Susannah

“ Susannah rose up. In the dusk of the low, small room her figure, the child still in her arms, seemed to tower like a misty goddess or Madonna, such as praying men have often seen appearing for their succour; her voice came clear and strong from a heaving breast. ”

“ Susannah was habituated to some recognition of her beauty; she missed it here, not knowing what she missed. Smith had known that it was important for her to be sheltered from the wind; he was sorry that her skirts were splashed; his manner, casual as it had been, had at least had in it that element of "because you are you," the first essential of any human relationship. But Susannah liked the young Quaker much better than Smith; he was of finer fibre, and her heart was agape for young companionship; so, unconsciously, she resented his indifference, not only as to her sect but as to her sex. ”

“ I felt that Susannah spoke the truth, and I would not deny it. I sat down by her. “Susannah,” said I, “it is not very easy to change at once. I have mixed for years in the world, with you I have not yet lived two. ”

“ The Lord will take care of his own when they're a little off their heads just as much as at any other time."
What few worldly goods Susannah chose to keep were packed in two single waggons, Halsey driving the one, and Elvira and Susannah by turns driving the other and holding the child. Their long journey through the month of June was the most perfect pleasure that Susannah and Angel ever enjoyed together, the long nightmare of the last months at Kirtland left behind for ever, the stage of the future veiled, and the lineaments of natural hope painted upon the drop-curtain. ”

“ When the sun began to sink, Susannah had reached the low rolling ground that surrounds Hiram. The landscape here had a less distinctive character, and there was no vapour in the sky to make the sunset beautiful. She was weary of her horse's rough trot, and still more so of its slow plodding, but she felt excitement. She had conquered those forces, part of her womanhood, which urged compliance with her husband's desire and her own desire to abide by the homely routine whatever it might be. ”

“ Now tell me, were you not jealous at finding her in company with Harcourt?"
"Exactly so, sir."
"I'll tell Susannah Temple when I see her, that she may form some idea of your constancy," replied Mr Masterton, smiling. "Why, what a dog in the manger you must be—you can't marry them both. Still, under the circumstances, I can analyse the feeling—it is natural, but all that is natural is not always creditable to human nature. Let us talk a little about Susannah, and then all these vagaries will be dispersed. How old is she?" ”

“ Susannah tore a piece off the curtain of her cappie and began to bind up the injury. As she did so she came so close that she leant slightly against Max. Then the opportunity triumphed over the pain—he passed his arm around her, drew her to him, and kissed her on the quivering lips.
The centipede and its sting were soon forgotten. Nature held them, embraced and embracing, for a blissful eternity; they saw the face of happiness smiling in the rosy gloom under Love’s wing. ”

“ Susannah rose and rested her hand against the mantelshelf.
"Please put this clearly," she said; "why would it be folly?"
He smiled.
"You yourself, my dear, have remarked the state of my fortunes—Miss Boyle is not wealthy."
"Money—again money!" cried Miss Chressham in horrified accents. "Do you dare to consider money—after all that has passed?"
"It is a necessary evil," said the Earl.
"But you love her!" broke from Susannah.
A pause followed. My lord took a half-turn across the room followed by his cousin's bewildered, appealing eyes, then he turned and faced her. ”

“ Susannah stopped laughing, for very surprise. She examined the flushed Younger curiously, as if he had been a strange beast in a cage.
“Why,” she said, “what is the matter with you? Do you feel ill? Shall I ring for Gilda?”
The Younger flung his hat into a chair.
“I do feel ill! You and the marquis make me ill between you!”
“Oh, the marquis!” Susannah glanced at the knockers and smiled. “Yes, I remember. You introduced the marquis to me. Didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “That’s why I’m here now.”
She laughed.
“What funny creatures men are! They never think of things beforehand. ”

