In the stern condemnation of moral delinquencies, when such are discovered or conjectured, we may be content to find nothing but what is praiseworthy; the simultaneous exhibition of a hungry curiosity about them is one of those features of human nature which it is best to accept without comment—if only for the reason that no man can be sure that he does not in some degree share it. In Catsford at this time it was decidedly prominent. The place went wild on the news that Sir John Aspenick, happening to be in Paris on a flying visit, thought that he saw Jenny go by as he stood outside the Café de la Paix: great was the disappointment that Sir John could not contrive even to think that he had seen Octon with her! Lady Sarah Lacey, working on the feminine clew of Jenny's having departed luggageless, set inquiries afoot among London dressmakers, with the happy result of revealing the fact that Jenny had bought a stock of several articles of wearing apparel: the news worked back to Chat from one of the dressmakers, and from Chat I had it, with more details of the wearing apparel that my memory carries. Mrs. Jepps waylaid Chat—who had timidly ventured into the town under a pressing need of finding some very special form of needle—in the main street and tried the comparative method, not at all a bad mode of investigation where manners forbid direct questions. She told Chat numbers of stories of other "sad cases" and looked to see how Chat "took" them—hoping to draw, augur-like, conclusions from Chat's expression. I myself—well, I would not be uncharitable. My friends were all honorable men; they might naturally conclude that I was depressed and lonely; why look farther for the cause of the frequent visits from them which I enjoyed? Bindlecombe and a dozen more so honored me, and Cartmell told me that only the severest office discipline kept his working hours sacred from kind intruders.
Moreover, a little problem arose, not in itself serious, but showing the extreme inconvenience which results when people who are in a position to confer pleasant favors so act as to make it doubtful whether favors can properly be accepted from them. Such a state of affairs puts an unfair strain on virtue, inconsiderately demanding martyrdom where righteousness only has been volunteered. As may have been gathered, Jenny's neighbors were in the habit of using the road through her park as an alternative route to the high road in their comings and goings to and from Catsford. For some it was shorter—as for the Wares, the Dormers, and the Aspenicks; for all it was pleasanter. What was to be done about this now? Fillingford had no doubt; neither he nor Lady Sarah used the park road any more; but then the road was no great saving of distance for the folks at the Manor—their martyrdom was easy—whereas it was very materially shorter for the Wares, the Dormers, and, above all, for the Aspenicks. The question was so acute for the Aspenicks that I heard of Lady Aspenick's collecting opinions on the subject from persons of light and leading. She did not consider Fillingford's course impartial—nor decisive of the question; it was easy for him to take the virtuous line; it did not involve his going pretty nearly two miles out of his way.
Discussion ran high on the question. Mrs. Jepps declared against using the road, though her fat pair of horses had been accustomed to get what little exercise they ever did get along it three afternoons a week.
"If I use the road, and she comes back and finds me using it, where am I?" asked Mrs. Jepps. "I can't cut her when I'm driving in her park by her permission. Yet I may feel obliged to refuse to bow to her!"
The attitude had all Mrs. Jepps's logic in it; it was unassailable. Very reluctantly old Mr. and Mrs. Dormer gave in to it—they would go round by the King's highway, longer though it was. Bertram Ware, lawyer and politician, stole round the difficulty—and along the park road—by adopting a provisional attitude; until more was known, he felt justified in using—and in allowing Mrs. Ware to use—the road. He reserved liberty of action if more facts condemnatory of Jenny should appear.
The Aspenicks remained—to whom the road was more precious than to any of the others. Sir John would have none of Ware's provisional attitude—it was not what he called "straight"; but then he had a prejudice against lawyers, and held no particularly high opinion of Bertram Ware.
"Make up your mind," he said to his wife. "Either we use it or we don't. But if we use it, it's taking a favor from her, and that may be awkward later on."
Now Lady Aspenick wanted to use the road very much indeed—and not merely the road for her tandem, so sadly famous in history, but also the turf alongside it for her canters. But in the first place Lady Aspenick was herself a model of propriety, and in the second—it was an even weightier consideration—she had a growing girl; Eunice Aspenick was now nearly sixteen—and rode with her mother. Supposing Lady Aspenick and Eunice used the road, supposing Jenny were guilty of enormities, came back guilty of them, and discovered Lady Aspenick, with Eunice, on the road! Lady Aspenick's problem was worse than Mrs. Jepps's—because of Eunice on the one hand, and of Lady Aspenick's remarkably strong desire to use the road on the other.
This question of the road—work on the Institute at a standstill—no more parties at Breysgate (what of the Flower Show next summer?)! Verily Jenny was causing endless inconvenience!
It would not be just to say that this difficulty about the road—and Eunice—determined Lady Aspenick's attitude toward Jenny; it is perhaps permissible to conjecture that it led her to reconsider it. After the lapse of a fortnight she came out on Jenny's side, and signified the same by calling on Chat at Breysgate Priory. Chat and I sometimes consoled one another's loneliness at afternoon tea; I was present when Lady Aspenick arrived.
We had our lesson pat—so long as we were not cross-examined. Jenny was wintering abroad; Chat's health (this was our own supplement) had made traveling inadvisable for her, and Jenny had found other companions. Lady Aspenick was most affable to the story; she admitted it to belief at once. Sympathy with Chat, pleasure at not being deprived of Chat's society, kind messages through Chat to Jenny—all came as easily and naturally as possible. Not an awkward question! It was with real gratitude that I conducted Lady Aspenick to her carriage. But she had a word for me there.
"I didn't want to talk about it to that poor old thing," she said, "but have you any—news, Mr. Austin?"
"None, except what I've told you. She isn't a great letter-writer."
"They're saying horrid things. Well, Sarah Lacey would, of course. I can't see any reason for believing them. I'm on her side! One may wonder at her taste—one must—but she has a right to please herself, and to take her own time about it. Of course that night journey—!" Lady Aspenick smiled in a deprecating manner.
"Impulsive!" I observed.
Lady Aspenick caught at the word joyfully. "That's it—impulsive! That's what I've always said. Dear Jenny is impulsive—that's all!" She got into her carriage and ordered the coachman to drive her to Mrs. Jepps's. She was going to tell Mrs. Jepps that Jenny was impulsive—going by the road through the park to tell Mrs. Jepps that it was no more than that.
Her own line taken, Lady Aspenick gathered a tiny faction to raise Jenny's banner. They could not do much against Lady Sarah's open viciousness, Fillingford's icy silence, the union of High Church and Low in the persons and the adherents of Alison and of Mrs. Jepps. But Sir John followed his wife, Bindlecombe took courage to uplift a friendly voice, and old Mr. Dormer began to waver. His memories went back to George IV.—days in which they were not hard on pretty women—having, indeed, remarkably little right to be. Mr. Dormer was reported to be inclined to think that the men of the surrounding families might ride in Jenny's park—about their ladies it was, perhaps, another question. It was understood that Lady Aspenick's faction gave great offense at Fillingford Manor. The alliance between the two houses had been close, and Fillingford Manor saw treachery to itself in any defense of Jenny.
So they debated and gossiped, sparred and wrangled—and no more news came. At the Priory we began to settle down into a sort of routine, trying to find ourselves work to do, trying to fill the lives that seemed now so empty. Our position—like Bertram Ware's attitude about the park road—was provisional—hopelessly provisional. We were not living; we were only waiting. Not the actual events of to-day, but the possible event of to-morrow was the thing for which we existed. It was like listening perpetually for a knock on the door. Little could be made of a life like that. Well, we were not to sink into the dullness of our routine just yet.
