I suppose you think my mistress calls me "Briggs."When Susan arrived with the stamps, the letter was back in its envelope, the flap was gummed down, and I was blinking peacefully at the sunlight on the sea.Wednesday, noon.I suppose it's true that every country gets the Government it deserves. But the maxim, like nearly all the maxims I've ever heard, is a heartless one.Without doubt, France just now has got the Government which France deserves, as a whole. But the whole is made up of parts; and, unless my travels have misled me, there must be thousands of parts of France like Sainte Véronique. I have seen a dozen myself--rural communities, working hard and living decently, with the slated spire of their hoary parish church looking down upon them, as it looked down ages ago on their direct ancestors who first drained the valleys and set vines upon the hillsides. Here live and toil the men, and, more remarkable still, here live and toil and suffer the women, whose hard earnings are the war-chest of France when the professional politicians of Paris wantonly thrust the nation into some vainglorious adventure. Here was made and saved the treasure with which the invader was bought out when his armies were everywhere masters of French soil. And here are bred the supplies of sound human stuff--the healthy bodies, the healthy souls--to redress the awful balance of the towns, and to save France from becoming a ruin amid stinging weeds and insolent poppies.Even an atheist statesman, if he's as truly a statesman as he's truly an atheist, ought to know that, in striking at the village churches, he is striking at the heart of French rural life; and that, in wounding French rural life in a vital spot, he will be severing arteries where Bismarck and Von Moltke only lanced small veins.This morning has made me so sad. The sweet little white convent is shut up, the garden is full of nettles, two of the chapel windows are broken, the nuns are in England, and the lawyers have grown fat on the pickings. At the church, the statue of St. Veronica, over the west door, has a broken arm--snapped off on the day of the inventory. Meanwhile the weeks are drifting by; and, for all the old curé knows, he will be saying Mass in a barn before the winter is half over.I mean to say, now and again, what France's million officials, from the President of their so free Republic down to the Saint Véronique postman, daren't say publicly and aloud in this land of liberty. I mean to say: "God save France!"Thursday afternoon.I wish Master Ruddie's photograph would come.This morning, about eleven, a young Englishman suddenly walked in with a knapsack. The funny thing was that he didn't come by the road. He marched here straight from the beach, as if he'd just been thrown up by Jonah's whale.He was a nice boy, and quite all right. Not another Mr. John Lamb. It seems he's tramping a hundred miles along the coast by the cliff-paths and the sands. He was dying to talk to me at lunch. Indeed, he looked even hungrier and thirstier for human companionship than for his omelette and roast chicken and cider, which is saying a very great deal. Now that it's too late, I'm sorry I didn't let him talk.All the time he was here, Susan was nearly as silly as she was on the boat. She got it into her head that, as Ruddington wrote here on Saturday (thinking we were coming straight through), he must have been upset when Tuesday morning came without a letter; and that therefore the pretty boy with the knapsack was certainly he.I was obliged to be very sharp with her. Heaven send the photograph soon! Because I will admit to this diary, when Susan has "a feeling" I can't help catching the complaint.Before dinner.It's just come. The photograph and a letter as well.He says the photograph was only taken yesterday morning. It's a local thing, not retouched: so I suppose we can depend on it as a faithful likeness. If so, I must say I like him tremendously.Susan is disappointed that he has no moustache. He looks like a young and fresh version of some handsome and benevolent Judge or Cardinal. He isn't the least bit flabby or silly-looking, as I expected. He has a scholar's head, but he's evidently a man of energy as well as of thought. I should say he has a tremendous will of his own. He doesn't look the sort to have fallen over ears in love with a china shepherdess like Susan at first sight. But there's the fact. And, although the stupid girl can't see it, and "never thought he would be like that, Miss," I don't know many women that wouldn't feel it a compliment to have him in love with them, either at the first sight, or the second, or the fiftieth. He looks handsome without being dandified, and brainy without being dry.His letter this time is less old-fashioned and more easy. He says:--MA CHÈRE SUZANNE,--You have commanded me not to say "My dear Susan," and behold! I obey.I'm sorry to say it: but my dear Susan--I mean ma chère Suzanne--has a hard heart. Her letter to tell me that she's landed safe in Normandy without being shipwrecked or run over by a motor-car, only reached me this (Wednesday) morning: and, if I hadn't ridden into Derlingham and fished it up out of the post-office, I shouldn't have got it till to-morrow. If Suzanne were kind, she would have sent one line on Sunday.It is an enormous relief to know that you are not hard-worked or unhappy. When I saw Miss Langley with you (once outside Traxelby Church, and twice in the street), I thought she seemed rather nice--though, to tell the truth, I didn't waste time looking at Miss Langley, when I could spend it looking at Suzanne.Now about this horrible photograph. I've always hated photography and always shall. But your commands must be obeyed. So I went into the "studio" of the Derlingham "artist." The "artist" was a pasty-faced youth in a velvet coat with Byronic curls that must take hours every night. He wanted to do his worst, and to turn out something elaborate that wouldn't be ready for a week: but I gave him a maximum of three hours, and he has handed me the enclosed.I expect a long answer to this, telling me all your doings, by return of post. And I shall be the most injured man in all England if Suzanne's own photograph is not enclosed with her long letter. More than ever, I am your RUDDINGTON."I like this letter, Susan," I said, putting it down again on the table."Yes, Miss," said Susan, without enthusiasm. And, after a pause, she added, "But don't you think, Miss, it begins rather funny?""No," I answered. "I think the beginning is rather neat. You've forgotten. In our last letter we told him he might call you Dear Susan, but he mustn't call you My. So, instead of calling you 'My,' he says he's going to call you 'Ma.'""Is that it?" asked Susan, pouting. "Well, I don't think I like it. That's what my uncle Bob used to call my aunt Martha.""Your uncle Bob?" I echoed, stupefied."Yes, Miss. He called my aunt 'Ma,' and she called him 'Pa.' I don't like it, Miss. It sounds common."When I had recovered enough gravity, I tried, for the twentieth time, to give Susan a rudimentary lesson in French. She endured my efforts with deference; but, underneath, I could see that her rustic British prejudice against France and all things French is unshaken. I honestly believe that, in Susan's opinion, to have set foot in France at all is a slight lapse from propriety, and a loss of the finest bloom from the soft cheek of one's maiden virtue. In France, the silly creature won't even touch beef, just because of some stupid tale of Gibson's about a roast horse. She firmly believes that out-and-out Frenchmen eat bullfrogs toasted whole on a fork; and that the French language is a ludicrous disability imposed on the natives by a strictly Protestant Deity as a just punishment for being papists and foreigners. Susan doesn't intend to lower herself by learning French any more than by learning to stammer, or to swear."What about your photograph, Susan?" I inquired, changing the subject. "You see he wants one. Did you happen to bring one with you?""No, Miss. It's two years since I had it took.""Taken. Not took. Then what are you going to do?""I don't know, Miss.""You ought to oblige him," I said. "Don't be so limp. Look at the trouble he took to get you his own portrait the very same day. I'm almost sure there's a photographer at Grandpont. Madame will know. It's only three miles. We'll go in the morning.""Oh no, Miss!" gasped Susan, fluttering suddenly into liveliness. "Not in France, Miss!""Why not in France?""I shouldn't like to be photographed in France, Miss," said Susan decidedly. For a moment I almost felt as if I had proposed mixed bathing to the rector's virgin aunt. To be photographed in France sounded a degree or two worse than going to churchdécolletée. But a moment later I felt impatient and annoyed."Very well, Susan," I said shortly. "You may be sure I don't want to drag myself to Grandpont. Do whatever you please."As usual, she became immediately and amply and sincerely penitent."It was very kind of you, Miss," she said humbly. "You're always too good to me. But I feel I couldn't go and be photographed in France.""Then don't go and be photographed in France," I said, still ruffled. "So far as I'm concerned, it's settled and done with. Now I want to read the newspaper."I could see with half