Читать книгу: «The Great Miss Driver», страница 24

CHAPTER XXVI
PEDIGREE AND BIOGRAPHY

The forms were observed most punctiliously; but before the forms began came Lacey, hot from his talk with Fillingford, amazed, almost bewildered, protesting against Jenny's excessive munificence, passionately anxious that she should be sure that he had not foreseen it.

"And how can you believe I never thought of it, when it's just what I ought to have thought of – just the sort of thing you would be sure to want to do?"

"I haven't forgotten your appalling misery, if you have," she retorted, smiling. "I was really afraid you'd kill yourself before Austin had time to get to the Manor. It was quite convincing as to your innocence of my wicked designs, believe me!"

"But I can't possibly accept it," he declared. "It's so overwhelming!"

"You're not asked to accept a farthing, so you needn't be the least overwhelmed. I give it to Margaret. No bride is to go from Breysgate without a dowry, Amyas. Come, you'd put up with ten times as much overwhelming for her sake." She threatened him playfully: "You can't have her with any less – so take your choice!"

"Well, we shall always know who it is that we owe everything to." He took her hand and kissed it. She looked at his handsome bowed head for a moment.

"If you ever do think of anybody in that sort of way, try not to think of me only."

Standing upright again, he looked at her gravely. "I know what you mean." He flushed a little and hesitated. "I hope you know that – that he and I parted – that day – in a – a friendly way?"

"I know it – and I'm very glad," she said. "That's all about the past, Amyas, in words at least. Keep your thoughts as kind as you can – and be very gentle to Margaret when she wants to talk about him. That's a good return to me, if you want to make any. And love my Margaret."

"My love is for her. My homage is for you always – and all the affection you'll take with it," he said soberly. "It's little she'd think of me if that wasn't so," he added with a smile.

Then came the forms, but the first of them – Fillingford's coming – was no mere form to Jenny. She was not afraid or perturbed, as she had been about meeting Alison – she had done with confession – but she was grave, and preoccupied with it. She bade me look out for him and bring him to her in the library. "You must leave us alone, and we'll join you at tea in the garden afterwards. Take care that Margaret is there when we come."

Nothing can be known of what words passed between them, but Jenny gave a general description of their conversation – it was not a long one, lasting perhaps fifteen minutes. "He met me as if he'd never met me before, he talked to me as if he'd never talked to me before. He was a most courteous new acquaintance, hoping that our common interest in the pair would be a bond of friendship between us. I followed the same line – and there we were! But I couldn't have done it of myself. I tried to thank him for that – that sort of message you gave me from him. The first word sent him straight back into the deepest recesses of his shell – and I said, 'Come and see Margaret.'"

"Oh, you'll make better friends than that some day." I had no strong hope of my words coming true.

"You seem to have got nearer to him than I ever could. His shield's up against – Eleanor Lacey! But he was kind to Margaret, wasn't he?"

Yes, he had been kind to Margaret. He took her hand and looked in her eyes, then gravely kissed her on the forehead. "We must be friends, Margaret," he said. "I know how much my boy loves you, and you are going to take his mother's place in my family." There was the same curious quality of careful deliberation as usual – the old absence of any touch of spontaneity – the same weighing out of just the right measure; but he was obviously sincere. He looked on her young beauty with a kindly liking, and answered the appeal in her eyes by taking her hand between both his and pressing it gently. Margaret looked round to Jenny with a smile of glad shy triumph. Amyas came and put his arm through his father's.

"We three are going to be jolly good friends," he said.

Far more stately was the next ceremonial – the one that was, by my stipulation, to follow a few days later; yet I am afraid that we at Breysgate did not take Lady Sarah's coming half so seriously as she took it herself. She had disapproved of us so strongly before there was – to her knowledge at least – any good ground for disapproval that her later censures, however well-grounded, had lost weight. Sinners cannot take much to heart the blame of those who have always expected to see them do wrong and come to grief – and clapped themselves on the back as good prophets over the event!

Here was no private interview. The whole of her adherents surrounded Jenny in the big drawing-room. Lady Sarah was announced by Loft – himself highly conscious of the ceremonial nature of the occasion. With elaborate courtesy Jenny walked to the door to meet her, spoke her greeting, and led her to one of two large arm-chairs placed close to one another; it was really like the meeting of a pair of monarchs, lately at war but bound to appear unconscious of the disagreeable incidents of the strife. Now peace was to be patched up by marriage. Margaret was called from her place in the surrounding circle. She came – and with courage. We had, I fear, deliberately worked her up to the resolution of being, from the very beginning, not afraid of Lady Sarah – pointing out that any signs of fear now would foreshadow and entail slavery for life. "You'll get on much better if you stand up for yourself," Amyas himself assured her.

