The Book of Susan: A Novel. Dodd Lee Wilson
I exclaimed. "You knew from the first how to chasten my stuck-up name, didn't you? 'Ambo' is a delightful improvement."
"It's more like you," said Susan, tightening her fingers briefly on mine.
And presently she closed her eyes. When, after a long still interval, she opened them, they were cypress-shaded pools.
"Tell me what happened, Ambo."
"He's dead, Susan. Pearl's dead, too."
She closed her eyes again, and two big tears slipped out from between her lids, wetting her thick eyelashes and staining her bruised and her pallid cheek.
"He couldn't help it. He was made like that, inside. He was no damn good, Ambo. That's what he was always saying to Pearl – 'You're no damn good.' She wasn't, either. And he wasn't, much. I guess it's better for him and Pearl to be dead."
This – and the two big tears – was her good-by to Bob, to Pearl, to the four-room house; her good-by to Birch Street. It shocked me at the time. I released her hand and stood up to light a cigarette – staring the while at Susan. Where had she found her precocious brains? And had she no heart? Had something of Bob's granitic harshness entered into this uncanny, this unnatural child? Should I live to regret my decision to care for her, to educate her? When I died, would she say – to whom? – "I guess it's better for him to be dead. Poor Ambo! He was no damn good."
But even as I shuddered, I smiled. For, after all, she was right; the child was right. She had merely uttered, truthfully, thoughts which a more conventional mind, more conventionally disciplined, would have known how to conceal – yes, to conceal even from itself. Genius was very like that.
"Susan!" I suddenly demanded. "Have you any relatives who will try to claim you?"
"Claim me?"
"Yes. Want to take care of you?"
"Mamma's sister-in-law lives in Hoboken," said Susan. "But she's a widow; and she's got seven already."
"Would you like to stay here with me?"
For all answer she flopped sidelong down from the pillows and hid her bruised face in the counterpane. Her slight, canary-clad shoulders were shaken with stifled weeping.
"That settles it!" I affirmed. "I'll see my lawyer in the morning, and he'll get the court to appoint me your guardian. Come now! If you cry about it, I'll think you don't want me for guardian. Do you?"
She turned a blubbered, wistful face toward me from the counterpane. Her eyes answered me. I leaned over, smoothed a pillow and slipped it beneath her tired head, then kissed her unbruised cheek and walked quietly back into my own room – where I rang for Mrs. Parrot.
When she arrived, "Mrs. Parrot," I suggested, "please make Susan comfortable for the night, will you? And I'll appreciate it if you treat her exactly as you would my own child."
It took Mrs. Parrot at least a minute to hit upon something she quite dared to leave with me.
"Very well, Mr. Hunt. Not having an own child, and not knowing – you can say that. Not that it's the same thing, though you do say it! But I'll make her comfortable – and time tells. In darker days, I hope you'll be able to say that poor, peeny little creature has done the same by you."
"Thank you, Mrs. Parrot. Good-night."
"A good night to you, Mr. Hunt," elaborated Mrs. Parrot, not without malice; "many of them, Mr. Hunt; many of them, I'm sure."
III
By the time Mrs. Parrot left us, housekeeper, governess, and maid had been obtained in New York through agencies of the highest respectability.
Miss Goucher, the housekeeper, proved to be a tall, big-framed spinster, rising fifty; a capable, taciturn woman with a positive talent for minding her own affairs. She had bleak, light-gray eyes, a rudderlike nose, and a harsh, positive way of speech that was less disagreeable than it might have been, because she so seldom spoke at all. Having hoped for a more amiable presence, I was of two minds over keeping her; but she took charge of my house so promptly and efficiently, and effaced herself so thoroughly – a difficult feat for so definite a figure – that in the end there was nothing I could complain of; and so she stayed.
Miss Disbrow on the other hand, who came as governess, was all that I had dared to wish for; a graceful, light-footed, soft-voiced girl – she was not yet thirty – with charming manners, a fluent command of the purest convent-taught French, a nice touch on the piano, and apparently some slight acquaintance with the solider branches. Merely to associate with Miss Disbrow would, I felt, do much for Susan.
I was less certain about Sonia, the maid. I had asked for a middle-aged English maid. Sonia was Russian, and she was only twenty-three. But she was sent directly to me from service with Countess Dimbrovitski – formerly, as you know, Maud Hochstetter, of Omaha – and brought with her a most glowing reference for skill, honesty, and unfailing tact. Countess Dimbrovitski did not explain in the reference, dated from Newport, why she had permitted this paragon to slip from her; nor did it occur to me to investigate the point. But Sonia later explained it all, in intimate detail, to Susan – as we shall see.
I had feared that Susan might be at first a little bewildered by the attentions of Sonia and of Miss Disbrow; so I explained the unusual situation to Miss Goucher and Miss Disbrow – with certain reservations – and asked them to make it clear to Sonia. Miss Goucher merely nodded, curtly enough, and said she understood. Miss Disbrow proved more curious and more voluble.
"How wonderful of you, Mr. Hunt!" she exclaimed. "To take in a poor little waif and do all this for her! Personally, I count it a privilege to be allowed some share in so generous an action. Oh, but I do – I do. One likes to feel, even when forced to work for one's living, that one has some little opportunity to do good in the world. Life isn't," asked Miss Disbrow, "all money-grubbing and selfishness, is it?" And as I found no ready answer, she concluded: "But I need hardly ask that of you!"
For the fleetingest second I found myself wondering whether Miss Disbrow, deep down in her hidden heart, might not be a minx. Yet her glance, the happiest mixture of frankness, timidity, and respectful admiration, disarmed me. I dismissed the unworthy suspicion as absurd.
I was a little troubled, though, when Susan that same evening after dinner came to me in the library and seated herself on a low stool facing my easy-chair.
"Ambo," she said, "I've been blind as blind, haven't I?"
"Have you?" I responded. "For a blind girl, it's wonderful how you find your way about!"
"But I'm not joking – and that's just it," said Susan.
"What's wrong, dear?" I asked. "I see something is."
"Yes. I am. The wrongest possible. I've just dumped myself on you, and stayed here; and – and I've no damn business here at all!"
"I thought we were going to forget the damns and hells, Susan?"
"We are," said Susan, coloring sharply and looking as if she wanted to cry. "But when you've heard them, and worse, every minute all your life – it's pretty hard to forget. You must scold me more!" Then with a swift movement she leaned forward and laid her cheek on my knee. "You're too good to me, Ambo. I oughtn't to be here – wearing wonderful dresses, having a maid to do my hair and – and polish me and button me and mend me. I wasn't meant to have an easy time; I wasn't born for it. First thing you know, Ambo, I'll get to thinking I was – and be mean to you somehow!"
"I'll risk that, Susan."
"Yes, but I oughtn't to let you. I could learn to be somebody's maid like Sonia; and if I study hard – and I'm going to! – some day I could be a governess like Miss Disbrow; only really know things, not just pretend. Or when I'm old enough, a housekeeper like Miss Goucher! That's what you should make me do – work for you! I can clean things better than Nora now; I never skip underneaths. Truly, Ambo, it's all wrong, my having people work for me – at your expense. I know it is! Miss Disbrow made it all clear as clear, right away."
"What! Has Miss Disbrow been stuffing this nonsense into your head!" I was furious.
"Oh,