CHAPTER XXX.
‘Ask not her name:The light winds whisper it on every hand.’
‘Ask not her name:The light winds whisper it on every hand.’
‘Ask not her name:The light winds whisper it on every hand.’
‘Ask not her name:
The light winds whisper it on every hand.’
‘Not a bit,’ says he, shaking his head. ‘Just the reverse. She is young and skittish, whilst I am old and dull.’
‘Not dull,’ says Susan.
‘Lazy, then. That comes of age, too, you know.’
‘You weren’t too lazy to hunt the hens just now,’ says Susan, as if combating some disagreeable remembrances; ‘and you weren’t too lazy to mount a ladder a month or so ago.’
‘Ah, Susan, that’s unkind! You shouldn’t hold up my past misdeeds to me. If you do, I’ll hold up your indiscretions to you—yourlengthened conversation with a thief, for example. You know you did think me a thief then.’
Susan makes a gesture.
‘Oh yes, you did; there is no getting out of that. You even made me promise never to steal again. And I haven’t, not so much as the proverbial pin. That’s good of me, isn’t it? Shows signs of grace, eh? Really, Susan, I think you might say something. Give me one word of encouragement. But perhaps you don’t believe in my reformation. I know ever since that day when I was stealing the cherries you have had the lowest opinion of me.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,’ says Susan, her charming brows drawing together; ‘it is very stupid of you, and you know you don’t mean a word of it. Stealing! How could you steal your own cherries? What nonsense it all is! If you have nothing better to say than that, you’—with a sudden and most unusual discourtesy—‘had better go away.’
‘Never; wild horses wouldn’t draw me from this,’ says Crosby. ‘I’ll say something “better” at once. I’m sure you have the highest opinion of me. Will that do, and may I stay now?’
Susan gives him a glance from under her long lashes that is still a little resentful—a very little—but she says nothing.
‘Must I go, then?’ says Crosby. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Susan, to send a poor lonely creature adrift like this.’
‘You are not so very lonely,’ says she. She gives him another lovely, half-angry glance.
‘I am indeed. There is not a soul to speak to me when I go back to my silent home, and hours must elapse before I can with any decency go to bed. Susan, be merciful. Let me stay here and talk to you of—’ He stops.
‘Of what?’ says Susan, still eminently distrustful. ‘What are you going to talk about? That last thing—’
‘I’ll never mention cherries again.’
‘You must keep to that. And now’—lifting her face and smiling at him in a little fugitive way—‘go on about your sister. You haven’t told me anything about her except her name. Katherine, is it not?’
‘Katherine Forster.’
‘Mrs. Forster?’
‘No, Lady Forster. She married one of the Forsters of Berkshire. The eldest one, George Forster, is a very good chap; you’ll like him too.’
Susan had grown thoughtful. Dim recollections of the Forsters as being extraordinarily wealthy people have come home to her.
‘I think I told you that Katherine is coming here to celebrate my birthday?’ says Crosby.
‘Yes; but your birthday—when is it?’ asks Susan, anxious to know when these alarming visitors are to arrive.
‘The third of August. Didn’t I tell you? Katherine likes to think she is coming here to do me honour on that day; that’s howshe puts it in words. To turn my house upside down, however, is what she really means. But I submit. The old house will stand it. She isn’t half bad, really, and certainly not more than half mad. I think I told you you would like her?’
‘Yes,’ says Susan, who has begun to quake at the brother’s description of his sister. ‘And she will be here—’
‘In about ten days’ time. George—that’s her husband—is a first-class shot, and this place has been pretty well preserved, in spite of its absentee landlord. I hope he will enjoy himself. Katherine is bringing a lot of her friends with her.’
‘Hers?’ Susan’s tone is a little faint. If only this big society dame’s friends—what is going to happen? Mr. Crosby is so kind that he will be sure to make his sister ask her up to the Hall. And how could she (Susan) hold her own with these clever people of the world, people who—
Crosby breaks into her silent fears.
‘Hers principally; but some of them aremine, too, in a way. I really am so little at home that I haven’t time to cultivate lifelong friendships; but Lady Muriel Kennedy I have known all my life, and liked. I hope’—suddenly—‘when Katherine comes, you will spare her a little of your time.’
‘You are very kind. If you would care to have me,’ falters Susan disjointedly. Her eyes are on the ground. To spare Lady Forster a little of her time! As if Lady Forster would even care to know her! How could she (Susan) make herself at home with people like that—people who had lived in fashionable circles all their days—frivolous people like Lady Forster, and lovely people like Lady Muriel Kennedy? Had he called Lady Muriel lovely?