an eye that there were uncountable things which Susan was yearning to talk over; but I was nearly at the end of my good-nature. With the little that remained, I tried to let Susan down gently. I picked up Lord Ruddington's photograph again and said:"At any rate, you can't find much fault with his looks.""No, Miss," responded Susan tepidly, "but I did think he would have a moustache."Friday, sunrise.An apple-branch has tapped at my window, and a lark is singing eagerly in the near sky.This shall be a good day--as rosy as the apple's cheeks, as blithe as the lark's song. I hereby register a vow against Ruddington and all his words and works. We needn't send him his answer till to-morrow. So, to-day, Susan sha'n't mention him and I won't even think of him.Somebody's left a clean, new, cheap copy ofLes Chouanshere. How I shall love reading it again. Except while I'm bathing and eating and sleeping, I mean to sit and read it on the cliffs all day.After breakfast.After all, Susan is awfully sweet. One can't stand aloof from her long.While she was downstairs before breakfast allowing Georgette to practise on her in broken English, I went into her room to find a pair of scissors. As usual, it was as neat and nice as if it hadn't been slept in. But the thing that struck me was a leather photograph-frame on the mantelpiece.I recognized the frame. It was a double one, which I had given Susan because I hated the colour. In the left-hand compartment Susan had placed the newly arrived photograph of Lord Ruddington. And facing him, on the right hand, was----Me!It was that thing I got done last Easter. Until this morning, I'd forgotten that Susan had pleaded for a copy and that I had let her have one for her album. Suddenly to catch sight of myself beaming affectionately across the hinges of the frame at an equally affectionate-looking Lord Ruddington, was certainly a shock. But that Susan should have brought me all the way from England and have stuck me on her mantelpiece was another proof, though none was needed, of her genuine devotion.I took the frame down and held it open in my hands. It was too comical. Ruddington and I are placed in ovals, like the August Young Personages in a Royal Wedding Supplement to an illustrated paper; and we are looking at one another with the most absurd happy-couple air imaginable. "Though I say it as shouldn't," we make an amazingly pretty pair. If Alice could see it, she would begin to cry.I think I sha'n't tell Susan that I've seen it.Noon.I haven't read much of theChouans. After my bathe, I kept Susan with me on the cliff. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and the sea was both. It was lovely to loll on the flowers and to listen to the sea--its deep speech at the cliff's foot, its soft murmurs in the sunlit distance.Susan thinks Ruddington ought to tell her more about himself, and his conditions of life, both at the Towers and in town. I think she's right. Now that she's getting used to her good fortune, her talk has suddenly improved. She's dropping that raw and childish way of hers, and some of the things she said were quite sensible. If she goes on improving like this, she ought to be tolerably presentable at the month's end. No doubt it will take years to fill the gaping breaches in her knowledge; and her mind can never, from its very nature, expand enough to make her an all-round companion for such a man as Ruddington seems to be. But I take it that a grain or two of common-sense will be found mixed with his infatuation; and, if so, he will be prepared for a good deal of disenchantment. As for Susan, she'll always be pretty, and restful, and docile, and sweet: which means that if he is losing some things he is gaining others.Alas, poor Gibson! I'm afraid his dreams are standing a poor chance of coming true. It's selfish of me not to have sent him a prudent line. I'll do it to-day. I'll tell him simply that all's well with Susan; and perhaps he will guess that all's up with himself.Eight o'clock.I walked alone this afternoon to Bérigny. The hamlet was deserted--or, at least, it looked so. The thatched black-and-white barns stood out sturdily in the bright, strong light, and Bérigny wore all its old prosperous air. But there wasn't a single body to be seen. I suppose every one was in the fields, or gone to market.The church was open. I sat in it a few minutes: it was so cool and quiet. If I had felt suddenly tempted to steal an image, or to rob the box of Peter's Pence, there was none to say me nay.The Bérigny churchyard looked sweeter than ever. I like it better than any other I have seen in France, because it is full of natural shrubs and flowers. There are hardly any of those frightful wire crosses and tin immortelles and iron wreaths, as big as cart-wheels, such as you see in dozens everywhere else. And the Bérigny churchyard isn'ttriste. As you sit on the warm stone platform of the Calvary, you look down over the orchards to the facing uplands--pastures of green velvet, wildly embroidered with, a million yellow flowers. Even the graves are not melancholy. It doesn't seem any more dreadful that the men and women of Bérigny should be fast asleep, like children in the bosom of their mother earth, than that last year's beech-leaves and pine-needles should be lying quietly under the ceaseless murmurs of this year's cool and shady green. Cheerful sounds arise from the valley as you sit and look down. There is blue smoke curling from one or two of the chimneys. Between the surges of light wind you can just hear the voice of the beck as it sings on its way down to Sainte Véronique. No, Bérigny churchyard is not melancholy: for in the midst of death you are in life.There is a strange thing about some of the gravestones which I didn't notice when I was here before. Or, rather, I oughtn't to call them stones. They are woods. Over the humbler tombs stand rude memorials, each consisting of two short, slightly ornamented posts with a short broad plank fastened between. The plank is painted white; and upon it, in black letters, are displayed the name and age and birth-and-death dates of the man or woman asleep below.At the bottom of each inscription there is an abbreviated formula which puzzled me sorely. It runs: "Un D. P. s. v. p." Not until I had almost given up trying to guess what it might mean, was the riddle solved. Behind the chancel I found a larger and newer grave on which the legend was spelt out at large in full: "Un De Profundis, s'il vous plait."It filled my eyes so full with sudden tears that the solid world seemed to be wavering and dissolving as I beheld it. And, at the same time, the dim mysterious world beyond seemed suddenly clear and near. It was no longer the wind in the pines that I heard: it was a multitudinous whispering of spirit-voices pleading close to my ear: "If you please!"I am wondering to-night whether I ever really and truly believed until to-day in the immortality of the soul. I am wondering whether I have ever done more than assent to the doctrine mechanically as a part of my childhood's creed, and as a postulate on which rest many familiar things in our literature and civilization.Yes and No. In a sense I have believed, in a sense I have not. Until to-day, I have only thought of the disembodied soul in one or other of three different ways. I have thought of the soul as a cold abstraction, a philosopher's name for an antithesis to the body. Again, after I've listened to ghost-tales, I've thought of it ignobly--as a horror, a scary, frightful spook, a foul shape of night swooping horribly across the short sunlit path of our little life to remind us of the immeasurable cold and unending dark beyond. Last of all, after some stately obsequies, I've thought of the soul as living some supernal, Gothic life in a churchly heaven--a heaven where the sky is not a dome, but a pointed roof resounding for ever and ever and ever with Gregorian chants. That is to say, at the best I have imagined the soul clothed in a mediæval vestment, and living exaltedly, in an incalculable remoteness from to-day's crowded world of living and breathing women and men."A De Profundis ... if you please!" I suppose many people would find the "if you please" either ludicrous or irreverent, or both. At one time I might not have found anything in it myself, beyond a charming rusticnaïveté. But this afternoon the truth rushed over me in a flood. The souls of the faithful departed are not thirteenth-century souls: they are not the shivering, pitiable ghosts such as engaged the fancy of savage men ten thousand years ago, or the still weaker brains of the Spiritualists of yesterday: they are not mere fictions of the philosopher, invented for convenience of argument. They live and rejoice and sorrow in an intensity of present being. To-night, I believe in the Communion of Saints. They exist as truly as the little black-haired child exists who stopped me outside Bérigny and said "s'il vous plait" when she asked me the time: as truly as Georgette when she says "if you please" and lays the cloth: as truly as Susan when she says "Please, doplease, Miss," over a letter to Ruddington.This afternoon, I couldn't say a "De Profundis" for the departed faithful of Bérigny because I'm too much of a heathen to have been taught it. But, before Sunday, I mean to buy aparoissiencontaining all these things, in French and Latin.When I say my "De Profundis," can it do them any good? I don't know. Millions of people say it can't. But more millions of people say it can. And if I make a mistake, I would rather make it in giving than in withholding: just as it is better to say "Yes" to the beggar who may waste your sixpence on beer, than to say "No" to the beggar who may lie down and die for want of bread.Bedtime.What an irony!This is the day when there was to be no Ruddington--the day that was to be as rosy as apples and as blithe as a lark.As for Ruddington, I have only just finished re-reading his letter, which Susan has put by way of a hint in my writing-case.As for rosiness and blitheness, I've spent my afternoon and evening like Hervey--I wonder if anybody ever read any more of his book than the title?