ED WAR DE 8 
 
/BBRKEliYN 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNtVWSITY OF / 
 V CAIFFORNIA J 
 
SUSAN FIELDING 
 
MACMILLAN'S TWO-SHILLING LIBRARY. 
 
 Crown 8vo. Bound in cloth. 
 
 By MRS. ALEXANDER. 
 
 The Wooing: o't. 
 
 Her Dearest Foe. 
 
 The Admiral's Ward. 
 
 The Executor. 
 
 The Freres. 
 
 Look Before You Leap. 
 
 Which Shall it Be? 
 
 By RHODA BROUGHTON. 
 Cometh Up as a Flower. 
 Good = Bye, Sweetheart. 
 Joan. 
 
 Not Wisely but Too Well. 
 Red as a Rose is She. 
 Scylla or Charybdis? 
 Belinda. 
 Doctor Cupid. 
 Second Thoughts. 
 A Beginner. 
 Alas! 
 
 Mrs. Bligh. 
 * Dear Faustina.' 
 Nancy. 
 
 By MARY CHOLMONDELEY. 
 Diana Tempest. 
 
 By MRS. EDWARDES. 
 Leah : A Woman of Fashion. 
 A Ball = Room Repentance. 
 Ought We to Visit Her? 
 Susan Fielding. 
 
 By J. S. LE FANU. 
 Uncle Silas. 
 The House by the Churchyard. 
 
 By JESSIE FOTHERG/LL. 
 Kith and Kin. 
 Probation. 
 Borderland. 
 Aldyth. 
 Healey. 
 
 The Wellfields. 
 From Moor Isles. 
 
 By OLINE KEESE. 
 The Broad Arrow. [August 3rd. 
 
 By MARY LIN SKILL 
 Between the Heather and the 
 
 Northern Sea. 
 The Haven under the Hill. 
 
 [July 3rd. 
 
 Cleveden. [July llth. 
 
 In Exchange for a Soul. [Aug. 3rd. 
 
 By MRS. OLIPHANT. 
 Kirsteen. 
 
 By MRS. RIDDELL 
 Berna Boyle. 
 
 George Geith of Fen Court. 
 Susan Drummond. 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 Marooned. 
 
 By the BARONESS 
 TAUTPHQEUS. 
 
 Quits ! [July 3rd. 
 
 The Initials. [July nth. 
 
 At Odds. 
 
 By MONTAGU WILLIAMS. 
 Leaves of a Life. 
 
 By MARGARET L WOODS. 
 A Village Tragedy. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE .EDWARDES 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 1 OUGHT WE TO VISIT HER ? " " ARCHIE LOVELL," ETC. 
 
 Eontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YOKK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1900 
 All rights reserved 
 
Appeared in The Temple Bar Magazine, First Edition, in 3 vols., 
 Frown Svo, 31s. 6d., October 1869. Second Edition, in one volume, 
 .crown 8vo, 6s., July 1873. Reprinted in September 1873, and 
 March 1893. Transferred to Macmillan and Co., Ltd., August 1898. 
 fteprinted (Two-Shilling Library') May 1900. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was a drowsy silent afternoon early in summer. The 
 outlines of the scarce-clad trees showed lifeless against a 
 neutral-tinted sky. The dull white London road, brisk 
 thoroughfare in the old coaching-days to all western England, 
 looked duller and whiter than usual as it stretched away, 
 without a spot of colour to break its monotony, across Houns- 
 low Heath. Even the canal seemed to drone in a sleepier 
 voice than was its wont as it stagnated by, its brief life spent, 
 under the wilderness of poplar, alder, and sycamore that grew 
 around the powder mills. 
 
 " Is my life to be like this 1 " thought Susan, as she leaned 
 across the parapet of the little way-side bridge, and watched, 
 as much as excessively short-sighted eyes can be said to watch, 
 the dreary heath and drearier overshadowed stream. " Have 
 warm suns and cheerful sounds, like love and home arid all 
 other pleasant things, gone clean away from me for ever ] 
 Oh, papa, if I could see you once if my watching here meant 
 anything ! If I could hear your voice, scolding me even 
 there's no one to scold me any more but hear it. Ah, I'm 
 sick of silence ! I want papa's face to kiss, I want his arms 
 to hold me as they used." 
 
 And now great tears rose slowly in the short-sighted eyes, 
 every tinge of colour ebbed from the childish round cheeks, 
 and with a passion of pain the girl realized the irrevocable- 
 ness of her loss, the emptiness of a world from which her own 
 narrow world of love had been newly blotted. "If ho had 
 
 997 
 
SVSAW FIELDING. 
 
 loved me less I might bear it ! Oh ! why was I left 1 What 
 good was it to leave me in this big world, where no one will 
 want me, no one be fond of me again till I die 1 " 
 
 Susan Fielding was seventeen years old on this day when 
 I first bring her before you, watching at the spot where, evei 
 since she was a child of six, she had been accustomed to 
 watch for the return of her father across the heath, and know- 
 ing that she watched in vain. Mr. Fielding had now been 
 dead three months ; April rain and May sunshine had already 
 brought up a thin green covering over his grave in Halfont 
 churchyard ; the servants had got new places, the house a 
 new tenant. At Midsummer, scarce a fortnight hence, the 
 furniture would be sold, and Susan have to seek a home 
 amongst relations of whose very existence she had not known 
 until her father's death left her desolate. 
 
 Throughout a lifetime of fifty-four years, Mr. Joseph Field- 
 ing had been a man neither possessing nor wanting friends : 
 one of a class rather more numerous, I suspect, than some 
 genial-minded people would have us think. Unsociable by 
 temperament and through long habit ; holding crotchety un- 
 popular opinions on every subject under the sun ; engrossed 
 with his bookselling at Brentford during the day, engrossed 
 of an evening with his Cockney road-side home ; his violin in 
 winter, his garden in summer ; where was such a man he 
 often observed this of himself to make friends, and what 
 good would they have been to him when made ? He was on 
 terms, odd to say, with the parson of the parish ; but with no 
 other soul the parish contained (I must remark, for the plea- 
 sure of writing the words, that the dear old Vicar of Halfont 
 was a village priest of a type seldom to be met with now : a 
 village priest with the untroubled belief himself of a little 
 child, but tolerant, from fine breeding and wide culture alike, 
 to every variety of opinion among his parishioners) : once a 
 year, even, dined, with little Susan, at the Vicarage. " Field- 
 ing is a queer fellow," the Vicar would say ; " never comes to 
 church, holds terribly wrong opinions about rates and tithes.. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 but he and his little girl dine with me every Christmas, and 
 I can't help forgiving him all his wrong-headedness when I 
 hear them sing together. If our orthodox people had only 
 the divine voices of these latitudinarians, what a choir we 
 might have 1 " 
 
 And this yearly dining-out was the solitary dissipation, the 
 one act of social intercourse that broke Mr. Fielding's lonely 
 existence. During the lifetime of his wife, whom he tenderly 
 loved, he had been brought, perforce, if not into friendliness, 
 into some degree of contact, with his neighbours. Mrs. Field- 
 ing, a quiet-tempered woman, unrivalled in her pastry and 
 damson-cheese, and regarding books much as the wife of an 
 ironmonger would regard stoves or saucepans, made it a point 
 of faith to air her best cap and hear the village gossip when- 
 ever opportunity offered ; and on rare occasions would pre- 
 vail upon her husband, very miserable in his dress-clothes, 
 and with his song-books and violin under his arm, to accom- 
 pany her to some of the village tea-parties. After her death, 
 which happened when Susan was six years of age, he fell back 
 at once and for ever upon his own society. " The morose 
 ' nature of the man showing itself," said the village people 
 among whom he lived, and yet from whose companionship he 
 held himself so utterly, so suspiciously, aloof. 
 
 He fell back upon his own society ; and from the day of 
 his wife's burial until that of his own death led (in a road- 
 side villa, ten miles from London) the life of a hermit. And 
 yet it must not for a moment be supposed that Mr. Fielding 
 was a philosopher, raised by superior reason above the common 
 weaknesses of humanity. He was, on the contrary, the least 
 philosophical, the most sensitive of men, as open to offence, as 
 famous for "taking the law" of everybody, with or without 
 provocation, as Tom Touchey himself. He would no more 
 dine or drink tea with a neighbour than he would go to 
 church, or abstain from openly pruning his pears on a Sunday ; 
 but let any man, from the lord of the manor downwards, 
 attempt to fire a gun across the bookseller's orchard, or fish in 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 the hundred feet of canal that ran along the bottom of the 
 bookseller's garden, and he would speedily discover with what 
 manner of hermit he had to deal ! 
 
 " Human nature is the same in us all," the old Vicar would 
 say, his kindly optimist spirit ever thinking the best that could 
 be thought of every man. " If our social instincts don't show 
 themselves in one shape they will in another. Poor Fielding's 
 actions and law-suits and ejectments are just his fashion of 
 holding communion with his fellows. If it had not been for 
 that willow-fence case between him and Dicky Ffrench, I 
 believe he would never have held up his head again after his 
 wife's death." 
 
 And possibly the Vicar was right. Still, a social instinct 
 that takes the form of perpetually dragging other people into 
 the hands of lawyers, is scarcely one for ordinary minds to 
 appreciate. Mr. Fielding died ; and his little daughter reaped 
 the fruits of all his long dissent from the common opinions of 
 the world. A London solicitor whom she had never seen, an 
 uncle in France whose name she had never heard, were 
 appointed by her father's will as Susan's legal guardians. 
 Friends, with the exception of her morning governess and 
 the Vicar, she had none. Even Miss Jemima Ffrench, the 
 kindest-hearted old woman in the whole country round, 
 declared openly that she could take no interest in the con- 
 cerns of a man who, for more than a dozen years, had 
 embroiled her brother in a law-suit about the willow-fence ! 
 For Mr. Fielding's radical opinions Miss Jemima had never 
 cared a straw. Church and State were not going to be upset 
 by the half -crazed notions of a poor little Brentford book- 
 seller. His atheism lay between himself and his Maker. 
 But to go to law about the willow-fence the fence that the 
 oldest people in Halfont would swear had always belonged to 
 the lord of the manor ! No ; Miss Jemima could not forgive 
 him that. And so, now that Joseph Fielding lay dead the 
 querulous sburp face, querulous no longer ; the brain, with its 
 oddities and disbeliefs, quiet ; the heart, with its superficial 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 hatreds, its deep affections, cold not a servant from the great 
 house was sent to inquire for his child. "We pay these 
 penalties for eccentricity. Men and women will forgive us 
 every vice, nay, every virtue that they can understand. Some 
 out-of-the-way whim, some crank about a willow-fence, will 
 freeze Christian charity at its font, even charity as genuine 
 and as broad as Miss Jemima's. 
 
 " To inquire." It would have mattered nothing to Susan 
 if every inhabitant of the parish, of the county, had come to 
 inquire for her, to sympathize with her. She mourned for 
 her father as she had loved him, with her whole strength ; 
 mourned as these natures that love through sheer physical 
 necessity do mourn ; and when, a month after his burial, one 
 of the servants led her, passive, to morning service, her 
 childish face had so altered that scarcely a woman in the 
 church could look at her without remorseful tears. What- 
 ever Joseph Fielding had been, the child, they began to 
 recollect, was alone and friendless ; dwindling, too ; in 
 another six months would rest, likelier than net, beside her 
 parents. And coming out of church, old Miss Ffrench, a 
 world of contrition at her warm heart, walked straight up to 
 the forlorn little creature's side, took her hands, and kissed 
 her in the sight of all the congregation. " I'll come to see 
 you this evening, my dear, and I'll bring Portia we ought to 
 have come sooner. Portia will cheer you. Poor child ! you 
 must not be left to mourn by yourself any longer." 
 
 Portia came, and Susan was cheered not consoled ; two 
 months later you see her standing in her old place on the 
 bridge, weeping the old tears for the voice, the step, she 
 should know no more ; but cheered by the magnetic, irresist- 
 ible influence that youthful laughter, a sunny, youthful 
 presence, must ever prove to a mourner of seventeen ! The 
 good old Vicar had visited her, and left her spirit dull and 
 crushed as he found it. Her governess had read her admon- 
 ishing lectures about the paganism of this sorrow without 
 hope the duty of resignation and self-control in vain. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Before she had been five minutes in the room with Portia, 
 before she had listened five minutes to Portia's airy chatter, 
 Susan's cheeks actually began to dimple again as they used. 
 I don't know whether, as we grow older, we feel our losses 
 lightened by being brought in contact with the possession of 
 others. Children and Susan, though she was seventeen, 
 was a child can be lured out of their sorrows by the sight 
 of pretty toys, of other children at play, without an envious 
 pang. The beautiful face in its tiny bonnet, the soft peach- 
 coloured silk, the little trinkets, the dainty collar and cuffs of 
 this girlish visitor (immensely bored by the work of charity 
 she was performing), were better medicine for her sad heart 
 than either physician or parson could have administered. " I 
 shall see you again to-morrow ? " she asked, very shyly, as her 
 visitors were leaving. And when Portia gave a careless 
 promise to visit her every day oh ! well, twice a day, " if it 
 could possibly do anybody any good," Susan Fielding once 
 more felt that life was not wholly and absolutely without 
 flavour. 
 
 The poor little girl must love : there is the truth : she 
 could no more live without loving than without breathing ; 
 and in default of stronger support, her arms stretched them- 
 selves out instinctively to Portia Ffrench Portia, who at 
 times found the love even of an affianced lover a weight too 
 heavy for her ease-loving shoulders to sustain ! 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 SUSAN raised her face at last, and saw a man's figure standing 
 about three yards distant from her on the bridge a figure 
 which her short-sighted eyes, additionally blind at this 
 moment with tears, failed to recognize. 
 
 She drew back with a little frightened cry, and found her 
 hand taken and held in a firm, warm grasp. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " I'm not going to let you pass me like that, Miss Susan, 
 indeed I'm not. I've been watching here for the last five 
 minutes without your knowing it ; and I say it's a sin for you 
 to fret as you do. As if ahem ! these things didn't 
 happen to all of us. As if young people mustn't expect to 
 survive their parents ! And to say (yes, you've been talking 
 aloud), to say that no one will ever be fond of you again. 
 Why shouldn't lots of people be fond of you always, I should 
 like to know 1 " 
 
 The grasp was hearty, the voice pleasant ; the face of the 
 speaker emphatically what would be called a good face, ruddy 
 of hue, well-favoured of feature, open of expression. But 
 Susan shrank away as if she had been hurt. 
 
 " I can't help fretting, thank you, Mr. Collinson ; and I 
 don't want to make any new friends. It's very good of you 
 and Eliza to trouble yourselves about me as you do, but but 
 I like to be alone." Saying this she tried, in vain, to take 
 her hand from her captor's ; then stood silent ; evidently 
 biding her time, like a frightened child, to break away from 
 him anew, and run home. 
 
 The young man looked down with a mixed expression, part 
 contemptuous pity, part ardent tenderness, into her face. In 
 common with most of the people about Half ont, Tom Collinson 
 did not consider Susan over-bright in her intellect, but he 
 fancied her to use his own language as he had never 
 fancied any woman during his whole three-and-twenty years of 
 life. A vagrant freak of the imagination, it must be confessed \ 
 Tom Collinson's tastes generally being of the earth earthy, 
 and Susan's face one for all save the most refined beholders to 
 pass over with careless notice. A delicately-modelled fore- 
 head, on which the dark hair rests in thick natural-curling 
 rings, a sensitive, full-cut mouth, a pair of grey eyes, to which 
 extreme short-sightedness lends almost the pathetic, un- 
 answering look of blindness what is there in this pallid 
 child's face to rouse the admiration of a man to whom ruddy 
 lips, and pink and white complexions, yes, and plenty of 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 animal life and audacity, have hitherto been the highest 
 ideal of feminine charms 1 Collinson put the question to 
 himself as he looked down on Susan's white, tear-stained 
 cheeks ; and the only answer that he could get was that 
 he did passsionately admire it ; more perhaps at this very 
 moment when the girl stood, shy and unwilling, and drawing 
 her little cold hand away from his, than he had done since he 
 first began to lose his head about her at all. The fact was a 
 fact, but inexplicable. (Save, indeed, on a favourite hypo- 
 thesis of the Vicar's : namely, that in the commonest, coarsest 
 natures there must exist some one fine instinct, some latent 
 affinity with superior sweetness and beauty, which it needs 
 but the right influence at the right moment to call forth. . . 
 But this is quite the last explanation of his folly that would 
 have offered itself to Tom Collinson's mind !) 
 
 " If you were to go a little more into company, I'm sure it 
 would do you good ; Eliza says so too. Now, why couldn't 
 you walk across the heath and take tea 'vith us sometimes ] 
 and I'd meet you and bring you back, only voo glad of the 
 chance. Oh ! I forgot " a distinct change was discernible in 
 Collinson's voice " I quite forgot ! You are too much taken 
 up with your grand lord of the manor set to care for Eliza 
 any more." 
 
 " You are very good," was Susan's hesitating answer, " and 
 so is Eliza. Now that the evenings are so long, I shouldn't 
 inind coming sometimes, if you're sure it would be no trouble 
 to you to walk back with me. You see the servants have 
 both gone to their new places, and I've only old Nancy Wicks, 
 from the Ffrench's lodge, to stay with me till the sale." 
 
 " Trouble ! very likely I should call it trouble to walk with 
 you," answered Collinson, coming a step nearer. " As if I 
 wouldn't like to walk with you every day of my life, if you 
 would let me ! Now this evening it's only just five o'clock- 
 why couldn't you come back with me this evening 1 We could 
 walk after tea to the firs I have heard you say you like 
 seeing the sunset from the firs ; and . . oh ! well. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 there's no sun to set, as it happens, but we should have the 
 walk just the same, and I I mean Eliza and I would bring 
 you back." He made this amendment in answer to the denial 
 that he saw was coming from the girl's lips. 
 
 " But I am going to spend this evening with the Ffrenches," 
 said Susan. " It's the first time I have ever been asked to 
 their house. Mr. Josselin, the gentleman Portia is going to 
 marry, will be there and and any other evening, you 
 know, I could walk with you and your sister." 
 
 . The blood rose on Tom Collinson's face. " Eliza and I, of 
 course, must wait until you have no better engagement ! " he 
 remarked, bitterly. " We couldn't for a moment hope to keep 
 you from such fine company as Mr. Josselin's ! But you 
 surprise me when you say this is the first time you have been 
 asked to the Ffrenches' house. I thought you and Portia 
 Ffrench were sworn friends'? called each other by your 
 Christian names, and the rest of it ] " 
 
 " Portia has been extremely kind to me," answered Susan, 
 warmly. " I had never spoken to any of the Ffrenches in my 
 life/ I suppose because papa and Colonel Ffrench both wanted 
 those willows on the river-bank but when I was in my 
 trouble old Miss Jemima brought Portia to see me, and I got 
 fond of her at once, and she told me I might call her Portia, 
 and sent me a photograph of herself next day. I haven't 
 seen so very much of her since." Susan's countenance fell as 
 she recalled the numberless days when she had stayed in- 
 doors, expecting her new friend in vain. " But then Portia 
 lias been paying a visit in London, and she is so much sought 
 after, and engaged to be married so soon how could she 
 have time to remember me ? " 
 
 " Portia Ffrench, if what folks say of her is true, remem- 
 bers precious little but her own pleasure," remarked Collinson, 
 savagely. His passion for Susan was sincere enough to render 
 him vaguely jealous already of every one she liked. "I hear 
 this last lover of hers is little better than a fool ; but, whate\ er he 
 is. I don't envy him his bargain. If Portia Ffrench wanted to 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 treat you as a friend and an equal, shewould never have gone 
 all these weeks without asking you inside their doors." 
 
 " Any one in mourning like mine doesn't look to be asked 
 out," said Susan. " The Ffrenches' house is always full of 
 company when Portia is at home, and Miss Jemima has too 
 much consideration to invite me among strangers. My being 
 asked there this evening is all a kind thought of Portia's. 
 To-day is my birthday, and she was resolved, she said, to give 
 me a great treat on it, and let me make Mr. Josselin's 
 acquaintance. I hope you will never say anything against 
 Portia again. It hurts me." 
 
 She got her hand resolutely from Collinson's as she spoke, 
 turned, and began to walk fast along the two hundred yards 
 of path which lay between the bridge and her home. Tom 
 Collinson turned too. After a minute "And so it's your 
 birthday; to-day ? " he began. " Don't be cross with me for 
 speaking against Portia Ffrench ! I can't bear the thought of 
 any one slighting you. What a fool Eliza must have been not 
 to tell me so ! Now, if I bring you something to-morrow 
 instead, will you take the will for the deed, and accept it as a 
 birthday present ? " 
 
 "I think you had much better not waste your money," said 
 Susan, half-displeased, half-relentant. " Papa never liked me 
 to take presents when he was alive." 
 
 " And you mean to go on in everything just according to his 
 old-fashioned ideas ! " cried Collinson, not, as you see, a man 
 of superdelicacy in thought or speech. 
 
 "If I can, I will," said Susan ; "though, to be sure, that 
 will be almost impossible, for he was clever and saw oh ! in 
 an instant what was right to do and what was wrong, and 
 never made a mistake, while I . . . ." 
 
 She stopped, her lips quivering. 
 
 " And you'll want some one to be at your elbow, and advise 
 you, and look after you, always," said Collinson, promptly. 
 " That's about what you'll want. You know you never could 
 go on living alone as you do now, Miss Susan." 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. n 
 
 "I know it very well," said Susan, shrinking, as every 
 word of Collinson' s seemed to have the power to make her 
 shrink. " Don't talk about it, please ; I've a fortnight left to 
 me of home. Time enough to talk about leaving when the 
 dreadful day comes. You don't know what home is to me how 
 awful the thought is of going away and living among strangers 
 in a strange place for the rest of my life ! " 
 
 " Well, home is home, be it ever so humble/' said Collinson, 
 glancing up contemptuously they were now close to Addison 
 Lodge at the stucco road-side villa, with its prim lawn and 
 fish-pond, and dusty summer-house, surmounted by a huge 
 weathercock that would have been in proportion on a church- 
 steeple, the Cockney villa which to Joseph Fielding's daughter 
 was the one abode worth living in on the earth. " But 
 I don't think you need look far to find a place just as good as 
 Addison Lodge 1 Now, Eliza's cottage " 
 
 "Mr. Collinson!" 
 
 " Oh ! well, small, I'll allow, but big enough for you two 
 little women to get on in. Why couldn't you come to us, 
 and you and Eliza set up housekeeping together, as you don't 
 particularly relish the thought of this French uncle you are to 
 go to 1 I was talking to Eliza about it this morning, 
 and " 
 
 " And I am sorry you wasted your time so much," inter- 
 rupted Susan, not without temper. " Uncle Adam, my 
 French uncle, as you call him, is the guardian papa appointed 
 for me, and he has offered me a home, and I shall live there 
 till I am an old woman, I dare say because it is my duty. 
 I want to keep house with no one. Eliza must know that 
 she and I would never get on together never ! I wish you 
 good-day, sir ! " 
 
 And before Tom Collinson could find time to collect his 
 ideas into a conciliatory speech, the garden-gate had opened 
 and shut, and Susan's small figure shot away behind the hollies 
 which, tortured into different varieties of pyramids and mon- 
 sters, stood on either side the entrance to Addison Lodge. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 The young man waited until he had caught one more 
 glimpse of her as she ran quickly up the steps before the 
 front door; then he took out a cigar, lit it, and, with his 
 hands thrust into his pockets, and a complacent smile on his 
 ruddy, good-looking face, set forth upon his homeward walk 
 across the heath. Susan breathed freer when, from the win- 
 dow of her own little room upstairs (helped by the spectacles 
 which, with no one by to see, she was not too shy to put on), 
 she watched him depart. That Tom Collinson could be in 
 love with her ; in love, as people are in books ; that his in- 
 trusive questions about her " lord of the manor friends," his 
 interest in her future prospects, could be prompted by any 
 deeper feeling than curiosity, the child was far from guessing. 
 He was Miss Collinson's brother, and at his sister's bidding, 
 doubtless, took the daily trouble of these long walks across 
 the heath to see how she was getting on. Still still there 
 was enough of her sex's nascent instinct in Susan's heart for 
 something in Tom Collinson's attention to frighten her. Every 
 time they met she was forced against her will to feel that, 
 while she liked him less, his kindness brought her more and 
 more into this man's power ! In her love-sheltered child's 
 world she had never, during her father's life, experienced the 
 feeling of positive dislike towards man or woman. As coldly 
 perhaps as it was possible for her to regard any human crea- 
 ture with whom she was constantly thrown, she had regarded 
 her governess, Miss Collinson, partly because her governess 
 was inseparable from French verbs, English grammar, and 
 sums (and in every branch of education Susan was alike 
 obtuse) ; but also from another unconfessed and still more 
 cogent reason. Miss Collinson, a faded, half-pretty little 
 spinster, under forty, had for, a great many years cherished 
 a subdued, not altogether hopeless fondness for Mr. Fielding, 
 and this fondness wholly unrecognized by its object Susan, 
 almost since she could remember anything, had divined. 
 She was too single-hearted, too thorough a child for any 
 secret fear of her father's making a second marriage to disturb 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 13 
 
 her happiness. The bare notion of Miss Collinson at his side, 
 of Miss Collinson filling the place of the dead mother in their 
 little household, would have been profanity to her ! What 
 she knew, what, with all a child's passionate jealousy, she 
 resented, was that Miss Collinson for ever, and in a hundred 
 small underhand ways, strove to please Mr. Fielding ; would 
 not gainsay him when he advanced opinions at directest 
 opposition to her own ; gave way without even the form of 
 contradiction to every eccentric crotchet about his daughter's 
 education ; worst crime of all, on days when she was certain 
 of his coming home early, would attempt such poor blandish- 
 ments in the way of personal adornment as her frugal ward- 
 robe could furnish forth. "As if papa so much as looks at 
 her ! " Susan would think, watching some oft-darned bit of 
 lace, some faded neck-ribbon of Miss Collinson's, with silent 
 jealous aversion. "As if he cares for any one looking nice 
 but me ! " 
 
 The child's nature was too really generous, and Miss 
 Collinson mildest of sentimental women ! too really inoffen- 
 sive for the feelings even to strengthen into one of more than 
 potential bitterness ; indeed, now that her father was gone, 
 now that she had seen Miss Collinson mourn for him dead as 
 sincerely as she had striven to win his affection living, Susan's 
 sensitive conscience reproached her for many a small wicked- 
 ness that jealousy had prompted her to commit in bygone 
 days. But, as regarded Miss Collinson's brother, her feelings 
 were widely different. Susan Fielding had no acquaintance 
 whatever, theoretically, with the words "vulgarity," or "good 
 breeding." Her father, a Brentford bookseller, clad in his 
 tradesman's black suit, abrupt of speech, unconventional of 
 manner, had to her been as much a gentleman as the old 
 Vicar in his fine silk stockings and cambric neckerchief, and 
 with his polished well-rounded sentences and courtly past- 
 century air. But in her heart was the instinct, the essence 
 of true gentle breeding immaterial essence which finishing- 
 Bchools, dancing-masters, and diligent study of books of 
 
14 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 etiquette fail sometimes to instil into the daughters of higher 
 commercial persons than Mr. Joseph Fielding ! And every- 
 thing Tom Collinson said, or did, or looked, came with a sort 
 of jarring shock to her nerves. He wore grand chains and 
 rings, but his hands were coarse ; and Susan's blind eyes saw 
 the coarse hands clearer than the good-looking face. He 
 loaded his handkerchief with bergamot. His clothes, smart 
 though their cut might be, were not accompanied by the 
 snow-white linen that it had been the pride of the little girl's 
 life to attend to, "as mamma used," for her father. And 
 then he stood so near her when he talked ; and it was always 
 so horribly palpaple, despite the bergamot, that he had been 
 smoking cheap cigars ; and he would hold her unwilling hand, 
 so infinitely longer than was necessary, in his own hot clasp 
 whenever he get the chance ! 
 
 " I don't like him, I shall never like him/' thought Susan, 
 as she stood and watched his short square figure disappear 
 across the bridge. "I suppose I should have more chance 
 of making friends if I could care for men and women like the 
 Collinsons, but I can't. I want a world full of people like 
 Portia, only" with a sigh, this "they mustn't all have 
 found a Mr. Josselin ! Ah, if I could meet some one hand- 
 some and graceful and good as she is, yet who would not be 
 above loving me ! Some one quite unlike poor Tom Collin- 
 son, of course yet who would watch, and wait, and take the 
 trouble about me that he does." 
 
 And then she fell into a day-dream a marvellously inno- 
 cent one ; the old Yicar and Tom Collinson were the only 
 men she knew to speak to in the world : but the day-dream 
 of a girl of seventeen for all that. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE Ffrenches' dinner-hour was six ; and by seven o'clock 
 Susan stood before her glass, " drest " for this first grand 
 dissipation of her life ! Her shock head of hair had been 
 duly wetted in the hope of making it smooth and neat, 
 thereby causing it to twine in more profuse little waving 
 rings than ever round her forehead ; her everyday stuff frock 
 was replaced by her Sunday one of silk and crape ; an old- 
 fashioned jet necklace, one of her mother's scanty stock of 
 trinkets, was clasped round her babyish white throat. 
 
 " I hope Portia won't be ashamed of me before Mr. Josse- 
 lin," she thought, looking close and with extremely distrustful 
 eyes at the charming little picture her glass gave back. " Papa 
 thought me pretty, but / don't ! I'm like no other girl living, 
 with my great eyes and odd hair ; and by Portia oh, by 
 Portia's side what shall I look like ! However, Mr. Josselin 
 won't trouble his head much about me, that's one comfort, and 
 Portia herself is too good and generous to mind my being"plain." 
 
 And then Susan ran downstairs, put on her scarlet garden- 
 cloak, and with its hood drawn close round her brown curls 
 a dearer little picture than before ran along the hundred 
 yards of high road that divided Addison Lodge from the gate 
 of Colonel Ffrench's avenue. A minute or two later she 
 found herself within the house, hitherto an inaccessible holy 
 of holies in her childish imagination ; with a beating heart 
 followed the majestic old butler, Jekyll, up a noiseless velvet- 
 carpeted staircase ; was sensible that a door opened, that she 
 was shown into a room full of light and colour and the 
 perfume of flowers ; and then then shyness and short sight 
 mingled got the better of her, and she stopped abruptly, a 
 confused singing in her ears, and a sense that twenty people 
 at least must be looking at her frightened face and rough 
 hair with pitying wonder ! 
 
j6 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 A note or two of subdued treble laughter broke on her eai 
 with welcome relief ; and, guided by the sound, she ran across 
 the room to an open balconied window where Portia Ffrench, 
 a gentleman by her side, was standing. 
 
 "We watched you up the road, my dear such a funny 
 little red-riding-hood as you looked ! " And Portia Ffrench 
 stooped and touched Susan's cheek with her lips. "Why 
 didn't you come sooner ? We have been expecting you this 
 age. Mr. George Blake, Miss Fielding. You must call her 
 Susan all the evening, mind. Young ladies, until they come 
 out, retain the privilege of being called by their Christian 
 names." 
 
 Mr. George Blake ! Susan looked up, startled, into the 
 face of this man with whom Portia was on such intimate 
 terms of easy familiarity, yet who was not Mr. Josselin not 
 Portia's lover. 
 
 " Yes, we expected you long ago," he said good-humouredly, 
 for Portia had told him Susan's story, and he believed her 
 to be, as she looked, a little girl of fifteen. l : We are going 
 out for a walk by the river by-and-by, and shall sadly need 
 a fourth, Susan. You are to be the fourth. You are to be 
 my companion, and I hope you mean to take care of me, 
 and amuse me the entire evening." 
 
 The tone of this speech was so kind, the shake of the hand 
 that accompanied it so hearty, that Susan's dimples began to 
 show themselves, a faint blush to overspread her cheeks. 
 
 " Ah ! but you mustn't frighten the poor child with fine 
 speeches," cried Portia, quickly. " Susan will not understand 
 you unless you call black, black, and white, white. She is not 
 worldly and artificial, and what was the other word 1 . . . 
 like the rest of us, you must remember." This with a little 
 imperious toss of the head, and carelessly moving so that her 
 own pure-cut profile was the contrast to which George Blake's 
 eyes turned from the irregular, childish beauty, if beauty it 
 could be said to possess, of Susan's face. 
 
 Portia Ffrench was a wonderfully handsome woman : she 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 17 
 
 was only one-and-twenty, yet it never occurred to you to think 
 of her, or speak of her, as a girl : finely-built, long of throat, 
 graceful ; the forehead somewhat too high, perhaps, for 
 fashion, but well carved and smooth as marble : the nose, 
 and upper lip, and chin, all without a fault. What a 
 noble, what a high-bred looking woman, you thought, the 
 first day you were introduced to her ! Then, when you had 
 watched the play of feature the delicate nostril, the small 
 curved mouth, so prodigal of smiles what charm, what 
 endless mobility of expression ! Then later (unless you 
 happened to have fallen over head and ears in love with 
 her meanwhile) your first opinion of Portia Ffrench changed 
 a little, and you thought if only the smiles were less prodigal ! 
 if the mouth, even at the expense of its perfect symmetry, 
 could grow passionate or tender ! if the coal-black eyes, the 
 least handsome feature of the face, could tell any story, good 
 or bad, concerning their possessor's soul ! Well, it was some 
 time before you got to this ; and the chances were, as I 
 hinted, that your reason was subjugated long before your first 
 admiration had had time to cool. At this instant, the soft 
 evening light resting on her jetty hair and deep-tinted Titian- 
 like face, it struck George Blake with sudden force that he had 
 never yet seen Teddy Josselin's betrothed look so handsome. 
 But then, this was a thought which on an average struck him 
 about four times an hour whenever he was in Portia's society ! 
 For George Blake was in love. As well tell a truth in three 
 words that three elaborate pages could tell no better ; a 
 truth which Susan, unsophisticated though she was, could 
 not be five minutes in the company of these two persons 
 without discovering. 
 
 " Grandpapa and Aunt Jemima will be here directly, 
 Susan. They are still over their port I mean their toast- 
 and-water. I shall introduce you to grandpapa as 'Susan/ 
 only, remember, grandpapa is so queer I mean he will like 
 you a great deal better if he doesn't know how near a neigh- 
 bour you have been all these years. Now, please, put away 
 
 c 
 
1 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 your terrified look." Susan had frozen within herself anew 
 at the awful thought of being introduced to old Colonel 
 Ffrench. "Take out your spectacles yes, this child wears 
 spectacles, Mr. Blake and assure yourself that there is no 
 one here but us, and that we are not very awe-inspiring 
 when you come to view us closely." 
 
 Perfectly obedient, Susan took out her glasses and held 
 them, but without putting them on, before her eyes already 
 she had a dim dread of being made to look ridiculous in 
 George Blake's sight. A long, country-house drawing-room, 
 all easy-chairs, and natural flowers, and open windows, Portia, 
 in her dainty dinner-dress, a tall man's figure standing by 
 Portia's side this was what she saw. 
 
 " I'm not frightened in the least, thank you," returning her 
 glasses to her pocket, " and I'm very glad no one else is here ; 
 only, you know, Miss Portia, you said I was to see Mr. 
 Josselin." 
 
 Portia laughed; one of the pleasantest laughs you ever 
 heard trilling, natural, yet full of sustained quality a laugh 
 to have made the fortune of an actress of manners, in the 
 days when actresses of manners existed. " Mr. Josselin ? Of 
 course you shall see Mr. Josselin, little Susan. Teddy ! 
 where are you ? Come not and be killed, but be looked at, 
 immediately why, I verily believe he is asleep again ! " 
 
 She moved across to the easiest chair the room contained,, 
 rested her hand on its back, and looked down, as one might 
 look at a pet cat, at something lazily curled up inside. 
 " Teddy ! do, if you can, arouse yourself, and come and 
 speak to Susan. I told you about Susan, you know well, she 
 is here, and wanting to see you." 
 
 " Dear little Susan, how good, how natural of her ! " said a 
 sleepy voice. " I like Susan already, now, for that very 
 what is it ? trait ; that is the word trait in her character. 
 But couldn't she be brought up here ? Are Susans like sylla- 
 bubs and cowslips, and everything beginning with an ' S ' 1 
 ISTo, cowslips don't begin with an l S/ but it's all the same. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 19 
 
 Are Susans you've put me out, child. I don't know what I 
 was going to say. The thread's broke." 
 
 " Are Susans always to be looked at in the open air ? 
 (When I am by, you need never mind losing the thread of a 
 discourse, however important, Teddy ! / know what is 
 coming.) As a rule, yes ; but in the present instance, no. 
 Miss Susan Fielding is standing about four yards distant from 
 you at this moment, and I am waiting, if you please, to 
 introduce you to her." 
 
 Upon this the curled-up figure rose languidly, and 
 advanced ; and Susan, for the first time in her life, saw the 
 picture of a real London dandy in evening dress. It was a 
 very finished picture of its kind ; and she looked at it 
 curiously, and with admiration ludicrously visible upon her 
 simple face. Portia watched her, well-pleased. These un- 
 hackneyed critics are often the ones most to be dreaded, and 
 Mr. Josselin was sufficiently one of Portia's personal pos- 
 sessions by this time for her to be jealous of the effect he 
 produced, even on the village perceptions of Susan Fielding. 
 
 "You two are to be great friends, remember. Shake 
 hands, Susan ; Mr. Josselin is not quite an ogre when you 
 know him better, although the first impression he gives is, I 
 must confess, of an ogreish and forbidding kind." 
 
 " Oh, I don't think so, I'm sure ! " cried Susan, eagerly. 
 " Quite the reverse." 
 
 At which remark, or at the sincerity of voice with which it 
 was uttered, George Blake laughed aloud. His was a delight- 
 fully hearty laugh, notwithstanding the hopeless malady 
 from which he suffered, and it broke forth abruptly, the 
 moment anything tickled his fancy, like a schoolboy's. 
 
 " I never had a thing like that said to me since I was born," 
 he cried. " If I had from lips like Susan's ! it would 
 flatter me so that I should look in the glass a dozen times a 
 day for a week to come, and you, who are satiated with 
 pretty speeches, get as many of them as you choose, Josselin. 
 The injustice of the world ! " 
 
 c2 
 
20 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Did I make a pretty speech 1 " said Susan, opening her 
 great eyes. " Oh ! I didn't mean it. I only meant .... 
 Portia knows what I meant." 
 
 " That Mr. Josselin is not absolutely like an ogre," finished 
 Portia, with a glance at her lover's boyish face. " Well, I am 
 very glad you think so, Susan ; and now let us all try to be 
 sociable, and to get to like each other, if we can." 
 
 She moved back to her place beside the open window, her 
 head brought negligently in contact with a drooping spray of 
 guelder roses (an admirable foil that sultry yellow to her clear 
 dark skin), and before a minute had passed was engrossed in 
 the one occupation in existence that cost her neither trouble 
 nor weariness ; running on, that is to say, with all manner of 
 airy nonsense to the man of whom she was sure, yet holding 
 captive some other poor wretch George Blake for the time 
 being by furtive looks, by plaintive little undertones, at her 
 side. 
 
 Susan stood, unnoticed of all three, and watched and 
 listened. What wit was Portia's, she thought, as subject after 
 subject it might be juster to say, person after person was 
 brought forward just sufficiently to receive a few of Portia's 
 off-handed, half -jesting, half -bitter strictures, then dismissed ! 
 What grace, what beauty ! How natural that these two men, 
 that all men, should be Portia's slaves ! And then she fell to 
 comparing the merits of the slaves themselves, trying to think, 
 if she were in Portia's place, which of the two she would smile 
 on most, or whether, like Portia, she would smile, doling out 
 short-lived hope and despair by turns on both ! 
 
 "I dare say I should smile equally on both," she decided, 
 after serious thought. " It must be so delightful to see people 
 waiting for one's words like that. Perhaps in reality I should 
 care for Mr. Josselin least, and yet he is so good-looking, and 
 has such a pretty manner, that I couldn't keep from liking 
 him in my heart. Oh, how pleasant Portia's life is ! How 
 different they both are to Tom Collinson ! " 
 
 And in her journal that night a journal in which the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 21 
 
 number of fish her father had caught in the canal, or the way 
 she had shirked an exercise, or her sensations on first wearing 
 a trained skirt, had hitherto been the kind of matter recorded 
 by Susan the two portraits were thus sketched : 
 
 " Portia's lover her real lover, I mean is the prettiest 
 man I ever saw. I got to feel at my ease with him after- 
 wards ; but when he first spoke to me my breath seemed 
 almost taken away, he looked so bsautiful. He wore a coat 
 with white silk trimmings, and a lily of the valley and rose- 
 bud, and beautiful embroidery over pink insertion, and shoes 
 such as I never saw before, and silk stockings. Altogether he 
 made me think of those court gallants in Charing Cross who 
 separated Alice and Fenella from Julian. His pocket- 
 handkerchief was fine cambric, worked in the corners ; his 
 hair was parted like a girl's. He made me laugh a great deal, 
 and yet, when I come to think of it, I can't particularly re- 
 member anything he said. I thought he smiled more to show 
 his white teeth than because he was much amusel himself. 
 When he winked his blue eyes, he winked so slowly that I 
 always thought he must be going to sleep. Portia seems fond 
 of him, and yet to like to laugh at him, which I dorit under- 
 stand. Mr. George Blake has a dark serious face, something 
 like the frontispiece of Oliver Goldsmith. He has no pretty 
 ways like Mr. Josselin, and was dressed as other men dress. 
 Although, of course, he thought of nothing but Portia (for I 
 am afraid he is in love with her too), Mr. Blake was so kind 
 to me, and walked home with me, and ..'.." here three or 
 four words were diligently obliterated . . . . " and spoke of 
 papa as if he had known him." 
 
 And then, in a line by itself, carefully written and under- 
 stroked, this confession : "/ like Mr. Blake" 
 
22 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT the end of another quarter of an hour old Colonel 
 Ffrench and his sister came up to the drawing-room. 
 Susan started round at the sound of the opening door, all 
 her shyness returning at the thought of being in the awful 
 presence of Colonel Ffrench, and Portia, a world of graceful 
 protection in her manner, led the little girl across the room 
 to her grandfather. " Here is Susan, grandpapa my friend, 
 Susan. To-day is her birthday, and this is her first visit 
 to Halfont Manor." 
 
 It was a plan devised by Portia and Miss Jemima that 
 Susan's surname should be withheld from Colonel Ffrench, 
 the greatest misery of whose self-centered life had during 
 a long course of years arisen from the litigations and 
 lawyer's letter of Joseph Fielding. " Susan . . . . ? I beg 
 your pardon, my dear, but I did not catch your other name 
 poor Portia speaks so indistinctly. I am very glad to see 
 you at Halfont, very glad. Jemima, will you see that some of 
 the windows, indeed, that all the windows, are closed ? Our 
 little friend looks delicate. We must not allow her to stand 
 in this thorough draught." 
 
 Miss Jemima ran dutifully and shut all the windows ex- 
 cept Portia's, with winch she dared not interfere ; Colonel 
 Ffrench seated himself with difficulty for he was a martyr 
 to rheumatic gout by the fire. Susan stood close at his 
 side, too frightened to get away, trying to reconcile to her 
 senses the fact that this bland old gentleman, with his soft 
 slow voice, and good-natured manner to herself, could indeed 
 be Dicky Ffrench her father's enemy, the wicked lord of 
 the manor of whom even the co'.tagers spoke in a certain 
 tone and with a certain shake of the head, implying that 
 more was known of Dicky Ffrench than was good to repeat ! 
 Could this be the man who had married two rich wives and 
 
FIELDING. 23 
 
 gambled away tlie fortunes of each. ? Glancing at his delicate 
 well-shaped old hands, Susan could not but remember, 
 with a shudder, the popular misgiving regarding the sudden- 
 ness of those wives' deaths ! The man who in his youth had 
 been a duellist, in his middle age a gambler, and who now 
 his sons, it was whispered, working as common labourers in 
 the colonies ; old Miss Jemima, Portia, dependent upon him 
 had sunk the last remnant of his riches in an annuity for 
 the sake of an extra two or three per cent, of income ] 
 
 " Our tumble-down place here is tolerably pleasant in the 
 spring, my dear," he remarked, looking up with kindly 
 courtesy at the shy, embarrassed little girl what a hand- 
 some old face it was !. Portia's features and jet-black eyes, 
 set off, as if by powder, by his well-preserved silver-grey hair. 
 There are too many of those high elms about us for health, 
 and we hear the working of the powder-mills a great deal 
 more distinctly than is pleasant ; but a poor man and I 
 am a very poor man, Susan cannot always choose his resi- 
 dence. This little Halfont box is the only place belonging 
 to me now." 
 
 " I I should call yours a very large place, sir," said Susan, 
 struggling between her terror at speaking at all and the be- 
 wilderment she felt at hearing the manor and its grand old 
 elms, yes, and the powder-mills themselves, disparaged. If 
 these things were of small account, what was Addison Lodge 1 
 " I suppose it's larger than anything in Halfont, even the 
 Vicarage r ( " she added, with an appealing look in the direc- 
 tion of Miss Jemima. 
 
 " That is right, my dear little . . . Sarah 'I " 
 
 " Susan, sir." 
 
 " Susan, to be sure poor Portia speaks so indistinctly 
 quite right, Susan. Always make people contented with what 
 they possess : I try to be contented myself. We grow perforce 
 to be philosophers, as we get old, my dear. Mine is the 
 largest house in the parish, and has some pretty grounds 
 around it, as Portia would show you if the evening were 
 
24 S&SAN FIELDING. 
 
 not so damp. JSTow, from these windows, the side windows 
 especially, we have a charming peep of the river, so we call 
 our little canal ; and in a week or two we shall have a 
 better one. There are a couple of willows I have been 
 trying to get down for the last dozen years, but a can- 
 tankerous fellow next door " 
 
 "Susan, Susan dear, come and talk to me, and I'll tell 
 you all about it," interrupted old Miss Jemima, quickly. 
 " Don't you see your paper, brother 1 ?" and she drew a little 
 table, his glasses, and the Times, to Colonel Ffrench's side. 
 " Now, I know you want to reaJ. last night's debate, and not 
 be troubled by us. Susan, come and help me pour out the 
 tea. We shall have it cold as usual if we wait until Portia 
 remembers her duties." 
 
 Saying which, Miss Jemima led Susan away to the farthest 
 and pleasantest window in the room, a window overlooking 
 the lawn and flower-garden, not the canal ; then by a kind 
 squeeze of the hand, a whispered, " You must not heed my 
 brother, child; we old people are crusty, and need forbear- 
 ance ! " managed to charm away the child's indignation 
 indignation which even the dreadful presence of Colonel 
 Ffrench himself would not have restrained had the subject of 
 the willow-fence been allowed to progress. 
 
 Dear Miss Jemima kindliest of all kindly hearts if cus- 
 tom did not forbid our interest in a heroine of sixty-five, did 
 not imperatively exact that lovers, marriage, and again lovers 
 should fill nine-tenths of every three volumes, what a pleasant 
 task it would be to write the story of your life ! "I have 
 brought up fourteen children," Miss Jemima would say, not 
 without a flush of maternal vanity, " five of one generation, 
 nine of the next, and I have lived in all climates, and have 
 nursed people in yellow fever and cholera, and been under fire 
 twice. And now I have the charge of Portia ! " This with 
 a shake of the head, implying that the most onerous post of 
 her life had, as indeed she felt to be the case, been reserved 
 for the last. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 25 
 
 At twenty years old Jemima Ffrench, as ready, it may be 
 assumed, for her own share of life's sweets as other young 
 women of that age, had been suddenly called upon to take the 
 place of mother to a nursery full of motherless little boys and 
 girls, her brother Eichard's children. Colonel Ffrench was in the 
 Guards, a man of fashion and pleasure, at the time of his first 
 wife's death no violent death, poor lady ! as Halfont gossip 
 would whisper, but a gentle, not wholly unwilling one, with a 
 little face a fortnight old beside her on the pillow ! And the 
 management of the whole household, as of the nursery, fell 
 at once upon his sister's shoulders. 
 
 To ward off ultimate ruin from a man leading the life 
 Richard Ffrench then lived, was as much beyond Jemima's 
 power as it had been beyond the power of the neglected wife 
 who now, happily for herself, lay in her grave. All she could 
 do was to check the tradesmen's bills, dismiss such servants 
 as she caught in flagrant and open robbery, and love the 
 children. The small economies in domestic management, the 
 dismissal occasionally of dishonest servants, could do little 
 for the fortunes of a house the master of which would lose 
 a thousand pounds of a night at Crockford's. But love for 
 the children, love for five small human beings, to whom 
 " Aunt Jem " was to be the one tender recollection of after 
 life, the father and mother of an else unloved childhood, who 
 shall over-estimate the value of this % 
 
 Struggling in vain against ever-increasing debt ; fighting 
 at heroic odds against cooks and butlers ; nursing babies 
 through teething, hooping-cough, and scarlatina ; sending 
 small boys, with tears, to school ; taking them to pantomimes 
 and Astley's during the holidays ; in these employments 
 Jemima's youth passed by. When Colonel Ffrench had been 
 a widower some dozen years he married again, through his 
 second wife's fortune saving himself, as by miracle, from the 
 crash of absolute ruin, and Jemima was wanted no more. 
 Her children with true maternal jealousy she thanked Heaven 
 for this her children were no longer of an age to be dependent 
 
26 St/SAW FIELDING. 
 
 on a stepmother's care. The eldest one, a daughter, was 
 already married ; the four lads were public-school boys ; all 
 could get on without her now. And quite cheerfully, without 
 a spoken regret for the youth that had blossomed, faded, and 
 brought no fruit to herself, Jemima prepared to settle down 
 into the grey, niQiiotonous twilight of an old maid's life. Her 
 parents were both dead, her means small ; smaller from the 
 numberless little loans, a hundred at a time, that Richard 
 had incurred and forgotten ; but she would be able, she 
 thought, to take a modest house, not so far from London but 
 that the boys could run down and visit her in the holidays, 
 yet sufficiently far for it to be a nice change whenever any- 
 body, the boys, or her niece, or her niece's babies, might 
 happen to need country air. 
 
 Loneliness, however, fortunately for others, was not Jemima 
 Ffrench's destined portion. Colonel Efrench's daughter, Mrs. 
 Elliot, had, three years before, made what her friends generally, 
 her father most of all, deplored as a wretched marriage, her 
 husband being a young man of spirit and character whom the 
 girl loved devotedly, but who possessed barely more than his 
 soldier's pay for her support. And six weeks after Colonel 
 Ffrench's second marriage just when Jemima's mind was 
 torn by the conflicting merits of a farm-house near Tunbridge, 
 a nutshell at Bayswater, and a ten-roomed house (said to be 
 haunted, and therefore let cheap) at Teddington Captain 
 Elliot wrote and proposed that, instead of attempting separate 
 housekeeping, she should throw in her lot with theirs, for a 
 twelvemonth at least. His Lucy was ailing, he wrote, and 
 the children and constant moving were too much for her. If 
 Aunt Jemima had not been overdosed with nursery already, 
 and could stand a roughish soldier life, all wandering and no 
 home, how grateful they would both be for her presence ! 
 
 It was not without regret that Jemima gave up her project 
 of setting up her own household gods. She really did feel 
 that she would like a little respite from nursery cares ; still 
 more to possess a place which " the boys " could look upon as 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 27 
 
 home if they chose. Still this call to go to poor helpless 
 Lucy and her babies seemed too definite a duty for her to 
 hesitate long about accepting it. Her house-hunting was 
 given up ; her luggage reduced to regulation compass ; and 
 at the end of a fortnight Jemima found herself in barracks 
 at Corfu at the age of thirty-three beginning the charge of 
 another family, only with the additional one of a delicate 
 grown-up baby added thereto, and with perpetually shifting 
 foreign quarters, instead of Colonel Ffreiich's comfortable 
 London house for her home. 
 
 The visit began for a twelvemonth, and lasted more than 
 sixteen years. Children were born, had to be tended (once 
 or twice died) in such quick succession as to efface .... no, 
 I will not say that, but gently to wear away the remembrance 
 of those first forsaken little ones in whose Grosvenor Square 
 nursery Jemima's youth had been passed. She got letters at 
 intervals from them all. Not one of those four nephews from 
 whom she was parted but felt that at every turn of fortune, 
 good or bad and with Colonel Ffrench's sons it was mostly 
 bad Aunt Jem's was the sympathy to turn to, sympathy that 
 no number of years could estrange or chill. And over these 
 letters Jemima shed tenderest mother's tears ; returning, if it 
 were possible, a bank note or money order, or, if the Elliots' 
 exigencies had drained her purse too dry for that, an answer 
 worth more than money to the scapegrace boys they always 
 remained " boys " to Jemima for whose worst misdeeds her 
 only feelings were those of pity. Still her heart, perforce, 
 clung warmest to the children of the younger generation 
 children born in every quarter of the world, and to whom 
 "Aunt," not the delicate little white lady on the sofa, was 
 indeed mother. 
 
 As years went by, and as Elliot rose in rank, the hand-to- 
 hand struggle with poverty of Lucy's early married life of 
 course lessened ; but never Jemima's duties. It was necessary 
 twice during a term of foreign service lasting nearly twenty 
 years (for Elliot's scanty means compelled him to exchange 
 
28 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 whenever the battery to which he belonged was ordered home) 
 that Mrs. Elliot, with detachments of children, should visit 
 England for health's sake ; once from Mauritius, once from 
 India. And each time Jemima no climate hurt Jemima 
 remained behind. In Mauritius she gained her experience of 
 yellow fever ; in India, of cholera ; also of the sensation of 
 being under fire. But never did this fine old soldier's courage 
 flag, or her spirit droop. Stories that would fill a volume are 
 told still of Miss Jemima Ffrench by grey-headed veterans 
 whom a quarter of a century ago she nursed in fever, or 
 cheered through weary convalescence only, as I said before, 
 what writer dare take a lady of sixty-five for his heroine 1 
 At last, to use her own words, she got " promoted to general's 
 rank, and was laid upon the shelf." Lucy's husband left the 
 service, the death, of his father, together with the pension, 
 giving him at length sufficient means to live in England, and 
 Jemima Ffrench, at fifty years of age, was a free agent once 
 more. 
 
 Her ideal of happiness for the remainder of her days had 
 certainly now been to live with the Elliots in their pleasant 
 Devonshire cottage, and with her children of the second genera- 
 tion growing into tall men and women round her. But, no , 
 there was some one still to be nursed ; this time a baby of 
 threescore, with rheumatism, gout, and selfishness, instead of 
 the pains of teething, to make him fractious ! In a charmingly- 
 worded fraternal letter and no man living wrote prettier 
 letters Colonel Ffrench pointed out to Jemima how her 
 plainest duty was to spend the remainder of her days with him. 
 "The young want us no longer," he wrote. " We are the last 
 leaves left on the old branch. Let us flutter together while our 
 little days last, and fall side by side ! " And then followed 
 such a picture of his maladies and his loneliness and poverty 
 his second wife had long ago died childless as dissipated 
 whatever doubts about duty still lingered in Jemima's mind. 
 The Devonshire cottage, with its bright young faces and cheer- 
 ful atmosphere of home and love, was given up, and replaced 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 29 
 
 by Halfont Manor ! a damp-stained, sunless house, with, no 
 young voice, no young step to break its silence, and with her 
 brother, a querulous, sick, disappointed old man of the world, 
 for sole companion. 
 
 But wherever the good sun shines, he fructifies ; wherever 
 Miss Jemima went, love sprang up beneath her feet- 
 Colonel Ffrench " Dicky Ffrench of the Manor " was dis- 
 Uked by every man, woman, and child in the parish of 
 Halfont. He was known to have been a gambler, a spend- 
 thrift, a duellist, a faithless husband, a cold father ; and, that 
 this little catalogue of ill-doing might be neatly rounded off, 
 the Halfont gossips liked to inquire in a whisper whether it 
 was known of what disease the lord of the manor's two wives 
 had suddenly died ? He was weakly ease-loving ; like all weak 
 men, would break out occasionally into fierce raids against the 
 persons who grew fat upon his weakness ; so even the Halfont 
 school-children were taught to regard him askance, as the old 
 tyrant who, on any fine morning, would wake and turn half 
 the servants he possessed adrift upon the world ! Unlike his 
 neighbour, Joseph Fielding, Colonel Ffrench went regularly to 
 church when his bodily infirmities allowed him ; and a much 
 better sign, the Halfont people would have held it, had he 
 stayed away ! The atheist bookseller at least was honest ; 
 acted up to what he professed ! To see Dicky Ffrench's face, 
 the imperturbable old face, with its high-bred air of rever- 
 ential attention, in the house of God ; to have to kneel with 
 Dicky Ffrench before the altar at Easter a season at which 
 the old gentleman made it a point of duty to receive the sacri- 
 ment was, to the moral sense of Halfont, something very 
 little short of positive sacrilege ! 
 
 .... But wherever the sun of a warm heart shines, 
 human hearts respond to it. Miss Jemima came, every soul 
 in the village prejudiced against her as Dicky Ffrench's sister, 
 and before three months were over had made to herself friends 
 of them all. She had not means to give much in substantial 
 charity among the poor ; and no argument could change 
 
30 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Colonel Ffrench's opinions as to the vanity of almsgiving; 
 but she had enough to buy calico and flannel, and time to 
 make them into baby clothes time to sit up with the sick, to 
 stand by women in their hour of anguish, to mourn with those 
 who mourned ! And soon her fine old figure became as well 
 known and as welcome among the Halfont cottage wives as it 
 had been abroad among the bearded occupants of barrack-rooms 
 and hospitals in days gone by. 
 
 "If I had only something to care for at home ! " Miss 
 Jemima would think during the first year of her changed 
 life, "I could be happy. If everything young wasn't out- 
 side the house, and only Eichard and me, with our com- 
 plaints and our old age, within ! " She contrived occasionally 
 to get some of the Elliot's children to visit her ; but could 
 rarely prevail upon them to stay out the time for which they 
 were invited. Children shrank away instinctively from 
 Colonel Ffrench's presence. Grandpapa did not like whistling 
 or singing, or disturbance of any sort ; and the old Manor, 
 with its stately butler, its dull gardens and silence, seemed, in 
 spite of Aunt Jem, a poor place after the homely Devonshire 
 cottage where mother minded no noise, and father had his 
 boat and workshop, and where nobody scolded or dressed for 
 dinner, or reminded one, by any chance whatever, about one's 
 manners ! 
 
 So the Elliots' visits waxed fewer, and Colonel Ffrench 
 grew more and more averse to children, and Miss Jemima was 
 beginning to realize that one old life was indeed all she would 
 have to care for more in this world, when suddenly. . . . 
 Portia came into her hands her great-niece Portia, who in 
 her own small person possessed more mischief-power than all 
 the fourteen children Miss Jemima had brought up ; Portia, 
 whom she would not only have to look after as a child, but 
 chaperon and rule Heaven save the mark ! as a grown-up 
 young lady on her entrance to the. world. 
 
 " I can scarcely believe that I really am to lose her at last/' 
 Miss Jemima whispered, as Susan's eyes for ever wandered, in 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 3* 
 
 their blindness, towards the window where Portia was standing. 
 " There has been a talk so often before of Portia's marrying, 
 and now " 
 
 " Now, ma'am ? " Susan ventured to say, as old Miss 
 Ffrench hesitated. 
 
 "Well, now, it is impossible not to feel that she has 
 chosen the wrong man. I don't mind saying so to you, 
 Susan, for I know how fond you are of Portia. Teddy is a 
 nice little fellow, poor lad ! upright and honourable, I do 
 believe, under all that foolish exterior, but not the husband 
 for Portia. I've often wondered," went on Miss Jemima, 
 "and I'm sure I have never yet made up my mind, who 
 ivould be the husband for Portia ! " 
 
 "The man she loved, I should think," said Susan, without 
 a moment's hesitation. 
 
 " Ah ! perhaps so," answered Miss Jemima, with rather a 
 doubtful shake of the head. " But then, the next question is, 
 ' Could Portia love anybody ? ' Portia is a Dysart, poor child ! 
 That is a circumstance, Susan, that one never must forget. 
 Portia is a Dysart" 
 
 Susan was silent. The incompatibility of loving with 
 being a Dysart was a mystery beyond her grasp. 
 
 "Portia is a Dysart, heart and soul," went on Miss Ffrench, 
 " and Teddy, in his feebler way, is a Dysart. They are first 
 cousins, Susan. The late Earl of Erroll had two daughters, 
 one of whom married a Josselin, the other my poor nephew, 
 Harry ; and how two Dysarts are to get on and stand up- 
 right 
 
 "Aunt ! " cried out Portia's animated voice, " I know from 
 the way you shake your head that you are talking about me 
 or Teddy, or both of us ! Now, confess ! " She moved across 
 the room to the tea-table, George Blake following as if mag- 
 netically drawn, and Teddy slowly sauntering behind. " Con- 
 fess you have been poisoning Susan's mind against us ! Now, 
 the truth, Miss Ffrench." 
 
 She came close to Miss Jemima's side, stooped> smoothed 
 
SUSAN FIJZLDING. 
 
 the old lady's grey hair on her forehead ; then, with the prettiest 
 little mock- Abigail air, set her cap straight on her head. "Aunt 
 Jemima insists upon a certain Watteau-like fashion of wearing 
 her cap on one side, Susan, and I disapprove of it. Now, 
 Mr. Blake you have an artist's eye I appeal to you. 
 Does not Miss Ffrench look better with her cap straight, as 
 I have put it, than in her usual flowing and dishevelled 
 style?" 
 
 " I think Miss Ffrench looks well always," said George 
 Blake. " When I look at Miss Ffrench, the fashion of her 
 cap is the last thing that I should remember." 
 
 A faint colour rose on Miss Jemima's cheek. At sixty-five 
 she still loved a compliment as well as a girl of seventeen. 
 " Ah, Portia, you see you are not the only person who has 
 pretty things said to them ! Portia won't believe me, Mr. 
 Blake, when I tell her that I am handsomer than she is." 
 
 "But I swear that you are, a hundred times handsomer," 
 said Teddy, who by this time had mastered the difficulty of 
 crossing the room. " You have better eyes oh yes, Portia, 
 you must hear the truth sometimes and a fairer skin, and are 
 a handsomer woman altogether. Now, Susan/' he sank 
 down into a low chair, not by Portia, but between Susan and 
 old Miss Ffrench, " Susan at her age is sure to speak the 
 truth. Which of the Miss Ffrenches do you think the 
 handsomest 1 don't be afraid." 
 
 Susan glanced across at Portia, then looked up straight in 
 Miss Jemima's face. Not in its fairest days could that face 
 have been handsome, still less pretty. It possessed none of 
 the hereditary good looks of the Ffrenches. The graceful 
 turn of head, the pure-cut profile, both were wanting ; and 
 the mouth was large, and the eyes were commonplace grey, 
 not black. But it was a sweet, fine old face to look at, not- 
 withstanding. In spite of Indian suns, and the wear and tear 
 of her soldier's life, some inalienable bloom of youth seemed 
 to have clung to the cheek that so many little lips had kissed ; 
 some inalienable gaiety of heart gave the eyes and brow a 
 
SUSAIV FIELDING. 33 
 
 lightness that Portia, with all the beauty of her one-and- 
 twenty years, did not possess. 
 
 " Susan can't make up her mind," cried the girl ; " or is too 
 much afraid of you, Aunt Jem, to say. So we will look upon 
 the question as settled. You are far handsomer, and have 
 a great many more people in love with you than I can ever 
 hope for. What a fearful trouble it would be, by the way, to 
 have people really, heavily in love with one ! I know nothing 
 about it practically, but I should think affairs of that kind, 
 taken seriously, would make life insupportable." 
 
 She gave a careless glance at Teddy, who, from the force 
 of habit rather than malice aforethought, was beginning to 
 look with soft eyes at his little neighbour, to whisper pretty 
 speeches in her ear as he helped her pour out the cream. 
 
 " Don't interrupt us, Portia. Susan and I are so happy, 
 and after tea we are going to listen to the nightingale. For 
 people in the spring of life, like us, nothing is worse than to 
 be forced to listen to these cynical opinions of the world. A 
 serious passion a trouble ! You should have seen the Dor- 
 mouse at Sheldon's house last night." 
 
 " What ! with Laura Wynne \ " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Ah ! that is an exceptional case. A dozen years* differ- 
 ence in age, and all on the lady's side, may give a pleasant 
 sub-acid flavour to love-making that we, in our blase youth, 
 know nothing about." 
 
 Miss Jemima set down the tea-pot with a start. " Portia," 
 she exclaimed, " that is one of the most shocking speeches I 
 ever heard you make ! You, in your blase youth, indeed ! 
 you are obliged to use a foreign word for what you dare not 
 say in English and comparing yourself for a moment to 
 Laura Wynne ! You seem to forget, child, that Mrs. Wynne 
 is a married woman." 
 
 " Don't heat yourself, aunt (please throw open the window, 
 Ted if you do it softly grandpapa will never be the wiser 
 thanks), and don't be unreasonable. Can I help it that poor 
 
 D 
 
34 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Laura is married, and that the Dormouse is a dozen years 
 younger than herself ] " 
 
 "You can help speaking of such people, Portia. When 
 I was a girl no decorous young woman ever appeared aware 
 of of conduct like Mrs. Wynne's," said Miss Jemima., 
 blushing. 
 
 "Decorous young women must walk about the world in 
 blinkers if they would not appear aware of conduct like Mrs, 
 Wynne's now ! " cried Portia. " Depend upon it, Aunt Jem, 
 as I often tell you, the only difference between successive 
 generations is that hypocrisy is rather more in fashion at 
 one time than at another." 
 
 " Heaven help the age when hypocrisy was more in fashion 
 than at present ! " remarked Mr. Blake, under his voice. 
 
 " Oh ! of course you say that," said Portia, turning upon 
 him quickly. " It is part of your profession. Mr. Blake is 
 an author author and artist, Susan ! I didn't like to frighten 
 you by saying so sooner." 
 
 "The celebrated author of a novel called 'Ixion,'" added 
 Teddy Josselin, twisting the ends of his fair little moustache 
 into finer needle-points. At which remark George Blake gave 
 a kind of groan. 
 
 "And naturally, as a writer," went on Portia, "supports 
 the popular fiction about the rapid pace of to-day surpassing 
 the pace of all the yesterdays there have been in the world. 
 What would become of smart young essayists if they had no 
 frisky matrons, no girls of the period to write about ? " 
 
 " Writers, at all events, could not write about such things 
 unless they existed," said good Miss Jemima, in her innocence. 
 "If, instead of reading satires upon yourselves, which make 
 you worse than before, you young people would improve your 
 minds with the solid standard literature of the past, how much 
 better it would be for you ! " 
 
 " You dear, good, believing old aunt ! " cried Portia, with 
 the frank impertinence that sat so well upon her. "How 
 often am I to tell you that that faith of yours in standard 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 35 
 
 literature is a mistake 1 I read half through, the ' Spectator ' 
 a little time ago, to please Aunt Jemima, Mr. Blake, and 
 what did I find] Proposals of a Fair for marriage; com- 
 plaints against hoops and mantuas ; accounts of the Komping 
 Club, of the dissection of a Beau's head, and of a Coquette's 
 heart ! After this I went through a course of Miss Austen. 
 Has any one here read * JSTorthanger Abbey 'I ' and can any 
 depiction of modern young ladies outdo that of Catharine and 
 Isabella pursuing 'the gentlemen' in Milsom Street, then 
 driving out with them, unchaperoned, in gigs 'I The fact is, 
 the world has always been divided into two classes people 
 who amuse themselves, people who don't ; and those who 
 don't, very naturally, poor wretches, abuse those who do ! " 
 
 Portia tossed off this generalization with the easy assurance 
 that characterized her; and seemed to consider the subject 
 exhausted. 
 
 " I know nothing about the ' Spectator ' or the other fellow. 
 
 Something Abbe", wasn't it, Portia ? " remarked Teddy. 
 
 " For I am thankful to say I never read " Teddy Josselin 
 said this with some natural pride "unless when any very 
 dear friend writes a book. If the statements of a novel called 
 * Ixion ' are to be relied upon, and a sense of duty has made 
 me read the work carefully, old Eome at its worst was a 
 Garden of Eden compared to London now." 
 
 "But then," said Portia, trifling with her teaspoon, "has 
 the author of * Ixion ' ever penetrated beyond the servants' 
 hall, nay, the scraper, of the aristocratic mansions where his 
 scenes are laid?" The measured way she spoke evidently 
 marked the sentence as a quotation. 
 
 "Has this miserable witling," added Teddy in the same 
 tone, "this grovelling impostor, this libeller of everything 
 good and noble in human nature, ever calculated upon the 
 evil which even the spurious malignity of a peri like his may 
 have the power to effect ] " 
 
 " Miss Ffrench," interrupted George Blake, turning to old 
 Miss Jemima, " I throw myself upon your compassion ! I 
 
 D 2 
 
36 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 have, as you know, written a novel the very worst novel, I 
 should say, ever written in any language and this fellow, 
 Josselin, and, I am sorry to add, your niece, have learnt the 
 different criticisms upon it by heart, so as to torture me at any 
 time when their spirits want that kind of stimulant. Is this 
 fair 1 " 
 
 "No, indeed/' said Miss Jemima, seriously. " Portia, it is 
 not at all pretty of you to behave so. I remember a dear 
 sister of my own wrote a novel her name was Rosamunda, 
 Mr. Blake and the novel was called after her, ' Rosamunda, 
 or the Sufferings of Virtue.' It was published by subscription, 
 and in the family we always attributed Rosa's early death to 
 the heartless attack made upon her book by the ' Hampshire 
 Gazette.' My father, it was afterwards remembered, had not 
 employed the editor's son, a worthy young man in his way, to 
 new-glaze the greenhouse. You should never wound an 
 author's feelings, Portia. I read 'Ixion' through, without 
 missing a word, Mr. Blake, and thought the last volume ex- 
 tremely pathetic. When they are all weeping round round 
 I can't remember names but the bad young gentleman's 
 deathbed, I was fool enough, I assure you, to shed genuine 
 tears." 
 
 " Thank you, Miss Ffrench, thank you," said the author. 
 " Yours, I am quite sure, were the only tears shed over 'Ixion,' 
 unless, indeed, I wept with shame over it myself." 
 
 " And would be still more valuable if aunt did not weep so 
 copiously over everything," said Portia, as she rose from the 
 tea-table ; " unfortunately, not only bad young gentlemen's 
 deathbeds, but all deathbeds, and all railway accidents yes, 
 and Bishops' letters, and Royal speeches anything about 
 death, or that contains fine, long, puffed-out sentences, makes 
 Aunt Jem cry ! Now, who is for the garden ? You and 
 Susan are going to listen to the nightingale, Teddy. Mr. 
 Blake, do you feel in the least inclined to take care of me ? " 
 
 She put her hand as she spoke under Susan's arm such a 
 contrast as they made, as Portia knew they made ! her own 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 tall figure in its graceful London dress ; the little village girl 
 in her black frock, fashioned by a Halfont milliner then, 
 followed by the two young men, left the drawing-room. 
 
 " Portia 1 Portia ! " cried old Colonel Ffrench, waking up 
 from his newspaper, " it is much too chilly for you to venture 
 out. All this opening and shutting of doors fills the house 
 with damp air. I must really put my veto upon your going 
 further than the billiard-room." 
 
 " Oh ! very well, grandpapa, no further than the billiard- 
 room," Portia answered ; then tripped downstairs, and straight- 
 way through the hall, without hat or cloak, into the garden. 
 "Obedience is not one of the cardinal virtues in my code," 
 she remarked, turning round with a repentant look to George 
 Blake. 
 
 " Nor truth-telling, either," added Teddy Josselin. " Come 
 away with me, Susan. Portia is going to confess her sins, 
 and you and I will listen to the nightingale." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THEKE were no nightingales to listen to ; nevertheless it was a 
 right pleasant evening for loitering through old-fashioned 
 garden shades like those of Halfont Manor ; the idle wash of 
 the canal to lull one's senses, a congenial companion at one's 
 side. The leaden clouds of the afternoon had parted above 
 an amber sunset ; the early roses smelt sweet ; the rooks were 
 cawing jovially in the high elms and Susan, as she walked 
 along by Teddy Josselin, could not but feel that the world 
 was a much more endurable world than it had seemed when 
 Tom Collinson joined her on the bridge that afternoon. 
 For the first time for months she found herself laughing 
 aloud at such infinitely small jokes, too, as those of Teddy 
 Josselin ! Her fingers no longer twitched with shyness as 
 they rested on his arm. The colour deepened in her cheeks, 
 
33 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 until Teddy began to decide that Portia's village friend was 
 really a very pretty girl indeed, also that he might as well 
 begin a flirtation with her in earnest, and without delay. 
 
 " Let us make ourselves happy under the cedars, Susan 
 .... oh, Portia and Blake are miles away by this time, you 
 needn't look after them. My maxim is, never exert yourself 
 after the unknown when the present moment is pleasant. 
 And our present moment i? very pleasant don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 He stopped ; took both Susan's hands ; made her sit down 
 on a little rustic bench upon the lawn ; then sank into an 
 American rocking-chair Portia's special property close be- 
 side her. The evening light slanted rosy upon his refined 
 fair face, upon the white jewelled hands, lazily clasped up 
 over his head, upon the elaborate evening dress, which in his 
 boyish dandyism he did not, it must be confessed, carry off 
 ungracefully. And, for the second time, it crossed Susan's 
 mind to think how much Portia was to be envied. Beauty, 
 wit or what possesses more than the effect of wit from lips 
 like hers for her own portion, and a companion like Mr. 
 Josselin, handsome, light-hearted, rich in this world's goods, 
 to saunter, well-contented, by her side, through life ! 
 
 Until now Susan, unlike most girls of her age, had been 
 positively without an ideal as regards love or lovers. Tom 
 Collinson, the only young man she knew, was repulsive to her ; 
 and Teddy Josselin was attractive. This was the extent of 
 her experience up to the present moment. And if it had so 
 happened that Teddy had been free, and the fates had willed 
 it, she might just, like the majority of women, have never 
 come within a hundred miles of passion while she lived ; only 
 have married, slipped half-awake, but contentedly through 
 existence ; then gone to her grave, ignorant of the meaning of 
 stronger love than the love which a Teddy Josselin can inspire ! 
 But George Blake was coming ; was within twenty yards, his 
 face turned towards her already ; and the girl's soul was 
 about to awaken. The childish half-envy of Portia, this 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 39 
 
 momentary heart-whole admiration of Portia's lover, was just 
 the brief rose-flush, the ten minutes before dawn in Susan's life. 
 
 "Yes, I say we are very happy," murmured Teddy, caress- 
 ingly. "If your head was turned a very little more my 
 wa y ? thanks. How jolly it is to look at a dear little outline 
 of round cheek against a background of sylvan green ! how 
 jolly a long life in the country would be all spent like this ! 
 Portia is a very nice girl, Susan ? " 
 
 " Very nice, sir." 
 
 " Oh, not ' Sir ! ' You must never call any fellow ' Sir * 
 till he's sixty years old, and and, I forgot what I was going 
 to say." 
 
 " Something about Portia, sir Mr. Josselin, I mean." 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself about my name, or. if you call me 
 anything, say ' Teddy/ I should like to hear you say 'Teddy/ 
 Susan." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, I couldn't ! " aiid the child flushed rosy-red, 
 then laughed. 
 
 " Yes, please do for Portia's sake ! You know you said 
 you thought Portia was a nice girl." 
 
 " So I do, but I can't see any connection .... I mean, I 
 couldn't call you what you asked me, if I tried for an hour." 
 
 " Ah, then, don't try," said Teddy, placidly. " I never like 
 to see pretty people trouble themselves to think about any- 
 thing ; it spoils the expression of the face. Do you like lilies 
 of the valley, Susan 1 " This after a full stop, during which 
 he had amused himself by lazily leaning down and plucking 
 minute portions of grass, then throwing them, blade by blade, 
 upon the girl's black dress. 
 
 " I'm very fond of them," answered Susan, in her shy voice. 
 " But those are not lilies of the valley that you are throwing 
 at me, you know, sir." 
 
 " Ah ' Sir,' again ! and did I say they were, you wise 
 child 1 Will you have mine then ? " He unpinned the lili- 
 putian bouquet from his button-hole, and arrested the rocking- 
 chair at such an angle as brought his hand within two inches 
 
40 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 of Susan's, his handsome boyish face not very much further. 
 "Don't say 'No;' it's the only favour I've ever asked you 
 yet." 
 
 "I don't want to say No," said Susan. And then this child 
 of nature takes the first (mock) love-gift that has been ever 
 offered to her, and smells the flowers hanging her head so as 
 to hide that she is flattered and finally pins them in her 
 waistbelt : all these baby coquetries acted with no more self- 
 consciousness than a little kitten feels when, dancing round 
 its first worsted ball, it curvets and purrs and growls with the 
 undeveloped instincts of torture of its kind ! 
 
 Teddy found her a charming study the study of pretty 
 faces was the only one he ever permitted himself. With the 
 aid of a friendly cigarette the remainder of the evening might 
 pass, he thought, as not all evenings at Half ont Manor passed, 
 without his once feeling bored. 
 
 "You don't know how to roll a cigarette, I conclude, 
 Susan 1 Well, then, I'll teach you." And Master Teddy had 
 taken out his book of cigarette paper and his embroidered 
 tobacco case, and was just the rocking-chair finally brought 
 to a standstill training Susan's awkward fingers to the way 
 they should go (a piece of education it seemed required much 
 close assistance), when Portia and Mr. Blake emerged from a 
 shrub-shaded walk, not six paces from where they sat. 
 
 "Never mind," said Teddy, "it's only the other people," for 
 Susan had given a start at discovering they were not alone. 
 " You have got too much tobacco now too little ; dear, 
 dear, why is not everybody clever ? Now let me show you 
 once more." 
 
 He took the girl's small fingers within his, and Susan a 
 tremendous accession of shyness overtaking her at knowing 
 she was watched blushed violently as Portia came up to 
 them. 
 
 The blush, the down-drooped face, the transferred lilies of 
 the valley, Portia noted all in an instant ; and an expression 
 George Blake had never seen them wear before came round 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 41 
 
 her lips. Violent jealousy the love-born, unreasoning 
 jealousy that can rise to passion was, probably, beyond hei 
 compass ; but there are many degrees of the same feeling, and 
 little though she would have acknowledged the weakness, 
 Portia could never brook the sight of Teddy Josselin getting 
 to the end of his chain with complete equanimity. Absolute 
 freedom ; conquest at every step she took, with every breath 
 she drew, were her prescriptive rights rights at which let 
 neither present lover nofc future husband demur. For him, 
 lover or husband, slavery. A man's pride is, or ought to be, 
 flattered by witnessing the world's approbation of his choice. 
 A woman's self-respect is lowered by seeing herself put aside, 
 even jestingly, for another. This was Portia's creed : not an 
 uncommon creed among women of her type ; perhaps, so long 
 as they have round them a bevy of slaves all more or less in 
 the state of George Blake, a pardonable one. Only, curious 
 to say, the person most nearly concerned, the actual lover, the 
 actual husband, does not always subscribe to it unmurmuringly. 
 
 " Admirable, by Jove ! No machine could have turned one 
 out better rolled. By the time I am ready for my next in 
 about ten minutes, that's to say you will be perfect. 7 ' 
 
 " You will smoke no other cigarette than the one you are 
 smoking now," remarked Portia, coolly. " Indeed, I doubt 
 whether you will have time to finish that. I am going to 
 take you over the powder-mills." 
 
 " Portia?" 
 
 " Didn't you say the other evening you wished to see them'? " 
 
 " Yet ; but we had no other amusement then. We were so 
 out of spirits that we thought even the remote chance of 
 being blown up better than going on living." 
 
 " I should always think that," said Portia ; " the other 
 evening, or now, or any time. Should not you, Mr. Blake ? " 1 
 
 George Blake, when out of love, was no fool, but on the 
 present occasion he made the speech of one the substance of 
 it being that to explode in Portia's company were better than 
 to continue to live alone, et cetera. 
 
42 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "Then do, my dear fellow, give yourself a chance at once," 
 cried Teddy, with thorough good humour. " Here are two 
 romantic persons wishing to be blown up, and have done with 
 the bore of living, and two commonplace persons perfectly 
 ready to live till they are ninety, and to be allowed to make 
 cigarettes. Why can't we all be happy in our own way 1 " 
 
 Without deigning to reply, Portia turned and walked off 
 with stately dignity towards the house. For a minute Teddy 
 Josselin watched her, a careless half-smile on his face, then 
 rose slowly, and moved a step or two across the lawn. 
 
 " Portia ! Cousin Portia ! " he called ; " won't you wait for 
 me It I am quite willing to be blown up, but I don't see why I 
 should be put out of breath beforehand." 
 
 Upon which Portia's pace at once quickened ; and then 
 then Teddy actually ran and caught her up, and George Blake 
 had the pleasure first of seeing the beautiful face turn round 
 with a frown, then melt into a smile ; finally, of watching the 
 lovers turn into a narrow side-path, and saunter off, most lover- 
 like in mien and proximity, towards the canal. 
 
 He stood still, his eyes fixed gloomily on the point at which 
 Portia's figure had vanished, for some minutes; at last, abruptly, 
 seemed to remember Susan's existence. 
 
 " What ! you and I left to amuse each other after all, Susan? 
 Come here, my dear." 
 
 George Blake's life was spent amongst theatrical people, 
 painting people, writing people, unconventional people of all 
 sorts, and he had contracted a trick wholly innocent of 
 speaking more affectionately than is the custom of the world 
 to his associates. I may add that older and wiser persons 
 than Susan were not always offended by it. She jumped up, 
 and came, as he bade her, to his side. 
 
 " What are you looking so solemn about 1 what are you 
 thinking of 1 Are you cross that Portia has taken Teddy 
 Josselin away ? He is her property, remember." 
 
 u I wasn't thinking of Portia, or Mr. Josselin either ; and 
 I'm not cross at all, thank you." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 43 
 
 " Thank you," repeated George Blake, mimicking her prim 
 Little shy voice. " Then if you were not cross, and not think- 
 ing of Portia, or of Portia's lover, may I ask you what you 
 were thinking of 1 " 
 
 " I was thinking of you ! " said Susan, with a jerk. She 
 had not forgotten Teddy Josselin's lesson in good breeding, 
 but only pulled up just in time to keep in the obnoxious " Sir." 
 
 " Of me ! And pray what do you think of me 1 Now, 
 Susan, not a word of flattery." 
 
 "I was thinking you were annoyed, and and I wished 
 Portia had offered to take you to be blown up." 
 
 " Complimentary ! That you and Josselin might make 
 cigarettes undisturbed, I suppose 1 " 
 
 " No ; that you might be with Portia." 
 
 For a moment George Blake turned his head aside ; then 
 he looked down closely on Susan's face. " And what do you 
 know what have you heard of me, child, that should make 
 you think I wished to be with Portia V 9 
 
 "Nothing, Mr. Blake. I never heard your name till an 
 hour ago, but .... but I think you said you would rather be 
 blown up with Portia than live alone ; and you did look so 
 disappointed as they walked away." 
 
 " The fact is, my dear, you are a witch. I am not deluded 
 by that childish appearance, that shy little mock innocent 
 manner. Nothing but witchcraft could make you divine such 
 an unlikely thing as this. Susan/' after a minute, and still 
 closely reading the transparent girlish face, "you and I would 
 be great friends." 
 
 " Would be ? " said Susan, lifting her eyes to his. 
 
 " Yes, would be, will be, if we see enough of each other. 
 Now, suppose you talk to me just as you were talking to 
 Teddy Josselin when we disturbed you ! It will do me good." 
 He made her sit down again, and took his place, one arm on 
 the back of the rustic seat, beside her. " Go on, my dear 
 talk." 
 
 " But I've nothing to say," said Susan, horribly frightened 
 
44 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 at this prospect of having to sustain the burthen of a con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Eubbish ! Say what you were saying to Josselin." 
 
 " I couldn't indeed I couldn't ! That was all nonsense, 
 and it was he who said it," cried Susan, logically. 
 
 "And you couldn't talk nonsense, or roll cigarettes, or 
 laugh aloud such a good little laugh, too ! with me ] You 
 like Josselin much the best, don't you, Susan ? " 
 
 She turned away, setting her lips like a child who had been 
 asked for a kiss, but means to contest it ; and coloured. 
 
 "You like Josselin better than me?" repeated George 
 Blake. "Now, teU the truth.'' 
 
 Susan caught down a bough of acacia close beneath which 
 they sat, and buried her face in one of its clusters of cool 
 white bloom. George Blake began to forget the powder-mills 
 a little. 
 
 " Susan," said he, severely, " you incipient small coquette, 
 tell the truth ! You like Josselin best ] " 
 
 " I like Mr. Josselin." 
 
 "Best?" 
 
 "I did not say anything about 'best/ sir." 
 
 George Blake had sufficient experience of Susan's sex to be 
 contented. After a minute or two spent in watching her 
 he looked upon her as a child, remember, and watched her 
 with purely artist-eyes .... thinking how fair a rustic model 
 she would be ; not for a Greuze or Watteau she had not 
 piquancy, not conscious innocence enough for these French 
 pencils ; but rather for one of Sir Joshua's serious, sweet 
 child-faces .... after a minute : " And so I looked dis- 
 appointed when Portia went away 1 ?" he said. "Are you 
 sure of that, now 1 I attach a great deal of importance to 
 anything you tell me." 
 
 "I am quite sure of it," said Susan. "And no wonder/' 
 she added, quickly ; nature had conferred on her, as on all 
 gentle natures, that best gift of woman, tact. " I feel a kind 
 of blank, too, though I've only known her these few weeks, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 45 
 
 whenever Portia goes away. How beautiful she looks to-night, 
 Mr. Blake." 
 
 The subject of Portia's beauty was one on which Mr. Blake, 
 in his present state of madness, would mercilessly descant to 
 any man, woman, or child whom he could force into listening. 
 Once set going, indeed, and he forgot time and place ; the 
 slight monotony of the subject of short upper lips and graceful 
 throats, when pursued unremittingly ; the sufferings of his 
 victims, their slackening attention, their attempts to escape 
 from him everything. But the hearer he had got now was 
 too sympathetic, too thoroughly afresh to be bored even by a 
 man in love. At every, "and what grace and what variety!" 
 and "have you noticed this or that?" Susan, in perfect 
 good faith, gave the required affirmative interjections. She 
 was really interested the first listener of that kind he had 
 ever found not only in Portia, but in Mr. Blake's hopeless 
 admiration of her ; the more interested, probably, because it 
 was hopeless ; and when at last he paused, rather from want 
 of breath than because he felt the subject exhausted, volun- 
 teered this little chorus of her own : " And, in addition to all 
 her good looks, what an unselfish, what a generous heart 
 Portia has ! " 
 
 George Blake looked up at the throngs of gnats that were 
 dancing quadrilles between him and the sky. That Portia 
 had a Titian-like complexion, an exquisite throat and profile, 
 he knew to his cost ! Also that he loved her (as men love) 
 violently ; had been led astray by her for weeks past ; had 
 given up the easy, cheaply-bought pleasures of his old life for 
 the expensive necessities of cabs, bouquets, and white gloves 
 in order to haunt her through parties and balls : this he knew 
 to his cost, likewise. But heart ! Portia Ffrench's an 
 unselfish, a generous heart ! Blake had lived twenty-five 
 years in the world ; e'.ght of them by himself in London ; and 
 could not now fall in love quite as boys do. He would have 
 been ready to swear a mole on Portia's cheek a load-star of 
 beauty, for all the admiration his senses could give was hers : 
 
46 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 in the matter of forming judgment upon her moral qualities, 
 reason, to a certain limited extent, was his own still. 
 
 " I speak," said Susan, as she watched the expression of his 
 face, "from what I know. When I was in my great grief 
 Portia came to see me " not a word of good Miss Jemima 
 " and she has thought of me in twenty kind ways since ; " 
 Miss Jemima had sent the child presents of sweetmeats and 
 early strawberries ;-*-" and asked me to-night because it's my 
 birthday. And I've enjoyed myself so much ! " added Susan, 
 irrelevantly. 
 
 George Blake felt a sudden strong impulse to snatch the 
 little creature in his arms and kiss her. It was a common 
 kind of impulse with him when he was in the company of 
 children, but Susan's advanced age, and a certain wistful 
 gravity that never quite forsook her face, withheld him from 
 carrying it into effect. 
 
 " My poor little friend how sorry I am to hear that word 
 1 grief ' from your lips." 
 
 Up welled the tears into Susan's eyes. She tried to say 
 something and couldn't. The tears brimmed, then fell, wet- 
 ting her hands as they lay clasped on her black frock. "I 
 didn't mean to trouble you like this," she faltered out at last. 
 
 " Trouble me ! " said Blake, and all his light manner fled, 
 his face softened a vast deal more than it had done when he 
 rhapsodized about Portia's upper lip. " Why, my dear, what 
 do you take me for '1 We might have talked to each other 
 the whole evening on idle subjects and have remained strangers 
 still. At that one word grief .... Susan, at that word I 
 feel in a moment that I have known you since you were so 
 high ! " 
 
 On paper, this speech does not read eloquent : spoken in a 
 kindly voice, and coming straight from the speaker's heart, it 
 sounded so ; or comforted the little girl it addressed which 
 is better. Susan realized, as she had not done since her 
 father's death, that she was being felt with ; not consoled, not 
 advised, nor pitied ; but felt with. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 47 
 
 " If you liad only known him," she said presently, " you 
 would have liked each other have got on so well ! I'm sure 
 you would ! " 
 
 (In the interval before dinner Portia, mentioning the guest 
 who was to drink tea with them, had said " And the miracle 
 is where the child gets her pretty little lady-like ways and 
 looks ! Her father was a Brentford shopkeeper, a gentleman 
 who smoked a long clay pipe on Sundays, and cZiristened his 
 road-side villar after 1/addison." " And who kept my brother 
 in hot water for ten years about a willow fence ! " Miss 
 Jemima had chimed in. "Joseph Fielding's 'hV and <rV 
 wouldn't have mattered by the way, Portia, you never heard 
 him speak nor his clay pipe either, if his nature had been a 
 better one/* This was the man whom George Blake would 
 have got on with and liked !) 
 
 " No one in Halfont knew papa," went on Susan, " except 
 the Vicar, a little ; and I'm beginning to feel now that no one 
 liked him. He never wanted to be liked, I think, except of 
 course by mamma, and after her by me. Directly he came 
 home he used to work in the garden, or take out his fishing- 
 rod, and then of an evening we sang he and I. There was 
 no room for strangers in our life. If we had had just one 
 friend, like you, sir, to come and talk to us, it would have 
 been different but we had no one, and so we lived alone. 
 We were contented." 
 
 "And you have never, till you knew Portia, had a com- 
 panion in your life 1 " said Blake ; " have never been to a 
 dance or read a story book, I'll be bound ? " 
 
 "I've never been to a dance," said Susan, "but as to 
 stories" she wiped the tears from her cheeks, and began 
 to reflect " well, I should say I've read nearly all the novels 
 that were ever written." 
 
 " Tell me the names of them 1 " 
 
 "The whole of Waverley ; Fielding's collected works ; 'Sir 
 Charles Grandison ; ' l Evelina ; ' ' Easselas ; ' and the ' Yicar 
 of Wakefield.' " She ran through the list with conscious 
 
4.8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 pride, speaking volubly to show her thorough acquaintance 
 with English literature. " And then, of course, ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress ' and ' Kobinson Crusoe, ' and all those childish 
 books," she added, as George remained silent ; just the least 
 startled, it must be owned, at the strong food on which his 
 little " Sir Joshua " had been nourished. " And as to poetry 
 and plays oh, I could never remember the names of the plays 
 I have read, if I was to try." 
 
 " And were these the books your father and mother picked 
 out for you ? " asked Blake ; " Eichardson and Fielding, and 
 more plays than you can remember the names of 1 " 
 
 " Mamma died w r hen I was six years old," said Susan, 
 " and she never read anything. I remember she used to say 
 it took off your taste for reading to be in the trade like 
 confectioners with sweet things." 
 
 "And a very true remark, too/' said Blake, thinking, no 
 doubt, of his own branch of the trade and " Ixion." 
 
 "And papa said he would never force me one way or 
 another about reading this was when Miss Collinson was 
 angry once about my reading some book 'Rasselas/ no, 
 1 Amelia/ I think it must have been. He took care, he said, 
 never to have any trash in his own house nothing but the 
 Standard Editions and I might please myself as to which of 
 them I read. So long as a book was well-bound and one of 
 the Standard Editions, papa didn't trouble himself much 
 about the inside/' 
 
 " A wise man ! " said Blake. " Susan, you teach me 
 something new every minute. I feel, as I never did before, 
 how much better a thing it is to sell books than to write 
 them ! " 
 
 " Now are you telling the truth 1 " 
 
 " Susan ! " 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, but I never am quite sure. You 
 speak like earnest, and yet it's the same with Portia I'm 
 never sure you are not laughing at me ! Now, would you 
 really not be above selling books 1 " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 49 
 
 " It's the very occupation I've been long trying," answered 
 Blake, with a laugh, " and in vain. The public won't come 
 to my shop ! I have put verses, story-books just the wares 
 you are fondest of, Susan upon my counter ; all without 
 effect. No one will buy. Don't let us talk of books, child, 
 'tis a sore subject to us who are in the trade. Suppose we 
 go for a twilight walk instead." As he said this he rose, and 
 turned down an over-arched pathway towards the canal, Susan 
 following. " You have told me about your studies, now talk 
 to me about yourself ; a pleasanter theme, my dear, than all 
 the novels and poems that were ever written." 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 YES, books were a sore subject just then to George Blake, the 
 books called Novels sorest of all. And here, probably, was 
 the fatallest sign that Nature had not destined him to be a 
 master ; he was cast down by failure ; he believed in his 
 critics ! Worse books than " Ixion " have proved the basis of a 
 great fame before now. Why ? Their writers have had faith 
 in themselves no sign of genius, perhaps, this faith : who 
 shall define for us what genius is ! but an excellent prognostic 
 of the faculty of success. But George Blake felt in his inmost 
 soul that, as far as novel-writing went, he could never rally 
 after "Ixion." He had written verses a thin volume of boyish 
 fancies, crude, not wholly contemptible : already. " Poems, 
 by G, B.," no critic had stooped even to annihilate ; and all 
 the young author's poetic fire had gone out under the cold 
 shade of this neglect. Poetry was not what he was born for, 
 he acknowledged ; still, most great men try their 'prentice 
 hand on verse ; defeat in verse-making, however complete, is 
 not shameful. He was born to write prose, and he wrote it 
 wrote " Ixion." And " Ixion " was cut to shreds by such 
 critics as noticed it at all, and left alone by the public : it was 
 
50 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 also a dead loss to the publishers. " You may succeed in 
 some other line, very possibly, but you will never write a 
 story," said these gentlemen. "You have not the knack. 
 There are authors and authoresses, Mr. Blake, with no genius, 
 or pretence to genius, who sell their so many hundred copies, 
 certain. But you my dear sir, would you step round to our 
 warehouse, and see the numbers of ' Ixion ' we have still upon 
 our hands 1 " 
 
 And then Blake began to see he was not born to write prose 
 prose fiction, at all events. What was he born for ? To go 
 diligently through the plain duties of his calling, the daily 
 red-tape routine of work as clerk in a public office, and leave 
 art and literature to other men ? If Blake could have felt this, 
 the failure of "Ixion " had not chafed him so sorely. But he 
 could not feel it. He belonged to the class of men who, with- 
 out any marked creative power themselves, have ineradicably 
 strong art proclivities ; and it frequently takes a lifetime of 
 dilettante trial to teach such men what they cannot do. 
 " Ixion " was a failure. He was not a poet ; he was not a 
 novelist ! Grimly reading his book over in cold blood, and 
 with his eyes opened by the wisdom of reviewers, he perceived 
 that the sentiment of his story was sham, the cynicism sham 
 (Blake was the most kindly, happy-natured of creatures, and 
 only wrote bitterly because A. B. and C. had written bitterly 
 before him), that his plot was impossible ; that every one of 
 his puppet characters uttered the same falsetto opinions, in the 
 same falsetto voice. All this he acknowledged ; and still he 
 could not but feel that some other road must yet conduct him 
 to success. What if he should try a play 1 He was intimate 
 with half the theatrical people in London, and when you know 
 actors, personally, few things seem easier, on the surface, than 
 to supply them with fitting parts. Or turn musical composer 1 
 he had a pretty taste for weaving other men's thoughts into 
 reveries and nocturnes of his own, had some acquaintance, too, 
 with thorough bass ; or give up his clerkship in the Treasury 
 and study as a painter in earnest ? His talent as a draughts- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 5' 
 
 man was the most positive talent Blake possessed. As many 
 drawings on wood as he choose to execute he could sell, and 
 sell well, proof that they were at least up to the market 
 standard of sentiment and perspective. A young lady, ten 
 feet high, jumping into the arms of a young gentleman, half -a- 
 mile distant, from a rock ; a dislocated young gentleman 
 stooping with his card over a young lady (dislocated also) in a 
 ball-room \ a young lady and gentleman, impossible as to 
 anatomy, but with beautiful eyes and small mouths, looking 
 at the moon from a balcony. ... In the exercise of art like 
 this he might really have made an income, if he had possessed 
 worldly sense enough for income ever to be a point of import- 
 ance in George Blake's schemes ! Well, he was just in this 
 undecided frame of mind when he met Portia Ffrench ; and 
 the difficulty for the time being was solved, by his falling in 
 love. 
 
 The property of love, we hear, is to act as a stimulant upon 
 artistic faculty ; to quicken the poet or the painter into nobler 
 effort. Love did this for George Blake ': took up his time, 
 wasted his money, incapacitated him more than ever from 
 serious work nay, as his infatuation increased, put the 
 thought of work altogether out of his head. Who would write 
 a play when he might act the first part in one ] paint a picture 
 when he might gaze at one 1 rack his brain over form or simile 
 when, without exertion, he might hear the praise of beautiful 
 lips, feel the sympathizing pressure of a beautiful hand upon 
 his arm ] A man must have herculean strength who can bring 
 the life of ball-rooms and the great world to alternate with the 
 strenuous work that all honest art demands. Play, under the 
 laborious guise of white gloves and the London season, is not 
 the kind of play for ordinary workers ; and so George Blake 
 discovered. He had been Portia's slave now for a good many 
 weeks ; had gone , where she bade him go ; held her fan in 
 ball-rooms, watched her as she danced with other men. watched 
 the back of her head as she talked (to other men) in theatre- 
 boxes, spent his days after office hours in waiting to catch a 
 
 E 2 
 
52 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 glimpse of her in the Park and what was his reward ? Portia 
 had engaged herself to Teddy Josselin ! Well, he had antici- 
 pated some kind of tragic ending to his love from the first : 
 how conld a poor wretch with a Treasury clerkship, and a 
 hundred a year of private means, offer this divinity the affront 
 of proposing that he should support her 1 The hope of winning 
 
 Portia was irrevocably gone his happiness with it 
 
 But, as regarded art, what inspiration, what single influence 
 for good had she proved to him ? 
 
 Once or twice after a ball or opera he had essayed verses to 
 her and had invariably lit his pipe with them next morning ! 
 Her face, with its faultless line of profile, its sweet cold smile, 
 its dark, unchanging eyes, he had drawn in every conceivable 
 change of attitude, yet had never made of it aught save a cata- 
 logue, from right to left, or from left to right, of lips, and 
 brow, and chin a catalogue informed with no more soul than 
 he could have found in the first plaster-cast he had chosen to 
 copy. He had composed a nocturne and an addio, both in- 
 scribed to PORTIA, and these had certainly more merit in them 
 than the verses, perhaps than the drawings, yet were not a 
 whit more original than the countless nocturnes and addios that 
 he had dedicated in old days to the Violets and Claribels of 
 his imagination. His senses, in a word, were enthralled 
 nothing more ! He himself, George Blake, was George Blake 
 still, a good deal the poorer in spirit and purse for the little 
 dance he had been led, and as far from " inspiration " as on 
 the first day when Portia met him, and decided that the 
 holding captive a man who was neither marriageable, dandy, 
 nor fool, would be a new stimulus, a new emotion to herself ! 
 
 Their acquaintance began thus : Portia, who really liked 
 pictures, or really liked to be able to talk about her liking for 
 them, had gone up to town for a day's exhibition-seeing. The 
 exhibitions were very convenient institutions during the whole 
 season of spring to Portia Ffrench. To tell Miss Jemima she 
 must go up to town for shopping, or to see any of her London 
 friends, was, as a rule, to enlist Miss Jemima, in her village 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 53 
 
 dress and sensible bonnet, as an escort. Portia, with her ex- 
 travagant ideas, could no more be trusted alone in shops than 
 a child, and as to her acquaintance. . . . " Of the two, I 
 would sooner you should go and half-ruin us all at the mil- 
 liner's," Miss Jemima would say, "than spend a couple of 
 hours in the society of any of these women of fashion whom 
 you call your friends. When you stay with your grandmother 
 the responsibility is hers. You are a Dysart then, and must 
 have Dysart associates. As long as you live at Halfont, you 
 are a Ffrench ! " But at the word " exhibition " Miss Jemima 
 was silenced. Once, long ago, she had consented, at Portia's 
 instigation, to have a bout of picture-seeing had been ruth- 
 lessly dragged through Royal Academy; Water-Colours, 
 Young and Old ; Suffolk Street ; National Portraits ; all in 
 the course of one very sultry summer's day. And on that 
 day Miss Jemima had inwardly sworn that no temptation 
 should ever lead her into the regions of art again. She hid 
 her sufferings like a Spartan ; enlarged, to Colonel Ffrench 
 at home, upon the delightful treat they had had ; and ascribed 
 the pain in the nape of her neck, that lasted her for a week 
 afterwards, to the chill evening breeze that met them as they 
 were driving back across Hounslow Heath. But she never broke 
 her resolution ; she never set her foot within the doors of 
 another picture-gallery ! It was good, doubtless, for young people 
 to see everything that was going on ; good for them to enlarge 
 their minds, to take an interest in any subject unconnected 
 with expensive dresses and frivolity ; and as the girl always 
 chose the name of her very soberest acquaintance as her art 
 chaperon, it grew in time to be a settled thing that Miss 
 Jemima should not say Nay whenever these opportunities of 
 intellectual improvement offered themselves. Thus, as I re- 
 marked, the ordinance of picture-seeing was an ordinance of 
 whose manifold resources Portia, during the whole London 
 season, availed herself pretty freely. 
 
 Upon the day on which George Blake met his fate she 
 really had gone to an exhibition the one in Suffolk Street 
 
54 SI/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 her cousin Teddy with her. Perhaps some more lawful cha- 
 peron Blake saw none ; but in these days who can ever say 
 of two ladies which is married and protecting, which spinster 
 and protected ? Both of the cousins were a great deal bored ; 
 Teddy the least so, perhaps, for Portia did really conscien- 
 tiously look at every picture which the fashionable art-critic 
 of that season had pointed out as noteworthy ; indeed, when 
 Blake first came upon them, the poor little fellow was sitting 
 down, placidly asleep, whilst Portia, some yards distant, stood 
 m a proper attitude of admiration before one of the pictures 
 of the year. 
 
 The young men had been at school together, were frhnds 
 .still as far as their different means, their different habits of 
 life allowed ; so Blake went up and, after waking Teddy 
 Josselin from his nap, asked him what he thought of the 
 pictures'? Teddy possessed no more knowledge of art than 
 of Arabic it would be hard to say on what subject Teddy 
 did possess knowledge still he was just one of those sketchy, 
 inconsequential, shallow rather than empty human creatures, 
 to whom you will so often find that people with brains in 
 their own heads delight to listen. Wittier men, wiser men, 
 better men than Teddy jostle one at every turn ; but Teddy 
 had the rare gift of being absolutely natural, unconsciously 
 suggestive, as a child in every word he said. Lazily rousing 
 himself, he cast his blue eyes round Blake having further 
 explained that his own business was to make picture-notes for 
 a newspaper and for five minutes or so gave utterance to 
 whatever opinions came uppermost in his nutshell of a head 
 respecting the score or so of pictures that he could see without 
 moving. " And though, thank God ! I know nothing about 
 high art or high criticism," he finished, "I believe I have 
 eyes, and a grain or two of common sense ; and, my dear 
 fellow, you are welcome to make professional use of all I have 
 said." Then he rose and sauntered away after Portia, whose 
 graceful figure Blake meanwhile had been furtively watching. 
 
 She asked, before Teddy could open his lips, who that 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 55 
 
 person was to whom he had been talking the person with 
 the sallow face and black moustache like a singer 1 No one. 
 That was nonsense. Was he one of the men who sold the 
 pictures, or the catalogues, or what] "Now, I insist upon 
 knowing, Teddy. He is writing in a book, and must be 
 something dreadful of the kind. Who is he 1 " 
 
 " In the language you talk, no one at all/' answered Teddy. 
 " He is a clerk in the Treasury. He has about ninety pounds 
 a year of private means. He won't even dance. He is non- 
 existent." 
 
 "Goon, Teddy dear." 
 
 "He writes novels and verses, and things for the news- 
 papers. He doesn't care for ladies." 
 
 " Bring him and introduce him to me this moment." 
 
 "Haven't I said he does not care for ladies? There is 
 Liddell just coming in, I see, and there's Brett somewhere 
 about, and me. Why should you want to plague this poor . 
 fellow ? He has never hurt you." 
 
 " Have Colonel Liddell and Johnnie Brett 1 " 
 
 " No, and you can't hurt them ! " said Teddy, with his 
 small laugh. " Now Blake .... well, you see, cousin Portia, 
 you could hurt a poor fellow like Blake immensely." 
 
 " Will you bring him here, at once, little Te<f dy " 
 
 " With the thermometer at ninety I will do fnyjMng rather 
 than argue," said Teddy Josselin ; then went away after his 
 friend, who was busy again with his note-book at the other 
 side of the room. Blake looked round horrified on being told 
 he was to be introduced to a young lady ; " was in a morning- 
 coat ; had come for work ; must beg to be excused, and and 
 which was the lady 1 He would like to see her first." 
 
 "She stands over there in a black silk dress and white 
 muslin scarf," said Teddy. " No, not the Sphynx of sixteen 
 stone heaped over with pink roses ; the slender, dark young 
 woman who carries her head on one side, and at this moment 
 shows us her profile. She is my cousin, and thought rather 
 good-looking, and oh, you are coming then, after all 2 " 
 
5 6 SUSAN FIZLDING. 
 
 Blake came ; was introduced ; and wrote no more notes 
 that day. Portia was afraid, although she had the celebrated 
 Mr. Blanque's guide in her hand, that she had been admiring 
 everything she oughtn't. Could it be possible that there 
 were only eight pictures worthy to be called pictures in the 
 rooms'? Would Mr. Blake mind the trouble of taking her 
 once round with him ] She was utterly ignorant, but loved 
 pictures from her heart. Oh, how different looking at an ex- 
 hibition was with some one who really cared for art to direct 
 one's admiration ! " I have heard enough of faults," she 
 said, making a shrewd guess at George Blake's turn of mind. 
 ''What I wanted was to enjoy, and you have taught me how 
 to do so." 
 
 She gave him a beautiful hand at parting, or a hand clothed 
 in so perfect a glove as to look beautiful : Portia's gloves were 
 always miracles of good taste, indefinite of hue, symmetrical 
 of cut, firm of texture gave him a hearty pressure, too ! 
 and no woman living had a pleasanter way of shaking hands 
 than Portia Ffrench, when she liked. Next week she came 
 up to pay her yearly visit to her grandmother, and, through 
 Teddy's agency, at once had George Blake brought to Lady 
 Erroll's house in Eton Square. She had no need long to 
 keep up the intellectual strain in which the acquaintance 
 began. The trouble of reading Mr. Blake's poems had to be 
 gone through ; the exertion of forming an opinion differing 
 from that of the reviewers on " Ixion ; " after this Mr. Blake 
 himself took all further difficulty off her hands by falling in 
 love. Now, there was no very novel amusement to Portia 
 Ffrench in having a man so circumstanced at her side ; but 
 there was wonderful novelty in the type of man she had at 
 length had the good fortune to conquer ! As a companion to 
 spend her life with, Teddy Josselin was, and continued to be, 
 the girl's ideal. Teddy held the same beliefs, on all momen- 
 tous questions, as herself : namely, that pleasure is pleasant 
 and trouble troublesome \ that after them would come the 
 deluge ; and that excitement, bought no matter at what cost 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 57 
 
 is the end-all and be-all of an otherwise worthless existence. 
 And then he had a handsome person, and the air of a man of 
 the world, and did whatever he was bidden, and altogether 
 .... altogether, as much as it was in Portia Ffrench's 
 nature to love, she loved him. She never asked herself 
 whether it would be possible to fall in love with George 
 Blake. She cut him short whenever he began to talk senti- 
 ment sentiment, no audience by to listen, wearied her to 
 death. All she cared for was that the world, from cynical 
 old Lady Erroll down to Aunt Jemima at home, should see 
 that a man of genius (throughout his aberration so she loved 
 to call poor Blake) did not find her so frivolous but that he 
 could take delight in her society. She was like a child who, 
 angling for minnows, unexpectedly brings a magnificent perch, 
 three or four inches long, to land. Such a prey would, pro- 
 bably, never come to her little hook again ; and she wanted 
 every one to look at him as he lay gasping on the bank. As 
 to the perch's sufferings ah, that was his concern ! There 
 he stood in the same plight as the minnows. Her own small 
 momentary triumph was all with which Portia troubled her- 
 self ; and of this she certainly made the most. Mr. Blake 
 must come to dinner : " a quiet dinner, with only one or two 
 appreciative people to meet him, and with sensible conver- 
 sation ; grandmamma, and a little music afterwards." Next, 
 he must follow her to balls. " You don't dance, I know, Mr. 
 Blake, but it will be profitable to you to stand out and 
 moralize on us foolish people who do ! " After this, to operas, 
 and to the drive of an afternoon, and the Zoological on Srniv 
 day. Finally, when her own London visit was over, nothing 
 would content her but the poor fellow must be invited to come 
 down and dine with Colonel Ffrench at Halfont. 
 
 The pleasure of showing off her conquest at home proved 
 limited. Miss Jemima looked carefully through her spectacles 
 at Blake the only author, besides Rosamunda, she had ever 
 known during dinner, and, when he was gone, remarked 
 that, for her part, she couldn't see that writers talked cleverer 
 
58 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 than other people. Colonel Ffrench said he must really re- 
 quest Portia not to encourage the young man too far. Mr. 
 Blake might be a gentleman by birth, very possibly ; still he 
 was connected with the Press, with painters, too. Art and 
 literature ah, ah, all very well in their proper places ; but 
 Colonel Ffrench must confess he had never seen persons of 
 that description at his table before ! What a change after 
 London, after liberal art-patronizing London ! Portia saw 
 plainly that, with no audience save these two prejudiced old 
 people, very little pleasure was to be got out of George Blake's 
 Halfont visits ; so the next time he was asked bade Teddy 
 Josselin come too, and, as we have seen, invited Susan Field- 
 ing in the evening. Teddy, whom nothing could make jealous, 
 and poor, little, shy, ignorant Susan were not much ; still 
 they formed a gallery, and without a gallery Portia could 
 seldom bring herself to feel real interest in any game. The 
 subjugation, alone and unseen, of the cleverest, bravest man 
 in Europe would, I verily believe, have yielded her pleasure 
 less acute than the subjugation of some well-looking fop, 
 chosen at random from the London partners, the world, or 
 any small section of the world looking on. 
 
 An inborn coquette would as soon make a conquest in the 
 midst of Salisbury Plain as elsewhere ; her zest being in the 
 conquest, not the mere glory of it. To Portia the glory was 
 all in all. Che had not the effervescence of spirit, the quick 
 pulse, the enjoyment power which characterize the real coquette, 
 as I understand the term. Constitutional melancholy, con- 
 stitutional inertia lay at the bottom of all her brightness, of 
 all her restless activity in the pursuit of excitement. Unless 
 life could be for ever dramatized to her, she sank oppressed 
 under its burthen. And George Blake, no mean reader of 
 character, although he could not write novels, already divined 
 that it was so. He was not a whit cured of his passion by the 
 discovery of this or any other weakness in Portia's character ; 
 nay, it seemed to him that he was but attracted towards her 
 more now that he knew what weary lip -laughter half her light- 
 
SUSAN FOLDING. 59 
 
 ness was ! But he did often speculate, had speculated half-an- 
 hour ago, as he wandered with her through the silent garden, 
 what sort of lot that man's would be who, without money, 
 and all that money brings, should become Portia's husband. 
 So very little of the married life of poor people is spent before 
 the footlights ; the hours of excitement are so few ; the hours oi 
 dual solitude so many ! Why, this little village girl, this little 
 shy Susan Fielding, would be a better everyday companion, in 
 very fact, than Portia Ffrench, with all her cultivation, with 
 all her brilliancy. 
 
 Before three or four people, Portia's powers of conversation 
 never flagged. Alone positive love-making interdicted, and 
 it was wonderful how little you found to say to her, or she to 
 you. You got ft reply never void of intelligence ; often a 
 caustic, even a witty little aphorism in answer to whatever you 
 advanced ; and then then you must think of what you would 
 say next. No remark seemed ever in Portia's presence to 
 open out to graver interests. You never got an inch nearer 
 to Portia's soul ! The beautiful face, the graceful attitudes 
 filled up all absolute blanks delightfully ; still the blanks 
 existed ; while with Susan. . . . 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 u SUSAN," said Blake, taking out his watch, and trying, as 
 well as the fading light would permit, to make out the time, 
 " you are certainly a witch. I was quite right in my estimate 
 of your character. Here we have been out an hour and a 
 half together, and you have made it pass like five minutes ! " 
 
 Susan's heart gave a flutter of pleasure at the speech. " An 
 hour and a half 1 I never thought it was so late time goes 
 so quick out-of-doors and .... and if you are tired we 
 had better go in at once," she added demurely. 
 
 " Go in ] " said Blake. " No. It is much pleasanter here 
 
60 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 than in the house, and Josselin and Miss Ffrench haven'1 
 finished seeing the powder-mills yet rather dark, by the way, 
 for seeing anything ! This is the best hour of the twenty-four." 
 
 " It is the best for me," said Susan. " What other people 
 call dusk is my day. At this minute I can actually make out 
 the bank the other side the river." 
 
 They had walked as far as the long-disputed willow-fence, 
 the extreme boundary-line of Colonel Ffrench's property. 
 The light had died into one dull crimson streak above the 
 flat horizon ; but sufficient after-glow yet lingered to show the 
 forms of near-at-hand objects ; of the water-flags with their 
 pale broad blossoms ; of the narrow canal-path ; of the canal 
 itself as, brimming and level with its banks, it floated past 
 with its low, scarce audible murmur towards the powder-mills. 
 
 " Poor little Susan ! " said Blake, kindly. To him, with 
 his keen-strung, artist's delight in every object of the external 
 world, this fact of Susan's nearsight seemed an affliction very 
 little short of actual blindness. " You must take comfort in 
 one thing, remember ; as you grow older, as you approach the 
 age when the rest of us get mole-like, you will begin to see 
 better. When you are ninety, what sight you will have, my 
 dear!" 
 
 "I am not quite sure that I want to see better," said 
 Susan, diffidently, for she had a consciousness that there might 
 be an implied slight to the rest of the world in her content- 
 ment. "At least, when I look through my glasses, and see 
 everything so plain, I don't feel half as much at my ease as 
 before. The world seems all at once too big for me, you 
 know ; and whenever I have a bad dream, a nightmare, this 
 is what I dream : I can see as every one else sees, and there 
 are trees and houses ready to fall and crush me, and crowds 
 of people, with their faces distinct, as I never see faces really 
 looking at me. No, I am sure I don't want to be different ! " 
 
 "But then your short sight makes you helpless," said Blake. 
 " You always need some one close at hand, as I am now, to 
 keep you out of mischief." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 61 
 
 "Not a bit," Susan answered. "When once I know a 
 place, I can find my way everywhere not . with my hands, 
 but by feeling, you understand. Papa might send me for any 
 book he liked in the dark, and I never brought the wrong one, 
 and Miss Collinson says she never saw such eyes as mine for 
 fine needlework, and then they never get tired, however many 
 hours I sew, even by lamplight." 
 