Margaret stood, awaiting welcome. Lady Sarah put on her eyeglasses, made a careful inspection of her prospective niece, but offered no comment whatever on her appearance. She dropped the glasses from her nose again, and remarked, "I'm glad to become acquainted with you. I'm sure that you intend to make Amyas a good wife and to do your duty in your new station. Kiss me!" She turned her cheek to Margaret, who achieved the salute with grace but, it must be confessed, without enthusiasm. Lady Sarah did not return it.

"There will be a great deal to do and think of at Oxley," she pursued, "but I shall be very glad to assist you in every way."

"But there'll be nothing to do, Lady Sarah. Jenny's doing everything – every single thing."

"I'm going to give them a few sticks to start housekeeping on," said Jenny, with a lurking smile.

"Old houses have a style of their own; one learns it by living in one," Lady Sarah observed. Oxley was old – so was Fillingford Manor. Breysgate was hardly middle-aged in comparison. Lady Sarah cast a glance round its regrettable newness; Jenny's refurnishing had not availed to obliterate all traces of that.

"I'm not following this model," said Jenny. "I'm taking the best advice – though I'm sure Margaret will be very glad of anything you can tell her."

"Of course I shall, Lady Sarah. But the people Jenny's going to are really the best people in the trade – they know all about it."

"When you have seen the Manor – " Lady Sarah began impressively, but Lacey – who had been, the moment before, in lamentable difficulties between a yawn and a smile – cut in:

"Ah, now when shall she come and see the Manor?"

Lady Sarah was prepared with an invitation for the next day: that was another of the forms, to be carried out precisely, as Fillingford had undertaken. She turned to Jenny. "You've seen it, of course, Miss Driver?"

Jenny nodded serenely. Amyas flushed again – his fair skin betrayed every passing feeling – as he said, "We shall be delighted if we can induce Miss Driver to come, all the same."

"Oh, very delighted, very, I'm sure," agreed Lady Sarah.

"You'll enjoy showing it to Margaret all by yourself much better," said Jenny to Amyas. "I'll come another day soon, and have tea with Lady Sarah, if she'll let me."

"Very delighted, very," Lady Sarah repeated.

She rose to take leave; this time she did herself kiss Margaret on the cheek. I think we were all waiting to see whether, in her opinion, the terms of the treaty demanded a kiss for Jenny also. Lady Sarah decided in the negative; Jenny's particularly erect head, as she held out her hand, may have aided – and certainly welcomed – the conclusion. We escorted her to her carriage with most honorable ceremony. Then we sighed relief – save Chat, who had been, from a modest background, an admiring spectator of the scene. "She's not very effusive," said Chat, "but she has the grand manner, hasn't she, Mr. Austin?"

"I never knew what it really meant till to-day, Miss Chatters."

"She probably never hated anything so much in her whole life," Jenny remarked to me, when we were next alone together, "so it's really hardly fair to criticise her manner. But I rejoice from the bottom of my heart that she didn't think it necessary to kiss me."

"Since you escaped this time, I should think you might escape altogether."

"Well, the wedding day will be a point of danger," she reminded me, "but I'm pretty safe against its becoming habitual. We both hate the idea of it too much for that."

Then – a week later – came the public announcement, made duly and in due form in the Times and Herald: "Between Lord Lacey, son and heir of the Right Honorable the Earl of Fillingford, and Margaret, daughter of the late Leonard Octon, Esq." The sensation is not to be described. So many things were explained, so many mysteries cleared up! Folks knew now why Lacey had been so much at Breysgate, Sir John Aspenick learned for whom Oxley Lodge was wanted, and Cartmell understood why he had been forced to disburse that much grudged five hundred pounds for early possession. For, with the announcement, came an inspired leading article, revealing the main terms of the proposed settlement; a little discretion was exercised as to the exact figures, but enough was said to show that, besides the gift of the Oxley Grange estate as it stood, there were large sums to pass both now and in the future. Let the parties have been who they might, such a transaction would have commanded the universal attention of the countryside; when it took place between Lord Fillingford's heir and the late Mr. Octon's only daughter, people with memories recalled and retold their stories, and found newcomers ready indeed to listen. Once again Jenny filled all Catsford and all the neighborhood with gossip, speculation, and applause.