‘That is begging the question,’ says he, laughing. ‘Who wouldn’t care to have you? How silent you are, Susan! Not a word out of you. I’ll begin to think you are in love presently. People in love are always silent, dwelling on the beloved absent, no doubt.’
‘I am not in love,’ says Susan, with singular distinctness.
‘Not even with “James”? I forget his other name. He would be a beloved absent, wouldn’t he?’
‘Absent or present, he would not be beloved by me,’ says Susan calmly. She pauses. Her head is slightly turned from Crosby, so that only the perfect profile can be seen. The fingers of her right hand are lying tenderly on Bonnie’s sleeping head. The fingers of the left are plucking idly at the grass by her side.
All at once she turns her glance straight on Crosby.
‘Were you ever in love?’ asks she.
‘Susan,’ says Crosby seriously, ‘I don’t think you ought to spring things upon one like that. My heart may be weak, for all you know; and, really, I begin to think of late that it is.’ He pauses. Susan remaining sternly unsympathetic, however, over this leading speech, he goes on. ‘What was your question?’ asks he.
This sounds like basest subterfuge, and Susan casts a glance of scorn at him.
‘I asked you if you had ever been in love. Please don’t answer if you don’t want to. After all, I am sure I should not have asked you.’
‘You can ask me anything you like,’ says Crosby with resignation. ‘Yours is to command, mine to obey. Yes’—comfortably, if surreptitiously, disposing himself on the tail of Susan’s gown—‘I acknowledge it. I have had my little disappointment. It was a frightful affair. I don’t believe anyone was ever so much in love as I was—then. I was just twenty-one, and she was just—something or other. It’s bad to remember a lady’s age. Any way, I know I loved her—I loved her,’ says Crosby, rising now to tragedy, ‘like anything. I can’t even at this hour speak of it without tears.’
‘Oh, nonsense! you’re laughing,’ says Susan, with fine disgust.
‘I am not, indeed. It is hysterics. If only you had gone through half what I have,I might expect a little sympathy from you. However, to continue. She was lovely, Susan, and she was tall—taller than you. She had coal-black eyes, and a nose that I have always considered Roman. I adored her. I used to walk about o’ nights looking at the moon (when there was one), and telling myself it was the image of her.’
‘The image of her! I must say I think you were hardly complimentary,’ says Susan, who seems to be on the look-out for slips. ‘There is nothing in the moon but a man, and a hideous one too—just like the clown at the circus.’
‘True’—reflectively. ‘Then it couldn’t have been the moon I compared her to. Perhaps’—thoughtfully—‘it was a star. Ah!’—joyfully—‘that’s it—my own particular star. See?’
‘No,’ says Susan contemptuously; and then: ‘I don’t believe you ever compared her to anything.’
‘I did—I did indeed, even quite lately,’ says Crosby. But this ambiguous speechreceiving no recognition, he goes on: ‘If, as your contemptuous silence evidently means, Susan, you think me incapable of love, you are greatly in the wrong. I assure you I did compare her to that star. There was one special one; but somehow I can’t find it lately. It must have been removed, I think. And besides the star, I remember quite well being under a hallucination that led me to believe that the wettest day under heaven was full of sunshine when she was present; and that when she wasn’t present, no matter how brilliant the sky might be, that the sun never shone. Come, now, Susan; be just. That was real love, wasn’t it?’
‘I really don’t know,’ says Susan. There is a slight pause; then: ‘Go on.’
‘Go on?’
‘Did she die?’
‘Die? Not much,’ says Crosby cheerfully. ‘Though of course’—relapsing into very suspicious gloom—‘she was dead to me. She’—with deep melancholy—‘thought I couldn’tfurnish a house up to her form, so she threw me over.’
‘What an odious girl!’ says Susan. For the first time a spark of sorrow for him lights her eyes. She flushes softly with most genuine indignation. Crosby looks at her.
‘She was a very pretty girl,’ says he.
‘For all that’—quickly—‘you must hate her.’
‘On the contrary, I think I love her.’
‘Still?’
Susan’s face grows disdainful.
‘Even more than ever I did.’
‘You are very constant.’
‘That’s the first compliment you ever paid me. But to end my tale—I saw her in town last March.’
‘Yes?’ Susan has lifted her flower-like face, and is gazing at him.
‘You met her? And she—she—’
‘Was a widow.’