--in Meditations Among the Tombs. My day has been ghost-wan, tomb-silent.No. It has been as full of colour and of sound as could be. But the colours have been the grand and solemn hues of autumn, and the sounds have been majestical as organs and trumpets. To-day I have not been gay. But I have been happy. And I can't name any day at Sainte Véronique that I repent of less than this.Saturday morning.This is the answer I have written for Susan to send by the early post:--DEAR LORD RUDDINGTON,--I am so sorry that you were anxious about me. But you must not forget the bargain. And the bargain does not allow of long replies "by return." Indeed, in writing this morning, I am breaking my own rule. When this is posted, I shall have received and answered two letters in one week.Do not think me grudging or cold-blooded in standing fast to our arrangement. If letters are too frequent they will be short and scrappy, and thus they will fail of their object. For example, nothing could be more devoted and kind than your two notes this week; but they tell me so little about yourself, and hardly anything at all about your daily life, your thoughts, your work, your interests. At present I know no more about you than all Traxelby knew before you came to the Towers.It is true there is the photograph, which I like very much--though you don't in the least resemble the picture my mind had formed! You were good to take all that trouble in Derlingham so as to get it done so quickly.Unfortunately, I have no photograph of myself here, and there is no artist, not even a pasty-faced one, in Sainte Véronique. But why should you want my portrait if you have seen me three times?I sha'n't expect an answer from you "by return;" but Ishallexpect your next week's letter to tell me more about yourself and your life.Yours sincerely,SUSAN BRIGGS.Susan thinks my letter is beautiful, as usual. Or, if she doesn't think so, she says she does. But to know that she needn't be photographed in France has lifted such a weight off her spirits that she is prepared to be delighted with everything. After the first shock and the second explanation, she went up into heaven at finding that it was "proper" to say "Dear Lord Ruddington." Perhaps she expected me to begin the letter by calling him "Pa!"It's all very amusing. But I must keep a watch on myself lest I take it too prankishly. After the future Lady Ruddington had graciously signified her approval of my reply to her noble owner, she went upstairs for her hat, and, while she was away, a madcap impulse got the better of me, just as it did on Tuesday. I picked up the pen and wrote along the margin:--I was amused about those Byronic curls. But what doyouknow about them taking hours to do at night?Now that it's too late, and Susan is on her way to the post-office, I do wish I hadn't said it. For half a dozen reasons, it was a mad thing to do.His portrait is still facing mine in the leather frame. I took a peep at it just now when I came upstairs for this diary. And we've still got the same sort of a "Good-morning, Dear," honeymoon expression. I positively blushed, and put it down again as if it had been red hot.I must see that Susan plods away at her handwriting--or, rather, at mine! It's plain now that Ruddington is in love with Susan, and that he means to marry her. Also, it's plain that Susan means to marry Lord Ruddington, whether she succeeds in falling in love with him or not. Up to the present no great harm is done, but I must wriggle out of the affair somehow before his letters become intimate and affectionate.Poor, poor Gibson! I've written him a line, and shall post it myself.Sunday, noon.For the sake of his peace of mind, let us hope that Ruddington is Low Church. If he isn't, Susan will soon be on his nerves. There's precious little kneeling down and standing up at the Sainte Véronique parish Mass; but this morning I had to prod or pluck at Susan half a dozen times. When we came out she made wistful comparisons with Traxelby, and declared that she did so miss "a nice service."Perhaps Ruddington is neither Low nor High. He says that one of the times when he saw Susan was in church. But Traxelby isn't his parish: so he must have been hunting Susan, not saving his soul.I've given up wrestling with theChouans. I'd forgotten the early part was so dry. Besides, it's nicer to potter about, and think and dream, not to mention that novel-reading is wicked on a Sunday.Monday morning.Susan has been difficult again. I'm sorry for her.Last night she suddenly developed the liveliest interest in dress. In the past she hasn't been a girl to care excessively about it. That's why she has always looked so nice. But, last night, she said:"I've been thinking, Miss, what ought I to wear the first time I go to see him?""You mean, Susan," I answered, "what ought you to wear the first time he comes to seeyou.""Yes, Miss," said Susan absently. "I was thinking it would be nice if I had one of those cherry-coloured zephyrs, with elbow sleeves and a white sash."I smiled."Do you think you can depend on yourself not to blush, Susan," I asked, "when he looks at you and speaks to you?""Oh no, Miss, I can't," answered Susan in a panic. "I shall be sitting, all the time, wanting the ground to open and swallow me.""Then I don't think you should go in for anything cherry-coloured," I suggested. And I tried to go on withLes Chouans."Perhaps blue alpaca would be better, Miss," broke out Susan again, after long reflection. "Blue alpaca, made plain, with a little train. I could wear that lace collar you gave me, Miss, and have my hair done more on the top of my head.""You'd look very nice, I'm sure, Susan," I replied. "But, if I were you, I shouldn't do anything of the kind. I suppose it will be at the Grange that you'll see him first. Some arrangement will have to be made. If so, it ought to please him best to see you as he saw you at Traxelby church."I went on again withLes Chouans. Or, to be strictly truthful, I fixed my eyes again on the page."I beg your pardon, Miss," Susan began humbly, after five minutes of quiet; "but shall we be married in Traxelby church?""Most decidedly not," I answered, so emphatically that Susan positively jumped. "I haven't the ghost of a notion where in the world you'll be married. But it mustn't be Traxelby. Lord Ruddington will propose some suitable arrangement, and I shall see that it is satisfactory. Besides, all this can be talked over later on. It will be time enough to choose where you'll be married to Lord Ruddington when you've made up your mind whether you're going to marry him at all."The bride began to pout.I decided swiftly that it was high time to bring matters to a head. Traxelby church, indeed!As likely as not, Susan would expect me to be a bridesmaid, with Uncle Bob giving her away, and Aunt Martha calling him "Pa." So I shut up theChouanswith a snap and put the question straight."Tell me, Susan. Have you made up your mind? If you've settled it that you mean to marry Lord Ruddington, we shall know where we are."The pout vanished, and she hung her head. At last she answered:"Yes, Miss. I mean, I'm not sure yet, Miss. But I'm sure that I shall be sure before long.""Sure that you'll marry him?""Yes, Miss. I mean ... I think I shall."I could get no more out of her, and in the end I turned surlier and snappier than I care to remember. Susan went to bed looking miserable.This morning my conscience woke up as early as I did. Earlier: for it was wide awake while I was still half asleep, and I groped out into consciousness with a sense of recent meanness and unkindness to Susan. The more I woke, the clearlier I saw how natural it was of Susan, who knows no French and can speak with nobody here save me, to want to talk frocks.When she came in at seven o'clock to open the curtains, I said in my friendliest tone:"Well, Susan, I suppose you've decided to be married in white, with orange-blossoms and a veil?"To my consternation she remained at the window, and did not turn round. Then she plunged for the door into her own room, and as she seized the handle, I heard a sob.I jumped up and followed her to the threshold."Come, come, Susan!" I said. "You mustn't have such a thin skin. I never meant to hurt your feelings.""You haven't, Miss," sobbed Susan, standing near me, but not showing her face. "It isn't you, Miss. But I can't bear it!""You can't bear what?""All of it, Miss. None of it. I woke up and thought about it in the