 " And you are fond of needlework, I'll answer for it," said 
 Blake. " I think I see you with a needle and thread in those 
 prim small hands, like the heroine of one of your own favourite 
 novels. You are great at pies and plain sewing, are you not, 
 Susan?" 
 
 " I don't know about pies, sir ; but I can do every kind of 
 needlework well, and I like it. Portia never sews. She says 
 it is a slave's employment to sit and drag a needle to and fro, 
 to and fro, through a bit of cambric or muslin all day long. 
 If that is true, I suppose I was born to be a slave ! I like to 
 work work, even at plain sewing, and think. I don't know 
 how it is, but I never have such nice thoughts as when I am 
 sewing." 
 
 " And what are the nice * thoughts about, Susan 1 " 
 
 She made him no answer. 
 
 "What are your thoughts about, child 1 ? Come, you have 
 told me so much about yourself already, you may as well tell 
 me this." 
 
 " If I tell you my thoughts, will you tell me yours 1 " 
 
 " Ahem .... on due consideration I think not. I have 
 a great many bitter hard thoughts to trouble me, Susan, 
 thoughts that you would never understand ! " 
 
 " Then we will each keep our own secrets, Mr. Blake. If 
 your thoughts would be too hard for me to understand, mine 
 would be too silly for you to care for, and besides I'm not 
 quite sure I haven't told you them all, as it is ! " 
 
 " Poor little Susan ! If we meet again some day when you 
 are older and wiser, I wonder whether you will remember all 
 that you have said to me to-night 1 " 
 
62 S&SAN FIELDING. 
 
 "I wonder," said Susan, becoming suddenly grave at the 
 suggestion. And after this both were silent ; and side by 
 side Blake looking out for the first flutter of Portia's dress 
 through the gloom, Susan with I know not what dawnings of 
 new emotion in her childish heart began slowly to retrace 
 their steps towards the house. 
 
 They found Portia and Teddy Josselin waiting for them 
 under the portico. " What, not drowned \ " said Portia, care- 
 lessly. "We were just beginning to think it was time to 
 send out the men with drags." 
 
 "What, not blown up?" remarked George Blake, in the 
 same tone. " We were terribly afraid something had hap- 
 pened to you, but knew we had been so rs.uch engrossed in 
 our own conversation that the explosion might have taken 
 place without our hearing it ! " For the feelings of Portia 
 Ffrench and Mr. Blake were just at that kind of ebb when 
 small mock warfare, semi-bitter speeches, before other people, 
 are the food of love if vanity on one side, and (conscious) 
 infatuation on the other, may be dignified by that name ! 
 
 Susan ran away from Blake's side, and got close to Portia, 
 "I hope you have not been really frightened about us," she 
 said, in a whisper. " I am very sorry if I have stayed away 
 too long." 
 
 " Dear, innocent, penitent little Susan ! " cried Portia, but 
 in a perfectly good-humoured voice. Into whatever jealousies 
 her craving for dominion might betray her, Portia Ffrench 
 was too self-collected a woman ever to show animosity towards 
 another woman : retribution she kept for the offender himself, 
 not the rival. " Of course I forgive you, but you will have a 
 fine scolding from Aunt Jemima and grandpapa, depend upon 
 it. Come here, and let me make you look respectable ; " for 
 they were now within the lighted entrance-hall ; " and unless 
 we are very hard pressed we can let everybody believe we 
 have been no further than the billiard-room. Why, child, 
 what a colour you have got ! " 
 
 Susan had a brilliant colour ; the more brilliant because 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 63 
 
 standing full under the lamp she felt that all of them must be 
 looking at her. Her eyes were animated, and, as is the nature 
 of short-sighted eyes, had lost their vacant look now that 
 daylight was gone ; the damp night-air had made her brown 
 hair twist into a multitude of little soft curls round her fore- 
 head. For the first time in her life Susan Fielding looked 
 more than pretty. 
 
 Portia tried to smooth down the child's hair with her hands 
 in vain. The curls curled tighter and tighter. " You will 
 never look respectable, my dear, never. I give you up." 
 
 " Then I'll go home at once/ cried Susan, aghast ; " indeed 
 I will. I can run home in two minutes. I could never ap- 
 pear before Colonel Ffrench " 
 
 " In this wild disreputable state," interrupted Teddy Jos- 
 selin. " Hair dishevelled, face on fire, and, worst of all, my 
 lilies of the valley gone. I should think not, indeed ! you 
 reprobate Susan. " 
 
 Susan felt that she must cry. Like most sensitive lonely- 
 nurtured children, she was intensely matter-of-fact in small 
 things ; had no conception that any one could mean to jest 
 with her as long as his face was serious, his voice steady. 
 And then the obstinately rebellious nature of her curls had 
 long been Susan's weak point her thorn in the flesh. 
 
 " Everybody else's hair gets smooth in damp weather," she 
 said, appealingly, " and mine gets rougher ! I can't help it 
 it's not my fault ! " A distinct foreboding of tears was in her 
 voice. 
 
 " And when it is rough you look prettier than ever, little 
 Susan/' said Blake. " Don't you see that they are chaffing 
 you 1 Mr. Josselin is jealous because you have lost his 
 flowers " 
 
 " And Miss Ffrench, because your curling locks and bright 
 eyes make you look so much prettier than herself ! " inter- 
 rupted Portia. " Come upstairs, Susan, dear, before these 
 foolish people persuade us to quarrel in earnest." And 
 casting one half-scornful, half-softening look at Blake, she 
 
64 SUSAW FIELDING. 
 
 swept up the broad staircase, Su?an, all in a flutter of terroi 
 at the prospect of Colonel Ffrench scolding her, all in a flutter 
 of happiness at spending another hour in Mr. Blake's society, 
 following. 
 
 Colonel Ffrench had had his basin of water-gruel, and be- 
 taken himself to the hands of his valet half-an-hour before, 
 for it was nearly ten o'clock ; Miss Jemima sat alone at her 
 work-table, a half-finished baby's sock on knitting-pins in her 
 lap, the " Illustrated Gazette " in her hand. Belief in Church, 
 Queen, and State nay, belief in the British army itself 
 was scarcely stronger in Miss Jemima's mind than belief in 
 the " Illustrated." When the resources of this paper enabled 
 its artists to depict the interior of the last exploded coal-mine, 
 two days before the re-opening of the shaft, Miss Jemima 
 would shudder unquestioning over the truthful details of the 
 picture. When an errant railway-train had leapt into mid 
 air from a viaduct, and the "Illustrated" gave a sketch 
 of it, " drawn by our own artist on the spot," Miss Jemima 
 would grow perfectly breathless over the sensational terrors of 
 the situation. " I take a deep interest in the accident because 
 I have actually seen it," she would say ; " seen it, I mean, in 
 the < Illustrated/ " 
 
 She looked up with mildly-reproachful eyes as the young 
 people entered, and laid down her spectacles. " You have 
 not been near open windows this damp evening, I hope, 
 Portia 1 You look white. I shall be having you hoarse 
 again." 
 
 "We have not been near an open window," said Portia, 
 sinking down into the first easy-chair that presented itself, an 
 example followed at once by her lover ; " and all we are in 
 want of is support. Billiard-playing is so wearying." 
 
 She really did look pale and weary. An hour's exercise 
 without excitement would at any time tire Portia Ffrench to 
 death, body and mind ; and she had not been at all excited 
 this evening ! Miss Jemima jumped up obediently to the bell, 
 and in a few minutes a servant entered with a salver, on 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 65 
 
 wliicli stood wine, brandy, and seltzer-water. Teddy Josselin, 
 more actively than was his custom, rose, and asked Miss 
 Jemima what he should give her. 
 
 "A glass of water, Ted/' cried Portia. "Don't you know 
 what Aunt Jem always takes 1 Half a tumbler of beer at 
 lunch, one glass of port at dinner, ditto of water at night. It 
 is only we, washed-out younger generation, who cannot live 
 without the wicked help of stimulants. What, you take 
 nothing either, Susan V Susan had tasted wine about six 
 times in her life, and then a third of a glass at a time. 
 " What sober people you all are ! " 
 
 Teddy poured out some Madeira into a tumbler and handed 
 it to Portia ; then helped himself generously to brandy and 
 seltzer-water very little seltzer-water. And after a time, 
 Nature recruited by these kindly aids, the powers of both 
 seemed gradually to revive. 
 
 "Did we see the powder-mills, I wonder'?" remarked 
 Teddy, after a silence. " There was a great deal of canal 
 and bulrushes and all that, but did we see the powder-mills ? 
 I can't, for the life of me, recollect." 
 
 Portia looked up at the ceiling, her eyebrows elevated ; 
 Miss Jemima, who held imbecile questions of all kinds as 
 Teddy Josselin's special prerogative, resumed her knitting. 
 " There are powder-mills, the worse for us, within a stone's 
 throw of the house," she observed. "Portia, I suppose that is 
 what your cousin means *? " 
 
 " I suppose so, Aunt Jemima," said Portia. 
 
 Teddy Josselin rose and again helped himself to seltzer and 
 brandy the seltzer still perceptibly decreasing : after this his 
 brain seemed to grow clearer. " How could we have seen powder- 
 mills, or any mills, when we have been playing billiards 1 " he 
 said, smiling a little smile to himself over his own perspi- 
 cuity. " I know as well as possible what I meant now. We 
 were all of us to have seen the powder-mills, you know, Portia, 
 only Blake and Miss Fielding roamed away and prevented us." 
 Teddy Josselin called it "woamed away and pwe vented us." 
 
66 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 *' Susan, my dear," said Miss Jemima, seriously, "I hope, 
 if you went out, that you put something worsted over your 
 head 1 " The good old soldier never troubled herself about 
 other dangers than physical ones. " I kaew a young lady 
 just about your age, oddly enough, her name was Felton ; it 
 was in 'forty-six, we were at Gibraltar poor thing ! she 
 married into the 60th Rifles, and led a most unhappy life, and 
 she had entirely lost her hearing in the left ear through going 
 out bare-headed in the damp. Since then I always say to- 
 young people, ' walk about at midnight, if it gives you any 
 pleasure, but put something worsted over the head.' Now, 
 I knit very nice little capoosfiaws." Miss Jemima's French 
 pronunciation had not been acquired on French soil. " They 
 come down well all round protect not only the ears but the 
 throat. I always wear one myself when I go out at night, 
 I'll make you a capooshaw, Susan." 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am." 
 
 " You may well say, ' thank you, ma'am/ in that devout 
 tone, Susan ! " As she spoke, Portia rose and loitered across to 
 the piano. " Considering that if you don't wear a capooshaw 
 you'll lose your hearing in your left ear, marry into the 60th 
 Rifles, and lead a most unhappy life for ever after ! Aunt, you 
 logical old philosopher, what shall I play ? " 
 
 "Anything you choose, my dear," said Miss Jemima, 
 turning round her placid old face so that she could better 
 watch the girl's graceful figure at the instrument. " All the 
 music I hear nowadays sounds much the same to me." 
 
 George Blake, who ever since they returned to the drawing- 
 room had been silently watching his opportunity for making 
 peace with Portia, now came across to her side, and in a low 
 voice, duly humble and penitent, petitioned her for something- 
 out of " Faust." They had listened to " Faust " together one 
 evening when the poor fellow had talked especially great 
 nonsense, and Portia had not taken the trouble to check him ; 
 an evening or two before he knew of her engagement to 
 Teddy. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 67 
 
 " ' Faust !' I'm not sure I know anything out of ' Faust/ " 
 answered Portia, indifferently. " Ah ! yes, I do though ! just 
 one thing." And then played the very chorus which Blake, 
 which both of them, remembered so well I 
 
 She had been excellently taught ; played, as she did every- 
 thing, with real good taste ; and, on an imperfect instrument 
 like the piano, natural faculty for music is a gift the want of 
 which good teaching can almost hide. After the Faust chorus 
 she glided into a nocturne, then an addio ; both extremely 
 like thousands of addios and nocturnes written by greater com- 
 posers than Mr. George Blake ; then stopped tired, the 
 momentary amusement of patting back the traunt mouse over, 
 and proposed that they should play ecarte. 
 
 Cards, played for money, and good high stakes be it under- 
 stood, were a genuine amusement, very nearly a passion, with 
 Portia Ffrench : another point of sympathy between her and 
 Teddy. Winning or losing, Portia's interest over a card-table 
 never flagged ; and the time of all others when Blake came 
 nearest to disenchantment was when he stood and watched 
 her face growing keen and flushed wonderfully like her 
 grandfather she looked at such times, over the triumph of 
 turning kings, and scoring tricks. " Let us have more music," 
 he pleaded, quickly. " Let us have a song or two. Cards 
 are for short days and Christmas, not for summer." 
 
 " That is my opinion, Mr. Blake," said Miss Jemima. 
 "But nothing will cure Portia of being a gambler. The 
 other day I found her and Mr. Josselin gravely playing 
 piquet for I don't know what game at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon." 
 
 " And the daylight constitutes the sin ! " said Portia. 
 " Every game but chess is sinful, so long as you pi ly it by 
 daylight. How can I alter myself, Aunt Jem '? I'm a Dysart. 
 It's part of my maternal inheritance none of the Ffrenches 
 having ever touched a card, to gamble." 
 
 "But not to-night," said George Blake. "Let us have 
 music, not cards to-night." 
 
 P2 
 
68 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Oh, as you like. The thing is to find performers. Teddy, 
 will you sing 1 No, you shall not. I abhor comic songs, and 
 it makes me abhor you when you sing them. Susan, will 
 you?" 
 
 Susan jumped up instantly and ran over to the piano. 
 She had not the faintest idea that a young lady who is asked 
 for music should look modest. Music had been the one keen 
 enjoyment, the daily, sweetest solace of Mr. Fielding's life, and 
 Susan was as simply ready to sing as she would, have been to 
 carry a footstool or pick up Miss Jemima's knitting-needles 
 had she been so bidden. 
 
 " The songs I know best are duets," she said, looking up at 
 Portia, who had given her her place before the piano, " but I 
 will sing whatever is wished." 
 
 " Tell me the name of your duets," said Blake, " and I will 
 see if I know any of them." Susan's fingers had already 
 touched the keys, and something in the touch, something in 
 the way her large eyes lighted up, made him augur well for 
 what was coming. " I have just enough voice to sing a 
 tolerably inoffensive second, no more." 
 
 Susan went through the names of five or six English songs, 
 time-flavoured and sterling as her novels. 
 
 " Sing that/' cried Miss Jemima, looking up suddenly from 
 her knitting. " I have not heard ( Drink to me only ' for five- 
 and-forty years." And a minute later, George Blake professing 
 sufficient knowledge of the air to take a modest second, the 
 duet began. 
 
 Never perhaps by two non-professional people were rare old 
 Ben's love-words married to truer melody. Susan Fielding's 
 voice was exquisite. You wanted nothing finer or more culti- 
 vated when you listened to her ; the piercing sweetness of 
 that fresh soprano contented your sense so utterly. Very 
 likely in Italian Opera she would have failed, for the order 
 of her voice was sustained rather than flexible, but it was a 
 voice that suited such music as this to perfection. And then 
 Susan sang out bravely ; sang as so few drawing-room singers 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 69. 
 
 do, with her whole heart, with frankest delight in her own- 
 
 singing : 
 
 " The thirst that from the soul doth flow 
 Doth need a draught divine." 
 
 What a volume of feeling the little girl threw into those 
 words ! what subdued, lingering emphasis into the nex* 
 
 couplet : 
 
 " But might I of Jove's nectar sip, 
 I would not ask for wine." 
 
 George Blake's "inoffensive second" proved an admirable 
 one. He possessed a tenor voice, moderate of compass, but 
 full, every note of it, of honest music ; and, then, was not 
 Portia's beautiful face before him % were not Portia's dark 
 eyes, with more expression in them than was their wont, 
 drinking to his ? Of his fellow-singer, all whose ignorant 
 passionate soul was shaken by new feeling as their voices- 
 flowed forth together, he thought no more than of the piano. 
 Luckily for the execution of the duet, however, there was no 
 glass-window to inform Susan of this ! 
 
 When it was over, Portia and Teddy Josselin applauded 
 loudly, Miss Jemima was silent. Her knitting had fallen on 
 her lap, her spectacles were pushed up on her forehead ; she 
 sat listening listening with a sad, far-away look on her face. 
 
 "You are very ungrateful, Aunt Jemima," cried Portia 
 " The song was sung for your pleasure, and now you don't 
 offer the performers a single compliment. " 
 
 " I I hadn't heard it for iive-and-forty years," said MisvS 
 Jemima, absently. " How you startled me, child." 
 
 And then she bent down her face, and with a flurried little 
 gesture took up her knitting. JSTo one had ever heard any 
 whisper of romance connected with Jemima Ffrench. She 
 said herself that she had never been pretty, had never had a 
 lover. Yet in this old heart, that had so long beat for others 
 only, some remembrance of youth the one supreme romance 
 of every human life must still have flickered, and the song 
 unheard for five-and-forty years, had power to rekindle it ! 
 
70 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " That was real music," she said, after a minute or two ; 
 " not like what you hear now-a-days." 
 
 " Yes, if I could sing, if I could move people like that ! " 
 exclaimed Portia, looking across at Susan. " I think to have 
 no voice is really to be dumb. When others sing I always 
 feel what I too could have said if the same power of expression 
 had only been given me ! " 
 
 Few accidents of human speech sound more graceful than 
 the praises accorded by one young and pretty woman to 
 another ; and Portia paid this homage to Susan's superior 
 gift in the prettiest tone conceivable, and with a genuine look 
 of self -depreciation on her handsome face. The tone, the ex- 
 pression went straight, as they were meant to go, to George 
 Blake's heart. All the fire of his quickly-wrought nature 
 had been stirred by Susan Fielding's voice, and now an adroit 
 word, an adroit expression had already turned aside the cur- 
 rent of his feelings towards Portia. To appropriate, in this 
 cool kind of fashion, emotions caused by the gifts of others is 
 a faculty, I think, that exceptionally handsome people, nearly 
 all of them, possess. Your senses are carried away by a piece 
 of admirable acting, by a strain of touching music, and if a 
 beautiful face chance to be near, ten to one but you will 
 transfer to its owner a good half of what you feel ! The 
 poor little man or woman, with sallow complexion and snub 
 features, beside you, may have a brain to understand, a heart 
 to sympathize with yours in vain. At such times all you need, 
 if you are the kind of foolishly susceptible creature George 
 Blake was, is a faultbss lay-figure, to clothe in the purple and 
 fine linen of your own imagination. And Portia was this, 
 and more than this. He forgot to ask Susan to sing again : 
 forgot Susan's existence. All he saw, all he wanted to see, 
 was Portia's face, glowing with this flush of new and softened 
 expression ; and when, presently, she moved away into a win- 
 dow still declaring herself " under the delicious influence of 
 that duet," drew aside a curtain, and began to whisper about 
 the beauty of the night (as it chanced, it was pitch dark, and 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 71 
 
 beginning to rain a little), the young man, his pulse beating 
 almost as it used to beat in the first days of his infatuation, 
 kept at her side. 
 
 The sociability of the party was hopelessly broken up. 
 Teddy Josselin sat quietly asleep in his easy-chair ; Miss 
 Jemima held silent counsel with her own thoughts over her 
 knitting ; Portia and George Blake continued to murmur in 
 indistinguishable tones at the window. When some minutes 
 had gone by like this, a timepiece struck eleven, and Susan 
 rose from the piano, and crossing over to Portia, wished her 
 good-night ; did not, however, hold up her lips as usual to be 
 kissed. The whole world had deepened, grown into new sig- 
 nificance to Susan during the last two hours ; even her senti- 
 mental worship of her friend was modified. 
 
 " What ! going so soon]" cried Portia, with innocent sur- 
 prise. " Aunt Jem, Susan says she is going. Has any one 
 come for you, my dear ] " 
 
 " Oh no, I can run home quite well by myself ; I told old 
 Nancy I would not be late. Good-night, Portia. I shall not 
 forget my birthday treat. I have enjoyed myself very much!" 
 
 " And Jekyll shall see you home," said Miss Jemima, 
 stretching out her hand towards the bell. "Yes, indeed, 
 child ; I hear rain on the windows, and Jekyll shall carry an 
 umbrella and see you home. Very likely indeed that I would 
 allow you to run along the highway alone at this time of 
 night ! " 
 
 Susan began to beg and entreat. The idea of Mr. Jekyll 
 condescending to hold an umbrella over her unimportant head 
 was too overwhelming. 
 
 "Better wait till our carriage comes," suggested Teddy, 
 whom all this talking had aroused. "We ordered it some- 
 where about midnight, didn't we, Blake ] " 
 
 " Better let me take you home, Susan," said Blake, who 
 would at all times have foregone pleasure of his own to 
 humour a child, and who read aright the terror of the little 
 girl's face at the proposal of Mr. JekylTs escort. 
 
72 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "It rains in torrents !" remarked Portia, laconically. 
 
 " Then Susan must put her cloak over her head, and wear 
 my goloshes, if she can keep them on," said Miss Jemima, 
 " Now mind, Mr. Blake, I trust to your getting her home dry 
 and safe." 
 
 And then the old lady came across to Susan, and, as she 
 kissed her cheek, thanked her in a whisper for the song, and 
 bade the girl come and sing to her alone, another day. Susan 
 could never help loving old Miss Ffrench a little better than 
 she loved Portia after that night. 
 
 The rain, as it turned out, did not pour in torrents yet. 
 Only an occasional big drop splashed down through the thick 
 cover of the avenue ; the trees and grass smelt dewy sweet, 
 the frogs were croaking a vociferous chorus of joy over the 
 approaching shower not a romantic sound, but I try to be 
 truthful, not romantic ; and about Halfont, wherever you 
 did not walk by a canal, you walked by a ditch, and the 
 ditches were deep and green-scummed, and full in the sum- 
 mer season of frogs. Eain or no rain, Susan would have 
 liked that walk to last for ever. When they were half-way or 
 so down the avenue, George Blake turned and looked back at 
 the house. He could see the lighted bay-window within 
 which he had stood five minutes ago with Portia : she stood 
 there still alas, with her rightful lover at her side now ! and 
 Blake heaved a despairing sigh. He was apt, in perfect sin- 
 cerity, to be just the least melodramatic at times ; saw, as 
 most imaginative people do, the picturesque capabilities of a 
 situation at a glance, that is to say, and could not refrain 
 from throwing himself with spirit into the fitting attitude as 
 hero. 
 
 "The thirst that from the soul doth flow ! " under his voice 
 he hummed the line. " Oh, Susan, little Susan, how I envy 
 you ! You, who have never felt a thirst that a cup of cold 
 water wouldn't slake ! How can you sing so well about 
 feelings of which you know nothing, child ? " 
 
 "I sing what I feel, Mr. Blake," answered Susan, simply; 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 73 
 
 then walked on by his side again in silence. She was not 
 jealous, consciously, of Portia ; not vexed at Mr. Blake's treat- 
 ment of herself ; the grass smelt sweet, the rain-charged air 
 blew soft ; there was a walk of a hundred yards by Mr. Blake's 
 side before her still. Susan was satisfied. 
 
 The old village woman who was at present the solitary 
 guardian of Addison Lodge, came to the door in answer to 
 Blake's knock : the loud London knock which echoed and re- 
 echoed through the silent garden. At sight of a gentleman, 
 tall, moustachioed, not of the Halfont world, standing beside 
 " little miss," the good old soul set down her candle and fled. 
 " And now indeed good-night ! " said Blake, holding out his 
 hand. " Susan, what are you going to give me for all the care 
 I have taken of you 1 " 
 
 "I should like you to come in just for a minute, Mr. 
 Blake," said Susan, hesitating as she made the request. " I 
 have nothing to give you, but I should like you to see some- 
 thing I hold very dear something that I may never have a 
 chance to show you again after to-night." 
 
 She took up the candle, and threw open a door on the right, 
 about a yard and a half distant from the entrance : there was 
 no space lost within the small arena of Addison Lodge. 
 " This was our sitting-room. The auctioneer says the fur- 
 niture will all have to be arranged differently before the sale, 
 but you see it now exactly as it was when we when papa and 
 T lived in it. There is his violin," she walked across the room, 
 and tenderly rested her hand on a very old, very shabby violin- 
 case ; " he played it, Miss Collinson said, as if he had been a 
 master ; and there are the books, all he was fondest of, in the 
 Kussia backs, and there Mr. Blake, I asked you to come and 
 see this there, above the mantelshelf, is papa himself. Of 
 course, the portrait will not be sold, but I like you to see it 
 to-night among the old furjiiture, and in the old room, just as- 
 it all was when he was alive." 
 
 The portrait was in oils, and a fair one ; had at least the- 
 merit of being strikingly like the face from which it was- 
 
7+ SI/SAW FIELDING. 
 
 painted ; a thin, pale face, insignificant of feature, broad of 
 brow, and with prominent grey eyes, like Susan's, which 
 seemed at this moment to look down half with kindliness, 
 half mistrust, on the man who stood by Susan's side. George 
 Blake never forgot either the picture or the room ; the room 
 with its smell of Russian leather, its silent instruments a 
 meerschaum pipe left piously as Fielding's hand had laid it 
 on the mantelpiece ; in the branched sockets of the music- 
 stand two ends of wax-candle, never lit since the night when 
 Fielding and his girl played their last duet together. . . . 
 
 " I'm glad you asked me to come in, my dear ; I feel now 
 as if I had known your father, as if I had smoked my pipe 
 with him scores of times, and heard him play, and heard you 
 sing together, in the winter evenings." 
 
 The colour faded on Susan's face ; her eyes filled. 
 
 " We shall never sing again," said she ; then turned away 
 abruptly, and lighted George Blake without a word to the 
 front door. 
 
 He took her hand ; held it a little space in his ; then, with 
 loyalty as absolute as if the girl had been seven, not seven- 
 teen, raised it for a moment to his lips, and left her. 
 
 In that moment was shut the last white page of Susan's 
 childhood. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 PORTIA FFRENCH was charming throughout the remainder of 
 the evening. Either that passionate old love-music had in 
 truth subdued her, or she felt, for the first time since their 
 acquaintance began, the possibility of George Blake wavering 
 in his fealty. She did not want cards ; did not want to chatter 
 town-scandal with her cousin. Real animation lit up the finer 
 beauty of her picturesque, rich-tinted face ; real feeling, gay 
 and pensive by turns, was in her voice. Even Teddy Josselin 
 the least impressionable of men went away with a vague 
 
SVSAW FIELDING. 75 
 
 idea in his mind that he must be much more in love than he 
 had hitherto suspected ; while George Blake. . . . JSTo of 
 George Blake's state of feeling I need not speak ! 
 
 " Thank Heaven, we are alone at last ! " cried Portia, the 
 moment the two young men had taken their leave. " How 
 mortally tired I am ! Don't go to bed, dear Aunt Jem ; sit 
 down here and talk to me a little. What a fearfully tiring 
 creature a clever man in love is ! " 
 
 Sleep had been weighing heavily on Miss Jemima's eyelids 
 for a good hour or more past, but she seated herself obediently 
 at Portia's bidding, just as in bygone years she had been wont 
 to seat herself by inconsistent babies who chose to keep vigil 
 at midnight, or as she would do now at her brother's bedside, 
 whenever old Colonel Ffrench, additionally fractious under an 
 attack of gout, would take it into his head that he needed 
 " watching." 
 
 " You ought to say, how tiring two men in love are, Portia. 
 It seems to me Mr. Blake is quite as lover-like as your cousin." 
 
 " I am speaking of Mr. Blake. Did I not say how weary- 
 ing a clever man was in a certain state 1 Teddy never tires me, 
 now I am accustomed to him ; but George Blake I (I confess 
 I am weak enough to be pleased by his attention, just because 
 it shows I am not so frivolous as you have all called me.) But 
 for any pleasure his conversation gives me oh dear, how I 
 shall pity the woman that young man marries ! " Portia 
 yawned prophetically. 
 
 " Mr. Blake seems to me a young man of great ability, and, 
 what is more, of very excellent feeling," said Miss Jemima. 
 "I don't judge him by his novel indeed, except the death- 
 bed scene, I thought it all rather foolish but by his manner. 
 How prettily he behaved to Susan Fielding ! Few young men 
 now-a-days, if Teddy Josselin is a sample of them, would have 
 turned out in the rain, as he did, to take that poor child home. 
 The man who is kind to a plain little girl like Susan, or to an 
 old woman like me, is the man with the real stuff in him, 
 Portia, depend upon it.' 1 
 
76 SVSAW FIELDING. 
 
 " Well, then, the real stuff bores me," said Portia. " I'm 
 not a plain little girl, I'm not an old lady, like you ; I often 
 wish I were you, Aunt Jem ! I like people who never require 
 one to think, like Teddy. I could talk to Ted for a year with 
 less exertion than that last hour of Mr. George Blake's society 
 has cost me." 
 
 " Then why ask him here at all, Portia ? You insist upon 
 having him invited ; when he is here, you encourage him. 
 Yes, child, I've not had much experience in such matters my- 
 self, but I have watched you since you were seventeen 
 
 "Four years," interrupted Portia. " How old I am ; how 
 old I feel ! " 
 
 " And I know very well it is your pleasure that George 
 Blake should not go. Now, Portia, as you have chosen the 
 subject," Miss Jemima drew herself very upright indeed as she 
 said this, " let me put one question to you. Do you think, 
 engaged as you are to your cousin, that your conduct to his 
 friend is honourable 1 " 
 
 "I am a Dysart, A;int Jem," said Portia, coolly. "Has a 
 Dysart a conscience ? Teddy is not jealous ; Mr. Blake seems 
 to like coming here to dinner he has an excellent appetite 
 still, by the way ! Who is hurt 1 " 
 
 "Yourself, child. If you cared for Blake's society, I could 
 find an excuse for you ; but you do not. You have just 
 confessed as much, and yet you like to have him for ever 
 dangling after you you, who in a few weeks' time will be 
 another man's wife ! In my young days we called such con- 
 duct by harsh names, I can tell you." 
 
 The girl stole her hand into Miss Jemima's ; not a usual 
 action with her, for Portia's was the least caressing, the least 
 demonstrative of natures. "In your young days, depend upon 
 it, human nature was just as bad and just as good as it is 
 now," she remarked. " There were people like you, generous, 
 unselfish souls, who always acted right, because they couldn't 
 help it ; and people like me, who thought of nothing but 
 themselves and their own vanity, and they couldn't help it ! 
 
S17SAN FIELDING. 77 
 
 and young men like George Blake, who ran about falling 
 hopelessly in love with every one they oughtn't, for the same 
 admirable reason ! Aunt Jemima," after a pause, " I've often 
 thought of late that I should like to know why I, Portia 
 Ffrench, am what I am ? As we are not going to bed, and as 
 we have nothing better than Mr. George Blake to talk about, 
 suppose you help me a little in my speculation. What sort of 
 a woman was my mother ? " 
 
 "Your mother? Portia, the past is past," cried Miss 
 Jemima, hastily. "What has put this into your head to-night 1 
 Your mother is in her grave. Let her faults rest with her." 
 Old Miss Jemima rested the palms of her hands down on .her 
 knees, looked up austerely at the ceiling, and pronounced the 
 word " faults " with emphasis. 
 
 "And I am living," said Portia, quietly. "Living and 
 wearying myself, and running after excitement that I can 
 never reach, because I have her nature in me, I suppose 1 I'm 
 a Dysart, as you so often say. I could no more be like you, 
 Aunt Jem, than I could be like that small child next door, 
 with her odd face and passionate voice and jog-trot common- 
 place nature. It all came upon me as I watched Susan sing- 
 ing here an hour ago. I've often thought before, when I have 
 listened to her and you talk .... the interminable talk 
 about that horrid old bookseller the interminable grief at 
 leaving Addison Lodge, and selling the dear old cups and 
 saucers. ... I say I have often thought before, that Susan 
 Fielding and I could not in reality belong to the same species \ 
 and to-night I felt sure of it. I've much greater capacity for 
 enjoyment, one would say, than she. I want change, excite- 
 ment ; I want money; I want a thousand things just as I want 
 air ' } and Susan could live contentedly in the damp shades of 
 Addison Lodge (pity George Blake does not marry her !) and 
 make shirts and puddings and mend children's socks for ever. 
 And yet, Aunt Jem " the beautiful face saddened " there's 
 something in that girl I haven't got, shall never have ! Her 
 jog-trot nature, such as it is, is complete. I' am incomplete." 
 
7 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Most people would not say so," answered Miss Jemima, 
 who, severity itself in her own judgments, could never listen 
 to any censure of Portia, even from Portia's lips. "What 
 additional gift do you want to possess ] A voice like Susan's 'I 
 It would be the worst thing you could have, with your dis- 
 position. I knew a very beautiful young woman once, with 
 just that kind of sweet piercing voice, a niece of Colonel 
 Harding, of the Engineers, and she turned out shockingly 
 after her marriage, too and every one attributed it to her 
 voice. I think I heard she went on the stage eventually, but 
 I am not certain. No talent for leading people astray like 
 music ! " Miss Jemima's generalizations were somewhat broad, 
 as you perceive ; her deductions from actual personal observa- 
 tion unhesitating. 
 
 "I don't envy Susan her voice/' said Portia. " Yes, I do ; 
 I envy every gift under the sun ; but it is not of my want of 
 voice that I am thinking when I say I am incomplete. I want 
 what she, like all commonplace people, has in perfection the 
 gift of taking an interest in her own life ! I looked at her 
 face as she sang, her colour coming and going, her great eyes 
 afire, and I saw that she enjoyed her singing, as she enjoyed 
 seventeen years of father-worship in Addison Lodge, and one 
 day will enjoy darning socks and baby- worship elsewhere. 
 Why is life a weight to me, Aunt Jem ( l a weight I am 
 always trying to put away from me, and cannot 'I What kind 
 of human beings were Harry Ffrench and Lady Portia Ffrench, 
 his wife ] I am one and-twenty, I am better-looking than 
 ninety-nine women out of a hundred, I am going to be mar- 
 ried, if grandmamma will give us anything to live upon. 
 (Did Ted give you her message, by-the-by 1 You are to lunch 
 in Eaton Square the day after to-morrow, and talk about 
 settlements.) Yet every morning when I wake I feel how 
 bitter the taste of a new day is in my mouth ! What were 
 the people like who bequeathed this charming inheritance, this 
 incapacity for life, to me 1 " 
 
 Miss Jemima looked, as she felt, thoroughly taken aback. 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 79 
 
 Portia indolent, self-contained, self-satisfied Portia breaking 
 out with a confession like this ! 
 
 t( You have had an excellent education the best masters, I 
 am sure, in everything ! You know French and German " 
 
 " Music, the use of the globes, and perspective ; the whole 
 art of polite insincerity, and every game that can be played on 
 the cards ! Aunt Jem, dear, do you think education, as begun 
 by the Miss Davenports and finished by grandmamma Erroll, 
 is what is wanted to make one enjoy life]" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know what else it is for," said good Miss 
 Jemima. "We paid forty pounds a quarter, without masters, 
 the last five years you were at the Miss Davenports' at Ful- 
 ham " 
 
 " And you think that any of that fiddle-faddle, that outside 
 layer of accomplishments, changed me, Portia Ffrench, any 
 more than it changed the shape of my nose or the colour of 
 rny hair 1 I was restless and dissatisfied when I was little. 
 That's what made me so wicked " 
 
 "Ah, wicked, indeed!" groaned Miss Jemima, as she 
 thought of Portia's childhood. 
 
 " I am the same now. I can help it no more than the 
 black kitten can help not being a tortoise-shell. From papa, 
 I k?iow, I must inherit my looks ! " She turned and glanced 
 at herself in the different mirrors around the room. "From 
 the Ffrench side of the house probably I get my little tastes 
 for extravagance and card-playing, also my fashion of carrying 
 my pauper head so well aloft. But the unseen part, is that a 
 Ffrench inheritance too, or am I merely the kind of woman 
 my mother was ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! " cried Miss Jemima, hastily. " Portia, it 
 cuts me to the heart to hear you talk like this. The past is 
 dead. All that concerns you is the future." 
 
 " YvTiich is part and parcel of the past," said Portia. 
 "Does yesterday belong less to this week than to-morrow 
 will '\ Where is the good of trying to put me off any longer ? 
 I ask you to sit up for half-an-hour, and talk to me about 
 
8o SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 papa and mamma do you refuse 1 Harry Ffrench, handsome, 
 spendthrift, ruined Harry Ffrench, died by his own hand, 
 and his wife, Lady Portia, married again, and lived till I was 
 twelve years eld, and I was never allowed to see her from the 
 day I came to Halfont. There is the outline of the story. 
 Now fill in the details. I ask Lady Portia's mother, and 
 she yawns, and answers ' Another day.' I ask Harry Ffrench's 
 father, and he says his feelings are too much for him grand- 
 papa's feelings too much for him ! that even yet he cannot 
 bear to speak of his Harry's loss. Did grandpapa ever really 
 love any human creature as much as all that, I wonder 1 " 
 
 Miss Jemima's hands clasped each other tighter ; her lips 
 twitched a little. " Your grandfather never understood poor 
 Harry, or indeed any of his children, Portia. He was fond 
 of them, of course, but he never understood them. When 
 they were young, arid he used to come near them so seldom 
 they had the scarletina once, and Lucy and Dick were in 
 danger, but 'twas Goodwood Races, and he never saw them for 
 a week when they were in the nursery, and their father's 
 affection for them seemed so cold, I always thought it was 
 because they were in the nursery. A man like Richard could 
 not be expected to feel anxious about babies, and babies' ail- 
 ments. When they grew older, grew to be companions to him, 
 he would love them better. And then when they began to 
 grow up, when the boys left school and one by one went into 
 the world, and and settled to nothing, things became worse. 
 They were fme-natured boys, every one of them ; not a fault 
 in their characters, but that they were slow at learning the 
 value of money or the necessity for work ; but Richard never 
 understood them ! My poor lads Ptichard never understood 
 them ! " 
 
 " Except Harry. Grandpapa's emotions overpower him still 
 at the mention of my father's death. Surely he must have 
 understood him while he lived ? " 
 
 Miss Jemima was silent. "Portia," she said at last, "it 
 seems you mean to insist upon my speaking of old days, of 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 81 
 
 old sorrows, to-night. Very well : I will speak. Perhaps 
 you are right. Perhaps you are old enough to hear what 
 manner of marriage your father's was, the more now that you 
 will so soon be a wife yourself. But remember, child, I have 
 not the art that Eichard has of making unpleasant things sound 
 pleasant. What I feel I say, and Harry was my favourite 
 boy. I loved all Richard's children well, but Harry best, and 
 I never loved his wife. I saw her twice, and it was enough. 
 I could not love her. Even now I don't think I can speak of 
 Lady Portia Ffrench with fair words. And she was your 
 mother." 
 
 " Oh ! don't mind that in the least," said Portia, cheerfully. 
 " I recollect one thing with extreme clearness of Lady Portia 
 Ffrench a whipping she gave me with her own hands for 
 upsetting a jug of cream on the coat of one of her friends. 
 She used to lie for ever on a sofa and play cards. There 
 were some horrible old women, I remember, and some foreign 
 officers in uniform, and one man in black who always came to 
 play with her. I upset the cream on the man in black, be- 
 cause I hated him. I did it on purpose, and Lady Portia 
 beat me when I was in bed. 1 hated them all worse after that." 
 
 " And you can remember all this ? " exclaimed Miss Jemima. 
 " Why, you were not six years old when you left your mother 
 for good. What made you never speak of it to me before r ( " 
 
 " Where was the use *? " said Portia. " I did not feel cer- 
 tain, perhaps, when I was a child, whose side you took, and 
 latterly I suppose I forgot all about it. Besides, I was not 
 brought up to tell tales. Sophie used to bribe me not to tell 
 miladi when I caught her in miladi's clothes, and Lady Portia 
 used to bribe me, and so did the man in black Mr. Molyneux, 
 my future step-papa, that must have been. I don't know why, 
 but it seems to me that I was bribed all round to tell stories, 
 and I told them very well, too ! I loved nobody, except 
 poor Larly a little. After that beating, I loved Lady Portia 
 least of all. You needn't be afraid of hurting my feelings in 
 speaking of her." 
 
82 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "And you never knew your father. You were a babe, 
 asleep in your cot, the morning he kissed you for the last 
 time. Ah, Portia, you would have loved him ! Yours would 
 have been a different life if Harry had been the one to 
 survive." 
 
 " I should have loved him for his handsome face, at least," 
 said Portia. " My mother was not handsome. She dyed her 
 hair ; her voice was shrill ; she wore rouge. Whenever I kiss 
 grandmamma, I remember her. They are the same texture." 
 
 "And Harry," said old Miss Jemima, warming into sudden 
 animation, "was the handsomest of all Richard's handsome 
 sons. You have his miniature, Portia, taken when he was 
 five-and-twenty, and you think that handsome. No picture 
 can give you more than a map, a shadow of Harry's face, for 
 it was not the features only the fine-cut nose and mouth, the 
 fair complexion, the dark, full eyes ; it was the goodness, the 
 brightness of my boy's face, that made him what he was. 
 From the time he was a baby he was the same. People 
 would all turn round in the park to look at him in his nurse's 
 arms. * What a lovely face ! ' every one said who saw him ; 
 and there was no exaggeration in the word. As I remember 
 Harry Ffrench in his youth, he was lovely, in face and soul. 
 When I saw him years later, as a man, he had altered so that 
 I should scarce have known him in the street .... but that 
 was when he was your father, when he was Lady Portia's 
 husband. 
 
 "I came to England for a month in '47, just before our 
 battalion was ordered up to Scinde (the only time in sixteen 
 years that Lucy and Elliot were able to spare me) ; and on my 
 way back to Marseilles managed to run round and visit Harry 
 and his wife in Brussels. They had never had a settled home 
 since their marriage, and were now living about in different 
 continental towns economizing. I have always remarked, 
 Portia, that when any member of our family is going faster to 
 ruin than ordinary, he calls it ' economizing.' I found it so 
 with Harry. His father, he told me, had grown unpunctual 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 83 
 
 with his allowance ; the price of his own commission had gone 
 long ago ; and, as far as I could make out, they had very 
 little to depend upon but the scanty sum Lady Portia got 
 yearly from her mother, and whatever poor Harry could him- 
 self contrive to pick up at cards and billiards. So what do 
 you suppose was their way of economizing 1 Lady Portia had 
 her opera-box, and her evenings of reception, and her own set 
 of friends a very fast set, too ! And Harry had his friends, 
 rather faster ones, I believe, than his wife's, and played higher, 
 and lived altogether more recklessly, it was said (and that 
 was saying a good deal), than any other Englishman in 
 Brussels. Oh, child, how altered he was ! A man scarce 
 over thirty, but looking any number of years more than his 
 age the handsome features of the face the same, but all 
 the goodness, all the bright expression blotted out 
 
 " Portia, I think I was unjust ; I have often thought since 
 I was unjust to your mother," said old Miss Jemima, humbly, 
 " and I have tried to make some amends to you her child. 
 But when I saw Harry sunk to what he was, I did lay half 
 the blame upon his wife. We women are like that; anything, 
 anybody must be guilty rather than our son. And Harry 
 had been more than a son to me ! I was a girl of one-and- 
 twenty, your age, Portia, when I went to keep Eichard's house 
 for him ; I had no hope, no interest in life, but Eichard's 
 children ; and from the first, and through every trouble I had 
 to fight with, Harry, poor little soul, made himself my com- 
 panion and comfort. .... Well, and Harry had sunk to 
 this. The rest of the lads were adrift, Good knew where, 011 
 the world, and Harry had sunk to this ! Harry was an out- 
 law, a gambler, and hopeless oh ! so hopeless at thirty years 
 of age ! with a wife who thought of nothing save her own 
 pleasure, her opera-box, her dinner-dresses, her receptions ; 
 and you poor, neglected, little year-old bady in your cradle. 
 
 " I wander, Portia. You must let me think for awhile be- 
 fore I try to tell my story, such as it is, in order." 
 
 G2 
 
84 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " MY nephew Harry was already an officer in her Majesty's 
 service when I went abroad in '33 to join the Elliots," said 
 Miss Jemima at length ; Portia, with an expression of eager- 
 ness very unusual to see her dark face wear, waiting to listen. 
 " He was gazetted about six weeks after he left Eton, and I 
 remember it as if it was yesterday put on his uniform for the 
 first time the day I sailed. I had to go on tip-toe to reach his 
 face, he was so tall ; and as I kissed him I bade him be brave 
 and truthful now that he wore a sword, just the same as he had 
 been when he was a boy. He promised me, sobbing the while 
 like a child (for he and I were alone together) at my going. 
 Often I remembered him afterwards, his eyes swollen with tears, 
 his dear arms round my neck this fine dignified young officer, 
 with his simple heart, crying as he said good-bye to me just as 
 in the days when he was a little lad going back to school after 
 the holidays ! I remembered him thus, I say, and used to 
 think and half reproach poor Lucy and her babies at the 
 thought that life might have gone differently with him, per- 
 haps with the other lads, if I had stayed behind in England. 
 It seems foolish to say that one unimportant old maid, old 
 Aunt Jemima, living in her poor cottage in loneliness and 
 poverty, could have been any help to young men of pleasure 
 and the world. But, you. see, I should have loved them ; and 
 I believe in love ! " 
 
 Miss Jemima looked rather ashamed of herself as she made 
 this assertion before Portia. 
 
 " It's old-fashioned to talk so, I know, but I do believe in 
 the power of love to ward away evil. I have seen it among 
 all ranks. As long as a man has some woman who loves him 
 unstintingly, wife, or sister, or mother, he does not despair of 
 himself ; and a man who does not despair of himself can be 
 saved. No chance of love came to Harry. I am wrong : the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 85 
 
 chance came, and he lost it. There began the ruin of his life. 
 Portia, if you loved Teddy Josselin mind, I suppose it only 
 and if to marry him, against Lady ErrolTs will, would insure 
 to you absolute poverty " 
 
 "It would simply insure starvation," remarked Portia. 
 
 " I would still say, marry him. I know the real meaning 
 of that word poverty. I have stood face to face with it 
 during half my life. Elliot and Lucy were steeped in poverty, 
 had children born to inherit nothing else, but they both led 
 liappy and dutiful lives, and now have sons doing well in the 
 world, and a ring of bright faces round their table at Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 " Poor, dear, faded Aunt Lucy ! " cried Portia, " I'm quite 
 sure I would rather die at once than live and be happy after 
 that fashion." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Jemima drily," you must remember I said 
 if you loved Teddy Josselin. Harry, your father, had a heart 
 full to overflowing of tenderness when he was young. When 
 Harry's love was betrayed his best chance of life was over ! 
 You are of a different nature, Portia I think at times you 
 are more like your grandfather than any of his children were 
 and Richard's is a temperament that wears well. No dis- 
 appointment in affection would have altered your grandfather's 
 character or ruined his happiness." 
 
 "Any more than it would mine," said Portia, smiling. " I 
 like Teddy really very much indeed, poor little mortal, but I 
 am entirely dependent on grandmamma's opinion as to the 
 wisdom of our marrying. I could much better bear to lose 
 Teddy Josselin than to live with him in poverty. Go on with 
 the essential facts of the story, Aunt Jemima, and repress 
 sentiment. Remember I have had a whole evening of Mr. 
 Blake." 
 
 " There spoke Lady Portia Ffrench ! " cried Miss Jemima. 
 " Portia, when I hear those withered remarks from your lips, 
 I feel myself back in the Brussels lodging, and could be hard 
 on you, child only that I look in your face and see Harry 
 
86 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 there. Repress sentiment ! There is the true maxim of the 
 world ; the maxim which, put into practice, ruined your 
 father's life. You shall hear, quite short and plain I won't 
 tire you with my old-fashioned opinions the story of a life in 
 which sentiment had been repressed effectually. Take what 
 moral from it you like. 
 
 " I went away, as I told you, leaving Harry, at seventeen 
 years of age, an officer in the army. Well, he wrote to me, 
 as punctually as boys do write, for the next three or four 
 years. I could show you the letters now, only you would 
 laugh over the spelling Harry never could learn to spell, 
 bright though he was in most things. They lie in my dress- 
 ing-case : " Jemima Ffrench's dressing-case was a black re- 
 gulation dispatch-box that, in the old campaigning days, had 
 travelled with her half over the civilized world, and was now 
 .a receptacle, not for trinkets, ivory-handled brushes, or filagree 
 bottles, but for packet upon packet of faded letters, " love 
 letters" most of them, from her boys. "They lie in my 
 dressing-case, together with the one he wrote me in large text 
 from his first school with the last paper he ever put his hand 
 
 to on earth ! I read them through on his birthday 
 
 Yes, now you may know why I shut myself in my room every 
 fifteenth of March, Portia I read Harry's letters." 
 
 Old Miss Jemima broke down ; and Portia's dark eyes sank, 
 ^with a sensation of abashment, to the ground. Here was 
 : something beyond her, like Susan's emotion in singing ; some- 
 thing which, ludicrous or not ludicrous, awoke her anew to the 
 .sense of her own incompleteness. 
 
 " They were not well spelt, as I told you, nor well com- 
 posed, nor witty. None of that generation wrote such a 
 letter as Richard. You write more like him, my dear. But 
 they were letters brimful of such unflagging spirits, such per- 
 fect contentment with life, as did one's heart good to read. 
 He liked the army, liked his brother officers never had any 
 man such capital fellows to live with as had Harry ! To 
 whatever station he was ordered, it was invariably a ' jollier ' 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 87 
 
 station than the last. If he rode a race, he won it. If he 
 went to a ball, he was sure to dance half the night with the 
 prettiest girl in the room. During long leave his only diffi- 
 culty was to chose the pleasantest out of the dozen pleasant 
 country houses that were open to him. Even Eichard, never 
 sanguine about the prospects of his children, used to write me 
 hopeful accounts of Harry during those first years. He was 
 the handsomest, the most popular man in his regiment ; the 
 best shot, best dancer, best rider ; extravagant, rather, yet not 
 more so than might be expected of a young fellow in his 
 position. * Above all, he was well principled/ this Richard 
 said, in one of his letters, when Harry had been some years in 
 the army ; ' a lad, unlike the younger ones, to whose future 
 establishment in life it was possible to look forward to with a 
 degree of satisfaction/ The remark pointed, I imagined, to- 
 wards some prospect Harry had of making a wealthy marriage, 
 and I confess I felt in spirits over it. We wanted money 
 more than ever just then. Ths twins were babies, and ailing, 
 both of them, with their teeth " 
 
 Portia gave a shudder at the picture. 
 
 "And the doctors were beginning to hint that our poor, 
 delicate Lucy must either return to England or die. It really 
 did seem to me as well that some one out of Richard's 
 children should try the experiment of competency ; and I 
 wrote and told Harry what I thought. The following mail 
 brought a letter from him in reply, a much longer, much 
 graver letter than it was Harry's custom to write. By what 
 odd coincidence I had guessed that he was thinking of mar- 
 riage, he could not divine. Such, however, was the case ; my 
 only mistake being that I imagined the young lady he loved 
 had money. Money ! did I think him capable of marrying 
 for money, for any other reason than affection 1 And then 
 came such long descriptions of chestnut hair, and brown eyes, 
 and angel smiles, as made me almost think the whole* letter 
 must be a hoax. It was so hard to imagine Harry seriously 
 in love, so hard to believe in Harry writing about anything 
 
88 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 but races and balls, and his own amusement in them, or 
 finding more to say of a woman than the ' capital dancer, 
 beautiful figure, did not frown on your affectionate nephew,' 
 which had always been his style hitherto in describing his 
 flirtations to me. 
 
 " My poor boy was stationed at that time at Chester, and 
 had fallen desperately in love at first sight I tell you the 
 story as I heard it, long afterwards, not as I made it out from 
 his letter at the time with Miss Morgan, the daughter of a 
 small country solicitor in the neighbourhood." 
 
 "And what was Miss Morgan like?" interrupted Portia. 
 " What kind of woman was this who, if the course of true 
 love had run smooth, would, you think, have influenced all 
 Harry Ff rench's life for good ] " 
 
 " I never saw Miss Morgan. I never saw any picture of 
 her," answered Miss Jemima. "I do not even remember the 
 name of the man whom, a few months later, she married. I 
 know only that when I saw Harry, in after days, a hopeless 
 and a ruined man, he could not speak of this girl without his 
 colour changing ; and that, when he died, a curl of brown 
 hair not his wife's, not his child's was in his breast. I 
 have that curl now, Portia. I keep it with one or two little 
 notes written to him by Amelia Morgan in the first bright 
 weeks of their engagement. They were put into my hands, 
 long after your father's death, by Lady Portia, as you shall 
 hear .... 
 
 " I say he fell in love at first sight with the girl, proposed 
 at the end of a week, and was accepted. The engagement 
 went on for some months unknown to all Harry's friends, ex- 
 cept me, away in Mauritius ; then his regiment was ordered to 
 Ireland, and unable, so Harry wrote, to exist without the 
 woman he loved, he took sudden courage, went up to London, 
 and broke the news of his engagement to his father. 
 
 "Richard heard the romance out with perfect patience, with- 
 out a sign of anger. You know with what marked courtesy 
 your grandfather always does listen to anything for which he 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 89 
 
 feels the most profound contempt. First love plighted word 
 a girl that a prince, that any man might be proud to marry ! 
 Well, he congratulated Harry heartily on so much good for- 
 tune, hoped he would find every blessing he expected in the 
 married state, and, as a matter purely of curiosity, would like 
 to hear how he proposed to support his establishment. 
 
 " l Your intended has only her face for her fortune/ he 
 remarked. I know the exact words, for when I saw Harry at 
 Brussels he described to me the whole scene. ' It would be 
 unjust, perhaps, to look for money as well as beauty then, 
 my dear boy, how do you mean to live as a married man 1 I 
 ask from curiosity, having myself married twice, each time, as 
 you know, an heiress, yet never been able to do much more 
 than keep the wolf from the door. How do you propose to 
 liver 
 
 " Harry, who, poor lad ! was a good deal in debt, and had 
 not a farthing but his lieutenant's pay and what his father 
 choose to allow him, stammered out that he supposed he 
 hoped they would get on pret'y well if they were econo- 
 mical, and through his father's generosity. 
 
 " ' But I am not generous/ said Richard, raising himself up, 
 and looking quietly in his son's face. ' I have made you a 
 tolerably good allowance hitherto. If you marry in your own 
 rank of life, and with my consent, I will increase it, and pay 
 off your debts as well. But I am, constitutionally, the very 
 reverse of generous. Your brothers have chosen their own 
 paths in life. I do not interfere with them, but I do not, and 
 will not, give them one farthing of money. Marry this young 
 lady of whom you speak, and on your marriage-day I write to 
 Cox's, and stop your account there. Now let us change the 
 subject/ 
 
 " Poor Harry entreated, stormed, finally swore with a great 
 oath that he would brave poverty, go to Australia as his 
 brothers had done, would tend sheep, drive bullocks would 
 do anything but forfeit his word, abandon his love. 
 
 " ' You will do exactly as you like/ said his father calmly. 
 
90 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 ' The life of a gentleman is really not such a pleasant one, that 
 I should urge upon you the disadvantages of becoming a 
 blackguard. Marry your fair Amelia Morgan, go abroad, 
 found a new colony, you and your brothers, between you, and 
 call it Ffrench's Land. Do anything, my dear boy, rather 
 than discuss a subject upon which it is impossible for our 
 mutual prejudices to allow us to agree/ 
 
 " Harry flung away from his father's presence, as he 
 thought, for ever, and on the afternoon of the next day went 
 down to Chester, resolute to stand by his engagement. He 
 called at the lawyer's house, and was shown, not as usual into 
 Miss Morgan's sitting-room, but into her father's office, there 
 to receive his dismissal. Colonel Ffrench had come down to 
 Chester by the early morning train, had explained the precise 
 state of his son's affairs to Mr. Morgan, and, ' in consideration 
 of the very handsome way the Colonel had behaved/ Mr. 
 Morgan was willing not to publish Harry Ffrench's dishonour- 
 able conduct further ; in other words, your grandfather had 
 bought Mr. Morgan off ! 
 
 " ' And Amelia ? ' exclaimed poor Harry. ' Does she call 
 such a sacrifice as I was prepared to make for her dishonour 1 ' 
 
 "'Amelia thinks as her parents think,' said the lawyer. 
 ' Amelia engaged herself to marry a gentleman, and has not 
 the slightest inclination towards colonial life.' 
 
 "And a few cold lines written by Miss Morgan herself 
 reached Harry in the course of the day at his quarters. 
 When, years later, he was telling me the whole story, he tried 
 to make me believe, as he believed himself, that the girl's love 
 for him never really changed. She was sensitive and timid of 
 nature, and this letter must have been written under com- 
 pulsion, under threats of personal violence from her father. 
 For my part," said Miss Jemima, " I don't believe over-much 
 in compulsion in such matters. A woman who loved a man, 
 although she might obey her parents up to the point of re- 
 fusing to rnarry him, must find some means, must write some 
 letter to soften his pain. And no such letter came to Harry. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 91 
 
 He wrote to Miss Morgan. His letter, unopened, addressed 
 in her own hand, was returned to him. She turned her face 
 aside when she met him in th.3 street. It was over. 
 
 " ' My calf-love over ! ' he wrote to me lightly, and yet with 
 something in his strain that made my heart ache. ' My belief 
 in a cottage, all bliss and roses and earwigs, shattered ! Con- 
 gratulate me ! Write to me soon, Aunt Jem, and congratulate 
 me, laugh at me, do anything but pity me, for indeed I don't 
 need it. I'm not hurt, not very badly hurt, at least. In six 
 months I shall be cured.' 
 
 " After this fashion, Portia, the sentiment in your father's 
 life was ' repressed.' He never fell in love again. Eichard 
 had plenty of extravagance of every other kind to complain 
 of in his eldest son. Of an extravagance of sentiment 
 never. Time went on ; and at last, five or six years it must 
 have been after that first ill-fated love affair, I received a 
 letter from your grandfather telling me that Harry was on the 
 eve of making a capital marriage. The lady was not very 
 young, not actually pretty, wrote Eichard, still was a decidedly 
 charming person, the possessor of thirty thousand pounds, 
 and " 
 
 " Thirty thousand pounds ! " exclaimed Portia, with ani- 
 mation. "I didn't know that a Dysart ever owned thirty 
 thousand shillings. If my mother had all this money, why 
 am I a pauper 1 " 
 
 " Your mother had just three hundred a year, allowed her 
 very irregularly, for her life," said Miss Jemima. " The lady 
 whom Eichard destined to be Harry's wife was the widow of 
 a Liverpool merchant ' a lady innocent alike of good looks 
 and good grammar,' poor Harry wrote, ' unearthed the Lord 
 knew how, or from whence, by the governor himself, but the 
 undoubted owner, it seemed, of thirty thousand pounds ; also 
 of a slumbering interest whatever that might mean in the 
 business of her late husband.' Well, the whole thing was ar- 
 ranged ; guests bidden ; wedding-breakfast ordered ; then, at 
 the last, the marriage fell through, Harry declared, through 
 
92 St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 his father's parsimony as to settlements, Richard, through his 
 son's gross negligence of the lady. This was in the summer 
 of '44, just at the time we were under orders for India. At 
 the beginning of next year, seven or eight months latjr, I got 
 a few lines from Harry, telling me he was a married man. 
 His wife was the daughter of the late Earl of Erroll, ' setat 
 thirty-nine, 7 said Harry. ' When young ladies' names are 
 written in the book, impossible to be delicate as to age.' 
 There was no money to speak of at present, he added, but 
 a prospect of a moiety of a sum of twenty-five thousand 
 pounds, should the Dowager Lady Erroll inherit it (the twenty- 
 five thousand pounds, Portia, which it is now in your grand- 
 mother's power to leave, or not to leave, to Teddy Josselin). 
 His father, Harry continued, seemed to like the marriage, and 
 it was planned, he believed, that he should have his debts 
 paid, leave the army, and through the Dysart interest be ap- 
 pointed to some consulship abroad. Lady Portia preferred 
 the continent to England, and Lady Portia's husband, so he 
 said, was in that beautiful frame of mind in which every 
 place, and every employment, would be the same to him ! 
 
 " I augured well from this letter, I must confess," went on 
 Jemima. " I knew too little what kind of man Harry Ffrench 
 had grown to discern the hidden bitterness of tone in which 
 he spoke of his own prospects and feelings. I augured well 
 from the letter, I say, and in niy simplicity wrote off what 
 you, Portia, would call one of my gushing epistles to Harry 
 and his bride ; I also sent her an embroidered India muslin 
 dress, and an ivory work-box, not very valuable gifts, but the 
 best it lay in my power, just then, to afford. In return, a 
 good many mails later, I got a few scrawled lines from Lady 
 Portia if Harry had married Amelia Morgan what a sign of 
 her plebeian birth we should have considered such a hand 
 She was extremely obliged by my good wishes and gifts, 
 hoped I would excuse a longer letter, but really she detested 
 letter-writing, and was overwhelmed just now with engage- 
 ments. Mr. Ffrench was away in Ireland, she thought oh 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 93 
 
 no, somewhere in the Highlands or he would join her, she 
 felt sure, in kind remembrances, and she remained mine 
 sincerely Harry's wife, mine sincerely ! PORTIA FFKENCH. 
 
 " This letter was dated from Paris, and gave me no clue 
 whatever to their future prospects. Harry, it seemed, could 
 find nothing of interest to write to me about now that he was 
 a married man ; from Richard's letters I could never gather 
 more than that ' Harry was living out of England,' or ' Harry 
 continued idle still/ or ' Harry, as usual, wanted money ' ; 
 and it was not until I came home in '47 that I learned, defi- 
 nitely, how my boy and his wife were getting on. They were 
 now living in Brussels. Either the Dysart interest had not 
 been exercised, or had failed in procuring a consulship for 
 Harry Ffrench. Richard, I found, would scarcely hear his 
 name spoken before him. The second Mrs. Ffrench had 
 lately died, without children, and by the conditions of her 
 marriage settlement your grandfather's means, as I have often 
 told you, were reduced " 
 
 " To Halfont Manor, a brougham, pair of horses, butler, 
 valet, and old Madeira ! Grandpapa's idea of excessive 
 poverty." 
 
 Miss Jemima shifted her position. She would condemn 
 Richard as flatly as she wo ild condemn Portia with her 
 own lips, yet could never listen unwounded to a word in his 
 dispraise from others. " All our ideas of riches and poverty 
 are relative, child. The diminution in your grandfather's 
 income, at all events, was such as disabled him from keeping 
 up the allowance he had promised Harry when he married. 
 And, Portia, I have remarked I say it with no unkind feeling 
 towards poor Richard I have remarked all my life, that we 
 none of us care to talk much of people towards whom we 
 know we have been ever so little unjust. Harry was incur- 
 ably a spendthrift, your grandfather said. He had paid his 
 debts until he was tired of paying them, and at the present 
 moment Harry was an outlaw ! The more money he got, the 
 faster he would go to ruin, and the wisest course his relations 
 
94 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 could pursue was to leave him alone. If his wife and child 
 actually came to want bread (for you were in the world now, 
 Portia) he might, perhaps, make an effort to safe himself, and 
 then would be the time to help him. Meantime, let tlu absent 
 prodigal's name be unspoken. It was wisdom, nay, it was 
 positive duty, to banish a man, leading the life that Harry had 
 led since his marriage, from our hearts. 
 
 "Well, I could not argue on such a matter," said Miss 
 Jemima ; "I could not argue, and I could not deny that 
 Bichard's sense of duty, however harsh, was just. Still still 
 a dozen years of absence had not moved my boy by one inch 
 from his old place in my affection ; and so, when the time 
 came for my return, I just took my carpet-bag in my hand one 
 winter evening, and, sending my other luggage on through 
 Paris, started off, without writing to warn Harry of my visit, 
 to Brussels. I travelled all night ; and it was about eleven 
 o'clock in the morning when I reached the house in which I 
 had ascertained that my nephew and his wife lodged. An 
 English man-servant, not over-polished in his address, not 
 over-neat in his person, answered my ring. He inquired my 
 business ; his head upright in the air, his arms straight down 
 by his side. I saw at a glance that the honest fellow at some 
 time of his life had been a soldier, and felt friends with him 
 at cnce. 
 
 " ' I want your master/ I said. ' I am Mr. Ffrench's aunt, 
 now on my road back to India. Can I see him 1 ' 
 
 " ' His Aunt Jemima ] ' exclaimed the man, his face in an 
 instant losing all its surly expression. 
 
 " ' His Aunt Jemima/ said I ; and in another minute I was 
 shown into a room, half bed-room, half smoking-room an un- 
 tidy room, full of the smell of stale smoke, with glasses and 
 decanters on the table, and a pale dissipated-looking man 
 outstretched in an arm-chair beside the fire. 
 
 " He stared at me a moment, sprang up, and caught me in 
 his arms. It was Harry. He had altered so that for the first 
 few minutes I felt shy at calling him by his name. Other 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 95 
 
 faces I have left young, and at the end of a dozen years found 
 grey and careworn, but I never saw any face so absolutely 
 changed as his. By degrees, as we talked, and especially 
 when anything chanced to make him smile, I might catch a 
 gleam, an expression bringing back to me for an instant the 
 Harry of old ; then it would fade, and in its place come back 
 the horrible unlikeness to my boy ; the hard, set mouth, the 
 vacant eyes, the hopelessness there was the essential change 
 the hopelessness of the face that I had left so sunny with 
 the fairest hopes, the fairest promises of life. 
 
 " I asked him about his prospects 1 Oh ! well, he had 
 none in particular. Yes, he thought he meant to go to Baden 
 in the summer, unless something turned up meanwhile. 
 About his wife 1 Thanks, she was as well as usual. Poor 
 Portia ! They did not see very much of each other. Portia 
 ran about to balls and parties, which he hated, and was never 
 up before noon. I should see her by-and-by. At last I asked 
 for the child for you. 
 
 " Harry's face grew brighter than I had seen it yet. 
 ' Charles, go for the baby/ he said, calling out to his servant, 
 who all this time had -been standing in an attitude of attention 
 just outside the door. And then, when we were alone, he 
 explained to me who and what Charles was. An old soldier ; 
 that I must have seen at once ; his soldier-servant, who had 
 kept with him all the time he was in the army, had left it 
 when he left, and remained with him ever since. 'And is 
 now valet, cook, housemaid, and, as often as not, nurse, too,' 
 said poor Harry. ' Portia can never keep her women-ser- 
 vants ; I'm sure I don't know where the fault lies, but she 
 can't keep them, and if it was not for Charles the baby would, 
 often enough, be badly off. When the nursemaid of the 
 moment has struck, and Portia is away of an evening, Charles 
 sits by the child and gives her her bottle. I came in at two 
 o'clock in the morning once, and found him at it, by Jove ! 
 And the baby screams to go to him from her mother, by Jove 
 she does ! ' This was the sort of way he rambled on. ' He's 
 
96 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 the last friend I have left, is Charles ! and if I apologize to 
 him about his wages, is affronted and puts his hands behind 
 him. What man of one's own class, what gentleman, would do 
 as much 1 ' 
 
 " Upon this he laughed ; and I thought there was less of 
 the Harry I remembered in his laugh than in his face. 
 
 " The servant came back presently, with you in his arms. 
 A muslin and lace pinafore, tied on evidently by male fingers, 
 gave you a smart outside look, but your frock was torn and 
 dirty, your socks did not match, your toes were through your 
 shoes. Charles bore you aloft on his shoulder ; you drummed 
 with your hands on his close-shorn head, and showed your 
 little white teeth as soon as you caught sight of your father. 
 I went up, holding out my arms, and you came to me. 
 
 " ' She won't do as much for her ladyship ! ' cried out poor 
 Harry." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 AT this point of her story Miss Jemima paused. 
 
 " Why do you hesitate ? " said Portia. " We have come at 
 last to the part that really interests me the description of my 
 mother. How did she talk to you when you met ? How was 
 she dressed 1 What was your first impression of Lady Portia 
 Ffrench ? Let me hear the truth, and the whole truth." 
 
 " She told me during the first quarter of an hour of our 
 acquaintance the whole story of her married misery, and how 
 little she and her husband suited each other. She was dressed 
 in a loose morning gown, hair unbrushed, slippers down at 
 heel," said old Miss Jemima, with grim veracity. " And my 
 first impression of her was that she was the last woman on earth 
 my nephew, Harry Ffrench, should have married. I knew 
 nothing of the Dysart family, of the Dysart history, then. I 
 did not understand that, being a Dysart, Harry's wife must, by 
 some unhappy law of transmission, be what she was ! My 
 
SUSAN FIZL&ING. 97 
 
 life had been passed with wives who loved their husbands and 
 their children ; old-fashioned wives, to whom the words ' home ' 
 and ' duty ' had a meaning. I found in Lady Portia a woman, 
 -as far as I could discover, without a rational resource, or 
 human affection ; a woman to whom forty years of life had 
 taught no wisdom ; a doll who, well-painted and seen by 
 candle-light, carried off satin and diamonds with an air ; in 
 short, a fashionable fine lady, a Dysart ! 
 
 " ' And why, in God's name, did you marry him ?' I asked 
 her, point-blank, after listening, with my heart afire, to a list 
 of Harry's fallings. 
 
 " ' Because he I mean, because Colonel Ffrench asked me. 
 Because all mamma's grand matrimonial schemes had fallen 
 through. Because I was thirty-nine years old/ Lady Portia 
 answered, looking straight in my face with her great blue eyes. 
 (Outwardly, you show not a trace of Dysart blood, as I have 
 often told you, Portia. Your mother was a fair, faded woman, 
 with a high-arched nose, a receding chin and forehead, a 
 mouth that could not close over glistening prominent teeth.) 
 ' Colonel Ffrench liked a certain poor handle I have to my 
 name, and mamma liked that I should be married, anyhow ! 
 And so they made it up between them. Harry really was a 
 victim/ 
 
 " And whatever other questions I put to her she answered 
 in the same unhesitating style. There are different varieties 
 of truthful people in the world, I've remarked," said Miss 
 Jemima. " To speak absolute unblushing truth at all times 
 is not quite such a test of human character as the copy-books 
 tell us. Harry's wife, it seemed to me, was truthful partly 
 because nature had constituted her without the quality of 
 moral shyness, partly because she was too indifferent to every- 
 thing to care whether she shocked you or not, partly because 
 she had not energy for the trouble of thinking which false- 
 hood would have involved ! ' The Dysarts are an awfully bad 
 race/ she remarked to me, within an hour after I first saw her. 
 1 So are the Ff renches ' to my face, Portia, this to my face 1 
 
 H 
 
98 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 'How could a marriage between members of two such families be 
 expected to turn out decently 1 Mamma made Colonel Ffrench 
 believe I should some day come into the half of twenty-five 
 thousand pounds .... And that is all in the air, for mamma 
 is not certain to inherit the money herself, and if she does, 
 will leave it, I've no doubt, to my sister Josselin's boy. And 
 Colonel Ffrench made mamma believe Halfont would be at 
 his own disposal at his death, also that his income was derived 
 from capital, not an insurance company. We all know better 
 now, and love each other accordingly. How long shall you 
 stay 1 We have not a room to offer you. We have plenty of 
 smart paint and gilding, as you perceive, but no bedrooms. 
 Charles you have seen Harry's detestable man, Charles 'I 
 folds himself up afc night, and sleeps in a cupboard. That 
 was a sweet dress you sent me from India,' she ran on. ' I 
 suppose you haven't got any more of the kind with you 1 ' 
 
 " I had brought her, not a dress, but a scarf, a Cashmere 
 sca~f, embroidered in green and silver, that had been given me 
 by a native woman I was able to help once in India, and was 
 much too magnificent for me to wear. I had packed this up 
 in my travelling bag, for it was as fine and soft as a cobweb, 
 and ^1 drew it forth and gave it to Harry's wife. 
 
 "'Pale green and silver!' she exclaimed. 'The blonde 
 colours ! The very colours that suited her ! ' They did not, 
 in truth, Portia; your mother was a woman who took no 
 exercise, and her skin, by daylight, was not the kind of skin 
 that green becomes. Harry coming in for a minute, burst out 
 laughing at the sight of her before the glass, slippered, in a 
 dressing-gown, with hair unbrushed, and wreathed round in 
 my gorgeous Indian present ! However, I was pleased to see 
 her pleased, and during the remainder of the afternoon, until 
 it was time for Lady Portia to dress for the dissipation of the 
 evening, we managed to talk to each other. 
 
 " I think, Portia, those were the longest hours of my 
 whole life. For Harry's sake I wanted, if not to like, to 
 understand the woman who was his wife, the mother of his 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 99 
 
 child. I tried her on every subject under the sun. Did she 
 work 1 No a little. Embroidery got so dirty, and one could 
 buy it from the convents nearly as cheap. Kead] Yes, 
 of course. But there was no remembering the different 
 people's names a minute afterwards ; French books, of the 
 two, were better, she thought, than English ones. The baby, 
 I suggested, must be a resource to her ? Well, unfortunately, 
 she did not understand babies, and Miss Portia seemed to 
 know it, and preferred Charles's society to hers. Could she 
 be expected to enter into rivalry with Charles 1 Brussels was 
 a tolerable place ; just tolerable ; cheaper than Paris, and a 
 place where doubtful people or beggars might get some sort of 
 society. She and Harry were in .... let her consider 
 well, she in the second, and Harry in the third or lowest, 
 Brussels set. Impossible to say how long it would all last. If 
 Colonel Ff rench continued in his present loftily virtuous frame 
 of mind, and if, as was extremely probable, her mother should 
 die leaving her nothing, they might come, as likely as not, to 
 actual want. All this with the same open eyes, the same 
 blank truthfulness ; Lady Portia lying on the sofa, yawning 
 after every dozen words she spoke, and I in what you call my 
 most bolt-upright frame of mind, child, arid starving starv- 
 ing ! for no one had offered me a bit or sup since my ar- 
 rival by her side. 
 
 "At five o'clock Charles brought in tea. 'Why in the 
 world are you so late ? * said Lady Portia, sharply. ' I've 
 rung twice. Don't you know I have to dress and go out to 
 dinner ] ' 
 
 "'I have taken Miss Baby for her walk, your ladyship/ 
 said the man, laconically, but with perfect respect of tone. 
 ' And I have given the baby her tea, your ladyship. Miss 
 Baby, she couldn't wait.' Then he set down the tray beside 
 his mistress's sofa, wheeled round short, and marched, erect aa 
 if he had been on parade, from the room. 
 
 " ' A fearful creature/ said Lady Portia, yawning anew. 'If 
 I could bring myself up to the exertion of hating any one, it 
 
 H2 
 
TOO St/SAW FIELDING. 
 
 would be that man. Still, he serves us for nothing. Skim- 
 milk, instead of cream, again f Would you believe it, the 
 monster gives me skim-milk t^at the child may get cream '? 
 Such are the indignities poverty brings one to ! JV^y dear 
 .soul, that man has been with us ever since our marriage, and 
 has had just seven pounds ten shillings of wages during the time, 
 .so I feel I am in his power. Oh ! if some good kind creature 
 yourself say had a spare fifty pound note to lend me ! 
 What a deal of small honesty I should be able to do ! what 
 independence I could buy, on only fifty pounds ! ' 
 
 " I gave her, not fifty pounds, but the promise of a very 
 much smaller sum, and Lady Portia kissed me, remarking, 
 with tears in her eyes, that I was. the only one of Harry's 
 relations she could endure. Then she went off to get ready 
 for her dinner-party. I saw her, for a minute, an hour later, 
 in her satin dress and diamonds diamonds, she frankly con- 
 fessed, that had been paste ages ago. 'Don't forget your 
 promise/ she whispered. ' If I'm pretty well I'll see you in 
 the morning. If not, good-bye, as you must go so soon. 
 Don't forget your promise ; and, by the way, mind you address 
 the letter Poste restante. Lady Portia Ffrench, Poste restante, 
 Brussels. Harry hates my having anything to do with money.' 
 
 " After this she went away, and Charles, when he had con- 
 ducted his mistress to her carriage, came softly into the room, 
 and asked me if I would please to see the baby asleep. Her 
 ladyship was without a maid at present, he explained, as I 
 followed him out, so he must make free to apologize for the 
 untidy state of the nursery. 
 
 " The nursery was next to poor Harry's own room, a dark 
 -airless closet, neither tidy nor over clean, and there, in your 
 little cot, the cot that ought to have been at your mother's 
 bed-side, you lay asleep. You were a wonderfully handsome 
 diild, I must confess, Portia, however you may have altered 
 since ; dark and dimpled, with cheeks like wild roses, and the 
 loveliest pair of naughty lips in the world. ' Miss Baby's a 
 picture/ said Charles, creeping up on tip-toe, and bending his 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 101 
 
 stiff figure over your cot. ' She's the captain's image and the 
 pride of his heart. When he wakes in the morning, madam,, 
 the first thing he calls for is the child even before his soda- 
 and-brandy, poor gentleman. " Bring me the baby, Charles," 
 he says, or, " Where's the child ? " or, " How is it I don't 
 hear the child's voice]" She's the captain's one delight/ the 
 faithful creature added, with a tremble in his voice. i But for 
 Miss Baby, I don't see what there would be to have kept the 
 captain to life.' 
 
 " Saying this, he set down the light and left me, and through- 
 out the long hours of that winter night I waited and watched 
 alone, Portia, by you. I counted the hours by the different 
 city clocks till past midnight ; then it must have been getting 
 on for two o'clock, I should say then came a loud ring at the 
 house-bell. Charles, one of whose many duties was evidently 
 to sit up and have refreshment ready for Lady Portia, entered 
 from Harry's room in a few minutes* time with a cup of hot 
 soup and some bread, for which, as you may imagine, I felt 
 grateful. An hour or so later poor Harry himself made his- 
 appearance." 
 
 " Don't tell me in what condition/' interrupted Portia. "I 
 don't want my ideal of my father spoilt. I would rather hear 
 no further ill of him, poor fellow ! " 
 
 " Your father came in not a bit less cool, less sober than I 
 had seen him in the forenoon," said Miss Jemima. "He 
 walked up wearily to the table in the centre of the room, 
 mixed himself a glass of brandy-and-water, drank it off at a. 
 draught, then pushed open the half-closed nursery door, and 
 looked across at your cot. 
 
 "'Aunt Jem! Good heavens, I had forgotten yon were 
 here ! ' he exclaimed, coming up and kissing me. ' But my 
 memory my memory's all gone. To think you should have 
 been left here alone, and on this cold night, too ! ' And upon 
 this he took me back into his room, with his own hands lit up 
 the fire (Charles, by this time, I suppose, had folded himself 
 into his cupboard), and, after making me comfortable in the 
 
S17SAN FIELDING. 
 
 easiest chair his room possessed, came and sat down close, just . 
 as he used to do when he was a little lad talking with me 
 over the day's troubles, by my side. 
 
 " ' I really did not mean to leave you/ he said, ' but you 
 know you were with Portia. When people are with Portia 
 T never seem to have a word to say to them, and so I went 
 out, and some of the fellows at the club persuaded me to stay, 
 the worse luck to themselves ! ' 
 
 "And then he went on to tell me he had been winning, 
 twenty or thirty pounds : ' A paltry sum/ he added, turning 
 out a small heap of gold upon the table ' a paltry sum, con- 
 sidering what his losses had been of late, but enough to give 
 the baby a cloak, and Portia a couple of new dresses. She 
 wanted them badly enough poor Portia ! ' 
 
 " l And Charles's wages ! ' I exclaimed, on the impulse of 
 the moment. 
 
 " Harry looked at me sharply. ' Portia has been asking you 
 for money/ he cried. ' Don't deny it. She asks every one 
 who comes near us for money to pay Charles's wages ! If 
 you send her a single shilling I'll make her send it back ; 
 mind you that. Poor old Aunt Jem ! ' He caught my hand, 
 and held it between his own thin, feverish ones. ' I didn't 
 think we had quite sunk to fleecing you ! ' 
 
 " We sat there together till daylight," went on Miss Jemima, 
 after a minute or two ; " but not even to you, Portia, not even 
 to his child, could I repeat half that my poor boy told me. 
 Harry was generous of spirit still. This wreck of his old fine 
 nature still remained to him. He would allow no one to be 
 blamed but himself for his misfortunes ; not his father, not his 
 wife. If he had married the woman he loved as I told you 
 he could not speak of her even now without a change of colour 
 if he had married Amelia Morgan he believed his life would 
 have turned out differently ; still, who should say ? Every- 
 thimg was a chance ! He had never been over-steady, and for 
 certain his father only acted as any other man of the world 
 would have done in hindering such a marriage. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 103 
 
 "'If I had had the real stuff of a man in me/ he said, 
 4 1 suppose I should have stuck to her, have made her marry 
 me, and gone away, like Dick and the others, to Australia. 
 For my part, I'm a fatalist. I turned fatalist when I heard, 
 a few months after she had done with me, that she was 
 married. Nothing a fellow can do really alters his life by an 
 inch.' While he talked he helped himself freely from the 
 brandy bottle at his side. 1 1 married Lady Portia because it 
 was "written," and we have been going the pace down-hill 
 ever since, and nothing seems to hinder us. My father ia 
 right, I dare say, in stopping my allowance. Money does not 
 help me. I'm sorry for Portia, poor girl ! She don't love me, 
 never did, but I'm sorry for her all the same. She will be 
 better off when I'm gone, and so will the child so will the child ! ' 
 * "He stopped when he had said this, and buried his head 
 down between his hands. I can see him, I can see the whole 
 room as clear as if it had been yesterday when we sat there, 
 my boy and I, together, in the chill daybreak ! At last, after 
 a long silence, he lifted his face. Oh, t lie wan, worn face that 
 it was ! In the cold morning light I could mark, as I had not 
 marked the day before, how the delicate lines had grown 
 coarse, how the dark hair was streaked with white, the fore- 
 head furrowed with lines of premature care. I saw what a 
 wreck Harry Ffrench had become .... and loved him 
 better so ! 
 
 "'Aunt Jem/ he said, *I never kept any secret from you 
 when I was a small boy. I won't let you go away without 
 telling you of a certain burthen I have on my mind now. It 
 haunts me day and night. I tear myself from it by going into 
 the company of other men, and it follows me. I come back 
 to this solitary room of mine 'tis with me still. Shall I tell 
 you what this burthen is? Well, then, I am a coward. 
 I haven't got the courage to live my life out ! Now, you 
 understand.' 
 
 "Portia, I burst into tears. I threw my arms round his 
 neck I could do nothing else. 
 
104 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 'You love me too well to argue, to preach me a sermon/ 
 said Harry, very gently. ' And I don't suppose any argument 
 but coming into twenty thousand pounds would have much 
 effect upon me. 'Tis fated. Poverty to a man with a hope in 
 life may be endurable. I have no hope. There's something 
 altogether wrong with me.' He put his hand to his head 
 again. ' I drink brandy enough to kill a better man over and 
 over again, and I keep sober. I play, and, whether I lose or 
 win, I am not excited. I've tried every pleasure under the 
 sun, and and after the turning-point you know of, found them 
 all pleasureless. The play's over.' 
 
 " ' And the baby ] ' I cried ; ' the child whose whole future 
 life depends on you ] ' 
 
 " ' The baby's life, like mine, is written/ said poor Harry ; 
 but a softer look came over his face as he said this. ' Miss 
 Baby prefers Charles to me as it is will be much better 
 without a father like me than with one. You'll care for her r 
 Aunt Jem ] Promise me when I die well, then, if I die, 
 that you'll care for the young one, let my father see her ? 
 Bring her up, if you can get hold of her, not quite upon the 
 Dysart model ? ' 
 
 " I promised him, Portia. We went together into the room 
 where you lay asleep, and as we bent side by side over your 
 pillow, I promised Harry that, if ever you were left alone in 
 the world, I would try to restore you to the place that he had 
 forfeited in his father's heart " 
 
 "And having promised this, you left me with my mother, " 
 cried Portia "left me for the first six years of my life, 
 knowing what blood ran in my ill-fated veins, to become a 
 Dysart!" 
 
 " Until you were six years old I never dared mention your 
 name in Eichard's presence," answered Miss Jemima. " We 
 were quartered at a remote station in India at the time of 
 of the bitterest sorrow of my life. Richard never wrote to 
 me or Lucy we first learned through the newspapers what 
 had befallen us and it was only through indirect sources tha'i 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 105 
 
 I afterwards heard of the fearful horror his son's death had 
 wrought in him. He shut himself up alone here at Half on t. 
 For weeks together a servant never was allowed to leave his 
 side. What rest he got was in the daytime. At night he 
 had the candles lighted, and sat up, or rather, as Jekyll has 
 since told me, would pace his room for hours and hours to- 
 gether, shuddering and turning white if only a board creaked, 
 or a dead leaf beat against the pane. When at length he went 
 abroad into the world again, he had so oldened that men scarcely 
 knew him. I wrote, as soon as I had heart to think of the 
 future, and proposed that our family should seek to get pos- 
 session of Harry's child. It had been his own wish, I said ; 
 Lady Portia was in poor circumstances, did not care for 
 children, and it had been Harry's wish, in the event of his 
 own early death, that his father would take an interest in his 
 child.' 
 
 " ' I forbid you to mention Lady Portia Ffrench to me 
 again/ was Richard's answer how his fine firm handwriting 
 had broken in these few months ! ' But for his marriage, my 
 son would not have gone to ruin. His death, our shame, lie 
 at Lady Portia's door. I will know nothing of her or of her 
 child." 
 
 " The rest of my story, Portia, can be soon told. When 
 Elliot left the service, I returned to England for good, and, as 
 you know, came to Halfont to be Richard's companion. For 
 a great many months I never once mentioned his dead son's 
 name before him. At last 'twas one April, twilight, I re- 
 member as we sat together, we two silent old people, over 
 our silent, stately dessert, something brought me to speak of 
 my three poor lads, men getting on towards middle age now, 
 away in the colonies. 
 
 " l Harry is gone/ said Richard, shortly. ' Don't talk of 
 the others. Harry is gone. I loved him better than them 
 all. I was unjust to him, and he is gone. I can make up for 
 nothing now. 1 
 
 " I tried upon this to soften him towards his living children. 
 
106 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 I spoke of Lucy, of his sons, none of them so well off as to be 
 beyond the necessity of his help. He scarcely seemed to hear 
 what I was talking of. Harry Harry was the one he had 
 loved, and he was dead, had died in want, in dishonour, by 
 his own hand your grandfather's face got white as stone 
 and there was no making up for the past ! 
 
 " At last I mentioned you. 
 
 " ' I thought I explained my feelings on that subject before, 3 
 said Eichard. * Why recur to it ? What have I to do witli 
 Lady Portia Dysart's child 1 ' 
 
 " ' You have everything to do with Harry Ffrench's child ! ' 
 I cried. ' You talk of making up for the past make up for 
 it by showing love to her ! ' 
 
 " And then I spoke to him, as I had never had courage to 
 speak before, of the details of my visit to Brussels. I told 
 him of Harry's affection for you, and of how you used to 
 sleep at Harry's side when you were a baby neglected by your 
 mother ; of his wish, too, that we Eichard and I, not Lady 
 Portia should bring you up in the event of his own early 
 death. 
 
 " Richard's face grew whiter and whiter. ' The child can 
 come to Halfont if you choose/ he said at last. ' Don't dis- 
 tress me with more of these painful recollections. If the 
 mother will part from her, the child m&y come, on the express 
 understanding that the two never meet again. But don't say 
 another word to me about it till the day you bring her home.' 
 
 " Upon this grudging permission." said old Miss Jemima, 
 " I acted, and acted promptly. Eichard should have no time, 
 I determined, to retract his word. I had already ascertained 
 that Lady Portia still lived in Brussels, and two days after I 
 had had my conversation with your grandfather, I arrived 
 there. One of the under-waiters at the hotel where I stopped 
 happened to be an Englishman, and determining to set about 
 my errand that same night, I asked him, as he stood behind 
 my chair at my solitary dinner, if he could get me a directory ? 
 I had come to Brussels in search of an English lady I had 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 107 
 
 known some years ago, but' of whose present address I was 
 ignorant. 
 
 " The man moved out with a quick side-step under the gas- 
 light. ' Is the lady's name Ff rench, madam 1 ' he asked, 
 raising his hand respectfully to his head ; and in an instant I 
 recognized him the upright soldier figure, the close-shorn 
 soldier face it was Charles. He had been thrown adrift on 
 the world (penniless, I suspect) at the time of his master's 
 death, and had thankfully accepted the first chance of getting 
 a living that offered itself. Lady Portia Ffrench was in 
 Brussels still in such .a street and number, I have forgotten 
 them long ago and Miss Baby was well. He hoped I would 
 not be offended, but sometimes, when her ladyship was not 
 at home, he contrived to see Miss Baby still. 
 
 " ' And I try to talk to her of the captain, madam,' said 
 Charles, under his voice. ' Poor Miss Baby doesn't get much 
 of what I should call mother-love from her ladyship, and when 
 I take her a bag of sweets and talk to her of the captain, the 
 child'll put her arms round my neck and say, " Take me away, 
 take me away, Larly, and let me be your little girl, not 
 mamma's ! " That she will, and she growing a tall young 
 lady already.' " 
 
 " Larly ! " exclaimed Portia ; " is the Charles of your story 
 Larly ? Why, I remember him better than I do my mother 
 a tall, stiff man, dressed in rusty black, and always smelling 
 of dinner. He used to bring Sophie stuff in a bottle that she 
 might not tell Lady Portia of his visits, and he gave me sweets ; 
 and once, on the sly, he took us both to the play. We sat in 
 the pit, I on Larly's knee, and ate peppermint lozenges. 
 How I loved him ! I don't suppose I could love anybody 
 now as I loved Larly. But alas ! that attachment was clan- 
 destine ! " 
 
 " Portia," cried Miss Jemima, half with temper, " I wonder 
 if you were upon the brink of judgment whether it would be 
 possible for you to be in earnest 1 Here am I talking of 
 things that make my heart bleed as I utter them, and you can 
 
io8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 jest ! You are never honestly sorry, you are never honestly 
 glad. You are nothing " 
 
 " But the daughter of Harry Ffrench, who had not the 
 courage to live his life out, and of his wife, a Dysart," said the 
 girl. " Oh ! Aunt Jem, if this story of yours teaches us any- 
 thing, it should be a charitable appreciation of my character. 
 Don't you see that I am necessarily nothing ? not a monster of 
 virtues, not a monster of vices, like the people in stories, but 
 a poor incongruous lump, chance-kneaded, of contradictions. 
 No, you don't see it ! Go on with your story, dear Aunt 
 Jem, and I'll try not to interrupt you again. You came to 
 my mother's lodging that I remember. You came into 
 my room and found me, little vixen that I was, ready to tear 
 you to pieces because I thought you belonged to her ! and 
 took me in your arms. I felt your tears on my face, I know, 
 as you sat and clasped me ! What did she say ? In what 
 frame of mind was Lady Portia now 1 " 
 
 "Lady Portia," answered Miss Jemima, "was in the only 
 frame of mind in which I ever saw her : supreme indifference 
 to everything on God's earth, save the momentary excitement 
 which helped her to escape from herself. My meal over, I 
 drove straight to her house ; it was now between ten and 
 eleven o'clock : and was told by the porter that miladi lived 
 on the second floor, and that to-day, Friday, was miladi's 
 evening of reception. I was dressed just as I left Half out. 
 The same fashion of bonnet I wear now, Miss Portia, a black 
 stuff gown of sensible length, my travelling-bag in my hand, 
 and so I was ushered into the midst of Lady Portia's guests. 
 The room where they were assembled was small, but finely 
 hung in silk and velvet, and full as it could hold of ornaments, 
 and filagree mirrors and bright colour. It smelt like a dis- 
 tiller's shop; would have been wholesomer, I thought, that 
 warm spring night, for open windows. A couple of whist- 
 tables were going on. Near the fireplace three or four fashion- 
 ably-dressed women, none of them in their first youth, stood 
 talking to some officers in uniform ; on a sofa, a little apart 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 109 
 
 from the rest, sat Lady Portia. She was playing at cards with 
 a good-looking man, some years younger than herself, an Eng- 
 lish clergyman, I could see by his dress, and, as I afterwards 
 found, a constant visitor at her house the man who eventually 
 became her second husband." 
 
 (" And who made the remainder of her life additionally 
 miserable to her," remarked Portia in parentheses. "It is 
 good to hear grandmamma talk of Mr. Molyneux. ' The kind 
 of un-gowned parson who does prowl about the continent,' 
 says grandmamma. ' The kind of parson who would marry a 
 Lady Portia Ffrench !' ") 
 
 " Well, for a second or two the glare of brilliant light, the 
 sight of all these people confused me. Then then, Portia, I 
 thought of that darkened, shame-covered past, which she had 
 been able to forget, and walked straight across the room to 
 Harry's widow. Whatever surprise, whatever annoyance, she 
 may have felt, Lady Portia's reception of me was perfectly 
 courteous. She acted nothing, affected nothing was not, as 
 a worse-bred woman would have been, ashamed of me or of 
 my homely dress. I had dined 1 Yes. Fortunate I arrived 
 on a Friday, the only evening of the week she was at home. 
 Mr. Molyneux Miss Jemima Ffrench. If I did not mind, 
 they would just finish this party of picquet. I understood 
 picquet, of course ] Then she took up her cards, and went on 
 with her game. 
 
 "I sat myself down at a little distance," proceeded Miss 
 Jemima, " and watched her as she plaj^ed, her fine company, 
 no doubt, watching me. Lady Portia's face had not grown 
 younger during the past five years. Her cheeks had fallen ; 
 her faded blue eyes told a wearier story than ever of the dis- 
 satisfied, listless soul within ; her arms and neck profusely 
 bare, glittering with the paste diamonds I remembered, were 
 the arms and neck of an old woman. Still, as I looked at her, 
 I knew knew, how shall I say 1 by instinct that she had 
 gone through no passionate suffering, no ordeal of pain, since 
 I saw her last; her eyes had never wept, her lips had not 
 
no SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 quivered with anguish, over Harry's death, over Harry's last 
 irreparable wrongdoing. I knew this, I say, and felt towards 
 her God pardon me ! as if she, poor, irresponsible, weak 
 creature that she was, had been the cause of both. 
 
 " When the game was over Mr. Molyneux won, and some- 
 thing in his whispered remarks, in his manner as he took up 
 his stakes, made me suspect how matters stood between them 
 when the game was over, your mother turned round to me. 
 ' Portia is grown out of knowledge/ she cried, ' and, I am 
 delighted to say, will be a beauty. I wish I had been one. 
 I should not have gone through such a life as mine, I should 
 not have come to this/ glancing round at her guests, ' if I had 
 had a nose and mouth like Portia's. 7 
 
 " Mr. Molyneux bent forward, and murmured something in 
 her ear. ' Nonsense, nonsense/ said your mother, blankly 
 truthful as ever, and she turned from him with a look of real 
 sadness on her face. ' I never was beautiful, and my life has 
 been a failure in consequence. Portia is a Efrench ' this 
 remark was addressed to me 'outwardly, at least. Her 
 features, and complexion, and turn of head are all like poor 
 Harry's. She will be able to wear the dark colours. I'm glad 
 Portia will be able to wear the dark colours when she comes 
 out. Nothing so foolish as to see a mother and daughter 
 dressed alike/ 
 
 " I got up from my chair. 'Where is the child?' I said, 
 1 When your friends are gone, I shall be glad of half an hour's 
 talk with you. Till then, if you please, 1 will stay with the 
 child/ 
 
 " And then Lady Portia also rose, and herself showed me the 
 way to your sleeping-room, the room you shared with Sophie, 
 the lady's-maid. ' You dear old soul to come and find me 
 out ! ; she said on the way, perfectly un chilled by my manner, 
 which I know was freezing. ' I've never been able to thank 
 you for t T i3 money. I received it quite safe. Dear me, what 
 terrible tMngs have happened since ! Mind the step ; down 
 two, and turn. You must find me aged ? I'm sure I feel 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. in 
 
 hundred, or I should never bring myself to do what I'm 
 going to do. I'll tell yon all about it when these shocking- 
 people are gone. There's Portia/ and she pushed open the 
 door. ' Little cat ! awake, as usual. For, here's an old friend 
 of mine come to see you/ After which introduction she 
 rustled away in her flowing silk back to her company, and I 
 walked across the room .... child, with what a beating 
 heart, to you I 
 
 4i You were sitting up in your bed, your black eyes full of 
 curiosity, your whole small figure bristling with defiance. 
 1 Go away/ you cried. ' Don't kiss me, or I'll box you. Go 
 away. I want none of her friends here.' 
 
 " ' I am your friend/ I cried, and I advanced into the light 
 of the solitary candle, so that you should better see what sort 
 of creature I was. i I'm old Aunt Jemima, papa's Aunt 
 Jemima, and I want you to live with me. Charles told me 
 where to find you.' 
 
 " Portia, whatever trouble you have caused me since, in 
 that moment you paid me, beforehand, for it all. You jumped 
 out of bed I see you now, with your bare, pink feet, in your 
 little white night-dress ran to me, flung your arms tight 
 round my knees. ' Am I to go away with you 1 9 you cried. 
 ' Am I to live with Larly '1 Is my own papa coming back at 
 last?' 
 
 " You say that you remember what came next how I sat 
 holding you in my arms, and how you felt rny tears fall upon 
 your face. Well, I stayed there with you long, listening to your 
 baby chatter (baby chatter, intermixed occasionally with such 
 sharp criticisms on your elders as almost took my breath away). 
 At last, tired out, you fell asleep, and I laid you down on your 
 pillow. Soon afterwards I heard the footsteps of the depart- 
 ing guests Mr. Molyneux, I fancied, remaining later than 
 the rest by some minutes, and by-and-by your mother came in. 
 She had taken off her glittering necklet and ear-rings ; her 
 evening dress was exchanged for a dressing-gown ; she 
 looked fifty years old. * I know what you think of me/ she 
 
f i 2 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 cried, as I sat still and watched her. ' I see it on your face. 
 Haven't I aged horribly ? ' 
 
 "I am not thinking of your age at all/ I answered her. 
 'I am thinking of Harry's child. Her grandfather wishes 
 to see her. Will you let me take her back with me to 
 England 1, ' 
 
 " ' What, will Colonel Ffrench be reconciled 1 ' cried the 
 poor creature, with a trembling lip. ' Oh, my dear soul, say 
 that is your errand ! Mamma gets stingier to me every 
 year. I have scarce enough to keep up even the appearance 
 that you see. Of course I'll let the child visit you. I've been 
 extravagant, I've been everything I oughtn't ; but I'll turn 
 over a new leaf, I will, to-morrow, if Colonel Ff rench will only 
 be reconciled, only make me a suitable allowance ! ' 
 
 " And then, Portia, I had to explain to her on what bitter 
 terms she must give you up, if she consented to the separation 
 at all. And my heart bled for her while I did so ! I don't 
 know how it is, but whatever people are, if I only get close 
 enough to them, only hear their own account of themselves, I 
 always begin to feel I must take their part : at a distance one 
 may call them wicked ; near, one can only see them weak. 
 Lady Portia had not been a good wife to Harry ; she was not 
 even a devoted mother, or she would not have consented to 
 part from you at all ; still I pitied her ! poor, haggard, world- 
 weary woman that she was, I pitied her ! 
 
 "' Everything has gone against me/ she cried, sobbing, 
 when I had made her feel how final her severance must be 
 from you if I once carried you back with me to Halfont. 
 ' When I was a girl, five-and-twenty years ago, I loved some 
 one, I did indeed. If they had let me marry him, perhaps I 
 .should have been a good woman. Instead of that, what was 
 my life 1 Put up by mamma, season after season, for sale 
 yes, sale ; one year such a bargain falling through, the next 
 another. At last, when all better chances were over, accepted, 
 lor my name's sake, by Colonel Ffrench's spendthrift son. 
 What has my life been since 1 ' 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 113 
 
 " l Don't tell me/ I interrupted. ' I can imagine what your 
 life has been. But don't tell me/ 
 
 " ' Oh ! I am not going to say anything bad of poor Harry/ 
 said Lady Portia. ' He never loved me ; but, as men go, he 
 was not a bad husband. Harry was a man with a grande 
 passion. I never believed it till his death, poor fellow ! and 
 then, my dear creature, would you believe it 1 they found a 
 curl of hair, and some school-girl love-notes signed ' Amelia ' 
 in his breast ! You shall have them. I've had all those sorts 
 of things put by for you, with a paper he wrote on the morn- 
 ing of his death my poor Harry ! You were always the best 
 relation we had* (she really said this, Portia), ' on either side. 
 If my mother had had a tenth part of the feeling for me that 
 you had for Harry, should I be what I am now 1 Cast off by 
 my husband's family and my own, sinking to the society of 
 such people as you saw with me to-night, and, for the future, 
 not even allowed to be a mother. I haven't loved the baby as 
 some mother's do, perhaps/ she went on ; ' I never was fond 
 of children it isn't iny nature. But I'd have liked to be with 
 her when she's grown up and admired. She'll be so hand- 
 some, and I shall never see her. Look at her now ; look at 
 
 her little arms and neck ' And then she threw herself 
 
 d-own, and rested her cheek softly against yours, and cried 
 over you. 
 
 " ' I consent to let you have her/ she said, lifting up her 
 face at last ; for I sat silent, letting nature determine for her 
 what she should do. 'And I don't think I can wonder at 
 olonel Ffrench determining to part her from me absolutely. 
 I should never have been a fit companion for her. I haven't 
 .an ounce of good left in me. And besides/ the colour flamed 
 over her worn face, ' I'm going to marry Parson Molyneux, and 
 he doesn't like the child. Take her away the first thing in 
 the morning. I'm saying good-bye to her now. It would kill 
 me to see her happiness at going/ 
 
 " She uncovered you upon this, and kissed your little bare 
 feet God knows with what thoughts passing through her 
 
 i 
 
ii4 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 heart ! Then very gently covered you again, and motioned to 
 me to leave the room. That was the last time your mother 
 ever saw you." 
 
 " And so, I suppose, ends the story 1 " said Portia, as Miss 
 Jemima paused. "I remember all that came next. My joy 
 when I awoke and saw Sophie packing up my things, and our 
 breakfast at the hotel, hot little rolls and poor old Larly to 
 wait on us, and the journey, and grandpapa's face when we 
 arrived ; and how he turned shortly away, and kept to his 
 room for a week afterwards. I remember all this, and also 
 how I had to wear crape and try to look solemn years later, 
 because you told me Lady Portia Molyneux was dead. Aunt 
 Jem," and Portia's face saddened into a look which, could 
 those black eyes but have spoken, would for the moment have 
 been positively tender, " I feel more reconciled than I ever did 
 before to marrying poor Teddy. He is not clever, and he has 
 no nobler qualities than I have myself. Still, money or no 
 money, we like each other, and therefore our best chance, 
 when you consider what stock we come of, is to marry. Don't 
 you think so ? " 
 
 " I have always told you that your best chance would be to 
 marry a man you loved," said Miss Jemima. " If love, not 
 money, had been thought of when each was young, the two 
 lives I have been telling you of had not been shipwrecked." 
 
 "Let us say so," was Portia's answer. "Let us cheat our- 
 selves into the belief that theirs, like all other lives, were not 
 predestined for them. Oh ! Aunt Jem," after a minute, " if 
 I am fated to marry Teddy, without money, how intensely 
 you ought to pity him, and both of us ! With five thousand 
 a year, my father and mother would probably have lived to- 
 gether contentedly till their lives' end, while poverty .... 
 but all these things are 'written/" she broke off lightly. 
 " Our best wisdom is to enjoy the hour that we live, and not 
 look forward too keenly to the future. To the day, the evil 
 thereof." 
 
 She kissed Miss Jemima as she spoke, and ran away upstairs 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 115 
 
 with, a flush of genuine animation upon her face. Whatever 
 presented life in vivid dramatic contrasts before Portia Ffrench, 
 had power, for the instant, to evoke sympathy from her 
 emotion-craving nature. And precisely to this extent Miss 
 Jemima's story had affected her. Poor, broken-down, out- 
 lawed Harry Ffrench, drugging honour, manhood, conscience, 
 with brandy; deliberately resolving not to live life out, yet 
 having his baby's nursery beside his room, with womanish 
 gentleness tending the child whose whole existence he did not 
 scruple to darken by the act of his own hand : Lady Portia, 
 in her forlorn, haggard middle-age, crying over the little 
 daughter who was to have worn the dark colours, yet parting 
 with that daughter that she might herself marry Parson Moly- 
 neux : the Brussels lodging : miladi's receptions ; miladi's paste- 
 diamonds Portia could see it all ! 
 
 " We go to the bad artistically, if we do nothing else/* she^ 
 thought, looking long at her own handsome face in the glass . 
 when she had reached her room. " Dysart and Ffrench alike, 
 we know how to tread the down-hill road with an air, and that 
 is something. Oh, Teddy ! my poor little Teddy ! in ten 
 years' time what story, I wonder, of graceful shame, of pic- 
 turesque ruin, will have to be recorded of us?'\ 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 " FOR my part," said Miss Collinson, " I should call a nice 
 brooch set in garnets as suitable a gift as could be made. 
 Susan has not got a garnet brooch, that I know ; and garnets 
 can be worn in half mourning in any mourning, short of 
 crape and they look well by day or candle. I don't see, 
 brother, that you could do better than decide upon the garnet 
 brooch at once." 
 
 Tom Collinson was sitting at his breakfast the late sub- 
 stantial breakfast that cost more than a day's provisions used 
 
 i2 
 
n6 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 to cost in Miss Collinson's frugal household ; a sporting news- 
 paper on one side of his plateful of cold pie ; on the other, 
 carefully outspread on cotton wool, a dozen or so old-fashioned 
 brooches, rings, and lockets. His desire, yesterday afternoon, 
 of making Susan a birthday present had not been a momentary 
 impulse merely : to give comes just as readily as to take to 
 people of Tom Collinson's temperament : and as there did not 
 happen to be any jewellers' shops on Hounslow Heath, the 
 most obvious and natural course in the world was, he felt, 
 to choose whatever trifle Susan might be likely to fancy out of 
 Eliza's trinket-box. 
 
 " It will come exactly to the same thing in the end," he had 
 remarked, with Sultan-like generosity, as he ordered his sister 
 to produce her small, long-hoarded stock of treasures. " The 
 next time I go to town I shall bring you back something 
 handsome in my pocket, and so have the pleasure of making 
 two presents instead of one ! " 
 
 And poor little Miss Collinson, who had never found heart 
 to say " Nay " to any male creature in her life, obeyed on the 
 instant. The dearest possession she had, a diamond ring given 
 her once by Mr. Fielding after an illness of Susan's, was safe, 
 she felt. Impossible that Tom, even, could propose to return 
 the father's gift to the daughter. And her pearl locket, the 
 locket that she had kept and cried over since she was seven- 
 teen, and to which so tender a story was attached surely 
 Tom would never wish her to part with this ! From all the 
 rest he might make free choice the jet cross, or the plain gilt 
 locket, or the brooch set in garnets ; Miss Collinson herself 
 inclined, as we have seen, with artful warmth, to the many 
 merits of garnets. 
 
 " They would suit Susan's complexion, nicely," she began 
 anew ; " and they are the very best of stones. I got the 
 brooch when Aunt Hannah died. You know all Aunt Han- 
 nah's things were good 1 and " 
 
 " Aunt Hannah be ," interrupted Collinson, pushing 
 
 the brooch contemptuously aside. " She left me a chandelier 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 117 
 
 and a pair of plated side-dishes ; a nice bequest, wasn't it, to 
 a man without a roof over his head like me ? Out of the lot 
 there are just two things worth giving. This," he raised his 
 left hand, upon the little finger of which he had slipped the 
 diamond ring, "and the locket. Now, I'll take whichever 
 you like, Eliza ; " and nothing could be more affable than the 
 manner in which he made this concession. " Whichever you 
 like the ring or the locket.'* 
 
 Miss Collinson blushed up to her eyes. She was a thin, 
 neat-featured woman of eight-and-thirty, or thereabouts, neutral- 
 tinted in her complexion and dress, as in her life and character; 
 with a faded transitory smile and an apologetic little girlish 
 voice and manner. " The ring, as you know, Tom, was Mr. 
 Fielding's gift to me. He put it on my finger himself. 
 Susan was sitting up for the first time after measles, as white 
 and large-eyed as an owl she took every sickness she had 
 hard and he put it on my finger . . . ." 
 
 " Oh ! well, I suppose it wouldn't do to give the ring back 
 into the family," interrupted Tom ; " it's a very nice stone ;. 
 I'll air it for you, sometimes, Eliza so that brings us to the 
 locket. For a girl of Susan's age, perhaps the locket is most 
 suitable. Have you a box for it ] " 
 
 "A a box?" 
 
 "A box." Tom Collinson mimicked his sister's tone with 
 perfect temper, looking up at her with a smile upon his good- 
 looking, impudent face ; " and morocco, if you have one, to 
 look as if it came from the jeweller's. I wish, too, you'd 
 patch up a note a copy, I mean, the note itself must be 
 written in my own exquisite fist. Something about birthday 
 wishes, and the poorness of the present, and .... and my 
 admiration, and so on the usual thing." 
 
 Miss Collinson stood for a minute, nervously twitching the 
 frilled edge of her black silk apron ; at last she gathered up 
 all the little courage she possessed, and spoke : 
 
 " I've had that locket the best part of my life, Tom. I was 
 a girl when it was given me, and I know it's very foolish, 
 
n8 S&SAN FIELDING. 
 
 but I like it as a living thing ! I'd rather lend you the money, 
 please, to buy something for Susan Fielding, than give up my 
 locket." 
 
 " Money to buy something ! At one of the numerous 
 jewellers' shops between this and Addison Lodge, I suppose ? 
 Now, don't you be a fool, Eliza ! " He proffered this advice 
 with admirable directness and decision. "About the time 
 I was born, and when you were a schoolgirl, some young 
 donkey a parson, wasn't if? in a fit of spooning, gave you 
 this locket. He married some one else, of course, and you didn't 
 marry at all you didn't marry at all, Eliza ! And now, a 
 quarter of a century later, you pretend to go in for sentiment 
 about this trashy present of a fellow who forgot you in a fort- 
 night ! Go and look for a box, and help me write the note to 
 ;Susan. Don't I tell you I'll bring you something double the 
 locket's value the first time I go to London ? " 
 
 Poor Miss Collinson listened to this epitomized account of 
 her youthful romance with shame tingling to her very fingers' 
 -ends. In the hazy atmosphere of unmarried, soft-hearted 
 women's lives the vaguest semblance of love-making is, we 
 'know, apt to assume spectral and magnified proportions. Eliza 
 Oollinson had never, in sober fact, received an offer of mar- 
 riage from any one. But on two occasions of her life, in 
 youth and middle age, she had had kind words spoken, gifts 
 offered to her by men in marriageable positions : and her heart 
 clung to the remembrance of both with a tenacity highly 
 ludicrous to Tom, who, as you may imagine, relished all the 
 stock jests common to minds of his class, on the subject of old 
 maids. 
 
 " Say you can't bring yourself to part with the Reverend 
 Jeremiah's gift, and I have done," he cried, as Miss Collinson 
 still stood blushing and silent. " It isn't often I ask a favour 
 of you ; but, if you are so desperately enamoured of your 
 locket, say so, and I can go up to town this afternoon, and 
 get what I want. I really thought your last love the 
 gentleman for whom you still wear weeds had cut out the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. iig 
 
 Reverend Jeremiah, in your affections, or I wouldn't have 
 asked you ! w 
 
 He helped himself to another liberal wedge of pie, pushed 
 all the trinkets aside, and took up his newspaper, with the air 
 of a man who looks upon a discussion as ended. 
 
 " You you must let me take out the hair," said Miss Col- 
 linson after a minute more of burning shame and indecision. 
 " Don't be cross, Tom ; I was ill-natured for a minute, I know, 
 but I've got over it, and you shall have the locket. I've a 
 nice little morocco box upstairs, and I'll try to write the kind 
 of note you mean to Susan." 
 
 "You are a brick, Eliza !" cried Tom, all his facile good 
 temper restored. " See if I don't give you not a trumpery 
 locket, but something really handsome : a chain, or a watch, 
 or .... or that ! " Tom Collinson's promises were vague as 
 their fulfilment. " Now get pen and ink at once, and we'll 
 send off the present the girl can run with it ; and, by the 
 way, why shouldn't you ask Susan Fielding over to dinner this 
 afternoon ] I said something about our never seeing her yes- 
 terday, and she seemed ready enough to come if you would 
 invite her." 
 
 Poor Eliza now ran for the morocco box and her writing- 
 case. A lock of time-dried, whitey-brown hair was taken 
 tenderly from the pearl locket wherein it had rested more than 
 twenty years ; a note written, first in Miss Collinson's fine 
 governess' hand, then in Tom's big, scrawling one ; and the 
 little packet made up. 
 
 "The girl's trustworthy, I suppose?" inquired Collinson. 
 " I ask because I know you get them from the Sunday-school. 
 Well, send her off directly, then, and bid her wait for an an- 
 swer. Wanted in the house 1 Nonsense. I'll help you. 
 Answer the bell, and do anything else you like while you are 
 in the kitchen." 
 
 And so it was settled. The small girl of thirteen, Miss 
 Collinson's maid-of-all-work, was despatched (walking her 
 slowest, and enjoying her liberty to the utmost) across the 
 
1 2 o S&SA N FIELDING. 
 
 heath, and the brother and sister set about their division of 
 the morning labours of the household : Tom in an easy-chair, 
 his feet higher than his head, smoking his pipe arid reading his 
 paper at the open parlour window ; Eliza washing the break- 
 fast things, shelling peas, and seeing about the stuffed goose 
 and gooseberry tart for Tom's dinner in the kitchen. " Poor 
 dear boy ! " she was accustomed to say ; " Tom liked to have 
 everything nice about him, and no wonder, after such a rough 
 life as his had been. And then he was inclined to be wild 
 boys have such temptations and it was a great thing to make 
 him comfortable at home. Nothing, if a boy was inclined to 
 be wild, like giving him everything nice and comfortable in 
 his own home." 
 
 The habit of considering her brother in the light of a boy 
 who must be petted and indulged, no matter at what cost to 
 herself, was too strong with Eliza Collinson for her to get 
 cured of it even now that Tom was a man of three-and-twenty, 
 even after all the bitter experience of the past ! When old 
 Mr. Collinson, the Halfont brewer, died, leaving his wife and 
 her infant son destitute, Eliza, the child of a former marriage, 
 at once found herself, by the most natural process in the 
 world, in the position of bread-winner to the family. " Some 
 one will really have to do something," said the poor, ailing, 
 fine-lady widow plaintively, " or Tommy and I go to the 
 workhouse." And as Eliza was tolerably well educated, and 
 there happened to be nothing in the shape of a morning 
 governess in the village, the young woman's life, within a 
 month after her father's death, was shaped for her. 
 
 " Dear Eliza's duty lies so plainly, so close to her hand," 
 said the widow, " that we both feel she must accept it without 
 a murmur." And from that time until the present Miss Col- 
 linson had continued to teach to teach English, French, 
 drawing, piano all she knew, all she knew not ; but con- 
 scientiously ever, poor patient soul, not developing any par- 
 ticular ability in her pupils to do that requires special ability 
 but never allowing them to skip an observation in grammar, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 to slur a difficult bar in music, to leave uncorrected a devious 
 line in their drawings. If art, or literature, or music, thus 
 taught, could be a source either of use or pleasure hereafter to 
 her pupils, was no question for Miss Collinson, Her con- 
 science, like her life, was bounded by a perfectly narrow horizon. 
 She undertook to teach so much, for so many pounds a year, 
 and to the best of her small might she fulfilled her bargain ; 
 the pounds all going towards the support of Mrs. Collinson 
 and her son. As time went on the delicate widow ailed and 
 ailed more, then died ; Eliza's hard-earned money paying for 
 dainty invalid fare, doctors, nurses everything. After this 
 came the education and putting out in the world of Tom. 
 
