The Red Book Magazine/Volume 37/Number 4/The Astonishing Suzanne

The Story So Far:

The Story Continues: TOLD myself it was high time for me to go back to the city and to work. For a man ill of the disease of love, there are but two alternatives—work, or another woman. For myself there would never be another woman. Who loves the queen looks not below. That left work as my one remaining medicine. I assured myself I would go home and toil hard in the practice of my profession.

But I did not go home. I lingered on in the Yellowstone country, making excuse to myself that the hot wine of the summer sun, the cold reaction of the night airs of the mountains, would be good. for my nerves. I said I would go angling, said I would ride, said I would climb mountains. But I did none of these things

I did not find it possible to call again at the hotel, further to mystify myself with the mysterious affairs of the extraordinary Collingsworth family of mother and daughter. I shrank from hearing from Suzanne's lips—whence anything but truth seemed profanation to me—any further statements such as those she had made, any more denials of what we both knew to be the truth. What really I did, therefore, was to moon about my quarters, to try reading, to feed Billy the bear, and to take unhappy walks to the many and varied vantage-points of the vicinity.

Not that I sought to see any specific rider, but—I found myself watching studiously all the passing equestrian groups—especially equestrian pairs. I was made happy by the fact that I found Suzanne absent from these parades.

Then at night, since now the moon was wondrous, often I would climb the easy grade that led to the Minerva or the Angel Terraces. The whole beauty of the latter especially appealed to me, made for rendezvous of lovers as obviously it was. Not that I sought any particular pair of lovers!

And yet on the fifth night in sequence when I climbed the hill to the Angel Terrace, I encountered something which left me no happier than before. I sat above the motor road, shaded by a little cedar tree, where often I had sat enjoying the frosty marvels of the spring. It was rather a vantage point, and feeling myself an eavesdropper or peeping Tom, I was about to go, when I heard the low murmur of voices approaching around the curve of the road. I was slow, and it became too late.

There was no mistaking the figure of the young woman, her hand resting lightly on the arm of a young man who was equally unmistakable in my eyes. They were Suzanne and Jimmy Blandsford. There was a contented intimacy in their attitude, in their slow silences, which spoke volumes to me. That they had no chaperon did not surprise me. There usually were many others present; and besides, the idea of Suzanne and a chaperon did not readily compose.

Intentionally noisy, I rose and kicked loose a stone or so, but knew I could not be recognized as I passed into the shadows and climbed the hillside to the upper trail. I had seen enough, even had I not seen enough and heard enough long before that time. This was the woman who had twice denied the truth as to our own relations. I could not possibly love so heartless, so fickle and so false a creature. That was what I told myself.

I now declared that I would take one pack-horse trip into the hills and then go back to my business in the city. Of course, I explained to myself, it would be no more than courtesy to call upon Mrs. Collingsworth at the hotel before I left. I would do that after my return. At least, that is how I planned it.

But what I really did—and what I suppose Mrs. Collingsworth all the time knew I would do—was to call at the hotel and not take the hill trip at all.

I asked at the desk whether Mrs. and Miss Collingsworth were in. The clerk said that they had checked out that very morning. Where had they gone? He did not know, but presumed that they had left the Park, as they had taken all their heavy luggage—they had already taken the Loop trip once or twice and seen most of the accepted sights of tourist interest. The porter might know their destination after leaving the Park.

The porter did not know, or at least knew no more than San Francisco. That decided me. I did not validate my return ticket to the East. Instead, I closed my house, bequeathed my bear to the cook at the tent colony, and the next day left Yellowstone for Monterey.

After mature deliberation I had quite convinced myself that what I really needed was not a high altitude, but a sojourn at the more restful level of the sea. Yes, I say, I did this, although I had sworn a thousand times to put Suzanne from my thoughts. I presume Mrs. Collingsworth knew what would happen. She knew—she knew. Even her dimple might have told me.

Arrived upon the Pacific slope, I established outposts in the village of Monterey itself, and for a time made a pretense of reveling in the beauties of the region round about. Do I say pretense? No, it is not possible even for a man in love to evade the spell, the loveliness of one of the world's greatest free-air landscapes. Day after day I motored along the coast of the blue bay, with its white crests, its gentle surf. I hung about the ancient Cypress Point and its age-old trees—where once the famous Ostrich Tree stood for the joy of all camera folk, until a tempest tore it from its ancient hold upon the rocks. The gnarled and twisted cypresses of perhaps the oldest grove upon this continent never ceased to tell to me their story of the coming and the passing of man, with his miseries, his agonies, his troubles and his triumphs.

