‘Thou didst delight mine ear,
Ah! little praise; thy voice
Makes other hearts rejoice,
Makes all ears glad that hear,
And shout my joy. But yet,
O song, do not forget.’
Susan is seated beside a very fashionably-dressed girl with an extremely
good-humoured face, and Captain Lennox—a man of about thirty or
thereabouts—who seems to find pleasure in an every two minutes’
contemplation of her young and charming face. In this, the good-humoured
looking girl—Miss Forbes—is not a whit behind Captain Lennox, she too
seeming to be delighted with Susan. And, indeed, everyone seems to have
fallen in love with pretty Susan, for presently the stately young beauty
sitting next to Crosby, who has come in a little late for luncheon,
whispers something to him, and then looks smilingly at Susan. Crosby, in
answer to her words, says quietly:
‘Susan—Lady Muriel Kennedy is very anxious to know you. Miss Barry, Lady
Muriel.’
‘I went past your charming old home yesterday,’ says Lady Muriel, in
tones barely above a whisper, but which seem to carry a long distance.
‘I quite wanted to go in, but I was afraid.’
‘Well, you’ll be able to satiate your curiosity on Friday,’ says Lady
Forster, ‘as we have been asked to tea on that day at the Rectory.’
‘How delightful!’ says Lady Muriel.
‘Your house is quite close to the Cottage, is it not, Miss Barry?’ asks
Mrs. Prior. ‘My nephew’s place, you know’—nodding at Wyndham, who
changes colour perceptibly. Good heavens! what is going to happen next?
‘Yes,’ says Susan; ‘only the road divides us.’
‘Then you can tell us about Mr. Wyndham’s new tenant. You’—smiling
archly—‘are quite an old friend of my nephew’s, eh?’ It is quite safe to
make a jest of the friendship with this insignificant little country
girl, as, of course, Paul, or any other man of consequence, would not
waste a thought over her.
‘Almost, indeed,’ says Susan. ‘But as to the tenant—’
Crosby drops a spoon, and Susan, a little startled, turns her head. It
is not on him, however, her eyes rest, but on Wyndham, who is looking at
her with a strange expression. Is it imploring, despairing, or what? It
checks her, at all events.
‘I know very little,’ she murmurs faintly.
‘Been flirting with him,’ thinks Mrs. Prior promptly. ‘All country girls
are so vulgar. Any new man.... And I dare say this tenant of Paul’s is
by no means a nice man either.’
There might have been a slight awkwardness here, but providentially Lady
Forster, who is never silent for two minutes together, breaks into the
gap.
‘What’s this, George?’ asks she, peering into a dish before her. ‘Are
you prepared to guarantee it? It’s your cook, you know, not mine. Looks
dangerous, and therefore tempting; and any way, one can only die once.
Oh! is that you?’—to a late man who has strolled in. ‘Been losing
yourself as usual? Come over here and sit beside me, you innocent
lamb’—patting the empty chair near her—‘and I’ll look after you. I’ll
give you one of these’—pointing to the dish—‘I hate to die alone. What
on earth are they?’—glancing at the little brown curled-up things that
seem filled with burnt crumbs. ‘Will they go off, George? Bombs, eh?’
Here the butler murmurs something to her in a discreet tone.
‘Oh, mushrooms! Good gracious, then why don’t they try to look like
them!’
‘Have you any brothers?’ asks Miss Forbes, turning to Susan.
‘Don’t answer,’ says Captain Lennox. ‘She’s always asking after one’s
brothers. Tell me, instead, how many sisters you have. Much more
interesting. I love people’s sisters.’
‘I’m George’s sister,’ says Lady Forster, glancing at him thoughtfully.
‘And my wife!’ says Sir William, with such an over-assumption of marital
authority that they all laugh, and his wife throws a pellet of bread at
him.
Susan grows thoughtful, filled with a slight amazement. She had been
nervous, almost distressed, at the idea of having to lunch at the Park.
