Susan's Kind Heart (The Susan books)

  SUSAN’S

  KIND HEART

  BY

  JANE SHAW

  Bettany Press

  2006

  First published in Great Britain by Wm. Collins Sons and Co. Ltd, 1965.

  Bettany Press edition published 2006.

  8 Kildare Road London E16 4AD.

  This eversion published 2011.

  Text © Jane Shaw 1965

  The right of Jane Shaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-908304-10-0

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. HAUNTED CHTEAU

  II. THE FAMILY SILVER

  III. GALLOPING HOOVES

  IV. ENTER FIRST SUSPECT

  V. ENTER SECOND SUSPECT

  VI. WHOSE SIDE IS WILLY ON?

  VII. A DAY TO REMEMBER

  VIII. MYSTERIOUS PIECE OF SILVER

  IX. THE VILLAIN UNMASKED

  X. AT THE CAFÉ HORTENSIA

  XI. OPERATION BEACH-HUT

  XII. CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

  XIII. ALADDIN’S CAVE

  XIV. ALL THAT TROUBLE FOR NOTHING

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Everybody shrieked with laughter and shouted, “Mind the eggs!”

  With alarming speed Gaston drove the car.

  “Bowf!” Suddenly a figure leapt out at them.

  Everyone in the café joined in.

  With a last heave and push with her toes, Susan’s legs disappeared.

  FOR MARILYN SCOTT

  I. HAUNTED CHTEAU

  THE school reports really started it all: Susan’s and Midge’s were uniformly poor, but in French they both reached new depths. Aunt Lucy read them with gloom. “ ‘Midge is lazy and inattentive…’ really, Midge!”

  “Susan’s is worse.” Midge produced the diversion hopefully.

  It worked. Aunt Lucy turned to Susan’s report.

  “ ‘Susan is apparently too occupied with other things to bother about French. A very bad term’s work,’ ” Aunt Lucy read out.

  “Sarcastic old pig,” said Susan. “Just because I had to do my maths prep during French once or twice—”

  “Yes, well, the thing is,” said Aunt Lucy, quickly scanning the rest of the report and shuddering, “what are we to do about it?”

  “Send them to France with me in the summer,” said Charlotte.

  Aunt Lucy said, “That’s not a bad idea—”

  Charlotte was going to spend two months or so with a French family in Brittany. As she was a trifle anxious at the thought of two months with no one to talk to, she welcomed the idea of being joined by Susan and Midge. Susan’s parents, who were in Africa at this time, while Susan stayed with her cousins, the Carmichaels, also welcomed the idea. Aunt Lucy and Uncle Charles were all in favour; Bill was inclined to be jealous. Susan was beside herself with excitement.

  Only Midge was lukewarm about the scheme. She didn’t mind, of course, spending a holiday in France, but, she said, she was blowed if she was going to learn any French while she was there.

  “Och, away, Midge,” said Susan, her dark eyes shining, “it will be great. It’s only Charlotte who has to learn French, we’re just going to enjoy ourselves.”

  “I don’t think that I’ll be very good at enjoying myself in French,” said Midge firmly.

  “If you two do come,” said Charlotte, “I don’t want any of Susie’s nonsense. No running around interfering in French people’s lives, rescuing them from ruin or just poking your nose in generally—”

  “As if I would!” said Susan indignantly. “As if I could! My French is practically non-existent.”

  “Why should that stop you?” said Charlotte. “Look what happened in Switzerland last year—”* *See Susan Interferes

  There was some justification for Charlotte’s uneasiness: Susan was all too apt to see herself as a sort of universal Good Samaritan, helping and rescuing people all the time. “She’s got a kind heart,” said Midge, “that’s the trouble.” And Susan’s kind heart led to some odd situations. “For it’s sometimes a jolly lot worse being helped and rescued by Susan than being hounded down by a cruel fate,” said Midge. “It’s no joke being helped by Susan.”

