She sighed as she thought of the difference in worldly wealth between that well-meaning youth and Allan Carew; and yet here was the future Mrs. Carew pale and worried, and obviously dissatisfied with her lot.
When those gowns had been ordered, Suzette felt as if it were another link forged in the iron chain which seemed to weigh heavier upon her every day of her life.
She had promised, and she must keep her promise. That was what she was continually saying to herself. Those words were woven into all her thoughts. Allan was so good, so true-hearted! Could she disappoint and grieve him? Could she be heartless, unkind, selfish—think of herself first and of him after—snatch at the happiness Fate offered her, and leave him out in the cold? No, better that she should bear her lot—become his wife, live out her slow, melancholy days, his faithful servant and friend, honouring him and obeying him, doing all that woman can do for man, except loving him.
Those meteoric appearances of Geoffrey's had made life much harder for Suzette. She might have fought against her love for him more successfully perhaps had he been always near; had she seen him almost daily, and become accustomed to his presence as a common incident in the daily routine; but to be told that he was in the far north of Scotland, yachting with a friend; and then to be startled by his voice at her shoulder, murmuring her name in Discombe Wood; and to turn round with nervous quickness to see him looking at her with his pale smile, like a ghost—or to be assured that he was salmon-fishing in Connemara, and to see him suddenly sauntering across the lawn in the July dusk, more ghostlike even than in the woods, as if face and form were a materialization which her own sad thoughts had conjured out of the twilight.
He would take very little trouble to explain his unlooked-for return. Scotland was too hot; the North Sea suggested a vast sheet of red-hot iron, blown over by a south wind that was like the breath of a blast-furnace. Ireland was a place of bad inns and inexorable rain; and there were no fish, or none that he could catch. He had come home because life was weariness away from home. He feared that life meant weariness everywhere.
The days were hurrying by, and now Mrs. Mornington talked everlastingly of the wedding, or so it seemed to Suzette, who in these latter days tried to avoid her aunt as much as was consistent with civility, and fled from the Grove to Discombe as to a haven of peace. Mrs. Mornington loved to expatiate upon the coming event, to bewail her niece's indifferentism, to regret that there was to be no festivity worth speaking of, and to enlarge upon the advantages of Allan's position and surroundings, and Suzette's good fortune in having come to Matcham.
"Your father might have spent a thousand pounds on a London season, and not have done half so well for you," she said conclusively.
The General nodded assent.
Certainly, between them they had done wonderfully well for Suzette.