Read Ebook: Suzanna Stirs the Fire by Blake Emily Calvin

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2086 lines and 71472 words, and 42 pages

"Mother, this is my first tucked-in day to do as I please in. I know Monday's supposed to be wash day, but you said it wasn't a big wash and I did all the sorting Saturday night. I am all fixed up for a princess, and something inside me tells me I must wander about my palace and perhaps find paths leading to far-off snow countries."

It was Maizie who looked now questioningly at her mother. Could it be that Suzanna would be given her own way? In truth the entire table awaited breathlessly Mrs. Procter's answer. It came at last:

"Very well, Princess, you may have your tucked-in day."

There followed a short silence. At last:

Again her mother agreed. Rarely could she deny Suzanna her jaunts into the land of dreams.

So after breakfast, quite free, Suzanna left the house. The little town lay quiet, except for the rhythmic noises coming from the big Massey Steel Mills. Suzanna looked in their direction and stood a moment watching the sparks coming from the big round chimneys. Over across fields were the tumble-down cottages occupied by the employees of the Massey Steel Mills. Suzanna did not often go in their direction. The squalor made her unhappy and set in train so many questions she was quite unable to answer.

The day was early July with a spicy breeze that promised its delight for many hours. Suzanna walked out into the road, and turned to gaze at the little home in which she had been born. She loved it with its many memories. She fancied it held its head high because it sheltered her father's great Machine. At length she turned south toward the country. She breathed deeply as she went, feeling how wonderful it was to be a princess and to wander about as she pleased.

Throbbing with life and the beauty of it, the marvel of it, she began to dance. Strange thoughts flowed through her, strange understandings, that, little child as she was, she could find no words for. Only it seemed color lay within her, rich color for a thought of love; a wistful rose shade for a passing desire, a brilliant orange for the uplifting knowledge that just to be alive was great. She stopped to gather a passion flower because with its deep purple, its hidden heart that she could very gently discover and gaze into, it fitted into her mood.

Oh, to be big, grown up! All these brightly winged thoughts uplifting her, some of which puzzled her, some that frightened her, she would quite understand then! In those far-off years of absolute knowledge there would be no limitations; no commonplaces, only miracles. You could make what you wished then of all your days.

She came at last upon a little house lying far back from the road. It was like a toy house, and had stood open for years. The Procter children had often played in the rooms of the small house, and once when Peter was a baby he had fallen down the stairs, and his twin Helen, anguished because he was hurt, had cried piteously until they were home again.

Now Suzanna opened the gate, mended, she noticed, and hanging straight, and started down the garden path. Lovely old-fashioned flowers--pansies and phlox and pinks and balsam were all in their happiest bloom. Suzanna wondered who watered and tended them. As she lingered beside a pansy bed, the door of the little house opened and a rather frail little old lady came out, followed by a maid who carried a chair that was filled with pillows. She set the chair under a tree midway in the garden between the house and the road. The old lady sank into it and the maid deftly covered her with a large woolen shawl; then saying some word, and placing a small silver bell on the grass within easy reach of the lady in the chair the maid left.

Suzanna stood, unable to run. Someone then had moved into the tiny house. And who? Suzanna knew everyone in the village of Anchorville, and the old lady was a stranger. Suzanna gave up the question and started back toward the gate when the old lady suddenly turned and saw the child.

"Come here," she called, and Suzanna perforce obeyed. When she stood near the small figure in the chair she waited, while she decided that this was quite the prettiest old lady she had ever seen. The wavy silver hair lying under a white lace cap, with two little curls falling on either side made the blue eyes seems like a very little baby's at the stage when they're deciding just what color they shall be. Like Suzanna, the lady was dressed in white, flowing as to skirt, and trimmed with quantities of fine old lace. On her hand was one ring, a lovely moonstone. Suzanna at once loved that ring, not because it was a piece of jewelry, but because it did look like a stray moonbeam that the rain had fallen on.

"And who may you be?" asked the old lady at once.

Now something about her hostess called out all of Suzanna's colorful imagination. She felt an instant response to this personality.

"I am a princess, the Princess Cecilia," she answered promptly.

"Ah," the old lady straightened up and a sudden, vivid change became at once manifest in her manner. "Draw closer to me."

Suzanna obeyed, moving till she touched the old lady's hand that rested on the wings of the old-fashioned chair.

"You should be a princess," said the old lady, "for I am a queen!"

Suzanna gazed without at first speaking. "A real one?" she whispered at last.

"A real queen," returned the old lady. "It's not generally known by those who serve me, nor even suspected by my own son who lives yonder in the big house on the hill. But I'm the real queen of Spain, deposed from the hearts of her people, from the hearts of her own nearest."

