Book 1, Chapter 1, of Susan This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by Céline Majore. Susan by Ernest Oldmedow. Tracks will be Part 1 Wednesday, September 5th, 1906 What on earth is the matter with Susan? Up to yesterday morning I have hardly had to find fault with her more than twice earth rice in four years. Yet, since last night she has richly deserved a dozen sharp scoldings at the very least. After all, poor Grandma Ma must have been right. My pet, Granny used to say whenever I told her that Susan was a treasure of pure gold. My pet, I have had thirty or forty treasures myself, and I give you my word that even the best of them are only plated.  Of the better ones it wears late. But wait long enough, and sooner or later you shall see the copper or the pewter. No doubt I ought to be grateful that Susan has lasted so well. All the same it is maddening that the gilding should choose to come off just as I'm on the eve of starting for St. Véronique-sur-Mer. Susan says everything is packed, but I can't risk it. Probably she has filled a trunk with opera glasses and fans and forgotten towels and soap. First thing in the morning she must unpack, and we must both go through everything with a list. But it's tiresome beyond words. Thursday, September 6. Susan is worse than ever. Instead of toast she brought me this morning two chunks of bread hardly browned, and instead of tea a teppant potion as black as night. I have asked her if she is ill, but she says she isn't. And certainly I never saw her look better in her life. The worst of it is that she keeps coming and going with such an air of—how shall I describe it? Not insolence, not even indifference. It is hard to find the word. When I blame her for some blunder she looks for the moment duly meek and sorry, and when I send her off on some errand she departs as if she really wants to do her best in her old way. And in less than half an hour I am scolding her again. On one point I've made up my mind. No starting for St. Véronique till Susan's either mended or ended. I'll wire du Poirier not to expect us till Monday. Gibson shall take the telegram to the village at once. And if there's no change for the better before post-time tonight I'll write to Alice and borrow that pale little slip of a French maid of hers for the time I shall be in St. Véronique. Alice said something last week about sending her back to France for a change. Perhaps I'll take Susan too. Or perhaps I'll let her go to her friends till I come home again. She's been too good a girl all these years for me to part with her just because of what may be no more than a passing slackness and staleness. Besides, Susan is the only creature I really like to have about me. She is as wholesome and sweet as country cream and rosy-cheeked apples. The word I couldn't think of has flashed upon me all of a sudden. It's a simple enough word and an obvious. And it would have come to me at once if I had had the grace to remember sooner that Susan, after all, is a human being. Susan is merely preoccupied. I ought to have divined at hours ago if I hadn't been so disgustingly devoted to my own right to worshipful ease and comfort. I've never thought about it before. But without doubt Susan's cousins and uncles and aunts are as much to Susan as my own cousins and uncles and aunts are to me. Indeed I hope and expect that they are vastly more. I wonder what is wrong. Is Susan's cousin going to be married? Or has her aunt joined the Salvation Army? Or has her uncle tumbled off a hay-rick? Perhaps it's something far worse. Anyhow, the poor soul must think me adorably sympathetic when I reward her admirable reticence by shrewing her for every insignificant lapse. And after the loving fidelity with which she has served me and cherished me so much over and above the best-paid hireling's duty, she must find me most consolingly grateful. I will make her tell me. Probably it is something wherein I can give a bit of practical help. Later. I've tackled Susan. She didn't make it too easy. While she was brushing my hair I said abruptly but quite cordially. By the way, Susan, I shat go to St. Veronique tonight. Gibson's gone to the village with a telegram. I've told Monsieur du Poirier to meet me on Monday. By peeping through my hair I could see Susan's face in the glass although she couldn't see mine. Very well, Miss Gertrude. Susan answered. She called me Miss Gertrude in precisely the tone she has always used ever since she first came to Traxelby before Alice was married and when Grandmama was still alive. And she went on brushing my hair without a pause. But I noticed that her cheeks reflected in the glass first paled and then flamed. I flung my hair from my eyes and looked up at Susan without a do. Susan, I said, you are unhappy about something. You ought to have told me. Perhaps I could have helped you. In any case I would have been less exacting in my wants and less sharp in my complaints. Thank you, Miss, said Susan uncircastically and thankfully, but she only went on brushing my hair. You are unhappy, I asked again. Oh no, Miss, no. Susan answered quickly and warmly and she brushed my hair harder than ever. Looking at her once more in the glass I saw that she was speaking the truth. Her face was still the playground of contending emotions, but through her pretty blue eyes her spirit gazed out irradiantly at the genial tourney. All together Susan looked bewitching. In her country print and with her yellow hair and rosy red cheeks she was just a sort of sweet, shy, rustic English beauty to fall head over heels in love with at first sight. The truth blazed upon me like a flash of lightning. It was a few moments before I found my tongue. That some young man who rather should begin to plague my bright-eyed Susan was the most natural thing in the world, and yet I had no more taken such a thing into my calculations than I had speculated as to what I should do if a burglar broke in by night and walked off with my silver combs and brushes. At last I said rather lamely and stiffly, At any rate, Susan, you've got something on your mind. Susan did not reply. What is it? I asked. Or rather, who is it? Susan's breath came and went more quickly, but still she did not answer. I turned over the possibilities in my mind and then put a question point blank. Is it Gibson? Oh no, Miss, not Gibson. Her response was prompt, decisive, almost reproachful. I'm rather sorry, I said. Gibson's a thoroughly decent, steady young fellow and he will get on. I hope it's nobody worse than Gibson. Oh no, Miss, said Susan swiftly and softly, not worse than Gibson.  Apart from my personal loss of the best made a woman ever had, I was aggrieved on Susan's own account.  And after the rude delights of a rural courtship, my neat-handed dainty pink and white Susan would have to settle down for forty years to dredge among kind and swine and turnips and most likely a pack of lusty and highly dislikable children. The prospect so revolted me that I decided to do my whole duty. Susan, yes, Miss?  No, Miss. Why not? There's only my aunt, Miss, said Susan dutifully, and she doesn't care. I've wrote. Written, not wrote. Say, written. Yes, Miss, I've written to her twice since Christmas, not to speak of sending a colored postcard from Malvern, and she hasn't answered never so much as a word. This pricked me. I had heard it before. And knowing as I did that Susan hadn't either father or mother, nor brother nor sister, I ought to have put two and two together and deduce the fact that Susan was alone in the world. But I had not been interested or unselfish enough to work it out. Of course, of course, I said. I'd forgotten. But Susan, why have you not spoken about it to me? When I found you had no parents, didn't I tell you that if you were in any doubt or trouble you were always to come to me? Yes, Miss, answered Susan as dutifully as before, and she went on brushing my hair. I got up impatiently and went and sat in my big chair by the window. No, I said, never mind my hair for a minute. Susan, I'm very much disappointed and put out. You are not treating either me or yourself fairly. With things as they are I feel responsible for you. All this is very serious. You are young and have no experience. Susan, standing three feet away with lowered head, heard me out deferentially, although she knows quite well that I am six months her junior, and that it is hardly a year since I began to look after my own affairs. She simply said, Yes, Miss? Susan, look at me.  Is this man respectable? Oh, yes, Miss? He says so himself, no doubt, but the world's full of very strange people. Who is he? Where does he come from? What is his name?  I saw that she had something to hide so I tried another way. How far has it gone? Well, Miss? She faltered after a pause. He—he's asked me. When? Yesterday, Miss. What did you say?  You mean you didn't say no? You encouraged him? Oh, no, Miss. Susan, I won't be trifled with. Either you encouraged him or you didn't. Which was it? You surely don't expect me to believe that after he'd asked you he was content to walk away without any kind of an answer. Please, Miss, he didn't ask me that way. It was in a letter. A letter? Susan, I hope you've said no. Have nothing at all to do with him. A letter, indeed. Why didn't he speak out like a man to your face? Please, Miss, he couldn't. Couldn't? Why not? Because I've never seen him. I burst out laughing. The affair was a trifle after all. At the most and worst it was some village moon-calf's clumsy wooing. At the least, and likeliest, it was a practical joke. But Susan thought otherwise. He stopped laughing at the side of her proud flush and pain. Come, Susan, I coaxed. Be a sensible girl.  No, Miss, said Susan firmly. Then what have you done? Have you sent a reply? Yes, Miss. No, Miss. I mean, no. That is, I've written the answer, but I haven't posted it. That's a good thing, what have you said? Susan was silent quite a long time. At length she looked at me plaintively and answered. I've wrote. Written. I've written two letters and torn them up again. I think the third one is the best. But somehow, Miss, it doesn't seem quite right. I'm wondering, Miss. Yes? I'm wondering whether—if I brought you his letter, Miss. Of course I will, Susan. If it's a letter that ought to be answered, I'll do whatever I can. Bring it to me after lunch. Thank you, Miss, said Susan warmly. But her face darkened again as quickly as it had brightened. I could see that a great doubt or fear had her in its grip. It was unkind of me, but I had had enough of the whole business for one morning. Finish my hair, Susan, I said, and I sat down again before the glass. Susan resumed the work. But she had hardly taken one of my tresses into her hand before she flung it from her almost madly and fell on her knees at my feet. Miss Gertrude, she cried. Promise. Swear before God that you will not take him away from me. I was thunderstruck. But she was still crouched at my side, gripping my knees. Susan, I said sternly, you are forgetting yourself.  You are not well. Go to your room. I shall manage my hair somehow.  She gripped me fiercerer than before.  