British -- France -- Fiction; Diary fiction; Epistolary fiction; Household employees -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
"He didn’t say anything, Miss," replied Susan regretfully. "All he did
was he looked at these bags, Miss, and stood over them till he’d read
the names on the labels enough to learn them by heart, and where we were
going as well. It was that that gave me such a dreadful feeling. Then
the guard came and asked him what he was doing in the first-class, and
looked at his ticket, and said it would be four-and-six more; and, with
that, he went back again through the gate."
"Susan," I said, "I am really very angry. You ought to have told me this
at once. Help me to put these things together. You know how I hate it;
but we are going below."
We didn’t go below; but we went as far forward as we could, and sat
gazing southward until a little low moan of joy from a French-woman at
my side told me that she had caught sight of the faint white ramparts of
France.
As the cliffs rose higher from the sea and spread widelier to the east
and west, my spirits rose and expanded with them. If Lord Ruddington
was following us, there was his insult to me as well as his designs upon
Susan to be dealt with. So long as we were cramped up on a ship, he had
the advantage of us; but with the hugeness of France unfolding before
me, I felt myself his match, and began spoiling for a fight.
I didn’t have to wait long. As we entered Dieppe harbour, a sailor
unlocked the gate of the second-class pen, and the inmates streamed out
all over the main deck. Susan was for hurrying to swell the serried
mass of Britons who invariably fight like Bushmen to be first on the
gangway. But I kept her in her place, and we were among the last to
disembark.
Ruddington--if it’s truly he--was waiting for us at the Customs. He had
got his own bag passed and chalk-marked already. I was prepared for
developments, but not for what actually followed. Ignoring me, with the
coolest insolence, he marched straight up to Susan, clawed carelessly at
his cloth cap, and said:
"Can I be of any assistance?"
Susan shrank under my wing, all crimson confusion. I turned on him
sharply.
"What is it you want?" I demanded.
He coloured up; having, I suppose, some poor remnant of shame after all.
Then he stammered:
"I thought I might be of some assistance."
"Thank you," I said. "None is needed." And I turned my back.
When we had got everything through, we went into the buffet, and drank
thin tea out of thick cups, while He stood at the bar with a long glass
of something-and-soda. Susan had been so thoroughly cowed into
speechlessness and good behaviour that I was able to take counsel with
myself in peace.
We had deposited the trunks in the _consigne_ until Monday, the day I
had intended to resume the journey to Sainte Véronique. The bags were
piled up at Susan’s feet, labelled with the labels He had so coolly
looked at. I wished my writing wasn’t so legible. No doubt he had
memorized the address--Hôtel du Cheval d’Or, Dieppe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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