 He was educated upon a by-no-means exceptional feminine 
 system of educating boys ; alternate indulgence and injustice, 
 pious kisses and feeble bullying ; and the system bore its 
 accustomed fruit. When he really wanted a whipping about 
 twelve times a year this Tom by adequate hypocrisy could at 
 once convert Eliza's wrath into a sermon and tears. When he 
 really wanted to be running wild with the other little lads on 
 the common, he was imprisoned, because it was after dusk, or 
 damp, or because his shoes were thin, or because good boys 
 never played of a Sunday evening. The poor woman fretted 
 over him, prayed over him, tormented him, slaved for him ; 
 and, at last, in the middle of a grand scene, was told abruptly 
 that she was an old woman, and that Tom, now fifteen years 
 old, would not knock under to her or go to school any more. 
 He was the strongest. He would never obey her again while 
 he lived. 
 
 At this juncture Eliza, I need scarcely say, succumbed. 
 Tom was too big, she felt sure, for petticoat government any 
 longer dear spirited fellow ! Mr. Mildmay, the curate, must 
 take him seriously in hand for a while, and to Mr. Mildmay 
 rhe boy, it was settled, should go daily to read. (There might 
 have been an opening, an honest chance of life for him, just 
 then, in the firm of the people who succeeded -his father in 
 business ; but Master Collinson did not consider brewing the 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 occupation of a gentleman, and poor Eliza had visions of send- 
 ing him to college, and of his ultimately entering the Church.) 
 Nothing, it seemed, could be happier than the new arrange- 
 ment. The forenoon reading and afternoon liberty suited 
 Master Tom to a nicety ; and all went on smoothly for the 
 first quarter. Then came abrupt discoveries of the lad being 
 in debt, having bad companions, drinking, smoking, driving 
 up in a tandem on Sunday horrible climax ! to London. 
 He promised amendment ; was forgiven ; in a month fell into 
 more flagrant disgrace than before. Finally, by everybody's 
 advice, his tutor's most of all, was shipped off to a Scotch 
 sheep-fanner, a distant connection of Mr. Mildmay's, in New 
 Zealand ; his sister mortgaging the best part of her coming 
 twelve months' income to pay the cost of his passage-money 
 and outfit. 
 
 The years that followed were perhaps the least troubled ones 
 of Eliza Collinson's life. Instead of wearily journeying, in all 
 weathers, from one farm-house to another after pupils, she had 
 now sole charge of little Susan Fielding. She had the friend- 
 ship of Mr. Fielding, with the constant mild stimulus of seek- 
 ing to convert that friendship into a warmer feeling. And she 
 had good hopes and good news of Tom's colonial life. The 
 healthy out-door employment, the absence of temptation of the 
 New Zealand sheep-farm, had, Miss Collinson felt, proved the 
 instruments of her brother's salvation. For a space that 
 slippery transitional space over which every boy must tread 
 ere he becomes a man her hand, she acknowledged humbly, 
 had proved too weak to guide him. Now, far away, alone 
 with Nature and his conscience, were being shown forth those 
 pious dispositions which she had fostered in him from his ear- 
 liest childhood. At a time when other lads were wasting their 
 golden hours in the frivolous, oft-times gambling games of 
 marbles and pitch-and-toss, Tom had been committing to 
 memory words of wisdom that should guide him hereafter 
 through the deceitful labyrinths of the world ; and now now 
 the good seed sown was already whitening for harvest ! He 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 123 
 
 wrote to her regularly always wanting money ; that was 
 natural, considering the scantiness of his wages ; but express- 
 ing such beautiful sentiments, such touching contrition over 
 his old wildness, as left no doubt on Eliza's mind as to his 
 being a changed, a converted man. At last, some five or six 
 years after he quitted England, came a letter to say that his 
 employer a rattling good fellow, wrote Tom, a fellow who 
 turned all he touched into gold was about to take him into 
 partnership, and that he, Tom, was engaged to be married to 
 his sister. By the time Eliza got the letter, he expected he 
 would be a married man ; a year later, would be the owner of 
 so many thousand sheep for certain ; and if ever his dear sister 
 wanted a home she would know where to find one. With 
 more in the same grand style, and the sisterly love of his 
 intended wife, added in a postscript. 
 
 After this came a lapse of a great many months without a 
 single letter. An occasional New Zealand paper, directed in 
 Tom's hand, relieved Miss Collinson from any positive suspense 
 about her brother's fate ; but this was all. "He is married 
 now," thought Eliza, with half -querulous resignation. " Mar- 
 ried and prosperous, and I am second in his love. I ought to 
 be happy at his silence. When trouble or trial overtake him 
 again, Tom will write." So she waited and waited, fretting 
 anew every time that the New Zealand mail came in and 
 brought no letter for her ; at last, one March evening, found 
 herself, without a minute of warning, in Tom's arms. 
 
 It was a day or two after Mr. Fielding's sudden death, and 
 Eliza was sitting drearily alone by her small fire ; speculating, 
 one moment, with sad tears, as to whether any preparation, any 
 moment's repentance had been granted her friend at the last ; 
 wondering, the next, if people would think it " odd" that she 
 should put on mourning for a man who was no relation ; also 
 whether, when it was made up, the crape that had lain by since 
 she went out of mourning for her Aunt Hannah would look 
 brown or black. " For if it looks brown, it will be a mockery 
 to wear it," thought Miss Collinson ; "and if I buy new every 
 
124 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 one will know, through Miss Budd, before Sunday comes, and 
 do nothing but talk of me and say what a fool I am, and how 
 I cared for him. Oh, I did care for him ! I did care for him ! 
 Nothing's left to me but Tom now, and Tom has forgotten 
 me." 
 
 And she started up, hearing the parlour door open, and, in 
 the indistinct firelight, saw a stranger cross the room to her 
 side. It was Tom ! Tom with a deep man's voice with 
 whiskers ; Tom very nearly in rags, and without a farthing in 
 his pocket. His partner had turned out a scoundrel. Stand- 
 ing on the hearthrug, his face in shadow, his hand clasped in 
 his sister's, Tom Collinson made fullest confession of his mis- 
 fortunes during the first ten minutes of their meeting. His 
 partner had speculated with their common savings, failed, and 
 gone off to Melbourne with every farthing he could touch, 
 leaving Collinson a ruined man. No use for him to stop in 
 the colony. The colony was going to the dogs ; everybody 
 bankrupt ; sheep rotting off by thousands ; water failing. He 
 had worked his hardest ; no one could say he had not worked ; 
 and after all these years' labour, had not got a five-pound note 
 in the world ! People might talk as they liked, England was 
 a better place for an honest man to get on in than any colony. 
 At all events, he meant to stick to England. Nothing easier 
 than to get employment in London, anywhere one chose. 
 He rather thought he would take some kind of easy place 
 under Government this time, and, meanwhile, all he asked of 
 Eliza was, that she would let him look upon her house as home 
 for a few days. 
 
 " And your wife 'I " faltered Eliza, not without a jealous 
 tremor in her voice. 
 
 Tom Collinson was silent for a moment, then he burst out 
 into a laugh ; not a natural one, Eliza thought, though, to be- 
 sure, his laugh, like everything else about him, must be altered 
 now that he was a man ! His wife ! That was a fine idea. 
 What did he want of a wife 1 He had written that he was on 
 the eve of marrying his friend's sister Yes ; he knew 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 125 
 
 he had, but writing was a very different thing from acting. 
 One of the family had proved quite enough for him. No, he 
 was not married, or thinking of marrying ; then this as his 
 sister continued to hover round the subject he wished, 
 strengthening the wish by such an expletive as had never 
 startled Miss Collinson's walls or ears before, that she would 
 leave questioning alone ! He had been home ten minutes, and 
 already she was at the old work " the catechizing and cross- 
 questioning that sent me to the devil when I was a boy ! " said 
 Tom, savagely. " Yes, that sent me to the devil ! " he re- 
 peated, Miss Collinson having interposed a faint expression of 
 horror. " I don't believe I was worse than most boys to start 
 with, but I became worse, for I became a hypocrite ! Don't 
 you try the pious game with me any more, Eliza. I'm not any 
 honester, perhaps, than other men now, but at least I've done 
 with snivelling and repentance. Eepentance faugh ! I hate 
 the word. It smells of the Reverend Mr. Mildmay, and his 
 New Zealand friends. No doubt that Scotch blackguard who 
 cheated me out of all I had is repenting over his misdeeds at 
 his leisure in Melbourne." 
 
 And long before they quitted the parlour fire that night, 
 Miss Collinson had realized to the full what manner of man 
 the contrite, reformed young brother of her dreams had be- 
 come, realized it, and felt that, in her inmost heart, she did not 
 respect the poor fellow less in consequence. He smoked pipe 
 after pipe of strong tobacco when he must have seen, too, 
 that the winter curtains were still up ; he ordered her, an hour 
 .after he arrived, to send out for brandy ; he used words that 
 -almost dislocated her, mentally and bodily, with shocked sur- 
 prise ; but then he ruled her ! Pooh-poohed her attempt at 
 lecturing, bade her ask no questions, pointed out to her, in 
 perfectly clear and forcible language, the boundary-line over 
 which he did not choose that she should pass. And this was 
 precisely the kind of treatment that agreed best with Eliza 
 Collinson. Nature designed her, as it designs ninety-nine out 
 of every hundred women, as it designs races, for contented 
 
iz6 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 servitude. If Tom had made his appearance heart-stricken, 
 repentant, humble, a hundred to one some of the weakly- 
 tyrannical spirit of old days would have awakened in his sister. 
 Does not a trite maxim tell us that those who are born to obey, 
 wear authority badly ; An outspoken bully, he succeeded in 
 impressing her at once with the wholesome sense of her own 
 inferior strength, and from that first evening onward she had 
 never striven, never wished to free her neck from his yoke. 
 It was not to be denied that Tom was changed much changed ; 
 but would one wish, said Miss Collinson, to find a man of 
 three-and-twenty a schoolboy still ] His language was not, 
 perhaps, at all times what it should be, but then he was such 
 a fine, manly young fellow ! hasty-tempered and impetuous, 
 certainly, but no hypocrite nothing she detested like a hypo- 
 crite ! Tom borrowed her money, the hard-got savings of 
 years, and cast it to the winds on his own amusements. He 
 bought smart clothes, flash jewellery, kept bad hours, or rather 
 no hours at all, required hot breakfasts, late dinners, never 
 went to church, did things, not a few, outraging the whole 
 public opinion of Halfont : and still Eliza bore it all : still no 
 word of rebuke rose to Eliza's lips. The blank that Mr. Field- 
 ing's death had left in her quiet, aimless existence, had been 
 filled, as if by miracle, by Tom's return. To hear Tom's 
 cheery voice, singing or swearing, as his humour might prompt, 
 through the small house ; to light his pipe for him, brush his 
 clothes, stitch him fine wrist-bands, cook him savoury meats 
 yes, even to sit up in her night-cap, waiting to see Tom walk 
 home unsteadily down the village street at daybreak all this 
 slavery of affection seemed to lend a new zest, to instil a faint 
 experience of what the dearer servitude of marriage might have 
 been, into Miss Collinson's sterile life ! 
 
 " I feel as if I hadn't really kept house before since father 
 died,'* she would say, when occasionally her friends hinted that 
 they hoped poor Mr. Tom would soon get employment, or that 
 it must make a wonderful difference in the week's bills, now 
 that poor Mr. Tom was home. " Wish Tom to leave ? Why, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 127 
 
 I shouldn't know what to do with myself without him. Having 
 Tom's dinner to cook, and his linen to see to, yes, and actually 
 having the smell of smoking in the parlour, though it does 
 cling sadly to the curtains, makes rne feel as if father was alive 
 again." 
 
 And Tom, being much too practical a philosopher to fret 
 after work (even an easy place under Government) so long as 
 he had the chance of play, it seemed to be growing a settled 
 thing that their present life should continue. Eliza cooking, 
 sewing, giving lessons in her leisure hours, and generally 
 slaving for his benefit ; he eating, drinking, smoking, spend- 
 ing money, and amusing himself. The kind of labour-division, 
 of which we have just seen an example, when Tom's generous 
 birthday gift had been despatched to Susan Fielding, out of 
 Eliza's trinket-case. 
 
 Towards two o'clock, and when the young man was begin- 
 ning to swear and stamp about the room, and deliver himself 
 of pretty strong commentaries on the subject of Sunday-schools, 
 and the kind of servant-girls foolish women took from them, 
 the small servant bounced in, her face scarlet, her bonnet 
 hanging down her back. " Miss Fielding's kindest love to Mr. 
 Collinsori, please mum, and were much obliged. And she'll 
 come." 
 
 The message gave Tom such a shock of surprised pleasure 
 that he not only forbore to swear at the girl for her long delay, 
 but actually tossed her three-halfpence (of Eliza's) off the 
 mantel-shelf. " You young baggage ! how dare you say such 
 a thing 1 You have been to the Kose I can tell it by the 
 colour of your face. How dare you say Miss Fielding sent her 
 love to me ] " 
 
 " But it was to you, Master Tom " poor Eliza still spoke 
 of her brother as "Master Tom," and Betsy followed suit. 
 " Miss Fielding come out in the garden herself. ' Give my 
 kindest love to Mister Collinson/ she says, ' and were much 
 obliged. And she'll come.' " During the two hours in which 
 Betsy had played truant with another serving-woman of her 
 
128 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 years, on the heath, she had revolved this message, full stop 
 and all, in her head ; and no judge on the bench could have 
 made her swerve from it by a syllable. 
 
 Miss Fielding's kindest love to Mr. Collinson ! Tom walked 
 across to the window, sang aloud, played an accompanying 
 tattoo with his thick fingers on the glass, then with a well- 
 satisfied look on his face ran up to his bed-room, from whence 
 he issued forth, later in the afternoon, resplendent ; bright- 
 flowered waistcoat, polished boots, coral brooch, curry-coloured 
 gloves, riding-whip nothing like a riding- whip for giving one 
 the air of a man of means. He stopped at the kitchen-door, 
 immediately behind the parlour, and glanced in at Eliza, who, 
 with her dress pinned back, her face afire, was basting the 
 goose. "I'm just going out for a turn, Eliza; shall meet 
 Susan Fielding, as likely as not, on the common. For God's 
 sake try and cool yourself by then we are back ! " he added 
 considerately. " Nothing more disgusting than to see a woman 
 sit down with a purple, blistered face to dinner. Can't Sunday- 
 school look to the dinner 1 " 
 
 And, without waiting for an answer, Mr. Collinson began to 
 draw on his over-tight gloves, stuck his hat on one side his 
 head, then sauntered forth jauntily from the house. The vil- 
 lage clock was striking four, and he turned his steps at once 
 across the heath towards Addison Lodge. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 So when Susan reached her accustomed halting-place on the 
 bridge, she found, to her dismay, Tom Collinson awaiting her. 
 The little girl, who yesterday stood on this same spot, bemoan- 
 ing her loneliness, wondering if life could ever bring her 
 another happy hour, was already at a stage of feeling when to 
 be alone is to have the best of all companionship ; that first 
 sweetest stage of intoxication in which love, void as yet and 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 129 
 
 without form, itself, lends a memory or a hope to every com- 
 mon object in the external world. The sleepy wash of the 
 canal, the wind droning low along the sedges, were the sounds 
 she had heard as she walked by Blake's side last night ; this 
 blank white road led to London, where he lived ; only last 
 night he had traversed this heath, among whose soft afternoon 
 
 purples she was to have an hour's walk alone And, 
 
 now, here was Tom Collinson, in gamboge gloves and tawdry 
 jewellery Tom Collinson, with his terrible atmosphere of 
 bergamot and tobacco, to mar all ! 
 
 " You have put me in very good spirits, I can tell you, Miss 
 Fielding," he remarked, in his deliberate, self-satisfied voice, 
 and looking full as he spoke into Susan's face the face which 
 the stirring of new emotions had already robbed of half its 
 "vacancy." "I haven't felt such a happy man for many a 
 month past, as I did when I got your message." 
 
 "My message? why, I never sent a message to you at all," 
 said Susan. " It was to Miss Collinson. I mean the message 
 about coming to dinner. Of course, though " the colour rose, 
 to her cheek " I sent my thanks to you for the locket. It is 
 so pretty. See, I have got it on." And she moved away her 
 bonnet-strings and showed him his gift, tied with a bit of black 
 ribbon round the whitest little throat in the world. 
 
 " I'm glad you like it. I took .... I mean I selected 
 what I thought would be your taste. But you can't be so 
 cruel " and Collinson fully believed that he was making his 
 manner tender " you can't be so cruel as to tell me the first 
 part of your message was only for Eliza 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! but I'm certain it was," answered Susan. " I went 
 into the garden and spoke to Betsy myself. ' Tell Mr. Collin- 
 son I am much obliged for his present,' I said, ' and give my 
 kind love to Miss Collinson, and say I'll come,' or something 
 of that sort." 
 
 "Ah, something "of that sort," said Collinson, "but the 
 * something ' may make all the difference. Now, are you cer- 
 tain " he was riot a man used to be shy with women, bu* 
 
 K 
 
130 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 something in the steady gaze of Susan's eyes did discoun- 
 tenance him "are you quite certain that a little bit of the 
 love wasn't sent to me on the sly 1 " 
 
 " I am quite certain that messages never mean anything," 
 said Susan, smiling. " Compliments, or regards, or love it's 
 all the same. How can one send one's love, to be delivered by 
 some other person, like a parcel ] " 
 
 " But if one could," said Collinson, pertinaciously " if love 
 could be sent like a parcel, anyhow wouldn't you have 
 spared a little bit of yours to me 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! when it can will be time enough for me to tell you,* 
 said Susan, turning her face aside; "and meanwhile I give 
 you my thanks for the locket. It was very nice and friendly 
 of you to send me a present. I'll think of you sometimes, when 
 I wear it, Mr. Collinson." 
 
 The awakening of one, supreme, womanly instinct was call- 
 ing into action a dozen subordinate ones in this child's heart. 
 Four-and-twenty hours can teach a girl of seventeen so much 
 of one kind of wisdom ! Dimly she began to suspect a little 
 of the truth as regarded Tom Collinson, and woman-like, ran 
 behind the outwork of friendship for safety. 
 
 " Friendly ! as if I cared .... as if I wanted to be 
 friendly ! " cried the young man, hurriedly ; then he bit his- 
 lip, stopped short, and becai to whistle. If he said another 
 word at the point to which he had brought the conversation, 
 Tom Collinson had sense enough to know that word would be 
 a declaration ; and from any definite committal of himself he 
 still shrank with a shiver ! He was not a really wicked man, 
 if by the term wicked is meant a capacity for deliberate wrong- 
 doing : such capacity, indeed, mostly belongs to villains of the 
 very grand style, of epic poems, or tragedy. He was simply 
 bad with the everyday badness that sows the world broadcast 
 with misery ; would play with an ugly temptation till its edges 
 were worn off till familiarity had shaped dishonour to his- 
 conscience ; would vacillate till accident, some chance uncon- 
 scious hand, pushed him into its consummation, and afterwards 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 131 
 
 cry out against intention and fulfilment alike as a misfortune 
 into which his evil luck had drifted him. He was desperately 
 "gone" to speak in his own tongue upon Susan Fielding; 
 that he knew ; and he ought not for a moment to entertain the 
 thought of marrying her; that, also, he believed he knew. 
 But the present time surely, he thought, the present time 
 might be enjoyed without looking forward too nicely into the 
 future. If ho got so fond of the girl that he was forced into 
 speaking, or if the poor little thing lost her peace of mind 
 about him, it would be time to worry over troubles that could 
 not be mended that was to say, if they could not be mended, 
 if there was no middle course by which his own desire could 
 be attained without shame to others or discovery to himself. 
 .... But at the word " discovery," Tom invariably got hot 
 and uncomfortable, and thrust away the subject from his 
 thoughts, like the thoroughly commonplace, happy-go-lucky 
 scoundrel that he was. 
 
 "I don't know that I ever deliberately harmed man or 
 woman in my life," he wrote, months afterwards, when he be- 
 lieved himself at death's threshold ; his conscience, one may 
 suppose, sharpened upon the whetstone of sickness ; " but I've 
 got into more scrapes than most, and generally managed to 
 drag some one else down with me. I was never one of your 
 cold-blooded, long-headed fellows who can see from the first 
 what line of conduct will turn out profi tables t to themselves, 
 and stick to it I did what looked like best for the moment, 
 and let the future take care of itself. And it didn't there's 
 the truth, and there's no accounting for anything." This was 
 Tom's way of disposing of his sins. 
 
 He began to whistle ; after a minute or so took out his cigar- 
 case ; and Susan with relief hoped that it was his intention 
 for once to walk by her side without incessant talking, Oh ! 
 how pleasant the heath was, in spite of Tom Collinson's society 
 and his unlikeness to Mr. Blake (poor little Susan, already 
 wanting all the world to be cut upon one pattern !). How 
 
 K2 
 
1 3 2 St/SA N FIELDING. 
 
 sweet the air smelt this afternoon of early summer ! how warm 
 the sun shone ! how loud the wood-pigeons called from their 
 nests in the fir-plantation away across the gravel-pits ! What 
 a pity it would have been to die on one's seventeenth birthday, 
 after all ! 
 
 " You seem in vastly better spirits than you were when I 
 saw you last," remarked Collinson, suddenly. He had looked 
 stealthily round at her, and detected a suppressed smile at the 
 corners of her lips. "The effect of dissipation, I suppose 1 ? 
 Pray, what kind of party did you have at old Dicky Ffrench's 
 last night ?" 
 
 "A party? Oh! none at all," said Susan. "There was 
 no one but Mr. Josselin, Portia's lover, you know, and me 
 and another person. But it was very pleasant." 
 
 "No doubt," answered Collinson. "Big rooms and fine 
 dresses and a real butler to wait, would make any stuck-up 
 party delightful to a woman. I know what Eliza is when she 
 has been to dinner at Lady Long's. Now, pray, what did you 
 do, Miss Susan, to make this evening at the manor so superior 
 to all other evenings ? " 
 
 " We had tea first, and I liked that very much ; Portia is so 
 bright and lively, and she and Mr. Josselin talked you should 
 have heard them talk ! of every subject under the sun, I 
 think. But the pleasantest was to come ; for then we went 
 out-of-doors, and strolled by the river, and it was such a 
 delicious evening ! We stayed out till the stars shone, Portia 
 and Mr. Josselin together, of course/ 7 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " Oh ! I was with the .... the other person." 
 
 " What other person 1 What are you talking about 1 Do 
 you mean the old Miss Ffrench ? " 
 
 " I mean Mr. George Blake." The confession came out 
 with just the slightest little conscious stammer. It was the 
 first time Susan had spoken Blake's name aloud, arid she found 
 it lingering on her lips. " A friend of Mr. Josselin's." 
 
 " A young man 1 " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 153 
 
 " Not very old six or seven-and-twenty, I should think/' 
 
 " And a finical fine gentleman like the other, I'll be sworn ! * 
 
 " I don't believe I know what ' finical ' means," said Susan. 
 " Mr. Blake is a fine gentleman, I am sure ! " 
 
 " And you walked alone with this man till the stars shone T 
 Collinson's face grew orange. " Pray, go on. Let me hear tha 
 rest. Let me hear the conclusion of this charming evening." 
 
 " Oh ! well, I don't think there is much more to tell," said 
 Susan, severely. She was too blind to notice Tom's change of 
 colour, and he had managed to hold his voice tolerably under 
 control. " We came in, and had music. Portia played first, 
 then I sang we sang, rather, Mr. Blake and I." Her com- 
 panion flung his cigar into the middle of the road. " I dare 
 say you know the duet, a very old one ' Drink to me only 
 with thine eyes.' " 
 
 " Oh, a very old one ! * said Collinson. " A very old duet 
 a very old story." Still he managed not to betray himself 
 by his voice. " After this came more star-gazing, naturally 1 " 
 
 "No," said Susan, "after this came rain. It began to 
 rain, if you remember, about eleven o clock, and the night 
 turned sultry. That was when I went home." 
 
 " Alone ] " 
 
 " Mr. Blake saw me home. I was very glad he did. Miss 
 Jemima said at first that Jekyll should take me, and I felt so 
 frightened. I always feel frightened of grand men-servants." 
 
 " But you were not at all afraid of Mr. Blake 1 " 
 
 " Oh no ! " 
 
 The " no " with an emphasis that shut up Collinson's lips 
 during the remainder of the walk. He was not, it must be 
 remembered, hovering about Susan with mere boyish admira- 
 tion or idle gallantry. For a good many weeks now his fancy 
 for her had daily been strengthening into very genuine passion 
 of its kind. And the thought of another man, a man 
 superior in birth and attainment to himself, having taken star- 
 lit walks, sung love-songs with the girl, caused him acutest 
 jealousy. 
 
134 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 He lit no fresh cigar to succeed the one that he had flung 
 away ; neither whistled nor sang ; asked no more questions ; 
 only walked on at such a pace as made Susan breathless in her 
 attempts to keep up with him, and tortured himself over what 
 he had heard. Tortured himself into a state of acuter misery, 
 probably, than he would have felt for cause so slight, had his 
 nature been a more refined one. Those who love coarsely, 
 suspect coarsely : but they suffer on a like hearty scale : doubt- 
 ful if any of the delicate hidden suspicions of nobler minds can 
 surpass in positive pain the physical kind of jealousy of a man 
 like Collinson. 
 
 And he had to go through plenty of it, to listen to a hundred 
 new hints of that which he hated most to believe, before the 
 evening was over. When they reached home they found Eliza 
 in the parlour, heated and anxious, but trying her best to look 
 as though she had passed the day in elegant idleness ; and, the 
 minute they sat down to dinner, Susan was put through a 
 sharp cross-examination concerning what poor Miss Collinson 
 called the " company rules " at the manor. Miss Jemima 
 poured out tea herself 1 Never ! At Lady Long's what a 
 mouthful Miss Collinson contrived to make out of those two 
 short words ! at Lady Long's tea was invariably handed round 
 by the page. Were the ladies in high dresses or low ? Who 
 were the guests besides Susan ] What ? gentlemen, both 
 unmarried gentlemen ! And then Susan had to tell of the 
 walk by the river, and of the stars, and the duet, and the rain 
 which obliged Mr. Blake to see her home ; at all of which Miss 
 Collinson, not being in love or jealous, naturally made little 
 jokes, such as " ISTo wonder Susan blushed ! JSTo wonder 
 Susan was looking in such good spirits this afternoon ! " the 
 mildest, silliest little jokes even Miss Collinson was capable of, 
 but which made Tom feel very closely inclined to murder her. 
 
 He did not for a long time interrupt ; neither reminded his 
 sister she was a fool, nor bade her hold her tongue as was his 
 wont. Some horrible attraction seemed to exist for him in 
 hearing George Blake's name spoken, in hearing Susan ques- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 135 
 
 tioned about Mm, in watching her face colour and dimple shily 
 under Miss Collinson's weak attempts at banter. Only only 
 as he sat, silently eating his roast goose, the thought, which 
 two hours before had been a vague temptation, quickly put 
 aside, rapidly began to take the form of set resolve in Tom 
 Collinson's heart ! If no George Blake had appeared upon the 
 scene things might just have gone on quietly in their present 
 indefinite state, have gone on (he would say, and believe all 
 this, later) until the girl had left the neighbourhood, or till his 
 own fancy for her had cooled. It was the prospect of a rival 
 that really gave him the final, fatal push into all that followed ; 
 and Eliza, for setting that prospect with such hateful clearness 
 before his eyes, might take to herself as much credit or as much 
 blame as she chose. 
 
 "You are very silent to-da^ Mr. Collinson," remarked 
 Susan, when the dinner was nearly over. "I never heard 
 you talk so little before.'' 
 
 "Tom does love a goose so," said Miss Collinson, looking at 
 him with affectionate eyes as he helped himself to a last scraping 
 of stuffing and gravy. " Father was the same. * Never expect 
 me to talk/ father used to say, ' when I have got a goose be- 
 fore me/ " 
 
 "And never expect me to talk when I've got a fool before 
 me ! " roared Collinson, glaring across the table at his sister. 
 "It takes away a man's taste for talk, I can tell you, Eliza, to 
 hear such stuff as you go on with. And before the girl too ! " 
 Betsy at this moment had clattered off to the kitchen for the 
 pudding plates. "I wonder a woman of your years isn't 
 ashamed to make such a ninnyhammer of herself ! " 
 
 The admonition took instant and salutary effect on Miss 
 Collinson. She knew not in what her offence lay ; but she 
 knew her master was offended ; and with a meek " I'm sure 
 I'm very sorry, Tom ! " lapsed into silence, a condition, it must 
 be said, of quite as real suffering to her as is a superfluity of 
 foolish talking to the ears of wisdom. 
 
 Susan looked on, shocked and half-frightened, at the little 
 
136 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 domestic scene. During her seventeen years of life a coarse, 
 harsh word had never once reached her ears before, and in her 
 heart she shrank oh, if he had known how she shrank ! from 
 Tom Collinson. She would not belong to this man, she 
 thought no, not to have the riches of the world, to have 
 Addison Lodge for her own ! And even as she thought this 
 she raised her eyes involuntarily to his face ; his round red 
 face, choking with anger, or the closeness of the parlour, or 
 roast goose, or all combined ; and remembered George Blake. 
 It was unfortunately not the last time in Susan Fielding's life 
 when the contrast between these two men was destined to strike 
 her to Tom Collinson's detriment. 
 
 Directly dinner was over the young man went out into the 
 street to console himself with tobacco. He had a habit men 
 often acquire the like on long voyages of pacing up and down 
 a space about as limited as a quarter-deck, while he smoked ; 
 so Miss Collinson and Susan, sitting at the open parlour win- 
 dow, had the benefit of his strong cigar almost as directly at 
 first hand as though he had remained in-doors. 
 
 " Poor, dear fellow ! " said Eliza, under her breath, and 
 looking out at him with maternal pride. " Tom is a little 
 hasty, as you saw at dinner and I am sure the goose was a 
 fine, tasty bird, and roasted to a turn ; I can't think what 
 upset him but such a heart ! You wouldn't believe what an 
 excellent heart Tom's is ! " 
 
 Susan felt the act of faith was beyond her, so kept silence. 
 
 " So generous, so outspoken ! All Tom's faults lie on the 
 surface, Susan." 
 
 " Do they, indeed, ma'am ] " Susan had not yet got over 
 the old schoolroom fashion of addressing Miss Collinson. "I 
 know Mr. Collinson very little, but, I'm sure, he seems most 
 obliging." She would have liked to please Eliza by some 
 stronger expression, but could not find one ready to her use. 
 " I'm sorry he should have gone to the expense of this hand- 
 some locket for me ; I never wore anything so fine in my life,' 9 
 
 Miss Collinson glanced, not without a pang of natural re- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 137 
 
 gret, at the locket, cvjr which so many girlish tears had been 
 shed, so many middle-aged regrets vainly spent ! My dear," 
 said she, a certain tremor in her voice, " when Tom wishes to 
 make a present, he does not think of the expense, nor yet per- 
 haps, at all times, 6f the fitness of the gift. Nothing is too 
 good for him, nothing too dear ; still .... still," said \ o&: 
 Eliza, meekly, " it certainly showed a great deal of nice feeling 
 in him to remember your birthday at all ! " 
 
 " But a present a quarter the value would have pleased me 
 just as well," said Susan. "And then to think that your 
 brother should have gone to London on purpose to buy it ! 
 Oh ! Miss Collinson, I'm sure I should feel more comfortable 
 if you would let me give the locket back. I'm sure papa would 
 never have let me keep it I " 
 
 Tom Collinson, who had been listening to every word they 
 say, now stopped short before the window. " What do you 
 say to a walk, Eliza 2 " he asked : his cigar seemed to have 
 done him good, for his tone was more than ordinarily amiable 
 towards his sister. " How would it be to have tea early, and 
 walk across to Barham firs ] What do you say, Miss Field- 
 ing ] We can stop out there as long as you like, and drop you 
 at Addison Lodge on our way home." 
 
 Susan caught at the proposal ; a foreboding that she would 
 have to walk home alone across the heath with Tom, had been 
 haunting her all the afternoon. " I should like it very much, 
 please. I haven't seen the sunset from Barham yet, this sum- 
 mer I dare say to-night will be the last time I shall ever go 
 there while I live," she added, with a sigh. 
 
 As she spoke, she put her head out through the open parlour 
 window, and the evening light fell full upon her little crape- 
 clad figure ; burnishing her brown curls into bronze, giving 
 lustre to her great blind eyes, shining on the pearls, Tom's gift, 
 that hardly exceeded in whiteness the childish throat where- 
 from they depended. Tom Collinson's heart gave a throb of 
 exultation as he looked at her. During the last quarter of an 
 hour he had been steadily bringing himself up to the deter- 
 
1 3 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 urination with which he had dallied so long ; had been re- 
 solving, cost what it might, to make Susan his. And now, at 
 this moment, the girl in her fresh fairness, so close before him, 
 and all unpleasant things and possibilities so far, he felt almost 
 as one might feel who has gained a painful victory over him- 
 self who after long vacillation had elected to do the thing 
 that is right. It was right to love anything so absolutely 
 innocent as Susan Fielding ! Loving her, it was right to 
 declare himself like a man, and stand boldly by the result. 
 She was friendless, poor, fretting after the old home she was 
 to quit for ever, and he could give her protection, love, home 
 all she needed. That he happened to be himself penniless, 
 was a matter of ridiculous accidental detail. As a married 
 man it would be advisable to look about for work, certainly, 
 and in the mean time to have the use of Eliza's house was the 
 next best thing to having a house of one's own. Aye, the 
 matter should be clinched without delay. There should, if he 
 coiJd help it, be no more of these evenings spent at the manor ; 
 these walks by starlight ; this practising of love-songs with 
 empty-headed London coxcombs. He had spoken already to 
 Eliza about asking Susan to stay with them for a few days 
 while the sale went on at her old home, and to-night the in- 
 vitation should be made formally. Once under the same roof, 
 and Tom Collinson had too good an opinion of his own charms 
 to doubt that Susan Fielding, that any woman, could be 
 brought to like him. Like him ! Did not a dozen signs the 
 small coquetry even of wearing his birthday gift show how 
 frail were the obstacles he had to apprehend on that score ] 
 
 He was softer, quieter, less like Tom Collinson than Susan 
 had ever seen him yet, throughout the remainder of the 
 evening. She began to tolerate him. (During that first rose- 
 flushed stage of feeling through which poor little Susan was 
 passing, human beings are so disposed to charitable toleration 
 of everything, of everybody !) He actually apologized, after 
 his fashion, to Eliza, for having been rude to her at dinner ; 
 during the course of their walk neither smoked nor talked 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 139 
 
 loud, nor bent down his face to Susan's as was his custom ; 
 he sat quiet, a little apart, and let her enjoy the sunset, almost 
 as she used in old days with her father, from the firs ; and 
 not until dusk had come, not until they were standing before 
 the gate of Addison Lodge, spoke in a hesitating voice, a 
 voice oddly unlike his own about the projected visit. 
 
 " Eliza and I have been thinking, Miss Fielding we have 
 been talking about the sale at Addison Lodge, you know, 
 Eliza, and " 
 
 " And how you really ought to remain on the spot, Susan, 
 or near," chirped Miss Collinson. " Hackitt is an excellent 
 auctioneer. As an auctioneer I haven't a word to say against 
 him. Still, when Aunt Hannah's things were sold, it was 
 remarked that the fish-kettle, good as new, went for eighteen- 
 pence, and that Mr. Hackitt's sister bought it. The honestest 
 people alive are honester for watching ; so what we both think 
 is, that you had better come and spend a few days with us 
 instead of leaving the neighbourhood at once, and I or Tom 
 would attend the sale and check Hackitt off in the corner of the 
 catalogue. You could write to Mr. Goldney about it to-morrow." 
 
 Susan hesitated. Only yesterday the prospect of going to a 
 strange home far away in France had revolted her less than 
 the thought of staying under the same roof with Tom Col- 
 linson. But during the last twenty-four hours all her 
 opinions, all her prejudices, seemed to have modified. If she 
 accepted Miss Collinson's invitation she would, in reality, 
 be never troubled by Tom, she began to recollect ; Tom 
 would be away half his time in London, or elsewhere, 
 and she and Eliza be left peacefully alone. And then she 
 would still be in Halfont parish, still within a walk of the 
 bridge and the canal, and still, whispered her heart, there 
 would be a chance of her seeing Mr. Blake on his road to 
 Portia ! 
 
 "Come to us, Miss Susan," pleaded Collinson, eagerly. 
 
 " Don't refuse Eliza, as you did me yesterday We will 
 
 do our best to make you comfortable." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " I don't like to seem so changeable ; but if Mr. Goldney 
 says ' Yes,' I know I should like to come," said Susan. " You 
 are both very kind to me. I have enjoyed our walk so much/' 
 And as she spoke she kissed Miss Collinson, then turned, and 
 held out her hand to Tom. " It seems to me the world is 
 getting full of friends ! " she told him softly ; and Collinson 
 felt her small hand nutter as he pressed it. 
 
 She was thinking of George Blake. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " TOM ! " burst out Miss Collinson, when they had got about 
 midway across the heath, " I know you'll be angry with me 
 for what I'm going to say, but I must speak. I can't go a 
 step further without speaking." 
 
 1 'Speak out, then," said Collinson, but not in the bullying 
 tone he generally employed towards his sister ; " speak out. 
 Your boots pinch you. You know you always will wear them 
 too small." 
 
 " Susan Fielding is beginning to care too much for you." 
 
 He stopped short ; he rested his hand down heavily on 
 Eliza's shoulder. " Are you thinking of what you say ? " he 
 asked, almost in a whisper. "Are you talking folly, as you 
 did to her at dinner, or do you mean it 1 " 
 
 " I mean it as solemnly as I ever meant anything in my life/' 
 Eliza answered. " I may be a fool in some things, but I do 
 know every woman knows something about affairs of the 
 heart. When I saw Susan a week ago she was a child ; and 
 now " 
 
 "NowV" 
 
 " She is a child no longer. The very expression of her face 
 is changed. She looks twenty times in the glass where before 
 she looked once. She asked me upstairs if I liked her best in 
 a bonnet or a hat. Her grief for her father is I won't say 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. HI 
 
 over but altogether lightened. Did you hear, more than 
 once, how heartily she laughed 1 " 
 
 "And .... and," Tom Collinson stammered, and felt 
 himself blushing violently in the dark " you mean to say 
 then " 
 
 " I mean to say," answered Miss Collinson with decision, 
 " that Susan is beginning to care for some one better than for 
 herself. I couldn't reason about it, but I know it to be a 
 fact. We must never have her to stay with us, Tom. It all 
 burst upon me as we were crossing the bridge, and I've been 
 turning over in my mind what I ought to do. Susan must 
 never come and stay in our house ! " 
 
 " And why not ? " said Tom ; but he felt a cold perspiration 
 start thick over his face as he spoke ; felt that he drew his 
 breath unevenly. During the last three hours he had been 
 smoothing everything beautifully to his conscience, still he had 
 not bargained for this ; for having, without a moment's warn- 
 ing, to commit himself by speech to the thing he meant to 
 do ! " Why shouldn't she come and stay with us just the 
 same ? " 
 
 " You ask me that, brother 1 " 
 
 " Don't you hear that I ask it 1 " 
 
 " Then I should think that your own common sense might 
 give you an answer," Miss Collinson cried with energy ; " but 
 men are like that men, even the best of them, are like 
 that ! A passing gratification to their vanity, and no matter 
 if a woman's happiness has to pay for it ! No matter that 
 Susan Fielding should suffer, so long as you were amused for 
 a fortnight, Tom ! " 
 
 " And suppose " what a wrench it cost him to bring the 
 words out " suppose I have no intention that Susan Fielding 
 should suffer 1 That I care for her as much that I care for 
 her more, a hundredfold, than she can care for me 1 " 
 
 For once in her life Eliza Collinson stood speechless. From 
 the list of possibilities, virtuous or the reverse, that her heart 
 had ever predicted for Tom, the one possibility of marriage 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 had been rigidly excluded. She had never admitted to her- 
 self the actual suspicion of her brother possessing a wife ; 
 had never renewed the question so curtly put aside by him on 
 the first night of his arrival. Still (by one of those processes^, 
 probably, without form or syllogism, through which, we a^e 
 told, the feminine intelligence does form conclusions), Eliza 
 Collinson's mind had arrived at the conviction that Tom was 
 not a free man. Mr. Mildmay, the curate, had years ago 
 quitted Halfont for some foreign chaplaincy ; she had, there- 
 fore, no channel of information save through Tom himself as 
 to the past. But the little he did from time to time let fall, 
 the soreness with which he shrank from any allusion to his 
 New Zealand life, had been sufficient to convince her that 
 there was " something wrong " in his relations with the 
 people he had left behind there, some other story of wrong- 
 doing besides that of the man, who, according to Tom's own 
 account, had wrought his ruin. 
 
 " I'm so surprised I can't get out a word ! You you in 
 love with poor little Susan Fielding ! and here have I been 
 asking her to dinner and everything ! people will say I en- 
 couraged it and Mr. Fielding, my best friend, scarce cold in 
 his grave. Oh, I don't think I've deserved this ! " And 
 Miss Collinson's voice gave premonition of tears. 
 
 " Eliza ! " exclaimed Tom harshly, " before you let loose 
 the flood-gates, perhaps you'll have the goodness to tell me 
 what you are making so much noise about 1 I'll be hanged if 
 I know ! Susan Fielding is a pretty girl, and I like her 
 well, am in love with her, if you choose. What next 1 Be- 
 cause the women of a family don't marry is no reason that I 
 ever heard of for the men remaining bachelors." 
 
 " Marry you ! Do you mean .... am I to think that 
 you mean marriage ? " 
 
 " A pretty question, upon my word ! " cried Collinson, with 
 a laugh. "Leave ultra-proper people alone for having ultra- 
 improper thoughts ! What the dickens should I mean but 
 marriage, Miss Collinson 1 " 
 
SUSA& FIELDING. 143 
 
 "Well, you see, I never thought of you as a marrying 
 man ! I mean," cried Eliza, with a feeble burst of courage, 
 " I looked upon you so long in my own mind as a married man 
 eighteen months, you must remember that even now I can 
 scarce believe you have not got a wife, and " 
 
 She was interrupted by an oath from Collinson an oath 
 not especially loud, but that sounded unpleasantly emphatic in 
 the dead silence of the heath. "And you've been talking to 
 Susan this way, I'll be sworn ! Let me find you trying that 
 game on at your peril ! You drove me to the bad, with your 
 canting piety, when I was a boy. I told you so the first 
 night I returned, and I repeat it again. You drove me to the 
 bad before I knew what bad was ; and now, if you keep that 
 girl from me, you'll finish the work well. What does an old 
 maid like you know of men's lives, of men's temptations 2 
 What business have you to interfere in this at all 1 I love 
 Susan Fielding you don't know the meaning of the word, 
 still I chose to repeat it to you I love Susan Fielding, and I 
 mean to marry her, to work for her, to reform for her. If 
 you stand between us you'll stand between me and my last 
 chance of becoming an altered man. Now, do as you will ! " 
 
 Having relieved his own uneasy conscience by this outburst 
 of injustice, Tom Collinson felt better, and marched on along 
 the path, leaving Eliza to follow him or not as she chose. 
 She followed him ; overtook him ; stole up her hand, not 
 without trembling anticipation of rebuff, under his arm : " I've 
 never said a word of you to Susan but what was good, my 
 dear ! " All out of breath the poor woman jerked forth her 
 contrition. " If my influence demoralized you, as you so often 
 tell me it did, when you were young, it was through 
 ignorance. I tried my best. I don't suppose I understoood 
 boys' natures. I don't suppose I understand any one's 
 nature. When poor Mr. Fielding's affairs are settled, Susan 
 will have about forty pounds a year, or under, and you have 
 nothing ; and I had taken it into my head you were not 
 a marrying man. Forgive me, Tom ! " 
 
144- SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Tom Collinson burst into a laugh. "So the cat's out of 
 the bag at last, then," he cried. " You are afraid of having to 
 support not only me, but my wife." The word this time 
 came out tolerably glibly. "Set your mind at rest, Eliza. My 
 notion of domestic bliss is not to reside with a spinster sister, 
 I can tell you. When I marry, I'll live in my own house, and 
 be master of it, too no fear ! " 
 
 Mr. Collinson did not trouble himself to state where the 
 house should be ; neither did he specify by what particular 
 branch of labour he meant to support it ; but he said enough 
 to convincefEliza that on the day of his marriage with Susan 
 Fielding he would be a reformed man. He would abandon 
 brandy-and-water, smoking, extravagance of all kinds ; would 
 take steadfastly to work ; in her declining years, his sister's 
 home (she had had this promise made her once before) should 
 be under his roof. The prospective generosity to herself, 
 Miss Collinson appraised, perhaps, at its true value, but she 
 believed, with all the faith of her upright heart, in the 
 blessing an honourable love might prove to Tom ; and by the 
 time she reached home was deep in speculation as to whether 
 her lavender silk, turned, would do to wear at the wedding ; 
 also whether they could contrive without a waiter for the 
 breakfast or not. 
 
 " I know, of course, this house would not be large enough 
 for a married couple," she remarked, before they parted for 
 the night. " Still, I could sleep very comfortably with Betsy, 
 and turn my room into another sitting-room. So just at first, 
 till you find something bigger and get settled, I hope you 
 won't mind staying here 1 " 
 
 A proposal that Tom instantly and magnanimously 
 accepted. That Susan's voice was still unheard in the matter 
 did not trouble him. He was no diffident or desponding 
 lover. His own mind was made up finally ; Eliza won over. 
 Any little difficulty regarding Susan's consent would be 
 solved by a week spent together under the same roof ; for 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 145 
 
 Tom, like most persons of his stamp, had unbounded belief in 
 the power of propinquity. 
 
 " I'm turning over a new leaf, and no mistake ! " he 
 thought, as he smoked his last pipe on the door-step, under 
 the clear June night. " Why did I shilly-shally so long ? Isn't 
 the past done with, as much as if I had lived it out in another 
 world 1 It was another world. There are not the same 
 customs or opinions .... dash it all ! there are not the 
 same stars even here in England as there were in New Zea- 
 land!"' 
 
 The idea of utter separation conveyed hy that difference in 
 the stars was really comforting. At three-and-twenty, Tom 
 Collinson's intellect and moral sense were not very much more 
 advanced than they had been at fifteen. What social obliga- 
 tion could exist between a Christian man in England and 
 people who lived at the Antipodes ? Did not the weight of the 
 whole globe constitute a burial as final as seven feet of soil in 
 a churchyard ] Was his happiness, was poor little Susan's 
 happiness, to be sacrificed because there was one chance in a 
 thousand of a certain ugly ghost not keeping quiet in its 
 grave 7 Did not most men, did not the very best nnn, go to 
 the altar with some uncomfortable secret, some lurking 
 memory not altogether suited to a marriage-feast 1 
 
 Thinking these things, Tom took another long look at the 
 consolatory stars; then went away, whistling the last music 
 hall air, to his bed. " Poor fellow ! beginning early hours 
 already," thought Eliza. And, whatever the sins that ought 
 to have weighed upon the conscience, slept the sleep of a 
 school-boy. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 TOWARDS three o'clock next day, and just as Susan was 
 beginning to look out for Tom's figure between the hollies, a 
 little three-cornered note arrived for her from the manor. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "My DEAK SUSAN, Will you come and see me, and stay 
 to five o'clock tea ? Aunt Jemima has gone to town to fight the 
 great fight with grandmamma, and I am alone and unhappy in 
 my mind. I would have asked you to lunch, only grandpapa 
 does not like to be watched as he eats his sago. A heap of 
 the trousseau finery has arrived perhaps you may care to 
 see it. POKTIA." 
 
 " I shall give orders for you to be brought up straight to my 
 den, and, if you come directly, you will not be likely to meet 
 grandpapa.' 7 
 
 The postscript was so reassuring that Susan, without a 
 second's delay, ran off to the manor, where, to her relief, a 
 housemaid, not the dreaded Jekyll, answered her modest 
 single knock at the front door. She was shown up at once to 
 Portia's "den," a sunny little room on the second floor, 
 containing one luxurious lounging-chair, two cheval glasses, a 
 glass above the chimney-piece, and curtains of the exact shade 
 of crimson that suited Portia Ff rench's complexion. No orna- 
 ments, no flowers, no work-table : none of the small feminine 
 rubbish by which Susan, if she had had the means, would 
 have delighted to surround herself. Warmth, ease, mirrors, 
 becoming drapery, against which to test the merit of new 
 dresses these were necessities to Portia Ffrench, and these 
 she had taken care to secure ; nothing beyond. The " den " 
 was characteristic. 
 
 She was sitting beside the window, neither reading nor 
 working, a certain anxious flushed look on her handsome face. 
 " Susan, you good little thing to come ! I'm bored bored to 
 death ; so I thought I would try if boring some one else 
 would do me any good. Take off your bonnet, child, sit 
 down, and amuse me. I'm sorry I have only one arm-chair.' 7 
 
 Susan obeyed the first two commands at once. "As to 
 amusing," she remarked, "I shouldn't say talk like mine 
 could ever amuse any one. Certainly not you." 
 
 " And why not me, with such an accent ] " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 147 
 
 " Because you have seen more than I have, and have got 
 more than I have ; have got oh, Miss Portia, I think you 
 have got everything the world can give ! " 
 
 " I have got/' said Portia, " this easy-chair ; yes, it is legally 
 mine, was given me by Aunt Jemima ; I can take it away 
 when I marry (when I marry ! Of course you know that the 
 whole thing is problematic, Susan ? that I am at this moment 
 waiting to hear whether grandmamma says Yes or No 1) a 
 case full of not very valuable trinkets ; an embroidery frame ; 
 a set of tools for wood-carving; every size of tatting needle, 
 and a dozen or so silk dresses ; just the sort of collection you 
 see advertised in the exchange department of the " Lady'& 
 Newspaper." With possessions like these, what human heart 
 could indeed feel satiety ? " 
 
 " But I think you have got a great deal more/' cried Susan. 
 " I wasn't thinking of dresses and trinkets. You have got 
 .... yourself." This was not in the least what she had 
 meant to say : she meant " you have beauty, you have grace, 
 charm of manner, wit qualities that can win as many hearts 
 as you choose to conquer ! " But something in the mocking 
 expression of Portia's face chilled her, and she stopped short. 
 
 " Myself ! " repeated Portia with a laugh. " Yes, I have 
 indeed got myself, and fearfully sick I am of the bargain. 
 Susan, has it never occurred to you what a stocking injustice 
 it is to be born a woman ? By no fault of one's own to be 
 cramped and whaleboned I don't mean physically taught 
 nothing worth knowing, although one's capacities are as good 
 as a man's given nothing to do, although one's desire for 
 action is as strong as a man's, and then told to be contented ! 
 When I was a small child I remember getting hold of an 
 unfortunate bird once, a robin I think it was. I wasn't very 
 cruel, as children go, and I determined to make his life 
 happy : fitted up an old cage of Aunt Jem's, with the tables 
 and chairs out of my doll's house ; gave him water, food, a 
 looking-glass even ; and arranged fresh leaves and flowers 
 over his head. The poor wretch beat his breast passionately 
 
 L2 
 
i 4 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 for four-and-twenty hours against the bars, then died, happily 
 for himself ! " 
 
 "But some birds like living in cages," said Susan, 
 diffidently. "Our bullfinch never used to beat himself, and 
 he ate his food heartily, and liked his looking-glass, too. I 
 would ever so much rather be a woman than a man. Every- 
 thing in women's lives is so nice." (Pardon the school-girl 
 word, reader. It accurately expressed Susan's meaning.) 
 " Women wear prettier clothes than men, and have no hard 
 work ; for needlework and everything about a house is really 
 play ; and then they need never go into danger. Think of 
 having to hunt or fight ! Think of having to kill people as a 
 duty ! Think of being cruel to animals as an amusement, and 
 then say if you could wish to be a man ! " 
 
 " I have said it always, and I shall say and feel it always/' 
 answered Portia. " There are birds and birds, as you remark, 
 and I am not a bullfinch. I was not born for a cage." 
 
 " And you would like to hunt, to go to battle, to SMOKE 1 " 
 cried Susan, with solemn emphasis upon that awful climax. 
 
 " Most undoubtedly I would," said Portia. " Fighting is the 
 list natural instinct of rational beings, and when they can't 
 have it in earnest they imitate it by cards or dice, or pursuing 
 the lower creatures. As to smoking, it is really monstrous 
 monstrous 1 that women should be debarred from a maans, 
 the only one we know of by which persons without brains or 
 work can be stupefied into enduring the weight of their own 
 existence." 
 
 Portia Ffrench, it is just to say, had never tasted the 
 flavour even of a paper cigarette. Her theories were theories 
 only. 
 
 Susan's eyes opened wider than usual. " But why should 
 existence be a weight ? " she cried. " I know nothing about 
 what men feel or need ; but why should a woman want any- 
 thing who has got home ? home and some one to love her, 
 and take care of her ? " 
 
 "Love ! " said Portia, with a little curl of the lip. "Such love 
 
S&SAN FIELDING. 149 
 
 as falls to a woman's share ! Two months of courtship, say, a 
 fortnight's honeymoon, six weeks of waning adoration, and 
 then a kind of pitying friendly toleration, if she is very lucky, 
 till the curtain falls. Love is an interlude a very pretty one 
 we'll admit with men. How, with all the wire-drawing in 
 the world, can it be made to spread over the five mortal acts 
 of an ordinary woman's life ? " 
 
 " I've never been to the play," said Susan, with a humble 
 sense of her own deficiencies ; " but I have heard of many 
 women who were made happy for life by marrying the man 
 they loved, even though he had not always been fond of them. 
 There was Rowena and Rose Bradwardine and Amelia Booth, 
 if you remember ? " 
 
 Portia looked hard at the transparent, girlish face of Susan 
 Fielding ; this daughter of a Brentford bookseller amidst whose 
 prim little stock of humdrum beliefs there lurked a flavour, an 
 intensity beyond anything that her life, with all its variety, 
 with all its manifest external advantages, could be made to 
 yield. " Rose Bradwardine and Amelia Booth ! You read 
 love stories, then 1 You take an interest in the sentimental 
 agonies, prolonged through three post-octavo volumes, of 
 imaginary young ladies and gentlemen ? " 
 
 " I read nothing else," said Susan. " Except Robinson 
 Crusoe, I don't think I was ever interested in any book that 
 wasn't a love story." 
 
 "And I," said Portia, "can read no book in which love is 
 not kept, as it ought to be, well in the background. I'm not 
 intellectual. I can't read, as Aunt Jemima says young women 
 used to do, to inform my mind. When I read, as when I do 
 everything, it is for excitement. And love, as the novelists 
 treat it, is not exciting ! " 
 
 " All ! you can afford to say all this," cried Susan, with a 
 half -sigh ; " you, who have nothing but love in your own life, 
 don't need to read about it in stories of other people ! " 
 
 "Well there, perhaps, you hit upon the truth," answered 
 Portia drily. " So much love in my own life ! Heaven 
 
1 50 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 help you, in your innocence, Susan ! What love have I 
 
 gotr 
 
 "Mr. Josselin's." 
 
 " Poor Teddy ! As much as he can like anything that is 
 not Teddy Josselin I do believe he likes me, and I know he 
 will let me have my own way when if we marry ! And then 
 our tastes are the same : we shall run about (together or 
 separate), that is to say, searching for amusement and spending 
 our money, and not come to a worse end than most people 
 probably .... but love ! Ted Josselin's love ! " 
 
 " Well, then," exclaimed Susan quickly, " there is Mr. 
 Blake. You can only feel sorry for him, of course, because 
 you know all his devotion is hopeless. Still it is yours ! " 
 And having said this, she coloured up to the eyes, and hung 
 her head. 
 
 Portia watched her narrowly. "And you think that all 
 Mr. Blake's ' devotion,' as you call it, is of the slightest value, 
 gives the slightest additional happiness to Portia Ff rench ? 
 Mr. Blake goes in for being hopeless and desperate, of set 
 purpose, Susan. It yields him an emotion, an experience, 
 that he may use professional!}^. If I lay in my coffin 
 to-morrow he would go into rhapsodies of grief gain another 
 experience ! write a copy of verses to tell the world what he 
 suffered, and fall in love with a milk-maid, five feet high, next 
 week. No. I may be vain myself, but I am not so foolish 
 as to mistake the symptoms of men's vanity for love. Mr. 
 Blake in reality loves Portia Ff rench just as much as Portia 
 Ff rench loves him." 
 
 " And that is V cried Susan, looking up breathless. 
 
 " That is," said Portia, pausing a little, to prolong the eager- 
 ness of her companion's look " is .... oh ! why am I so 
 bad at definition, and why are you so much in earnest, Susan ? 
 Surely you have not fallen a victim to Mr. Blake's melancholy 
 tenor voice and Lara-like sighs'? I ought to have guessed 
 there would be danger the moment you began singing senti- 
 mental duets together. What did he say as he took you 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 151 
 
 home, child 1 Something very tender and sentimental, I am 
 certain." 
 
 " Please don't laugh at me please don't say such things ! " 
 exclaimed Susan, half ready to cry. "Mr. Blake was good- 
 natured to me because I was your friend, I suppose. I don't 
 know why he was good-natured to me. I never was in love 
 with any one. I'm too young to be in love. I hope you'll 
 never j oke me like that again ! " 
 
 And all the hot shame of a child whose poor little foolish 
 secrets have been discovered by mature superior wisdom burned 
 on Susan's cheeks. 
 
 " Too young to be in love 1 " said Portia, growing amused. 
 " Why, how old are you 1 Within a year or two of my age 
 for certain, and I oh I I have been in and out of love for the 
 last five years." 
 
 " But I am only seventeen," said Susan, shily ; and then, 
 desperately wanting to get away from the subject of her walk 
 home with Mr. Blake, she added, " and, if you please, I would 
 much rather we should talk about you, not myself, Miss Portia. 
 May I see the finery you told me of ] I have never seen any 
 wedding-dresses in my life." 
 
 "And wedding-dresses are quite unlike all ' others, you 
 know," said Portia. " Satin and silks, and laces that are to 
 be worn by a bride, are invested with a kind of dim religious 
 light that distinguishes them from all common apparel ! That 
 is the reason why young ladies flock to gaze and comment 
 upon each other's trousseau. In the event of my not being 
 married, Susan very much the most likely event to happen 
 mind you tell no one that you saw the wedding garments. 
 I remember when Alice Long did not marry Charlie Craven, 
 people used to say for ever afterwards, 'Ah, here comes 
 another of the wedding-dresses ! Poor dear little Alice, what 
 a trial for her to have to wear out her trousseau under such 
 altered circumstances ! ' Now, I don't like to be pitied. 
 Whatever falls to me, I like to bear it by myself and make no 
 sign." 
 
152 SUSAN FILDIA T G. 
 
 As she spoke Portia rose, and led Susan into the adjoining 
 bed-room. It was piled thick in finery ; even at Miss Budd's, 
 the first milliner's shop in Brentford, Susan had never found 
 herself among so many pretty things before. Delicate silks 
 and muslins, fine embroidery, costly laces, were everywhere. 
 
 " It may be very well for people, generally, to suspend mar- 
 riage expenses till they know whether a marriage is possible," 
 said Portia. " For me, the most undoubted wisdom was to 
 obtain all I could while grandpapa was in a humour for spend- 
 ing 'tis a humour that grows rarer with him every year ! 
 Ten to one Lady Erroll will laugh at the whole thing ten to 
 one Aunt Jemima is here in an hour's time with word that the 
 engagement is at an end for ever. Still, I shall not be utterly 
 bereft. I shall have my embroidery, my silks, my laces and 
 it is something to have brave clothes to wear above a broken 
 heart. Look at them, Susan, if such things amuse you, and 
 wake me when you have finished." 
 
 She sank down with her rsual worn-out air upon a sofa 
 beside the window, and closed her eyes. Dress, as dress, was 
 less than nothing to Portia Ffrench. She valued it as a means 
 an auxiliary to her beauty, a passport to her pleasures 
 something like bright smiles or witty talk, to be put on, of 
 necessity, while she played her part in the world, and flung 
 wearily aside the moment she quitted the footlights. Of the 
 feminine instinct that derives pleasure from soft hues and 
 fabrics, from Satin-stitch and Honiton, for themselves, she was 
 simply devoid. She cared no more for such things than she 
 would have cared for pictures and floweis and ornaments in a 
 room that no one saw. 
 
 And Susan possessed this instinct to the fullest extent 
 Susan, with her village bringing-up, whose first little part in 
 life's drama was played but yesterday 1 So bewilderingly 
 divergent from what you would expect are human characters 
 the moment you begin to take them in detail. 
 
 At the end of another ten minutes, Susan still absorbed in 
 millinery, there came the sound of carriage-wheels along the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 1 5 3 
 
 gravel drive. Portia jumped up eagerly. " My fate is hanging 
 in the balance, Susan don't wonder at my excitement. Now, 
 how does Aunt Jem look 1 Veil down that's a bad sign to 
 begin with ; and Teddy Josselin with her a worse one still ! 
 To-day is the Eawdon's garden party ; Ted would never have 
 absented himself from that without cause. Susan, Susan, I 
 predict the worst ! Aunt has thrown up her veil, and I can 
 see her face. Our side has lost ! " 
 
 She drew back her head, ran up to the glass, and smoothed 
 her untidy hair ; then took a knot of scarlet velvet from the 
 dressing-table, and pinned it in her white dress. 
 
 " No need to look ugly because one is defeated, Susan. If 
 the king is dead, may his successor arise 1 say I." 
 
 "Oh, Portia! I don't understand you," cried Susan. "I 
 don't know how you can have courage to talk lightly at such a 
 time." 
 
 " Courage ! " said Portia, turning round her dark face with 
 a smile as she left the room. " Oh ! whatever my sins may 
 be, cowardice is not one of them. If the worst comes to the 
 worst follow me to the drawing-room in half-an-hour, and 
 you will know it if the worst comes to the worst, I shall still 
 possess my trousseau, remember ; all the silks and laces you 
 admire so much, Susan, and .... and one thing more 1 " 
 
 " What is that ? " cried Susan, solemn-eyed. 
 
 " Mr. Blake's devotion." 
 
 Susan's heart stood still 1 
 
 CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 FOURTEEN years before the time of which I write, Colonel 
 Ffrench had sworn a bitter oath that his granddaughter Portia 
 should never hold communication with any member of her 
 mother's family while he lived ! 
 
 The one natural affection, the one unselfish feeling, of 
 
154 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Richard Ffrench's heart had, undoubtedly, been his feeling for 
 his eldest son. Harry's ruin, Harry's shameful death, had 
 inflicted upon him a blow under which all his worldly cynical 
 philosophy could offer him no support ; and the first in- 
 stinctive self -shielding outcry of his own stricken conscience 
 had been an outcry against the Dysarts. But for their in- 
 fluence he had not been estranged from his son ; but for the 
 Dysarts his Harry had lived ! They were his murderers. 
 These things Colonel Ffrench spoke in his first access of grief 
 that awful, blind grief of a man without belief beyond the 
 hour wherein he grieves he repeated them in colder blood 
 until he came, not only to regard them as true, but to cling to 
 them with a kind of sullen sense of consolation. Harry's child 
 might be brought under his roof. Let her forget the name of 
 the mother who bore her, let it be an understood thing that 
 she should scarcely know what blood ran in her veins, and 
 Harry's child might be saved from growing up a Dysart. 
 Little as he liked children generally, it seemed to him that he 
 might like, might at least support the presence of this one, 
 could some portion of his hatred of her mother's race be only 
 instilled into her heart ! And as we have seen, Portia came. 
 Came, and in spite of her grace, her cleverness, her likeness to 
 Harry, her want of affection for her mother, awakened very 
 slight feeling, one way or the other, in Colonel Ffrench's 
 breast. 
 
 During their journey to Halfont, good Miss Jemima took 
 due care to tutor the child into what she should do and say on 
 first seeing her grandfather. " He is an old gentleman, Portia 
 nay, never say you don't like old gentlemen, that is not 
 pretty to say an old man with his head bowed down low ; 
 and you must run, with your arms held up, and offer to kiss 
 him, and say, ' Grandpapa, love me for my own papa's sake !'" 
 And Portia, even at six years old, being a charming little 
 actress, she had carried out these instructions to the letter; 
 the upheld arms, the proffered lips all. 
 
 " She has learnt her lesson well," said Colonel Ffrench, 
 
SUSAN FILDIA T G. 155 
 
 turning coldly away, " Have her kept to her nursery, Jemima. 
 I don't see the likeness you told me of." 
 
 Upon this Portia, with her baby vanity sorely wounded, 
 with confirmed distaste for old gentlemen, was at once hurried 
 from her grandfather's presence, and from that day until the 
 present had never heard another expansive word from his lips ! 
 He treated her while she was little with a cool, half-sarcastic 
 civility that would have galled a more sensitive child into 
 positive hatred of him ; as she grew to be a woman, was 
 unvaryingly, scrupulously polite to her no more. His last 
 flickering capacity for strong feeling had, in very truth, been 
 buried in Harry's dishonoured grave. For Harry's girl he 
 cared nothing \ not even enough to seek to keep up, through 
 her, his enmity towards her mother's family. Years went on : 
 Colonel Ffrench becoming more and more indifferent to every 
 subject but gout, and the diet gout involves ; and now, at one- 
 and-twenty, Portia not only spent six weeks of every season 
 in her grandmother's house, but was engaged to marry her first 
 cousin, a Dysart, Colonel Ffrench acquiescent ! 
 
 In the constitution of some very old men the instincts 
 survive the affections by a quarter of a century or so. Colonel 
 French was thus constituted ; and love of rank, worship of 
 titles and of titled people, were really instincts with him. 
 Harry's bright face belonged to the past the past in which 
 so many other fair things, effaced now from the old man's 
 weak memory, had been shipwrecked. The name of the 
 Dowager Countess of Erroll was still written in the Peerage, 
 still connected him with the world where his treasure, where 
 his heart had been in his youth. And so the first time that 
 Miss Jemima dared, tremblingly, to make mention of the 
 Dysart name, a year or so after the death of Lady Portia 
 Molyneux, she found, to her astonishment, that Richard, then 
 confined to his sofa with gout, was in just as Christian a frame 
 of mind as that to which she, honest soul, by stout endeavour 
 aye, and by earnest prayer, had brought herself ! 
 
 "The child is of the Dysart blood, as well as of ours, 
 
156 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 brother," she had pleaded. " I have had more than one letter 
 from her grandmother, inviting Portia to stay with her, but 
 never dared show them you ; and now she has written to me 
 in the same spirit again. There are a few trinkets, it seems, 
 that should come to Portia from her mother, and these Lady 
 Erroll makes the excuse for writing. 'Tis her heart her 
 heart, of course, that yearns to see the child ! " said good Miss 
 Jemima; "and I cannot feel it our duty, as Christians, to 
 keep them asunder." 
 
 " The Countess of ErrolTs heart ! " said old Colonel Ffrench, 
 looking up with helpless malignity from his cup of water-gruel. 
 " My dear Jemima, let the girl go, by all means. She turns 
 her toes in ; a London dancing-master will do her good. But 
 don't let you and me talk nonsense Lady Erroll has no more 
 heart than she has honesty. Take my word for it, the trinkets 
 will turn out paste." 
 
 And so they did. On her return from London, Portia, with 
 infinite disgust, displayed her legacy to Miss Jemima, tossing 
 each article aside with contempt as she showed it. " Paste 
 brilliants, Cairngorm diamonds, miserable garnets, mock pearls ! 
 * Not things, possibly, of intrinsic worth,' says grandmamma-, 
 ' but invaluable as mementoes ! * As if I cared about memen- 
 toes ! She is a painted old woman with a peacock voice, Aunt 
 Jem, divides her time equally between squabbling over bills, 
 going to church, and whist I was reminded of Brussels 
 and there was so little to eat ! Still I amused myself. I 
 went to the theatre four times. I learnt to play cards. 
 I heard naughty stories of every one of grandmamma's 
 friends. My cousin, Ted Josselin, taught me to waltz. I 
 amused myself, and I'll go again." 
 
 Thus, when Portia was a school-girl of sixteen, began the 
 renewal of intercourse between herself and her mother's family. 
 Old Lady Erroll and Colonel Ffrench never met more (in 
 this world), but some kind of half-conciliatory letter passed 
 between them, and at distant intervals, thrice perhaps in two 
 years, Miss Jemima would constrain herself to go up and par- 
 
SI/SAN FIELDING. 157 
 
 take of luncheon,; cold in every sense of the word, under the 
 Countess of Erroll's roof. Portia, as I have said, passed some 
 weeks of every season at her grandmother's house. There was 
 still very little to eat at that stately Eaton Square table, with 
 its services of plate, and servants in plush and powder, and 
 grandmamma was still a painted old woman with a peacock 
 voice, dividing her time between rigid economy, her prayer- 
 book, and the odd trick ; nevertheless, Portia found plenty to 
 divert her during her town visits, and took special care to 
 propitiate grandmamma while she paid them. The Countess 
 of Erroll's countenance has been for her the Open Sesame to 
 the world not such a decorous, humdrum world as was com- 
 prised in Miss Jemima's visiting list ; but the world of 
 London, as London has been at any time during the last eight 
 years quite as piquant a phase of manners, in its way, as was 
 that of the Kegency and with Dysart cousins of all degrees 
 as her mentors and friends. Play-going, dancing, card-play- 
 ing, as many flirtations as she could compass, as much 
 excitement as she could live under ; all this, and more, was 
 crowded into the short six weeks during which Portia annually 
 escaped from Halfont dulness for her grandmother was any- 
 thing but an austere or vigilant duenna ; once away from Miss 
 Jemima, once among her " Dysart associates," and Portia did 
 pretty much as she chose with her time and with herself. 
 Nor had her London visits been without serious and tangible 
 results. Eour several offers of undeniable settlements had 
 been made to Portia Ffrench since that first season when she 
 came out, a slim girl of eighteen, under the old Countess of 
 Erroll's wing. And each time she had accepted ; played with 
 her new suitor for a week, or a day ; then had a scene with 
 her cousin Teddy, repented, broken off the engagement, and 
 been sent down to Halfont in disgrace. 
 
 The last occasion on which this had occurred was during 
 the present spring just when poor Blake was also falling into 
 captivity. The suitor this time, a Glasgow manufacturer, 
 very rich, very plain, very much in love, yet determined to 
 
158 St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 " stand no nonsense " from any woman, earl's granddaughter 
 or no, whom he should honour with his addresses. So, on 
 the second day of his new happiness, the Scotchman thought 
 fit to have an opinion ; found Teddy Josselin helping Portia 
 in an employment, they called gardening, in the conservatory, 
 and demurred. If Mr. Josselin wished to cut off the leaves of 
 dead geraniums he might do so, but not in such close neigh- 
 bourhood to the lady he, with an emphasis, meant to marry. 
 
 "You are jealous, Mr. Macbean," said Portia, with beautiful 
 dignity "jealous of my cousin, who is more than a brother 
 to me. Good-bye, and please take away your ring," drawing 
 a magnificent diamond from her finger. " It was too heavy 
 for me from the first." 
 
 With a choking heart, but bearing his defeat manfully, the 
 suitor departed. Then Portia burst into tears. 
 
 i 'It was your fault, Ted. Everything's your fault \ I 
 didn't hate him not very much, for a real lover, at least- and 
 of course you oughtn't to have been here." 
 
 "Shall I call him back?" said Teddy, innocently. "I 
 think I hear his fairy step still in the hall." 
 
 Upon this Portia's lip quivered, and Teddy put down the 
 scissors, and kissed her deliberately. 
 
 "I don't see the slightest reason why we shouldn't be 
 lovers," he said. " You've been engaged to other fellows and 
 thrown them over for me. JSTow be engaged to me, and let 
 any other fellow make you throw me over if he can ! " 
 
 They went down that moment, hand in hand, to the dining- 
 room, where it was old Lady Erroll's custom to spend her 
 forenoons, looking over accounts butchers', bakers', green- 
 grocer's, detecting a cutlet too much here, a head of sea-kale 
 she could riot remember, there and Portia told her story 
 bravely. She had quarrelled with one suitor more. She had 
 discarded the Scotchman and his settlements. Teddy and 
 herself a little tremble in her voice had found out at last 
 that they liked each other. Might they be engaged 'I 
 
 Old Lady Erroll looked up, her finger still marking the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 159 
 
 place in her account book, from one young face to the other. 
 " The last time this kind of folly occurred I was angry," she 
 said, in her shrill old voice. "I am not angry now. Old 
 people mustn't waste their little residue of life upon useless 
 emotion. If you had married Macbean, I would have left you 
 ten thousand pounds in my will. I told him so last night. 
 You are so much the richer, Ted." 
 
 " Which will come exactly to the same, if I marry Portia,' 7 
 remarked Teddy Josselin. 
 
 "If!" 
 
 This monosyllable, not agreeably uttered, was all the op- 
 position Lady Erroll offered. So Portia and Teddy returned 
 to their gardening, ridiculously happy or, perhaps, amused 
 might be a juster term -and in four-and-twenty hours all the 
 town knew Mr. Macbean was supplanted, and by whom. 
 
 Old Lady Erroll received the many-coloured remarks of her 
 friends with marked equanimity. " Teddy is a little boy," 
 she would say placidly " is a dozen years younger in sense 
 and knowledge of the world than my granddaughter. I don't 
 trouble myself to think about flirtations between cousins. 
 Teddy might spend his time worse." 
 
 She was unusually affable and obliging in her relations 
 with Portia. Certainly, Mr. Blake migut t>e asked to dinner 
 any friend of poor little Ted's was welcome. Ted knew 
 very well the house and everything in it belonged -to him. 
 To Teddy himself she was charming. Who under such cir- 
 cumstances could suspect that the good old octogenarian lady 
 meant mischief ? Well, Portia suspected it, for one but 
 then Portia always suspected the worst of everybody. " If 
 grandmamma's intentions were honourable she would not be 
 so generous," Portia remarked to her lover. " She has given 
 me a real onyx seal, slightly chipped, and a couple of torn lace 
 lappets. I can't feel easy in my mind with grandmamma in 
 such unnatural dispositions." 
 
 But Teddy's peace was untroubled. A sounder philosopher 
 than many wis3 men, Teddy Josselin never worried himself 
 
160 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 about any evil whatsoever until it had positively overtaken 
 him. He was really fond of Portia, enjoyed being engaged to 
 her nearly as much as he used to enjoy breaking off her engage- 
 ments with other people, sincerely thought it would be about 
 the best thing that could happen to him to marry her ; at the 
 same time was not a passionate or impatient lover, but content 
 to let everything connected with his engagement shape itself 
 as it would, the subject of money along with the rest. His 
 present means of subsistence were, his pay as a lieutenant in 
 the Guards, and five hundred a year allowed him by Lady 
 Erroll. His prospects for the future were from twenty-five to 
 thirty thousand pounds, and the house in Eaton Square, all 
 dependent upon the will of Lady Erroll. Supposing her to 
 turn refractory, he could thus rely, with certainty, upon the 
 sum of seven shillings and fourpence a day, upon which to 
 maintain his establishment, for Colonel Ffrench had long ago 
 declared that a handsome trousseau and a hundred or so of 
 pounds on his wedding day, would be the sole provision he 
 could possibly make for his granddaughter. 
 
 Seven shillings and fourpence a day ! Barely enough, 
 with their present habits, to keep Portia and Mr. Josselin in 
 gloves and bouquets. Well, Teddy declared the money part 
 of the matter was not worth disturbing oneself about. See 
 how he managed already ! . He had five hundred a year 
 nominally ; but when by accident he spent twice his allowance, 
 never found any difficulty to speak of in getting his debts 
 paid. There were always plenty of people to cash bills, and 
 so on, if your prospects were decent ; and, besides, grand- 
 mammas must consent in time. No one out of a play ever 
 refused their consent to anything now-a-days. He had 
 sounded her a score of times about his engagement, and her 
 answer was always the same. "You know best, my poor 
 little Teddy, you know best don't consult me." Of course, 
 if he knew best, the thing was settled. 
 
 And so Miss Jemima was told that matters were progressing 
 satisfactorily ; and Colonel Ffrench's consent gained for the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 161 
 
 fifth time to Portia's approaching marriage; and a wildly 
 extravagant trousseau ordered by Portia herself before her 
 London visit ended ; all without the definite question being 
 mooted as to the means upon which the young couple were to 
 exist. 
 
 " We are happy in the present, taking no thought, like 
 lilies," Teddy would say, in his foolish innocent way, whenever 
 Miss Jemima tried to bring him to business. " The brides- 
 maid's dresses are decided on, the trousseau is ordered. Now 
 the only thing to think of is Gunter." 
 
 And at last (just two days before the commencement of 
 this story) he told Lady Erroll, one fine morning, that she 
 must really begin to see about ordering his wedding breakfast. 
 " Colonel Ffrench is an invalid, and as you are Portia's grand- 
 mamma as well as mine, we thought we would be married in 
 town. A pleasant little party, not more than twenty people, 
 and I'll undertake all trouble about the wine " the Countess 
 of Erroll's bad wine was proverbial " I mean I'll undertake 
 to see that we have it nice." 
 
 Old Lady Erroll looked, not without genuine compassion, 
 on Teddy's fair boyish face, the one object left in the world 
 that gave her eyes pleasure to behold ! " Teddy, child," said 
 she, " am I to understand that those Ffrench people regard 
 the engagement in any other light than a joke ? They do. 
 Ah ! Now perhaps you will tell me what you mean to support 
 Portia Ffrench upon ? You don't know, of course. Very well. 
 Then we old people will talk the matter over for you. Tell 
 old Jemima Ffrench you are going there to-morrow, you say] 
 tell old Jemima Ffrench, with my love, that I shall expect 
 her here to lunch and to talk over settlements you will use 
 that word ' settlements ' at one on Wednesday. Time enough 
 to order the wedding-breakfast afterwards." 
 
1 62 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE message was given duly, and at the hour and day ap- 
 pointed Jemima Ffrench drove up in a cab before the Countess 
 of ErroU's house. The good old soldier was dressed as usual 
 in her plain village clothes, but no princess visiting a subject 
 could have held her head higher than did Miss Jemima as she 
 marched up Lady Erroll's doorsteps, and was ushered by a 
 gorgeous six-foot high footman into Lady Erroll's dining-room. 
 
 The old Countess was sitting at her writing-table, an open 
 desk at her side, and one or two packets of docketed faded 
 letters upon the table. She rose, gave Miss Jemima a little 
 curtsey that had been the mode in the days of George the 
 Third, and two withered fingers. " How are you, my dear ? 
 I haven't seen you this age. You look pretty well, but people 
 at our time of life don't grow younger don't grow younger ! 
 How is Colonel Ffrench ?" 
 
 Miss Jemima seated herself, very upright, on a chair at 
 some distance from her hostess, and answered that her brother 
 was in his usual feeble state. He had not got into the open 
 air three times this summer. 
 
 " But keeps his faculties, I trust 2 " said Lady Erroll. (To 
 no one who looked at her would it occur to ask a similar 
 question ! Seamed with wrinkles though her face was, you 
 could scarcely believe it to be the face of a woman of eighty. 
 The keenness almost of youth was in her pale eyes ; her hair, 
 dressed in small flat curls, was yellow still ; her prominent 
 teeth were still white, and every one of them her own.) " Poor 
 Colonel Ffrench is not, I trust, growing feeble in his mind," 
 she continued, in her shrill piping voice " the very worst 
 affliction we old people have to dread." 
 
 " My brother's mind is as strong as it ever was, I thank 
 you ! " said Miss Jemima, stiffer than before. " His memory 
 fails him a little at times. That is all." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 163 
 
 Old Lady Erroll took out a gilt bonbon-box from her pocket, 
 opened it, and helped herself to a lozenge. She ate sweet- 
 meats all day long ; before her meals, after her meals Portia 
 declared while her meals were going on. At the kind of con- 
 versational pause in which an old man takes snuff, out, in- 
 variably, came Lady Erroll's bonbon-box. " I did not mean 
 to offend you, my dear Miss Ffrench, but something my little 
 grandson, Josselin, told me made me fear poor Colonel Ffrench 
 must be somewhat enfeebled in his mental state. You can 
 guess what I mean ] " 
 
 " Not in the least, ;; said Miss Jemima, but her face turned 
 very red. 
 
 "Why, about this love-affair flirtation, I should say of 
 Portia's and Ted's. Surely the boy must have hoaxed me. 
 You can't be taking the thing in earnest, any of you ] " 
 
 Miss Jemima's face grew redder. " If we had not taken it 
 in earnest, Mr. Josselin would never have come to our house 
 in the way he has done latterly," said she, with energy. 
 
 " Oh dear, dear, how guilty that makes me feel ! " said Lady 
 Erroll, with her shrill small laugh. " Why, I had them here 
 together for weeks and weeks, and yet I knew that the whole 
 thing was nonsense. Portia has behaved very foolishly, Miss 
 Ffrench. I hid my annoyance at the time, but I don't know 
 when I have felt more vexed. Macbean was no more vulgar 
 than half the men you meet in society now-a-days, and his 
 offers of settlements were most liberal. Portia may wait long 
 before she meets with as eligible an offer, taking it altogether, 
 as Macbean's." 
 
 Indignation for a moment held Jemima Ffrench dumb : 
 then "Portia disliked Mr. Macbean," she cried, hotly. "It 
 made her shudder, she told me, to see him come near her. 
 She detested herself every time she thought of her engagement. 
 Would you have wished her to become the man's wife with 
 feelings like these 1 " 
 
 ' 'Well, it scarcely matters what I wished/' said Lady Erroll. 
 " I am not Portia's guardian or adviser. Kememberine who 
 
 M 2 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 she is, as the child of my own poor unhappy daughter, I cer- 
 tainly should like to see her secured from poverty, married to 
 some man who can keep her in decent comfort, before I die." 
 
 The buttons were off the foils ; and Miss Jemima's spirits 
 felt relieved. In open warfare she could hold her own against 
 any Dysart of them all. The thrusts and counter-thrusts of 
 preliminary sparring suited her not. " And remembering who 
 she is, as the child of my unhappy nephew, I wish to see 
 Portia marry a man whom she can love," she cried with spirit. 
 " I don't believe in money I believe in affection ; and affection 
 only, for making the lives of human beings happy." 
 
 Lady Erroll took another sugar-plum. " It seems to me we 
 are wasting breath on imaginary difficulties, my dear Miss 
 Ffrench. If you believe in poverty, as a promoter of happiness, 
 and if Portia believes in it too, by all means let her marry 
 Teddy Josselin. He has his pay and his debts, and Colonel 
 Ffrench, no doubt, will assist his granddaughter with some- 
 thing more substantial than advice at her starting in life. 
 Still they will be poor, quite poor enough, to test the value of 
 your happiness theory. Let them marry, by all means." 
 
 " And you, Lady Erroll 1 " said Miss Jemima, point-blank. 
 " What assistance are they to look for from you 1 I suppose 
 we may as well talk the matter plainly over." 
 
 " Nay," said the old Countess, still with suspicious urbanity, 
 "do you tell me the intentions of the lady's friends first. 
 What allowance does Colonel Ffrench propose to make to his 
 granddaughter ] " 
 
 Miss Jemima's honest eyes fell. If she had possessed a 
 fortune, she would in that moment have settled every shilling 
 of it upon her Harry's child ; but she had, remaining in the 
 world, exactly two thousand pounds, the greater part of the 
 half-yearly income from which was scrupulously received by 
 Colonel Ffrench as Jemima's " share " in the expenses of 
 Halfont Manor. 
 
 " My brother Richard, as you know, is a comparatively poor 
 man. His habits are expensive, rendered more so by his ill 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 165 
 
 health, and every year a narrower margin is left over and above 
 his own personal expenditure. Except a very modest sum ID 
 ready money, it will not be in Eichard's power to assist Portia 
 when she marries." 
 
 " And after his death ? What certain settlement can be 
 made upon her after his death ? " 
 
 " My brother's income dies with him, Lady Erroll. The 
 little that remained of his former fortune was sunk by him, 
 years ago, in an annuity. Halfont came to him with his 
 second wife, and, failing children of hers, reverts by settle- 
 ment, as you are aware, on Richard's death, to her family." 
 
 " Ay ! " exclaimed Lady Erroll, a quick expression of anger 
 lighting up her old face, impassive until now. "As I am 
 aware ! You do well to use that expression, Miss Ffrench. 
 Before Portia married Harry Ffrench, do you know what your 
 brother told me about that Halfont property ? I can show it 
 you here in black and white ! " She touched with her 
 withered hand one of the packets of letters that lay beside 
 her. "When you came I had just been refreshing my 
 memory by reading an old note or two of your brother's. 
 He was considered one of the acutest letter-writers of his day y 
 Miss French. Men used to say Talleyrand could scarce sur- 
 pass Eichard Ffrench in the art with which he could mislead 
 others, yet leave himself uncompromised. Hear what he 
 wrote me a week before my daughter's marriage ! >; She took 
 up a sheet of note-paper, yellow with time, unfolded it, and 
 without spectacles read aloud : " Settlements, as you know, I 
 have always held in detestation. They are needful only in 
 certain exceptional cases, never where marriage begins under 
 such fair auspices as will that of our children ! My dear 
 Portia will, I trust, look upon Halfont as her home, now and 
 hereafter, just as certainly as if a dozen lawyers had been at 
 work to secure it to her on parchment ! ' Would you like to- 
 read the letter yourself ? You know your brother's hand ( l " 
 
 Then Miss Jemima raised her eyes steadily to Lady ErrolTs. 
 "I wish to hear nothing of the past. I wish, if I can, to 
 
1 66 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 forget it, witli its shame and errors on both sides. I loved 
 Harry as well, perhaps, as you loved your daughter, and have 
 mourned for him as deeply." (Old Lady Erroll went to a 
 rout three weeks after Lady Portia's funeral.) " All that is 
 over. I came here to talk of Portia. The girl is brimful of 
 faults. She is extravagant, vain, giddy ; I don't rightly know 
 how much Portia could love ! But she is young at one-and- 
 twenty everything is possible ! Let her marry this Mr. 
 Josselin, because she cares for him, and he for her. Old 
 animosities, old letters, old wrongs yes, for I will allow that 
 you were wronged let all be forgotten in the happiness of 
 these two children " . . . . and then Jemima Ffrench's 
 full heart overflowed ; her voice choked. 
 
 Lady Erroll looked at her with an expression of cool 
 curiosity. " You are an enthusiast, Miss Ffrench ! " she 
 remarked, after a minute's silence ; " and I am quite ready to 
 believe a sincere one. I am as completely matter-of-fact as 
 Portia herself. I could say nothing stronger. In the case of 
 two unworldly, hot-hearted, hot-headed young people, such 
 young people as one reads of in old-fashioned romances, I will 
 admit, for argument's sake, that a marriage begun in poverty 
 might brace character, stimulate honourable ambition. But 
 what are these two lovers, my granddaughter and my grand- 
 son, whose cause you plead ? " 
 
 "They are young, and they love each other !" cried Miss 
 Jemima, quite unconscious that she was saying anything 
 ridiculous. 
 
 " They are," said Lady Erroll, " exact representatives of 
 their class and of their period. Teddy, to begin with. I 
 don't say he is vicious, as men used to be when you and I 
 were young. He neither drinks, nor gambles, nor commits 
 public scandal of any kind after the robust fashion of fifty 
 years ago ; but he hasn't an ounce of ballast in his composi- 
 tion. I allow him, nominally, five hundred a year ; he spends 
 double that sum at least on what 1 Bouquets, opera-stalls, 
 the bills of his men-milliners who shall say ? I never even 
 
SC/SAW FIELDING. 167 
 
 ask. I like the boy. Ted Josselin is all that's left to me, 
 Sarah's only child and Sarah was a good, a creditable daughter 
 to me, Miss Ffrench. If Ted can meet with a suitable wife, 
 a woman with money and position, he may do pretty well ; as 
 long as he remains single he won't go very far astray. If he 
 marries into poverty, marries a woman like his cousin Portia, 
 he is ruined ! Simply that. No need to pile up words where 
 one expresses everything so accurately. 7 ' 
 
 " But I don't see why marrying Portia need be marrying 
 into poverty," urged Miss Jemima. " Young people can 
 surely begin life on five or six hundred a year. To my mind 
 such an income, even with a family, is a handsome one. I 
 will, on my part, do everything I can to help them at starting, 
 and " 
 
 "And where is the income you speak of to come from'?" 
 interrupted Lady Erroll, still with thorough amiability. 
 " Teddy's pay amounts, I think, to one hundred and thirty- 
 three pounds, nine shillings, and fourpence a year. Colonel 
 Ffrench, you tell me, can give Portia no other assistance than 
 a certain small sum on her wedding-day. Where are they to 
 look for the remaining four or five hundred of which you 
 speak \ " 
 
 " From you, Lady Erroll," said Miss Jemima. " You would, 
 surely, continue the same allowance to Mr. Josselin after his 
 marriage as you make him now '( " 
 
 "From the day on which Ted Josselin marries Portia 
 Ffrench," said the old Countess, "I never allow him one 
 shilling while I live. Not one shilling ! " dwelling upon 
 each syllable with cruel emphasis. " At my death, as I have 
 really no other relation in whom I take interest, I shall leave 
 my money to a charity. I have nothing to say against Portia 
 personally. I know no better company than my grand- 
 daughter, when she chooses, and she is handsome, too con- 
 sidering her dark skin. I have done what I could for her. 
 Portia might have married well, four times over, if she had 
 chosen, and through me. I would have settled ten thousand 
 
1 68 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 pounds on her after my death if she had married Macbean. 
 But to be Teddy's wife .... no ! a hundred times, no ! She 
 would ruin him in six months ruin him first, then disgrace 
 him afterwards. Don't interrupt me," for Miss Jemima's eyes 
 flashed fire. "The girl is no worse than the rest of her 
 generation. With a new dress a day, with an establishment, 
 with diamonds, equipages, Portia would be a good wife, no 
 doubt, as wives go. For Ted, I would a great deal sooner see 
 him " 
 
 " Lady Erroll ! " said Miss Jemima, rising from her chair, 
 and standing erect very dignified she looked in her rusty 
 black silk, and with her fine outspoken face " it seems to me 
 that, on this subject, there is nothing more for you to say or 
 for me to hear. Portia is your granddaughter, but she is my 
 Harry's child, and I will not listen to her vilification. What 
 you say of young men and women of the world, may be true ; 
 I, thank God, know little of what you call the world, and I 
 can't bring myself to believe it. I think there is more good 
 than evil in every young heart. I think a marriage of 
 inclination, not of greed, is the best chance for my great-niece, 
 Portia. I pray that she may make such a one ! Of course I shall 
 tell them word for word what you have said. Mr. Josselin 
 meets me by appointment, when I leave your house, and I 
 shall take him down with me to Halfont. My advice to them 
 both will be to look into their own hearts ; to weigh all this 
 well, and .... not to give each other up ! People can live 
 with little money, but life, as you and I have seen, to our cost, 
 is not worth holding v/ithout love." 
 
 A deep colour came over Lady ErrolTs wrinkled face, then 
 faded, leaving it almost livid-white. " In the marriage you 
 speak of," said she, " there was neither love nor money. It 
 was a marriage that begun in deception, that was lived out in 
 misery, that ended in shame and dishonour ! And yet it is. 
 with such blood as that in her veins that you \vili counsel 
 Harry Ffrench's daughter to marry into beggary ! " 
 
 " I will counsel Harry Ffrench's daughter to keep true, if 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 169 
 
 she can, to the best thing in her nature," said Miss Jemima, 
 staunchly and quietly. " If she loves Teddy Josselin enough 
 to brave poverty for his sake, I shall have better hope for 
 her than if she had married Macbean, with all his 
 settlements." 
 
 " Ay, if she does ! " said old Lady Erroll, her good humour 
 beginning to return. " Depend upon it, my dear Miss Ffrench,. 
 we are both working ourselves into tragedy quite unnecessarily. 
 Let Ted and Portia know, for certain, that by marrying 
 they will become paupers, and I think you will find them 
 quite disposed to shake hands and lapse back into cousins. 
 Going 'I No, no, I can't think of it i You must stay to 
 lunch. Don't let two old women like you and me quarrel, 
 because a silly boy and girl have chosen to play at falling 
 in love." 
 
 But Miss Jemima was determined. "Food would choke 
 her in her present state of feeling," she said, bluntly. " She 
 wished to quarrel with no one, but her heart was sore ; she 
 must be alone." And then, briefly declining Lady Erroll' a 
 offer of sending for a cab, she started forth, alone on foot, 
 from the great Eaton Square house which an hour ago she had 
 thought was, one day, to be Portia's home. 
 
 Jemima Ffrench's honest heart was sore, yet, as she walked 
 onward with her steady long step, her head well erect, through 
 the London streets, an expression almost of youthful energy 
 was on her fresh old face. If, as she still hoped, love won the 
 day against wisdom, something, she determined, should be 
 done by which Portia and Portia's husband might live. She 
 would sell out two hundred pounds for them when they 
 married ; two hundred pounds would furnish a small house 
 modestly ; Teddy must exchange the Guards for a public 
 office ; Portia be taught housekeeping, and Colonel Ffrench 
 forced into helping them. Nay, after a time, for Miss 
 Jemima could believe positive and abiding evil of no one, 
 would not old Lady Erroll herself be forced to relent 1 
 
 "A poor, good, enthusiastic simpleton!" thought Lady 
 
1 70 St/SAN FI2LDZNG. 
 
 Erroll, as she put away her letters ; the cherished relics, not 
 like Miss Jemima's of dead love, but of dead hatreds, of 
 frustrated ambition. " Ted Josselin fling thirty thousand 
 pounds to a hospital ! Portia Ffrench marry any man for the 
 sake of his handsome blue eyes ! I shall have them both here 
 to-morrow begging dear grandmamma's pardon, and vowing 
 they never meant the thing to be taken in earnest." 
 
 Then she sat down to her solitary lunch, and calculated, not 
 without satisfaction, how much chicken and sherry had been 
 saved by Jemima Ffrench losing her temper. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 FOE a long half-hour Susan Fielding waited, breathless with 
 anxiety, not all unselfish as to the lovers' fate. Then a light 
 step came flying along the corridor, the door opened quickly, 
 and Portia, her face all alight with animation, looked in. 
 
 " Come Susan, child ! the oracle has spoken, our fate is 
 decided. Come and witness the last scene in our poor ill- 
 fated, little love drama." 
 
 " What you are not going to marry Mr. Josselin, then ? " 
 uttered Susan. 
 
 "Ah, that is just what you will hear," was Portia's answer. 
 " I have had a hard alternative placed before me, Susan, I can 
 tell you ! Teddy Josselin and herbs, a stalled ox and Mac- 
 bean. But I think, considering my youth and inexperience, I 
 have chosen wisely, as you will hear." 
 
 She hurried Susan downstairs, and on the landing outside 
 the drawing-room they were joined by Miss Jemima, who, after 
 repeating with conscientious accuracy Lady Erroll's message,' 
 had left the lovers alone to deliberate upon their fate. 
 
 " Poor old lady ! You are a vast deal more upset by all this 
 than you need be," said Portia, patting Miss Jemima's hand 
 reassuringly. "As I tell Susan, we have, considering all 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 171 
 
 things, decided wisely, and, what is more, without a tear. 
 You have been crying, Aunt Jem don't deny it, I see the 
 marks of tears on your cheeks while we laughed ! Yes, 
 laughed ; so loud, I expected every minute grandpapa would 
 send up a message bidding us not disturb him." 
 
 She opened the door as she spoke, and Susan, with as 
 choking a feeling in her throat as though her own destiny 
 were under discussion, followed old Miss Ffrench into the 
 drawing-room. Teddy Josselin rose from a sofa where he was 
 reclining by one of the open windows, and came forward to 
 meet them. He looked even more bewitching, Susan thought, 
 in his morning dress than he had done the other evening : 
 the frock coat, the delicate tie, the pointed moustache, the 
 lavender gloves all were faultless. And his blue eyes were 
 just as full of lazy contentment, his handsome boyish face was 
 just as untroubled as ever. Ah ! if she had a lover, mused 
 the little girl, she would not choose him to wear mien so care- 
 less in this momentous hour on which their whole future 
 happiness might hang ! poor romantic little Susan ! 
 
 " How are you, Susan ? " said Teddy, taking her hand, all 
 cold and trembling with vicarious agitation. " I have been 
 thinking of you ever since, and so has some one else. Did 1 
 tell you, 'Tia? Blake soothed me to sleep with praises of 
 Susan's voice, and Susan's ' rustic woodland air,' all the way 
 back to town. Don't be jealous." 
 
 The thorough good humour of Teddy's tone, the familiar 
 "'Tia" (Teddy Josselin was the only living being who ever 
 ventured on a diminutive with Portia), made Miss Jemima 
 augur favourably as to the result of their consultation. " Portia 
 is very likely to be jealous about Mr. Blake, or Mr. Anyone 
 else to-day," she said, with an inflection of the voice that 
 made the remark a question. 
 
 "Poor Portia would be jealous always," said Teddy, looking 
 serious. "There is the leading weakness of her character. 
 She cannot part with her meanest slave without a pang can 
 you, Tia?" 
 
172 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Portia had now come close to her cousin's side, and as he 
 was speaking their eyes met. Surely, thought old Miss 
 Jemima, not unobservant, not wholly unversed in love matters, 
 the lacerated feeling of lovers on the brink of an eternal part- 
 ing were never transmitted through such a heart-whole glance 
 as that ! 
 
 "When I am tried I will tell you/' answered Portia, 
 lightly. " Up to the present time I have had no experience. 
 What one gives up voluntarily, cannot be spoken of as i for- 
 feited,' Master Ted/' 
 
 Teddy made a mock-humble bow. "I never knew you had 
 given George Blake up, Miss Ffrench." 
 
 "I was not speaking of George Blake, Mr. Josselin." 
 
 And then everybody sat down ; the lovers at some distance 
 from each other, perfectly cool and collected ; old Miss 
 Jemima and Susan waited in agitated silence for them to 
 begin. 
 
 "I think," remarked Teddy, when two or three minutes had 
 gone by in silence, " that the barometer must be higher than 
 yesterday I mean the thermometer .... no ; which is 
 it, 'Tiar 
 
 Miss Jemima looked up severely at the ceiling ; Portia 
 laughed that pleasant laugh that, as I said before, would, in 
 itself, have been enough to found many an actress's reputa- 
 tion ! " What will you do without me at your side to tell you 
 what you mean, Ted 1 " cried she. 
 
 " Portia ! " exclaimed Miss Jemima. 
 
 "Ah, well, aunt, painful though it may be to tell the truth, 
 there is no good in putting it off," said Portia, with a business- 
 like air. " Susan is in our confidence, and I am sure you 
 are both dying to hear what we have decided on. As well 
 tell them at once, Ted 1 " 
 
 "I suppose so/' began Teddy then Miss Jemima chancing 
 to look at him full and suddenly, his blue eyes sank. " Only 
 do you say it all, Portia," he added. " You know you get 
 over that sort of thing so much neater than I do." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 173 
 
 "Thanks !" said Portia, gaily. "I accept the compliment 
 at its fullest worth. Mr. Josselin wishing me to be the 
 speaker, Aunt Jem, I have to announce that .... we do not 
 mean to sacrifice ourselves." 
 
 "As I guessed, as I foretold," said Miss Jemima, half to 
 herself. " So much for Lady ErrolTs knowledge of human 
 nature." 
 
 " We are young, we may be foolish " 
 
 " But not wholly corrupt ! " put in Teddy. 
 
 " And we cannot give up what to us is simply life itself." 
 
 Miss Jemima coughed to keep down her emotion ; the tears 
 started to her eyes. 
 
 " Dissipation, excitement, dresses by Worth, coats by Bond 
 Street tailors, French gloves, French wines. What, in very 
 truth, are all these things 1 " 
 
 A shake of the head from Miss Jemima said "What 
 indeed ? " 
 
 " Superfluities to many people, doubtless. To us, necessities 
 of life." 
 
 " Portia ! " 
 
 " Since I was eighteen have I ever, in one year, spent less 
 than a hundred and thirty pounds on my dress, Aunt Jem 't 
 the precise sum upon which grandmamma suggests that 
 we should live. Well, we will say that when I was married 
 I spent half though the whole calculation is absurd and 
 Teddy the other half. Sixty-five pounds a year each on dress. 
 What would this leave over for wine-bills and travelling, and 
 all those incidental expenses ? Not a farthing. We should 
 not be in the least ashamed to beg, but we could not work, 
 either of us, and the only remaining alternative would be 
 starvation. Teddy," she turned round to her lover with the 
 brightest smile imaginable, " we can't make up our minds to 
 starve can we 1 " 
 
 " I could make up my mind to anything," said Teddy, " as 
 long as I shared it with you. If you wanted money, 'Tia, 
 you should have remained faithful to the Scotchman." 
 
'74 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "If my niece wished it, in short," said Miss Jemima, looking 
 searchingly at the young man's face "if Portia Ffrench 
 would remain true to her word, you would remain true to her. 
 Is that what I am to understand, Mr. Josselin ? " 
 
 "If Portia will marry me to-morrow, I shall be the happiest 
 man in England." said Teddy Josselin, lifting his blue eyes 
 to Miss Jemima's : honest blue eyes they were, with all their 
 sleepiness, all their want of intellect. "I've never taken 
 thought for the morrow yet, and never came to very bad grief 
 that I remember. The natural tendency of things is is to 
 
 fall upon 0116*8 legs I don't know why you laugh, 
 
 Portia ? "' 
 
 "A slight confusion of tenses, Ted. Go on. It was the 
 fault of the metaphor." 
 
 " To fall upon one's legs. I'm put out, Miss Ffrench. 
 Portia knows? so well how to put me out. If she would 
 quarrel with grandmamma and marry me to-morrow 
 
 "You would be doubtfully happy for a week, and decidedly 
 repentant for the remainder of your life ! " interrupted Portia, 
 in the sort of admonitory tone in which one puts down a 
 child's impending folly. "We can't afford to quarrel with 
 grandmamma, either of us I the least. She doesn't love 
 me very much ; poor grandmamma ! our feelings to each other 
 are about equal ; but she really means me to make a good 
 marriage, and I mean to do so, too in my own way, not a 
 Mr. Macbean. From the first year I saw her, grandmamma 
 and I have been playing a kind of game of chess of our own. 
 Who knows yet which will be checkmated 1 " 
 
 "You have been playing a game which I neither understand 
 nor wish to understand," cried Miss Jemima, indignantly. 
 " I have been always lenient to you hitherto, Portia. When 
 you have led on, and discarded suitor after suitor, I have been 
 lenient to you, for I have thought your worst sin was girlish 
 levity, and that in your heart I may say it now you cared 
 for your cousin. I was mistaken. You have no heart. You 
 care for nothing. You believe nothing. You regret nothing. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 175 
 
 I congratulate you, Mr. Josselin I congratulate you heartily 
 on my niece, Portia Ffrench, having at length made up 
 her mind ! " 
 
 Teddy smoothed his moustache into finer points, and gave 
 one quickly-averted glance at Portia's face. "All congra- 
 tulations are the mischief to answer," he remarked. " I 
 remember, when my cousin Adolphus was going to be married, 
 
 old Linkwater congratulated him I've often told you 
 
 that story, 'Tia 1 " 
 
 "Very often. You surely have no idea of telling it us 
 now!" 
 
 " Oh ! not at all, only you know what Adolphus said is 
 pretty nearly what I feel. All these things are leaps in -the 
 dark " this to Miss Jemima " and it would take a wiser 
 man than me to know, till a year and a day afterwards, 
 whether he has drawn a prize or a blank. But I am extremely 
 obliged to you for what you said, just the same." 
 
 His unruffled fatuity, the lurking smile round Portia's lips, 
 were too much for Miss Jemima's temper. " I congratulate 
 both of you," she cried, rising from her chair ; " and I con- 
 gratulate the people belonging to you on being spared from 
 seeing two such " a strong word was in the old soldier's 
 mouth, but she swallowed it "two such babies married. 
 Lady Erroll was right. She does understand human nature, 
 such human nature as yours, better than I do. You will 
 yourself explain the rupture of your last engagement to your 
 grandfather, Portia. That task I decline ; and the next time, 
 please, that you have wedding preparations to make, make 
 them without consulting me! I assist at no more 
 trousseaux." 
 
 And Miss Jemima crossed over to a table where afternoon 
 tea was already laid, poured herself out a cup, and drank it, 
 standing, in short disdainful gulps, and not turning her eyes 
 again towards the culprits. A stranger looking in at the picture 
 at that moment would assuredly never have guessed that Teddy 
 and Portia were lovers, sternly refusing consent to their own 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 marriage, and that this incensed old lady's was the heart that 
 bled at seeing generous youthful folly degenerate into the 
 miserable wisdom of expediency and of the world ! 
 
 Teddy was the first to follow her. " Don't be angry with 
 us," he said, humbly offering Miss Jemima a plate of bread- 
 and-butter. " Bad though we are, we are not responsible for 
 the sins of our ancestors. Everything is forced upon us by 
 grandmamma." 
 
 He looked so handsome and so much in earnest as he made 
 his little speech, that Jemima Ffrench could not but soften. 
 " I'm angry with myself for having taken so much interest in 
 you, that's the truth, Mr. Josselin. I made the mistake of 
 thinking of you both as of responsible beings who would help 
 themselves, and whom it would be my duty to help. I see 
 you as you are ! Children not knowing the meaning of the 
 words responsibility or duty - " 
 
 "And who, therefore, must make their way by childish 
 obedience to their elders' dictates," cried Portia, coming up 
 and putting her arm round Miss Jemima's shoulders. " Now, 
 I insist upon your eating, old lady. You know you told me 
 you had not swallowed a mouthful since you started. Take a 
 lesson from us. Don't quarrel with your bread-and-butter." 
 
 So peace was made. Shocked though Miss Jemima might 
 be by the lovers' frivolity, it was impossible to remain seri- 
 ously angry with any two human beings for refusing volun- 
 tarily to encounter starvation. She had been a fool, she 
 confessed, and they had proved themselves philosophers. The 
 world was too old for romantic sacrifice. Let Mr. Josselin 
 look out for an heiress, with Lady ErrolTs assistance, and 
 Portia, if she could, find another Mr. Macbean. 
 
 " You both of you suffer so little that I won't go through 
 the pretence of pitying you," she remarked, as Teddy Josselin 
 took his leave. " But this I do say," arid Miss Jemima pressed 
 the young man's hand with honest kindness " I can't help 
 feeling sorry that we have seen the last of you at Halfont. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 177 
 
 Some day, perhaps, a long time hence, you will look back and 
 wish you had decided differently." 
 
 "And some day, perhaps, not a very long time hence, you 
 will look back and say we decided like oracles ! " said Teddy. 
 "As to having seen the last of me at Halfont, the thing is 
 
 is " Teddy stammered and looked pleasant "ridiculous ! 
 
 Because 'Tia and I leave off being lovers is no reason that we 
 should not continue " 
 
 "To be cousins," interrupted Portia. "You shall come 
 again in three months, Ted. Not a day sooner ; the world 
 would talk. Whatever we wish, whatever we think right, do 
 not let us run a risk of making the world talk ! " 
 
 She went with him to the top of the stairs, then, running 
 back to one of the drawing-room windows, kissed the tips of her 
 fingers as the carriage that was taking him to the station drove 
 away. Could any woman discard in this light fashion a man 
 she had once loved 1 Susan, to whose simple heart the situa- 
 tion was one of vitallest interest, asked herself this question as 
 she watched Portia's face. Had the whole engagement been 
 idle child's play, as Miss Jemima said, or .... a blind ? 
 Was Portia's heart indeed occupied by some absent lover a 
 lover far worthier, nobler, thought Susan, than poor Teddy 
 Josselin, with his lavender gloves, and curled love-locks, and 
 boyish effeminate beauty 1 
 
 Portia sank down into a chair, and told Miss Jemima to 
 ring for some fresh tea ; then in wildly high spirits began to 
 discuss the change in her prospects that the last few hours had 
 brought about. Usually she flagged the moment that a scene, 
 that an excitement, however trivial, was past : no such re- 
 action seemed to set in after her final rupture with the man 
 she had professed to love. She would go to town to-morrow. 
 Every worldly hope she had was in grandmamma. Suicidal 
 to run the chance of any fresh family feud ! She would get 
 presented at the next drawing-room. She would send her 
 photograph to Macbean. He was vulgar, he lived in Glasgow, 
 was ugly, demoniacal in temper ; but at the present ebb of 
 
178 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 affairs not a chance must be lost. Could a young lady ap- 
 proaching twenty-two, and whose fifth engagement had just 
 ended tragically, afford to be critical 1 
 
 So she rattled on, Miss Jemima listening, grimly sorrowful. 
 At last, when Susan rose to go, Portia offered to walk with 
 her as far as the lodge gates ; and as soon as the two girls 
 were alone together, out-of-doors, her mood changed. " You 
 think me a monster of heartlessness, don't you, Susan ] Oh ! 
 I can see you do by your face. Don't accuse me too harshly ! 
 Remember, you only see half the outside half, that tells so 
 little of the truth/ 1 
 
 " I know that very well," cried Susan, half impatiently ; 
 " and I have no right, of course, to accuse any one. It all 
 seems hard on .... poor Mr. Josselin ; but I believe I can 
 guess why you are in such good spirits ! " 
 
 " Then you must be a much shrewder person than I take 
 you for," said Portia. " Don't judge by what you would do 
 or feel under the same circumstances, child. Think of some- 
 thing that you would consider wildly, utterly impossible, and 
 you will be likeliest to arrive at the truth about me. Not 
 that I want you to arrive at the truth, Susan ! " Singularly 
 bright was Portia's face, singularly soft her voice. " I should 
 just like to make you say one thing Aunt Jem congratulated 
 Teddy on my having found out my own mind at last ; will 
 you congratulate me 1 I'm superstitious I want good wishes 
 to-day. Give me yours ! " 
 
 The poor child's tell-tale face reddened. I do not say that, 
 after spending one evening in the society of a stranger, a 
 girl's heart can be affected to any passionate or lasting ex- 
 tent. But I do say that a spasm of sharpest pain contracted 
 Susan Fielding's heart at this moment. Love's twin sister, 
 we must remember, arrives so much more rapidly at maturity 
 than does love himself. 
 
 " I congratulate you, Miss Portia ; " but her voice was 
 unsteady as she said this. "As you say, I can't judge of you 
 or of your actions rightly, but I know enough to feel that you 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 179 
 
 are happier than you ever were in your life before ; and I'm 
 glad I mean, I try to be glad of it. I wish you joy, you 
 and .... the person you mean to marry." 
 
 Portia broke out into a laugh, a heartier, louder one than 
 most people had ever heard from her lips. " That is well- 
 wishing with a vengeance ! Well-wishing not to the living 
 only, but to people who, as likely as not, will never exist. 
 Aunt Jemima often says I shall end by being an old maid, and 
 that she and I will live together at Cheltenham. Will you 
 come and see me at Cheltenham, Susan ? I shall be just a 
 little more discontented than I am now, thin, blue nosed, a 
 district visitor, and holding rigid opinions about women's 
 emancipation. Good-bye what ! won't you give me a kiss 
 after congratulating me so prettily *? " 
 
 And then, with buoyant steps, she tripped back along the 
 manor avenue ; and Susan, heavy-hearted, went on her way 
 alone towards Addison Lodge. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BETIMES next morning Portia was off to London. 
 
 " Let grandmamma and me play out our match of chess 
 unaided," she said, when Miss Jemima would have remon- 
 strated on the indelicacy of thus throwing herself in Teddy 
 Josselin's way, the want of proper pride that she evinced in 
 her quick forgiveness of Lady ErrolL "Grandmamma has 
 played the great move of her game, and I must put forward 
 my modest little pawn in reply. As to proper pride, I have 
 none. If grandmamma invites me, I will go and stay with 
 her to-morrow. Dear Aunt Jem, remember that I am a 
 pauper a pauper with at least four hundred pounds' worth of 
 silk attire, and no possible opportunity of wearing it, unless 
 I make an effort for myself ! " 
 
 The meeting between her and her grandmother was perfect 
 
 N 2 
 
i So SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 in its way. Old Lady Erroll extended her little withered 
 hand coldly : Portia stooped, much against her taste and 
 habit, and kissed the still more withered cheek. 
 
 "I have to thank you, grandmamma. You have taught 
 poor Ted and me wisdom. We felt a little sore at first "- 
 Portia's eyes fell "then reconciled ourselves to our fate. 
 Everything is for the best." 
 
 "And you don't mean to lose the world for love, either 
 of you?'' said Lady Erroll, scrutinizing the girl's face 
 sharply, 
 
 " Grandmamma ! * 
 
 " Oh i well, your Aunt Ffrench thought that you would. 
 I did not. She's a better woman than you and me, Portia, but a 
 simpleton. Pity you were not wise enough to ask my opinion 
 a little sooner. You have bought a great many expensive 
 clothes, Ted Josselin tells me. What do you mean to do with 
 your trousseau now 1 " 
 
 "Put it carefully away, grandmamma, and send my 
 photograph to Mr. Macbean. I think he really did like me, 
 a little bit, and, if it hadn't been for Ted, I might not have 
 disliked him. I don't know that he was worse than other 
 people's husbands when you didn't look at him ! " 
 
 So unaffectedly good-humoured was Portia, that Lady 
 Erroll could not keep from being propitiated ; and by-and-by, 
 as Portia intended she should do, invited her granddaughter 
 to come up and spend a few days in town. 
 
 " Not to assist you in getting over your disappointment 
 your face tells me how much you felt that ! but to prevent 
 the world from saying that you are disappointed. I treated 
 the thing as a joke from the first, and now, if you and Ted are 
 seen together as usual, it will pass off without scandal. You 
 have had love affairs enough, Portia. In a first, or even 
 second season, these things don't matter. No girl with her 
 twenty-second birthday looking her in the face can afford to 
 entangle herself as you do. The next flirtation you have 
 must end in marriage do you hear 1 " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 181 
 
 " I hear ; and, please Heaven, mean to profit," said Portia, 
 meekly. " I am quite as tired, quite as humiliated as you 
 can be, grandmamma, and quite as resolved to have done with 
 my present life ! " she added, with a sigh brimful of obedience 
 and pious contrition. 
 
 They took luncheon together ; Portia constraining herself to 
 eat little and drink nothing but water, as she always did when 
 she wanted specially to please her grandmother. Between 
 two and three o'clock, Teddy Josselin came in. Old Lady 
 Erroll was dressing at the time for her afternoon drive, and 
 when Teddy ran up, unannounced, into the drawing-room, he 
 found Portia there alone. She turned her head quickly at 
 the sound of his footstep, and put her finger to her lip. 
 Teddy closed the door softly, looked well round both 
 drawing-rooms, then came up to Portia's side. 
 
 Their greeting, I am bound to say, was still conducted on 
 the fashion of affianced lovers ; but the moment it was over 
 Portia, with a rapid side movement, ran across to the 
 window, thus putting half the space of the room between 
 them. " We meet and we are to be seen in public together, 
 Mr. Josselin " her tone was low, but purposely distinct ; any 
 chance listener outside the door might have heard every word. 
 " The world shall not have it in its power to make merry over 
 Portia Ffrench's last disappointment ! Grandmamma has 
 asked me to stay with her. I am to come to-morrow, and 
 remain a week or ten days, and you will be seen with us 
 just as usual, sir. Grandmamma says so." 
 
