I hope that my company on the morning rides was agreeable to Jenny, but I cannot be persuaded that it was necessary; she showed such perfect ability to handle a situation which, if not precisely difficult, might easily have become so under less skillful management. There had, of course, never been any serious love-making between her and Lacey; whatever he may have been inclined to feel, or to tell himself that he felt, she had always kept him to his position as "a boy." Yet young women in the twenties do not always scorn the attentions of boys, and Jenny had certainly not despised Lacey's. In fact, they had flirted, and flirted pretty hard—and, as has been seen, Jenny was at no trouble to deny it. But now the thing had to stop—or rather the flirtation had to be transformed, the friendship established on a new basis. Into this task Jenny put some of her best work. Her finest weapon was a frank cordiality—such as could not but delight a friend, but was really hopeless for a lover. To every advance it opposed a shield of shining friendliness, of a hearty, almost masculine, comradeship. It left no room for the attacks and defenses, the challenges and evasions, the pursuit, the flight, and the collusive capture. It was all such immensely plain sailing, all so pre-eminently above-board, in its unmitigated cunning. But it was charming also, and Lacey, though naturally a little puzzled at first, soon felt the charm. He was wax in those clever hands; she seemed to be able not only to make him do what she wanted, but even to make him feel toward her as she wished—to impart to his emotions the color which she desired them to take. Positively I think he began to forget the flirtation in the friendship, or to charge his memory with twisting or misinterpreting the facts. All the time, though, he would have been ready to resume the old footing at the smallest encouragement, the lightest touch of coquetry or allurement. But Jenny's masterpiece of honest friendship was without any such flaw; if she was great at flirtation, she was no less a mistress of the art of baffling it. With such ability and such self-confidence what need had she of my presence? She was wiser than I was when I put that question to myself. I thought only of what would happen; she remembered what people might say—that the neighbors had tongues, and that Fillingford had ears to his head like other folks. While the buckler of cordiality fronted Lacey, I was her shield against a flank attack.
Had she really made up her mind then? It looked like it. If she rode in my company with Lacey in the morning, she received his father without my company in the afternoon. There could be no doubt what he came for; middle-aged men of many occupations do not pay calls two or three afternoons a week without a purpose. What passed at these interviews remained, of course, a secret; I confess to a suspicion that Jenny found them dull. Fillingford's wariness of exposing himself to rebuff or ridicule, his habitual secretiveness as to his emotions, cannot have made him either an ardent or an entertaining suitor. In truth I do not believe that he seriously pretended to be in love. He liked her very much; he thought that she would fill well the place he had to offer, and that she, in her turn, would like to fill it, and might find him agreeable enough to accept with it. That would content him. With that I thought she, too, would be content—considering the other advantages thrown in. She would not have cared for his love, but she could endure his company. That carried with it only a limited liability—and good dividends in the form of rank, position, and influence. In dealing with the Drivers one had a tendency to fall into commercial metaphors; caught from old Nicholas, the trick extended itself to Jenny.
But if he were resolved and she ready, why did the thing hang fire? It did—and surely by Jenny's will? She was reasoning; the affair could not look dangerous; then it looked dull? But it would look no less dull the longer she looked at it. Her feelings were not engaged; unless caught up by strong emotions, she shunned the irrevocable, liked open alternatives, hated to close the line of retreat; he who still parleys is still free, he who still bargains is still master. That attitude of her mind—re-ënforced by her father's warning—was always strong with her and had always to be remembered. Was it enough to account for her continuing to keep Fillingford at bay? The answer might well be yes—for these natural predispositions will knock the bottom out of much speciously logical reasoning about people. But there was another factor in the case—a thing which could not be overlooked. Why was Leonard Octon keeping quiet? Or if quiet perforce, why did he seem placid, content, and, contrary to all expectation of him, amiably trustful?
One evening I availed myself of his invitation—Jenny did not always bid me to dinner, and sometimes I was lonely even as he was—and walked down to Hatcham Ford. Passing Ivydene, I was interested to observe lights in the window, though it was nine o'clock at night. Presumably friend Nelson Powers did not merely use the place as his office (Cartmell's protest had, of course, not produced the smallest effect on Jenny—my own having failed, I should have been annoyed if it had), but was established there with his family. Certainly Jenny did not always procrastinate—she seemed to delay least when the transaction was most doubtful! But I had come to accept Powers's position as one of her freaks and, save for a rather sour amusement, thought at the moment little more about him.
That night—it seems strange to say it, but it expresses my inmost feelings—I made friends with Leonard Octon; before I had been merely interested, amused, and exasperated in turn. He chose to remove from me the ban which he laid on and maintained over most of his fellow-creatures—from no merit of my own, as I believe, but because I stood near to Jenny; or, if I can claim any part in the matter, because of a certain openness of mind which, as he was good enough to declare, existed in me. This was to say no more than that, to a certain and limited extent, I agreed with some of his prejudices—his own openness of mind consisting mainly in a hatred of the views and opinions of most other people. I was a very pale copy of him. Things toward which my meditations and my temper bred in me a degree of indifference he frankly and cordially hated. Respectability may be chosen as the word to sum them up; if I questioned its merits, he hated and damned it utterly. This was one of the things which interested and amused—and, when it issued in rudeness to Lady Aspenick, also exasperated. It was not for this that I made friends with him.
"When I saw that woman owning that road—coming along in her twopenny glory, with her flunkeys to whistle me out of the way—she looked at me herself, too, mind you, and without a gleam of recognition—I got angry. Not even the public road, mind you! She was a guest as I was."
"But you weren't driving a tandem with a restive leader."
"And oughtn't she to apologize for driving restive horses? Must I dodge for my life—or for hers—without even a civil word or look—just an order from a flunkey?"
"For some reason or another," I observed, "people who are angry always call grooms and footmen flunkeys."
He burst into a guffaw of laughter. "Lord, yes, asses all of us, to be sure! And what, after all, does a flick in the face come to, Mr. Philosopher? Nothing at all! It hardly even hurts. But a man calls it a deadly insult—when he's angry; between man and man there must be blood for it when they're angry."
"There's the police court," I suggested mildly.
"As you say, for sheep there's the police court. I came as near behaving right as one can with a woman when I broke her whip."
"You really think that?"
"Yes, Austin, I really do—and that shows, as you were going to say, that I'm utterly hopeless. I don't fit the standards." He was sitting hunched up over the fire, monopolizing its heat, his great shoulders nearly up to his ears. He condemned himself with much better humor than he judged other people. "I don't fit them, I don't agree with them, I hate them. Left to myself, I'd get out of this."
"Who's stopping you?" I asked, pulling at my pipe and trying to edge nearer the fire.
He took no notice of my question—which was indeed no more than an indifferently civil way of suggesting that he was at liberty to please himself. He took no notice of my futile edging either.