night. It's dreadful!"I couldn't guess what Susan couldn't bear, or what it was that was dreadful, and it didn't seem wise to press her. So I said nothing."You'll take cold, Miss," she cried, when she cast her first glance at me. And she bundled me back into bed.I told her that she needn't have her breakfast with Georgette, and that she ought to drink chocolate instead of coffee."You'd better have a quiet day," I added. "This matter is getting on your brain. Give it a rest. That was one reason why I wanted you to wait a whole month. There's no need to brood over it day and night. The month has still three weeks to run."She dried her eyes and was ever so grateful. But I am puzzled. Last night she seemed (as she has seemed all along) to take it as a matter of course that she will marry Ruddington. Her attitude has been that of a pretty, honest, modest, prosaic girl with an eye on the main chance. To find her suddenly all sensibility is a surprise.Probably it isn't sensibility. It's nerves. Too much coffee: not enough sleep. Too much of her own thoughts: not enough human fellowship at a time when she sorely needs it.Yet I can't overlook that she was disappointed with his photograph. It may well be that, in her better moments, my sweet Susan shrinks from marrying when she cannot love. Or is it that she is cowed by the difficulties of so huge a change in her rank and station? She shall have an easy day.Tuesday, 10.15a.m.The Lord Ruddington would be speaking no more than the truth if he always signed himself Susan's Most Obedient Servant. He has been as prompt with his pen-and-inkSelbstbildnissas he was with the pasty-faced artist's photograph. He says:MA SUZANNE,--It is Monday morning. When I have finished this, I shall have written you once this week; once last week (the Wednesday), and once the week before (on the Saturday). Yet I am scolded for breaking the rules. You must send me an exceptionally kind letter to soothe my wounded feelings.It was unpardonably careless of me not to forward full particulars and references when I first applied for the post of Protector to Suzanne. But I have to-day filled up a form and am enclosing it with this. References are kindly permitted to the Derlingham photographer and to Mrs. Juggins, the housekeeper at Ruddington Towers.I have taken conscientious pains to fill up the form correctly. For instance, I squandered a whole penny this morning weighing myself on an automatic machine at Derlingham station. To be precise, I have squandered tuppence; because the first machine which I bribed refused to weigh me, and insisted on presenting me with a bar of chocolate cream instead.The news that you can't send me your portrait is desolating. It is another reason why you must be extra kind.All your letters are precious. But I like the little bits you write up the sides best. Why can't I have a letter made up of little side-bits only?RUDDINGTON.The "enclosed form" is a formidable-looking sheet of blue foolscap divided into columns for questions and answers. It reads:S. B. No. 999.1. Names (Christian Henry Reginald Westertonand Surname), with Assheleigh, Ninth BaronTitle or Titles, if any. Ruddington.2. Address or Addresses. Ruddington Towers,Sussex; Assheleigh House,St. Michael's Square, S.W.;Ballymore Castle, CountyKerry.3. Age. 23 171/365 years.4. Has applicant He has heard so.had whooping-cough?5. Or Measles? One.If so, how many?6. Weight. 10 st. 8 lb. (Includes 2.1739oz. of letters from Suzanne,in left-side breast-pocketat time of weighing.)7. Can applicant read? No need to. Suzanne soseldom writes.8. Can applicant write? Yes. Once a week.9. What are applicant's Not Tory. Conservative.politics? More liberal than theLiberals, less radical thanthe Radicals.10. What are applicant's Waiting for Suzanne'spursuits? letters. Until last month,spent leisure studyingSpanish history andliterature.11. Personal appearance. Quite as bad as Derlinghamphotograph. Probably worse.12. Hair. Brownish-black; or blackish-brown.13. Eyes. Blue.14. Does applicant ride? Every day.15. Does applicant swim? Yes.16. Does applicant fish? Yes.17. Does applicant hunt? Not much.18. Does applicant swear? Now and then. Is preparedto give it up.19. Does applicant drink? Half a bottle of claret twicea day.20. Does applicant smoke? Not before 1.50 p.m. IfSuzanne objects, heconfesses that he objects toher objecting.21. Has applicant a Hates them. But will learnmotor-car? to love them if Suzanne does.22. Additional remarks. Is bad-tempered, impatient,obstinate, and self-opinionated.Has no first-handknowledge of the time ittakes to prepare Byronic(or other) curls o' nights.Has not been in lovebefore. Hasn't a Past.And hasn't a Futureeither, unless it's to bespent with Suzanne.I don't know yet what Susan thinks of these documents. She has left them on my table without remark.At the first glance I didn't like them. They smacked too much of the funny man labouring to be smart. But, after a second reading, I like them. After all, the poor boy couldn't very well sit down with a serious face and write out his own testimonial in cold ink. His wit might be sprightlier: but I begin to discern the gravity underlying it. His way of bringing it in that he has no Past, no entanglements, no old flames, is skilful and considerate. Perhaps this is the very point Susan has been worrying about. Who knows? Perhaps she has been fearing that she isn't the first simple beauty that his lordship has taken by storm. Perhaps she thinks he is an old-style lord, with a pretty taste in milk-maids, and therefore not much better than a new-style lord with a nasty appetite for ladies of the ballet.Whatever am I to say if Susan asks me what he means by the little bits written up the sides?Tuesday, 3p.m.My bathe made me tired. I sha'n't go out again to-day.Susan is wooden-headed past belief. I was amused for a few moments at the odd comments she made on Ruddington's letter; but her dulness grows monotonous. She began:"Don't you think, Miss, that ... that he writes rather strange?""What do you mean?" I asked."I mean, Miss," whispered Susan mysteriously, "do you think he's ... quite right in his head?""Well, Susan," I answered, "when one looks at the way he runs after a girl whom he's never spoken to, I admit it does make one wonder if he isn't a bit mad."Susan pouted."I mean his letter, Miss," she said. "And this big blue paper.""As for his letters, Susan," I replied, "I don't see much wrong with them. Aren't they bright, and frank, and kind?""Why does he say, Miss, that he's named Henry?""Simply because Henry is his name.""But lords don't have any names, Miss, do they? I mean they only have surnames."I asked for light."It was Mrs. Hobbs, the cook, that told me, Miss," Susan explained. "Mrs. Hobbs said that a lord could only have a surname--as it might be Ruddington--and the King could only have a Christian name--as it might be Edward. That's the difference, Miss, between a king and a lord--one can only have a Christian name, and the other can only have a surname. So how can he be named Henry?"When I had finished laughing, I said:"Susan, you remember Mrs. Hobbs's dreadful mousseline sauce? Till to-day, I would never have believed that there was any subject in the heavens above or in the earth beneath, about which Mrs. Hobbs knew less than she did about cooking. I was wrong.""If he's proper Lord Ruddington, Miss, I don't see how he can be named Henry," persisted Susan doggedly. "I wonder, Miss, ought we to write to Mrs. Juggins?""Mrs. Juggins?""Yes, Miss. He says she's the housekeeper at the Towers."Positively the stupid creature believed that Lord Ruddington had seriously referred her to an actually existing dame of the name of Juggins. Really, I haven't the patience to set down half the ridiculous things she said. She is certain that her letters don't weigh "all those ounces." She is aghast at the bad temper and obstinacy, which must truly be traits in Ruddington's character, "because he admits it, Miss, himself." She is surprised that he should be brooding so bitterly over his wasted tuppence; "though they do say, Miss, that the richer people are, the meaner they are in little things, and that's why they've got rich." She is not romanticallyexaltéeat the news that he has never loved another. But she is grateful that he has got safely over the measles; because "Uncle Bob had them after he was grown up, and I did think, Miss, it looked so silly." And so on, and so on, and so on.At last I begged her to stop chattering and sent her away. I can't understand her. Susan has always been unsophisticated, but it's something fresh for her to be vulgarly stupid and thick-headed.The outlook is disconcerting. My letter-writing on her behalf gives Ruddington a false notion of her knowledge and her mental power. So long as she retains her charming simplicity no great harm will be done; for, after he is disillusionized about her brains, he can easily fall in love afresh with hernaïveté. But this flat-footed, Hodge-like, charmless stupidity is quite another story.She's too stupid even to ask about the little side-bits.
I suppose you think my mistress calls me "Briggs."
When Susan arrived with the stamps, the letter was back in its envelope, the flap was gummed down, and I was blinking peacefully at the sunlight on the sea.
Wednesday, noon.