Midway Point, Pebble Beach, Carmel, the matchless cliffs of Point Lobos—in all the world there is not so much sheer beauty in a like number of miles. The Amalfi Drive of Italy, touted the world over, is not comparable to it. The sea and the mountains, joining at a coast-line of endless and countless pictures of which not one resembles the other intimately, yet which are all alike, combine here to offer human beings the great and healing lesson of sheer beauty. Always, also, I have loved the keen and zestful air of this upper country, even more than that of the more languid latitudes below, with their own wonders of land and sea accepted. None who sees the Drive at Monterey ever forgets it. Neither does one ever tire of it. A dozen times I had been there in the past; yet now it was all fresh and new.

As to the material comforts, I confess that, as against the servile and rapacious innkeepers of Europe, I prefer the frank luxury obtainable at this portion of the Pacific Coast, which may be called the social center of the transient population. Able to buy what it likes, and knowing what it does like, a vast and exigent traveling public annually comes hither on a ne plus ultra basis. After Del Monte, home! After the Monterey Drive, nothing! After the Del Monte golf, none! After the Del Monte beauty-show, nada, nada, ninguna, as the old Spaniards of Monterey would have said could they have lived so long as till today.

Had I lost Suzanne and her mother, I would have been sure to find them here. Also, as I have explained, I presume that Mrs. Collingsworth did not doubt that I would try to find them here.

After about a week I located them at the Del Monte—of course Jimmy Blandsford also. Mrs. Collingsworth and her daughter were en suite at the Del Monte, but were alternating—two days at Pebble Beach for the abalone chowder, two at the Del Monte for golf and dancing, food and society; the remainder of the week was variously employed. Obviously they remained independent in their methods as ever, and quite as much set upon getting the most possible out of life as they went along.

Persuading myself that I would be benefited by the evening air at Del Monte rather than that of the village of Monterey, I moved down to the great hotel to bide my time. I had no reason in the world to be there, and there was every reason in the world why I should not be there. Nevertheless I moved to the Del Monte.

But now something, whether the keen air of the sea coast or a natural process of evolution in my own resolution, determined me to clear up one or two things and to clear up also my own course of action. At last I was ready to put my own fortune to the final test, forlorn as the hope surely seemed. The madness of love at length had wrought its own compensation. As for Suzanne, I loved her more than ever, but my self-respect told me somberly that it was unmanly for me to allow this sort of thing to go on much further.

T the time of my arrival at the Del Monte, the Collingsworth apartment in the hotel was temporarily vacated. I had converse with the head waiter and learned which was their table in the dining-room—a very good one it proved to be, naturally, at a wide window, whence was visible all the half-tropic luxuriance of the grounds. I had the good taste to secure for myself a table quite at the other end of the room and out of view.

At Del Monte youth and beauty, golf and gold, go hand in hand. Quite often I have seen several billion dollars playing execrable golf on the excellent links. Of an evening one may also see execrable dancing by the millions-measure. But the beauty of America comes hither, and to triumph in the Del Monte beauty-show at its best is to score triumph indeed.

The setting here is somewhat different from that of other regions which depend more largely on landscape, with less right. One does not employ the unconventional freedom of the mountains. One dresses for breakfast, for golf, for motoring, for riding, for dining and dancing. What time remains one employs in enjoyment of bridge, the scenery and the air.

I had every reason to believe that Suzanne was equipped for any ritual of the indoors or the open—this although for a time I did not see her. One afternoon on a gallery I overheard two bleary old pirates, who were celebrating a hip pocket festival of their own, discussing some one whose identity was not made specific.

“Oh, boy!” said one, whose golf-bag held a multitude of clubs largely unsullied of handle, “that girl is some queen. Did you see her last night—did you see how all the women hated her? And she rides and swims and plays a game that keeps the professional extending himself. And dance! And looks! Hear me, she's got everything on every other girl on the little old Coast, and I've seen them all, as you know.”

“That's the truth, 'bo,” assented the other, who was old enough to have better manners and better speech.

