Suzanna Stirs the Fire Part 30

"I shall never give my consent," said the Eagle Man, but his voice had fallen.

"Then, father," said delicate, timid little Miss Ma.s.sey, "I shall marry Robert without your consent."

There was a long heavy silence. The baby having found a gold-plated lizard on the hearth was contemplating it with wondering eyes.

"Very well," said the Eagle Man at last, trying to speak calmly. "You'll go your own way. Not a cent of mine do you ever get."

"I'm glad to hear that," said the man, "for not a cent of yours shall my wife need."

Into the breach Suzanna strode.

"Oh, but you will need money," she cried as she stood anchoring the baby by means of an extended arm. "When you're married and you have a big family you'll have to pay the rent, and you'll have to dress all the little children, and there'll be insurance week, and something you haven't thought of all the time, and just when you get on your feet, there'll be the doctor at your door and his bill pretty soon."

"Exactly," said the Eagle Man, as though by Suzanna's words many of his contentions had been proved.

"But we shall be together," said little Miss Ma.s.sey, as though that beloved truth answered everything. The man had thrown his arms about her and had drawn her quite close, and she looked up into his face with eyes that still shone. Oh, how long she had loved him! And how long had it been since she settled to the realization that though he loved her, he was proud and would not speak. This spoken love she had craved with all her heart; and it had been withheld because he had no money and her father had too much.

"Will you tell me your real objection to me?" asked the man with frank directness appealing to the Eagle Man. "For that you have had objections to me I've sensed always."

The Eagle Man turned and looked the younger man over, carefully, critically, before answering. Indeed, he was so long about speaking that the children, at least, thought he never meant to speak again.

But at last: "My daughter," he began, "is now thirty-six. She has had thirty-six years of luxury, of merely raising her finger and receiving highly trained service. She is not a young girl who might, being more adaptable and buoyed up by romance, settle down to a new order of life; she is too used to the luxuries I have been able to give her, servants, carriages, horses, travel, fine clothes--" he enumerated them all with distinctness, giving each item a lengthy second before going on to his conclusion. "It will work real hards.h.i.+p on her to be compelled to give up all these things to do her own work and to make over her own dresses."

"You're mistaken, father," Miss Ma.s.sey denied, "all that giving up, if giving up you can call it, will be my joy if I can be with Robert." Her voice, deep with emotion, died into a silence which reigned for moments.

No one seemed to wish to break it, not even the baby. And yet, though the meaning of all the spoken words had not been clear to Suzanna, her eager, sensitive little mind seized on pictures which seemed somehow to fit in; yet pictures in their simplicity so far removed from her surroundings of luxury that they would seem but vagrant fancies.

Had she attempted to translate them, she would have failed, yet as they grew momentarily more vivid and meaningful, interpretive words, as vivid as the pictures themselves, rushed to her lips. She turned to the Eagle Man.

"Oh, on Sat.u.r.day night when supper is over and the shades are pulled down and the lamp is lit in the parlor, and Robert is reading a big book with pictures in it, and the children, except the two eldest, are all asleep upstairs and it's raining outside, and you can hear the pitapat, pitapat of the drops on the window pane, then Miss Ma.s.sey will be happy.

Before supper Miss Ma.s.sey'll have felt awful tired and she'll hurry up things and she'll make her eldest little girl hurry too, but after the dishes are cleared away, and she's sitting close to Robert, she'll be so glad she's in out of the rain with her children all in safe too, that she'll not care a bit about raising her finger for a little man to come and ask her what she wants. She'll not want to go about in a carriage, or travel in a big train!"

No one spoke. Only the scene painted so simply grew in the hearts of at least two there, so that Robert drew his promised wife a little closer to him and she glanced up in his face with eyes full of color.

Suzanna went on. She had forgotten her audience. She was just telling out the pictures that had been built into her life; supper tables with many young faces about; little babies who had stayed just awhile; hasty words and loving making up; the star-dust of the real every-day life.

