Her cigarette had burned down to within an inch of its end. She threw it into the fire, wished that she could get rid of the bills by bundling them after it, and turned back to her task. It was growing late, and Oliver, who had been dining at Reiverslaw with Jed Armstrong, would soon be back. She did not want him to find her struggling with ways and means, did not want to see the old strained look on his face again.
He came on her unexpectedly, having entered by the back door, and she had barely time to shut the desk on its hateful contents before he burst into the room.
“Susan! Fine! I was afraid you might have gone to bed—”
“What is it? Nothing wrong?” she asked, seeing his excited face.
“I’ve got a job—a fizzer. Or, rather, Jed’s got it for me. Old Elliot up at Wanside is getting too gouty to see to things for himself, and wants a part-time factor—”
“But do you know anything about factoring?” asked Susan, hating to damp his ardour, yet afraid to let him involve himself in a job he might not be fit to undertake.
“More than you’d think., I’ve learnt a lot from going about this place and Reiverslaw with Jed, and if the Service did nothing else, it taught me to handle men, Gawd bless it! And that’s what’s wanted at Wanside. Someone to see that the work’s being done, and everyone isn’t swinging the lead. Old Elliot will tell me what to do, and I’ll see that it gets done.”
He was marching up and down the room, his limp barely noticeable to-night, as if on a quarter-deck. From his open pleasure and relief Susan could gauge that his own anxiety about the ways and means problem had been as acute as hers.
“This will just make all the difference between cheeseparing and moderate ease,” he went on. “We’ll be able to have people here now and then, to stay, and there’ll be some cash going spare for a few extra furbelows for you. . . . It’s been worrying me, Susan, you know—”
“So it has me,” said his sister with a glance at the writing-desk. “And I’m overjoyed, my dear—so long as you are quite sure you can do it, and are fit enough for it.”
“Do it? My dear old thing, of course I can do it!” he answered. “I could do it on my head—and I will, if my damned leg gives out. It was most uncommonly decent of Jed to suggest me to old Elliot. Lots of fellows would never have thought of it, but it seems that he’d spoken about me to the old man, and that was why he had me up to dinner. Old Elliot was there, too, gout and all, and we got on well together. In fact, the thing’s more or less settled, or will be tomorrow. Jed’s what I call a real friend—”
With this Susan agreed heartily, but later, in the solitude of her bedroom, where candle-light strove with the creeping shadows, she wondered whether Jed Armstrong’s friendship had outrun his discretion. Feeling much too wideawake to go to bed, though she had mechanically made her preparations for doing so, she went to the window and, pulling up the blind which Donaldina always modestly drew down, sat down with her arms on the sill.
The moon, which had risen a luminous primrose-yellow disc, had now swung into sight above the tops of the trees, its broad, innocent face shining with the dull lustre of old pewter. Stars, paling before it, had yielded the night sky to its sovereignty and the world on which Susan looked out was sharply defined black and cold white, a ghost of a world. There was not a single cloud to break the deep indigo-blue overhead, the trees stood motionless, dark, enchanted bastions of heavy foliage. Far before her, beyond the ridge on which Reiverslaw was perched, the Cheviots lay like some gigantic beast chained in slumber. The cool air breathed of cut corn, of dew, of late roses, even of distant heather, and Susan was glad that she would not have to leave Easter Hartrigg.
Then an owl, shattering the stillness with a loud melancholy hoot, roused her. She nodded towards Reiverslaw. “Even if Oliver can’t manage this job, I’ll never forget that you helped him,” she said and, turning away from the window, crept into bed.
2
Although the one post of the day never arrived until well on in the forenoon, it always seemed impossible to settle down to anything until it had been. On the morning after Susan’s battle with the bills the letters came while she was still in conference with Donaldina.
On the kitchen-table, scrubbed to snowy whiteness, was a dish which Susan had learned to call an “ashet,” and on this ashet lay the remains of a roast leg of mutton.
“I don’t see how it can possibly be made to do for another meal, Donaldina,” said Susan sadly.