Suzanna nodded. She looked over toward the hill. "That's Bartlett Villa," she said; "the people only live there part of the year. I know Mrs. Bartlett, she's the richest lady in Anchorville, but I didn't know her mother was a queen."

The old lady didn't appear to be particularly interested. She went on: "It's not generally known, I believe, that I am a queen." After another pause: "Over yonder is a camp chair. Bring it hither."

Suzanna found the chair at one end of the garden. Quickly she brought it and sank herself upon it gracefully as became a princess of the blood, but she was surprised a moment later to meet reproval in the eyes of the queen.

"It's not permissible to seat yourself in the presence of royalty," said the queen, rather sternly.

"But, I, too, am royalty and you told me to get the chair," said Suzanna. "Of course, I thought it was to sit on."

"You are merely a princess," returned the old lady. "I am your queen, and you must await my permission to recline."

Suzanna rose.

"Ask permission," said the queen, "and perhaps I shall allow you to seat yourself."

"May I sit down?" asked Suzanna.

The queen inclined her head graciously. "You may," she returned. So once more the little visitor resumed her seat. Then for a long time the old lady sat with folded hands and looking off into the distance. She was very, very still. Only the lace on her bosom moved gently to show that she breathed. Suzanna thought perhaps she had better go. But she feared to rise lest she again meet with reproof.

At last the queen remembered her guest.

"I wish to traverse my garden and in the absence of my lady-in-waiting I request your arm, Princess Cecilia," she said.

Suzanna rose quickly and bending her small arm, she offered its support to the old lady, who though now standing very straight and slender, still was scarce two heads taller than her visitor. She slipped her blue-veined hand within Suzanna's arm and they began a friendly walk up and down the path.

"Once," began the queen, "when I lived beyond the snow-capped mountains within my own palace, I was not so lonely as I now am. There was one who afterwards became my king, with whom I walked by the sea. We saw together the sapphire sparkle of the water, the golden yellow of the sands; but in reality we beheld only one another's face."

"And after a time," went on the queen, "we were wedded and lived together in my palace and we were happy as the birds; happy and less care free. And always we found our greatest happiness in walking by the sea or in climbing the mountains; I sometimes clinging to his ready hand or skipping before him. And once we ran away from all the pomp and ceremony that was merely surface and we found a little house right at the edge of town, and there together for some months we lived. There, too, our little prince came to us, and from there he went away.

"And one day my king, too, left, and my little prince forgot me, and I am alone. Queen as I am, I am alone!"

Suzanna was silent. Indeed, she was at a loss just how to offer comfort. When Helen, Peter's twin, went away her heart had ached, and when a little baby, soft and cuddly had gone away forever, Suzanna had wept for days and far into the nights. This queen, she found was very sad, and very longing, and very lonely, three things she thought queenhood exempt from, sadness, and longing and loneliness.

Once more they turned, and walked down the garden path till they reached the chairs under the tree. The queen sank again among her pillows and Suzanna was about to use her camp chair when the queen spoke in her old commanding manner:

"I am hungry, serf," she cried. "Go, prepare my food! All the dainties that you can find. I wish cream beaten to a froth and peaches, halved and stoned. I wish strawberries still wet with dew and reposing in their green leaves."

"But," began Suzanna, "I can't get strawberries for you."

The old lady rose to her full height. "Wilt begone, serf?" in stern accents she cried. "Wilt begone and prepare what I demand?"

Now Suzanna had a very firm idea of her own standing as a princess. Had she not earlier in the day impressed Maizie? And now, was this stranger, even though she were a queen, to demand menial service of one of royal blood? Suzanna thought not. So she said firmly, though gently:

"I am not a serf, if that means a slave! I am a visiting princess, the Princess Cecilia. I will not go into your kitchen and prepare food." And then forgetting her r?le, she assumed her ordinary voice. "Why, this morning I didn't even warm the baby's bottle, because mother said I needn't seeing that I was a princess and living in my own tucked-in day."

"'Tucked-in day!'" responded the queen. "What do you mean by that?"

"Why, it's my very own day, a day tucked in between last week and this week," said Suzanna.

The old lady's eyes wandered away again looking into distant countries, Suzanna had no doubt, and she hoped the strawberries were forgotten. But alas, she was wrong, for in a few moments the queen, bringing her eyes back to Suzanna's face recalled her desire:

"I will have my strawberries," she began peremptorily. And then with a complete change of voice; one with some satire in its tone she concluded: "Dost think because thou art a princess thou art exempt from all service in the world?"

"A princess does not work," said Suzanna wisely.

"I would have you know," said the queen, "that all those of the world must give service in one way or another. Dost think that when in my palace I reigned a queen I gave no service? There were those who loved me and needed me. As their queen did I not owe them something in return for their love? And could I leave their needs unrelieved?"

"But," faltered Suzanna, "you were a queen!"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet