"No," said Susan, "it won't. I've always heard it said that it does them no good to throw yourself at their heads."
For once she did not call me "Miss," and both the matter and the manner of her speech jarred on me. From Susan it sounded hard and vulgar. It was as if my rare and sweet Susan had suddenly descended to live a moment of her life two or three planes lower down.
I sent her off with some messages about dinner, and with enough plain work to occupy her for the rest of the day. And, now that I have put the whole thing down in black and white, I begin to understand how cordially I dislike it.
Friday, September 7, 5 a.m.
Such a wretched night! I hope Lord Ruddington has had a still worse one. He deserves it, and I don't. Besides, he has something to gain (or thinks he has), while I only have something to lose. Even if he rushes out of his infatuation as precipitately as he rushed into it, Susan can never be the same nice girl again.
I have thought about it all the many hours of this blessed night that I have been awake; and I have dreamt about it all the few nightmarish minutes I have been asleep--twisty, scary, jumpy dreams that I can't half remember.
Heaven knows I was vexed enough when Alice would persist in teasing me last Sunday about Lord Ruddington. What would Alice not have said if she had known that he was hardly three miles away at the very time she was plaguing me? On Wednesday, at the station, her last words were, "Gertie, don't be a fool." From Alice's point of view, Gertie will be a fool if Gertie doesn't so play her cards as to become Lady Ruddington.
I did so hate it. If I am happy, why can't people leave me alone? Alice will be dreadfully indignant if ever she finds out that I knew Lord Ruddington was coming at once to the Towers. But if I had told her, she would only have fought against me going off to Sainte Véronique. Yet, why in the world should I be going to a place like Sainte Véronique at the fag-end of the season? I'm going simply and solely because I was determined not to give the tiniest scrap of opportunity to the gossips and matchmakers who would have been so ready to connect the young spinster of Traxelby Grange with the young bachelor of Ruddington Towers.
But I'm wandering away from my own point. I say, Alice's chaff and hints and coaxings were bad enough; but this farce of Susan's is a million times worse. I admit I'm weak enough to care what people say and think; and what sort of a position will it be when all the world knows that his noble lordship of Ruddington is come to the Grange a-wooing, not me but my maid? It's perfectly hateful.
Noon.