. You will forgive me, Miss
Sandford----’
‘I have nothing to forgive,’ said Susie, but she said it with a little
heat. ‘I like people to be faithful,’ she added, perhaps indiscreetly.
Mr. Cattley did not answer for some time. And then he said:
‘I am going away now, and another life is beginning. I have been rather
a dreamer all my life, but I must be so no longer. I begin to feel the
difference. I think, if you will not be offended, that it is partly you
who have taught me----’
‘I!’ cried Susie, with something like fright. ‘I don’t know how that
could be----’
‘Nor I either,’ he said, with a smile which Susie felt to be very
ingratiating. ‘You have not intended it, nor thought of it, but still
you have done it. There is something that is so real in you, if I may
say so--a sweet, practical truth that makes other people think.’
‘You mean,’ said Susie, with a blush, ‘that I am very matter-of-fact?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I suppose what I mean is, that I have been going
on in a kind of a dream, and you are so living that I feel the contrast.
You must not ask me to explain. I’m not good at explaining. But I know
what I mean. I wish you knew Overton, Miss Sandford.’
‘Yes,’ said Susie, simply, ‘I should like to know it--when do you go?’
He smiled vaguely.
‘That is what I can’t tell,’ he said. ‘I should be there now. When do
_you_ go, Miss Sandford?’
‘I don’t know that either,’ she said, with a blush of which she was
greatly ashamed. ‘I suppose I ought to go now: but the country life is
pleasant, far more than I could have thought, after living so long in
town.’
‘You have always lived in town?’
‘As long as I can remember,’ said Susie.
‘That is perhaps what makes one feel that you are living through and
through. It must quicken the blood. Now I,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘am a
clodhopper born. I love everything that belongs to the country, and
nothing of the town--except----’ he said, and laughed and looked at her
with pleasant, mild, admiring eyes.
‘You must make an exception,’ said Susie, ‘or you will seem to say that
you dislike me.’
He shook his head at that with a smile--as if anything so much out of
the question could be imagined by no one. It was all very simple,
tranquil, and sweet, nothing that was impassioned in it, perhaps a
little too much of the middle-aged composure and calm. But Susie liked
the implied trust, the gentle entire admiration and appreciation. It
might not be romantic, perhaps, but she had a feeling that she might go
to Overton or anywhere putting her hand in that of this mild man. If
there was a little prick of feeling in respect to Mrs. Egerton, who had
been so long the object of his devotion, that was soothed by the natural
triumphant confidence of youth in its own unspeakable superiority over
everyone who was old: and to Susie at twenty-six (though that, she was
willing to allow, was not very young) a woman of forty-eight was a
feminine Methusaleh, and certainly not to be feared.
Nothing more had been said; and these two were tranquilly sitting
together; she at her work, he close to her little table, in a pleasant
silence which might have been that of the profoundest calm friendship,
or the most tranquil domestic love. And it might have ended in nothing
more than was then visible--a great mutual confidence and esteem: or it
might end at any moment in the few words which would suffice to unite
these two lives into one for all their mortal duration. But as they sat
there silently, in that intense calm fellowship, the ears of both were
caught by the sound of hurried footsteps approaching, so quick, so
precipitate, that it was not possible to dissociate them from the idea
of calamity.
Mr. Cattley lifted his head and looked towards the door; Susie
involuntarily put down her work. She thought of an accident, in the
semi-professional habit of her thoughts, and her mind leaped naturally
into the question where she could find bandages and the other
appliances? while he, whose duty took another turn, instinctively felt
in his breast-pocket for the old well-worn Prayer-book, from which he
was never separated. Then there was a clang of the open door, pushed
against the wall by some one entering eagerly. And the next moment the
parlour door burst open, and Elly appeared--Elly with her eyes very wide
open and shining, her mouth set firm, a wind of vigorous and rapid
movement coming in with her, disturbing the papers on the table. The
curate jumped up in alarm, with a cry: ‘Elly, what is the matter?’ and a
changing colour. Susie thought the same as he did--that something must
have happened at the rectory, and rose up, but not with the same
eagerness as he.
‘Oh, you are here, Mr. Cattley,’ said Elly, with an impatient wave of
her hand. She was breathless, scarcely able to get out the words, which
ran off in a sort of sibilation at the end. Then she sat down hastily,
and paused to take breath. ‘It was Susie,’ she went on, with a gasp,
‘that I wanted to see.’