"Now if I had Jenny Driver's gifts for the game," he went on, "I daresay I should like it. Oh, you were quite right there! She's equal to ruling the county, and ruling it well. Since she can do it, I don't blame her for trying. Perhaps I'd try myself in the same case. But, mind you, in her heart she thinks no more of them than I do. They can give her what she wants, they can't give me what I want—that's all the difference. So it's worth her while to fool them—and it's not worth mine. Not that I could do it half as well as she does!"
His admiration of Jenny was unmistakably affectionate as well as amused. There is a way a man draws at his pipe—long pulls with smiles in between. It tells a tale when a woman's name has just passed his lips.
"Then all she's got—the big place and the money—the influence and so on—wouldn't attract you?"
He turned slowly to me. "It might, if I thought that I could make terms with the people. But I can't do that. So I should hate it. Why did you ask me that question, Austin?"
"Why not? We were discussing your character, and any sidelights—" I ended with a shrug.
"You humbug, you infernal humbug!" he said. Then he fell into silence, staring again at the fire.
"Not at all. My interest is quite speculative. What else should it be? Is she likely to die and leave you her property?" I spoke in sincerity, having in my mind Jenny's purpose with regard to Fillingford, for a settled purpose it had by now, to my thinking, become.
My sincerity went home to him, and carried with it an uncontrollable surprise. He turned his head toward me again with a rapid jerk. His eyes searched my face, now rather suspiciously. Then he smiled. "Yes, that's true. I suppose I ought to beg your pardon!" he said.
He had recovered himself in time and had told me no secret. But he had been surprised to find that I considered any relation of his to Jenny's place and property as a mere speculation—no more than the illustration to an argument. Then he must consider it as more than that himself. But then how could he—he, the ostracized? Yet there was the secret treaty, whose terms availed to keep him quiet—quiet and at Hatcham Ford. There were a lover's obstinate hopes. And—the thought flashed into my mind—had he any knowledge of Fillingford's frequent calls or of the dexterous management of Lacey? It was probable that he knew as little of them as Fillingford knew of the mysterious treaty.
Suddenly he started a new topic; between it and the previous one there seemed no connection—unless Jenny were the link.
"I say, that's a rum fish—my new neighbor Nelson Powers!"
"You've made acquaintance? You haven't been long about it!"
"He smokes his pipe, leaning over his garden fence; I smoke mine, leaning over my gate. Hence the acquaintance."
"Of course; you're always so affable, so accessible to strangers."
He dropped his scarcely serious pretense of having made Powers's acquaintance casually. "Miss Driver told me something about him. We've been in communication about this house and the Institute, you know."
"Did she tell you anything interesting about him?"
"Only that he'd been a humble friend in days gone by. You're looking rather sour, Austin. Don't you like Mr. Nelson Powers?"
"He's not one of my particular fancies," I admitted.
"Miss Driver says he's devoted to her."
"He's in debt to her, anyhow, I expect—and perhaps that'll do as well."
"Perhaps." He was speaking now in a ruminative way—as though he were comparing in his mind Jenny's account of Powers, my opinion of Powers, and his own impression of the man. He seemed to me to give more thought to Powers than I should have expected from him; a rude and contemptuous dismissal would have been Powers's more probable fate at his hands.
"Are you going to clear out for the Institute?" I asked.
"I shall be out of this house in less than a year, anyhow. That's settled."
"Oh, then your negotiations have been very satisfactory! You had a right to stay here two years."
"The present state of affairs can't drag on for two years," he said, looking at me steadily. His ostensible reference might be to his uncomfortable relations toward his neighbors; I was sure that he meant more than that—and did not mind letting me see it. A restlessness betrayed itself in his movements; he seemed to be on the edge of an outbreak and to hold himself back with a struggle. His victory was very imperfect: he could not keep off the subject which perturbed him; he could only contrive to treat it with a show of lightness and contempt. The subject had been in my thoughts already.
"Seeing much of our friend Fillingford just now at the Priory?"
"He comes a certain amount. I don't see much of him."
"And that sets fools gossiping, I suppose?"
"Need you ask me, Octon? I fancy you've heard something for yourself."
He rubbed his big hands together, giving a laugh which sounded rather uneasy under its cloak of amusement.
"It won't be much trouble to her to make a fool of Fillingford—he's a conceited ass. She'll use him as long as she wants him, and then—!" He snapped his fingers scornfully.
Had he struck on that explanation for himself? Possibly—he had studied Jenny. Yet it sounded rather like an inspired version of her policy. The weak spot about it was that, by now, Jenny could have little need of Fillingford—except in one capacity. As her husband he could give her a good deal; he could offer her no obvious advantages in any other relation. I wondered that this did not occur to Octon—and then decided that it did. He knew that the argument was weak; he hoped that I would afford it the buttress of my confirmatory opinion.
"Well?" he growled impatiently, for I said nothing.
"I didn't understand that you asked me a question—and, if you had, I shouldn't have answered it. It's no business of mine to consider how Miss Driver treats Fillingford or means to treat him."
At that his temper suddenly gave, his hold on himself was broken. "But it is of mine, by God!" he cried.
Our eyes met for a moment; then he turned his head away, and a long silence followed. At last he spoke in a low voice.
"I call other people fools—I'm a fool myself. I can't hold my tongue. I oughtn't to be at large. But it's pretty hard to bottle it all up sometimes." He laid his hand on my knee. "I shall be obliged if you'll forget that little remark of mine, Austin."
"I can't forget it. I can take no notice of it," I said.
"It's not merely that I gave myself away—which, after all, doesn't matter as you happen to be a loyal fellow—I know that" (he smiled for a moment), "having tried to pump you myself. But what I said was against a pledge I had given."
"I wish you hadn't said it—most heartily. I'll treat it as unsaid—so far as my allegiance allows."
"Yes, I see that. She must come first with you, of course."
"And with you, too, I hope?"
"In my sort of case a man fights for himself."
"I'll say one thing to you—since you have spoken. You'd much better go away—before that year is up."
He made an impatient gesture with his hands. "I can't!" Then he leaned forward and half-whispered, "You put your money on Fillingford?"
"I don't intend to tell you what I think—if you can't gather it from what I've said already."
Again his laugh came—again sounding more like bravado than real confidence. "You're wrong, I can tell you that," he said. "I shouldn't be here if I wasn't sure of that."
I had better have said no more, but temptation overcame me. "I don't think you are sure of it."
I expected him to be very angry, I looked for some bluster. None came. He shrugged his shoulders and wearily rubbed his brow with his hand. The case was very plain; he had been told, but he was not sure that he had been told the truth. Many people might have told him that Jenny meant to marry Fillingford. Only one on earth could have assured him that she did not. The assurance had been forthcoming—not in so many words, perhaps, yet plainly enough to be an assurance for all that. But was it an assurance of truth?
It grew late, and I took my leave. Octon put on his hat and walked to the gate with me. "Come and see me again," he said. "I'm always ready for you—after dinner. A talk does a man good—even if he talks like a fool."
"Yes, I'll come again—not that I've been very comforting."
"No, you haven't. But then, you see, I don't believe a word you say." He went back to that attitude—to that obstinate assertion. It was not for me to argue the question with him; even if my tongue were free, why should I? He would argue it quite enough—there at Hatcham Ford, by himself.