Drive was a more indurable word. Besides, her fear and anguish were so sincere that my mere dignity shriveled away like scorched paper in their blaze. For a second or two it was impossible to be mistress and maid. We were two women. Susan, I said very kindly, if I must swear anything I will swear this. Like you, I am fatherless and motherless, and I swear that I will do my whole duty by you. If I honestly fear that there is misery lurking for you in this offer of marriage, I'll work and fight against it even if you kneel here weeping and praying all day for a year. But if I can honestly believe that it is for your happiness, there is nothing in reason that I won't do to bring it to pass. Now go to your room. She has gone. I must take care not to be dragged into any ridiculous positions. If Susan were a novelette reader it would be a different thing. No doubt a weakly orgy of sentiment by proxy is generally effective in making the average young woman immune.  I wish most heartily it hadn't happened. And to think that by this time tomorrow I was to have been settled down cosily at Saint-Vironique. Two o'clock. How lovely lunching alone once again. Somehow a visitor always begins to send my spirits down and down and down after the first two or three days. When I saw her off yesterday I felt I couldn't have stood even Alice much longer. How different we are. If Alice knew that I wasn't going to France till Monday she would worry about my loneliness just as she would worry over my neuralgia or my influenza. I expect that at this very moment she is writing a long letter to Saint-Vironique on the old text, begging me to go into a smaller house and to look out for a companion or to spend the winter with them. And I would make a large bet that she'll re-deliver her solemn mourning about my solitariness being morbid. Yet there may be a little in it. Who knows. If Susan doesn't stay I may be awfully glad to go to Alice's for a month or two after all. Now for Susan and her precious letter. After dinner. Alice is right. Solitude is a mistake. If I hadn't the diary habit I should explode like a shell into little bits. Still for Susan's sake and her incredible adorers it's a good thing there's no one here, not even Alice. If there was anybody at hand to listen I don't see how I could contrive to hold my tongue. As it is it only relieves me a very little to scribble it all down in this book. No wonder Susan under toasted the toast and overbrewed the tea. I don't wonder any longer even at her heroics and melodramatics while she was doing my hair. When she brought me her letter addressed in a strong and distinguished hand to Miss Susan breaks the Grange tracks will be. I saw at a glass that we hadn't to deal with a village bumpkin. Indeed when I took the sheet of thick good paper from the envelope and saw that it was embossed with the heading Reddington Towers I wasn't surprised. I concluded instantly that Susan's pursuer was one of the three young artists of whom I've heard till I'm tired to death of them. The artist Lord Reddington is said to have found starving in a Chelsea studio. I forget whether they've come down here to paint the hall or the chapel. Susan, I said, meaning to let her down gently. I hope it isn't one of those young artists from London. An artist is interesting, but he's too impulsive, too vain, too unreliable. I hope. Oh, no, Miss, said Susan hurriedly. It isn't any of the young gentlemen that's doing the painting and decorating. Whoever he is, I answered. He makes himself at home with Lord Reddington's best stationery. Let me see. I turned over the sheet and looked for the signature. Halfway down the third page I found it. The writer had signed himself with the single word, Reddington. Susan, I demanded almost roughly, why didn't you tell me about this at once? If you please, Miss. There's no if you please about it. Why, this creature, whoever he may be, is pretending to be Lord Reddington. Susan burst out crying suddenly and copiously. Oh, Miss Gertrude, she sobbed. I—I never thought it was pretending. I never dreamed anyone could be so cruel. I thought it was real. As I had begun to read the letter, I didn't take much notice. But Susan sobbed and talked on. Oh, Miss, she moaned. To think I was nearly going to post the answer, I should never have been able to look the parish in the face again. Keep quiet, Susan. I said irritably. Let me read it through. And while Susan cried to herself softly, I read it straight through, turned back again and again to sentences here and there, and at last read it from beginning to end once more. This is what I read. I discard the ordinary forms of beginning because this is an extraordinary letter. Since I came to Reddington last Wednesday, I have seen you three times. For the second and for the third times, I am thankful, but the first suffice to open my eyes to the truth. There is not now and cannot ever be anywhere any woman in the world save you whom I shall seek for a wife. Although I did not need to ponder this step for more than a moment on my own account, I have considered it long and well on yours. I recognize the many and great difficulties in the way, but not one of them is insurmountable. The person from whom I have learned your name and address is not the faintest notion of what is in my mind. If your answer must be that I am too late or that you feel you could not establish my happiness without losing your own, no third party need ever know that this has passed between us. But if your affection is still yours to give, then I shall beg for the earliest possibility of trying to convince you that, in bestowing it upon me, you would at least not be throwing it away on some one fickle or ungrateful or willfully unworthy. Until you give me leave, I must say no more. Reddington When I finally laid the letter down, I became aware of the abundance of Susan's tears and the heartiness of her sobs. A plan occurred to me. I got up and gave Susan a key. Don't be silly, Susan, I said. See, take this key, go to the library. Unlock the deep drawer in the cabinet by the window. Bring me that violet leather scrapbook with all the letters and cuttings about Lady Traxelby's funeral. Susan dried her eyes and went. While she was away I tried to think. Of course the letter would prove to be a forgery. But fortunately there was a quick way of making assurance sure. The week after my grandmother died, Lord Reddington, who had only just come of age, wrote his condolences to Alice from Oxford. He knew Grandma Ma rather well as a boy and he had met Alice once in town. I felt sure we had kept the letter. What I meant to do was, first, to make poor Susan look at the real Lord Reddington's handwriting with her own eyes, and a second to tease or soothe her into a good humor till she could laugh at the practical joke. At the same time I made up my mind that if I could identify the Joker, who was clearly a person of sufficient education to know better, he should smart for his insolence and cruelty. Susan came back, hugging the great violet book. I opened it in my lap and turned the leaves, hating the practical Joker more bitterly than ever for reviving these sad and sacred memories in a connection so contemptible. Susan watched me eagerly. She had divined that I was searching for something that bore upon her rosy hopes and ash in disappointment. At last I found it. There was the heading, Christ Church. My heart almost stood still. The bold, stylish, interesting handwriting was unmistakable. The real Lord Reddington and Susan's were one and the same man. It was Susan who broke the silence. Oh, Miss! she murmured in awestruck tones. I believe it's real after all. Yes, Susan. I answered slowly. It is real. I'm sorry, truly sorry, that I hurt you by my doubts. But it is so very extraordinary. And it's so very serious and important. Surely it was best to suspect it till we were certain. Oh, yes, Miss! protested Susan gratefully. And when I did not speak she glanced coily towards a second loaded envelope which had been lying on the table beside Lord Reddington's. What, I said. Surely there isn't another letter, is there? No, Miss. It's only mine. The letter I nearly posted an answer. Show it to me. That is, of course, if you want me to see it. Susan pulled out a folded sheet, opened it and laid it on my knee. The first thing about the document that struck me was the fact that it represented a prodigal consumption of ink. In the ordinary course Susan doesn't write very badly, but in answering Lord Reddington she had formed the characters slowly and hugely and singly as a child does at school. In two places it was evident that sandpaper or a penknife had removed blots. Altogether it was the sort of handwriting in which one might have expected the milkman to declare to the kitchenmaid the roses red the violets blue honey is sweet and so are you. Susan's answer ran. Care of the Honorable Miss Langley, The Grange. Tracks will be September 6, 1906. Sir, it was with the most various and lively emotions that I perused your letter to which I am now endeavouring though imperfectly to reply. I will have you know, sir, that the first sentiment provoked in my bosom by your epistle was one of humiliation and chagrin. Better die, I cried a thousand deaths than have lived to forget that modesty which is the ornament of my sex. But I protest that after diligently examining my conscience and ransacking my memory I cannot recall a single occasion in our casual intercourse when I have so far fallen from my duty as to offer you encouragement or to invite your present advances. Nevertheless, sir, I am not blind to my woman's frailty and at the risk of forfeiting your esteem I will indulge a boldness which I have never practised in the past and will confess, shameless that I am, that your conversation and person have not been distasteful to me. I perceive that my weakness has discovered to you the secret which I fondly hope to conceal, and that I have succeeded but ill in my attempts to dissemble my partiality from eyes and in understanding, alas, too well accustomed to the sensibility of the female heart. You entreat me to dispatch my answer by the hand of your courier, or at the latest by tomorrow's coach, and you affirm, sir, that in the meantime you are consumed by the ardours of impatience and that you will partake neither refreshment nor rest. Far be it from me to prolong sufferings which do me so much honour, especially when they are endured by one for whom I have regard and esteem. But, sir, I will have you bear with me while I remind you that this is a business too weighty for haste and that your present protestations of undying fidelity and adoration will be dearly purchased if I must endure in the future the bitter frost of indifference or the icy blast of reproach and scorn. I beseech you, sir, to temper passion with patience and not to increase by your importunity the insupportable distraction of happy thrice unhappy, Susan. End of Book One, Part One. Book One, Part Two. Of Susan, by Ernest Old Meadow. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Tracks will be, Part Two. Goodness gracious, Susan! I said, after I had got to the end of this amazing document, in the name of everything what on earth is all this? It is my answer to his lordship miss, Susan answered penitently. But Susan, I don't understand. What is this about a courier and tomorrow's coach? And what do you mean by saying that his person and conversation are not distasteful to you? Didn't you assure me this morning that you'd never even seen him? Yet here you are writing to him about occasions in your casual intercourse. Susan, I don't like to say it, but I'm very much afraid that... I pulled myself up. What I had been on the point of saying was that Susan had grossly deceived me and that her case confirmed all I had ever heard as to the deepness of still waters and the duplicity that invariably underlies an appearance of baby innocence. But I remembered just in time that with all the duplicity in the world to help her, the letter she had shown me would still be beyond Susan's powers. So I screwed a new tale to my unfinished speech and said, I'm afraid this won't do. I thought it didn't seem quite right, miss, said Susan Meekly, more especially the piece about the coach. That was why I didn't post it. Susan, don't prevaricate, I said sternly. It isn't like you and I won't put up with it. If I am to have any more to do with this affair, you must really begin to treat me with perfect candor. Why did you tell me you had never seen Lord Reddington? If you please, miss, I never have seen him. Never? Not that I know of. I've seen... Susan paused and blushed.  You have seen whom. Please, miss, there was a young gentleman in a dark green suit when we were at the post office on Saturday. He stared at me as we went in, and when we came out he followed us as far as the Golden Eagle looking at me all the time. It was very wrong of you to encourage him, Susan. But how do you know it was Lord Reddington? I don't miss. Maybe it's only my fancy. Susan, look here. Look at your own letter. Goodness knows where you got all this grand old fashioned language from. It's the sort of language they used when Lord Reddington's great grandmother wasn't a day older than you are now. But that isn't my point. What I want to know is why you write to Lord Reddington in this letter about occasions when you have met. I know it sounds wrong, miss, replied Susan more humbly than ever. But that was just the way it was in the book. Those were the very words. The book, I echoed, bewildered. Yes, miss, I copied it out of the old book that's been lying in the lumber-room ever since I came to Traxelby. Perhaps you haven't seen it, miss. Light was breaking over me, but I couldn't make out the full truth till Susan went on. The back is torn off, miss. It has a picture of a young lady in a short-waisted muslin frock looking very sad and writing at a table. There's a wicked little boy in the corner of the room with nothing on but wings and an arrow just going to shoot the young lady. The book's called The Complete Letter Writer. It took all my self-control and all my solicitude for poor worried Susan to restrain me from laughing loud and long. But after the first shock of comicality I was soon steadied again by the hard facts which still rose up before me. At another time this clearing up of the mystery of Susan's late Georgian grammar and John Sonian vocabulary would have been trolled past resistance. But Lord Reddington's letter was lying on the table. Happily the beckoning hands of fortune had not spoiled Susan yet. The prospect of wealth and rank had confused her brains, but it had not dazzled her inmost sound self or altered her sterling principles or shaken her out of her well-worn ways. The mistress-elect of Reddington Towers and my social superior of the near future still addressed me with a simple, respectful openness for which I have always liked her so well. After I had sat I don't know how long, silently trying to work out a solution, she said for the third time, I knew it didn't sound right, Miss. I will tear it up and burn it, and perhaps, when you're not too busy, perhaps, Miss Gertrude, you would tell me what I ought to say. Of course, Susan, of course, I answered. I've promised you already, but it isn't easy. Susan accepted the situation and stood patiently awaiting the end of my meditations. Sit down, Susan, I said at last. She sat down. I am obliged to ask you a few plain questions. Yes, Miss. If it turns out that he really is an earnest, do you wish to marry Lord Reddington? Oh, yes, Miss, please. You don't understand. In his letter he asks if you are free, if your affection is still yours to give. Now, is there anybody else that you're promised to already? Oh, no, Miss. Not Gibson. Susan looked troubled when she answered it was falteringly and without her usual openness. No, Miss. And she added uneasily. I have never promised to be engaged to Gibson. But does Gibson expect that some day you will? He oughtn't to, Miss, rejoined Susan, making shockingly quick progress and cunning. I mean has Gibson talked to you in that way, and have you listened? Come, Susan, don't be silly. I am forced to ask these things. I have never seen Lord Reddington, but from all I've heard of him he isn't the sort that would want to make himself happy by making another man miserable for life, not even if the other man is only Gibson. Lord Reddington's letter is strange. For instance, it's rather stiff and dry and like the letter of a much older man. But it rings true, it rings honorable. You must be honorable, too. Otherwise the whole business will end in misery for everybody. Come, Susan, I don't want to preach a sermon, but you know as well as I do that if you and Gibson truly care for one another, you will be a happier and better woman in a four-roomed cottage with Gibson than with Lord Reddington at the towers. Tell me how things stand. After a struggle Susan blurted out, Yes, Miss, Gibson has asked me. When? Well, Miss, the last time was last week. You didn't accept him. I've gathered that already, but did you give him a plain refusal? Well, Miss, answer yes or no, Susan, straight out. Have you let Gibson think that if he gets on some day you will marry him?  Come, Susan, tell me. She broke into weeping. Oh, no, Miss, no. She moaned between her sobs. Not Gibson, truly Miss. I've never said a single word to encourage Gibson. Very good, I said. But don't go on like that. There's nothing to cry about. If you can't be sensible, we must talk about it some other time. I confess that for a minute or two I had indulged a hope that Gibson would prove to be Susan's favorite lover and that, accordingly, Lord Reddington's monstrous infatuation could be nipped in the bud. And when my hope was found to be groundless I felt more than a little nettle. I foresee endless annoyance and inestimable losses of time and temper over this unheard of madness of my preposterous young neighbor. We've been told for years that we shall see wonders when Lord Reddington comes to live at the towers, and seeing he's only been here a week I must admit he hasn't lost much time. When Susan stopped crying she was less tractable. I suppose she resented my catacysing her about Gibson. After all, I shouldn't have lighted myself. As soon as she was dry-eyed she became a little more dry hearted and a good deal more dry-witted as well. She was more defiant, less dependent, much more the prospective lady of the towers and much less the actual ladies made at the Grange. I noticed this in her answer to my first remark after her tears had ceased to flow. Susan, I said, this is a matter which won't be any the worse of a night's delay. I will sleep on it and you must too. Understand, I say, sleep. I don't mean that you're to lie awake and let it worry you. We shall write, Lord Reddington, a better answer tomorrow than we can today. Meanwhile it won't do him any harm to be kept waiting a few hours longer. No, said Susan, it won't. I've always heard it said that it does them no good to throw yourself at their heads. For once she did not call me miss and both the matter and the manner of her speech jarred on me. From Susan it sounded hard and vulgar. It was as if my rare and sweet Susan had suddenly descended to live a moment of her life two or three planes lower down. I sent her off with some messages about dinner and with enough plain work to occupy her for the rest of the day. And now that I have put the whole thing down in black and white I begin to understand how cordially I dislike it. Friday, September 5th, 5 a.m. Such a wretched night. I hope Lord Reddington has had a still worse one. He deserves it and I don't. Besides he has something to gain or thinks he has while I only have something to lose. Even if he rushes out of his infatuation as precipitately as he rushed into it Susan can never be the same nice girl again. I have thought about it all the many hours of this blessed night that I have been awake and I have dreamt about it all the few nightmarish minutes I have been asleep, twisty, scary, jumpy dreams that I can't have remember. Heaven knows I was vexed enough when Alice would persist in teasing me last Sunday about Lord Reddington. What would Alice not have said if she had known that he was hardly three miles away at the very time she was plaguing me?  From Alice's point of view Gertie will be a fool if Gertie doesn't so play her cards as to become Lady Reddington. I did so hate it. If I am happy why can't people leave me alone? Alice will be dreadfully indignant if ever she finds out that I knew Lord Reddington was coming at once to the towers. But if I had told her she would only have fought against me going off to Saint Véronique. Yet why in the world should I be going to a place like Saint Véronique at the Fag end of the season? I'm going simply and solely because I was determined not to give the tiniest scrap of opportunity to the gossips and matchmakers who would have been so ready to connect the young spinster of Traxel Begrange with the young bachelor of Reddington Towers. But I'm wandering away from my own point. I say Alice's chaff and hints and coaxings were bad enough but this farce of Susan's is a million times worse. I admit I'm weak enough to care what people say and think and what sort of a position will it be when all the world knows that his noble lordship of Reddington is coming to the Grange awooing, not me, but my maid. It's perfectly hateful. NUN Susan is herself again. I don't mean that she isn't still burgeoned with the worries and anxieties of her amazing good luck. Indeed, she confesses that she has had a wakeful night. But in her work and her behavior she's once more as good as gold. After all, it was lean and ungenerous of me yesterday to be jarred by her one low class remark. We are none of us at our best every single minute of our lives. When I'd written in this diary with my teeth chattering at five o'clock this morning I crawled back into bed in a very sour temper and if Susan had come in sulky with a second lot of weak toast and strong tea it would have finished me off. As it was I lay trying to get warm and wondering whether it mightn't be better to leave Susan and Reddington to patch up their ridiculous match in their own unthinkable way. At a quarter to seven Susan brought me three perfect square inches of toast and a perfect tablespoon of china tea in that sweet little thin bird's egg-colored porcelain cup which I thought was broken. She saw at once that I hadn't slept and in her quiet, untodying, genuine old way she was ever so much concerned. But I didn't let her begin talking. I must do my duty by Susan. Haven't I often felt inwardly virtuous on the strength of my compassion, more sentimental than practical, for Susan's