"I"ve got something on my mind, Susan," Ella said, frowning as she tossed aside her papers, "and,--you know me. I"m like all the Roberts, when I want to say a thing, I say it!" Ella eyed her groomed fingers a moment, bit at one before she went on. "Now, there"s only one important person in this house, Sue, as I always tell everyone, and that"s Mamma!
"Em and I don"t matter," I say, "but Mamma"s old, and she hasn"t very much longer to live, and she DOES count!" I--you may not always see it," Ella went on with dignity, "but I ALWAYS arrange my engagements so that Mamma shall be the first consideration, she likes to have me go places, and I like to go, but many and many a night when you and Em think that I am out somewhere I"m in there with Mamma---"
Susan knew that they were in the realm of pure fiction now, but she could only listen. She glanced at Emily, but Emily only looked impressed and edified.
"So--" Ella, unchallenged, went on. "So when I see anyone inclined to be rude to Mamma, Sue---"
"As you certainly were---" Emily began.
"Keep out of this, Baby," Ella said. Susan asked in astonishment;
"But, good gracious, Ella! When was I ever rude to your mother?"
"Just--one--moment, Sue," Ella said, politely declining to be hurried.
"Well! So when I realize that you deceived Mamma, Sue, it--I"ve always liked you, and I"ve always said that there was a great deal of allowance to be made for you," Ella interrupted herself to say kindly, "but, you know, that is the one thing I can"t forgive!--In just a moment---" she added, as Susan was about to speak again. "Well, about a week ago, as you know, Ken"s doctor said that he must positively travel. Mamma isn"t well enough to go, the kid can"t go, and I can"t get away just now, even," Ella was deriving some enjoyment from her new role of protectress, "even if I would leave Mamma. What Ken suggested, you know, seemed a suitable enough arrangement at the time, although I think, and I know Mamma thinks, that it was just one of the poor boy"s ideas which might have worked very well, and might not! One never can tell about such things. Be that as it may, however---"
"Oh, Ella, what on earth are you GETTING at!" asked Susan, in sudden impatience.
"Really, Sue!" Emily said, shocked at this irreverence, but Ella, flushing a little, proceeded with a little more directness.
"I"m getting at THIS--please shut up, Baby! You gave Mamma to understand that it was all right between you and Ken, and Mamma told me so before I went to the Grahams" dinner, and I gave Eva Graham a pretty strong hint! Now Ken tells Mamma that that isn"t so at all,--I must say Ken, for a sick boy, acted very well! And really, Sue, to have you willing to add anything to Mamma"s natural distress and worry now it,--well, I don"t like it, and I say so frankly!"
Susan, angered past the power of reasonable speech, remained silent for half-a-minute, holding the back of a chair with both hands, and looking gravely into Ella"s face.
"Is that all?" she asked mildly.
"Except that I"m surprised at you," Ella said a little nettled.
"I"m not going to answer you," Susan said, "because you know very well that I have always loved your Mother, and that I deceived n.o.body! And you can"t make me think SHE has anything to do with this! It isn"t my fault that I don"t want to marry your brother, and Emily knows how utterly unfair this is!"
"Really, I don"t know anything about it!" Emily said airily.
"Oh, very well," Susan said, at white heat. She turned and went quietly from the room.
She went upstairs, and sat down crosswise on a small chair, and stared gloomily out of the window. She hated this house, she said to herself, and everyone in it! A maid, sympathetically fluttering about, asked Miss Brown if she would like her breakfast brought up.
"Oh, I would!" said Susan gratefully. Lizzie presently brought in a tray, and arranged an appetizing little meal.
"They"re something awful, that"s what I say," said Lizzie presently in a cautious undertone. "But I"ve been here twelve years, and I say there"s worse places! Miss Ella may be a little raspy now, Miss Brown, but don"t you take it to heart!" Susan, the better for hot coffee and human sympathy, laughed out in cheerful revulsion of feeling.
"Things are all mixed up, Lizzie, but it"s not my fault," she said gaily.
"Well, it don"t matter," said the literal Lizzie, referring to the tray. "I pile "em up anyhow to carry "em downstairs!"
Breakfast over, Susan still loitered in her own apartments. She wanted to see Stephen, but not enough to risk encountering someone else in the halls. At about eleven o"clock, Ella knocked at the door, and came in.
"I"m in a horrible rush," said Ella, sitting down on the bed and interesting herself immediately in a silk workbag of Emily"s that hung there. "I only want to say this, Sue," she began. "It has nothing to do with what we were talking of this morning, but--I"ve just been discussing it with Mamma!--but we all feel, and I"m sure you do, too, that this is an upset sort of time. Emily, now," said Ella, reaching her sister"s name with obvious relief, "Em"s not at all well, and she feels that she needs a nurse,--I"m going to try to get that nurse Betty Brock had,--Em may have to go back to the hospital, in fact, and Mamma is so nervous about Ken, and I---" Ella cleared her throat, "I feel this way about it," she said. "When you came here it was just an experiment, wasn"t it?"
