Suzette

“ Suzette settled herself on the sofa, curled up among the pillows like a plump little tabby cat. She lit a cigarette—.
"Very middling," she whiffed—"Cases of love where all my good counsel remains untaken—a madness for drugs—very foolish—A drug—yes to try—but to continue!—Mon Dieu! they will no longer make fortunes 'dans le metier'—"
"When you have made your fortune, Suzette, what will you do with it?"
"I shall buy that farm for my mother—I shall put Georgine into a convent for the nobility, and arrange a large dot for her—and for me?—I shall gamble in a controlled way at Monte Carlo—." ”

“ You are trembling, Suzette. Oh, my love! my dear, dear girl, you tremble at my touch. My words go home to your heart. Suzette, that other man has not all your heart. If he had, you would not have been afraid to go on with our music. If your heart was his, Orpheus himself could not have moved you."
"I was not afraid. You are talking nonsense. I left off playing because Allan did not like to see me absorbed in an occupation which he could not share. ”

“ Allan's day came—long and late, after years of patient waiting, when Suzette had attained the sober age of six and twenty; but it was a day of cloudless happiness, which promised to last to the end of life. No fear of the future marred the joy of the present. The later love that had grown up in Suzette's heart for her first lover, was too strongly based upon knowledge and esteem to suffer the shadow of change. ”

“ Needless to say, nothing ever happened to anything. He could make more noise and do less harm than any one I ever knew. Then he would sing us both into good humour until Suzette's peasant cheeks shone like ripe apples.
"It is not the same without Monsieur Tanrade," Suzette sighed to-day as she brought my luncheon to my easel in a shady corner of my wild garden—a corner all cool roses and shadow. ”

“ That may be the best fate of Suzette, but it must be an amply dry reformation for any little grisette to contemplate. For such prodigals going home there is no fatted calf slain. No fathers see them afar off and run to place the ring upon their fingers. They renounce precarious gayety for persistent slavery. The keen wit of the student is exchanged for the pipe and mug and dull oath of the boor. ”

“ Suzette bade Grantley good-night. She too must sleep, or her strength would fail.
"You'll keep the door open?" she asked. "And her room is just over this. You'll hear if she moves, though I don't think she will. It is good of you, Mr. Imason. We shall all sleep quietly to-night. Oh, but how tired you'll be!"
"Not I!" he smiled. "I've often sat up till daylight on less worthy occasions. You're the hero! You've come through this finely."
Suzette's cheeks flushed at his praise.
"I do love the poor children," she said, as Grantley pressed her hand. ”

“ The voice I recognised at once as that of Suzette, who had been the servante of Madame de Villardin; but it was so changed in its tone, so low and sad, that I was almost led to doubt whether my ear had not deceived me. A feeling of abhorrence towards the woman--excited certainly more by my suspicions than by my knowledge--would have made me shrink from her, had it been possible. So weak, however, had I become, that I could neither move hand nor foot, and the pain of the attempt only called another groan from my bosom, which drew her attention still more towards me. ”

“ Suzette put on her hat and wished Mrs. Wornock good-bye. She would have left with only a little bend of the head to Lady Emily; but that kindly matron had repented herself of her harshness, and held out her hand with a pathetic look which went straight to the girl's heart.
"Forgive me for what I said just now," she pleaded. "I am almost beside myself with anxiety. You were not to blame. Truth is always the best. But my poor Allan was so fond of you, and you and he might have been so happy—if you had only loved him."
"I did love him—once," faltered Suzette. ”

“ Would Suzette, in her anxiety over my absence, remember to give her the saucer of warm milk? Yet I knew the Essence of Selfishness would take care of herself; she would sleep with Suzette. Catch her lying out on the bare ground like her master when she could curl herself up at the foot of two fuzzy blankets in a tiny room next to the warm kitchen.
It was after midnight when Pierre crawled over to me again, and pointed to a black patch of mussel rocks below.
"There are the two men Gaston saw," he whispered. "They are waiting to signal the channel to their comrades." ”

