CHAPTER XVITWO PRISONERS
Bythe middle of June Miss Susan had departed to visit friends in the south of England, escorting her niece as far as London, where she was to spend some weeks with General and Mrs. Morven. The motor was in hospital at Brodfield, and Owen, the chauffeur, had absolutely nothing to do; no gardening, no greenhouse, no car. Miss Parrett was now the undisputed ruler of Ottinge—manor and village—and he kept out of her way in a crafty, not to say cowardly, fashion; when at home, Miss Susan and her niece had intervened as buffers between him and Miss Parrett’s despotic rudeness. Doubtless her bullying and browbeating were a legacy from her burly grandfather, the Hoogly Pilot; indeed, she was positively so insulting with regard to repairs, his bill for petrol, and the extraordinary—the incredible quantity he wasted, that sooner than face her and have rows, he more than once paid for it out of his own pocket! But do not let it be for a moment supposed that the chauffeur was afraid of the old lady; he was afraid of himself—afraid that if she became altogether insupportable, he might lose, in one and the same moment, his temper, and his situation!
When Bella Parrett reigned alone, it was a sore time for the Manor, and especially for Joss. The old lady did not care for any animals or pets, save a venerablegreen and blue parrot—her own contemporary. She had accepted Joss, a gift from Mr. Woolcock, as she was assured that, having no man living at the Manor, a dog was a necessity in case of robbers, but chiefly because Miss Parrett half suspected that the Martingales—neighbours of the Woolcocks—were anxious to possess the said amusing little puppy. Joss was often in disgrace; but what could one expect of an idle young dog, without companions, education, or pursuits? When Susan was at home all went well; she looked after him and screened his failings, and took him out—though her sister frequently expostulated, and said—
“Now, I won’t have the creature attaching himself to you, Susan; he must learn to know that he ismydog!â€
All the same, she never troubled about “her dog’s†food or sleeping quarters, and it was actually Susan who paid for his licence!
Now Susan was absent, also his good friend Aurea—and Joss was in confinement and deep disgrace; even before his friends’ departure he had been under a black cloud. His youthful spirits were uncontrollable; Joss had inherited the keen sporting instincts of his father, with the intellectual faculties of his accomplished mother, Colette, the poodle, and was both bold and inquisitive. Recently, the wretched animal had chewed off the tail of a magnificent tiger-skin, and concealed it, no one knew where! Miss Parrett hoped he had eaten it—as it was cured with arsenic—but more likely it had been stored in one of his many bone larders. He had poked his nose into a valuable jar, upset, and smashed it! he had come in all wet and muddy from a rat-hunting excursion in the river, and recouped his exhausted energies by a luxurious siesta in Miss Parrett’s own bed—andthere was also a whispered and mysterious communication respecting the disappearance of a best and most expensivefront, which had undoubtedly gone to the same limbo as the tiger’s tail!
“The brute is worse than a dozen monkeys,†declared his furious mistress, and he was accordingly bestowed on a farmer, who lived miles away near Catsfield, merely to return, accompanied by a piece of rope, the same evening. After this, the word “poison†was breathed; but luckily for Joss, Ottinge did not possess a chemist. Finally he was condemned to a fare of cold porridge, and solitary confinement in an empty stable—being suffered to roam loose at night after the house was closed.
The chauffeur and the brown dog had a good deal in common; they were both young and both captives in their way. Oh, those long, endless summer days, when the young man hung about the yard, with nothing to do, awaiting orders, unable to undertake any job in case the car should be wanted. When he called each morning for Miss Parrett’s instructions, and to ask if she would require the motor, the invariable reply was that “she would let him knowlater.â€
The first time they met, Miss Parrett had taken a dislike to the chauffeur, and this dislike had recently been increased by an outrage of more recent date. She had seen Owen, her paid servant, in convulsions of laughter at her expense; yes, laughing exhaustively at his mistress! This was on the occasion of a ridiculous and distressing incident which had taken place one sultry afternoon in the garden. The Rector and his daughter were helping Susan to bud roses—a merry family party; the chauffeur was neatly trimming a box border, Hogben raking gravel, Miss Parrett herself, hooded like a hawk,was poking and prowling around. All at once she emerged from a tool-shed, bearing in triumph a black bottle, which she imprudently shook.