In my youth I have heard a sage preach to the young men, his hearers and critical disciples, on the text of the certainty of life; discarding, perhaps thinking trite, perhaps deeming misleading, the oldMemento mori. He bade them recollect that for practical purposes they had to reckon on—and with—thirty, forty, fifty, years of life and activity. That was a long time—order the many days! You could not afford to calculate on the accident of an early death to end your responsibility. It was well said; yet not even the broadest sanest argument can altogether persuade Death out of his traditional rôle, nor induce Atropos to wield her shears always without caprice. Yet again, in this case there seemed little caprice; the likely ending came rather quickly—that was all; it was just such an ending as, in some form or other, might have been expected—just such as once, in talk with me, the man himself had, hardly gravely yet quite sincerely, treated as likely, almost as inevitable.
I was the first to get the news—at breakfast time one November morning. A telegram came to me from Jenny; it was sent from Tours. "Leonard has died from wound received in a duel. Do not come to me. I want to be alone.—Jenny Driver."
He had insulted somebody—in a country where men still fought on the point of honor. The conclusion sprang forward on a glance. He had passed much time abroad, I knew—the code was not strange to him, nor the use of his weapons. Though both had been strange, little would he have shunned the fight! He would take joy in it—joy in shedding the advantage of his mighty strength, glad to meet his man on even terms, eagerly accepting the leveling power of a bullet. He had made himself intolerable again; some one had uprisen and done away with the incubus of him. The whole affair seemed just what might be looked for; he had died fighting—for him a natural death.
So the life was out of the big man—and he had been so full of it. That was strange to think of.
Somehow he seemed incompatible with death. I remember drawing a long breath as I said to myself "Dead!" and thought grewsomely of the carrying out of that great coffin—with all the mighty weight of him inside; even dead he would oppress men by size, insolently crushing their shoulders with his bulk. "Part of the objection to me is because I'm so large," he had said. Even the undertaker's men would share in that objection. "I shall certainly be stamped out. Ah, well, small wonder—and what a pity!"
He had a power over me; something of his force had reached me, too—or my thoughts would not have dwelt on him so long; they would have turned sooner to Jenny. To what end? Her message forbade the one thing which it was in my mind to do—go to her directly. She would not have it; she would be—as she was—alone. I had no thought of disobedience—only a great sorrow that I must obey. I read the telegram again. "Jenny Driver!" She had hesitated too long. Ways could not be kept open forever. Mr. Powers had taught her this truth once, and she had not hearkened. Death himself came to enforce the lesson. She stood no longer between the fascination that she loved and feared and the independence which she cherished and yet wearied of. She was free perforce; the tenure of her liberty was no longer precarious; and the joy of her heart was dead. Her equipoise—another of her delicate balancings—was hopelessly upset; when Death flung his weight into one of her scales, the other kicked the beam.
So long as I was alone, it did not occur to me to think of the bearings of the event—and of its announcement—on her outward fortunes. My mind was with herself—asking how she faced the thing, in what mood it left her; nay, going back to the days before it, viewing them in the alien light of their sudden end. Not what would be said or thought, but what was, engrossed my meditation. Death brings that color to the mind; it takes us "beyond these voices." But they who live must soon return within hearing.
I did not hear Cartmell come in—I had been out before breakfast, and I believe I had left my door ajar. His hand was on my shoulder before I was aware of his presence. He held a morning paper in his hand, but he did not show it to me directly. He looked down in my face as I sat in my arm-chair and then said, "You've heard, haven't you?"
"Yes," I answered, giving him Jenny's telegram.
He read it. "This must be between you and me, Austin. So far, there's nothing in the paper to show that she was there—to show who the woman was, I mean."
"The woman?"
"The woman mentioned in the paper. Read it." He pushed it into my hand. His practical mind did not waste itself in memories or speculation; it flew to the present need. I had lost myself in wonderings about the man and the woman; he was concerned solely with our local institution—Miss Driver of Breysgate. He was right.
The telegram in the paper came from Reuter's news agency. "A quarrel in the Café de l'Univers last night resulted in a duel this morning, in which an Englishman named Octon was mortally wounded at the first fire. He subsequently expired at the house of a lady, understood to be Mrs. Octon, in the Rue Balzac, to which he had been carried at his own request."
Beneath was a short paragraph stating that it was conjectured that the "deceased gentleman" was "Mr. Leonard Octon, the well-known traveler and entomologist." On inquiry at his publishers', those gentlemen had stated that Mr. Octon was, to their knowledge, traveling in France.
"Not much harm done if it stops there," said Cartmell, thoughtfully rubbing his hands together.
"How can it? There'll have to be an inquest—or something corresponding to it, I suppose?"
"She's very clever."
"Will she care about being clever?" I asked, studying the paragraph again. "Understood to be Mrs. Octon" had a smack of Jenny's own ambiguity and elusiveness. And it hardly sounded as though the house to which he had been carried at his own request were the house where he himself had been lodging.
"Of course it'll be all over Catsford in an hour. There's no helping that. But, as I say, there's no particular harm done yet."
"They'll guess, won't they?"
"Of course they will; but there's all the difference between guessing and having it in print. We must wait. I've got to go out of town—and I'm glad of it."
I did not go away, but I hid myself. The only person I saw that day was Chat: she was entitled to the news.
Telling her was sad work; her devotion to Octon rose up against her accusingly. She railed at herself for all her dealings with Jenny; old-time delinquencies in duty at the Simpsons' dressed themselves in the guise of great crimes; she had been a guilty party to Jenny's misdemeanors; they had led to this.
"I shall have to render an account for it," said poor Chat, rocking her body to and fro, as was her habit in moments of agitation: her speech was obviously reminiscent of church services. "If I had done my duty by her, this would never have happened." I am afraid that "this" meant the scandal, rather than any conduct which gave rise to it. But if Chat were going to be so aggressively penitent as this, the case was lost.
"We must hope for the best—and, anyhow, put the best face on it," I urged.
Chat cheered up a little. "Dear Jenny is very resourceful." Cartmell had observed that she was clever. I was waiting with a vague expectancy for some move from her, some turn or twist in her favor. We had not lost faith in her, any of us; the faith had become blind—if you will, instinctive—surviving even the Waterloo of her flight and this calamitous tragedy.
Were we wrong? Only the future could show that; but the next day brought us some encouragement. There was a fuller paragraph, confirming the conjectured identification of Octon, giving a notice of his work, and the name of his opponent in the duel—an officer belonging to an old family distinguished for its orthodox Catholic opinions. "The quarrel is said to have originated in a discussion of religious differences." That sounded quite likely, and relieved the fear that it might have sprung from a more compromising origin. Then came—well, something very like an apology for that phrase about the lady "understood to be Mrs. Octon." The lady was not, it now appeared, Mrs. Octon; she was "a Miss Driver" (AMiss Driver—that would sound odd to Catsford!) to whom the deceased gentleman was engaged to be married. This Miss Driver had taken a house in the Rue Balzac, where she was residing with another lady, her friend: the deceased gentleman had recently arrived at the Hôtel de l'Univers; notice of their intended marriage had been given at the British Consulate three days before the fatal occurrence. A few days more would have seen them man and wife. "Much sympathy is felt for the lady under the very painful circumstances of the case. It is understood that she will leave Tours immediately after the funeral."
It would hardly be doing Cartmell a wrong to describe him as gleeful; the statement was so much less damaging than might have been expected. To the world at large it was, indeed, not damaging at all; it rather appealed to sympathy and invested Jenny with a pathetic interest. In Catsford the case was different: there was the flight, the silence, the interval. But even for Catsford we had a case—and the difference between even a bad case and no case at all is, in matters like this, enormous.
What was the truth of it? It was not possible to believe that the notice to the Consulate was a mere maneuver, a pretense, and a sham. She was neither so cold-blooded nor so foolish as that—and Octon would have ridiculed such a sham out of existence. The notice to the Consulate showed that her long hesitation had at last ended—possibly on Octon's entreaties, though I continued to doubt that—possibly for conscience' sake, possibly from regard for the world's opinion. She had made up her mind to let go her "precarious liberty." But for this stroke of fate she would have become Octon's wife.
How did the stroke of fate leave her? Or, rather, leave her fame? Of herself I knew nothing—save that she would be alone. She loved an equipoise. Her fame was balanced in one now. Fillingford and Lady Sarah, Mrs. Jepps and Alison, would think still what they had thought; probably the bulk of opinion would be with them. But we had a case. We could brazen it out. Bertram Ware could still be provisional, Lady Aspenick could use the road through the park—even Eunice might ride with her; and old Mr. Dormer would scarcely strain the proprieties to breaking point if he permitted himself to be accompanied by his wife. The verdict could be "Not Proven."
A week later the French authorities forwarded to me a letter from Octon—found on his table at the hotel and written the evening before the meeting:
"My Dear Austin—I have to fight a fellow to-morrow—a very decent fellow—on the ostensible ground of my having spoken disrespectfully of the Pope, which naturally is not at all the real cause of quarrel. I rather think I shall be killed—first, for the sensible reason that he is angry (I hit him. 'Of course you did,' I hear you say) and a good shot; secondly, because she has at last elected to settle things and that offers a temptation to chance—not such a sensible reason—indeed an utterly nonsensical one, which accordingly entirely convinces me. I leave her to you. Don't try to marry her—it only worries her—but serve her well, and as you serve her, so may God Almighty, in whom I believe though you think I don't, serve you. You couldn't spend your life (you're not a great man, you know) to better account. How I have spent mine doesn't matter. I have on the credit side of the balance the discovery of five new insects. It is to be hoped that this will not be overlooked.—Yours,"L. O."
"My Dear Austin—I have to fight a fellow to-morrow—a very decent fellow—on the ostensible ground of my having spoken disrespectfully of the Pope, which naturally is not at all the real cause of quarrel. I rather think I shall be killed—first, for the sensible reason that he is angry (I hit him. 'Of course you did,' I hear you say) and a good shot; secondly, because she has at last elected to settle things and that offers a temptation to chance—not such a sensible reason—indeed an utterly nonsensical one, which accordingly entirely convinces me. I leave her to you. Don't try to marry her—it only worries her—but serve her well, and as you serve her, so may God Almighty, in whom I believe though you think I don't, serve you. You couldn't spend your life (you're not a great man, you know) to better account. How I have spent mine doesn't matter. I have on the credit side of the balance the discovery of five new insects. It is to be hoped that this will not be overlooked.—Yours,
"L. O."
New insects—five! Private faults—how many? What is the Table of Weights? That must be known, to strike the balance of Leonard Octon's life.
The clouds settled down over Jenny; a veil of silence obscured her. Business letters were still exchanged through the bankers at Paris, but hers bore no postmarks; they must have arrived in Paris under cover; they came under cover to Breysgate, and thus gave no indication of her whereabouts. She was in constant communication with Cartmell about her affairs; to me she wrote much seldomer and only on necessity; to Chat she never wrote at all. To none of us, I believe, did she say a word about what had happened—and she certainly said no word to Catsford. Nor did we; her orders stood—no excuses, no explanations, no guesses. Thus starved of food, Catsford's interest at last languished; they did not forget Jenny, but talk about her catastrophe and Octon's death died down. Nobody having anything fresh to tell or any guess to make that had not been made already, the topic grew stale.
The long wait began—it was a wait to me, for I knew that she meant to come back in the end—and lasted for nearly three years. I employed an ample leisure in writing my essay on "The Future of Religious and Ethical Thought." It brought me some credit in the outside world—or rather the small part of it that cares for such speculations; but indifference was the best I hoped from Catsford—and I did not altogether achieve that. Friendship sometimes gives a writer what I may term unnatural readers—and not with the happiest results. Alison continued to be kind and cordial to me, but he would not talk about my book. Mrs. Jepps—what business had she with such a book at all?—shook her head over it, and over me, very solemnly, and, as I heard, was not slow to trace a connection between Jenny's acts and my opinions. I did the local reputation of Breysgate no good by that book, though its reception in the Press flattered my vanity considerably.
More important things happened in the neighborhood—for three years make differences in a little society. Old Mr. Dormer died, carrying off with him into the inaudible much agreeable anecdote; his cousin, a young man of thirty, reigned at Kingston in his stead. Bertram Ware was no longer M.P.; the domestic dissensions, in which Jenny had once seen an opportunity for herself, had ended in his retiring at the General Election; he was said to be sulky, and to be talking of selling his place and going away. Lacey, his majority just attained, had been put forward in his stead, and elected after a stiff fight with an eloquent stranger from London—(Bindlecombe reserved himself till Catsford should be given a borough member!)—I did not follow closely Lacey's doings—or anybody's—at Westminster, but he was assiduous in his social duties in the constituency. There was no change at Fillingford Manor, save that its master looked more definitely middle-aged, and its mistress riveted on our necks the power which Jenny's rise had threatened. Finally, Lady Aspenick's growing girl had grown, had "come out," and was a personage in our society. She was a rather pretty, tall, fair girl, great at all outdoor pursuits. The gossips had already begun to say that she would make a capital bride for Lacey—if only there were more money! The little cloud which had arisen between the two households over Jenny had naturally passed away, when absence and silence removed Jenny from the arena of discussion. None the less Lady Aspenick still used our road—and still Fillingford Manor did not.
Such was the petty chronicle. The Institute found no place in it. There nothing was done; even Bindlecombe seemed no longer sanguine. Hatcham Ford, with its windows shuttered and its gravel-path grass-grown, witnessed to a project apparently still-born, no less than it recalled the catastrophe of that last night. When I passed by, I could not help expecting to see Octon's great figure come out and slouch across the road—to smoke a pipe with Mr. Powers! He did not come, and a most respectable insurance agent now dwelt where Mr. Powers had played his unedifying game. Nor was the Flower Show any longer part of our Breysgate programme. Cartmell had offered the grounds, but the Committee preferred to accept a proposal from Fillingford. For the last two years it had been held at the Manor, and was to be held there again this year—this the third summer since Jenny left us.
Then she came back. Her return was as sudden and as unannounced as her departure, but otherwise marked by considerably more decorum.
