‘My love is like the sky—
As distant and as high.
Perchance she’s fair and kind and bright,
Perchance she’s stormy, tearful quite—
Alas! I scarce know why.’
‘Is this Susan?’
Crosby, standing at the little gate leading into the Rectory garden,
feels a spasm of doubt. He has come down this morning to make it up with
her, as the children say, after that slight quarrel of yester eve—a
quarrel that was all on her side. Her remorseless refusal to bid him
good-bye had left him a little desolate.
Is that really the sedate Susan, that slender nymph flying over there in
the distance—racing, rather—with Tommy, as a willing prey, running
before her?
Crosby has, through time, grown accustomed to think of Susan as a demure
maiden, slightly Puritan in type, though no doubt with a latent
wilfulness lying beneath the calm exterior. But now that the latent
wilfulness has broken loose, he finds himself unprepared for it. Susan
running there in the sunshine, with her hair, apparently just out of the
tub and hardly yet dry, floating behind her, is another creature
altogether. And such hair, too! Such glorious waves on waves glinting
golden in the sun’s bright rays, with Susan’s face peeping out of it now
and then. How wild, how mad, how soft, the bright hair looks, and how
sweet are the ringing cries that come from Susan’s parted lips!
‘The bear has you, Tommy. He’s coming. He’—making a dab at the excited
Tommy—‘will have you soon. In another moment he’ll be on you, tearing
you—’ Quite a sprint here on the part of Tommy, and increased speed
accordingly on Susan’s part. ‘And his claws are sharp—sharp!’
Tommy, in his flight, turns terrified eyes on Susan over his shoulder.
‘Oh, Susan, don’t, don’t!’ shrieks he, filled with joy and terror. The
terror constitutes three-fourths of the joy. And now he flies again for
his life, the deadly bear, the ruthless pursuer, dashing after him with
relentless energy.
Crosby, watching, tells himself, with a somewhat grim smile, that it is
Tommy alone who would flee from such a delightful enemy. Perhaps his
thoughts are touched with a tinge of disappointment at finding Susan in
this mad mood. Yesterday she had seemed to him angered and disturbed
when she left him so abruptly; and he had gone home with a growing sense
of contrition strong upon him. It had been strong enough to bring him
down this morning with half a dozen apologies, to find that she has
forgotten all about this offence and—him.
Here lies the real sting. The Susan he had imagined as being a little
out of joint with her world—just a very little daintily offended with
him—is not the Susan who is here now, and who is running round the
garden in merry pursuit of her little brother, with her eyes gleaming
like diamonds, and evidently as gay as a lark.
She is close on Tommy now. She has put out a hand to grasp him, but
Tommy is full of enterprise, doubles like a hare, and is now rushing
frantically towards the gate on which Crosby is leaning.
This brings Susan, who is still in hot pursuit of him, with her face
towards Crosby. Now more distinctly he can see her. What a lovely,
perfect child she is, with her loose hair floating behind her, like that
of the immortal ‘Damosel,’ and the little soft gasping laughs coming
from her open lips! _Joie de vivre_ is written in every line of her face
and every curve of her lissom body.
All at once, even as he watches her, this joy dies out of her face. ‘She
has seen me,’ says Crosby to himself; and forthwith he opens the gate
and advances towards her. Tommy, in his race, has reached him, and now,
breathless, flings himself into his arms, turning to look, with affected
fright, at the coming of Susan.
It is a very slow coming, and has evidently something to do with her
hair—as can be seen through the branches of a big escallonia on Crosby’s
left. He determines to give her time to struggle with that beautiful
hair. ‘Tommy, you ought to fall on the gravel and embrace your
preserver’s knees,’ says he. ‘I have evidently saved you from an
untimely death, if all I heard was true. I think, however, that you
might have warned me that bears were about.’
He is quite conscious, whilst speaking, that Susan is still making
frantic, but ineffectual, efforts to do up her hair; so he goes on.
‘Where’s your particular bear?’ asks he.
‘Here,’ says Susan, as she steps in the most unexpected fashion from
behind the tree. He can see that she is greatly disconcerted, and that
she would never have come from behind it if remaining there was any
longer possible. But she had seen and heard him, as he had seen and
heard her.
She advances now, her expression cold and unkindly, and her hands still
struggling with her hair, in her desire to reduce it to some sort of
reason.
‘Why trouble yourself about it?’ says Crosby. ‘It is the prettiest thing
I ever saw as it is.’
‘It is not pretty to me,’ says Susan crushingly. Her arms are still
above her head, and, as she speaks to him, she weaves into a superb coil
the loose strands of her soft hair. In spite of this, however, the
little locks around her brows, loosened and softened by the late
washing, are straying wildly, flying here and there of their own sweet
will, and making an aureole round Susan’s head, out of which her eyes
gleam at Crosby with anything but friendship in them.
‘How d’ye do?’ says he blandly.
‘How d’ye do?’ says Susan in return. She lets her hand rest in his for
the barest moment, then withdraws it.
Crosby regards her reproachfully. ‘You are angry with me still,’ says
he. ‘And after a whole night of reflection.’
‘I am not angry at all,’ says Susan. ‘Why should you think so?’
‘Yes, you are,’ says Crosby. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Your very hair
is bristly. And all because—’ He stops, as if afraid to go on.