“ It is impossible to describe the deep significance which Susy's blue eyes gave to this expression. After a pause she went on—
“No! We must never meet again, Clarence, unless Mary Rogers helps. She is my best, my ONLIEST friend, and older than I; having had trouble herself, and being expressly forbidden to see him again. You can speak to her about Suzette—that's my name now; I was rechristened Suzette Alexandra Peyton by mamma. And now, Clarence,” dropping her voice and glancing shyly around the saloon, “you may kiss me just once under my hat, for good-by.” ”

“ Suzette rushed to the glass and looked at herself, and then began opening her gold chain bag to get out her powder and lip grease—I went on into the salon and left her—.
What an irony everything is—! When I was yearning138 for tenderness and love—, even Suzette's, I was unable to touch her, and now because I am quite indifferent, both she and Nina, in their separate ways, have begun to find me attractive. So there is nothing in it really, it is only as to whether or no you arouse the hunting instinct! ”

“ Caylesham agreed that the best thing the girls could do was to forget their mother.
"So we let them make a row, and they're to go out of mourning very soon. That's what Suzette advises."
A merciful Providence must spare even poor Harriet this! She was to be forgotten—almost by a violent process of obliteration; and this by Suzette's decree—an all-powerful decree of gentle inconspicuous Suzette's.
The man of experience foresaw. Weak kindly Tom Courtland must always have a woman to fend for him. Because Harriet had not filled that part, ruin had come. ”

“ Her name on the tableau in the parlour at the Sacré Cœur had stood forth conspicuously for all the virtues—order, obedience, propriety, truthfulness. The nuns, who expect perfection in the young human vessel, had discovered no crack or flaw in Suzette.
"She has not only amiability and kindness of heart," said the Reverend Mother, at the parting interview with the pupil's father, "she has plenty of common sense, and she will never give you any trouble."
When the General took his daughter to India, there had been some talk of a companion-governess, or governess-companion, for Suzette ”

“ Wornock sighed, and began to walk about the room in a restless way.
"Oh, Suzette, Suzette," she said, "I am very unhappy about him! I don't know what will become of us, my son and me. We have all the elements of happiness, and yet we are not happy."
It was a month after the little dinner at Marsh House, and Suzette and her sweetheart had not met since that evening. There had been no change for the better in Mr. Carew's condition; and Allan had felt it impossible to leave the father over whose dwindling hours the shadow of the end was stealing—gently, gradually, inevitably. ”

“ Poor Suzette told the story without bitterness; she recognised the law of nature in this expulsion of the mother when she was of no further use to her children, and accepted thankfully the ten francs a month which her son allowed her. She managed to live by fetching and carrying for anyone who would give her two or three sous for an hour's trudging. She used to take my letters to post at the nearest railway-station, and no one who merely noted how nimbly her bare feet moved along the hot, dusty road would have supposed that she had left her youth so far behind her. ”

“ And shall I think so meanly of my sweet Suzette as to suppose that my happiness is in danger because some one more attractive than myself appears upon the scene? When we spend our first season in London as man and wife, she will have to run the gauntlet of all the agreeable men in town, soldiers and sailors, actors and painters, ingenuous young adorers and hoary-headed flatterers. The whole army of Satan that maketh war upon innocence and beauty. ”

“ As the General was also in favour of a week in town, Suzette consented, and bored herself to death in the family circle of an aunt who was almost a stranger, but who had been offering her hospitality ever since she could remember. At this lady's house in Bryanstone Square, she spent a weary week of shopping, and trying on, always under the commanding eye of Aunt Mornington, who delighted in tramping about London out of the season, a London in which one could do just what one liked, without fear or favour of society. ”

“ The next morning early I found Suzette again by the side of the straw-bed on which I was stretched; and by this time I had recovered sufficient strength to ask her what had become of Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle de Villardin, when the château of Virmont had been burned. She replied, that she could not tell, as she had not come up till afterwards; and she added, at the same time, an injunction not to trouble myself about other people, but to keep as quiet as circumstances would permit, out of consideration for myself. ”