"Is that your estimable neighbor?" I asked. Through the darkness, by help of the street lamp, a man's figure was visible, standing at the gate of the new house which Jenny had taken for the Institute office.
"That's the fellow," said Octon, and he walked on with me. "Good evening, Mr. Powers," he said, as we came to the gate.
Powers bade him good evening, and also accorded to me a courteous greeting. In this hour of leisure he had assumed a pseudo-artistic garb, a soft shirt with trimmings along the front and a turndown collar cut very low, and a voluminous tie worn in an ultra-French fashion; his jacket appeared to be of velveteen, rather a light brown.
"You find me star-gazing, gentlemen," said he. "I take delight in it. The immensity of the heavens!"
"And the littleness of man! Quite so, Mr. Powers," said Octon, refilling his pipe.
"These thoughts will come—sometimes to encourage us, sometimes—er—with an opposite effect."
"Don't let them discourage you, Powers. That would be a pity. After all, the Institute will be pretty big."
To a refined ear Octon was not treating Powers precisely with respect—but Powers's ear was not refined. He was evidently quite comfortable and at his ease with Octon. I wondered that Octon cared to chaff him in this fashion, offering what was to Powers a good substitute for friendliness.
"Yes, sir. Miss Driver is giving us an adequate sphere for our ambitions. I have longed for one. Doubtless you have also, Mr. Austin?"
"I'm not very ambitious, Mr. Powers."
"Wise, sir, wise! But we can't help our dispositions. Mine is to soar! To soar upward by dint of hard work! Miss Driver will find I've not been idle when she next honors Ivydene with a visit. You don't know if she'll be here to-morrow?"
"Not I," I answered. "Miss Driver doesn't generally tell me what she's going to do to-morrow. The boot's on the other leg—she tells me what I'm going to do to-morrow."
"Ha-ha! Very good, sir, very good! And she's a lady one is proud to take orders from."
"Quite so. Good night." I think I must have spoken rather abruptly, for Powers's answering "Good night" sounded a little startled. I really could not bear any more of the fellow. But Octon—impatient, irascible, contemptuous Octon—seemed quite happy in his company. If he were not the rose, yet—? No, the proverb really could not be strained to embrace the moral perfume of Powers.
"Good night, Austin. I'll stop and smoke half a pipe here with Mr. Powers."
"You do me honor, Mr. Octon. But if you'd step inside—perhaps just a little drop of Scotch, sir? Don't say no. Drink success to the Institute! One friendly glass!"
What a picture! Octon drinking success to the Institute with Powers! But a short time ago I should have deemed it a happily ludicrous inspiration from Bedlam. To my amazement, though Octon hesitated for a perceptible space, he did not refuse. He glanced at me, laughed in a rather shamefaced way, and said, "Well, just a minute, and just one glass to the Institute—since you are so kind, Mr. Powers." With a nod to me he turned and followed Powers toward the house.
As I walked home, a picture of the position pieced itself together in my head. The process was involuntary—even against my will. I tried to remind myself all the time of Jenny's own warning—how she had accused me of too often imputing to her long-headed cunning, how her actions were, far oftener than I imagined, the outcome of the minute, not the result of calculation or subtle thought. Yet if in this case she had been subtle and cunning, she might have produced some such combination as now insisted on taking shape before my brain. For the sake of the neighborhood, and her position and prestige in its eyes, especially for the sake of Fillingford, she had abandoned Octon and had banished him. But she wanted to see him—and to see him without creating remark; in plain fact, to see him, if not secretly, yet as privately as she could. Next, she wished to make progress with the Institute, to establish an office with a clerk, an office where meetings could be held and plans made, and where she could come and see how matters were getting on—a clerk on whom she could depend to support her, always to be on her side—a clerk who, as she had said, could not afford to be against her. Hence came Ivydene—and Mr. Powers. Was it mere chance that Ivydene was just opposite Hatcham Ford? Was Mr. Powers's support—that subserviency on which Jenny had playfully laid stress—desired only against Lady Sarah and other possibly recalcitrant members of the Committee? If Powers could not afford to oppose her on the Committee's work, could he afford any the more to thwart her in her private concerns? Plainly not. There also he was bound to help.
So the picture formed itself; and the last bit to fit in, and thereby to give completeness, was what I had seen that night—the strange complaisance of Octon toward the intolerable Powers. Did Octon smoke his pipe in Powers's house and drink Powers's whisky for nothing? That "friendly glass"—what was its significance?
This was work for a spy or a detective. I thrust the idea away from me. But the idea would not depart. A man must use his senses—nay, they use themselves. The more I sought to banish the explanation, the more insolently it seemed to stare me in the face. "Pick a hole in me, if you can!" it challenged. The hole was hard to pick.
Alison lost little time in making his promised attack on Jenny; he was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. It might be improper to say that he chose the wrong moment—for no moment could be wrong from his point of view, and the one most wrong from a worldly aspect might well be to his mind the supremely right. Yet according to that purely worldly standpoint the time was unfortunate. Jenny had a great many other things to think of—very pressing things: as to many of us, so to her, her religious position perhaps seemed a matter which could wait. Moreover—by a whimsical chance—the Rector ran up against another difficulty: to Jenny it was a refuge, of which she availed herself with her usual dexterity. When one attack pressed her, I am convinced that she absolutely welcomed the advent of another from the opposite direction. Between the two she might slip out unhurt; at any rate, if one assailant called on her to surrender, she could bid him deal with the other first. The analogy is not exact—but there was a family likeness between her balancing of Fillingford against Octon and the way in which, assailed by Alison, she interposed, as a shield, the views urged on her by Mrs. Jepps. Displayed in a less serious campaign—less serious, I mean, to Jenny's thinking—yet it was, in essence, the same strategy—and it was a strategy pretty to watch. Be it remarked that Jenny was busy keeping friends with everybody during these anxious weeks.
Mrs. Jepps—if I have said it before, it will bear repetition—was a power in Catsford, in the town itself. She might be said to lead the distinctively town society. Age, wealth, character, and a certain incisiveness of speech combined to strengthen her position. She was a small old lady, with plentiful white hair; she had been pretty—save for a nose too big; in her old age she bore a likeness to Cardinal Newman, but it would never have done to tell her so—she would as soon have been compared to the Prince of Darkness himself. For she was a most pronounced Evangelical, and her feud with Alison was open and inveterate. She disapproved profoundly of "the parish clergyman"; she called him by that title, whereas he called himself "the priest in charge"; for his "assistant priests" she would know no name but "curates." There had been an Education Question lately; the fight had waxed abnormally hot over the souls—almost over the bodies—of Catsford urchins, male and female, themselves somewhat impervious to the bearings of the controversy. Into deeper differences it is not necessary to go. The Rector thought her one of the best women he knew, but one of the most wrong-headed. Put man for woman—and she exactly reciprocated his opinion; and it is hard to deny, though sad to admit, that her zeal for Jenny's spiritual awakening was stirred to greater activity by the knowledge that Alison had put his hand to the alarm. To use a homely metaphor, they were each exceedingly anxious that the awakened sleeper should get out on what was, given their point of view, the right side of the bed.