“ Again the mind of Joseph Smith had overmastered Susannah's mind. As Elvira had said, he, lying in a gaol far away, enduring hardship, imminent danger of torturing death, was by his spirit animating this motley crowd, and now at last again his will broke down the barriers of reason that Susannah had raised and fortified even against the love of her child and the long reverence she had yielded to her husband. The true secret of human leadership is, perhaps, known only to the Divine mind, perhaps also to the Satanic. ”

“ I pressed Mr Cophagus to tell me all he knew, and I found from him that his wife had questioned Susannah soon after my departure, had found her weeping, and that she had gained from her the avowal of her ardent affection for me. This was all I wanted, and I wished him good night, and went to bed happy. I had an interview with Susannah Temple before I left the next morning, and, although I never mentioned love, had every reason to be satisfied. ”

“ Susannah, there is this one great cause for our deep gratitude to heaven, that this time all our elders with one voice called upon our people to bear with patience, to cry to God to cleanse their hearts from all anger and revenge. ”

“ So far Susannah. Such is all the evidence bearing on this singular event.
“Susannah,” I said, “I like your analysis. Do you happen to feel anything in the nature of a ballad beginning to—to root around inside you? Because—here is the point. This ballad, as it stands, of Georgiana and Dolores, you see——”
“That!” said Susannah, scornfully, “that's no good now. It isn't so.”
CHAPTER XXII—CONCLUSION OF DR. ULSWATER'S LAST MANUSCIPT FOR four reasons we purpose now to move, by summery stages and many an ocean isle, to Portate, whither these, my written words, will perhaps not long precede us. ”

“ No, no,——said my father to Susannah, I’ll get up——There is no time, cried Susannah, the child’s as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father——But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father; canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head, the length of the gallery without scattering?——Can I? cried Susannah, shutting the door in a huff.——If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery. ”

“ In another instant, I heard that of Susannah—the meek Susannah,—she too was among the curious to examine the features of the bedlamite, Archy Dargan. "Dear me," said Emmeline, "is he in that place?"
"What a horrid place!" said Susannah.
"It's the very place for such a horrid creature," responded Emmeline.
"Can't he get out, papa?" said Susannah. "Isn't a mad person very strong?"
"Oh! don't frighten a body, Susannah, before we have had a peep," cried Emmeline; "I declare I'm afraid to look—do, Col. Nelson, peep first and see if there's no danger." ”

“ As she looked at Susannah she pierced beyond her into a new sequence of ideas. She had been hunted into a corner because she had been too ready to run. All the people she had known were so much stronger than she was that she had given up her own will to theirs without a struggle. Her mistress at the farm, Mrs. Job, Heber, and now Susannah ”

“ Susannah looked at the fat, bright-eyed man who was no longer looking at her. "I know" (her voice fell with a strange gentleness through the thickened atmosphere of the room) "that there are many malicious stories abroad about the dishonesty of our people which are not true." ”

“ After this Susannah's attention was centred upon the coming of her first child.
"'Tain't lucky to have a child when the leaves are falling," said Elvira Halsey, a certain mist of far-off vision clouding her sparkling eyes.
Susannah had been greatly weighed down by depression, not fearing ill-luck, but regretting for the first time unfeignedly that she had ever joined herself to the sect in which her child must now be nurtured. For herself, feeling often that all religions were equally false, it had mattered little ”

“ For some half-minute Susannah did not answer, and then fear of being compelled to retake the road made irresolution impossible.
"Indeed, sir, I am not alone. I have in the chaise with me a sick man, and I fear that he may be dying. I thought to find friends, but it seems in the darkness I have missed my way. ”

“ Slop snatched up the cataplasm—Susannah snatched up the candle;—A little this way, said Slop; Susannah looking one way, and rowing another, instantly set fire to Slop's wig, which being somewhat bushy and unctuous withal, was burnt out before it was well kindled.—You impudent whore! cried Slop,— (for what is passion, but a wild beast?) —you impudent whore, cried Slop, getting upright, with the cataplasm in his hand;—I never was the destruction of any body's nose, said Susannah,—which is more than you can say:—Is it? ”