  “Who am I likely to help?” demanded Susan. “I don’t see how you can help people if you can’t speak their language,” she said.

  “I’m afraid you’ll find a way,” said Midge.

  And it certainly looked like it. Susan had scarcely stepped off the aeroplane that landed them in France before she was trying to help a much-overburdened peasant woman to carry her basket. The woman had never come across anyone like Susan before; she quite understandably mistook Susan’s motives and was shouting for the police in no time. Charlotte was all for walking away and pretending that Susan wasn’t with them, but Midge said, “Oh, no, Charlotte, how can you? Leave poor old Susie to rot in a French prison! Go and rescue her.”

  This was easier said than done, because Charlotte’s French wasn’t all that fluent either. She decided, therefore, that actions speak louder than words, and muttering “Pardon madame,” rather self-consciously over and over again, she grabbed the basket out of Susan’s hands. The peasant woman, upset by this attack from the rear, prepared to go into action with her umbrella, but Charlotte was too quick for her: she dumped the basket at the woman’s feet, seized Susan by the arm and ran. Midge tottered after them, scarcely able to run for laughing.

  All this was taking place in a rather unprepossessing little square in Dinard where the girls were due to catch a bus for St. Clos, the somewhat remote village on the Breton coast which was their destination. As, however, they had two or three hours to wait for their bus, they now left their luggage in a café and hurried — in the opposite direction from that taken by the peasant woman — towards the sea and the grander part of the town.

  They enjoyed Dinard. They sat on the beach among the rocks and revelled in the sunshine and the emerald sea. They studiously avoided the airmail editions of the English newspapers being offered for sale.

  “French papers or nothing,” said Charlotte.

  “Then nothing,” said Midge. “A French newspaper would be quite, quite useless to me.”

  They walked up and down gazing into the windows of rather grand little shops and bought tiny bottles of scent, real French scent, for Aunt Lucy and Susan’s mother, so small, said Midge, that they were only just visible to the naked eye. At twelve o’clock they hurried back to the unprepossessing square, collected their luggage and found the bus already so full that it seemed an utter impossibility for three more to get on. However, everybody very good-naturedly beamed and smiled and squeezed up to make room and a peasant woman — not the same peasant woman, fortunately, but one very like her, even to the sombre black clothes, snowy Breton cap of lace and white tennis shoes — kindly pushed forward her basket for Susan to sit on. Or so Susan thought, but as she sank thankfully down on the basket, the woman yelled, “Mind the eggs!” Even Susan knew enough French to understand this: she leapt guiltily in the air and apologised as best she could.

  The girls now thought that the bus was quite full enough; but still the passengers continued to squeeze on. Susan gazed at them in amazement and said hopefully, “Perhaps they’re all getting off at the next village.”

  They weren’t: a whole lot more got on at the next village and at every subsequent village, until the bus closely resembled the Black Hole of Calcutta.

  Only, as Susan whispered to
Midge, these dreadful conditions didn’t seem so bad in French: the heat and the noise and the dust and the screeching of brakes and the mad hooting of horns all seemed part of the fun. Every time that the bus swung wildly round a corner the woman with the basket yelled, “Mind the eggs!” Soon the whole bus took up the cry, and as the driving became madder and madder, at every corner everybody shrieked with laughter and shouted, “Mind the eggs!” “That’s one phrase that I’ll not forget in a hurry,” said Susan. “Travel is very educational, you must admit.”

  Susan was enjoying herself. The people on the roads, who scuttled for their lives at the approach of the bus, the funny, high, narrow houses, with their faded grey shutters, the sleepy little villages, hot and dusty in the sunshine, the distant glimpses of pine trees and emerald sea, the enthralling foreign names — boulangerie, charcuterie — written up on the shops were all exceedingly interesting and romantic.

  “Charcuterie means pork butcher,” said Midge coldly. She was feeling sick; Susan might find the smell of French cigarettes and the occasional whiffs of garlic very foreign and delightful, but all that Midge longed for was that this nightmare journey would soon end.