"Certainly," Susan agreed, very red in the face.
"Certainly, and a most successful one, too," Ella conceded relievedly.
"But, of course, if Mamma takes Baby abroad in the spring,--you see how it is? And of course, even in case of a change now, we"d want you to take your time. Or,--I"ll tell you, suppose you go home for a visit with your aunt, now. Monday is Christmas, and then, after New Year"s, we can write about it, if you haven"t found anything else you want to do, and I"ll let you know---"
"I understand perfectly," Susan said quietly, but with a betraying color. "Certainly, I think that would be wisest."
"Well, I think so," said Ella with a long breath. "Now, don"t be in a hurry, even if Miss Polk comes, because you could sleep upstairs---"
"Oh, I"d rather go at once-to-day," Susan said.
"Indeed not, in this rain," Ella said with her pleasant, half-humorous air of concern. "Mamma and Baby would think I"d scared you away.
Tomorrow, Sue, if you"re in such a hurry. But this afternoon some people are coming in to meet Stephen--he"s really going on Sunday, he says,--stay and pour!"
It would have been a satisfaction to Susan"s pride to refuse. She knew that Ella really needed her this afternoon, and would have liked to punish that lady to that extent. But hurry was undignified and cowardly, and Stephen"s name was a charm, and so it happened that Susan found herself in the drawing-room at five o"clock, in the center of a chattering group, and stirred, as she was always stirred, by Stephen"s effect on the people he met. He found time to say to her only a few words, "You are more adorable than ever!" but they kept Susan"s heart singing all evening, and she and Emily spent the hours after dinner in great harmony; greater indeed than they had enjoyed for months.
The next day she said her good-byes, agitated beyond the capacity to feel any regret, for Stephen Bocqueraz had casually announced his intention to take the same train that she did for the city. Ella gave her her check; not for the sixty dollars that would have been Susan"s had she remained to finish out her month, but for ten dollars less.
Emily chattered of Miss Polk, "she seemed to think I was so funny and so odd, when we met her at Betty"s," said Emily, "isn"t she crazy? Do YOU think I"m funny and odd, Sue?"
Stephen put her in a carriage at the ferry and they went shopping together. He told her that he wanted to get some things "for a small friend," and Susan, radiant in the joy of being with him, in the delicious bright winter sunshine, could not stay his hand when he bought the "small friend" a delightful big rough coat, which Susan obligingly tried on, and a green and blue plaid, for steamer use, a trunk, and a parasol "because it looked so pretty and silly," and in Shreve"s, as they loitered about, a silver scissors and a gold thimble, a silver stamp-box and a traveler"s inkwell, a little silver watch no larger than a twenty-five-cent piece, a little crystal clock, and, finally, a ring, with three emeralds set straight across it, the loveliest great bright stones that Susan had ever seen, "green for an Irish gir-rl," said Stephen.
Then they went to tea, and Susan laughed at him because he remembered that Orange Pekoe was her greatest weakness, and he laughed at Susan because she was so often distracted from what she was saying by the flash of her new ring.
"What makes my girl suddenly look so sober?"
Susan smiled, colored.
"I was thinking of what people will say."
"I think you over-estimate the interest that the world is going to take in our plans, Susan," he said, gravely, after a thoughtful moment. "We take our place in New York, in a year or two, as married people. "Mrs.
Bocqueraz""--the t.i.tle thrilled Susan unexpectedly,--""Mrs. Bocqueraz is his second wife," people will say. "They met while they were both traveling about the world, I believe." And that"s the end of it!"
"But the newspapers may get it," Susan said, fearfully.
"I don"t see how," he rea.s.sured her. "Ella naturally can"t give it to them, for she will think you are at your aunt"s. Your aunt---"
"Oh, I shall write the truth to Auntie," Susan said, soberly. "Write her from Honolulu, probably. And wild horses wouldn"t get it out of HER. But if the slightest thing should go wrong---"
"Nothing will, dear. We"ll drift about the world awhile, and the first thing you know you"ll find yourself married hard and tight, and being invited to dinners and lunches and things in New York!"
Susan"s dimples came into view.
"I forget what a very big person you are," she smiled. "I begin to think you can do anything you want to do!"
She had a reminder of his greatness even before they left the tea-room, for while they were walking up the wide pa.s.sage toward the arcade, a young woman, an older woman, and a middle-aged man, suddenly addressed the writer.
"Oh, do forgive me!" said the young woman, "but AREN"T you Stephen Graham Bocqueraz? We"ve been watching you--I just couldn"t HELP--"
"My daughter is a great admirer---" the man began, but the elder woman interrupted him.