Suzanna Stirs the Fire Part 3

"Good morning," Suzanna returned as she took her place; then, "Will you remind Maizie that I am an Only Child today?"

"You hear, Maizie," said Mrs. Procter smiling.

"Mustn't any of us speak to her?" asked Peter.

"No one but her mother," said Suzanna addressing the ceiling.

She went on with her breakfast, eating daintily with the small finger on her right hand c.o.c.ked outward. Maizie stared, fascinated. Countless words rushed to her lips, but she had been bidden to silence, and she feared, should she speak to Suzanna, dire results would follow. Suzanna might even go away by herself in pursuit of some wonderful dream, and leave Maizie out of her scheme of things entirely.

So Maizie waited patiently.

"Since you sent Bridget away on an errand of mercy, Mother," Suzanna began later, "I'll help you with the dishes."

In Suzanna's estimation the family boasting an Only Child boasted also servants.

"I'll be glad of your help," said Mrs. Procter, "and since Bridget is away, perhaps you will be kind enough to make your own bed and dust your own room."

Suzanna's face fell. Maizie put out a small hand and touched her sister.

"I'll help you," she said, "if you want me to."

"Very well," said Suzanna, and together the children went upstairs.

In the little room shared by the sisters, Suzanna went to work.

Ardently she shook pillows and carefully she smoothed sheets, while Maizie, with a reflective eye ever upon Suzanna, dusted the dresser and hung up the clothes.

"Is your mother well this morning?" asked Suzanna politely.

"Why, you saw her," Maizie cried off guard. "She didn't have a headache this morning, did she?"

"I'm speaking of _your_ mother," said Suzanna. "You belong to an entirely different family from me."

"Well," said Maizie after a time, "she's not suffering, thank you."

"Have you any brothers and sisters?" pursued Suzanna in an interested though rather aloof tone.

"Oh, yes," said Maizie, trying hard to fill her role satisfactorily. "We have a very large family, and once we had twins."

Suzanna looked her pity. "I'm so glad," she said, "that I'm an Only Child. This morning I was very joyous when I had whipped cream and oatmeal."

"You just had syrup, Suzanna Procter!" cried Maizie.

Suzanna cast a scathing look at her sister: "I had whipped cream!" she cried, "because I am an Only Child!" Then falling into her natural tone: "If you forget again, Maizie, I can't even be a friend of yours." She continued after a pause, rea.s.suming her Only-Child voice, "That's why I wear this beautiful satin dress and diamond bracelets and s.h.i.+ning buckles on my shoes."

Now Maizie saw only Suzanna's lawn dress, rather worn Sunday shoes with patent leather tips; she saw Suzanna's bare arms.

"Maybe you'd like, really, to wear a white satin dress and bracelets and buckles, but you know you haven't got them, don't you, Suzanna?" she asked.

Suzanna did not answer, plainly ignoring Maizie's conciliatory tone, and so finding the silence continuing unbroken, Maizie changed the subject.

"Will you play school with me this afternoon, Suzanna?"

Suzanna thought a moment: "I don't just know. I may go and play with some of the other girls today, and, remember, if I do that a friend can't get mad like a sister can."

Maizie began to whimper.

"All right, if you're going to act that way, I am going off to see Drusilla," with which statement Suzanna turned and went downstairs.

Maizie came running down after her. "Mother, mother," she called loudly, "I don't like Suzanna when she's the Only Child."

Mrs. Procter, busy with the baby, looked up. She was a little cross now.

"I wish, Suzanna," she said, "that you would learn to be sensible and not always be acting in plays you make up."

Suzanna, who a moment before had bounded joyfully into her mother's presence, now paused, the light dying from her eyes. She looked at her mother and her mother, uncomfortable beneath the steady gaze, spoke again with an irritation partially a.s.sumed.

"I mean just that, Suzanna," she said. "Maizie can't easily follow all your imaginings; and I have enough to do without always trying to keep the peace between you."

Suzanna stood perfectly still. The color rose to her temples, while the dark eyes flashed. Waves of emotion swept through her. Emotions she could not express. At last in a tense voice she spoke: "I wish I wasn't your child, Mother."

"Go at once to your room," said Mrs. Procter, "and stay there till I tell you you may come down again."

With no word Suzanna turned, went slowly up the stairs again, drew a chair to the window and sat down. She was flaming under a bitter sense of injustice. With all the intensity of her nature for the moment she hated the entire world.

Time pa.s.sed. She heard sounds downstairs, Maizie going out to play in the yard with Peter; her mother singing the baby to sleep, and still Suzanna sat near the window, and still her small heart beat resentfully.

Later, she heard her father's voice. Perhaps he cared for her. But even of this she was not sure. Then she sat up very straight. Someone was coming up the stairs.

It was Maizie. The little girl slowly opened the bedroom door, peeped cautiously in, and then on tiptoes approached Suzanna. "Mother says,"

she began, "that you're to come down to lunch."

"I don't want any lunch," said Suzanna. The bright color still stained her cheek. "You can just go downstairs and eat up everything in the house, and be sure and tell mother I said so."

Maizie looked her awe at this defiant sister. Downstairs she returned to deliver verbatim Suzanna's message.

Suzanna sat on. From bitter disillusion felt against everything in her world her mind chilled to a.n.a.lysis. Her mother loved her, she believed, and yet--she did not complete her swift thought; indeed, she looked quickly about in fear of her disloyalty. She had once thought that mothers were perfect, rare beings removed worlds from other mere mortals. Hadn't she, when a very small girl of four, been quite unable to comprehend that mother was a mere human being? "Mother is just mother," she had said in her baby way, and that sentence spelled all the devotion and admiration of a pure little heart for one enshrined within it.

And now mother had fallen short. Mother had disappointed that desperately loving, intense soul. The tears started to her eyes. It was as though on this second tucked-in day an epoch had come marking the day for all time, placing it by itself as containing an experience never to be forgotten.

After a time she realized she was hungry. So she went quietly to the top of the stairs, but no sound came up from below.

Some clock struck one, and then Suzanna heard running footsteps mounting the stairs. She sat straight and gazed out of the window. She knew the moment her mother entered the room, but she did not turn her head.

Mrs. Procter approached until she stood close to Suzanna. She looked down into the mutinous little face. She had come intending to scold, but something electric about the child kept hasty words back.

At length: "Aren't you going to speak to me, Suzanna?" she said.

Suzanna did not answer immediately. That strange, awful thought that her very own mother had been unjustly irritable held her tongue-tied. At length words, short, curt, came:

"You weren't _all right_ to me this morning, Mother," she said, raising her stormy eyes. "Yesterday you were nice to me when I was a princess.

Today you were cross because Maizie couldn't understand, and she never understands. You never were cross about that before." She gazed straight back into her mother's face--"I'm mad at the whole world."