“I’d like to know whatthisis?†she demanded, in her shrillest pipe. The answer was instantaneous, for the liquor being “up,†there was a loud explosion, a wild shriek, and in a second Miss Parrett’s identity was completely effaced by the contents of a bottle of porter. The too inquisitive lady presented a truly humiliating spectacle. Hood, face, hands, gown, were covered with thick cream-coloured foam; it streamed and dripped, whilst she gasped and gurgled, and called upon “Susan!†and “Aurea!â€
As the stuff was removed from her eyes by the latter—anxiously kind, but distinctly hysterical—almost the first object to catch the old lady’s eye was the chauffeur, at a little distance, who, such was his enjoyment of the scene, was actually holding his sides! He turned away hastily, but she could see that his shoulders were shaking, and told herself then that she would never forgive him. She bided her time to award suitable punishment for his scandalous behaviour—and the time arrived.
The malicious old woman enjoyed the conviction that she was holding this too independent chauffeur a prisoner on the premises, precisely as she kept the detestable Joss tied up in the stables. Joss rattled and dragged at his chain, and occasionally broke into melancholy howls, whilst the other paced to and fro in the red-tiled yard, thinking furiously and smoking many more cigarettes than were good for him.
Accustomed from childhood to a life of great activity, to be, perforce, incarcerated hour after hour, awaiting the good—or evil—pleasure of an old woman who was afraid to use her motor, exasperated Wynyard to the last degree.The car was ready, he was ready; usually about six o’clock Miss Parrett would trot out in her hood and announce in her bleating voice—
“Owen, I shall not require the car to-day!â€
Sometimes she would look in on a humble, fawning culprit in the stable, and say, as she contemplated his beseeching eyes—
“Hah! you bad dog, youbaddog! I wish to goodness you were dead—and you shall wish it yourself before I’ve done with you!â€
It was not impossible that these amiable visitations afforded Miss Parrett a delicious, and exquisite satisfaction.
The Drum Inn closed at ten o’clock, and even before the church clock struck, the Hogbens had retired; but the former Hussar officer, accustomed to late hours, and with the long summer night seducing him, found it impossible to retire to his three-cornered chamber—where the walls leant towards him so confidentially, and the atmosphere reeked of dry rot. No, he must breathe the sweet breath of the country, have some exercise, and walk himself weary under the open sky.
Mrs. Hogben—who had now absolute confidence in her lodger, and told him all her most private family affairs—entrusted him with the door-key, that is to say, she showed him the hole in which—as all the village knew—it was concealed. Sometimes it was one in the morning when the chauffeur crept upstairs in stockinged feet, accompanied by Joss—yes,Joss! There were a pair of them, who had equally enjoyed their nocturnal wanderings. The dog slept on a bit of sacking, in his confederate’s room, till Mrs. Hogben was astir, then he flew back to the Manor, and crept through the same hole in the yew hedgeby which, in answer to a welcome whistle, he had emerged the preceding evening. Behold him sitting at the kitchen door when the kitchen-maid opened it, the personification of injured innocence—a poor, neglected, hungry animal, who had been turned out of doors for the whole long night.
These were delightful excursions: over meadows and brooks, through deep glens and plantations, the two black sheep scoured the country, and, as far as human beings were concerned, appeared to have earth and heaven to themselves. Wynyard roamed hither and thither as the freak took him, and surrendered himself to the intoxication that comes of motion in the open air—a purely animal pleasure shared with his companion.
They surprised the dozing cattle, and alarmed astonished sheep, sent families of grazing rabbits scuttling to their burrows; they heard the night-jar, the owl, and the corn-crake; bats flapped across their path, and in narrow lanes the broad shoulders of Wynyard broke the webs of discomfited spiders. The extraordinary stillness of the night was what impressed the young man; sometimes, from a distance of four or five miles, he could hear, with startling distinctness, the twelve measured strokes of Ottinge church clock.
During these long, aimless rambles, what Joss’ thoughts were, who can say? Undoubtedly he recalled such excursions in ecstatic dreams. Wynyard, for his part, took many pleasure trips into the land of fancy, and there, amidst its picturesque glamour and all its doubts, distractions, and hopes, his sole companion was Aurea! Nothing but the hope of her return sustained and kept him day after day, pacing the Manor yard, in a senseherprisoner! His devotion would have amazed his sister; she could not have believed that Owen, of all people,would have been so enslaved by a girl, could have become a dumb, humble worshipper, satisfied to listen to her laugh, to catch a radiant glance of her dark eyes, and, when he closed the door of the car, to shield her dainty skirt with reverent fingers.
