Papa's own girl: A novel

Susie Dykes was a little woman even among the rather diminutive. She had pretty soft grey eyes, a slender, well-shaped waist, and a wealth of light yellow hair. The pretty and simple way she arranged it the doctor had often noticed. She combed it straight back, twisted a part of it into a heavy coil, which she passed over the top of her round head, carrying the end back, and braiding it in with the rest to form a knot, fastened low with a comb. It was a very pretty, Quakerish coiffure, but very becoming. Considering the low family from which she came, the quiet and even distinguished air about her was marvelous. Mrs. Forest could not understand it, and so she refused to admit its existence. The doctor always spoke to Susie with great gentleness; but as the twins snubbed her, and his wife’s dignified coldness oppressed her heavily, he forbore to be as familiarly kind with her as he wished, lest the contrast should make her dislike his wife and daughters. But he went as far as he thought prudent. Once he told her that her ears were as pretty as Clara’s; a compliment that little Susie never ceased to be proud of. Lately, by the doctor’s influence, Mrs. Buzzell, now recovered from her illness, had become quite interested in Susie, and had helped her about her wardrobe, which showed want of means, though not of mending, for Susie was naturally neat about everything. Mrs. Forest gave her due credit for this, knowing that the instruction that she must have received from Mrs. Dykes was none of the best.

Poor Susie’s child-life had been a sad one, like the lives of the children of the poor generally; and she was happier now than she had ever been, despite the cold, unsympathetic relation she bore to Mrs. Forest, whom she longed to love like a daughter; for whatever belonged to Dan, was precious in her eyes. She was naturally very bright, as the doctor said, but what little education she had received in a neighboring district school had been painfully gained through the persecutions of more fortunate school-mates, who, with the savage cruelty of children, made sport of her poverty, not knowing what they did.

It is a folly, doubtless, to dress up little children like popinjays, that they may outshine their companions, and thus cultivate their own vanity at the expense of nobler feelings; but certainly it is a vital wrong to send a child among his fellows in a mean and untidy attire. For not having the philosophy of maturer years to support him against the ridicule he excites, he is either humiliated and degraded by it, or else moved to revenge or hate; and these feelings, if long entertained, crush out the finer possibilities of his nature, and so in both cases he is robbed and wronged. The ridicule and persecution that Susie had endured had the usual effect upon the sensitive of her sex. She was humiliated, and answered only with tears. She had never dreamed that she had elements of real loveliness in mind and person, and when Dan first began to notice her—he a proud, handsome fellow, belonging to the best of Oakdale’s choice society—she was transported with joyful gratitude, and would have laid down her life for him without counting it much of a sacrifice.

When Dan failed in his livery-stable enterprise, he went back to the railroad, and soon rose to the position of conductor, where he seemed really to have found his level. He liked the position, gave good satisfaction to the company, and received a very fair salary for his work. Susie, meanwhile, loved him more and more, and longed for, yet dreaded, his bearish caresses. The opportunity to see her alone did not occur often, for he was home only on Sundays, and then she went to church with Mrs. Forest. This annoyed Dan; and the obstacles in the way of passing an hour alone with Susie were many, and almost insurmountable. The twins, either one or both, had still the most remarkable talent for being just where they were not wanted. He used to send them away from the garden or orchard when he chanced to find Susie there; but they were apt to tell of this, which troubled Susie, and so he desisted. The last time he had tried to get rid of Leila, endeavoring to show her that she ought to go and practice her piano studies, he received the pert answer, “Thank you; I don’t play secular music on Sunday.” Dan answered with a long crescendo whistle, and abandoned tactics in Leila’s case. But fate sometimes gave him a few minutes with Susie. On one occasion she had gone at Dinah’s request to bring pears from the orchard—Dinah having very possibly an ulterior motive, for Dan had been very gracious to the old servant lately. He followed Susie after a few minutes—a very few—leisurely smoking a cigar.