I was writing one morning after lunch, and had wandered to the window, to seek from the empty air an improbable inspiration. Suddenly I saw the unparalleled spectacle of Loft running. Loft running! I had never associated him with running, and should about as soon have expected to see St. Paul's Cathedral dancing a fling down Ludgate Hill. But there he came, down the path from the Priory. As soon as he got near me, he shouted excitedly, "She's come back, sir, she's come back!" Then he came to a stand outside the window, and recovered his professional demeanor at the cost of some confusion. "I beg your pardon, sir, but Miss Driver orders me to tell you that she has just returned, and will be glad to see you in half an hour."
"When did she come?"
"Just in, sir—the 2.45 from London, it must be."
"How does she look?"
"Much the same as usual, sir—a little thinner in the face perhaps."
I looked at Loft; he was grinning. So, I suppose, was I. "This is good, Loft."
"You may say that, sir!"
"Did she come alone?"
"No, sir. Her maid—a Frenchwoman, I think, sir—and a young lady. If she'd brought twenty, she'd have found the house all ready for them."
"I'm sure she would. Tell her I'll come up in half an hour."
Her coming transformed everything for me; it seemed to put life into the place, life into the big dull house on the hill, life into my little den, life into that summer's day. It was the breaking of a long frost, the awakening from a stupor. The coming that I had always believed in began to seem incredible only now, when it had happened; incredible it seemed that by just walking up the hill I could see Jenny again and hear her voice. Absence and silence had rendered her so distant to sight or sound, so intangible and remote. My last clear memory of her was still at Hatcham Ford—as she asked Fillingford for the loan of his carriage, and, with "God bless you, Austin," vanished into the night. A man can, I suppose, get on without anyone, if he must; but he cannot always make out how he has managed to do it.
I found her sitting in her old place in the big drawing-room; she wore—whether by purpose or not what was in effect slight mourning, a white summer frock with touches of black. Yes, her face was a little thinner, but it had not lost its serenity. She was less a girl, more a woman—but not a woman prematurely aged.
"Dear Austin!" she said, as I kissed the hand she held out to me. "You've waited a long while—here I am at last! You've become famous in the interval—yes, you have. I've seen your book, and I wish Leonard could have read it. He'd have liked it. But though you're famous, still you waited for me!"
"I don't think you expected me to do anything else."
She smiled at me. "Perhaps not. But, do you know, I'm afraid you've done something else than grow famous. Have you grown into an old bachelor? You look rather like it."
"I expect I have," said I ruefully, and with an anxious gaze at my coat. "It's rather an old coat, isn't it?"
"And the knees of your trousers!" pursued Jenny remorselessly.
They were atrocious—there was no denying it. "There's been nobody to dress for. I'll order a new suit to-morrow."
"Things begin to move directly I come back, don't they? Is there any news in the neighborhood?"
I told her my little budget, sketching it in as lightly as I could and with as little reference to herself. She fastened on the news about Eunice Aspenick.
"Grown up, of course, by now, isn't she? And you say she's pretty. Very pretty?"
"Not so very, in my judgment. Very fresh and healthy, and rather handsome."
Jenny smiled mysteriously. "Oh, that doesn't matter—if it comes to no more than that," she said contemptuously. She saw me smiling. "Oh, yes, I'm scheming again!" she declared with a laugh. "Not for myself, though. I've done with schemes about myself."
"At five-and-twenty?"
Jenny grew grave. "Things count, not years—or, anyhow, sooner than years. Have I any friends left?"
She smiled again when I told her of Lady Aspenick's faction, and how Lady Aspenick still used the road. "Come, that's not so bad," was her comment, rather playfully than seriously given. "And you ask me no questions?" she said the next moment, rather abruptly.
"No, I don't want to ask you any questions. I was very much grieved for him."
She nodded. "When I went away with him," she said, "I burned my boats. I wanted them burned, Austin. I was so sick of doubts—and of tricks and maneuvers. Recklessness seemed fine; and everything seemed to have gone out of the world—except me and him. There was some business to be done and I did it—with the surface of my mind; it made no real part of my thoughts. There I was all hatred for what I had been doing—yes, and horrible hatred of having been found out—I'd better be frank about that. I'd been tricking—I wanted to defy. Leonard didn't mind defying either, did he? That lasted a week—ten days, perhaps. Then the old thing came back—the fear of him, the fear of it. I couldn't help it—it's so deep in my blood, Austin. He told me I ought to marry him for my own sake—for his own he was indifferent. I think he really was. I was terribly afraid but, as you must know from the papers, I agreed, and everything was in train when—he died. That was my fault partly—but only partly. The young man did—make a mistake about me—but he apologized most humbly and courteously. But Leonard wouldn't take it properly, and picked a quarrel with him the next evening."
"Then it doesn't seem to have been your fault."
"My being—vulnerable—made Leonard more, even more, than usually aggressive. That's all. They brought him back to me dying. He lived only about half an hour. We were curiously happy in that half hour—but it was terrible afterwards." She fell into silence, her eyes very sorrowful. Then she turned to me, with a gesture of her hands. "That's all the story—and it's for you alone—because you're Austin."
I took her hand for a moment and pressed it. "For me alone—I thank you."
"A thing like that seems to sweep across life like a hurricane, doesn't it? Leveling everything, destroying such a lot!"
"You've come back to build it all up again."
She smiled for a moment. "So you've found that out? But I can't build it all up. Some things I shall never try to build again. The track of the hurricane will always be left."
"Time, time, time!" said I.
"Not even time. Life's not over—but it's life with a difference. I don't complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat the world, but I won't cheat myself. I'm not at my old trick of having it both ways for myself, Austin."
She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself, but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane had swept.
"I have no kith or kin; nobody is bound to me. The love of my friends is free—free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed. There is nobody who has a right to harbor it against me."
And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that.
"As a private offense against him, or her, I mean—as a personal offense. Of course they've a right to their opinions—and with their opinions I expect I should agree."
She would agree with the opinions, but did not feel bound to furnish material for them. She could hardly be blamed there. The candle and the white sheet—in open congregation—have fallen into such general disuse that Jenny could not be asked to revive them. So far she might be excused—people do not expect confessions. But she seemed to underrate what she termed "opinions" even though, as opinions, she thought that she would agree with them. On this subject neither Alison nor Mrs. Jepps would talk of "opinions"; they would use other words. When she said that there was nobody who had a right to harbor the affair against her, it was easy to understand her meaning; but her meaning did not exhaust the case. Society claims the right—and has the power—to harbor things against us; hence the gallows, the prisons, and decrees of social banishment. However, this sort of talk was confidential—between her and me only. If society were disposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be very unlike Jenny not to make the thing as easy as possible for society. Often society has no objection to being "cheated"; it will let you shut its eyes to what you have done—strictly on condition that you do not so much as hint that you had any right to do it. But it was doubtful whether Jenny would find all Catsford in this accommodating temper.
"What's your opinion?" she asked abruptly.
"If I understand you rightly, you did a serious thing; on any theory and to anybody who thinks—never mind his precise views—a very serious thing. But you seem to know that well enough, and more talk about it won't mend matters."