"I told you you'd have to undo the purse-strings to some style," I said to Cartmell. "What do you think of this, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

He winked his eye at me solemnly. "It's great," he said. "What a mind she has! There she'll sit at Breysgate – with the town under one foot, and Fillingford and Oxley under the other!"

"Hardly that!" I smiled.

"Look what she's giving now! Aye, and, my boy, think of what she's still got left to give! If human nature goes on being what it's been ever since I remember, Miss Driver's word will be law in both those houses – if not now, in a few years at all events. It's a lot of money – but it's not ill-spent. It makes her the queen of the place, Austin!" He laughed in enjoyment. "I wish old Nick Driver could see this! He'd be proud of his daughter."

"However much or little that may be the result, I'm sure it was not her object."

He looked at me with a good-humored pity; he thought me a fool in practical matters. "Have that as you like," he said, "but she won't object to the result – nor waste it, either – I promise you." He chuckled again. "She's got back at them with a vengeance!"

It was true. Never even in the days before the flight did she make such a figure. The Aspenicks surrendered at discretion, Fillingford Manor was in forced alliance, Oxley Lodge was annexed; Hingston did not hold out long, and Dormer, placated by a big price for his farms, put his pride and his sulks where he had put the money. The town was at Jenny's feet, even if it were an exaggeration to say that it was under them. Timeservers bowed the knee to so much power; the charitable accepted so splendid an atonement. If any still had conscientious doubts, Alison's conduct was invoked as warrant and example. If he were enthusiastically for the mistress of Breysgate now, who had a right to criticise – who could arrogate to himself such merit as would entitle him to refuse to forgive – even though a certain feature in the arrangement made it forever impossible to forget?

The chorus of applause was loud – and almost unanimous; but it was broken by the voice of one sturdy dissenter – one to whom interest could not appeal and, even had she wanted anything of Jenny, would have appealed vainly – one on whom the sentimental side had no effect, since both her sentiment and her charity moved in the strait fetters of unbending rules. Mrs. Jepps was rigid and obstinate. She had not fallen to the temptation of using the park road, as Lady Aspenick had: she would not now bow the knee to Baal, however splendid and imposing a deity Baal might be. Many had a try at shaking her – and Alison among the rest. He told me about his effort, laughing as he confessed his failure.

"I was well snubbed. She told me that Romish practices led to Romish principles, and that where they led it was easy to see; but that she for her part had other principles and didn't palter with them. When it suited Miss Driver to explain, she was ready to listen. Till then – nothing to do with the woman!"

Jenny heard of this – her one signal failure (for she had extorted alliance, if not loyalty, from Lady Sarah) with composure, almost with pleasure, although pleasure of an unusual variety.

"Well, I respect Mrs. Jepps," she said, "and I wish very much that she wouldn't deprive herself of her drives in the park. I'd promise not to bow to her! Mrs. Jepps is good for me, Austin – a fat, benevolent, disapproving old skeleton at the feast – a skeleton with such fat horses! – crying out 'You did it, you did it!' That's rather useful to me, I expect. Still I should like " – she smiled mischievously – "to try her virtue a little higher – with an invitation to the laying of the foundation stone! I'm going to have that in four or five months, and Mr. Bindlecombe is angling for a prince to do it. If Mrs. Jepps holds out against the prince, she has my leave to hold out against me forever!"

Still it was her instinct to conquer opponents, even when her judgment indorsed their opposition and her feelings did not resent it.

"If she were a young woman, you'd get her at last," I said, "but she's very old. She'll go to heaven before you've time; I can only hope, for the sake of this household, that she won't be made a door-keeper, or we may as well give up all hope and take what chances await us elsewhere."

"Let her be," said Jenny. "She only serves me as all the rest would have done, if I hadn't inherited Nick Driver's money. I've beaten them with that."

"That's not the way you beat Alison," I reminded her.

Her face had been hard as she referred to the power of her money; it softened at the mention of Alison's name. "It was more Margaret's victory than mine. I like best to fight with Margaret; that's a clean sword, Austin. When I'm fighting with and for her, then I'm right. But right or wrong, you wouldn't have me beaten?"

"You've no right to impute any such immoral doctrine to me."

"By now, I think I have," she laughed. "I wonder how soon Lady Sarah will tell Margaret all about me!"

"I don't think she will – and, if she did, you'd never know it."

Jenny smiled. "Yes, I should. Some day – for no apparent reason – Margaret would come and kiss me extraordinarily often." She gave a shake of her head. "I'd rather it didn't happen, though."