As a specimen of a fine animal, Dan was certainly handsome; and this is hardly doing him justice, for it must be admitted that very good women—aye, and very superior women—have adored just such fine animals. There must be some justification, which severe moralists cannot comprehend, for action and reaction are equal. Dan was tall, his back finely curved, broad shoulders, and his head was right regally poised thereon. He had bright dark eyes, curly brown hair, a light, youthful moustache and slight side-whiskers, and what would be called a fine mouth, though not of the nobler type to which Clara’s belonged. Hers might be termed sensuous, his sensual; yet perhaps the term is too severe. It was pleasant to look at Dan’s mouth when he talked, and it must be confessed that his kisses were found distractingly sweet to some others beside little Susie.

On entering the part of the orchard where Susie was, he leaned against the trunk of an old fruit-tree and called her to him.

“I must not stay long,” she said, looking up lovingly into his face, as she stood before him. “Dinah will be waiting for these;” and she blushed and dropped her pretty eyes among the fruit.

“Let her wait,” he said. “You don’t mind keeping me waiting, I notice;” and throwing away his cigar, he drew her into his arms and kissed her rosy lips again and again, holding her like a vise. Susie wished to remain there forever, though she kept denying him her lips, and hiding her face on his breast. That was at least one feeling; another was a strong impulse to run away, but she dared not show this for fear of displeasing him. When, therefore, Leila came running down the path bareheaded, her hair streaming out on the wind, it was a relief to Susie, though an exasperation to Dan.

As time wore on from Sunday to Sunday—for Susie counted time only by the slow recurrence of these days—she began to be troubled a little about Dan’s regard for her. To be sure, he always told her he loved her dearly, and that she was “sweeter than a rose;” but he seemed to talk less of their future, and his new life out in the world had changed his manner to her, which was not so respectful as in the olden time. Ah! the olden time, when Susie had been so ashamed of Jim and his ways, so impatient of her rude surroundings, until Dan appeared and gladdened all her life as the sunshine gladdens the little wayside flower. She had never been troubled about his demonstrations then, and she passed in retrospection the old days when the boyish lover had scarcely dared to press her hand. She recalled continually one particular evening when he had found her alone—the first and last time they had ever been alone for a whole evening. That was the time when he gave her his first kiss—a quick little touch on the cheek, not like the burning kisses he insisted upon now. Where had he learned so much about love-making? He knew little enough about it then, when, blushing even like herself, he had made her promise to be his forever, and sealed the betrothal by that indelible record upon his arm. Clearly there was a change in Dan, but Susie’s heart refused to recognize it as a vital change. It was, indeed, the same old drama, played over and over again since the world began—the woman at home, dependent, busied with her little routine of duties, cherishing and nursing her one tender romance; the man mixing with the broader world, yielding to its varied attractions, taking and giving love, or the mockery of love, wherever he can find it, and so daily unfitting himself more and more for the rôle in which the home-keeping woman has cast him. Susie waited and trusted, but life during the week was very dull; the few acquaintances of her former life attracted her less and less, and she ceased altogether to visit them. This time happened to be a season of revivals, and Oakdale received a large influx of the “spirit.” The twins became “serious,” much to the joy of Mrs. Forest and—it must be confessed—the disgust of the doctor, who entertained very phrenological views upon the subject of sudden changes of nature. But under the influence of this seriousness, Leila, who had the most serious attack, became suddenly gracious to Susie, and would insist upon her being saved also; so she dragged her to prayer-meetings in season and out of season, the latter being on Sunday evenings, when Dan was at home. Dan could scarcely believe his senses when he found that there was in this world anything that could charm Susie away from him, even for an hour; so she had the satisfaction of witnessing another revival, that of Dan’s flickering affection for his first love. He did, indeed, seem to treat her with more softness, though he distrusted the value of her piety, since it caused her to hold more strict views on the propriety of vehement kisses. The twins, after a few months, lost their passion for prayer-meetings entirely, but Susie kept right on, with that sincerity and singleness of heart that characterized all that she did. She had found sympathy among certain people of the church, though of rather a stiff and at-arms-length kind; but in her own sincere devotion, and in the reading of religious books, she found much consolation. Not that she could understand them or criticise them; but when she came to anything that breathed the loving spirit of Christ, it sank into her lonely heart, and blessed her with something like peace.