To Jenny—need I say it?—this situation was rich in possibilities of staying in bed. In response to appeals she might put one foot out on one side, then the other foot out on the other; she would think a long while before she trusted her whole body to the floor either on the right or on the left. She did not appreciate in the least the fiery zeal which urged her to one side or the other: but she knew that it was there and allowed for its results. To her mind she had two friends—while she lay in bed; a descent on either side might cost her one of them. While she hesitated, she was precious to both. For the rest, I believe that she found a positive recreation in this ecclesiastical dispute; to play off Mrs. Jepps against Alison was child's play compared to the much more hazardous and difficult game on which she was embarked. Child's play—and byplay; yet not, perhaps, utterly irrelevant. It would have been easy to say "A plague on both your houses!" But even Mercutio did not say that till he was wounded to death, and Jenny was more of a politician than Mercutio. She asked both houses to dinner—and took pains that they should meet.
They met several times—with more pleasure to Mrs. Jepps than to the Rector. He fought for conscience' sake, and for what he held true. So did she—but the old lady liked the fighting for its own sake also. Jenny's attitude was "I want to understand." She pitted them against one another—Mrs. Jepps's "Letter of the Scriptures" against Alison's "Voice of the Living Church," his "Primitive Usage and Teaching of the Fathers" against her "Protestantism and Reformation Settlement." It is not necessary to deny to Jenny an honest intellectual interest in these and kindred questions, although her concern did not go very deep—but for her an avowed object always gained immensely in attraction from the possibility of some remoter and unavowed object attaching to it. If the avowed object of these prolonged discussions was the settlement of Jenny's religious convictions, the remoter and unavowed was to keep herself still in a position to reward whichever of the disputants she might choose finally to hail as victor. Policy and temperament both went to foster this instinct in her; the position might be useful, and was enjoyable; her security might be increased, her vanity was flattered. Jenny stayed in bed!
In secular politics her course was no less skillfully taken. She did indeed declare herself a Conservative—there was no doubt, even for Jenny's cautious mind, about the wisdom of that step—and gave Bertram Ware a very handsome contribution toward his Registration expenses; the expenses were heavy, Ware was not a rich man, and he was grateful. But at that time the question of Free Trade against Protection—or Free Imports against Fair Trade, if those terms be preferred—was just coming to the front, under the impetus given by a distinguished statesman. Fillingford, the natural leader of the party in the county division, was a convinced Free Trader. Ware had at least a strong inclination for Fair Trade. After talks with Fillingford and talks with Ware, Jenny gave her contribution, but accompanied it by an intimation that she hoped Mr. Ware would do nothing to break up the party. The hint was significant. Between the two sections which existed, or threatened to exist, in her party, Jenny—with her estate and her money—became an object of much interest. They united in giving her high rank in their Primrose League—but neither of them felt sure of her support.
To complete this slight sketch of the public position which Jenny was making for herself, add Catsford highly interested in and flattered by the prospect of its Institute, grateful to its powerful neighbour for her benefits, perhaps hopefully expectant of more favors from the same hand—proud, too, of old Nick Driver's handsome and clever daughter. Catsford was both selfishly and sentimentally devoted to Jenny, and of its devotion Mr. Bindlecombe was the enthusiastic and resonant herald.
Her private relations, though by no means free from difficulty, were at the moment hardly less flattering to her sense of self-importance, hardly less eloquent of her power. Fillingford was ready to offer her all he had—his name, his rank, his stately Manor; Octon lingered at Hatcham Ford, hoping against hope for her, unable to go because it was her will that he should stay: at her bidding young Lacey was transforming himself from a gay aspirant to her favor into the submissive servant of her wishes, her warm and obedient friend. To consider mere satellites like Cartmell and myself would be an anti-climax; yet to us, too, crumbs of kindness fell from the rich man's table and did their work of binding us closer to Jenny.
If she stayed as she was—the powerful, important Miss Driver—she was very well. If she married Fillingford, she hardly strengthened her position, but she decorated it highly, and widened the sphere of her influence. If she chose to take the risks and openly accepted Octon, she would indeed strain and impair the fabric she had built, but she could hardly so injure it that time and skill would not build it again as good as new. But she would make up her mind to none of the three. She liked independence and feared its loss by marriage. She liked splendor and rank, and therefore kept her hold on Fillingford's offer. Finally, she must like Octon himself, must probably in her heart cling more to him than she had admitted even to herself; there was no other reason for dallying with that decision. Across the play of her politics ran this strong, this curious, personal attraction; she could not let him go. For the moment she tried for all these things—the independence, the prestige of prospective splendor and rank, and—well, whatever she was getting out of the presence of Octon at Hatcham Ford, across the road from her offices at Ivydene.
It was a delicate equipoise—the least thing might upset it, and in its fall it might involve much that was of value to Jenny. There was at least one person who was not averse from anything which would set a check to Jenny's plans and shake her power.
Jenny and I had been to Fillingford Manor—where, by the way, I took the opportunity of inspecting Mistress Eleanor Lacey's picture, Fillingford acting as my guide and himself examining it with much apparent interest—and, as we drove home, she said to me suddenly:
"Why does Lady Sarah dislike me so much?"
"She has three excellent reasons. You eclipse her, you threaten her, and you dislike her."
"How does she know I dislike her?"
"How do you know she dislikes you, if you come to that? You women always seem to me to have special antennæ for finding out dislikes. I don't mean to say they're infallible."
"At any rate Lady Sarah and I seem to agree in this case," laughed Jenny. "She's right if she thinks I dislike her, and I'm certainly right in thinking she dislikes me. But how do I threaten her?"
"Come, come! Do you mean me to answer that? Nobody likes the idea of being turned out—any more than they welcome playing second fiddle."
"I'm always very civil to her—oh, not only at Fillingford! I've taken pains to pay her all the proper honors about the Institute. Very fussy she is there, too! She's always dropping in at Ivydene to ask something stupid. She quite worries poor Mr. Powers."
Jenny might resent Lady Sarah's excessive activity at Ivydene, but she gave no sign of being disquieted by it. To me, however, it seemed to be, under the circumstances, rather dangerous; but not being supposed to know, or to have guessed, the circumstances, I could say nothing.
Jenny's next remark perhaps explained her easiness of mind.
"We don't let her in if we don't want her. I must say that Mr. Powers is very good at keeping people out. Well, I must try to be more pleasant. I don't really dislike her so much; it's chiefly that family iciness which is so trying. It's a bore always to have to be setting to work to melt people, isn't it?"