I suppose it's true that every country gets the Government it deserves. But the maxim, like nearly all the maxims I've ever heard, is a heartless one.
Without doubt, France just now has got the Government which France deserves, as a whole. But the whole is made up of parts; and, unless my travels have misled me, there must be thousands of parts of France like Sainte Véronique. I have seen a dozen myself--rural communities, working hard and living decently, with the slated spire of their hoary parish church looking down upon them, as it looked down ages ago on their direct ancestors who first drained the valleys and set vines upon the hillsides. Here live and toil the men, and, more remarkable still, here live and toil and suffer the women, whose hard earnings are the war-chest of France when the professional politicians of Paris wantonly thrust the nation into some vainglorious adventure. Here was made and saved the treasure with which the invader was bought out when his armies were everywhere masters of French soil. And here are bred the supplies of sound human stuff--the healthy bodies, the healthy souls--to redress the awful balance of the towns, and to save France from becoming a ruin amid stinging weeds and insolent poppies.
Even an atheist statesman, if he's as truly a statesman as he's truly an atheist, ought to know that, in striking at the village churches, he is striking at the heart of French rural life; and that, in wounding French rural life in a vital spot, he will be severing arteries where Bismarck and Von Moltke only lanced small veins.
This morning has made me so sad. The sweet little white convent is shut up, the garden is full of nettles, two of the chapel windows are broken, the nuns are in England, and the lawyers have grown fat on the pickings. At the church, the statue of St. Veronica, over the west door, has a broken arm--snapped off on the day of the inventory. Meanwhile the weeks are drifting by; and, for all the old curé knows, he will be saying Mass in a barn before the winter is half over.
I mean to say, now and again, what France's million officials, from the President of their so free Republic down to the Saint Véronique postman, daren't say publicly and aloud in this land of liberty. I mean to say: "God save France!"
Thursday afternoon.
I wish Master Ruddie's photograph would come.
This morning, about eleven, a young Englishman suddenly walked in with a knapsack. The funny thing was that he didn't come by the road. He marched here straight from the beach, as if he'd just been thrown up by Jonah's whale.
He was a nice boy, and quite all right. Not another Mr. John Lamb. It seems he's tramping a hundred miles along the coast by the cliff-paths and the sands. He was dying to talk to me at lunch. Indeed, he looked even hungrier and thirstier for human companionship than for his omelette and roast chicken and cider, which is saying a very great deal. Now that it's too late, I'm sorry I didn't let him talk.
All the time he was here, Susan was nearly as silly as she was on the boat. She got it into her head that, as Ruddington wrote here on Saturday (thinking we were coming straight through), he must have been upset when Tuesday morning came without a letter; and that therefore the pretty boy with the knapsack was certainly he.
I was obliged to be very sharp with her. Heaven send the photograph soon! Because I will admit to this diary, when Susan has "a feeling" I can't help catching the complaint.
Before dinner.
It's just come. The photograph and a letter as well.
He says the photograph was only taken yesterday morning. It's a local thing, not retouched: so I suppose we can depend on it as a faithful likeness. If so, I must say I like him tremendously.
Susan is disappointed that he has no moustache. He looks like a young and fresh version of some handsome and benevolent Judge or Cardinal. He isn't the least bit flabby or silly-looking, as I expected. He has a scholar's head, but he's evidently a man of energy as well as of thought. I should say he has a tremendous will of his own. He doesn't look the sort to have fallen over ears in love with a china shepherdess like Susan at first sight. But there's the fact. And, although the stupid girl can't see it, and "never thought he would be like that, Miss," I don't know many women that wouldn't feel it a compliment to have him in love with them, either at the first sight, or the second, or the fiftieth. He looks handsome without being dandified, and brainy without being dry.
His letter this time is less old-fashioned and more easy. He says:--
MA CHÈRE SUZANNE,--You have commanded me not to say "My dear Susan," and behold! I obey.
I'm sorry to say it: but my dear Susan--I mean ma chère Suzanne--has a hard heart. Her letter to tell me that she's landed safe in Normandy without being shipwrecked or run over by a motor-car, only reached me this (Wednesday) morning: and, if I hadn't ridden into Derlingham and fished it up out of the post-office, I shouldn't have got it till to-morrow. If Suzanne were kind, she would have sent one line on Sunday.
It is an enormous relief to know that you are not hard-worked or unhappy. When I saw Miss Langley with you (once outside Traxelby Church, and twice in the street), I thought she seemed rather nice--though, to tell the truth, I didn't waste time looking at Miss Langley, when I could spend it looking at Suzanne.
Now about this horrible photograph. I've always hated photography and always shall. But your commands must be obeyed. So I went into the "studio" of the Derlingham "artist." The "artist" was a pasty-faced youth in a velvet coat with Byronic curls that must take hours every night. He wanted to do his worst, and to turn out something elaborate that wouldn't be ready for a week: but I gave him a maximum of three hours, and he has handed me the enclosed.
I expect a long answer to this, telling me all your doings, by return of post. And I shall be the most injured man in all England if Suzanne's own photograph is not enclosed with her long letter. More than ever, I am your RUDDINGTON.
"I like this letter, Susan," I said, putting it down again on the table.
"Yes, Miss," said Susan, without enthusiasm. And, after a pause, she added, "But don't you think, Miss, it begins rather funny?"
"No," I answered. "I think the beginning is rather neat. You've forgotten. In our last letter we told him he might call you Dear Susan, but he mustn't call you My. So, instead of calling you 'My,' he says he's going to call you 'Ma.'"
"Is that it?" asked Susan, pouting. "Well, I don't think I like it. That's what my uncle Bob used to call my aunt Martha."
"Your uncle Bob?" I echoed, stupefied.
"Yes, Miss. He called my aunt 'Ma,' and she called him 'Pa.' I don't like it, Miss. It sounds common."
When I had recovered enough gravity, I tried, for the twentieth time, to give Susan a rudimentary lesson in French. She endured my efforts with deference; but, underneath, I could see that her rustic British prejudice against France and all things French is unshaken. I honestly believe that, in Susan's opinion, to have set foot in France at all is a slight lapse from propriety, and a loss of the finest bloom from the soft cheek of one's maiden virtue. In France, the silly creature won't even touch beef, just because of some stupid tale of Gibson's about a roast horse. She firmly believes that out-and-out Frenchmen eat bullfrogs toasted whole on a fork; and that the French language is a ludicrous disability imposed on the natives by a strictly Protestant Deity as a just punishment for being papists and foreigners. Susan doesn't intend to lower herself by learning French any more than by learning to stammer, or to swear.
"What about your photograph, Susan?" I inquired, changing the subject. "You see he wants one. Did you happen to bring one with you?"
"No, Miss. It's two years since I had it took."
"Taken. Not took. Then what are you going to do?"
"I don't know, Miss."
"You ought to oblige him," I said. "Don't be so limp. Look at the trouble he took to get you his own portrait the very same day. I'm almost sure there's a photographer at Grandpont. Madame will know. It's only three miles. We'll go in the morning."
"Oh no, Miss!" gasped Susan, fluttering suddenly into liveliness. "Not in France, Miss!"
"Why not in France?"
"I shouldn't like to be photographed in France, Miss," said Susan decidedly. For a moment I almost felt as if I had proposed mixed bathing to the rector's virgin aunt. To be photographed in France sounded a degree or two worse than going to churchdécolletée. But a moment later I felt impatient and annoyed.
"Very well, Susan," I said shortly. "You may be sure I don't want to drag myself to Grandpont. Do whatever you please."
As usual, she became immediately and amply and sincerely penitent.
"It was very kind of you, Miss," she said humbly. "You're always too good to me. But I feel I couldn't go and be photographed in France."
"Then don't go and be photographed in France," I said, still ruffled. "So far as I'm concerned, it's settled and done with. Now I want to read the newspaper."
I could see with half an eye that there were uncountable things which Susan was yearning to talk over; but I was nearly at the end of my good-nature. With the little that remained, I tried to let Susan down gently. I picked up Lord Ruddington's photograph again and said:
"At any rate, you can't find much fault with his looks."