motherlessness? How do I know that the poor good creature has not consciously pitted me on the same account? It isn't too much to say that Susan has been almost a mother to me over and over again. Surely then it is my duty to be a mother to her in this big, sudden strain on her simple wits. Rumor says that Reddington is all right. But rumor sometimes has a lying tongue even when she speaks in a man's praise. I have no guarantee whatever that Lord Reddington intends to treat Susan honorably. If he doesn't, I know I shall be a poor defender of Susan and that I can't hope to be his match in worldly knowledge and cunning. But I don't mean to fail for want of doing my best. This is the reply I have drafted. The Grange tracks'll be Friday. Your letter of Tuesday was not one to be answered or even acknowledged in a hurry. Indeed it is only after hesitation that I decide to answer it at all. How do I know that this unaccountable flame of passion has not died down as quickly as it sprang up? But there is a reason why if I am to reply at all I ought to do so today. Tomorrow we are going to France. We shall be away a month. You ask me if I am free to bestow my affection where I will. The answer is, yes. Deeply disturbed though I am by your surprising letter, I will not make a difficult situation more difficult still by anything like coyness. In fairness to both of us I will speak as plainly and shortly and practically as I can. There is only one direct question in your letter and I have answered it above. But there is an indirect question also. You want to know if the affection which I have not given elsewhere can be given to Lord Ruddington. The answer is, I do not know. You have seen me, but I have not seen you. Again, if I consent, you will remain in your old rank and station while I must make a great and exacting and perilous change. Above all, you declare that you have the fullest possible inward light on this matter whereas I have nothing of the kind. Thus you have a threefold advantage over me. Reading your letter as an offer of marriage, the most I can say today is that, for the present, I do not refuse it. Will you write to me once a week, not more, while I am at St. Véronique? Our address will be at the Hotel du Dauphin. Meanwhile, I beg most earnestly that you will not try to see me before we leave tomorrow. This journey to France is surely providential and we must not throw its advantages away. I am going to be very frank indeed. To a poor girl with her living to earn, your offer is so tempting and marvelous that, if you pressed it immediately and in person, I fear I might be swept off my feet into acceptance long before I could be sure that love will exist on both sides. For your own sake, if not for mine, do not put me to such proof. What would my consent be worth if you wanted solely through the powers of your wealth and birth to dazzle my eyes and confuse my brain? My month abroad will serve two ends. By correspondence we shall know one another better, and our first meeting will thereby be made less embarrassing and formidable, especially to me. Again, and you must forgive me for saying it, time and absence may reveal to you more of your own heart and mind. Perhaps you will repent most bitterly of your letter which I am now answering, and if so, it will surely be better to admit that you have been the victim of a passing madness rather than to fasten life long unhappiness upon us both. Susan Briggs I can hardly say I am proud of this production. Quite the contrary. Both in matter and style it's all together too unsusanish. Indeed, now that I've tried and failed, I'm beginning to have more respect for the effusion of the young lady in the short-waisted muslin frock. Perhaps if I taken out the bits about the coach and the casual intercourse her letter would have been better than mine. Heaven knows what Susan will make of it. I'm positively nervy every time I hear her on the stairs. All the same, I've said the best thing to Lord Reddington, even if I've said it in the worst way. Going to St. Veronique bright and early tomorrow morning is quite a good scheme. If the noble Lord comes hot foot after us, I can certainly manage him better at St. Veronique than here at the Grange. Besides, I'm half persuaded that the poor boy's paroxysm won't last long. If needs be, we'll go to Alice's when we come back to England. I think we'll travel by Dieppe. It means more train journey on the other side, but he's less likely to track us and bother us that way. Of course, if he did anything of the kind it would be abominable. But one never knows where a madman will draw the line. Before dinner. Susan isn't happy. I can see she doesn't like my draft, but she's docile and she's going to use it. I made the poor thing sit beside me at my desk while we went through it together. At the end she said, Thank you, Miss. But I hate to think I've caused so much trouble. That's nothing, Susan, I said. Just tell me plainly if you think it'll do. It's beautiful, Miss, said Susan. Only? Only what? Well, Miss, very likely I'm wrong, but it seems to leave him a way of backing out again. I was prepared for this, so I said severely. Susan, what do you mean? About going away, answered Susan doggedly, about being a month in France and not saying goodbye and only having him right once a week, it seems to give him a chance of changing his mind. Very well, Susan, shall we tear this up? How will it be to write and tell Lord Reddington that you will be disengaged tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock? Oh, no, Miss, please, no! gasped Susan turning pale. I couldn't, really I couldn't. I could never face him. Why not? Tears came into Susan's eyes.   So I think myself. I said, that's why this letter is sensible. After he's written to you two or three times you'll feel less strange and more able to meet him. Yes, Miss, but it's such a long way and such a long time he might change his mind. Susan, I began with all the grown-up, worldly wise solemnity I could muster. Listen to me. If he's going to change his mind as easy as that, won't you be better without him? Susan looked dubious. I don't think I would go as far as that, Miss. She said candidly. Evidently it was necessary to rub the truth well in. Susan, I said. I admit that lords don't marry ladies' maids every day. This case is unusual, but it isn't the first. Before we were born Dukes married dairy-maids and urls have married their cooks. A few of them have been happy all their lives long. Most of them have been miserable before the end of the honeymoon. Susan began to pout. I filed it on thicker. I won't mention names, I said, but I know a case myself. The son of a duke took a fancy to a poor governess and married her for her looks. He was infatuated with her at first sight, he followed her everywhere, he wouldn't take her refusal, he quarreled with his father for her sake, and at last he got her. What happened? Although she was as well educated as he was, he tired of her in a year. But I suppose, Miss, she has all she wants, said Susan, pouting harder than ever. She has all she wants, I replied scornfully, in the way of house and clothes and food. But Susan, think. What if she wants him? Susan was silent. I drove it home. What if she wants him? And what if she hardly ever sees him? Susan, I don't care to talk to you about such things, but this affair of Lord Reddington is too serious for mincing words. The reason why the woman I'm telling you about never sees her husband is that he's the slave of another woman, a woman neither so pretty, nor so clever, nor so good tempered, nor even so well-born as his poor wife. Susan, would you like a life like that, even if you could live it in silks and old laces amidst all the luxury of Reddington Towers? Susan was blushing hotly as I had intended and hoped she would. Oh, no, Miss, she said eagerly, all her honest blood and good training coming to the rescue. But I don't think Lord Reddington would do those sort of things. You think, but you don't know. Susan, I'm going to put you an old-fashioned question. Do you think it would be right to marry a man, never mind whether it's Lord Reddington or Gibson, or any other man, if you didn't love him? I was trying my poor honest Susan too searchingly. Tears again shone in her blue eyes. Her color came and went.  Never mind, Susan, I said very much more kindly. I can guess your answer. And I can read your mind. You don't love Lord Reddington. It isn't possible you should at present. But you think it will be so lovely to be Lady Reddington that you mean to make yourself love him whatever happens. Yes, that's it, Miss, sobbed Susan. I don't deserve that you should be so kind to me, Miss. The danger is, Susan, that we can't depend on love coming whenever we beckon to it. Perhaps Lord Reddington is cold and unlovable. Perhaps he's too passionate to be affectionate. Unless you can love him in return his love will only torture you. Susan, make quite sure of your ground. You are not like other girls.  Think of it all in this light and you will understand my answer to Lord Reddington better. I do miss, said Susan, urgently. I understand it quite well now, and I know its best. Please, Miss Gertrude, if you'll show me how to address it, I'll send it tonight. I took up an envelope and addressed it to Lord Reddington. You know best, Miss, said Susan, glancing at the draft once more. But, but oughtn't a girl like me to say your Lordship? Besides, she checked herself. It was a new thing for Susan to question my judgment on any point, however small. Besides what? I asked. Well, Miss, it seems to look strange beginning the letter without anything to start off like. Lord Reddington said us the example, I explained. I thought it was rather clever and delicate of him. He couldn't write in the third person, could he? And he couldn't very well call you Madam, or dear Miss Briggs, or dear Susan. No, it's far better for both the letters to be as they are. Thank you, Miss, said Susan as humbly and teachably as she had ever spoken in her life. She has gone to her own room. I do hope she won't write it out in that frightful, blotty school girl hand. I ought to have told her to write more quickly and freely, and less as if she's doing it with a paintbrush. Still, I'm deeply thankful we're getting on so nicely. Tomorrow the glorious sea and the cider and dear old Saint Verenicke. End of Book One, Part Two. Book One, Part Three, of Susan by Ernest Old Meadow. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Trats will be Part Three. 