Book #1: Suzy's Dream (Chapter 2 - Part 2)

 Chapter 2 continued...

Suzy thought that she wouldn’t have been very upset by this setback. As the end of her stay at Le Castel approached, her regrets became more vivid. At that thought, her cheerfulness disappeared. She grew quiet and serious as she pointed out to Georges the flowers she desired he cut for her. 

“Do you want another one of these roses? See how velvety this one is.”

“Oh…yes, I do want another.”

Why is this Gladys Tuffton coming? Her distracted mind kept thinking. I could have stayed another three days, since my mother has allowed it.

“How serious you seem, Mademoiselle Suzanne,” Georges said in his soothing voice.

 “I’m always like this when I part someplace.”  She replied quickly, confused, as if he could guess what she was thinking. “I hate leaving. I find the word ‘farewell’ too difficult to say.”

“Me too, sometimes, but it’s been a long time since I’ve understood it as well as I do now.”

A fleeting blush accentuated the rosy glow of Suzy’s face. George liked to see such coloring found there, for it pleased his artist’s eye. 

“Your politeness is such a pretty thing,” she replied a little mockingly—perhaps to hide the fact that she was charmed.

He made a gesture to stop her, but she continued.

“Your words are very kind,” she said, while with a sensible air she gathered her flowers in a bouquet. “But I know that those who are absent are quickly forgotten. It always happens.”

“How have you become so disillusioned, Mademoiselle Suzanne?”

“I speak by hearsay because I remember that I’ve heard such a thing declared by more experienced people than myself.”

She said this in her lovely, playful tone, as she returned to the porch steps. The carriage was approaching, and Mme. de Berly and Germaine appeared on the porch in their going-out clothes.

Georges bowed a little towards Suzy, smiling.

“Mademoiselle Suzanne,” he said with his great air of courteous respect. “Even experienced people can be mistaken. Please do me the favor of believing me when I say this. When it comes to good-byes, no grace is refused. And please be sure that all of us here — me especially – we will frequently feel your absence. Do you have confidence in my words?”

“Yes!” she replied, quite flushed. She reached the last of the front steps where the household of Le Castel had assembled.

At that moment, the agitation of departure filled the air punctuated by the amiable and routine farewell of Madame Arnay. Next came the journey to the station on the road lined with poplars, then quickly exchanged handshakes with hurried good-byes. At the sight of the train advancing and rumbling towards the little station as it emerged from the greenery of the woods, Suzy gave a final last glance at those who remained while the machine shook under a plume of puffing smoke.

Georges was the last one she saw.

“My dear, if you’ll excuse me, I need to review a few of my work notes during the trip,” said M. Arnay, as soon as he was seated in the carriage with Suzy. “If you have a book, feel free to read it if you like.”

But Suzy did not want to read. After quickly assuring her uncle that he could, without hesitation, look over all his notes, she remained motionless, rocked by the steady movement of the train. Tilting her head back a little on the carriage seat, she watched the country flee away from her. The sun had disappeared under a light fog and the blue of the sky melted into very soft pearl-grey hues. With a distracted eye Suzy looked at the wide plains suddenly cut by the woods, whose verdure was shaded with dashes of purple, golden yellow, and rust.

As she moved away from Le Castel, the impressions of her time there that she carried with her lost their intensity, gradually taking on a vagueness of memory, and developing into a desirous thought of home. An image of her mother filled her thoughts completely. When it came to her mother, Suzy felt not only the spontaneous tenderness of a child, but also a strange feeling of appreciation, even of admiration at seeing her mother always courageous despite the bitterness and the uncertain future she had endured.

Suzy’s mother, Mme. Douvry, was not one of those who reclaimed themselves after having given so completely of themselves to others. Having a blind faith in happiness, she had been the resolutley devoted wife of the man she had chosen when she was a very young girl, whether in good or bad fortune. Their mutual affection had become so deep, that neither troubles, nor disappointments, nor sorrows had been able to separate their intertwined souls.

Suzy’s father had been a researcher, always taken with the adventurous enterprises to which his inquisitive mind led him. His position as an engineer allowed him such margin, and he had preferred to seek distant and difficult missions abroad. Mme. Douvry had followed him everywhere, incessantly surrounding him with her tenderness. She had tried uselessly to stop her husband when she saw him seduced by any one of the hazardous business affairs he was drawn to. Whether too disinterested, too confident, or unskilled in speculation, Suzy’s father usually found ruin.

When they had returned to France, following a financial disaster in New York, where the remains of a once considerable fortune had disappeared, it was his wife who, seeing him exhausted, ill, and discouraged, had been able to, once again, revive his strength. By gentle influence, she had prevented him from refusing the modest position his brother-in-law, M. Arnay, urged him to accept. Although M. Douvry’s pride at first revolted such a position, M. Arnay’s successes in business provided protection that convinced his brother-in-law to accept at his insistence. 

Of all their joys, dreams, and hopes, it seemed only love alone had survived. As for Mme. Douvry, she had taken on something unintentionally maternal, as if she had become for her husband the serene force in which he was going to immerse his irritated and sick soul. With an endless delicacy Mme. Douvry strove to remove his wounds, to calm his pride— which was sensitive to the slightest injury—and to soften the nervous suffering he felt. He who had so passionately loved the great horizons, was now constrained to regular and mechanical office work.

And so, in an atmosphere of sweetness and peace, the children had grown up, surrounded by her maternal love, so much so that they had never come up against any of life’s harshness.

End of Part 2

Le rêve de Suzy is in the public domain. All original additions, including translations, illustrations and chapter summaries, are copyright © 2025 by Marriah K. Nissen and may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. All rights reserved.