The day after the drunkards’ festival at the Inn, Susie went to visit her aunt, Mrs. Manning, who lived at Shelton, all alone with her five cats.
The cats and Mrs. Manning were eating their dinner when Susie arrived, and seemed more sorry than pleased to see her come in, because they feared that she might want to eat some dinner too. But Susie would take nothing, and so the cats and Mrs. Manning finished what was there. Each cat had a plate set upon the floor, in which Mrs. Manning placed its share. And, though her own dish was upon the table, she ate like a cat, putting her head into the platter and crunching the bones.
Susie waited until Mrs. Manning had finished, and then she told the news that had brought her there. She said that in a little while she was going to marry rich Squire Mere.
Had she said that she was to marry poor Joseph, her aunt would have scratched her. Mrs. Manning’s ways had grown exactly like her cats’; and she used to sharpen her nails upon the wall.
Mrs. Manning fawned about Susie, she even rubbed against her, and asked in a cringing tone for all the bits that came from the farmer’s table. She bid Susie put them aside, wrap them in paper, and order the milkman to deliver them at her cottage.
Susie promised to remember her, stroked all the cats, and said good-bye.
Though Susie had gone to Shelton along the road, she chose now to return home by the way of the downs.
As she walked upon the soft warm grass, the summer wind met her and blew caressingly through her thin frock and breathed upon her skin. The downs were so tempting to wander over that Susie went a little out of her way and sat down to rest near a rabbit warren.
The rabbits, who were out feeding, ran hurriedly into their holes, but soon, as all remained quiet, they peeped out again and began to feed and to be merry. A number of the rabbits were but half grown and knew nothing of snares or gins, and all the stoats in the neighbourhood had been killed by Keeper Dunkin.
As there was nothing to trouble them, the rabbits were gay. They lolloped a little, leaped into the air, and lay upon their backs, so that their white bellies gleamed in the sun. They even began to play in a wanton manner, running after and leaping over one another, and giving no heed to Susie, who watched their frolics.
She liked to see how they jumped and tumbled, and fancied they were entirely happy in their games. No one hindered or rebuked them, no dog barked, no fox was abroad. Near to the warren there was a stunted elder-bush that had withstood many a winter’s storm, and was now garmented with scented flowers. The rabbits played about this bush in high glee. There was nothing to disturb their enjoyment; they could leap and be merry. When they wanted to rest, they nibbled the sweet grass.
But suddenly and quite unexpectedly a large black rabbit seized a young doe. The doe screamed. A magpie called out “Murder!” and every rabbit scampered in a hurry to his burrow.
The hillside was now entirely deserted; there was not a creature to be seen. The warren might have been uninhabited, and the elder-tree might have lived there for ever alone.
Susie returned to the path, and she had not walked many steps before she came upon Joseph Bridle, who was waiting for her behind a small knoll. Joseph had been told by Winnie, who always liked to have a finger in everything, that Susie Dawe had gone to Shelton to visit her aunt, and that she expected her to return by the downs.
Joseph Bridle had hurried off when his work was done, without stopping to eat any dinner. Love whispered a fine story to him, saying that, if he used Susie after a certain country manner, he would compel her to be his. Love had been talking to Susie too, but his story to her was not the same as to Bridle. Love had told two different tales, and when he does that, unity is broken and a battle begins.
Susie, who wished to give herself to Death, had no desire to receive any kindness from Joe, however bold he might now wish to be. She needed more than that—a furious embrace—a burning in agony, with fire—and then, stillness. Though she had often in the past loved Joseph, she now began entirely to hate him. He stood, she knew, between her and Death.
As to Mr. Mere, she hardly thought of him at all; indeed it was only a wedding that she thought of, and her father had managed that. The wedding had already been much talked of, and John Death, as well as Winnie Huddy, had teased her about it. John had even hinted that some fun might come of it, and indeed he expected to be able himself to play a joke upon the farmer upon his wedding-night. A joke of John’s.
When Susie heard the doe rabbit cry, she thought that she screamed too. And, because she was tormented, she wished to torment. Her own body rebelled and bit her; let her bite another! Her girlhood was now become something dangerous, something that wished to harm.
