Suzanna Stirs the Fire Part 38

Suzanna kissed the soft, wrinkled cheek. "Good-bye, Drusilla," she breathed. "I love you with all my heart, and I'm coming to see you again very soon."

CHAPTER XXI

MR. BARTLETT SEES THE MACHINE

But Suzanna did not go to see her friend Drusilla again. For within a few days after the hurried night visit, Drusilla set off on her journey.

There was but one with her when she left, all aquiver to be gone, her eyes set in the distance on visions hid from earthly eyes.

Her boy was close beside her, his arms about her, his heart filled with woe for all the years he had forgotten. And when he kissed her and begged her forgiveness, she was all love and understanding for him, even as when a small boy he had sought her forgiveness and her understanding.

The tents were up now in the big Bartlett grounds. Tents with floors and movable stoves. Children played about the grounds on the rare sunny day that Drusilla went away.

Mr. Bartlett, returning from his mother's bedside, went hurriedly through his grounds, and on upstairs to his own room. There, waiting for him, was Graham. The boy knew at once the truth.

"Father," he cried, and put his arms about the tall figure.

They stood so, the man finding comfort in the contact of his boy. And so Mrs. Bartlett, returned temporarily from a journey, found them.

She started back at sight of them thus together. They seemed in their new intimacy to have shut her out, quite out of their lives. "I've been looking for you, Graham," she began, and then caught her breath sharply at the look the boy gave her; not a premeditated cold look, only one that he might bestow upon a stranger.

"Father has just come home," he said; "grandmother--"

But he did not finish. He saw that his mother understood that Drusilla had gone away. Mr. Bartlett spoke to his wife. "I heard this morning that you had returned to stay for a day. I'm afraid the tents and the children will still disfigure our grounds for some time."

His bitterness made her wince. But she answered calmly. "Yes, I returned while you were absent."

"For a day, as I was told?"

"My plans must change now of necessity--my trip to Italy--"

"Why?" he asked. "Nothing that has happened need interfere with any of your plans, your mode of living. My mother would not wish that."

She broke forth then, the color surging up into her face. "Why are you so unjust to me? Did I suggest that you neglect your mother? You could not expect me to take your place."

"No--" he spoke sadly. "No, I could not expect that. Believe me, please, when I say that I put blame on no one but myself. Money--that has been the main thing in life. Money, and more money. There was always need for all I could make." His eyes swept her lovely gown; the costly cape across her arm. Thought, much money, much time had gone into building her perfect completeness. "No. A man cannot expect another, even a wife, to fulfill his sacred obligations."

Perhaps the thought came to her that a wife need not ask so much, ask so demandingly that a man must yield his finest dreams, his every hour to fulfill her wishes. The color deepened and deepened in her cheek.

Perhaps she remembered their first months together when in the grayest days he saw color, because they belonged one to the other.

They had both forgotten Graham. She looked at the boy now. He stood regarding her with that strange aloofness in his eyes, that sharp question. She felt all at once very lonely.

For Graham, she knew, was estranged from her! And now she knew that she desired most of all his love in all its purity. Her social strivings, her desire for leaders.h.i.+p balanced against Graham's former wors.h.i.+pful, chivalrous love for her, dwindled to a pitiful insignificance.

And with the value of her child's love, she suddenly realized the older mother's longings--the one who had just gone on. An old mother--in her full years mourning for the child she had borne, nursed, and succored.

Grieving, that in his manhood he had gone from her; that he had seemingly forgotten in his feverish striving after wealth the lessons she had sought to teach him.

Was the wife to blame for this? But some stern sense of justice derided her efforts to exculpate herself. She remembered how she had held the power to influence him in the early days of their marriage; he had believed so wonderfully in the whiteness of her ideals. He was malleable material in her fingers.

But above and beyond his love she had put wealth and fine position. He had given her both, but now before her stood her husband and son estranged from her.

She moved away at last. With new awakening power of perception, she felt she was stripped of everything of worth. When she was half-way down the wide hall she heard a step behind her. She paused, waited, and in a moment Graham was beside her.

He put his hand in hers. "Mother," he said, quietly.

Her eyes filled with the near tears. She clung to his hand as though he would protect her against her own bitter thoughts.

"Does your head ache?" he asked. There was solicitude in his voice, but still that strange, dreadful aloofness, more dreadful because he was not conscious of it.

"No," she answered. She looked down at him and out of an impulse she cried: "Do you still love me, Graham?"

"I love you, mother," he answered gravely. But she knew then that there would be work on her part before once again she stood to him his ideal.

She had dwelt in the core of his heart; perhaps in time she could once more move near to that sanctified place. The intimate human relation, husband and wife, parent and child--she knew with pain and yearning that all else--position, great wealth, worldly power--were vain beside the joy of those relations in their purest.

Perhaps a week later Suzanna was was.h.i.+ng the supper dishes, and Maizie wiping them. Their mother was upstairs with Peter and the baby, Mr.

Procter in the attic. As Maizie finished the last dish, the door bell rang.

Suzanna ran to the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, mother, shall I answer?" she cried.

"I wish you would," Mrs. Procter called down. "Peter has a stone bruise and I'm using liniment."

So Suzanna went to the front door. She opened it to Mr. Bartlett.

"Good evening, Suzanna," he said in a friendly voice. "Is your father at home?"

"He's upstairs in the attic. Shall I take you to him?" asked Suzanna very politely.

"Perhaps you'd better consult him first as to that, Suzanna. He may not wish to be disturbed."

"Well, I will. Won't you sit down in the parlor?"

Mr. Bartlett, half smiling, followed the small figure into the room designated. He looked about interestedly after Suzanna had gone. A kerosene lamp set upon a center table sent an apologetic light over the shabby furniture. Above the mantel with its velvet cover and statuette of a crying baby, was a picture of Suzanna, a "crayon," Mr. Bartlett amusingly surmised. The small face looked out with a distorted artificial smile quite unknown to the face it sought to represent. Yet Suzanna's aura was visible, Mr. Bartlett thought. That little girl who so simply and lovingly had called his mother Drusilla because no one in the world was left to do so! A fragrance straight from his heart made the ugly crayon suddenly a thing of beauty, showing forth a child's soul.

Suzanna returned, panting a little. She had run upstairs and down again.

"Father wants you to go right up," she said. "And maybe when I've finished the dishes I'll come back, too."

So he followed her up the narrow stairs. Suzanna gravely told him that every other step creaked, except if you put your foot carefully in the middle. At the attic door she left him.

Mr. Procter looked up as his visitor entered. "I'm glad to see you, Mr.

Bartlett," he said cordially. "It's not very light in here, but we can see to talk. Sit down."