One perfect moonlit evening, about a year after the events just narrated, and only a few months before Clara’s final return from Stonybrook College, Susie, returning home from some evening “meeting,” unexpectedly met Dan. He drew her hand caressingly over his arm, saying, as he turned to walk home with her, “Susie does not care for me any more.”

“O, Dan!” she exclaimed, in an imploring tone, for her little heart was full of its best emotions, and this want of faith in her love pained her.

“Fact. She has become a saint, and so cares nothing for my kisses.”

“O, you wrong Susie, Dan. She does love you dearly.”

“I know. She says she prays for me, and I don’t believe in prayers. Kisses are ‘indicated,’ as doctors say, in my case.”

“You do wrong to speak so, Dan. Surely it is good to pray when one is lonely and sad. I try to be good, but I am not, very. I fear I shall never go to Heaven.” Dan, for reply, gave his crescendo whistle, and then said, stopping short in the bright moonlight, and looking down into her face, “The idea of a good child like you troubling your little head about Heaven. The domestic economy of that institution must be very shiftlessly managed if such as you are not in great demand.”

“O, you must not talk so, Dan! I do so wish you could see religion as it really is.”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Dan. “If I must be a spoon, I prefer to be made so by a live woman, not a morbid longing to twang a golden harp.”

“Your father does not talk like that,” replied Susie, who was always timid before Dan’s outbursts of humor, but the belief that she was in the right made her bold. “I know he will not go to church, but he is so good! and he never says anything against others going, if they find spiritual food in what he says are dry husks to him.”

“He’s a fine old chap, no mistake about that, and he forgets more every day than most people ever know; but he’s soft in spots. If I had only known him when he was a young man, I should have helped him to cut his eye-teeth.”

“Ah!” said Susie, “what you call his ‘soft spots’ are his noblest qualities. What can be more benevolent and sweet than his treatment of poor old Mrs. Buzzell?”

“Is that a conundrum?” Dan asked, in his rollicking way.

“He is so good!” said Susie, taking no notice of Dan’s levity; “and I often think if he would join the church it would influence you——”

“No, it wouldn’t,” interrupted Dan. “I’m only sensitive to your influence. You could do anything with me if you loved me as you once did.” They had just entered the gate and stopped a moment under the lilacs by the path. Susie looked up into Dan’s face and said, with a voice that trembled, “It is cruel for you to doubt me. I have not changed, unless”—“to love you more,” she would have said, but her words were checked by the depth of her emotion.

“You do not show it, then.”

“O Dan! I pray for you always. I think of you every moment. How can I prove it better?” she asked, with despairing tenderness.

“O, much better you can prove it, Susie;” and under the fragrant lilacs, under the dear, bright stars, a thought blacker than mortal night entered Dan’s heart.

“How do I know you pray for me?” he asked, caressing her hand very softly. “I do not hear you. Come to my room and pray for me there, and I shall believe you.”

“Do you really wish me to?” she asked, with a look that would have softened any heart but that of this sleek young tiger, whose white teeth glistened in the moonlight.

“I will,” she said simply, mentally reproaching herself for a momentary suspicion that had entered her mind.

When Susie entered Dan’s room on her pious mission, he at once closed the door and locked it. Susie protested earnestly, but the only reply it elicited was a long-continued fit of subdued laughter which Dan indulged himself in, tilting back his chair and holding his fingers interlaced at the back of his head. Then he insisted upon a kiss as a preliminary.

“No, no,” cried Susie. “Open the door and let me go. O Dan, you were not serious, after all. I wish I had not believed you;” and the poor girl covered her face and sobbed.

“Serious? Never was so serious in my life, as I can prove to you; but what is the use of praying for me if my heart is not in the right mood, and nothing can do that but a kiss, though a hundred would make it surer. How Susie must love me. She cries because I ask for one.” * * * *

Susie never prayed for Dan that night. Her prayers were all for herself. Alas! that they should have availed so little!