‘Because what?’ asks Susan, with a touch of severity.
‘Because I once got sixpence out of you!’ He is not able to resist it.
‘Tommy,’ says Susan, ‘your collar is dirty, and you must come back to
the house with me to get another.’ As she speaks she catches Tommy, who
has not yet got to the years of civilization, and who hates clean
collars, and prepares to march him off.
‘Tommy,’ says Mr. Crosby, ‘wait a minute; your sister won’t, but perhaps
you will. There is a photographer in town to-day; he has come down from
Dublin. And your aunt says she would like to have some of you
photographed.’ Here there is a distinct slowing in Susan’s march past,
though she disdains to turn her head, or show further mark of interest.
‘Don’t you want to be photographed, Tommy? I do, badly.’
‘What is it?’ asks Tommy, whose views of amusement as a rule mean
lollipops, and those only, and who has no knowledge of cameras or
kodaks.
‘It’s painful, as a rule,’ says Crosby. ‘But children seldom suffer.
It’s only people of my age who come out with their noses twisted. Did
you ever have your nose twisted, Tommy? It hurts awfully, I can tell
you. But’—with a glance at Susan—‘other things hurt worse. You ought to
speak to Susan, Tommy—to tell her that prolonged cruelty sometimes ends
in the death of the victim.’
At this Susan faces round. ‘What I think is,’ says she, ‘that you ought
to give me back that horrid sixpence.’
‘It isn’t horrid.’
‘You should give it back, at all events.’
‘Oh, Susan, anything but that—my life even.’
‘What’—with mounting indignation—‘can you want it for, except to annoy
me?’
‘Is thy servant a slave? I want it as a memento of the only occasion on
record on which I was called a “kind, kind man,” and a “good” and an
“honest” one besides. You did call me all that, Susan. And yet, now—’
Heaven alone knows what would have been the end of all this, but for the
providential appearance of Miss Barry and Betty upon the scene.
‘My dear Susan, have you heard? But, of course, Mr. Crosby has told you.
Good gracious! what is the matter with your head, child?’
And, indeed, Susan’s hair has again found freedom, and is flowing down
her back in happy, shining waves.
‘I have just washed it,’ says Susan shamefacedly.
‘An admirable deed,’ says Miss Barry, who is in too great a state of
delight to lecture with her usual fluency, and who, indeed, feels
inclined to be lenient. ‘But you should not come into publicity, my dear
child, until it is dry and carefully dressed again. However’—beaming
upon Crosby, who begins to quite like her—‘youth will be youth, you
know. And what do you think, Susan? There is a man down from the best
photographer’s in Dublin—from Chancellor’s, I believe. And I am thinking
of having our pictures taken, if only to send some copies to your uncle
in Australia—my brother, you know, my dear. He will be so pleased to get
them; and, really, it is a grand opportunity. Of course, you, Mr.
Crosby, have had yours taken in every quarter of the globe, but we
country mice seldom get the chance of seeing ourselves as others see
us.’
‘I haven’t been photographed for quite ten years,’ says Crosby, ‘and I
feel now as if it were my duty to sit again. Miss Barry, if you are
going to be photographed to-day, will you take me under your wing?’
‘I shall be pleased indeed,’ says Miss Barry, with much dignity.
‘Won’t it be fun!’ cries Betty, clapping her hands.
‘And the hour?’ asks Crosby.
‘About two. What do you think, Susan? Two would be a good hour, eh?’
‘Yes, a good hour,’ says Susan, without interest. Then, suddenly:
‘Is—are you going to have Bonnie taken?’
‘My dear Susan’—Miss Barry flushes the dull pink of the old when
shamed—‘why should we send all our pictures to your uncle at once? It—it
would probably confuse him. Another time we may think of that,’ says
Miss Barry, who has counted up all her available shillings this morning,
to see if it would be possible to send all the children, but had found
they fell decidedly short. She would have died, however, rather than
confess this to a stranger. ‘Just mine and yours, and—but I am afraid
your father will never consent to be taken—and Betty’s and Carew’s—just
the eldest ones. You can see, Mr. Crosby, that just the eldest ones will
be those most acceptable to their uncle.’
‘Yes, I see,’ says Crosby. He has seen it all, indeed. As if in a dream,
Miss Barry’s purse has been laid open to him and the contents made bare.
The two shillings for herself, and the two for Susan, and for Betty, and
for Carew—eight shillings in all—and after that nothing. He has seen,
too, the pride of the poor lady, who would not acknowledge the want of
means wherewith to provide photos of the younger children for their
uncle abroad, but put her objection to their being taken on the grounds
of their youth. He has seen, too, Susan’s face as she hears that Bonnie
is not to be taken. Oh, the quick, pained disappointment of it!
‘At two, then,’ says he, ‘we shall meet at the photographer’s.’
‘Yes; two sharp,’ says Miss Barry, who seems quite excited. ‘Susan, I
think I shall wear my new lace cap.’
‘I think you ought to wear your hair just as it is now,’ says Crosby to
Susan in a low tone, as he bids her good-bye. It is impossible for her
to refuse him her hand with her aunt looking on; and though Crosby is
aware of this, it is to his shame, I confess, that he takes it and holds
it in a warm clasp before he lets it go.