"You know," she continued, "that Maizie and I crept downstairs one Sat.u.r.day night because I wanted to tell daddy something, and mother was sitting right close to him, and we heard her say: 'When the children are safe in bed, and just you and I are here--then I see things clearer--'

And he just looked at her and said, 'Sweetheart!' and his voice was nicer than even when he says good-night to Maizie and me."

Miss Ma.s.sey turned her gaze upon Suzanna. "Little girl, little girl,"

she said, "come here--"

So Suzanna went and stood close to Miss Ma.s.sey, whilst Maizie went after the marauding baby.

The Eagle Man cleared his throat. "That child of yours is going to sleep," he said speaking to Suzanna.

"Oh, no," said Suzanna, not meaning to contradict, but just to set him straight, "he's wide-awake. But I guess it must be time for us to go. I know you think so too, Mr. Eagle Man."

She left Miss Ma.s.sey's tender clasp, went to the baby, raised him, held him under her arm skilfully, the while his legs stuck out straight behind her. She spoke to Miss Ma.s.sey:

"If the Eagle Man's mad at you and he stays mad all night," she said, "you can come to our house and sleep in my bed with Maizie. Mother can fix the dining-room table for me."

Miss Ma.s.sey released herself from Robert's clasp and went to Suzanna.

She stooped and kissed her tenderly. "Thank you, dear little girl," she said. "I'll remember that invitation."

The Eagle Man pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. Immediately it seemed, one of the men with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons appeared.

"Carry that child to its perambulator," shouted the Eagle Man. Not a flicker disturbed the serenity of the man addressed, no matter what were his inner feelings. He put out two arms straight and stiff like rods, and Suzanna placed the baby upon them. Saying quickly their adieus, Suzanna and Maizie walked behind the uniformed man, for whom Suzanna at least felt a stirring of pity.

CHAPTER XVII

A SIMPLE WEDDING

"And so," concluded Suzanna early one afternoon as she stood on a soap box in her own yard, "the n.o.ble knight set forth on his prancing steed, having finished his deeds of blood. And all about him lay those he had slain."

The children having listened entranced to the story, now stirred; Maizie was the first to speak. "I think the knight was horrid," she said.

"I like him," said soft little Daphne who was now a constant, happy visitor at the Procter home.

"I think a brave knight is bully," said Graham Bartlett, as constant a visitor as Daphne.

"I would slay mine by the hundred," cried Peter boastfully.

Graham looked off into the distance. "I shall fare forth some day," he said, "and lead my armies to victory proudly, yet disdainfully. I shall have no love in my heart, only sternness."

"Drusilla can tell some wonderful tales of knights," said Suzanna. "Does she tell you stories when you go to visit her, Graham?"

Graham colored hotly. "I haven't been to see her lately," he answered; then, "I'll tell you, let's go today."

Suzanna bounded away to ask permission of her mother. She returned in a moment. "Mother says we may go after Peter changes his blouse. Hurry up, Peter. Don't keep us waiting."

Peter moved reluctantly houseward, and Suzanna ended: "Isn't it fine that today was teachers' meeting so we could have a holiday?"

Graham looked wistfully at her. He had a tutor, and lessons alone he felt could not be so interesting as when learned with a number of other boys and girls.

"Let's go," said Suzanna, "we can walk slowly so Peter can catch up with us. You mustn't get tired, will you, Daphne?" Daphne was very sure she would not, and Peter reappearing at the moment, they all started away.

They went out into a sunny day left over from the Indian summer. Still there was crispness in the air which exhilarated them, moving Peter to sundry manifestations which Maizie coldly designated as "showing off."

He stood on his head, turned somersaults, cast his voice up to the heavens, immediately spoiled the crispness of his clean blouse. He was the fine, free savage, and his sisters finally gave up trying to tame him.

"It's Thanksgiving weather, isn't it?" said Suzanna. "Come on, let's all skip."

So they all fell into Peter's spirit, and thus it was that skipping and singing they reached Drusilla's little home. It was very quiet in that spot, the garden desolate, the flowers gone. The children instinctively hushed their songs and went slowly up the front steps.

Graham rang the bell.

The kindly-faced maid answered the ring. "Oh, come in, children," she cried. "Mrs. Bartlett certainly needs cheering today."