THE DISSIMULATION OF SUZANNE.
The telephone bell rang just as I was beginning breakfast.
"What is your number, please?" asked an imperious voice.
In an emergency I never can remember my own number.
"Just hold on a minute while I look it up," I begged. Feverishly I turned over the leaves of the telephone directory and, cutting with a blunt finger the page containing the small advertisement that keeps my name before the public eye, at last found and transmitted the desired information.
"Don't go away," said the voice again, this time with a shade of weariness in its tone. "Chesterminster wants you."
I wasn't going away, because before Suzanne left me to visit her relatives in Middleshire I had vowed that nothing would induce me to do so. But Chesterminster wanted me. What should that portend?
"Tell them," I declaimed into the mouthpiece while I instinctively posed for the camera, "that I feel greatly honoured by their invitation and in other circumstances I should have been delighted to come forward as their Candidate. The Parliamentary history of Chesterminster constitutes one of the most romantic chapters in the chronicles of England; but just now I am busy writing verses for next week's Back Chat, so—"
"If you will keep on talking to yourself you won't get connected," interrupted the voice. "You're thr-r-rough, Chesterminster."
"Are you Chelsea niner-seven-double-seven?" inquired a new voice, a little more distant but not so haughty.
"No, nine I mean niner-double-seven-seven," I replied.
"Same thing," said the voice of Chesterminster. "Stokehampton wants you."
"Tell them—" I began, but my oratory was drowned by a rapid succession of small explosions, and out of this unholy crepitation emerged a still small voice which said, "Is that you, darling?" Then I suddenly remembered that Stokehampton is Suzanne's relatives' nearest town of call.
"They want you to come tomorrow for the week-end," said Suzanne. "I lied to them and said you were busy working, but they said you can have the library to yourself whenever you want it, and spoke so nicely about you that I couldn't refuse to ring you up. Besides, I want you to come, and the figs and the mulberries are in splendid form."
Suzanne knows that my idea of Heaven is a garden full of fig-trees and mulberry-bushes at the appropriate season of the year. But it was raining hard, and I abominate week-ends; and Suzanne's relatives are well-meaning folk who always want to arrange your day for you.
"No, Suzanne," I said, "emphatically, no. I can't think of a convincing excuse at the moment, so you'd better say I'll be delighted to come. But tomorrow morning you'll get a wire from me announcing that I'm sick of the palsy—no, malaria, which they know I sometimes get—and that'll give you a good ground for returning yourself tomorrow. Your three minutes is up. Good-bye."
With the inspiration still fresh upon me I wrote out the telegram and rang for Evangeline.
"Evangeline," I said, "I may possibly be detained in bed tomorrow morning. In case that should happen"—she never betrayed even a flicker of the eye, although she could, an she would, tell Suzanne some damning tales of late rising during her absence—please send this telegram off before breakfast; that is, before your breakfast."
Evangeline curtseyed and withdrew. I had spent my leisure moments during the week teaching her the trick, as a surprise for Suzanne on her return.
Next morning, as I lay in bed thinking out the subject of my next Message to the Nation, I was gratified to notice that the rain had ceased and the sun was shining genially. I thought of Suzanne and the refreshing fruit in Suzanne's relatives' attractive gardens. Should I go after all? I rang the bell.
"Has that wire gone yet?" I asked.
"Indeed I took it these two hours back," replied Evangeline.
I looked at my watch and grunted.
"Bring me a telegram-form," I commanded, "and some hotter hot water."
So, having wired to Suzanne: "Malaria false alarm only passing effects of overwork coming by the one-thirty Percival," I found myself at tea-time being nursed back to health on mulberries-and-cream administered by the solicitous hands of Aunt-by-acquisition Lucy.
"Well," I said to Suzanne a little later as we strolled in the direction of the fig-trees, "how did it go off—my first wire, I mean?"
"Oh, I think I did it very well," she replied; "I gave a most realistic exhibition of wifely concern, and the car had just come to take me to the station when your second wire arrived."
"Then they didn't spot anything?"
"No," said Suzanne—"no, I don't think so."
After dinner that night I was playing billiards with Toby, who is Suzanne's aunt's nephew-by-marriage. We had the room to ourselves.
"Dull part of the world this," he remarked. "By the way, what about that malaria of yours?"
"What about it?" I observed shortly.
"Comes and goes rather suddenly, doesn't it?"
"Very," I agreed. "It's one of the suddenest diseases ever invented."
"'Invented' is a good word," said Toby. "You're a bit of an inventor, aren't you?"
"What do you mean? Are you venturing to imply—"
"I imply nothing. I merely state that this morning Suzanne came down to breakfast in her travelling-clothes. And that wasn't all."
"Wasn't it?" I inquired weakly. "Tell me the worst."
"All through breakfast," continued Toby with relish, "she was restless and off her feed, and appeared to be listening for something. Afterwards nothing could induce her to leave the house, and I myself caught her surreptitiously studying the time-table. Every time a step was heard coming up the drive she started to her feet. At last a telegraph-boy arrived. Before anybody could discover whom the wire was addressed to, Suzanne snatched it from the boy, tore it open, placed her hand in the region of her heart and exclaimed, 'Oh, how provoking! Poor Percival's—' then she turned it the right way up, looked unutterably foolish and meekly handed it over to Aunt Lucy. It was from the old lady's stockbroker and referred to some transaction or other in Housing Bonds."
"And what did Aunt Lucy say?" I asked.
"Oh, she just looked the least little bit surprised," replied Toby, "but she didn't utter. Suzanne had to embrace the muddiest of all the cocker pups to hide her flaming cheeks."
"Well, what happened then?"
"Then? Oh, then the telegraph-boy fished out another wire from his wallet. I took it, glanced at the envelope and handed it to Suzanne. This time she read it very gingerly before exclaiming in a highly unemotional voice: 'Oh, how provoking! Poor Percival's got one of his sudden attacks of malaria and can't come. So, if you don't mind, Aunt Lucy, I'll catch the eleven-fifteen back.' Aunt Lucy was very sympathetic and went up to help her with her packing, which was accomplished in a surprisingly short time; as a matter of fact she had practically done it all before breakfast. Just as she was going to drive off to the station up came another telegraph-boy. That was your second wire, and Suzanne didn't seem any too pleased to receive it. I'm not at all convinced," concluded Toby, "that your wife would make her fortune on the stage."
"Do you think Aunt Lucy suspects?" I asked.
"Bless you, no. The dear old thing has the heart of a child."
Maybe, but I have my doubts. Suzanne's aunt insisted on my staying a week as a preventive against a nervous breakdown, and the tonic with which she herself dosed me several times a day was the most repulsive beverage I had ever tasted, effectually ruining the savour of figs and mulberries. Can it be that Aunt Lucy is not only of a suspicious but also of a revengeful nature?
Suzanne ridicules my doublings and declares that she could make her aunt swallow anything. I wish she could have made her swallow my tonic.