"It was a wonderful time—my time of defiance—my time of surrender. At least I tried to make it surrender—and my greatest surrender was to consent not to go on defying. While I defied, I could surrender—because I could lose sight of everything in him. He was big enough, Austin! I seemed then to be putting the world—both worlds, if you like—quite out of sight, annihilating them for myself, saying I could get on without them if only I had Leonard—or, rather, if only Leonard would—would swallow me up!" She looked at me with one of her straight candid glances. "Well, he had no objection to that." Her lips curved in a reluctant smile. "You wouldn't expect him to have, would you? We made a plan. We were to go to Africa—somewhere in British East Africa—and live there—away from everything. Not because of fear or anything of that sort, you know—but because we felt we could get on better there. I wanted to strip myself of everything that made me distinct from him—of all I had or was, apart from him. I knew all the time that here, at home, we should be impossible together; you know I felt that because you watched the whole thing, Austin, and must have known that only that feeling could have kept me from him. Well, I could only try to drive out that fear of him by accepting all it meant—by being quite natural about it—by saying, 'I've an instinct that you'll absorb me; I yield to it—only make it easy—give it the best chance—don't keep me where all sorts of things compel me to struggle against it. Struggling isn't a possible life; perhaps surrender is. Let's try.' All this was the underlying thing—the real thing that was going on. On the top we were doing all sorts of interesting outside things—he was a wonderful companion—but this was what we were battling out all the time—how to make it work—how we could give our lives a chance of working together. We both wanted that—and we both knew that it was horribly difficult. The greatest thing about him is that he knew my side of the difficulty so extraordinarily well. Isn't that rather rare?"
"To his mind you were a great woman. He called you so to me. That accounts for it."
"How difficult it all is! The more the thing is worth while, the more difficult! Well, we were to try—to be married and go to Africa and try. Leonard didn't press marriage on me, but he admitted that he'd prefer it—for a particular reason that I'll tell you about presently. And I agreed; but neither of us made a great thing of that. Marriage may be a great thing, but I can't think that marrying just to mend matters is anything very great and sacred, can you? And that was all ours would have come to, of course. It would have been by way of apology."
She had a remorseless mind—most remorseless for herself and her motives. Yet a man might be a bit puzzled how to meet her reasoning.
"We're getting into the sphere of those opinions," I said. "We shall be up against Alison and Mrs. Jepps in a moment!"
"I know, and I'm only trying to tell you what happened—how we felt about the thing. And then—we needn't have troubled! A gay young gentleman, a little merry with wine—a lady in a cafe—a hot-tempered man particularly jealous to exact respect for her—what a simple, obvious, silly way to bring everything to dust!"
"You said you were happy at last."
"Our fight was done; our love was perfect. Oh, but we managed a quarrel; I wanted to die, too, and that made him terribly angry." She laughed—and the tears rolled down her cheeks. "Dear, dear Leonard—he said that, if he'd known I should talk such nonsense, he'd have thrown the Frenchman into the Loire and had no more trouble about it. So he died—his crossness with me just over!"
"Well over, I think," I said gently.
"He gave just one turn of his great great body, laid his head on my breast, swore at a fly that settled on his nose—oh, Austin!—and went to sleep there like a little child. It was above two hours before I could bear to call anybody. Then—they took him away."
After a long pause, which I had no inclination to break, she went on: "I daresay you wonder why I came back here?"
"I thought you'd come back. Things never seem irremediable to you; you never like to let go finally."
"That's true, I suppose. But I've a more special reason than that. Leonard left me a legacy—that brings me here—but don't let's talk about that for a minute. Is it true that Bertram Ware talks about selling Oxley. Mr. Cartmell said something about it in one of his letters."
"He's understood to be open to a good offer, I fancy."
"Then we'll make him one."
"You're at work already!"
"A pretty place and a nice little estate—just between Fillingford Manor and Overington!" Was the inherited liking for "driving wedges" still in force? She had lost Fillingford Manor, but Oxley Lodge would make a useful wedge. "I wonder if there's any chance of that new man at Hingston selling! I don't want the house, but those farms round Hilton Heath would round us off nicely."
"Buy the county and the town! Isn't that what you want?"
"I don't want one single thing, Austin—for myself. But I have a little plan in my head. Well, I must do something with my life, mustn't I—and with all this money?"
"Build the Institute!"
"I really think I shall be able to manage that. Mr. Bindlecombe's my friend still?"
"He has plucked up courage—under the influence of Lady Aspenick."
"Ah, yes," said Jenny, "I must try not to lose Lady Aspenick." She looked thoughtful. "Yes, I must try." She seemed to anticipate some difficulty.
Her plan of campaign was indicated, if not revealed. She had come back; she was going to try to "get back." What had happened was to make a difference only just where, and in so far as, she herself decided that it must. About that she had not been explicit, but it was evidently a great point with her—a thing which profoundly affected her inner life. But her outer life was not to be affected—her external position was not in the end to suffer. And this ambition, this plan, was somehow connected with her "legacy" from Leonard Octon.
Suddenly she spoke again. "When a mask is on, you can't see the face. I shall wear a mask—don't judge my face by it. I've taken it off for you to-day. I have given you the means of judging. But I shall wear it day by day—against everybody; even against you generally, I expect, though I may sometimes lift a corner up for you."
What had I seen while the mask was off? A woman profoundly humiliated in herself but resolute not to accept outward humiliation? It was hardly that, though that had an element of applicability in it. A woman ready—even determined—to pay a great penalty for what she had done, but resolved to evade or to defy the obvious and usual penalties? There was truth in that, too. But more remained. It seemed as though, with the hurricane of which she spoke, there had come an earthquake. It had left her alive, and in touch with life; life was not done. But it was different—forever and irrevocably different. Her relations to life had all been shifted. That was the great penalty she accepted—and she was prepared to accept its executions, its working-out, seeing in that, apparently, the logically proper, the inevitable outcome of her act. The obvious penalties were not to her mind inevitable; she would admit that they were conventionally proper—but that admission left her free to avoid them if she could. The outward punishment she would dodge; before the inward she would bow her head. And the sphere of the penalty must be the same as the sphere of the offense. Her intellect had not offended, and that was left free to work, to expatiate, to enjoy. On her heart fell the blows, as from her heart had come the crime. There it was that the shifting of relations, the change of position, the transformation of feelings, had their place.
An intelligible attitude—but a proud, indeed a very arrogant, one. Only Jenny should punish Jenny—that was pretty well what it said. She herself had decreed her penalty. It might be adequate—perhaps she alone could know the truth of that—but it was open to the objection that it was quite unauthorized. Neither in what it included nor in what it excluded did it conform to any code of religious or social obligation. It was Jenny's sentence on Jenny—and Jenny proposed to carry it out. Centralization of power seemed to shake hands with anarchy.
Jenny's mood grew lighter on her last words. "To-night we'll send a paragraph to the Catsford paper to announce my return," she said, smiling. "I'm not skulking back!"
"It will occasion interest and surprise."
"It's not the only surprise I've got for them," laughed Jenny. Then, suddenly, she held up her hand for silence. From the terrace outside the window I heard a merry sweet-toned laugh. Jenny rose and went to the window, and I followed her.
Old Chat was on the terrace, and beside her stood a girl, not tall, very slender. Her arm was through Chat's, her back toward us, her face in profile as she turned to talk—and she was talking briskly and in excited interest—to her companion. The profile was small, regular, refined; I could not see the eyes; the hair was a golden brown, very plentiful.
"Who's that pretty girl?" I cried.
Jenny copied the attitude of the pair on the terrace; she put her arm through mine and said with a laugh, "She is pretty, then?" The laugh sounded triumphant. "Why, as pretty a little thing as a man could find in a lifetime!" I cried in honest enthusiasm.
"Oh, come, you're not such a hopeless old bachelor after all," said Jenny. "Not that I in the least want you to fall in love with her—not you, Austin."