9.30 P.M. More worry and tangle. I feel all bruised and weak as if I'd been battered about in the surf on a stony beach. While I was walking in the garden after dinner, Gibson came across from the stables and began hanging about. I had a presentiment as to what he wanted and I nearly bolted back into the house. Susan had been quite enough for one day. But, although it was dusk, I could see his trouble sitting, so to speak, on Gibson's shoulders. There was nothing for it but to face it out. Good evening, Gibson, I said. Do you want to speak to me? I do, ma'am," Gibson answered. His manner was perfectly respectful, but his tone was almost imperative. What is the matter? You told me, ma'am, I could have a holiday beginning Monday. Gibson's is well able now to look after the horses. If I couldn't trust him, I wouldn't go. But, Gibson, we talked over all this on Tuesday and it was settled you should go. Why do you want me to discuss it again? Gibson looked awkward, shifted his cap from one hand to the other, shifted it back again. Suddenly he demanded, bluntly, Will you mind, ma'am, if I go to France? To France, I said bewildered. Why, France? Gibson floundered through an unconvincing explanation. He affected to have doubts as to the future of the horse. He declared that until lately he had clung to a belief that these here motorcars would die out same as the bicycles did, but, eternally and bitterly, he has changed his mind. It seems the horse will not become extinct. There will always be a few horses in the country just as there will always be a few bows and arrows. But the number of horse owners in the near future has compared with the horse owners of the near past is to be in pretty much the same proportion as the archery club amateurs of today in comparison with the English bullman at Crécy and Agincourt. Gibson didn't put it exactly in this way, but his point is that the horse, as the solmist says, is a vain thing for safety when a young man is looking well ahead for his bread and butter. Gibson wants to stay at tracks'll be as long as I will keep him, but, begging pardon, ma'am, with a single lady one never knows, and, therefore, he thinks at his high time he should put himself in the way of qualifying as a chauffeur. Hence, France. You do right to improve yourself, Gibson, I said, but why France? Nowadays you can learn to be a chauffeur far better in England. His face darkened. Asking pardon, ma'am, he said obstinately, I have a fancy for learning in France. Very well, I said. It's your holiday and you can spend it wherever you like. If you can manage the language go to France by all means. Then you haven't any objection, ma'am? Why should I? Gibson hesitated, then he stammered. I was afraid, ma'am, that me going to France the same time as you, ma'am, wouldn't be. I mean, it would look like taking a liberty. I perceived that Gibson, like many others of his class, conceives France as a territory about the size of the Isle of Wight with Paris in the middle. But France is a very big country, Gibson, I said, far larger than England. Even if I did object to you, we shouldn't be likely to meet. You couldn't learn to be a chauffeur at St. Véronique. It's the last place in the world. That's why I go there. Gibson looked at me narrowly. I thank you, ma'am. He said curtly and proudly, and he made room for me to pass. In his own fashion, Gibson is as good and as likable as Susan. Never till this week has either of them caused me the slightest anxiety. I saw in a flash how matters stood, and I felt in my heart that Gibson deserved the more sympathy of the two. He was deeper natured than Susan, prouder and capable of a grand passion which my sweeter and shallower Susan could neither receive nor return. His clean, shaven face was almost as handsome as Susan's was pretty. And if he had enjoyed Susan's advantages instead of being brought up among grooms and stable boys, he might have been as refined. Rather rashly I let myself go and said, No, Gibson, I'm not going in yet. You have not told me what it is that is really troubling you. There is something on your mind. These two had stalked still at the pathside and vouchsafed no answer for a long time. At last he said abruptly, Then you won't prevent me, ma'am, coming to France. How could I stop you? France is a free country. I couldn't make the French army shoot you or the French police lock you up. But I'd better say plainly, Gibson, that I object to you coming to St. Véronique unless I send for you. The color mounted to Gibson's cheeks. He drew himself up and seemed to take some sudden decision. He was about to speak when the clatter of buckets at the pump where Hughes was gone for water drew his gaze to the beloved stables. I followed his eyes as they ranged over the red roofs which had sheltered him at work and at play, at bed and at board, both in grandmas' time and mine, ever since he came to Traxelby as a half fed boy of fourteen. He heard Nero's neighing and Boxer's answering bark, and I could see that he suffered. But these dear old sights and sounds did not soften his face for long. He pulled himself together again and began decisively.  No, Gibson, I said, like lightning. Don't finish. Let me finish for you. You were going to say that you give me notice that you will leave this old place, that you'll give up everything just to be a free man. No, don't interrupt. Above all, do you have just a little bit of common sense? For instance, instead of giving up Traxelby simply so that you can come to St. Veronique, how would it be if you told me, like a sensible man, what you want to come to St. Veronique for? He struggled hard with his pride. I helped him out. Surely you can trust me, Gibson? I don't say I can't, ma'am. Very well, Gibson. I answered shortly. I've done my best. Good night. No, cried Gibson, springing across my path. Miss Gertrude, I ask your pardon. It would break my heart to leave this place. But, good God, this is too hard for me to bear. Speak less loudly, I said. Now tell me, is it about Susan? He bent his head.  And then, although my spirit was quailing and failing at the desperate sight of the poor lad's agony, I actually forced myself to try and laugh him out of it as if it had been no more than a mild attack of calf-love. Really, Gibson? I said as banteringly and gaily as I could. I'm surprised at you. You're behaving as if Susan's going to Siberia for life instead of to France for a month. No doubt it's very painful and upsetting to be head over ears in love, though I confess I don't know much about it. But surely, Gibson, you can manage to exist without seeing Susan for four little weeks. Be more of a man. It's because I'm a man, ma'am," he rejoined firmly, that my right place is at Sin Vironik. You talk of four little weeks, ma'am. When them four little weeks are over, shall I see the same Susan as went away? His earnestness was so terrible that I could not maintain my hollow banter and I was silent. I put it plain, ma'am. When them four little weeks are over, shall I ever see Susan any more? I couldn't answer. Worse still, I guess that his next move would be to ask me how much I knew. So I clung fast to the one hope that boys me up in all this outrageous business, the hope that time and separation will restore Lord Ruddington to such senses as he may possess, and that Susan, like a ruffled dove, will come back to Gibson's faithful heart after all. You can't answer, ma'am," he said almost fiercely.  I said, recovering my wits and making a show of irritation. I can't answer for Susan any more than I can for you.  He brushed my tripling aside. Then I'll tell you, ma'am, something you don't know. He almost hissed in my ear. God knows who it is, but someone's turned Susan's head. She doesn't do no more than give me hints. It's driving me mad. She doesn't name the party, but it's somebody richer than a lord. Gibson flung down his cap and lifted his right hand. Hark ye, Miss Gertrude! He said harshly and chockily. Hark ye while I swear. This is my Bible oath. If he touches a hair on Susan's head, saving what's honest, I'll break every bone in his body. Don't matter to me if it's the king himself. Whoever he is, I'll wring his neck and swing for it gladly. If I don't, may I be struck dead. Silence, Gibson! I said sternly. Don't speak like this to me. Then how shall I speak, ma'am? Answer me that. Me that's worshipped every inch of ground that Susan strought on for years and years? Me that would go through fire and water and hell? Gibson, listen.  What if I knew it already? He faced me startled. I say, what if I knew it already? I've never seen this man. But what if I could give you my word that Susan has only written to him once in her life? What if her only letter was to say that she does not love this man and that she does not know she ever can or will and that if she cannot, all the money in the world won't bribe her into marrying him? What if she has told him that she is glad she's going to France? What if she has forbidden him to try and see her till she comes back to England? What if she will see you again, Gibson, before she sees him? Most important of all, what if I tell you that I have made up my mind to look after Susan in this affair as if she were my own younger sister? What if I promise you that she shall not come to harm? Gibson drank in my words with greedy ears and devoured me with searching eyes.  God bless you, he faltered, and God grant it may be true. So you think I would tell you lies, Gibson? No, ma'am, no. You're dealing with me fair. But how long will you be able to manage Susan if her head gets any more turned? And oh, Miss Gertrude, I ask pardon. But this isn't no job for a young lady like you as pure as an angel that doesn't know this wicked world. Ma'am, if he's a scoundrel he'll deceive Susan and he'll deceive you, ma'am, as easy as looking at you. Oh, ma'am, you don't understand. I can put up with losing Susan though it'll kill me. I can put up with her being took away honest. But he brought his lips to my ear and finished his sentence. If there's any devil's work it'll be murder for him and hanging for me. Miss Gertrude, may I come to France? I drew a step away. No, Gibson. I answered, assuming a calmness and a mastery which I did not feel. You can't come to France. There is no need. I am sorry for you, deeply sorry, and I respect you for some of the things you have said, but you are excited. You have been brooding. You've got morbid, exaggerated fears. He came towards me again. Gibson, wait till I've finished.  It is this. At Saint Veronique Susan will be under my eye all the time. If this man follows her I shall know, and I pledge you my word that if he comes I will write to you. No, I will telegraph, and then you can do whatever you please.  I said so. For at least five seconds he scrutinized my face. Then he stooped down low as if he was going to kneel at my feet and began hunting for the cap which he had thrown down among the nasturtiums. He was a long time finding it. When he got up again he said in clear, low, sad tones. Miss Gertrude, I pray to God that I may live to do half as much for you as you have done this night for me. Cheer up, Gibson, I said. Things are hardly ever as bad as they look. Enjoy your holiday all you can. Write down your address and give it to me in the morning. It's getting chilly. Good night. I hadn't moved twenty yards before he was at my heels once more. I beg your pardon, ma'am, he said breathlessly, but there's just one other thing. Yes? I'm thinking, ma'am, perhaps you won't name it to Susan that I've spoke like this tonight. You may be easy in mind, Gibson. I'm not likely to say a word about it. And be careful that you never name it to her yourself that we've had this talk. Never, ma'am, as long as I live, said Gibson fervently. And so I managed to get away. On the whole, the Gibson part of this drama of ours has tried me more than Susan's. That Susan should marry a Lord and become mistress of Reddington Towers is no more than an oddity, an awkwardness. But it is a very different thing to look on while an honest lad like Gibson sees the girl he worships bribed away from him with money. To say that I feel like a bather banged about on the stones by the breakers is to put it too weakly. My brains feel like a battlefield where Greeks and Trojans, Hector and Achilles have been trampling and slashing and charging all the long day. And for Helen and Paris I have a lady's maid and a groom. Bedtime Another Thunderbolt. The loudest and horriblest and most abominable yet. Susan must be stark mad. Instead of copying out my draught, she has simply tucked it inside the specimen envelope I addressed and has posted it to Reddington. I'm too utterly sick and tired and disgusted to write down in this diary all that Susan said, which wasn't much, and all that I said, which was even less but entirely to the point. Susan has gone off crying, as if she's the one with the grievance. Thank God for bed. End of book one, part three. Book two, part one, of Susan by Ernest Old Meadow. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Dieppe, part one. Saturday night. The sight and smell and sound of the glittering, tumbling sea must have done me good. After last nights and Thursday nights bad dreams and worse wakings I ought to be as sleepy as a dormouse. Yet I feel quite fresh and keen. Not that today has been any great improvement on yesterday and the day before. To begin with it put me quite out of temper at Traxelby Station to see how Susan was far too nasty to Gibson and how Gibson was far too nice to Susan. And Gibson couldn't possibly have been clemser in his attempt to give me his address on the sly. It was a miracle that Susan didn't see. I kept Susan beside me all the way to New Haven and also on the boat. It was a turbine steamer and the sea was smooth and I ought to have enjoyed the crossing immensely. But I didn't. Of course the reason was Susan. We hadn't fairly lost sight of that blinding towering white cliff above Seaford before Susan said tragically in my ear, Oh miss I have such a dreadful feeling. Never before have I been cruel to the seasick, but it was altogether too much that Susan, who has always been the best sailor in the world, should begin to work up a squeamishness on a turbine with the sun shining and the sea as calm as a pond and no one ill, not even the trippers in ready-made yachting suits. I felt she was doing it just to be important and interesting and difficult. Nonsense, Susan. I said quite roughly.  Don't think about it and you'll be all right. I don't mean that I'm took bad, miss," said Susan, and she looked aggrieved. Probably it was my fancy, but in her injured dignity there seemed to be a blend of Susan Briggs with the future lady Reddington. What do you mean then? I asked grudgingly. She did not answer at once. When she did she said mysteriously, I've got the feeling, miss, that—that it's him. Him? Yes, miss. He's kept looking at me ever since we landed on the ship. Susan shot a swift glance to her right and then, with a modest blush, resumed her scrutiny of the pattern on the rug across her knees. I affected to take an interest in a fishing-smack which was fast dropping a stern of us, and in this way I was able to examine the part of the boat with her Susan's glance had winged its koi flight. No doubt ever so many people have stayed in town for the Harvard and Cambridge boat race. Anyhow, there weren't many crossing this morning. We were sitting about the funnel and there was hardly anybody between our two chairs and the gate leading to the second class. The second class deck was fairly full. There the poor second sat, like animals in a zoo behind a bar for us superior mortals to stare at. They were seated oddly on bags or undersized tools so that they looked like wrongdoers in the stocks. The very funnel, which soared up from the midst of the first class deck, showed its contempt by visiting them with a copious and increasing plague of large black grits until they were sootier than the damned in hell. And after all, had not each and every one of them committed the deadly sin of being either unwilling or unable to pay the extra half crown or so which would have made them for three or four glorious hours the equals of such notables as myself and the future Lady Ruddington. They had the air of accepting their punishment as just. I picked out two unabashed and unassociated males, either of whom might be Susan's hymn. Keeping my eyes still on the second class deck but directing my voice towards Susan's cheek I asked, which? The gentleman that's staring so, Miss. Can't you see there are two staring? I said. Which do you mean? Is it the one with the peach cap and the gilt buttons?  Oh, no, Miss. It's the gentleman with a cigar and the thick stockings. The fact that the puffer of the cigar was staring at us without the slightest attempt at dissimulation made it easier for me to take him in from top to toe. The top was hidden in a gray cloth cap and the toe in a brown boot of a large size. The creature was large-handed, large-featured, and, as I afterwards found, large-laught and large-roiced. He wore a gray Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers continued downwards by the thick gray stockings which had vied with the cigar in Susan's regard. There was a bold ring on the little or rather on the smallest finger of his left hand. His whole port and mean were idle and evil and never in my life have I seen more horrid legs. At a first glance his coarseness was so evidently the coarseness of a low-bred shopman or bookie that I nearly turned on Susan to rebuke her sharply for wasting my time. But at a second class I became conscious of a sickening doubt. Had I not seen this identical coarseness before in very high places? Apart from his one unilluminating letter to Susan, all my meager knowledge of Lord Reddington has been collected at second or third hand. Both Alice and I have heard that he is reticent, aloof, rather studious, and the stray reports of him which have reached Traxelby have been pretty much to the same effect. But our informants may have been wrong. Or, as our information is a year old, Lord Reddington may have changed for the worse. If so, he has galloped downhill at the Devil's own pace. When I had seen a good deal more than enough I turned my back on him pointedly and said to Susan, Move your chair a little, the way the boat's going. The wind can't hurt you. Visibly loathe Susan shifted her chair. What makes you think it is he, Susan? I demanded. I don't know, Miss, said Susan. Come now, there must be something. No, Miss, answered Susan. It's just a dreadful feeling that keeps coming over me. Then the sooner you put the dreadful feeling on one side the better. I said unpleasantly. I hardly call it complimentary to Lord Reddington that you should mistake him for a man like that. Susan began her new pout, the bride-elect pout that was never in Susan's world till last Thursday. It annoyed me. Why, I said, if that's Lord Reddington all I can say is that poor Gibson is fit to be a duke or a prince beside him. Susan was touched in a raw place. She pouted worse than ever. I couldn't help saying. One has only to look at his legs. I was thinking, Miss, said the bride-elect, that they was rather nice. She actually turned her head and had begun to take quite a deliberate peep at the rather nice legs when I addressed her sharply. Susan, I said, so long as you're with me you'll be so good as to behave yourself properly. I'm surprised. She recalled her wanton glance at once and blushed suitably and sufficiently. Gibson is only partly right about Susan's head being turned. If it were turned more than a very, very little, she wouldn't be able to obey so fully and promptly and shame facedly when I whistle her straying fancy back to heel. What have you done with those two magazines? I asked. Why don't you read them? If you don't look at him he won't look at you. My dutiful Susan did her best. So did I. But my best was no better than Susan's. Try as I would I couldn't restrain myself from darting an occasional glance at the Bruton Grey to see if he was still staring, and try as I might I couldn't ignore the fact that Susan was doing the same. At the end of about ten minutes we did it at the same moment. You're looking again, Susan, I snapped angrily. It was mean of me and dishonest I know. Besides, it was taking an ungenerous advantage of my powers as Susan's mistress. But I had to save my dignity. And Susan would have done the same in my place. Susan hung her head. I'm very sorry, Miss, she said. I was really trying not to, Miss, but it's such a dreadful feeling. I feel as I must look. Susan, I said ingeniously, we will suppose just for a moment that the creature is Lord Reddington. For your sake and his own sake and everybody's sake I hope and believe he isn't. But let us suppose he is. Yes, Miss, said Susan patiently. Susan, I put it to you. If he is Lord Reddington, what will he think of you for casting sheep-size at him and looking up and looking down and blushing and all the rest of it? I don't think it's him as ought to complain, Miss, said Susan, seeing it's him that's making me do it. You don't see what I mean. If he's Lord Reddington he knows that you're Susan and he can hardly help looking at you, though I must say he isn't treating you as he would a lady. But when it's a case of you looking at him it's different. You see, you're not supposed to have any idea it's Lord Reddington. All you've got to go by is a dreadful feeling, which is nothing at all. So what must he think of you when he sees you making eyes at a perfect stranger? He must think you've got glances and blushes for every man who chooses to stare at you. Susan did not see my point clearly. Indeed, the more I labored it the less clearly I saw it myself. Besides, if this was really and truly Lord Reddington my attempt at crediting him with superfine feelings was either hypothetical or ludicrous. I'm very sorry, Miss, said Susan from the depths of her immeasurable docility. And then we got through another half hour of pretending to look at magazines while we were cunningly looking at the creature who was fixedly looking at us. When it became intolerable I said to Susan, I'm determined not to move. One mustn't even seem to be beaten by such rudeness. But do, for goodness sake, put it out of your head that it can possibly be Lord Reddington. What would Lord Reddington be doing traveling second class? I suppose, Miss, answered Susan so promptly that she must have already thought it out. He's come after me. And he thought we shouldn't guess it was him if he wrote in the second class. I suddenly felt that I had had heaps more than enough of the whole sordid business. I had felt for an hour that Susan knew a little more than she cared to admit. Probably she was right and this was indeed Lord Reddington. If so, everything was plain. This coarse-grained young rake's desire of Susan's country freshness and innocence was something even more detestable than the familiar infatuation of some weedy young lordling with adresy and exuberant and altogether outrageous chorus girl in town. I felt as if a rosy veil of illusion had been drawn away from life and it almost turned me faint and sick. The worst of the affair was that Susan, with her wholesome instincts, was not revolted as she ought to have been, even by that which she did not