 " A week and then ? " cried Teddy, almost with eagerness, 
 
 " Then, if Aunt Jem will give me leave, I shall go down 
 and stay with the Gordons at Worthing," said Portia ; " that 
 is, if nothing of importance happens meanwhile. I am think- 
 ing of sending my photograph to a Scotch friend of ours, Mr. 
 Josselin a friend whose regard for me, I believe, was real. 
 Who shall say what the result will be 1 " 
 
 Mr. Josselin replied by crossing the room, taking firm hold 
 of Portia's hands, and looking steadily into her face. " 'Tia," 
 
1 82 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 said he, " I forbid you to send Sandy your photograph. You 
 hear me $ I forbid it ! " 
 
 " Teddy, for Heaven's sake, don't be a goose ! Grand- 
 mamma may come in Condy may be listening. You are 
 making red marks on my wrists, sir ! " 
 
 " You shall not send Sandy you shall not send any man 
 your photograph. There's scarcely a fellow in the service but 
 has got it already/' 
 
 "Mr. Josselin " 
 
 "Oh! but it's true. ; Tis sickening, sickening, on my 
 word, to look in all the different fellows' books, and for ever 
 see Portia Ffrench's figure in this attitude and that, and then 
 listen to their explanation? of how they came by it." 
 
 " But Mr. Macbean is not in the service. If I have given 
 my photograph to every officer in the British army, it surely 
 can't matter giving one more to a poor Glasgow manufacturer 
 whose heart I have broken *? " 
 
 Ted's answer was conveyed in a whisper a whisper that 
 made the colour leap into Portia's dark cheek. " You silly 
 little boy ! " she began ; then lifting her black eyes sud- 
 denly " Oh, Ted ! do you care for me so much 1 " she 
 
 cried. 
 
 Upon this Ted kissed her the coachman on Lady ErrolTs 
 carriage-box might have witnessed the kiss if he had chanced 
 -to look up just at that moment at one of the drawing-room 
 windows : and then a rustle of silk was to be heard descend- 
 ing the stairs, and Teddy Josselin started guiltily back, five 
 yards at least away, and old Lady Erroll herself came in. 
 
 She glanced suspiciously first at one cousin, then at the 
 other. Portia was not as a rule wanting in self-control, yet 
 was Teddy's, at this moment, by far the most innocent face of 
 the two. 
 
 " You here 1 " said the old woman, looking at him coldly. 
 "It might have been in better taste, perhaps, if you had 
 stayed away till you were sent for. Portia, my dear, are you 
 ready 'I The carriage is at the door. 5 ' 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. l83 
 
 "And I am just in time to escort you," cried Ted 
 Joss elin, with his most ingenuous smile. " I don't see that 
 you need forbid me your house, grandmamma, because you 
 have blighted my hopes of happiness. If Portia and I are 
 to be only cousins, let us be that at least, till Portia is 
 married." 
 
 " Which she never will be so long as Ted Josselin is her 
 shadow," said Lady Enroll, grimly. " Yes, you may come to 
 the house, sir. You may come out shopping with us now. 
 But understand your position, thoroughly. If you get Portia 
 into any more mischief, if one other engagement is broken 
 off through you, I never speak to you again." 
 
 " Oh ! I understand my position accurately," said Teddy, 
 with a certain bitterness, real or mock, in his tone. " A tame 
 cat, to be stroked when no better plaything is at hand, and 
 not turn when it is trodden upon " 
 
 (" That's the worm, Ted ! " cried Portia. " When will you 
 abandon the allegorical style ? ") 
 
 "Then some fine morning find myself standing at Saint 
 George's, best man at Portia's wedding, for my reward." 
 
 " I trust so, I am sure ! " said Lady Erroll, cordially ; "and 
 the sooner the better. Portia and I have been having a long 
 talk, and we agree don't we, Portia, child ? we quite agree 
 in our opinions. W^ell for you, Ted Josselin, if you had as 
 much brains in your head as your cousin Portia has." 
 
 " Ah, I must look out for a clever wife," cried Teddy ; he 
 was handing Lady Erroll downstairs as he said this, and 
 looked back over his shoulder at Portia. " Will you help me 
 in my search, Cousin Portia ? I'm not a genius " 
 
 " You are not, indeed ! " 
 
 " But I'm a good-looking fellow, and easy to live with. A 
 young woman inclined to be vixenish could scarcely meet with 
 a better husband than Ted Josselin." 
 
 Portia's reply was conveyed through a cunningly swift pull 
 of one of Master Ted's love-locks ; for these cousins, lovers, 
 under whatever name you choose to rank them, were still 
 
1 84 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 much on the same terms as they had been in the days when 
 Teddy first taught Portia, a schoolgirl of sixteen, to waltz in 
 Lady Erroll's back drawing-room. 
 
 " You would be a good husband for a woman with five 
 thousand a year, strictly settled on herself," croaked the old 
 Countess. " Miss Minters is still disengaged. I know it on 
 the best authority. She is a sensible, well-principled girl 
 
 "Aged thirty-one, and of West Indian descent," finished 
 Teddy. " The ancestral pedigree emblazoned on her face. 
 What a pity we can't make up a double wedding for the 
 same day ! 'Tia and Sandy, I and the Octoroon. Arrange 
 it for us, grandmamma, if you can, and without courtship. 
 Name the day and amount of settlements, and Portia and 
 I will be there to be legally made over to our purchasers/' 
 
 They now drove away eastward for shopping, Lady Erroll 
 in so benign a humour that in a certain shop in Oxford-street 
 she presented her granddaughter with a five-and-sixpenny 
 glove-box (Portia shows it still), afterwards to the Waterloo 
 Station, from whence it was arranged that Portia should start 
 by the five o'clock train. Here, loitering about the platform, 
 a sketch-book and colour-book in his hand, they came across 
 George Blake. 
 
 " Just the man we want/' said Teddy ; Lady Erroll was 
 waiting in her carriage outside, and Mr. Josselin was com- 
 missioned to see Portia into her place, a duty, it would seem, 
 involving long and whispered conversation in its fulfilment. 
 " You are going to Half out, of course 1 Then you will escort 
 rny cousin home. Nothing could be better." 
 
 u Mr. Blake does not seem to see it," remarked Portia, offer- 
 ing him her hand, with even more than her accustomed friend- 
 liness. " Would it really be a very great trouble to you to 
 escort me home, Mr. Blake 1 There will be no carriage waiting 
 for me at the station, and we shall have very nearly two miles 
 to walk, mind." 
 
 Before Blake had time to answer the bell rang, and they had 
 to hurry into the first carriage they could find. Teddy stood. 
 
SVSAJV FIELDING. 185 
 
 a picture of dandy laziness, of unruffled composure, among the 
 crowd of porters on the platform, and kissed the tips of his 
 delicately-gloved fingers to his cousin as the train moved away. 
 Portia put her head through the window, and gave him one 
 last smile a smile that made George Blake groan in the spirit. 
 " Now, are you really going to Halfont, Mr. Blake ] What 
 a blessing to have a carriage to ourselves ! I am very pleased 
 to have your escort ; still, I would not be so selfish as to take 
 you out of your way/' 
 
 " I am really going to Halfont," answered Blake. " Where 
 else should I be going] Not to trouble you, though," he 
 added, quickly. " I have my tools with me, as you see. I 
 want to study a sunset effect by the canal, and " 
 
 " And you can give me that long-promised lesson at last, 
 then T' said Portia, as he hesitated. "JSTo dinner is going on 
 at home to-day. Grandpapa is poorly, and he and Aunt Jem 
 were to dine off boiled whiting at two o'clock, so we shall be 
 independent able to paint and enjoy ourselves as much as 
 we like. What a lucky chance that we met ! I always find 
 it so hard to live through a long evening at home when I have 
 been in town during the day." 
 
 " A lucky chance for me," said Blake. " When I saw you 
 with Josselin I never thought I should be so fortunate as to 
 be your escort, alone." 
 
 "Ah," said Portia ; "Mr. Josselin does not come to Halfont 
 at present, you know." 
 
 She threw down her eyes, and trifled with the string and 
 paper enfolding Lady Erroll's glove-box. George Blake 
 evidently knew nothing. She was to have the pleasure, 
 always a keen one to her, of enacting a new little part ; of 
 watching, of playing with the poor fellow's first surprise on- 
 learning she was free. 
 
 " Josselin does not go to Halfont ! " exclaimed Blake. 
 " Why, he was there the day before yesterday." 
 
 " And yesterday," added Portia ; " but for the last time I 
 Mr. Blake, you know us both so well in talking to you I feel 
 
1 86 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 I am talking to that rare thing, a friend and so I can tell 
 the plain truth. The fact is," here she blushed and hung her 
 head, " every thing is over ! Grandmamma will not hear of it, 
 and Teddy has got back his liberty. It is all for the best, no 
 cloubt, only I wish we had been told sooner. It is very well 
 for old people, who have forgotten what feeling means, to be 
 so wise about money, but just the least hard on us, who are 
 foolish and who suffer." 
 
 The blush, the down-bent face, the faltering voice, set 
 Blake's impulsive heart aflame. It was the first moment since 
 he had known her in which he had seen Portia Ffrench 
 thoroughly unbend, thoroughly a woman ! " And you have 
 let old heads get the better of young hearts \ " he exclaimed. 
 " Josselin has let worldly interest of any kind reconcile him to 
 suck a loss 1 " 
 
 He stopped ; and Portia's eyes sank lower beneath his. 
 "The submission was mine, not Teddy's, Mr. Blake. He 
 would have faced poverty with better courage than I perhaps 
 could not realize as I could what poverty, for people like us, 
 would be ! I am wiser than my years entitle me to be. I 
 have the bitter experience of my own childhood to show me 
 what men and women come to who cannot work, and who do 
 not wish to starve." 
 
 "All that may be very admirably reasoned," said Blake, 
 still watching her face ; " yet, had I been Josselin, I would 
 rather have listened to worse logic from your lips." 
 
 "You would rather have listened to some fine-sounding, 
 tall talk about devotion and unselfishness, and the sweets of a 
 life supported on seven-and-fourpence a day, then have awoke 
 a year later to the solid fact of being in the poor-house 1 " 
 
 "Do you give me leave to answer that question honestly 1 " 
 
 " Certainly I do." 
 
 "I would rather you had held to me, in spite of all the 
 grandmothers in the world, and have left the future in my 
 hands. We should not have been in the poor-house in a year, 
 Miss Ffrench, depend upon it." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 187 
 
 A quickly-repressed smile came round tlie corners of Portia's 
 lips. 
 
 " You can make money," said she ; " you can paint pictures 
 anc^ write books. My cousin and I belong to the lumber oi 
 the earth. We toil not, neither do we spin. Creatures who 
 take no thought of the morrow, like lilies ! as poor Teddy used 
 to say. We have no prospects, no hopes, but in the riches ol 
 others, and grandmamma has cut out our future for us beau- 
 tifully. Teddy is to marry Miss Minters ; you have heard oi 
 'the rich Miss Minters 'I " 
 
 " And you ? " interrupted George, warmly, " what stall in 
 Vanity Fair is to be tenanted by you "2 " 
 
 " I must wait for the first vacancy," said Portia, with a 
 demure little sigh. " Can girls without money choose 1 Can 
 a canary tell into which particular cage it will be sold 1 " 
 
 " And you can admit of no other alternative ? You cannot 
 even believe in the possibility of a marriage that should not be 
 one of buying and selling 3 " 
 
 " Another day I will answer that question, Mr. Blake. My 
 brain at present is in a whirl of matrimonial arithmetic. I 
 have just spent four hours with grandmamma, remember ! So 
 many thousand pounds well invested yield so much income. 
 A man with a given fortune must make such a settlement. 
 Oh, the meanness, the stupidity of it all ! Oh ! if human 
 beings could be independent of a London house, a carriage, 
 diamonds, and think only of making the best and highest out 
 of their own lives ! " 
 
 The aspiration was not absolutely novel ; but what speech 
 can ever sound commonplace from a beautiful girl who blushes 
 as she speaks, and whose voice softens, and whose whole 
 manner gives the listener to understand that his, and his alone, 
 is the ear into which these nobler longings of the soul are 
 poured forth ? In the game of chess which she was playing 
 (and playing to win !) a London house, a carriage, diamonds, 
 were the very stakes Portia Ffrench had sworn in her heart to 
 carry away. And George Blake knew pretty well that it was 
 
1 88 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 so ; knew that he had about as much chance of winning her 
 hand as though she had been a Eoyal Princess ! And still the 
 voice of the charmer charmed him ; still vanity subtilely 
 flattered, whispered that Portia's inmost maiden heart was sti n 
 unmoved. She had liked Josselin as a cousin, a playmate ; 
 had encouraged her other suitors up to the point at which love 
 was expected from her, then found that she had no love to 
 give. Had she ever made confession like this to any man but 
 himself 1 Had she not said that she looked upon him as that 
 rare thing, a friend 1 And did not her voice falter, her eyes 
 sink, as she told him the story of her recovered freedom 1 
 
 " Of all human vanity, commend me to the vanity of a 
 clever man ! " thought Portia, leaning back in her corner of 
 the carriage, and glancing at Blake from beneath her eye- 
 lashes. "I talk a single sentence of nonsense about not 
 wanting to be rich, and his Highness thinks it is meant for 
 him speculates, at this moment, whether he shall give me a 
 chance of working out my theory or not. Oh, you poor, 
 dear, foolish, credulous genius ! Teddy, with all his silliness, 
 is wiser in his generation. I should like to see Ted deceived 
 by the prettiest piece of clap-trap that could be put 
 together ! " 
 
 It would be hard to find a pleasanter walk than the mile 
 and a half of winding road that leads from Eltham station to 
 Halfont. Middlesex has not a romantic sound ; neither does 
 an absolutely flat and highly-cultivated country accord with 
 ordinary ideas of the picturesque in scenery ; but, in travelling 
 over the world, I have never found greener lanes or sweeter 
 pastures or finer trees that I can remember within fourteen 
 miles west of Hyde Park Corner. To George Blake, after 
 London and two days' absence from Portia, every sight and 
 smell and sound was simply delicious. Summer had come 
 early this year, and trees and hedges were already in fullest 
 leafage. Eglantines, dog-roses, honeysuckles were in great 
 masses of blossom ; the lanes were redolent with the smell of 
 new-mown hay. Portia took off her hat, and sauntered, bare- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 189 
 
 headed, meek, for the nonce, as Ruth among the corn, at 
 Blake's side ; her dark face, now in sunshine, now in shadow, 
 her black hair warmed into richest lustre by the lights that 
 fell on it in quivering emerald shafts through the branches 
 overhead. Just so much of art-instinct was in this girl as 
 made her always externally correct in her adaptation of her 
 moods to those of Nature. Flitting, in her white dress, about 
 the twilight lawn at Halfont, walking, bareheaded, with 
 rustic gipsy grace through the lanes, Portia Ffrench seemed 
 still to harmonize as fitly with her surroundings as she 
 harmonized, in silks and jewels, with a London ball-room or 
 opera-box. And to a man like Blake, prone at all times to 
 be conquered through his senses mainly, this faculty of being 
 picturesque at will is about the most potent charm a woman 
 can possess. In Portia's case it was, one may say, but a 
 higher kind of millinery instinct, the instinct of an actress at 
 best. With nature, as nature, she never pretended to hold 
 sympathy ; could not, by any effort of imagination, have seen 
 a picture without the central figure of Portia Ffrench in the 
 foreground ; the moment she came indoors forgot all the trees 
 and blossoms in the world except, perhaps, one trailing 
 branch of roses that might serve as a framework for Portia 
 Ffrench's face in an open window. But Blake was not likely 
 to be sensible of this or any other hidden want in an hour like 
 this. In his saner moments reasoning on marriage for a 
 friend, for instance he would say that what a working man's 
 life needed was a companion, a heart to feel with him, a mind 
 to understand him, clever hands to cook him a dinner. In 
 Portia's company, all he knew was that he wanted her! 
 beauty, grace, picturesqueness for ever at his right hand. If 
 you look round at the wives of the artists, or men of artistic 
 temperament, wliom you know, you will see examples enough 
 of the kind inspiration that guides such men in their choice 
 of wives. Alas ! they find out, most of them, at forty, what 
 they ought to have fallen in love with, but did not at twenty- 
 five. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Colonel Ffrench was in his own apartments, and Miss 
 Jemima abroad on village errands, when they arrived at 
 Halfont. So Portia had to entertain George Blake alone, and 
 a delightful entertainment he found it. Substantial tea, with 
 the addition of strawberries and cream, served under the 
 cedars, and Portia as handmaid Portia running about 
 herself with the teapot for hot water, laughing, chattering, 
 eating bread-and-butter and strawberries with the appetite of 
 a Sunday-school child. Could this be a woman, Blake asked 
 himself, as he watched her, whose heart was mourning over 
 the blighted hopes, the lost lover of yesterday "? 
 
 Time fled so rosily that the sun was already nearing the 
 horizon before the artist remembered the sunset effect which 
 he had come fourteen miles to study. " It is entirely my 
 fault if you are too late," said Portia, " but never mind. All 
 effects are much the same. Canal scene after sunset canal 
 scene before sunset wouldn't one sound just as well as the 
 other in a catalogue 1 " 
 
 And when at last they got to the desired spot, just beyond 
 the disputed willow-fence, and close to the garden gate of 
 Addison Lodge when at last Blake's brushes were in his 
 hand Portia's influence was on him still, and he could not 
 work. To say that she was frivolous would inadequately 
 describe her indeed, the very grain and texture of Portia's 
 nature were not frivolous ; but she was marvellously, ab- 
 solutely, self-engrossed self-engrossed to an extent that 
 paralyzed every effort you might make to get away from 
 the one charmed circle of her own good looks, her own 
 discontents, her fortunes and misfortunes. Thus, when 
 Blake had painted about five minutes "Would he re- 
 member, please, that this was to be a lesson to her, not a 
 study for himself ? Dabbling in that yellow and red seemed 
 easy enough let her try it." And she tried it, and im- 
 mediately spoilt one leaf of his sketching-block manipulating 
 body colour with a heavy hand just where the shadow in the 
 canal was to have been kept cool and transparent. Spoilt his 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 191 
 
 canvas and argued the point ! very charmingly, though the 
 sun would not linger in his course to listen. " Why should 
 shadows be transparent and lights opaque 1 It was quite 
 different in nature. See, the light was transparent, the 
 shadow black there. Now, if any one was drawing her, which 
 would be opaque, her complexion or her eyes? By-the-by, 
 as the sketch was spoilt, would Mr. Blake like to draw her 1 
 He had often asked her to sit for him, and this evening she 
 was in the mood, if he liked it ! " 
 
 And Blake liked it, of course, and turning his eyes from the 
 willows, fixed them on Portia Ffrench ; but finding this occupa- 
 tion pleasanter than working (and Portia presently declaring 
 she was in the mood for talking, not sitting), the sketching 
 materials were put aside, and at Portia's request the artist took 
 out a cigar, and all further thought of work was over. The 
 precise result which fifty times before, in different ways, 
 Portia's " inspiration " had wrought for him. 
 
 They watched the sunset ; they watched the midsummer 
 after-glow bathe river and bank and overhanging trees in its 
 soft effulgence ; and then Blake's cigar was fiung away, un- 
 finished, and his voice began to grow- tender, and he managed 
 to lessen by a foot or two the space between himself and Portia. 
 The conversation, strange to say, had, by this time, turned not 
 upon her interests but his ; upon the struggles, the disappoint- 
 ments, the hitherto-thwarted ambitions of his life. At last, 
 hesitatingly, he spoke to her of the one dearest hope, the one 
 strongest motive-power, that was wanting to him. "I am 
 mad," he said ; " I confess my madness, but I must speak. 
 That which I covet is so far above my reach that it seems idle 
 to speak of hope ; yet if I could hear one word from your lips, 
 Miss Ffrench, I should feel that I had something to live, some- 
 thing to strive for." 
 
 " And that word ? " asked Portia, a little absently ; she had 
 been yawning in the spirit ever since George Blake began to 
 talk about himself ; " what is this magical word I am to 
 utter]" 
 
192 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "Tell me that I need not absolutely despair! I ask no 
 more I have not the right, perhaps, to ask that. , Only let 
 me hear you say those words, i Do not despair/ and I shall try 
 to be content." 
 
 " I am sure I don't see why you need despair," said Portia, 
 examining the cipher on her handkerchief. " You have energy, 
 ambition. You can make of your life what you will." 
 
 " I am not speaking of that. I am speaking of something 
 dearer, sweeter than all ambition/' 
 
 " Nothing should be dearer to a man than ambition." 
 
 " Do you tell me to despair 1 Yes or no ? " 
 
 "I should be sorry to think of any one despairing, Mr. 
 Blake." 
 
 " Miss Ffrench .... Portia. . . ." 
 
 He came closer, and would have taken her hand but at 
 that moment the garden gate of Addison Lodge opened close 
 beside them, and a small black clad figure appeared upon the 
 bank. 
 
 " I wish she was at Jericho ! " thought Blake, starting back. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! that little difficulty is taken off my 
 hands," thought Portia Ffrench. 
 
 So seldom, even when they are love-making, do two human 
 beings feel precisely the same in any given emergency. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE intruder meantime sauntered slowly on, a book in her 
 hand, the dreamy unconscious look of one who knows herself 
 to be alone on her face. At last, after standing still awhile, 
 intently gazing at the river, she seated herself on the bank, not 
 half-a-dozen paces from George Blake and Portia, who were 
 watching her in silence. 
 
 There was light enough still in heaven to see to read, but 
 Susan's book lay unopened at her side. The book was 
 
SUSAW FIELDING. 193 
 
 " Ixion," a dog's-eared copy that she had procured overnight 
 from the Hounslow library, and the reading of which had 
 proved a terribly hard day's labour to her, in spite of all her 
 predilection for the writer ! 
 
 Walter Scott Susan could understand, and Fielding, inter- 
 preted by the light of her own innocent heart, and Goldsmith. 
 Mr. George Blake was beyond her. The piled-up word-paint- 
 ing, the spasmodic leaps of this clever young writer too fatally 
 convinced of his own cleverness to trouble himself about his 
 readers' interest rendered " Ixion " difficult as a lesson-book 
 to a child accustomed to the unvarnished style, the honest, 
 straightforward story-telling of the great masters. Whenever 
 a tolerably intelligible piece of narrative came in Susan had 
 followed it thankfully ; had pursued it with patience (through 
 scenes bearing about the same relation to the plot as do varia- 
 tions to some tortured air set for the flute) ; when at length a 
 proper name she knew re-appeared, had snatched at it eagerly, 
 trusting ever and in vain that she had at length got some 
 human form in hand for good ; but she had not been amused. 
 She was now in the middle of the third volume, and she let 
 the daylight go without reading it ; did not want to know 
 whether guilt should triumph in the last chapter, or virtue ; 
 did not want to know " what became " of anybody ! 
 
 The exceeding ability of the author had impressed itself 
 upon her throughout with force with greater force, I dare 
 say, than would have been the case had she understood his 
 book. So many French words, so many passages that sounded 
 to her like nonsense, so much knowledge of high life and the 
 wickedness thereof. What a genius, what a consummate man 
 of the world, was this great writer, who had condescended to 
 talk to her during a whole summer's evening ! Susan sat 
 thinking of George Blake's powers in a perfect bewilderment 
 of admiration although to the fate of his good young gentle- 
 man and his wicked young gentleman, and the various ladies 
 connected with the destiny of each, she was so cruelly indif- 
 ferent. Then, as she watched the dark flow of the canal, and 
 
 o 
 
194 St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 listened to the dull clank of the distant mill, gradually her 
 thoughts wandered away from " Ixion " altogether, and came 
 round to the deeper interests of her own small life drama ; to 
 the chances of George Blake having by this time forgotten h^r 
 to Portia's superior fortune to the almost certainty, as 
 things stood now, of Portia one day becoming George Blake's 
 wife. 
 
 She gave a long-drawn sigh when she got thus far, gazing 
 with her blind eyes straight in the direction of the two 
 persons who occupied her thoughts, and then Portia whispered 
 to her companion, and under his voice Blake began to sing : 
 
 *' Drink to me only with thine eyes." 
 
 Susan started with surprise, and Portia rose, and, moving up 
 the bank, seated herself good-humouredly at her side. Portia 
 Ffrerich was in a mood to feel good-humoured with every one 
 in the world to-day. Inaction, and the tedium inaction brings 
 with it to a nature at once restless and indolent like hers, was 
 over. She was playing her game, was fighting her battle in 
 earnest, and could afford to be generous to her unconscious 
 fellow-actors or victims, as the sequel might prove. 
 
 " We have been watching you for the last half -hour, Susan. 
 I hope you know that you have been telling all your secrets 
 aloud ] Oh ! I forgot ; you won't know whom * we ' means. 
 Take out your spectacles and you will see Mr. Blake down 
 among the bulrushes. We have been sketching." 
 
 Susan felt as though in that moment she got older by a 
 dozen* years. The light happiness of Portia's tone, the 
 familiar "we," the spot, the hour in which she had come 
 upon them together and alone, all told her the truth the 
 truth she had known but never absolutely realized till now. 
 A sensation like that of suddenly plunging into cold water 
 seemed for a moment well-nigh to suffocate her; then it 
 passed, and instinct told her she must control her voice and 
 face, and be a woman, and let this other woman who watched 
 her guess nothing of her suffering or her jealousy. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 195 
 
 "If I talked aloud, you had to listen chiefly to secrets 
 about packing-cases and portmanteaux," she said. "You 
 know that I'm going to leave home to-morrow for ever 1 ? The 
 auctioneei wants to get the house ready earlier than I 
 expected, and I am going to stay with Miss Collinson." 
 
 Susan's voice trembled ; not, it must be conceded, from 
 emotion wholly connected with Addison Lodge : and Blake, 
 forgetting that a minute ago he had wished her at Jericho, 
 felt all his first liking for the little girl return. " You have 
 not been telling us any of your secrets, my dear. Don't let 
 Miss Ffrench frighten you. It is we who have been talking 
 instead of working talking nonsense and losing all the day- 
 light. ISTow, there is just enough left, Susan, for me to sketch 
 
 you and For and Miss Ffrench, if you will both remain 
 
 precisely in your present attitude for ten minutes. I should 
 like to carry away some memento of this evening." He 
 glanced at Portia as he spoke. 
 
 Without seeming to move a muscle, Portia fell, on the 
 instant, into a picturesque position. Sitting for her portrait 
 was a sort of inborn facility with her an art-instinct much of 
 the same egotistical and millinery order as that by which she 
 attuned herself, outwardly, to whatever of nature formed her 
 surroundings for the minute. The quick blood leapt into 
 Susan Fielding's cheek. That she was merely to be brought 
 in as a background, a contrast to Portia Ffrench, she never 
 doubted ; still George Blake thought her face worth drawing, 
 wanted to possess some remembrance of this evening, and of 
 meeting her. And then, all at once, she remembered the 
 compliment Teddy Josselin had paid her on Blake's 
 behalf, and her colour deepened and her great eyes dilated, as 
 grey eyes have a trick of doing when any pleasurable feeling 
 stirs their possessor, and Susan looked bewitching ! 
 
 A dear little unsophisticated child of nature, thought Blake, 
 as he sketched the outline of her soft round face the face 
 which, despite its present baby " vacancy," never failed to 
 stir your imagination by the possibilities of emotion it contained. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Portia Ffrench was a woman to possess whom a man might 
 well risk life, and more than life. This was a child to inspire 
 never passion, perhaps, but the tender familiar love one has 
 for a sister a sweet, confiding, clinging little soul, whom he 
 would like to have to live in his house, if he were married to 
 Portia ; a child to tease and caress alternately, just for the 
 pleasure of watching those flexible lips quiver, those dilating 
 eyes change hue ; a dear little thing who would run for his 
 slippers, and light his pipe, and serve as a model for all the 
 Mignons and Clarchens he might want to paint. 
 
 If Susan for the matter of that, if Portia could have 
 read his thoughts ! 
 
 "And so you have been reading 'Ixion"?" remarked 
 Portia, taking up the book which lay at Susan's side. " I 
 suppose our lips, at least, may move, Mr. Blake ? Well, how 
 do you like it 1 Mr. Blake has no literary vanity. Criticise 
 freely." 
 
 "I like it very well, thank you, Miss Portia/' said Susan, 
 with caution. 
 
 "'Very well!' That is exactly what Aunt Jem's school- 
 children say when I ask them, after one of the annual bun- 
 orgies, how they have enjoyed themselves? 'Very well, 
 thank you, Miss Portia.' Have you no special commentaries 
 to make ] Do you like the humour best, or the sentiment, or 
 the asides of the author ? pretty numerous, these last ! " 
 
 " I like the beginning of the book best, as far as I've 
 gone," said Susan. " All the part where Eustace is at school, 
 and how he steals the master's custards, and falls in love with 
 old Miss Burchell. You see I understand anything of a 
 story best," she added, apologetically. " Whenever it comes 
 to opinions and descriptions, and and all the really fine 
 parts of a book, I get out of my depth." 
 
 " And you have not read to the end, then ? " said Portia. 
 *' You have been able to lay down this enthralling novel un- 
 finished, as favourable critics, in the little bits you see quoted 
 in advertisements, always declare they were unable to do ! " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 197 
 
 " I read to where Eustace goes to dine with the Marquis 
 I mean the Prime Minister I don't remember the grand 
 people's names ! And they all talk politics oh ! a great 
 many pages of politics and just then it got dark, and and 
 I shall finish it to-morrow. I'm sure," remembering George 
 Blake's feelings, " ' Ixion ' is a book very few people indeed 
 could have written." 
 
 " And that still fewer people could read," cried out the 
 author, with his hearty laugh. " Susan, you are the acutest 
 critic I have met with. The first half of the first volume is 
 not such trash as the rest, just because I knew, or thought I 
 knew, what I meant when I wrote it. I really was at school 
 once, and I did steal custards, and I did fall in love with an 
 old Miss Burchell. About all the rest Prime Minister, 
 Marquises, and politics, I know and care as much as you do, 
 Susan ! " 
 
 "And shall you never write another novel, sir 1 * 
 
 " Never," answered Blake, with emphasis. " All great 
 men mistake their vocation once. I have got over my mis- 
 take, and shall be a painter, and a painter only, till my life's 
 end. Oh ! don't bend down your head, Susan the eyes 
 higher no, don't look at the clouds ; look at me. What a 
 pity we haven't time for colour ! . How can eyes like Susan's 
 be given in dull black and white 1 " 
 
 The sketch in another few minutes was finished and handed 
 up to the two girls for approval. Portia examined it first, a 
 well-contented smile on her face. Blake had drawn her in 
 profile, as he knew she loved to be drawn : the nose and 
 upper lip and cheek faultlessly statuesque, the head poised 
 like a Greek goddess's, every line in the drooping, graceful 
 figure a flattery. An orthodox stereotyped design for a 
 " beauty heroine," in short ; not very much more characteristic 
 than those Blake used to draw on his copybook covers as the 
 Maid of Athens, or Haidee, when he was still a schoolboy, 
 and had never seen Portia Ffrench. 
 
 Of Susan Fielding he had, not seeking to idealize, made a 
 
198 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 little sketch full of individuality and life plainer than the girl 
 was, perhaps ; for in determining to get a likeness he had 
 exaggerated the peculiarities of her face, given to the eyes a 
 more startled look, to the full lips more fulness, to the wildly 
 curling hair more curliness. Still it was a portrait a human 
 being, not a heroine ! 
 
 "They are both excellent," said Portia. " Susan's the 
 least bit of a caricature, perhaps, but a capital likeness. Who 
 is it so like ] Mr. Blake, who is your sketch of Susan like 1 
 Shelley, I think, as one always sees him in the frontispiece 
 to his poems." 
 
 Susan, on hearing herself compared to a poet, put out her 
 hand shily, yet hopefully, for the drawing. All the authors' 
 portraits she had seen in her father's books were good-looking, 
 oval-faced gentlemen, with pretty mouths, and languishing 
 eyes, and foreheads as smooth and marble-like as fine line- 
 engraving could make them. 
 
 " It is a caricature, I must allow," said Portia, considerately, 
 and keeping back the sketch a moment before she gave it into 
 Susan's hands. " But colouring on the cheeks and hair would 
 make such a difference ! " 
 
 Poor little Susan held up the sketch within two inches of 
 her nose, and scrutinized it without speaking a word. At 
 last " And am I like this 1 " she exclaimed. " Oh ! I never 
 knew before I was so hideous. 'Tis like a witch, a negress 
 such lips, such eyes ! and being by the side of Portia makes 
 it worse." 
 
 Blake by this time had collected his sketching materials 
 and clambered up the bank. He knelt down at Susan's side, 
 and put his arm jestingly round her slim child's waist. 
 
 "The vanity of children! Why, the face is a regular 
 Sir Joshua, Susan. You don't understand its artistic beauty," 
 stooping to look over the drawing with her, and so close that 
 her soft short curls touched his cheek. " You will hang on 
 the walls of the R.A. some day, little Susan, in the same 
 picture with Miss Ffrench, unless I am mistaken." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 199 
 
 Susan's breath came and went tumultuously. She forgot 
 Portia, forgot her own shyness, forgot everything in the 
 universe save the burning, intolerable sense of humiliation 
 that overwhelmed her. "Let me go," she cried, breaking 
 from him with force. " You are unkind. What right have 
 you to laugh at me ] I don't know who Sir Joshua is I 
 don't know what you mean by ' are, eh ! ' but I know I'll 
 never be painted in any picture as a foil to some one else's 
 beauty ! " 
 
 And before George Blake could guess her intention she had 
 torn his sketch straight in two, and flung it into the canal ! 
 Then she started up to her feet, trembling with such vehe- 
 mence of passion as in her whole life she had never felt till 
 this moment. 
 
 Portia broke into one of her pleasantest trilling laughs. 
 
 " It really was a caricature, Mr. Blake. If you had drawn 
 such a sketch of me I would have been as cross myself. But 
 you shouldn't have destroyed it, Susan, my dear. By the 
 time it was coloured it would have looked very nice, I dare 
 say. Mr. Blake only wanted the rough idea of your face." 
 
 " Then Mr. Blake must look for rough ideas elsewhere," 
 said Susan, with quivering indignation. " No need to go far 
 for the model of such a face as that ! " pointing to the torn 
 fragments of the sketch, as they eddied slowly millward down 
 the canal. 
 
 "If I could command every model in London I should 
 never get one like that again," said Blake. " However, you 
 have done no mischief, Miss Fielding," he added. "The 
 sketch is gone, but the original face is quite safe in my re- 
 collection the face with a new expression on it." And he 
 rose, and fixed his eyes steadily on Susan. " It shall be the 
 principal figure, not the background of the picture, now." 
 
 "And I shall have to retire to the background," remarked 
 Portia, quietly. 
 
 Blake looked foolish. I do not hazard the opinion that he, 
 or any man, could be the very least in love with more than 
 
200 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 one object at a time. But speaking of him simply as an 
 artist, I assert that he would have found it hard to choose at 
 this moment between the dark, Titian-like beauty of Portia's 
 face as she looked up at him with half audacious, half appeal- 
 ing glance, and the delicate Greuze-like charm of Susan's 
 the cheeks ail aflush, the lips parted, and the fire of latent 
 passion, almost of latent fierceness, in the great dove-like eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! I see that I shall have to take the second place," 
 said Portia, mock-indignant. " Susan is to wear the white 
 satin, and I must content myself in white lawn. All I can 
 do is to abdicate gracefully. I think you might have spared 
 the part of the sketch that held ine, Susan. I could have 
 shown it about the world as the ideal Mr. Blake once had of 
 my face." 
 
 Without answering a syllable, Susan took up her book from 
 the bank and turned away. The poor child's conscience was 
 in a very tumult of shame and repentance already, and she 
 was silent, not through sullenness, but because, if she had 
 spoken, she must infallibly have burst into tears, 
 
 "All little, light, green-eyed women have that sort of 
 peppery temper," generalized Portia, cheerfully, as the small 
 figure moved away. " A pity, perhaps, that you made the 
 sketch such a terrible caricature ! " 
 
 "A pity that the child should be really pained by such 
 nonsense," said kind-hearted Blake. "She must never go 
 away without forgiving me. I'll run after her and make it all 
 right in a minute." 
 
 And before Portia could laugh him out of his intention, he 
 had carried it into effect. 
 
 Susan reached the garden-door first, entered, and locked it 
 on the inside. 
 
 "Miss Fielding!" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Susan ! 1 have something to say to you." 
 
 " I can " voice thick and indistinct " hear it from this 
 side, sir." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " But I can't say it from this side. Open the door at 
 once." 
 
 " I would rather not, I thank you." 
 
 " And I would rather that you did. To please me, open 
 the door, my dear little Susan." 
 
 The key turned in a second ; the door stood open. 
 
 " I have come to reason seriously with you, Susan. You 
 know nothing about ART. Any painter would have told you 
 that the idea of my sketch was beautiful much more beauti- 
 ful," added Blake with the baseness of his sex, " than any 
 studied, insipid copy of regular features : item a straight nose, 
 item a small mouth, et cetera. Your ignorance, not my pencil, 
 was to blame, my dear." 
 
 " I'm sorry I tore it, Mr. Blake. I believe I was never in 
 such a rage before. I don't know what possessed me." 
 
 "The demon of vanity, child, neither more nor less. I 
 drew you, not with a regular Grecian profile, but with the 
 dear little irregular English face that you have, and you 
 detested me." 
 
 " Oh no not you ! * 
 
 " Who then?" 
 
 " I I hope I detest no one." And Susan dropped her 
 face, and played with a tiny leaf which, as they talked, had 
 drifted down upon the volume of " Ixion " in her hand. 
 Behind her fair head rose a whole background of pleasant 
 dusk-subdued colour the prim beds with their borders of 
 midsummer flowers, the old-fashioned espalier fruit-trees which 
 had been the pride and glory of Fielding's life. 
 
 Blake thought of the garden-scene in " Faust." 
 
 "And do you forgive me, my dear that is what I want to 
 know 1 " he asked. 
 
 In his conversation of an hour ago with Portia his voice had 
 not sank to half so soft, so pleading a tone as it took now. 
 
 " I think it is for me to beg pardon, and you to forgive, 
 Mr. Blake." 
 
 k ' For what H" 
 
202 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 $ 
 
 " Oh ! for having destroyed a drawing you valued a draw- 
 ing of Portia I It was very wicked of me, but I scarce knew 
 what I did, you had hurt me so." 
 
 " Hurt you, again ! and yet I have told you that the idea of 
 my sketch was beautiful a thousand times more beautiful, 
 really, than .... Susan, who would have thought a little 
 village girl's head could be so full of vanity ] " 
 
 He took both her hands, " Ixion " falling to the ground, 
 and drew her to him close. 
 
 " I don't mean to let you go until you have confessed that 
 I am right, and you are wrong. Now repeat after me ' It 
 was all my vanity ' " 
 
 "I'll never say that, Mr. Blake. I am not vain. I was 
 angry because because " 
 
 " Go on, my dear." 
 
 " Because of Portia. She has so much has everything she 
 chooses, and I have nothing. I was a jest for you both. 
 You, who have each other, what should you think of my being 
 pained or not 1 " 
 
 Blake let her hands go in a moment : his face became sud- 
 denly grave. He was not a coxcomb was at least no vainer 
 than the majority of men but he had the ready insight born 
 of sympathy that belongs to people of his temperament ; and 
 something in the sound of Susan's untutored voice did make 
 him feel that this little scene might as well have been left 
 unacted. Ah ! could Portia Ffrench's well-controlled voice 
 ever quicken, ever vibrate with a sound like that ] 
 
 " You were angry, in short, child, because you were angry," 
 putting on a strictly fraternal manner as he spoke " the only 
 logical reason that can ever be given in such a case. Well, I 
 suppose I must be going," for the girl stood silent and con- 
 fused, not helping him out by a word. " I have to leave 
 by the half-past nine train. Good-night, Susan." 
 
 "Good-night, sir." 
 
 "And we are friends, are we not] That is right. The 
 next time we meet you will sit for me again ? " 
 
SUSAN FINDING. 203 
 
 " There'll be no next time," said Susan, turning sadly away. 
 " This is good-bye, not good-night." 
 
 And so they parted. 
 
 Portia was frank and gracious beyond her wont w r hen Blake 
 rejoined her, and yet how was it? all her frankness, all her 
 graciousness, could not cause the thread of their discourse to 
 reunite precisely at the point at which Susan's appearance had 
 broken it off ! She never said a word about the torn sketch 
 or the length of time Blake had been absent ; all that occupied 
 her mind was plaintive regret that he must leave so soon. 
 Nine o'clock only was he indeed obliged to go by the next 
 train ? How quickly had the evening passed ! How kindly, 
 how considerately had Mr. Blake cheered her on this first day 
 of her altered prospects! She hoped to see him, in Eaton 
 Square to-morrow unless, indeed, he were busied upon graver 
 matters than paying nonsense visits ! If he would come round 
 between four and five o'clock she would contrive to be at home, 
 arid they would make out as many pleasant plans as possible 
 for the coming week. Of course she might get him an invita- 
 tion for Lady Blank's ball and Mr. Dash's concert for every- 
 thing that should be going on during her own short visit to 
 London. 
 
 " You know I bade you not despair," she cried when George 
 Blake had already turned to depart. " And I meant what I 
 said. Now I must do my best, practically, to help you ' drive 
 dull care away.' At the end of this week I hope you will tell 
 me that my prescription is taking effect." 
 
 The words, and, still more, the tone in which they were 
 spoken, admitted of an interpretation dangerously flattering to 
 a man as much in love as Blake ; and still, for once, Portia 
 Ffrench had overshot her mark ! The ring of a voice with 
 nature, with passion in it, was too fresh on his memory for the 
 very prettiest acting to impress him as it might have done an 
 hour and a half ago. " I will go wherever you are good enough 
 to bid me go," was his answer. " But I am afraid, if my cure 
 could be worked by means of balls and concerts, it would be 
 
204 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 such a cure as I don't wish to think of a cure worse than the 
 disease." 
 
 Over which answer Portia pondered seriously as she stood 
 and watched the young man's figure disappear in the twilight. 
 She was about to make the grand knight's move, tortuous but 
 decisive, of her game ; not a time, surely, to waste regret over 
 the loss of an inefficient little pawn or two ! " Still still," 
 mused Elchard Ffrench's granddaughter, " many a well-fought 
 match has been lost for want of a pawn in the end. In the 
 superior game of chess called Life, give up nothing until the 
 sacrifice becomes a duty, and even then pause." 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NEXT day was the one to which Susan had looked forward as 
 the most certainly miserable turning-point of her life the last 
 day she was to spend in the old home. And the dreaded hour 
 of parting came, and she found herself travelling in the hired 
 fly towards Miss Collinson's, without being able to shed a tear, 
 nay, without being able to realize that Addison Lodge and all 
 the household gods that it contained were indeed were 
 already things of the past. 
 
 " Like her age, Mr. Hackitt," moralized old Nancy Wicks- 
 to the auctioneer, as he ticketed the chairs and tables for the 
 sale. "A week ago little Miss were fretting herself to a 
 skeleton at the thoughts of living among strangers, far away 
 from Halfont churchyard, and off she goes to-day as blithe as 
 a lark, and never so much as shed a tear when Jim Simmons 
 carried out her pa's fiddle-case nor nothing." 
 
 The poor little girl had cried herself with bitterest tears to 
 sleep the night before ; then dreamed a dream of a certain 
 artist painting her portrait on a golden summer noon, under 
 over-arching trees, while sketches of Portia Ffrench, like, but 
 with wild eyes, with negress lips, were constantly floating by 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 205 
 
 along a dark river at their feet a perfectly delicious dream, 
 the flavour of which clung too pertinaciously to her lips next 
 morning for any reality to have quite its right taste, even the 
 sorrowful reality of leaving home for ever. 
 
 " Some young gentleman at the bottom of it all, take my 
 word, Mr. Hackitt. There's young Collinson and a gay, 
 good-for-nothing fellow, too, they do say been here every 
 afternoon for the last five days, to my own knowledge." 
 
 Tom Collinson was standing on the doorsteps of his sister's 
 house ready to welcome Susan as she got out of the fly. His 
 short square figure was decked out in his smartest suit and 
 necktie ; his naturally florid face was crimson with excite- 
 ment ; a ridiculous minglement of exultation and sheepishness 
 was in his whole demeanour. He helped the driver to carry 
 Susan's boxes upstairs ; then led her into the parlour ; made 
 her sit down on the sofa ; stared at her ; circled round and 
 round her rubbing his hands, as men do to whom hands are 
 an embarrassment ; tried to make a pretty speech about her 
 feeling herself at home under Eliza's roof ; failed ; and ex- 
 pressed his hopes suddenly that she was fond of a calf's head 
 and brains. 
 
 "Eliza is a good old soul, and not a bad cook pastry 
 especially but no more idea of a change than a cat. She'd 
 give you the same dish for a fortnight, and think because you 
 had liked it once you must like it always. So she said to me 
 this morning, ' Tom,' she said, ' what'll be a nice thing for 
 'Susan ' she always calls you Susan ' a nice thing for Susan 
 the first day she dines here ? A loin of pork and a pudding 
 baked under ] ' Now, I like pork, and I like a pudding baked 
 under," said Tom ; " but I don't like it every day of my life, 
 and we've had it twice this week already. So I said calf's 
 head. I hope you really do like a calf's head and brains 3 " 
 
 To this lover-like appeal Susan was able to reply satisfac- 
 torily. She did like calf's head well, yes, better perhaps (on 
 being pressed) than pork with pudding under. And then they 
 to another full stop. Susan was never great at origin- 
 
2o6 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 ating conversation ; and Mr. Collinson, now that lie had 
 finally made up his mind to be in love, felt his tongue cleave 
 to the roof of his mouth every time he tried to address her. 
 
 " Mourning's very becoming to some people," he jerked 
 out at last. 
 
 " Do you think so 1 " said Susan. 
 
 And then this subject, too, fell to the ground. Collinson 
 tried to pick it up a minute later, having stared harder than 
 ever at Susan, meantime, by repeating, " Yes, to some people ! '' 
 But Susan had forgotten what he was talking of, and only 
 looked through the window. 
 
 " Eliza's out " this after a longer pause than the last. " I 
 thought you might fancy a cucumber " (cowcumber, Tom called 
 it), " and Eliza's gone for one." 
 
 " Is she 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; but I hope, I hope, Miss Susan, that you don't mind 
 finding yourself alone with me 'I " 
 
 " Mind ! why should I, Mr. Collinson ?* 
 
 " Oh no, not at all ! only I thought perhaps ah ! um ! 
 Oh Lor', Susan," bringing up his courage with a run, "how 
 long the time has seemed since I saw you last ! " 
 
 He stopped in his walk, looked at her sentimentally, then 
 sighed. Tom Collinson's was not a face or figure on which 
 sentiment sat well ; and Susan laughed. He felt this was 
 encouraging. 
 
 " You know that I called at Addison Lodge yesterday 1 ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was packing I mean Nancy was packing, and I 
 was looking on, reading." 
 
 "And the day before]" 
 
 " I was at the manor. I was there all the afternoon." 
 
 " You are always at the manor, always with Portia Ffrench. 
 I suppose you have heard about her cousin Josselin being off 
 with her 1, He has proved himself not such a fool as he looks, 
 after all." 
 
 Susan did not answer. 
 
 " And I suppose you know that she is on already with the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 207 
 
 singing fellow Blake, don't they call him 7 They say she 
 was out with him in the lanes at I don't know what o'clock 
 last night." 
 
 Susan's face flamed. " A pity ' they ' are not better em- 
 ployed than to spy other people's doings, and then spread mean 
 stories about them afterwards ! " she cried, with less accuracy 
 of syntax than energy of voice and manner. 
 
 Collinson watched her jealously. "You are a very warm 
 defender of Portia Ffrench's," he remarked. "I wonder 
 whether she'd speak up so hot for you if you got yourself 
 talked about 1 It isn't my business, I know, to comment on 
 the manners of my betters," went on Tom ; " but, to my way 
 of thinking, for a girl to break off with one sweetheart in the 
 morning and take on another before night is disgusting, 
 neither more nor less. I'm sure you wouldn't act so, now, 
 would you 1 " 
 
 He did his utmost to throw tender meaning into this 
 question. 
 
 "When the temptation comes, I shall be able to answer," 
 said Susan, in her stiffest little quakeress tone. " I know 
 nothing about sweethearts, I can tell you, and I wish to know 
 nothing about them." 
 
 " You you can't be so cruel as to mean that 1 " interrupted 
 Tom, edging himself a little nearer ; then just he felt as the 
 ice was beginning to break, Miss Collinson, inopportunely, ran 
 up the front steps, the cucumber in her hand, and his chance, 
 for this time, was over. 
 
 " Still I have got on a good bit," he soliloquized mentally, 
 glancing at himself in the dingy glass above the mantelshelf. 
 " ' Who talks of love makes it ; ' I know I've read that some- 
 where. If I go on gaining ground like this, we shall be 
 engaged in no time." 
 
 And throughout the remainder of the day he continued to 
 gain ground of the same somewhat doubtful kind ; to hover 
 round and round Susan ; to gaze at her askance ; to stammer 
 out the beginning of ornamental speeches which he had no 
 
2oS SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 courage to finish ; to get curt answers, which he tried to per- 
 suade himself were the flattering result of maiden bashfulness. 
 When night came, and he was at last left alone in the parlour 
 with his sister, he broke out abruptly : 
 
 " And pray what is your opinion of Susan now, Eliza 1 " 
 
 Miss Collinson looked up from the book in which she was 
 going through her accustomed evening exercises, with thoughts 
 undisturbed by love or lovers. " Susan 1 Well, I really think 
 she's getting hearty. She took two helps at dinner, I 
 remarked ; but calf s head is just one of those things a 
 delicate person can always enjoy. Three weeks before his 
 death, I remember poor father said " 
 
 " For the Lord's sake, don't tell me ! " groaned Tom. 
 " Who's talking of delicacy and calf's head, and what our 
 blessed old father used to say 1 Do you think that she do 
 you judge from her manner dash it all ! have you still the 
 same opinion about the girl as you had the other night, when 
 we were walking across the common ? " 
 
 "I don't remember exactly what my opinion was, my 
 dear." 
 
 Collinson strode angrily away from the room and from the 
 house, but returned long before midnight : he had altogether 
 given up bad hours during the last few days : and next 
 morning his courtship, such courtship as it was, went on again. 
 He was a man outspoken alike from temperament and the life 
 that he had led ; a man self-confident through ignorance, and 
 who had never hitherto experienced difficulty in making his 
 feelings perfectly plainly known to any of the women whom 
 he had favoured with his regard. But now, in the presence 
 of Susan Fielding, in the presence of this shrinking little 'girl 
 of seventeen, his whole loud, audacious nature seemed to 
 collapse. The most briUiant men do not invariably shine in 
 the position of lovers. Tom Collinson, thus situated, became 
 absolutely, idiotically taciturn. Every hour found him deeper 
 in love, every hour found him dumber ! If he could only 
 once break the ice, he would think, only get as far as the first 
 
SI7SAA r FIELDING. 209 
 
 word of a declaration, he would back himself to find plenty 
 to say for ever afterwards. Meanwhile, little as he guessed 
 it, his silence effected more for him than any speech would 
 have done with Susan reconciled her unconsciously, day by 
 day, to his presence. She was too short-sighted to be much 
 annoyed by the demonstrativeness of his looks ; and, as he 
 would sit blankly staring at her for hours together, with- 
 out relieving his feelings by a single sentimental speech, 
 the girl grew gradually to think of him as a harmless, kindly 
 creature, towards whom she had once cherished a groundless 
 repugnance, and whose worse fault was stupidity. Of course 
 he was utterly unlike Mr. Blake alas ! was it her lot to be 
 thrown with men like Mr. Blake ? but he was kind and 
 open-hearted, in his way did twenty things a day to give 
 her pleasure and Susan was grateful. More than that, at 
 the end of a very short time began to feel that she really 
 liked poor ignorant Tom a great deal better than she liked 
 Eliza, with all her superior principles, all her superior culture. 
 Whatever his graver, more positive faults and one sums 
 them up easiest by saying that he had not a single positive 
 virtue Tom possessed the negative merit of a sunshiny tem- 
 perament. He was too thoroughly fond of his own 
 comfort ever to be long sullen, too self-satisfied to know 
 the meaning of moral or mental depression. If the small 
 servant had transgressed, Miss Collinson, worthy woman, 
 would address her meekly, admonishingly, yet with a vein of 
 mild sourness " naggling," Betsy called it running through 
 the admonition that would make the child sob her heart 
 out for the remainder of the day. Tom's vengeance, on 
 the other hand, was swift and sharp ; ^an oath, a box oiP 
 the ear ; then, ten minutes afterwards, a joking word, or 
 twopence (from Eliza's coppers), that at once restored the 
 smiles to poor Betsy's face. And this difference between 
 them was an essential one a difference of race. The first 
 Mrs. Collinson had been a sterling, over-scrupulous, melan- 
 choly-minded woman, capable of doing everything for her 
 
210 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 husband and children save making their lives happy. 
 The second was a lazy, selfish, extravagant drone ; always 
 expecting, and finding, other people to perform her duties ; 
 thoroughly ungrateful; thoroughly without principle; but easy 
 of temper, pleasant to live with. And her son was like her. 
 
 Nothing could be heartier, more confidence-inspiring, than 
 Tom Collinson's shake of the hand. Eliza, diffident good 
 soul, extended to you a fish-like palm, through which not a 
 throb of human sympathy was discernible. Nothing franker 
 than the look with which his well-opened eyes met yours. 
 Eliza's, from purely physical timidity, sank to the ground 
 every time she was spoken to. And Susan Fielding's was just 
 the temperament upon which this gift of heartiness, animal 
 spirits call it by what name you will operates like magnet- 
 ism. Quiet, dreamy, sensitive herself, the subdued melancholy 
 of Eliza Collinson affected her spirits like a day of drizzling 
 rain, of unbroken cloud. What she imperatively needed in a 
 companion was brightness ; and Tom, despite his want of 
 brains, was bright, yes, even in the present taciturnity 
 engendered in him by love. 
 
 Miss Collinson had a score of the little ghostly habits 
 unmarried women contract through long years of solitude and 
 economy ; such as, when she returned from a walk, taking off 
 her boots in the passage and creeping upstairs in her stock- 
 ings ; wearing list slippers about the house ; sitting without 
 lights in the dark, " unless any one really wanted to employ 
 their minds." Tom's thick boots were to be heard every- 
 where was life long enough to think about the effect of mud 
 on stair-carpets'? He whistled reprobate airs from morning 
 till night, Sundays included. He taught the pious old 
 cockatoo the forgotten blasphemies of her youth. He 
 skirmished from attic to cellar after Betsy. He woke the 
 two cats, neutral enemies for years, into active combat. He 
 made the house alive, in short ; and Susan, child as she was, 
 grew, after four days, to be a little sorry when he went out, a 
 little glad when he returned. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 211 
 
 Proper heroines of romance like one human being, and 
 one only, during the course of their mortal lives. In 
 recording Susan's commonplace story, it seems I shall be 
 forced into confessing she liked every good-looking young 
 man she came across. And so, I think, with very different 
 degrees of liking, she did. Teddy Josselin for his grace and 
 refinement and handsome face ; George Blake ah ! George 
 Blake for everything ; and now poor, brainless, vulgar Tom, 
 for his animal schoolboy spirits and good nature to herself. 
 Have not most women heroines apart been subject, at this 
 chrysalis stage of their existence, to the like chronic, but 
 perfectly safe, disorder of inconstancy 1 
 
 A week passed by, and the Tuesday on which the sale was 
 to take place at Addison Lodge arrived. Tom, ever ready to 
 shirk anything in the shape of disagreeable duty, declared that 
 it was necessary for him to go up to town for the day, " on the 
 look-out for employment." He would have gone to the sale if 
 his presence there could have profited Susan's interests ; but 
 what possible good, said Tom, could be got by bullying a man. 
 like Hackitt ? If you didn't let an auctioneer cheat you in 
 one way, he would in another, you might be quite sure. And 
 so Miss Collinson, book in hand, had to start alone on her self- 
 imposed duty of "checking off" Mr. Hackitt's accounts, and 
 Susan was left at home to get through the day as she could. 
 
 It was a terribly heavy day to her ; heavier far than the one- 
 on which, upheld in spirit by the remembrance of her dream,, 
 she had bidden home good-bye. Young people, as a rule, part, 
 lightly with external objects. The affection born of habit 
 that clings to an arm-chair, a writing-table, the paper on a. 
 wall, is quite an affection of later year*. But Susan, not a 
 little from the fact of her short-sightedness, shrank almost as 
 old people do from the unknown ; held with wistful eagerness 
 to the thought of every material link that bound her to the 
 past. When eleven o'clock had struck, the hour at which the 
 sale began, it seemed to her that at every ten minutes a sort 
 of death-knell tolled. Once, long ago, she had been with 
 
212 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Miss Collinson to a sale in the village, and she remembered 
 the old auctioneer pompously descanting with flowers of pro- 
 fessional rhetoric on the merits of every table and chair, then 
 remorselessly knocking it down " a giving of this valuable 
 article away ! a robbing of my employer ! " was Mr. Hackitt's 
 formula to the highest bidder. 
 
 " Going, going gone ! " All through the forenoon she sat, 
 unable to work or read, with that word " gone " ringing in 
 her heart ; then, unable to bear the weight of her own 
 thoughts longer, put on her bonnet and started for a lonely 
 walk across the heath. 
 
 It was a perfect June day, the blue sky lightly flecked with 
 clouds, a strong warm wind blowing from the south-west ; and 
 after a quarter of an hour's walking, Susan turned off from 
 the high road upon one of the few portions of the heath that 
 still remained unenclosed, and where, a dozen yards or so 
 from the path, a group of lichen ed stones formed a pleasant 
 halting-place for idle or footsore wayfarers. These stones had 
 for years been a favourite haunt of Fielding's and his little 
 girl's, and, taking out her glasses, Susan looked long and 
 sorrowfully around at the familiar landmarks which till now 
 had bounded the vista of her narrow life. Behind, Harrow- 
 on-the-Hill ; far away in the opposite direction, a dim blue 
 spot which she knew to be Epsom Grand Stand ; the dull 
 grey smoke of London to the left ; the heath with its solitary 
 clump of firs, its quick gradations of hue, as the passing 
 clouds threw patch after patch into purple shade or yellow 
 sunlight, filling up all the foreground and middle distance. 
 
 Susan had not been here long before she heard a measured, 
 soldier-like step, passing in the direction of the village ; in 
 another minute a figure stood between her and the sun, and, 
 looking up, she saw Miss Jemima Ffrench Miss Jemima, in 
 the accustomed thick shoes and sensible tonnet in which she 
 paid her cottage visits, a well-filled basket on her arm, the 
 smile which of itself was a sort of June sunshine upon her 
 kind old face. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 213 
 
 She shook hands with the little girl, seated herself at her 
 side, and did not begin to talk about the sale. Perfect good- 
 heartedness, you will remark, always begets the very finest 
 good breeding. " You are just the person I wanted to meet, 
 my dear. I have had a letter from Portia containing all sorts 
 of messages to you. She seems to be enjoying herself more 
 than usual, and is not coining back for the next ten days." 
 
 Susan felt acutely, miserably jealous on the instant. What 
 cause but one could account either for Portia's enjoyment or 
 the extension of her stay in town 1 
 
 "I am terribly stupid at remembering messages," went on 
 Miss Jemima, "but there was something about a sketch, I 
 know. Stay, I believe I have the letter in my pocket no, 
 yes ; then you may read it for yourself. My niece and I 
 have no very important secrets just at present, and I know 
 Portia would like me to tell you all she is doing and seeing." 
 And saying this, Miss Jemima drew two closely-written sheets 
 of note-paper from an envelope and gave them to Susan. 
 
 Portia Ffrench wrote a thoroughly picturesque hand ; bold, 
 unfaltering, full of originality, a hand with really only one 
 fault to speak of it was illegible. Long habit, the patience 
 of great affection, had broken Miss Jemima in to the task of 
 deciphering her letters ; to the rest of the world they were a 
 blank. " Lucky I am not the kind of person to write love- 
 letters," Portia would say of herself. " The man does not 
 live who would take the trouble to read them through ! " 
 Susan looked down one page, then another, then turned back 
 hopelessly to the first. 
 
 " I can't make out a single line," said she. "All I see is, 
 that Mr. Blake's name comes very often." 
 
 " Very often," repeated Miss Jemima, shaking her head 
 with a meaning. " The fact is, my dear I know that you 
 are fond of Portia, and I know I can trust you with a secret, 
 so I'll make you my confidante the fact is, a very strong 
 suspicion has come into my mind to-day, Susan." 
 
 "Has it, ma'am]" 
 
214 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 11 A suspicion about Portia and Mr. Blake ! " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " I may be wrong, as I have been before ; if I am, Portia 
 can laugh at me for my last piece of romantic folly, as she 
 will call it ; and yet, I don't think I am mistaken this time. 
 I will read you the letter first, and you shall see." 
 
 And Miss Jemima took out her spectacles and read : Susan 
 resigning herself to hear what she knew beforehand would be 
 the final death-blow to every hope she had cherished, every 
 dream she had dreamed. 
 
 " ' DEAR AUNT JEM I haven't ten minutes to write, for 
 we are just going off to the Zoo,' on Sunday, I am sorry to 
 say, Susan ' Mr. Blake and I, grandmamma and poor Teddy. 
 Mr. Blake to walk with me, Teddy to give grandmamma his 
 .arm, and listen to unqualified praises of Miss Minters, the 
 heiress, and qualified abuse of Portia Ffrench, the pauper. 
 He has been on this kind of duty the whole past week. 
 Wherever we have been, and we have been everywhere, 
 grandmamma has insisted upon Teddy accompanying us, to 
 show the world, she says, that he cares nothing, and that I 
 care nothing, about the breaking off of our engagement. It 
 would be very detrimental to me, grandmamma says, if I was 
 suspected of having had a real attachment to my cousin. (I 
 should have thought it wonderfully to my advantage to 
 suppose that I, Portia Ffrench, could have had a real 
 attachment to anything.) Oh ! how I have been amusing 
 myself ! I don't think I ever ' mark this, Susan 
 ' felt the meaning of really wild spirits till now. When 
 we sit at dinner, or walk about in our party of four. 
 Ted and grandmamma, Mr. Blake and I, 'tis as much as I can 
 do to keep from singing aloud. We have had two grand 
 
 balls : Lady ' (Claptrap, it looks like) ' and Mrs. - 
 
 no, I must leave out the proper names. ' I wore my mauve 
 satin at the first, my white silk with black lace flounces at the 
 last. Both of them, alas ! trousseau dresses. Mr. Blake, I need 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 215 
 
 not say, was at these balls. He doesn't dance, you know. I did 
 not dance. I feel my advancing years, and prefer sitting out 
 and talking with a rational companion. Grandmamma is 
 wonderfully, impertinently" civil to Mr. Blake ; tries to do Art- 
 talk for his benefit a condescension resulting in nr\ch the 
 kind of tone she would use to one of the young men at 
 Howell and James's if she were talking about shawls. He 
 doesn't mind ; he minds nothing. He, too, I think, seems 
 thoroughly happy. By the way, tell Susan ' ah, to be sure, 
 this is the message ' tell Susan Fielding not to regret having 
 torn the sketch. Mr. Blake has done a much better one of 
 me, I mean. It is coloured and half-length. I will steal it 
 for you, Aunt Jem. So the poor little thing is really staying 
 with the Collinsons ? Tell her not to let that shocking young 
 Collinson fall in love with her' you must not mind, my 
 dear, you know Portia's jesting way 'also that I shall hope 
 to see her before she leaves for France. The Smiths charm- 
 ing people ! I forgot whether you know them 1 have asked 
 me to run down to Brighton for a day or two when I leave 
 grandmamma, and as I shall be in the neighbourhood I think 
 I may as well go and see the Gordons, at Worthing. You must 
 remember all about the Gordons ? I shall take the Browns 
 at Guildford as I return. All these moves are so uncertain, 
 that I can't tell you where to write, but I shall console myself 
 with your favourite saying of no news being good news Mr. 
 Blake who, as usual, is sketching my unhappy profile/ 
 sketching, too, on Sunday ! ' desires kindest remembrances, 
 and I am your affectionate, PORTIA.' 
 
 " And now, Susan " Miss Jemima folded the letter, and 
 returned it to her pocket " what do you divine from 
 all this 1 " 
 
 " That Portia has very soon got over her regret about Mr. 
 Josselin," said Susan. 
 
 " What next 1 " 
 
 " I really don't know, ma'am, except that she has been 
 
2 1 6 SVSAW FIELDING. 
 
 enjoying herself a good deal, and lias worn a mauve satin 
 dress at one ball, and a white silk trimmed with black lace at 
 another." 
 
 " And what about this rational companion whose conversa- 
 tion she prefers to dancing 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! that is quite an old affair/' said Susan, doing her 
 best to look easy and unconcerned. " I should say Mr. Blake 
 and Portia came to an understanding long ago about the 
 charm of each other's conversation it is no news to me ! " 
 
 "What!" exclaimed old Miss Jemima, "has Porfia told 
 you " 
 
 "Portia has told me nothing," interrupted the girl, quickly. 
 " But I have watched them together that evening I drank 
 tea with you on my birthday, and another evening a week 
 ago, the day after Portia's engagement was broken off. It 
 was a thing no one could mistake about ! " said poor little 
 Susan, as decisively as if she had had fifty years' experience 
 in the usages of love and lovers. 
 
 Miss Jemima communed with her own thoughts for a 
 minute. " Then my opinion is confirmed," she said, with a 
 well-pleased face. " Young ladies of your age are wonder- 
 fully acute judges, Miss Susan. Yes, yes ; the whole thing is 
 pretty plain. And I have accused my dear Portia of being 
 heartless, worldly; never guessing that an honourable 
 attachment to this young man might be at the bottom of all 
 her seeming inconstancy. I see it now a hundred words of 
 the poor child's come back to me. She was too honourable 
 to break off her engagement to her cousin, but she accepted 
 her release thankfully. Portia's is a fine nature, Susan." 
 
 "Yes I hope so." 
 
 " There are faults without number, of which I would wish 
 to see her cured, but they are all faults of her generation 
 rather than of her own. This independence, for instance ! 
 Running down to the ' Smiths at Brighton/ the ' Gordons 
 at Worthing ' people her grandfather and myself do not 
 know by name. In olden days a young woman would have 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 217 
 
 been considered lost who had travelled about the country 
 unescorted. But Portia tells me it is the fashion for girls 
 to be independent that every one does the same : and so 
 I try to be satisfied." 
 
 " And if what you suppose is true, no doubt Mr. Blake will 
 be Portia's escort," remarked Susan. 
 
 " H'm ! I don't see that that makes it any better, my 
 dear I mean as regards appearances for I know Portia 
 too well to suspect her of anything compromising to her 
 personal dignity. However, as matters stand now, all I can do 
 is to keep quiet. Lady Erroll little thinks that, through her 
 instrumentality, my poor Portia may be brought into making 
 a marriage of affection after all." This was rather a 
 soliloquy than an address to Susan. " She encourages Blake 
 because it is convenient for the world to see some man who is 
 not Teddy Josselin at Portia's side, and in the end may find 
 that she has played her adversary's game ! You will not 
 speak, Susan I know you will not speak to any one of 
 what is going on ? " 
 
 Susan, with a heavy heart, promised secrecy, and Miss 
 Jemima, after a little more talk, all of Portia, and Portia's 
 supposed love affairs, went on her way. 
 
 " So ends that dream, that exquisite piece of folly," thought 
 Susan, gazing blankly round her at the heath ; purple shadow 
 and gleaming sunlight all blurred and indistinct through fast- 
 rising tears. " Was I mad enough to think, with Portia by, 
 that he would look at me, feel anything for me but pity ? I've 
 been loved once by papa, as a child is loved. The other love 
 is for girls like Portia girls with beauty, position, wit .... 
 yet my heart is worth more than hers. She may marry Mr. 
 Blake ; she will never care for him as I could have done. 
 Oh ! I hope they'll never see my face again never be able to 
 look at me with pity, guessing my secret.' 1 
 
 Something in the last thought stirred Susan's pride, as 
 much pride as her very vmheroic character could be said to 
 posses, and she rose, and walked back with :i brisker step to 
 
218 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 the Collinsons' house. She had still some hours to pass alone, 
 and with no other means of distraction than the contents of 
 Eliza's bookselves concordances, treatises on home brewing, 
 knitting-books, and the like dreary odds and ends of literature 
 It had been arranged that there should be no regular dinner 
 that day, but a cold six o'clock meal, to which Eliza gave the 
 name of a "meat-tea." It was seven o'clock, however, before 
 either of the Collinsons made their appearance ; and Susan 
 was just beginning to feel not only excessively unhappy but 
 excessively hungry, when Eliza Collinson, heated, limp, brow- 
 beaten, walked in, closely followed by her brother ! Alas ! 
 Susan felt she had never been so glad to see him as at this 
 moment. 
 
 Mr. Collinson seemed to be in higher spirits than usual, 
 and had brought a huge lobster in his hand as an addition to 
 the tea-table. Tea ? not for him. Let Betsy run and fetch a 
 bottle of Bass from the Rose and, stay, it would be as well 
 to get a pint of sherry too : Miss Eliza was not looking well. 
 " I've good news to tell you, Eliza," he said, turning to his 
 sister. " What, in the name of fortune, makes you look so 
 lachrymose 1 Wouldn't old Hackitt let you get the blacking- 
 brushes for nothing, or what ? I've heard of a situation at 
 last." 
 
 " You've heard of a great many," said Miss Collinson, in a 
 flat voice. " Have you got one 1 " 
 
 "You are a hopeful, cheery spirit, Eliza, on my word ! : 
 said Tom, looking round with a good-humoured smile from 
 the side-table, where he was breaking his lobster limb from 
 limb, ready for salad. " If there is a pleasant doubt to be 
 thrown on any subject, you know so well where to put it in. 
 No, I've not got a situation, Miss Collinson, but I can have 
 one to-morrow if I choose." 
 
 And he drew a morning paper from his pocket, arid threw 
 it across into his sister's lap. " You'll see what I mean half 
 way down the first column. 'Eligible investment for a 
 gentleman of means and spirit/ " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 219 
 
 Miss Collinson held tlie paper at arm's length, as ladies do 
 who are just too young for glasses, and passed her finger down 
 the column. " A catchpenny piece of rubbish ! " she ex- 
 claimed, after a minute. " You may see a score such in any 
 paper you take up. l A new company requiring a secretary 
 with eight hundred pounds capital.' Eight hundred pounds 
 for them to put into their pockets ! Besides, supposing it all 
 to be Bony Fidy " Miss Collinson loved to air these marks 
 of superior culture " supposing it to be Bony Fidy, how 
 could it possibly suit you 1 ' A gentleman of good address/" 
 referring to the paper, "* industry, business habits, and a 
 spare capital of eight hundred or a thousand pounds.' You 
 have no capital ; you have no business habits " 
 
 " And no good address," interrupted Tom, his mouth full 
 of lettuce. "Very well, my dear. You will keep to your 
 opinion, I to mine, and mine is that I shall have that situa- 
 tion, value three hundred per annum, before another fortnight 
 is over." 
 
 The return of Betsy, a bottle W3ll-frothed under each arm, 
 put an end to the discussion. Miss Collinson unloosed the 
 strings rf h.3r bonnet, tilted it a little back on her head, and 
 so sat down to the tea-table. Whenever she had been un- 
 usually disturbed in her mind, Eliza Collinson seemed to 
 derive mysterious consolation from sitting down to some meal 
 in her bonnet "Thank you, Susan, I think I should be 
 obliged if you would pour out the tea, for once. My hand 
 shakes like an aspen. Never while I live will I enter another 
 sale. It was a heartrending sight, I can tell you, Tom. The 
 stair Kidderminster, as good as new, knocked down for one 
 and four not the price of the rods." 
 
 " The stair carpet ? " said Susan, who knew as much about 
 money as a baby. " What, all the stair carpet for one and 
 fourpence 1 Well, that does sound cheap." 
 
 " One and fourpence a yard, child what are you talking 
 of ? and the parlour window-blinds tenpence each. I could 
 have cried to see it ! Still there were other things that fetched 
 
220 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 a ridiculous price. Now, the scrapers 1 remember your poor 
 father paid eight shillings for them new, and old Miss Budd, 
 bidding against Mrs. Bolt, ran them up to nine-and-six. But 
 I have remarked all my life scrapers do sell well, somehow ' " 
 
 Miss Collinson looked hard at Tom, then at Susan, as she 
 hazarded this reminiscence with an air of subdued melancholy. 
 And was the sale a good or a bad one on the whole ? " 
 cried Tom, impatiently. " Susan don't want to hear all this 
 bosh about scrapers and window-blinds. One thing with 
 another, did the property realize what was expected 1 " 
 
 il The property," said Miss Collinson, drawing forth her 
 note-book and looking up and down its straggling labyrinths 
 of weak pencil figures "the property realized (ah ! no, eight- 
 pence must come off the blue and yellow jug ; Hackitt did his 
 best, but Miss Budd had two witnesses to swear that 'twas 
 cracked when he put it up) well, in round numbers, one 
 hundred and seventy-four pounds. From this deduct Hackitt's 
 commission, catalogues, etc., and you will bring it down 
 eighteen pounds good. As near as I can say, one hundred 
 and fifty-six pounds will be paid to your account, Susan." 
 
 "It won't do me any particular good," said Susan. 
 
 " It would go a long way towards furnishing another 
 house," said Tom. 
 
 Miss Collinson coughed, and drank her tea. 
 
 " I'm afraid you must have found the day long all by your- 
 self, my dear Susan. Just when we were in the middle of the 
 sale I remembered I had locked up the pickles, and there was 
 nothing but the end of cold beef for your lunch." 
 
 " Oh ! I did not want the pickles," said Susan, with a faint 
 attempt at a smile. " I wasn't hungry. It made me sick to 
 think of all papa's things being handled by strangers. I don't 
 think I ever spent such a miserable day in my life." 
 
 Tom gave her an affectionate glance. "Do take some 
 lobster," he pleaded, drawing his chair a little nearer 
 hers. " Oh ! I know you've had a wretched slice of veal 
 pie, but you haven't eat half enough. Now do finish with 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 lobster. I 1 o iglit it on purpose for you, and it's as fresh as 
 fresh!" 
 
 The kindness of his voice, the boyish eagerness with which 
 he jumped up for a clean plate, then piled it to overflowing 
 with lobster salad, made Susan feel as if she must cry. Never 
 was a heart more in the state of rebound, in which the old 
 adage says so many hearts are caught, than Susan's to-night. 
 Tom watched her face, and drew his own conclusions from 
 what he read there. He had made up his mind, come what 
 might, to speak definitely to Susan this evening, and a wiser 
 man than Tom might have drawn flattering augury from the 
 expression with which the poor little thing's sad eyes sank 
 down beneath his. 
 
 " Aren't you ever going to take off your bonnet, Eliza ? " he 
 asked, when the tea-things had been cleared away, and Miss 
 Collinson still held her place at the table, mourning, half aloud, 
 over item after item in her account-book. " Nothing gives me 
 the fidgets like seeing you with your bonnet perched up on 
 your head, as if you had put it there for a cockshy. Put it on 
 properly, or take it off. I should say myself, take it off." 
 
 After tendering which advice, Tom came behind his sister's 
 chair, raised her by the elbows, and, holding her firmly in a 
 like manner, propelled her across the small parlour to the door. 
 He put her in the passage, counselling her kindly, to go to her 
 own room and lie down for an hour, then returned to Susan. 
 
 "Eliza's a worthy, well-meaning creature, but tiring," he 
 remarked, stopping about two yards distant from her, and get- 
 ting his hands well out of the way behind him. "I saw you 
 were tired to death with all that stupid talk about the sale, and 
 so I sent her away. Oh ! Miss Fielding " the pint of sherry 
 Tom had taken was beginning to inspire him with eloquence 
 " I can't think what it is that makes you look so pale and 
 cast down upon my word, I can't ! If I could be of any use 
 to you, if you would only look upon me as as " 
 
 His face got scarlet. But Susan, happily, was looking away 
 through the window by which she sat, not at him. 
 
i 
 222 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " There's nothing more than usual to cast me down, Mr. 
 Collinson." She was thinking at that instant of Blake and 
 Portia, so made the assertion with spirit. " I can't help being 
 upset a little about the sale ; I shall be all right to-morrow." 
 
 " But you are never all right," persisted Tom. " You are 
 never in really good spirits. Don't you think I watch you, 
 sitting by the window here as if you expected to see some one 
 pass from morning till night, and never a smile on your face 1 
 There's something on your mind, Miss Susan. I know that 
 very well." 
 
 " Indeed there is not," cried Susan, all in a flutter of in- 
 dignant denial. " You never made a greater mistake. I'm 
 sorry to leave the old home, and to have to live so far away 
 among strangers, but that's all. Pray, what other trouble do 
 you suppose I could have on my mind 1 It's very unfeeling 
 of you to say so/ 1 
 
 "Unfeeling !" an opening had come for him in that word, 
 and Tom made the best of it manfully. " You think I could 
 be unfeeling you think I could say a word to offend you 1 " 
 here he succeeded in getting a step nearer. " When I think 
 of you the first moment my eyes are open .... all the night 
 
 before last I lay awake as miserable Oh, Susan ! " he 
 
 fell down on his knees, "I know I haven't much in the way 
 of prospects to offer, but I'd work my life out for you if you'd 
 have me ! " And he put up his arm round her waist. 
 
 As far as coherence goes, the proposal was perhaps not quite 
 up -to the average mark of proposals. Still Tom was so 
 thoroughly in earnest, so brimming over with emotion such 
 emotion as it was ! that his deficiencies of language did not 
 make themselves as obvious to Susan's perception as they do- 
 to yours and mine. 
 
 " Don't be silly," she cried, but not very forcibly. "I I'll 
 tell your sister of you, sir. Oh dear ! suppose Betsy was to 
 come in ? " 
 
 " Suppose she was suppose every Betsy in the world was 
 to come in," said Tom, carried altogether away, " what should 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 223 
 
 I care ? Do you think I'd be ashamed to be found on my 
 knees before you ] " 
 
 " I know that I should be ashamed for you," said Susan, 
 beginning to laugh. " Do remember the windows are open. 
 People will think we are acting a charade." 
 
 Something in her tone made Tom start up to his feet. 
 " You treat me like a boy ! " he exclaimed. " You pretend 
 to think it a joke. Acting a charade, indeed ! And I tell 
 you that I'm miserable about you that all my happiness 
 depends on what you say to me ! " 
 
 The muscles round his mouth twitched ; his voice got husky. 
 Susan felt terribly sorry for him. 
 
 " Do come here, out of sight of the road, and tell me the 
 worst ! " went on Tom. " I'll try to bear it, if you'll only say 
 you don't care for any other fellow, and if you worit laugh at 
 me!" 
 
 He stood behind the window curtain, extending his arms to 
 her. Susan jumped up, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 
 She half moved to him, then stopped. 
 
 " This is all nonsense, you know, Mr. Collinson." 
 
 "It's life or death to me," said Tom. "But, of course, if 
 you hate me " 
 
 " Hate you 1 I think I should be very wicked if I did ! " 
 
 " And I have no fine house to offer you. I'll try to get this 
 situation, and work my best, but I couldn't give you a fine 
 house and servants like the Ffrench's." 
 
 " What should I want with a fine house and servants 1 " 
 
 " Susan, do you like me don't answer ! for pity's sake, 
 don't answer so quick ! do you like me just a little ?" 
 
 " You know I do ; but " 
 
 " Yes, yes. The rest would come in time. I should be 
 content to wait. Now only one more word. Say you 
 don't refuse me ! " 
 
 Susan stood irresolute. She had really grown to like 
 well, to tolerate, this poor Tom Collinson; and it went 
 against her very nature to pain him, or anybody; and 
 
224 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 five minutes ago she had felt so desolate ; and she did so 
 shudder at the prospect of that far-off home in France ! And 
 George Blake had forgotten her ; and other friends than the 
 Collinsons she had none ! " I wish you hadn't taken me bv 
 surprise so ! " she said at last. 
 
 Tom got hold of her hand, and kissed it. Her heart gave 
 one passionate throb as she thought of George Blake, of the 
 night when he left her at the door of Addison Lodge. And 
 then she remembered that George Blake had only trifled with 
 her, only looked upon her as Portia's friend, and that Tom 
 Collinson was in earnest. 
 
 "I'm the happiest fellow on earth," he whispered with 
 lover-like ardour, and again stealing an arm round her waist. 
 
 " Oh, please oh, do let me go ! " cried Susan, breaking 
 from him and returning to the protection of the window. 
 " Here comes Eliza. I know Eliza will treat it all as a joke." 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 Miss COLLINSON entered the room ; saw Susan's blushing, 
 bewildered face ; saw Tom's exultantly happy one ; and knew, 
 before either of them spoke, what had happened. 
 
 "You have done with accounts at lasU " stammered 
 Susan, vaguely hoping that Tom would keep his own counsel, 
 that the love-scene she had gone through would remain a 
 secret between themselves the first act in a charade that 
 was to have no sequel. 
 
 " I've got good news to tell you, Eliza ! " cried Tom, run- 
 ning up to his sister, and, in his wild excitement, actually 
 kissing her. " Susan and me have found out our own 
 minds at last. Now, Eliza, what have you got to say 
 to us?" 
 
 " Us.'' The monosyllable fell with a singularly grating 
 sound on Susan's ear. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 225 
 
 "'I hope yon won't think badly of me, Miss Collinson. 
 Indeed, it was not my fault, but " 
 
 But before she could finish, Tom was at her side ; Tom, 
 right before his sister's eyes, with his arm round her, as 
 though he already looked upon her as his own possession. 
 
 " No ; it was no one's fault except Susan's, for having the 
 prettiest face ID the world a face that did my business for 
 me the first time I saw it. If I felt apology was wanted, all 
 I should say would be this : ' Look at Susan ! '" 
 
 The prettiest face in the world ! Not a dear little irregular 
 English face, whose irregularities were charms in artistic eyes, 
 but " pretty " sweetest word that can be spoken to a girl of 
 seventeen ! Susan's eyes fell, the dimples showed in her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "You are both very young," said Miss Collinson, in a 
 depressed voice. "I'm sure I hope you know your own 
 minds. Seventeen and twenty-three dear, dear ! your ages 
 together scarce come up to forty." 
 
 Tom burst into one of his loud laughs. "And what 
 the dickens does that signify % why add up anything 1 We 
 are not talking of scrapers and door-mats now. I thought you 
 were an advocate of early marriages, Eliza 1 You have told 
 me, times enough, nothing would steady me like a wife." 
 
 " But I am not old enough to be any one's wife," cried 
 Susan. " Miss Collinson is right. We don't know our own 
 minds. The thing is ridiculous." 
 
 " I know my mind," said Tom Collinson, almost fiercely, and 
 still holding Susan by the waist. "It isn't only during the last 
 ten minutes I've begun to think of all this, as you know, Eliza. 
 I determined long ago to give up everything, here and 
 elsewhere, for Susan, if Susan would have me, and to work 
 for her, and become an altered sort of fellow altogether. 
 
 Where the is the good of talking about age 1 I shall 
 
 make a deuced deal steadier husband now than I should five 
 
 years hence, going on leading such a life as mine 
 
 has been ! " 
 
 a 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Miss Collinson ranged herself at once on Tom's side, as 
 she always did when his voice waxed loud, and oaths began 
 to fly about. " I said nothing against early marriages, Tom. 
 I only said I hoped you knew your own minds, and alluded, 
 as a matter of curiosity, to the rather low figure of your united 
 ages. If Susan's guardian will consent, and if you succeed in 
 getting employment, I'm sure I don't even see why your court- 
 ship should be a long one. You might make your home here, 
 if it was any use to you, at first." 
 
 Their courtship ! It was considered a matter of settled 
 fact, then, already 1 Susan's spirits sank to zero when they 
 all sat down, Tom close beside her on the sofa, and the 
 brother and sister began to talk over the business part of this 
 engagement, into which she had allowed herself to be 
 entrapped. Tom's plan, it seemed, was to set about investi- 
 gating the advertisement at once, and, if the affair promised 
 well, to invest in it the required eight hundred pounds. He 
 did not happen to have the requisite cash in hand for the 
 moment, but Susan's guardian, no doubt, would advance it to 
 him on his own personal security, and the proceeds of 
 the Addison Lodge sale would suffice to furnish them a small 
 house in whatever part of London his duties should require 
 him to live. The eight hundred pounds were, according to 
 the advertisement, to yield twenty per cent. ; that made a 
 hundred and sixty ; his salary would be three hundred pounds ; 
 the interest of Susan's remaining money, say, ten pounds. 
 Altogether here he produced a little " horsey "-looking book 
 and jotted down the different items altogether four hundred 
 and seventy pounds a year. 
 
 " And if young people with modest ideas can't get along 
 comfortably on four hundred and seventy pounds a year, the 
 devil's in it!" said Tom. " Especially when the wife is a 
 dear little domestic, home-loving girl, like my Susan." 
 
 AH his taciturnity, all his diffidence had fled. He was 
 again the self-confident, odiously-familiar Tom Collinson from 
 whom Susan used to recoil in the early days of their acquaint- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 227 
 
 ance ; and with a sinking heart she realized as a good many 
 women have done before how easy it is to feel sorry for a 
 man as long as he continues your friend, and sorry for yoo; 
 self the minute he becomes your lover ! Inch by inch >she 
 managed to edge away out of his reach ; at last, pretending thai: 
 she must look for her work, escaped from the sofa altogether, 
 and when she reseated herself, took a chair the other side of 
 Miss Collinson. She kept close there for the rest of the 
 evening, and when ten o'clock came, accompanied Eliza from 
 the room ; yes, clinging tight to her arm, so horribly afraid 
 was the poor little child of being left alone, even for a 
 moment, with the man she had engaged herself to marry. 
 
 He fidgeted and fumed, and at last told his sister point- 
 blank to go away ; he had something very particular indeed 
 to say to Susan. But Susan was not to be conquered. And 
 so all the parting salutation he got, in his new character 
 of accepted lover, was a faltering " good-night, Tom " 
 through sheer importunity he forced her into calling 'him 
 by his Christian name and a still more faltering touch of 
 her little cold hand. It was treatment that did not in the 
 smallest degree check Tom's ardour. A man either of finer 
 sensibility or acuter judgment would have been sure to 
 read aright the coldness of such a child of nature as Susan. 
 Tom viewed it as the mere natural coyness or coquetry any 
 decorously brought up girl would be sure to show at first 
 to a lover coyness, coquetry, which every day's courtship 
 would infallibly wear away. 
 
 He had no chill misgivings as to the quality of Susan's 
 affection for him, and yet, when he was left to the com- 
 panionship of his own thoughts, Tom Collinson found himself 
 in far less assured spirits than he would have wished. Lad 
 though he was, there had already, as I have hinted, been 
 room in his life for a love episode on one side, a tragically 
 real one ! Sitting alone by the open parlour window, his 
 senses full of Susan's fair, pure face, of Susan's girlish voice, 
 memory importunately thrusts before him the reproachful 
 
 Q2 ' 
 
228 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 vision of another face, less fair, less pure, but overflowing 
 with honest love for 1dm ! He remembers, as he has not done 
 for months past, his own solemnly-plighted oaths, all broken 
 now ; remembers his outbursts of cowardly anger against th* 
 woman he had sworn to protect and cherish eternally, when 
 her brother betrayed them both ; remembers his last cruel 
 parting from her her sobs, her violent language, her despair. 
 
 " Dash it all I was a boy ; I'm little better than a boy 
 now ! " thought Tom, getting up uneasily, and walking about 
 the room, " and she was a woman old enough and knowing 
 enough to take care of herself. Haven't I decided what was 
 right long ago ? Why, a woman with passions like Matty's 
 would bring a man's neck to the halter,, here in England. 
 Compare her to Susan my little shy, cold Susan, with her 
 dimples and her blushes. . . . God ! if she should hear of my 
 marriage, though it must never be put in the papers but if 
 she should hear of it ! I may be on the safe side, as far as 
 iaw goes, but from from the other way of looking at it, what 
 am I? And I did love poor Matty once. She was as fine a 
 girl as any in the province and what pluck, by Jove ! 
 that time she rode away to Mackenzie's Station for a surgeon 
 for me that night when she and her brother alone defended the 
 hut against a gang ! She shot down two men with her own 
 hand she'd shoot me as soon as look at me, I belie-ve, if she 
 was here now." 
 
 A female figure just at this moment passing along the road 
 (one of the mild old village ladies returning from a tea-party) 
 made Tom start with all the cowardice of conscious guilt. 
 He shut down the window, drew together the curtains with an 
 oath, and getting out the spirit-bottle mixed himself a glass, 
 " stiff enough :" he made the small joke to himself, but did 
 not feel much amused by it : "to set six men's consciences at 
 rest." Then took himself off, the first time for a good many 
 nights, to the Rose. 
 
 Susan, keeping her first love-vigil in her own room, a little 
 dressing-closet within Miss Collinson's, was sensible of intense 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 229 
 
 relief when she heard the loud slam of the front door. As 
 long as Tom was in the house it seemed to her now that her 
 vary thoughts were scarce her own. She listened to the sound 
 of his retreating steps down the street, then quickly slipped 
 the bolt that insured her against intrusion from Eliza, and took 
 out from the breast of her frock be lenient to her, reader ! 
 a relic ; something that during the past week had rested upon 
 her heart and kept it warm : a three-inch bit of lead pencil 
 that had once been Blake's. On her last morning at Addison 
 Lodge she had run to bid good-bye, child-fashion, to every 
 square foot of the garden and river-bank, and down close to 
 the water, where George Blake had sat when he took the 
 memorable sketch, had lighted upon this priceless treasure. 
 
 Ah, well, he was going to have Portia for his wife, and she- 
 was engaged to Tom Collinson. She must never think of any 
 one but Tom now ! And she held the pencil with jealous 
 fondness between her little hands, and wondered if it was 
 a positive moral obligation to destroy it ? .... And then 
 broke out crying noiselessly ; kissed it, and hid it away in the 
 pocket of the same memorandum-book in which her first 
 impressions of Blake and Teddy Josselin were recorded. 
 
 On the day when fate brought Blake to read the one he 
 found the other, and knew from what tenderest love his 
 passion no, by that time he termed it his madness for 
 Portia had kept him ! 
 
 Thus, in different ways, the lovers spent the first hour or 
 so after their engagement. Next morning, however, with its 
 cheerful sunshine and every-day influences, had the usual 
 dispelling effect of most next mornings upon the clouds of 
 over-night. Tom Collinson's sensitive conscience was pursued 
 by chiding memories no longer. Susan Fielding's vain regrets 
 were put away if not out of mind, out of sight, like the relic 
 that she no longer dared to wear upon her heart. They were 
 openly engaged. By seven in the morning Betsy, with 
 delicious sense of importance, had told the news to the ser- 
 vant next door. By noon, every soul in the village knew it. 
 
9 5 o SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Later in the day they walked down the street, Susan, by 
 special command, leaning on Tom's arm, and were congratu- 
 lated by twenty different tongues on their happiness. 
 
 These congratulations seemed to Susan to rivet her fate. 
 The seal of the inevitable was surely upon her projected mar- 
 riage, now that Mrs. Budd and Mrs. Bolt, and the Vicar him- 
 self had wished her joy ! She was going to spend her life 
 with Tom Collinson ; to share his troubles, his pleasures; to 
 have him for her highest, wisest friend. This she realized : 
 with her very strength tried to love him ; recoiled, shuddering 
 from the effort ; when night came opened the hidden place 
 where her bit of lead pencil lay, and cried over it accurately 
 gauging her want of love for Collinson by the knowledge 
 of how she could have loved George Blake. 
 
 And next day came the same thing over again ; and the 
 next. And after this she began to be, at least, accustomed 
 to her position and her lover " accustomed ! " word that 
 has no place in love ! If he would never, never try to 
 kiss her, she thought, and if Eliza would always keep in the 
 room when he was by, what should hinder her from growing 
 fond of him in time ] Every wife must be fond of her own 
 husband, Susan was certain. When they were married, had 
 been married a year, she would be used to him, surely ; used 
 to bergamot and stale tobacco smoke and demonstrative 
 affection alike ; and then his fun and good spirits would 
 amuse her again as in the days before their engagement, and 
 life flow on smooth and quiet as she could remember the life 
 of her own father and mother had done when she was a child. 
 So Susan reasoned, so acquiesced ; had she married, then and 
 there, would probably have passed through life acquiescent ; 
 not altogether ignorant, that nobler, more passionate love was 
 possible, yet making the best, woman-like, of her bargain, 
 and atoning to a coarse inferior husband largely by patient, 
 gentlest submission for what she lacked towards him qf 
 love. 
 
 Fate, however, held a deliverance I mean a reprieve in 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 231 
 
 store for her. One fine morning, the engagement about a 
 week old, Tom Collinson got a letter from his first forsaken 
 love in New Zealand, and by its contents was thrown into such 
 a fever of jealousy, remorse, and cupidity combined, as ended 
 in his decision to stick to duty, cost him what it might. 
 The letter, directed in an uneducated but not characterless 
 female hand, to an agent in London, from thence sent on to 
 Halfont, lay by his plate one morning when he came down to 
 breakfast, and Tom had to read it with his sister's eyes and 
 the eyes of his betrothed reading his own face : 
 
 " LONG HATTON, OTAGO PROVINCE. 
 
 " MY DEAREST TOM, I hope you are well and comfort- 
 able, and have thought better of all you said when you left. 
 You promised to write, but I have had no letter from you yet. 
 My dear Tom, this has been the Wretchedest time of my life. 
 I have thought of you day and night, and every one turning 
 from me, along of Phil (for he robbed others beside you), and 
 little Mat sick, and once I had scarcely bread to put between 
 her lips but, thank God, the worst is past, for, as you will 
 see, I have a Great News to tell you. I hope you have had no 
 return of the fever, and wear your flannels constant. Dear 
 lad, I hope all your anger against me is gone, and have got 
 no new sweetheart. I was never to blame. Phil was as Big 
 a blackguard as ever walked, and tried all he knew to ruin 
 you and me, too, but I had no more to do with it than little 
 Mat. You had no call to visit it on me. Dear Tom, this is 
 to ask you to come back home. Uncle William is dead at 
 last, down at Dunedin, and has left me three thousand pounds, 
 the share that was to have been Phil's and mine too, 'to 
 make up/ he said on his will, for all I had been injured of 
 course he meant by Phil. If you are not in any good 
 situation in England, I say you had best return at once. 
 There's a tidy little farm, down St. Peter's way, for sale, that 
 I've a mind would suit us, and can be bought cheap but 
 if you chco.se, the child and me'll come to England instead. 
 
232 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Anyway, there's the money safe and sure in the Government 
 securities, paying over six per cent. Why, only let it lie 
 there, we could live retired and comfortable if we chose, only 
 I don't think I could be happy without a bit of land to look 
 after. Folks say now I'm an Airess, and (if I was free) 
 there'd be many a young fellow glad to court me, I can tell 
 you. You know this is only to make you jealous. Some way 
 it don't seem I shall have a letter from you at all. I think 
 directly you get this you'll put up your traps, and I shall see 
 you walk in before Christmas. Mat will say a fine lot of 
 words by then. She's well on her feet again, and a stout bold 
 Maid of her age. She can say ( Dada ' plain, and takes your 
 picture and kisses it that I taught her. Now, my dear lad, 
 I have told you my News, and will finish. There has been a 
 dearth of water, but things are looking up pretty promising 
 for the cold weather. Jason's Eun is let at last, to a 
 Scotsman, I am glad to say, a staid, well-to-do young man, 
 about thirty, and unmarried. Mat's kisses " (here followed 
 five or six scrawling crosses), " and the same from your True 
 arid loving till death MATTY." 
 
 This letter, I say, Tom Collinson had to read through with- 
 his sister and Susan Fielding sitting at the table with him. 
 His face kept its colour tolerably, for a face that was not by 
 constitution the face of a hypocrite. He drank his two cup^ 
 of tea, managed to swallow sufficient food for appearance' 
 sake, then rose and walked away, not into the street, where it 
 was his habit to smoke his after-breakfast pipe, but into the- 
 narrow slip of garden that lay at the back of Miss Col- 
 linson's house. 
 
 His legs felt unsteady under him, like those of a man 
 recovering from sickness ; his hand shook as he tried, making 
 more than one failure over it, to strike a vesuvian ; the taste 
 of his pipe seemed noxious, unconsoling, as in the schooboy 
 days, when the ultimate object of tobacco had been, not con- 
 solation, but to anger Eliza. " Three thousand pounds, pay- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 233. 
 
 ing six per cent in Government securities." An estate, that 
 meant, of his own, a trusty overseer poor Matty ! to man- 
 age it, horses to ride, good animal comfort and plenty of every 
 kind, till his life's end ! To the forbearance, the generosity, 
 the womanly unselfishness of the letter he had received, Tom's 
 soul was not insensible. He was really touched by this full, 
 frank pardon accorded to him. in Tier hour of success, by the 
 woman he had wronged (though, if one considered it, what 
 more natural than that Matty, that any woman, should wish 
 for the return of a handsome young fellow like himself '?). 
 Neither to little Mat's scrawled kisses, to the account of Mat's 
 walking and talking, was he indifferent. If he had received 
 the same letter, minus the news of Uncle William's legacy, it 
 would have made him thoroughly out of sorts for the remain- 
 der of the day : have required a thoroughly stiff " conscience 
 quieter" before he could have got comfortably to sleep 
 at night. 
 
 But three thousand pounds his, if he stretched his hand out 
 for them ; his, in very fact, at that moment what a quickener 
 of natural affection, of remorse, of all a man's better senti- 
 ments was here ! 
 
 Upon the one hand he saw inclination ; the woman he 
 loved, and for whom he would have to work ; poverty. Upon 
 the other, duty ; the woman who loved and who would work 
 for him, and plenty. Was ever moral dilemma so nicely 
 equipoised ] 
 
 During the first five minutes that he paced up and clown 
 the garden-path, one uri vacillating resolve possessed Tom's 
 mind : he would act like a man of honour ; break off his 
 engagement ; return to Matty and her child, and do his duty 
 by them to his life's end. Then, chancing to look up, he saw 
 Susan's figure for a minute at the stair window ; the girlish 
 figure, the soft curled head that he loved to desperation ; and 
 with a great oath swore that he would never lose her, never 
 give her the chance of becoming another man's wife. 
 
 Duty which was duty ? Did not his word bind him to 
 
234 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Susan Fielding as much as to Matty 1 If lie were to write to 
 Matty telling her frankly, nobly, that as he had discarded her 
 in her time of trouble, so now in her time of prosperity she might 
 discard him, would not some other man be sure to make the 
 poor girl happy in time ] She was looked upon as an heiress 
 already ; there was many a smart young fellow ready to court 
 her ; a well-to-do unmarried Scotchman, she was glad to say, 
 had taken Jason's Run 
 
 Tom Collinson turned short on his heel, and clenched his 
 hand with a hotter sense of jealousy than all his love for 
 Susan had had power to awaken in him. Matty, his Matty 
 untrue ! a girl whose rough fidelity had been a byword 
 through the province a girl to whom no man who didn't 
 want a bullet through him would ever have spoken a word of 
 light love ! And he was going, cowardly, to abandon her, to 
 leave her to the temptation that' riches ir^flt be to any young 
 and handsome woman in such a position a h2rs ! Eiches, yes, 
 and, by Heaven, that were his his as much as though he 
 had a cheque for the money in his pocket at this moment ! 
 
 Money, for money's sake, was no passion with Torn Col- 
 linson ; but he was essentially, practically mercenary, as every 
 human being, coarse or refined, must be to whom present 
 personal ease is the main object of existence. A man who 
 regards the acquisition of money as a final end will often be 
 raised above the temptation of momentary gains ; the happy- 
 go-lucky pleasure-lover is for ever to be bought. And so, at 
 this crisis of his life, it really was not so much greed in the 
 abstract as immediate visions of good eating and drinking^ 
 ho:ses, abstinence from work, that lured Tom back to the path 
 of duty. He could make up his mind to no final severance 
 from Susan : could not indeed see, when he thought it calmly 
 over, what harm could be wrought by holding her pledged to 
 him ! Nothing simpler than for him to be engaged to one 
 girl in England, yet return to New Zealand and see how 
 matters stood there with the other who knows? possibly 
 arrange some division of property with Matty (considering the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 235 
 
 amount to which her brother had robbed him, would this be 
 more than rightful restitution ?), then come back and redeem 
 his word to Susan. Life was uncertain. Some one of the 
 three might die. -To need, at all events, $ to make himself 
 miserable about cruel contingencies until they were actually 
 forced upon him. 
 
 Keep quiet all round, decided Tom, when an hour's pacing 
 up and down had enabled him so far to collect his thoughts. 
 Inflict no premature suffering upon either of the women who 
 loved him, and trust to Providence to bring everything 
 straight in the end ! 
 
 And he ran into the house, his face almost cheerful again, 
 and called up the stairs to Susan to come out and have a talk 
 with him. He had received a letter of importance on business, 
 and wanted to ask her advice. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE morning sun warmed Susan's cheek with livelier colour 
 than its wont as she tripped at Tom Collinson's side along the 
 garden path. She smiled up at him more brightly, he 
 thought, than she had ever smiled before since their engage- 
 ment. " If I part with her, 111 be shot ! " resolved Tom. 
 " What is a paltry three thousand pounds what would five 
 thousand pounds what would the world be to me without 
 Susan ] " 
 
 " You wanted to ask my advice, you have got something 
 very important to say to me, Tom ? What is it 1 I'm all 
 curiosity." 
 
 Tom had led her into what Miss Collinson called the 
 " harbour " worthy of its name, as far as insects went, when 
 the scarlet-runners and nasturtiums grew higher ; at present a 
 bare damp corner of the garden, fenced round with trellis- 
 work that screened it artfully from nothing, and containing a 
 mildewed rustic chair, a cast of the First Napoleon, and a 
 
236 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 rickety rustic table. Tom was sitting on the table, Susan on 
 the chair, when she spoke. 
 
 " Oh, well, it's nothing so very particular, " he answered, 
 kicking his feet up and down in the air, to seem at his ease. 
 " You see, the fact is, I've got a letter " 
 
 " From New Zealand/' interrupted Susan. " Eliza wants 
 the stamp for little Willie Smithett." 
 
 " Oh, she was fingering my letter before I came down, was 
 she ? " cried Tom. " Eliza will get more than she wants some 
 day, preying " this was Tom's own expression " preying 
 into other people's letters. What further information did 
 Eliza give you about my affairs, I should like to know 1 " 
 
 " She said we both said the hand looked like a lady's- 
 hand," said Susan, demurely. "At least, not a lady's- 
 exactly, but not a man's." 
 
 The blood rose to Tom Collinson's very temples. "We 
 don't talk so much about ' ladies' out in the colonies," 
 said he. " A woman is content there to be called a woman, 
 and to do a woman's duties, too." 
 
 Susan felt her spirits rise higher at his tone. It was so 
 delightful to find Tom sulky, sarcastic anything but demon- 
 stratively loving to herself. " And it's about this lady who 
 is not ashamed to be called a woman that you want my 
 advice T' she asked. " Better give me the letter to read ; '" 
 holding out her hand. " I will put myself in your place and 
 judge for you." 
 
 Tom looked at her hard. Upon her soft childish face he 
 detected, or his conscience made him believe he detected, an 
 expression he had never seen there before, and from which he 
 slunk ashamed. Something of the absolute white truth of 
 Susan's soul had perhaps at that moment pierced to his, and 
 enabled him to realize ukat this scheme was which, ten 
 minutes ago, had seemed so easy of accomplishment ; had 
 enabled him to realize the abhorrence Susan would have of 
 him if, by an evil chance, poor Matty's story should become 
 known to her 1 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 237 
 
 " I never show any one my letters it's a principle of mine 
 and you and Eliza were both wrong. The letter is from a 
 man an old mate of mine in Otago. 'Tis about money. I 
 have come into money, Susan, indirectly, and and I don't 
 know but what it will be wise for you to stay here with Eliza 
 while I go back to the colony to see after my own interest." 
 
 Susan's heart leapt. " It would certainly be very foolish 
 not to see after it," she cried, without a moment's hesitation. 
 
 " Flattering ! " remarked Tom, a choking feeling at his 
 throat. " You take kindly to the thought of separation." 
 
 And he remembered Matty ! 
 
 " I only agreed with you, Tom. You said it would be wise 
 to see after your own interest, and I say so too. We have 
 very little money to begin upon, you know. Eliza says no one 
 can keep house well on less than a hundred and fifty pounds 
 a year, and we have not got that/' The secretaryship had 
 proved the veriest flash in the pan of a bubble company, and 
 Susan's guardian had treated the proposal of her money being 
 made available to a husband's benefit with the natural con- 
 tempt of an Englishman and a lawyer. " We have only forty 
 pounds a year certain, and I am so young " 
 
 "If you are young, you are uncommon prudent," exclaimed 
 Tom with bitterness. " So much excellent sense may well take 
 the place of years ! Ah, a girl who ioved a man wouldn't cal- 
 culate about money, and age, and prudence, the very moment 
 she heard he was to go to the Antipodes ! " 
 
 Susan bent down her face. " You would only have to leave 
 me for a bit, I dare say, Tom." But her voice resolutely 
 refused to take a melancholy tone, try what she would. 
 
 " Well, I don't know that it would be for very long not 
 more than a year, as far as I can see now," said Tom. " Still, 
 when two people have once got the world between them, there 
 are a hundred chances as to their ever coming together again. 
 One of us might die." 
 
 " So we might if we were together," said Susan, persistently 
 hopeful. 
 
238 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Or or marry some one else." Tom Collinson could not 
 bring his eyes to look at hers as he said this. 
 
 " Oh, if you feel that, it is good to put your fidelity to the 
 proof," said Susan with a small laugh. " I know that 7 would 
 keep my word to any one in New Zealand just the same as if 
 they were in Halfont." 
 
 Tom Collinson jumped down from the table ; he caught her 
 hand with vehemence. " Will you swear all that 1 " he ex- 
 claimed. " Will you take your oath to be true to me if I go 
 away 1 *' 
 
 " I will have nothing to do with swearing," said Susan ; 
 " oh, you hurt me," shrinking from him ; "let my hand go ! 
 Don't you know that I'm half a Quaker, and that Quakers 
 never swear 1 If I took an oath, I should feel I was doing 
 something wicked, and it would mean no more to my con- 
 science than simple Yes or No." 
 
 " Well, simple Yes, then. If I go abroad if I'm away a 
 year, or two years will you keep faithful to our engage- 
 ment r 
 
 " Must all this be settled in a minute, Tom ? I should like 
 to ask Eliza." 
 
 " And I should like you not to ask Eliza. More wisdom to 
 be got out of the old cockatoo ; you can teach her beforehand 
 what to answer. You know your own heart, surely, without 
 wanting any other woman to read it for you. If I go away ? 
 will you hold faithfully to your engagement to me 1 " 
 
 " You must have an answer now 1 " 
 
 ' "Now, directly ; and if I don't get it, and in the very words 
 I wish, the money may take care of itself. Never fear I'll give 
 up the certainty of you for the chance of a wretched three or 
 four thousand pounds, Miss Fielding." 
 
 " Well, I'll say what you wish, then. What is it 1 " 
 
 " ' I promise to remain true to you, and to our engage- 
 ment/ " 
 
 ' I promise to remain true to you, and to our engage- 
 ment. " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 239 
 
 " ' Until the day when you set me free/ " 
 
 This also she repeated, not without a little paling of the lips. 
 She was gaining an enormous gain in present liberty ; but the 
 words that bound her to Tom Collinson for life could not be 
 spoken without an effort. 
 
 " That is good," said Tom, with an air of intense relief. 
 " I can talk matters over with a better heart now. There's 
 only one thing more I'm a fool, a jealous fool, Susan, where 
 you are concerned, but I can't help it. Promise me you'll 
 never care for any other man while I'm gone ! " 
 
 A flash of indignant light shot from Susan's eyes. " You 
 ask me this when I have promised to keep engaged to you ! " 
 she cried, all the eagerness of half-conscious guilt in her voice. 
 
 " I only mentioned it," said Tom, humbly. " I can't help 
 being jealous it's my nature ; I was jealous, and I don't mind 
 saying so, at the thought of that singing fellow Blake, Miss 
 Ff rerich's present lover. Promise me you'll never have another 
 word to say to him ! " 
 
 " Indeed, I'll promise nothing of the sort, sir ! If Mr. 
 Blake is engaged to Portia, I shall certainly have to meet him 
 and be .... civil to him. You are not reasonable." 
 
 " No," said Tom, humbly still ; " I know I'm not, where 
 you are concerned, Susan." The tears rose to his eyes. 
 " How shall I live without you ? " 
 
 " You have managed to live without me a good many years 
 already." 
 
 " Don't flirt with Blake. I'm talking like a fool, but I can't 
 help it. Don't flirt with Blake." 
 
 " Have you quite lost your senses, Tom 1 Likelier than not 
 I shall never see Mr. Blake again." 
 
 " Yet a minute ago you said you would certainly have to 
 meet him and be .... civil to him. You are prevaricating, 
 i insist upon your not prevaricating. Promise me never to 
 write a letter to that man." 
 
 "Tom!" 
 
 " Promise," seizing her hand ; " now. this moment, or * 
 
240 SI/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Oh, I promise, I promise ! I'll never flirt with, any one. 
 I'll never write a letter to Mr. Blake." 
 
 " Nor sing with him ? " 
 
 With a dart like a bird Susan flew from Tom's grasp to the 
 path, where the back windows of the whole row of houses pro- 
 tected her. " I'll promise nothing more, thank you, Mr. 
 Collinson," making him a little curtsey. "I'm to be engaged 
 to you till the day you set me free, and I'm to flirt with no 
 one, and I'm not to write letters to Mr. Blake. There my 
 obligations end." 
 
 " Come back here, my dear, and let me put a ring on your 
 finger." 
 
 "What ring? Eliza's diamond? No, indeed. I think it 
 very selfish of you to take that diamond from your sister." 
 
 " I don't mean the diamond ; " Tom glanced at it as it 
 shone, many-coloured, on his broad short hand. " That goes 
 with me abroad for poor Eliza's sake. I have a ring of my 
 own that will just fit your biggest finger this bloodstone that 
 I wear on my chain. Come, you must have it, you know. 
 All engaged girls wear rings." 
 
 Susan, on hearing this, advanced, but not out of sight of 
 the houses, then stretched out a little white hand. 
 
 " You are never to take it off, mind ! It must stay here 
 till I replace it with a plain gold one," said Tom. His voice 
 was positively pathetic, so much in earnest was he as he 
 unfastened the ring (Matty's love-gift once) from his chain 
 and put it upon Susnn's finger. " Promise me you'll never 
 take it off." 
 
 " What, not when I wash my hands, Tom ? You are so 
 silly to-day." 
 
 He let loose her hand, and turned impatiently away. Was 
 the girl half foolish, after all incapable of head and heart, as 
 he used to think when he first knew her 1 or was this childish 
 lightness of manner a simple honest token that she was glad 
 to be rid of him? Tom Collinson asked himself these 
 questions pretty often during the next two days, as he watched 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 241 
 
 the irrepressible brightness of Susan's face, tliruwn out in strong 
 relief l-y the constantly red eyes and tear-stained cheeks of 
 Eliza, upon whom the news of her brother's projected absence 
 had fallen like a thunderbolt. She was friendlier towards 
 him, far, than she had been yet since their engagement ; was 
 ready to help Eliza in preparing his things for the voyage ; 
 did not fly, as she used, from being alone with him ; morning 
 and night submitted her forehead to him with tolerably good 
 grace to be kissed ; was generosity itself in forcing him to 
 accept all the little money over which she had control towards 
 the expenses of his journey. Yet still still she was in better 
 spirits than she had been for weeks ! once or twice cried, 
 maybe, at seeing Eliza cry, and laughed before the tears were 
 dry upon her cheeks ; ran with a lighter step than Tom had 
 ever heard her about the house ; got a heightenc d colour ; ate 
 better; showed the truth, in short that she was, and felt 
 herself to be, reprieved. 
 
 Tom Collinson's jealous heart got heavier and heavier as the 
 hour drew nigh when he must lose her out of his sight. When 
 the astonishing news of his New Zealand legacy had first been 
 told, with discreet reservations, to E"i:a, it was decided, 
 not a little against Susan's inclination, that the future 
 sisters-in-law should live together till his return. But the 
 more Tom Collinson thought over this scheme the less he 
 liked it. Eliza's house was too near the Ffrenches for Tom's 
 taste. He did not want his little modest Susan to be intimate 
 with people so much above their own rank in life. And then 
 there were the chances of meeting that singing fellow again, 
 and the certainty of the Hounslow cavalry barracks. How 
 could a girl like Susan walk about unprotected in the neigh- 
 bourhood of cavalry barracks 1 for Eliza, poor pious goose, 
 had no more knowledge of the world than Susan herself. 
 Wiser, when one thought it over, that she should go to her 
 uncle Adam in France, as had been decided ; lead the secluded 
 life fittest for a young woman in her position, dream of him. 
 live upon the excitement of getting his letters till his return. 
 
 
 
242 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 And Susan accepted the change of plans with suspicious 
 cheerfulness. She was no longer a child, shrinking with 
 childish dread from leaving the scenes amidst which her 
 unstirred seventeen years of existence had hitherto flowed. 
 Her short, too sweet friendship with George Blake, her ten 
 days* engagement to Tom Collinson, seemed to have broken 
 all the old threads of her life sharply in twain. She had 
 fathomed disappointment, jealousy, vain hope, passionate 
 regret over lost freedom feelings that change a child rapidly 
 enough into a woman since that afternoon when Collinson 
 found her crying, because "the world was too big for her," 
 upon the bridge. Now the prospect of leaving Halfont was 
 not only bearable, but welcome to her. She would better 
 enjoy her year's reprieve, she felt, apart from all old associa- 
 tions ; would at least not be perpetually reminded of Tom 
 Collinson by his sister's presence ; would be spared witnessing 
 the progress of Portia Ffrench's new engagement. 
 
 " Whatever you think best for me, Tom. As I never wrote 
 to uncle Adam about about our meaning to be married, 
 perhaps it would be best to carry out the old plan, and I shall 
 learn French, and take singing lessons, and be quite an 
 accomplished lady by the time you return." 
 
 " Then I hope you'll learn from women not men," cried 
 Tom. This conversation took place on the evening before his 
 departure, and they were sitting together, all three, in the 
 dusk. "Eliza, I leave this charge to you. Write to Mrs. 
 Byng, and desire that Susan may never take a lesson of any 
 kind from a Frenchman. I don't want you to be accomplished, 
 Susan. I want you to be nothing but what you are only 
 fonder of me." 
 
 At seven next morning he started, the vessel in which his 
 passage was taken sailing from Liverpool that night ; so the 
 whole little household had to be up at daybreak Eliza, 
 indeed, did not go to her bed at all. As the hour for parting 
 approached, Tom Collinson cried like a child. Susan had 
 never seen a man shed tears in her life before, and Tom's 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 243 
 
 shocked her beyond measure. If he had been her brother, 
 she would, no doubt, have thrown her arms round his neck, 
 and cried with him, and thought his tears the most natural 
 weakness in the world. But he was not her brother ; and at 
 the sight of his swollen eyes and red nose she felt half dis- 
 gusted, half inclined to run out of the room and laugh. Girls 
 of her age judge men so heartlessly in these small matters. 
 And then not Tom only, but Miss Collinson, and the small 
 servant cried ! If she had been offered a fortune for a tear, 
 Susan could not have shed one. 
 
 She busied herself in every way she could think of to 
 conceal that she had no emotion to conceal ; would scarcely 
 trust herself to speak for contrition at the steadiness of her 
 voice ; when the final moment of leave-taking came, tried with 
 her very might to look and feel agitated, and failed signally. 
 Susan Fielding could no more feign than she could hide 
 emotion. Tom all this time watched her with jeakms anguish 
 through his tears. 
 