“ His ardour was beginning to tell upon Susannah's mind. The desire awoke within her for some fellowship with his enthusiasm. Stronger was the desire to receive personal recognition from the fair-faced youth. ”

“ The marquis laughed. “And how about America?”
“Dear me!” cried Susannah. “There’s no comparison!”
“So I have understood!” exclaimed the Elder gaily, glancing at the Younger.
[Pg 218]
“I don’t think you understand well enough, though,” objected Susannah. “You don’t seem to understand that, after all, people make more difference than things. And the people there are different. It isn’t just that they don’t act like monkeys the first time they see you on the beach. It isn’t that they aren’t taken in so easily, and that they don’t make such fools of themselves. They are nicer. They are kinder. ”

“ Susannah left the canal boat at Rochester. She had borrowed as small a sum as might be, and was now penniless, possessing only her travel-worn garments; she had no choice but to start toward Manchester on foot. Food was easily to be had; such a woman as Susannah had but to enter any house and state her need. She got a long lift on her way from a farmer driving to Canandaigua. Of the farmer she asked, while her pulses almost stopped, some information about Ephraim. ”

“ Faith begging the question is a sight to which the eye of experience becomes accustomed, but Susannah, standing upon the threshold of life, blinked and failed to focus her vision, feeling vaguely that during the last phrase some one had turned a somersault, and that too quickly to be watched. ”

“ Susannah understood her tone, but her answer closed the subject.
"There is Captain Lestrange coming for you, my dear; you promised to be of his party at a game of faro. If you see my lady tell her that I am waiting here."
Miss Westbrook laughed and moved away into the [271] crowd. Susannah rested her elbow on the table and put her hand over her eyes. The glitter of the chandeliers, the gleaming of the gilt and satin walls, the bright colours of the dresses hurt her eyes. ”

“ And so the happy future that surely no authoress and most certainly no male reader could have the heart to refuse to so delightful a Susannah is available to complete a picture touched throughout with singular grace and charm. In particular the little snap-shots of two ideal family households, the one that includes the heroine, and another, much humbler, which she enters as an honoured guest, go to make this volume, all too short though it is, one that I can recommend with quite unusual pleasure and confidence. ”

“ No man in New Manchester who in the past month had chanced to catch sight of any maid holding secret parlance with any lover but now swore stoutly that that maid had been Susannah.
It often happens that schemes least calculated to succeed attain success. Susannah and Halsey had not gone far, nor had they gone with great secrecy, yet it had happened that no one had observed them as they travelled, and as there was at that time of the year little communication between the towns to the east and west of Geneva Market, it was long before real news concerning them transpired. ”

“ Two days after, when Susannah and her husband were returning from Smith's preaching through the autumn night, they were met as they were approaching Biery's hotel by a messenger from Knight's house. The messenger had been sent to fetch Halsey. He reported that Newell Knight was in "an awful way." Susannah alighted at once and walked to the tavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to the afflicted man. ”

“ Nevertheless here lies her “Ballad of the Kings of Lua.” Here lies moreover her tragic and profound “Ballad of Georgiana and Dolores.” What can be said of them? First, this; that I take the immediate cause of Susannah's explosion to have been Sadler. He has the lyric habit. He composes as a rooster crows, whenever it occurs to him. He is apt to state his mind in that form. The lyric habit is infectious; youth is imitative; hence arise schools of poetry; hence Susannah's explosion. But Susannah's gift is for the narrative, the reflective. She has not the lyric cry. ”

“ It was nearly three years since she had arrived to keep house for her uncle and so been thrown against her cousin Heber. Though few men had come to close quarters with her disturbing personality without feeling its influence, the shepherd, unlike others in [Pg 124] this as in most of his ways, had treated her with the plain friendliness he might have shown to a man. Perhaps it was this that made Susannah feel for him what she had never felt for the many who had courted her and whom she had looked upon as mere pleasant accessories of life. ”