I hold no brief against Lady Sarah, and do not regard her as the villain of the piece. She was a woman of a nature dry, yet despotic; she desired power and the popularity that gives power, but had not the temper or the arts to win them. Jenny's triumphs wounded her pride, Jenny's plans threatened her position in her own home at Fillingford Manor. Her dislike for Jenny was natural, and it is really impossible to blame very severely—perhaps, if family feeling is to count, one ought not to blame at all—her share in the events which were close at hand. It is, in fact, rather difficult to see what else she could have done. If she had a right to do it, it is perhaps setting up too high a standard to chide her for a supposed pleasure in the work.
When we got home, Cartmell was waiting for Jenny, his round face portentously lengthened by woe. He shook hands with sad gravity.
"What has happened?" she cried. "Not all my banks broken, Mr. Cartmell?"
"I'm very sorry to be troublesome, Miss Jenny, but I've come to make a formal complaint against Powers. The fellow is doing you a lot of harm and bringing discredit on the Institute in its very beginnings. He neglects his work; that doesn't matter so much, there's not a great deal to do yet; he spends the best part of the mornings lounging about public-house bars, smoking and drinking and betting, and the best part of his evenings doing the same, and ogling and flirting with the factory girls into the bargain. He's a thorough bad lot."
Jenny's face had grown very serious. "I'm sorry. He's—he's an old friend of mine!"
"That was what you said before. On the strength of it you gave him this chance. Well, he's proved himself unworthy of it. You must get rid of him—for the sake of the Institute and for your own sake, too."
"Get rid of him?" She looked oddly at Cartmell. "Isn't that rather severe? Wouldn't a good scolding from you——?"
"From me? He practically tells me to mind my own business. If there are any complaints, the fellow says, they'd better be addressed to you!" He paused for a moment. "He gives the impression that you'd back him up through thick and thin, and, what's more, he means to give it."
"What does he say to give that impression?" she asked quickly.
"He doesn't say much. It's a nod here, and a wink there—and a lot of vaporing, so I'm told, about having known you when you were a girl."
"That's silly, but not very bad. Is that all?"
"No. When one of my clerks—Harrison, a very steady man—gave him a friendly warning that he was going the right way about to lose his job, he said something very insolent."
"What?" She was sitting very still, very intent.
"He laughed and said he thought you knew better than that. Said in the way he said it, it—it came to claiming some sort of hold on you, Miss Jenny. That's a very dangerous idea to get about."
Cartmell was evidently thinking of the old story—of the episode of Cheltenham days. But had Powers been thinking of that? And was Jenny, with her bright eyes intent on Cartmell's face? She did not look alarmed—only rather expectant. She foresaw a fight with Powers, but had no doubt that she could beat him—if only the mischief had not gone too far.
"He seemed to refer to—Cheltenham?" she asked, smiling.
Cartmell was the embarrassed party to the conversation. "I—I'm afraid so, Miss Jenny," he stammered, and his red face grew even redder.
"Oh, I'll settle that all right," Jenny assured him.
"You'll give him the sack?" Cartmell asked bluntly.
She had many good reasons to produce against that, just as she had produced many for bringing him to Catsford. "I'll reduce him to order, anyhow," she promised.
That was what she wanted—to bring him to heel, not to lose him. But surely it was no longer for his own sake, nor even to satisfy that instinct of hers which forbade the alienation of the least of her human possessions? There was more than that in it. He was part of the scheme—he fitted into that explanation which my brain had insisted on conceiving as I walked home from Ivydene. Of this aspect of the case Cartmell was entirely innocent.
By one of her calculated bits of audacity—concealing much, she would seem to have nothing to conceal—she took me with her when she went down to Ivydene the next morning, to haul Powers over the coals. She would have me present at the interview between them. Well, it may also have been that she did not want too much plain speaking—or, rather, preferred to do what was to be done in that line herself.
She attacked him roundly; he stood before her not daring to resist openly, yet covertly insolent, hinting at what he dared not say plainly—certainly not before me, for he had not yet decided what game to play. He waited to see what he could still get out of Jenny. She rehearsed to him Cartmell's charges as to his conduct; its idleness, its unseemliness, the disrepute it brought on her and on the Institute. Somehow all this sounded a little bit unreal—or, if not unreal, shall I say preliminary? Powers confessed part, denied part, averred a prejudice in Cartmell—this last not without some reason. She rose to her gravest charge.
"And you seem to have the impertinence to hint that you can do what you like, and that I shall stand it all," she said.
"I never said that, Miss Driver. I may have said you had a kind heart and wouldn't be hard on an old friend." He had his cloth cap in his hands and kept twisting it about and fiddling with it as he talked. He smiled all the time, insinuatingly, yet rather uneasily, too.
"It's not your place to make any reference to me," she said haughtily. "I'll thank you to leave me out of your conversation with these curious friends of yours, Mr. Powers."
He looked at her, licking his lips. I was a mere spectator, though I do not think either of them had for a moment, up to now, forgotten my presence; indeed, both were, in a sense, playing their parts before me.
"I don't know that my friends are more curious than other people's, Miss Driver. People choose friends as it suits them, I suppose."
She caught the insinuation—he must have meant that she should. Her eyes blazed with a sudden anger. I knew the signs of that; when it came, prudence was apt to be thrown to the winds. She rose from her chair and walked up to where he stood.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded.
He was afraid; he cowered before her fury: "Nothing," he grumbled sullenly.
"Then don't say things like that. I don't like them. I won't have them said. It almost sounded as if you meant a reference to me."
Of course he had meant one. She saw the danger and faced it. She relied on her personal domination. He was threatening, she would terrify. She went on in a cool, hard voice—very bitter, very dangerous.
"Once before in your life you threatened me," she said. "I was a child then, and had no friends. You got off safe—you even got a little money—a little very dirty money." (He did not like that; he flushed red and picked at his cap furiously.) "Now I'm a woman and I've got friends. You won't get any money, and you won't get off safe. Be sure of that. Who'll employ you if I won't? What character have you except what I choose to give? I think, if I were a man, I'd thrash you where you stand, Mr. Powers."
This remark may perhaps have been unladylike—that would have been Chat's word for it. For my part I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed it. She was a fine sight in a royal rage like this.
"But though I'm not a man, I've friends who are. If you dare to use your tongue against me, look out!"
He could not stand against her nor face her. Indeed it would have been hard to fight her, unless by forgetting that she was a woman. He cringed before her, yet with an obstinately vicious look in his would-be humble eyes.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Driver—indeed I do. I—I've been wrong. Don't be hard on me. There's my poor wife and family! You shall have no further cause of complaint. As for threatening, why, how could I? What could I do against you, Miss Driver?"
Did his humility, hardly less disagreeable than his insolence, disarm her wrath? Did her mood change—or had the moment come for an artistic dissimulation? I must confess that I do not know; but suddenly she struck him playfully on the point of the chin with her glove and began to laugh. "Then, you dear silly old Powers, don't be such a fool," she said. "Don't quarrel with your bread and butter, and don't take so much whisky and water. Because whisky brings vapors, and then you think you're a great man, and get romancing about what you could do if you liked. I've stood a good deal from you, haven't I? I would stand a good deal for old times' sake. You know that; but is it kind to presume on it, to push me too far just because you know I like you?"