 "Do go away for one minute, Eliza," he said, as poor Miss 
 Collinson continued to cling wistfully to his side, babbling in 
 a choking voice about the sandwiches, and the brandy flask, 
 and how he must promise to write regularly, and how she 
 would think of him, and pray for him. " Not say good-bye 
 to you affectionately 1 of course I'll say good-bye to you affec- 
 tionatelyat the door. Don't you see that Susan and I want 
 to have a few words together 1 " 
 
 Eliza on this went out obediently into the passage, and 
 sobbed there, giving broken orders to the driver about luggage 
 as she sobbed ; the lovers were left alone face to face. 
 
 Tom opened his arms. " Come here, my love tell me 
 you're sorry I'm going, Susan ! I may never see you again, 
 you know." 
 
 Genuine feeling shook his voice as he pleaded, but Susan's 
 heart kept ice-cold. " Please don't talk like that, Tom. Of 
 course I'm sorry ; of course you'll come back ; why shouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 R2 
 
244 St/SAW FIELDING. 
 
 " God knows ! A hundred things may happen to keep me. 
 There's not much good in me, my dear never has been. If 
 some day I turn out a worse blackguard even than you ex- 
 pected, would you forgive me and love me still, I wonder It " 
 
 " You know I should forgive you." 
 
 " Forgive, yes ! Would you love me do you love me now? 
 Say yes, Susan. Come and kiss me once of your own free 
 will. God knows you have kept me at arm's length enough 
 hitherto ! " 
 
 She came a step nearer when he said this ; she looked up at 
 his face, his flushed wet cheeks, his swollen quivering lips, arid 
 all the little girl's honest soul revolted against doing what he 
 claimed as a right. " I do like well, love you, Tom ; I mean 
 I'll try, and I'll be quite true to what I promised. Don't ask 
 me any more " 
 
 Miss Collinson's knuckles here sounded a tremulous warning 
 at the door ; receiving no answer, she opened it a couple of 
 inches, and coughed. " Jim Simmons says you'll miss the 
 train if you don't hurry, Tom. You are late as it is." And 
 then Susan found herself locked in a passionate last embrace, 
 heard a broken " God bless you," felt tears fall hot and thick 
 upon her face ; a moment more, and Tom had rushed off from 
 the house, breaking impatiently past his sister's outstretched 
 arms on his way. 
 
 " And he has my diamond on his finger," said Eliza, as they 
 stood and watched the fly drive down the village street. 
 " Poor boy ; I had not the heart to remind him of it at the 
 last ! " 
 
 All through the remainder of that day Susan felt a wonderful 
 lightness at her heart. She was her own mistress once more. 
 No haunting dread of finding herself alone in a room with 
 Tom Collinson, of seeing Tom Collinson's eyes gazing at her 
 with an affection that made her shudder ; nothing but the 
 bloodstone ring on her finger to remind her that her liberty 
 was forfeited. Miss Collinson could not restrain a little natural 
 acrimony at the sight of the girl's tearless face : 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 145 
 
 " I am glad to see you have your feelings under such fine 
 control, Susan. When I when I had a lover, I was not so 
 philosophical. But the girls of this generation are more luckily 
 constituted ! Far happier for oneself to be over-blunt than 
 over-sensitive in feeling." 
 
 "I don't think my feelings are blunt always," answered 
 Susan. 
 
 The evening post brought her a note from Tom ; a few lines 
 scrawled in pencil in his school-boy hand, and posted at some 
 station on the way to Liverpool. " My own dear love," he 
 wrote, " I've been gone from you four hours, and it seems an 
 eturnity." This was Tom's style of spelling. " If it wasn't 
 for shame's sake, I'd turn back, and let the money go to the 
 dickens. Love me, my little Susan. Don't forget to think of 
 me every hour in the day, and believe always in the affection 
 of your fond lover, T.C." And then in a postscript, written 
 very big and clear, this reminder : " Don't flirt with Blake." 
 
 " I am glad you can smile, Susan," said Eliza, as she 
 watched, first some tell-tale dimples, then a blush mantle over 
 Susan's face. " Pray, what message does my poor brother 
 send me ? " 
 
 " Your brother wishes himself back already," said Susan. 
 "It is a very nice little note." 
 
 " I suppose I mayn't see it 1 " 
 
 "Well don't be vexed, Eliza ; but I think Tom wrote it 
 for me only." 
 
 This, of course, was as it ought to be. Miss Collinson felt 
 better satisfied. 
 
 For the first time since her engagement Susan did not open 
 her pocket-book that night. When Tom was here to guard his 
 own interests, she had never considered it a duty to abandon 
 the pleasure : exquisitely keen like all the pleasures of first 
 love ! .of touching, gazing at, shedding tears over, her treasure. 
 She felt herself like a prisoner on parole now ; free, delight- 
 fully free from her lover's presence, but bound more stringently 
 than his presenee had bound her to be faithful to him. Before 
 
246 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 putting out her candle she read his note once more. " Don't 
 flirt with Blake." Oh, unnecessary command! Would she 
 ever see George Blake again ? or, if she did see him, would it 
 not be as Portia's lover 1 
 
 The first tears that she had shed to-day wetted her pillow at 
 the thought. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 IT had been arranged that Susan should reach her uncle's 
 house within a week from the present time. She was, how- 
 ever, to stay with her guardian in London before starting on 
 her journey, and so the day succeeding Tom's departure was 
 also her last day in Halfont. The wrench of leave-taking had 
 come at last. 
 
 Summer during the past fortnight had ripened into full 
 warmth and glory; and when Susan, late in the afternoon, 
 called to say good-bye at the Manor House, she found Colonel 
 Ffrench and his sister sunning themselves on the sheltered 
 western lawn beneath the cedars. Colonel Ffrench's handsome 
 old face was just then looking its wickedest and its blackest 
 when he turned it round suddenly at the sound of Susan's 
 footsteps, it required all the little girl's self-command not to 
 run, like the village children, from his presence for Miss 
 Jemima, relying upon the genial influences of open air and 
 sunshine, had just broken to him the news of Portia's rupture 
 with her cousin. He took off his hat to Susan, with the air 
 of high-bred gallantry that it had been the habit of his life to 
 pay to all women (save those of his own household), then 
 beckoned his valet, who was in waiting at some yards' distance, 
 iind leaning on the man's arm, walked feebly towards the 
 house. 
 
 " Portia has not returned, my dear," said Miss Jemima with 
 a sigh of thankfulness at the interruption to the scene. A 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 247 
 
 scene with her brother was the one thing on earth that quelled 
 the brave old soldier's spirit, and no wonder. Who that had 
 seen Colonel Ffrench's courtier-like salutation of Susan would 
 have guessed at the kind of epithets which a minute before he 
 had been lavishing on Teddy Josselin, on Lady Erroll, on 
 Jemima herself, on any one every one who had involved him 
 in the expense of a futile trousseau, and left his granddaughter 
 upon his hands still ! " You have come to say good-bye, I 
 fear, Susan ; but Portia is in London still." 
 
 " And I am going there to-morrow ; I am to stay a day or 
 two with my guardian before I start for France. Portia will 
 
 let me say good-bye to her in London, unless, unless ." 
 
 Susan did not like to add, " unless, living in the house of a 
 Countess, Portia will be too grand to acknowledge me ! " 
 
 " I will write to her to-night, and bid her call on you, my 
 dear. What is your friend's address ] a hundred and eight 
 Brunswick Square. I shall not forget. I knew Brunswick 
 Square well in old days. A hundred and eight must be the 
 corner house. It will do Portia good to see you. She 
 returned from her different visits yesterday, and wrote me a 
 letter half in wild spirits, half-miserable one of those letters 
 of hers that make one so unhappy. How I wish Portia was 
 married, Susan ! " 
 
 " When last you spoke to me about Portia, you were think- 
 ing she would very soon be married," said Susan, hiding her 
 face. 
 
 *' Ah, to Mr. Blake. That was all a dream of mine, I begin 
 to fear. However, I dare say you will see them together in 
 London, and then you will be able to judge for yourself." 
 
 Susan's heart gave a throb of sudden hope. 
 
 " Nothing but new names were in the letter I got from 
 Portia to-day. Lord This, Sir John That heaven knows 
 where she has met all these people ! Not a word of Mr. 
 Blake riot a word even of Teddy Josselin." 
 
 " Now that the engagement is broken off you would not 
 have Portia speak of her cousin as she used, ma'am 1 Why, I 
 
248 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 suppose they are scarcely allowed to be in each other's 
 company." 
 
 " Who shall say ? Who shall tell, when Portia is among 
 her Dysart associates, into what company she goes, and how 
 much liberty she takes] One thing in her letter certainly 
 strikes me as suspicious, to say the least of it. After running 
 on with the names of all these new acquaintances, and telling 
 me about her different visits, and what she has worn every 
 day for dinner, she adds " Miss Jemima drew a letter from 
 her pocket " and after never mentioning Teddy's name, mind, 
 ' Grandmamma is looking dreadfully healthy, and is icier in 
 her North Pole of an old heart than ever. She tried to make 
 me swear to-day that I would never marry a first cousin. I 
 almost believe I did swear it ! Oh, Aunt Jem, if a nice 
 little house in Park Lane could be kept up, and a brougham 
 as well, and if two extravagant people could dress 
 and amuse themselves on seven and fourpence a day, 
 how happy we might be ! ' Now, seven and fourpence a day 
 happens to be the exact amount of Mr. Josselin's pay, 
 Susan." 
 
 Susan walked back across the heath to Miss Collinson's 
 with the sensation of treading on air. She had been a fool 
 to put such blind faith in one of good Miss Jemima's romantic 
 fancies, a fool in the pique of the moment, with suspicion all 
 linratified, to accept Tom Collinson. But George Blake was 
 free, and there was a possibility that she might see him in 
 London. Not flirt with him, of course. (" Don't flirt with 
 Blake ! " clear as the yellow-lettered decalogue above the 
 altar in Halfont church these words stood out before Susan's 
 mental vision.) But see him ! perhaps steal her hand within 
 his arm, hear the pleasant whispers, half joking, half tender, 
 of the voice she knew so well/ once more. The long exile in 
 France, the prospect of being Tom Collinson's wife eventually, 
 were certainties still. But meanwhile George Blake was not 
 engaged to Portia, and there was a chance, no matter how 
 remote, of seeing him. Who that has loved but knows with 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 249 
 
 what a sublime disregard of all future years the prospect of 
 some present ten minutes, some present foolish joy, ever so 
 furtively snatched, has power to fill one ! 
 
 Miss Collinson thought Susan's spirits unnaturally good 
 considering that this was her last evening in Halfont. 
 
 " No one would guess you had parted from a lover six and 
 thirty hours ago, and that you will part from everything else 
 that should be dear to you to-morrow, Susan ! " glancing with 
 meaning at Mr. Fielding's portrait, which now hung, and was 
 to hang until Susan's wedding-day, above her own chimney- 
 piece. "I should be sorry to say you were growing 
 heartless " 
 
 " Heartless ! " exclaimed Susan, guiltily conscious that one 
 new supreme feeling was absorbing every joy, every sorrow of 
 her old life. " Ah, Eliza, not that. Something's a little wrong 
 with me, I think. I'm like a person in a trance. Everything 
 goes on round me in the world as usual, and though I hear 
 and see, I feel nothing. My heart seems asleep." 
 
 " People have to awaken out of such sleep sooner or later," 
 said Miss Collinson, tartly. " Suppose instead of this kind of 
 light talk we read a chapter in the Testament together for 
 the last time." 
 
 Next day found Susan in her guardian's house in Bruns- 
 wick Square. Mr. Goldney was a bachelor of between fifty 
 and sixty a man with one of those indistinguishable sort of 
 business-faces which you may always see in masses, hurrying 
 eastward along the Strand at ten or eleven o'clock in the 
 morning ; a man who, dressed in professional black, break- 
 fasted at eight, dined at six, dozed till nine, then roused up 
 and looked over law-papers till bed-time. Few people ever 
 get nearer to Mr. Goldney than this. " You must make 
 yourself comfortable, my dear young lady," he said 
 as he was wishing his guest good-night, on the evening 
 cf her arrival. " Mrs. White, my housekeeper, has lived with 
 me for twenty years ask her for everything you want. If 
 I had more time, I would have taken you to the play, I 
 
250 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 mean " suddenly remembering her black frock " to the 
 Polytechnic. You have no friends in London ' " 
 
 Susan answered that she had one friend a granddaughter 
 of Colonel Ffrench's, who was now staying with the Countess 
 of Erroll in Eaton Square; and Mr. Goldney's face bright- 
 ened English faces that brighten at nothing else will often 
 be found to do so at the sound of a title connected by ever 
 such slender or devious links with themselves. " Your father 
 was one of my oldest friends, my dear Miss Fielding. You 
 must never let me lose sight of you. It was not every one 
 who could get on with Joseph Fielding, but I got on with 
 him. I recognized the real kernel under that outside husk of 
 eccentricity. Yes, yes, I recognized the kernel. Eaton 
 Square .... some way distant from us I don't suppose 
 you know the town ? but you have only to tell Mrs. 
 White, and she will order round the brougham for you when- 
 ever you wish to go out." 
 
 Next morning Susan was sitting alone at the window of 
 Mr. Goldney's dining-room, thinking to herself that London 
 was a considerably bigger place than Halfont, and that it 
 might be possible to stay here for a couple of days without 
 running across any particular acquaintance one had, when a 
 hansom cab stopped before the house. Could it be George 
 Blake 1 She put up her glasses in breathless haste, and saw 
 the figure of a lady, veiled and plainly dressed, coming up the 
 steps. After knocking, and ascertaining that Miss Fielding 
 had arrived and was at home, the visitor dismissed her cab : 
 what kudos would not Susan's London friends have lost had 
 Mr. Goldney known that they drove in cabs ! then was 
 ushered upstairs into the lawyer's grand drawing-room all 
 green damask and stiff rosewood, and heavy chandeliers, 
 and pictures swathed in yellow gauze. Here, a minute later, 
 she was joined by Susan Susan crimson to the temples at 
 the thought of encountering a stranger alone. 
 
 " I was determined to frighten you," cried Portia Ffrench's 
 voice, " so would not give up my name. I got Aunt Jemima's 
 
SUSAJV FIELDING. 251 
 
 note this morning, and ran off at once to find you out for, 
 alas, I return to Halfont to-morrow. Grandmamma invites 
 you to dine with us to-day in Eaton Square. Will you 
 come 1 " 
 
 Susan's face dimpled all over. Who but George Blake could 
 be asked to meet her 1 "I should like to come very much if 
 you thought my plain black frock would do." 
 
 " To be sure your plain black frock will do better than 
 anything you could wear. . I have a little plan for spending 
 the evening out-of-doors as soon as we have got rid of grand- 
 mamma and Miss Condy. There will be no party, only 
 ourselves and " the colour rose on Portia's cheek : Susan felt 
 sure that George Blake's name was coming "and my Cousin 
 Teddy." 
 
 Susan looked as she felt a blank. 
 
 " I came back from my visits the day before yesterday," 
 went on Portia, "and this is the first time poor Ted and I 
 meet as strangers. We went about together by grandmamma's 
 orders when the engagement was first broken off, and hardly 
 realized then that the whole thing was not play. Now we 
 have to meet as indifferent acquaintances in earnest." 
 
 She sat down on the sofa, the only easy resting-place the 
 room possessed, took off her hat, and threw it on the floor 
 beside her. "My head aches," she said, passing her hand 
 wearily across her forehead. " I was going to say my heart 
 aches, only I know I haven't got a heart. Susan, my dear I 
 have made the same remark to you a dozen times before, but 
 I repeat it now What a mistake a woman's life is ! " 
 
 She was looking pale and harassed : her eyes heavy, the 
 set lines that foretell when a young face is going to age early 
 only too plainly visible round her mouth. " Miss Jemima 
 tells me you have been enjoying your different visits," began 
 Susan. 
 
 "Oh, good, dear, single-hearted Aunt Jem," interrupted 
 Portia, quickly. "Susan, I hope you will never have to 
 deceive any one who lovea you. It is not, believe me even 
 
252 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 I, who have no conscience, say this it is not pleasant work I 
 Talking of loving, what is all this absurd story about you 
 and young Collinson % " 
 
 " I I am engaged to Tom Collinson," said Susan, burning 
 with shame as she made the confession. " I was to have been 
 married to him at once, but something about money has taken 
 him back to New Zealand, and so " 
 
 4 'You are free to change your mind!" cried Portia. 
 " What a little goose you must have been for I need hardly 
 ask if you like such a person ? " 
 
 " He is very good-hearted/' stammered Susan, " and it was 
 very kind of him to ask me." 
 
 "And still kinder to return from whence he came," said 
 Portia. " I can see exactly how it happened. Mr. Collinson 
 proposed because you chanced to be under the same roof one 
 wet day, and you accepted him for the same reason. You 
 don't write to him, I hope 1 " 
 
 " I haven't written yet. I shall, of course." 
 
 "Then of course do nothing of the kind, my dear. As 
 long as people write nothing, they are committed to nothing. 
 I am experienced in such matters, little Susan." 
 
 " But no writing could bind me faster than I am bound," 
 said Susan. "I have promised to marry Tom Collinson. 
 Whenever he comes back and claims me, I shall marry him." 
 
 Why 1 " 
 
 " I have promised." 
 
 " And you like him 1 " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," blushing furiously, and looking down ; 
 " please don't ask me. I I shall be sure to like him some 
 day." 
 
 "Ah, I see." After a minute, "I had a kind of fancy 
 once that you were getting to care for George Blake," said 
 Portia, carelessly. 
 
 At this direct accusation a sudden desperate courage seemed 
 to enter Susan's heart. "And I, and Miss Jemima too, 
 rather thought that you had got to care for George Blake/' 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 253 
 
 she exclaimed. " That last eveniug that I saw you and him 
 together on the river bank " 
 
 " When he drew our portraits, Susan ? " 
 
 " When he drew our portraits, and when I was so angry. 
 On that evening I felt sure that you and Mr. Blake under- 
 stood each other. It looked like it, you must allow, Portia." 
 
 " Ah," answered Portia, with a smile, " but then things so 
 often look like what they are not. ISTow, I wonder when you 
 see us together whether you will say Mr. Josselin and I ' look 
 like ' understanding each other 1 " 
 
 " I'll tell you that to-morrow. After all that is past, doesn't 
 it go against your heart sometimes to have to call your cousin 
 'Mr. Josselin']" 
 
 " A great many things go against one's heart," was Portia's 
 answer. " When I look forward, as far as I can look, I see 
 nothing else but trouble, and weariness, and vexation of 
 spirit. Do you know grandmamma's age? Seventy-nine. 
 Well, I was looking at her this morning, and I decided she 
 would keep above ground another ten years at least. She is 
 fearfully and wonderfully vital." 
 
 " And you wish her in her grave 1 " 
 
 " Susan, my dear, that is the kind of indecisive question 
 never asked between people of delicate feeling. Yes, then ! 
 To you, reading me through and through with those big eyes, 
 and asking the honest truth, I will give, for the only time on 
 record, an honest answer. I do wish her in her gray,, 
 devoutly." 
 
 Susan looked perplexed rather than shocked. " It doesn't 
 seem right to wish any one dead," said she, with the ready 
 casuistry of her age. " Yet what can people have to live for 
 at seventy-nine 1 Loving matters more than living ; and if 
 Lady ErrolTs death would enable you and Mr. Josselin to be 
 happy " 
 
 " Ah, but you must know I have given a solemn promise 
 not to be happy with Mr. Josselin," interrupted Portia, gaily. 
 " I see Aunt Jem has been telling you part of my secrets, so 
 
254 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 I may as well tell you the rest. Imagine my position, Susan. 
 I came back from my .... from my round of visits the day 
 before yesterday, and almost the first words grandmamma 
 greeted me with were these oh, the expression of her face as 
 she spoke ! ' You and Ted are seeing each other still. Now 
 I know all. I insist upon your confessing. You and Ted are 
 seeing each other still ] ' 
 
 " I looked, as I am sure I felt, the embodiment of sim- 
 plicity. 'And if we do see each other still, grandmamma ! 
 Did my cousin and I ever promise to shut our eyes when we 
 met each other in the street ? ' 
 
 "'I will have none of this flippancy, Portia. You and 
 your cousin meet clandestinely clandestinely ! ' Grand- 
 mamma evidently enjoyed the flavour of that naughty word. 
 ' During the last ten days that you have been paying these 
 visits, where has Teddy Josselin been 1 Answer me that.' 
 
 " ' I should think Teddy Josselin had better be made to 
 account for himself/ said I, with the most delicious good 
 temper. (Grandmamma's face and voice of conviction were a 
 whole comedy in one act, Susan. Nothing diverts me more 
 than to see people who have got hold of a corner, just a poor 
 little corner, of the truth, hug themselves over their own 
 sharp-sightedness.) ' If you suspect that Teddy has been 
 running after me, write, please, to any one of the people I 
 have been staying with, and make inquiries, as one does about 
 a housemaid, as to the number of my followers.' " 
 
 " And did your grandmamma write 1 " asked Susan, full of 
 eager interest. 
 
 " Well, no," said Portia. " Grandmamma, on thinking 
 matters over, grew pacified for that time, as she took pains 
 to impress on me, only that time ! " A comic expression came 
 into Portia's black eyes. " To set her mind at rest for the 
 future, however, and relying, she was pleased to say, upon my 
 not breaking a solemnly given word, she extracted from me 
 on the spot a promise that I would never .... It was a 
 promise she had no right to demand, you know, Susan ! " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING, 255 
 
 And Portia stopped : the least in the world disconcerted, it 
 may be, by the crystal-clear eyes that watched her so 
 earnestly. 
 
 " And if the promise required yon to be untrue to your 
 own heart, you did not make it ] " cried Susan. " I need not 
 ask you that ! " 
 
 "Oh," said Portia, with a bitter little curl of the lip, "I 
 had no choice. If I did not promise, I knew I should never 
 have a chance of meeting Mr. Josselin, even as an acquaint- 
 ance. I was to be banished from grandmamma's house 
 .... as likely as not should have ruined all poor Teddy's 
 prospects for the future. 'As well try to get a promise from 
 a butterfly as from my grandnephew, Josselin/ said grand- 
 mamma. ( You have sense the sense of worldly interest, at 
 least, and for his sake as well as your own, you had best do 
 as I bid you.' And so I promised ; life is too short to waste 
 it in contests over trifles ; and after all it was but a trifle 
 that I promised. Grandmamma's horrible old companion was 
 called in imagine if that made my feelings softer ! as a 
 witness, and " 
 
 " You promised never to marry Mr. Josselin ? " cried 
 Susan. " Oh, Portia, and yet in your heart I know you 
 like him ! " 
 
 " Like him ! " repeated Portia : her face changed : for a 
 moment its expression was absolutely tender. " Well, yes, I 
 don't mind confessing so much to you, Susan. These things 
 can't be forgotten in a day. I do like Teddy, a very little, and 
 for that precise reason had no choice left me but to take the 
 oath grandmamma chose to administer. I repeated the words 
 after her : that horrible old hypocrite Condy pretending to 
 cry as if she had been witnessing a touching religious 
 ceremony : 
 
 ' I swear ' promise, grandmamma said, was not strong 
 enough <I swear that I will never, directly or indirectly, 
 renew my engagement with my cousin, Edward Josselin, 
 without the consent of his grandmother, Lady Erroll.' The 
 
2$6 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 wording was grandmamma's own. I proposed no alteration. 
 I simply repeated, in a perfectly firm voice, what I was told 
 to say. 
 
 "Grandmamma looked relieved. ' You will not object to 
 my acquainting Teddy with this ? ' she asked. 
 
 " ' Not in the least,' said I ; 'the promise is made. Let 
 the whole world know of it, if you choose/ 
 
 "And so then, as a child gets a spoonful of jam after its 
 powder, I was told that Teddy should actually be invited to 
 dinner once before I left town. He dines with us to-day., 
 Susan. You will see with what kind of nerve we manage 
 to meet." 
 
 Susan asked at what hour she should come, 
 
 " Well, don't be a minute later than halt-past seven," said 
 Portia. " We dine at eight, but I particularly want you to be 
 there when Teddy Josselin arrives. Grandmamma's eyes 
 fixed on us when we meet would be more than I could stand, 
 unless supported by some fourth person's presence. And come 
 in your bonnet and morning dress. I told you, did I not, 
 that I had a plan for going to to some gardens that they say 
 are pleasant of a summer's night 2 As soon as we can despatch 
 grandmamma to her own evening's dissipation, we mean to 
 be off." 
 
 " Gardens ! " repeated Susan, opening her eyes. " Why, I 
 never knew that there were gardens in London." 
 
 " Oh yes, there are numbers." As she said this, Portia 
 turned her face aside, then rose and busied herself in putting 
 on her hat. " These particular ones are down Chelsea way, I 
 believe, and every one in London goes there. Why should 
 they not ? You hear good bands of music, and stroll about 
 by lamplight or moonlight (we shall have moonlight to-night), 
 and see crowds of people more or less well dressed. We are 
 to go in a party, undeniably chaperoned, and mean to amuse 
 ourselves if we can. At least it will be a change an evening 
 spent not quite upon the usual humdrum pattern of London 
 pleasure." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 257 
 
 " And you are sure it is not too gay a place for me to go to 
 in my deep black 1 " 
 
 " Oh, as for that, the gaiety or seriousness of any amuse- 
 ment depends upon the spirit in which one enters on it ! " said 
 Portia, evasively. " Susan, my dear, I want you to come ! 
 Don't put difficulties in the way. It's a chance you may never 
 have again of seeing life. Are you your own mistress ] Is 
 any one looking after you 1 " 
 
 " Only my guardian, and he is engaged to dine out to-day. 
 Unless you had invited me, I should have spent the evening 
 alone. " 
 
 "Then I look upon everything as settled," cried Portia, 
 moving across to the door. "Be at grandmamma's house at 
 half-past seven, and don't order a carriage to come for you. 
 I will promise to see you home. We shall not be late." 
 
 "And are you going to walk to Eaton Square now 1 " asked 
 Susan. " I thought, from what Mr. Goldney .said, young 
 ladies could never walk alone in London." 
 
 " Ah, all those old canons of propriety belong to a fossil 
 age," answered Portia. " There are no Lovelaces to run away 
 with anybody now 'tis Lovelace, in these days, who dreads 
 being run away with ! Thickly veiled," as she spoke she drew 
 a little mask of black lace from her pocket, " thickly veiled, 
 and plainly dressed, a young lady with common sense in her 
 head can go wherever she thinks fit. I don't know the neigh- 
 bourhood ; but I suppose I shall find a cabstand somewhere 
 near, and if I make haste, I shall be home just in time for 
 lunch. Be sure to come early, and mind" she returned a 
 step or two to whisper this " not a word about the Chelsea 
 gardens before grandmamma." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 AT half-past seven precisely Mr. Goldney's heavy, old-fashioned 
 brougham drove for the first time, I should say, since it was 
 
 8 
 
25* SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 built into Eaton Square. A minute later, and Susan, to the 
 full as frightened as on the memorable evening when she drank 
 tea at the manor, found herself following a butler, more awful 
 even than the great Jekyll himself, up the staircase of Lad 7 
 Erroll's house. She was shown into a drawing-room full of 
 mirrors, and amber light, and artistic colour, but not mag- 
 "nificently stately, as Susan had thought everything belonging 
 to a Countess must be ; a drawing-room, indeed, looking more 
 as if human beings lived in it than the one in Brunswick 
 Square. She stopped short at the door, dropping her little 
 village curtsey to Lady Erroll's possible presence ; and Portia, 
 in a simple muslin dress made high to the throat, ran forward 
 to meet her. 
 
 "Take off your hat and jacket, Susan oh, throw them 
 down anywhere on the sofa, if you choose. I would take 
 you up to my room, only I am afraid of being away when 
 Ted I mean, when Mr. Josselin arrives. Listen, there 
 is his knock. Poor little Ted. How good of him to bo 
 punctual ! " 
 
 And Portia's face glowed with an expression of such sweet- 
 ness as it had certainly never worn in the days when Teddy 
 Josselin was her lawful and acknowledged lover. Was it 
 necessary before learning to love that one must be convinced 
 of the impossibility of marrying, Susan speculated, not wholly 
 unmindful of her own personal experience. 
 
 The door opened and closed, and Teddy, unannounced, 
 walked in. The two girls were standing together before the 
 chimney-piece in the front drawing-room, Susan's small figure 
 concealed for the moment by Portia's ' superior stature and 
 flowing muslin dress ; and Teddy, who had ascertained that 
 Lady Erroll was still in her dressing-room, came up to his 
 cousin with his accustomed loitering step and worn-out air, but 
 with both hands outstretched. 
 
 "Well, my dear" he was beginning. 
 
 " Mr. Josselin ! " cried Portia, crimsoning, and drawing back. 
 " Don't you remember Susan Susan Fielding 1 Don't you 
 
S&SAN FIELDING. 259 
 
 remember that, evening at Halfont, when you and she listened 
 to the nightingales 1 " 
 
 " And when you were jealous a id would take me off to a 
 place where they made gunpowo^ . To be sure, I remember 
 everything, Susan/' shaking the little girl's hand affectionately, 
 " the last time we met you behaved very badly to me threw 
 me over for Blake. I hope that fellow won't be here to-nightj 
 Portia ?" 
 
 " No one will be here but you and Susan." 
 " That is right. I shall have a chance of Susan looking at 
 me this time ; and by the way, 'Tia, it would be very much to 
 the purpose that Susan should look a good deal at me. 
 Grandmamma is an old lady of singular discernment, Susan. 
 She sees the hopeless state of poor Portia's affections, but does 
 not approve, on theological grounds, of first cousins marrying ; 
 so ah, I forgot you were present that day when we decided 
 upon sacrificing ourselves to Moloch that saves me the 
 trouble of telling the story. Susan, do you know that I shall 
 feel it my duty to pay you devoted attention all this evening ? " 
 " Pay me attention, sir ! " 
 
 "Yes, I shall, indeed. In the first place, because Portia 
 .... well, never mind that ; in the second, because grand- 
 mamma's fears may as well be set at rest. You agree with 
 me, Miss Ffrench ? " 
 
 " Act in every way as your superior wisdom dictates, Mr. 
 Josselin." 
 
 She moved across the room as she spoke, her face in the air. 
 Teddy Josselin followed her, and managed to get possession of 
 her hand. Evidently Susan's presence was a circumstance 
 of trifling moment to him. 
 
 " So you have put on the dress I told you to wear, after all, 
 and your hair worn plain and small again not in those 
 atrocious French balloons. Ah, I shall make you have taste 
 in time." 
 
 " You make me have taste ! " replied Portia, with cool con- 
 tempt, but a smile at the corner of her lips. 
 
 s2 
 
260 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "Yes, me make you have taste," repeated Teddy, who never 
 troubled himself about grammar ; " and in other things than 
 dress, I hope. I don't deny that you have a tolerable eye for 
 colour and effect generally, but then you are not neat enough. 
 See here ! " 
 
 Without the slightest ceremony he adjusted the little ruffle 
 of lace that his cousin wore round her throat, and Susan 
 began to wish herself back in Brunswick Square. 
 
 Portia drew herself away with dignity. " Mr. Josselin ! " 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " Miss Ffrench ! " said Teddy, looking innocently into her 
 eyes. 
 
 And then Portia's face all at once flushed very red, and she 
 returned across the room to Susan. "What are the other 
 things in which my taste is to be corrected ? " she asked, 
 looking back at Teddy. 
 
 "The other things are legion," said Mr. Josselin. "The 
 one under immediate consideration being moonlight drives. 
 I hope you have changed your mind about to-night, Portia ? " 
 
 " I have done nothing of the kind," said Portia. " It is all 
 very easy for men to be so particular as to what one ought and 
 ought not to do ; men who are tired of everything in the shape 
 of excitement under the sun. Why are women never to see, 
 never to learn anything of life, I want to know ? " 
 
 " t lt strikes me that women see and learn just as much as 
 they choose," answered Teddy, lazily. " At all events, you 
 will learn nothing very edifying by going to " 
 
 " The gardens at Chelsea," interrupted Portia, with a glance 
 at Susan. 
 
 " Oh ! to the gardens at Chelsea agreed ! I object, you 
 understand, not on the score of morality," added Teddy, " but 
 because I know how bored we shall be. The same old crowd 
 of shop-boys, same old fireworks, same old wearying tunes 
 
 " Same old stars, same old moon and sky," interrupted 
 Portia. " If one comes to that, all life is the same, only we 
 for ever try to call things by new names. I mean to go, at 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 261 
 
 all events : yon can do as you like. Hush ! " and now she 
 moved to Susan's other side. " I hear grandmamma not a 
 word about moonlight drives before grandmamma, mind you, 
 Susan ! " 
 
 Upon this the door opened, and Susan, all eagerness to 
 behold a living Countess, saw a tiny, very old woman, with 
 prominent pale eyes, a sharp ferret-face, and curious little 
 yellow curls, totter in. "So, you can find your way here 
 again now, Master Ted " a cold little reverence bestowed upon 
 Susan, as Portia introduced her. " Pray, why did you never 
 come near me all the time that your cousin was away 1 " 
 
 " I was away too," said Teddy, ingenuously, and crossing 
 the room he stooped and kissed Lady Erroll's withered, most 
 unkissable face. " I couldn't come to see you when I was 
 ever so many miles away from England, could I, grand- 
 mamma ? " 
 
 " What were you doing ever so many miles away from 
 England V 
 
 "Enjoying myself and spending money," answered Teddy,, 
 promptly. 
 
 " Where ?" 
 
 "In Paris." 
 
 "Ah, Paris, indeed I dare say!" And there for the- 
 present the cross-examination stopped. Portia, while it lasted, 
 had stood very upright, and with unchanging colour ; her lips 
 set like marble. 
 
 " You got the letter from me, I conclude ? " asked Lady 
 Erroll, presently. " The letter posted last night." 
 
 "Yes, I got a letter," said Teddy, with his placid smile 
 this was the letter informing him of the oath that had been, 
 administered to Portia. 
 
 " We have all come to our senses at last, you perceive ? "' 
 remarked Lady Erroll, tartly. 
 
 "I wish I had," said Teddy. "Oh, grandmamma, if you 
 knew the sums I have been spending in Paris ! " 
 
 Grandmamma's face brightened, if such a term can be used 
 
262 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 in speaking of such a face. Never could bachelor folly of 
 Teddy's, even though her purse must bleed, be more venial in 
 her sight than now. Did not bachelor folly bespeak delect- 
 able indifference to love-matches, to virtuous poverty, ta 
 Portia 1 
 
 " If you have spent so much money, I suppose you have 
 brought your cousin a pretty Paris present," she said, almost 
 pleasantly. 
 
 Teddy shook his head. " I always think that where spend- 
 ing money is concerned, Portia can shift for herself," he 
 answered. " Look at her now." Portia wore a necklet and 
 ear-rings of rubies set in fine plain gold. " Both those bits of 
 finery are new, I know, since I dined here last." 
 
 "When I was young it was not considered good taste for 
 girls to wear the same jewels as married women," said Lady 
 Erroll. " Does your aunt, Jemima Ffrench, sanction all the 
 money you spend on trinkets, Portia c i " 
 
 " Aunt Jemima sanctions my taking presents whenever they 
 are offered me," said Portia. " Think of all the jewellery I 
 have had from you, grandmamma ! This poor little set was 
 given me by a friend, the dearest friend I have in the world, 
 a day or two ago, and I accepted it thankfully. A pauper like 
 me can't be above the temptation of baubles, especially when 
 they suit the complexion as well as rubies suit mine." 
 
 Dinner was announced, and Teddy gave his arm to Lady 
 Erroll, the two girls following. In the dining-room was a 
 little old woman, twenty or thirty years younger than Lady 
 Erroll, but still old, dressed in the scantiest of lavender si^ks, 
 with a " front " dating from some bygone period, a blonde 
 -cap, and black velvet bands cunningly disposed at the junction 
 of the head-dress with the forehead. This was Miss Condy, 
 Lady Erroll's salaried friend and confidante, and who, when 
 only the family was present, retained her place at the dinner 
 table. She purred and curtsied and looked glad to see Teddy 
 Josselin, who gave her a kindly shake of the hand, asked a 
 kindly word or two about her neuralgia, then seated himself 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 263 
 
 on the side of the table with Susan. By this arrangement 
 Portia and Miss Condy sat together. 
 
 They had been deadly foes from the day when Portia, a girl 
 of sixteen, paid her first visit to Eaton Square. Miss Condy's 
 perquisites, never numerous, had become perceptibly less as 
 soon as Lady Erroll had a granddaughter upon whom to 
 bestow the disjecta membra of her toilet-table ; and Portia, 
 little as she valued broken fans, torn bits of lace, faded ribbons, 
 or chipped onyx seals, for their own sakes, had always felt a 
 malicious amusement in witnessing and augmenting Miss 
 Condy's rage at being despoiled of them. 
 
 Every human creature she was thrown with must minister 
 either to Portia's vanity, convenience, or diversion. She was 
 not devoid of pity towards picturesque objects of pity. You 
 could no more have brought her to feel sympathy for the 
 grotesque, the ugly, the morally deformed, than you could 
 bring a child to sympathize with the sad inner life of the 
 clown and harlequin who turn somersaults for his amusement. 
 Miss Condy, of her kind, was not a really bad old woman. 
 Poverty had forced her to be a sycophant, had forced her to 
 spend her life in bearing whims and bad tempers as if she 
 liked them. Instinct taught the poor old creature the wisdom 
 of lining her nest if it were only with faded silks and shreds 
 of torn lace before the day when Lady ErrolTs death should 
 leave her homeless. She did not speak truth : would truth 
 have served in her profession 1 neither did it jar on Condy's 
 sense of honour to be occasionally employed as a spy. And 
 still, under all this veneer of forced or artificial vice, a great 
 deal of natural good resided in the poor soul still. She 
 maintained a sister, older than herself, out of her pittance ; 
 and she was intensely grateful for kindness, would have gone 
 round the world for Teddy Josselin because he always remem- 
 bered to ask after her neuralgia, because once, years ago, he 
 had sent her a valentine ; because, in fine, Teddy treated her 
 as though she were a human being. (To desolate people do 
 such paltry favours seem cause for gratitude !) But Portia 
 
264 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 saw nothing of this ; Portia looked no deeper than the surface ; 
 and on the surface was sufficient crustiness, envy, mean small- 
 ness of all kinds, to afford her diversion whenever a wet day 
 or a headache after a ball threw her, perforce, into Condy';, 
 society. 
 
 " I could no more bully poor old Condy than I could bully 
 Arno," Teddy would say in expostulation, when some of 
 Portia's well-applied sarcasms or monkey tricks had sent 
 Condy, in tears of rage, from the room. 
 
 " But I delight to bully Arno too," was Portia's answer. 
 Arno was a grim old Italian greyhound, a broken-down shiver- 
 ing wreck of a dog, whose scarlet coat and bloodshot eyes 
 were always to be seen at the windows of Lady ErrolTs car- 
 riage. "If it were net that Arno has still a fang or two left 
 in his vicious head, I would torment him just as much as I do 
 Condy. I don't tease nice fine natural old women, or honest, 
 wholesome dogs, do 1 1 Can creatures of as low organization 
 as Condy and Arno have feelings ] " 
 
 They had memory, for certain. Arno would curl his lip 
 and roll his miserable old eyes if Portia held up her finger to 
 him across the room ; and Condy well, the future was to 
 prove whether Condy could not only remember but retaliate. 
 As dinner progressed and Teddy, warming to the part he had 
 set himself, became more and more devoted to the little girl at 
 his side, the pleasanter grew the faces and remarks of old Lady 
 Erroll and of Miss Condy. For once, perhaps for the sole 
 time in her life, Portia had to drink the cup of humiliation in 
 their presence. No matter that she felt herself in very fact 
 the conqueror ; that the rubies on her throat were Teddy's 
 gift ; that every word he spoke had a hidden tender meaning 
 for her ear ; that he cared, that Portia knew he cared, no more 
 for Susan than he must care for every pretty girl to whom he 
 talked ! Vanity was the most vulnerable point at which 
 Portia Ffrench's spirit could be assailed, and she was destined 
 to have her vanity wounded to the very quick to-night 1 
 " You are not looking at all the brighter for your change of 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 265 
 
 air, my dear Miss Ffrench," says old Condy, compassionately ; 
 and then : " Why, Portia, where are your spirits to-day 1 " 
 from grandmamma ; and then amiable looks, encouraging 
 words from both to Susan unconscious little Susan blushing 
 and dimpling at Teddy's complimentary speeches, and feeling 
 that to dine with a Countess was not half so awful as she had 
 imagined ; yet all the time wishing in her heart that nine 
 o'clock had come, and that they were on the road to the Chelsea 
 gardens, the gardens to which " everyone in London " went, 
 and where she could, of course, scarcely fail of meeting George 
 Blake among the crowd ! 
 
 11 Portia, my love, how do you mean to amuse Miss Fielding 
 after dinner ? " asked Lady Erroll, with great amiability, 
 when dessert was on the table. " I am going to the Wycher- 
 leys, and you young ladies will have to entertain yourselves. 
 Teddy, you are going to the Wycherleys, I conclude. Shall I 
 take you with me ] " 
 
 " Not at mid-day, thanks," answered Teddy. " I am 
 engaged to two or three other places to-night, I believe, and 
 may look in at the Wycherleys later, not at this hour." 
 
 " You can tell Short where he shall drop you, then. It 
 would be a pity for you not to make use of the carriage." 
 
 " I only thought I might stop for a quarter of an hour and 
 walk in the square by moonlight with Miss Fielding and my 
 cousin 1 " suggested Teddy. 
 
 "Miss Fielding and your cousin have their own engage- 
 ments, thank you," said Portia, quickly. " We are going 
 round for an hour or two to the Wynnes, and Laura and I 
 will see Susan home. We planned it this morning." 
 
 " You call Mrs. Wynne by her Christian name still ? " re- 
 marked Lady Erroll. 
 
 Miss Condy rubbed her mittened hands together, and shook 
 her head sorrowfully. 
 
 "Certainly, I call Mrs. Wynne by, her Christian name," 
 said Portia, with an air of surprise. " She deserves a Christian 
 uame as much as most people, does she not ] " 
 
266 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Difficult, indeed, to say what name Mrs. Wynne deserves," 
 said Lady Erroll. 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! a very true observation, my Lady ! " echoed 
 Condy, solemnly. 
 
 " I should think the name she lost when she married Dolly 
 Wynne sums up her character pretty fitly," said Portia. 
 " Never let us forget that poor Laura was a Dysart. Mrs. 
 Wynne is a cousin once removed, is she not, Miss Condy 2 I 
 know you remember all these chronological matters." 
 
 But Miss Condy's memory did not in this instance assist 
 her. She believed Mrs. Wynne's mother was that is to say 
 she thought then, meeting Lady Erroll's eye, was not sure, 
 my Lady, as to Mrs. Wynne being a blood relation of the 
 family at all. 
 
 "A very wise observation, my Lady," cried Portia. "When 
 people's reputations tarnish, never remember whether they are 
 blood relations or not : if we Dysarts did that always, we 
 should not own very many relations, by the way." 
 
 " Miss Condy," said Teddy, in his gentle, unmoved voice, 
 " what wine shall I give you ? " He was passing the decanter 
 away from himself, as long experience had taught him to do 
 .at Lady Erroll's table. 
 
 " Well, the least tiny drop of port," said Miss Condy, for 
 Lady Erroll retained the fashions of her youth, and fluids 
 labelled port, sherry, and Madeira, were placed on the bare 
 mahogany with dessert. " Oh, thank you, thank you ! You 
 have given me more than enough ; " this as Teddy poured her 
 -out a generous bumper. It was a thing understood, even by 
 the butler, in Lady Erroll's household, that Miss Condy did 
 not care for wine. 
 
 " And some fruit," cried Portia, good-humouredly. " Now, 
 Miss Condy, I know you are fond of peaches. Here is a 
 beauty." 
 
 And before there was time for expostulation, a fine early 
 peach, the crowning glory of the centre dish of the table, lay 
 on Condy's plate. The poor old woman looked green with 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 267 
 
 annoyance. It was another understood thing that Miss Condy 
 did not partake of dessert, save of such dead-sea fruits as were 
 unfit to appear upon the table again. And the family apothe- 
 cary was to dine with Lady Erroll to-morrow ; and the centre 
 dish, but for Portia's sacrilegious raid upon it, would not have 
 required one sixpenny-worth of replenishment. 
 
 "I have dined, I thank you, Miss Ffrench. I want nothing 
 more," pushing the peach apologetically to one side of her 
 plate. 
 
 " Oh, but peaches have nothing to do with dining," said 
 Portia. " Let me help you to some sugar. Grandmamma, I 
 think that is the finest peach I have seen this year." 
 
 " Early peaches are extremely carce this year," said Lady 
 Erroll, with dry acerbity. "Extremely scarce, Miss Condy." 
 
 " And I care so little for the forced fruit," said poor Condy. 
 " Would not your Ladyship be prevailed upon to try it ? Mr. 
 Josselin, may I ask you to hand the peach to her Ladyship 1 " 
 
 " May I ask you to finish your dessert, Miss Condy ? " said 
 her Ladyship, waiving back the offer with her tiny shrivelled 
 hand. "The carriage will be here before I leave the table." 
 
 And now Condy had no choice but to obey. The peach 
 merited all that had been said of it. It was large, it was 
 juicy, and the sight of Condy gobbling it down : the human 
 nature of her enjoying the unwonted flavour of the fruit, the 
 sense of being under Lady Erroll's eyes almost choking her 
 at every mouthful, went far towards restoring Portia Ff ranch's 
 equanimity. She was not really deliberately cruel of nature ; 
 would no more have inflicted positive injury on old Condy 
 than on Arno ; would have shrunk with disgust, indeed, from 
 seeing either Condy or Arno in physical pain. She simply 
 liked to torture, as she liked to do everything, for the distrac- 
 tion of the minute ; simply required as much suffering from 
 her victim as should serve to amuse herself. As to the 
 feelings of the victim well, if we could fathom a cat's senti- 
 ments towards the schoolboys who have set her adrift on ice, 
 with walnut-shells for skates, we should, I dare say, gauge 
 
268 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 pretty accurately those of Miss Condy as, sitting in her lonely 
 bed-room upstairs, she remembers her peach, and prays that 
 the hour may come when she can repay Portia for the dessert, 
 sugar and all, of which she had been forced to partake ! 
 
 Coffee was served in the drawing-room, and presently Lady 
 Erroll went away, looking, thought Susan, exactly like the 
 wicked fairy of the story-book in her gold and crimson 
 opera-cloak, and carrying off Teddy Josselin with her. He 
 shook hands warmly with Susan ; then parted from his cousin 
 with frigid ceremony. 
 
 " And Mr. Josselin is not going with us to the gardens 1 " 
 cried Susan, as soon as the door was closed. "I thought "" 
 
 1 'Hush!" interrupted Portia, putting up a finger to her 
 lips. "In this house walls (and Miss Condy) have ears. 
 Think nothing, and what you see forget as soon as you have 
 ssen it. Are you in spirits, Susan ? do you feel as if you- 
 could enjoy yourself ? I don't. I feel as if I had had no 
 dinner. I always have that feeling in Ninety-nine Eaton 
 Square. We have attendants in plush and powder, and un- 
 deniable Sevres and Dresden. We have also solid silver dish- 
 covers, as you may have remarked, but we have nothing to 
 speak of underneath ! One of Aunt Jem's good heartsome 
 dinners of roast and boiled would supply material for a week 
 in Eaton Square. And then the wine ! What is life worth 
 when you stay with people who give bad wine 1 " 
 
 " I never know whether wine is bad or good/' said Susan. 
 " I drank what Mr. Josselin gave me, and it was very sweet 
 and nice." 
 
 "That was what grandmamma and her wine-merchant 
 call port. Oh, Susan, if things would only taste sweet and 
 nice to me as they do to you, what a happy woman I might 
 be !" 
 
 "I should think you are happier than most people, as it is,"" 
 remarked Susan. "You always talk as if you cared for 
 nothing, and yet I dare say I'm saying a stupid thing but 
 it seems to me no one could take as much trouble about 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 269 
 
 amusement as you do who felt amusement to be beyond their 
 reach." 
 
 "Badly reasoned," said Portia. '-It is just when we feel a 
 thing to be beyond our reach when we stand on tiptoe to get 
 at it. For every five minutes that a woman of twenty spends 
 before her glass, does not a woman of thirty spend an hour 1 
 It's not an illustration I'm getting like Teddy Josselin in my 
 style of eloquence, I think but I know what I mean. 
 Talking of women of thirty reminds me of our chaperon, 
 who will be here shortly. She is so objectionable, little 
 Susan. When I look at Mrs. Wynne, I shudder. Is that 
 what Portia Ffrench will be in another dozen years ? I ask 
 myself." 
 
 " I thought Mrs. Wynne was your friend," cried Susan. 
 " You were very generous in defending her an hour ago." 
 
 " I defended her because grandmamma and Miss Condy 
 abused her ; the vileness and yet the wisdom of Condy in 
 pretending to forget whether poor Laura was a Dysart ! Yes, 
 Mrs. Wynne is my friend. We chaperon each other by turns : 
 I make her parties go off ; Laura gets me invitations to houses 
 grandmamma would not enter. We feel rather more pleasure 
 in taking away each other's partners than the partners of 
 other people, and on the score of mutual criticism confine 
 ourselves chiefly to pity. ' A pity poor dear Portia Ffrench 
 does not marry/ ' A pity poor dear Laura Wynne does not 
 remember the number of years she has lived upon the earth.' 
 Yes, we are friends, and (just to the extent to which honour 
 can exist among thieves) would not betray each other's 
 counsels. 
 
 Almost before Portia had ceased speaking, a carriage drove 
 up before the house, and through the open drawing-room 
 windows ascended the sound of a shrill resonant voice, a true 
 "Dysart voice," inquiring if Miss Ffrench were ready. 
 
 "Brilliant trained silk, no veil, white bonnet," cried Portia, 
 peeping behind the window curtains. " The very last kind 
 of dress, of course, that she should have worn poor Laura's 
 
270 SVSAtf FIELDING. 
 
 accustomed taste ! And Dolly, looking oh, how sulky ! 
 Susan, I regret to say you will have an extremely stupid, 
 extremely sulky married man for your companion the whole 
 evening. You don't mind 1 I thought not. Very likely you 
 will find Dolly Wynne sweet and nice, like grandmamma's 
 port. Now come up to my room, and we will adorn ourselves, 
 or rather lay aside our adornments. In going to to those 
 kind of public places, I believe it is wise to look as much like 
 a shopgirl after hours as possible." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PORTIA'S room was a closet, indifferently furnished with air 
 and light, at the extreme top of the house. It was a whim of 
 Lady Erroll's that, while half-a-dozen stately chambers stood 
 vacant, her granddaughter should sleep in a garret, upon a 
 camp bedstead, and where the thermometer seldom at this 
 season declined below ninety, under the slates. Susan's 
 memory carried away from Ninety-nine Eaton Square (the 
 only aristocratic mansion she ever entered) two ineffaceable 
 pictures : one of Lady Erroll watching Miss Condy eat her 
 peach, the other of Portia as she stood in her miserably 
 appointed little garret before the looking-glass, dressing for 
 the " Chelsea gardens." 
 
 It was now close upon ten o'clock, and fhe last flush of 
 summer twilight had died above the wilderness of roofs at the 
 back of Eaton Square. The moon, however, by this time 
 rode high in the east, wonderfully bright and clear for a 
 London moon, and by its light alone Portia dressed. The 
 ruby necklet and ear-rings were laid aside ; a heavy black lace 
 mantilla, nearly reaching to the hem of her dress, an unpre- 
 tending little black lace hat, was all her costume- Nothing 
 could have suited her better, or disguised her less. To a 
 doubtfully pratty woman the absence of fashionable adorn- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 271 
 
 ment may be a travesty ; to a really handsome one, never. 
 In a muslin dress and plain black shawl, Portia Ffrench, 
 instead of looking like a shop-girl after hours, looked more 
 like Portia Ffrench than ever. The fine line of shoulder and 
 throat, the small head with its simply braided jetty hair, did 
 but challenge the eye with greater distinctness because no 
 glitter of trinkets, no inartistic flutter of ribbons or laces, 
 was there to distract attention from their grace. 
 
 " Well, that will do, I suppose," she cried, as soon as Susan, 
 who had put on her own things in the drawing-room, stood at 
 her side and watched her. " Masked like this " she took up 
 the veil she had worn in the morning from her dressing-table, 
 and held it across her face " masked like this, and not speak- 
 ing beyond a whisper, I don't suppose it will be possible for 
 any one to recognize me. And if they do, well, if they do 
 they do ! After all, there would be no particular zest in going 
 if there was not the risk of being found out. Now let us 
 start, Susan. Tread softly, and pray the gods old Condy be 
 not upon the watch/ 7 
 
 Upon this, silently and with light steps, they both ran down 
 the staircase of the great unlighted house. Economy reigned 
 in every department of Lady ErrolTs establishment. When 
 her Ladyship was out of an evening, no gas was lighted above 
 the basement floor. Then, unattended by butler or page, 
 Portia noiselessly lifted the latch of the front door, and they 
 were free. 
 
 " I breathe ! " said Portia, when they had taken their places 
 in Mrs. Wynne's carriage. " We are safe from Condy this 
 time. Great heavens ! " she broke off, as they turned the 
 corner of the square, " can that be Condy herself 1 " A female 
 figure was at this moment stepping into a four-wheeled cab 
 drawn close up to the pavement. " It looks like her ; and yet 
 no the idea is ridiculous. What could Condy be doing 
 out at this hour? Oh, I have not introduced anybody. 
 Laura, this is Susan. Mrs. Wynne Miss Fielding." 
 
 Mrs. Wynne was a small, very overdressed woman of about 
 
272 SL7SAN FIELDING. 
 
 six-and-thirty ; a woman who laughed much and loud, and 
 talked much and loud, and who possessed little wit, and less 
 beauty. As this is her first and last appearance in Susan's 
 story, I don't know that I need lose space by speaking of her 
 at greater length. The escapade she was engaged in to-night 
 may, of itself, I think, be taken as sufficient exposition of her 
 character. Mrs. Wynne's husband, Dolly, was a big fair young 
 man, some years younger than his wife ; a man of very few 
 words and ideas to correspond ; at the present moment pro- 
 digiously bored at being taken from his own amusements and 
 put on duty as a chaperon. 
 
 " Charming night, Mr. Wynne, is it not ? " cries Portia, in 
 her pleasant est voice. " I think Laura and I deserve great 
 credit for this bright idea." 
 
 " Ah 1 " says Dolly Wynne, folding his arms sulkily, and 
 looking up at the moon. They are driving in an open 
 barouche, and Susan, who is beside him, can watch his face. 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' Isn't that < ah ! ' like Dolly ? " cries Mrs. Wynne, 
 with her shrill laughter. " Would you believe it, Portia, when 
 I first asked him, he refused to come. Said some other fellow 
 would take just as good care of us as he would. Didn't you, 
 
 " I think the whole thing m bad taste," said Dolly ; " in 
 deuced bad taste, and and a deuced bore." 
 
 Susan remembered Teddy Josselin, Evidently these Chelsea 
 gardens were not as favourire a resort with gentlemen as with 
 ladies. The thought depressed her lessened her hope of 
 meeting George Blake among the crowd. 
 
 "Oh ! Mr. Wynne, that's so unkind to us," said Portia, 
 pleadingly, and leaning her beautiful face across in the moon- 
 light. It was one of the conditions of their friendship that 
 Portia should occasionally cajole dear Laura's husband into 
 submission. " I am going back to Halfont for ten months 
 to-morrow, and Susan has never been out of Halfont in her 
 life. This one evening's amusement is a great deal to us, 
 remember, and you ought to sacrifice yourself with a bettei 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 273 
 
 grace. Now, won't you be nice and good-tempered, if / ask 
 you ? " 
 
 " Tell me how Pin to be nice ! " growled Dolly, but in a 
 softening tone what man could Portia Ffrench not soften 1 
 " if you will promise to let me take care of you all the evening, 
 I will be as nice as I can." 
 
 Portia bit her lips to repress a smile. " Of course, you are 
 going to take care of me all the evening, of me and Susan too.' 
 
 Dolly Wynne now turned his head, and for the first time 
 gave Susan a long stare. The result was not satisfactory. 
 The first reason Mr. Wynne could find for any woman's exist- 
 ence a certain amount of good looks presupposed was that 
 she should be capable of amusing Dolly Wynne ! Shy sim- 
 plicity, modest grace, "the violet by the mossy stone," were 
 not by any means the kind of charms poor Dolly could appre- 
 ciate. 
 
 "It's a great mistake going to these places at all," he 
 remarked, going back, as men of few ideas do, to his original 
 proposition ; "a deuced mistake, and a deuced bore, too." 
 
 "It can't be a mistake as far as I am concerned," said 
 Portia. "I could meet grandmamma and Miss Condy face to 
 face, without the slightest fear of their recognizing me ; " and 
 she took out her "mask" from her pocket and tied it over her 
 hat. " Laura, dear, surely you have had the prudence to 
 bring a veil 1 " 
 
 "I have brought Dolly/' said Laura, with the calm of con- 
 scious rectitude. " I am not ashamed of being seen. No need 
 of disguise when one has a husband with one, my dear Portia." 
 
 " Then I need hardly ask if you mean to keep at Mr. 
 Wynne's side all the evening, my dearest Laura 1 Little Lord 
 Dormer is not to meet us, I suppose, as you planned 1 " 
 
 " At these places one cannot have too strong an escort of 
 gentlemen," said Mrs. Wynne. " As Lord Dormer was so 
 anxious to join the party, I thought it just as well he should 
 come about Mr. Josselin I need not ask ? and then the best 
 thing we can do is all to keep together. As you think a veil so 
 
 X 
 
274 SVSAW FIELDING. 
 
 necessary, why did you not persuade Miss Fielding to wear 
 one?" 
 
 " Because Susan's face is better than any veil," said Portia. 
 " Susan doesn't know a creature in London. Besides, whrt 
 does a child of her age need of disguise ? " 
 
 "Ah! I understand. Ingenue of the party." Mrs. Wynne 
 was very fond of French words, but pronounced them in- 
 differently. " Not a bad notion." 
 
 Now, most of this conversation might as well have been held 
 in Syriac for any meaning it conveyed to Susan's intelligence. 
 Escorts, disguises ; Dolly and a Shetland veil being used 
 apparently as convertible terms, Susan understood nothing of 
 what it all meant : understood only that Mr. Wynne was 
 destined to be her companion, and that a monosyllable every 
 five minutes would be as much as they would have to say to 
 each other. "Still," thought the child of seventeen, " I shall 
 hear the music and see all the gay London people, and perhaps 
 Mr. Blake. Ah ! if I met him, even Dolly wouldn't be able 
 to take my pleasure quite away from me ! " 
 
 At the end of another quarter of an hour the carriage drew 
 up before some kind of entrance-gate, of which Susan's blind 
 eyes could only dimly make out the details. Crowds of people 
 were entering from all directions. It was evidently some kind 
 of gala night, Susan decided, at these Chelsea gardens ; and 
 no one wearing thick veils, she remarked, looking round her 
 when they had left the carriage. Mrs. Wynne was right no 
 more need of disguise in Chelsea than elsewhere. Before they 
 entered the gardens, Teddy Josselin had joined them (as he 
 did so, a head stealthily looked out from a four-wheeled cab, 
 that was drawn up twenty or thirty yards distant), and Portia 
 put her hand within his arm as a matter of course, nor quitted 
 it again during the evening. 
 
 "You have come, in spite of your engagements, then, Ted?" 
 she whispered. 
 
 "Not very likely I should let you be here without me/' 
 Susan heard him answer. 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 275 
 
 " I hope the rest of our party will not miss us ! " cried Mrs. 
 Wynne, with undisguised anxiety. "Mr. Josselin, have you 
 seen anything of Lord Dormer % Impossible to walk about in 
 these places without a strong escort of gentlemen ^ " 
 
 " You have got me, my dear child," said Dolly. 
 " Nothing like a husband's protection, you know. Do you 
 take one arm, and Miss Fielding the other, and see if we 
 have not had quite enough of it all in half an hour." 
 
 " Better let the carriage wait, certainly," said Mrs. Wynne, 
 with sudden austerity of tone ; " and then, if we don't amuse 
 ourselves, we can come away. Portia, I must really forbid 
 you to be out of my sight for an instant." 
 
 With the chaperon of the party in these stern and virtuous 
 dispositions, they now moved on with the crowd into the 
 gardens. Happily for Mrs. Wynne's scruples, Lord Dormer 
 had arrived, and was waiting for them. He was an unwhole- 
 some, wearied-looking little lad of nineteen or twenty : an 
 infant who had already forestalled one fortune in the purchase 
 of toys suited to his nonage, and who, under Mrs. Wynne's 
 auspices, was at present doing his best to get rid of another ; 
 for it was a fact that Laura Wynne, without youth, wit, or 
 beauty, had helped to dissipate as much money as any woman 
 of her world in London. 
 
 4< An awkward, ugly schoolboy," Susan thought, as she 
 looked at him one moment through her glasses. Stupid little 
 Susan ! not aware that Lord Dormer was twentieth Baron of 
 Throgmorton ; that diamonds and rubies were no more to 
 Lord Dormer than bouquets and opera-boxes to other men. 
 " Is it possible that a staid lady like Mrs. Wynne would sooner 
 accept this boy's escort than her own husband's 1 " 
 
 It was evidently quite possible. Looking round, and gaily 
 warning Dolly to Jbe sure to keep close, Laura put her hand 
 within Lord Dormer's arm, and before another minute had 
 elapsed was lost from sight. Susan was as absolutely 
 dependent on Dolly Wynne as if they had been alone together 
 in Robinson Crusoe's Island ! 
 
 T2 
 
276 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Oughtn't we to walk quicker ? " she suggested. " I have 
 lost sight of Mrs. Wynne now ; and Portia and Mr. Josselin 
 seem to be gone altogether. " 
 
 It was the first remark she had made to Mr. Wynne, and she 
 made it excessively shily, and without raising her eyes to his. 
 
 "Well yes," said Dolly, with languid good temper. He 
 had felt the natural indignation of a man and a husband at 
 being put on chaperoning duty at all ; but now that he was 
 here, and now that Laura was happily disposed of, seemed 
 ready to resign himself to his fate. " Portia and Mr. Josselin 
 are gone altogether, and we have lost sight for good of Mrs. 
 Wynne. So all we can do is to think of ourselves. Ever 
 been here before ? " 
 
 " No, Sir." 
 
 " Ah ! won't ever want to come here again, I should say 1 " 
 
 " I don't know about that," said Susan, whose feet were 
 already going in time to distant music. "It seems a very 
 nice sort of place, I think." 
 
 Dolly Wynne put up his eye-glass, and looked down hard on 
 Susan's face. " I don't generally trouble myself about ladies' 
 motives," he remarked, after reading, to the best of his 
 capacity, what was written there ! " above all, where Portia 
 Ffrench and my wife are concerned. But I should like to 
 know what they brought you along with them here 
 to-night for ] " 
 
 "For my own amusement, of course," answered Susan. 
 "Portia said it was a chance I might never have again of 
 seeing life." 
 
 " Seeing life ! Yes, that's just the silly jargon women all 
 talk now. As if they can't see life enough in their proper 
 place, without for ever insisting upon going where men don't 
 want them ! Now, I'm not talking about Mrs. Wynne or 
 Miss Ffrench. They have their own business to mind. But 
 you, my dear little girl," Dolly's tone got quite paternal the 
 creature, of his kind, was honest " wouldn't you be a great 
 deal better off at home than you are here 1 " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 277 
 
 " No, indeed ; I like being here," persisted Susan, obsti- 
 nately. "It is a treat to me to see all these fine-dressed 
 people. We never were sure at Halfont whether the town 
 ladies wore trains or round skirts now I know. And I like 
 the music, and look ! oh ! look ! " her little fingers closing 
 tight on Dolly's arm as a gorgeous outbreak of coloured fire 
 burst forth, from at some hundred yards' distance, against the 
 pale moonlit sky. 
 
 The crowd, at this abrupt commencement of the fireworks, 
 began, as crowds do under all sudden excitements, to rush 
 senselessly forward, and Susan and her protector were borne 
 along with the tide. " Hold my arm fast," whispered Dolly ; 
 " and at the first turning we will get away. There's a nice 
 sheltered little side-path somewhere here to the left." 
 
 Accordingly, when the nice sheltered little path was- 
 reached, they turned into it. Dolly Wynne and Susan tete-ct- 
 tete in the moonlight ; the coloured lamps shining with fantas- 
 tic stage effect through the trees ; the distant band playing 
 deliciously ; the star-covered blue sky overhead ! Susan 
 began to think the Chelsea gardens charming. They 
 wandered on slowly, and at last Dolly Wynne's arm pressed 
 closer than on the slim girlish hand that rested there, and 
 he began to talk nonsense. What efee was there for him 
 to do, in this absurd position into which his wife's folly 
 had forced him 1 Dolly Wynne talked nonsense ; and Susan, 
 secure in the knowledge that her companion was a married 
 man, and at no times quick at suspecting evil, was looking 
 up, all simplicity and good faith, at his own down-bent 
 face, when fortunately, or unfortunately a party of four 
 or five people met them full, and Mr. Wynne, dim though 
 the light in this side alley tvas, found himself recognized. 
 
 " What ! Dolly Wynne here ] " Susan heard a voice 
 exclaim just as they passed. 
 
 Mr. Wynne looked back quickly over his shoulder. 
 " Hallo ! is that you 1 " he exclaimed. Then turning to 
 Susan : " Just wait for me one minute," he whispered ; 
 
278 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "walk slowly on, and I'll catch you up directly. I want 
 to speak to a friend of mine, a college friend I Lave not 
 seen for ages." 
 
 And before Susan had time to reply, or even to think, she 
 found herself alone. 
 
 She walked slowly on as she had been told, but Mr. 
 Wynne's minute proved a long one ; he had evidently much 
 to say to his college friend. They had already nearly reached 
 the point at which the path rejoined one of the main thorough- 
 fares of the gardens. Groups of people were passing and 
 repassing on all sides ; and, looking round, Susan found, with 
 a beating heart, that she had lost sight of her protector. 
 Should she wait for him, or return 1 While she hesitated, a 
 knot of young men brushed by, and one of them turned and 
 spoke to her. What he said, Susan knew not ! An access of 
 blind terror overcame her ; she gave a little stifled cry of 
 entreaty, then, too frightened to know which path she took, 
 began to run. 
 
 A minute later, and she was ones more in the thick of the 
 .crowd this time alone ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 "WAS I right, Portia] Is it at all livelier to listen to 
 'Tommy Dodd' out-of-doors than to the 'Belle lielene' in a 
 ball-room? Are the London apprentice and his sweetheart 
 less boring than one's own acquaintance when you come to 
 spend an evening in their society ? " 
 
 Teddy Josselin and Portia were sitting alone in one of the 
 remote quarters of the garden Portia closely veiled still, 
 Teddy smoking a cigarette : neither of them in spirits. 
 
 "Every place would be stupid to people in such tempers as 
 ours," said Portia. " I could enjoy it all very much, under 
 different circumstances." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 279 
 
 " Ah ! under different circumstances you might, but not with 
 me," remarked Teddy, quietly. " Very likely Mrs. Wynne is 
 amusing herself : I'll wager poor Dormer isn't, though." 
 
 " Do you mean to compare me to Laura Wynne, sir ] " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "Do you mean to compare me to Laura Wynne? The 
 question surely does not entail so hard a strain on the reflec- 
 tive faculties but that you may answer it ! " 
 
 " I don't think you are much like her now." 
 
 " But will be, some day ] " 
 
 "You will always be a far handsomer woman, my dear 
 Portia." 
 
 " I am not thinking of that any more than you are, Mr. 
 Josselin. Do you mean that I shall ever be .... the same 
 kind of woman Laura Wynne is now 1 " 
 
 " I think there is a family likeness between all women of 
 fashion, if I must speak the impartial truth," said Teddy. 
 
 A dead silence. 
 
 "What a vexation and disappointment everything in life 
 is ! " came at length from Portia's lips a wreath of blue 
 smoke at the same instant from Teddy's. "I wish to Heaven 
 I were back at Halfont ! " 
 
 "Well, I must say I like Halfont on a moonlit night 
 myself." Teddy made this remark almost cheerfully. 
 
 "And I wish to Heaven I had never left Halfont ! " went 
 on Portia. " Every step I take seems to bring me to greater 
 grief than the last. I should have done better by far to hold 
 to poor Mr. Macbean. He had ballast, common sense, 
 principle. 
 
 " Yes, I doubt if Sandy would have done what I am doing 
 to-night," assented Teddy. " Fancy old Macbean at " 
 
 " I should have been able to respect him, at all events," 
 interrupted Portia. " He was not a man to let me have my 
 way in every ridiculous folly ; and then " 
 
 " Then sit quietly and be bullied because you did not amuse 
 yourself," said Teddy. " No, I don't think he was." 
 
280 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "I wonder whether I hate you, sir ] I'm sure I feel as if 
 I do." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind, my dear child. No woman ever 
 hated me. You are out of temper with yourself, Portia, 
 nothing more." 
 
 'Is there any particular object in our sitting in one place 
 the whole evening ] As, unfortunately, I have come here, 
 mayn't I as well walk about and try to be amused ? " 
 
 "Try, if possible, to be recognized by some man who can 
 float the new scandal about Portia Ffrench through the clubs 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Recognized with this mask on I" 
 
 " Recognized with Portia Ffrench's walk and shoulders ! " 
 
 " Once for all, it must be confessed, Mr. Josselin, that you 
 are of a thoroughly jealous, exacting, selfish temperament." 
 
 " Jealous ! " 
 
 "Yes, jealous. Don't you know the meaning of the 
 word?" 
 
 "I think so. I ought, I am sure ! No ; I am not jealous : 
 at least, I never was yet, of any one." 
 
 " Then why used you to be so angry at my distributing my 
 photographs ' over all the mess-tables/ as you were pleased to 
 say, ' in the kingdom ? ' Why are you in such a bad temper 
 to-night so dreadfully afraid of any one recognizing Portia 
 Ffrench's walk and shoulders ] " 
 
 Teddy took his cigarette from his lips, held it delicately 
 poised between two fingers, and gazed up at the moon. "I'm 
 not good at definitions," he remarked, shaking his handsome 
 little head over the sense of his own deficiency ; " however,. 
 I'll try, for once, to say what I mean. Portia, you see Dolly 
 Wynne?" 
 
 " Thank Heaven I do not, at this moment." 
 
 "Well, if I was Dolly Wynne, Mrs. Wynne would keep up 
 an establishment of her own. You understand ] " 
 
 Not a word in reply from Portia. 
 
 " I am not particularly straight-laced, that I know of, and 
 
S&SAW FIELDING. 281 
 
 I should like my wife to amuse herself honestly, if she could 
 (why can't women amuse themselves honestly ?) and I'd let 
 her have her own way in everything, as you have had yours 
 now, up to a certain point." 
 
 " And that point 1 " 
 
 " Would be a good deal this side Mrs. Wynne's latitude," 
 said Teddy, incoherently, but thoroughly in earnest. "I 
 don't believe I am jealous, but I know I should never love 
 any woman who made a fool of herself. And it would bore 
 me to live with a woman I didn't love. And I never mean to 
 bore myself. Those are my principles." 
 
 And he put back his cigarette between his lips. 
 " Well, this is edifying ! " cried Portia, with a small, scorn- 
 ful laugh. "I have heard of sermons in stones. I never 
 thought, though, to hear sermons from Ted Josselin, and in 
 a place like this ! I am going back to Halfont to-morrow. 
 I make a poor little attempt at one evening's amusement, 
 escorted by you : and people much better than me go every- 
 where now to Evans', to the Alhambra, everywhere : you 
 have told me so yourself and this is the result ! If it is the 
 slightest gratification to you, let me say that I never enjoyed 
 myself so little as I have done to-night ! My dreadful crime 
 has brought its own punishment. 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," answered Teddy. " You will not 
 want to try the same experiment again." 
 
 "Not under the same circumstances, you may be very 
 sure," retorted Portia. 
 
 This is how two of the party were taking their pleasure. 
 Susan, meanwhile, her cheeks on fire, her heart beating till 
 she could hear its beats, was wandering continually more and 
 more astray in the crowd (for with the adventures of Mrs. 
 Wynne, as with those of Dolly, this story has no concern). 
 She made her way on for forty or fifty paces, vaguely hoping 
 that she was going in the same direction Portia and Teddy 
 Josselin had taken. Then some one spoke to her again ; asked 
 her, for she could hear the words clear this time, if she was 
 
282 S&SAW FIELDING. 
 
 looking for any one, and would like to be assisted in the 
 search % 
 
 66 1 have lost my friends," said the little girl, half-crying. 
 "I don't know where I am. I was never at Chelsea before." 
 
 Susan looked up timidly as she spoke at the face of her 
 interlocutor, a swarthy Jewish face, with black, evil-glancing 
 eyes, and on the instant was seized with terror so sickening 
 that forgetting the crowd was now her best protector she 
 ran off, hard as she could run, down an alley, lighted by the 
 moon alone, that turned sharply away to the left. At first she 
 thought she heard steps as of some one in pursuit, and the 
 idea of again seeing the man who had spoken to her gave 
 her power to fly. Then, gradually, all became silent ; and 
 panting, faint with affright, Susan sank down on one of the 
 rustic benches that bordered the path. . . . 
 
 The moon quivered fitfully upon her face through the 
 branches of a laburnum bush overhead, and a man who had 
 approached alone from the other end of the alley was able, 
 standing in deep shadow himself, to watch her for a good 
 minute or more unobserved. Then he came forward and spoke : 
 
 " Susan." 
 
 The poor little girl jumped up, ready for flight, half expect- 
 ing to see her persecutor at her side, and saw George Blake. 
 She caught hold of his hand, of his arm : 
 
 " Don't leave me ! don't ever leave me any more ! " she 
 exclaimed, then burst out crying. " I came with Portia, sir," 
 she said, as Blake stood silent, gravely watching her, " with 
 Portia and Mr. Josselin and the Wynnes ; and Lord Dormer 
 met us here. You know these people ? " 
 
 " I know who they are yes." 
 
 " Mr. Wynne Dolly they call him was to take care of 
 me, but he met a college friend he wanted to speak to, and I 
 lost him, and got among the crowd .... and a man with a 
 horrible face spoke to me .... and then I ran away here. 
 Don't leave me, Mr. Blake ! I shall die with terror if I lose 
 youl" 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 283 
 
 Blake took her fluttering hand and drew it within his arm. 
 "I might have known what kind of influence brought you 
 here," said he. " But for a minute for one whole minute, 
 Susan my heart stood still as I watched you ! Now, don't 
 be silly," she was trembling yet with agitation, " don't cry and 
 don't be frightened. I'll take care of you. If you don't see 
 these vigilant friends of yours any more, I'll take you home. 
 Did you come from Half orit to-day 1 " 
 
 " I have left Halfont for ever, sir ; I'm staying with my 
 guardian in Brunswick Square, and Portia asked me to dine 
 at Lady Erroll's to-day, and we came to these gardens to finish 
 the evening. And I liked coming, and I was enjoying myself 
 oh so much ! till I got lost," added Susan, with her irre- 
 pressible truthfulness. 
 
 "Enjoying yourself with Dolly "Wynne ? " 
 
 " Yes. He didn't like being brought here at first, he told 
 me, but he got quite good-tempered after a bit. And he took 
 me along such a pretty path with overhanging trees, and we 
 were listening to the music, and just going to look* at the fire- 
 works, and then this friend of his passed, and Dolly bade me 
 walk on a moment, and I got lost. What a fool I was to 
 cry ! " She brushed the big tears still resting on her cheeks. 
 " As if any one would have hurt me ! Now I'm with you I 
 feel as brave as a lion again." And as she vaunted her 
 courage, Susan's small fingers unconsciously closed tighter 
 upon the young man's arm. 
 
 "Do you remember the last evening you and I saw each 
 other, my dear?" he whispered. "You told me then there 
 was to be no next time. Have you forgotten what you told 
 me, Susan 1 " 
 
 Susan hung her head. Ah ! that last evening on which she 
 had definitely made up her mind that she liked George Blake, 
 and that her liking was hopeless ! Would that she could for- 
 get it ! Would that all she had passed through since had only 
 been a bad dream ! "A great deal has happened since then/' 
 she cried, at last. "I feel I don't know how many years 
 
284 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 older since that night when you drew my portrait and I threw 
 it in the river." 
 
 " Indeed/' said Blake ; " and what has there been to make 
 you grow old 1 Look at me, Susan. Let me see what wrinkle" 
 and grey hairs have become suddenly visible." 
 
 They had walked farther and farther from the crowd while 
 they talked, and were now alone in the clear moonlight ; not 
 a figure, not a shadow which could conceal a figure, within 
 many yards of them. 
 
 Susan lifted her face full up to Blake's. " I have had a 
 dozen things, at least, to make me feel old," she said. " I 
 don't know why you should laugh at me. I have left Halfont 
 for ever, and I'm going away to people I've never seen in 
 France, and and " she had to struggle with herself before 
 she could bring out the confession " and I've got engaged ! " 
 she cried, with a little resolute jerk. 
 
 " Have done what ? " asked Blake, not without a smile. 
 
 " I've got engaged." 
 
 "Engaged as what 1 ?" 
 
 " Engaged to be married ; but Tom Collinson has had to 
 return to New Zealand to settle some money business, so it 
 won't be for a year. I shall spend that year at Uncle 
 Adam's.' 7 
 
 " And who is Tom Collinson *? And do you mean to say 
 you are really fond of him 1 Oh Susan, Susan, this is a blow 
 to me ! " 
 
 The child's foolish heart throbbed with an ecstasy of 
 pleasure. "A blow!" she stammered. " Oh, Mr. Blake, 
 how can it matter to you what I do and who I care for 1 " 
 Susan's mind could never master the accusative case while she 
 lived. 
 
 " It matters everything," answered Blake ; not, I fear, with- 
 out undue tenderness of manner : the hour, the distant music, 
 the moonlight, all conspiring against his wisdom, as such 
 influences are apt to conspire against men's wisdom at five and 
 twenty. " But for the existence of this miserable man Collin- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 285 
 
 son, how can I tell you would not some day have looked at 
 mel" 
 
 He stooped ; he laid his hand upon the small fingers that 
 held his arm so closely. " Don't be cruel enough to tell me 
 that you love Tom Collinson in earnest ? " he whispered. 
 
 " Love ! Oh ! I don't know anything about that," stam- 
 mered Susan, her breath coming short and tremulous. " Tom 
 Collinson and Eliza were kind to me when I had no one else, 
 and he wanted me to say Yes, and I said it. It was one day 
 .... I had been walking, very miserable indeed, on the 
 common .... and and I first thought, for certain, that 
 you and Portia were engaged, sir." 
 
 "Ah, I see," said Blake, in a somewhat altered tone. "The 
 day you thought for certain that Portia Ffrench and I were 
 engaged you accepted Mr. Collinson '] " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Who told you the news of of my engagement ? " 
 
 " I don't know whether it would be right for me to say." 
 
 " It is right for you to say everything to me, my dear." 
 
 " Well, I was staying at the Collinsons', and old Miss 
 Ffrench met me on the heath. It was the day of the sale 
 I'm sure I was wretched enough already and we began to 
 talk about Portia aiid her engagement being over with Mr. 
 Josselin " 
 
 " Go on, Susan. Don't mind me." 
 
 " And we thought she could never take it so lightly unless 
 in her heart she cared a little for some one else, and of course 
 we knew you liked her, and oh ! why do you make me say 
 all this? I felt there wasn't a doubt you understood each 
 other at last." 
 
 " And went home and engaged yourself to Tom Collinson 1 " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Blake." 
 
 Blake stood silent, revolving many things in his mind. At 
 last, "And you have found out your mistake by this time 1 " 
 he asked, but without looking in Susan's face. " You know 
 pretty well how much Portia Ffrench cares for me now." 
 
286 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Ah, how his voice had changed ! Foolish little mock lover- 
 like speeches, tender hand pressures, might be for her, in the 
 moonshine Portia not by. His heart easy to see that his 
 heart was Portia's still. Susan instantly felt it was her duty 
 to be dignified and freezing, and as a preliminary step snatched 
 her hand away from beneath Blake's. 
 
 " It is not likely I can judge of Portia's feelings, sir. If I 
 gave an opinion " 
 
 " Well, if you gave an opinion ? " 
 
 " I should say she likes Mr. Josselin still." 
 
 " Of course she likes Mr. Josselin still. How is she looking 
 to-night, Susan % " 
 
 " Oh ! handsomer than ever. She is dressed very plainly : 
 a muslin dress, a black shawl Mr. Josselin's choice, I heard 
 him say. It suits her." 
 
 Susan would not have trodden on a garden-worm for any- 
 thing you could have offered her ; yet would she pitilessly 
 torture the man she loved ; yes, and enjoy the sight of his 
 pain. Have you not remarked this crookedness of spirit in 
 the very softest-natured women you know 1 ? 
 
 "What do you mean by her dress being Josselin's 
 choice 1 Do they talk of muslins and laces before Lady 
 Erroll 1 " 
 
 " Oh no ! It was before Lady Erroll came in." 
 
 " Susan, you are a dear, kind-hearted little girl. Tell me 
 exactly what they said, both of them/' 
 
 "About the dress ?" 
 
 "No, yes about everything." 
 
 " Portia pretended to be a little cross at some nonsense of 
 his you know a way she has of pretending when she likes ] 
 and walked away as though she would never speak to him 
 again : and then Mr. Josselin followed and remarked she had 
 put on the dress he bade her wear, and said he would make 
 her have taste in more things than dress in time. This was 
 a joke, of course. I think Portia has the most perfect taste 
 in the world. And then they began to discuss about coming 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 287 
 
 here to-night. Mr. Josselin did not want to come, but Portia 
 would have her own way, and then " 
 
 "Then?" 
 
 " Old Lady Err oil came in, and Mr. Josselin talked most to 
 me for the rest of the evening." 
 
 " And came away with you both from Lady Erroll's house V' 
 
 " Oh no ! He made believe to say good-bye to us in Lady 
 Erroll's presence, and met us here outside the gates/' 
 
 " And Portia Miss Ffrench is with him now ]" 
 
 "I suppose so ; I have not seen them since." 
 
 " Thank you ! For administering a moral tonic, strong, 
 bitter, undisguised, commend me, Susan, to a little girl of your 
 age ! No trembling of the hand, no mawkish attempt to dis- 
 guise the taste of the salutary draught by sugar ! You hit 
 straight, my dear, drive the nail well home, as it ought to be 
 driven. Now just take my arm again so and let us return 
 to what we were talking about. What were you telling me, 
 Susan ] That you are engaged too ? That's all absurd non- 
 sense. I forbid the banns. A poor little thing like you to 
 talk of being engaged and to Tom Collinson too ! " 
 
 "You have never seen him, sir T' 
 
 " No, but I can imagine him. He is not good enough for 
 you, Susan. Don't you feel in your heart that Tom Collinson 
 is not good enough for you 1 " 
 
 "I feel that I shall marry him," cried Susan, unhesitatingly. 
 " It's a regular engagement, I can tell you. Look, this is his 
 ring that I wear on my finger." 
 
 " And you think he is good enough for you 1 " 
 
 " I I don't see why he shouldn't be. He has got faults. 
 Every one has got faults." 
 
 " And what are Mr. Collinson's special ones 1 " 
 
 " He smokes too much." 
 
 " Venial ; very venial, Susan." 
 
 "And he can drink ever so many glasses of brandy and 
 water.'' 
 
 "Afterwards]" 
 
.'.88 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Blake, he is so jealous ! I think that's the very 
 worst fault he has." 
 
 " Jealous ! The plot thickens ! " said Blake. " When I 
 saw you last a fortnight ago, isn't it "? you were a good, 
 unsophisticated little country girl, Susan ; and now you have 
 got a lover, and the lover has got a rival a rival, or rivals, 
 which?" 
 
 " Tom would be jealous of the air, if he could think of 
 nothing else," said Susan, shirking this direct question. " He 
 was jealous of people he had never seen, and he likes me to 
 go and live with Uncle Adam, at St. Sauveur, just because I 
 shall have no one to speak to there. And I'm not to write to 
 anybody that I've promised, and " 
 
 " Oh ! but all this must be seen to," interrupted Blake, 
 seriously. " These sort of oaths were never intended to be 
 kept. In the first place, you must write to me." 
 
 " Never ! " said Susan. " That is the one thing I never can 
 do while Tom is gone." 
 
 " What ! were you weak enough to give a special promise 
 on the point ] " 
 
 " I had no choice but to promise. Of course I couldn't say 
 as Tom wished that I would never sing with you or speak 
 to you, because I knew I might see you with Portia ; but I 
 thought I might easily obey him about writing. I write 
 shocking letters, Miss Collinson says ; when I've put, ' My 
 dear So-and-so, I am well, and hope you are the same/ I can 
 think of nothing else. You wouldn't care to get them." 
 
 "My dear," said Blake, "I should care to get the sheet of 
 paper that your sweet little hand had touched." 
 
 And after this they walked on for a space in silence silence 
 soft and pure as if they had been a hundred miles away from 
 London : even the music (a set of quadrilles containing such 
 melodies as "Tommy Todd" and "Champagne Charlie") 
 becoming refined in its transit across the moonlit gardens ; the 
 distant crowd, every belonging of the place, so Blake felt, 
 losing its vulgarity by the fine contact of Susan's presence. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 289 
 
 A woman of fashion, if she choose to visit doubtful resorts r 
 assimilates singularly rapidly, in the minds of her male asso- 
 ciates, with her surroundings. The innocence of a little girl 
 like Susan can transmit to the grossest background something 
 of its own whiteness if the experiment be made but once ! 
 
 They sauntered leisurely along, and some association of 
 ideas the juxtaposition of country simplicity, perhaps, with 
 the follies of the town made Blake's imagination travel back 
 to that summer evening of a hundred and fifty years ago, when 
 the good old knight went down by water to Spring Gardens, 
 and listened under the May moon for the nightingale. " There 
 is nothing," said Sir Roger, "there is nothing in the world 
 that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. " He 
 thought of the buried generations that had masked and wan- 
 toned in the years long past through these " Mahometan 
 Paradises ; " of the frail dead lips that had kissed and quaffed 
 beneath their shades ; of the inexorable next mornings grim 
 ghosts of all the vanished hours which, to youth and pleasure, 
 had fled so swift. 
 
 "I do think," said Susan's fresh voice, " that people in town 
 have great advantages over us in the country. If ever I live 
 in London, I will come to a place of this kind every moonlit 
 night." 
 
 " In a grand trained silk dress, and with company like the 
 people you see here, I hope 1 " 
 
 " If I am only lucky enough. What can be better than a 
 grand trained silk, and well-dressed companions and music, 
 and a garden like this to walk about in ? " 
 
 Blake did not speak. The capability for evil in Susan 
 Fielding capability of which men and women of the world 
 may detect pathetic forewarnings in every unknowing word a 
 child utters was a new idea to him. 
 
 "If you don't think places of amusement nice, I wonder 
 you come to them yourself," said she. 
 
 " Places of amusement may be 'nice ' for me, not for you, 
 little Susan. Besides I came here with an object to study 
 
 u 
 
290 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 light and shade. See, here is my note-book," he touched the 
 breast-pocket of his coat. "I had just been jotting down 
 some details for a moonlit garden-scene I am thinking of 
 painting, when I ran across you. When do you leave Londo^, 
 my dear 1 You have not told me half enough about yourself." 
 
 " To-iaorrow evening/ 1 She sighed audibly. " Oh ! I shall 
 be so sorry to go. Now that I have had a taste of London, I 
 don't want to live with Uncle Adam." 
 
 " And I think to live with Uncle Adam will be just the 
 best thing you can do. Tom Collinson is right. I "begin to 
 have a higher opinion of Tom Collinson. You will have no 
 dissipations of this kind at St. Sauveur, I take it, Susan. " 
 
 " Uncle Adam says there are balls and concerts at St. Maur, 
 a mile distant from St. Sauveur ; but they will be nothing to 
 me ; I shall never enjoy them how should 1 1 " 
 
 "On about the s/ime principle, perhaps, that you have 
 enjoyed yourself to-night, my dear. Only we will hope, with 
 Uncle Adam to take care of you, that the enjoyment will be a 
 little less perilous." 
 
 " Perilous ! " cried Susan " perilous ! And haven't I had 
 you to take care of me now ] " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 IT was past eleven o'clock when they reached the entrance of 
 the gardens. 
 
 " Not much use in waiting for these friends of yours," said 
 Blake, looking at his watch. " In the first place, they have, 
 beyond all question, forgotten you ; in the second, even if they 
 came, we should be certain to miss them in the crowd. As 
 chaperonage seems to be an institution more honoured in the 
 breach than in the observance, I think the best plan will be 
 for me to get a hansom and take you home." 
 
 Susan had not a doubt upon the subject. To drive alone 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 291 
 
 in a hansom with George Blake by moonlight was probably 
 the highest form of terrestrial happiness her imagination 
 could have soared to. " Still," said she, with an effort to be 
 conscientious, " I be 1* eve it would be right to wait, if it is 
 only a few minutes longer, for the rest. It doesn't matter a 
 bit if we miss Mrs. Wynne, but I should be sorry for Miss 
 Portia to lose a night's rest through uneasiness about me." 
 
 "I don't think you need fear that," said Blake. "Miss 
 Portia has never lost a night's rest save through ball-going 
 in her life." 
 
 However, he waited, Susan still hanging upon his arm, and 
 began slowly to pace up and down the walk immediately in 
 sight of the entrance. After a couple of turns they came 
 across Portia and Teddy Josselin : Teddy, his hands thrust 
 despondently in the pockets of his light overcoat, Portia veiled 
 close as ever neither of them, it seemed, speaking a word. 
 At the moment of meeting, Susan's figure, as it chanced, was 
 in shadow, Blake's perfectly distinct in the moonlight. He 
 raised his hat and moved slightly aside. 
 
 " Ah ! how are you, Blake 1 " cried Teddy, looking round, 
 but not offering to stop. 
 
 Portia turned away her head and quickened her pace 
 perceptibly. 
 
 "Portia Miss Portia!" cried out Susan. "Don't go 
 away ; don't let us lose each other again ! " 
 
 So now no choice was left to Portia Ffrench, but to accept 
 her position. She accepted it gracefully, as she accepted most 
 things ; moralized, as she shook hands with Blake, upon the 
 impossibility of committing any crime with impunity ; was 
 duly indignant at Dolly Wynne's desertion of Susan ; duly 
 thankful at Mr. Blake, "like the fairy prince in a bur- 
 lesque," coming just when he was wanted, to the rescue.. 
 "And I hope, Susan, all these thrilling adventures have 
 served to make you pass your time pleasantly," she finished. 
 " For my part, I must confess that this scheme of Laura's 
 has turned out the greatest failure, even in the way of amuse- 
 
 u2 
 
292 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 ment, I ever experienced, and that is using strong lan- 
 guage/' 
 
 Thus saying s In dropped Teddy Josselin's arm and drew a 
 step nearer to the others. At the instant in which she found 
 herself recognized she had detected an expression such as she 
 had never seen before on Blake's face ; not so much, she was 
 forced to acknowledge, an expression of indignation, of anger, 
 of jealousy, as of contempt. And the thought was exceeding 
 bitter to her ! No woman living, whatever her theoretic 
 contempt for the world's opinion, but feels poignant pain at 
 the first humiliation, the first descent from her pedestal, in 
 the sight of the man who has loved her ! 
 
 " Don't you think we had better walk about here till Mrs. 
 Wynne joins us ? " she said in what a humble tone for Portia 
 Ffrench ! and turning her veiled face up to Blake's. 
 
 "As you choose," said he, coldly. "I was just thinking 
 of getting a cab, if I could find one, and taking Miss Fielding 
 home to her friend's house. I resign her into your charge 
 now." 
 
 " But you will stop with us till we find the rest of our 
 party 1 " pleaded Portia in a whisper. " Oh, if you knew how 
 I repent having been drawn into all this foolishness ! " She 
 had turned and was walking slowly back, Blake, of necessity, 
 keeping by her side. " Please tell me you won't think very 
 bad things of me for having met me here 1 " 
 
 "I don't assume the right of thinking anything," he 
 answered. " You are much the best judge of what is fitting 
 for you to do. A little girl like Susan Fielding might as well 
 have been left out of the evening's programme, perhaps." 
 
 If he meant to sting Portia Ffrench to the very quick, 
 he had succeeded. " Susan Fielding 1 " she exclaimed. 
 Susan and Teddy Josselin were now some yards distant 
 behind. " Oh ! I quite understand you : a little girl like 
 Susan Fielding might as well have been left out of an act of 
 folly that is seemly and consistent for Portia Ffrenek. You 
 are in a compliir^ntary mood this evening." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 293 
 
 " I am, I fear, in a sane one," said Blake. " The cure 
 which you foretold for me that last night at Half ont is wrought 
 at length. Ah, Miss Ffrench, you may remember my saying to 
 you then that the cure would be sharper to bear than the 
 disease ! " 
 
 And, in speaking thus, he spoke the truth. His first fever 
 of infatuation had been cooling longer ago, perhaps, than he 
 himself suspected. But he had lingered obedient to Portia's 
 will for some time after his heart had in very fact escaped her 
 thrall. On the evening of the drawing-lesson he would have 
 given up his life to her had she chosen to accept the sacrifice 
 of his life : during the week succeeding the rupture of her 
 engagement he had paraded his allegiance to her in whatever 
 public place it was her pleasure that the world should note it. 
 At this moment her voice pleaded to him as it had never 
 pleaded yet George Blake knew definitely, finally, half 
 relieved, half with a feeling of exquisite pain, that he was 
 sane cured ; that Portia Ffrench was nothing to him ! 
 
 She would have retorted ; but the words died on her lips. 
 She had never for a moment believed herself in love with the 
 penniless young Treasury clerk ; had confessed openly, that 
 vanity on both sides was the sole foundation of their attach- 
 ment. And her heart was full as it could hold of other 
 hopes : hopes, ambitions, fears, in which Blake had no part. 
 And still she grudged, passionately grudged him his 
 recovered freedom. She had never loved, had never meant to 
 marry Blake : all the love that it was in her to give was at the 
 present time Teddy Josselin's. But she had lost him ! The 
 unimportant pawn was off the board ; the fish had got back 
 to the river, sufficient vitality left in him to swim away. She 
 could almost have gone upon her knees at this moment, if 
 going upon her knees could have brought him back. For it is 
 curious that wounded self-love will ofttimes push people 
 farther than would wounded love for others in their desire 
 for reconciliation. 
 
 " You have become sane again ! " she cried, bitterly, after a 
 
294 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 minute. "Oh! how easy it would be for me to be sane 
 truthful, upright, everything I ought to be, if my position was 
 not such a false one ! Some day I hope I shall be able to 
 convince you that I was not quite as much to blame a^ 
 you think me now." 
 
 "I don't blame you in the slightest degree/' said Blake, 
 stiffly : his stiffness proving to demonstration that he was not 
 utterly indifferent. " Your life is apart from mine in every 
 way, Miss Ffrench your life, your associates, your amuse- 
 ments." 
 
 " Amusements ! Do you prat end to think I came to this 
 shocking place to-night for amusement ? " 
 
 "I should be sorry to suppose you came here from 
 curiosity," answered Blake." 
 
 " And why, pray ? " cried Portia, quickly. " What possible 
 danger can there be in ladies going anywhere they choose, 
 properly escorted ? " 
 
 " Danger oh ! if you argue the question in the abstract, 
 what danger can there be in anything that does not imperil 
 life and limb ?" 
 
 " Don't hit too hard, Mr. Blake ; I really can't bear hard 
 hitting from any one to-night. If you knew how worried I 
 am, what trouble of all sorts lies on my mind, you would be 
 more lenient to me to me and to my faults ! " 
 
 She raised her hand with a quick gesture to her forehead, 
 and her veil fell to the ground ; by accident or intention who 
 shall say? In her whole life Portia Ffrench had never 
 looked handsomer than she looked at this moment ; her light 
 summer dress, artistically relieved by flowing drapery of black 
 lace, the minglement of lamplight and moonlight shining on 
 her picturesque, Italian-hued face. Never had she looked 
 handsomer : never had beauty fallen so powerless on George 
 Blake's heart ! Fresh from the simple charms of a girl whose 
 every look, whose every tone, was natural, Portia Ffrench 
 with her town-taught air and well-posed attitudes, yes, and 
 with the town-made artistic dress, and the veil fluttering 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 295 
 
 exactly at the right moment to the ground, Portia Ffrench, 
 with all her superior breeding, with all her superior 
 grace, struck him the word must out as more than half an 
 actress. And Blake had known so many actresses ! had been 
 a spectator, on and off the stage, at so many a scene of 
 touching contrition and repentance ! The comparison of itself 
 was a disillusionment. 
 
 He picked up the veil and returned it to her gravely, 
 and without answering a word. At that moment their eyes 
 met, and Portia knew the truth. 
 
 " I don't know why it is," she cried in her lightest tone, and 
 again putting on her " mask," " I don't know why it is, but I 
 am perpetually feeling that we are all acting our parts in a 
 play to-night ; the effect of so much music and lamplight and 
 coloured fire, I suppose. Susan as the ingenuous village 
 heroine, of course, and Ted and I well, we'll leave that alone 
 and you, oh ! Mr. Blake, you as the great tragic element of 
 the whole piece. If you could see your face ! Teddy, " she 
 paused a minute, till her cousin and Susan came up ; then, with 
 the prettiest mock-unconscious air of familiarity, stole her hand 
 under Teddy's arm, "did you ever see any one grown so 
 tragic-looking as Mr. Blake] Beally, Susan, if this is the 
 influence you exercise over people, I shall expect to hear of 
 some horrible ending to poor Dolly." 
 
 " A pity some horrible ending didn't happen to him earlier 
 in the day," remarked Teddy. " If it had, the widow would 
 have kept at home at least I suppose she would for oye 
 evening and we should have been spared the trouble of 
 waiting for her. How much longer do you intend to wait for 
 Mrs. Wynne, Portia ? " 
 
 It would be ridiculous to say that Teddy Josselin's lazy 
 voice could ever sound authoritative. In his way of asking 
 this question, however, there lurked just a ring, a suspicion of 
 latent self-assertion. And George Blake's ear detected it in a 
 second. Whatever the avowed rupture of their engagement, 
 the real relations between these two people had not, he felt., 
 
S&SAN FIELDING. 
 
 grown more distant since he was with them last. Teddy 
 Josselin was already on the verge of having opinions. 
 
 " I was proposing just now to Susan that I should take her 
 home in a hansom. Now, if a hansom would only hold four 
 people - ' 
 
 " But two hansoms would hold each two people," cried 
 Teddy, brightening, " and that makes four. What a splendid 
 fellow you are for ideas, Blake ! We'll get two hansoms, if 
 hansoms are to be had, and Blake shall run away with Susan, 
 to the east, and I no, that's where ideas always break down ; 
 you can't reduce them to practice. My cousin and I could 
 never drive up to grandmamma's house at midnight." 
 
 " Condy looking from a garret-window in her nightcap, and 
 grandmamma probably at the very moment stepping out of her 
 carriage," said Portia. " No, we couldn't go to Eaton Square, 
 but we could go to the Wynnes ; we are all invited to finish 
 the evening and have supper there." 
 
 "Host and hostess both unavoidably absent," remarked 
 Teddy. " Well, bad though Mrs. Wynne's supper parties are, 
 anything would be better than remaining on one's legs, 
 Susan, my dear, take my arm oh ! some one else has taken 
 it. Then Blake will bring you." 
 
 And off Teddy Josselin walked; he and Portia speaking 
 never a word the moment they were alone together ; Blake 
 and Susan in the rear. 
 
 "To-night's experience has given you a sample of fashion- 
 able pleasure-taking, Susan." 
 
 " Yes, indeed, it has. Such a sample that I wish I was a 
 fashionable person myself. I think, altogether, it has been 
 the pleasantest evening of my life." 
 
 " And now, of course, you are looking forward to finishing 
 the night with a gay party at Mrs. Wynne's 1 " 
 
 " No, Mr. Blake, I am looking forward to our drive home 
 in a hansom." 
 
 However, the difficulty Teddy had spoken of regarding put- 
 ting ideas into practice once more made itself felt : neither 
 
SUSAN FIZLDING. 297 
 
 two-wheeled nor four-wheeled cabs were to be had for 
 money. After walking a considerable distance down the line 
 of carriages, they came upon the Wynnes' barouche, close behind 
 it little Lord Dormer's brougham, the servants chatting 
 together in the moonlight their theme, perhaps, the social 
 manners and customs of the class assigned to them by Provi- 
 dence as masters. 
 
 " Thank Heaven, one thing at least is open to us/' cried 
 Teddy, with relief : " we can sit down without the London ap- 
 prentice and his sweetheart treading every minute on our toes." 
 
 And he had just stretched his hand forth to open the door 
 of the Wynnes' carriage when the unmistakable shrill tones of 
 a " Dysart voice " made themselves heard, and up came Mrs. 
 Wynne herself, in excellent spirits and humour with every- 
 thing, on Lord Dormer's arm. 
 
 " And we are all safe and sound ! " she cried, not taking 
 sufficient notice of the man she believed to be her husband to 
 observe that it was some one else. "No adventurers, no 
 runaways ]" 
 
 " None except Mr. Wynne," said Portia, lowering her voice. 
 And then the story of Dolly's base conduct and of Blake's 
 opportune rescue of Susan had to be told again ; Portia giving 
 whatever slight additional edge the story was capable of 
 receiving by her manner of narration. 
 
 Mrs. Wynne burst out laughing. " That ia so like Dolly ! * 
 she cried aloud ; philosophically indifferent, it seemed, to the 
 presence of the servants. " Just what he does when he's with 
 me ' My dear child, there's some one I haven't seen for a 
 hundred years wait one minute.' And then off he goes, and 
 I never get a sight of him again. Now how can we pack ] 
 We are very late. I told Nelly Eawdon to come at eleven. 
 Lord Dormer, you can make room for some one ] Portia, my 
 dear" (aside), "introduce me to Mr. Blake." 
 
 At the time when Blake's infatuation was at its height, 
 when scarce a night passed without his haunting Portia 
 Ffrench at some theatre, concert, or ball during that brief 
 
298 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 taste that Blake had had of fashionable life he had known 
 Mrs. Wynne well by sight, but had resisted all Portia's endea- 
 vours to make them better acquainted. " A woman with a 
 harsh voice and harsher nature ; a woman without the chai.ii 
 of youth or the grace of age." This from the first had been 
 the judgment of the fastidious young Treasury clerk upon the 
 " siren " whose allurements many a girl in her first season, 
 many a wife in the first year of her marriage, had had cause 
 to acknowledge. His opinion was not likely to be modified 
 by the circumstances under which he met her to-night. 
 
 " I hope we are to see you, Mr. Blake 1 " Portia had now 
 gone through the form of an introduction. " The rest of the 
 party are all coming. We want supper and champagne, I am 
 sure, to support us after our adventures." 
 
 Susan, who was still on Blake's arm, looked up at him 
 eagerly. " Do come ! " that look said as plain as a look could 
 speak ; but to no avail. He had to rise early, he had given 
 up late hours altogether, he begged of Mrs. Wynne to excuse 
 him. And so, almost crying with disappointment, Susan had 
 to get into the carriage with Mrs. Wynne and Portia, and 
 Blake, taking off his hat, wished them all a formal "good- 
 night," and disappeared. 
 
 He had gone without shaking her hand, without a single 
 kind word of parting, felt Susan blankly. She turned her 
 face away, thinking how empty and disappointing a place the 
 world was, and found that Blake had come round to her side 
 of the carriage. The formal salutation, the cold good-night, 
 had never been meant for her at all. 
 
 " What time do you start to-morrow, Susan, and from what 
 station ? " he asked in a whisper. " Of course I am coming 
 to see you off." 
 
 " Will you will you really 1 Oh, how nice ! I'm so glad ! 
 I was afraid when you took off your hat so grandly I had seen 
 the last of you." Her face as she spoke was within a couple 
 of inches of Blake's in the moonlight ; one of her soft curls 
 brushed his cheek. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 299 
 
 " Don't talk of our seeing the last of each other, Susan. 
 I hope that won't happen till oh ! well, forty or fifty years 
 hence. What station do you start from 1 " 
 
 " Waterloo Station, sir. Mr. Goldney has written all my 
 journey on a card and made me learn it by heart. I leave 
 Waterloo at eight thirty-five Bradshaw." 
 
 " Very well. At eight thirty-five Bradshaw I shall be en 
 the Waterloo platform. Come in good time, Susan, and if you 
 can leave Mr. Goldney behind you, do." 
 
 And then a whispered good-night a good-night in which 
 the hands met, " and the spirit kissed ; " and Blake was gone, 
 and Susan left wondering in a sort of dream how the hours 
 would pass till eight thirty-five Bradshaw to-morrow ! Of the 
 remaining fifty years or so that she might have to pass in the 
 world without Blake, and with Tom Collinson, nothing. Who 
 that loved ever thought, ever reckoned beyond the next 
 meeting 1 
 
 " Oh, ior Friday night 
 
 Friday at the gloamin' ! 
 Oh for Friday night 1 
 
 Friday's long in cominV 
 
 "And now that the Ursa Major has departed, I suppose we 
 may start 1 " cried Mrs. Wynne. "Portia, my dear, why do 
 you encourage such terrible bears in the shape of men as 
 you do?" 
 
 Teddy Josselin, on the plea of wishing to smoke, had gone 
 in Lord Dormer's brougham, and the three ladies were alone. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Laura, dear ? " said Portia, sweetly. 
 " What did you ask me ? " 
 
 She took off her veil as the carriage started, and turned her 
 face round with a smile to her friend. 
 
 " I asked you how you can encourage such fearful creatures 
 in the shape of men as you do, my dear child *? " 
 
 " I suppose because I have no taste for fearful creatures in 
 the shape of little boys/' answered Portia. " That is a taste, 
 
300 SVSAW FIELDING. 
 
 like the taste for olives, that belongs to maturer years, my dear 
 Laura." 
 
 And after these gentle amenities the friends lapsed into 
 silence silence which lasted until the carriage stopped before 
 Mrs. Wynne's house, where the brougham, with little Lord 
 Dormer and Teddy Josselin, arrived a minute or two later. 
 
 A young lady whom Mrs. Wynne saluted with a kiss, and 
 addressed as " Nelly, dearest," and whom Portia called " Miss 
 Rawdon," and presented with three stiff fingers, was sitting in 
 evening dress in Mrs. Wynne's pretty little drawing-room. A 
 few ornamental figures of the other sex were also dispersed 
 about there, not looking exactly as if they belonged to the 
 place, and yet with something in their appearance that in- 
 definably suggested to you the idea of the place belonging to 
 them. One of these mirrors of fashion was in an easy-chair 
 on the balcony smoking ; a second reclining on a sofa, languidly 
 interested in the shape of his own nails ; another was patiently 
 allowing Nelly Eawdon to flirt with him over a book of 
 photographs. All of them were young, and all very much 
 alike, and all " very pretty gentlemen indeed," thought Susan, 
 as her shy eyes were raised, during the ceremony of intro- 
 duction, to their faces. 
 
 Nelly Rawdon was a young lady of four or five-and-twenty, 
 Mrs. Wynne's second-best young lady friend and chaperon ; a 
 young lady with very scarlet lips, hair of the same shade hang- 
 ing unbound upon her shoulders (fine shoulders they were 
 shoulders invariably made the most of), and quite unlimited 
 command of the kind of language which it is so hard to classify 
 without using the schoolboy word " chaff.' 1 
 
 Portia never despised herself so heartily as when she was 
 thrown with Nelly Rawdon in the Wynnes' house. She would 
 go anywhere, she would stoop to any society in quest of excite- 
 ment ; would sacrifice pride, delicacy, self-respect, so long as 
 she could gratify her thirst for admiration, her restless longing 
 for the diversion of the moment. But refinement of taste, 
 rather than of feeling, was inherent in the granddaughter of 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 301 
 
 Colonel Ffrench ; and Nelly Eawdon's loud voice and louder 
 jests jarred on Portia's sensibilities just as it jarred on her 
 when the poor young woman would insist upon decking her 
 flame-coloured hair with crowns of pinkest roses. She knew 
 well enough how men spoke of Nelly ; knew the dozen or more 
 pitiful histories after being the heroine of which Nelly, at five- 
 and-twenty, was Nelly Eawdon still. And even while she 
 would not give up a house where there was always " something 
 going on " something to gratify vanity, or at least get rid of 
 the weight of time never, as I have said, despised her own 
 character so heartily as when she found herself within its walls, 
 with Laura Wynne and Nelly Eawdon for associates. 
 
 " It makes one ashamed of being a woman- only to look at 
 such women as one meets here," she remarked, when She and 
 Susan had gone to Mrs. Wynne's dressing-room to take off 
 their bonnets. " The men are well enough one expects so 
 little from men of their stamp but the women ! but Nelly 
 Eawdon ! I don't, of course, mean to question the designs of 
 Providence, but why are women like Nelly Eawdon ever called 
 into existence 1 " 
 
 Partly, it ^seemed, to minister to the intellectual solace of 
 men like Teddy Josselin. On returning to the drawing-room, 
 the first thing that greeted Portia's sight was her cousin, lazily 
 nestling in the laziest chair the room contained, with Nelly at 
 his side, fanning him fanning him, and as Portia, with quick 
 resentment, felt, amusing him. The unwonted ill-humour 
 that had clouded Ted's face during the evening was gone ; he 
 was laughing, as much as he ever laughed, over some remark 
 of his companion's, while the heightened colour on Nelly 
 Eawdon's face, the heightened animation of her voice and 
 manner, told plainly enough that she was interested in her 
 employment. "Poor Nelly's devotion to people might cer- 
 tainly be a little more subdued," Teddy would acknowledge 
 .sometimes, when Portia was reproaching him for his bad taste 
 in being amused by " such a person." " Still, she never bores 
 you takes the trouble even of laughing at her own jokes off 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 your Panels. Few of the fellows I know tell a story as well 
 as Nelly Rawdon." " For their own credits' sake, I should 
 hope few of the fellows you know tell such stories ! " Portia 
 would retort, with cold disgust. 
 
 She gave them one steady look, quite steadily returned by 
 Ted's blue eyes, then turned away towards an open window 
 where Mrs. Wynne and little Lord Dormer were studying 
 astronomy together upon the balcony. And upon the instant 
 a scheme of perilously-prompt retaliation crossed Portia 
 Ffrench's mind. In her justification I must say that there 
 was much in her present position to make Portia's pride 
 smart. The escapade which, in an evil hour, she had con- 
 sented to join, had, in very truth, originated with Mrs. 
 Wynne. * She had allowed herself to be made ignoble use of 
 a screen behind which to hide Mrs. Wynne's superior folly ! 
 And now what had she gained 1 George Blake's respect for- 
 feited ; George Blake's old love for her sullied ; a fight for 
 power (their first) going on, with every prospect of her 
 becoming the loser, between herself and Teddy ; and now 
 Teddy, in her very presence, encouraging the attentions 
 of a woman whom she detested and despised like Nelly 
 Rawdon ! 
 
 The blood mounted into Portia's dark cheek, a light shone 
 in her eyes. She moved in the direction of the window and 
 paused, just where Lord Dormer could see her to the greatest 
 possible advantage ; her face turned towards him in profile ; 
 her hands clasped and hanging down in an attitude full of 
 pensive grace ; her figure, with its rounded lines and perfect 
 youthfulness, presenting a sufficiently-marked contrast to the 
 pinched waspish proportions, from which youth had so long 
 fled, of little Mrs. Wynne. 
 
 Before two minutes had passed Lord Dormer's attention wan- 
 dered a good deal more than Mrs. Wynne liked from the stars. 
 He was not an enthusiast on any subject ; but at twenty years- 
 of age few men are so jaded or so obtuse but that a face like 
 Portia's, its possessor willing, must influence them for the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 303 
 
 moment. And Portia willed that the influence should extend 
 over very much longer than the moment ! . . . . 
 
 "Do you know anything about the stars, Miss Ffrench ? " 
 asks his Lordship presently. 
 
 Portia, on this, moves a step nearer, hesitates, goes outside 
 the balcony, and lifts her beautiful face to the heavens. 
 
 "I know Ursa Major," she answers, gravely. "You will 
 not see it by looking at me, Lord Dormer. Look away to the 
 north, where I point." 
 
 And the arm, whose soft, large curves the muslin sleeve 
 s of tens, but does not hide, is raised : and Lord Dormer has to 
 c orrect his standing-point ; to follow the direction Portia 
 indicates ; to make original remarks about the stars seeming a 
 good way off ; to wonder if it can be true that there are moun- 
 tains and volcanoes and all those sort of things in the moon. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know about volcanoes," replies Portia 
 Ffrench. " It would be very nice, I think, to be able to go 
 up to the moon, like Hans Pfaall, and live there away from 
 everybody." 
 
 " Not everybody, surely ! " says Lord Dormer, with a fat 
 little sigh. 
 
 And then Mrs. Wynne remembers that it is high time to be 
 thinking about supper, and, with a vexed rustle of her silken 
 skirts, leaves the balcony. 
 
 By the time supper was announced, Portia had her intended 
 victim well in hand. It did not occur to her to feel humili- 
 ated by the part she was playing, the feelings she was grati- 
 fying. If was far easier to shock Portia Ffrench's artistic 
 than her moral sense. Pink roses in scarlet hair, a loud voice 9 
 a coarse jest, caused her absolute physical nausea. She saw 
 no ugliness in a woman posing her charms for the brief 
 captivation of an idiot's senses, provided only the charms were 
 posed gracefully. And nothing, it must be admitted, could 
 be fuller of grace than her manner with Lord Dormer. She 
 held him aloof, and yet she drew him closer at every instant ; 
 
304 'SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 she said no word that the whole world might not have listened 
 to, and yet every tone of her voice, every glance of her eyes 
 flattered his vanity into believing that she was trying to please 
 him and him alone. He began to wake up, his blood to 
 quicken not as much, of course, as the last seconds of a race, 
 or cast of the dice at a critical moment in chicken-hazard, 
 could quicken it ! still with a pleasant tingle of on-coming 
 intoxication very new for him to feel in the society of a lady,, 
 His heavy face lightened ; every now and then he originated 
 a remark. 
 
 Mrs. Wynne, bearing her defeat with the enforced good 
 temper in which women of the world excel, laughed longer 
 and louder, and seemed in ever-heightening spirits during the 
 whole of supper time. But she knew perfectly well that defeat 
 was impending, and listened to each low word that fell from 
 Portia's lips, noted each passing expression of Portia's face, 
 with inward trembling of the spirit. For Lord Dormer him- 
 self Mrs. Wynne cared about as much as did Portia Ff rench ; 
 but she had every intention of prolonging Lord Dormer's 
 attentions not only over the end of the London season, but 
 into an autumn at Cowes, into yachting excursions, perhaps 
 into next winter and the Mediterranean was not poor Dolly's 
 throat always delicate about Christmas ? And now here was 
 the rival she most dreaded in the world, her own familiar 
 friend and counsellor, evidently and of set purpose, about to 
 cross her path ! 
 
 For the wiles of campaigning mothers, for the lures of 
 marriageable daughters, Mrs. Wynne cared not a straw. She 
 had entered too often into the lists with these legitimate 
 opponents, had too invariably come off victorious to be afraid 
 of them, above all when the prize to be won was a Lord 
 Dormer ! But Portia an instinct told her this Portia no 
 more meant to marry Lord Dormer than she meant to marry 
 him herself. They met as fair foes on equal ground ; only 
 with the superior weapons of youth and beauty, the animus 
 (no trifling advantage this) of invasion upon Portia's side. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 305 
 
 Thinking these things, Mrs. Wynne ate her supper and 
 drank her champagne, and excelled herself in pleasant words 
 and looks for her different guests, and altogether conveyed to 
 Susan's mind an impression of being one of the happiest, best 
 contented women in existence. Teddy Josselin meanwhile, 
 still at Nelly Bawdon's side, still encouraging Nelly Eawdoii's 
 attentions, ate his supper and thought his thoughts, of which 
 we shall know more hereafter. 
 