“It was a wee gigot,” the cook agreed. “But I think I could mak’ dae wi’t—if ye can eat rissles again, mem?”
“Post, Susan!” cried Oliver from the end of the passage.
Susan quickly said that rissoles would be very nice and hastened to join her brother in the sitting-room.
“Is there anything very thrilling?” she asked, finding him removing the Scotsman from its wrappings. “Because if there are only bills, I shall swoon.”
“Then swoons is off for the day. There’s a letter for you from Charles, and a type-written thing—”
“Is that all?” Susan said ungratefully, and tore open the “type-written thing.”
“Well,” said Oliver at last, throwing aside the paper, “has someone died and left you a fortune?”
“Not exactly, but it’s from that weekly paper I used to write for, asking if I’ll do a set of articles of the semi-historical, folk-lore description—six articles, and they’ll give me five guineas for each.”
“Good work! I suppose you’ll take it on?”
“Of course I will. Am I going to lose thirty guineas? Besides, it’s time I did a little work.” Susan spoke vaguely, her eyes had a far-away look which Oliver knew well.
“As long as it isn’t another book—” he began uneasily, for he was remembering Susan’s exceedingly variable temper when her last novel had been on the stocks and its feverish conclusion had coincided with his leave.
Susan remembered it, too, and laughed rather guiltily. “No, it won’t be as bad as a book, my poor old Noll,” she said. “And now I’d better see what Charles has to say for himself.”
“By Jove, yes; I’d forgotten about Charles—”
After reading the three pages covered with small, distinctive handwriting, Susan gave the letter to Oliver. “I say,” he said, “isn’t this luck? If I hadn’t got this Wanside job, I don’t see how we’d have been able to put him up, but now—And so he’s on unemployed time, is he? Of course you’ll write and tell him to come here on his way north, or south, is it? Let’s have another dekko at his letter . . . and stay as long as he likes?”
“I don’t know that I shall,” Susan began rebelliously. “I’ve got these articles to do, and lots of reading up for them, and I don’t see how I can possibly with people staying—”
“Charles isn’t people,” said Oliver. “And you know you like him. Dash it, it’s you he comes to see—”
“Yes, I know; that’s the trouble. He’ll take up such a lot of my time—”
Oliver was not listening. “Look here, the races are the week after next. Tell him to come in time for them, and we’ll all go.”
“Races? What races? I’m not going to any races,” said Susan. “I tell you I am going to WORK.”
“But listen, honey. We don’t need the money as much as all that. Haven’t I just told you that we’ll have some cash going spare after this?” he argued. “Tell the editor to get someone else to write his articles for him.”
“The spare cash ought to be kept for a rainy day,” Susan said, “and not all spent in—”
“My dear girl, if we have any rainier days we won’t need to bother at all. We’ll simply be washed away by the flood.”
Susan gave in, with the mental reservation that she would devote all her time to writing until Charles Crawley came. “All right,” she said recklessly. “We’ll ask Charles to stay. We’ll fling money about. We’ll go to the races. And very probably I shall take myself to Edinburgh for the day and buy a new hat.”
“Splendid—You’d really like to have Charles here now wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I should. Isn’t he your oldest friend? Didn’t you share your last shirt-tail in Gun-room days when your handkerchiefs gave out, you disgusting little brutes? Besides, I’d really like to have him to stay, myself. I am very fond of Charles.”
“H’m, yes. And he doesn’t seem to regard you with loathing exactly,” said Oliver. “ ‘Lots of love, yours ever, C.’ What?”
“Oh, my dear Oliver!” Susan protested, laughing at the suspicious look he gave her. “You ought to know by this time that Charles says that sort of thing. It means nothing.”
“H’m,” said Oliver again. “Well, I must be off. I promised Jed I’d lunch with him and go up afterwards to Wanside. Don’t tell me, now it’s too late, that I’ll miss one of Donaldina’s more dressy luncheons?”