She knew what she must do; to pain in a subtle manner is easy to a woman. To lie down where the yellow flowers grow, to show a woman’s cunning intimacy nearer and yet a little nearer, guiding the steps of her victim, who sees no farther than her allurements, until straightway he falls into the abyss.
John Death knows a thing or two; he had taught Susie how to dispatch a gloomy lover. Not all at once, either, not with one bite, but in the way that Tib, Mrs. Manning’s cat, toyed with a fat mouse—a bite here and there, to show it how to die.
When Susie first saw Joseph Bridle behind the mound, she thought that he might be Death, but she did not show her disappointment and greeted him kindly. Joseph came to her; he saw her as pure glory, a delight—as love. He sprang gladly to her. He showed the fervour of his own passion, the green earth could hardly hold down his feet, he rose mighty in his desire to greet his beloved.
But Susie intended to alter all that fine gait, she would bend and break this large, frolicsome oak. She would make Joe peep and grovel, bow low to ask a boon, and fail to obtain it.
Susie walked quietly with Joe Bridle until they reached a green tumulus. Here a king had been buried, and more than one virgin had erstwhile been despoiled of her birthright. Here, Susie said, she wished to rest a little, and she lay down. Joseph saw her as his own. Her frock, her shoes, and the little puckers in her stockings, could never be, nor she who wore them, any one’s but his. She was taken out of his body, bone of his bone, and he must gather her to him again as his wife.
Susie lay as if she wondered a little—as Eve must have wondered when God made her—what it was that her husband would do to her. Then she smiled. Seeing her smile, Joseph supposed that his happiness was near. But yet he hesitated to consummate.
He was a man who liked all things to be done in order; he would much rather that their coming together should not happen so glaringly in the sight of the sun. And neither might the sun alone be the one to see, for often strangers walked upon those downs in the summer.
Susie moved her body. She invited his embrace. She imagined to herself that it was John Death who stood above her. And she longed for him to use her as a woman who loves wishes to be used by her beloved. She raised herself a little, and by an unmistakable gesture, bid him come to her.…
A thing of beauty may be changed in a moment. When suddenly the winter’s chill leaves the fields, and a summer’s day, with all its blessedness, covers the earth with warmth, instead of accepting the day as a gift for himself, a man will often be only surprised by it, and a little frightened. To be suddenly offered, as a free gift, what one has sought for a great while tremblingly, will often take away a man’s breath and leave him cold. Bridle feared for Susie. He looked aside. He needed another god’s blessings than the sun’s, to be free for this pretty work.
Then Susie’s brow clouded; she lured him to her no more. She sat up and began to taunt him, calling him names.
“Thee old moppet,” she said. “What do ’ee want wi’ I upon this pretty hill? Go down to Shelton and get Auntie to ’ave ’ee; ’tain’t no young girl thee do want to marry, but an old wife who do keep cats. Thee be a fine man indeed, who be too pious to touch what ’ee do want. Maybe thee be afeared that Mr. Hayhoe mid see what thee be up to; they little rabbits bain’t so cautious!”
Susie sprang up to mock him. She danced before him, uttering odd expressions, and kicked up her legs. Then she walked by his side, chattering like a magpie—very gay and pert. Her face was flushed and angry. Her companion had scorned her worse than ever Dodder girl had been scorned before.
She did not care now what she did. With a laugh she tore off her frock, and running in front of Bridle, waved the garment in his eyes, as though she baited a bull. Then she grew quieter, put her frock on again, and walking very near to Bridle, began to talk to him in a low tone.
Though she walked so quietly, her words astonished Joe. She talked like an abandoned harlot. She spoke of man’s matters, as if such things had always been common to her, and she to them. All her kindly girl’s ways now became a lecher’s story. She told him all about Mr. Mere and his dog. She described, in crude village language, what Mr. Mere had wished to do to her, and how the old man meant to try his fancies upon her when they were married.
She knew, she said, as much now as any girl in Dodder—even Daisy Huddy knew no more than she.
Then, without any “if you please,” she lay down and pulled him to her. But no sooner had she held him in her arms for a moment than she pushed him away from her. Coming towards them, along the downs, Susie had seen a man.