 Midnight had merged into the small hours before any one 
 moved from the table ; and by the time Portia and Susan left 
 the Wynnes' house, a broad pink flush of daylight stained the 
 sky, cloudless at this hour as though the great city were a 
 hamlet. Portia leant her face out of the carriage and gave a 
 sweet farewell smile to Lord Dormer as he stood watching to 
 see them drive away. At Teddy, who had brought Susan to 
 the carriage, she scarcely looked. Her eyes were aglow, her 
 cheeks flushed ; her whole face was looking admirably hand- 
 some, even after a night's dissipation, even with the cold light 
 of morning resting on it full. Portia Ffrench had found a 
 new excitement, a new peril almost a new emotion. 
 
 " I was so sorry you and Mr. Josselin got divided from 
 each other at supper," said Susan. " You must have found it 
 very tiring work talking so long to that stupid little boy ! " 
 
 " That stupid little boy has more thousands than he knows 
 how to get rid of, my dear," answered Portia. " Never say 
 another word against him in my presence. Isn't St. Sauveur 
 on the sea, Susan ? Well, then, Lord Dormer will bring me 
 over in his yacht to pay you a visit me, Aunt Jem, George 
 Blake any one I like." 
 
 " Mr. Josselin one of the party, of course ? " suggested 
 Susan. 
 
 " Well, no, I think not," answered Portia. " I don't know 
 how it is, but I'm afraid Mr. Josselin and Lord Dormer don't 
 take much to each other's society ! " 
 
 And after this the conversation dropped. 
 
3 o6 SffSAW FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 "GARDENS at Chelsea, gardens at Chelsea?" said Mr. 
 Goldney next day at breakfast, when Susan was giving him 
 an account (slightly revised) of her night's dissipation. 
 " Why, bless my heart 1 no, no, that could never be still, if 
 they were public gardens ! and who did the party consist, of, 
 do you say, my dear Miss Fielding 1 " 
 
 And then Susan"~had to go through the" muster-roll again. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Wynne, distant relations] of Lady Erroll's, Miss 
 Ffrench, and her cousin, and Lord Dormer. She forgot, 
 unaccountably, to mention George Blake's name. 
 
 Mr. Goldney listened, with a conviction that Joseph Fielding 
 must have been a much nicer fellow than he ever took him for, 
 to this enumeration of Susan's acquaintance. The old 
 gentleman was not a tuft-hunter ; indeed, his life had never 
 thrown him into positions where tuft-hunting was possible. 
 He was simply a middle-class Englishman ; and felt the 
 natural satisfaction of his race and nation at being brought in 
 contact, no matter how indirectly, with the pleasant little 
 follies of the upper classes. If these Chelsea gardens turned 
 out to be what Mr. Goldney more than half suspected, there 
 could be no very great harm in a frolicsome visit paid them 
 from the house of a Countess, and with a peer of the realm, 
 and minor offshoots of the aristocracy forming the party ! 
 
 " They were public gardens, I know," said Susan ; " and 
 there were fireworks and crowds of people, all very smartly 
 dressed. If ever I live in London ; I mean, 1 ' with a sigh 
 this, " when Mr. Collinson comes back, and he and I live in 
 London, those are the sort of places I should like to go to." 
 
 Mr. Goldney looked at her over his spectacles. " Ah," said 
 he, " there is another subject, an important subject, my dear 
 young friend, that you and I ought to have a long talk about. 
 But my time is so terribly full ! Ten minutes to nine wel^ 
 
SUSAN FZZLDING. 307 
 
 we have just eight minutes left, then, for I'm afraid I have no 
 chance of returning till dinner. Now, are there, are there," 
 he shifted his glasses so as to regard her through, not over, 
 them, "any advantages to speak of in this engagement you 
 have entered upon ? " 
 
 " I don't quite know what you call advantages, sir," said 
 Susan, playing with her teaspoon. 
 
 "Well, has Mr. Tomlinson Collinson, to be sure, Collinson; 
 I was thinking of another case; has Mr. Collinson private 
 means'? . . . Very little. Birth not that it is of the 
 slightest consequence still, as an old friend of your father's, I 
 like to ask 1 ? None. Profession? None. My dear young- 
 lady, what has Mr. Collinson that, at your age, and, you must, 
 let me say, with your attractions, you should engage to marry- 
 him ] I have only a very few minutes to spare, but as an old- 
 friend of your father's allow me dear me, dear me I" taking 
 out his watch, "there is Pancras striking nine ! I am four 
 minutes and a half slow, positively I " 
 
 And he jumped up, and, hastily collecting the papers that 
 lay beside him on the breakfast table, rushed away from the 
 room. "I'm sorry our chat has been so short," turning to 
 Susan, who had followed him, " but I have, unfortunately, 
 business of the highest importance, and that won't wait for 
 me. We will finish it all this evening. Good-bye, my dear ;. 
 pray think seriously over what I have said." 
 
 And away Mr. Goldney hurried, forgetting Susan and' 
 Susan's love affairs before he had turned the corner of the- 
 square. A man whose opinions are worth six-and-eightpence- 
 each can scarcely be expected to throw away many of them 
 gratuitously, especially on the subject that women weakly 
 regard as the most important business of their lives. 
 
 Susan felt relieved at the abrupt ending of the discussion. 
 Little as she loved, impossible as it would ever be for her to 
 love, Tom Collinson, she had given her word to marry him, 
 and to Susair's unsophisticated mind a promise, right or wrong, 
 was absolute. Joseph Fielding (under his outside shell of 
 
 x2 
 
308 SUSAN FI2LDING. 
 
 scepticism it might be j lister to say, of nonconformity with 
 received opinions a man of austerely upright conscience) had 
 reared his child in the belief that falsehood, of all sins, was 
 the most intolerable, the most degrading to character. Some 
 day the casuistry of passion might suggest to her that truth is 
 relative ; that while adhering rigidly to truth in the letter, it 
 is possible grossly to violate it in the spirit ; that, in boldly 
 forfeiting a promise to an unloved lover, there may be nobler 
 courage, truer honour, than in adhering to it. Suggestions 
 like these, I say, might be for the future. At present Susan 
 looked upon herself, beyond all recall, as Tom Collinson's 
 future wife, and she shrank from any discussion in which her 
 heart but too promptly joined issue against him at the instiga- 
 tion of others. She was to marry Tom Collinson a year or 
 two/ years hence and in the mean time was to see Blake to- 
 night ! Opening the dining-room window, the girl leaned out 
 her face among the smoky heliotropes and geraniums on the 
 window-sill, and looking up at as much blue sky as could be 
 seen from Brunswick Square, fell into a day-dream : 
 
 " Oh for Friday night 
 
 Friday at the gloamin' ! 
 Oh for Friday night ! 
 
 Friday's long 'in cominV 
 
 It had been agreed, the evening before, that Susan should 
 go to Eaton Square, towards the middle of the day, to bid 
 Portia good-bye. " Grandmamma looked queerly at me this 
 morning when I returned from visiting you," Portia had said; 
 " and Miss Condy, I cannot help thinking, is watching me. 
 So I had better, on the last day of my visit, keep myself 
 virtuously under their eyes ! Come early, and you will find 
 me in the square with Condy and Arno. Dreary though the 
 prison walk is, it is better than being in the same room with 
 grandmamma and her account-books ; and I have something 
 to say that I want no walls to listen to." 
 
 Accordingly, when Mr. Goldney's brougham stopped before 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 309 
 
 Lady ErrolTs house, Portia, who stood watching at one of the 
 square gates, ran across the road and met Susan as she got out 
 of the carriage. She was looking five years older than she had 
 looked in the first flush and triumph of last night's conquest. 
 Her complexion was pale, with the dead, sickly pallor dark 
 complexions are likely to assume after dissipation ; her eyes 
 were heavy, her lips unsmiling. 
 
 " I know what you think of my looks," she cried, in answer 
 to the expression of Susan's face. "When I have really 
 amused myself over night I am always like this dead, literally 
 dead, till I get some new sensation, bodily or mentally, as a 
 ' pick-me-up/ next day. And I was really amused, absolutely 
 excited, last night, little as you may have thought it. Come 
 away as far as we can get from the enemy, and I will tell you 
 my plans for the future, or as many of them as it is good for 
 you to know.' 1 
 
 They had now entered the square, and Portia led Susan 
 away towards a tolerably shady seat, twenty or thirty feet 
 distant. Eaton Square was looking as melancholy and aristo- 
 cratic as square could wish to look. A most noble old gentle- 
 man, with a green shade over his eyes, tottering along, sup- 
 ported by his valet, a Lady Adeliza six months old in the 
 arms of her attendants, Miss Condy slowly pacing up and 
 down with a large white parasol, under whose shade reposed 
 Arno dogs on foot were not admitted in the square, so as 
 Arno's carriage exercise was not considered sufficient by the 
 physician for his health, it was a part of Miss Condy's duties 
 thus to air him in the forenoon. 
 
 As the two girls walked past her, Portia shook one finger 
 with playful meaning at Arno : and was at once rewarded by 
 a roll of his vindictive Italian eyes, a wicked display of broken 
 fangs. Miss Condy at the same instant looked at her steadily 
 Susan thought with a look quite as full of malice as was 
 Arno's snarl. 
 
 " The pojor creature hates me, would injure if she could, I 
 believe/' said Portia, when they were out of hearing. " Hap- 
 
310 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 pily, I am never likely to be in her power. If she had seen 
 me, tracked us, as for a moment I suspected, last night .... 
 but the thing is impossible ! and yet all this morning J. have 
 thought I saw new animus on old Condy's face. The working 
 of my own guilty conscience, I suppose." 
 
 " But there are others in the world to fear as well as Miss 
 Condy," said Susan. " Are you quite certain of all the people 
 we were with last night keeping silence ? " 
 
 "I am quite sure of little Lord Dormer," said Portia. " He 
 will do for the future as he is bidden. Dolly Wynne is too 
 obtuse to remember anything twelve hours after it happens ; 
 and Laura oh ! well, Laura's friendship is of too old a date 
 for her to run the risk of betraying me now. Susan, my dear, 
 sit down here, it is tolerably sheltered, and tolerably secure 
 from listeners, and tell me what you think of my latest con- 
 quest. Is not Lord Dormer charming*? We did not half 
 exhaust the subject last night. That little boy has run through 
 one huge fortune already, and will come into another on his 
 next birthday, Susan." 
 
 " He may be very rich," said Susan, "but he is horribly 
 ugly ; and I should say, if you won't be offended, a thorough 
 fool. It may be my ignorance, but I cannot see Lord Dor- 
 mer's charm. }J 
 
 "Why, you have specified it to a nicety," said Portia. 
 " Don't you know the proverb about a fool and his money 1 
 To say of a man that he is enormously rich and enormously 
 foolish is to say that he is fair game for everybody a golden 
 goose at whose plucking we can all assist. I have some 
 feathers in prospect already, Susan. That was sober earnest 
 that I told you about the yacht." 
 
 " If I was in your place," said Susan, resolutely "if I was 
 in your place I would rather give up all the yachts that ever 
 floated than run the chance of offending Mr. Josselin. I know 
 very well now that you and Mr. Josselin care for each other. 
 How can you be cruel enough to risk hurting his feelings ? " 
 
 " Hurting his feelings 1 " cried Portia lightly, and yet her 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 311 
 
 lip gave a quiver. "My dear Susan, Ted Josselin is not 
 made of the fragile stuff you suppose. As long as Ted 
 Josselin has good dinners and wines, and a grandmamma 
 to pay his debts, and a Nelly Eawdon to amuse him, his 
 heart won't break, depend upon it! We are paupers, both 
 of us ; we must each push our own interests as best we 
 can. Make our way, like the son in the old story, honestly, 
 if we can but make it. I'm quite determined to make my 
 way, Susan, and " 
 
 "Portia, Portia," screamed out a gruff voice, horribly 
 human in its inhumanity, "you'll come to grief, Portia 
 come to grief ! " 
 
 Susan started ; Portia turned round her face with a laugh. 
 " Don't be scared it's only old Sam the parrot. If you put 
 on your spectacles, you'll see him in the sun at the drawing- 
 room window. Ever since I was sixteen Ted taught him to 
 preach me that little sermon. ' You'll come to grief, Portia ' 
 how well I remember the day the poor boy first got him to 
 say it ! I'm sure I don't see what is to keep us women from 
 coming to grief. Susan, do you know of course you don't, 
 though what it is to feel that everything is going to the bad 
 with you 3 that circumstances, a great deal stronger than 
 yourself, are drifting you down the stream wherever they 
 choose ? " 
 
 " I felt it once," said Susan, guiltily remembering the night 
 when she had accepted Tom Collinson, the night when site 
 dared not touch or look at her bit of pencil. 
 
 " And I feel it at this minute," went on Portia. "If Sam 
 never spoke opportunely in his whole reprobate life before, he 
 has done so now. The thing is " putting her head on one 
 side, as a woman will do when she is choosing a new dress or 
 ribbon " how to come to grief with the best grace. There 
 are so many ways of arriving at the same end." 
 
 I must remark, in justice to Portia Ffrench, that in saying 
 all this she was but half in earnest ; the consciousness of the 
 perilously false ground on which she stood, the sense of run- 
 
S&SAW FIELDING. 
 
 ning a new kind of danger, alluring her, very much as the 
 possibility of losing his balance allures an Alpine climber to 
 the brink of a glacier. 
 
 " You know what I said this morning about my paying ycu 
 a visit ] " she went on. " Lord Dorner is going to bring his 
 yacht about the world just wherever I bid him, and what I 
 want to speak to you about now is this : Aunt Jem and I are 
 going to have a fortnight's wild dissipation this summer ! We 
 have been plotting, and poor old aunt has been saving up for it 
 during the last two years. A number of the rooms at Haifont 
 have got to be whitewashed, and the roof made a little water- 
 tight, and we must all clear out. Grandpapa and Jekyll go to 
 Bath (in August !). ' If one is forced out of one's own damp 
 house/ says grandpapa, ' additional warmth, not cold, is what 
 one should look for ; ' and Aunt and I have unconditional 
 leave of absence. Well, Susan, without betraying too many 
 secrets, I may say that I want to go to some place where we 
 shall not be too narrowly watched I mean where Lord 
 Dormer can be devoted as he likes, unchilled by the gaze of 
 the world and I think this little French town where your 
 Uncle Adam lives would be quite a fitting Eden for us. I 
 have said nothing to Aunt Jem ; but she would go to 
 Kamtchatka if I bade her, and so would - " 
 
 A hansom at this moment stopped before Lady ErrolTs 
 house, from which descended Teddy Josselin, his fair boyish 
 face fresh as the moss rosebud in his button-hole. He walked 
 across the road, and leisurely entered the square. Miss Condy 
 was leaving just as he came in, and he stopped and shook 
 hands with her, then patted Arno's head. The hard face of 
 the poor bondswoman lighted ; Arno put up his ears and half 
 wagged his dislocated old tail. 
 
 " Nelly Rawdons, Condy, Arnos, all vile things like Ted 
 Josselin," said Portia, with a curl of the lip. " For the sake of 
 distinction only, one feels inclined not to like him ! " 
 
 But the flush that deepened on her cheek as he drew near, 
 the flush she had to lower her parasol to hide, did not 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 313 
 
 look much, as if this state of distinction were as yet attained 
 by her ! 
 
 " You are out early to-day, Mr. Josselin 1 " He had now 
 shaken hands with Susan, and taken his hat off with distant 
 courtesy to herself. 
 
 " My usual time," said Ted, placidly. " During the last 
 five years, I believe I have always come to see you at about 
 this hour whenever you were in town. Can you make room 
 for me, Susan 1 Ah ! I thought you could thanks." 
 
 He sank down on the bench between the two girls and 
 smiled. In positions where less happily-gifted men would 
 rack their brains in search of fitting remarks, it was Teddy's 
 invariable plan to smile and look handsome ; and experience 
 told him that the plan was a wise one. Portia glanced at 
 him coldly, and knew that she had never loved him so well as 
 now, when for a dozen hours or more she had been telling 
 herself that she hated him. She had no lofty ideal of 
 men, although at fitting times and seasons she could enlarge 
 with very nice taste and feeling upon her possession of such an 
 ideal ! The true child of Lady Portia Dysart, she liked the 
 fair patrician beauty, the refinement, the dandyism of Ted 
 Josselin by instinct : and instinct, as it generally proves, was 
 the safest guide Portia Ffrench possessed. To a rougher, 
 more sterling lover, men like little Lord Dormer might have 
 proved dangerous rivals ; in Portia's imagination, at least. Ted 
 Josselin beat them at their own weapons. Whatever their 
 quarrels, whatever his derelictions, Teddy was always the best 
 looking, best appointed, best mannered man Portia knew. It 
 was consequently more than an injury to her affections it 
 was a stab to her vanity to lose him, even for an hour. She 
 glanced at him coldly ; glanced with the slightest increase of 
 warmth half a minute later ; then their eyes met, and they 
 were reconciled ; began, both of them, to say the most dis- 
 agreeable things they were capable of. And with lovers whose 
 united ages scarce make up half a century, you may always 
 regard this as a sure sign of reconciliation. 
 
3 14 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Susan and I were just talking over our autumn plans 
 She is going to live at St. Sauveur, in Brittany (Brittany is 
 in France, I must acquaint you, Mr. Josselin), and Aunt Jem 
 and I are going there for a fortnight in August. We shctll 
 cross in Lord Dormer's yacht/' 
 
 " Poor Dormer ! You are not a very good sailor, Portia ; is 
 Miss Jemima 1 " 
 
 " I am> an excellent sailor when I am .in good spirits. 
 Whenever you have seen me at sea I have been in attendance 
 on grandmamma, and there has been no one to amuse me. I 
 am not at all afraid of being ill in the Lily." 
 
 " Poor Dormer ! Has the Lily ever been farther than the 
 Solent yet 1 " 
 
 " The Lily will go a great deal farther than the Solent this 
 year. I'm not at all sure that, after Brittany, I won't go and 
 look up Jack Dysart in Norway." 
 
 Teddy Josselin laughed a mild, good-tempered little 
 laugh ; but that irritated Portia more than the bitterest 
 sarcasm could have done. 
 
 " You must forgive me for not seeing what amuses you ! " 
 she cried. " I evidently say my wittiest things by accident." 
 
 " Oh dear no ! there was nothing witty at all," said Teddy, 
 and now he laughed aloud. " It was only the idea of you and 
 Aunt Jemima and Dormer looking up Jack Dysart in Norway. 
 Forgive me for being so foolish, Portia ! " 
 
 " I have forgiven that long ago," said Portia. 
 
 And then, Teddy continuing to look imperturbably good- 
 tempered, she abruptly seemed to forget his existence, and 
 began talking across him to Susan. " Yes, Aunt Jemima will 
 go wherever I bid her, and so will .... the other person we 
 were speaking of. What I want you to do, Susan, is to find 
 out about lodgings, for we won't spend the very few pounds we 
 possess on hotels " 
 
 " Dormer not spend the very few pounds he possesses on 
 hotels 2 " interrupted Teddy, looking mystified. 
 
 " Three rooms, the size of cupboards, would be enough for 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 315 
 
 us, provided there is one decent looking-glass and a balcony. 
 I don't mind about shabby chairs and tables, but I must 
 have a balcony " 
 
 " Like last night," put in Ted, with his little foolish air. 
 
 "And we would go out and dine at tables-delate and 
 places poor dear old aunt at tables-d'hdte 1 Now, will you 
 promise to write directly you get there ? " 
 
 " And you must look for lodgings for me too, Susan," said 
 Teddy, when Susan had promised to search diligently for three 
 cupboards, a decent looking-glass, and a balcony. " It is an 
 odd coincidence, but I have made up my mind to go to Saint 
 Saint where is it, 'Tia, dear 1 this autumn." 
 
 At the familiar " 'Tia, dear," the appeal to her superior 
 intelligence which words of more than three syllables, French 
 or English, invariably called forth from poor Teddy, Portia at 
 first frowned with all her might ; then, in spite of herself, her 
 lips softened, and in another instant the tender look that on 
 rare, too rare, occasions made her more than handsome, broke 
 over her face. 
 
 " Why, you don't mean to say Nelly Eawdon is going to St. 
 Sauveur 1 " she remarked. 
 
 " I hope not ; for my own sake," said Ted, gravely. 
 " Susan, if ever you are married I mean, if ever you are 
 going to be married no, no ! I mean if ever you have a good- 
 looking cousin whom you can't by possibility marry, beware of 
 jealousy. It's a quicksand " 
 
 " On which people who go down to the sea in yachts are 
 particularly prone to founder," cried Portia, tossing him a little 
 piece of jessamine that she had unpinned from her waist-belt. 
 " Oh, Ted, when will experience teach you that metaphor is 
 not your forte 1 " 
 
 "And when will experience teach you that resistance is not 
 yours 1 ? that a woman is never so charming as when she 
 knocks under with a good grace ? Oh ! well, not ' knock 
 under,' then," for Portia's eyes flashed, " but when she confesses 
 she has been in the wrong. You have been in the wrong, my 
 
3 i6 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 dear child, and you have apologized, in your way, and I 
 accept the apology. Peace is made." 
 
 So these two quarrelled, repented, and were reconciled ; 
 each " playing at half a love with half a lover ; " Miss Condy, 
 meanwhile, watching them from behind the Venetians in the 
 dining-room, and old Sam at intervals screeching out his pro- 
 phecy, " You'll come to grief, Portia you'll come to grief," 1 
 from the balcony above. Months afterwards, when the game 
 begun in jest had turned to bitterest earnest, on a night spent 
 beside a death-bed, a blankest to-morrow all her prospects, how 
 clearly Portia remembered every detail of that summer noon- 
 tide scene ! 
 
 They walked with Susan, a few minutes later, to the 
 brougham. "And be sure to write to me at once," said 
 Portia, when they had shaken hands and bidden good-bye. 
 " Three cupboards and a balcony ; don't forget." 
 
 "And be sure you write to me, too," said Teddy, holding 
 Susan's hand affectionately. 
 
 " And if you are a very good little girl, perhaps I'll bring a 
 friend of mine with me to St. Sauveur." 
 
 "Ah! but Susan is engaged; Susan's affections are 
 another's," cried Portia, as Susan's face dimpled and grew rosy 
 red. " What business have you, sir, to divert people from 
 their lawful allegiance 1 " 
 
 " It is the business you have brought me up to," said Ted, 
 with all the innocence imaginable. 
 
 It was two o'clock when Susan got back to Brunswick 
 Square ; six hours and a half before the meeting so sighed for, 
 so long in coming ; the meeting that was to last five minutes, 
 and be the awakening point from the one supreme, delicious 
 dream of her life ! How could the interval be better employed 
 than in writing to Tom Collinson 1 He had begged that there 
 might be a letter awaiting him at a certain address he had 
 given Susan in Dunedin, and some portion of her last day ia 
 England ought, she felt, to be consecrated to him the right- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 317 
 
 ful owner of all her days, of all lier thoughts now and for 
 evermore. 
 
 She went at once up to her bed-room, took her writing 
 desk from her portmanteau, and dutifully set herself to the 
 task of composing her first love-letter. " My dear Tom, I 
 am quite well, and hope you are the same.' 1 She was not a 
 good correspondent, as she had told George Blake ; had no 
 more natural genius for letter-writing than for any other form 
 of expression, and these opening ideas were not immediately 
 succeeded by a flow of others. So she put down her pen, 
 and began absently re-arranging the contents of her desk, 
 hoping thoughts would suggest themselves Accident- 
 ally, or by the mechanical force of constant habit, her fingers 
 touch the spring of a certain secret drawer wherein lies a 
 pocket-book, of which the reader knows, and before she can 
 reflect on what she does, a two-inch end of pencil is in her 
 hand. She lifts it for a moment to her short-sighted eyes ; 
 then, pressing one little palm over the other, holds it closely, 
 wistfully, for a good many minutes the tenderest look you 
 can imagine, giving warmth and sweetness the while to 
 
 her whole face Is this the way to write a love-letter to 
 
 an absent sweetheart? With stern resolution Susan puts 
 the pencil away out of sight, snatches up her pen, and 
 goes on. "I left Eliza the day before yesterday. I am in 
 London with Mr. Goldney, and last night I went with 
 Portia Ffrench to some gardens at Chelsea. It was very nice. 
 There were fireworks, and a band, and a great crowd, and 
 I got lost, which was very terrifying, but, luckily, I met 
 Mr. Blake. I was all right then, and we walked about 
 a long while, and he is going to see me off to-night, and 
 perhaps " 
 
 A charming letter truly to send a jealous man like 
 Collinson, a man whose last pathetic injunction, spoken and 
 written, had been, "Don't flirt with Blake." Thoroughly 
 discouraged by the complicated difficulties of writing letters 
 love-letters especially Susan here tore up the sheet of paper 
 
3 i 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 into a dozen pieces, returned her desk to her portmanteau, 
 then finished what still remained to do to her packing, 
 seated herself by the window, and wished anew for eight 
 o'clock. It would be much easier to write to Tom from 
 St. Sauveur, she felt sure. Interesting for him to hear 
 about the French nation, and Uncle Adam, and her journey ; 
 and was it possible that a post or two could make any 
 difference in places as far away as New Zealand 1 
 
 Mr. Goldney did not return home till a quarter to six, and 
 the moment dinner was over he announced that it was time to 
 start. 'To Susan's dismay, he announced his intention of 
 accompanying her to the station. 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I don't think you need take that trouble. I 
 believe I have sense enough to buy my ticket and see to my 
 luggage." 
 
 " I don't doubt JOMT sense, my dear Miss Fielding/' said 
 the old lawyer. " What one has to consider in these matters 
 is what is right 1 It is not usual for young ladies of your 
 age to go about London unescorted." 
 
 Susan was silenced. Long years of Miss Collinson's moral 
 rule had taught her that in all arguments about right and 
 wrong the two words, " Not usual/' must be regarded as final. 
 And so it was leaning on Mr. Goldney's arm that Blake first 
 caught sight of the small figure for which he was watching on 
 the platform at Waterloo Station. Here Susan's blindness for 
 once stood her in good stead. If she had seen her friend, she 
 would infallibly have stopped to speak to him, and Mr. Gold- 
 ney as infallibly have felt it his duty to keep guard at her side 
 till the train started. Happily, she did not see him ; and, 
 happily, a coolish east wind was causing draughts the entire 
 length of the platform. And draughts always gave Mr. Gold- 
 ney toothache ! So when the ticket was bought, and Susan 
 fairly in her place, and a guard had told them that there were 
 still ten minutes to wait, the old gentleman, drawing up his- 
 coat-collar to his ears, inquired if she would think it very rude 
 of him to run away ? Wind in the east, symptoms of his old 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 319 
 
 enemy alas ! Miss Fielding must remember that he was not; 
 as young as he once was ! 
 
 " Oh pray pray go ! " cried Susan, eagerly. " I mean, 
 thank you very much for coming, but pray don't run a risk of 
 taking cold. The wind really is quite sharp." 
 
 Mr. Goldney pressed her hand once more, begged her not to 
 lose her ticket, to talk to no one but ladies on her journey, to 
 drink a little brandy and water if she felt sea-sick, and always 
 to look upon his house as her home. Then ran as fast as he 
 could go out of the draught and back to his comfortable 
 brougham, and in another minute a voice that brought all the 
 blood up into Susan's face was speaking to her. 
 
 " You are here then, Mr. Blake 1 When we came along 
 the platform, and I couldn't see you, I felt sure you had for- 
 gotten me." 
 
 "Did you?" The door of the carriage had been shut by 
 Mr. Goldney's care, but as he spoke Blake opened it, then 
 stood on the step and bent forward towards Susan. Never 
 had she felt so thoroughly alone with him as at this moment. 
 " Did you care enough about my coming to think whether 
 I had forgotten you or not ? " 
 
 No answer to this. 
 
 " Susan, I have something very especial to tell you. I had 
 better say it at once, before the old gentleman with the coat- 
 collar returns. You must write to me." 
 
 " I cannot/' said Susan, very low. " Ask me anything but 
 that. I told you before what promise Tom Collinson made 
 me give him." 
 
 "Tom Collinson ah ! we will discuss about Tom Collinson 
 another day. Don't write me a letter at all, then. Write 
 your address on a sheet of paper, add some statistics as to, the 
 climate and scenery of St. Sauveur, and direct it to George 
 Blake, at the Treasury. You needn't even sign your name." 
 
 "Well, I don't see how that could be called a letter!' 
 hesitates Susan, her moral declension proceeding ever more 
 rapidly. 
 
320 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "Of course it could not," says Blake. "The thing is 
 settled. Now the next subject to consider is Susan, I have 
 thought of nothing but you during the last twenty-four hours; 
 I don't at all like the thought of losing sight of you " 
 
 " Beg your pardon, sir room here, ma'am," cries a porter, 
 and an old lady gets into the carriage. She has many wraps 
 and handbags ; she has questions to ask about her luggage. 
 By the time she settles into her place the second bell rings. 
 They are to have three minutes more of each other. 
 
 " You will be gone directly," says Blake. The door is shut, 
 and he can only speak to her distantly, through the window. 
 "And I have said nothing that I meant to say. I think it is 
 likely you will see me in St. Sauveur, my dear. My holiday 
 is next month. I have a great mind to come and sketch the 
 Breton peasants, Susan." 
 
 " Every one is coming to St. Sauveur," cried Susan, jealous 
 suspicion aroused in a moment. " Mr. Josselin, Lord Dormer, 
 Portia, and now you. Of course you didn't know anything 
 about Portia's movements 1 " 
 
 " Nothing in the world. Don't let us lose time by talking 
 about other people. I may come to St. Sauveur, may I not?" 
 
 At the tone of his voice every fibre of Susan's heart thrills. 
 She is frightened at what she feels, and gets confused, then 
 shy, and then she remembers Tom Collinson ! " You'd had 
 much better stay away, I'm sure. If Tom was to return 
 
 "Susan, don't waste another moment. Let us talk only of 
 ourselves ! " 
 
 " Well, then, for my sake you had better keep away." 
 
 In this moment Blake knows her secret. 
 
 "Decide as you choose/' he says, "1 will certainly not 
 trouble you with my presence unless you bid me come." 
 
 The last bell has rung, the guard glides swiftly along, lock- 
 ' ing the carriages. 
 
 " Perhaps you are right, little Susan. Give me your hand; 
 let us part friends ! " 
 
 She stretches him an ungloved trembling hand, and Blake 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 321 
 
 grasps it Can she ever forget that warm, protecting 
 
 grasp? "I'll write in the way you told me," she cries, 
 relentant. " It could never be called a letter, could it ? " 
 
 "And, though I mustn't see you any more, you will not 
 forget me 1 " 
 
 Their hands are parted ; the train is already in motion. 
 
 " Forget ! " echoes Susan, drearily. And then Tom Collin- 
 son, her engagement, everything in the wide world but the 
 fact of losing Blake, fades from her, and this poor little 
 daughter of ]/lve puts her head through the window, and in her 
 clear girl's voice cries, " Come ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 ST. SAUVEUR, as the reader who has wandered through 
 Brittany need not be told, is a straggling offshoot or suburb 
 of the old garrison town of St. Maur. 
 
 Within the grey sea-girt walls of St. Maur proper, the first 
 thing, I think, which strikes the traveller, winter or summer, 
 is a certain cheerful atmosphere of well-to-do citizen life. In 
 St. Sauveur, the other side the harbour, he is encountered, for 
 nine months of the year at least, by the dreariest embodiment 
 of living death possible to conceive of : an English population 
 existing in a foreign watering-place, out of season ; an English 
 population, void in purse, void in spirit ; people leading lives, 
 to describe which the word " aimless " is inadequate ; too 
 broken by adversity even to seek to share their misery in 
 common ; whose hopeless faces, when you have once got them 
 fairly before your mkid's eye, you would recognize at a glance 
 in Lapland or Arabia ; a class of pariahs or social castaways, 
 of the like of which no country but our own seems to have the 
 knack of getting rid ! 
 
 At Spa, Baden, Biarritz, you may, during the dead months, 
 Jight upon every other specimen and all are melancholy of 
 the British wandering Jew in search of cheapness : he calls it 
 
 Y 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 climate. You must come to one of these smaller Breton water- 
 ing-places if you would see abject, hungry POVERTY at its last 
 grim ebb. There were people in St. Sauveur who, hiring a 
 house by the year, and sub-letting it, at season prices, during 
 July and August, lived, as nearly as possible, on nothing 
 vegetables, cider, and bread being cheap throughout the pro- 
 vince ; people, many of them, who had once worn warm 
 clothes and eaten sufficient meat, but who had had to fly, 
 either from ruin entailed on them by others, or from the con- 
 sequences of ruin entailed on others by themselves who shall 
 say 3 In a place where every one was so manifestly out of 
 suits with fortune, the past was not a favourite subject. No 
 man liked to talk of himself. Every man liked to talk and 
 surmise the worst of his neighbour (barely possible, perhaps, 
 to live in St. Sauveur without becoming more or less of a 
 misanthrope !). The Ffrench hotel-keepers and tradespeople 
 looked with the natural distrust of solvent, legitimate robbers 
 upon them all. 
 
 When the cheery garrison band played by the harbour side 
 on a Sunday, and the St. Maur citizens would flock forth, with 
 their wives and daughters, upon the quays, a stray English 
 couple might occasionally be distinguished the man by his 
 threadbare shooting-coat and wide-awake, the lady by her 
 unsmiling face and trailing skirts among the crowd. But, as 
 a rule, the English inhabitants of St. Sauveur shunned all such 
 occasions of festive gathering : did it not cost a sou a head to 
 cross to St. Maur by the ferry-boat 1 Only in the Protestant 
 temple, when they and their pastor met together to celebrate 
 the Anglican service, had you a chance of seeing them in a 
 mass and then, reader, I declare the spectacle of that sorry 
 flock and shepherd was one to make your heart bleed. Talk 
 of the loud-spoken ills of paupers at home, paupers born and 
 educated to pauperism ! . . . . Ah, one must go to places like 
 St. Sauveur to learn what English gentility silent, decent, 
 wearing shoes on its feet ; gentility just, and only just, above 
 starvation-line can live through ! 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 323 
 
 These remarks, however, apply to winter. On the sunny 
 July morning when Susan Fielding first saw the black ram- 
 parts and peaked grey roofs of St. Maur growing distinct above 
 the sea, everything was at its brightest : bands playing, 
 Frenchmen drinking their coffee and reading their morning 
 papers outside the Casino, an army of bathing-machines down 
 on the sands, French ladies fluttering in gay wrappers from 
 their hotels to the beach. The steamer stopped, for it was 
 high-water, close alongside the quay ; and Susan, who had as 
 much practical knowledge of travelling as she had of money, 
 was drifting hither and thither among the crowd of custom- 
 house officers, passengers, and sailors, when she heard the 
 welcome sound of an English voice, and looking up, saw a very 
 bent, very poorly-clad old man offering her his hand. 
 
 " My niece Susan, is it not 1 Ah, I was sure of it ! Thee 
 hast thy mother's face. No need of introductory letters. 
 Welcome to Ille-et-Yilaine, Susan. A primitive life we Eng- 
 lish live here, a primitive life, not the comforts thy father 
 lived in at Halfont; but thee are welcome to it." 
 
 Susan's mother, a Quakeress by birth, had, after her mar- 
 riage with Joseph Fielding, drifted gradually, partly through 
 deference to her husband's opinions, partly through the distance 
 to meeting-house, out of the religion of her youth. Quaker 
 phraseology, however, the soft, ungrammatical "thee and 
 thou " of the society, she had never been able wholly to put 
 aside. And at Adam Byng's first words a dozen tender, long- 
 dormant chords were suddenly touched in Susan's memory. 
 
 " And I should have known you by your way of speaking, 
 Uncle Adam. I h,ave never heard any one say 'thee' or 
 ' thou ' since my mamma died." 
 
 "And would not hear it now if I was a man of stronger 
 will," said Uncle Adam. "The present Mrs. Byng does not 
 hold by Quaker speech, and I have tried my best for fifteen 
 years to abstain from it. But the habit is stronger than me,' 7 
 he shook his head meekly, "the habit is stronger than me. 
 Mrs. Byng is a most superior woman," he added, giving a 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 timid little glance over his shoulder as he spoke. " It will be 
 well, my dear Susan, for thee to seek to please Mrs. Byng from 
 the first. Now, where is thy luggage 1 " 
 
 Snsan's luggage, one modest portmanteau and bonnet-bon, 
 was at the bottom of the hold, and it was a long hour and a 
 half before it was taken ashore and got through the custom- 
 house. One of the few books the child had brought with her 
 was a little half-crown selection of French poetry, a prize-gift 
 from Miss Collinson, on the first page of which were some 
 verses from the pen of Victor Hugo. With a grand official 
 air a very small custom-house clerk opened this book, and 
 
 lighted upon the treasonable name Ah, ah ! but here 
 
 was an affair to be seen into. The little man cocked his hat 
 ferociously at Susan, shook his head over his own suspicions 
 of her dangerous political character, called up another clerk ; 
 they consult, refer to documents, inform Uncle Adam fiercely 
 that a Frenchman, for committing a similar offence, was sent 
 to prison, not a week ago ; finally confiscate the book, and 
 allow Susan with a sort of brand against her name she is 
 sure to leave the custom-house. 
 
 " And so I have had a narrow escape of going to prison 
 I could understand enough to know that. Oh, Uncle Adam, 
 what dreadful men Frenchmen are ! half tiger, half monkey ; 
 I read that once, and now I know what it means." 
 
 "Tiger? not a bit of it, my dear. Jean Poujol, the little 
 fellow with the big voice and cocked hat, is the kindest-hearted 
 fellow and best gardener in the parish. I got a dozen young 
 lobelias from him last week. Madame Poujol chastises him 
 corporeally, the gossips say; but who knows, who knows?" 
 The subject seemed to bring back Adam Byng's saddest 
 expression. "For my own part, I believe Madame Poujol to 
 be a most superior woman too superior, perhaps, for Poujol. 
 Now the question to decide is, shall we ride or walk ? Our 
 house, the Petit Tambour, is two miles off if we drive round 
 by the causeway, half a mile if we cross the ferry and then 
 walk. The question is, which will cost least ? " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 3*5 
 
 A crowd of human .beings, of both sexes, each dirtier, more 
 hideous than the other, now beset Uncle Adam with offers of 
 their services ; the men, drivers of carriages, proposing to take 
 him home by land for three francs ; the women to carry up 
 the luggage, by way of the ferry, for one franc fifty for one 
 forty for whatever Monsieur would give to mothers of 
 families for honest labour and the love of the good God. 
 
 "Brittany is a loyal district, as thee has seen at the 
 custom-house," remarked Uncle Adam to Susan ; " and a 
 pious country, as thee may gather from the discourse of these 
 ladies. Now, my friends," speaking in fluent but thoroughly 
 English French, " depart." He made a step forward, throwing 
 out his arms, and the crowd dispersed in thin air : nothing- 
 disperses a French crowd like the sight of a pair of English 
 arms. " Eaoul Bertrand, bring thy carriage. Eaoul will take 
 us to the Petit Tambour for two francs thirty counting the 
 ferry we should certainly save forty centimes the other way 
 but thee are looking pale, child. Better spend the money on 
 carriage hire than have thee laid up." 
 
 Uncle Adam said this gravely and conscientiously. The 
 expenditure of forty centimes was not, evidently in his eyes, an 
 enterprise to be undertaken lightly or wantonly. 
 
 After waiting another five minutes (during which interval 
 occurred a fight between some of the bloused, fur-capped 
 savages from the carriage-stand ; a fight conducted on the 
 usual French system of exchanging everything but blows), 
 Eaoul Bertrand brought up his carriage, a huge, springless^ 
 indescribably filthy droschka, and Susan started for her new 
 home. As long as they were rattling up and down the 
 narrow streets, and over the villanous paving-stones of St. 
 Maur, the coachman stood upright, and by yells, execrations, 
 and flourishes of his tattered rope harness, contrived to keep 
 his two jades of horses buried, despite a July sun, under blue 
 and crimson sheepskins in a gallop. When they emerged 
 from the last postern, and were on a perfectly flat sandy road, 
 the causeway connecting St. Maur with the mainland, he 
 
326 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 stopped, began to sing, to nod at the passers-by, then took out 
 a pipe, lit it, and let the horses go their own snail's-pace the 
 remainder of the journey. Susan had thus time to improve her 
 acquaintance with her new relation before reaching St. Sauveu**. 
 
 " Thee are surprised at the carriages, I see, Susan. They 
 tell me the carriages of this district belong to the time of 
 Louis the Sixteenth, but I have lived in Brittany till I am 
 accustomed to everything it contains. Seventeen years 
 altogether : two with my dear wife, fifteen with the present 
 Mrs. Byng. There are many advantages in St. Sauveur, 
 Susan, as thee will find after a time. Strangers do not see 
 much in the place at first, but we who live in it feel that we 
 should be sorry to have to move elsewhere. I don't mean to 
 be buried on French soil," a brighter look than Susan had 
 seen it wear yet crossed Adam Byng's face, "but I am well 
 content to linger out the remainder of my days here. We 
 have warm sun in summer, and in winter well, well, some 
 season of the year is dreary everywhere. There are many 
 advantages in St. Sauveur." 
 
 Not external ones, thought Susan, when at length* they had 
 quitted the coal-heaps and barge-masts of the St. Maur quays, 
 and were driving up through the steep and noisome lanes of 
 St. Sauveur. Oh, desolation of desolation, was your name 
 ever more clearly written than on every squalid wall and 
 building of this poor town ! The word " grass-grown " could 
 be justly applied to the high street, the main thoroughfare 
 only. The smaller divergent lanes, mostly inhabited by 
 English, were grass-co^red, the gutters alone tracing dark and 
 sinuous paths unclothed by verdure. After ascending an 
 unsavoury labyrinth of these streets or lanes, Raoul pulled 
 round his horses with a jerk into a kind of shut alley or court : 
 grey dilapidated walls towering high on either side, two or 
 three gaunt dogs, prowling about the corners ; the air, even 
 on this July day, striking chill, and laden with a peculiar kind 
 of oily flavour with which Susan was to become better 
 acquainted hereafter. 
 
SUSAN FIZL&ING. 3*7 
 
 " The Rue de la Guerre at last," said Uncle Adam. " To 
 my mind the quietest, pleasantest spot in St. Sauveur. Thee 
 can perceive the colza, perhaps] That building with the 
 blind windows to the left is a colza-mill, but 'tis a wholesome 
 odour. I am accustomed to it. Indeed, at this moment I 
 smell only the roses and carnations from our own garden." 
 
 The carriage stopped before a door that had once been 
 painted green in the time, perhaps, of Louis the Sixteenth. 
 Uncle Adam got out and rang, very gingerly considering that 
 the bell was his own, and after a considerable time the door 
 opened. 
 
 " Wipe your shoes, Mr. Byng," said a voice within, " and 
 bid the man leave his sabots outside. Wipe your shoes again." 
 
 Uncle Adam obeyed instantly ; meekly rubbing his large 
 feet lengthways, sideways, on the toes, on the heels, upon the 
 rush mat inside the doorway. Then he lifted Susan from the 
 carriage, and deposited her opposite an open door a few steps 
 from the entrance, where Mrs. Byng stood ready to receive her. 
 
 She was a spare elderly woman, of five feet eight or nine 
 inches, frosty-faced, thin-lipped, awfully clean and neat. She 
 was attired in a black satin dress and gold chain, and had blue 
 ribbons in her cap. Her appearance contrasted strongly with 
 that of Uncle Adam, who wore an old chip hat, a coloured 
 shirt, and a patched grey suit, so shrunk with frequent clean- 
 ing that his wrists and ankles were bare like those of a 
 schoolboy. 
 
 " Here is our niece, Susan Fielding," he remarked : the 
 gentlest, most pitifully-crushed voice you ever heard was Uncle 
 Adam's. " I thought it as well to ride, my dear/' he went on 
 apologetically. Susan almost trembled at hearing him address 
 this imposing figure as "my dear." " The child looked tired, 
 and my good friend Eaoul Bertrand has brought us for two 
 francs thirty." 
 
 "The statute fare is two francs. Raoul Bertrand will 
 receive two francs. After a sea-voyage, I should have said a 
 brisk walk would have done your niece good. How do you 
 
328 St/SAN FOLDING. 
 
 do, Susan Fielding ? I cannot say you look healthy. " She 
 scrutinized Susan's face with chilly interest. " You don't under- 
 stand French money ? Then take out an English gold piece, 
 and your Uncle Adam will settle for you with the driver." 
 
 Susan drew half-a-sovereign from her purse. 
 
 "The exchange is twenty-five forty," said Mrs. Byng, 
 addressing her husband. "Ten centimes higher than last 
 week." 
 
 " Does thee think Raoul Bertrand knows aught about the 
 exchange, my love 1 " hesitated Uncle Adam. 
 
 " Then put the half-sovereign in your pocket, and pay him 
 another time. v You can get twenty-five forty at either of the 
 St. Maur banks. Bertrand," in resonant hard French, " take 
 off your sabots and bring in no straw with you. The boxes 
 are for the left-hand attic." 
 
 And then she motioned to Susan to enter the drawing-room, 
 while Uncle Adam and the driver took her luggage upstairs. 
 
 The drawing-room, like the polished stairs, like every nook 
 and cranny within the Petit Tambour, looked the very pink of 
 cleanliness cleanliness the more surprising to Susan's eyes by 
 reason of all the outside dirt and ruin through which she had 
 newly travelled. The furniture of the room might, at a liberal 
 estimate, have been worth five pounds. If you sat down with 
 inadvertent weight on a chair, it broke : if you examined the 
 paper narrowly, you found so many patches in it that you 
 were thrown into a state of utter scepticism as to which could 
 have been the fundamental pattern : the damask coverings 
 were cobwebs : the muslin curtains had been darned until 
 darns were more frequent in them than the original fabric. 
 And still, by dint of heroic industry, by unflagging carpenter- 
 ing, sewing, pasting, the drawing-room of the Petit Tambour 
 looked fresh and habitable. The oft-darned curtains were 
 white as a French laundress could make them ; the bare floors 
 were polished and slippery as ice ; spotless muslin covers con- 
 cealed the faded damask of the chairs and sofa ; great bunches 
 of roses, arranged by no inapt hand, were on the mantelshelf ; 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 329 
 
 through the opened window came in a very volume of colour 
 and sweetness from the small flower-garden, thirty or forty 
 yards square, that lay at the back of the house. 
 
 This garden, Breton fashion, was enclosed by high lichen- 
 stained walls walls only to picture the dampness of which in 
 winter gave you a shudder ; but upon whose southern and 
 western sides, luxuriant yellow and crimson roses, passion- 
 flower, and jessamine, now hung festooned, while the north 
 was artfully draped over by such annual creepers as have 
 natures content to flourish in the shade. The centre beds 
 were all ablaze with scarlet verbenas and geraniums. Close 
 beside the drawing-room window rose the glossy leaves and 
 b waxen white buds of a magnolia ; a border entirely filled with 
 purple heliotrope sent up delicious fragrance at its foot. Not 
 a plant in that garden you could see but had been artistically 
 chosen for its showy hue or penetrating odour ; not a plant 
 save those whose blossoming season came in July and August. 
 Mrs. Byng would no more have allowed Adam to impoverish 
 the ground by cultivating nonsensical flowers for spring or late 
 autumn than she would have hung up the clean curtains or 
 put on her own satin gown before the 1st of June. 
 
 On the 1st of June opened the Casino and the tdbles-d'h&te 
 of the principal hotels. On the 1st of June a placard contain- 
 ing the words ct, L>uer was hung on the walls of the Petit Tam- 
 bour, and every morning for the remainder of the summer 
 Mrs. Byng by eleven o'clock was dressed, her house swept and 
 garnished, ready for exhibition. There was no necessity for 
 poor old Adam to dress. By five o'clock in the morning 
 Adam had to be out and busy, tying up flowers, cleaning the 
 walks, or working in the kitchen-garden, the products of which 
 went far towards supporting the household. During the mid- 
 day hours, when house-hunters might be expected to call, the 
 meek old man's principal duty was not to show himself. 
 
 Long experience of watering-side human nature had taught 
 Mrs. Byng two things : first, that the poorer you look the 
 harder the bargains others will try to drive with you ; secondly, 
 
330 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 that truth-telling when you have a house to let is a virtue 
 about as much in its place as it would be in the selling of a 
 house. 
 
 Adam looked incurably poor, and was incurably truth^nl. 
 Though his meat for the coming winter must depend upon the 
 summer letting of the Petit Tambour, Adam, for instance, 
 never could bring himself to say that the water in the well was 
 good. " We use it ourselves without ill result, but thee must 
 be aware that water near the sea is ever brackish," would be 
 his style of answer, in the days when he was allowed to speak 
 at all, to people who had perhaps flown from Paris or London 
 to escape cholera ! And as this disease of veracity strengthened 
 rather than diminished with him as he advanced in life, Mrs. 
 Byng, during the last four or five years, had steadily excluded* 
 him from business transactions of all kinds, and with the best 
 possible results. 
 
 " We are neither the physicians nor the purse-keepers of 
 others," she would say, when Adam gently expostulated with 
 her sometimes on the results of her want of conscience. 
 "Why didn't they taste the water? How could I have an 
 opinion as to whether it would agree with their children 1 
 Here is my estimate of the damage they have done the furni- 
 ture. If they dispute any item in the agreement they have 
 the alternative of the law." 
 
 Tenants to Mrs. Byng were as the strawberries in June or 
 pears in October, seasonable spoil of which she, for her part, 
 would gather to the utmost. To Adam Byng a human being, 
 under every circumstance, was a human being. Always keep 
 a crotchety man like this out of money transactions if you can. 
 
 Susan crossed to the window, and gave an exclamation of 
 surprise. Greenhouse plants did not come to luxuriance such 
 as she saw here under the cool sky, exposed to the cutting 
 winds of Hounslow Heath. " You must be very fond of your 
 garden," she said, turning shily to Mrs. Byng, of whom already 
 she stood in awe. "I never saw such flowers out of a 
 hothouse." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 331 
 
 " They last like this till the end of September/' said Mrs. 
 Byng, " and on the 1st of October the Casino closes. If you 
 know any persons likely to come abroad this summer, you had 
 better write to them about the house. We stand two hundred 
 feet above the sea-level, on gravel. We are midway between 
 the railway station and bathing-place ; five beds, besides 
 servants ; salon, salle, excellent kitchen, English range ; the 
 only kitchen in St. Sauveur where you can burn either coal or 
 charcoal. ' Have you any friends you can write to ? " 
 
 " There are two ladies in our parish who are thinking of 
 coming here," hesitated Susan ; "but they would only want a 
 small apartment three rooms with a balcony." 
 
 " I know the place for them," said Mrs. Byng, decisively. 
 ""They must go to the Hotel Benjamin, and will be less 
 robbed, more reasonably robbed, I should say, than in a 
 lodging. You may as well write to-night, and at the same 
 time enclose a description of this house (I have cards written 
 out) for them to give to their friends. Now, Susan " Adam 
 Byng by this time had returned, and stood just within the 
 door watching his niece's face "we will, if you please, speak 
 about business. What are your exact means 1 " 
 
 " My my means, ma'am 1 " cried Susan, a good deal taken 
 aback by the commercial tone of the question. 
 
 " l Ma'am ! ' " interrupted Uncle Adam, in his kind voice; 
 " Aunt Isabella you mean, my dear." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Mr. Byng, don't bid your niece waste 
 her breath on so many syllables ! She calls you Uncle Adam ; 
 let me be Aunt Adam. One name is as good as another. 
 Forty pounds a year, I believe you mentioned, Susan, as your 
 probable income 1 " 
 
 ' I believe so, Aunt .... Adam. Mr. Goldney tells me 
 I have got something like twelve or thirteen hundred pounds." 
 
 A light came into Mrs. Byng's cold eyes. " Thirteen hun- 
 dred pounds, yielding forty pounds a year ! Mr. Byng, this 
 must be seen into. The money, lent in small sums, could be 
 made to yield six, seven per cent, with safety. You are 
 
332 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Susan's joint guardian. It is your duty to see her money 
 honestly invested." 
 
 " Yes, yes, my love, certainly," said Uncle Adam. " But 
 not to-day ; no need to trouble ourselves about business to-J.ay. 
 Thee are fond of flowers, Susan 1 Then come out in the 
 garden with me the other way, I do not cross this floor 
 without my list shoes and I will cut thee a bunch." 
 
 " And cut them out of sight, and no heliotrope, Mr. Byng," 
 said his wife. " Susan, my dear, I will have a longer talk 
 with you by-and-by. You must look upon us in the light of 
 parents, child. Your interests will be ours." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 SUSAN, on this, followed Uncle Adam from the salon, then out 
 through the small dining-room, another miracle of threadbare 
 tidiness, into the garden. As soon as he was under the blue 
 sky, among his flowers, and away from his wife, an almost 
 childish expression of serenity came over Adam Byng's worn 
 face. 
 
 " The happiest hours of my life are spent with my roses 
 and carnations," he said, making the confession in a whisper, 
 and resting his hand with kindly pressure on the little girl's 
 shoulder. " I call them my children to myself, Susan, to 
 myself and thee wouldn't credit what it costs me to give 
 them over in their prime to strangers/' 
 
 "I can quite credit it," said Susan. " Papa used to say it 
 gave him pain, like having a tooth drawn, even to see his 
 flowers plucked." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Uncle Adam, looking up dreamily at the sky, 
 as he recalled the past, " Joseph Fielding may have had his 
 faults, as far as his radical opinions went. For my part, I don't 
 much concern myself with men's opinions. I have never met 
 the equal of Joseph's apples and pears in my life ! That last 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 333 
 
 evening, it seems but yesterday, that we spent with him, a 
 few months after his marriage it was in October, and he had 
 packed me a hamper of as fine Eibston pippins as thee ever 
 saw, when the quarrel came b 3tween him and my poor Martha. 
 She was a woman little given to argument, in a general way, 
 but a staunch churchwoman, and Joseph was no friend to any 
 established forms ; and so, for the veriest trifle, the quarrel 
 came about. Thy mother chanced idly to mention, as we 
 were waiting for supper, how it was said in the village the 
 foundations of Eal:ont church were beginning to totter, that 
 any high wind might bring the old spire down 
 
 " 'Aye,' interrupted Joseph, rubbing his hands cheerfully ; 
 I can see him now as he sat before the fire. ' Aye, sister 
 Martha, before you and I die, I doubt not we shall see a good 
 many spires lying where the tombstones now stand/ 
 
 " Thy mother, Susan, and I took the remark as a joke. 
 We of the Society of Friends have never been quick to heat 
 ourselves over the polemical differences of others. My wife 
 started up, her face (ah, 'twas a fair face then !) afire with 
 indignation : 
 
 " * Joseph Fielding/ she cried, 'am I to think that in what 
 you say you express your true sentiments 1 ' 
 
 " ' To the best of my belief I do,' answered thy father, in 
 his dry way. 
 
 " ' Then the sooner we quit such a house the better/ said 
 my wife ; and straight out of the room she walked." 
 
 " And for a few foolish words like that you and papa were 
 never friends again 1 " cried Susan. 
 
 " I don't think we ever ceased to be friends at heart," said 
 Uncle Adam. " Still we never saw each other's faces more. 
 Thy mother and I tried our best at the time to soften the 
 matter down, but to no avail. Joseph would not unsay his 
 opinion about church steeples, neither would Martha forgive 
 him and the girl already carrying in the supper-tray. So the 
 family was broken up ; and so I lost a hamper of the finest 
 Bibston pippins that were ever grown. Aye, aye," went on 
 
554- SffSAW FIELDING. 
 
 Uncle Adain, shaking his head, " all that happened close upon 
 twenty years ago, and none of us are left but me. We lived 
 at Hammersmith in those days, little Susan, and I kept my 
 horse and chaise, and Martha had two maids to wait upon 
 her. That was before my riches left me." 
 
 He walked on, his head bent down upon his breast, round 
 the small garden, stopping ever and awhile to cut a flower 
 for Susan. At last, when they were at the farthest point of 
 all from the drawing-room window and Mrs. Byng, he spoke 
 again : 
 
 "Thee knows, thy father has told thee, the story of my 
 losses, Susan? No 1 ? Well, half-a-dozen words will tell it. 
 I trusted my money to a friend. After the crash came it 
 must have been when thee was a baby when Ashley's bank 
 foiled, and half the neighbourhood with it, I had no choice 
 left me but to leave England, and luck, my good luck I say 
 now, brought me to St. Sauveur. Out of all we once pos- 
 sessed we had only a poor three hundred pounds of Martha's 
 remaining, and upon this the capital, alas ! not the interest 
 we lived. St. Sauveur was cheap in those days meat 
 2Jd. a pound, a fine Michaelmas goose lOd." 
 
 "And Aunt Martha died here 1 ?" asked Susan, as the old 
 man paused. 
 
 " Martha died here," said Uncle Adam, in the calm voice 
 with which, after long years, men grow to speak of their dead. 
 " Her last wish was to lie in a Protestant country, among 
 Protestants. So I journeyed with her, I had money enough 
 left for that, I journeyed with her one soft October day to 
 Guernsey. I shall rest there also, Susan the place is left for 
 my name on the stone in a pleasant little yard, where the sea 
 washes close, and the laurels and arbutus are green throughout 
 the year. Till then I want no change. St. Sauveur has 
 many advantages, and I have everything to be grateful for in 
 my domestic life. My present wife is a most superior 
 woman : " it seemed as though poor Adam must derive some 
 occult support from the frequent enunciation of this truth : 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 335 
 
 "a most superior woman, and a first-rate economist. 
 Every one in St. Sauveur is an economist, of necessity, 
 but Mrs. Byng beats them all. Now, if thee has flowers 
 enough, come with me to the back-garden, and I will 
 give thee a peach. We have few luxuries here," added Uncle 
 Adam, with his sad smile, " save those the sun gives us." 
 
 "And those are the best luxuries of all," said Susan, 
 according to whose present views of life the sun meant 
 summer, and summer, George Blake ! And then these two 
 the child of sixty and the child of seventeen walked away 
 together, hand in hand, under the bright noon sky, to the 
 kitchen-garden. 
 
 " Thirteen hundred pounds ! " thought Mrs. Byng, as she 
 stood watching them, upright and with folded arms, from the 
 drawing-room window. " And if anything happened to the 
 girl, Adam would be her heir. Ah ! " 
 
 The summing-up of a whole character was in the mono- 
 syllable. To delineate any human being as living, moving, 
 and breathing under the exclusive domination of one passion 
 is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, to draw a caricature. 
 Yet of Mr. Byng such a picture can be given with absolute 
 truth. Economy up to a certain line is, moralists say, a duty, 
 more or less painful according to the temperament of him who 
 practises it. At the point at which it becomes an end, not a 
 means, it developes into passion, the only one of our passions 
 from whose vitality time does not take away. And, more 
 years ago than she could count, economy had overstepped this 
 line with Adam Byng's wife. 
 
 Why she had ever married the poverty-stricken Quaker 
 widower at all was a mystery that the united wisdom of the 
 St. Sauveur gossips, or motive-mongers, had failed to solve. 
 In part, probably, it was for the sum of forty pounds that still 
 remained to Adam after his first wife's death ; in part that she 
 might become proprietress of an unpaid hewer of wood and 
 drawer of water, until her life's end ; somewhat, no doubt 
 (even avarice being human), from a feeling of pity or personal 
 
336 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 regard towards the man himself. Miss Isabella Floyd was, at 
 the time of Adam's great sorrow, a spinster of forty, holding 
 hunger at bay by the precarious means of keeping a St. 
 Sauveur lodging-house ; and under her roof Adam's first wife 
 died. What more natural than that the friendless, heart- 
 broken man should fall back upon the first capable arm outheld 
 for his support 2 On returning from his last sad mission of 
 love, after laying Martha to rest in the little Protestant grave- 
 yard by the sea, Adam, simple as a child, at once gave over 
 the management of his small remaining worldly possessions 
 into Miss Floyd's hands. 
 
 "Make the money last for me while thee can/' said he 
 meekly, " and if there is work about the house for me to do, 
 let me do it. It may be that I shall think less so than if I 
 sat with folded arms." 
 
 And then, during the long drear months of the ensuing 
 winter, was to be seen a sight at which many a kind-hearted 
 passer-by would glance with wet eyes : Adam Byng in his 
 black clothes, working in Miss Floyd's garden, chopping wood 
 in Miss Floyd's courtyard, running errands walking them, I 
 should say ; heart had he none to run ! for Miss Floyd's 
 lodgers. Before the year was quite out she married him. He 
 had his forty pounds still left, thanks to her the money 
 under his own management would have melted away in three 
 months and she had about the same. They took the Petit 
 Tambour on lease, furnished it, let it when they could in 
 summer, existed in it in winter, and now, at the end of fifteen 
 years, had saved well on towards a couple of hundred pounds. 
 How, Adam himself could not have told. Income they had 
 none : there were years, like the present one, in which the 
 season passed without their letting : and still, winter and 
 summer, Mrs. Byng, who knew the market value of respect- 
 able appearances, kept a servant, and all the year round Adam 
 was allowed a weak half -tumbler of hollands and water after 
 his dinner. 
 
 No wonder he believed in the advantages of St. Sauveur ! 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 337 
 
 "In any other place on earth I must have starved long ago," 
 the poor old fellow would say. "Where but in St. Sauveur 
 could a man with nothing a year live in a good house, and 
 have all the comforts of life about him as I do 1 " 
 
 " The comforts of life ! " Well, more perhaps than any 
 term we constantly use is this one relative. If, soberly and 
 philosophically, one set oneself to compare Adam Byng's life 
 with that @f men overblessed by riches and all that riches 
 bring with them (in the way of servants, public duties, enter- 
 tainments, friends), it might, I think, be hard to decide on 
 which hand the balance of solid comfort lay. Adam was free 
 to wear unfashionable clothes and old shoes. His food was 
 poor, but admirably cooked who knew better than Mrs. Byng 
 that the best cooking is the best economy? During eight 
 months of the year a sun that gave real honest warmth shone 
 over his head. He never went through the misery of party- 
 going. He never knew the pangs of indigestion. One of the 
 conditions of his second marriage had been that he should be 
 buried with the wife of his youth : he had therefore no care 
 for the future. Of hope, ambition, interest in anything beyond 
 his roses and carnations, he had no more than had the yellow 
 lichens that grew upon the garden-walls; but then he was 
 contented passive might, perhaps, be the fitter word as only 
 a man reduced to an absolutely nugatory or lichen state of 
 existence can ever be ! 
 
 Adam Byng was passive : long habit, together with the 
 sweetest natural gift of patience, enabled him to bear his 
 galling domestic fetters unmurmuringly, and the only alien 
 trial or discomfort of his life was during the eight or nine 
 weeks of summer, when they had succeeded in finding a tenant 
 for the Petit Tambour. Mrs. Byng was far too cautious a 
 woman to leave the place, as was the custom of the other St. 
 Sauveur English, with her property in the possession of 
 strangers ; so during July and August, the months when the 
 flowers were at their prime, poor Adam's fate, in lucky seasons, 
 was to be carried up to a couple of rooms three or four stories 
 
 z 
 
33 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 high in St. Maur, there to pine for his garden, and get rid of 
 the troublesome fact of being alive as best he might. At such 
 times his wife was in her gayest spirits. Nothing like the 
 gratification of passion, a mean passion just the same ae a 
 noble one, for enabling men and women to be heroic under 
 petty troubles ! With the knowledge that a revenue of so 
 many hundred francs, without breakages, was accruing weekly 
 to her coffers, Mrs. Byng not only became oblivious to personal 
 inconvenience her hard face would grow almost genial ; she ' 
 would actually lend herself to amusement ; go out and listen 
 in an absent, unenjoying way to the band, sit on the beach in 
 the sunshine, nay, had been known to give alms (in all persons 
 with whom avarice is a passion, you will find some of the 
 gambler's superstitions) to the poor ! 
 
 In the present year no such benign or modifying influence 
 was upon her. It was the slackest season an international 
 exhibition going on that St. Sauveur had experienced for 
 years. Houses close to the sea unlet, the chances for the Petit 
 Tambour lessening daily, Mrs. Byng's humour at its driest. 
 No wonder that her husband was more than ordinarily sub- 
 missive in her presence, no wonder that a heartfelt " ah ! " rose 
 to her lips as she watched Susan Fielding, and reflected that 
 only a delicate girl's life stood between Adam and the inherit- 
 ance of thirteen hundred pounds ! 
 
 I doubt if the imagination of love can be more remorseless 
 than is that of avarice in sweeping away obstacles between 
 itself and what it desires to possess. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 THE days in the Petit Tambour were alike as beads upon * 
 rosary. At six the big bell tolling from the neighbouring con- 
 vent of St. Anne was the signal for Susan to rise, throw open 
 her window, and let in the scents from the garden, where 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 339 
 
 Uncle Adam at this hour was generally busy with rake or 
 pruning-knife among his flowers. At seven came the first 
 breakfast : a slice of bread eaten in the open air. At ten the 
 second one : fresh fruit, an omelette, salad, and a bottle of the 
 thinnest claret ever pressed from grapes. At five, dinner : 
 the same kind of fare as breakfast, with the addition of 
 vegetables and one modest plate of meat. Then a walk over 
 to the St. Maur sands, or through the ripening fields of colza 
 and buckwheat, down to the tidal river which lay immediately 
 beneath the garden of the Petit Tambour. And to bed at nine. 
 
 Days monotonously alike as beads upon a rosary, but full- 
 flavoured, radiant with expectant hope to Susan Fielding. On 
 the evening after her arrival she had written a letter about the 
 St. Maur lodgings, and the merits of the Petit Tambour, to 
 Portia Ffrench. Then, because, pleaded heart against con- 
 science, her desk was open, because she was in a writing mood, 
 because a promise, however hastily given, should be kept, 
 wrote another one no, not a letter, Tom Collinson himself 
 could scarce have cavilled at those few formal lines of " statis- 
 tics " and addressed it to the Treasury. By return of post 
 came word that Mr. Blake availed himself of her permission. 
 " The one kind word," he wrote, " the one kind word you ever 
 spoke to me, Susan, was that word 'come/ at parting." She 
 might expect him in a fortnight, at farthest. 
 
 A fortnight only fourteen days more, and the present day 
 half-gone already ! Susan ran at once to her own room, and 
 scratched thirteen little marks upon the whitewash at the head 
 of her bed, one of which on every succeeding night she effaced, 
 reckoning up the lessening score with rapture. She wrote a 
 love-letter that cost only two hours' heavy labour to Tom 
 Collinson. She sang for Uncle Adam her English love-songs 
 (sweet with all the pathetic sweetness of disuse to the old 
 man's ears) as they sauntered through the twilight fields, or 
 sat together in the quiet garden shade at noon. Faint pink 
 roses began to grow steadfast in her cheeks : some dawning of 
 new intelligence lit up daily in her eyes. 
 
 z2 
 
340 SUSAN FIXLDfNG. 
 
 " I like St. Sauveur's after all, and I don't want to be back 
 at Halfont," she made confession in her diary. " I sing the 
 first thing when I get up, and I sing till I go to bed. Have I 
 grown heartless, have I forgotten so soon ] Ah, papa, woulj. 
 you ever have been happy, would you ever have sung again if 
 I had died 1 " Then in another place : "I feel, I don't know 
 why, that my spirits can only be for a time, that my grief must 
 come back stronger than ever to me some day." And then 
 farther : "I have heard again half a page longer than last 
 time from Mr. Blake, and he is coming on the twentieth, 
 only three days more. Oh, if I should be wrong ! if it should 
 be for some one else's sake that he is taking so much trouble !" 
 The same post had brought a letter from Portia to say that the 
 Lily and Lord Dormer were waiting her orders at Southampton, 
 that Susan might look any day for their arrival. " I certainly 
 think it a most unhappy accident- their both coming at the 
 same time. Three days .... oh ! how shall I live through 
 them ?....! will think of poor Tom Collinson. Eliza used 
 to say the only way to make a responsible being's time pass 
 quick is the fulfilment of duty." 
 
 She grew all at once fastidious about her dress ; found out 
 that village-made boots were heavy for walking ! what, in 
 this warm weather, could be nicer than the kid shoes, with 
 buckles and high heels, that the French ladies wore? She 
 must have her hair distorted by pads and pyramids ; a bonnet 
 two inches square, instead of the solid fabric of silk and crape 
 that Miss Budd had made for her first mourning ; must have 
 perfect-fitting gloves, one of the new-shaped parasols ; would 
 like to be looking "like other people" when the Miss 
 Ffrenches arrived. At all these extravagances, with a sensa- 
 tion of positive bodily pain, had Mrs. Byng, not yet holding 
 her niece's purse strings, to look on powerless ; and still Susan 
 declared her wardrobe incomplete. Still a pair of jet ear- 
 rings, a brooch, a bracelet nothing to make the hand look 
 neat like a bracelet ! was wanting. Still her jealous child's 
 heart told her she was all unfit to cope with Portia, with the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 341 
 
 crowd of finely-dressed fashionable ladies, among whom 
 George Blake's eyes would first see her. 
 
 True as the instinct of women may be in most things, it is 
 nearly always at fault here ; they believe men judge them out- 
 wardly by a woman's, not a man's, standard. If the feminine 
 creed on this one point were to be reformed, I suppose two- 
 thirds of the leading milliners might shut their shops. What 
 did the simple little face that was haunting Blake's fancy hour 
 by hour dispossessing Portia Ffrench more utterly from her 
 throne what did Susan Fielding want, in his eyes, of 
 adventitious setting or adornment 1 To a man who has spent 
 his life since he was a schoolboy in a great city, what charm can 
 there ever be in the trite vagaries of fashion above all if this 
 man, like Blake, be an artist] What should a shy '-'Sir 
 Joshua face," a pair of dimpled hands, a girlish white throat, 
 gain by brooches or ear-rings, a new-shaped parasol, or a two- 
 inch French bonnet, in his sight ? 
 
 Well, women, at least, judge each other by their own or the 
 fashion book standard. Portia's first exclamation on seeing 
 Susan Fielding, dressed in her altered Parisian style, was 
 one of approval. Miss Jemima, partly under the influence 
 of cajolery, partly of force a little swayed, perhaps, by 
 the old dread of Portia's " doing something worse " if she 
 were thwarted had been led on into accepting the offer 
 of Lord Dormer's yacht. And one evening, just as dinner 
 was over, and Uncle Adam was sipping his hollands and 
 water in the garden of the Petit Tambour, came a messenger 
 with a note for Susan Fielding, telling her that her friends- 
 and the Lily had arrived at St. Maur. 
 
 "We have been thirty-six hours crossing from the 
 Needles," wrote Portia, "and I can assure you, had come 
 not only to our last idea, but to our last powers of speech, 
 when we reached the Hotel Benjamin. The rooms here 
 are delicious, picturesque with a vengeance alas ! shall we be 
 amused in them 1 Come to see us, if you can, this evening, 
 and hear a piece of rather good news I have got to tell you." 
 
34* St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 A piece of rather good news ! What could it be but 
 that Blake was at this moment at Portia's side ! To-morrow 
 was the twentieth, the long-looked-for day on which he was to 
 reach St. Sauveur ; what more likely than that Portia at the 
 last had persuaded him to join Lord Dormer's party in the 
 yacht] All in a tremor of hope and fear, Susan, after a 
 cold permission from Mrs. Byng, ran upstairs to put on 
 her bonnet ; then, with Uncle Adam for her escort, started 
 off for the Hotel Benjamin. To walk round to St. Maur 
 by the mainland took exactly one hour longer than to 
 -cross by the ferry ; but to eross and recross the ferry cost 
 two sous a head, and it was a standing injunction laid on Adam 
 years ago by his wife never to use the boat save in times of 
 dire emergency. This evening, however, Susan coaxed him 
 out of the path of duty. She had a two-sous piece in her 
 pocket, of whose weight she would gladly be rid. She was 
 dying to see her English friends. Well, then these argu- 
 ments failing the heat had tired her, putting on a piteous 
 little expression of weakness : would Uncle Adam force 
 .her to go all the way round by the causeway when she 
 was almost too tired to stand ? 
 
 " Thee are not too tired other evenings/ 7 said Uncle Adam, 
 " and I ought not to allow thee to squander thy money. Who 
 knows better than me what carelessness in money leads to ? 
 Still, if thee are bent on it for once ! " 
 
 And so Susan had her way, and half an hour after 
 leaving the Petit Tambour was running with a heightened 
 colour and quick-drawn breath through the outer court of 
 the Hotel Benjamin ; Uncle Adam, who had business of 
 his own in St. Maur (business that was comprised in sipping 
 a glass of sugar-water and playing a game of dominoes with 
 Jean Poujol in one of the smaller cafe's), promising to call for 
 her on his road back to St. Sauveur by nine o'clock. 
 
 'The staircase leading to the first floor of the Benjamin was 
 outside the house, as one still sees in some of the second-class 
 Breton hotels ; a granite staircase with ancient oaken balustrade^ 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 343 
 
 half hidden now by a drapery of purple passion-flowers, and 
 with the lilies of France carved by some sixteenth-century 
 hand on every pillar. Up this Susan was conducted by 
 Josephine, the head-waitress of the hotel, then along a 
 narrow many-doored passage, still with blue sky overhead, to 
 the western or seaward side of the hotel. Here the waiting- 
 woman knocked loudly at a door built in a kind of recess or 
 archway in the wall, and Miss Jemima's voice, in the most 
 determined of all British accents, called out "Entrez." 
 
 The room that Portia had selected for a sitting-room was a 
 vast old tapestried chamber in reality one of the show rooms 
 of St. Maur with windows opening to the Channel, and a 
 balcony from whence a flight of perpendicular stone steps led 
 down across the ramparts to the rocks ; a chamber in 
 which the " good Duchess Anne " had once slept, and 
 whose walls, if the St. Maur records spoke true, had wit- 
 nessed many a scene of love and romance, ages before this 
 prosaic little nineteenth century episode of which I write. 
 
 Portia, still in her yachting dress, stood at one of the open 
 windows through which the yellow sunset streamed ; her 
 sailor hat lying beside her on the window-step, her black hair 
 falling in glossy waves below her waist, a morsel of scarlet 
 ribbon, the necessary spot of becoming colour, knotted at the 
 open collar of her blue-and-white sailor shirt. 
 
 She came across the room to meet Susan Fielding, and, as 
 I have said, her first exclamation was one of approval. " Why, 
 Susan, child, what have you done to yourself ? I hope French 
 air improves every one in the same way. Crimped hair, short 
 dress, high-heeled shoes certainly I must wear high-heeled 
 shoes and crimp my hair ! Aunt, is not Susan improved ? " 
 
 Miss Jemima was standing, diligently mending a pair of 
 torn gloves, at the other window. Abroad or at home, before 
 or after a journey, the fingers and needle-case of the old 
 campaigner were never long left idle when Portia was at hand. 
 "Susan has altered herself," she said, pushing up her 
 spectacles, and looking kindly at the little girl who ran to 
 
344 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 meet her. " But as to improved ! stand so, my dear, let me 
 look at you straight well, no, I can't say I think her 
 improved. I want time to be sure of that. I can't see that 
 whatever is fashionable is right, as you do, Portia." 
 
 "Ah, that is a cut at my dishevelled locks," cried Portia. 
 " Do you admire them, Susan 1 Oh ! you must see me with 
 my hat on before you judge." She stooped, picked up her 
 hat, on whose ribbon was the name of Lord Dormer's yacht, 
 and stuck it the least in the world on one side her head. 
 " Now give me a candid opinion. Some one for whose taste 
 I have the greatest respect has been telling me incessantly 
 during the last two days that my sea-going make-up is per- 
 fection. Aunt calls it depraved." 
 
 While Portia spoke, three little French officers were staring 
 up at her, as only Frenchmen can stare at a pretty woman, 
 from the walk upon the ramparts ; and the consciousness even 
 of this audience brought colour and life to her face. Never, 
 alas ! to Susan's eyes had she looked so desperately, so 
 unapproachingly handsome. " Whatever you wear suits you 
 best. You always look well," she cried, with such an intense 
 air of conviction, that Portia stooped the audience more and 
 more interested and kissed her cheek. " My opinion agrees 
 with that of of the other person." Then she stopped and 
 hung her head, blushing with shame over her own jealous 
 fears. 
 
 "You would agree with him in nothing else, I hope/' 
 remarked old Miss Jemima. " Susan, my dear, in the course 
 of your short life has it ever happened to you to be thrown 
 for six-and-thirty hours into the unrelieved company of a fool ? " 
 
 " Aunt," cried Portia, authoritatively, " I won't let you say 
 these things of Lord Dormer ! " 
 
 Lord Dormer, only ! Oh, the one big joyous throb of 
 Susan's heart ! 
 
 " I'm sure nothing could be nicer than his manner has been 
 to you. The way he ran about after you with wraps and 
 cushions was most " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 345 
 
 " Thoroughly and painfully ridiculous, said Miss Jemima* 
 " As if / needed the poor little creature's attentions ; as if I 
 even looked upon crossing the Channel in his cockleshell of a 
 boat as being at sea at all ! I fancy if a storm had come on 
 we should have seen Lord Dormer's yachting qualities tested 
 in earnest ! The lad felt sea-sick half the time, Portia ; I 
 could tell it by the cadaverous green shade of his skin." 
 
 " Cadaverous, indeed ! Why, that is his lovely natural hue, 
 the last thing out in complexions. Every young lady I know 
 admires little Lord Dormer's interesting, colourless, dissipated- 
 looking face." 
 
 " Except me," cried Susan. " I dare say I should like to 
 go in his yacht, and have presents, too, if he asked me, but I 
 think little Lord Dormer hideous." 
 
 " And so do I," said Portia (the Frenchmen having at last 
 stared themselves tired, had walked on, and as she spoke she 
 descended from the raised step or dai's by the window) " but 
 he does ask me to go in his yacht, and he does give me 
 presents. And I accept everything unblushingly. Don't I, 
 Aunt Jem ! " 
 
 " You do," answered Miss Jemima, drily, and before very 
 long will, I have not the smallest doubt, accept Lord Dormer 
 himself in the same manner. JSTo need to keep Susan out of 
 the secret, Portia. She was present at the breaking-off of 
 your last engagement, and she knows how another worthier 
 man ah, well, no need to speak of that ! Susan, my dear, 
 Lord Dormer has run through thirty thousand pounds already, 
 and on his twenty-first birthday will come into fifty thousand 
 pounds more. Never say a word in his disfavour again. My 
 niece Portia is by no means indisposed to spend the remainder 
 of her life in Lord Dormer's society." 
 
 A look of regret, so keen as to be almost one of pain, crossed 
 Portia's face. " Fifty thousand pounds ! " she repeated, in a 
 queer, compressed sort of tone. " Oh ! how I hate to think 
 of other people having money how I hate myself for never, 
 even by accident, doing the thing that is right ! If one could 
 
346 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 only calculate" chances, only look forward with greater nicety ! 
 .... Susan " she interrupted herself hastily " what is to 
 be seen in St. Maur of an evening 1 When aunt has finished 
 with her needle and thread we will sally forth. Our luggage 
 is still on board the yacht, so we must appear before the 
 world in our rags and tatters, just as we are. What does 
 every one do where does every one go *? " 
 
 " Uncle Adam and I go far away upon the sands, or down 
 through the fields to the river ; but the visitors, when they are 
 not at the Casino, walk up and down on the Place, close to 
 this hotel. I came once with Mrs. Byng to see them, and a 
 band pkyed, and an ugly woman on a little stage sang, all 
 out of tune I stopped my ears when she sang and then the 
 people clapped their hands and applauded." 
 
 "As I shall do," said Portia. "Who cares for discord or 
 ugliness, Susan $ The thing is, whatever happens in life to 
 clap one's hands with the majority. Now, Aunt Jem," 
 considerately, "will you come with us, or shall Susan and I 
 go alone ? Eemember, I have brought you to France to amuse 
 yourself, and I'm not going to have your life made miserable 
 by any ridiculous ideas about propriety or chaperoning duties." 
 
 " I am extremely obliged by the hint," said old Miss Jemima, 
 " and you may set your mind at rest, my dear. During day- 
 light you shall have as much liberty as you choose. As you 
 say, we have come to France to enjoy ourselves. After seven 
 o'clock in the evening we keep together. That is the last 
 vestige of authority m which I mean to clothe myself/' 
 
 For a moment down went the corners of Portia's lips : 
 then, " Of course we will keep together," she cried, good- 
 humouredly, " both before seven o'clock and after it ; 
 though, if the truth were told, it is I that am chaperoning 
 you, aunt, not you me. Now run and get ready, like a good 
 old lady, and we will start. I can put on my hat here." 
 
 Miss Jemima, thus bidden, went away into the adjoining 
 bed-room. Portia moved across to the huge old-fashioned fire- 
 place, standing before which, on tiptoe, it was just possible to 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 347 
 
 see oneself in a faded ebony-framed mirror that reached from 
 chimney-shelf to ceiling. She smoothed back her hair with 
 her hands, put on her hat, took one of those long exhaustive 
 looks handsome women love to give at their own faces in the 
 tarnished glass then, in a whisper, called Susan to her side. 
 
 " I am going to let you into my secrets, Susan not a word 
 to Aunt Jem, though. All this about my accepting Lord 
 Dormer is nonsense, of course." 
 
 " And yet you have come to France in his yacht ! " 
 
 " And yet I have come to France in his yacht. The fact is, 
 I have been wretchedly unhappy ever since I saw you. That 
 very day you left Teddy and I had a horrible scene with 
 grandmamma as soon as we got back to the house. I 
 can't exactly say why, but I have an uneasy sense that Condy 
 knows more than she ought about where we went the evening 
 before. At all events, grandmamma hinted, as only a Dysart 
 can hint, as to what she was pleased to call the laxity of my 
 principles ; the way I ran after my cousin Ted himself 
 standing by, mind was, after all that had occurred, 
 shameless " 
 
 " Miss Portia ! " 
 
 "Hard to bear, wasn't it? and so unjust ! Well, I looked 
 at Teddy, and saw that in another minute he would say some- 
 thing to ruin both of us. Eeally I never knew till then how 
 handsome the poor little fellow could look his face flushed, 
 his blue eyes all alight with anger ! It was no time, I knew, 
 for hesitation, and before he was able to .speak a word I had 
 got out something, I scarcely like to think what, about my 
 preference for Lord Dormer " 
 
 " Lord Dormer ! Oh, Miss Portia, how could you ! " 
 
 " Don't look so shocked, my dear. Do you think 7 felt no 
 struggle, no compunction, at going so flat against my 
 conscience ? Grandmamma and Condy, both of them, looked 
 iairly mystified. 
 
 " ' Am I to think/ stammered grandmamma, ' that Lord 
 Dormer .... that Lord Dormer can be seriously coming 
 
348 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 forward, after his intimacy with your friend Mrs. Wynne, as 
 your suitor ] ' 
 
 " ' Think what you like, grandmamma/ said I, with beauti- 
 ful dignity; 'but for the future have the kindness, please, not 
 to hint any more of those unworthy suspicions, at least not in 
 the presence of others/ 
 
 " Then I glanced round at Ted. The flush and anger 
 had both faded out of his face now. ' My cousin Portia is so 
 well able to take care of herself that I won't say what a minute 
 ago I meant to say,' he remarked : I felt every word of this 
 as he meant that I should feel it : ' Lord Dormer is to be 
 congratulated that is the only opinion I hold on the subject.' 
 After this he continued for half an hour or more to talk to 
 Condy and grandmamma on indifferent subjects, then walked 
 placidly away out of the house." 
 
 "And you have not seen him since 1" 
 
 Portia had the grace to hesitate an instant at this point- 
 blank question. " Seen Teddy Josselin ? Of course not, my 
 dear child. Where is the good of people placed as we are 
 seeing each other 1 I had begun my little fiction about Lord 
 Dormer (rather a bold stroke, considering I had never spoken 
 ten words to him till the night before ; still I felt pretty sure 
 of my ground) I had begun my fiction, I say, and nothing 
 remained for me but to carry it through. I can't say, 
 miserable though I have been at times, that a good deal 
 of the by-play has not diverted me. Poor Aunt Jem's 
 bewilderment when she found Lord Dormer, instead of Ted, 
 instead of George Blake, coming down to Halfont ! And 
 grandpapa's amiability ! He was glad at last to see a young 
 fellow of breeding and wit Lord Dormer's wit ! at his 
 table. Grandpapa positively kissed me when we came away. 
 And Laura Wynne's face when I told her gravely that the 
 Lily was at the disposal of my aunt (poor innocent old Aunt 
 Jem !) and myself for the summer ! " 
 
 "And Mr. Josselin]" asked Susan, as Portia again 
 hesitated. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 349 
 
 " Oh ! Mr. Josselin has been taking care of his own amuse- 
 ments/' said Portia, with quick bitterness of tone. "Until 
 a day or two ago he was staying, yes, staying, in the house 
 with Nelly Eawdori's detestable people in Essex. But the 
 ugliest woman in Christendom, if she knew how to natter Ted 
 Josselin's vanity, could command his attention ; there is the 
 truth.'' 
 
 " And he is not coming to St. Sauveur, as he promised ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that is my secret the bit of good news I spoke of," 
 answered Portia, lowering her voice. " Teddy is coming, and 
 you must help me, Susan, like the good little soul you are, in 
 keeping matters quiet. If we had a solitary grain of sense 
 between us, Ted Josselin and I, we would remain apart, but I'm 
 sure I don't know how it is " a momentary gleam of tenderness 
 flitted across Portia Ffrench's face " I don't know how it is, 
 but we can't. The moment we see each other we fight, are 
 reconciled, fight again ; but we can't keep asunder. These 
 things are written, I suppose. From my very heart I despise 
 Ted Josselin for staying with the Eawdons ; he despises me 
 quite as sincerely for the part I am forced into playing with 
 Lord Dormer ; but still put your ear closer by the last 
 train to-morrow evening Teddy .... command yourself, 
 Susan .... as likely as not, George Blake with him, may 
 arrive at St. Maur, from Paris." 
 
 " And then Lord Dormer and his yacht will have to go 
 away 1 " cried Susan, hardly knowing what she said for con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " And then, more imperatively than ever, Lord Dormer and 
 his yacht will have to stay," answered Portia, in her lightest 
 tone. " Because one is unlucky enough to have well-looking 
 cousins like poor Ted, is no reason why the solid good things 
 of life, the Macbeans and Lord Dormers, should be thrown 
 away. Lord Dormer will stay, and 
 
 Enter Miss Jemima, equipped in the village dress and 
 bonnet in which she had travelled. "Talking of Lord 
 Dormer still, I hear, Portia 1 " 
 
350 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Of what better should I talk, my dear aunt ? Where the 
 heart leads, is it not natural that the tongue should follow ] 
 Now " (giving a twentieth look at herself in the glass), " sup- 
 posing we start, I predict that you and I will make a deciJed 
 sensation among the French people, Aunt Jem. A certain 
 young lady with fine frizzed hair and shoe-buckles, they will 
 look upon as one of themselves, of course." 
 
 The open space or Place before the Hotel Benjamin was 
 thronged with people of every class and degree. Here, for it 
 was still too early for the Casino ball, a group of mature 
 Parisian ladies ready dressed in the last fashion of short white 
 muslin over coloured skirts, like schoolgirls for the dance ; 
 there a family of good St. Maur citizens, the father drinking 
 his cup of coffee, to ensure madame and the children seats 
 beneath one of the cafe" awnings for the evening. On a 
 pasteboard stage under the trees, the artiste of whom Susan 
 spoke was making night hideous with one of Therese's songs, 
 heightened in moral tone to suit the soberer tastes of the 
 provinces, but sung half a note flat throughout. Gruesome 
 figures of beggars, professional traders in their own deform- 
 ities, were stretching forth distorted limbs, or exhibiting 
 festering sores, and whining for "Charity, charity, in the 
 name of the good God ! " Ever and anon the black frock of 
 a priest or white robe of a Carmelite brother would be seen 
 to stealthily traverse the crowd, then glide away under the 
 shade of the tall overhanging houses into one of the smaller 
 streets. A German band was playing waltzes and galops, 
 with more noise than melody, in the intervals between the 
 artiste's songs ; while constantly, the one note of true pure 
 music to be heard, came the measured wash of the tide and 
 on this Breton coast you get the long-sustained wave of the 
 Atlantic, not the chopping sea of the Channel upon the shore 
 without the ramparts. 
 
 The scene altogether was an animated one, and Portia, 
 taking her tone of spirits, as usual, from the colour of the 
 background, chattered gaily, and looked her handsomest and 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 351 
 
 brightest as they walked along. The French ladies glanced 
 pityingly at her flannel suit, plain sailor hat, and dark sun- 
 burnt face. I don't know how it is, but French ladies always 
 see more to pity than to admire in a thoroughly well-built 
 handsome English girl. The Frenchmen, on the other hand, 
 were in ecstasies of admiration : four or five little officers with 
 pretty waists, dangling swords, and long spurs and moustachios, 
 following her about wherever she moved. (Had their eyes 
 not been blinded by Portia's beauty or their own vanity, these 
 officers of the great army must certainly have been mortified 
 by Miss Jemima's demeanour towards them. Not an inten- 
 tion had kind-hearted Jemima Ffrench of ever wounding the 
 feelings of mortal creature ; but as a Briton and an old 
 soldier, the sight of these small warriors of the Empire was 
 really too much for her. And so she would turn, stand, 
 blandly curious, and watch them, as children watch the 
 dancing figures on an organ their tight-laced waists, baggy 
 red trousers, diminutive stature, swaggering walk ; then shake 
 her head, almost mournfully, and smile. " It makes me think 
 less of the conquests of our army now that I have seen these 
 people on their own soil," said Miss Jemima.) 
 
 When they had taken two or three turns on the Place, and 
 were again close to the gates of the Hotel Benjamin, they 
 were joined by little Lord Dormer. It may seem fantastic to 
 assert that an English |)eer of large means can, under any 
 circumstances, look unlike a gentleman ; yet, if not knowing 
 who he was, you had met the twentieth Baron of Throgmorton 
 in his yachting suit, I believe you would have set him down 
 for a sickly young city clerk, taking his season ten pounds' 
 worth of pleasure under false pretences. A yachtsman worthy 
 of the name has, at least, a weather-tanned face, a look of 
 honest health, something in his mien and gait reminding you, 
 however distantly, of a genuine tar. But salt water in very 
 truth did not agree with Lord Dormer, a misfortune not 
 unfrequently occurring to wealthy yachtowners. He had been 
 a good many voyages in the Lily, in the Thames and Solent ; 
 
352 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 also in the Mediterranean, himself crossing France by railway. 
 The open Channel Lord Dormer liked not. And there had 
 been a heavy ground-swell, though no wind, during the last 
 thirty-six hours, and his cadaverous face told only too plainly 
 of sufferings that his attachment for Portia had bidden him 
 stifle. The poor little Baron of Throgmorton, in his yachting 
 suit, and still under the influence of suppressed sea-sickness, 
 was altogether not beautiful to look upon. 
 fc He had made his sidelong way to the ladies, with the 
 loitering, indifferent air of the school of manners to which he 
 belonged, and proffered this Chesterfieldian remark : " Well, 
 here you are, then ! " 
 
 " Yes, here we are again," said Portia, " and here is Miss 
 Fielding. You remember meeting Miss Fielding that evening 
 at Laura's ? " 
 
 Lord Dormer's memory seemed at fault ; however, he raised 
 his hand within an inch or two of his cap. 
 
 " Miss Fielding is staying with some friends at St. Sauveur, 
 and has been showing us the lions. Please have chairs 
 brought for us, and we will drink our coffee, like all the rest 
 of the world, out-of-doors." 
 
 " Chairs ] " said Lord Dormer, looking about him with an 
 expression of entire vacancy. " There doesn't seem to be 
 any, does there 1 Gargon," addressing nobody, " apportez 
 chaises ! " 
 
 "If you will wait one minute, Lord Dormer/' said Miss 
 Jemima, with marked politeness, " I will go in search of some 
 myself. Nay, my dear Portia, do not move. I am quite 
 equal to the exertion of carrying a light wicker-chair or two 
 without help." 
 
 And off walked the old soldier to the side-door of the hotel, 
 a few yards distant ; returning presently with three chairs, 
 which she carried with no more difficulty than she would have 
 carried a parasol. 
 
 " I am sorry I could not bring one for you too," she re- 
 marked, addressing Lord Dormer, with gravity. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 353 
 
 " Oil ah thanks ! " said his small lordship coolly, and 
 quite unconscious of ironical emphasis in Miss Jemima's 
 apology. "I dare say some one else will." 
 
 And some one else did in the shape of Josephine from the 
 hotel. She brought at the same time a small marble-topped 
 table, and inquired with what monsieur and these ladies would 
 wish to be served 1 
 
 "Servi! Oh, of course, remember the service," said Lord 
 Dormer, taking out a shilling and tossing it on the table*. 
 " Trust to a Frenchwoman for remembering her own pocket." 
 
 Josephine took up the coin, held it a minute between her 
 finger and thumb, looking at it curiously ; then with suave 
 politeness laid it down again, and repeated her question, this 
 time addressing old Miss Ffrench. 
 
 " You really should 1 not think every one so mercenary, Lord 
 Dormer," Portia remarked, when Miss Jemima in her fine 
 Anglo-Gallic had ordered coffee. " People often fall into 
 mistakes through these mean opinions of human nature. 
 You see Josephine did not think your shilling worth accepting/' 
 
 "I shall put it into my purse, and keep it as as an 
 amulet," said Lord Dormer, returning the shilling to his 
 pocket. " It's the first time in my life I ever offered any one 
 anything and got refused, on my honour it is, and and" 
 (tenderly this) "I hope it will be the last, Miss Ffrench." 
 After which somewhat leading remark he seemed all at once 
 to grow afraid of himself, and stopped ; and Portia had to go 
 on with the conversation. 
 
 She had been out four seasons, and knew perfectly well 
 how to find conversation for young men of the mental calibre 
 of Lord Dormer, rather than of George Blake. 
 
 "I enjoy all this foreign scene so much ; don't you 1 And 
 yet," plaintively, " I am half sorry to have left the Lily. If 
 ever I am a rich woman I shall keep a yacht and live about in 
 the world, or rather on the waters, independent." 
 
 " Well, the sea's a great bore too, without a pleasant party," 
 was Lord Dormer's response. 
 
 2A 
 
354 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " But I was thinking of a pleasant party of a succession of 
 pleasant parties. Oh, what an ear-rending note ! What do 
 you think of that poor woman's singing 1 " 
 
 Lord Dormer thought he was sick of all singing-women of 
 all nations. This one was a wretched imitation of Therese, 
 but without her chic. Where was the good of singing of that 
 sort without chic 1 
 
 " And pray what is ' chic/ if I may ask 1 " said Miss 
 Jemima. " I have just French enough to make myself under- 
 stood when I ask for a cup of coffee, but I know nothing 
 about these new slang words." 
 
 " Chic ] " said Lord Dormer, slowly turning his lack-lustre 
 eyes upon Miss Jemima's fresh old face " Oh, chic, of course 
 is is chic." 
 
 " Thank you ; I must try to remember that definition for 
 the future. Portia, my dear," in a whisper, " who is that man 
 who is staring so impertinently at you 1 " 
 
 " A man staring impertinently ! Eeally, considering that 
 we are in a crowd of about five hundred Frenchmen, aunt, 
 I think you might make the question a little more definite ! " 
 
 But, in spite of her air of indifference, a heightened colour 
 had newly risen to Portia's cheek. 
 
 " I am not speaking of any Frenchmen at all," said Miss 
 Jemima : " I mean the tall good-looking man, an English- 
 man evidently, who is crossing straight towards us at this 
 instant." 
 
 "Well, unless I knew him to be in Norway, I should say 
 that tall good-looking man was John Dysart," answered Portia* 
 " Do you see the likeness, Lord Dormer 1 I think I have 
 heard you say you knew Mr. Dysart in Paris ? " 
 
 " I don't see the likeness ; I see the man himself," remarked 
 Lord Dormer, epigrammatically. " I was telling Dysart you 
 were here not an hour ago." 
 
 Old Miss Jemima, on hearing the terrible word " Dysart," 
 bent forward eagerly. "Portia, is that man the John Dysart?" 
 she whispered. 
 
FIELDING. 355 
 
 " So Lord Dormer says, Aunt Jem," answered Portia, with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Don't recognize Mm, child, if you possibly can help it ! 
 Oh, these Dysarts, these Dysarts there is no eseaping from 
 them ! " cried good Miss Jemima with bitterness. 
 
 " Well, happily, whatever their other vices may be, canni- 
 balism is not one of them," said Portia. " John Dysart, if he 
 should happen to remember me, will not eat us. I really don't 
 see what else one need be afraid of. Ah, here he comes/ 7 her 
 voice brightening with pleasure. " Poor dear old Jack, he has 
 not forgotten me after all i " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FIVE years before the present time John Dysart had been the 
 secret bugbear, the unacknowledged haunting dread of Jemima 
 Ffrench's life. 
 
 From the earliest period of Portia's reconciliation to her 
 mother's family, Teddy Josselin had been the girl's chosen 
 companion and playmate a playmate who, as we know, had, 
 later on, stood very seriously in the way of her worldly interests. 
 But, until her regular introduction, at least, John Dysart had 
 been the man whose attentions Portia, in her inmost heart, 
 most prized. He was a cousin once or twice removed, and 
 therefore, said Lady Erroll, the fittest attendant in the world 
 for a child not yet out. By all means let John Dysart take 
 her for her morning rides in the park. By all means let her 
 keep her round dances for him at the half grown-up parties to 
 which, for Portia's sake, John Dysart condescended to go. 
 He was not a man of the highest social reputation, Lady 
 Erroll knew and acknowledged. When Portia was once intro- 
 duced, she must never waste her time upon any cousin of them 
 all. Meantime no man better for forming a young girl's 
 manner and taste than John Dysart. His being married, too, 
 
 2 A2 
 
35 6 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 poor fellow, made it so perfectly safe for both of them ! So 
 the intimacy went on ; and so, to Miss Jemima's horror, she 
 found, when Portia was still under seventeen, that the girl had 
 already formed a tender, admiring friendship for the most 
 fascinating and least-principled member of the whole Dysart 
 race. 
 
 " Teddy likes me to wear so and so," Portia would say, 
 " and I wear it to please him ; but Jack Dysart declares that 
 it is not my colour, and I know he is right. They say Jack 
 knows more about dress than all the milliners in London put 
 together.'' Or, when she had been to one of the so-called 
 children's parties : "I might have preferred dancing with Ted 
 Josselin if he had been there, Aunt Jem ; but fine young 
 guardsmen are much too grand to go to children's parties. 
 Jack Dysart went for my sake alone ; and every girl in the 
 room, from six to sixteen, wanted to dance with him, and he 
 told me to put him down as often as I liked on my card, and 
 threw over that detestable little Lady Clementina Vernon for 
 me twice. Would Ted have done as much ? Besides, he takes 
 me off my feet. I like to be taken off my feet. When I 
 dance with Ted I have most real fun, but when I dance or 
 walk with my cousin Dysart, I know every one points us out. 
 I don't, for my own part, think his yellow face and tired grey 
 eyes so very handsome, but he is unlike other people. He is 
 thoroughly good style. Even grandmamma is obliged to 
 admit that Jack, with all his sins, is the most distinguished- 
 looking man in London." 
 
 And all the arguments Miss Jemima could bring to bear 
 against the intimacy had, unfortunately, only served to 
 strengthen it. For instance, Portia was too young to be aware 
 of John Dysart's evil reputation 
 
 "Not a bit," Portia would interrupt. " I had heard of it 
 long before I saw him. It was more than half his evil 
 reputation that inclined me to like him." 
 
 He was a gambler 
 
 "But an extremely lucky one, and we always bank toge- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 357 
 
 ther at Van John. I lose nothing that way," the girl would 
 retort. 
 
 A spendthrift 
 
 " Like all nice people, dear Aunt Jem ! Have your 
 favourites through life been misers, I should like to know ? " 
 
 Last of all, John Dysart was married, and living apart from 
 his wife 
 
 " And so, alas ! can never think of me," Portia would say, 
 with a sigh. "He is to give me away when I marry, and I 
 am always to ask him down for pheasant-shooting, for Jack 
 and I have decided I must marry nothing under a country 
 gentleman and ten thousand a year. Oh, dear me ! if Jack 
 Dysart was only a country gentleman with ten thousand a 
 year, and free I mean, if there was no Ted Josselin in the 
 world!" 
 
 All this was an affair of long ago. During the last three 
 or four years, the years succeeding Portia's formal introduction, 
 John Dysart had been out of England, and Jemima Ffrench's 
 peace of mind, as regarded this member of the family at least, 
 undisturbed. Time had, however, not done much to lessen 
 the old danger. John Dysart was still a gambler not always 
 as lucky a one as when he and Portia banked together at Van 
 John ! He still lived separated from his wife, arid still (even 
 Miss Jemima could not but regretfully acknowledge this as he 
 drew near) was about the last man living for whom senti- 
 mental admiring friendship could be felt with impunity ! 
 
 " Portia ! " he cried, as Portia started up to greet him. 
 What a pleasant voice Jack had, Dysart though he was ! "I 
 should have known you at once, even if Dormer had not told 
 me you were here. This is really being in luck ! I never 
 thought you and I were to meet again in this life." 
 
 He held both her hands, and bent down over her as be- 
 spoke ; reading doubtless, with natural cousinly interest, the 
 changes that the last few years had wrought in her face ; but 
 with a warmth of manner that Miss Jemima at once judged 
 by a standard of forty years ago, and found unlawful. 
 
358 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Portia, my dear," she remarked stiffly, " I think you 
 forget. I have not the honour of Mr. John Dysart's ac- 
 quaintance." 
 
 " No ? Ah, to be sure not ! " cried Portia. "All you knew 
 of him used to be through my rose-coloured descriptions. 
 Let me introduce you. My Aunt Jemima, Mr. Dysart. Oh, 
 Jack, how good it is to see you ! I feel young again already. 
 Do you remember our last match at ecarte ? I never paid you 
 that dozen pair of gloves. What in the world have you been 
 doing all these years 1 Give an account of yourself." 
 
 And, thus commanded, John Dysart stood before them, his 
 hat in his hand his manners belonged to an older school than 
 those of Lord Dormer and gave an account of himself. 
 Since that last ecarte match with his cousin Portia he had, he 
 confessed, been a miserable wanderer on the face of the earth ; 
 picking up a scanty subsistence on the fish and fowl of Norway 
 in summer, living on the fruits of the earth in the South in 
 winter 
 
 " And filling up all odds and ends of time with Paris 1 " 
 interrupted Portia. " I have heard of you, and, what is more, 
 I'm pretty certain I saw you with my own eyes one day in 
 
 the Champs " She stopped short, turned crimson, and 
 
 bit her lip. 
 
 " You saw Mr. Dysart in Paris with your own eyes ? " 
 remarked Miss Jemima, but without any great surprise. She 
 was too much accustomed to the florid little arabesques of 
 fiction with which Portia embellished conversation to be taken 
 aback by the audacity of this or any other assertion. 
 
 "In my dreams, Aunt Jem, in my dreams," said Portia. 
 " Don't you know I'm a little bit of a clairvoyante 1 . . . . 
 Ah ! here comes the incorruptible Josephine. Imagine, Jack, 
 Lord Dormer has had a new experience this evening has 
 discovered a human being, and a Frenchwoman, who was 
 above the temptation of the British shilling ! " 
 
 Lord Dormer, from the moment John Dysart appeared, had 
 baen looking the very picture of perplexed despondency. He 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 359 
 
 tad been uncomfortably, vaguely jealous of Teddy Josselin 
 ever since that night when he first began to forfeit his peace 
 of mind at Mr. Wynne's supper-party some miserable 
 instinct of his own counteracting all Portia's pretty acting, 
 all Portia's touching candour on the subject of her forlorn and 
 suitorless condition. And here he had brought the Lily 
 across the channel, and made himself sick (he more than half 
 suspected ridiculous), only to meet a more dangerous rival 
 still ; a cousin again, and one whom Portia had the imperti- 
 nence to call openly by his Christian name in his very 
 presence ! Ah, well ! Jack Dysart might be a lady-killer, but 
 he was a married man ; Lord Dormer had the advantage of 
 him there. At the first syllable of serious intentions, of 
 settlements, in what position in the race would the hand- 
 somest man in ^Europe find himself with a girl like Portia 
 Ff rench 1 From the thought of marriage in the abstract all 
 the strength of Lord Dormer's intellect had hitherto recoiled. 
 If such a sacrifice at any future date were to be forced upon 
 him by untoward fortune, he had always known pretty well 
 what kind of alliance his impoverished estate must bid him 
 seek ; and still his present fancy was ardent enough to carry 
 him up to the very altar-rails beside a penniless bride, and 
 his sharp, newborn jealousy of Jack Dysart told him at this 
 moment that it was so. Had not poor little Lord Dormer 
 good cause to look despondent and perplexed 1 
 
 Josephine ran off to the courtyard for another chair, and, 
 by Portia's invitation, John Dysart, who had now been 
 introduced to Susan, joined the party. He belonged to a 
 class which, I believe, furnishes the very pleasantest " Joseph 
 Surface" kind of acquaintances in the world a class of 
 Englishmen to whom continental cities are familiar as London, 
 but who, "not changing their country manners for those of 
 foreign parts," have never degenerated by the smallest detail 
 into Anglicized foreigners, or foreign Englishmen. John 
 Dysart's dress and smooth-shorn face were as ultra-English as 
 any model to which a Parisian dandy could aspire , he spoke 
 
360 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 the English language in its integrity; his breeding was Eng- 
 lish ; he professed English opinions. And still there was 
 some undefined nomadic flavour about him, a certain affluence 
 of disposition, one may say, a capacity of looking at ll 
 things and all men with perfectly wide, good-humoured 
 tolerance, which does not belong, as a rule, to Englishmen 
 who live in England. You could detect this foreign graft in 
 his nature by the merest trifles. When the poor strolling 
 singer had shrieked out her next song, John Dysart cried 
 " Brava ! " with the mechanical kindness of the French crowd, 
 at its finish, tossing the smallest of silver coins to the withered 
 child in rouge and spangles, who came round with her tam- 
 bourine. He drank the well-chicoried coffee, over which Lord 
 Dormer made wry faces, and seemed to find it good. He had 
 desperately wicked little stories to tell of more than one 
 notability whom he pointed out in the crowd, but he told 
 them pleaaantly ; none of the edge off the malice, but all the. 
 sub-acrid flavour of pharisaism without which the true 
 Englishman so seldom tells a story wanting. (It must be 
 remembered that John Dysart was a man without any moral 
 standing-point whatsoever.) And then he was charming to 
 old Jemima Ffrench as very few Englishmen are ever charm- 
 ing to old ladies ! talked much more to her than to Portia, 
 held her coffee-cup, ran into the hotel for a footstool for her, 
 made her pin her shawl round her throat, " people who didn't 
 know the Breton climate must take care of themselves after 
 sunset ; " all this with such an air of simple good faith, such 
 thorough gallantry as Charles Lamb understood the term 
 as, I must confess, caused most of Miss Jemima's prejudices 
 against him to subside. 
 
 " I take a deep, a brotherly interest in Portia," he contrived 
 to whisper to her at last. " I grew as fond of the child as if 
 she had been my own daughter }} (John Dysart was now six- 
 and-thirty) " when I used to see so much of her in Eaton 
 Square. A wonderfully graceful little creature she was/ 7 he 
 went on, his eyes resting musingly on the fine outline of 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 361 
 
 Portia's figure. "I can just remember my cousin, Harry 
 Ffrench, years and years ago in Brussels. Ah ! what a hand- 
 some fellow he was the very line of face of Portia ! " 
 
 At the name of Harry Ffrench Miss Jemima's last scruples 
 melted like snow at noon. 
 
 " You will let me come and see you]'' said John Dysart, 
 watching her face. " You are staying at the Hotel Benjamin 
 when may I call? At what hour shall I have the best 
 chance of finding you alone ? So delightful to come upon 
 people one has long wanted to know, like this ! " he added, 
 almost with effusion. 
 
 Miss Jemima, thus pressed, could only answer that at any 
 time before twelve to-morrow she would be in, awaiting Mr. 
 Dysart's visit Portia, seeking to restore Lord Dormer's temper 
 in honeyed undertones, heard both request and answer and 
 then John Dysart rose to depart. He had an engagement with 
 some friends of his, the Eamsays, at the Casino Portia must 
 recollect Ironside Ramsay, who married the little Welsh 
 heiress ? Of course his cousins meant to belong to the Casino 
 during their stay at St. Maur ] 
 
 " I think not," said Miss Jemima ; feeling, amidst the 
 general wreck of her principles, that she must make a stand 
 somewhere. " We have come abroad for sea air, not dissipa- 
 tion." 
 
 ''But why not have sea air and dissipation too?" cried 
 Portia. " By all means let us belong to the Casino, to every- 
 thing that is going on. And so the Ironside Ramsays are 
 here] Is poor Mrs. Ramsay as much made up as ever, I 
 wonder 1 " 
 
 "Mrs. Ramsay is well, Mrs. Ramsay is not younger, per- 
 haps," said John Dysart, a little evasively. 
 
 " I never knew her, but I detested her. I hope you are 
 not intimate with those people, Mr. Dysart ? " 
 
 " Ramsay and I are old friends. He is one of the best- 
 hearted little creatures in the world." 
 
 "And Mrs. Ramsay ? " 
 
5 62 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Just at this moment the tall slouching figure of Adam Byng 
 emerged from the crowd, and in the diversion that followed 
 old Miss Jemima begging to be introduced to Susan's uncle, 
 Lord Dormer walking away, too sulky to take notice of any- 
 body Portia and John Dysart found themselves for a minute 
 alone. 
 
 " And so my cousin Portia has grown clairvoyante ? " said 
 Jack, in a whisper. " Ah, you are not as prudent now as you 
 were at sixteen. I never knew you make a slip of the tongue 
 then." 
 
 " A slip of the tongue ! what are you talking about ] " asked 
 Portia, innocently. 
 
 " Only about that day when you saw me in the Champs 
 Elyse"es. My dear child, I must have been clairvoyant too, 
 for " (Jack's lips approached Portia's ear closer) "I recognized 
 you. You had on a thick veil the poor little thing had done 
 her best but I knew you in a moment ; you, and, unless I 
 am very much mistaken, your companion, too. Now, what do 
 I deserve for keeping the secret so well ? " 
 
 For a moment, for once in her life, Portia Ffrench stood 
 speechless. " Don't have anything to do with these horrible 
 Eamsays, and I'll tell you what you deserve," she answered, 
 recovering her self-possession with an effort. 
 
 "Portia, my dear," cried Miss Jemima, "Susan is going 
 home ; do you know how late it is ] " 
 
 Then, after another whisper or two, the cousins bade each 
 other good-night, and John Dysart strolled slowly away in the 
 direction of the Casino. 
 
 A curious expression came over Portia's face as she watched 
 him depart. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 363 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIIL 
 
 THE St. Maur Casino stands upon the causeway that connects 
 the little sea-girt fortress with the mainland, a couple of hun- 
 dred yards or so outside the city walls. Lights, voices, the 
 sound of flutes and violins, were issuing through its open win- 
 dows as Susan and Adam Byng approached the gateway ; 
 and, at Susan's solicitation, they loitered there awhile, to listen 
 to the music and catch what furtive glimpses they could of the 
 gay company within. 
 
 " I don't know what Mrs. Byng will say to us," remarked 
 Adam, when they were walking on their road again. " This 
 has been an evening altogether of dissipation. I haven't seen 
 the Casino lighted and the people dancing there these three 
 years." 
 
 For a minute or two Susan hesitated ; at last, " Uncle 
 Adam," she whispered, stealing up her hand under his arm, 
 "I think, if you don't mind, I should like to subscribe to the 
 Casino." The vision of so many muslin-clad figures, the sound 
 of the dance-music, the glitter, the joyousness of the scene, had 
 fired Susan with the ball-fever, common to girls of her age 1 
 No ; but with a burning dread of the temptations to forget her 
 that were awaiting George Blake ! Ah ! could not her jealous 
 heart picture him surrounded by enchanting French ladies, 
 with Portia, with all the world smiling on him, and she, in her 
 black frock, standing at Uncle Adam's side in the darkness 
 without It "I should never want to dance, of course, but I 
 should like just to see the fine dresses and hear the music ; 
 and the Miss Ffrenches would take me." 
 
 " The subscription costs twelve francs a month/ 1 said Uncle 
 Adam, in a scared voice. " Only two of our resident families 
 belong to the Casino, and they are both moneyed people. 
 Nay, nay, Susan, thee must moderate thy wishes. We can 
 walk over once or twice during the season and look in as we 
 
364 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 have done to-night. What more can thee desire 1 Depend 
 upon it, the moths outside the window are better off than they 
 who burn their wings in the candle, my poor child ! " 
 
 It was a quarter to ten o'clock when they reached the Pelit 
 Tambour. Adam had never once been out so late since his 
 marriage, and crept more meekly even than was his wont to 
 the dining-room, where Mrs. Byng, by the light of a solitary 
 candle, sat at her needle. 
 
 " You crossed by the ferry 1 " she said, in her measured, 
 passionless voice ; " Louison saw you. Susan, I request you 
 not to lead your uncle into these extravagances." 
 
 " The child felt tired, and, as it chanced, had a two-sous 
 piece in her pocket," pleaded poor old Adam. " It shall not 
 happen again, my dear, I promise you." 
 
 "All your acts of folly are never to happen again, Mr. Byng. 
 Yesterday 'twas a broiche, to-day the ferry. Two sous a 
 day squandered are thirty-six francs a year squandered. 
 On what pleasures of my own do I spend thirty-six francs a 
 year!" 
 
 " On none, my love, on none. Susan and I were in the 
 wrong, and we confess it. But, for all that, I have not lost 
 money on the evening ! While Susan was with her friends at 
 the Benjamin, I drank a cup of coffee and played a game of 
 dominoes with Jean Poujol, and won both, and more. See, I 
 make you a present of the stakes." 
 
 And Uncle Adam laid down a silver piece of twenty-five 
 centimes before his wife. 
 
 "And if you had lost 1 " she remarked sternly, but putting 
 the money in her pocket. 
 
 "Jean Poujol would have taken it out in picotees," 
 returned Adam, with a chuckle of simple exultation over his 
 own shrewdness. " We agreed that before we played. I have 
 more young plants than I know what to do with, and 
 
 " Jean Poujol is no fool," interrupted Mrs. Byng. " The 
 picotees are worth a franc a dozen at least/' 
 
 Still the heart of the woman was mollified. For Adam to 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 365 
 
 stake flower-roots, otherwise unsaleable, against actual hard 
 cash, raised him probably as much as it was possible for him 
 to be raised in his wife's respect. At all events, the poor old 
 fellow, with half an inch of candle, was allowed to go iip to 
 his bed without further reprimand. "To you, Susan/' said 
 Mrs. Byng, laying a cold hand on the young girl's arm, " I 
 have a few words to speak. They may as well be spoken to- 
 night as another time. Do you know, child, what extrava- 
 gance means 1 " 
 
 "I'm sure I'm very sorry," stammered Susan, trying to 
 look contrite. " I'll never cross the ferry again unless you 
 give me leave." 
 
