Suzanna Stirs the Fire Part 13

Other games were suggested and played by the children, but Suzanna still sat in the big armchair, one long thin leg dangling, the other bent under her. She grew fertile in excuses when asked to join the others. She like to "watch," then she felt a little tired, until Miss Ma.s.sey at last sensing that something was wrong did no more urging.

Once little Maizie sought her sister. Why wouldn't Suzanna play? Was she mad at something?

Suzanna gulped hard, then with manifest effort she whispered: "You know where mother put the ribbon bag so my slippers would be long enough?

Well, my toe's stuck through the ribbon, and I mustn't move."

"Oh!" Maizie was sorry. "Can't you tell Miss Ma.s.sey and let her fix it?"

Suzanna shrank back. "No, no," she cried. "You mustn't say anything, do you hear, Maizie? Promise me."

Maizie solemnly promised. "Will the other one hold?" she asked then.

Thus the little Job's Comforter gave Suzanna food for unpleasant questionings. Would, indeed, the other slipper hold?

Then said Miss Ma.s.sey: "We are going into the garden, Suzanna. Would you rather stay here till we return?" Her question was very gentle, her understanding would have been very sure had Suzanna told her trouble.

But Suzanna only answered eagerly:

"Yes, I'd like to stay here." She was almost happy in the moment's relief.

"If you wish to come later you can find us. Just ring this bell and Mrs.

Russell, the housekeeper, will take you to the South Garden," said Miss Ma.s.sey. She leaned down and touched Suzanna's face with her soft lips.

And then Suzanna was left alone.

Now what to do! Suzanna set her fertile little mind to work on the problem. She settled into the chair and lowered the foot on which she was sitting. She was intently regarding the torn slipper, when she heard distinctly an unpleasant sound. A sound which gathered volume, till Suzanna realized that something or someone was approaching the library.

She resumed her former position, and waited!

The brocade curtains were drawn aside; a little man in a sort of uniform stood with head bowed, while a large man limped into the room.

"Fix my chair, you simpering idiot," he shouted at the little man, "and then take yourself off!"

The small man glided to a great easy chair near the fireplace. He heaped pillows in it, stood aside while the loud-voiced one lowered himself, groaningly, into the downy nest. Then the valet disappeared. Suzanna involuntarily glanced at his feet. Did he move on velvet casters?

A moment, then the big man gave a twist of pain. A rheumatic dart had seized him, had Suzanna known, but she could not know, and a little exclamation was drawn from her. At the sound, the other occupant of the room started and glanced around till finally his eyes came to rest upon the small girl in a large chair thrust well away in a shadowy corner of the room.

"Well!" at length he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. And then: "Are you one of the Sunday School cla.s.s?"

"Yes, I'm Suzanna Procter. The other little girls have gone out into the garden."

He grunted and continued to glare fiercely at her. But Suzanna knew no fear. She felt strangely a sudden high sense of exhilaration, just as once when she had been caught in a brilliant electric storm. Some element in her rose and responded to the big flashes; just as she had responded to Drusilla's play of imagination. Now a force was roused in her that claimed kinship with the big, thunderous man opposite. She sat up very straight, and stared right back at him. Then she said very calmly:

"You look like an eagle!"

"Then you're afraid of me!" He flung the words at her with a certain triumph.

"I'm not! I don't like the way you shout, but _I'm_ not afraid of you."

He sank back among his pillows, but did not take his eyes from her face.

At last he asked: "What are you sitting bent up that way for? Are you hiding anything?"

Suzanna flushed. "You're not supposed to ask a visitor if she's hiding anything; especially when her leg's asleep and she's suffering."

A spasm crossed his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile. He said only: "Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. Put it down, I say!"

She did not move. "Will you please turn your head away a whole minute?"

she finally asked.

He did so, somewhat to his own surprise. He was unaccustomed to obeying others. When he turned again, she uttered a cry: "Why didn't you keep your head turned the other way till I told you to look," she exclaimed, indignantly. "You don't play fair."

"See here, little girl," he commenced, when his eyes fell to her foot, which for the moment she had forgotten, a small black-shod foot with two protruding toes. "Eh, what's that!"

"My toes!" she answered. Her face flamed, then with sudden anger against him, against circ.u.mstances, against everything that had conspired to spoil this beautiful and long-dreamed-of day: "They're sticking through my slipper. That's why I had to sit on my foot. That's why my leg went to sleep. That's why I couldn't go out in the garden with the others."

He began to laugh, silently, mirthlessly, but it was laughter nevertheless. Suzanna regarded him, her quick temper getting beyond her control. At last she burst forth: "You're a rude man! And it isn't funny to miss beautiful things, the flowers and the baby squirrels, and perhaps lemonade."

He didn't answer for a moment. Then he said:

"Agreed! But it's certainly funny to see your toes sticking through your shoe. No wonder you sat on your foot." Still, despite his discourteous words, his tone changed; it was almost apologetic.

Suzanna's face lost its clouds. "Of course, I had to sit on my foot,"

she agreed. "I couldn't let Miss Ma.s.sey see how mother put a black ribbon bag on my slippers to make them longer, could I? She wouldn't understand like you do, would she?"

"Do I understand? I wonder. Well, why did your mother put on the black ribbon?"

"The shoes were too short!"

"She should have bought you a new pair."

Suzanna sprang from her chair and went to the big man.

"Do you know what rent week means?" she asked, lifting her earnest face to his and standing so close that her hand touched his knee.

"I think I do," he answered.

"Well, this is rent week and Peter's coat was out at the elbows and two of us needed shoes and the insurance was due on all of us and mother can't let that go. It came in very handy when Helen, Peter's twin, went away."

"What do you mean by 'went away?' Don't lean on that knee, that's where the rheumatism is--do you mean died?"

Suzanna flinched. "We say 'went away,'" she answered gently; "you think then that someone you loved has just gone away for a little while, and is waiting somewhere for you."

The man's gaze wandered up to the lovely, smiling face above the mantel and stayed there a s.p.a.ce before his eyes came back to Suzanna.

"And so," she finished, "because everything came together, rent and insurance and shoes, and a coat, I had to wear these slippers." Suzanna was quite cheerful again, only very eager that he should understand the situation.

At this moment the timid little valet appeared in the doorway. "Anything you wish, sir?" he began. "Are you quite comfortable?"

"You infernal idiot!" bawled the man in the chair. "Can anyone be comfortable with rheumatism in his knee?"

The little man precipitately retired. "You're awful cross," Suzanna commented. "What does the man mean asking if you're 'comfortable?'

That's what Miss Ma.s.sey asked me in the park carriage. I was sitting down, and nothing hurt me."