"No, Miss," responded Susan tepidly, "but I did think he would have a moustache."
Friday, sunrise.
An apple-branch has tapped at my window, and a lark is singing eagerly in the near sky.
This shall be a good day--as rosy as the apple's cheeks, as blithe as the lark's song. I hereby register a vow against Ruddington and all his words and works. We needn't send him his answer till to-morrow. So, to-day, Susan sha'n't mention him and I won't even think of him.
Somebody's left a clean, new, cheap copy ofLes Chouanshere. How I shall love reading it again. Except while I'm bathing and eating and sleeping, I mean to sit and read it on the cliffs all day.
After breakfast.
After all, Susan is awfully sweet. One can't stand aloof from her long.
While she was downstairs before breakfast allowing Georgette to practise on her in broken English, I went into her room to find a pair of scissors. As usual, it was as neat and nice as if it hadn't been slept in. But the thing that struck me was a leather photograph-frame on the mantelpiece.
I recognized the frame. It was a double one, which I had given Susan because I hated the colour. In the left-hand compartment Susan had placed the newly arrived photograph of Lord Ruddington. And facing him, on the right hand, was----Me!
It was that thing I got done last Easter. Until this morning, I'd forgotten that Susan had pleaded for a copy and that I had let her have one for her album. Suddenly to catch sight of myself beaming affectionately across the hinges of the frame at an equally affectionate-looking Lord Ruddington, was certainly a shock. But that Susan should have brought me all the way from England and have stuck me on her mantelpiece was another proof, though none was needed, of her genuine devotion.
I took the frame down and held it open in my hands. It was too comical. Ruddington and I are placed in ovals, like the August Young Personages in a Royal Wedding Supplement to an illustrated paper; and we are looking at one another with the most absurd happy-couple air imaginable. "Though I say it as shouldn't," we make an amazingly pretty pair. If Alice could see it, she would begin to cry.
I think I sha'n't tell Susan that I've seen it.
Noon.
I haven't read much of theChouans. After my bathe, I kept Susan with me on the cliff. The grass was green, the sky was blue, and the sea was both. It was lovely to loll on the flowers and to listen to the sea--its deep speech at the cliff's foot, its soft murmurs in the sunlit distance.
Susan thinks Ruddington ought to tell her more about himself, and his conditions of life, both at the Towers and in town. I think she's right. Now that she's getting used to her good fortune, her talk has suddenly improved. She's dropping that raw and childish way of hers, and some of the things she said were quite sensible. If she goes on improving like this, she ought to be tolerably presentable at the month's end. No doubt it will take years to fill the gaping breaches in her knowledge; and her mind can never, from its very nature, expand enough to make her an all-round companion for such a man as Ruddington seems to be. But I take it that a grain or two of common-sense will be found mixed with his infatuation; and, if so, he will be prepared for a good deal of disenchantment. As for Susan, she'll always be pretty, and restful, and docile, and sweet: which means that if he is losing some things he is gaining others.
Alas, poor Gibson! I'm afraid his dreams are standing a poor chance of coming true. It's selfish of me not to have sent him a prudent line. I'll do it to-day. I'll tell him simply that all's well with Susan; and perhaps he will guess that all's up with himself.
Eight o'clock.
I walked alone this afternoon to Bérigny. The hamlet was deserted--or, at least, it looked so. The thatched black-and-white barns stood out sturdily in the bright, strong light, and Bérigny wore all its old prosperous air. But there wasn't a single body to be seen. I suppose every one was in the fields, or gone to market.
The church was open. I sat in it a few minutes: it was so cool and quiet. If I had felt suddenly tempted to steal an image, or to rob the box of Peter's Pence, there was none to say me nay.
The Bérigny churchyard looked sweeter than ever. I like it better than any other I have seen in France, because it is full of natural shrubs and flowers. There are hardly any of those frightful wire crosses and tin immortelles and iron wreaths, as big as cart-wheels, such as you see in dozens everywhere else. And the Bérigny churchyard isn'ttriste. As you sit on the warm stone platform of the Calvary, you look down over the orchards to the facing uplands--pastures of green velvet, wildly embroidered with, a million yellow flowers. Even the graves are not melancholy. It doesn't seem any more dreadful that the men and women of Bérigny should be fast asleep, like children in the bosom of their mother earth, than that last year's beech-leaves and pine-needles should be lying quietly under the ceaseless murmurs of this year's cool and shady green. Cheerful sounds arise from the valley as you sit and look down. There is blue smoke curling from one or two of the chimneys. Between the surges of light wind you can just hear the voice of the beck as it sings on its way down to Sainte Véronique. No, Bérigny churchyard is not melancholy: for in the midst of death you are in life.
There is a strange thing about some of the gravestones which I didn't notice when I was here before. Or, rather, I oughtn't to call them stones. They are woods. Over the humbler tombs stand rude memorials, each consisting of two short, slightly ornamented posts with a short broad plank fastened between. The plank is painted white; and upon it, in black letters, are displayed the name and age and birth-and-death dates of the man or woman asleep below.
At the bottom of each inscription there is an abbreviated formula which puzzled me sorely. It runs: "Un D. P. s. v. p." Not until I had almost given up trying to guess what it might mean, was the riddle solved. Behind the chancel I found a larger and newer grave on which the legend was spelt out at large in full: "Un De Profundis, s'il vous plait."
It filled my eyes so full with sudden tears that the solid world seemed to be wavering and dissolving as I beheld it. And, at the same time, the dim mysterious world beyond seemed suddenly clear and near. It was no longer the wind in the pines that I heard: it was a multitudinous whispering of spirit-voices pleading close to my ear: "If you please!"
I am wondering to-night whether I ever really and truly believed until to-day in the immortality of the soul. I am wondering whether I have ever done more than assent to the doctrine mechanically as a part of my childhood's creed, and as a postulate on which rest many familiar things in our literature and civilization.
Yes and No. In a sense I have believed, in a sense I have not. Until to-day, I have only thought of the disembodied soul in one or other of three different ways. I have thought of the soul as a cold abstraction, a philosopher's name for an antithesis to the body. Again, after I've listened to ghost-tales, I've thought of it ignobly--as a horror, a scary, frightful spook, a foul shape of night swooping horribly across the short sunlit path of our little life to remind us of the immeasurable cold and unending dark beyond. Last of all, after some stately obsequies, I've thought of the soul as living some supernal, Gothic life in a churchly heaven--a heaven where the sky is not a dome, but a pointed roof resounding for ever and ever and ever with Gregorian chants. That is to say, at the best I have imagined the soul clothed in a mediæval vestment, and living exaltedly, in an incalculable remoteness from to-day's crowded world of living and breathing women and men.
"A De Profundis ... if you please!" I suppose many people would find the "if you please" either ludicrous or irreverent, or both. At one time I might not have found anything in it myself, beyond a charming rusticnaïveté. But this afternoon the truth rushed over me in a flood. The souls of the faithful departed are not thirteenth-century souls: they are not the shivering, pitiable ghosts such as engaged the fancy of savage men ten thousand years ago, or the still weaker brains of the Spiritualists of yesterday: they are not mere fictions of the philosopher, invented for convenience of argument. They live and rejoice and sorrow in an intensity of present being. To-night, I believe in the Communion of Saints. They exist as truly as the little black-haired child exists who stopped me outside Bérigny and said "s'il vous plait" when she asked me the time: as truly as Georgette when she says "if you please" and lays the cloth: as truly as Susan when she says "Please, doplease, Miss," over a letter to Ruddington.
This afternoon, I couldn't say a "De Profundis" for the departed faithful of Bérigny because I'm too much of a heathen to have been taught it. But, before Sunday, I mean to buy aparoissiencontaining all these things, in French and Latin.
When I say my "De Profundis," can it do them any good? I don't know. Millions of people say it can't. But more millions of people say it can. And if I make a mistake, I would rather make it in giving than in withholding: just as it is better to say "Yes" to the beggar who may waste your sixpence on beer, than to say "No" to the beggar who may lie down and die for want of bread.