 " I do not speak of the ferry only. I speak of the way you 
 squander money on trifles, on dress of which you have 
 already more than sufficient of your whole plan of life. A 
 rational being, when he rises in the morning, should say to 
 himself, ' How much can I save to-day ] ' The first thought of 
 a fool is, ' How much can I spend ? ' What brought your 
 uncle to poverty 1 Extravagance : extravagant ideas of comfort, 
 extravagant ideas of human nature the proof of which was 
 trusting his money in a friend's bank ! What has brought all 
 the people you see in this place to poverty ? Extravagance ; 
 for, mind, I call want of honesty, in its way, extravagance. 
 Now, as long as you are under my charge I do not mean that 
 you should waste your money. I mean to do my duty 
 by you/' 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am," said Susan, faintly. 
 
 "I have been setting down different items to-night, and 
 have made out, as near as possible, what you add to our 
 expenses. You don't eat more, I dare say, than other growing 
 girls, but you eat a great deal. You more than double our 
 butcher's bill alone" (Susan's face crimsoned with shame), 
 "and you also eat fruit from morning till night. Altogether 
 your keep of course I reckon fruit and vegetables at market 
 price would cost every franc of twenty pounds a year. Well, 
 I propose that you should have another ten pounds for dress, 
 
366 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 pocket-money, seat in church, collections, laundress, and give 
 me the remaining ten to lay by for you. I could put it out 
 with safety at -six per cent., and on the day you are 
 twenty-one you would have saved, interest and principal, w^ll 
 on for fifty pounds. After that, of course, the whole of your 
 money will be in your own hands, and must be invested anew." 
 
 Four years hence ! years, unless Tom Coliinson returned 
 to marry her, spent in the Petit Tambour ! In a dozen words 
 Mrs. Byng had epitomized the story of a youth with the fair- 
 ness and odour and keen capacity of youth for enjoyment 
 crushed from it ; the best years of a woman's life spent in 
 saving francs and reckoning centimes I Susan's heart sank 
 within her. 
 
 " You have not had time to know me yet," went on Mrs. 
 Byng. " Your Uncle Adam picks you his peaches and flowers, 
 and allows you to throw away money on brioches and ferry- 
 boats. Naturally, you like him best. I am a person of few 
 words. When you know me better you will find, as Mr. Byng 
 has done, that I am a person of deeds. I have my ideas of 
 duty, and I keep to them. Light your candle and hold it 
 upright ; there were two spots of grease on the stairs this 
 morning. To-morrow our new account begins. You will pay 
 by the quarter, in advance, and I will at once take charge of 
 whatever spare money you have in hand." 
 
 Susan crept up the polished stairs of the Petit Tam- 
 bour, holding her candle upright, as she was bidden, and 
 as soon as she reached her own room, wiped away the last 
 stroke from the whitewash on the wall, then ran and seated 
 herself before her glass. She was a pretty little girl, 
 decidedly ! Not faultless of feature, not in any way to com- 
 pare with Portia, but pretty. (By a single admiring glance, 
 by two or three whispered words, John Dysart had substan- 
 tiated all the compliments that sounded so empty from Tom 
 Coliinson.) And George Blake was coming to-morrow. And 
 there were people who could live in a world of shillings and 
 half -pence ; who could look upon money as aught save a 
 
FIELDING. 367 
 
 means of buying nice things, of giving pleasure, directly or 
 indirectly, to those one loved ! How she pitied Mrs. Byng 
 and poor Uncle Adam how she pitied every one to whom 
 to-morrow did not mean the delicious hopes of seventeen ! 
 ISTow, should she put her hair on crimping-pins or not 1 This 
 was momentous. Portia's judgment was all in favour of the 
 new Parisian style : not so Miss Jemima's. Which would 
 George Blake be likeliest to prefer, nature or artifice 1 She 
 decided promptly in favour of nature ; then, when her head 
 had been five minutes on the pillow, veered round ; remem- 
 bered the French ladies in their ball-dresses, and how they 
 had looked with balloon-spread decorated heads ; rose, and 
 by the light of the stars for Mrs. Byng allowed no lucifer- 
 matches throughout the Petit Tambour put up her brown 
 curls on crimping-pins ; and then, in such tortured positions 
 as crimping-pins allow, lay awake thinking, to-morrow 
 to-morrow until the soft voice of the convent bell striking 
 midnight told her that to-morrow was already here. 
 
 Many a night during the months to come Susan Fielding 
 lay awake till midnight ; but never again from puf e unmixed 
 happiness after to-night ! 
 
 She was out betimes with Uncle Adam in the kitchen- 
 garden next morning, eating peaches the peaches for which 
 she was to be charged market price ! laughing and chattering 
 with the old man over his work, jumping up and down the 
 garden paths from sheer excess of contentment. By-and-by 
 followed the second breakfast, and in the middle of the meal 
 came the postman's loud ring at the front bell, and a letter for 
 Mademoiselle Fielding, bearing the post-mark "Paris." 
 Susan blushed up to the eyes as she bent over it, recognizing 
 the handwriting. 
 
 " You get a great many letters/' remarked Mrs. Byng. " / 
 never get any. Letters require answers. Nothing fritters 
 money away like postage." 
 
 Susan murmured out some utterly wild and foolish remarks 
 about Paris, and old Halfont friends, and no answer being 
 
368 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 needed ; then put her letter, unopened, into her pocket : the 
 moment breakfast was done, ran out into the flower-garden to 
 read it : 
 
 " MY DEAK LITTLE SUSAN, I am afraid I shall not see you 
 quite as soon as I thought. I find I have more to do in 
 Paris than I expected. I shall certainly not reach Brittany 
 for another three or four days. Till then, good-bye. In great 
 haste, your devoted friend, GEORGE BLAKE. " 
 
 The letter fell from her hand ; she stared up blankly over- 
 head. When she is an old woman, Susan will remember the 
 cruel blueness of the sky at that particular moment, the hum- 
 ming of the bees among Uncle Adam's flowers, the quivering 
 sunny air, the morning carol of a canary in a neighbour's window, 
 the intolerable apathy of the whole bright outer woilcl ! 
 "Not reach Brittany for another three or four days ! " She 
 picked up the letter, re-read it, repeated the words aloud before 
 she could thoroughly bring home to herself the immensity of 
 her disappointment. George Blake not coming, and the last 
 line of her calendar obliterated ; the day that was to have been 
 her day of days already wearing on towards noon ! " Bourn, 
 bourn," went the convent clock, striking ten. Did clock ever 
 strike with such stolid composure before ] Susan recalled the 
 happiness with which she had counted its beats last at mid- 
 night ah, that contrast was too great ! Tears rushed into 
 her eyes, a suffocating tightness came into her throat; 
 crushing the letter in her hand, she ran back into the house 
 and to her own room, locked the door, flung herself on her 
 knees beside her little bed, and burst into an agony of crying. 
 How could she, how can any thwarted child, look forward to 
 the eternity of three or four days 1 She was disappointed 
 now. 
 
 " I shall never expect him again ; I shall never believe what 
 he writes again," she sobbed to herself. "If it had been poor 
 Tom Collinson, he would have come. Tom Collinson would 
 have cared more for me than for all the Parises in the world. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 369 
 
 I love Tom best ; I mean, I wish I did love him best. Oh ! 
 why did I ever see Mr. Blake 1 why does he care so little 
 for me? And still," holding the letter up close, and with 
 a gesture rather of 'forgiveness than of anger, to her near- 
 sighted eyes, "all he says is kind: 'My dear little Susan/ 
 and * Your devoted friend.' Ah ! but does he mean 
 6 devoted"? Is that only how people who know how to 
 write fine finish off their letters ? " 
 
 In the course of the afternoon the two Miss Ffrenches 
 found their way to the Petit Tambour ; Susan was alone in 
 the drawing-room, darning window-blinds her aunt already 
 set her plenty of tasks for odd times ; Uncle Adam away in 
 the kitchen-garden ; Mrs. Byng out of the house. 
 
 " And so this is the Petit Tambour ! " cried Portia, as she 
 ran to the open window the lichened walls and smalt-blue 
 sky and scarlet masses of geranium-bloom setting forth ta 
 perfection the rich tinting of her southern-looking face. " I 
 suppose one would get as tired of picturesqueness as of 
 hideousness in time ; but just at first, I must say, it is pleasant 
 to the eyes to rest on something more romantic than Hounslow 
 Heath ! " She had been running all the morning over the 
 streets of St. Maur, attended by John Dysart ; in every quaint 
 bit of fifteenth-century architecture, in every narrow glimpse 
 of green sea, discovering a new effective background for the 
 graceful central figure of all her thoughts. " Oh, what high- 
 backed chairs ! Susan, my dear, do you really look forward 
 to living in this Castle of Otranto winter and summer ? Why, 
 what have you done to yourself 1 The becoming crimped 
 hair all gone, and the rough Addison Lodge curls come back 
 again ! " 
 
 "I crimped my hair last night," said Susan, "and this 
 morning lost heart .... lost heart, Miss Portia, about every- 
 thing, and washed it with cold water till it got back to its own 
 old way. A thought came into my mind that perhaps it 
 wasn't lucky to take so much trouble with oneself beforehand. 
 
 2B 
 
370 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 I've always heard that the happiest times of life come when 
 one doesn't go out of one's way to meet them." 
 
 "Ah! the copy-books say that," remarked Portia. "I 
 know how much happiness I should get unless I went a ve-^y 
 great deal out of my way to meet it ! If I had taken things 
 as Fate sent them, where should I be at this moment ? " 
 
 "In whatever room at Halfont the plasterers were not," 
 said Miss Jemima. " And, as far as I can see, very much 
 better off you would be there than here." 
 
 " Because the little French bagman would talk to you at 
 breakfast, Aunt Jem, or because we have tumbled across 
 Jack Dysart, and you are angry with yourself for liking him 
 which r 7 
 
 "For every reason," answered Miss Jemima. "If I had 
 known, in the least, what the tone of these foreign watering- 
 places was, you may be sure I would never have crossed the 
 Channel with you, Portia. French people are not human ! " 
 went on Miss Jemima, with warmth. " I have lived in India, 
 I have travelled over half the civilized globe, but I never saw 
 anything so humiliating to myself, as a human being, as what 
 I have seen to-day. Old men and women, fathers and mothers 
 of families, jumping up and down in yellow sacks in the sea 
 together !....! hope, my dear Susan, you have not been 
 on the St. Maur sands of a morning ? " 
 
 Susan confessed that she had not. She spent her mornings 
 and afternoons at the Petit Tambour ; had never seen as much 
 of the St. Maur gaieties as she saw in front of the Hotel Ben- 
 jamin last night. 
 
 "Well, then, you will have an opportunity of enlarging 
 your experience this evening," said Portia, "for we are going 
 to take you back with us now. We are all to dine in a party 
 at the taUe-d'hote ourselves, Lord Dormer, and my cousin 
 (you have made an immense impression upon my cousin, I can 
 tell you, Susan !) and then we will walk round and look at the 
 people in the Casino, and undertake, some of us, to see you 
 home afterwards." . 
 
SUSAN FIELDING, 371 
 
 For a minute and a half Susan tried with real sincerity to 
 excuse herself ; she was not in good spirits to-day ; Mrs. Byng 
 was not at home to give her leave ; ought she to leave Uncle 
 Adam alone 1 Portia, however, put so much insistance into 
 her manner that one by one these objections melted away. 
 Impossible not to feel a little pleased that she had made an 
 impression on John Dysart in her heart Susan thinks John 
 Dysart charming ! and as Mr. Blake was able to amuse him- 
 self in Paris, was it not the wisest thing for her to try and 
 make time pass pleasantly in St. Sauveur ! Eeader, did you 
 ever know a girl of seventeen so much in love as to disdain 
 amusement under an absent lover's neglect 1 Susan ran to her 
 room, dressed herself with care, put on her buckled shoes, her 
 prettiest ear-rings and bracelet ; then ran away to the kitchen- 
 garden, where Uncle Adam was busy trenching out his celery, 
 and acquainted him, with as much assurance as she could 
 master, that she was going to St. Maur with the Miss Ffrenches- 
 for the evening. 
 
 " And I I am to break this to Mrs. Byng ! w said poor old 
 Adam, leaning on his spade, and looking frightened, "and 
 likelier than not they will cross by the ferry ! Susan, Susan, 
 thee will have thy head turned with so much pleasure." 
 
 " But only for ten days, Uncle Adam ! " pleaded ;Susan. 
 " In ten days my friends will be gone, and I shall never want 
 to cross the ferry again all the winter.'' 
 
 Upon which Uncle Adam not only relented, but, coming as 
 far as the entrance of the flower-garden, cut the choicest bud 
 off his choicest noisette rose for Susan's waist-belt ; a bud 
 which, by the most natural process imaginable, found its way 
 to the buttan-hole of Portia Ffrench's jacket the moment they 
 quitted the door of the Petit Tambour. 
 
 It was now half -past five, and people were just beginning to 
 issue forth from the lodging-houses towards the tables-d'hote. 
 At the principal thoroughfares stood peasant children, offering 
 bouquets to the gaily-dressed ladies as they passed along ; the 
 afternoon sun ^hone mellow across the dead-calm sea ; a band 
 
 2B2 
 
372 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 was playing in the Higli Street: St. Sauveur, altogether, 
 looking its brightest. On their road down to the ferry Susan 
 and the Miss Ffrenches had to pass the cemetery gates. 
 Three coffins one large and two small were being carried in 
 together. A priest walked, chanting, at their head. 
 
 " Ah, that priest's voice how well I know it ! " said Susan. 
 " The cemetery lies between our garden and the river, and I 
 can hear the funerals from morning till night." 
 
 " The funerals ] " repeated Miss Jemima, looking interested. 
 "Why, what can so many people be dying of in this fine 
 summer weather 1 " 
 
 " Cholera, if you please, ma'am," answered Susan, matter- 
 of-fact as usual 
 
 " Cholera ! . . . . Good heavens, how disgusting ! " said 
 Portia, changing colour. " Come away, quick, Aunt Jem ! 
 Never let us pass up this shocking street again." 
 
 "I shouldn't think the street can matter much," said Susan. 
 "The cholera patients are dying everywhere, my Uncle 
 Adam says. I don't suppose cholera can really be catching. 
 Every minute Uncle Adam can spare from the garden he is 
 among them, nursing the dying, stopping beside the dead 
 doing as much, he says himself, as a man without money can 
 do and still he takes no harm." 
 
 " And I I, for one, love your Uncle Adam ! " Exclaimed 
 Jemima Ffrench 
 
 " Has it reached St. Maur ? " said Portia, uneasily. " Is it 
 known 1 Why do so many visitors remain in the place 1 " 
 
 "The visitors know nothing at all about it/' answered 
 Susan. "Only the very poor are dying, and my aunt says 
 there won't be any stir till some rich person gets carried off. 
 She wouldn't be pleased with me for talking about it. I have 
 heard her tell Uncle Adam never to say a word about cholera 
 before visitors." 
 
 "And is it in St. Maur near the H6tel Benjamin'?" 
 repeated Portia, looking scared and white. 
 
 "I believe it is everywhere, Miss Portia. There were 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 373 
 
 thirty-six deaths from cholera yesterday, the most we have had 
 in one day yet." 
 
 A look as of some sudden resolve lighted up Jemima 
 Ffrench's face. " And all these unhappy creatures are poor, 
 you tell me, child 1 " 
 
 " So poor that they not only want bread, but water, Uncle 
 Adam says. In many parts of the town water fit to drink can 
 only be got by paying for it. Uncle Adam fetches water for 
 them from the fountain upon the top of the hill, a couple of 
 flasks at a time. In that kind of way he can help them a 
 great deal.'* 
 
 Miss Jemima said nothing further, but the colour kindled 
 in her cheek ; an expression so warm, so tenderly compas- 
 sionate, as to make that old face beautiful, came round her 
 lips. A superannuated hunter can no more listen unmoved to 
 the neighbouring bay of hounds than could Jemima Ffrench to 
 an account of sickness, poverty, or pain ! Portia hastened to 
 shift the conversation. 
 
 " I suppose, wherever one is, there is some kind of revolting 
 disease going on, only generally one is lucky enough not to 
 know it. We must take care to drink champagne instead of 
 claret, and for the future keep ourselves amused and out of 
 sight of all cemeteries. I declare the very sight of those 
 coffins has made me sick and chill." 
 
 Lord Dormer and John Dysart were waiting for the ladies 
 in the salle of the Hotel Benjamin, and Portia sat between 
 them at dinner. Little Lord Dormer, guided by Mr. Dysart's 
 superior judgment ordered the best wines the house afforded , 
 a harp and violin discoursed pleasant if not classical music 
 beside the fountain in the courtyard ; and long before the 
 dinner, with its multitudinous courses, was over, no one but 
 Miss Jemima remembered the three coffins and the priest 
 chanting at their head, and the sorrowful story of those who 
 needed not bread alone, but a drink of cold water in 
 their agony ! 
 
 Lord Dormer's hopes and temper had undergone a decided 
 
374 -SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 change for the better since last night. Whatever the terms of 
 friendship established between Portia and John Dysart during 
 their morning's walk, all her attention, all her smiles, were 
 Lord Dormer's now. And Mr. Dysart seemed thoroughly 
 acquiescent ; ate an excellent dinner, amply justified his own 
 connoisseurship in wine, and also did all he could (not a little, 
 be it said) to turn the head of the blushing, shy-eyed 
 child who sat upon his left hand. Susan's inmost heart 
 was filled, of course, with thoughts of George Blake and of 
 her disappointment ; but she could no more help colouring 
 and dimpling, and feeling flattered at John Dysart's atten- 
 tions, than a daisy, closed by a shower ten minutes ago, can 
 help re-opening its petals to the sun. He helped her to the 
 nicest bits in every dish ; made her, for the first time in her 
 life, sip champagne ; cut her fruit for her with the silver clasp- 
 knife which long experience of French hotels taught him to 
 carry in his pocket ; told her what ought to be her colours ; 
 begged her with a look of his handsome grey eyes that 
 Susan felt sure he never could have given to any woman 
 but herself to regard him as a brother as long as their 
 acquaintance lasted. Susan blushed and dimpled ; Lord 
 Dormer blushed and sighed. And all this time Portia and 
 John Dysart were flirting as desperately as they had ever 
 done in the old days in Eaton Square ; flirting, as oni^ adepts 
 in the science can, without a look, without a word : every 
 bit of nonsense that each addressed to their unconscious fellow- 
 actors bearing a hidden meaning to the ear for which it was 
 in fact destined. 
 
 They had coffee in the courtyard after dinner, and by- 
 and-by strolled round along the sands to the Casino, 
 where Susan Fielding, for the first time in her life, found 
 herself inside a ball-room. The little girl had never 
 regularly learnt to dance, modern round dancing being one 
 of the many social subjects on which Joseph Fielding held 
 strong opinions ; but Miss Collinson had once, on her birth- 
 day, shown her the polka step, and instinct told her she could 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 375 
 
 move tunefully to any music that was played. So when Portia 
 and Lord Dormer joined the waltzers Portia's fine high-bred 
 face held a good two inches above Lord Dormer's head poor 
 Susan, standing in a corner at Miss Jemima's side, could not 
 help looking at the delights of the scene before her with a 
 good deal of wistful eagerness in her eyes. . . . 
 
 John Dysart, who was talking to some people the other side 
 of the room, happened to turn just then, and saw her. He 
 came across and offered her his arm. " You are keeping this 
 waltz for me, I hope, Miss Fielding ? J> j 
 
 " Oh ! do you think I could dance it 1 " cried Susan, all in 
 a flutter ; " I should like, but I am afraid I don't know my 
 steps well enough ! " 
 
 " I can teach you the steps as we go on," said John Dysart, 
 smiling. And in another minute Susan found herself borne 
 swiftly, musically along, in the arms of one of the'best dancers 
 in Europe, through the crowd. 
 
 She danced, as you will sometimes find children of eight 
 or nine dance, by pure intuition. All the graces of style that 
 can be learnt from a dancing-master wanting ; but such a flow 
 of natural harmony, of innocent girlish abandonment in her 
 movements, as more than atoned for their absence. John 
 Dysart one of whose few principles it was never to dance 
 but witH partners upon whom the world had set its seal of 
 approval John Dysart would scarcely lose a bar of this 
 waltz ! He complimented Susan till her cheeks tingled at 
 its conclusion ; and, instead of taking her back at once 
 to Miss Jemima, led her out upon the small terrace or 
 plateau of grass which lay between the ball-room and the 
 road. 
 
 The moon has risen now, and Susan's excited, flushed face 
 can be seen, plain as if it were noonday, by two young men, 
 travellers newly arrived by the mail from Paris, who are 
 standing just outside the Casino gates. 
 
 " You must give me another dance before the evening is 
 over," remarked John Dysart, bending over her with his tender 
 
376 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 fraternal air ; " I take great credit to myself for that first 
 waltz." 
 
 " Oh ! but are you sure I made no wrong steps 1 * asked 
 Susan, lifting up her great serious eyes. " I thought once I 
 must have fallen, my feet seemed flying in the air, but you 
 saved me so beautifully ! I hope you didn't think me very 
 bold, but .... I couldn't help clinging to you ! " 
 
 John Dysart's answer to the apology is conveyed in a 
 whisper, and then, Susan laughs that foolish sweet little 
 laugh one of the listeners has got so well by heart ! and 
 arm-in-arm they walked back slowly towards the ball-room. 
 
 " So much for taking people unawares, Blake," observes 
 Teddy Josselin, in his languid, good-humoured voice. " Old 
 Jack Dysart, too, of all men living, to have turned up here ! 
 I told you no one would die of grief if we did keep away 
 another eight-and-forty hours. Now let us see what other 
 surprises are in store for us. Aunt Jemima, by Jove ! look 
 in through that open window, and you will see her Aunt 
 Jemima, under the mask of ecarte, coquetting shamefully with 
 half-a-dozen Frenchmen at a time. My poor friend, let us. 
 make our way boldly in at once, and know the worst 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 " Is it possible that Miss Fielding can be left without a partner 
 for this dance ? " 
 
 A quadrille had begun, and Susan, hemmed in by strangers 
 on either side, stood watching the dancers. 
 
 Among all the onerous duties of her soldier life Jemima 
 Ffrench had been exempt from those of a ball-room chaperon. 
 She was, in consequence, profoundly ignorant of ball-room 
 customs and moralities. If young ladies were capable of 
 protecting themselves while a waltz was going on, Miss 
 Jemima could no more see why they needed protection when 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 377 
 
 it was over, than she could see why old ladies should not 
 move about in places of entertainment just as unconcernedly 
 as old men, if they were so minded. As soon, therefore, as 
 both her charges were off her hands, she had walked away, 
 unescorted, to the card-room, and finding the faces of the 
 ecarte players a more entertaining study than those of the 
 dancers, had remained there. Susan was thus left alone. 
 
 "Is it possible that Miss Fielding can be left without a 
 partner for this dance ? " asked a voice suddenly at her side. 
 
 She turned round with a start, got crimson, got white. 
 " You you have kept your promise after all, then ? " she 
 stammered, with trembling lips. If Blake had not already 
 known Susan Fielding's secret, surely that changing colour, 
 those trembling lips, must have betrayed it to him. 
 
 " Yes, I have kept my promise. When the time came, I 
 found I could not stay away. Josselin was in Paris with me, 
 and when I wrote to you we had decided to remain there 
 together for another two or three days ; but .... Susan, I 
 was rash enough to think some one in St. Sauveur would be 
 disappointed, and started, and, which was a great deal more 
 difficult, made Josselin start by the mail this morning. What 
 a good dancer you are, my dear ! what enviable enjoyment 
 that last dance afforded you ! I needn't have feared your life 
 would be dull even in Brittany." 
 
 Now Susan had not wisdom to know, as an older woman 
 would have known, what an enormous advance in regard was 
 shown by Blake's semi-bitter tone. She felt that she had been 
 tacitly arraigned for want of feeling, for inconstancy, and put 
 herself on the defensive. 
 
 " You may think what you like, but I never was more dis- 
 appointed in my life than when I opened your letter. I felt 
 L had got a blow ; I felt I could never believe you or any one 
 else again. " 
 
 " And to drown these cynical feelings, resolved to finish the 
 day with dancing 1 " 
 
 " Portia and Miss Jemima asked me to dine with them, and 
 
37 8 SUSAN FIJZLDING. 
 
 to come to this place afterwards, and I was glad to come. I 
 thought if other people could amuse themselves so well in 
 Paris, why, I would try to amuse myself in St. Sauveur." 
 
 " And have succeeded ? " 
 
 " I can't help liking waltzing rather. Did you watch me 
 dance that last waltz ? My partner was Mr. Dysart, a cousin 
 of Miss Portia's. I don't know whether I did the step well or 
 ill, but I couldn't help liking it. I know now I've danced in 
 my heart all my life. Dancing and music are very much the 
 same, really, you know." 
 
 The great short-sighted eyes stole up to Blake as Susan 
 delivered herself of this wise platitude ; every dimple in her 
 face was telling its story of absolute contentment at seeing him. 
 
 " Take my arm, my dear." Her hand obeyed him on the 
 instant. " You and I can't quarrel if we try, little Susan : 
 and now show me all the wickedness 6f the place. We got a 
 glimpse as we came in of Miss Ffrench of old Miss Ffrench, 
 I mean. Portia is here, I suppose ? " Even yet Portia's 
 name came with a slight want of fluency from Blake's lips. 
 
 " Portia must be with Lord Dormer," said Susan. " They 
 danced the waltz together, I know ; but I don't see them in 
 the ball-room." 
 
 " Lord Dormer ] ah, yes ! Josselin mentioned that he was 
 in St. Maur too." 
 
 " He brought Miss Jemima and Portia across in his yacht, 
 and he has invited me to go on board some day ; but I don't 
 mean to go. I want to see nothing belonging to him. I 
 don't care for Lord Dormer." 
 
 " Which shows that you are an ignorant little girl, Lord 
 Dormer being rich and unappropriated. Why, even Portia 
 Ffrench, I dare say, manages to endure him 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! Portia can afford to endure stupid people, because 
 she is clever herself." 
 
 " And is Mr. Dysart clever 1 " 
 
 " He seems clever against me, sir." 
 
 " ' Clever against me, sir ! ' Now we are back at Half out, 
 
SUSAtf FIELDING. 379 
 
 on the river-bank. What a pleasant night that was, Susan ! 
 Do you remember our long talk under the trees, my dear 1 
 and our duet ? " 
 
 " And how you and Portia went away to the window, and 
 forgot me as soon as ever I had sung it ] Yes, I remember 
 quite well." 
 
 " And how I took you home afterwards 1 The nightingales 
 sang deliciously " 
 
 " It was only frogs, Mr. Blake." 
 
 " And the stars shone " 
 
 " No, sir ; it rained. Don't you remember Miss Jemima 
 threatened me with Jekyll and an umbrella ? " 
 
 " Susan, you hard little child, you have not an ounce of 
 sentiment in your composition ! You don't soften a bit at 
 the recollection of that evening, which to me " et cetera. 
 
 Odd that in all these*matters the one who feels deepest is 
 never the one who is able to say the pretty things. Blake had 
 a talent quite as marked as any of his artistic ones for love- 
 making. Susan Fielding had a genius for loving. Wide 
 difference between the two. 
 
 " I am sure I thought you had forgotten long ago," she 
 answered, a perfectly choking sensation of pleasure at her 
 heart. " I have had nothing to put it all out of my head." 
 
 " What ! not the engagement with Tom Collinson 'I " 
 
 Susan was silent. 
 
 They quitted the ball-room, and after taking a few turns 
 outside came across Ted Josselin, composedly enjoying the 
 sea-air as he leaned up against one of the pilasters of the 
 balcony the very picture of contentment. 
 
 " Well, Josselin, have you met with any old friends yet 1 " 
 asked Blake, touching his shoulder. 
 
 Teddy turned his head about an inch and a half. "Ah ! 
 is it you] Cruel to interrupt a man who has strung his 
 energies up to the delicious point of not thinking. I have 
 seen no one. I have looked for no one. I was speculating, 
 until I got beyond the miserable, impediment of thought, upon 
 
380 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 ^ . . 
 
 the happiness of being a limpet. What ! Susan/' holding out 
 his hand, " you have done waltzing *? And you never wrote to 
 tell me about lodgings, as you promised ! " 
 
 He sauntered along with them on Susan's other side througn 
 the " gardens " belonging to the Casino ; a quarter of an acre 
 of sand, thickly studded with rustic baskets, plaster-of-Paris 
 goddesses, and wirework archways, but no flowers. At the 
 end nearest the shore a bend in the walk brought them sud- 
 denly upon John Dysart and Portia. John Dysart, who was 
 leaning with considerable warmth of manner over his com- 
 panion, had his head turned aside. Portia's face the beauti- 
 ful discontented face which even at this moment Blake could 
 not help crediting with so much more emotion than its owner 
 was capable of feeling was distinctly outlined against the 
 opal background of still sea. 
 
 " ' Weary and dissatisfied with everything ! ' You used to 
 tell me just the same story when you were sixteen," said John 
 Dysart's fluent low voice. " My dear child, shall I tell you 
 why you are dissatisfied] You ask too much from life. You 
 have not learnt to live for the minute ; to expunge the words 
 ' to-morrow ' and 'yesterday ' from your vocabulary." 
 
 " Yes, if the follies of yesterday could be expunged ! " said 
 Portia, in a tone half of penitence, half regret. 
 
 " And which particular folly are you speaking of, my dear 
 little cousin ? The folly of being found out, or ? " 
 
 " What sort of ecrevisses does one get down here, Susan 1 " 
 asked Teddy, in his laziest manner. "Almost the last re- 
 maining weakness life has left in me is for ecrcvisses, and some 
 one in Paris said St. Maur was the place for them." 
 
 Portia started round with a gesture in which, for once, there 
 was no self-consciousness, no acting Her companion's cool 
 face remained imperturbable. Impossible, perhaps, for John 
 Dysart to be surprised by anything more in this world. She 
 came forward, and spoke to Blake first. * Who would have 
 thought of seeing you in these wilds, Mr Blake ? But really 
 St. Maur is the oddest place for coming across people. Ah, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 381 
 
 Mr. Josselin, I did not see you for the moment. You re- 
 member John Dysart 1 " 
 
 "Very well, indeed," answered Teddy, quietly. "How 
 are you, Dysart ] " The cousins shook hands with sufficient 
 cordiality. " Been here any time 1 Then you are just the 
 fellow I want. You can answer me an important question." 
 Teddy laid his hand on the other's arm, and looked tre- 
 mendously in earnest : " Is it true that ecrevisses are the 
 speciality of this coast ? " 
 
 On every point connected with the table John Dysart was 
 an authority. He was in a position to assure Teddy Josselin 
 that his hopes had not been misdirected. The bay they saw 
 before them supplied half the markets in Paris with crayfish. 
 Such an hotel in St. Maur was the proper house to eat 
 them at. Why shouldn't he and Ted breakfast there together 
 to-morrow 1 "I call you Ted, as in the old days, just as I 
 call Portia, Portia," he remarked, with pleasant candour. "I 
 can't bring myself to look upon you as anything but children 
 still." 
 
 The quadrille had been over some minutes, and just now 
 sounded the first notes of another waltz. "Dear me, I'm 
 afraid I am engaged for this," said John Dysart, making a 
 pretence of examining his card (so he was engaged, to Portia !). 
 " I suppose I must go and look for my partner. Portia, what 
 dance is there a possibility of your being able to spare me by- 
 and-by 1 " 
 
 " Whatever one you ask me for," she answered, coldly. 
 Portia Ffrench had pride of its kind ; and she recoiled from 
 this secret tacit understanding which John Dysart, by a word, 
 had contrived to establish between them. " I am engaged 
 for the next to Lord Dormer. After that, if we don't go 
 away " 
 
 " Very well. Make use of me or throw me over just as you 
 like my old fate." And away John Dysart took himself, 
 half -humming the air of the waltz aloud as he went. 
 
 For a minute there was a slightly awkward silence ; 
 
382 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Susan uttering some commonplace little note of admiration 
 about the beauty of the moonlight, Blake considerately began 
 to walk with her in the direction of the sea, and Teddy Josselin 
 and Portia were left alone. 
 
 " What are you doing here V 1 said Teddy^ authority rather 
 than displeasure in his voice. 
 
 " Doing 1 Teddy ! I don't know what you mean. Is this 
 the way you meet me after all this horrible separation 1 " 
 
 " Grandmamma told me about Dormer bringing you over ia 
 his yacht." 
 
 "An accident, forced upon me, as you know." 
 
 " Well, accident or not, the poor old lady seems to think it 
 a decisive measure. W T hat are you doing with Jack Dysart 3 " 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind. If you don't like to tell me, don't. It 
 was another accidental meeting, doubtless." 
 
 "How cruel, how unjust you are !" cried Portia, the tears 
 rushing to her eyes. " I hadn't the faintest idea of ever seeing 
 Jack Dysart again. He came up last night as we were sitting 
 outside our hotel, and I was glad yes, I don't mind saying I 
 was glad, very, to see him. If there was any harm in our 
 friendship for each other, would I have been talking to him at 
 the exact time when I expected you 1 " 
 
 " Having had a letter in the morning to say I should keep 
 safely in Paris a couple of days longer ! Well, never mind ; 
 we won't quarrel during the first five minutes of meeting if we 
 can help it." 
 
 " Certainly not about poor old Jack Dysart. Oh, Ted, 
 what do you think 1 " She glanced round her, then drew close 
 and whispered a few words in Teddy's ear. " Now what was 
 I to do It Wasn't it my duty to try and keep John Dysart my 
 friend 7 " 
 
 The blood rushed over Ted Josselin's fair face. " And you 
 acknowledged to John Dysart, to any man, that such a sus- 
 picion was correct, and stopped there 1 Portia, if you have 
 done this we will have the whole play over at once .... 
 
S&SAN FIELDING. 383 
 
 don't interrupt me, I say it shall be over. I will never see 
 you placed in such a position." 
 
 " And grandmamma 1 " 
 
 "We must take our chance of all that. Money's very well, 
 but it isn't everything." 
 
 " It can imitate everything quite nearly enough for me." 
 
 " Besides, grandmamma is ill. Condy told me herself she 
 didn't think grandmamma would last long. A poor old 
 woman with the grave before her could never behave badly to 
 anybody at the last." 
 
 " Couldn't she 1 " exclaimed Portia, with emphasis. "Well 
 I, for my part, believe old women are never too near their 
 graves to behave badly. I believe if grandmamma were to 
 discover on her death-bed that that it was not possible for 
 you to throw me over, the discovery would give her sufficient 
 strength to leave her money to the Foundling " 
 
 " Then the Foundling stands every chance of making a good 
 thing of it," said Teddy. " I shall invent no more facts ; I'm 
 not clever that way. If grandmamma wants the truth from 
 me yes, at the last moment of all, she shall have it " 
 
 "Old Bloxam standing by her pillow, ready with pen, ink, 
 and the necessary parchment to disinherit you 1 May her end 
 be a mercifully sudden one, then ! " The wish only flashed 
 through Portia Ffrench's heart. Aloud, "Ted," said she 
 tenderly, " is it fated that you and I shall never meet and 
 continue friends'? Why decide what you will do and say 
 when grandmamma is dying, or what it would be your duty to 
 do if I had made certain senseless admissions to John Dysartl 
 I laughed in his face, simply. I, Portia Ffrench, in Paris ! 
 I, who had never been out of England since I was six years 
 old ! If you had seen my manner, if you had heard my voice, 
 you would not accuse me of the folly of betraying my own 
 counsel." 
 
 " Well," answered Teddy, a little drily, " I certainly believe 
 you are capable of holding your own on emergency ! Only 
 you see, my dear child, there is a slight contradiction. If 
 
384 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 your cleverness threw John Dysart so well off the scent, 
 why is it your absolute duty to conciliate him now as a 
 friend?" 
 
 " Because he is a Dysart/' cried Portia, promptly ; " because 
 he may correspond with people who know grandmamma ; 
 because, properly advised, his letters will mention Lord Dor- 
 mer's rather than Teddy Josselin's name in connection with 
 that of Portia Ffrench." 
 
 Either Teddy's thoughts were not brisk enough to note how 
 dexterously and thoroughly Portia had shifted her ground, or 
 he was too indifferent to the subject to care to prolong it. 
 Jealousy, save on the largest scale of all, was not a vice to 
 which Ted Josselin was prone. 
 
 " You are looking your best, 'Tia I forgot to tell you so 
 before. Perhaps I think so because I've been seeing the faces 
 of Frenchwomen during the last three days " 
 
 " Or, perhaps, because you have been staying with the 
 Kawdons ? Is Nelly as charming as ever ] " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " Has she made you a declaration yet 1 " 
 
 "My dear Portia, do I ask these embarrassing questions 
 about Dormer ? " 
 
 Lord Dormer just at this moment came up to claim his 
 dance. " Why, Josselin, you here ! Where have you sprung 
 from ? " he exclaimed, rather more surprise than is consistent 
 with delicate breeding in his voice. 
 
 " Mr. Josselin has arisen unexpectedly from the foam of the 
 sea," said Portia, before Teddy could answer. " I was walk- 
 ing about in the moonlight with my cousin John, and suddenly 
 Mr. Josselin's apparition rose before us from nowhere. It 
 seems my fate to be surrounded by cousins. I wonder 
 whether it is quite certain that you are no relation, Lord 
 Dormer ] " 
 
 She had taken Lord Dormer's arm the moment he joined 
 them, and, without giving the young men time to exchange a 
 word, walked away with him towards the building. By the 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 385 
 
 time they reached the ball-room Lord Dormer had collected his 
 scattered faculties sufficiently to answer her last remark. 
 
 "There are ties Miss Ffrench I mean, without being 
 related, a man may hope er ties nearer and and all that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 Not very coherent, but leading : how leading Portia 
 Ffrench probably knew far better than the youthful lover 
 himself ! And a pang of exceeding bitterness contracted her 
 heart. Fortune, title the prizes she coveted most on earth 
 placed within her very grasp, and her fingers not daring to 
 close upon either by an inch ! 
 
 " You were not offended with me for what I said ? " he asked, 
 presently, in one of the breathing spaces of the waltz. 
 
 "Not offended, but surprised," answered Portia, looking 
 down with a charming little air of bashfulness. "Whatever 
 happened, time, she felt, must be gained with Lord Dormer. 
 A single too-discouraging word, and he would probably leave 
 with the first tide that could float the Lily out of the St. 
 Maur harbour. 
 
 " Surprised 1 Well, I'm sure I thought every one must 
 have seen what was coming I mean, I thought you were 
 .sharp enough to see it ! I'm miserable, miserable, with all 
 these fellows hanging after you, one after another ! I haven't 
 had a happy hour since we landed." 
 
 " Lord Dormer, will you take me to Miss Ffrench, please ] 
 I cannot listen to you when you talk like this." 
 
 Lord Dormer stood aghast. Was he being refused? 
 Josephine's rejection of the British shilling enacted over again : 
 the thing rejected, a British peer : the rejecter, an ambitious 
 penniless girl like Portia Ffrench. 
 
 " You you won't even listen to me ? " he gasped. 
 
 " When you talk sentimental nonsense, most certainly I will 
 not." 
 
 It was a grand opening for him had he wished to draw back 
 from his danger ; but he did not. He had been in a fever of 
 jealousy of John Dysart during the last twenty-four hours, 
 
 2o 
 
386 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 was in a fever of jealousy of Teddy Josselin now. Although 
 accident rather than premeditation had propelled him into the 
 thick of a serious declaration, it seemed to Lord Dormer as 
 though all that could make life sweet, zestf ul, worth holding, 
 depended on Portia's answer at this instant. 
 
 " In short, I have been making a fool of myself," said he, 
 turning very red. " For you know, as well as J do, that I 
 am not talking ' sentimental nonsense ' " 
 
 " I know that you are talking on the spur of the moment," 
 said Portia, with a sigh. " You are much younger than me, 
 Lord Dormer oh, I don't mean in years only, but in know- 
 ledge of the world, of life, of everything. It would be 
 ungenerous of me to take what you have said in earnest ; 
 besides, I must have time time " (she added, with a half- 
 smile,) " to think over such a terribly serious matter as this. 
 For the present we may continue as good friends as ever, 
 mayn't we ? " 
 
 "And when do you give me leave to speak again 1 " whis- 
 pered Lord Dormer, touched to the quick by so much modest 
 good-feeling. " I'll not say another word till you bid me 1 
 I'll not be jealous if you won't have any more cousins 1 
 
 I'll " his emotions grew too much for him to make- any 
 
 more promises. "When may I come to you for a final 
 answer ? " he pleaded. 
 
 "Answer '] Oh, on this day year well, on this day week, 
 then," said Portia, too embarrassed still to look higher than 
 the floor. " And please, in the mean time, let us forget that 
 all this has been said. Now, are we going to dance, or shall 
 we look out for Aunt Jemima ? " 
 
 " To dance, of course ! " whispered Lord Dormer, with fer- 
 vour, and his fat little arm gave ever so slight a pressure to 
 the cool, firm hand that rested on it. 
 
 Portia, looking up at last, saw Teddy Josselin in the door- 
 way, steadily watching her face. If she did not love herself, 
 guess how much she loved Lord Dormer at that moment ! 
 
 But Lord Dormer was happy. 
 
SL7SAJV FIELDING. 387 
 
 Teddy Josselin was joined, just as the dance was finishing, 
 by Blake and Susan. Almost before the last notes sounded 
 Portia came up to them, upon Lord Dormer's arm, and said it 
 was time to think of leaving. She was not going to dance 
 another step "no, Lord Dormer, not even with you ;" had no 
 idea of making Aunt Jem, who had come abroad for pleasure, 
 perform the duties of a hardened ball-going chaperon. 
 
 "If you had meant to dance again, Miss Ffrench, I should 
 have asked for one quadrille," remarked Teddy Josselin. 
 " Only to look at people waltzing " (with a glance at Lord 
 Dormer's heated face) " is too much exertion for me in this hot 
 weather." 
 
 Portia's head rose a couple of inches at the impertinence. 
 
 Miss Jemima, after watching game after game of dominoes, 
 ecarte, and whist, had seated herself in an arm-chair beside 
 one of the open windows of the card-room, and was in her first 
 sound, beauty sleep when Portia touched her arm. " If you 
 can tear yourself from these scenes of dissipation, aunt, Susan 
 and I are ready to go." 
 
 The old soldier was wide awake and on her feet, ready to 
 march in a second. " I was just saying to myself it was time 
 to 'look for you," she began ; then caught sight of George 
 Blake, and then of Ted Josselin : for Teddy was loitering a 
 step or two in the rear of the others, much as you will see a 
 married man do when his wife's last partner is conducting her 
 to her carriage from a ball-room. 
 
 Jemima Ffrench's face was a study. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Blake ? how do you do ? " bestowing 
 on them both a frigidly distant bow. " You, too, in St. Maur, 
 Mr. Josselin 1 This is an unexpected meeting, I must confess." 
 
 "An unexpected pleasure," said Teddy, taking Miss 
 Jemima's hand, whether she would or no, and shaking and re- 
 shaking it. " St. Maur is a wonderful place for meeting all 
 one's acquaintance. Yourselves, Susan, old Jack Dysart, and 
 now in the distance I see the Ironside Kamsays. We shall 
 get on capitally here for a week or two." 
 
 2c2 
 
3 88 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " And pray what made you think of visiting St. Maur, at 
 all?" 
 
 " Ask Blake. I come across Blake in Paris, and nothing 
 would content him but bringing me off here at post-haste, it 
 really seemed to me," said Ted, with an air of perfect 
 innocence, " that Blake must have correspondents somewhere 
 in these parts." 
 
 Susan, on hearing this, grew as red as a peony, and hung 
 her head. Miss Jemima looked at her severely. 
 
 " I do not like to suspect evil of any one," she remarked 
 to Portia, as soon as they found themselves alone in their 
 room at the Benjamin ; " but it looks to me as though these 
 young men must have received encouragement to come to 
 Brittany ! " 
 
 " Which young men, dear Aunt Jem 1 " cried Portia, sup- 
 pressing a yawn and sinking down exhausted, the excitement 
 of the day over, on the first chair that came to hand. " John 
 Dysart 1 Lord Dormer ? " 
 
 "You know as well as I do, child." Miss Jemima held 
 .aloft a solitary taper, whose feeble circle of yellow light seemed 
 only to make the darkness of the big room darker; and looked 
 down searchingly at her niece's face. 
 
 " Portia, how is all this going to end 1 I will not speak of 
 John Dysart ! he is a married man " 
 
 "Very little married, Aunt Jem ! " 
 
 " But the other two Teddy, Lord Dormer ! Is it delicate, 
 is it womanly for you, standing on such terms as you now 
 stand with Lord Dormer, to permit your cousin, your lover of 
 three weeks ago, to be again at your side 1 " 
 
 Portia's dark cheek flamed. " I am not the controller of 
 my cousin's actions," she answered shortly. " As long as I 
 live, whatever becomes of me, you may be sure I shall never 
 turn aside when I meet poor Teddy Josselin." 
 
 "In your heart, Portia, you care for Teddy Josselin still ? " 
 
 " Oh, not as you think ! My heart is a very elastic organ, 
 if indeed I have a heart at all. Teddy suits me ; I suit him. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING, 389 
 
 We shall see each, other, we shall like each other, God willing, 
 till the end of the chapter." 
 
 " When you are Lord Dormer's wife, you mean ] " 
 
 " Aunt, old lady, don't be prophetic 1 It is past eleven 
 o'clock ! " 
 
 " You will continue to see Ted Josselin, and to like him, 
 when you are Lord Dormer's wife 1 " 
 
 " Certainly ; and Jack Dysart, and George Blake every- 
 body. La la la, la lira ! " under her breath she hummed the 
 air of the last waltz. " Whoever becomes Lord Dormer's wife 
 will enjoy one blessed immunity she need never waltz with 
 Lord Dormer again ! My chin rested on the top of his head ; 
 he kicked me, he trod upon me ; I had to repeat, * Fifty 
 thousand pounds, fifty thousand pounds/ to keep myself up to 
 my work at all. How plain Susan looked again, poor child ! 
 Her improved looks were only the result of shoe-buckles and 
 crimping pins.'* 
 
 " Mr. John Dysart does not seem to think her plain." 
 
 " Oh ! Jack puts on that manner with every one. Now, if 
 you had said George Blake ! do you know that Susan and 
 George Blake are walking home together in the moonlight ? " 
 
 " Yes ; if matters stood differently, I should have my sus- 
 picions," said good, sincere Miss Jemima. " It crossed my 
 mind for a moment, just from some look on her face, that she 
 might have written ; but no ; I am sure Susan is too well- 
 principled a little girl to do anything so indecorous." 
 
 " Indecorous 1 Writing a letter indecorous It " 
 
 "Susan is engaged, Portia. She was talking to me very 
 prettily of Tom Collinson on the way to the Casino. Susan is 
 too well-principled a girl to forget an absent lover." 
 
 "But at the same time she might remember a present one," 
 answered Portia Ffrench, 
 
390 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 AN" artificial world of harlequin-hued tinsel gaiety : a horribly 
 real one of gaunt hunger, noisome disease, grim death ! In 
 the squares and promenades bands of music, singers of Parisian 
 love-songs, ladies to whom life were insupportable without five 
 or six changes of dres.3. a day ; in the by-streets and alleys of 
 the town, pestilence her list of victims swelling hourly. The 
 parish priests are worn-out with shriving the dying, burying 
 the dead (yesterday a priest himself was buried). One or two 
 cholera cases, quickly hushed up by hotel-keepers and others 
 in authority, have already occurred among the better classes. 
 
 Such is the state of things in the gay little watering-place 
 St. Maur at this moment, and at the end of another two days 
 Miss Jemima and Portia have gravitated, each into her natural 
 and appointed sphere of action. 
 
 It would be unjust to say that Portia Ffrench's heart was an 
 absolutely hard one. In a showy, impulsive way Portia had 
 often at home performed acts of charity towards the poor; 
 mostly towards the cleanly, good-looking ones, and in the 
 absence of infectious disease. She was not inaccessible to 
 compassion, as an abstract feeling, and under the most favour- 
 able circumstances. Dirt, disease, the foul air, the fouler 
 sights that they must encounter who carry compassion into 
 practice, were simply invincibly repugnant to her. There 
 were human beings, doubtless, created for such work ; she was 
 not. It was a fault, she confessed, of her organization. Were 
 there not people so constituted as to turn faint at certain 
 odours, at being in the presence of certain animals 1 Well, she 
 also had inborn repugnances of temperament ; repugnances 
 which were too plainly laws of nature for her ever to feel it a 
 duty to rebel against them. 
 
 " A horrible creeping instinct tells me that you have been 
 among the cholera haunts," she remarked to Miss Jemima, 
 
SVSAN FIELDING,. 39 ' 
 
 four-and-twenty hours after their meeting with the coffins out- 
 side the cemetery gates. " If you have, don't tell me ! I'm 
 sure life is not so sweet that one need fret at leaving it, but 
 not " turning away with a shiver "not by such a disgusting 
 road as that." 
 
 " It's a very short road, my dear," said old Miss Jemima, 
 calmly. " At the point where all roads meet, I fancy, 'twill 
 matter little by which particular one we shall have travelled." 
 
 And from this moment forward there seemed to be a tacit 
 understanding between them that there should be perfect 
 liberty and few questionings as to the manner in which each 
 filled up her days. 
 
 Into the gay dancing and dressing section of the world of 
 which I spoke there might be some difficulty to penetrate. 
 Even Portia had to subdue her pride and seek Mrs. Ironside 
 Eamsay's acquaintance, then court introductions to one after 
 another of the small potentates of the hour, before she could 
 find herself irlbluded in " the " set of visitors who led the 
 fashion and governed their fellow-butterflies in the quest of 
 pleasure. But in the section of the world towards which 
 Jemima Ff rench's tastes inclined no introductions were needed. 
 Crazy doors stood wide open, emaciated hands were upheld, 
 glazed eyes upturned, to whomsoever would enter Protestant 
 or Catholic, priest or layman and give help ! 
 
 Of sickness of all kinds Jemima Ffrench had had the ex- 
 perience of a camp-surgeon : the sight of men wanting bread 
 was not unknown to her. Of the two together, sickness and 
 starvation hand in hand, she had never seen the like as now 
 she saw in this prosperous little watering-place of the Great 
 Empire. The lack of clean water was, of itself, a thing to 
 make your heart sore. Pure water, aye, it might be got from 
 the fountain on the hill up yonder, but who was to fetch it 1 
 With the mother or father, or both, of some miserable family 
 down on the clay floor that was to be their death pillow, who 
 was to think of such details as wholesome water for the 
 children or for the sick ] "If they are to die, they are to 
 
392 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 die," say the neighbours, crossing themselves. " The Lord 
 knows His own work best ; His will be done." Every 
 Sunday, in his sermon, the good cure" not afraid, it seemed, 
 for one, of frightening away visitors told the people that 
 they must bestir themselves, or perish as their fathers had 
 done during the last cholera visitation ; impiety, to speak of 
 the Lord's will, yet make no effort to cleanse their houses and 
 courts, or walk a poor little mile up-hill for water that might 
 be the water of life for their children. And still no one 
 cleansed anything, and no one fetched water, and steadily, 
 steadily increased the number of funerals each day (in the 
 garden of the Petit Tambour the drone of the priest's voice 
 was constant as the hum of the bees among the flowers) : and 
 Jemima Ffrench, instead of spending her forenoons only, 
 began to spend her entire days, from breakfast till dinner- 
 time, in the houses of the sick and dying. 
 
 She met the priests there, and the sisters of mercy of the 
 parish, and Adam Byng : and soon between all these people 
 the rigid Breton Catholics, the strict Anglo-Protestant, the 
 latitudinarian old Quaker a kind of freemasonry of charity 
 was established. Between Adam Byng and Miss Jemima 
 arose a friendship ; a very taciturn one ! Adam was not a 
 man of many words ; neither in these lowly chambers of 
 death was there occasion for much speech ; but still a genuine 
 friendship, born of the sympathy of kin natures, not chance. 
 Portia, it is remarked, cares little now to speak of the com- 
 panions whose pleasures she shared during her stay in Brittany. 
 Miss Jemima will love to recall the grey stooping figure of 
 Adam Byng while she lives. 
 
 Six days had passed since the arrival of Teddy and George 
 Blake in St. Maur. To-morrow little Lord Dormer was to get 
 a final answer to his suit. He was more in love than ever : 
 lie was also a thousand times more doubtful as to his fate* 
 During the first day or two of his probation, Portia Ffrench 
 had given him as much encouragement as a man under such 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 393 
 
 circumstances could hope for ; Teddy Josselin standing by, 
 the spectator, it seemed, of a play in which he was but in- 
 differently interested. Then her mood changed, cruelly, 
 incomprehensibly, to Lord Dormer, who was too obtuse to 
 discern the wires by which a character like Portia's is set 
 in motion ; and John Dysart, to whom since the Casino dance 
 she had scarcely spoken, came again into favour. In vain 
 Lord Dormer chafed, in vain Miss Jemima expostulated. 
 " What are you afraid of, my dear aunt ? " Portia would say 
 to the latter. " As I used to tell you when I was a girl, Jack 
 is married. There can be no danger for either of us. Besides, 
 what am I to do 1 Ted Josselin I am forbidden to look at, 
 George Blake is nowhere or teaching Susan Fielding to 
 paint buttercups " 
 
 " And Lord Dormer 1 After coming here in the poor little 
 man's yacht 1 " 
 
 "Ah ! that is just the reason why I have nothing to say to 
 him now. After being bored by Lord Dormer in a yacht at 
 sea, is it to be expected that I am to be bored by Lord 
 Dormer on dry land ? The fact is, when one has no serious 
 intentions (and I have none), the first thing one desires in 
 people is that they should be outwardly creditable. Jack 
 Dysart is always creditable. You admit yourself how good- 
 looking he is, how well he dresses, how well he talks. If 
 Lord Dormer would have the amount of his wealth, or even 
 his pedigree, legibly written, and hung as a placard round his 
 neck, it might be different. Till then I really must prefer one 
 of nature's bankrupt noblemen, like poor old Jack." 
 
 And, as far as it went, this explanation was a sincere one. 
 Few people better understood the value of self-confession than, 
 Portia Ffrench, stopping short always at a certain discreet 
 point of reservation. She did like John Dysart, as she had 
 done when she was sixteen, because of his handsome person, 
 his good air, the attention they called forth "the two hand- 
 somest people in the place," she was wont to say, whenever 
 they appeared in public together. But his attentions had, 
 
394 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 in truth, a value, his society a fascination, quite apart from 
 all this. Lord Dormer's homage to her was undisputed : 
 John Dysart owed, or Portia believed him to owe, another 
 allegiance. She was not only holding him captive at her side : 
 she was winning him from the side of another woman. And 
 for his good, poor dear fellow ! for her good. 
 
 "The Bamsays are the worst possible kind of friends for 
 you, Jack," she would say, Portia Ffrench assuming an elder 
 sister's tone with John Dysart ! " Of Mrs. Eamsay we won't 
 speak. I am certain the honourable Ironside gets money out 
 of you at ecarte". 
 
 "Never," answers John Dysart, with perfect truth. " Iron- 
 side Eamsay is an out-and-out good fellow, and extremely 
 unlucky at cards ! You are prejudiced, Portia." 
 
 " And you consider Mrs. Bamsay good style ? " 
 
 " I thought we decided not to speak of Mrs. Eamsay 1 " 
 
 "I can't imagine why you give them so little of your 
 society. You came with them ; I suppose you mean to go 
 away with them. Why are you so much with me in the 
 interval 1 Impossible that any one who admires Blanche 
 Bamsay can admire Portia Ffrench." 
 
 "Are you in earnest, Portia? Do you tell me to spend 
 more of my time with the Bamsays ] " 
 
 " I tell you to spend your time with the people you really 
 care for, Mr. Dysart. If you care for me, stay with me." 
 
 To most women of her age this would have been playing 
 with terribly edged tools ; but Portia felt herself beyond the 
 reach of danger, and the knowledge that she did so gave John 
 Dysart redoubled zest in her society. For whom did this girl 
 of. one-and-twenty care? for what stakes was she playing 1 ? 
 She had been able to guard her own secrets, he knew. Would 
 she be able to guard her heart, if heart she possessed, as suc- 
 cessfully ? Her courage, her mendacity, the vein of weary 
 non-enjoyment that ran through even her lightest moods, 
 piqued his curiosity. On the day when he came to under- 
 stand her, the main interest of the flirtation would probably 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 395 
 
 be over. Meantime he put the game unreservedly into her 
 hands, just as in the old days when they used to bank together 
 at Van John. A face like Portia's was a decidedly pleasant 
 object to have at one's side during these long summer days ; 
 his friendship with the Ironside Bamsays was not seriously 
 endangered by the intimacy : he had as many dinners and 
 breakfasts as he liked at Teddy Josselin's hotel and expense, 
 and at little odd moments had already won over thirty pounds 
 of Teddy Josselin's money. Cousins like these, Jack felt, 
 were manifestations of Providence too beautiful and too rare 
 to be neglected. 
 
 Pleasant, penniless, easy-tempered creatures who toss about 
 the world, a new acquaintance for every day of the year, are 
 seldom, alas ! very noble or disinterested in their motives. If 
 a pretty woman would smile on him, if a man would ask him 
 to dinner and back his own play at ecarte afterwards, Jack 
 Dysart was contented. Beyond to-morrow he seldom looked ; 
 and if, by any chance, an embarrassing to-morrow dawned, 
 why, the first train up to Paris, or out of Paris, as the case 
 might be, was his ordinary deus ex machind for setting things 
 straight. I don't know, capital companion though he was, 
 that Jack was a very desirable kind of antagonist at any game. 
 Principles are abstract things ; and a man leading the life Mr. 
 John Dysart led has really scarcely time to deal with abstrac- 
 tions ; besides, people with nothing to lose fall, sometimes, 
 into a kind of knack of winning that is curious. 
 
 Six days, as I said, had passed by. It was Thursday even- 
 ing again, the evening of the weekly dress ball at the Casino. 
 " Not the slightest necessity for you to be a victim, Aunt Jem," 
 said Portia, looking compassionately at Miss Jemima's tired 
 face when the time for starting came ; " much better let me 
 go with the de Miremonts." The de Miremonts were a youth- 
 ful bride and bridegroom, spending their honeymoon at the 
 Hotel Benjamin. " Let me run at once and bid little Madame 
 de Miremont wait for me." 
 
 But Miss Jemima had made up her mind to be a victim ; to 
 
39<> SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 let Portia go out under other charge than her own no more. 
 Making her way back from some narrow alley through the 
 Paroisse, or High Street of St. Maur, this afternoon, she had 
 come suddenly upon Mr. John Dysart in attendance on her 
 niece ; and something in the face and manner of both had 
 aroused all the smouldering Dysart terror, ever ready to burst 
 forth in Jemima Ffrench's heart. " As long as we remain in 
 France, Portia not many days more, thank Heaven ! I shall 
 feel it my duty to watch you/' she remarked, as they walked 
 along the narrow open gallery (Portia a picture in her floating 
 muslin skirts, her head uncovered, for the night was intensely 
 hot, a single white rose in her jetty hair ; Miss Jemima, erect 
 in the black moire* that had been her best dress for fifteen 
 years, a masterpiece of Miss Budd's in the way of head-dress). 
 " If I only look as I feel, I know how out of place I shall be 
 in any scene of gaiety to-night. But I will keep to my post, 
 I will keep to my post. You and Mr. John Dysart will meet 
 each other no more except in my presence." 
 
 Portia turned round short. "And you will not go near 
 these disgusting cholera people again ] My dear Aunt Jem, 
 only say that, and our compact is made. You know I haven't 
 dared kiss you for a week past ! Say you won't enter any of 
 those horrible dens of infection again ? " 
 
 "After to-morr@w, no," said Miss Jemima, a little sadly. 
 " I feel my strength failing ; I cannot waste that, with the 
 thought of Bichard wanting me at home ; and my money is 
 gone ! " 
 
 " What ! the seven pounds that was to have bought you a 
 new black silk ] " 
 
 " In such company as I have been amongst, child, one does 
 not remember silk dresses." 
 
 Miss Jemima walked gravely on, and Portia could not but 
 remark that the fine old soldier's step was heavy ; that her 
 head stooped a little as she walked. The natural results, as 
 Portia had always foreseen, of these Quixotic ideas of nursing 
 miserable foreigner? who had, or ought to have, their own 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 397 
 
 friends to look after them. Money gone, spirits gone, health 
 weakened. Any darker misgiving the possibility of death 
 leaving the " horrible dens of infection " and showing his ill- 
 bred face among the upper classes did not at present cross her 
 mind. 
 
 It was the brightest, fullest ball of the whole summer ; 
 Portia Ffrench and little Madame de Miremont, a rose-and- 
 white wax doll of seventeen, the acknowledged beauties. 
 Wherever Portia went she felt, rather than heard, a murmur 
 of admiration, to her the most delicious music that the world 
 could yield. She knew that Mrs. .Ramsay's costly Pompadour 
 .silk, fresh yesterday from Worth's, was eclipsed by her plain 
 white muslin, whose outside value was twenty francs ; knew 
 that John Dysart, for the first time since the renewal of their 
 intimacy, was beginning to lose his head a little ; that Teddy 
 Josselin's eyes followed her wherever she moved ; Lord Dor- 
 mer's condition was, of course, too patent to every one to take 
 into account. The certainty that her reign was limited, that 
 not one of these men whom she held in fetters to-night but 
 might free himself, or insist upon the others obtaining their 
 freedom, on the morrow, only added the last keen gambler's 
 edge to her enjoyment. " I dance as the prisoners during the 
 Trench Eevolution used to dance," she whispered once to 
 Teddy as he passed beside her and John Dysart in the inter- 
 vals of a waltz : " pleasure to-night, to-morrow the guillotine ; 
 or grandmamma, or some dreadful explanation of some kind. 
 This kind of thing won't go on for ever." 
 
 "That it most certainly will not," replied Teddy, a good 
 deal of meaning in his voice ; then sauntered coolly away to 
 join old Miss Jemima in the card-room. 
 
 " Capital little fellow, our cousin Ted ! " remarked John 
 Dysart, looking after him. " I don't know how it is, but in 
 .spite of all you say, Portia, I can never get it out of my head 
 that little Ted Josselin is your Destiny." 
 
 " I try to like all my relations," answered Portia, demurely ; 
 " I consider it a duty." 
 
398 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Oh, come ! you don't like me a quarter as well as you do 
 Ted 1 don't tell stories, Portia, I know it ! If I were to tell 
 you how many times I choose you to dance or sit out with 
 uny given partner, would you obey me ? " 
 
 " I have never obeyed any one in my life yet," said Portia. 
 
 "And you are not in the least under orders to-night ] JSTow, 
 confess : you know, my dear child, .you can't say ' No ' with- 
 out blushing." 
 
 "But I do say /No/" looking at him straight; "and I 
 certainly don't feel as if I were blushing. If the number of 
 times I dance, or do not dance, with any one here is of as 
 little moment to Ted Josselin as it is to myself, his peace of 
 mind won't suffer much." 
 
 She had never given one of John Dysart's half-tender 
 speeches so decisive a counter-thrust before. He looked at 
 the black eyes that met his own so coldly, and asked himself 
 whether, in the long run, Blanche Kamsay would not be a 
 very much pleasanter kind of woman to get on with than 
 Portia Ffrench 1 In the long run, yes ; but in the short one I 
 for the present 1 Well, for the present John Dysart had 
 never so thoroughly made up his mind as he did at this 
 moment to decipher the enigma of his cousin Portia's -heart. 
 
 A boating excursion had already been planned, much 
 against Miss Jemima's wish, for to-morrow afternoon : 
 Madame de Miremont to be the chaperon, Portia and Susan 
 Fielding the young ladies of the party ; the gentlemen, John 
 Dysart, Teddy Josselin, and George Blake. Little Lord 
 Dormer, by Portia's special request, to hear nothing of the 
 expedition till it was over. 
 
 "And now I have a great mind to knock the whole scheme 
 on the head," remarked Miss Jemima to Teddy, when he- 
 joined her in the card-room. " I am not easy about Portia 
 I mean the weather is too hot to trust her out till evening. 
 Oh dear, that man again ! " Miss Jemima had taken up her 
 post at an angle which commanded not only a distant view 
 of the ball-room, but of the door through which the dancers- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 399 
 
 defiled in and out to the verandah. "That dreadful man 
 again ! " 
 
 "What man 1 ?" said Teddy, looking in all directions but 
 the right one. 
 
 " Why, John Dysart. Mr. Josselin, I wish you would let 
 rne talk to you for one minute seriously." 
 
 Teddy seated himself at Miss Jemima's side, and inclined 
 his ear to listen. 
 
 " After all that has passed I cannot, of course, expect you 
 and my niece Portia to have very much to say to each other. 
 As far as the world's opinion goes it might, indeed, have been 
 as well that we had not come across you here." 
 
 "You mustn't say that," interrupted Teddy. " Putting, 
 Portia aside, you know what pleasure it gives me to come 
 across you." 
 
 " Don't pay me compliments, sir. John Dysart paid compli- 
 ments the first night I spoke to him, and I believe I was fool 
 enough to be pleased by them. I wish that man was in 
 Norway ! from my heart I do ! " 
 
 " John Dysart "I Why, he's one of the best fellows going," 
 said Teddy. " I thought every one liked John Dysart." 
 
 "I do not," said Miss Jemima; "or, which comes to the 
 same thing, I don't like to see my niece Portia like him as 
 she does." 
 
 A faint little flush rose to Teddy's face. " Portia does well 
 to amuse herself," he answered, quietly. " Jack is the best- 
 looking fellow and the best waltzer here. Besides, Portia 
 always was fond of him." 
 
 " I know it," said Miss Jemima. " That is precisely why I 
 blame myself for having allowed a renewal of the intimacy. 
 Good heavens again I the third dance ! No, they have gone 
 out under the balcony ; I shall follow." 
 
 Teddy Josselin laid his hand on Miss Jemima. "Aunt 
 Jemima," he began, soothingly "I beg pardon, but you 
 know I had got so into the habit of calling you Aunt Jemima. 
 it is quite unnecessary, believe me, for you to flurry your- 
 
400 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 self about Portia. Let us two have a game at piquet, half- 
 franc points do 1 Jolly for us old chaperons to gamble 
 while the young ones flirt. I know Portia is all right, 
 and " 
 
 "And I/' cried Miss Jemima, energetically, "say that 
 Portia is all wrong. This is a light matter to you, of course." 
 
 ("Very, indeed," said Teddy, stroking his moustache.) 
 
 "The time is over when you had a right to take umbrage 
 at your cousin's conduct. It is no light matter to me. I have 
 seen little or nothing of her during the last five days there I 
 reproach myself ; I have thought of strangers while I should 
 have minded the duty that lay to my hand, and now I see the 
 progress that John Dysart dangerous, unprincipled man that 
 he is has made in her regard. Look at them at this 
 moment. ! " 
 
 The two figures were slowly pacing up and down in the 
 moonlight, not many yards away from the open window by 
 which Miss Jemima sat. 
 
 " They are a fine-looking couple," said Teddy, approvingly. 
 " I must say I should be glad if Portia would leave off dancing 
 with Dormer ; it doesn't become her." 
 
 "I would rather see Portia dance all her life aye, all her 
 life -with Lord Dormer than go on as she does now with 
 John Dysart," said Miss Jemima. "If you had the good, 
 kindly heart I once gave you credit for, Teddy Josselin, you 
 would feel a little more as I do." 
 
 Teddy seated himself upright, and looked thoughtful. 
 "Are you really in earnest, Aunt Jemima ?" he asked. 
 "'Does it really annoy you that Portia should try her small 
 weapons on Jack Dysart's battered old heart ] " 
 
 "You you seem to forget that John Dysart has a wife 
 already," said Miss Jemima, a blush like a girl's rising on her 
 honest cheek. " What weapons can Portia, can any woman, 
 seek to bring against a married man's heart 1 " 
 
 "Ah! I never thought of it in that light," said Teddy; 
 ** but the fact is, one forgets at times who is married and who 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 401 
 
 is not. Well, would you really like Portia to have less to say 
 to John Dysart ] " 
 
 " It isn't a question of what 7 like/' answered Miss Jemima, 
 shaking her head. 
 
 " Yes, but it is," said Teddy. "I'm not going to have you 
 cut up like this for all the Jack Dysarts in creation. The 
 thing must be seen to." 
 
 He rose, tried to look stern ; then, catching sight of himself 
 in a mirror just opposite, smiled ; took a pair of cream- 
 coloured gloves from his pocket, drew them on with the care 
 that a very close fit, even of Jouvin's, requires, and passed on 
 into the ball-room. 
 
 The room, as it happened, was nearly cleared. It was the 
 interval between two round dances, and the dancers had all 
 thronged out to breathe whatever cool air might be obtained 
 under the verandah outside. In a corner, talking with 
 depressed cheerfulness as women do in seasons of neglect, to 
 some old lady at her side, was Mrs. Ironside Eamsay. The 
 weapons of reprisal lay ready to Ted Josselin's hand. Blanche 
 Hamsay had arrived at that autumnal time of life when, part- 
 nerless at a ball, a woman may say with dignity, " Ah, my 
 dancing days are over ; all I look for now is some one nice to 
 come and talk to me ! " and yet, if she is invited to dance, feel 
 young enough to accept with grace, and prove a dangerous 
 rival to half the girls in the room. A blush of well-pleased 
 surprise rose to her face when Teddy Josselin crossed the 
 room, and asked her, as if all his happiness -depended on her 
 answer, for the next waltz. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Josselin, we shall see Ironside desert ecarte 
 next ! I thought you never waltzed 1 " 
 
 " Almost never," says Teddy, looking his handsomest, and 
 throwing the most pleading look of which he is master into 
 his blue eyes. " Won't you be the exception ? " 
 
 Not grammar, I admit, but flattery no amount of Lindley 
 Murray could have improved in the ears of a poor little 
 woman of four-and-thirty, whose accustomed faithful attend- 
 
 2D 
 
402 SUSAW FIELDING. 
 
 ant is at this moment walking in the moonlight with a rival a 
 dozen years younger than herself ! The first bars of the waltz 
 strike up, and Blanche Ramsay's hand steals under Ted 
 Josselin's arm ; they float away together, pause ; Teddy begins 
 to whisper soft nothings into his partner's ear ; when the 
 dance is over stations himself at her side in one of the most 
 conspicuous places in the ball-room, and asks leave to fan her. 
 
 Coming in from the garden with Jack Dysart, this was the 
 little picture on which Portia's eyes rested. For a moment she 
 could scarcely believe what she saw : Teddy presuming to 
 dance ! and with Blanche Eamsay ! Then, it could only be 
 an accident, thought Portia, lifting her head in the air. 
 Blanche Eamsay, of course, had waylaid him, and Teddy, 
 with his usual supineness, had voted it less exertion to dance 
 than to resist. But when a galop began, and they danced 
 together again, and when more fanning went on afterwards, 
 and finally, not a look for any one but his partner, when 
 Teddy led Mrs. Eamsay out under the verandah, the smiles, 
 the brightness, began to fade ominously from Portia's face. 
 
 "You don't hear a word I am saying," remarked John 
 Dysart, who was watching all tins by-play attentively. " I 
 never knew before, my dear Portia, that your face could look 
 so " 
 
 " Ill-tempered ; use the right word," cried Portia, recovering 
 herself. " If you had such martyrdom in the shape of lancers 
 before you as I have, I don't suppose you would look 
 pleasant." 
 
 As she spoke little Lord Dormer advanced to claim her. 
 
 "Remember your promise about to-morrow," whispered 
 John Dysart, before she quitted his arm. " Let no Destiny 
 interfere." 
 
 " Of course not/' answered Portia, but without meeting his 
 eyes. "JDon't I always remember my promises ] Oh dear, 
 dear ! " turning to Lord Dormer, " do you really think there 
 will be breathing space for us ? Wouldn't it be much nicer to 
 go to Aunt Jemima and look on ? " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 403 
 
 But after waiting in misery, unable to approach her, 
 through half the evening, Lord Dormer was not going to be 
 cheated even of the poor consolation of his set of lancers. 
 There was plenty of breathing space if they went to the other 
 end of the room, and he had already engaged two couples for 
 their set only their own vis-a-vis wanting. Just at this 
 moment Teddy and Mrs. Ramsay passed along. 
 
 "Will you be our vis-a-vis, Mr. Josselin?" asked Portia, 
 quickly. 
 
 "What for? lancers?" returned Teddy. "Thanks, no; 
 I never work out geometrical puzzles for amusement." 
 
 " But your partner, perhaps, would help you through the 
 figures/' remarked Portia. 
 
 As she said this her eyes met his ; and Teddy knew that 
 there was an entreaty in them. 
 
 " Would you mind dancing a square dance with me?" he 
 whispered, turning with his soft petitioning air to Mrs. Bamsay. 
 " I am half ashamed to ask you." 
 
 But Mrs. Bamsay, it seemed, liked square dances ; philo- 
 sophically forestalling the time, she said gaily, the not-far- 
 distant time, when square dances would be the only ones left 
 her. And so Portia and Teddy Josselin found themselves 
 bowing, " setting," touching the tips of each other's fingers, 
 and going through all the other evolutions of the lancers with 
 great coldness and ceremony ; both apparently engrossed in 
 their partners 7 conversation during the comparatively lucid 
 intervals of the performance. 
 
 Once, and once only, they spoke : it was in the zig-zag 
 round of hand-shaking that takes place in the final figure. 
 "Your next dance is with me, sir ! " whispered Portia, fixing 
 her eyes steadily on her cousin's face.. 
 
 " What to dance it ? " returned Teddy, looking the picture 
 of innocent surprise. 
 
 " I am indifferent about that. No, not to dance it would 
 please me best : I want to talk to you. Do you refuse ? " 
 
 " Do I ever refuse you anything 1 " 
 
4.04 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 The interchange of these few words had thrown the whole 
 figure into a state of chaos. Lord Dormer grew fever-hot 
 with irritation. "How glad I shall be when to-morrow 
 comes ! " he remarked, a minute or two later, as Portia was 
 walking round the room on his arm. "I never felt so 
 nervous in my life, Miss Ffrench; no, not on the evening 
 before the Derby : I'm sure I didn't." 
 
 It was the most enthusiastic compliment Lord Dormer could 
 have offered to any woman. 
 
 " Nervous ! what about 1 " said Portia, suppressing a smile. 
 " Oh ! I think I know what you mean. Who would have be- 
 lieved that, at your age, you could remember anything so long ]" 
 
 " At my age ! Why, I shall be twenty-one in October. My 
 own master, Miss Ffrench," looking at her plaintively ; " able 
 to do as I please with myself, and all I possess." 
 
 " Can't you do as you please now 1 " 
 
 " With myself, of course. I don't know about ah er a 
 minor making settlements." 
 
 " The doubt is a most important one/' said Portia, gravely 
 
 She refused, point-blank, to walk with Lord Dormer under 
 the verandah, declaring that she had had enough of moonlight 
 "Yes, and of sentiment and everything else that goes with 
 moonlight " to last her her life. Teddy Josselin and his 
 partner, accidentally, no doubt, remained also in the ball- 
 room. The next dance was a cotillon, led by John Dysart 
 and his charming little bride, Madame de Miremont. " I 
 never could remember the figures of a cotillon in my life, but 
 if you would teach me, Miss Ffrench, make allowance for my 
 ignorance ! " whispered Lord Dormer, with tenderness. 
 
 " Unfortunately, I am engaged already," answered Portia ; 
 "that is to say," with a glance at Teddy, who still kept 
 beside Mrs. Ramsay in a corner, " if my partner remembers 
 to claim me." 
 
 " I shouldn't have thought Miss Ffrench would wait for 
 any man," remarked Lord Dormer, who had followed the di- 
 rection of her eyes. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 405 
 
 "Nor would she, unless the air were at a temperature that 
 makes waiting more pleasant than exertion," said Portia. 
 
 However, when the first few bars had been played, Ted 
 Josselin rose, hovered a moment or two by Mrs. Bamsay's 
 side, then, still keeping possession of her fan, came across the 
 room to Portia. " Our dance, I think, Miss Ffrench 1 " 
 
 She took his arm without a word, leaving Lord Dormer 
 alone to study the figures of the cotillon. " Take me outside, 
 Teddy ; the air here is stifling. No, not this way ; we will go 
 out by the other door. You have to return Mrs. Earn say's fan." 
 
 " I think not, my love. She has been good-natured enough 
 to lend it to me." 
 
 " Teddy ! " (a tremble in her voice), " will you return that 
 woman's fan or not ? " 
 
 " Suppose I say, not 1 " 
 
 " You would not be so unkind. You know I don't like 
 Mrs. Eamsay. Teddy dearest give her back her fan ! " 
 
 " Do you know, Portia, that you are the most unreasonable 
 woman living 1 " 
 
 " Certainly, I know it, and I also know all that you have 
 in your heart to say to me : ' You like to have Jack Dysart, 
 Lord Dormer, every man in the room, at your feet ; and I am 
 to talk to Aunt Jemima, play cards, keep quiet any. way I 
 choose, and watch you/ Ted, it is true ! I confess myself. I 
 have no right to ask you anything, only only I do ask it ! 
 Take Mrs. Kamsay back her fan." 
 
 " To-morrow, my dear. She has promised to lend it me 
 till to-morrow morning." 
 
 " What ! you visit the Eamsays at their hotel 1 Oh, Teddy, 
 how mean-spirited, how disgraceful of you ! " 
 
 "An act of simple justice; you have taken away Jack 
 Dysart ! Besides, I really am fond of Mrs. Eamsay. She's 
 the right height for me ; I like her step ; I like the way she 
 looks up at one with those sleepy hazel eyes." 
 
 They went into the yellow moonlight, the fan still between 
 Teddy's hands, and walked, without exchanging a word, to an 
 
406 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 angle in the path at the further end of the grounds, the very 
 spot where Teddy had come upon Portia and Jack Dysart on 
 the night of his arrival. 
 
 Then Portia stopped abruptly. " And how how is all thi* 
 going to end ? " broke, with an accent almost of genuine 
 passion, from her lips. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 SHE quitted his arm, and moved a pace or two from his side. 
 " How is all this to end ? " she repeated, impetuously. 
 
 " To end 7 Why, how do all cotillons end ? " said Teddy 
 Josselin. "I don't quite remember the order of the figures 
 myself, but " 
 
 " Talk sense, sir, if you please. You are not talking to 
 Mrs. Ramsay now. How is all this to end between you and 
 me?" 
 
 "Oh, I understand. You are cleverer than me, Portia; 
 .you can answer the question best. Besides, the solution is in 
 .your own hands." 
 
 " In mine?" 
 
 " In yours. I've seen a good deal of this kind of grief in 
 ^my life," said Teddy with the air of a sexagenarian philo- 
 sopher, "and have always remarked that one side is to 
 blame not the man's side. Men in such things follow pretty 
 much where they are led." Teddy smiled just enough to show 
 his even white teeth, and looked up at the moon. 
 
 " Grief for I know enough of your language to guess what 
 you mean grief ! You mean to say," Portia's voice trembled, 
 " that you and I have come to grief already ? " 
 
 " Not quite, but a remarkably close imitation of it," said 
 Teddy Josselin. "You must know that, just as well as I do, 
 my dear Portia." 
 
 "I know that you are unkind ungenerous/' broke forth 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 407 
 
 Portia. " You take your own way in everything (look how 
 you went to stay with the Eawdons, in spite of all that I have 
 said about your intimacy with that person), and deny me the 
 right well, I won't even talk about liberty, but of the 
 commonest amusement. You forget what my position is." 
 
 " Never. You take very good care I shall not." 
 
 " You forget that half of what you are pleased to consider 
 my crimes are acts of policy, undertaken for your sake." 
 
 " Coming to France in Dormer's yacht, for instance ? " 
 
 " Most undoubtedly. Does not grandmamma take it for 
 granted that I shall be twentieth Baroness of Throgmorton ? 
 What object but your good could I have had in wearying 
 myself with such a man 1 " 
 
 "And Jack Dysart ?" 
 
 "Jack Dysart relieves me from the trouble of Lord 
 Dormer." 
 
 " And the next comer from the trouble of Jack Dysart ? 
 I understand. You must always remember, my dear, that I 
 have not complained. I've given Jack breakfasts and dinners, 
 and lost my money to him at ecarte, because you bid me, and 
 come here of an evening and drank sugar-water over penny- 
 whist with the Frenchmen, and never made myself intrusive 
 or disagreeable in any way. It's only when you ask me how 
 things are likely to end that I speak at all." 
 
 "And then, your answer is 1 " 
 
 "That it rests altogether with yourself. In these days/' 
 went on Teddy, warming into unwonted eloquence, " I don't 
 suppose fellows are ever frantically jealous nothing of the 
 Othello sort of fire in fellows now. But a man knows the 
 opinions of his set, and acts up to them. I'm not in the set 
 of of Dolly Wynne, let us say. The men I call my friends 
 are it sounds like the speech of a prig, but I can't help it, 
 you make me speak are men of honour, my dear child." 
 
 " Honour ! " stammered Portia, her face turning white. 
 " Why, of course they are. Who is talking of honour 1 What 
 do you mean by mentioning such a word to me 2 " 
 
408 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " It does seem rather ill-timed," answered Teddy, un- 
 conscious of sarcasm; "but, you see, one must have a 
 standing-point somewhere, and I make mine there." 
 
 " And my actions are that I should speak the words ! are 
 not to your ? " 
 
 " If they went much further, they would be neither to your 
 honour nor to mine," said Teddy, helping her ; " and if you 
 will listen to my advice, 'Tia, you'll pull up short now. I 
 was never the kind of fellow to watch and suspect and keep 
 guard over a woman. I haven't the energy. Besides, to 
 my mind, anything that wanted so much looking after would 
 be too great a bore to be worth keeping. But, as far as I 
 can, you know, I shall do my duty to you to you, and to 
 myself, too." 
 
 " Duty ! " Out of the mouth of Teddy Josselin Teddy 
 Josselin, whom she had ever held to be lighter, shallower, 
 even than herself, had come this word, which practically was 
 without a place in Portia's vocabulary. Her eyes filled ; a 
 choking sensation rose in her throat. To the superior endow- 
 ment of a heart, endowment which, in spite of all his frivolity, 
 raised Teddy's nature into so different a class to hers, she was 
 blind. To recognize the existence of a heart you must pro- 
 bably possess one ; and, as I have remarked, Portia was at 
 all times easier to reach through her intellect than through 
 her feelings. Still, the woman lives not but will bow down 
 before, even while she outwardly resents, the first show of 
 superior moral strength in the man she loves ; and Portia 
 Ffrench admired, respected Teddy Josselin, as she had never 
 done in her life yet, while he spoke. Difficult, indeed, to say 
 how far the future of that contradictory, impressionable, 
 unemotional character of hers was influenced by the attitude 
 taken, in all simplicity, by poor little Teddy Josselin at this 
 moment ! 
 
 " And you'll come to-morrow, Ted ? Yes yes ; I'm going 
 to turn over a new leaf ; I'm never going to flirt again ; and 
 
SUSAN FIELBING. 409 
 
 I'll send Lord Dormer back to England, and Jack Dysart to 
 the Eamsays after to-morrow ! The party is made up. The 
 de Miremonts have accepted, and I sent notes to Susan 
 Fielding and Mr. Blake this evening. It would be worse 
 than imprudent, it would be ridiculous, to put it off because I 
 have talked to you for half-an-hour in the moonlight. You 
 know that Jack Dysart has suspicions, as it is." 
 
 They were walking slowly back together across the 
 garden ; the cotillon was over ; everybody preparing to leave 
 the Casino. 
 
 "Do you refuse me, Ted? Will you oblige me to set 
 people talking by breaking up the party at the last 1 " 
 
 " There won't be wind enough to get us out of the harbour," 
 said Teddy, lazily. " We shall all have sunstrokes, or worse. 
 I read in ' Galignani ' to-day that the people are dying here 
 of cholera by hundreds/' 
 
 " But that is on shore, not on sea. Now, sir ! I'm sure I've 
 given up enough for you " 
 
 " Prospectively ! " 
 
 " Make this sacrifice for me. You will have Madame de 
 Miremont to talk to, and Susan Fielding, not counting me. 
 I promise you, you won't be bored. We are all to meet at 
 the St. Sauveur pier at five, and not return till quite late, in 
 the cool of the evening. Now, say Yes." 
 
 " Well, Yes, then if I happen not to have died of cholera 
 meantime." 
 
 They reached the verandah of the Casino as Teddy spoke, 
 and found Miss Jemima and John Dysart side by side. Lord 
 Dormer, desperate with jealousy at Portia's prolonged absence, 
 had gone back some time ago to his hotel. 
 
 " They are putting out the lights," remarked Miss Jemima, 
 sententiously : in escaping from the Scylla of Jack Dysart, she 
 by no means intended Portia to fall back upon the Charybdis 
 of Teddy Josselin. " Five minutes more, and " 
 
 " Five minutes more, and everything in our lives would be 
 changed," cried Portia. "I never can get pathetic about 
 
410 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 accidents that would have happened if something else had only 
 happened first. The de Miremonts are here still, I see, ah ! 
 you, too, Mr. Dysart 1 All the nicest people left to the last." 
 
 " The nicest people may as well walk back in each other's 
 society, " remarked John Dysart, addressing Miss Jemima. 
 "To my mind this is the most enjoyable part of the whole 
 evening." 
 
 And accordingly, a minute or two later, they were all 
 returning in a party towards the town : Madame de Miremont 
 leaning on her young husband's arm a bewitching little 
 picture, with her white satin hood enclosing her baby pink- 
 and-white face ; John Dysart resolutely attentive to old Miss 
 Jemima ; Teddy Josselin and Portia following last. 
 
 The night seemed at each instant to grow hotter. The sea 
 was quivering, like a sheet of molten copper, under the waning 
 yellow moon, the air so intensely still that the lungs laboured 
 to draw breath : a curious bluish haze veiled all the suburb of 
 St. Sauveur across the harbour. " Delicious night ! Real 
 southern temperature, is it not ? " said John Dysart. He had 
 taken off his opera-hat, and was sauntering along, bareheaded, 
 by Miss Jemima's side. Not often we get such weather as 
 this, here in the north." 
 
 " It is the weather of death," answered Jemima Ffrench, 
 looking slowly round her. "There will be a score more 
 funerals than usual to-morrow morning. I have seen that 
 blue mist too often in my life to be mistaken about its mean- 
 ing." 
 
 Just at the entrance of the town, a ghastly sight greeted 
 them four coffins borne aloft on men's shoulders into one 
 house, a house not a hundred yards distant from the Hotel 
 Benjamin. 
 
 " But, Albert, my friend, what are these men doing ? Mon- 
 sieur Dysart, for what are these black boxes ? " cried the little 
 bride, stopping short, and holding closer to her husband's arm. 
 
 The St. Maur cholera statistics had reached " Galignani," 
 but not the fashionable visitors in St. Maur itself. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 411 
 
 "They look rather like coffins, Madame," said John Dysart, 
 in his pleasant voice. 
 
 " If on an average fifty deaths occur daily from cholera, the 
 coffin-people must be well employed," remarked Teddy : for 
 now they all stood together in a knot. 
 
 " Coffins ! cholera ! people are dying in St. Maur of 
 cholera? Take me away, Albert take me away! I shall 
 die if I stay here another night ! " cried the poor little French 
 girl, clinging to her Albert. " Oh ! my God, that I ever left 
 Paris and mamma ! Take me to mamma by the first train to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Oh, but our boating party is to-morrow/ 1 said Portia 
 Ffrench. " I have known about the cholera for ages, Madame 
 de Miremont. It is not a bit worse now than it was a week 
 ago, and only the common people die." 
 
 " And thou hast thy boating-costume all ready thy boating- 
 costume from Paugat, my angel ! " whispered de Miremont, 
 tenderly, in his wife's ear. " Wouldst thou return to Paris 
 without having worn it once 1 " 
 
 "That argument was the potent one, depend upon it," re- 
 marked Portia, as the bride and bridegroom entered the hotel- 
 gates. " What Frenchwoman would not brave cholera to wear 
 a new costume ? Our party has been threatened by many 
 shocks, but has withstood everything, even the fear of death 
 itself." 
 
 " And your promise stands good, remember ! " whispered 
 John Dysart : Teddy Josselin was wishing Miss Jemima 
 "good-bye " a few paces away. "If all the other people fall 
 off, you will go with me 2 " 
 
 " There is no chance of the other people falling off," said 
 Portia, evasively. 
 
 " Oh, come, that won't do ! I must have a more decided 
 answer. The Ramsays want me to go to a picnic up the river 
 to-morrow, but I have left the engagement open. If the other 
 people stay away, do you still promise to go alone with me, or 
 has Destiny interfered 2 " 
 
412 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Destiny ! I should have thought you were the last man 
 living to believe in destiny ! " said Portia, but without lifting 
 her eyes to his face. 
 
 " And the promise holds good ? " 
 
 "It is a ridiculous one. There are five other people at 
 least certain to go." 
 
 "And if they do not 1" 
 
 " Well : if anything so utterly, wildly improbable should 
 happen, I suppose I should have no choice but to keep to what 
 I said." 
 
 And upon this they bade each other " Good-night " and 
 parted. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVII. 
 
 THE same scorching siin, the same breathless livid heat as 
 yesterday ; the carnations and heliotropes smelling their richest 
 in the garden of the Petit Tambour ; the geraniums and ver- 
 benas almost too dazzlingly vivid for the eye to bear their 
 blaze ; the drone of the colza-mill at the back of the house 
 mingling with the voice of the priest in the bury ing-ground 
 midway down the hill ; in the odorous shade of Uncle Adam's 
 summer-house two people, around whom not merely a few 
 score of human creatures, but whole empires, might go daily 
 to dissolution without brushing the bloom off their Paradise 
 George Blake and Susan. 
 
 While death during the past week has been busy at his> 
 work in the by-alleys, and fashion busy at hers in the thorough- 
 fares, these two have been enacting a part older than fashion, 
 older than death, in the great human drama. And still (this 
 is why I speak of them as in Paradise yet), not a word savour- 
 ing of warmer feeling than friendship has been spoken by 
 either. At this instant, did you question them, Blake would 
 tell you his madness for Portia is but indifferently cured, and 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 413 
 
 Susan that she is the affianced wife of Tom Collinson. Their 
 love is just at the final, sweetest stage of immaturity : the rosy 
 breathing space before sunrise the breaking-point of the wave 
 the last sparkle of the uplifted glass of champagne ! 
 
 " This boating-party is a mistake, Susan, depend upon it. 
 We have had nothing to do with other people and gay parties 
 hitherto ; why should we begin to-day ? Which would be 
 pleasantest to broil for hours in the St. Maur roads, listening 
 to the talk of people for whom we care nothing, or to go up to 
 the Falaise and finish our picture alone 1 Now, the truth." 
 
 The Falaise was a certain heathery knoll, about a mile dis- 
 tant from the Petit Tambour a knoll overshadowed, through 
 all the hot hours of the day, by a group of silver beeches, and 
 from whence spread a broad view of sea and coast, with the 
 purple windings of the little river for foreground. 
 
 "Not much doubt as to which would be pleasantest/' 
 answered Susan ; " only, you see, I have promised to go. I 
 sent my note back last night by the messenger who brought 
 Miss Portia's. She complains that they have never seen any- 
 thing of me since you came I mean during the last six 
 days." 
 
 " The last six days ! " repeated Blake. " Susan, do you 
 remember that night when you made the time fly so quickly 
 upon the river bank, and I told you you were a witch 1 
 There is witchcraft about you still, I'm afraid. Surely it 
 can't be six days since I first saw you, flirting with Mr. 
 Dysart, at the Casino ? " 
 
 " You have a sketch to show for every day, sir/' said Susan, 
 demurely ; " and I never flirted with Mr. Dysart. I " she 
 bit her lips and looked down " I am under orders never to 
 flirt with any one." 
 
 Just then the door leading from the kitchen to the flower- 
 garden opened, and Adam Byng walked slowly up to the 
 summer-house. His tall figure was more bowed than usual, 
 his quiet old face greyer. It was evident that he had to 
 lean on the garden hoe he held in his hand for support. 
 
4*4 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "Uncle Adam," cried Susan, running to meet him, "I 
 want you to do me a favour. Don't go among the sick people 
 to-day. You are looking so pale, I'm sure you want rest. 
 Don't go further than the garden this afternoon. You know I 
 have you in my care now." Mrs. Byng during the last 
 few days had been absent on business, seeing with her own 
 eyes (she ' never trusted agents) into the worth of a small 
 peasant-farm six or eight leagues distant a farm on which 
 she was negotiating to advance some few hundred francs. 
 " What would Aunt Adam say if she was to return to-night 
 and find you ill ? " 
 
 " Say what we must all say when the hour comes ! " 
 answered Adam, with his patient smile, and laying his hand 
 on the girl's soft curls. " Nay, nay, Susan, there is no fear 
 for me, whatever there may be for younger people ; and that 
 brings to my mind that I have something to say to thee, 
 child. Thee must go no lower in the town than the Place 
 Dauphin for the present. If friend Blake will take tliee 
 with him into the country this afternoon go, breathe the 
 purest air thee can ! I have business of my own that will 
 keep me abroad for some hours, but old Louison will watch 
 the house till we return." 
 
 For Adam Byng knew nothing of conventionalities, even 
 after living seventeen years in the land of rigid convention- 
 ality. George Blake's hearty voice and honest face had won 
 his sympathy, from the first morning when the young man 
 called at the Petit Tambour, and nothing seemed more natural 
 to his simple mind than that this English friend of Susan 
 should be the companion of her walks during Mrs. Byng's 
 absence. 
 
 " Not lower than the Place Dauphin ? " cried Susan. " Oh, 
 Uncle Adam, but you must let me break through the rule to- 
 day. I am invited to a boating-party ; there will be six or 
 seven of us, Miss Portia says, all young people, and we take 
 our dinner with us, and " 
 
 " And I say thee shall not go," said Uncle Adam, deci- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 415 
 
 sively. "This is the hottest day we have had this year, 
 though signs on the horizon already foreshadow change, and 
 the cholera cases since yesterday have increased by a third in 
 the lower parts of the town. I ask thy opinion, friend Blake. 
 Will not my niece Susan be better on the cool hillside than 
 exposed to the burning sun in an open boat ? " 
 
 " Infinitely better on the hillside," said Blake, treacherously ; 
 "I was just telling her the same thing, sir, when you joined 
 us." 
 
 And so it was settled; Susan, after some difficulty, 
 obtaining leave to walk down, under Blake's charge, to the 
 waterside, and make her excuses, personally, to Portia Ff rench. 
 It was now close upon four o'clock ; the hour at which the 
 party was to assemble was five ; there was therefore little 
 time to lose, for, by Uncle Adam's order, they were to 
 take the longer but more shaded route, and not walk beyond 
 a snail's pace at their peril. The old man came with them to 
 the door of the Petit Tambour : he kissed Susan twice, held 
 her hand in his, seemed wistfully unwilling to lose sight of 
 her : " Take care of her, friend Blake take care of her ; I 
 trust her in thy hands." Those were the last words they 
 heard Adam Byng speak. 
 
 The heat, as long as they kept within the close, narrow 
 streets of St. Sauveur, was suffocating ; but the moment they 
 reached the open Place Dauphin, from whence a steep lane 
 led down to the waterside, a gust of fresher air blew suddenly 
 in their faces. The mist was clearing on the horizon ; for 
 the first time for weeks a few small cloud flecks were visible 
 far away in the west. 
 
 " Uncle Adam might as well have let me go/' said Susan ; 
 " it is getting cool already. All ! we are only just in time ; 
 here come some of the party up from the ferry, and we shall 
 be saved going down the hill." 
 
 The arrivals were Portia and John Dysart. Portia's 
 manner showed unmistakeable signs of satisfaction at 
 meeting Susan and Blake. " Can you imagine anything so 
 
416 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 unfortunate ? The de Miremonts are not coming. Madame 
 ill sheer fright, I believe, little goose because she saw a 
 coffin or two last night ! However," turning with one of 
 her old smiles to Blake, " we shall be a charming little party 
 of four by ourselves, shall we not ? " 
 
 And now Susan had to begin her own story of excuses : the 
 heat the cholera Uncle Adam's fears for her. Could not 
 the expedition be put off till a cooler day ? 
 
 " I have never put off anything in my life," interrupted 
 Portia, coldly. "I am neither afraid of sun, tempest, nor 
 pestilence ; and if no one else goes, I go alone." 
 
 " Cousins counting for nothing," put in Jack Dysart. 
 
 " Cousins ! a solitary cousin, you should say," answered 
 Portia. " Mr. Josselin has not thought fit to appear the sun 
 too hot for his delicate state of health, no doubt. Yes, a 
 cousin counts for a great deal, Jack. But for you I should 
 have been deserted altogether." 
 
 "We must take care not to miss the tide," said Jack, 
 looking at his watch. " It is quite time for us to be getting 
 on towards the pier." 
 
 Still Portia hesitated. " A formidable thing to go boating 
 unchaperoned," she remarked. " Luckily, Aunt Jem was out 
 when the news came of Madame de Miremont's illness, or 
 I should never have been allowed to start at all ! Vain to 
 ask you to come, I suppose, Mr. Blake] I have had no 
 answer to my note, but I relied upon you not proving 
 faithless ! " 
 
 " I only got the note late last night, " said Blake, "and until 
 an hour ago looked forward with pleasure to joining the party. 
 But Miss Fielding is in my charge, and " 
 
 "And Miss Ffrench is in nobody's," cried Portia, with a some- 
 what forced laugh. " I fully expect you will leave me in the 
 lurch, at the last, Jack." 
 
 " Much more likely that my evil destiny will leave me 
 there," said Jack Dysart. 
 
 And then they started, followed by one of the servants 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 417 
 
 from the Benjamin, bearing a basket of provisions, down the 
 hill. 
 
 " I don't like Mr. Dysart," said Susan, looking after them. 
 " No, I oughtn't to say that, for I am sure I did like him 
 immensely the one time he paid attention to me ; but I don't 
 trust him. I wish Miss Portia had put the party off. It 
 would have been very pleasant to turn it into a picnic at the 
 Falaise." 
 
 " Very pleasant," said Blake ; " you would have had Mr. 
 Dysart's pretty speeches to listen to, and I could have fallen 
 back upon my old employment " 
 
 " Your old employment ! " cried Susan, with a stab of 
 jealousy. 
 
 " Of drawing Portia Ffrench's profile. Still, I'm not sure, 
 my dear, but that we shall find it as pleasant by ourselves." 
 
 Upon their road to the Falaise they called at the Petit 
 Tambour for a colour-box left there by Blake in the forenoon. 
 Uncle Adam had gone out, old Louison was busy talking to 
 two or three of her gossips over the garden wall : the solemn 
 ticking of the great clock on the stairs was the only sound 
 that broke the quiet of the sultry, darkened house. Blake and 
 Susan went together into the saloon for during Mrs. Byng's 
 absence considerable laxity in domestic rule prevailed : 
 polished floors were trodden with as much levity as though 
 beeswax was not three sous the pound : it was deliciously cool 
 and shaded, redolent of the scent of the magnolias outside ; 
 the piano stood invitingly open. 
 
 " We have a long evening before us," said Blake, " and I 
 must have the shadows at a certain level before I can finish 
 my sketch. Let us have one song before we go." 
 
 He seated himself at the instrument, and Susan drew to his 
 side. 
 
 " Take off your hat, my child ; I want to see your face as 
 I saw it on that first evening we ever sang together. That is 
 right," giving a long look at the soft face, more exquisitely 
 soft than ever in this half-light, and with the curls pushed 
 
4i 8 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 back, disordered, from the young white forehead. " What were 
 we talking of 1 Oh, of that first evening at Halfont, and the 
 song we sang. We will sing it now, Susan ' Drink to me 
 only with thine eyes."' 
 
 He struck a few chords of prelude, and the two voices 
 trembled forth together upon the silent air. Will the walls 
 of the Petit Tambour ever vibrate again, I wonder, to voices 
 of youth, to words of passionate music, while they stand 1 
 At the conclusion of the last stanza, all Blake's quickly-wrought 
 feelings were on fire. 
 
 " If life could only be spent in singing love-songs ! " he 
 remarked, a good deal of tender meaning in his voice. 
 
 " One would get tired of it, I dare say/ 7 said Susan, quietly. 
 " And Aunt Adam says it puts a piano out of tune to be for 
 ever playing on it. I shall have no time for singing after 
 Aunt Adam comes back ; we are to set about the moreen cur- 
 tain for the dining-room at once." 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding the prosaic answer, was she more 
 swayed in very fact by the music than her companion, swayed 
 so that the blood was tingling in her fingers'-ends, her heart 
 beating till her fear was he must hear its beats ; for here was 
 just one of the subtle unlikenesses that fitted them for each 
 other so admirably : Susan could feel Blake express. 
 
 " The piano out of tune ! Moreen window-curtains ! Miss 
 Fielding, I've sometimes wondered if anything could exorcise 
 the common sense out of that wise head of yours ! If your 
 own singing can't, I'm afraid the case is hopeless." 
 
 " Exercise my common sense ] Mr. Blake, I don't know 
 what you mean," lowering her great lucid eyes to his face. 
 " Music works on me ah ! if you could feel my heart beat 
 works on me, till I don't know whether what I feel is pain or 
 pleasure. But what I said about the window-curtains is true. 
 You see, Aunt Adam always takes down the muslin ones on 
 the 1st of October." 
 
 Blake looked at her with a sigh of regret. He had few 
 faults to find with Susan Fielding, or with the delight her 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 419 
 
 simple society yielded him ; still if a child loving and sweet as 
 this had but the faculty of comprehension nay, if she had 
 but the faculty, like Portia Ffrench, of seeming to comprehend! 
 .... would it be possible for her to suit him better ^ He 
 asked himself the question with a start. 
 
 They sang another song and another ; then remembered 
 that their shortest path to the Falaise lay through the kitchen- 
 garden, to the farther end of which a wicket-gate opened into 
 one of the meadows overhanging the river. The cool green- 
 and-blue shadows of the old garden looked deliciously tempt- 
 ing ; tempting was the smell of peaches, nectarines, and plums. 
 By the time they reached the Falaise it was past six o'clock. 
 The air by this time had grown actually fresh ; a stiff breeze 
 was rising from the south-west ; the upturned beach-leaves 
 glinted white against an iron-purple sky. 
 
 "If we had only a picnic and a few jovial friends, how 
 enjoyable this would be !" suggested Blake, as he put Susan 
 in position for his foreground figure. " Imagine Mr. Dysart 
 on your side, here ; Portia Ffrench by mine " 
 
 " I will imagine nothing of the kind," interrupted Susan. 
 " This is my last day's happiness oh, but I know it ! All 
 day long I seem to hear those words, ' The last the last ! ' 
 ringing in my ears. I won't spoil it by thinking of anything but 
 what I have got. We couldn't be better off than we are now." 
 
 " I am not quite so sure of that," said George Blake. 
 
 After an hour's quiet work, the sketch was finished : a 
 dream of blue sea and sky, with the mist-softened harbour and 
 town of St. Maur in the middle distance ; in the foreground, 
 the figure of a young girl, with rough brown hair, with a baby- 
 face, with large eyes fixed on the vision of an absent lover or 
 on vacancy. And now Susan, her duties as a model over, 
 pulled a handful of such pale wild-flowers as the drought had 
 still spared upon the hillside, and came and sat down by the 
 artist's side. 
 
 " How well curly hair looks in a picture ! " said she, regret- 
 fully. 
 
 2E2 
 
420 SI/SAN FIJELDING. 
 
 "How well curly hair surrounding a certain face looks 
 always ! " said George Blake. 
 
 " When I first came to Uncle Adam's, and saw how stylish 
 the French ladies looked with crimped hair, puffed up all over 
 their heads, I tried it. You don't know how different I 
 looked ! Portia Ff rench said I looked better, and I am nearly 
 sure I did." 
 
 " Really ! I wonder you had strength of mind to give up 
 such a becoming fashion." 
 
 " Well, you see, crimped hair brought bad luck," said Susan, 
 gravely. " The most miserable no, not that the most dis- 
 appointed moment of all my life was when my hair was 
 crimped." 
 
 And, having got thus far, she coloured up to her eyes and 
 shrank away. 
 
 " The most disappointed moment ? I must have an explana- 
 tion of all this. What was the most disappointed moment of 
 your life 1 " 
 
 "I can't tell you. Nothing. I'll never tell you, Mr. Blake." 
 
 " Your confusion is sufficient answer, Miss Fielding. The 
 most disappointed moment of your life was brought about, in 
 some way or another, by Mr. John Dysart." 
 
 It was on Blake's lips to say, "by Tom Collinson," but he 
 hesitated, opportunely. 
 
 With the absent legitimate lover as clean forgotten as though 
 he had never been, it were poor policy in the present lover to 
 recall a sense of his existence. 
 
 " Mr. Dysart ! Oh, what things you think of me ! It was 
 you, then, since you make me say it. I had heard from you 
 to say you were coming ; and then at breakfast that morning, 
 when I felt as sure of it as that the sun shone, came your 
 dreadful letter. I took it out in the garden. The sky was so 
 blue, and the flowers were smelling sweet, and the canary sing- 
 ing in the Le Brans' window I shall never forget it all and 
 I opened the letter, and and you were going to stay in 
 Paris!" 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 421 
 
 "And what has this got to do with crimped hair ] " 
 
 " Oh, mine was on crimping-pins at that moment. Miss 
 Portia had said it made me look so much less plain, and of 
 course I wanted to look my best ; and when I read the letter, 
 I thought luck was against me, and I went to my room and 
 wetted my hair, and let it have its own way. I shall always 
 let it have its own way for the future." 
 
 " Always let everything have its own way," said Blake. 
 " It's the best guide of life I know of. Ah ! " after gazing ai 
 minute at her half-averted face. (Had he quite forgotten the 
 evening when he gazed as intently at Portia's, and wished 
 Susan Fielding at Jericho ?) " And so you thought luck was 
 against you that day. Would it have cost you anything if I 
 had stayed in Paris altogether, Susan 1 " 
 
 " I think I have told you enough already, sir. I knew you 
 wouldn't stop in Paris altogether, with Portia Ffrench in St. 
 Maur." 
 
 She began to arrange her flowers, one by one, on her lap. 
 
 " Portia Ffrench, indeed ! Susan," coming an inch or two 
 nearer, " let us talk sense. Don't let all our time be wasted 
 on frivolity. Give me a lesson in botany. What are the 
 names of your flowers ] " 
 
 " As if you don't know ! This is stone-crop, and this is a 
 bit of heather." 
 
 " And those yellow things ? " 
 
 " How foolish you are to pretend ! As if every one doesn't 
 know those are ox-eyes, the commonest flower that grows. 
 The children at home used to find out whether you liked 
 butter with them." 
 
 " Indeed ! Show me how." 
 
 " Oh, it is only children's play. I hold one of them well, 
 then, you hold it, so ; and if it throws up a yellow light on my 
 chin, it shows I like butter." 
 
 Blake held the flower, as he was bidden, close to the delicate 
 round throat. At that moment a ray of sunshine broke out 
 between the clouds, and lit up all the girlish figure of Susan 
 
422 . SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Fielding with radiance. " My love," he whispered, " don't let 
 yon and me deceive each other any more I love you ! I have 
 loved you pretty nearly since the day I saw you first ! " 
 
 He flung the flower away, put both his arms around the 
 child, and kissed her. 
 
 Curiously enough, she never thought of Tom Collinson. 
 
 If Blake had asked- her formally to be his wife, or to be 
 engaged to him, something in the very sound of the words 
 would, I am sure, have recalled her to her sense of duty, to 
 the remembrance of her affianced love. As it was Eeader, 
 as -it was, at the first clasp of Blake's arms, at his first 
 unexpected kiss, the poor little girl was at once transported 
 into a world wherefrom the " pedant Keflection " is barred 
 out ; a world in which neither place nor people, loyalty nor 
 disloyalty, exist. She was loved ! What should her con- 
 sciousness take in but those words, words only a minute 
 old, and yet that seemed already to shed back divinest sound 
 and fragrance over every hour that she had lived ! 
 
 I wrote that on the night, at Addison Lodge, when George 
 , Blake kissed her hand, was shut the last white page of Susan 
 Fielding's childhood. In this moment, when their lips met, 
 opened the first rose-coloured page of her life as a woman. 
 She looked at him, and a regenerate soul looked through the 
 great near-sighted eyes. 
 
 The clouds parted more and more. Not now in transient 
 gleams, but in one broad wave of crimson, the sunset irradiated 
 water and wood and hillside, and the two faces radiant already 
 with youth and love and the newness of their own delight 
 the last brightness before the storm. At the moment the red 
 sun touched the horizon, the wind rose in a gust, a shiver like 
 the first breath of autumnal dissolution ran through the beech- 
 boughs, a prolonged moaning JiuisJi told that the tide was fast 
 gathering strength as it flowed into the river-mouth beneath. 
 
 "We are better here, after all, than at the boating-party," 
 whispered Blake. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 "We are better here," said Susan's heart, "than in any 
 other place in the universe ! " 
 
 As they walked back, half an hour later, towards the town, 
 a few big drops of rain the rain so long hoped and prayed 
 for were beginning to fall. The sky by this time was 
 covered thick in cloud ; far away upon the sands, dimly 
 visible through the twilight, lay a wide and ever-broadening 
 belt of foam. When they had passed the barrier of the Octroi, 
 and were in the long, unlighted, ill-paved lane that led down 
 to the Petit Tambour, Susan's hand clung tighter to Blake's 
 arm, a trembling despondency seized her spirit. In silence 
 they passed the grass-grown entrance to the barracks : the 
 gates were closed, the sentry at his post stood motionless : one 
 of the gaunt St. Sauveur dogs was sniffing his famished way 
 along the street : a minute later, and they had reached the 
 Petit Tambour. The front door was ajar ; a light shone from 
 Uncle Adam's bedroom-window on the first-floor. 
 
 " I shall see you early to-morrow," said Blake, as he clasped 
 Susan's hand in his. " By ten in the morning I shall come 
 to tell Uncle Adam what good care I took of you." 
 
 And after this a few more of the whispered words, so 
 infinitely wise when they are spoken, so infinitely foolish when 
 they are recorded, and Susan stood alone in the silent evening, 
 listening to the steps of her lover until they died away in 
 the distance. Then she turn3d into the house. 
 
 Something (she shuddered from asking herself what) was 
 unusual, amiss. Uncle Adam's favourite tortoisehell cat, 
 uever allowed by Mrs. Byng to leave the kitchen, sat with 
 solemn mien at the open door of the salon. A handlamp, 
 evidently set down in haste on the passage-table, was giving 
 forth a fraction of a centime a minute of wasteful light ; a 
 strong pungent smell, like what Susan had smelt at the door 
 of the cathedral during mass, went through the house. She 
 advanced a step or two, and saw that the stair-window, usually 
 so carefully shut at night, stood open. Her heart seemed to 
 .cease beating. She stopped, listening, fearfully afraid 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 beforehand of what she should hear : a door upstairs creaked 
 slowly on its hinges, a woman's figure glided with cautious, 
 noiseless steps down the stairs. 
 
 " Uncle ! Uncle Adam ! " broke from Susan's lips, almost 
 with a sob. 
 
 "The will of the Lord be done, my daughter !" answered 
 the woman, in French. 
 
 It was a sister of charity. The sight of f he black robe, of 
 the bowed pale face, of the hands meekly clasped above the 
 crucifix on the breast, told Susan all 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE night was growing constantly wilder. Even here in the 
 Petit Tambour, a mile and more away, could be discerned the 
 increasing roar of the breakers against the beach. Over in 
 St. Maur, girt on three sides by sea, men knew that the storm 
 at every moment was gathering strength with the rising tide, 
 and blessed God in their hearts : went down in groups to the 
 shore I speak of the citizens, not the fashionable visitors 
 and blessed God for the fresh salt-wind, for the rain (scantily 
 as yet though it fell) that was to bring back healing and life 
 to the plague-stricken town ! 
 
 But it must be a wholesomer wind than ever blew across our 
 earth yet that shall bring nobody any harm. The shifting of 
 the wind from sultry east to cool south-west may save many 
 a scores of lives between this and this day week, yet wreck 
 one life to-night. Portia Ffrench and her companion are 
 abroad still ; and the only hope Miss Jemima can gather 
 from the conjectures of the people about her, is that they 
 may have landed at Sesame, an uninhabited island a league 
 away from the mainland, before the storm reached its 
 present height. They have with them brave men and true : 
 in this may Madame take comfort. Pierre Bre"sil and his soo, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 4*5 
 
 two of the best seamen in St. Maur, are known to have left 
 the pier this afternoon with an English gentleman and the 
 young lady from the Benjamin. If they did but make 
 Sesame before dark, they are safe. Wine and meat they 
 took with them in the boat; shelter can be got among 
 some of the old ruins on the island. Even should the weather 
 last over a couple of days as was the case when the Parisian 
 gentlemen were storm-bound in Sesame last autumn all 
 may yet be well. Madame must not let her courage fail. 
 
 With a face white as stone old Jemima Ff rench listened, as, 
 with the ready garrulous warmheartedness of French people, 
 the host, and then the hostess, and then the serving-women of 
 the Benjamin, came by turns into her room to offer all they 
 could of consolation. She had heard long ago as much as the 
 lad who accompanied Portia to the boat could tell, or rather 
 as much as Miss Jemima's scanty knowledge of his lan- 
 guage enabled her to extract from him. Mademoiselle and 
 the gentleman started from the Benjamin ; yes, and he 
 (Guillaurne) carried the basket 'twas a weighty basket, too 
 to the pier. They spoke to other ladies and gentlemen on 
 the road could Guillaume remember how many] Well, 
 two or three, it might have been more he was thinking of the 
 weight of his basket, not of these ladies and then they got 
 into the boat, and the gentleman tossed him a franc as 
 they were pushing off. Pierre Bre"sil told them there would 
 be a storm before long, and the lady said Guillaume 
 heard her say, in French that, storm or no storm, she would 
 go. Yes, he was quite sure no one but the gentleman and 
 lady started. He sat down to cool himself on the pier, 
 and watched the boat till she was out in the great roads. The 
 wind was rising then. She had her sails up before she reached 
 the fortress of the city. 
 
 So much (possibly not so intelligibly told as I have told it) 
 Miss Jemima, by slow questioning and cross-questioning, 
 had succeeded in learning from the lad. What more should 
 she seek to learn ] Portia and John Dysart, alone, had started 
 
426 SUSAN FIXLDJNG. 
 
 upon this expedition were alone now. And, in the bitterness 
 of her heart, Jemima Ffrench acknowledged to herself that 
 such danger as these simple people spoke of, danger from wind 
 and wave, was, in truth, the least she had to fear. 
 
 Her ideas on most points of feminine duty were, as you 
 know, old-fashioned : her opinions as to truth and falsehood, 
 honour and dishonour, transparently clear. For Portia, after 
 all her promises, to have started under the protection of a man 
 like John Dysart, the intention, not the accident that had 
 followed upon the intention, was, to Jemima Ffrench's mind, 
 disgrace. Not because of the world's condemnation "The 
 world may never know the truth," she thought, as with her 
 measured "regulation" tread she paced up and down the 
 room; "but for herself, for Portia herself! Better far that 
 Harry's child should die honestly, now in her youth, than live 
 to become what her mother, Portia Dysart, was before her." 
 And then, even while she thought this, her eyes fell on some 
 little trifle, some airy lace pelerine or neck-ribbon of Portia's, 
 carelessly tossed upon a chair as the girl had left it, and all 
 the Spartan died, all the fond mother's heart began to beat, in 
 Miss Jemima's breast. Ah ! let her once more fold her Harry's 
 child in her arms, safe, and she would forgive her all, and ten- 
 fold all, her folly. Folly ! was this an hour in which to think 
 of aught but Heaven's mercy ? Listen to the strong waves as 
 they beat against the ramparts, to the dash of spray, the first 
 that has come so far, upon the window which was Portia's 
 favourite place ! Could an open boat, guided by the coolest 
 nerves, manned by the stoutest arms, live on a night like this 
 upon a rock-bound coast 1 
 
 Towards ten o'clock a knock came at the door, an English 
 rat-a-tat this time, not the discreet single " thud " of French 
 knuckles. Miss Jemima opened it, and saw little Lord Dormer, 
 a shade of colour, almost an expression of excitement, on his 
 weary white face. He had to enter upon the object of his 
 visit at once. Jemima Ffrench never asked him to sit 
 down, nor did anything in her face or manner encourage 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 4*7 
 
 the usual suave ambiguities which help men out in the com- 
 mencement of a difficult conversation. 
 