‘I will go away,’ said the curate, ‘but tell me first that nothing is
wrong--that nothing has happened.’
Elly took a minute or two to recover her breath, which she drew in long
inspirations, relieving her heart.
‘Since you are here,’ she said, ‘you may stay, for you have known
everything. Nothing wrong? Oh, everything is wrong. But nothing has
happened to Aunt Mary, if that is what you mean.’
Mr. Cattley grew very red, and cast a glance at Susie, who on her part
sat down quickly, silently, without asking any question, which had its
significance. Perhaps she only felt that, as there was evidently no need
for bandages she could not have much to do with it, either; perhaps--but
it is unnecessary to investigate further. For Elly added, immediately,
‘I have got a letter from Jack, which I don’t understand at all.’
She had recovered her breath. There was an air of defiance and
resolution upon her face. She drew her chair into the open space in
front of Susie, and challenged her as if to single combat.
‘I want to know,’ she said, ‘from you--I don’t mind Mr. Cattley being
there, because he knows us both so well, and has been in it all along. I
want to know, from you--is there any reason, any secret reason, that he
could find out and did not know before, that could stand between Jack
and me?’
Susie looked at her with an astonished face, her mouth a little open,
her eyes fixed in wonder. She did not make any reply, but that was
comprehensible, for the question seemed to take her altogether by
surprise.
‘I don’t think you understand me,’ said Elly, plaintively, ‘and I’m sure
I don’t wonder. _You_ know, Mr. Cattley, at least; Jack went away full
of his great scheme which was to make him rich, which was to make Aunt
Mary’s opposition as much contrary to prudence as it was to--to good
sense and--everything,’ cried Elly, ‘for of course the only drawback in
it, as everybody must have seen with half an eye, was that I was not
good enough for him, a rising engineer, with the finest profession in
the world! However, we were engaged all the same. People might say not,
but we were--in every sense of the word--I to him and he to me!’
Her face was like the sky as she told her tale, now swept by clouds, now
clearing into full and open light. She grew red and pale, and dark and
bright in a continued succession, and kept her eyes fixed with mingled
defiance and appeal on Susie’s face.
‘Now tell me,’ she said, ‘for you must know--is there anything that Jack
could find out that would change all that in a moment? What is there
that he could find out that would make him think differently of himself
and of every creature? Can’t you tell me, Susie? You are his only
sister; you must know, if anyone knows. What is it? What is it? Mr.
Cattley, her face is changing too. Oh, for goodness sake, make her tell
me! If I only knew, I could judge for myself. Make her say what it is!’
The clouds that came and went on Elly’s face seemed suddenly to have
blown upon that wind of emotion to Susie’s. After her first look of
wonder, she had given the questioner a quick suspicious troubled glance.
Then Susie picked up her work again and bent her head over it, and
appeared to withdraw her attention altogether. She went on working in an
agitated way a minute or two after this appeal had been made to her.
Then she suddenly raised her head.
‘What could he have found out? How should I know what he could find out?
What was there to find out?’
‘These are the questions I am asking you,’ cried Elly. ‘Here is his
letter. I brought it to show you. It is a letter,’ cried the girl,
‘which anybody may see, not what anyone could call a love-letter. I
suppose he has found out, after having spoken, that he did not--care for
me as he thought.’
‘Elly,’ said the curate, ‘I know nothing about it--but I am sure _that_
is not true.’
‘Oh, you should see the letter,’ she cried, with a faint laugh. The
clouds with a crimson tinge had wrapped her face in gloom and shame.
Then she paused and put her hands to her eyes to hide the quick-coming
tears. ‘Why should one be ashamed?’ she said. ‘I was not ashamed
before. It was I who insisted before; for I was quite sure--quite
sure---- And now what am I to think? for he has given me up, Susie, he
has given me up!’
Susie kept her head bent over her work.
‘Because,’ she said, ‘of something he has found out?’
‘Because of--yes--yes. Read it, if you like--anyone may read it. Because
he thought his father was dead and he finds out now that he is alive;
but what is his father to me? No father can make a slave of Jack, for he
is a man. What have I do with his father, Susie?’
Susie’s work served her no longer as a shield. It dropped from her
hands: she was very pale, everything swam before her eyes.
‘Oh, what is it--what is it--_what is it_?’ cried Elly, clapping her
hands together with a frenzy of eagerness and anxiety and curiosity,
which resounded through the silence of the house.