‘Anxiety is the poison of human life.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to go,’ says Susan, who is evidently terrified at
the idea, crumpling up a small note between her fingers—a most courteous
little note sent by Lady Forster this morning, Monday, the third of
August, to ask Miss Barry’s permission for Susan to lunch at the Park.
She—Lady Forster—had met her charming niece yesterday, and had induced
her to promise to come to them on this, her brother’s birthday. And she
hoped Miss Barry had not quite forgotten her, but would remember that
she was quite an old friend, and let her come and see her soon.
It is a pretty little note, and delights Miss Barry; yet Susan finds no
pleasure in it, and now sits glum and miserable.
‘Go!’ cries Betty. ‘I should think so. Oh, you lucky girl!’
‘Would you like to go, Betty, if it were your case?’—this wistfully. Oh
that it were Betty’s case!
‘Is there anything on earth that would keep me away?’ cries Betty
enthusiastically. ‘What fun you will have there! I know by Lady
Forster’s eyes that you are safe to have a good time. I
think’—gloomily—‘she might have asked me too.’
‘I wish she had,’ says Susan fervently. ‘If—I had one of you with me, I
should not feel half so nervous.’
‘What makes you nervous?’ asks Carew.
‘Well, they are all strangers, for one thing—and besides’—rather
shamefacedly—‘they will be very big people, of course, and at luncheon
there will be entrées, and dishes, and things I have never even heard
of, and’—almost tearfully now—‘I shan’t know what to do.’
‘There are only two things to be remembered really,’ says Mr. Fitzgerald
slowly but forcibly. ‘One is not to pick your teeth with your fork, and
the other is even more important: for goodness’ sake, Susan, whatever
you do, don’t eat your peas with your knife. All that sort of thing has
gone out—has been unfashionable for quite a year or more.’
‘Oh, it’s all very well for you to make fun of it,’ says Susan
resentfully. ‘You haven’t to go there.’
‘And is that what you call “well for me”? I wish I was going there, if
only to look after your manners, which evidently, by your own account of
them, leave a great deal to be desired. By-the-by, there is one thing
more I should like to impress upon you before you start: never, Susan—no
matter how sorely tempted—put your feet on the table-cloth. It is quite
a solecism nowadays, and—’
‘If you won’t go away, I shall,’ says Susan, rising with extreme
dignity. But he leans forward, and catching the tail of her gown just as
she is gaining her feet, brings her with a jerk to her sitting position
again. After which they all laugh irrepressibly, and the _émeute_ is at
an end.
‘What a lot of servants they had in church!’ says Betty, alluding to the
all-absorbing guests at the Park. ‘I suppose that tall woman was Lady
Forster’s maid?’ ‘Yes, and the little woman was Mrs. Prior’s. By the
way, that squares matters. Mrs. Prior has grown several yards since last
year.’
‘It seemed to me that each maid sat behind her own mistress.’
‘So as to keep her eye on her. And very necessary too, no doubt.’
‘Did you see that pale young man, ever so thin and wretched-looking, but
so conceited? His hair was nearly down to his waist, and he hadn’t any
chin to speak of.’
‘Oh, that!’ cries Betty eagerly. ‘That’s the poet. Yes, he is, Susan.
He’s a real poet. Miss Ricketty told me about him yesterday. He has
written sonnets and whole volumes of things, and is quite a poet. Miss
Ricketty says that’s why his hair grows like that.’
‘Samson must have been the laureate of his time,’ says Dominick
thoughtfully.
‘So that was the poet,’ says Susan, who had heard of his coming from
Crosby. ‘Well, he certainly looked queer enough for anything. I
wonder’—nervously—‘who was the tall girl sitting next to Mr. Crosby?’
This was the tall girl with whom Crosby had driven away.
‘I don’t know,’ says Betty. ‘Wasn’t she pretty? And wasn’t she
beautifully dressed? Oh, Susan, didn’t you want to see yourself in a
gown like that?’
‘No,’ says Susan shortly.
‘Well, I did. I wanted to know how I’d look.’
‘As if you didn’t know,’ says Dominick encouragingly. ‘Like Venus
herself!’
‘I never heard she had her frocks from Paris,’ says Betty, hunching up
an unkind little shoulder against him.
‘You’ve heard so little, you see,’ says Dom, with gentle protest. ‘Now,
as a fact, Venus had her frocks made by—’
‘Well?’ with a threatening air.
‘Miss Fogerty,’ naming Betty’s own dressmaker.
‘Pshaw!’ says that slim damsel contemptuously. ‘However, Susan, that
girl was pretty, any way. I wonder who she was? Had she a maid, I
wonder? There was a dark-looking woman amongst the servants farther on,
just behind the poet. Perhaps it was hers.’
‘Oh no,’ says Dom gravely, ‘that was his.’
‘His?’
‘The poet’s. Yes.’
‘Nonsense!’ says Betty. ‘What would he want a maid for?’
‘To comb his locks and copy his sonnets,’ says Dom, without blinking.