Bedtime.
What an irony!
This is the day when there was to be no Ruddington--the day that was to be as rosy as apples and as blithe as a lark.
As for Ruddington, I have only just finished re-reading his letter, which Susan has put by way of a hint in my writing-case.
As for rosiness and blitheness, I've spent my afternoon and evening like Hervey--I wonder if anybody ever read any more of his book than the title?--in Meditations Among the Tombs. My day has been ghost-wan, tomb-silent.
No. It has been as full of colour and of sound as could be. But the colours have been the grand and solemn hues of autumn, and the sounds have been majestical as organs and trumpets. To-day I have not been gay. But I have been happy. And I can't name any day at Sainte Véronique that I repent of less than this.
Saturday morning.
This is the answer I have written for Susan to send by the early post:--
DEAR LORD RUDDINGTON,--I am so sorry that you were anxious about me. But you must not forget the bargain. And the bargain does not allow of long replies "by return." Indeed, in writing this morning, I am breaking my own rule. When this is posted, I shall have received and answered two letters in one week.
Do not think me grudging or cold-blooded in standing fast to our arrangement. If letters are too frequent they will be short and scrappy, and thus they will fail of their object. For example, nothing could be more devoted and kind than your two notes this week; but they tell me so little about yourself, and hardly anything at all about your daily life, your thoughts, your work, your interests. At present I know no more about you than all Traxelby knew before you came to the Towers.
It is true there is the photograph, which I like very much--though you don't in the least resemble the picture my mind had formed! You were good to take all that trouble in Derlingham so as to get it done so quickly.
Unfortunately, I have no photograph of myself here, and there is no artist, not even a pasty-faced one, in Sainte Véronique. But why should you want my portrait if you have seen me three times?
I sha'n't expect an answer from you "by return;" but Ishallexpect your next week's letter to tell me more about yourself and your life.
SUSAN BRIGGS.
Susan thinks my letter is beautiful, as usual. Or, if she doesn't think so, she says she does. But to know that she needn't be photographed in France has lifted such a weight off her spirits that she is prepared to be delighted with everything. After the first shock and the second explanation, she went up into heaven at finding that it was "proper" to say "Dear Lord Ruddington." Perhaps she expected me to begin the letter by calling him "Pa!"
It's all very amusing. But I must keep a watch on myself lest I take it too prankishly. After the future Lady Ruddington had graciously signified her approval of my reply to her noble owner, she went upstairs for her hat, and, while she was away, a madcap impulse got the better of me, just as it did on Tuesday. I picked up the pen and wrote along the margin:--
I was amused about those Byronic curls. But what doyouknow about them taking hours to do at night?
Now that it's too late, and Susan is on her way to the post-office, I do wish I hadn't said it. For half a dozen reasons, it was a mad thing to do.
His portrait is still facing mine in the leather frame. I took a peep at it just now when I came upstairs for this diary. And we've still got the same sort of a "Good-morning, Dear," honeymoon expression. I positively blushed, and put it down again as if it had been red hot.
I must see that Susan plods away at her handwriting--or, rather, at mine! It's plain now that Ruddington is in love with Susan, and that he means to marry her. Also, it's plain that Susan means to marry Lord Ruddington, whether she succeeds in falling in love with him or not. Up to the present no great harm is done, but I must wriggle out of the affair somehow before his letters become intimate and affectionate.
Poor, poor Gibson! I've written him a line, and shall post it myself.
Sunday, noon.
For the sake of his peace of mind, let us hope that Ruddington is Low Church. If he isn't, Susan will soon be on his nerves. There's precious little kneeling down and standing up at the Sainte Véronique parish Mass; but this morning I had to prod or pluck at Susan half a dozen times. When we came out she made wistful comparisons with Traxelby, and declared that she did so miss "a nice service."
Perhaps Ruddington is neither Low nor High. He says that one of the times when he saw Susan was in church. But Traxelby isn't his parish: so he must have been hunting Susan, not saving his soul.
I've given up wrestling with theChouans. I'd forgotten the early part was so dry. Besides, it's nicer to potter about, and think and dream, not to mention that novel-reading is wicked on a Sunday.
Monday morning.
Susan has been difficult again. I'm sorry for her.
Last night she suddenly developed the liveliest interest in dress. In the past she hasn't been a girl to care excessively about it. That's why she has always looked so nice. But, last night, she said:
"I've been thinking, Miss, what ought I to wear the first time I go to see him?"
"You mean, Susan," I answered, "what ought you to wear the first time he comes to seeyou."
"Yes, Miss," said Susan absently. "I was thinking it would be nice if I had one of those cherry-coloured zephyrs, with elbow sleeves and a white sash."
I smiled.
"Do you think you can depend on yourself not to blush, Susan," I asked, "when he looks at you and speaks to you?"
"Oh no, Miss, I can't," answered Susan in a panic. "I shall be sitting, all the time, wanting the ground to open and swallow me."
"Then I don't think you should go in for anything cherry-coloured," I suggested. And I tried to go on withLes Chouans.
"Perhaps blue alpaca would be better, Miss," broke out Susan again, after long reflection. "Blue alpaca, made plain, with a little train. I could wear that lace collar you gave me, Miss, and have my hair done more on the top of my head."
"You'd look very nice, I'm sure, Susan," I replied. "But, if I were you, I shouldn't do anything of the kind. I suppose it will be at the Grange that you'll see him first. Some arrangement will have to be made. If so, it ought to please him best to see you as he saw you at Traxelby church."
I went on again withLes Chouans. Or, to be strictly truthful, I fixed my eyes again on the page.
"I beg your pardon, Miss," Susan began humbly, after five minutes of quiet; "but shall we be married in Traxelby church?"
"Most decidedly not," I answered, so emphatically that Susan positively jumped. "I haven't the ghost of a notion where in the world you'll be married. But it mustn't be Traxelby. Lord Ruddington will propose some suitable arrangement, and I shall see that it is satisfactory. Besides, all this can be talked over later on. It will be time enough to choose where you'll be married to Lord Ruddington when you've made up your mind whether you're going to marry him at all."
The bride began to pout.
I decided swiftly that it was high time to bring matters to a head. Traxelby church, indeed!
As likely as not, Susan would expect me to be a bridesmaid, with Uncle Bob giving her away, and Aunt Martha calling him "Pa." So I shut up theChouanswith a snap and put the question straight.
"Tell me, Susan. Have you made up your mind? If you've settled it that you mean to marry Lord Ruddington, we shall know where we are."
The pout vanished, and she hung her head. At last she answered:
"Yes, Miss. I mean, I'm not sure yet, Miss. But I'm sure that I shall be sure before long."
"Sure that you'll marry him?"
"Yes, Miss. I mean ... I think I shall."
I could get no more out of her, and in the end I turned surlier and snappier than I care to remember. Susan went to bed looking miserable.
This morning my conscience woke up as early as I did. Earlier: for it was wide awake while I was still half asleep, and I groped out into consciousness with a sense of recent meanness and unkindness to Susan. The more I woke, the clearlier I saw how natural it was of Susan, who knows no French and can speak with nobody here save me, to want to talk frocks.
When she came in at seven o'clock to open the curtains, I said in my friendliest tone:
"Well, Susan, I suppose you've decided to be married in white, with orange-blossoms and a veil?"
To my consternation she remained at the window, and did not turn round. Then she plunged for the door into her own room, and as she seized the handle, I heard a sob.
I jumped up and followed her to the threshold.
"Come, come, Susan!" I said. "You mustn't have such a thin skin. I never meant to hurt your feelings."
"You haven't, Miss," sobbed Susan, standing near me, but not showing her face. "It isn't you, Miss. But I can't bear it!"
"You can't bear what?"
"All of it, Miss. None of it. I woke up and thought about it in the night. It's dreadful!"
I couldn't guess what Susan couldn't bear, or what it was that was dreadful, and it didn't seem wise to press her. So I said nothing.
"You'll take cold, Miss," she cried, when she cast her first glance at me. And she bundled me back into bed.