This speech I defend less than the unladylike one; I liked her better on the subject of the thrashing. But there is no denying that it was very well done. Was it wholly insincere? Perhaps not. In any event she meant to conquer Powers, and was not without reason, or precedent, in trying to see if blarney would aid threats.
He responded plausibly, summoning his mock gentlemanliness to cover his submission, and, I may add, his malice. He regretted his mistakes, he deplored misunderstanding, he avowed unlimited obligation and eternal gratitude. He even ventured on hinting at the memory of a sentimental attachment. "I can take from you what I would from no other lady." (At no moment, however agitated, would Powers forget to say "lady.") The remark was accompanied by an unmistakable leer.
Even that, which I bore with difficulty, Jenny accepted graciously. She gave him her hand, saying, "I know. Now let's forget all this and work pleasantly together." She glanced at me. "And Mr. Austin, too, will forget all about our little quarrel?"
"I'm always willing to be friends with Mr. Powers, if he'll let me," I said.
"And so are all my friends, I'm sure," said Jenny.
Going out, we had a strange encounter, which stands forth vivid in memory. Jenny's brougham was waiting perhaps some thirty yards up the road toward Catsford: the coachman had got down and was smoking; it took him a moment or two to mount. In that space of time, while we waited at the gate, Octon came out from Hatcham Ford and lounged across the road toward us. At the same instant a landau drove up rapidly from the other direction, going toward Catsford. In it sat Lady Sarah Lacey. She stared at Octon and cut him dead; she bowed coldly and slightly to Jenny; she inclined her head again in response to a low bow and a florid flourish of his cap from Powers. I lifted my hat, but received no response. Jenny returned the salute as carelessly as it was given, bestowed a recognition hardly more cordial on Octon, and stepped into the brougham which had now come up. As we drove off, Powers stood grinning soapily; Octon had turned on his heel again and slouched slowly back, to his own house.
Jenny threw herself into the corner of the brougham, her body well away, but her eyes on my face. For many minutes she sat like this; I turned my eyes away from her; the silence was uncomfortable and ominous. At last she spoke.
"You've guessed something, Austin?"
I turned my head to her. "I couldn't help it."
She nodded, rather wearily, then smiled at me. "The signal's at 'Danger,'" she said.
Seen in retrospect, the history of the ensuing days stands out clearly; subsequent knowledge supplies any essential details of which I was then ignorant and turns into certainties what were, in some cases, only strong suspicions at the moment. If it be wondered—and it well may be—that any woman should choose to live through such a time, it is hardly less marvelous that she could stand the strain of it. Brain and feelings alike must have been sorely taxed. Jenny never faltered; she looked, indeed, tired and anxious, but she had many intervals of gayety, and, as the crisis approached, she was remarkably free from her not unusual little gusts of temper or of petulance. To all around her she showed graciousness and affection, desiring, as it seemed, to draw from us expressions of attachment and sympathy, making perhaps an instinctive attempt to bind us still closer to her, to secure us for friends if anything went wrong in the dangerous work on which she was engaged.
She had a threefold struggle—one with Fillingford, one with Octon, the last and greatest—really involving the other two—with herself. Fillingford was pressing for her answer now. It was not so much that any heat of emotion, any lover's haste, urged him on; he had begun to be fearful for his dignity, to be apprehensive of the whispers and smiles of gossip, if Jenny played with him much longer. She had made up her mind to accept him. Not only were there the decorative attractions and the wider sphere of influence; she felt that in a marriage with him lay safety. She was not afraid of him; it would be a partnership in which she could amply hold her own—and more than that. The danger pointed out in her father's warning—so congenial to her that it sank deep into her own mind and was never absent from it—would here be reduced to a minimum. There the attractions of the project stopped. She was not the least in love with him; I do not think that she even considered him an actively agreeable companion. An absence of dislike and a genuine esteem for his honorable qualities—that was all she could muster for him. No wonder, perhaps, that, though her head had decided, her heart still pleaded for delay.
With Octon the case was very different. There she was fascinated, there she was in thrall—so much in thrall that I am persuaded that she would deliberately have sacrificed the attractions of the Fillingford alliance, braved her neighbor's disapproval, imperiled the brilliant fabric of popularity and power which she had been at such pains to create—save for one thing. She was fascinated to love by the quality which, above all others, she dreaded in marriage. In that great respect wherein Fillingford was harmless, Octon was to her mind supremely to be feared. The very difficulty she now felt in sending him away was earnest of the dominion which he would exercise. Since he was a lover, no doubt he made the usual lover's vows—or some of them; very likely he told her that her will would be his law, or spoke more impassioned words to that effect. Such protestations from his lips carried no conviction. The man could not help being despotic. She was despotic, too. If he would not yield, she could not answer for it that she would, and perhaps aspired to no such abdication. Her foresight discerned, with fatal clearness, the clash of their opposing forces, accentuated by the permanent contrast of their tastes and dispositions. The master of Breysgate Priory might again break Lady Aspenick's whip or insult the Mayor of Catsford! Trifles from one point of view, but Jenny would not have such things done. They were fatal to popularity and to power; they broke up her life as she had planned it. There would arise an inevitable conflict. In victory for herself—even in that—she saw misery. But she could not believe in victory. She was afraid.
Then she must let him go. She had the conviction clear at last; her delicate equipoise—the ignorance of Fillingford against Octon's suspicious but hopeful doubt—her having it both ways, could not be maintained forever. Sentence was passed on Octon. I think that in his heart he must have known it. But her fascination pleaded with her for a long day—that the sentence should not be executed yet. To determine to do it was one thing; doing it was quite another. Day by day she must have debated "Shall it be to-morrow?" Day after day she delayed and dallied. Day after day she saw him; whether they met at Ivydene with Powers for sentinel, or whether she seized her chance to slip across from Ivydene to Hatcham Ford, I know not. However that may be—and it matters little—every afternoon she went down to Ivydene—to transact Institute business—between tea and dinner. Late for business? Yes—but Fillingford came earlier in the afternoons—and now it grew dark early. A carriage or a car took her—but she never kept it waiting. She always came home on foot in the gathering darkness.
After her one explicit confidence, "The signal's at Danger," she became unapproachable on the subject which filled alike her thoughts and mine. Hence a certain distance came between us in spite of her affectionate kindness. There were no more morning rides; she went only once or twice herself; I did not know whether she met Lacey. I was less often at lunch and dinner. We confined ourselves more to our official relations. We were both awkwardly conscious of a forbidden or suppressed subject—one that could not be approached to any good purpose unless confidence was to be open and thorough. To that length she would not—perhaps could not—go; she had to fight her battle alone. Only once she came near to referring to the position of affairs, then no more than indirectly.
"You looked rather fagged and worried," she said one day. "Why don't you take a little holiday, and come back when things are settled?"
"Would you rather I went away for a bit? I want you to tell me the truth."
"Oh, no," she answered with evident sincerity, almost with eagerness. "I like to have you here." She smiled. "Somebody to catch me if I fall!" Then, with a quickness that prevented any answer or comment of mine, she returned to our business.