Its habitués, she told herself, would be very grand folk, and clever,
and learned, and would talk very far above her little countrified head.
And now how is it? Why, after all, they are more like Dom in his
queerest moods than anything else.
‘What shall we do after luncheon?’ says Lady Forster. ‘I am willing to
chaperon anybody.’ She glances at Lady Muriel, and Susan intercepts the
glance.
Is it Lady Muriel and Mr. Crosby she is thinking of chaperoning?
‘Oh, I like your idea of supervision,’ says the Guardsman who has come
in late, and who is called Lord Jack by everybody, only because, as
Susan discovers afterwards, his name is Jack Lord. This, naturally, is
inevitable. ‘You once undertook to chaperon me, and let me in for about
the most _risqué_ situation of my life. I came out of it barely alive,
and very nearly maimed.’
‘Yes—I don’t think Katherine would make a very excellent chaperon,’ says
Mrs. Prior, who likes Crosby, but cordially detests his sister.
‘What a slander!’ cries Lady Forster; ‘easy to see you don’t understand
me! I’m a splendid chaperon—a born one. Always half a mile ahead—or else
in the rear. One should always be ahead if possible, as it gives the
poor creatures a chance of getting up to you in an honourable way, if
the enemy should come in sight. Whereas the turning and running back
business always looks so bad. No, better be in front of them. I’m going
to write a little treatise on the art of chaperoning for all
right-minded married women—and I hope you will accept a copy, dear Mrs.
Prior.’
‘I don’t expect I shall get one,’ says Mrs. Prior, with a distinct
sneer.
‘Oh, you shall indeed, “honest Injun,”’ says Lady Forster. ‘You’ll be
delighted with it.’
‘I feel sure of that,’ says Captain Lennox in an aside to Miss Forbes.
‘But really what shall we do this afternoon, George?’ asks his sister;
‘ride—drive?’ She has left her seat, and has perched herself on the arm
of the handsome old chair in which her husband is sitting at the foot of
the table.
‘What about the Abbey, Bill?’ asks Crosby, addressing his
brother-in-law.
‘No use in asking “Billee Barlow” anything,’ says that young man’s wife.
‘He hasn’t an idea on earth. Have you, Billee? And the Abbey is miles
off, and— Do you ride, Susan? I am going to call you Susan, if I may.’
She pauses just long enough to give Susan time to smile a pleased, if
shy, assent.
‘Susan is so pretty,’ says Captain Lennox absently.
‘Eh?’ says Crosby quickly, and with a suspicion of a frown.
‘Very, very pretty,’ repeats Lennox fervently.
Crosby glances at Susan. This absurd joke, this jest on her name—with
anyone else here it would be a jest only, but Susan—would she.... Her
colour is faintly, very faintly accentuated, and she is looking straight
at Lennox.
‘My name?’ says she, taking up the meaning he had not meant. ‘Do you
really think it pretty? The boys and Betty despise it.’
Her gentle dignity goes home to all. Crosby is indignant with Lennox,
and, indeed, so is Sir William. Sir William’s wife, however, I regret to
say, is convulsed with laughter.
‘It is certainly not a name to be despised,’ says Lennox courteously,
who is now a little ashamed of himself.
‘I like to be called by my Christian name,’ says a singularly
young-looking married woman. ‘Puts people out so. They never know
whether you are married or not for the first half-hour, at all events.’
They are now in a body strolling into the drawing-rooms, and Miss Forbes
has gone back to her cross-examination of Susan.
‘Four brothers? So many? And all grown up?’
‘Oh no! Carew is the eldest, and he is only seventeen. But we have a
cousin living with us, and he is twenty.’
‘What lovely ages!’ cries Lady Forster. ‘George, why didn’t you tell me
about Susan’s boys? You know I adore boys. Susan, you must bring them up
to-morrow. Do you hear?’
‘They will be so glad,’ says Susan; ‘do you know’—blushing shyly and
divinely—‘they were quite envious of me because I was coming here
to-day.’