“It sure is. All she has to do is just to stand still and look the way she does look right then. Not mentioning clothes! Say, it's a crime! It's cruelty to these other women. She's got enough with her looks, say nothing of her money, without dressing these other females off the map. Oh, boy!”

“Where has she gone today?” demanded the other hoarsely. “She didn't play this morning. I was out early.”

“Down the Coast, like enough. She's like a comet. I've known her to be on the links at eleven and reported from Pebble Beach in bathing—in that ice water—all by herself—at eleven-forty-five: seen her ride up on horseback in the early afternoon, and maybe noticed her taking tea a minute later. This keeping beautiful must be hard work. I wouldn't exercise like that, no matter what. But these actresses, of course—”

They shifted their positions, and I heard no more. I gathered that these two ancients were rather worshipers at a distance than enjoyers of any intimate acquaintance with the divinity whom they described. Whom could they mean but Suzanne? There was no other human chameleon like her, at Del Monte or anywhere else. Naturally she would queen it here under the chandeliers as well as in the sun—although I doubted whether she knew of the existence of these two blear-eyed golf-soaks who made so free of speech.

ISGUSTED but resolved, on the following day I went to the desk and sent up my card to Mrs. Collingsworth That lady was in and was gracious enough to meet me in the reception room of her suite.

“You did not expect to see me here, Mrs. Collingsworth,” I began.

This time she smiled outright. “Oh, yes, I did, Major—I expected nothing else!”

I presume I colored. She resumed:

“It rather seems like fate, doesn't it? I told you I could not keep the young men from following Suzanne. Well, what would I have thought had my husband given me up when he was my suitor? While I do not help or hinder you, Major, I am glad you have not surrendered and have not left the field.”

“But she has surrendered! What right have I now if she has chosen?”

She astonished me by her next remark.

“What right have you to say that she has chosen?”

There was something on her face now which was not light or trivial—I could not read it. Had that not been impossible, I should have said she felt sympathy and concern. Had it not been out of the question, I should have said that she wished to give me counsel. Certainly she withheld counsel. I could not fathom her.

“Mrs. Collingsworth,” I said, “I have always been very frank with you—in some ways that seems natural between us. I have told you that I love Suzanne—that I loved her before I had a chance to tell you or chance to tell her. Suzanne knows that I love her—I have told her—and she would know even if I did not tell her. Everything I have is hers, everything I am. But what do I have in return? Mrs. Collingsworth, I cannot repeat to you your own daughter's words, cannot criticize her acts. I will only say that she has been light with me, fickle, shifting from one thing to another, mocking me, and denying me—declaring that the truth does not exist when we both know that it does. I can't understand all that sort of thing.”

“Naturally you do find—that sort of thing—difficult; I can believe that.”

“Yes. But for any real man there must come a time when that sort of thing must end! A woman is too dear if she costs a man his self-respect, no matter who she is. So—I will be entirely candid with you once more—I resolved not to come out here, to follow Suzanne; but I did come. Since I have been here, I have resolved to end this thing one way or the other, and end it forever.”

She looked at me straight in the eyes. “Then go and get your own decision. You must not ask me to help you—I cannot, I would not—it would be against the tradition and religion of my life, against my philosophy. I have told you that. Maybe some day you will understand. But get your decision now.”

Seeing my agitation, she hastened on with such comfort as she could give. “But this much I will do—I'll tell you that my daughter is at this moment at home and unengaged. If you want to meet her and to learn the actual truth about everything, one way or the other, why don't you take this moment? Just a little while ago she was at the table, on the shaded side down on the gallery. Why don't you write a little note? I—really I am so sorry. I swear, if I did have a hundred daughters, I don't believe they would all make me much more trouble—”

She drew back and showed me a little desk with paper. With her consent I did write a line or so. She would not read what I had said. It was this:

{{quote|{{fine block|style=font-style:italic|Suzanne: Whatever you say, right or wrong, hopeless or not, I am coming down to see you. I will meet you on the tea gallery now, at once. I have waited as long as I can, and now I am going to have it all out with you, one way or the other. Wait there and send me word.}}

I called a boy and gave him directions. He smiled. “Oh, I know her, all right,” said he.

“Then go,” I said to him. “Bring the answer back to me here at once.”