  End it did: this time in rather a handsome square in a town called St. Brieuc; but it turned out that St. Clos was some distance further on. Charlotte asked directions; half the people whom she asked had never heard of St. Clos, and the other half had divergent views on the best way to get there: there was a bus, certainly, there was also the petit train, there were excellent taxis—

  Even Susan was beginning to tire. “I wish your French family had lived at Dinard, Charlotte,” she said.

  “I wish they’d lived at Brighton,” said Midge.

  But just at this moment, when the three girls were standing about rather forlornly, wondering whether to aim at another bus, the very idea of which made Midge mutter under her breath, or try to track down this petit train that people kept talking about, or find a taxi and hang the expense, just then a young man came up to them and pulled off his beret. And it turned out that he wasn’t just another friendly foreigner, he was actually looking for them.

  The girls thought that he was a sort of cross between Sir Galahad and the Scarlet Pimpernel. While not quite up to those exalted standards, perhaps, he was a lively-looking dark young man, short and stocky, wearing rust-red denim trousers and a loose striped shirt. What was even more to the point, he had a car and he was going to take them to St. Clos. Weak with relief, the girls fell thankfully into this car, rather a dilapidated old Peugeot, but just as welcome as a solid-gold Cadillac.

  They set off at the nerve-wracking pace apparently beloved of all French drivers, Midge and Susan in the back, Charlotte in the front beside the young man, in the hopes that she at least would be able to follow what he was saying, even if she couldn’t add much to the conversation.

  But even Midge and Susan managed to understand that his name was René (“I thought that was a girl’s name?” muttered Susan) Morel, and he had something to do with the Château de St. Clos, because apparently Mademoiselle Damienne had sent him. He kept turning round to address Charlotte, which was not surprising because Charlotte was pretty, practically beautiful, Susan always thought, even after two hours in a French bus, but which was exceedingly alarming. When he turned right round to address the two girls in the back, they nearly fainted with terror and hurriedly said “Yes, yes, I mean oui, oui,” to everything and prayed that he would stop talking and just keep his eyes on the road, particularly when they roared across those terrible unguarded level-crossings, practically in the teeth of an approaching train.

  Midge and Susan had long ago given up all attempt at following René’s conversation, and were looking at the scenery which was gentle and enclosed with stunted, queerly-shaped trees and carved stone Calvaries at the cross-roads; Charlotte, however, was still keeping her end up manfully, although at one point Susan wondered what on earth René had said to her because she turned such a startled face towards him. Susan hadn’t time to find out, because just then, with an extra flurry of brakes and dust, they drew up before a tall pair of wrought-iron gates.

  “Jings!” said Susan, leaning across Midge and peering through the gates. “It really is a château!”

  But it wasn’t a real, big, grand château, only a dear little miniature one, with grey stone walls and pepper-pot towers. In front was a stiff little garden, all gravel paths, tiny box hedges and rose trees; the scent of roses was everywhere. The girls went up a shallow flight of steps and into a dim, cool hall with a dark red stone floor and a few dim ancestors hanging on the walls.

  The place seemed to be full of people, all talking French exceedingly loudly, quickly and incomprehensibly, but when the girls became less agitated and were able to look about them more calmly, these hordes gradually sorted themselves out into a mere half-dozen or so. First there was Madame de St. Clos, who was small and slim and elegant, extremely pretty, and who looked too young to be anybody’s mother, except that her hair was silvery-grey. Her daughter Damienne was about twenty-two, also small and slim and pretty, with huge dark eyes and the longest lashes that Susan had ever seen, only her hair was brown, with shiny gold bits all over it; she was sweet and welcoming to the girls, and, what was even better, she spoke to them in English. Then there was a Monsieur Carrière; he was tall and dark and quite handsome, only there was something about him that the girls didn’t quite take to, perhaps it was a rather knowing look in his eye. Next came a tall, fair young man about Charlotte’s age, which was eighteen; his name was Wilhelm von Brandis which seemed a very odd name for a Frenchman until it turned out that he was a German, who had also come to the château to learn French. And lastly there was another fair young man of nineteen or so with rather a supercilious expression who said absolutely nothing and whose name the girls didn’t catch.