3
Far from objecting to a solitary luncheon, Susan liked it, for it gave her an excuse for taking a book to table with her, and she loved reading during her meals. To-day her rissoles were shared with the Newcomes; and parting reluctantly from these old friends just as the inimitable F. B. called on the Colonel in Mr. Honeyman’s rooms, she betook herself to the spare-bedroom most remote from the front door, determined to write without interruption.
Already she was shaping the first article in her mind, and she was not to be turned from her purpose by Oliver’s arguments, the more so as the day had broken down, and clouds lying heavy on Cheviot had sent a scurry of rain beating briskly on the window-panes. There was nothing to lure her out. She pulled a large solid table into the best light, established Tara on a rug, and sat down before a pile of virgin paper as yet unsullied by ink . . ..
She plunged joyously at her task, and in the first frenzy of composition time slid by unnoticed. Even the pleasure derived from reading cannot begin to compare with the half-painful delight of writing, or trying to, though the results may be but poor reflections of the thoughts that inspire them. Susan in her eager pursuit of an idea, of the exact words in which to give it form, forgot that she was no longer a free agent, but a domesticated person in charge of a household.
Her reception of Donaldina, whose entrance was the first interruption of the afternoon, was as amiable as that of a lion disturbed during his meal. “What is it?” she said. “If someone has called, I am not at home.”
“It’s the fish-man, mem,” said Donaldina with a small offended sniff. “He has some fine fresh herrin’, an’ I was wantin’ tae ken wad ye like me to tak’ some, an’ ye could hae them potted for the breakfast?”
“Yes, yes. Do what you like,” said Susan. “Buy what you like as long as I am left alone.”
Donaldina, awed by this unusual crustiness, for normally Susan was extremely good-tempered; withdrew on tip-toe, closing the door behind her with a slow exaggerated caution infinitely more distracting than a hasty bang. For some time after she had creaked away, still ostentatiously on tip-toe, Susan sat nibbling the end of her pen, and trying to recapture a particular train of thought which, now that it had eluded her, seemed of unusual value and beauty. Tara rose, stretched himself, and uttering a loud melodious yawn indicative of boredom, approached delicately like Agag, only to be commanded with brutal brevity to lie down. He did so, sighing, but immediately began an exhaustive toilet of his person, a process which entailed long, slow luxurious lickings varied by the noise known to his owners as “gruffling.” This, peculiarly irritating to listen to at any time, caused Susan to rise on the present occasion and smack him. Possibly the violent activity stimulated a somewhat sluggish brain, for she sat down again, and instantly a new paragraph began to shape itself out of a welter of ideas. Absorbed and happy, she wrote busily. . . .
There was a timid knock, and Donaldina once more entered, with the air of a virgin martyr being led to the stake.
“I thought I said—” began Susan in an awful voice.
“Oh, if ye please, mem, I couldna help it! There an awfu’ wild-lookin’ man at the door sellin’ wee books, an’ wadna gang withoot I’d askit ye tae buy—”
Plainly resignation was ail that was left to the writer. “What sort of books?” asked Susan.
Donaldina produced a small volume, hideously bound in paper of a bilious yellow tinge, on which Susan’s incredulous eyes beheld these words:
“HOW I ESCAPED, HOW I ESCAPED AWAY OUT OF HELL.”
In smaller characters below this arresting title was printed:
“An Account Of My Escape From A Lunatic Asylum.”
“Good Heavens, Donaldina!” said Susan. “Is he an escaped lunatic?”
“He micht be onything,” said Donaldina, charmed by the shock she had succeeded in giving her mistress. “I wadna pit it past him, mem, tae be a murderer!”
With tremendous gusto she rolled out the last word, giving the “murrderrerr” as many R’s as the teeth of a saw.
“Where did you leave him, Donaldina?” Susan asked rather nervously, and with a horrid foreboding that the maniac might be slinking about the darker corners of the house by this time.
“He’s plapped himsel’ doon on the front-door step, mem, an’ he says he’ll stir for neither Goad nor man afore he’s sellt a book.”
“I’ll go down and see him myself,” Susan decided, and not without an inward tremor, descended, purse in hand, to the hall.
The door, even on that dreary afternoon, stood confidingly open, country-fashion, as it did from morning to night during summer and autumn. Not the weather, but the seasons, decided whether it should be open or shut, and this always struck Susan as being not only characteristically Scottish but positively biblical. There was a hint of the stern Mosaic law about it, and she had waived her foolish English desire to have the front door shut on a wet day in June, or open to admit a flood of March sunshine, since she had realized that such waywardness provoked Donaldina’s silent but withering contempt. On the step before the open door was seated a gaunt and prophetical figure, gloomily austere as Elijah under his juniper tree. He rose as Susan advanced, an old, grey-bearded man whose tattered appearance more than justified Tara’s low growl of distrust. But as Susan’s one wish was to placate this unnerving visitor, she would have preferred Tara to reserve his watch-dog manner for some less awe-inspiring tramp.
“Madam,” began Elijah grandly, fixing her with an insane and fiery eye, “have ye glanced at ma book?”
“Indeed I have,” Susan said with specious cordiality. “It seems a—a very interesting book, and—”
“It’s the tale,” said he, “o’ ma ain pairsecution in Hell—though they ca’ed it the Loo-natick Asylum; an’ ma escape there-froam. . . . A penny!” he added so ferociously that Susan started back, and Donaldina from the hall behind her uttered a faint squeak of terror. “D’ye quarrel wi’ the price? It’s cheap, dirrt cheap, at a penny!”
“Indeed,” Susan hastened to agree, “it’s very cheap, absurdly cheap, and I will give you sixpence for a copy.”
“A penny’s ma price, nae mair, nae less. Wull ye tak’ it or leave it?” he roared.
“Eh, mem! Tak’ it, tak’ it, for peety’s sake!” wailed the voice of Donaldina.
With trembling fingers Susan opened her purse, pressed a penny into his horny hand, and fled in, shutting the door behind her. This time, she noticed, Donaldina made no protest about it. Evidently there were still some few occasions on which one might shut one’s door during the day, even as early as September.
“I’ll no’ close an e’e this nicht,” Donaldina said with what her mistress could not help thinking misplaced pride. “For fear o’ being murderred! Would I no’ be better tae bar the door, mem?”
“Certainly not. The poor old man has gone,” said Susan, already ashamed of her moment of sheer cowardly panic. “You can open the door again presently.”
Deaf to her muttered “I’d be feared! I’m no’ wantin’ tae loss ma life!” Susan returned, though rather hopelessly, to her writing upstairs. As she had feare
d, it was a mere waste of time, but she sat idly at the table drawing stupid little designs with her pen on a blank sheet of paper.
The sound of the front-door bell, jerked by an impetuous hand which had set it jangling like a tocsin through the whole house, came almost as a relief, and she had left her lair before Donaldina had time to summon her.
“It’s Miss Peggy, mem!” she panted, reaching the top of the stairs—Donaldina invariably rushed up like a charge of horse and arrived so breathless that she could hardly utter an intelligible word—“I pit her in the droyn-room—”
4
Peggy seemed oddly ill-at-ease. She fidgeted with her gloves, which she had taken off, accepted a cigarette and forgot to light it, blushed violently when this was pointed out to her, and finally plunged into fitful conversation quite unlike her usual spontaneous chatter, with an almost desperate air.
“You’ll stay to tea, won’t you?” Susan asked at last, when the weather as a topic had been discarded. “Oliver will be back, I expect, and probably Mr. Armstrong.”
Her ingenuous face showed nothing but dismay. “Oh, will he? Are they?” she said incoherently. “I hoped, I mean I thought—I met old Mr. Elliot and he said they’d be at Wanside—and I did think—”
“Take a long breath and begin again.”
“You must think I’m quite mad,” said Peggy, flushing scarlet.
Susan Settles Down Page 14