“ Happily for him, there were few eligible young men in the neighbourhood, and those few thought more of horses and guns than of girlhood and beauty.
Lady Emily had promised her son a visit in the autumn. Allan hoped that his father would accompany her. He wanted to bring Suzette into the narrow circle of his home life, to bring her nearer to himself by her liking for his mother and father. With this intent he urged on the promised visit, delighted at the thought that his mother's presence would enable him to receive Suzette as a guest in the house where he hoped she would some day be mistress. ”

“ She rallied and took heart. Pride is the immortal part of woman. With a brighter eye she entered the [Pg 135] room. Her letter, blotted with tears, lay crumpled and torn upon the floor at his bedside, and he, with his face to the wall, was snoring sonorously.
"Ralph Flare," cried Suzette, "arise! that letter is the last olive branch you shall ever see in my hand; adieu!"
He opened his eyes yawningly. Suzette, with trembling lips and nostrils, clasped the door-knob. It shut behind her with a shock. Her feet were quick upon the stairs ”

“ She was educated in France. Particular sins lose their shame in some countries. Woman in France had not the high mission and respect which she fulfilled in his own land. Suzette was one of many children. ”

“ Suzette went over to her father to kiss him. "Well, I'm going to bed, papa. If you'd wanted more of my society you ought to have come down sooner. I suppose I sha'n't see you in the morning; so it's good-bye as well as good-night. When will you be home?"
"Not for some days, perhaps," said the unhappy man.
"How doleful! Are you always so homesick when you go away?"
"Not always; no."
"Well, try to cheer up, this time, then. And if you have to be gone a great while, send for me, won't you?"
"Yes, yes; I will," said Northwick. The girl gave his head a hug, and then glided out of the room. ”

“ He feared that life meant weariness everywhere.
The days were hurrying by, and now Mrs. Mornington talked everlastingly of the wedding, or so it seemed to Suzette, who in these latter days tried to avoid her aunt as much as was consistent with civility, and fled from the Grove to Discombe as to a haven of peace. Mrs. Mornington loved to expatiate upon the coming event, to bewail her niece's indifferentism, to regret that there was to be no festivity worth speaking of, and to enlarge upon the advantages of Allan's position and surroundings, and Suzette's good fortune in having come to Matcham. ”

“ Suzette came in just as I wrote that; she seldom turns up in the afternoon. She caught sight of Miss Sharp typing through the open door.
"Tiens!" she spit at me—"Since when?"
"I am writing a book, Suzette."
"I must see her face," and without waiting for permission, Suzette flounced into the small salon.
I could hear her shrill little voice asking Miss Sharp to be so good as to give her an envelope—She must51 write an address! I watched her—Miss Sharp handed her one, and went on with her work. ”

“ At those two last words, Suzette's cheeks flamed crimson, and the feminine conclave looking at her felt she was being cruelly used by this strong-minded aunt of hers.
"I don't think the nicest girls are ever very keen about their trousseau," said the county lady, with a furtive glance at a buxom freckled daughter, who had lately become engaged, and who had already begun to discuss house-linen and frocks, with a largeness of ideas that alarmed her parents. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. "LET NO MAN LIVE AS I HAVE LIVED."
Allan went back to Suffolk, and Suzette's life resumed its placid course; a life in which she had for the most part to find her own amusements and occupations. General Vincent was fond and proud of his daughter; but he was not a man to make a companion of a daughter, except at the social board. If Suzette were at home at twelve o'clock to superintend the meal which he called tiffin, and in her place in the drawing-room a quarter of an hour before the eight-o'clock dinner ”

“ Lest it has not been made clear in these paragraphs whether Suzette was a good or a wicked being, we may give the matured and recent judgment of Ralph Flare himself. Put to the test of religion, or even of respectability, this intimacy was baneful. A wild young man had broken his honor for the companionship of a poor, errant girl. She was poor, but she hated to work; she had no regard for his money; she did not share his ambition. Making against her a case thus clear and certain, Ralph Flare entered for Suzette the plea of not wicked, and this was his defence! ”