S might a condemned criminal who hears the sheriff trying the gallows in the yard, I passed six or eight minutes. In what seemed hours the messenger returned. Mrs. Collingsworth was motionless as she looked at me while I read.

It was no more than a penciled scrawl on the back of my own note. This is what Suzanne said to me at precisely this time of my decision:

{{bc|{{fine block|''Better not come. Just been married. Busy.'' {{right|S. C.}}}}}}

I sat for a moment in an uncomprehending trance. At length I handed the document to Suzanne's mother. This time even she was unsettled.

“Great Heavens! That girl! What does it mean?” she exclaimed. “Just been married!”

She arose and paced the floor, clasping and unclasping her hands.

“You forgot to sign your own name, Major,” said she, chancing to note the page of paper on the desk.

“Well, what matter?” said I. I sank into my chair, my heart lower than it ever had been within my recollection.

Mrs. Collingsworth started for her room, her hands at the neck of her peignoir.

“Go down at once,” she exclaimed. “Hurry! I'll be there as soon as I can. Find them and say I'm coming this very minute to see about all this. Married! Married! Couldn't she have been decent? That girl will be my death.”

“She has been mine,” said I; and indeed I felt as though I spoke the truth.

“But go on, now, and find her. Hold her until I get there. The first thing I know she'll be off to Tahiti or somewhere on a honeymoon.”

Cold as ice, with feet heavy as lead, I set out on the most terrible errand of my life. Even so, I marveled at the unparalleled effrontery of this creature who had made shipwreck of my life. As I staggered down the stairs, and on through the hall, I knew I was about to confront the most heartless woman in the world. Why should such beauty as hers give any woman the right to wreak such suffering?

I did find her. She was sitting alone at a little table near the edge of the gallery, in as natty a costume as mortal eye ever beheld, holding a long straw in one hand, the remnants of something foamy in a glass in her other hand. She seemed not much concerned with the vicissitudes of life. There was anything but self-reproach visible on her features; that was sure.

{{di|I}} HALTED, irresolute, but at the instant she caught sight of me, she half rose, smiled, and beckoned me to join her. I found myself in the chair opposite her across the table.

“So it was you? You came anyhow?” said she. “Jimmy's just gone to tell Mother. We thought we might as well. We couldn't wait. The nicest old minister, over in town! I'm so happy!” Between these detached remarks she made little noises at the end of her straw in the bottom of her glass—eager, so it seemed to me, to get the last sweet atom out of life.

“But what's the matter?” she commanded. “You mustn't mind my note. We changed our minds in just a minute. Jimmy was scared to tell. So you came anyhow—what was it you were going to have out with me, my Christian friend?”

“But, great God!” I began.

“And that's what I say, Major. You're an old dear, and I love you to distraction—you're so funny. But what on earth do you mean by this 'right or wrong' business? And what is it you want to have out with me? Isn't it all right for me to get married if I feel like it? And I did, and I do.

“What have I ever done to you, I'd like to know?” she went on “Come, speak now, or ever after hold your peace, for this is my honeymoon. Jimmy'll be back pretty soon.”

In answer I fumbled for my note. Finding the envelope first I cast it on the table before her. I saw her clap her hand over her mouth. “Oh, Lord!” said she under her breath. “It wasn't for me!”

I now saw that I was mad indeed, entirely out of all touch with human reason. I stared at her, mute, the cold sweat coming of my forehead.

She turned now, so that the full light of the veiled sun fell on her face, as on mine. As she saw my agony, impulsively she reached out both her hands and clasped mine as they lay trembling on the table-top. A singular maternal quality, a shade of sympathy, a sort of understanding pity was on her face.

“You poor dear!” said she. “It's been a hard game, hasn't it? But you see the game had to play itself out to the very end—there wasn't any other way. That's the way we were brought up. And you know, faint heart ne'er won fair Collingsworth, dear boy.”

“Won? Won? There was nothing to be won. You have been brutally heartless with me. I don't know what to call you. This was playing too far with a man—it wasn't right.”

“You've made me cry!” she replied simply.

With an eye sullen and morose I looked at her straight, one glance.

Then—I say this almost restoring the sensation of that moment—I felt the hair prickle along the back of my head, felt my spine grow cold. I experienced a mortal terror as of some supernatural influence then and there.