"I think I am—half!"
"Keep just the other half for me. Half's as much as I want, you know." Her voice sounded sad again, yet whimsically sad. "But I do want that from you, I think." She pressed my arm; then, waiting for no answer, she went on gayly, "I think I shall surprise Catsford with that!"
"She's going to pay you a visit?" I asked.
"She's going to live here," Jenny answered. "That's my legacy, Austin."
I smote my free arm against my thigh. "By Heaven, the girl on the mantelpiece at Hatcham Ford!" I cried.
At the moment the girl on the terrace turned round, saw us, and waved her hand merrily to Jenny. Certainly the prettiest little creature you ever saw—in the small, dainty, delicate, roguishly appealing way: and most indubitably the original of that picture which I had seen at Hatcham Ford, which vanished on the night when Octon went forth alone—little thinking that Jenny would follow him.
I turned from her to Jenny in astonishment. "But I'd made up my mind that it was his wife."
"I'm glad he told you he was married. He told you the dreadful thing about it, too, didn't he? It wasn't a thing one could talk about—he'd never have allowed that for a minute—but I wish everybody could have known. It seems a sort of excuse for what they all quarreled with in him. He'd been made to feel the world his enemy when he was young; that must tell on a man, mustn't it?"
"This is a daughter? He never said anything about a daughter."
"Well, I suppose you didn't happen to get on that—and you didn't ask. A woman would have asked, of course, whether there were any children—and how old they were, and what was the color of their hair."
"Upon my soul, it never occurred to me!"
"It wouldn't," she remarked, smiling. "But this is Margaret."
"Where's she been all the while?"
"Oh, only at school—there's no mystery. He was only at Hatcham Ford four years—just her school years. He didn't bring her there in the holidays, because that would have meant a chaperon—he couldn't have looked after a girl—and he hated the idea of that. And I think he was afraid, too, that the people wouldn't be nice to her. He was very sensitive for her, though he wasn't at all for himself." She paused a moment. "Does that explain anything else I've said?"
I thought, for a moment, over our talk. "About the marriage?"
"Yes," said Jenny. "It didn't seem fair to her without that. That weighed with him more than anything else—and with me, too, a good deal. I don't think I need be ashamed of that."
"Certainly you needn't—quite the contrary in fact."
"We should have wanted her to be with us—to pay us visits anyhow—at least until she married. Yes, it wouldn't have been just." She frowned impatiently; still more than anything else, Margaret Octon seemed to bring home to her the difficult side—the side most hard to defend—of what she had done and contemplated. She passed away from it without more words.
"When he was dying he gave her to me. That put an end to the quarrel I told you about. It gave me back some of him and gave me something to live for. 'I know you'll do the handsome thing by her, Jenny,' he said. I mean to try, Austin."
"I'm sure you do, but"—I could not help blurting it out—"won't her being here make matters worse?"
"Worse or better, better or worse, here she's going to be," said Jenny. "She's been with me nearly a year already. She's one of the two things he's left behind him—to stay with me."
I did not ask what the other thing was.
"Is she to bear his name?"
"Of course she is. She's my friend and ward—and Leonard Octon's daughter."
"Rather a pill for Catsford! Dear me, what a pretty little thing it is!"
"I'm very glad she's like that. It makes so much more possible. This is a good gift that Leonard has left me. She's my joy—you must be my consolation. I can't give you anything in return, but there's something I can give her—and I'll give it full measure, for Leonard's sake." She laughed, rather reluctantly, squeezing my arm again. "Oh, yes, and I'm afraid a little bit because Jenny Driver still likes her own way! And, above all, her own way with Catsford! Shall we see if she can get it?"
Jenny had come back with her courage unbroken—and with her ambitions unappeased, though it seemed that their direction had been in some measure changed. Somehow Margaret Octon was now one of their principal objects. It was not possible just now to see further into her mind, even at a tolerably close view—a much closer one than her neighbors were permitted to enjoy. It was even an appreciable time before Catsford heard of Margaret Octon at all. The presence of the girl was not obtruded, much less her name; nothing was said of her in the paragraph that went to the paper. Jenny left Catsford to digest the fact of her own return first.
It was enough to occupy the neighborhood's digestive faculties for many days. It raised such various questions, on which different minds settled with differing degrees of avidity. Questions of morality, of propriety, of conventionality on the one hand—questions of charity, of policy, of self-interest on the other. There were the party of principle and the party of expediency, cutting across the lines of the party of propriety and the party of charity. Some quoted Cæsar's wife—when do they not? Others maintained that an Englishman was innocent till he was proved guilty—anda fortioria handsome, attractive, interesting, and remarkably rich Englishwoman. It was contended by one faction that a self-banishment of nearly three years was apology enough—if apology were needed; by the other that Jenny had insolently spurned any effort to "put herself right" with public opinion. To add to the complication, people shifted their attitudes from day to day—either under influence, as when they had been talked to by Mrs. Jepps or by Mr. Bindlecombe as the case might be, or from the sheer pleasure of discussing the matter over again from another point of view, and drawing out their neighbors by advocating what, twenty-four hours earlier, they had condemned.
The climax came when the news of Margaret leaked out, as it was bound soon to do, if only through the mouths of the servants at the Priory. There was a pretty girl there, a girl of seventeen—whose name was Octon—daughter, it was understood, of the late Mr. Leonard Octon of Hatcham Ford; she was living with Miss Driver, as her friend or her ward—at any rate, apparently, as a fixture. Some found a likeness between Margaret's sudden appearance and Jenny's own, and this element added a piquancy to the situation, even though the similarity was rather superficial than essential. Old Nicholas Driver had every reason to produce his daughter and invest her formally with the position of heir-apparent to his great possessions, to his over-lordship of the town. Octon had been merely the temporary tenant of a hired house—a mere bird of passage—and a solitary bird besides, neither giving nor receiving confidences. Why should he have talked about his dead wife and his young daughter to ears that cared not a straw about either of them? The coincidence was noted, but it was soon swallowed up in the new issue as to Jenny's conduct which the appearance of Margaret raised. Bluntly—for which party was this a score? Jenny's opponents saw in it a new defiance—a willful flaunting of offense; her friends found in it a romantic flavor which pleaded for her.
On the whole, so far as could be judged from Bindlecombe's accounts—he was my constant reporter—Jenny's adherents gained ground in the town—partly from her personal popularity, partly from the old power of her family, in part, perhaps (if one may venture to say so from the safe obscurity of a private station), because our lords the masses are not in a matter of this sort very unforgiving—in which they touch hands with the opposite end of society. Self-interest probably aided—Catsford had of late basked in the somewhat wintry favor of Fillingford Manor; the beams were chilly; Breysgate would emit a kinder glow. It "paid" so many people in the town to have Jenny back! The feeling in the county was preponderatingly against her. There Fillingford Manor was a greater power; its attitude was definite, resolute, not to be misunderstood. Outside the town Jenny could look at present for little support. Old Mr. Dormer with his pliant standards was dead. There were only the Aspenicks—Lady Aspenick must be civil—owing to what she had done about the road; but her influence, even if cordially exercised, would not be enough.