understand. Susan, I said abruptly, I'm not at all satisfied. You keep talking about a dreadful feeling which is all sheer nonsense. I feel perfectly certain you know something about that man down there that you haven't told me. The only thing, Miss... Why didn't you tell me before? I didn't think there was anything much in it, Miss. What? In what? Only that he came out through that little gate when you were downstairs, Miss, changing the money. It was before they locked the gate, before the guard looked at the tickets, just after the boat started. What did he say to you? He didn't say anything, Miss, replied Susan regretfully. All he did was he looked at these bags, Miss, and stood over them till he'd read the names on the labels enough to learn them by heart and where we were going as well. It was that that gave me such a dreadful feeling. Then the guard came and asked him what he was doing in the first class and looked at his ticket and said it would be four and six more, and with that he went back again through the gate. Susan, I said, I am really very angry. You ought to have told me this at once. Help me to put these things together. You know how I hate it, but we are going below. We didn't go below, but we went as far forward as we could, and sat gazing southward until a little low moan of joy from a French woman at my side told me that she had got sight of the faint white ramparts of France. As the cliffs rose higher from the sea and spread widely or to the east and west, my spirits rose and expanded with them. If Lord Reddington was following us, there was his insult to me as well as his designs upon Susan to be dealt with. So long as we were cramped up on a ship he had the advantage of us. But with the hugeness of France unfolding before me I felt myself his match and began spoiling for a fight. I didn't have to wait long. As we entered Dieppe Harbour, a sailor unlocked the gate of the second class pen and the inmates dreamed out all over the main deck. Susan was for hurrying to swell the serried mess of Britons who invariably fight like bushmen to be first on the gangway. But I kept her in her place and we were among the last to disembark. Reddington, if it's truly he, was waiting for us at the customs. He had got his own bag passed and chalkmarked already. I was prepared for developments but not for what actually followed. Ignoring me with the coolest insolence he marched straight up to Susan, clawed carelessly at his cloth cap and said, Can I be of any assistance? Susan shrank under my wing all crimson confusion. I turned on him sharply.  I demanded. He coloured up, having I suppose some poor remnant of shame after all. Then he stammered. I thought I might be of some assistance. Thank you, I said. None is needed. And I turned my back. When we had got everything through we went into the buffet and had to drink thin tea out of thick cups while he stood at the bar with a long glass of something and soda. Susan had been so thoroughly cowed into speechlessness and good behaviour that I was able to take counsel with myself in peace. We had deposited the trunks in the consign until Monday, the day I had intended to resume the journey to St. Véronique. The bags were piled at Susan's feet, labelled with the labels he had so coolly looked at. I wished my writing wasn't so legible. No doubt he had memorized the address, Hotel du Cheval d'Or, Dieppe. All the way to New Haven in the train my poor little weekend timetable had seemed so lovely. Saturday, 4 p.m., arrive at the Cheval d'Or. 4.15 p.m., a bath and a change. 5 p.m., a peak into Saint-Jacques and une petite promenade along the front. 6.30 p.m., a short and early dinner with a sole Normande, a canetton Rouenet, a bit of Neufchatelle cheese, some wild strawberries, and a broad- based, high soaring, unemptiable carafe of cider. 8 p.m., this diary, with I devoutly hoped not a word in it about Susan. 9 p.m., bed. Sunday, a little dash upon Rouenet, a run around the churches and back for seven o'clock dinner at the Cheval d'Or. Monday, 8.30 a.m., depart for St. Véronique. But now the dream was shattered. The guilt was off the Cheval d'Or, and he was the one horse in all France that I might not mount. I sat and debated whether it would be best to go to one of the other Dieppe hotels, sending the Cheval d'Or the price of the rooms by post, or to climb straight into the Paris train and spend the night in Rouenet.  It was maddening. But it had to be faced. He drained the last drop of his something and soda and stowed out quickly with his bag, doubtless to entrench himself in good time at the Cheval d'Or. When he was safely off the premises I went to the platform door to find a porter. Behind the excited crowd of officials who implore you to take your seat for Paris I espied their rivals. That silent band, with the names of hotels guilt-lettered on their caps, whose dumb eloquence pleads with you to remain in Dieppe.  The face looked at me from under a cap inscribed Hotel du Cheval d'Or. It was Pierre, that best of porters. He knew me. I was too late. I've learned a lesson and drawn a moral. Whenever I've forgotten or been too lazy to write beforehand to a hotel I never once remember coming to the smallest harm. But whenever I've been a paragon of methodicalness and have given two or three days notice, how often haven't I found myself shoved away into a back room or an annex?  Pierre had us and our bags in his omnibus in a twinkling, and five minutes later we were in the very muzzle of the Cheval d'Or. Out flew Madame la Gentre, all smiles and hearty welcomes, and it is the simple literal truth that at the same moment Justine was hailing a perfectly adorable new plucked canetton into her kitchen by his neck. Something forced me to glance up to the sunny stuccoed walls and snowy kerch and casements of the main hotel building on the left-hand side of the court. A man was leaning out of a second-floor window. When he caught sight of me he swiftly drew in his head. It was he. My mind made itself up in a moment. I plunged boldly into an extensive and variegated falsehood. I declared that when I telegraphed last night I didn't know that some great friends of mine were at the Aster. It was the greatest disappointment to me not to stay as arranged at the Cheval d'Or. On my way back to England from St. Véronique I would be sure to pay Madame Legende at least a week's visit. Meanwhile, could Madame, as an exceptional favour, allow Pierre to carry us around to the Aster? The long and short of it is that so far I have outwitted him, and here I am spending my first French night in an English hotel. As one might as well be damned for fifty fibs as for one I have told Madame Legende that I want to pass all my time with my friends here at the Aster, and that if anyone who knows me inquires ever so pressingly, she isn't to acknowledge that she has the faintest idea where I've gone. She's promised. As for Pierre, I have bought him body and soul for ten francs, cashed down, and if Ruddington begins asking questions he'll be told that the English lady and her mate have changed their minds and gone on to Paris. Alas, poor dreams, I have just eaten a Paris dinner and have sent it down with London claret, and I am going to sleep in an English bedroom instead of in a French one. I did so want a French one with a curtained bed and pudgy quilt and an empire mirror over the mantelpiece to say nothing of a guilt-clock and two bronze horses and four or five nice pious pictures of marchers all stuck full of arrows. But one can't have everything, and it's enough for me that I've beaten Ruddington today as I shall beat him to-morrow and every other day until I can believe that he's something better than a libertine cad. He's done me one good turn at any rate. Scribbling down all this has made me deliciously drowsy. So now, to make up all those arrears of sleep. End of Book Two, Part One. Book Two, Part Two of Susan by Ernest Oldmedow. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Dieppe, Part Two. Sunday, 9 a.m. I've slept like baby twins. Such a sweet morning. I got up at 7 and took Susan with me to low mass. The sunlight streaming through the windows of the choir was divine. How different this Latin mass in France from last Sunday morning service in Traxelby Church. At Traxelby we are always so orderly, so dignified. Here at Dieppe, the people grab each a chair and put it down where they like so that they're all higgledy-piggledy instead of sitting in decorous ranks and rows. And except for the gospel and credo and the canon, they make no pretense of sitting and standing and kneeling according to any fixed usage or principle. Some seem to be following the proper in their missiles, while others just pray or think or finger their beads. Susan says they behaved dreadfully in that it didn't seem a bit like proper church. I felt differently. The roughness and freedom and individuality were less soothing than our elegant orderliness at Traxelby, but the realities that underlie religion seemed nearer and warmer. These faithful Diepois looked more like the men and women of old who thronged the hillsides of Palestine and sat down entranced upon the grass, and they looked less like that chilly, respectable, dull, sold thing. How shall I put it? Perhaps it's this.  If I were not already an excommunicate heretic and schismatic, I should have surely lost my soul for my inattention to mass. I couldn't help comparing this Sunday with last. Last Sunday Alice was with me as in the old days, and Susan hadn't had her letter, and Gibson hadn't talked to me in the garden. Everything was orderly, dignified, low-pulsed, soothing, like last Sunday's matins in Traxelby Church. But today Susan's letter is a fact, so is Gibson's oath, and Reddington is at the Chevald hall. My life is suddenly disordered, just as Traxelby Church would be if these diep ois were suddenly turned loose among the chairs. Yet I'm not sure that last Sunday was better. Realities, glowing human realities have suddenly began to crowd, living and breathing all around me, just as I felt reality, warm and near in their rough and unpunctiliously celebrated mass. I couldn't help thinking some odd thoughts as I looked at one little panel of a stained window over my head. It showed a kneeling girlish figure in white with long yellow hair. On her right was a bishop coped and mitered, extending his hand, and on her left was a loutish, leering fellow with a steel cap and a sword. I'm not an ecclesiologist enough to know what it was all about. Possibly it meant the soul being strengthened by the sacraments against the onslaughts of the world. More probably it was in praise of some virgin martyr. But the odd thing was that if the yellow-haired rather insipid damsel had had more color in her cheeks she would have been the image of Susan. The large mouthed, large-eared, large limbed brute who was tempting or threatening her was not wholly unlike the cur at the Chevaldor. Most amazing and haunting of all, the bishop, with his youthful keen, honest, manly, wholesome, clean-shaven face, was simply a coped and mitered Gibson. Here they are, bringing the coffee and cups. Never mind, on Tuesday I shall be drinking it with a big Normandy soup-spoon out of a little Normandy bowl. NUN He has tracked us down. Coming away from high mass at Saint-Érymi, we