The Great Miss Driver Part 20

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 bl.u.s.ter. 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 a.s.sured him that she did not. The a.s.surance had been forthcoming--not in so many words, perhaps, yet plainly enough to be an a.s.surance for all that. But was it an a.s.surance 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 att.i.tude--to that obstinate a.s.sertion. 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 Inst.i.tute 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 a.s.sumed a pseudo-artistic garb, a soft s.h.i.+rt with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs along the front and a turndown collar cut very low, and a voluminous tie worn in an ultra-French fas.h.i.+on; 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 Inst.i.tute 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 fas.h.i.+on, offering what was to Powers a good subst.i.tute 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 Inst.i.tute! One friendly gla.s.s!"

What a picture! Octon drinking success to the Inst.i.tute 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 s.p.a.ce, he did not refuse. He glanced at me, laughed in a rather shamefaced way, and said, "Well, just a minute, and just one gla.s.s to the Inst.i.tute--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 Inst.i.tute, 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 gla.s.s"--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.

CHAPTER XI

THE SIGNAL AT "DANGER"

Alison lost little time in making his promised attack on Jenny; he was not the man to let the gra.s.s 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 a.s.sailant called on her to surrender, she could bid him deal with the other first. The a.n.a.logy is not exact--but there was a family likeness between her balancing of Fillingford against Octon and the way in which, a.s.sailed by Alison, she interposed, as a s.h.i.+eld, 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 repet.i.tion--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 p.r.o.nounced Evangelical, and her feud with Alison was open and inveterate. She disapproved profoundly of "the parish clergyman"; she called him by that t.i.tle, whereas he called himself "the priest in charge"; for his "a.s.sistant 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 att.i.tude 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 Inst.i.tute, 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?"