The Great Miss Driver Part 16

"No doubt--not that I know what is your way in this particular matter."

Her little outbreak of anger pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come. She shrugged her shoulders with a woeful smile.

"My own way! So one talks. What is one's way? The way one would choose?

No--it's generally the way one has to tread. It's in that sense that I shall get my own way."

"You'll try for it in the other sense, though, I fancy."

"Yes, perhaps I shall--and I shan't try less because Lord Fillingford and the Aspenicks either scold or pet me."

"Well, but it's hardly reasonable to expect to have things both ways, is it?"

She came to me, laughing, and took hold of my hands: "But if I choose to have them both ways, sir?" she asked.

"Then, of course," said I, "the case is different."

"I will have them both ways," said Jenny.

"You can't."

"See if I don't!" she cried in merry defiance. "Only, mind you, not a word of it--to the county!" She pressed my hands and let them go. "Oh, I'm so tired!"

"Stop thinking--do stop thinking--and go to sleep."

She nodded at me kindly and rea.s.suringly as Loft came in to put out the lights. I left her standing there in her rich frock, with her jewels gleaming, yet with her eyes again weary and mournful. She had had a bad day of it, for all her triumph in the evening. Trying to have it both ways was hard work.

CHAPTER IX

THE INSt.i.tUTE CLERK

Mr. Bindlecombe was jubilant. Jenny's vacillations were over--the Inst.i.tute was really on the way. A Provisional Committee had been formed; it was composed of Bindlecombe (in the Chair, in virtue of his office of Mayor, which he still held), Fillingford, Cartmell, Alison the Rector of the old parish church, and Jenny. I was what I believe they term in business circles "alternate" with--or to?--Jenny; when she could not attend, I was to act and, if need be, vote in her place. As a fact, I generally went even when she did. Since the Inst.i.tute was to serve for women as well as for men, a subsidiary and advisory Ladies' Committee was formed--and Lady Sarah Lacey was induced to accept the chairmanship of it. Jenny was justifiably proud of this triumph; but the Ladies'

Committee had nothing to do with finance, and finance was, of course, the question of paramount interest, in the early stages at least. The original ten thousand pounds which I had allocated to the Memorial Hall looked a mere trifle now. The talk was of eighty thousand--with a hundred thousand for a top limit. Over these figures Cartmell looked important, but not outraged--evidently the Driver estate was shaping well. But it was, as Jenny remarked, impossible to be precise on the subject of figures, until we had more definite ideas about what we wanted to do. Plans were, she declared, the first necessity--provisional plans, at all events--and she was for having them drawn up at once.

Bindlecombe was in no way reluctant, but opined that plans depended largely on site; must not the question of site be taken in hand simultaneously? Jenny replied that Mr. Bindlecombe had so convinced her of the unique suitability of Hatcham Ford that she was in negotiation with Mr. Octon. Cartmell looked a trifle surprised--I do not think that he had heard of these negotiations. Jenny added that in two years' time she would be free to act of her own will; but in the first place two years was long to wait, and in the second she was anxious to deal with Mr. Octon in a friendly spirit. There was a feeling that this was carrying neighborliness too far, but Fillingford, content with what Jenny had already done in regard to Octon, came to her help, p.r.o.nouncing that the diplomatic way was expedient: No excuse for any opposition should be given; you could never tell who might or might not, for his own purposes, get up a party. If Mr. Octon proved unapproachable--he chose the word with care and gave it with a neutral impa.s.siveness--it would be time enough to talk of rights.

"We can begin on something at once," Jenny declared. "I'm going to ask Mr. Cartmell to make arrangements to put a house at our disposal for offices. We should hold our meetings there, and I should propose to employ a clerk to keep our records and, as time goes on, to help with the plans and so on." She turned to Bindlecombe. "You know that house next to Hatcham Ford--a new red house? It's got very good windows and an open outlook. Wouldn't that do for us? I forget the name--something rather absurd."

"Ivydene," said Cartmell. He had every detail of her property at his finger ends.

"Yes, that's it," said Jenny, with a nod of recollection.

Everybody approved of Ivydene for the suggested purpose, and the Committee broke up with the usual expressions of grat.i.tude to and admiration of Miss Driver. "She does things so handsomely--and with such head, too!" said Bindlecombe.

I walked away with Alison, the Rector, for whom I had a great liking. He was a fine fellow, physically and mentally--a tall, strong-built man of forty, with a keen blue eye. He had "done wonders," as they say, in Catsford and was on the sure road to promotion--if he would take it. He was sincere, pious, and humble; but his humility was personal. It did not extend to his office or to the claims of the Church he represented.

He asked me if I would lay before Jenny the merits of a fund he was raising to build yet another new district church, to meet the ever growing needs of Catsford. I replied that I had no doubt she would be glad to give a donation.

"So far, so good," said Alison--but his tone did not sound contented.

"She's sure to give something substantial--she's like her father in that."

"In the way of money I had nothing to complain of from Mr. Driver.

Anything else I suppose you'll tell me I couldn't expect, as he was a Unitarian."

"I remember he used to say he'd been brought up a Unitarian."

"That's what we seem to be coming to! When it's a question of a man's religion, you remember what he used to say he was brought up as!"

Alison's tone became sarcastic. "Well, then, his daughter's a Church-woman, isn't she--by the same excellent evidence?"

"She lived five years in a clergyman's family," I answered discreetly--feeling that it was safer to stick to indisputable facts.

"She attends church fairly often, doesn't she?"

"Yes, fairly often." He repeated my words with a contemptuous grimace.

"People who attend church fairly often, Austin, are the people whom, if the good old days could come back, I should like to burn."

"Of course you would. You all would, if you dared say so."

"Just two or three to start with. I should like it done very conspicuously--in the market place."

"The worst of it is that you're really quite sincere in all this."

He pressed my arm. "I don't want to burn you. You've thought, though you've thought wrong. And you've been through tribulation. It's the people who in their hearts just don't----"

"Care a d.a.m.n?" I profanely suggested.

"Yes," he agreed with a laugh and a grip on my wrist which distinctly hurt.

"But I don't think Miss Driver's quite one of those. At any rate she's intellectually interested--talks about things, and so on."

He nodded. "Yes, I daresay. Well, she's a remarkable girl. Look here--she's worth having, and I'm going to try to get hold of her."

"You never will, though you try for ever--not in your sense. She never surrenders."

"Not even to G.o.d?"

"Speaking through you?"

"Through my office--yes."

"Aye, there's the rub! Besides--well, I can't discuss her from a moral point of view; any information I may have seems somehow to have been acquired confidentially."

"That's quite right, Austin."

"I'll only put before you a general suggestion. Doesn't our disposition determine our att.i.tude to these things much oftener than our att.i.tude is shaped by our opinions? Hence individual modifications--variations from the general trend, whatever that may be. What a man--or woman--is in worldly relations, isn't he apt to be in regard to religious affairs? If a man thinks for himself in worldly affairs----"

"I'm not against thought," he broke in. "That's the eternal misunderstanding!"