CHAPTER VIII
THE WISDOM OF SUZANNE
Now, although Suzanne heard not a word of our talk, still she graspedits purport well enough, for she knew that I proposed to throw dust intothe eyes of the Englishmen. This troubled her conscience sorely, forthe more she thought of it the more did it seem to her to be wickedthat just because we loved him and did not wish to part with him,Ralph should be cheated of his birthright. All night long she lay awakebrooding, and before ever the dawn broke she had settled in her mindthat she herself would speak to the Englishmen, telling them the truth,come what might of her words, for Suzanne, my daughter, was a determinedgirl with an upright heart. Now feeling happier because of her decision,at length she fell asleep and slept late, and as it happened thisaccident of fate was the cause of the miscarriage of her scheme.
It came about in this way. Quite early in the morning--at sun-up,indeed--the Englishmen rose, and coming out of the little guest-chamber,drank the coffee that I had made ready for them, and talked togetherfor a while. Then the young lord--Ralph's cousin--said that as theyjourneyed yesterday at a distance of about an hour on horseback from thefarm he had noticed a large _vlei_, or _pan_, where were many ducks andalso some antelope. To this _vlei_ he proposed to ride forward with oneservant only, and to stay there till the others overtook him, shootingthe wild things which lived in the place, for to be happy theseEnglishmen must always be killing something. So he bade me farewell,making me a present of the gold chain which he took off his watch, whichchain I still have. Then he rode away, smiling after his fashion; andas I watched him go I was glad to think that he was no knave but only aneasy tool in the hands of others. We never met again, but I believe thatdeath finished his story many years ago; indeed, all those of whom Itell are dead; only Jan and I survive, and our course is well-nigh run.
When Suzanne awoke at length, having heard from a Kaffir girl that thestrangers had ordered their horses, but not that the young lord hadridden forward, she slipped from the house silently, fearing lest Ishould stay her, and hid herself in a little patch of bush at the cornerof the big mealie field by which she knew the Englishmen must pass ontheir return journey. Presently she heard them coming, and when shesaw that the young lord was not with them, she went to the lawyer, whopulled up his horse and waited for her, the rest of the party riding on,and asked where his master was, saying that she wished to talk with him.And here I must say, if I have not said it before, that Suzanne couldspeak English, though not well. The Hollander tutor had instructed herin that tongue, in which Ralph also would converse with her at timeswhen he did not wish others to understand what they were saying, for henever forgot his mother language, though he mixed many Dutch words withit.
"He has ridden forward an hour or more ago. Can I take any message tohim for you?" said the lawyer. "Or if you wish to talk of business, tospeak to me is to speak to him."
"That may be so," answered Suzanne, "still I like to draw my water atthe fountain itself. Yet, as he has gone, I beg you to listen to me, forwhen you have heard what I have to say I think that you will bring himback. You came here about Ralph Kenzie, did you not, and my mother toldyou that he is not the man whom you seek, did she not?"
The lawyer nodded.
"Well, I tell you that all this tale is false, for he is the very man,"and she poured out the true story of Ralph and of the plot that had beenmade to deceive them about him.
Now, as I have said, Suzanne's English was none of the best and it ispossible that the lawyer did not understand. For my part, however, Ithink that he understood well enough, for she told me afterwards that isface grew grey and anxious as he listened, and that at length he said:
"All this you tell me is very strange and weighty, so much so that Imust bring my friend back to look more closely into the matter. Returnnow to the farm and say nothing of having met me, for by this evening,or to-morrow at the latest, we will come there again and sift out thetruth of this question."
To this she agreed, being guileless, and the lawyer rode away after theother. All that day and all the next Suzanne scarcely spoke to me, butI saw that she was expecting something to happen, and that she glancedcontinually towards the path by which the Englishmen had journeyed,thinking to see them riding back to the farm. But they rode back nomore, and I am sure that the cunning lawyer never breathed one word ofhis meeting with Suzanne and of what took place at it to the young lord.That book was shut and it did not please him to reopen it, since to doso might have cost him ten thousand pounds. On the third morning I foundSuzanne still looking down the path, and my patience being exhausted byher silence, I spoke to her sharply.