Following the example of great commanders, Jenny massed her forces on the most favorable point. She flung herself on the workingmen of Catsford. Hesitating, probably, to expose Margaret to the chances of the campaign, she left her at home, but she requisitioned Cartmell and myself, and we drove down in full state into Catsford at noon on the fourth day after her return. Our ostensible purpose was to go to Cartmell's office, to transact some legal business; as he could easily have brought his papers up to the Priory, this did not seem very convincing. Our way took us past the great Driver works—conducted now by a limited company, in which Jenny held a controlling interest. In front of the big building was a large open space, still known as "The Green" though constant traffic of feet had worn away all trace of grass. Here was the forum of Catsford, where men assembled for open-air meetings and, less formally, for discussion, gossip—even, it was said, for betting—in their spare moments, and especially in the dinner-hour. It happened to be the dinner-hour now—as Jenny observed innocently when we found the place full of Driver employees who had swallowed their meal and were talking together or lounging about, their pipes in their mouths. Cartmell gave a grim chuckle at Jenny's artless surprise. He had taken her return very quietly, loyally accepting his position as her man of business, but hardly welcoming her with real cordiality. I fancy that he found it hard to forgive; was not Fillingford Manor gone forever?
We had not progressed many yards before she was recognized. She courted recognition, stopping to speak to an old artisan who had once been introduced to her as a contemporary of her father's. Men gathered round her as she sat chatting with the veteran. She seemed unconscious of being gradually surrounded. At last, with a most gracious good-by, she said, "Now drive on, please," then looked suddenly round, saw all the folk, and bowed and smiled. One fellow started, "Three cheers for Miss Driver!" That set the thing going. They gave her cheer on cheer. Jenny sat through it smiling, flushed, just once glancing across to me with a covert triumph. The cheers brought more men running up; there were two or three hundred round us. "Welcome home!" they cried. "Welcome home!" Then somebody called, "Speech, speech!" The cry was taken up with hilarious enthusiasm, and the crowd grew every minute.
Suddenly on the outskirts of the throng I saw a man on horseback. He had stopped his horse and was looking on. There was no mistaking Lacey's handsome face and trim figure.
Jenny rose to her feet and held up her hand for silence. She spoke her few words in a ringing voice. "My friends and neighbors, thank you for your welcome home. I am glad from my heart to be in Catsford again. That's where Nicholas Driver's daughter ought to be. So I've come back." She kissed her hand to them two or three times, standing there in the carriage. Then I saw that she caught sight of Lacey. The flush on her cheeks deepened. For a second she stood, looking at him her lips just parted in a smile; but she did not incline her head. He lifted his hat and bowed low from his saddle. Then she gave him her most radiant recognition—and sank down on the cushions of the carriage with a sigh.
Jenny could not have reckoned on that encounter—though it seemed all to the good. We were to have another, on which she had not counted either when she chose so cleverly the scene of her public reappearance. When at last they made a lane for our horses to pass, some taking leave of us with fresh cheers, others escorting us on either side, with jokes and horseplay among themselves, we met a little procession. It was Alison's custom to hold a short out-of-door service three times a week during the men's dinner-hour; the Green was his chosen pulpit, as it had been Jenny's chosen scene. He came toward us now in all his ecclesiastical panoply, attended by two or three of his (if Mrs. Jepps will allow me the term) assistant priests and by a band of choir boys, all in their robes. Jenny caught sight of the procession and leaned forward eagerly. I looked back. Lacey was still there; a man was by his horse, talking to him no doubt, but his eyes were following our progress.
I do not happen to know whether it be etiquette to offer or return the ordinary signs of recognition when one forms part of a procession, either secular or ecclesiastical. In the case of the latter, at all events, probably it is not. This perhaps got Alison out of a difficulty—while it left Jenny in a doubt. But I think that it must be permissible to look rather more benevolent, rather less sternly aloof, than Alison's face was as she passed, escorted by her jesting adherents. To say that he took no more notice of us or of them than if we had not been there is inadequate. His ignoring of us achieved a positive quality. He passed by with his eyes purposely, aggressively, indifferent. The boys and men looked after him and his procession, and nudged one another with smiles.
Jenny's face told nothing of her view of this little incident. She was still smiling when we quickened up and, with final hand-wavings, shook ourselves clear of our adherents. At Cartmell's office her head was as clear and her manner as composed as possible. The business that brought us having been transacted, she opened fire on Cartmell about Oxley Lodge and the outlying farms of Hingston. Verily she was losing no time in her campaign!
Cartmell was obviously amused at her. "That's making up for lost time with a vengeance, Miss Jenny! Hingston and Oxley all at once!" As soon as they got on to business—got to work again—his old pride and pleasure in her began to revive.
"Only a bit of Hingston!" Jenny pleaded with a smile.
"There's plenty of money," he said thoughtfully. "In spite of keeping things going here as you ordered—much too lavishly done it was, too, in my opinion—it's been piling up since you've been away. If they're willing to sell—I hear on good authority that Bertram Ware is if he can get his price—the money's not the difficulty. But what's the good?"
"The good?" asked Jenny.
"Surely you've got plenty? What's the good of a lot more? Isn't it only a burden on you?"
She answered him not with her old impatience, but with all her resoluteness—her old certainty that she knew what she wanted, and why she wanted it—and that it was quite immaterial whether anyone else did.
"You look after the money, Mr. Cartmell; you can leave the good to me—and the burden!"
"Yes, yes, you and your father!" he grumbled. "No good advising—not the least! 'Slave-Driver' I used to call him over our port after dinner sometimes. You're just the same, Miss Jenny."
"All that just because I want to buy a pretty house!" said Jenny, appealing deprecatingly to me.
She would not go away without his promise to press both matters on. Having extracted this, she went home—and ended her first day's campaign by issuing an ukase that all the Driver workmen should, at an early date, have a day's holiday on full wages, with a great feast for them, their wives, children, and sweethearts in the grounds of Breysgate—wages and feast alike to be provided out of the privy purse of Miss Driver. Catsford was behaving well and was to be petted! Jenny did not mention whether she intended to invite its chief spiritual director.
I dined at the Priory that night—a night, on the whole, of distinct triumph—and made acquaintance with Margaret Octon. Strange daughter of such a father! Mrs. Octon must—one was inclined to speculate—have been marvelously different from her husband—and from Jenny Driver. Imagination began to picture something ineffably timid, shrinking, gentle—something which, blending with Octon's strong rough strain, would issue in this child. She seemed all things in turn—except self-confident. Evidently she was devoted to Jenny; perpetually she referred all she did to Jenny's approval—but that "all" included many varieties. Now she would be demure, now venturesome, now childishly merry, now assuming a premature sedateness. She played tricks with Jenny, her brown eyes always asking whether she might play them; she enjoyed herself immensely—by Jenny's kind permission. This constant reference and this constant appeal found no warrant in anything in Jenny's manner; the child was evidently a privileged pet and could do just as she pleased—Jenny delighted in her. It was then in the girl's nature itself. She was grace and charm—without strength. It would be very appealing, if one were the person appealed to; it would be most attractive, most tempting, when seconded by her frail fairy-like beauty. For it was a joy to look at her; and if she looked at you, asking leave to be happy, what could you say but—"By all means—and pray let me do all I can to help!"
Jenny seemed to watch her gayeties and her demureness, her ventures and retreats, with delight indeed, but also with a more subtle feeling. She not only enjoyed; she studied and pondered. She gave the impression of wanting to know what would be thought by others. This with Jenny was unusual; but her manner did unmistakably ask me my opinion several times, and when, after dinner, Margaret had waltzed Chat out of the room for a stroll in the garden, she asked it plainly.
