They came back to Millport for a visit at Easter.
“And when does Mrs. Hatton expect the great event?” asked Mrs. Carpenter of Susie when she and Mrs. Eric Manley and Mrs. Vachell had remained behind to tea after a committee meeting. The committee had been dealing, among other matters, with the case of Mrs. Potter’s daughter, for whom Teresa asked admittance to the maternity home they represented.
“A particularly sad case,” Susie had remarked, “because it seems that she hardly knew the man and only encouraged him because her husband drank and she had nothing to live on. If she had only come to me, as Teresa might have suggested to her, I would have advised her what to do.”
“What would you have advised?” asked Mrs. Vachell curiously.
“I should have tried to explain our point of view,” said Susie, “and shown her that, apart from the disgrace and all that, the man would probably leave her sooner or later, as he has.”
“But surely, Mrs. Fulton, that is not the main point?” said Mrs. Carpenter. “Surely we want to awaken something more than self-interest? We want to make these girls understand that the marriage vow often implies suffering.”
“Oh, of course,” replied Susie with a far-away look. “But I think a woman always hopes to the end. They are so confiding and they forget that it will probably lead them into trouble.”
In replying to Mrs. Carpenter’s other question, however, she took a brighter view of marriage. “Not quite yet,” she said, “but to tell you the truth, I never ask many questions of that sort. I always think that the glamour of a young marriage ought not to be rubbed off by too many practical details.”
Mrs. Vachell used to wonder now and then how it was that Susie constantly took the bread out of Mrs. Carpenter’s mouth without her victim seeming to experience any sense of loss. Mrs. Carpenter did sometimes hesitate as if she thought she had lost something, but Susie seemed so innocent of her theft that it generally passed as an accident. On the whole, Mrs. Carpenter accepted her as an ally.
“How do they like being at Drage?” Mrs. Manley asked.