So I stayed and watched—there was nothing else to do. If anybody objects that the spectacle which I watched was not a pleasant one, I will not argue with him. If anyone asserts that it was not a moral one, not tending to edification, I may perhaps have to concede the point. I can only plead that to me it was interesting—painful, perhaps, but interesting. I believed that she would win; we who were about her got into the way of expecting her to win. We looked for some mistakes, but we looked also for dexterous recoveries and ultimate victories won even in the face of odds. I will volunteer one more confession—I wanted her to win—to win the respite she craved without detection and without disaster. The sternness of morality is apt to weaken before the appeal of a gallant fight—valor of spirit, and dexterity, and resource in maneuver. We forget the merits of the cause in the pluck of the combatant. As I believed, as I hoped, that Jenny would win, I also hoped that she would not take too great, too long, a risk. The signal pointed straighter to "Danger" every day.
Chat—whom I have been in danger of forgetting, though I am sure I mean her no disrespect—had her work in the campaign. It was to create diversions, to act as buffer, to cover up Jenny's tracks when that was necessary, to give plausible reasons for Jenny's movements when such were needed; above all, delicately to imply to the neighborhood that the Fillingford matter was all right—only they must give Miss Driver time! Chat was a loyal, nay, rabid Octonite herself, but she was also a faithful hound. She obeyed orders—and obeyed them with a certain skill. On the subject of Jenny's shrinking timidity when faced with an offer of marriage, Chat was beautifully convincing—I heard her do the trick once for Mrs. Jepps's edification. The ladies were good enough not to make a stranger of me. Mrs. Jepps, I may observe in passing, took a healthy—and somewhat imperious—interest in one's marriage, and one's means, and so on, as well as in one's religious opinions.
"Always the same from a girl, Mrs. Jepps!" said Chat. "And after five years of her I ought to know. I assure you we couldn't get her to speak to a young man!"
"Very unusual with girls nowadays," observed Mrs. Jepps.
"Ah, our little village wasn't like Catsford! We were, I suppose you'd call it, behind the times there. I had been brought up on the old lines, and I inculcated them on my pupils. But, as I say, with Jenny there was no need. The difficulty was the other way. Why, I remember a very nice young fellow, named Maunders (was Maunders Rabbit, I wondered), who paid her such nice attentions—so respectful! (Maunders was Rabbit, depend upon it!) She used to be angry with him—positively angry, Mrs. Jepps." Chat nodded sagely. "Comparing small things and great, it's the same thing here." Thus did Chat transform into girlish coyness Jenny's masterful grip on liberty!
"It's possible to carry it too far. Then it looks like shilly-shallying," said Mrs. Jepps.
"She does carry it too far," Chat hastened to admit candidly. "Much too far. Why, between ourselves, I tell her so every day." (Oh, oh, Chat, as if you dared!) "I try to use some of my old authority." Chat smiled playfully over this.
"Well," said Mrs. Jepps, rising to go, "I suppose the poor man's got to put up with anything from sixty thousand a year!"
In that remark Mrs. Jepps, shrewdly unconvinced by Chat's convincing precedent, hit off the growing feeling of the neighborhood—the feeling of whose growth Fillingford had begun to be afraid. He believed that all communication with Octon had been broken off; he had never considered Octon as a rival. He saw no ostensible reason for Jenny's hesitation; he was either sure that she would say yes if forced to an answer, or he made up his mind at last to take the risk. He came over to Breysgate Priory with a formal offer and the demand for a formal answer.
Needless to say, he did not confide this fact to me, but I had information really as good as first-hand. On the day in question I was sitting reading in my own house after lunch when, with a perfunctory knock, young Lacey put his head in at the door.
"Got any tobacco and a drink, Mr. Austin? We've walked over. I've dropped the governor up the hill."
I welcomed him, provided him with what he wanted, and sat him down by the fire; it was late autumn now and chilly. He was looking amused in a reflective sort of way.
"I say, I suppose you're pretty well in the know up there, aren't you?" He nodded in the direction of the Priory. "Not much danger of the governor slipping up, is there? Oh, you know what I mean! There's no reason you and I shouldn't talk about it."
"Perhaps I do, Lord Lacey. Your father's at the Priory now?"
"I've just left him there. It's a bit odd to do bottleholder for one's governor on these occasions. It'd seem more natural the other way, wouldn't it?"
"Depends a bit on the relative ages, doesn't it?"
"Yes, of course, that's it. The governor's getting on, though." He looked across at me. "He's a gentleman, though. The way he told Aunt Sarah and me about it was good—quite good. He said his mind had been made up for some time, but he couldn't formally take such a step without discovering the feelings of the—well, he called us something pleasant—the people who'd lived with him and done so much for his happiness for so many years, ever since mother—'your dear mother,' he said—died. So he told us what he was going to do, and asked our good wishes. Rather straight of him, don't you think?"
"I should always expect the straight thing of him," I said.
"Yes—and that'll suit her at all events." (Did he unintentionally hint that some other things would not?) "She's straight as a die, isn't she? Look at the straight way she's treated me! As soon as she saw me—well, inclined to be—oh, you know!—she put it all straight directly; and we're the best of pals—I'd go through fire and water for her—and I wished the old governor luck with all my heart."
"I'm delighted to hear you feel like that about it—I really am. And I'm sure Miss Driver would be, too. I hope Lady Sarah is equally pleased?"
His blue eyes twinkled. "You needn't put that on for me, Austin," he remarked, with a pleasant lapse into greater intimacy. "I imagine Aunt Sarah's feelings are no secret! However, she said all the proper things and pecked the governor's cheek. Couldn't ask more, could you?" He laughed as he stretched his shapely gaitered legs before the fire. "After all, there'll be two pretty big houses—Fillingford and Breysgate! Room for all!"
"You'll be wanting one presently."
"I shall live with the old folks—I say, how'd Miss Driver like to hear that?—till I get married—which won't be for a long while, I hope. Then we'll set Aunt Sarah up at Hatcham Ford. Octon will be gone by then, I hope! I saw the fellow in the town the other day. I wonder he doesn't go. It can't be pleasant to stop in a place where you're cut!"
"Octon has his own resources, I daresay."
"Sorry for the resources!" Lacey remarked. "I say, how long ought we to give the governor?"
"Don't hurry matters."
"It can't take very long, can it? The governor means to settle it out of hand; he almost said as much."
"But then there's the lady. Perhaps she——"
"Between ourselves, I fancy he thinks he's waited long enough."
I had the same impression, but my mind had wandered back to another point.
"When did you see Octon?" I asked.
"I trotted Aunt Sarah down to that place—what's it called?—where the Institute offices are. Aunt Sarah's got very keen on the Institute; she must mean to queer it somehow, I think! Well, Octon was there, talking to the clerk. She cut him dead, of course—marched by the pair of them with her head up. Powers ran after her, and I addressed an observation to Octon. You remember that little spar we had?"
"At the Flower Show? Yes, I remember."