‘Nonsense! Men don’t have maids,’ says Betty, who seems to know all
about it.
‘Oh, here is someone from the Park,’ cries Jacky suddenly.
‘Is it Mr. Crosby or Lady Forster?’ asks Susan anxiously.
‘Both of ’em,’ says Jacky, in his own sweet laconic style.
The smart little cart, with its wonderful pair of ponies, rattled up to
the door, and Miss Barry, who had known that someone would come to fetch
Susan, and had therefore put on her best bib and tucker, emerged from
the flower-crowned porch of the Rectory to receive Lady Forster, her old
face wreathed in smiles. It was sweet to her to see Susan accepted and
admired by the Park people. ‘Our own sort of people’ proudly thought the
poor old maid, who had struggled with much poverty all her life.
And Lady Forster was quite charming to her, insisting on going to see
the old garden again, ‘which she quite remembered.’ Lady Forster had
never stuck at a tarradiddle or two, and was, after seeing it, genuinely
enthusiastic over its old-fashioned charms. Might she bring her friends
to see it? They had never, never seen anything so lovely! It would be a
charity to show them something human, these benighted town-people. To
hear her, one would imagine she despised the town herself, whereas, as a
fact, she could never live for six months out of it.
Miss Barry was elated—so elated, indeed, that she took a dreadful step.
She invited Lady Forster and all her friends to tea the next Friday,
without a thought as to the consequences—until afterwards! Lady Forster
accepted the invitation with effusion. There was no getting out of it,
Miss Barry felt during that dreadful ‘afterwards.’
Meantime Susan had found herself, comparatively speaking, alone with
Crosby, when she came downstairs after putting on her best gown and hat.
She had brought something with her besides the best gown and hat; a
little silken bag, made out of a bit of lovely old brocade she had
begged from Miss Barry a month ago. She had cut it out, and stitched it,
and filled it with lavender-seeds, and worked on it at odd moments when
no one but Betty could see her (she was afraid of the boys’ jokes) the
words: ‘Mr. Crosby, from Susan.’
At first she had thought of buying something for him—something at Miss
Ricketty’s, who really had, at times, quite wonderful things down from
Dublin, but her soul revolted from that. What could she buy him that he
would care for? And besides, to buy a thing for a person one liked, and
one who had been so good to Bonnie! No; she could not. It seemed cold,
unkind. So she decided on the little bag that was to lie in his drawer
and perfume his handkerchiefs, and tell him sometimes of her—yes, her
love for him! Because she did love him, if only for his goodness to the
children, and to her Bonnie first of all.
She had been afraid to run the gauntlet of the boys’ criticisms, but
Betty she clung to. A confidante one must have sometimes, or die.
‘You know he told me, Betty, when his birthday would be.’
‘Yes. So clever of him!’ said Betty, who, if she were at the point of
death, could not have refrained from a joke.
‘Well, he has been good to the chicks, hasn’t he? To darling Bonnie
especially.’
‘Oh, he has—he has indeed,’ Betty declared remorsefully, melting at the
thought of the little crippled brother who is so inexpressibly dear to
them all.
* * * * *
Betty had hurried up with Susan to get her into her best things, and
then had given her sound advice.
‘Give it to him now, Susan. Lady Forster’—glancing out of the window—‘is
talking to Aunt Jemima. Hurry down and give it to him at once. It is the
sweetest bag. No one’—giggling—‘can say less than that for it. It’s
quite crammed with lavender.’
‘Yes, I will,’ says Susan valiantly.
She doesn’t, however. She hesitates, and is, as usual, lost. She tries
and tries to take that little bag out of her pocket and give it to him,
but her courage fails her. And presently Lady Forster carries her off,
and now the Park is reached, and she finds herself in the lovely, sunny
drawing-room, and after a while in the dining-room, and still that
little fragrant bag lies perdu.
Susan glances shyly round her. Sir William Forster, a tall young man
with a kindly eye, takes her fancy at once, and there is a big girl over
there and a big woman here (they must be mother and daughter), who make
her wonder a great deal about their strange garments. Mrs. Prior is
here, too, and Miss Prior—Mr. Wyndham’s people. And at the opposite side
of the table Mr. Wyndham himself. Beside him sits the poet, a lachrymose
young man with long hair and a crooked eye, and the name of Jones. No
wonder he looks depressed!
He has got his best eye fixed immovably on Susan, who seems to appeal
even to his high ideal of beauty—and, indeed, throughout the day she
suffers a good deal, off and on, from his unspoken, but quite open,
adoration of her. Poets never admire: they adore. And for a simple
country maiden this style is somewhat embarrassing. On Mr. Crosby’s
right hand is sitting the tall and beautiful girl, with the pale roses
near her throat, with whom he had driven home from church on Sunday. It
seems all quite clear to Susan. Yes, this is the girl he is going to
marry. But a girl so beautiful as that could make anyone happy. She had
heard someone call her Lady Muriel. Rank and beauty and sweetness—all
are for him. And surely he deserves them all; and that is why she is at
his right hand.