‘Oh! why didn’t you bring them with you? Seventeen and twenty—the nicest
ages in the world!’
‘Certainly not the nicest,’ says Lennox, who is a born tease. ‘You, Miss
Barry’—looking at Susan—‘are thirteen, aren’t you?’
‘Oh no; much, much more than that!’ says Susan, laughing. Strangely
enough, she has begun to feel quite a liking for her tormentor, divining
with the wisdom of youth that his saucy sallies are filled with mischief
only, and no venom. ‘I was eighteen last May.’
‘How very candid!’ says Miss Prior, whose own age is growing uncertain,
and who is feeling a little bitter over the attention paid to Susan. If
Paul should prove inconstant, there is always the master of the Park to
fall back upon, or so she has fondly hoped till now. But there is no
denying the fact that Crosby has been very anxious all this afternoon
about Susan’s happiness.
‘Nonsense!’ says Lennox. ‘Tell that to—well, to somebody else.’
‘But that’s what I am really,’ says Susan, who is secretly disgusted at
being thought thirteen. ‘I was born in—’
‘Don’t tell that,’ says Lady Forster, putting up her finger. ‘It will be
fatal twenty years hence.’
‘Still, I’m not thirteen,’ says Susan, with gentle protest. ‘And I think
anyone could see that I’m not.’
‘I could, certainly,’ says Crosby, coming to the rescue. ‘In my opinion,
anyone that looked at you would know at once that you were forty.’
At this they laugh, and Susan casts her so very unusual ire behind her.
‘You will bring up the boys to-morrow, then?’ says Lady Forster, who is
always chattering. ‘And we’ll go for a long drive, and have a gipsy tea.
That will be better than nothing. And as we go Susan shall show us the
bits. No use in depending on George for that. He knows nothing of the
scenery round here, or any other scenery for the matter of that, except
African interiors, kraals, and nasty naked nigger women, and that. So
immodest of him! He’ll come to grief some day. We can go somewhere for a
gipsy tea to-morrow, can’t we, George? I’m dying to light a fire.’
‘What, another!’ says Lord Jack, regarding her with a would-be
woe-begone air. He lays his hand lightly on his heart.
‘It’s going to rain, I think,’ says Sir William presently; he is
standing in one of the windows.
‘“Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!”’ exclaims Miss Forbes. ‘What a thing
to say!’
‘It always rains in Ireland, doesn’t it?’ asks Lady Muriel, in her soft,
low voice.
‘Oh no—no indeed!’ cries Susan eagerly. ‘Does it, Mr. Crosby?’
‘Certainly not. Lady Muriel must prolong her stay here’—smiling at the
beautiful girl leaning in a picturesque attitude against the
window-shutter—‘and take back with her a more kindly view of our
climate.’
Yes; it is quite settled, thinks Susan. He loves her, and she—of course
she loves him. And he wants her to prolong her stay, most naturally. And
most naturally, too, he would like her to take back to England a kindly
impression of her future home, of her future climate. Oh, how pretty,
how lovely she is!
Heavily, heavily beat the raindrops on the window-pane.
‘Never mind,’ says Lady Forster, whom nothing daunts; ‘we’ll have a
dance. You love dancing, Susan, don’t you? Come along, then. Take your
partners all, and let’s waltz into the music-room.’
In a second Susan finds Captain Lennox’s arm round her waist, and
through the halls and the library they dance right into the music-room
beyond. After her comes Crosby with Lady Muriel, and after them Lady
Forster with—no, not Lord Jack, after all, but Sir William.
And now the big woman whom Susan had noticed at luncheon has seated
herself at the piano, and the poet has caught up a fiddle, and if the
big woman can do nothing else on earth, she can at least play dance
music to perfection, and the poet, ‘poor little fellow,’ as Susan calls
him to herself—if he could only have heard her!—does not make too many
false notes on the fiddle, so that she dances very gaily, feeling as if
her feet are treading on air, and answering Captain Lennox’s whispered
honeyed words with soft smiles and hurried breathing. Oh, how lovely it
all is! And, oh, how happy Lady Muriel is going to be!