{{di|T}}RUE, I had not often met Suzanne, usually in circumstances not the most favorable. But one meeting I recalled beyond the shadow of peradventure as to each detail, even the most minute. When I fenced with Suzanne in my room at the Yellowstone, I looked straight into her eyes. They were blue eyes—gray-blue when she frowned in the assault, blue of divine softness when she dropped her foil and came to take my face in her two hands; eyes of such blue are not given to many women, customarily to those infinitely loyal, infinitely tender, infinite steadfast and changeless. Eyes such as a man must love forever and ever!

But the eyes which Suzanne now turned on me were not blue at all! They were brown eyes—deep, soft brown eyes, with the hazel-and-gold lights of adventure in them; eyes to drive a man mad, yes, but not the same eyes Suzanne had had less than month ago! Of course I had lost my reason.

“In the name of Heaven!” I exclaimed brokenly.

I sat and stared. Again her hand fell gently on mine.

“Poor old boy!” she said. “Such a dear old boob! Couldn't see a load of hay! There! There! Now, listen and I'll tell you the story of my life!

“See, here—I opened this note by mistake. Sometimes it has been hard to play the game fair and square—we're always getting each other's letters.”

“We—we? What do you mean?”

“You don't suppose I'd want her beaux, do you, or that she would think it honorable to take one of mine? And if either of us really cared for a man, don't you suppose the other would help her out, to the very limit? I'd do anything for her. Sometimes I've thought she didn't play the man-game just exactly up to date. So—once—well—if she didn't know just how to start things coming, could you blame me if I helped her out?

“You've been calling me Suzanne. I'm Suzette. Mother calls us both Peggy. To her we're only one—she never could separate us in her own mind. She has tried all her life to keep anyone from knowing that we're twins, because, don't you see, she wants each of us to have her own chance, although she can't always figure that there's more than one of us. After we went to Chicago, for a long time nobody knew that there were any Collingsworth twins. We left home—down South—because we were the Collingsworth twins.”

“I'm the one with the brown eyes. They say it sometimes happens that way in twins. Mother's sister, Aunt Mary, has brown eyes like mine—or mine are like those Mother came pretty near having but didn't. As there was no other possible way of telling us apart, I suppose that's why I've got brown eyes.

“But we're not really in the least alike. Suzanne is a much better girl than I am—steadier, not so wild. She's a dear. I was the one that got hurt and that you carried home in your car. Suzanne was September Morn! It was Suzanne who rode by your house most of the time. I believe it began that way—she was so sorry to see you sitting there wrapped up and moping around. She pitied your weakness and she managed to endure your slowness—although I couldn't have done it; but Suzanne wasn't up to the embrace. And yet any woman with reason knows that quite often that's what makes them sign on the dotted line. So, jun to help her out. I took a chance on that once—that first night in the hall: but, honest, I thought it was Jimmy at first."

{{di|I}} DO not know whether or not I made any articulate response as I wiped off my moist brow. After a time I announced that of course I had gone crazy.

“No,” said the extraordinary young person across the table from me, her gentle hand again on mine. "You're not crazy, but just a sort of nut, and a twenty-two-karat boob: that's all. Some men have to have picture-blocks.”

Comprehension began to dawn in my disturbed brain. “Then that is why the Suzanne challenged me to fence—why she denied everything about the—that—that time you kissed me! Somebody kissed me—I know that.”

“Yes, for the sake of Suzanne, who couldn't. I told you we're different in some ways, though awfully alike outside.”

“And that is why you didn't know there really had been a fencing-bout between Suzanne and me?”

“Of course! Neither of us ever lied to you or ever would. We both of us, and Mother, too, have been trying to get you to see the truth, but you couldn't, without a map. Mother has been in terror all her life for fear we would both fall in love with the same man—there is sometimes danger of that with twins. But we're really great pals, you know—as for my falling in love with a slow one—not at all! But suppose Suzanne had taken a notion to Jimmy! Whatever could we have done?” A sudden look of ruefulness came upon her {{wg|riant}} face.

“But now, as to the real Suzanne,” I began, “you don't mean—”

I don't mean anything. Now run along and figure it all out for yourself. Jimmy knew from the start, because he's a real one. Oh, suppose we had both loved Jimmy the way I do, wouldn't it have been awful?”

I still continued to perspire. “You don't suppose we loved both of you in the course of this misapprehension?” I demanded.