walked slap into him in the grandeur. I could have boxed Susan's ears for her ridiculous goings-on. Such flushings and flutterings and scurriings can't possibly have been seen in the town before. But as we came back to the aster by the zigzaggest route I could find, she positively turned her head twice. Of course he was following. I am quite prepared to find he secured the next table to mine for lunch. What worries me isn't so much today's meetings, it's tomorrow's. If we can't dodge him at Dieppe, how shall we manage at Saint-Verenique? Then there's my ridiculous promise to our poor young Bishop Gibson. I'm forced to acknowledge that Alice is right. I'm neither old enough nor wise enough to keep up tracks OB and go traveling abroad with no companion save Susan. It looks strange and it doesn't work. If this creature is indeed Lord Reddington, I don't trust him to deal honestly by Susan. In that case, Gibson is just the man for the job. Once let me be sure that it's Reddington and Gibson shall have his telegram within half an hour. I've laughed and I've cried. To think that all last night and all this morning I fully believed we were deep in Act 3 of a tragedy. Act 1, Miss Langley's Boudoir at Tlaxleby Grange. Act 2, The Grange Garden. And that when I walked into the Salamanger for Dégionnay and saw the brute in gray at a corner table, my mind was so prepared for an ultimate Act 3 that the only uncertainty was as to whether Gibson would do it with a revolver or with a knife. It isn't Act 3 and there isn't any tragedy. It turns out to be merely the comic relief of a melodrama. He was already lunching when I sat down with Susan at my table. Of course I placed Susan with her back to him, but I didn't notice at first that I had also placed her opposite a mirror wherein she could look at him far better than I could myself. He was too far off for me to hear him clearly, but I made out that he insistently addressed his English waiter in lamentable French. I hung my head for my country and its aristocracy and thought more meanly than ever of its public schools. He consumed a succession of expensive dishes and his plate was ostentatiously flanked by a bottle of champagne. It's a whole bottle, Miss, whispered Susan, regarding it with reverence in the mirror, not one of those little ones. If you can see him he can see you, Susan, I said severely. Whoever he is he can be no gentleman to follow you like this. Eat your cutlet and keep your eyes on your plate and don't dawdle. I want to go upstairs again as quick as we can. For one nasty moment Susan hung on the very brink of rebellion. But habit or coquetry or self-interest or pure obedience or genuine modesty prevailed, and she answered with perfect kindness. Very well, Miss, I'm ready now. It spoiled my lunch, but I got up and we both went out. I asked for coffee and the French timetable to be brought into the drying room where he wasn't likely to come. There I sat down to work out plans in quiet. But the quiet didn't last. Within five minutes his large voice broke out angrily in the hall. Susan shivered on the lounge beside me. His clamor was like the vicious bang of an extra-sized wolf newly cheated of a nice young lamb. Oh, Miss! moaned Susan as white as a sheet. He's coming in here. Whatever shall I do? Sit still, I snapped. Hold your tongue, let us listen. Straining my ears I discerned that the noise was a composite one and that the three chief contributors were the Bruton Gray, the waiter, and some third-party, probably the manager. Sir, blank, swindle, roared the gray one. The blank stands for something far worse than damned. I told the gentleman it was a lack art, put in the waiter.  I edged along the lounge and peeped through the half-open door. The gray one was standing with his legs apart like the colossus of roads. Too much meat and drink had combined with anger and fear to turn his evil face nearly purple. At a safe distance stood the waiter, pale and excited, with the gray one's bill on a silver solver. Two other waiters and the porter were masked across the doorway in case the gray one should take to his long horrid legs. The manager, implacable and contemptuous, leaned against the office door. What's all this beastly row about? asked one of the guests of the hotel, a young Englishman coming irritably out of the sale à manger. I'm deeply sorry, sir. This gentleman, said the manager with a withering look at the gray one, has eaten his luncheon and doesn't want to pay for it. He won't pay, echoed the waiter feebly. It's a blank lie, bellowed the gray one. I will pay. I want to pay. But I'm not going to be blank well swindled. It's the same as knocking me down and going through my blank pocket, and I'll see you in hell before I stand it. Another young Englishman came out and joined the first. What's up? he asked. Don't know exactly, answered his friend. Waiter says this chap's trying on a bilk. Chap himself says they've rubbed him on his lunch. The gentleman would talk French, said the pale waiter, gaining courage. I don't know French, nor he don't neither. I told him it was a la carte as soon as he pointed to the cantaloupe. The bear faced robbery, cried the gray one, swearing dreadfully. But it's no use trying it on me. My uncle knows France as well as he knows Battersea Park. And what did he tell me? That you don't pay more than three or four francs in France for a dinner fit for a lord. Why, even in the French restaurants in Soho, you don't pay more than 18 pence for five courses. The manager made a gesture of scorn and despair. Perhaps you'll tell us why you ordered a cigar and a whole bottle of Vève Glicot, he asked. Don't go cross-examining me, roared the gray one. I know the ropes, so don't you forget it. Everybody knows that in France wine's cheaper than beer. That's it, chuckled one of the young Englishmen gaily. Wine's cheaper than beer, and therefore fizz is cheaper than bottled ale. There you are, cried the gray one in triumph. And as for your blank old cigar, you don't have me there, either. One of the fellows at our place came back from France only last week. At least it was Holland he'd been to, but it's all the same. And what did he pay for the cigars he smuggled back? Three for tuppence, beauties. Yet here it is in your blank bill. Cigars, one franc. I say it's... You've said all I'm willing to listen to, retorted the manager as the two young Englishmen went back to their feeding. For the last time, are you going to pay? I'll pay six francs and not a penny more," muttered the gray one, distinctly frightened. You'll pay your bill," said the manager decidedly. The total is thirty-one francs, seventy-five centime. I can't have our guests annoyed by a minute's further argument. I recommend you to save yourself from very unpleasant consequences. All the fight went out of the gray one suddenly. He gazed wistfully at the door which was still held in force by the menials. Then he fumbled in his pockets. I can't," he muttered sulkily. I haven't got the money. I've only got twenty-four francs. And they'll be my bill at the cheval-d'oeur. The cheval-d'oeur echoed the manager. If you're at the cheval-d'oeur, what the deuce have you come lunching here for? To meet some friends," said the gray one brazenly. They're staying in the hotel. The manager was perturbed. What friends? he asked. Two ladies, the gray one replied. Within the next minute the two ladies' names would have been asked for and, no doubt, the hard-pressed brute would have given mine. I pulled the door open wide and stepped into the hall. I can't help hearing," I said. You talk so loud. What ladies do you mean?" He jumped. Then he stood stark as if he had been struck by lightning. Perhaps Madame knows something of this affair, the manager began in French. Only a little, I replied in English. All I know is that this, by the way, hadn't you better ask his name and address? My name," he said wretchedly, is Lamb, John Lamb. I'm head clerk at Fipps Brothers, the timber merchants, Amelia Road, Shepherds Bush. You'll have heard of Fipps Brothers," he added imploringly. All I know of Mr. John Lamb, I went on, is this. He stared at us all the way from New Haven. He spied about reading the names on our labels. He pushed himself on us at the customs. He followed us to the Cheval Dahl and practically drove us out of the rooms we had taken. He has dogged us through half the streets in Dieppe this morning. Lastly, he has given us the honour of his company at lunch. The manager was about to work up for my benefit a polite adequacy of fiery indignation. But Mr. John Lamb firstalled him. Plucking up courage he retorted impudently. Well, and what if it's true? We aren't in England, are we? Everybody knows they're more free and easy in France. The manager was loaded and primed for an explosion. But I got in another word. Didn't I give you a broad enough hint at the customs? I asked. Yes, he said coarsely. You did. But what about the other young lady? Let her come out here fair and square and say if she didn't dig me on. Isn't my fault for thinking I was in for a soft thing? You're not to blame, of course. You've snubbed me right enough all along, no error. To tell the truth, ma'am. I thought you were sick because it was the other young lady I was struck with and not you. What possessed him to add this insult to injury when he was actually in the lion's mouth only himself knows. It wasn't courage, for he had suddenly gone paler and shakier than before. Probably he was clinging in desperation to a last mad hope that he had indeed made a conquest of the other young lady and that she would rush out in my wake to intercede for him and to set him free. As I turned round and took my first step back to the drawing-room, the manager exploded like a thousand bombs. How the Grey One managed to stand unconsumed amidst those lightnings of wrath and thunderings of menace I can't conceive. As to his past, the Grey One learned that he was directly descended from a long line of cats, rogues, jailbirds, and imposters. And as to his future, it appeared that the greater part of it, after he had been soundly kicked, thrashed, and horsewhipped, was to be spent in a French prison. While this fiery storm was blazing and smashing around his grey cloth cap, I neither saw Mr. John Lamb of Phipps Brothers nor heard him. He took it lying down. In the end it turned out that Mr. Lamb was possessed of an English sovereign and the return half of a weekend ticket as well as his twenty-four weeks. He paid, and was flung forth into the sunshine with just enough to face Madame Legendre and to keep himself alive until the boat starts for England, in the dark and the cold, a little after midnight. From his final and ardent but fruitless splee that the manager should accept the deposit of his watch and ring, and allow him to send a post-office order from England to redeem them, I gathered that this was Mr. Lamb's first visit to France, that he has got leave from Phipps Brothers till Wednesday morning, and that Mrs. Lamb doesn't expect him back to Amelia Road until Tuesday night.  Yet, if I chance to wake up about three o'clock tomorrow morning with the air nipping and the wind blustery and the moon overcast, I'm not sure that I shan't think of Mr. John Lamb and feel just a tiny wee bit sorry for him. End of book two, part two.