It is not to be supposed that, during her Fillingford campaign, Jenny had neglected her Institute. No day had passed without talk or correspondence about it, and she had been in constant consultation with Bindlecombe, Chairman of the Committee of the Corporation in whose charge the scheme was. Fruits of the activity had now appeared. The gardens of Hatcham Ford had been laid waste. (O Bindlecombe, what of your deceitful promises to spare them?) Only the shrubberies in front (where Lacey had once hidden) remained of the old pleasure grounds. Everywhere else were excavations, or lines that marked foundations to be laid; already in some spots actual buildings poked their noses out of the earth, their raw red brick shamed by the mellow beauty of the old house which still stood and was to stand as the center of the architectural scheme. Like all things with which Jenny had to do, the plan had grown larger and larger as it progressed, took more ground, embraced more projects, swallowed more money. It spread across the road, absorbed the garden of Ivydene, and happily involved the destruction of that odious villa of unpleasant memories. It made inroads on Cartmell's money-bags till – what with it, and Margaret's great endowment, to say nothing of Dormer's fields – rich Miss Driver was for two or three months positively hard up for ready money! But the result was to be magnificent; with every fresh brick and every additional sovereign, Catsford grew more loyal, and the prospect of catching that prince more promising. "And I'm going to get Mr. Bindlecombe made Mayor again next year, and Amyas must pull all the wires in London town to get him a knighthood. With Margaret and Amyas married, the Institute opened, and Mr. Bindlecombe Sir John, I think I may sing Nunc Dimittis, Austin!"

"We might perhaps look forward to a short period of peace," I admitted cautiously.

"Come down and look at the old place once more, before it's changed quite out of recognition. Just you and I together!"

We went down together one evening in the dusk. Architects and surveyors, clerks, masons, and laborers had all gone home to their rest. The place was quiet for the night, though the rents in the ground and the rising walls spoke loud of the toils of the day. The old house stood unchanged in the middle of it all; unchanged, too, was the path down which Jenny had passed after she begged the loan of Lord Fillingford's carriage. She took a key from her purse and opened the door of the house. "Let's go in for a minute."

She led me into the room where once I had waited for her – where, another time, I had found her holding Powers's head, where Fillingford had come upon us in the very instant when I had hailed safety as in sight. The room was just as Octon had left it – his heavy dining table, his ugly dining chairs, the two old leather ones on each side of the fireplace, his spears and knives on the wall. And there, too, on the mantelpiece, was the picture of the beautiful child which I had marked as missing when I reached the house that night.

"You've been here before," I said to Jenny, pointing at the picture.

"I found it among his papers after he was at peace," she answered, sitting down in one of the old leather chairs. "I knew this was its place; it has returned to it. And there it will stay, so long as I or Margaret have a voice here. Yes, I have been here before – and I shall be here often. This is to be my room – sacred to me. From here I shall pull the wires!" She smiled at me in a humorous sadness.

"Not the wires of memory too often!" I suggested.

"Two men have made me and my life – made me what I am and my life what it is and is to be. Here – in this place – they meet. This room is Leonard's – all the great thing that's coming into being outside is my father's. They appreciated one another, you've told me – and so has Leonard. They won't mind meeting here, Austin."

"They neither of them did justice to you!" I cried. "Was the Smalls and the Simpsons justice? And was what he – the other – let you do justice either?"

"I don't know – and I don't care," said Jenny. "They were both big men. They had their work, their views, their plans, their occupations. They had their big lives, their big selves, to look after. They couldn't spend all the time thinking whether they were doing justice to a woman!"

"That's a nice bit of special pleading!" I said. "But there, I'm not a great man – as both of your big men have, on occasion, plainly told me."

She smiled at me affectionately. "But one of them gave me – in the end – all he had, and for the other I – in the end – would have given all I had. Oh, yes, it's 'in the end' with us Drivers – because we must try to get everything first – before we are ready to give! But in the end all was given or ready to be given, and here they shall stay together. I have no pedigree, Austin, and I shall have no biography. Here stand both. At Hatcham Ford read my pedigree and my biography."

The room grew dark, but her pale face stood out against the gloom. She rose from her chair and came up to me.

"My big ghosts are very gentle to me now – gentler than one would have been in life, I think – gentler than the other was. You see, they're at rest – their warfare is accomplished. I think mine's accomplished, too, Austin, and I will rest."

"Not you! Rest indeed!"

"I may work, and yet be at peace in my heart. Come, my friend, let's go back home. Amyas dines with us to-night. Let's go back home, to the happiness which God – Allah the All-Merciful – has allowed me, sinner that I am, to make."

Through the soft evening we walked back to where Amyas and Margaret were.