“None of that South Seas' stuff for me,” she replied calmly. “You only loved Suzanne all along. Because, it was Suzanne who—”

“Say it!” I demanded. “Tell me! Do you really suppose—”

“It's awful to make love to a twin,” remarked this young person judicially, “but not nearly as awful as it is for a twin to have to make love to a boob. Run along and study the map, my child. My husband will be along any minute now. Thank Heaven, he didn't need any map!”

Indeed, Jimmy Blandsford was now approaching, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “I'm off to find your mother,” I declared.

“Yes?”—scornfully. “Why not find Suzanne?”

“I don't know where she is.

“Some people try Cypress Point at four. Oh, Jim—mee,” she went on, “come and see the Major. He doesn't know which way is north.”

I caught Jimmy's hand in a hard grasp. A sudden conviction came over me that I had always cared a great deal for Jimmy Blandsford, had always regarded him as a young man of most estimable qualities. I did not tell him anything of this, however, for just at that moment I saw Mrs. Collingsworth approaching hurriedly.

“Beat it, Jimmy!” called out his bride. “Mother's sore.”

The two slipped out through the French window into the gardens. Mrs. Collingsworth and I confronted each other again. The lady bit her lip.

“Those two! Well, it had to be sometime, and after all, I'm glad it's over.”

“Where is Suzanne?” I demanded. Mrs. Collingsworth sighed. “My last one-the very last one of my hundred daughters, who never were but one. You never suspected?”

“No,” I said. “I only wondered.”

“If that's really true, then perhaps I haven't lived in vain. I wanted them to choose—and to be chosen. I—well, on the whole, that madcap out there may have been right: she said majors averaged slower than lieutenants.”

“Tonight at seven, Mrs. Collingsworth,” said I. “May we all meet at the same table?”

“Oh, well,” she sighed, and dabbed at a moisture in her eyes which I did not think wholly born of misery.

{{di|I}}T is a matter of a few miles and a few minutes over the fine roads from Del Monte to Cypress Point. I found fifty miles an hour too slow. Could it be possible I really would find Suzanne, the real Suzanne, alone in this wild portion of the coast, that wonderful place of rock and tree, of background and open spaces, and all the vista of the sweet blue sea?

Why should she be there alone? There were no attractions there excepting those not made of man. Nature alone held sway in that storm-swept spot. Why should a woman's soul seek such grim and rugged surroundings—prehistoric, unchanged from the days of the primal world? True, it was a spot I myself always had loved, and often had sought. But that was when my own soul was torn with doubt, writhing like the branches of these ancient trees. But Suzanne—why, if she had no doubts or anxieties, should she find attunement of mood and landscape here?

I saw nothing when I approached along the motor road at the crest. It was instinct alone that prompted me to leave my car at a certain point and hurry over the brow of the hill to the little flat space which lies below it, fronting the sea as through an open window, in what I think as the most beautiful picture in all the world, framed in the giant trees that hang upon the very rim.

Just below the crest, sheltered from the wind, I saw standing a horse, its bridle-rein thrown across a limb. He turned a white blazed face. It was Danny! Nickering, he put his head down on my shoulder as though he knew me and was glad to see me there. So Danny had come this far with his mistress, for sake of some love between them!

And then I saw Suzanne. She was seated on a rock slab looking out over the sea, toward the red sun then visible through the gaunt limbs of a giant cypress. A huddled, pensive figure she made, all alone, chin in hand—so that suddenly my heart yearned to her, so wistful and woebegone the attitude of her figure seemed to me. She did not hear my step on the soft carpet of the grass and fallen needles.

I came closer. “Suzanne!” I cried, but not loudly.

She almost sprang away in her sudden terror, her hands at her face. But I saw her face change. She knew now that I now knew. She knew that our hour had come.

“Suzanne!” I whispered again; for now I had her hands in mine, and had drawn her up, so that we stood there in the most ancient and admirable spot of all our continent, alone. And what went forward among the silent cypresses was, I take it, the most ancient and admirable thing in all our universe.

I turned her face to mine. In the clear air I could see deep into her eyes—deep blue eyes—unfathomable as yonder sea. Eyes that at last looked into mine, without doubt or resentment or uncertainty.

It was Suzanne!

{{c|{{sc|The End }}}}