  After all the introductions and handshakings which seemed to go on for ever, René came in with the girls’ luggage, and Damienne led the way up the flight of shallow, polished wooden stairs to show them their rooms. A little stair twisted off to the left of the main staircase and then they were in a big, low room with two beds in it with gay counter-panes. Two windows in front looked over the prim garden and the wrought-iron gates; there were two shuttered windows in the back. Damienne flung back the shutters and the girls gasped; another garden lay before them, with tangled masses of flowers and rough lawns and beyond that the edge of a cliff and nothing beyond that except the sea, deepest blue in the afternoon light.

  “Oh, lovely,” said Midge under her breath and walked over to the window and watched two little sailing-boats with coloured sails flit across the horizon like two butterflies. Away to her left a long quay with a lighthouse at the end of it sheltered more little butterfly-boats, while on her right a line of pine trees sheltered an old orchard.

  But Charlotte’s room was even better, for hers was in one of the pepper-pot turrets. Two steps led up to it from the girls’ room: from its narrow windows she could look all round her, to the sea and the village of St. Clos and the harbour, to the old orchard, and over the formal garden to the wrought-iron gates and the dusty road.

  Damienne looked pleased at their exclamations of pleasure, showed them a bathroom about half the size of the Albert Hall, and left them to change and unpack. In no time they had done both, changed into slacks and sandals, hung swimming things hopefully round their necks and hurried downstairs and out into the garden in search of the sea.

  In the garden, which they reached through a door at the back of the hall, they came upon the supercilious young man.

  This was disappointing, as they felt that they had battled with quite enough French for one day, with no doubt more to come at dinner, but they smiled politely and began stumblingly to mutter that they were going to look for the sea, as they thought that it would be nice to bathe themselves.

  “Mm, good idea,” said the supercilious young man in a supercilious voice. “I’ll show you the path. But why are you speaking Fr
ench to me?”

  The girls gaped at him, with their mouths open. Charlotte was the first to recover. She laughed. “Because we thought you were French, of course! Are you English, then? But your name—?”

  “My name is Oliver Maddison,” he said, grinning. He looked nice when he smiled and not quite so supercilious. “Damienne pronounces it Olivair Maddisong, I must admit, and makes it sound more French than the Eiffel Tower, but I am English, I assure you.”

  “Oh, hurrah,” said Susan, “I’m just about deeved with all that French.”

  “I presume that you aren’t English,” said Oliver.

  “Och, well, of course not,” said Susan. “I’m Scots, but I live in England and so do my cousins—” she flapped a hand at Charlotte and Midge “—that’s Charlotte, the pretty one, and that’s Midge, the one who looks like a, well, like a midge.”

  Nobody quite knew why Susan was introducing everybody all over again in her busybody way, after they had been introduced once already by Damienne, but Susan just grinned and said that no one could hear anyone’s name in that babble of French, so it was just as well to do it all again, and what were they waiting for, anyway, weren’t they all going down to the beach for a swim?

  “I’m waiting for Willy,” said Oliver.

  Willy? Who on earth was Willy? What would he turn out to be — French? English? Italian, perhaps?

  But Willy turned out to be Wilhelm von Brandis, and he came running out of the château the next minute with a swimming towel flapping round his neck. He clicked his heels (difficult to do in espadrilles, the soft canvas shoes with rope soles that he was wearing) and bowed to the girls. Midge and Susan could only just stifle their giggles, but they lost all inclination even to smile and sank into a gloomy silence when it transpired that Oliver talked to Willy in German. “It was a great stroke of luck finding Willy here,” he said. “I can practise both my French and German at the same time.”