I told her that she needn't have her breakfast with Georgette, and that she ought to drink chocolate instead of coffee.
"You'd better have a quiet day," I added. "This matter is getting on your brain. Give it a rest. That was one reason why I wanted you to wait a whole month. There's no need to brood over it day and night. The month has still three weeks to run."
She dried her eyes and was ever so grateful. But I am puzzled. Last night she seemed (as she has seemed all along) to take it as a matter of course that she will marry Ruddington. Her attitude has been that of a pretty, honest, modest, prosaic girl with an eye on the main chance. To find her suddenly all sensibility is a surprise.
Probably it isn't sensibility. It's nerves. Too much coffee: not enough sleep. Too much of her own thoughts: not enough human fellowship at a time when she sorely needs it.
Yet I can't overlook that she was disappointed with his photograph. It may well be that, in her better moments, my sweet Susan shrinks from marrying when she cannot love. Or is it that she is cowed by the difficulties of so huge a change in her rank and station? She shall have an easy day.
Tuesday, 10.15a.m.
The Lord Ruddington would be speaking no more than the truth if he always signed himself Susan's Most Obedient Servant. He has been as prompt with his pen-and-inkSelbstbildnissas he was with the pasty-faced artist's photograph. He says:
MA SUZANNE,--It is Monday morning. When I have finished this, I shall have written you once this week; once last week (the Wednesday), and once the week before (on the Saturday). Yet I am scolded for breaking the rules. You must send me an exceptionally kind letter to soothe my wounded feelings.
It was unpardonably careless of me not to forward full particulars and references when I first applied for the post of Protector to Suzanne. But I have to-day filled up a form and am enclosing it with this. References are kindly permitted to the Derlingham photographer and to Mrs. Juggins, the housekeeper at Ruddington Towers.
I have taken conscientious pains to fill up the form correctly. For instance, I squandered a whole penny this morning weighing myself on an automatic machine at Derlingham station. To be precise, I have squandered tuppence; because the first machine which I bribed refused to weigh me, and insisted on presenting me with a bar of chocolate cream instead.
The news that you can't send me your portrait is desolating. It is another reason why you must be extra kind.
All your letters are precious. But I like the little bits you write up the sides best. Why can't I have a letter made up of little side-bits only?
RUDDINGTON.
The "enclosed form" is a formidable-looking sheet of blue foolscap divided into columns for questions and answers. It reads:
S. B. No. 999.1. Names (Christian Henry Reginald Westertonand Surname), with Assheleigh, Ninth BaronTitle or Titles, if any. Ruddington.2. Address or Addresses. Ruddington Towers,Sussex; Assheleigh House,St. Michael's Square, S.W.;Ballymore Castle, CountyKerry.3. Age. 23 171/365 years.4. Has applicant He has heard so.had whooping-cough?5. Or Measles? One.If so, how many?6. Weight. 10 st. 8 lb. (Includes 2.1739oz. of letters from Suzanne,in left-side breast-pocketat time of weighing.)7. Can applicant read? No need to. Suzanne soseldom writes.8. Can applicant write? Yes. Once a week.9. What are applicant's Not Tory. Conservative.politics? More liberal than theLiberals, less radical thanthe Radicals.10. What are applicant's Waiting for Suzanne'spursuits? letters. Until last month,spent leisure studyingSpanish history andliterature.11. Personal appearance. Quite as bad as Derlinghamphotograph. Probably worse.12. Hair. Brownish-black; or blackish-brown.13. Eyes. Blue.14. Does applicant ride? Every day.15. Does applicant swim? Yes.16. Does applicant fish? Yes.17. Does applicant hunt? Not much.18. Does applicant swear? Now and then. Is preparedto give it up.19. Does applicant drink? Half a bottle of claret twicea day.20. Does applicant smoke? Not before 1.50 p.m. IfSuzanne objects, heconfesses that he objects toher objecting.21. Has applicant a Hates them. But will learnmotor-car? to love them if Suzanne does.22. Additional remarks. Is bad-tempered, impatient,obstinate, and self-opinionated.Has no first-handknowledge of the time ittakes to prepare Byronic(or other) curls o' nights.Has not been in lovebefore. Hasn't a Past.And hasn't a Futureeither, unless it's to bespent with Suzanne.
I don't know yet what Susan thinks of these documents. She has left them on my table without remark.
At the first glance I didn't like them. They smacked too much of the funny man labouring to be smart. But, after a second reading, I like them. After all, the poor boy couldn't very well sit down with a serious face and write out his own testimonial in cold ink. His wit might be sprightlier: but I begin to discern the gravity underlying it. His way of bringing it in that he has no Past, no entanglements, no old flames, is skilful and considerate. Perhaps this is the very point Susan has been worrying about. Who knows? Perhaps she has been fearing that she isn't the first simple beauty that his lordship has taken by storm. Perhaps she thinks he is an old-style lord, with a pretty taste in milk-maids, and therefore not much better than a new-style lord with a nasty appetite for ladies of the ballet.
Whatever am I to say if Susan asks me what he means by the little bits written up the sides?
Tuesday, 3p.m.
My bathe made me tired. I sha'n't go out again to-day.
Susan is wooden-headed past belief. I was amused for a few moments at the odd comments she made on Ruddington's letter; but her dulness grows monotonous. She began:
"Don't you think, Miss, that ... that he writes rather strange?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, Miss," whispered Susan mysteriously, "do you think he's ... quite right in his head?"
"Well, Susan," I answered, "when one looks at the way he runs after a girl whom he's never spoken to, I admit it does make one wonder if he isn't a bit mad."
Susan pouted.
"I mean his letter, Miss," she said. "And this big blue paper."
"As for his letters, Susan," I replied, "I don't see much wrong with them. Aren't they bright, and frank, and kind?"
"Why does he say, Miss, that he's named Henry?"
"Simply because Henry is his name."
"But lords don't have any names, Miss, do they? I mean they only have surnames."
I asked for light.
"It was Mrs. Hobbs, the cook, that told me, Miss," Susan explained. "Mrs. Hobbs said that a lord could only have a surname--as it might be Ruddington--and the King could only have a Christian name--as it might be Edward. That's the difference, Miss, between a king and a lord--one can only have a Christian name, and the other can only have a surname. So how can he be named Henry?"
When I had finished laughing, I said:
"Susan, you remember Mrs. Hobbs's dreadful mousseline sauce? Till to-day, I would never have believed that there was any subject in the heavens above or in the earth beneath, about which Mrs. Hobbs knew less than she did about cooking. I was wrong."
"If he's proper Lord Ruddington, Miss, I don't see how he can be named Henry," persisted Susan doggedly. "I wonder, Miss, ought we to write to Mrs. Juggins?"
"Mrs. Juggins?"
"Yes, Miss. He says she's the housekeeper at the Towers."
Positively the stupid creature believed that Lord Ruddington had seriously referred her to an actually existing dame of the name of Juggins. Really, I haven't the patience to set down half the ridiculous things she said. She is certain that her letters don't weigh "all those ounces." She is aghast at the bad temper and obstinacy, which must truly be traits in Ruddington's character, "because he admits it, Miss, himself." She is surprised that he should be brooding so bitterly over his wasted tuppence; "though they do say, Miss, that the richer people are, the meaner they are in little things, and that's why they've got rich." She is not romanticallyexaltéeat the news that he has never loved another. But she is grateful that he has got safely over the measles; because "Uncle Bob had them after he was grown up, and I did think, Miss, it looked so silly." And so on, and so on, and so on.
At last I begged her to stop chattering and sent her away. I can't understand her. Susan has always been unsophisticated, but it's something fresh for her to be vulgarly stupid and thick-headed.
The outlook is disconcerting. My letter-writing on her behalf gives Ruddington a false notion of her knowledge and her mental power. So long as she retains her charming simplicity no great harm will be done; for, after he is disillusionized about her brains, he can easily fall in love afresh with hernaïveté. But this flat-footed, Hodge-like, charmless stupidity is quite another story.
She's too stupid even to ask about the little side-bits.