"I was a bit fresh then," he confessed candidly, "and perhaps he wasn't so far wrong to sit on me. But the beggar's got a rough way of doing it. Well, it didn't seem civil to say nothing, so I said, 'I haven't had that thrashing yet, and I'm getting a bit too big for it, like you, Mr. Octon.'"
"Was that your idea of something civil?" I felt constrained to ask.
"He didn't mind," Lacey assured me. "But he said a funny thing. He grinned at me quite kindly and said, 'You're just coming to the size for something much worse.' What do you think he meant by that, Austin?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"He's a bounder—at least he must be, or he'd never have done that to Susie Aspenick; but he's got his points, I think. I tell you what, I shouldn't so much mind serving under him. One don't mind being sat on by the C. O."
"What was happening between Lady Sarah and Powers all this time?" I asked.
"Lord bless you, I don't know!" he answered scornfully. "Institute, I suppose! I should be inclined to call the Institute rot if Miss Driver wasn't founding it. At any rate Aunt Sarah and Powers—rather like a beach photographer, isn't he?—seem as thick as thieves." He finished off his whisky and soda. "Well, women must do something, I suppose," he remarked. "Shall we go and beat up the governor?"
He was impatient. I yielded, although I did not think that "the governor" would be ready for us yet; I thought that, if Lord Fillingford was to gain his cause that afternoon, he was in for a long interview with Jenny. Evidently Lacey meant to wait. I was game to wait with him. In these days I was all suspicion—on the alert for danger. It made me uneasy to hear that Lady Sarah and Powers were "thick as thieves." Mentally I paused to acknowledge the exquisite accuracy of Lacey's "beach photographer." On the genus it would have been a libel; for the species it was exact. I saw him with his velveteens, his hair, his collar—against a background of paper-littered sands and "nigger minstrels"; the picture recalled childhood, but without the proper sentimental appeal.
I was right. We had to walk up and down the terrace in front of the house for a long while. Lacey talked all the time—his views, his regiment, sports, races, what not. From the top of my mind—the surface responsive to externals—I answered. Within I was following in imagination the struggle of my dear, wayward, unreasonable mistress—of her who wanted both ways, who would lead half a dozen lives, and unite under her sway kingdoms between which there could be neither union nor alliance.
It was almost five o'clock by the time Fillingford came out; the sun had begun to lose power; the peace of evening—and something of its chill—rested on the billowing curves of turf and the gently swaying treetops. As we saw him we came to a standstill, and so awaited his approach.
Under no circumstances, I imagine, could Lord Fillingford have looked radiant. Even any overt appearance of triumph his taste, no less than his nature, would have rejected; and his taste was infallible in negatives. Yet on his face, as he came to us, there was unmistakable satisfaction; he had done quite as well as he had expected—or even better. I was glad—with a sharp pang of sorrow for the limitations of human gladness. In my heart I should have been glad for Jenny to be allowed to break rules—to have it all ways—as she wanted—for as long as she wanted. There was the moral slope of which I have before made metaphorical mention!
He greeted me with a cordiality very marked for him, and laid a hand on his son's shoulder affectionately. "I've kept you a terribly long time, Amyas, and we mustn't bother Miss Driver any more. She's tired, I fear. We'll go home for a cup of tea."
Lacey was excited and anxious, but he knew his father better than to put even the most veiled question to him in my presence.
"All right, sir. Austin's been looking after me first-rate."
I could not be mistaken; a touch of ownership over me—the hint of a right to approve of me—came into Fillingford's voice. I seemed to feel myself adopted as a retainer—or, at least, my past services to one of the family acknowledged.
"I'm sure Mr. Austin is always most kind."
The impression was subtle, but it confirmed, more than anything that had yet happened, my certainty of Jenny's answer. I had further confirmation the next moment. He stood on the edge of the terrace, his arm through his son's, and looked over the view.
"A fine position!" he said. "If it had been the fashion to build on the top of a hill three centuries ago, we should have put the house here, I suppose, instead of selling to the Dormers. It was part of our land originally, you know, Mr. Austin." He pulled himself up with a laugh. "A feudal lord's reminiscences! We do well enough if we can keep what we've got nowadays—without regretting what we used to have. Come along, Amyas, or your aunt will have given us up for tea!"
He had sought to correct the impression he had given—to withdraw the idea implicit in his words about Breysgate Priory; yet the withdrawal seemed formal, made in deference to an obligation rather than really effective or important. I was sure that, as he trod Breysgate park that evening, he trod the soil as, in his own mind, already part of the Fillingford domains. The most reserved of men cannot but tell something; only a god or a brute, as the philosopher has it, can be absolutely unrevealing. If Fillingford could have succeeded in attaining to that—and I have no doubt that he tried—his son would have spoiled the mystery. Familiarity taught him to read more clearly his father's visage. His face beamed with exultation; as he had "wished the governor luck with all his heart," now, without question, the moment I was out of hearing, he wished him joy.
I went in to Jenny, without stopping to think whether she had bidden me come or not. I could not keep away; it even seemed to be something like hypocrisy to keep away now on the pretext that I had not been expressly summoned. She had told me that she liked me to stay—as "somebody to catch her if she fell." That was, surely, at least a permission to be near her?
She was alone, save for Loft who was setting out the tea-tray in his usual deft, speedy, deliberate way. She sat in the middle of the sofa, looking straight in front of her. But she spoke to me directly I came in, while Loft and the footman were still in the room.
"You've just missed Lord Fillingford. Or did you see him as he went away?
"Yes, I met him and had a little talk with him. Young Lacey's been gossiping with me most of the afternoon."
Loft must have wanted to hear, but you'd never have known it! He withdrew, imperturbable and serene. I think that Loft should be added to the god and the brute, to form a trinity of impeccable illegibility.
At a sign from Jenny I took my tea and drank it. She sat very quiet, exhausted as it seemed, yet still thinking hard. I did not speak.
"A long call, wasn't it?" she said at last, and a faint smile flickered on her lips.
"It was—and it seemed so, I daresay."
"How did he look?"
"Exceedingly well-content. And Lacey seemed most contented with his appearance."
She shrugged her shoulders and smiled again rather contemptuously. I set down my cup and came to her. "Well, good-night, Lady Jenny," I said.
She looked up at me and suddenly spoke out the truth—in a hard voice, bitter and resentful.
"With prayers and vows—yes, and tears," she said, "I've saved a week."
"Before you give your answer?"
"No. The answer is given. Before the engagement is announced."
"If you've given your answer, announce it to-night."
She did not resent my counsel. But she shook her head. "I've fought that battle with him already. I—I can't." She rose suddenly to her feet and stood before me. "I've done it. I've managed to do it. It's done—and I stand by it. But not to-day! I must have a week." She stretched out her hands to me in appeal; there was a curious mixture of mockery and of passion in her voice. She mocked me for certain—perhaps she mocked herself, too; yet she was strongly moved. "Dear old, kind, little-understanding Austin, you must give poor Jenny Driver her last week!"
The last week, which she must have, did all the mischief.