The waltz has come to an end, and now Crosby is standing before her. And
now his arm is round her waist, and he—oh yes, there is no doubt of
it—he dances even better than Captain Lennox, and it is good of him,
too, to spare so much time from the lovely Lady Muriel.
‘Susan,’ says Crosby, as they pause at the end of the room, ‘I consider
your conduct distinctly immoral! The way you have been going on—’
‘Who—I?’
‘Yes, you! Don’t attempt to deny it. Your open flirtation with Lennox—’
‘What?’ Susan lifts her dewy eyes to his. Suddenly she breaks into the
merriest laughter. ‘You’re too funny for anything,’ says she.
‘Not for another dance, I hope.’ He laughs too, and so gaily. And again
his arm is round her, and away they go once more, dancing to the big
lady’s happiest strains. There is a conservatory off the music-room, and
into this he leads her presently.
‘You have no flowers,’ says he. ‘I must give you some. These roses will
suit you.’
‘They suit Lady Muriel too,’ says Susan, remembering.
‘Yes? Oh yes! I gave them to her this morning. Well, it shan’t be roses,
then. These pink begonias?’
‘I should like those better,’ says Susan; she takes them tranquilly. It
is, of course, quite right that he should wish to give her flowers
different from those he has just given his _fiancée_. She had reminded
him just in time.
Crosby is thankful for her suggestion, but for very different reasons.
He had forgotten about Lady Muriel’s roses, and to give her the same—
‘The rain is clearing away,’ says he, looking out of the window.
‘Still’—as if to himself—‘I think we had better take an umbrella.’
‘An umbrella?’
‘On our way home.’
‘Mr. Crosby’—eagerly—‘you need not take me home. You must not. There is
really no necessity. Oh!’—anxiously, thinking of Lady Muriel and his
desire to be with her—‘I hope you won’t come.’
‘That is not very civil, Susan, is it?’ says he, smiling. He pauses and
looks suddenly at her, a new expression growing in his eyes. ‘Of course,
if you have arranged to go home with anyone else—’
‘No—no indeed. But to take you away from your guests—’
‘My guests will live without me for half an hour, I have no doubt.’ His
tone is quite its old joyous self again. ‘And I promised your aunt to
see that you got safely back to her, and, as the children say, “a
promise is a promise.” Here are your begonias. Shall I fasten them in
for you?’
He arranges them under her pretty chin, she holding up her head to let
him do it, and then they go back to the music-room, where Sir William
catches him and carries him off for something or other. Susan, sinking
into a chair, finds Josephine Prior almost immediately beside her.
‘Those pretty begonias!’ says she. ‘How they suit you, though hardly
your frock! Of course’—with elephantine archness—‘I need not ask who
gave them to you. Mr. Crosby is always showering little favours on his
women friends. Those roses to Lady Muriel’—Susan holds her breath a
moment—‘and these begonias to you, and opera-tickets to others, and last
night such a delicious box of _marron glaces_ to me.’ She forgets to add
that he gave a similar box to each of his lady guests, having run up to
Dublin in the morning and brought them back with him from Mitchell’s.
‘I declare the sun is coming out at last,’ says Lady Forster. ‘It is
going to be a glorious evening. What a swindle! We have been quite done
out of our day. I do call that maddening. Never mind, we must make up
for it to-night. We will have—what shall we have, Dolly?’—to Miss
Forbes. ‘A pillow scuffle? Yes; that will be the very thing. And, Susan,
you shall stay and sleep and help us. And we’ll get the boys up. They
would be splendid at it, and give even us points, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘I have promised Miss Barry,’ says Crosby, in a distinct tone, ‘to take
Susan home this evening at six, and I’m afraid it is rather after that
now. Will you go and put on your hat, Susan?’
END OF VOL. II.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.