Presently there came a spell of bad weather, the rain sweeping across the country in great grey gusts and eddying whirls, moaning and howling through the village, making the venerable trees in Mrs. Hogben’s orchard quite lively in their old age, lashing each other with their hoary arms, in furious play.
It was impossible for Wynyard to spend the entire evening indoors over Mrs. Hogben’s fire, listening to tales of when “she was in service,†though he was interested to hear that Miss Alice Parrett as was—Mrs. Morven—“was the best of the bunch, and there wasn’t a dry eye when she was buried.†He also learned that Mr. Morven was rich for a parson, and had once kept a curate, well paid, too; but the curate had been terribly in love with Miss Aurea, and of course she wouldn’t look at him—a little red-haired, rat-faced fellow! and so he had gone away, and there was no more regular curate, only weekends, when Mr. Morven went abroad for his holiday. And now and then Mrs. Hogben would fall into heartrending reminiscences of her defunct pigs.
“Aforeyoucome, Jack, I kep’ pigs,†she informed him; “one a year. I bought un at Brodfield—a nice little fellow—for fifteen shillings to a pound, and fattened un up, being so much alone all day, I could never help making sort of free with the pig, and petting un. He always knew me, and would eat out of my hand, and was a sort of companion, ye see?â€
“Yes,†assented Wynyard, though he did not see, for in his mind’s eye he was contemplating Aurea Morven.
“Well, of course, he grew fat, and ready for the butcher, and when he was prime, he had to go—but it just broke my heart, so it did; for nights before I couldn’t sleep for crying,†here she became lachrymose; “but it had to be, and me bound to be about when the men came, and the cries and yells of him nigh drove me wild; though, of course, once he was scalded and hung up, and a fine weight, it wor a nice thing to have one’s own pork and bacon.â€
Her companion nodded sympathetically.
“Howsomever, the last time I was so rarely fond of the pig, and his screams and carryings-on cut me socruel, that I made a vow, then and there, I’d never own another, but take a lodger instead—and you, Jack, be thefirst!â€
“I’m sure I’m flattered,†rejoined Wynyard, with an irony entirely wasted on his companion, who, with her skirt turned over her knees, and her feet generously displayed, sat at the other side of the fire, thoroughly enjoying herself.
“Tom is out,†he said, and this remark started her at once into another topic, and a series of bitter complaints of Dilly Topham—Tom’s girl.
“The worst of it is, she’s mighty pretty, ain’t she?†she asked querulously.
“She is,†he admitted. Dilly was a round-faced, smiling damsel, with curly brown hair and expressive blue eyes—a flirt to her finger-tips. It was also true that she did lead poor Tom a life, and encouraged a smart young insurance agent, with well-turned, stockinged calves, and a free-wheel bicycle.
“I’d never put up with her,†declared Mrs. Hogben, “only for her grandmother.â€
“Why her grandmother?†he questioned lazily.
“Bless your dear heart, old Jane Topham has been amiser all her life. Oh, she’s a masterpiece, she is, and lives on the scrapings of the shop; she hasn’t had a gown this ten year, but has a fine lump of money in the Brodfield Bank, and Dilly is all she’s got left, and the apple of her eye. Dilly will have a big fortune—only for that, I’d put her to the door, with her giggling and her impudence, yes I would, and that’s the middle and the two ends of it!â€
When Wynyard had heard more than enough of Dilly’s doings and misdoings, and the biographies and tragedies of his predecessors (the pigs), he went over to the Drum, listened to discussions, and realised the prominent characteristics of the English rustic—reluctance to accept a new idea. Many talked as if the world had not moved for thirty years, and evinced a dull-witted contentment, a stolid refusal to look facts in the face; but others, the younger generation, gave him a new perspective—these read the papers, debated their contents, and took a keen interest in their own times.
Wynyard generally had a word with old Thunder, and played a game of chess with Pither, the organist. Captain Ramsay was established in his usual place—smoking, silent, and staring. So intent was his gaze, so insistently fixed, that Wynyard invariably arranged to sit with his back to him, but even then he seemed to feel the piercing eyes penetrating the middle of his spine!
One evening Captain Ramsay suddenly rose, and shuffled out of his corner—an usual proceeding, for he remained immovable till closing time (ten o’clock). He came straight up to where Wynyard was bending over the chess-board, considering a move, and laying a heavy hand on his shoulder, and speaking in a husky voice, said—
“I say—Wynyard—don’t you know me?â€