 " Your your niece is not at home, I fear, Miss Ffrench 1 " 
 
 " You fear aright, Lord Dormer. My niece Portia is out 
 still." 
 
 Lord Dormer glanced uncomfortably round him. The 
 tapestry swayed hither and thither, with ghostly effect, against 
 the walls ; the wind moaned and whistled in the windings of 
 the huge old chimney. Miss Jemima stood erect, her arms 
 folded, looking at him. 
 
 " Nothing more painful than this kind of explanation ! " he 
 stammered, at length. 
 
 Jemima Ffrench was silent. 
 
 " You see I'm sure you will forgive me for saying it all 
 out plain Miss Portia Ffrench was to have seen me to-day 
 about about something of importance something that was 
 of importance, I should say. I hoped to meet her during the 
 afternoon, and walked about blazing hot it was and fell in 
 with the Bamsays. They were starting in a waggonette, with 
 some other people, for a picnic up' the river, and through them 
 I heard of this boating party, and then " 
 
 And then Lord Dormer stopped : his poor little soul 
 thrown, literally, on its beam-ends as he found himself 
 drifting into narrative. Miss Jemima met his eyes steadily as 
 ever, but said nothing. 
 
 " The whole thing is deucedly disappointing, Miss Ffrench. 
 You've always been very kind to me, and I'm sure must feel 
 what a a I'm sure you must understand my feelings ! " 
 
 Jemima Ffrench looked stony. 
 
 " Of course I know that Madame de Miremont was to have 
 gone, and no one could have foreseen that " 
 
 "No," interrupted Jemima Ffrench, breaking silence at 
 last ; " no one could have foreseen that Madame de Miremont 
 would have been otherwise occupied than in pleasure-parties ! " 
 
 " And so, Portia and so your niece, Miss Ffrench chose 
 to go alone with her cousin ? " 
 
428 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Jemima Ffrench's head drooped on her breast. 
 
 u I should never have believed it, I declare to you I should 
 not : but I heard it from from another connection of vour 
 family, who, it seems, saw them start." 
 
 " Poor little Teddy ! " murmured Miss Jemima, half to 
 herself. 
 
 " I don't know that he deserves pity. That is a matter of 
 opinion," said Lord Dormer, gloomily ; "and a matter (pardon 
 me for saying so) that concerns me little now. I was to call 
 on you to-day, Miss Ffrench, for an answer an answer to a 
 question I asked your niece a week ago and I've kept to my 
 part of the engagement. I want you to say so much for me ; 
 I've kept to my part of my engagement." 
 
 " An answer an answer ] " repeated Miss Jemima, putting 
 her hand to her forehead. " Lord Dormer, I don't know what 
 excuse to make to you for my stupidity. My anxiety about 
 Portia has put everything else out of my head. There is a 
 note for you .somewhere, I remember seeing it not a quarter of 
 an hour ago, a note directed in Portia's handwriting. The 
 answer you speak of, no doubt." And crossing the room, 
 Miss Jemima, after some search, took a little three-cornered 
 note from the mantelpiece, and put it into Lord Dormer's 
 eagerly-extended hand. 
 
 Yes, it was the answer the rejection ; before he opened it 
 his heart told him that. And in a three-cornered note, too ! an 
 answer to " the greatest honour any man can pay any woman ;" 
 an answer to a proposal which, certainly, not a dozen girls in 
 England would have refused, conveyed in a three-cornered 
 note ! A fastened envelope might have taken something of 
 the sting off rejection ; but this ! 
 
 "DEAR LORD DORMER" he had to bend low by the 
 candle to decipher Portia's enigmatical handwriting " In case 
 I should happen not to be back when you call, and there are 
 storm-clouds on the horizon already, I leave a line for you, 
 St. Maur is getting horribly unhealthy : I don't know whether 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 429 
 
 you know it, but there are quantities of cholera-deaths every 
 day. My advice to you is to go away while you can. You 
 may not care for yourself ; but is it right to expose the crew of 
 the Lily' 7 ("dash the crew of the Lily!" thought Lord 
 Dormer,) " to unnecessary danger ? I hope we shall see you 
 at Halfont some time before Christmas, and please don't forget 
 that set of waltzes you promised to get me from Coote's. I 
 write all this under the firm impression that I shall get 
 drowned to-night. If I do not, I shall most likely see you on 
 the beach to-morrow morning. At all events, till we meet, 
 and wherever we may meet, believe me, always sincerely 
 yours, PORTIA FFKENCH." 
 
 " P.S. Whichever world I live in, I'm sure I shall never 
 forget my delightful voyage in the Lily." 
 
 Lord Dormer succeeded in reading the note through, after 
 some futile essays ; a choking feeling rose in his throat at the 
 last words ; the caudle seemed to him surrounded, like the 
 head of a saint, by an aureole. He had come to the Hotel 
 Benjamin in a mood of the very sternest virtue that can be 
 engendered by jealousy. Portia Ffrench had chosen to make 
 light of his suit, and he abandoned it without regret. If the 
 woman he would have made his wife chose to sail over any 
 sea she liked, with or without disreputable cousins, let her 
 sail ! the better for him that he was left safe in harbour ! 
 These had been Lord Dormer's dispositions ten short minutes 
 since ; and now, so true a fool is love, he knew that he did 
 but desire more ardently than ever all which he had lost ; that 
 he would forgive Portia Ffrench, put himself and his posses- 
 sions at her feet at this moment, would she only return to 
 him ! 
 
 " You will pardon my not asking you to prolong your 
 visit," remarked Miss Jemima. " But I am really terribly 
 anxious about the weather. At such times we are all pooi 
 company." 
 
 "And and, I suppose, this is 'good-bye/ then?" said 
 
430 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Lord Dormer, taking up Ms hat, and looking hopelessly 
 dreary. " I suppose the best thing I can do will be to start by 
 the first train to-morrow morning, and leave the Lily to follow 
 when she can ?" 
 
 " It would be one way of getting over the Channel diffi- 
 culty," answered Miss Jemima, too engrossed in her own 
 thoughts to heed whether her words were cruel or kind. 
 
 "And if I mean, when your niece returns, you will tell 
 her, from me, that I got her note, and that ... I thank her ! " 
 
 " I will try to remember to give her the message, Lord 
 Dormer, but I promise nothing. My brain, what brain I 
 have left me, is in a whirl." 
 
 And then, a sadder if not a wiser man, Lord Dormer walked 
 away out of the Hotel Benjamin, and Jemima Ff ranch's lonely 
 vigil went on. 
 
 She had kept many a score of lonely vigils in her life. 
 Pacing up and down the room, and listening to the ever- 
 heightening wind without, what midnight memories flock upon 
 the brave old woman's heart ! memories of the gaunt and 
 bearded men, the wounded, fever-stricken, drink-stricken sol- 
 diers, beside whose pallets she had watched ; of little children 
 (whose days of birth and death are unremembered by their 
 own mothers now) ; of Harry Ffrench's face as she had 
 seen it last Portia innocent in her cradle then in the 
 Brussels lodgings. Aye, but this was the bitterest vigil of 
 them all. Mingled now with impending dread, with threat- 
 ened shame, was the sting of self-reproach, a feeling, be it 
 said, new to the white conscience of Jemima Ffrench. If, 
 instead of attending to the wants of aliens and papists, she had 
 guarded the life that it was her plainest duty to guard, Portia 
 would be at her side at this moment Portia had never been 
 thrown among the evil influences of her Dysart associates. 
 Miss Jemima stopped abruptly in her walk, and leant her face 
 down against the window-pane ; something nearer a sob than 
 any living ear had ever heard from that stout old heart escaped 
 her. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 431 
 
 " Save her ! Oh, my God, save the child ! " she prayed, 
 but without words, as we pray when our prayers mean most. 
 And suddenly, from out a phalanx of black clouds, strayed the 
 palest ghost of moonlight, and Miss Jemima could see the toss- 
 ing waters white with foam, and the ramparts, and the figures 
 could it be true 1 the figures of a man and a girl, darkly 
 distinct at this instant against the background of sea, not a 
 dozen yards away from the window. 
 
 The girl was Portia : no doubt of that. Something in the 
 poise of head, in the turn of shoulder, could never leave Portia 
 Ffrench's identity long doubtful. Portia was on dry land, un- 
 harmed : and Miss Jemima's first impulse was to thank Heaven 
 rapturously for the child's safety ; her second to begin lashing 
 herself into a state of towering anger, ready for battle. Never 
 should Portia guess what anxiety she had gone through to- 
 night ! The pity, the pity of it the moral suffering caused 
 her by this midnight escapade : this was what should be borne 
 in upon the girl's hardened conscience to feel ! 
 
 Miss Jemima drew herself aside, letting down the muslin 
 window-curtains, the better to shade the light from those out- 
 side, and watched. We have the old adage to tell us that 
 listeners seldom overhear what they would care to learn ; the 
 same fate, as a rule, Befalls watchers. Portia and her com- 
 panion (bad, selfish man ! Dysart that he was ! scarcely from 
 indignation would Miss Jemima look at him) walked together 
 to the bottom of the flight of steps that I have mentioned as 
 existing in the wall of the Hotel Benjamin. Then, and 
 scarcely could old Jemima Ffrench believe her eyes, then did 
 Portia, the cold, the reticent, throw her arms around his neck, 
 and, of her own free will I am almost as shocked as was Miss 
 Jemima kiss him. In went the friendly moon ; there was a 
 minute's pause ; and then came a loud perfectly assured knock 
 at the window, and "Aunt Jem Aunt Jem!" cried out 
 Portia's voice, not a quaver of conscious guilt in its tone, " let 
 me in." It had been an agreement, made in jest between them 
 on the first night of their arrival, that if ever Portia met with 
 
43* SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 any romantic adventure, she should glide " with soft step up 
 the turret stair," and plead to be taken in : indeed, without 
 romantic adventure at all, she had more than once returned 
 from the ramparts by this fashion. 
 
 Miss Jemima stood motionless ; long enough, she hoped, to 
 set the culprit's heart beating with wholesome dread ; then, 
 stiffer, sterner than Portia had ever seen her in her life, she 
 moved forth and turned the handle of the window. It opened 
 with a burst. In came a storm of wind, rain, and spray, and 
 Portia ! Portia wet from head to foot, her black hair floating 
 on her shoulders, her hat and veil a-wisp, the water literally 
 streaming from her yachting-dress as she stood. 
 
 " Aunt Jem ! dear old Aunt Jem, what a fright you have 
 had ! I'm too wet to kiss you, and " 
 
 "And are you cold too % " cried Miss Jemima, anxiety for 
 Portia's bodily welfare holding virtue, for the moment, in 
 abeyance. 
 
 11 Cold ? not a bit. If it hadn't been for thinking of you, 
 I should never have enjoyed anything so much. You've called 
 me a coward about this cholera business, but I'm not one. 
 We have been in danger every minute for the last three hours, 
 in danger from the moment when we failed to make Sesame 
 the boatmen said so and I love it, I love it ! I'd like to live 
 in a small boat on the sea, always in a storm " 
 
 "And always in the society of your cousin, I conclude?" 
 said Miss Jemima. " Or, at least, till the excitement of the 
 novelty had worn off." 
 
 They had now reached the centre of the room, and the light 
 showed the expression of old Jemima Ffrench's face. 
 
 " And you are going to scold me, after all 1 " cried Portia. 
 " And I came in expecting an ovation ! After being saved by 
 a miracle from drowning, to be reminded of propriety ! It is 
 not like you, Aunt Jem." 
 
 " Go and take your clothes off, child. I will talk to you 
 when you are in bed. Go at once, I say." 
 
 " Not until you look better-tempered, old lady. After being 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 433 
 
 wet to the skin for four hours or more, an additional five 
 minutes can't be a matter of life or death. Don't be hard, 
 don't think bad things of me, Aunt Jem ! I don't care a 
 fraction what the rest of the world think, but don't you join 
 i-ssue against me ! " 
 
 " You leave me no choice, Portia. I am not over-suspicious, 
 as you know. I have trusted, since you were little, more to 
 your honour than to my watchfulness. But what I am forced 
 to see I see. You lower yourself, child, you lower yourself, 
 fatally. Men see you, like you, admire you do all but love 
 you ; then they tremble and draw back. Lord Dormer has 
 paid you his farewell visit, Portia." 
 
 " Thank Heaven for one mercy, then ! " said Portia cheer- 
 fully. " Poor little wretch ! how did he look 1 You gave him 
 the note I left for him ] Well, how did he take it ? Was he 
 cut up 1 Eeally and truly, did he seem cut up ? " 
 
 " Not the very least in the world/' said Miss Jemima, with 
 decision. " He bade me say that he had got your note, and 
 that he thanked you ! Even Lord Dormer, with his intelli- 
 gence, with his fraction of a heart, does not, you see, seek to 
 marry a woman carrying on the kind of flirtation that you are 
 carrying on with John Dysart ! " 
 
 " With John Dysart ? I like that good, too, the idea of 
 Lord Dormer giving me up ! Well, if the whole remainder of 
 my life is as innocent as my flirtation with poor old Jack, I 
 shall not have very much to answer for when I die." 
 
 " Innocent ! " Miss Jemima's face grew scarlet with blushes. 
 " I don't know what may be called ' innocence,' nowadays. 
 When I was young, for a woman to part from any man but 
 her own husband as you parted, five minutes ago, from John 
 Dysart would " 
 
 " I parted five minutes ago from John Dysart ! I parted from 
 John Dysart six hours ago, at least. I left him, not at all in a 
 good temper, upon the St. Sauveur pier between four and five." 
 
 " And* your companion the companion who left you at 
 the foot of the stairs ? " 
 
 2F 
 
434 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Was Ted. Who else should it be ? I'm sorry you think 
 so badly of me, Aunt Jem/' Portia's fine face suffused and fell, 
 " and sorrier still that it's not in my power to set you rip'ht. 
 Perhaps some day you'll do me tardy justice. You saw .... 
 I know what you saw .... Well, then/ 1 suddenly and 
 unashamed lifting up her head, " you ought to know I could 
 never bring myself to marry any man but Ted Josselin." 
 
 "I know nothing about you; I seek to know nothing. 
 That you could start upon a boating expedition alone, that you 
 have been all these hours in the society of Edward Josselin, 
 not John Dysart, is just so much better in this that 
 Edward Josselin is not a married man. I say no more. 
 When you persuaded me to come here in Lord Dormer's yacht, 
 you certainly did not speak as though your cousin Josselin 
 were the only man you could ever bring yourself to marry." 
 
 " But accepting the use of a yacht oh, and accepting a 
 bracelet or two, and a certain quantity of foolish attention 
 is not marrying. Besides, where's the good of going over all 
 this now 1 Lord Dormer has paid his farewell visit, you say ; 
 Jack Dysart has gone back to the society of the Bamsays, who, 
 I believe, return to Paris to-morrow. Do you know, Aunt 
 Jem, this horrible cholera is really gaining ground ? Jack told 
 rne so when we were on our way down to the boat." 
 
 " Well, yes, this horrible cholera is gaining ground/ 7 said 
 Miss Jemima, coolly "has taken some decisive steps indeed 
 during the last few hours. Did you meet Susan Fielding ? 
 You must remember I know nothing at all of what you have 
 been doing." 
 
 " I met Susan and George Blake on our way to the boat. 
 The de Miremonts, at the last, sent word that Madame was 
 too ill to come an excuse likelier than not " 
 
 Miss Jemima looked up at the ceiling. 
 
 "And John Dysart was here waiting for me, and I thought, 
 as Susan Fielding was to go too, and .... and as Jack was 
 a married man, it would be ridiculous to put the party off. 
 Well, we started, and I must say I never felt more ill- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 435 
 
 humoured in my life : first, about the de Miremonts ; next, 
 that Teddy Josselin had not appeared. I gave him a quarter 
 of an hour's law, and then Jack reminded me we should only 
 lose the tide by the waiting ; and over in the Place Dauphin, 
 at St. Sauveur, we met Susan and George Blake, and found 
 they were not going either. The old uncle was afraid of the 
 sun, or of the sea I don't know what he was afraid of at 
 all events they were not going." 
 
 " And then you decided to start alone with John Dysart 1 " 
 
 " Decided ! Have I ever decided anything in my life 1 I 
 thought it>a pity the good food and wine should be lost, and 
 the boatmen's fares paid for nothing, and that Jack and I 
 might just put out half a mile to sea, eat our dinner, and then 
 come back .... I don't know what I thought, I'm sure. 
 We went a little further along the lane, looked down through 
 a gap in the wall to see if the boat was waiting, and lo, and 
 behold ! Ted had turned up after all, and was sitting on a 
 barrel upon the shady side of the quay smoking cigarettes. 
 He had made one of his usual foolish mistakes ; thought we 
 were to meet at the waterside, not the Benjamin ; however, 
 there he was waiting for us " 
 
 "And John Dysart 1 ?" interrupted Miss Jemima, who was- 
 beginning to see the cross-purposes at which she and Lord 
 Dormer had played. 
 
 " Oh well, Jack .upon my word I shall cause an inun- 
 dation ; look at the waves rushing from me across the floor - 
 Jac"k got cross ; seemed to think three rather a silly number,, 
 and insisted on my reducing it by one. I reduced it by one. 
 Jack, I fancy, betook himself to some picnic of the Eamsays ; 
 and then Ted and I went off to sea, and ate our dinner, and 
 drank our champagne, and got caught in the storm, and, as 
 you see, reached shore safe. The story is told." 
 
 " And if Teddy Josselin had not l turned up/ as you call 
 it?" 
 
 "Aunt Jem, it may be a defect in my powers of reasoning ; 
 but, as I have told you before, I can't follow out sequences 
 
 2 F 2 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 from awful things that might have happened, but did not. 
 If Teddy Josselin had not turned up, I should not have gone 
 to sea with Teddy Josselin so much is certain. Now, let ns 
 speak of something else. Tell me, before we say good-night, 
 how your day has passed." 
 
 " My day ] Oh, in quite humdrum uninteresting occupa- 
 tions, Portia. You wouldn't believe how little novelty there is 
 in scenes of sickness and death ! the same patience, the same 
 suffering ; the rigid hand, the glazed eye. How can you expect 
 me to have any news fresh enough to be worth repeating ? " 
 
 "You look a cadaverous ashen yellow, aunt. Let us go 
 away from this place. What good is there in stopping here 
 any longer 1 " 
 
 "What good 1 Portia, in a mud-hovel, to-day, I saw some- 
 thing worth travelling to the end of the world to see. A girl 
 was dying (nothing new in that, certainly), a girl, about 
 your age, dying of rapid cholera ; a child a few months old in 
 her arms. The husband, a gaunt starved skeleton, who had 
 recovered not a fortnight ago from fever, and two miserable 
 Children stood helpless, tearless conscious only, I suppose, of 
 their own hunger by her side. She died, and I could only 
 pray that the babe on her breast would die with her. But as 
 we stood there, I, and a sister of charity, and the man, one of 
 the neighbours came in, a woman no better off than the other, 
 also with a child in her arms. ( Portia, this wonitin took the 
 babe straight from the dead girl's breast to her own then, then, 
 little though I understand their patois, I know she told the 
 husband she would nourish it for the future. Do you think 
 more highly of human nature when you hear that?" 
 
 " I think the whole story horribly, unspeakably nasty ! " 
 answered Portia, with a shudder. " All these things make me 
 ill ; I can't help it. Of death itself, a clean brave death on 
 the white waves o it yonder, I was not afraid. Ask Ted some 
 day if I was afraid ! Dirt, mud-hovels, famished babies 
 everything to do with poor people and sickness I loathe. 
 Good-night." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 437 
 
 But Miss Jemima lingered. " The sickness is not confined 
 to mud-hovels and poor people now/' she remarked, her eyes 
 fixed full on Portia's face. " What hour was it, do you say, 
 when you met Susan Fielding It " 
 
 " I suppose it was between four and five. Why do you 
 ask 1 Why do you look so strange 1 " 
 
 " Adam Byng is dying. The doctor who attends him told 
 me so this evening." 
 
 " And you have been there ? " cried Portia, turning white. 
 " Good God, aunt, don't tell me that you have been there ! " 
 
 " Nothing very much to fear if I had. No more contagion 
 in the Petit Tambour than in all the other cholera houses I 
 have visited lately. Well, no ; I did not go. * The good old 
 man was calm and collected, they told me, and one of tha 
 sisters of charity was at his side. I was not wanted. Besides,. 
 I had a duty to perform nearer home prepare yourself, Portia, 
 you must know it to-morrow morning I had a duty to my 
 hand here in the Hotel Benjamin. " 
 
 " Don't tell me ! " exclaimed Portia. " I can do no good 
 by knowing. We will leave by the seven o'clock train to- 
 morrow. The de Miremonts, I'm sure, will go too, and Teddy 
 I'll send round to him the first thing in the morning and 
 we can all travel in a party. I'll take off my wet things, and 
 begin to pack at once " 
 
 " As half the visitors in St. Maur are doing at this moment," 
 said Miss Jemima, quietly. " Yes, we will go to-morrow, and 
 you may bid Teddy Josselin, or any other of your lovers whom 
 you choose, go with us. But we shall not travel quite in the 
 party you speak of : Madame de Miremorit died in my arms 
 at six this evening ! " 
 
438 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 EVERY carriage the St. Maur railway-station could muster was 
 in requisition for the first train next morning, and still more 
 places were wanted ; still a crowd of disappointed eager can- 
 didates for flight had to be left behind upon the platform, to 
 wait for the Brest express at ten o'clock. 
 
 The violence of the wind was now over ; bounteous rain had 
 fallen during the night ; the air was fresh and cool the place 
 healthier, in reality, than it had been for weeks past. But the 
 cholera had struck down a person of distinction. The little 
 Countess de Miremont, who was dancing, the beauty of the 
 ball-room, on Thursday evening, lay in her coffin on Friday. 
 "What more natural than that her sorrowing friends and 
 acquaintances should wish to escape from the possible recur- 
 rence of such a catastrophe 1 Away flew everybody, French 
 and English alike, in the general contagion of terror. The 
 Eamsays and John Dysart, Portia and Miss Jemima, Teddy 
 Josselin, Lord Dormer all are gone ! to England, Paris, 
 Trouville, anywhere where they believe the cholera is not. 
 The bathing-machines stand, unoccupied, in a row; at the 
 Hotel Benjamin a dozen people, instead of a hundred, sit down 
 to breakfast. In vain the doctors, the hotel-keepers, cry aloud 
 that the epidemic is passing ! In vain the Casino directors 
 placard the town with announcements of a ball, a concert, a 
 regatta, all forthcoming in the next eight days ! Balls 
 regattas ! Had not Madame de Miremont been at a ball the 
 aight before ? was she not to have been at a boating-paity the 
 evening she died ] Merely to advertize such frivolities seems 
 like wilful tempting of Providence in a time like this ! And 
 the ten o'clock train clears out all the people who were left 
 behind, perforce, this morning, and scores of others as well. 
 The St. Maur season is over. In the prime of summer, with 
 fresh air blowing, and warm sun shining, the Casino and tables- 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 439 
 
 d'hote are empty ; grim Death this year, not a royal personage 
 or other leader of fashion, as was wont, setting the signal of 
 departure. 
 
 By ten o'clock was effected the second great clearance of 
 fine ladies and gentlemen, with their accompanying bandboxes. 
 At the same hour George Blake, with the light step of five- 
 and-twenty, the happiness of a lover whose suit is not a day 
 old in his heart, turned into the narrow shade of the Rue de la 
 Guerre. The colza-mill was clinking merrily ; one of the mill- 
 girls sang clear and sweet over her work ; the morning sky 
 showed blue above the roof of the Petit Tambour ; a freshness 
 almost of spring was in the air. Blake rang discreetly at the 
 door ; with a smile pictured to himself the little figure that 
 would trip to meet him along the passage, the face suffused 
 with conscious blushes, downbent, so that his first kiss must 
 be given to the forehead, not the lips ! Meanwhile his ring 
 remained unanswered, and he repeated it, somewhat louder ; 
 then he heard a step descend the stairs. The door opened, 
 and he saw Susan Fielding. Where were the blushes, the 
 dimples, where was the coyness of young love of which he had 
 dreamed ? Her face was heavy, her dress uncared for ; some 
 of the wild-flowers plucked during their walk last night were 
 in her breast, dead. 
 
 " You ! " she cried, starting back, horror-stricken, as her 
 blind eyes caught sight of Blake. " Don't touch me don't 
 come near me 1 What do you mean by coming near the 
 house?" 
 
 "What do I mean ! Susan, my dear little girl, what is this 
 foolish jest ? Don't you know very well what I come for ? " 
 
 "Then you have not heard? You don't know that my 
 Uncle Adam has got the sickness 1 Go, Mr. Blake, go ! I 
 may never ask another favour of you do this for my sake ! 
 There, then ; I will give you my hand, if you'll only promise 1 
 The Southampton boat leaves St. Maur at midday." 
 
 She snatched her cold hand back, after it had lain a moment 
 in his, and made an attempt to shut the door. Blake quietly 
 
440 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 slipped his arm within the lintel. " You are saying you know 
 not what, my poor little child ! You think that in your trouble 
 I would leave you now that every trouble, every pain, is as 
 much mine as yours ! What use can I be of ? What help 
 can I give 1 Has Mrs. Byng returned 1 " 
 
 " She came back late last night, and one of the sisters of 
 charity has been with Uncle Adam from the hour he was 
 seized. All that could be done for him has been done/' 
 
 "And is there no way in which I can be of use ]" repeated 
 Blake. 
 
 " Yes, there is one way/' said Susan. Her voice was set, 
 almost hard : all the happy youth of yesterday had fled from 
 it and from her face. u I told you so just now. Go ! Let 
 those who have no duty here escape, while there is still time." 
 
 " No duty ! You can't really mean to be cruel, Susan, 
 although your words are cruel. No duty for me to stay near 
 you to feel with you, if I may do nothing else, in your 
 sorrow ? " 
 
 " No, it is not your duty, Mr. Blake. Your duty is to help 
 me to fulfil mine." 
 
 " And yours 1 " 
 
 " Is to forget you. Oh ! I am talking soberly now. This 
 is not a time to think of love-matters ; but I must say so much. 
 I had lost my reason and my conscience last night. You took 
 me by surprise, and " 
 
 "And you don't care for me 1 ? And all that you said 
 during those two hours was false 1 Tell me that, and I will go 
 away from you as quickly as you bid me." 
 
 She hesitated, her lips quivering, her poor little clasped 
 hands twitching nervously : " I can't say that I don't care for 
 y OU I think it would be a horrible sin for me to say 
 that; but I've been thinking, all through the night, and I know 
 now how wicked I was to let my heart go from .... the 
 person I have promised to marry. It came on so easily, from 
 one thing to another, and last night under the beeches I forgot 
 him indeed, that's the truth I forgot him. If Uncle Adam 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 441 
 
 had not been taken ill, I don't know what I should have gone 
 on to. I think I had forgotten right and wrong altogether. 
 I think I've been getting further and further from my duty 
 ever since I knew you." 
 
 " Duty ! " repeated Blake. " You, child as you are, talking 
 of the duty of marrying a man like Collinson, of whom you 
 know nothing, for whom you care nothing ! " 
 
 " I promised to be true to him," cried Susan Fielding, a 
 light coming into her eyes. " My duty is to keep my word. I 
 can't deceive myself with fine words now. In the night, and 
 the house so silent, and death coming so near, I thought of 
 the time when papa died, and felt, just as if his voice had 
 spoken, what he would have told me was right. Tom Collinson 
 isn't a gentleman, I know, and I can't care for him as as I 
 could care for some people. But, whatever he is, I'm bound 
 to him the same as if he had married me before he left. I can 
 never be free till he sets me free. I should bring no good to 
 you, sir, if I did a great wrong for the sake of my own 
 happiness." 
 
 " And you mean to give me up? Let ine hear the plain 
 truth." 
 
 " If my heart breaks for it, I'll keep my word to Tom 
 Collinson ; God knows I will." 
 
 Blake was silent for a minute. " You think all this now," 
 said he, gently, " and I think better of you for thinking it. 
 This is no time, as you say, for talking of love-matters. 
 All I can do is to stay near you, my poor little girl ! Let 
 Collinson have the lover's love when he returns ; meanwhile, 
 let me be your brother." His head bowed ; his lips all but 
 touched her forehead. 
 
 " And what will be the end of it 1 " cried Susan, with 
 sudden passion. "Collinson will not have the lover's love, 
 and you know it. Do you think I'll deceive myself any more 1 
 Collinson will never have a lover's love, and you you can 
 never be like a brother to me while I live ! The way you 
 help me is by going. You know what must be the 
 
44* SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 end of your staying near me ! You know that every hour - 
 I am with you will make it harder for me to marry Tom 
 Collinson!" 
 
 Now, no coquette, versed in the intricacies of men's 
 hearts, could have worded a lever's dismissal more flatteringly 
 than did Susan, unversed in everything, speaking only honest 
 truth, and looking up with honest eyes full into the face of 
 the man she loved, and whose love she was giving up. And 
 still Blake felt, while she confessed his supremacy over her 
 affections, that over herself, over the steadfast upright soul of 
 Susan Fielding, his will was powerless. On this solitary point 
 of "moral obligation/' conscience once arrested, the sense of 
 duty once confirmed, this child of seventeen, so immeasur- 
 ably weaker in all things else, would be his conqueror. 
 With a woman of more complex nature I think in that 
 moment's disappointment he would have said of larger intelli- 
 gence he had stood a better chance. Many-sided minds can 
 look at individual responsibility, as they can look generally 
 at life and men, from higher ground than that of written 
 law. From Susan Fielding out of whose ductile heart a 
 lover could draw as wide a diapason of emotions as a 
 skilful violin-player can draw tones from his instrument it 
 were vain to expect a single fluctuation of "principle." 
 She loved him, confessed her love, confessed his power 
 over her ; and would go and marry Tom Collinson, cook Tom 
 Collinson's dinners, rear Tom Collinson's children, say her 
 prayers, and believe herself on the road to heaven by virtue of 
 having kept to the letter of a senseless oath. Which, indeed, 
 were best, the women with too little heart, or too little brain ? 
 The former were incalculably easier to manage. Vanity, 
 pride, a sense of the picturesque, a sense of the ridiculous 
 all might have been brought to plead for him (and against Tom 
 Collinson) with a woman as slow to feel, but as quick to per- 
 ceive as Portia Ffrench. With poor little soft-hearted unima- 
 ginative Susan, all were powerless. She had promised ! 
 
 " You are strong, you are generous enough to forgive 
 
SUSAN FIELDING.. 443 
 
 sne," she said. " You won't remember me in any way with 
 unldndness. / am the loser, you know. You will meet with 
 people better suited to you in every way than I am. You'll 
 wonder, some day, that your choice could have rested, even 
 for an hour, on a girl like me, and I " 
 
 " You will marry Tom Collinson 1 " 
 
 She stood for a moment silent ; then a great sob broke from 
 her, and Blake took her in his arms. 
 
 " You'll never love him you'll never love any man as you 
 have loved me," he whispered, a selfish exquisite pleasure 
 even in the bitterness of his pain. 
 
 " JSTo," said Susan, " that I never can. But I will do my 
 duty by him." 
 
 " And you will write to me 1 " 
 
 " Yes ; I'll write when when I'm left quite alone in the 
 world ! Never again." 
 
 " Let me look in your face ! Let me have one kiss before I 
 leave you ! " 
 
 "Mr. Blake," shivering in his clasp, "let me go ! I never 
 meant that you should touch my hand. There may be death 
 about me at this moment ; I came straight from Uncle Adam's 
 side to open the door." 
 
 " If death were on your lips, child, do you think I would 
 count the cost of a kiss ] " 
 
 These were their last words to each other. An hour later, 
 and Susan, with a breaking heart, watched the Southampton 
 boat steam slowly out of the St. Maur roads. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 GREY walls, draped by the sodden skeletons of last summer's 
 roses : dank and untended flower-beds : a snow-charged sky 
 such is the winter prospect from the back windows of the 
 Petit Tambour. In front, the narrow street, along which the 
 
444 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 solitary figure of a priest or sister from the neighbouring con- 
 vent may be seen to pass at lengthened intervals during the 
 day ; the silent colza-mill, the tall gaunt block of barrack ohut- 
 ting out, for four months of the year, whatever southern light 
 or warmth Heaven, in this Breton climate, may vouchsafe to 
 send from the mouldy, death-still precincts of the Eue de la 
 Guerre ! Silence, lifelessness, greyness, outside the house ; 
 silence, lifelessness, greyness, within. No fire, no inmates, in 
 any room but one, the dining-room, and there a few smoulder- 
 ing logs, carefully kept below blazing-point, and two joyless 
 women stitching, with heads downbent, without the inter- 
 change of a word or lock, at their needle. Joyless, I say, both 
 of them ; yet is the heart of the elder one the least heavy. 
 
 In losing poor old Adam, Mrs. Byng had lost much : a 
 diligent servitor and companion, a patient sharer of her toils, 
 a meek participator in her profits. But she has not lost the 
 closest, sweetest interest of her life : her money is safe. She 
 is thinking of money at this moment. A faint additional 
 warmth circulates in her veins as she listens to the drifting 
 sleet against the window, and reflects that her housekeeping is 
 now reduced to a positively fractional item ; the straw a day, 
 the visionary ideal of economy, attained ; and yet her own 
 body and soul kept together ! The charges she makes to 
 Susan Fielding are strictly fair ones. Half a century's battle 
 with her kind has taught this woman that probity in the long 
 run pays a steady dividend, and she respects it, as she would 
 respect any other safe investment. But the coffee, the cider, 
 the pumpkin-soup that will keep one will keep two ; this is a 
 mere natural elasticity of matter over which Mrs. Byng has no 
 control. The menial work of the household is at this season 
 nominal ; but, mindful of the world's respect, Mrs. Byng still 
 goes through the form of a servant (without nourishment), and 
 Susan's money not only defrays the market outgoings, but 
 pays the servant's wages, twopence-halfpenny a day. The 
 woman is joyless. What has a life like hers to do with joy 1 
 Can joy be hoarded and put out at interest, or rented, with 
 
. SUSAN FIELDING. 445 
 
 chances of profitable breakage, to summer visitors ? But in 
 her soul is the solid satisfaction of a passion gratified. She is 
 existing, and costing herself nothing. Never in the nighest 
 point to starvation through which she and Adam passed 
 together has she before drawn breath in December on terms so 
 cheap as these. 
 
 December ! yes, the year is on his death-bed. Autumn has 
 come and gone, sweeping the leaves from the beech-trees, and 
 hope and youth out of Susan Fielding's heart, since that night 
 when she and Blake walked together in paradise upon the 
 hill-side, the night before Adam Byng's death. She knows 
 very well what sort of paradise the hill-side is now. Every 
 afternoon when the day's task is over she goes up there alone, 
 rain or shine ; stands with her arm round the tree beneath 
 which Blake rested when he made his sketch ; looks at the 
 colourless, sunless landscape, listens to the beat of the wintry 
 sea, and tells herself that all is over : summer, love, happiness 
 all! 
 
 I have read that there is only room in the heart for one pro- 
 found sorrow at a time. Is this practically true 1 Susan's 
 master-sorrow was assuredly the shipwreck of her love. Of 
 the impossibility of being Blake's wife, she thought when she 
 awoke, thought during the day, thought till dreams bore her 
 back to the canal-bank, and to the time when she was a girl 
 catching minnows, chasing dragon-flies, hiding torn frocks 
 from Miss Collinson. But blent with this, heightening every 
 tender memory, sharpening every present pain, was her grief 
 for her father ; the grief held in abeyance only during the past 
 months, and which now, like a stream swollen by accidental 
 obstruction, was having its course. 
 
 This little creature, so devoid of sentiment in speech and 
 action, could in truth live only in the life of the feelings love, 
 with its attendant jealousy ; despair, when what she loved was 
 gone from her : these were the very fabric of Susan Fielding's 
 nature : the coquetries, the vanities you have seen in her, light 
 and shadow on the surface only. To hear Blake say again 
 
446 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 that lie loved her ; to know that he had loved no other woman 
 since he left St. Sauvenr ; to feel his arms round her once 
 more ; and then die, and be carried home and laid under the 
 chancel yew beside her father .... this was the nearest 
 approach to a hope she could have felt now. And from Blake 
 she had long ago ceased to hear. He wrote her one long letter 
 in answer to the promised announcement in which she told 
 him that she was " quite alone in the world," her Uncle Adam 
 dead. And she had had the strength of will not to write 
 to him again. And there was no chance at all of her dying ! 
 Her life was to be passed in sewing and silence and greyness : 
 in listening to the hopeless convent bell : in walking (her 
 nearest approach to pleasure) for fresh draughts of poisonous 
 regretful memories to the beech knoll. And by-and-by Tom 
 Collinson would return, and she would marry him, and no, 
 at this point Susan invariably thought no further. Her 
 interest, her desire, her life was over. Whether her remaining 
 twenty or sixty years of existence were to be spent in the Petit 
 Tambour or with Tom Collinson, she did not speculate. 
 There had been better prospect of her cure could she have 
 roused herself sufficiently from the apathy of present despair 
 to picture trouble beyond. On the day when we begin to look 
 forward to the future, we begin, little as we may know it, to 
 hope again. 
 
 The mixture of snow and rain which the Bretons call the 
 "verglas" the distinctive feature of their climate in winter 
 continues to beat against the window. Though it is only 
 three o'clock, twilight already is deepening the shadows in the 
 garden. The great bell of the convent sounds, and gives a 
 last Dantesque touch to the gloom of Susan's spirit by remind- 
 ing her of the two hundred frozen hearts women's hearts, to 
 whom human love and human joy are accursed things wait- 
 ing for death within its walls. 
 
 " Three o'clock," she remarks : not because the hour of the 
 day interests her, but because change, even the change of 
 hearing her own voice, seems all at once an imperative necessity. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 447 
 
 "Three o'clock," repeats Mrs. Byng, without looking up 
 from her work, " and nearly too dark to sew. In these short 
 days, it might be well if you got up an hour earlier. We 
 had the oil burning yesterday by four in the afternoon, and 
 oil is rising/' 
 
 Get up earlier ! make the days longer than they were 
 already ! With a sinking heart Susan folded her work, with 
 weary, patient neatness, and laid it down on the table. 
 " May I go out a bit, Aunt Adam ? My eyes ache ; I shall 
 work much faster this evening if I have an hour's walk now." 
 
 " My eyes never ache," said the widow ; " and I am fifty- 
 five, and have been working all my life. Go out, of course, 
 when you choose. I can get your seam done for you in your 
 absence." 
 
 On this grudging permission, Susan rose, went upstairs for 
 her hat and cloak, and started. It was biting cold : the north- 
 west wind drove the cutting "verglas" full on her face as 
 she opened the front door ; the road leading towards the beech 
 knoll was ankle-deep in half-melted snow and mud ; and 
 suddenly a kind of inspiration bade her give up her pilgrimage 
 for to-day, and walk down to the post to inquire for letters. 
 If ihefacteur came as far out of his beat as the Petit Tam- 
 bour during the bad season, he expected a handsome gift at 
 the New Year. By Mrs. Byng's orders, all letters for the 
 household were therefore, from November till February, left 
 at the office until called for. 
 
 The usual tide of life was flowing along the cheerful high 
 street of St. Sauveur : two old market women on donkeys 
 riding back towards the country ; a crippled street-sweeper 
 extending her palsied hand for alms at the principal crossing ; 
 detachments of the unhappy ragged regiment of English, 
 taking grim exercise by pacing up and down the only piece of 
 pavement the town could boast a space just opposite the 
 second floor room wherein our countrymen played whist for 
 glasses of gin and water, and which they called "the club." 
 Susan passed through these people, with none of whom had 
 
448 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 s T ie acquaintance, and made her way into the post-office, where 
 other English, poorly clad, depressed-looking like the rest, were 
 waiting for letters. (It amazed you to think how people so 
 obviously forgotten by heaven and man could look for com- 
 munication from their fellows ; and, of a truth, they rarely 
 received any. But in a life as near petrifaction as theirs, 
 even to pretend to oneself to have an expectation may be 
 something.) 
 
 " Any letters for the Petit Tambour ? " asked Susan, when 
 her turn came ; and hearing beforehand the " No letters for 
 Mademoiselle," she knew so well. 
 
 The civil little clerk searched through his row of pigeon- 
 holes, and handed her two : one from Eliza Collinson, the 
 other .... How did she get over the uphill length of street ? 
 Where was the cruel " verglas ? " where was the bitter wind 1 
 She reached the Petit Tambour in about a third of the time 
 the distance had taken her in coming. The servant chanced 
 to open the door at the moment when her hand was on the 
 bell, and, without encountering Mrs. Byng, Susan put off her 
 sabots, ran softly up to her own room, locked the door, and 
 gave herself up to the pleasure pleasure ! the very word 
 sounds unnatural connected with her life now of reading 
 George Blake's letter. 
 
 Her window, the one from which she watched the steamer 
 that bore him away, faces the west. There is a strip of pale 
 primrose light on the horizon ; enough, if she loses no time, 
 to enable her yet to read. Which letter shall she keep till the 
 last 1 Through consciousness (or epicureanism) she puts 
 Blake's aside holds it passionately tight ; I mean, between 
 her numbed little red fingers and opens that of her lover's 
 sister first: 
 
 "101, RED LION STREET, HOLBORX. 
 
 " MY DEAR SUSAN, The melancholy demise of your re- 
 spected uncle, though who shall doubt that your loss is his 
 gain ? has, I fear, by the tone and shortness of your letters, 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 449 
 
 east a lasting gloom over your spirits. It is therefore with 
 lively satisfaction that I take pen in hand to be the harbinger 
 to you of welcome tidings. My beloved brother is now on 
 his way to England, having completed business in the colony 
 earlier than expected, and looking forward to our being ready 
 for the wedding immediately on his arrival. You will, I 
 doubt not, under these happily altered circumstances, see the 
 propriety of at once returning to England. My dear brother 
 has inadvertently mislaid your address, and begs me to com- 
 municate ; also asks me to take an inexpensive temporary 
 apartment in London, which, as you see, I have done, so that 
 you may be quietly married at once. I will leave all im- 
 portant subjects till we meet ; but if Tom's business calls 
 him to live in the Metropolis, you had better see to furnishing 
 without delay. I looked at some sweet chintzes to-day in the 
 Edgeware Road, slightly soiled ; but would not show when 
 made up, and 2d. a yard cheaper than at Hounslow. How- 
 ever, more of this when we meet. I saw old Miss Ffrench 
 and Miss Portia just before leaving home, and told them 
 the news of Tom's return, and how your marriage will take 
 place immediately. They were then on their way to London, 
 and they stopped the carriage most civilly to speak. Old 
 Lady Erroll is feared to be on her death-bed, and strange 
 stories are afloat as to Miss Portia. Expecting so soon to 
 see you, and with seasonable compliments, though I fear but 
 compliments, to your bereaved aunt, I remain your affectionate 
 
 friend > ELIZA COLLINSON." 
 
 "P.S. Tom maybe here before you. I mention this to 
 avoid giving you a turn if you should find him on your 
 arrival. In due course his letter ought to have reached its 
 destination more than a month ago, but fortuitously, through 
 the poor fellow's indistinct writing of the word ' Hounslow/ 
 it went first to Halifax, Nova Scotia." 
 
 And this is what Blake wrote : 
 
 2a 
 
450 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " MY DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, I have just seen Josselin, and 
 he tells me some news very bitter for me to hear. Mr. Col- 
 linson is on his way home, and you are coming to England to 
 be married directly. Will you let me see you once before 
 your wedding-day ? You are to be married in London, I hear. 
 Well, write a line and give me your address, and tell me when 
 I may come and wish you good-bye. Do you remember my 
 telling you once that you and I would not see the last of each 
 other for the next forty or fifty years 1 I'm afraid we shall 
 have to see the last of each other now. Don't think I am 
 asking you to do anything wrong, or to deceive Mr. Collinson. 
 Tell him everything about me, and ask his permission for me 
 to come, as an old friend, and offer you my good wishes. Are 
 you well ? are you better in spirits, my poor little Susan 1 
 Write to me, and believe - always in the affection of your 
 
 friend > GEORGE BLAKE." 
 
 Susan went down straight to the dining-room, her letters in 
 her hand. The nearest approach to a fire that Mrs. Eyng 
 ever permitted herself was at this hour, when the shutters were 
 still unclosed, and ghostly shadows glimmered in the dark 
 garden outside. As Susan opened the door, the draught 
 caught up the carefully piled embers ; they flickered into a 
 blaze, and showed the girl's face distinctly. It was white and 
 tired-looking as usual ; but a lustre they had not worn for 
 months past was in her eyes. 
 
 " I am to go to England at once ; yes, by the next boat 
 from St. Maur ! " she exclaimed. " I have got a letter that 
 calls me back." 
 
 " You must pay your quarter's board just the same," said 
 Mrs. Byng. " I stipulated at the time that you should pay in 
 advance. What necessity can there be for you to travel in a 
 time of year like this ? " 
 
 "I have yet to be married," said Susan, hanging her head. 
 " You know what I have told you about Tom Collinson ] 
 Well, I have heard from his sister, and he is coming back 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 45 1 
 
 sooner, a year sooner, than he expected. Don't talk about my 
 quarter's board, Aunt Adam ! I hope you will take all the 
 money I have to give for your kindness to me, and for Uncle 
 Adam's sake." 
 
 A sudden softening gleam came over Mrs. Byng's face, then 
 it hardened ; her eyes sank and shifted about uneasily under 
 the blazing firelight. Money, money -the very thought of 
 touching money roused, for one minute, all the slumbering 
 giant desires of her narrow soul. But avarice has almost as 
 many delicate shades of superstition as her half-sister, gam- 
 bling. Susan's offer was the first disinterested one Mrs. Byng 
 had received during her fifty-five years' cold experience of life, 
 and she shrank from it, that momentary instinctive impulse 
 over, absolutely as one shrinks from a thing of evil omen. 
 What profit could accrue, what luck come home to her with 
 money gotten through such unwonted channels as another 
 human being's generosity 1 
 
 " You are liberal, Susan : in time you will grow wise. I 
 shall receive the remainder of your quarter's board as a 
 right ; not a sou beside. I never take more, I never take 
 less, if I can help it, than is due to me, and you will find 
 other uses for your money than almsgiving ! If you light the 
 lamp and begin at once, you may finish your seam before 
 dinner." 
 
 By the post that night Susan despatched two letters. 
 One was to Miss Collinson neither expressing pleasure nor 
 the reverse at the prospect of Tom's return ; but simply 
 stating that she would be in London, and would drive to the 
 address given on such a date, a few days hence. The other 
 letter bore no signature : it consisted of three lines in the 
 centre of a page ; an ominous blister in their midst. 
 
 " The address is One Hundred and one, Eed Lion Street, 
 Holborn. I shall be there on January the 2nd. Yes, I 
 should 11 (three times understroked) "like to see you once 
 more." 
 
452 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 And this was directed to " Mr. George Blake, The Treasury, 
 London." 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 ELIZA, but no Tom Collinson, stood waiting for Susan on the 
 cold January night when she arrived at the door of One 
 Hundred and one, Bed Lion Street, Holborn. 
 
 " He's not here, my dear," were Eliza's first words. "Don't 
 be disappointed my foolish mistake. Tom can't be here 
 before to-morrow afternoon at earliest. In one way I'm glad, 
 for we can go together to see after the chintzes and things. 
 Dear, dear," as the white-faced little traveller came into the 
 light of the parlour, "you are looking much older, Susan; you 
 have grown very thin. I'm sure I hope Tom won't be 
 shocked when he sees you Tom, who used to think so much 
 of your good looks.'' 
 
 Susan took off her travelling wraps, and began to warm her 
 frozen hands ; and Miss Collinson, as she bustled about pre- 
 paring tea, descanted more and more upon her changed 
 appearance. " You have grown two inches, your face has got 
 quite pointed you who used to have dimples ! I'm sure I 
 hope you'll make a good tea. I'd have had something sub- 
 stantial, only I know what a poor hand you are at meat. Yes, 
 you had dimples, you looked a girl of fifteen when you 
 left Halfont, and yet I don't say Tom will think you uglier 
 for the change." 
 
 Then Susan took sudden courage. If plainest truth-telling 
 could yet save her, she did not mean to be Tom Collinson's 
 wife. So much, during her long journey from St. Sauveur to 
 London, she had resolved. 
 
 "It would be just as well Tom should think me uglier, 
 Eliza. If he only asked me to marry him because I had 
 dimples, I hope he'll see at a glance that my dimples are 
 gone." 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 453 
 
 " Susan, what are you talking about ] You can never 
 mean " 
 
 " I mean that Tom and I had both lost our senses when we- 
 got engaged that night. What did we know of each other ? 
 What was there in me that Tom should want to have me at 
 his side for his whole life ] " 
 
 " And your promise to him 1 and the poor boy returning 
 (overland too) to marry you ? and the cake as good as ordered 
 at Webb's for the only thing I left open was the number of 
 pounds. If your papa could hear you, Susan ! " 
 
 Miss Collinson was at this moment on her knees toasting a 
 muffin, and looked up with piteous supplication at Susan's 
 face. 
 
 "Ah, if papa could hear me !" said the girl. "If papa 
 could know all ! Well, he wouldn't blame me, perhaps, 
 for what I'm going to do now. Don't think I ever mean to 
 break my word to Tom ; to deceive him in any way. If he 
 likes to marry me still, I will marry him yes, the day after 
 he returns. I only mean to tell him the truth, and and " 
 she began to stammer a little " the truth is, we both of u& 
 were in too great a hurry from the first." 
 
 " Oh, is that all 1 " cried Miss Collinson, looking relieved.. 
 " I declare you quite frightened me fora moment. Of course, 
 you will tell Tom that he was in too great a hurry, and, of 
 course, Tom will only like you the better for saying so. Ah, 
 Susan, my dear ! " and now Eliza rose the muffin toasted 
 and, with a melancholy little air of sentiment, took her place 
 at the tea-table, "/was a young girl / had a lover once. 
 Well do I know what hopes, what fears, beset the female soul 
 in such a position as yours ! " 
 
 " But perhaps you loved your lover ? " remarked Susan, 
 crimsoning. 
 
 " A modest girl does not talk of loving a man till she is* 
 married to him," replied Miss Collinson. " It is quite enough 
 that I have been in your position, and can enter into youi? 
 feelings." 
 
454 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 So the first opportunity for confession was slurred over ; 
 and Susan had not strength of mind, to-night at least, to seek 
 another. After all, the confession she had to make belonged 
 of right to Tom Collinson himself. Let Tom first hear the black 
 story of her infidelity ; hear how promised to him, wearing his 
 ring upon her hand she had listened guiltily to words of love 
 from another man; and then let him proLOince the fate of 
 both. She was silent : and Eliza, her momentary misgivings 
 over, fell at once to babbling of wedding-cakes, wreaths, and 
 dresses. She had seen a sweet worked muslin for forty-eight 
 shillings in Oxford Street this morning ; and, talking of 
 weddings, Susan would never believe it, but report said Portia 
 Ffrench had refused a lord, and after travelling half over 
 Europe in his yacht, too ! The Miss Ffrenches, aunt and 
 niece, were staying at the Langham Hotel, daily expecting 
 Lady ErrolTs death ; but Lady Erroll after putting them to 
 the expense of coming to town had not, as yet, consented to 
 see her granddaughter. " All this I know from a gentleman 
 who was here this afternoon," finished Miss Collinson. "A 
 Mr. Lake, or Drake stay, his card is somewhere about ah, 
 here it is under the tea-tray : ' Mr. George Blake.' He must be 
 a friend of the Ffrenches, I suppose, for he called here to see 
 if you had come; and bless my heart, child, what a wretched 
 appetite ! and after a journey, too ! Done your tea already ?" 
 
 Susan had started up at Blake's name, and was standing 
 before the fire, leaning her tell-tale face down against the 
 mantleshelf. "Mr. Blake? Yes, he is a friend of the 
 Ffrenches, and of mine I'll come back in a minute, when I'm 
 warmer don't you remember I met him. at the Manor on my 
 birthday? You told him I should not be here to-night] 
 .... Was he .... disappointed at not finding me 1 " 
 
 "Beally, my dear, I did not remark the young man very 
 closely. He just asked if you had come, and I said No, and 
 then, after a little gossip about the Ffrenches and old Lady 
 Erroll, he told me of this terrible accident in the Park 
 fifteen people under the ice at once ! " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 455 
 
 Half through, the night Susan lay awake, in a fever of 
 dread lest Blake, having missed her once, should not take the 
 trouble to call in Eed Lion Street again. Next morning she 
 was too weak and languid to get up for breakfast ; and when 
 at length she managed to creep into the parlour, looked such 
 a poor little shadow of her former self, that all hopes of seeing 
 about wedding dresses to-day died in Miss Collinson's heart. 
 
 " You want good nourishing things instead of wishy-washy 
 soup, Susan. All your French water souchy and stuff don't 
 suit English constitutions. A pity you didn't stop quietly at 
 home with me while Tom was away." 
 
 " Yes, a great pity," said Susan, absently. 
 
 " It was my wish, as you know, but Tom talked such non- 
 sense about the cavalry barracks. What harm have the 
 cavalry barracks ever done me ? And then your head was so 
 full of change and seeing fresh places. Do you remember the 
 evening before you left 1 I was cross with you I couldn't 
 help it, because you took everything so easily. Don't you 
 remember you said you felt as if you were in a dream ? " 
 
 " I remember/' said Susan. " Ah, well, Eliza, you needn't 
 be cross with me any more. I've awakened from dreams of 
 all kinds now." 
 
 When their two o'clock dinner was over, Eliza prepared 
 herself to go out. After the Miss Ffrenches' kindness in 
 sending to inquire for Susan, it would be only civil for her to 
 take a 'bus as far as the West End, and tell them she had 
 arrived. "And do you try to sleep and get up your good 
 looks while I am gone," was her last injunction as she wheeled 
 round the one arm-chair the room possessed to the fire. 
 " Your eyes seem bigger and your face smaller every time I 
 look at you. Just suppose Tom was to walk in, and see you 
 as you are now ! " 
 
 Suppose Tom were to walk in, indeed, Susan thinks, 
 when she is alone ! and it is possible : the New Zealand 
 mail is already due. Tom Collinson walk in, take her in 
 his arms, kiss her, bid her prepare for their instant 
 
456 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 marriage ! And all the time her heart passionately yearning 
 to see the face of another man ; her hands turning cold, 
 the blood rushing to her cheeks, if she only hears the 
 rattle of a cab down the street, at the thought that it 
 must be him. Ah, how great is the gain of people who 
 haven't got to live life out ! . . . . How she wishes she had 
 died when she was twelve years old and had the fever ! Little 
 Polly Daws of the shop died .... they ran in the fields 
 together, and made a big cowslip ball the evening before Polly 
 was taken ill. She can smell the cowslips. She can see the 
 green oaks waving above the path where they played* 
 " Susan, Susan, I can toss higher than you ! " said Polly's 
 voice. She runs to snatch the ball from her companion . . . 
 her companion is Blake .... his arm is round her .... 
 he is whispering in her ear .... The tired eyes close : the 
 flushed face has dropped. For once more, at least, in her 
 life the poor girl is in Paradise. 
 
 Sweet is her sleep, and deep : so deep that she never hears 
 a cabman's thundering knock at the house-door, nor of the 
 entrance into the parlour of a visitor, vaguely announced by 
 the small maid-of-all-work as " a gentleman." The well-piled 
 fire is blazing high, and there is a street-lamp just outside the 
 window ; so, although it is between four and five o'clock, the 
 room is full of light, the picture of the small figure curled up 
 in the arm-chair distinct. Susan's face looks younger than 
 ever as she lies asleep ; her lips are parted ; her breath comes- 
 soft and noiseless like an infant's ; two little white hands are 
 clasped upon her breast. The visitor bends, gazes at her long 
 and sorrowfully, and under the gaze she gives a start and 
 wakes. 
 
 " Mr. Blake " she was dreaming of him : quite naturally 
 his is the first name she utters : "it is time to go ! Uncte 
 Adam ah ! where am I ? " pushing back her hair from her 
 forehead. " Eliza .... I am very sorry, sir, that you should 
 have found Eliza out." 
 
 She doesn't know what she is saying. She has started up 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 457 
 
 frightened, both her hands in Blake's. She was with him ; 
 they were lovers, a minute ago, in the happy sunset on the 
 Breton hill-side. She must have time before she can realize 
 that he is here, in this London lodging, to bid her good-bye, 
 to offer his congratulations upon her marriage with Tom 
 Collinson. 
 
 " You were resting, tired after your journey," says Blake, 
 " and I have disturbed you. My poor little friend, how grown 
 you are and how thin ! " 
 
 He holds up her hand : very loosely Tom Collinson's ring 
 fits her finger now : and looked at it with grave tenderness, 
 never offering to raise it to his lips. 
 
 " Every one says I'm grown," answers Susan. " At least 
 Miss Collinson says so ; that is my ' every one/ It used to be 
 the dearest wish I had to be two inches taller. " 
 
 She tries to laugh, to be at her ease ; she moves away from 
 him. They look at each other a moment in the firelight ; a 
 mist swims before Susan's eyes ; her head droops. " Wishes, 
 don't bring much happiness when they come true," she remarks. 
 
 After this, a silence. Then, as people do when their hearts 
 are full to overflowing, they try to begin a conversation on 
 indifferent subjects. " Is there any news from Brittany, 
 Susan ? " Blake asks. " What have the St. Sauveur people 
 been doing since I saw them last 1 " 
 
 " They have been burying each other, sir. At least, that, 
 was their chief employment till late in the autumn. The sick- 
 ness got better just after Uncle Adam died, and when the 
 visitors went away ; but in another month it was as bad as- 
 ever again. Nothing but the bell tolling, the priest's voice 
 chanting down in the cemetery. I was glad they took my- 
 Uncle Adam away. They buried him in Guernsey, by his first; 
 wife. I like to think of him lying in the quiet graveyard by 
 the sea he used to talk of." 
 
 " Do you remember your Uncle Adam's last words to me, 
 Susan 1 Do you remember his standing at the door of the 
 house, and how he bid me " 
 
458 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember," interrupted Susan, swiftly. What 
 need to recall that last vain injunction ! Who but Tom Col- 
 linson would she want to take care of her now, and till her 
 life's end ! " I don't know why it is," she went on, " but 
 everything to do with France seems farther away to me than 
 leaving Halfont. I only left St. Sauveur thirty-six hours ago, 
 and already the place, and everything belonging to it, seems 
 like a dream." 
 
 " A good or bad dream 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! a bad, a bad one," cried Susan, thinking of the lone 
 grey house, with the " verglas " beating on the pane, and the 
 convent bell marking the dragging length of the sad hours. 
 
 " What,'' said Blake, "was the summer bad ? How warm the 
 sun used to shine ! How full the little garden was of flowers ! 
 Do you remember that last duet we sang, and how silent the 
 house was only you and me alone together ? Do you remem- 
 ber the hill-side? Susan, whatever comes of it, I won't let 
 you say that all your recollections of St. Sauveur are bad 
 ones." 
 
 She clasped her hands with bitter eagerness. " I wish there 
 was no such thing as recollecting ! If I could only begin 
 afresh from this moment, and recollect nothing, I might be 
 happy, perhaps ! " 
 
 She meant (I believe she meant) : " If I could only forget 
 you, I might be happy with Tom Collinson." But Blake's 
 heart gave another interpretation to her words. 
 
 " And what is there to hinder your beginning afresh ? " he 
 asked, his eyes intently reading her downbent face. " Why 
 should you and I go on talking polite insincerities to each 
 other ? You have come back to marry Collinson, and you are 
 miserable at the prospect. Don't marry him. You have a 
 day an hour of freedom left you yet. Use it well. To keep 
 such a promise as you have given is perjury. What sort of 
 life do you look forward to spending at this man's side ? " 
 
 The moment of fiercest temptation had come at length. 
 The past dark months of suffering, the tender pleading of her 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 459 
 
 lover's voice, the casuistry that passion only too promptly 
 awakened in her own heart, all conspired against Susan Field- 
 ing's honour. " If I was dead ! " broke from her lips, with a 
 sort of sob. " If I was at rest with papa ! There's nothing 
 more in the world for me to live for ! " 
 
 11 Nothing ] " exclaimed Blake, and in a second his arm was 
 round her waist. " Susan, do you call the warmest love a 
 man's heart can give you ' nothing ' 1 " 
 
 She faltered, trembled, broke away from his touch. " Better 
 die, miserable as I am, than win your love through a false- 
 hood," she cried. " I'm bound to Tom Collinsori, so that 
 nothing but -his word can set me free. He wanted me to swear 
 .... and I told him Yes or No was the same to me as an 
 oath .... and then I said Yes, I ivould hold faithful to him." 
 
 " And have you done so 1 Have you kept true to the spirit 
 of your promise 1 " 
 
 " No, I have broken it shamefully, because my heart my 
 heart was stronger than myself ! You are cruel to make me 
 say such things." 
 
 " Susan, ray dear, your principles are beyond all praise. If 
 you had ever loved no, I won't use the word if you had 
 liked me, even, as I once thought, you would not have your 
 feelings under such fine control." 
 
 "If I had liked you ! " her great dilating eyes looked up to 
 his full : "If/ " a sudden passion swept over Susan's girlish 
 face, she clasped her hands, with a gesture almost of bodily 
 pain. " And you doubt me after all, then 1 Why, but for 
 this promise, do you think there's anything would hold me 
 from you ? If you were poor, sick, without friends, would I 
 care 1 Wouldn't I follow you to the end of the world 1 You 
 have made me say this .... you shall hear the truth 
 now for this last time, while we live, that we shall talk 
 together. I liked you from the first evening I met you at the 
 Manor, and when I knew you had never a look or thought but 
 for Portia Ffrench. Oh, sir, but I will show you, in my own 
 writing, that what I say is true ! " 
 
460 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 And quitting him abruptly, she walked into the adjoining 
 bed-room, and came back, a minute later, with a booh (her 
 old Half ont journal) in her hand. 
 
 " I was a child in those days who'd think it was so few 
 months ago ? I wrote very sillily, because I wrote what I 
 thought, but you must take it for what it is worth. I knew 
 no better." 
 
 And she opened the book at the part containing her account 
 of the first evening spent at the Manor, and put it into 
 Blake's hands. He stooped till the firelight rested full upon 
 the page, and read it through : the school-girl raptures on 
 Teddy's embroidered linen and blue eyes ; the discriminating 
 remark that he, on the other hand, had " a dark serious 
 face, but no pretty ways like Mr. Josselin ; " the confession, 
 evidently written with extra care, in the cramped, childish 
 hand, " / like Mr. Blake" He read it through, and as his 
 eyes still rested on the avowal contained in those last four 
 words : avowal more pathetic, it seemed to him, than any 
 spoken one to which he could have listened : a small object 
 rolled out from the pocket of the book and fell to the ground. 
 Blake picked it up 'twas only a three-inch end of pencil 
 and examined it with the sort of mechanical interest the eye 
 sometimes bestows on external things when the thoughts are 
 far away. It was one of his own ; a little square cross that 
 he had an idle trick of carving on the top of his pencils 
 arrested his attention. 
 
 " Give it to me it is nothing ! " exclaimed Susan, betraying 
 her secret by her vehemence. " I found it ! Mr. Blakej 
 give me that pencil. I found it on our river-bank. I never 
 meant it has nothing to do with what we spoke of. Pray 
 give it me ! " She held out her hand with humble entreaty 
 to his. 
 
 " And you have kept this ? Susan, through all these long 
 months you have cared to keep this bit of worthless pencil ? " 
 
 " Worthless ! " She had got it safely back in her own pos- 
 session now. " Ah ! if you knew what it is to be alone as I 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 461 
 
 have been, without a companion, without a hope, you 
 would not talk so. Why, during all these months what 
 have I had but ?" 
 
 Eat-a-tat went the knocker an apologetic little feminine 
 knock : they started guiltily asunder. 
 
 " It is Eliza," said Susan. " Go away when you have 
 spoken to her. This must be your last visit." 
 
 " Susan, do you mean to do Collinson the gross injustice 
 of marrying him ? " 
 
 "I know nothing about injustice. I shall tell him the 
 truth just as plainly as I have told it you. It will be for him 
 to decide the rest." 
 
 The door opened, and in came Eliza Collinson, looking more 
 like a frightened little bird than ever, with the snow resting on 
 her small grey-clad figure. She gave a twittering start of 
 astonishment at seeing the tall male figure on the hearthrug. 
 Blake moved forward, and, with as good a grace as he could 
 command, made his bow to Tom Collinson's sister. 
 
 " You must really excuse me ! Mr. Blake ? oh, of course 
 Mr. Blake, for not recognizing you at first, sir, but coming 
 in out of the dark and such a night as it is ! " And 
 then Miss Collinson paused, looking a little curiously at 
 George Blake's face, then at Susan's. 
 
 " I called," said Blake, feeling an excuse was needful, " to 
 inquire if if Miss Fielding had recovered from her journey. 
 Your brother has not arrived, I hear, Miss Collinson." 
 
 " No, sir ; but for certain he will be in England in the course 
 of to-morrow. I called round at his agents Susan, my 
 dear, I called at Tom's agents and they have had a telegram 
 from Marseilles. By dinner-time to-morrow our dear boy may 
 be with us." 
 
 Susan's heart turned sick. " How will your brother know 
 where to find you * " she stammered. 
 
 " Oh, he will go straight to Messrs. Cox and Braddell, and 
 they will give him our address. He settled that in his letter 
 at the same time he bid us be in town to meet him. You 
 
462 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 can understand our anxiety, I'm sure, sir 1 ?" added Eliza, 
 turning round with a flutter of girlish diffidence to Blake. 
 " But under the circumstances " * 
 
 " Oh, certainly," said Blake, taking up his hat and moving 
 across the hearthrug to say good-bye to Susan. 
 
 "We shall be a very small party, and everything quite 
 quiet, by my brother's desire ; but if, as a well-wisher of Miss 
 Fielding's, you would join us at the church] Tom has few 
 friends in London, we shall want a best gentleman." 
 Miss Collinson's delicacy would not allow her to use so com- 
 mon a word as " man." 
 
 " Eliza," broke out Susan, her face crimsoning, " what are 
 you talking of? You know things are not settled, you 
 know " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, I said nothing about the day, did I ? I was 
 telling Miss Ffrench about it an hour ago old Miss Ffrench ; 
 Miss Portia has been sent for to her grandmamma's, whose 
 last hour they fear has arrived. (Most painfully anxious 
 their situation is, Mr. Blake. Lady Erroll, it appears, has been 
 in the habit all her life of making at least two new codicils a 
 year.) Well, I was telling Miss Ffrench that everything but 
 the day is settled, and how that, of course, must be left till 
 after Tom's arrival. I hope you will do my brother the 
 honour of making his acquaintance, sir 1 " 
 
 "You are extremely kind," observed Blake. 
 
 " We might try and get up a little party to the British 
 Museum, or somewhere of the sort. Miss Fielding is rather 
 low-spirited, Mr. Blake, and my dear brother is always so fond 
 of pleasure. Susan, my dear, we should have much pleasure 
 if Mr. Blake would join us in a cheerful party to some of the 
 Metropolitan sights ? " 
 
 " I think everything had better be left till Tom's arrival,'' 
 repeated Susan, ready to sink with shame. 
 
 And upon this George Blake shook hands with her, and 
 bade them both good-night. When he had got to the parlour- 
 door he turned : "If I might be allowed to call at about this 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 463 
 
 hour to-morrow, Miss Collinson, to inquire if your brother has 
 arrived 1 " 
 
 " Most delighted, sir. You will, I hope, at the same time, 
 do Tom the honour of making his acquaintance," said Eliza, 
 with her best company courtesy. 
 
 " A very elegant young man," she remarked, the moment 
 the house-door had shut Susan standing with quivering lips, 
 with downcast eyes before the fire. " It was a good thought 
 of mine to ask him to the wedding, particularly as a friend of 
 the Manor family. I wish," plaintively, " poor Tom had a 
 little more of that style, Susan.' 7 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " So considerate of him to call again; but I fancied" 
 Eliza glanced at herself in the glass above the mantelpiece 
 " I fancied, from the little I saw of him yesterday, that Mr. 
 Blake was anxious to become better acquainted with our 
 family." 
 
 CHAPTER XLIL 
 
 THE snowfall that had just begun when Eliza Collinson 
 entered grew thicker and thicker, and long before midnight 
 all the miry length of Eed Lion Street was pure and white, 
 the distant roar of Holborn hushed. 
 
 Looking out through the dingy lodging window, something 
 in this altered silent world struck tenderer chords in Susan 
 Fielding's memory, and for the first time to-day brought tears 
 into her eyes. " I like the snow ; it makes me think of Halfont 
 churchyard," she said to Eliza, almost in her old voice. " At 
 this minute I think I see the old peacock-yews, each with 
 their top-knot of soft snow outside the chancel." 
 
 " Like the ice on a bride-cake," said Eliza, whose thoughts 
 could never, at the present time, stray far from nuptial 
 subjects. "Ah, my dear Susan, such are the chances of our 
 
464 SVSAN FIELDING. 
 
 transitory life ! You and me thinking of bride-cake, and our 
 friend, poor Miss Portia, watching beside a death-bed and 
 such a fever of excitement, too, as she must be in about her 
 grandmamma's intentions ! " 
 
 A fever of excitement ! Aye, in all her tolerably chequered 
 existence never had Portia Ffrench really known the meaning 
 of the word excitement till to-night. Here, at length, was the 
 genuine, concentrated, overmastering emotion at which, 
 through cards and other mimic warfare of society, she had 
 hitherto sought in vain to arrive : life, or all that to her 
 constituted life, the stake. 
 
 She had been summoned late in the afternoon to her grand- 
 mother's house ; but by the time she reached Eaton Square 
 Lady Erroll had grown rapidly weaker, or so Miss Condy sent 
 word by the lady's-maid, and could not see her granddaughter. 
 And now, midnight coming on, Portia Ffrench is still on the 
 watch, still alone in the drawing-room. 
 
 About all the house is the faint chill impress, indefinable by 
 words, of coming death. The door stands open ; Portia, un- 
 observed herself, can watch the figures of those who pass : can 
 tell, without asking, all that is going on. She knows that the 
 family apothecary and the family physician came downstairs a 
 couple of hours or more ago, grave, like men who feel that their 
 patient's last earthly fees have been paid. She knows that a 
 messenger has been despatched in haste for Teddy Josselin ; 
 that Mr. Bloxam, the family lawyer, has been in the house 
 for hours. She knows what visitor is with the dying woman 
 now ; can guess what that visitor's errand in such an hour is 
 likely to be ! 
 
 Her hands are cold, though blazing fires are burning in both 
 drawing-rooms. She has taken nothing but a glass of Lady 
 Erroll's sherry for hours, yet is unconscious of hunger. 
 Every fibre of her nature, moral and physical, is strained to 
 one tensest point of agonized doubt. What what will be the 
 latest act of the woman who lies dying overhead 1 Will 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 465 
 
 pitiful rancour, will sordid care, survive to life's last gasp 1 If 
 Lady Erroll learn the truth (and some instinct of Portia tells 
 Jher that it will be so), will no premonition from a world into 
 which money and ambition may not follow tempt her, in these 
 her last hours of mortality, to be generous and to forgive ? 
 
 Her thoughts are interrupted by the stealthy rustle of a silk 
 dress. The visitor who has been spending the last half -hour 
 in the sick-chamber is descending the stairs. Portia moves 
 across to the door, and confronts her abruptly. The visitor's 
 face changes colour ; her eyes sink ; she tries to hide under 
 her shawl a morocco box that is in her hand in vain. 
 Portia saw it at the first glance, and guesses only too well the 
 meaning of its being in the other's possession. 'Tis an old- 
 fashioned box, of somewhat singular shape, the case of one of 
 Lady Erroll's finest diamond necklaces. 
 
 " You here, Laura ? A wild night to be abroad." 
 
 And now the visitor has no choice but to look up. The 
 friends stand before each other, face to face. 
 
 "I was sent for. At such a time I could not refuse to 
 come." 
 
 " And have broken faith with me 1 but that I need not 
 ask." 
 
 " I I could speak nothing but truth beside a death-bed," 
 stammered Laura Wynne. 
 
 " I see, and have received your reward. From the time of 
 Judas, when has not betrayal fetched a good price 1 " 
 
 "Portia, you have no right to speak to me like this. I 
 don't know what you mean by using such words as * reward ' 
 and 'betrayal/ Poor dear Lady Erroll insisted upon my 
 taking a little parting remembrance from her hands. There 
 has not been too good a feeling between us lately. I was 
 glad that things at the last should be made smooth." 
 
 "Made smooth! Mrs. Wynne, have you been trying to 
 make things smooth for me 1 " 
 
 " I have answered a direct question. What else could you 
 expect me to do 1 Ask yourself if, in everything, you have 
 
4 66 SVSAN FIZLDING. 
 
 been a true friend to me 1 Oh, Portia, I have always cared 
 more for you than you for me ! You you will be too 
 generous to betray any poor little folly of mine 1 " 
 
 " Can you ask me ? " returned Portia, with icy coldness. 
 " Knowing me even as you do, do you think I have so little 
 self-respect, so little worldly wisdom, as to criminate a woman 
 I once called an associate 1 " 
 
 And then Mrs. Wynne gladly making her escape down 
 the stairs she walked back, with her grandest air, with a 
 bursting heart, to the companionship of her own thoughts. 
 She paced up and down the room : she chafed over her own 
 powerlessness. " Oh ! fool that she had been to risk an hour 
 like this ! fool with so many possibilities yet open to her, had 
 she remained free, to cast the die of her own life beyond 
 recall ! If only she and Teddy could live the past again, 
 from the hour in which Macbean found them together in the 
 conservatory ! If only . . . . " She turned, hearing her own 
 name softly spoken, and saw Teddy himself. 
 
 He came up to her side, took her hands tenderly, and 
 kissed her : 
 
 " 'Tia, love, I've a notion things are going rather badly for 
 you and me ? " 
 
 " Just as badly as they can," said Portia. " Laura Wynne 
 has been upstairs for the last half -hour, and went out just now 
 with a jewel-case in her hands. What secret but one could 
 Mrs. Wynne have had to sell, or Lady Erroll to buy 1 Bloxam 
 is here ; Miss Condy does not leave grandmamma's room. 
 Nothing but hard swearing of yours can save us now." 
 
 " Hard swearing ! " cried Teddy, drawing back ; " and 
 what have I got to swear but the truth 1 Money is not worth 
 a solitary falsehood, Portia ! Let grandmamma cut both of 
 us off with a shilling. We shall have each other still." 
 
 "We shall," [said Portia, with a hard smile. Where was 
 her youth gone ? She looked thirty years old. " Each other, 
 and starvation, Teddy," she went on, after a minute. "If 
 you have ever loved me if you would not see me the most 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 467 
 
 miserable woman living put away all these copybook plati- 
 tudes, and do your best to be sensible. Grandmamma, I am 
 positive, is altering her will meaning mischief of some kind ; 
 or why should Laura Wynne have been sent for why should 
 that horrible old Bloxam have been all these hours in the 
 house 1 If she should require you to take an impossible 
 oath, and if by so doing you could make her death-bed 
 easier " 
 
 " You would advise me to perjure myself ! " interrupted 
 Teddy Josselin. " Thank you, my love ! I have invented 
 facts enough. The invention of facts at a time like thi& 
 would be, my dear child, something unpleasantly like dis- 
 honesty ! " 
 
 "Dishonesty! Dishonesty means defeat," said Portia, 
 turning from him coldly. "Act as you choose. When we ar 
 beggars, perhaps you will see how highly the world will rat 
 your delicate sense of rectitude ! n 
 
 " I don't believe I'm thinking of the world at all," said 
 Teddy, looking foolish, but in a singularly firm voice. 
 
 Portia answered him not a word ; and in two or three 
 minutes' time Miss Condy, her eyes swollen with weeping, 
 entered the room. She gave a chill little nod of recognition 
 to Portia Ffrench, then came to Teddy's side, and, with real 
 feeling in her voice, told him that Lady Erroll felt herself 
 somewhat stronger, and was asking for him. 
 
 "And for me, too, Miss Condy?" said Portia, with ad- 
 mirable self-command. " Does not grandmamma wish to say 
 a parting word to me ? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss French," answered the old woman, still keeping 
 close to Teddy Josselin. " It is her ladyship's desire to see 
 you also, and in Mr. Josselin's presence." 
 
 And so together, Miss Condy stealing on first to marshal 
 the way, the two cousins went up to hear their fate decided. 
 They caught a glimpse of Mr. Bloxam, the solicitor, on their 
 way. He was sitting in a small room between the drawing- 
 room and the second-floor some open parchments on the 
 
 2n 2 
 
468 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 table before him his head resting on his hand. Not alto- 
 gether an exhilarating sight, this, of a lawyer with parchments 
 in the eyes of heirs-expectant, when a rich relation, wont to 
 make new codicils twice a year at least, lies in extremity ! 
 
 A disease of many syllables had been assigned by the 
 physicians as a justification for the Countess of Erroll's having 
 done with life at fourscore ; and to alleviate its symptoms, 
 Miss Condy was ordered to give a spoonful of some restorative 
 ether-draught every half -hour. Never while she lives will 
 Portia encounter the smell of ether without the overpowering 
 atmosphere of that chamber of death, and the pinched face 
 of the dying woman, and the misery of her own eager de- 
 spairing heart coming back upon her vividly. 
 
 A low snarl met her as she entered ; it came from Arno, 
 who, shivering in his scarlet coat, and with a wistful sapience 
 on his bleared dark eyes, sat at the foot of his mistress's 
 bed. The old dog showed his fangs with unabated animosity 
 at Portia as she passed raised his ears, and gave his tail a 
 melancholy wag as Teddy followed. " 
 
 " Dear grandmamma," said Portia, approaching and stooping 
 <over Lady Erroll's pillow, " I am so glad to hear that you are 
 feeling rather stronger now ! " 
 
 The dying woman raised her hand with just sufficient 
 strength to make Portia know that she was waved back. 
 
 " Teddy ?" she murmured, indistinctly " where's Teddy T 
 
 Teddy Josselin on this came forward, and a slight sidelong 
 movement of the little white old face upon the pillow told 
 him that Lady Erroll expected to be kissed. He kissed her : 
 then knelt down, took her shrivelled nerveless hand in his, 
 and held it. The tears stood in Ted's blue eyes. 
 
 " You've been a good boy," whispered Lady Erroll, "till of 
 late and that hasn't been your fault. You were ten years 
 old when I took you .... Miss Condy ? " 
 
 Condy in a second was leaning over from the other side of 
 the bed. 
 
 " He was ten years old when I took him 1 " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 469 
 
 " Ten in the August that he came to your Ladyship in the 
 October," said Miss Condy. " His dear papa and mamma 
 both no more, and " 
 
 " Child ! " turning her sick eyes, the fatal fixed look of 
 death already in them, to Teddy's face, " you'll not disobey 
 me, now that I've come to this ] I've done what I could for 
 
 you." 
 
 Teddy Josselin made no answer. 
 
 Portia moved a step nearer the bed. " Teddy," said she, 
 very low, " you will surely not refuse to follow out all dearest 
 grandmamma's wishes now?" 
 
 Her tone, but not Ijer words, arrested the dying woman's 
 ear : 
 
 " Miss Condy ! " she called again. 
 
 Condy knelt upon the bed, and bowed her ear down to the 
 pillow. 
 
 " Tell my granddaughter Portia what I wish her to hear. 
 All that I have strength to say I will say to kirn ! " 
 
 Then Portia knew that her doom was about to be spoken. 
 She folded her arms across her breast, and with uplifted head 
 stood and listened to it. 
 
 " It is a most painful office, I am sure," said Miss Condy : 
 " most painful indeed ahem ! But duty is duty." 
 
 "Go on be brief," said Lady Erroll, almost in her old 
 imperative voice. 
 
 "A good many months ago, Miss Ffrench, you pro- 
 mised " 
 
 " Swore,' 7 interrupted Lady Erroll, impatiently. " Let me 
 speak ! You swore never to renew your engagement with 
 your cousin Josselin, save by my consent. How did you keep 
 your oath ? " 
 
 " To the letter/' answered Portia, firmly. "I have renewed 
 no old engagement I have formed on new one from that 
 hour to this." 
 
 " And where," said Miss Condy, "her ladyship, if she had 
 strength, would ask where did you go on the evening 
 
4?o St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 when you and your cousin dined here the following day to 
 that on which this oath of yours had been taken 1 " 
 
 " Do you really require me to answer, grandmamma 1 
 Laura Wynne has been here : has she not exposed my folly 
 sufficiently without my being forced to expose it myself 1 " 
 
 " Mrs. Wynne has been here," exclaimed Miss Condy : a 
 cubit seemed to be added to her shrunken stature in the 
 intense culminating triumph of this moment : " but we were 
 convinced her ladyship was convinced of the truth without 
 Mrs. Wynne's testimony. I saw you with my own eyes, Miss 
 Ffreneh, descend at a place of impious resort ! I had my sus- 
 picions, and anxious to carry out her ladyship's wishes 
 
 " You set a watch upon my actions," said Portia, perfectly 
 cold and unmoved of manner. " So I half suspected at the 
 time. Grandmamma, in going where I went that night, in 
 associating with Laura Wynne, in asking Teddy Josselin to 
 meet me, I sinned against good taste well, if you choose, 
 against propriety. I did not break my word to you. And Teddy 
 Josselin yes, you must let me say it was not to blame. 
 You have always loved him. Don't let your feelings towards 
 him be changed, now that you are so ill, by any folly, past or 
 present, of mine 1 " 
 
 Portia Ffrench, as you know, was an actress by nature. 
 At this moment (the impending checkmate to the game she 
 played so boldly, and so long, close before her eyes) [she acted 
 so well as entirely to carry away Teddy Josselin, very nearly 
 herself, somewhat her implacable enemy Miss Condy, into 
 believing that she was ready to sacrifice her own pros- 
 pects from unselfish, generous motives. But, dim though the 
 senses of the dying woman might be, not for one moment was 
 she so deceived. 
 
 " Forgive ! Aye, you care so much whether I forgive ! " she 
 said, with the faintest little ghost of a laugh. "Portia 
 Ffrench, come nearer." 
 
 Portia obeyed in an instant a. flutter, that could scarcely 
 be called one of hope, at her heart. 
 
SUSAN FIJZLDING. 47' 
 
 " I am going to do something better than forgive you. I've 
 altered my will, and I'm going to leave you what you would 
 have had if you had married Macbean Teddy will be well 
 enough off to spare it and I want to give you the best 
 chance I can of settling respectably yet. I've thought a great 
 deal of it all during the last few days. I don't want to be 
 harsh to you, badly though you have behaved. I remember 
 whose child you are." 
 
 She stopped, exhausted. Miss Condy held a spoonful of 
 wine to her lips, and after swallowing it, and resting quiet a 
 minute, she went on : 
 
 " But you you shall never marry Ted Josselin never ! 
 You are both here to learn that." 
 
 " Grandmamma ! " cried Teddy, raising his head. 
 
 " Oh, I know what you would say, child. Portia has com- 
 promised herself by her intimacy with you. Has she not 
 done the same with other men 1 Condy ! " She looked 
 around faintly towards her attendant. 
 
 " Yes, my lady. I entreat your ladyship to spare yourself 
 the fatigue of talking. I am in a most distressingly delicate 
 position, Mr. Josselin ; but her ladyship would allude to 
 the rumours that were afloat in the autumn, about my Lord 
 Dormer, in France ; also we could not avoid hearing 
 them about Mr. John Dysart, a married gentleman, too ! " 
 
 The colour flamed up over Teddy Josselin's cheek. " And 
 all these rumours," he cried, looking full into the dying 
 woman's face " all these rumours, I know, have been scandal 
 of the vilest kind. / was at St. Maur / countenanced / 
 allowed whatever Portia did ! " 
 
 " Teddy, I implore you " began Portia. 
 
 "No. Let him speak," said Lady Erroll. "This is 
 conclusive. I have .... I have no time to lose ! Bloxam 
 must have finished ? " looking anxiously towards Miss Condy. 
 
 "Mr. Bloxam, I am sure, only awaits your Ladyship's 
 pleasure." 
 
 " Bloxam has drawn out a fresh codicil to my will. I am 
 
47* SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 making you a poorer man, Ted. By this codicil I leave my 
 granddaughter, Portia, the sum of ten thousand pounds, 
 and also to my faithful attendant, Miss Condy, an annuity of 
 one hundred a year " 
 
 " Oh, my dear, dear lady ! " sobbed Condy, bursting into 
 tears. 
 
 "To you to you, child, will belong this house, and 
 every remaining shilling that I have it in my power to 
 bequeath upon one condition ! You will take your oath 
 here in Miss Condy's presence and in Bloxam's, never to 
 make Portia Ffrench your wife ! " 
 
 Portia moved a few steps towards the door : she hid down 
 her face between her hands. Before the thought of all that 
 she was losing before the prospect of all the blank to-mor- 
 rows which, as far as she could look on, must constitute her 
 life her fortitude at length gave way. 
 
 "It is an oath I can never take, grandmamma," said 
 Teddy : his voice was low, but thoroughly firm and collected. 
 " You have given me enough already. You took me home 
 here, you showed me kindness when I was a small boy, and 
 had no one to look to but you. Do with your money as 
 you choose, I don't suppose I'm such a fool but that I 
 could earn my own bread yes, and hers too ! " 
 
 " HERS ! " cried Lady Erroll, with a sudden start of energy 
 an expression horrible to see at such a moment sweeping 
 across her face. 
 
 " Yes, hers ! " repeated Teddy, with quiet deliberation. And 
 he bent forward, and whispered a word or two in the dying 
 woman's ear. 
 
 " Leave my presence, both of you ! I will never look 
 at your faces again. Let Bloxam be called. I .... I 
 must set my house in order This this is the bitter- 
 ness of death ! " 
 
 She sank back upon her pillow. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 473 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE New Zealand mail has arrived : an open letter from Tom 
 Collinson is in Susan's hand, as she waits at dusk next day 
 for George Blake's promised visit. 
 
 I have read in some advertisement a description of the toys 
 called "Magical Flowers "flowers dead to the eye, and yet 
 so chemically prepared that a breath will bring back life and 
 odour to their withered petals. Surely some magic has been 
 wrought on Susan Fielding now ! There is colour in her 
 pallid cheeks ; hope once more lights up her eyes ; as she 
 reads over again some passages in Tom Collinson's closely- 
 scrawled letter, she smiles the dimples have gone back to 
 her cheeks ! 
 
 A knock she knows comes at the door : quickly she hides 
 the letter in her packet lectures herself sternly on the 
 impropriety of allowing her happiness to be too legible on her 
 face ; when Blake enters, a minute later, runs joyfully across 
 the room, both little hands outstretched to meet him. " The 
 New Zealand mail is in, sir ! " 
 
 Blake glanced suspiciously round, expectant of Eliza Collins- 
 son, of Eliza Collinson's brother. " I congratulate you, Miss 
 Fielding," he remarked, stiffly; "I congratulate you upon 
 your anxiety being happily ended at last ! " 
 
 They moved together to the fireside, and stood there, as 
 
 they stood yesterday evening : Susan's eyes fixed diligently 
 
 upon the pattern of the hearthrug, arid Blake's upon her face. 
 
 " I wonder at my own good-luck in finding you alone/' he 
 
 went on, after a time. 
 
 " Eliza has gone down to Halfont, Mr. Blake. She had a 
 letter from the next-door neighbour this morning, to say some- 
 thing had gone wrong with the roof. Eliza was very sorry to 
 miss the chance of seeing Tom on his arrival still she had to 
 
474 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 think of the roof .... Oh, how silly I am to laugh ! It 
 was very natural she shouldn't like the thought of meiced 
 snow on the stair-carpets." 
 
 And out aloud Susan laughed, the most light-hearted, merry 
 little laugh conceivable. 
 
 "I can really only stay a minute longer/' remarked Mr. 
 Blake, growing stiffer and stiffer. " No doubt," looking round 
 him again, as though Tom Collinson must be hidden behind 
 the window curtains " No doubt your time is fully taken up. 
 I come, as I promised, to offer my last words of congratulation, 
 and now I must hasten off to visit the Miss Ffrenches. They 
 return home to-morrow, and I am anxious to be the first to see 
 Portia under her altered circumstances." 
 
 Straight went the keen cold knife of jealousy to Susan's 
 heart. " Good evening to you, sir," holding out her hand 
 frigidly. " Don't let me detain you. I had not heard of any 
 alteration in Miss Portia's circumstances." 
 
 " Lady Erroll died last night didn't you know it 1 It was 
 in to-day's papers and I have a notion has cut her grand- 
 daughter, Portia, out of her inheritance. I had a note from 
 Portia Ffrench this morning, asking me to visit them in the 
 course of the afternoon, and from its tone I guess the truth. 
 Poor Portia ! " he added, throwing the utmost expression of 
 sentiment of which he was capable into his face, " now the true 
 nobility of her character will show itself." 
 
 "Now," remarked Susan, emphatically, "she will marry 
 Teddy Josselin." 
 
 " Well, no. I fancy the last act of Lady Erroll's life was to 
 extract a promise from Josselin that such a marriage should 
 never take place." 
 
 " And he was selfish, wicked enough to make it ? " Susan 
 asked the question with a sort of gasp. 
 
 "You call all promises wicked that are made against the 
 inclination of one's own heart 1 " 
 
 The answer died on Susan's lips : with sudden cruel clear- 
 ness the whole future shaped itself before her sight Portia 
 (abandoned by faithless Teddy Josselin) in poverty; Blake 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. , 475 
 
 offering the love that in reality had belonged to her all along ; 
 and she left desolate, to live an old maid's life at Miss Collin- 
 son's side ! This was her reward the crown to which the 
 uphill path of duty fulfilled had brought her. 
 
 The tears rose heavily into her eyes brimmed 
 
 over. 
 
 " Susan, my dear child ! " said Blake, quite with his old 
 tender manner, " what are you crying for ? Surely you and 
 Mr. Collinson have not had a lover's quarrel already ] " 
 
 " Mr. Collinson is in New Zealand ; I don't care where he 
 is. If if you had had any thought but of other people, I 
 would have shown you his letter. I shall never see Tom Col- 
 linson again while I live." 
 
 Upon this Blake threw his arm round the small shrinking 
 figure, and clasped it in a sort of bewilderment. " Collinson 
 in New Zealand ! And you have been unkind enough to keep 
 me in misery all these minutes ?" 
 
 " In misery 1 Will you please to let me go, sir. You have 
 your visit to pay to the Miss Ffrenches." 
 
 " I have no visit to pay to any one, and I will not let you 
 go. I can't realize this news. Is Miss Collinson's irritation 
 a sham ] Am I not to be t best man ' at the wedding, after 
 all!" 
 
 "You will be 'best man,' I daresay 'best 1 in the real 
 sense at another wedding before long ! For me, I will never 
 marry. I'm glad to think I've done with engagements, and 
 lovers, and all that wretchedness for ever ! " 
 
 " Susan, will you show me Collinson's letter ? I want con- 
 firmation of this good news. I can't look round without ex- 
 pecting to see your lover such a picture as I have of him in 
 my mind ! coming forward to claim you." 
 
 Susan drew the letter from her pocket: "It is for Eliza, 
 as you will see, but there are no secrets you may not read. 
 It was settled that if a letter, instead of Tom himself, 
 should arrive at the agent's, it was to be sent here by a 
 
4-7 6 St/SAN FIELDING. 
 
 messenger; and before leaving this morning, Eliza gave me 
 leave, in case such a letter came, to read it. He he writes 
 rather badly," added Susan, not even yet without a blush 
 of shame for Tom's deficiencies ; " but I think you may make 
 it out." 
 
 And this was what Blake read : his arm round Susan still, 
 her little curly head pressing round his shoulder as she read 
 her lover's letter with him : 
 
 " DEAR ELIZA, When you see this shaky scrawl you will 
 not be surprised to hear of my sickness. I suppose you have 
 got my last letter, and are expecting me, and when I wrote it 
 meant, as true as a man ever meant anything, to come by the 
 next mail ; but e Lumb propose, 1 as you used to say. My dear 
 sister, you must prepare your mind for a sad blow. I wish I 
 could say I thought it would be the same to S. F., but in her 
 heart it is my belief she never cared for me, and that's a 
 comfort not to me, but to my conscience. I was never much 
 of a hand, as you know, at a letter, and so must say my say 
 in few words. I've got a wife here, and a little daughter ; 
 you must make the best you can of that. From the first day 
 I saw S. F. I was sweet upon her, but I could say it on my 
 deathbed and this has been pretty near me I should never 
 have got into the mess I did but for you. That night you 
 spoke to me on the heath, and the day Susan dined with us 
 well, well, let bygones be bygones ; but this I do say, it's often 
 along of religious people and their tantalizing ways that 
 fellows like me get drove to their worst actions. This is duty, 
 and that is duty, till a man who hasn't too much steadiness at 
 starting don't know which way to turn to get out of it all. I 
 never meant to injure the girl, and I love her to this day I 
 love her. I think that little face of hers will go with me 
 to my grave. If I had married S. F. she would have been 
 my lawful wife I trust to you to make her believe so 
 much good of me; the injury would have been to Well, 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 477 
 
 I see I must write the story plain, if I ever want to have done 
 with it. 
 
 " You remember the time long ago, when I first wrote to 
 you, that I was meaning to get married to that blackguard 
 Scotchman's sister 1 My dear sister, I deceived you, for we 
 were married then, in a fashion. You know what the Scotch 
 are about marriage. Well, Matty (that was my sweetheart) 
 held the same notions as the rest, and one day a Methodist 
 parson chap came along by our station ; and we said we were 
 man and wife in his p:esence, and Matty thought it as true a 
 marriage as if we had been to church, and had a couple of 
 bishops to pray over us. I looked upon it, of course, as a 
 marriage, too, but I knew it wasn't one ; and by-and-by came 
 that villain Phil's smash, and everything in the colony going 
 to the dogs what was there for me to do but try my chance 
 in England again, and leave Matty to shift the best she could 
 for herself and the child ] It's all very fine for lucky men to 
 talk about ' principle.' I've never been lucky, and conse- 
 quently nothing I've done has been ' principled/ I don't 
 know that I ever deliberately harmed man or woman in my 
 life, but I've got into more scrapes than most, and generally 
 managed to drag some one else down with me. I was never 
 one of your cold-blooded, long-headed fellows, who can see 
 from the first what line of conduct will turn out profitablest 
 to themselves, and stick to it. I did what looked like best 
 for the moment, and let the future take care of itself. And 
 it didn't there's the truth and there's no accounting for 
 anything. 
 
 "I came back, and you know all that followed. I did 
 honestly mean at that time to turn over a new leaf. I felt 
 sure poor Matty would get on better without me than with 
 me, and I thought I'd take some place under Government, 
 and make you a home against your old age. And then one 
 morning came a letter Susan Fielding knows the day it came 
 and all my fine intentions were upset. I suppose no man 
 was ever on the horns of such a dilemmer as me that day. If 
 
478 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 Susan had been a little kinder about my going, I believe at 
 the last I would have stopped. But she wasn't kind, although 
 she pretended all she could. I dare say you'll say she saved 
 me from committing a great crime. I'm sure I don't know 
 about that. I came back, and found Matty pretty well off in 
 the world three thousand pounds or so left her by an uncle. 
 And I told her the truth that'll show you if I meant to act 
 dishonourable and said it might be better to leave her and 
 the child where they were, for the present, and how I saw a 
 good prospect of my getting on in England, et cetera ; and 
 all I asked was she should pay me, out of her fortune, an 
 equal sum to what her family had robbed me of. It was 
 then I wrote you word to expect me by the next mail. Matty 
 took things easy, for one of her high temper (it strikes me, 
 sometimes, she had other plans than I knew of), and it just 
 seemed to me matters might be squared off comfortable to all 
 parties, when for my paper tells me I must cut it short I 
 was struck down with my old enemy, the nervous fever. 
 Well, Matty, she nursed me through it, poor girl ; and in the 
 d. t., I believe, I let fall more than I ought. At all events, 
 when I got better, the first thing I saw by my pillow was 
 a parson a real one, you may be sworn, this time and 
 between them they made me see what my duty was ; and we 
 were married, you may say, before I had strength to know 
 what I was doing. Dear sister, I leave it to you to break this 
 to Susan I could not bring my hand to write to her and 
 ask her at the same time to let me have back my ring. I 
 shall want you to send us out a chest of things soon, and I 
 know she won't care to keep anything belonging to me. My 
 dear Eliza, I brought your diamond ring away by mistake, 
 and will take care of it till we meet, as I hope we shall 
 again, in this life ; for I hope, if ever you want a home, you'll 
 come and make it here, with me and Matty. The young one's 
 a fine child, a great look of poor father about the eyes. I'm 
 sure, dear sister, you'll always remember me and the baby as 
 the nearest you have belonging to you in the world. Let me 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 479 
 
 down as gently as you can with S. F., and in the neighbour- 
 hood, and believe me, your affectionate brother, 
 
 "TOM COLLINSON. 
 
 "P.S. Does Susan (who I conclude is in England) keep 
 company still with Portia Ffrench and her fine London 
 friends 1 " 
 
 " Poor Tom Collinson -jealous to the last ! " said Susan. 
 
 "'Poor Tom Collinson/ indeed! And it was for your 
 promise to a man like this a scoundrel who only did his duty 
 by accident, after a bout of delirium tremens that you were 
 going to sacrifice everything ? " 
 
 " I am not sure that he is a scoundrel. He confesses, you 
 must remember, that he didn't know what was right and what 
 was wrong. I should have known quite well that it was 
 wrong to break my word to him. My guilt would have been 
 greater than his." 
 
 "That is right. Stand up hotly for Collinson, now that 
 you are sure he did his best to injure you ! I wonder 
 whether it would be possible for a woman really to love a 
 man who had never shown a disposition to behave badly 
 to her?" 
 
 "I never loved Tom Collinson at all," said Susan, 
 appositely. 
 
 The whole of this time Blake's arms held her close. 
 " Susan, my love," he remarked, presently, " what are we 
 trying so hard to quarrel about ? " 
 
 " I am not trying to quarrel, sir ; and and I don't wish 
 to keep you from visiting the Miss Ffrenches." 
 
 "Miss Collinson has set her heart upon having a wedding 
 feast. Don't let us disappoint her. What reason is there 
 that you and I should not be married at once ? " 
 
 " The best of all reasons," said usan, in a faltering tone. 
 " Portia Ffrench is free, is in poverty ; and in your heart you 
 
480 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 care about her still. If you married me, it would be 
 from pity." 
 
 "It is not your place to analyze motives. Will you have 
 me for your husband It " 
 
 " If I was quite sure you did not care about Portia " . . . . 
 And in this wide city of London there were two happy hearts 
 at least. 
 
 After an hour or so they began to think of other people. 
 
 " Eliza will be back by tea-time," said Susan ; " I shall 
 never have the face to tell her all this." 
 
 " Well, I should think not/' said Blake. " Even a hardened 
 coquette like Susan Fielding would find it difficult to announce 
 that she had got off with an old love and on with a new 
 in the same day. Such things are not to be told by word 
 of mouth. Write Miss Collinson a line, confessing what 
 you have done. Enclose it, and Mr. Collinson's letter, in 
 an envelope, and come away with me to see the Miss 
 Ffrenches." 
 
 " I should certainly find it easier to meet Eliza if she was 
 prepared first if you would tell me how to word it." 
 
 " I don't think there need be much difficulty about that," 
 said Blake. 
 
 And upon this Susan got writing materials, sat down at the 
 table, and wrote ; but without Blake's assistance. It was the 
 easiest note she had ever composed in her life : 
 
 " DEAR ELIZA, Tom's letter explains everything. Don't 
 be angry with him, for I am not. I am quite sure he never 
 meant to injure me. I have gone to see the Miss Ffrenches, 
 so don't wait tea for me. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " SUSAN." 
 
 " Go on," said Blake, looking over her shoulder. " The 
 subject of the letter comes, of course, in the postcript : ' I'm 
 going to marry that worthless fellow Blake.' " 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 481 
 
 " Indeed, I won't say 'worthless/ Eliza might not know I 
 was joking. Do you think, really, I ought to tell her at 
 oncef 
 
 " It will show how little you concern yourself in the matter 
 if you don't." 
 
 And down went the postscript, carefully understroked : "I 
 am going to marry George Blake." 
 
 The note and Tom's letter were enclosed in an envelope, 
 and laid in a conspicuous position on the mantleshelf : then 
 Susan ran to put on her hat and cloak, and they started forth 
 into the night. 
 
 It was dismally wet and cold, Holborn a river of black mud, 
 the sleet falling fast ; but Susan insisted pertinaciously upon 
 having a hansom-cab. As soon as they were on their road, 
 "Every wish I had has come true at last," she cried. "That 
 night at the Chelsea Gardens, in summer, I thought the 
 greatest happiness the world could give would be to ride in a 
 hansom by moonlight us two ; and it all has come true." 
 
 " Except the moonlight," Blake remarked. 
 
 " Oh, how I wish, for one day, I could be sure you were 
 not laughing at me ! " said Susan. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV, 
 
 A DEAWING-EOOM warm, curtained, wax-lit on the first floor 
 of the Langham ; two figures, a young man's and a girl's, in 
 two easy-chairs, drawn up, luxuriously close to the fender, at 
 either end of the hearthrug. The man's eyes are closed, his 
 hands clasped with lazy listlessness above his head. The face 
 of the girl is keen with eager thought : animation, unrest, are 
 in every line of her graceful figure as she sits upright, her 
 cheek resting on her hand, and builds castle after castle while 
 she gazes in the red depth of the fire ! 
 
 2i 
 
482 SC7SAN FIELDING. 
 
 Castles not in Spain, but London : guests of the kind that 
 shall amuse herself ; little dinners ; little round games, such as 
 those at which she and Jack Dysart used, in old days, to bank 
 together ; the most perfect pony-carriage the town can show ; 
 the most artistic dresses ! Surely the cup of existence sparkles 
 to the brim at last. She likes Teddy Josselin ; his character 
 suits her own better than that of all the men the world has 
 shown her ; she likes Teddy Josselin's fortune. And yet 
 and yet " incomplete " nature, dissatisfied heart that she pos- 
 sesses ! Portia sighs bitterly, in this the crowning, long- 
 coveted moment, when every desire, every ambition of her 
 life has come to fruition. 
 
 " Teddy, dear, do you think you could manage to keep 
 awake for five minutes ] " 
 
 Teddy's eyes unclosed he turned his head round slowly. 
 " I wasn't asleep, my love ; I was listening to the cinders 
 falling from the fire." 
 
 " The house in Eaton Square is too big. It was very well 
 for grandmamma, who could live on a cutlet a day, and had 
 her jointure to depend upon. You and I would never be 
 able to keep it up. Besides, no nice people live in big houses. 
 We'll let it, and get a nutshell somewhere near the Park ; 
 spend our money on ourselves, not on a great useless house 
 and servants." 
 
 " Money ! Ah., that reminds me of poor Condy ! " said 
 Teddy Josselin. " I'd write the old soul a line to-night if I 
 wasn't so done up. We must let Condy have the annuity, 
 just the same, as though that last codicil had been signed, 
 Portia." 
 
 " For doing her best to ruin us ! Hadn't you better 
 pension Laura Wynne at the same time ] I am going to cut 
 her ; but that is beside the question.' 5 
 
 " I don't suppose Condy wanted to ruin anybody. Grand- 
 mamma made her follow people about ; 'twas one of her 
 duties, likelier than not. At a^ events, some one will 
 have to take care of Arno. We'll make them comfortable 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 483 
 
 together, and old Sam, too. And I think Condy has got a 
 sister. 7 ' 
 
 " What an interesting menagerie ! Lucky, we shall each 
 be able to have a private allowance to spend on our hobbies. 
 Ah, Teddy ! a number of things will have to be altered. You 
 are not going to have anything more to say to Nelly Rawdon,. 
 for instance 1 " 
 
 " Nor you to Dormer ?" 
 
 " Don't be absurd. Lord Dormer's position is a very dif- 
 ferent one to the Rawdons'." 
 
 "And Jack DysarU" 
 
 " Oh, poor dear old Jack ! " But a blush forced its way 
 into Portia's cheek. " The next time we meet, how I shall 
 laugh at him ! There's not a doubt in the world that he did 
 really see us both in Paris. And yet how thoroughly I 
 succeeded in hoodwinking him ! " 
 
 "And a good many other people with him," observed Teddy, 
 a little drily. " Thank Heaven ! " he added, " we shan't have 
 to hoodwink any one again. You wouldn't believe what a 
 relief it is to me, J Tia, to think I told the truth at the last!" 
 
 " I can quite believe it ! If one were always sure of such a 
 result to truth-telling, who would be at the trouble to tell 
 another falsehood It " 
 
 Teddy's eyes closed again ; the proposition required mental 
 exertion ; and after a minute or two of silence, a door com- 
 municating with another room opened, and Miss Jemima 
 came in. She walked up the room, the rear of Regent Street, 
 without deadening her footstep, and looked long and earnestly 
 at the two young figures beside the fire. 
 
 "Aunt Jem ! " cried Portia, suddenly catching sight of her. 
 " And with red eyes, too ! " She rose, and put her arm 
 round Miss Jemima. " Confess, now, slenderly though you 
 loved each other, that you have been crying for grand- 
 mamma ] " 
 
 "No, Portia," answered Miss Jemima; "I have been crying 
 for you." 
 
 2i2 
 
484 SVSAJV FIELDING. 
 
 "A little for me, too, I hope, Aunt Jem," said Teddy, 
 looking up. 
 
 " Yes ; a little for you, too. I trust they are the last tears 
 you will either of you make me shed." 
 
 " Trust ! " repeated Portia. " I don't know, aunt, that 
 you need put such a stinging emphasis on the word. I shall 
 make a better wife to Teddy Josselin, depend upon it, than I 
 should have made to a better man." 
 
 "And vice versd" said Teddy, sleepily. " Stay is it vice 
 versd ? A better husband to So-and-so, than I should have 
 
 made to a better Never mind, Portia ; you may laugh, 
 
 but I know what I mean myself." 
 
 Portia on this laughed aloud ; then, stooping down, she 
 patted Ted Josselin's shoulder encouragingly. But Miss 
 Jemima's face kept grave as ever. 
 
 "I would give all the little I am worth/' said she, " that 
 you hadn't entered upon life together with a falsehood." 
 
 " And was not falsehood forced upon us 1 " cried Portia. 
 " I knew that I liked this poor little foolish Teddy better than 
 I could ever like any one else; and I had heard the 
 story of the past too clearly from your lips, Aunt Jem, 
 not to be very sure my one chance of life was to marry 
 him. If I had told this openly acted honestly with 
 grandmamma what would have been the result 1 Starvation 
 to both of us. Will grandpapa, will anybody living, blame 
 me now for having acted as I did 1 Does not the end " she 
 glanced at Teddy " more than justify the means ]" 
 
 "We ought to have told Aunt Jem," said Teddy, rousing 
 himself ; "I always said that we ought to have told Aunt 
 Jem." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Portia. " Aunt's honest heart would 
 have been sure to ruin us. No honest-hearted^ people can be 
 trusted with a secret. Do you think, if Aunt Jem had known 
 the truth, she would not have spoken at St. Sauveur] " 
 
 " Do you think, if Aunt Jem had known the truth, she 
 would ever have been at St. Sauveur 1 " said old Miss Jemima. 
 
SC7SAN FOLDING. 485 
 
 u Oh, Portia ! be a good child now, if only to make amends to 
 me for what I suffered " 
 
 " The night when Ted and I were shipwrecked, and when 
 you thought I had run away with Jack Dysart ! Aunt, if we 
 had been shipwrecked, and our bodies found, you would have 
 guessed something of the truth ; for my ring was tied, as it 
 has been since last July, round my neck. My poor little 
 ring ! " she began to falter. 
 
 Teddy at once rose, and closed her lips with a kiss ! 
 
 " All these months have been a mistake," said he. " Let 
 us forget them. Where is the ring, Portia]'' He turned to' 
 her, with a flush of genuine feeling on his face. " Let Aunt 
 Jemima be the witness, while I put it on for good." 
 
 And Portia was just drawing a hidden bit of ribbon from 
 her throat when a knock came at the door. A waiter 
 appeared : " A lady and gentleman below waiting to see if 
 they might be admitted." 
 
 " Certainly not we can see nobody/' said Miss Jemima, in 
 a voice of choked emotion, and without looking round. " Say 
 there has been a bereavement in the family." 
 
 " The gentleman wished me to give his name Mr. George 
 Blake." 
 
 ' Show him up at once," cried Portia, pushing the ring 
 hastily out of sight again. " Now, Teddy," as the servant left 
 the room, " you must be the one to tell, mind." 
 
 " Perhaps there is to be a double surprise," remarked Teddy. 
 " We hear of a lady. Is Blake also going to impose a wife ? " 
 
 The door opened, and Blake appeared, with Susan Fielding 
 on his arm ; her face either from the wintry night-air, or 
 happiness, or both blooming as a rose. 
 
 The usual salutations passed j the ladies kissing each 
 other, the two young men shaking hands with more of the 
 thorough-heartedness of their old schoolboy days than they had 
 felt for months past. And then the four young people stood, 
 and' looked at each other a little awkwardly Miss Jemima 
 holding aloof. 
 
486 SUSAN FOLDING. 
 
 "It snows very fast," observed Susan, at last the only time 
 on record when she attempted to begin a conversation. " Eat 
 we came in a handsom-cab," she went on, colouring up furiously, 
 as she made the confession. 
 
 "You have come to us, my dear, in a time of great 
 
 imily " Honest Miss Jemima paused for a word. Could 
 
 Lady ErrolTs death be called an affliction ? 
 
 "A time/' exclaimed Portia, "when every one is speaking 
 the truth. I will speak it too. Mr. Blake/' turning to him 
 full, " grandmamma is dead (that you know from my note), 
 and she has left me nothing ; that also you know. My name 
 was not mentioned in her will." 
 
 " Portia, my dear ! " 
 
 " Oh ! of course, Aunt Jem, the will has not been read ; but 
 Bloxam, Condy, everybody knows perfectly well what is in it. 
 Poor grandmamma, at the last, died somewhat suddenly. Mr. 
 Blake, had she lived a quarter of an hour longer, we have 
 reason to fear her money would have been left away from us 
 
 .all; but she died, and everything she possessed in the 
 
 world goes to my cousin. Congratulate him on his good 
 ; fortune." 
 
 " Money by itself is a thing scarcely worth congratulating a 
 man about," said Blake, looking doubtfully at Teddy Josselin's 
 face. 
 
 " Money is the only thing, it seems to me, that a married 
 man can be congratulated about," said Teddy. " Oh ! I was 
 forgetting we have not mentioned it sooner but my cousin 
 Portia and I were married last July. The ceremony took 
 place here in London, but quietly Portia says we were mar- 
 ried from poor grandmamma's house and we spent our 
 honeymoon in Paris. So, you see, whoever congratulates one 
 congratulates the other." He smiled, and looked contented. 
 
 Married ! married ! months ago ? The slightest spasm 
 of disappointment crossed Blake's heart at the news. The one 
 supreme touch of felicity was given to Susan : not even in 
 ; imagination could Portia be a rival any more. 
 
SVSAN FIELDING. 487 
 
 " It would be a long story to tell all the pros and cons," 
 said Portia. Never had she looked fairer in Blake's eyes than 
 at this moment, as she stood, with downcast blushing face, at 
 her husband's side. " But there were, unhappily, good reasons 
 for our deceiving even our dearest friends. Ah, Mr. Blake ! " 
 and for an instant she raised her dark eyes reproachfully to 
 his "you need not have been so terribly hard on me that 
 evening in the summer. Teddy was with me all the time." 
 
 " Have I ever been hard on you, in my life, Miss Mrs. 
 Josselin ? " 
 
 Blake stammered over Portia's new name, then got red, and 
 every one laughed. If there had been just the slightest ele- 
 ment of tragedy in the situation hitherto, it was dispelled now. 
 
 " It sounds so funny to hear people called 'Mrs./ " remarked 
 Susan. 
 
 "Ah, very funny," said Ted Josselin. "Wait awhile, 
 Susan. See if the fun strikes you in the same light by-and- 
 by. What news from Otago *? " 
 
 The poor little girl's face grew hot with confusion : Jemima 
 Ffrench came to her assistance. " There's nothing for you to 
 be ashamed of, my dear Susan ; we are all friends here. I 
 know from Miss Collinson that her brother is expected daily, 
 and " 
 
 " He's not coming he'll never come again ! " exclaimed 
 Susan, with all the courage she possessed. 
 
 " Mr. Collinson not coming back ! " said Portia, and in a 
 moment her eyes were reading Blake's face. "This seems 
 destined to be an evening of congratulations." 
 
 " But I call such conduct infamous infamous ! " cried 
 Jemima Ffrench. " I've known a man cut by his whole 
 regiment for less cause. My poor little friend " 
 
 " Oh, ma'am, don't pity me ! " Susan hastened to interrupt. 
 " Indeed, everything has turned out for the best. We were 
 both very foolish we didn't know our own minds. And 
 Tom Collinson has married Matty, and I'm so delighted ! " 
 
 Old Miss Jemima lifted her hands and eyes in bewilderment. 
 
4-88 SUSAN FIELDING. 
 
 " Tom Collinson has married Matty, and you are delighted ! 
 The times are beyond me ! " she said. " Fidelity love 
 honour : nothing is as it once was ! " 
 
 " But I was never really in . . . . I mean, I never really 
 cared for" .... There Susan broke down, and stole an 
 appealing look up at Blake. 
 
 " Susan gave her word, but not her heart," said he, and, 
 moving to her side, he took her hand before them all and held 
 it in his. " Considering her age, we must not judge her too 
 harshly/' 
 
 " Particularly when we reflect on her manner of keeping 
 ^er word," suggested Teddy. 
 
 " Oh, but I did keep it," said Susan. " Mr. Blake knows, 
 if Tom Collinson had returned, I would never have broken my 
 promise to him." 
 
 "But Tom Collinson has not returned," said Blake ; "and 
 Susan is able to be true to herself, and to make me the hap- 
 piest fellow in existence." 
 
 Congratulations from every one. 
 
 " And so the curtain descends on universal felicity," said 
 Portia. Was there the slightest tinge of bitterness in her 
 voice ? " The money is left to the rightful heir ; stern old 
 parent (you dear Aunt Jem) reconciled ; the good and the 
 wicked heroine both marry, and live at peace for ever after, as 
 people do in novels." 
 
 " Marry, and live at peace for ever after," repeated Teddy, 
 thoughtfully. " And the fellows who write novels would make 
 us believe they take their pictures from life ! " 
 
 "Mrs. Josselin has omitted one important detail of the 
 closing scene," said Blake " the inequality in fortune between 
 the two heroines. Susan has only a life of poverty before her, 
 while " 
 
 " Poverty ! " cried Susan ; " I don't think we shall be at all 
 poor ; and if we were, would it matter ? Can one be more 
 than happy ? " looking up with a smile of the most absolute 
 contentment into her lover's face. 
 
SUSAN FIELDING. 489 
 
 Once again Portia sighed in the spirit. She had won much. 
 Ease, position, a London life with its attendant ever-changing 
 round of pleasures, were before her. She had not won all. 
 The commonplace heart of Susan Fielding was satisfied : the 
 life barren of riches, excitement, ambition, of all save love, 
 would be complete. 
 
 END. 
 
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