"Isn't she just as charming as she looks?"
"She worships you," I remarked.
"That's nothing—natural just at first, while she's so young. But don't you find her charming?" Jenny persisted.
"I don't know about women—but if that form of flattery were brought to bear on any man, I don't see how he could possibly resist."
"It's quite natural; it's not put on in the least."
"I'm sure of it. That's what would make it so dangerous. To have that beautiful little creature treating one as a god—who could refuse the incense, or not become devoted to the worshiper?"
Jenny nodded. "You understand it, I see. Men would feel that way, would they?"
"Rather!" I answered, with a laugh. Jenny was leaning her head on her elbow, and looked across the table at me with a satisfied mocking smile. I could see that I had given an answer that pleased her—but she was not minded to tell me why she was pleased.
Half chaffing her, half really wondering what she would be at, I asked, "Do you want Oxley Lodge for Margaret?"
"For her?" exclaimed Jenny, smiling still. "Why? Isn't this house big enough for the mite?"
"Suppose you both marry—or either? You're both eminently marriageable young women."
"Are we? Eminently marriageable? Well, I suppose so." She laughed. "Even if one doesn't marry, it's something to be marriageable, isn't it?"
"A most valuable asset," said I. "Then you'd want two houses."
"I suppose we should. But how far you look ahead, Austin!"
"If that isn't Satan reproving sin—!" I cried.
"What do you suspect me of now?" she asked, still mocking, but genuinely curious, I think, to fathom my thoughts.
"No, no! You'll be off on another tack if you think you've been sighted."
She laughed as she rose from the table. "Oh, come out and walk! At any rate, my getting Oxley would annoy Lady Sarah, wouldn't it?"
"You can annoy her cheaper than that!"
"There's plenty of money, Mr. Cartmell says," she answered, smiling over her shoulder as she led the way.
I had a talk with Margaret, too, a little later on. Jenny sent us for a moonlight stroll together. Young as the child was, she was good company, independently of her place in Jenny's mind, which for me gave her an adventitious interest. But what a contrast to Jenny, no less than to Octon—and perhaps a more profound one! The fine new surroundings, the enlarged horizon which Jenny's friendship opened to her, were still a delightful bewilderment; she enjoyed actively, but she accepted passively; she applauded the entertainment, but never thought of arranging the bill of the play. Jenny could not have been like that—even at seventeen; she would have itched to write some lines in the book, to have a word to say to the scenes. Margaret's simplicity of grateful responsiveness was untouched by any calculation.
"It's all just so wonderful!" she said to me, her arms waving over the park, her brown eyes wide with surprised admiration.
She came to it only on an invitation. Jenny had come as owner. But Jenny had not been overwhelmed like this. Jenny had kept cool, had taken it all in—and been interested to survey, from Tor Hill, the next estate!
"To happen to me—suddenly! Ah, but I wish father had lived. If he could have lived to marry Jenny! They were engaged when he—was killed, you know."
"Yes," I said, "I know. But don't be sad to-night. Things smell sweet, and there's a moon in the sky."
She laughed—merry in an instant. "Jenny says we're going to do such things! As soon as she's settled down again, you know." She paused for a moment. "Did she love my father very much?"
"Yes, I think she did," I answered, "and I think she loves you."
"To me she's just—everything." Her eyes grew mirthful and adventurous; she gave a little laugh as she added, "And she says she'll find me a fairy prince!" At once she was looking to see how I liked this, not with the anxiety which awaited Jenny's approval, but none the less with an evident desire for mine.
"That's only right," I answered, laughing. "But she needn't hurry, need she? You'll be happy here for a bit longer?"
"Happy here? I should think so!" she cried. "Ah, there's Jenny looking for me!" In an instant she was gone; the next her arm was through Jenny's, and she was talking merrily.
I became aware of Chat's presence. She came toward me in her faded, far from sumptuous, gentility. She had a little gush for me. "So happy it all seems again, Mr. Austin!" she said.
"We seem to be starting again very well indeed," I assented.
"Dear Jenny has behaved so splendidly all through," Chat proceeded. "How did they dare to be so malicious about her? But I've known her from a girl. I always trusted her. Why, I may say I did a good deal to form her!"
A vivid—and highly inopportune—picture came back into my mind, a picture dating from the night of Jenny's flight—of Chat rocking her helpless old body to and fro, and saying through her sobs, "I tried, I tried, I tried!" What had Chat meant that she tried to do? To keep Jenny out of mischief? Hardly that. To save her from the danger of it had been the object. As for forming her—Chat had made other confessions about that.
However—as things stood—Chat had always trusted Jenny. It was impossible to say how far—at this moment—Jenny had trusted Chat. Not very far, I think. Jenny probably had said nothing which could make it harder for Chat to say what she would want to say; both reticence and revelation would have been bent to that object—and Jenny was an artist in the use of each of these expedients. Doubtless Chat had been given her cue. Nevertheless, there was something unusual in her air—something very friendly, confidential, yet rather furtive, as she drew a little closer to me.
"But the dear girl is so impulsive," she said. "Of course, it's delightful, but—" She pursed her lips and gave me a significant look. "This child!" said Chat.
"Oh, you mean Margaret Octon? Seems a very nice girl, Miss Chatters."
"Jenny's heart's so good—but what a handicap!"
Chat was of that view, then, concerning the coming of Margaret. Well, it was not uncommon.
"We shall never get back to our old terms with Fillingford Manor as long as she's here," said Chat.
"Were you so much attached to Fillingford Manor?" I ventured to ask.
"That would end all the talk," she insisted with an agitated urgency. "If only Lord Fillingford would overlook—" She stopped in a sudden fright. "Don't say I said that!"
"Why, of course not," I answered, smiling. "Anything you want said you can say yourself. It's not my business."
"One can always rely on you, Mr. Austin. But wouldn't that be perfect—after it all, you know?"
It certainly would be picking up the pieces—after a smash into utter fragments! But it is always pleasant to see people contemplating what they regard as perfection; and no very clear duty lies on a private individual to disturb their vision. I told Chat that the idea was no doubt worth thinking over, and so, in amity, we parted.
That was Chat's idea. Octon was gone with his fascination—not unfelt by Chat. Now it would be perfection if Lord Fillingford would overlook! But with that goal in view Margaret Octon was a heavy handicap. Undoubtedly—so heavy, so fatal, that the goal could hardly be Jenny's. Chat, who had done so much to form Jenny, might have given a thought to that aspect of the matter. If one thing were certain, it was that Jenny, when she accepted her legacy from Octon and brought Margaret to Breysgate, thereby abandoned and renounced all thought of renewing her relations with Fillingford. I was glad to come to that conclusion, helped to getting at it clearly (as one often is) by the opposite point of view presented by another. I had never been an enthusiastic Fillingfordite; I had accepted rather than welcomed. And I could bear him better suing than overlooking. Having things overlooked did not suit my idea of Jenny—though I could enjoy seeing her riding buoyant over them.
Jenny and Margaret came along the terrace toward us, arm in arm, their approach heralded by merry laughter. "We've been building castles in the air!" cried Jenny.
"May you soon be living in them!"
She shook her head at me in half-serious rebuke. "They were for Margaret!"
Jenny might deny herself the sky; but she would have castles somewhere—founded solidly on earth. It was the earth she trusted now. You cannot fall off that.