‘A widow; and so you and she.... It is quite a romance!’ says Susan, in her softvoice, speaking hurriedly, almost stammering, indeed, in what is perhaps her joyful excitement over this beautiful ending to a sad love-story. ‘And she was as beautiful as ever?’
‘Well, hardly,’ said Crosby slowly, as if recalling a late picture to mind. ‘She is now, I am sorry to say, all angles. She was once plump. Her nose struck me as anything but Roman now; and her eyes were blacker than ever—I wonder who blacks them?’
‘Yet when you saw her, you must have thought of the past. You must have—’
‘You are quite right: I thought strongly of the past. I thought of nothing else. I said to myself: “At this moment this woman might have been your wife, but for—” I forget the rest—I believe I fainted. When I recovered I knew I loved her as I had never loved her before. She had refused me!’
‘I suppose that’s what people call cynicism?’ says Susan, regarding him with open distrust.
‘I don’t know what any other fellow would call it,’ says Crosby mildly. ‘I only know that I call it a blessed relief. I felt quite kindly towards her, and went forthwith and bought her tickets for something or other, and sent them to her with a line, saying I was going to Africa for ten years. But there’s no more animosity. I look upon her now as a woman who has done me a really good turn.’
‘I don’t think,’ says Susan, with sweet seriousness, ‘that you ought to speak of her like that. I dare say she was really very fond of you, but if you were both very poor how could you be married?’
‘Is that the view you take of it?’ says Crosby. ‘What a mercenary one! And from a child like you! Susan, I’m ashamed of you!’
‘Oh no, you know what I mean,’ says Susan, blushing divinely whilst making her defence. ‘There might be unkind people behind her, you know, forbidding her to marry you.’
Crosby stops, and his thoughts run swiftly to the mysterious ‘James.’ Were there unkind people behind her when that gallant youth declared his passion?
‘Might there? And if there were, should she listen, do you think?’
‘Ah, some would,’ says Susan, speaking out of the great wealth of worldly lore that can be gathered from eighteen years of life. ‘But others’—thoughtfully—‘wouldn’t.’
‘To which section do you belong?’
‘Oh, me! I don’t know,’ says Susan, growing suddenly very shy. ‘I shouldn’t do anything—I—I should wait.’
‘Would you?’ says Crosby. There is something in the girl’s soft young face, now lowered and turned from him, so full of gentle strength that he wonders at it. Yes, she would wait for her lad—‘Though father, an’ mither, an’ a’ should go mad.’ Is she waiting for James?
‘I’m afraid, after all, I must destroy your illusion,’ says he presently. ‘I don’t think she could have been in love with me. Notoverpoweringly, I mean. She had a little money of her own, and I had a little of mine, so that we should not have been altogether paupers. But she was dreadfully addicted to diamonds, and man milliners, and bibelots of all kinds. I have other reasons, too, Susan, for thinking she did not really love me. She never gave me a keepsake! Now you—you have had a keepsake.’
‘Mr. Crosby!’ Susan’s face is crimson. ‘I wish—’
‘I know. I beg your pardon. Of course I should not have mentioned it. But you and I are old friends now, Susan; and somehow it is permissible for me to confide to you the hollow fact that no one ever gave me a silver brooch with—’
Susan lifts Bonnie’s head gently, and shows a dignified, but most determined, desire to rise.
‘Don’t,’ says Crosby quickly. ‘You’ll wake him.’ He points to Bonnie’s lovely little head, and Susan pauses in her flight. ‘Besides, I shan’t say another word—not one. I swear it. What I really wanted was your compassion. I have never hada keepsake given me in all my life, save one.’
‘Surely one is enough,’ says Susan slowly. Curiosity, after a moment, overcomes her dignity, and she says unwillingly: ‘Is it a nice one?’
‘I desire no nicer,’ says he. He pulls his watch from his pocket, and on the chain close to it—on a tiny silver ring of its own—hangs a silver sixpence.
‘That! Only a sixpence!’ Susan’s voice is rather uncertain. What sixpence is that? She—she didn’t— ‘Of course,’ says she, ‘I know a broken sixpence is a very usual thing between lovers. But this— It is not broken, and—and not old, either. I must say when she gave you a keepsake she—’
‘She hardly gave it,’ says Crosby. ‘She only laid it on the last rung of a ladder that led up to some—’
That sentence is never finished. Bonnie’s head is now lying on Susan’s rug. But Susan herself is already far over there, her head very high indeed, and her rage and her indignation even higher.