"What are you doing, girl?" I asked. "Have we not had enough visitors oflate that you must stand here all day awaiting more?"
"I seek no new visitors," Suzanne said, "but those who have been hereonly, and I see now that I seek in vain."
"What do you mean, Suzanne?"
Now of a sudden she seemed to make up her mind to speak, for she turnedand faced me boldly, saying:
"I mean, mother, that I told the Englishman with the red hair, theagent, that all the fine tale you spun to him about Ralph was false, andthat he _was_ the man they came to find."
"You dared to do that, girl?" I said, then checked myself and added,"Well, what did the man say?"
"He said that he would ride on and bring the young lord back that Imight talk with him, but they have not come."
"No, nor will they, Suzanne, for if they sought they did not wish tofind, or at least the lawyer did not wish it, for he had too much atstake. Well, things have gone finely with you, seeing that your handsare clean from sin, and that Ralph still stays at your side."
"The sin of the parents is the sin of the child," she answered, and thenof a sudden she took fire as it were, and fell upon me and beat me withher tongue; nor could I hold my own before this girl of eighteen, thetruth being that she had right on her side, and I knew it. She told methat we were wicked plotters who, to pleasure ourselves, had stolen fromRalph everything except his life; and many other such hard sayings shethrew at me till at last I could bear it no more, but gave her back wordfor word. Indeed, it would be difficult to say which had the best ofthat quarrel, for if Suzanne's tongue was the nimbler and her words werewinged with truth, I had the weight of experience on my side and thecustom of authority. At last, as she paused breathless, I cried out:
"And for whose sake was all this done, you ungrateful chit, if it wasnot for your own?"
"If that was so, which is not altogether true," she answered, "it wouldhave pleased me better, if, rather than make me a partner in this crime,and set me as bait to snare Ralph, you had left me to look after my ownwelfare."
"What!" I exclaimed, "are you then so shallow hearted that you wereready to bid farewell to him who for many years has been as yourbrother, and is now your affianced husband? You know well whatever hemight promise now, that if once he had gone across the sea to England,you would have seen him no more."
"No," she answered, growing calm of a sudden, "I was not so prepared,for sooner would I die than lose Ralph."
"How, then, do you square this with all your fine talk?" I asked,thinking that at length I had trapped her. "If he had gone you must havelost him."
"Not so," she answered, innocently, "for I should have married himbefore he went, and then I could have been certain that he would returnhere whenever I wished it."
Now when I heard this I gasped, partly because the girl's clevernesstook the breath from me, and partly with mortification that I shouldhave lived to learn wisdom from the mouth of a babe and a suckling. Forthere was no doubt of it, this plan, of which I had not even thought,was the answer to the riddle, since by means of it Ralph might have kepthis own, and we, I doubt not, should have kept Ralph. Once married toSuzanne he would have returned to her, or if she had gone with him fora little while, which might have been better, she would certainly havebrought him back, seeing that she loved us and her home too well toforsake them.
Yes, I gasped, and the only answer that I could make when I reflectedhow little need there had been for the sin which we had sinned, was toburst into weeping, whereon Suzanne ran to me and kissed me and we madefriends again. But all the same, I do not think that she ever thoughtquite so well of me afterwards, and if I thought the more of her, stillI made up my mind that the sooner she was married and had a husband ofher own to preach to, the better it would be for all of us.
Thus ended the story of the coming of the Englishmen, and of how Ralphlost his wealth and rank. We never heard or saw more of them, seeingthat in those days before the great Trek we did not write letters,and if we had we should not have known where to send them, nor did thepost-cart pass the door twice a week as it does in this overcrowded landof Natal.