The Great Miss Driver Part 23

"I shall live with the old folks--I say, how'd Miss Driver like to hear that?--till I get married--which won't be for a long while, I hope. Then we'll set Aunt Sarah up at Hatcham Ford. Octon will be gone by then, I hope! I saw the fellow in the town the other day. I wonder he doesn't go. It can't be pleasant to stop in a place where you're cut!"

"Octon has his own resources, I daresay."

"Sorry for the resources!" Lacey remarked. "I say, how long ought we to give the governor?"

"Don't hurry matters."

"It can't take very long, can it? The governor means to settle it out of hand; he almost said as much."

"But then there's the lady. Perhaps she----"

"Between ourselves, I fancy he thinks he's waited long enough."

I had the same impression, but my mind had wandered back to another point.

"When did you see Octon?" I asked.

"I trotted Aunt Sarah down to that place--what's it called?--where the Inst.i.tute offices are. Aunt Sarah's got very keen on the Inst.i.tute; she must mean to queer it somehow, I think! Well, Octon was there, talking to the clerk. She cut him dead, of course--marched by the pair of them with her head up. Powers ran after her, and I addressed an observation to Octon. You remember that little spar we had?"

"At the Flower Show? Yes, I remember."

"I was a bit fresh then," he confessed candidly, "and perhaps he wasn't so far wrong to sit on me. But the beggar's got a rough way of doing it.

Well, it didn't seem civil to say nothing, so I said, 'I haven't had that thrashing yet, and I'm getting a bit too big for it, like you, Mr.

Octon.'"

"Was that your idea of something civil?" I felt constrained to ask.

"He didn't mind," Lacey a.s.sured me. "But he said a funny thing. He grinned at me quite kindly and said, 'You're just coming to the size for something much worse.' What do you think he meant by that, Austin?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"He's a bounder--at least he must be, or he'd never have done that to Susie Aspenick; but he's got his points, I think. I tell you what, I shouldn't so much mind serving under him. One don't mind being sat on by the C. O."

"What was happening between Lady Sarah and Powers all this time?" I asked.

"Lord bless you, I don't know!" he answered scornfully. "Inst.i.tute, I suppose! I should be inclined to call the Inst.i.tute rot if Miss Driver wasn't founding it. At any rate Aunt Sarah and Powers--rather like a beach photographer, isn't he?--seem as thick as thieves." He finished off his whisky and soda. "Well, women must do something, I suppose," he remarked. "Shall we go and beat up the governor?"

He was impatient. I yielded, although I did not think that "the governor" would be ready for us yet; I thought that, if Lord Fillingford was to gain his cause that afternoon, he was in for a long interview with Jenny. Evidently Lacey meant to wait. I was game to wait with him.

In these days I was all suspicion--on the alert for danger. It made me uneasy to hear that Lady Sarah and Powers were "thick as thieves."

Mentally I paused to acknowledge the exquisite accuracy of Lacey's "beach photographer." On the genus it would have been a libel; for the species it was exact. I saw him with his velveteens, his hair, his collar--against a background of paper-littered sands and "n.i.g.g.e.r minstrels"; the picture recalled childhood, but without the proper sentimental appeal.

I was right. We had to walk up and down the terrace in front of the house for a long while. Lacey talked all the time--his views, his regiment, sports, races, what not. From the top of my mind--the surface responsive to externals--I answered. Within I was following in imagination the struggle of my dear, wayward, unreasonable mistress--of her who wanted both ways, who would lead half a dozen lives, and unite under her sway kingdoms between which there could be neither union nor alliance.

It was almost five o'clock by the time Fillingford came out; the sun had begun to lose power; the peace of evening--and something of its chill--rested on the billowing curves of turf and the gently swaying treetops. As we saw him we came to a standstill, and so awaited his approach.

Under no circ.u.mstances, I imagine, could Lord Fillingford have looked radiant. Even any overt appearance of triumph his taste, no less than his nature, would have rejected; and his taste was infallible in negatives. Yet on his face, as he came to us, there was unmistakable satisfaction; he had done quite as well as he had expected--or even better. I was glad--with a sharp pang of sorrow for the limitations of human gladness. In my heart I should have been glad for Jenny to be allowed to break rules--to have it all ways--as she wanted--for as long as she wanted. There was the moral slope of which I have before made metaphorical mention!

He greeted me with a cordiality very marked for him, and laid a hand on his son's shoulder affectionately. "I've kept you a terribly long time, Amyas, and we mustn't bother Miss Driver any more. She's tired, I fear.

We'll go home for a cup of tea."

Lacey was excited and anxious, but he knew his father better than to put even the most veiled question to him in my presence.

"All right, sir. Austin's been looking after me first-rate."

I could not be mistaken; a touch of ownership over me--the hint of a right to approve of me--came into Fillingford's voice. I seemed to feel myself adopted as a retainer--or, at least, my past services to one of the family acknowledged.

"I'm sure Mr. Austin is always most kind."

The impression was subtle, but it confirmed, more than anything that had yet happened, my certainty of Jenny's answer. I had further confirmation the next moment. He stood on the edge of the terrace, his arm through his son's, and looked over the view.

"A fine position!" he said. "If it had been the fashion to build on the top of a hill three centuries ago, we should have put the house here, I suppose, instead of selling to the Dormers. It was part of our land originally, you know, Mr. Austin." He pulled himself up with a laugh. "A feudal lord's reminiscences! We do well enough if we can keep what we've got nowadays--without regretting what we used to have. Come along, Amyas, or your aunt will have given us up for tea!"

He had sought to correct the impression he had given--to withdraw the idea implicit in his words about Breysgate Priory; yet the withdrawal seemed formal, made in deference to an obligation rather than really effective or important. I was sure that, as he trod Breysgate park that evening, he trod the soil as, in his own mind, already part of the Fillingford domains. The most reserved of men cannot but tell something; only a G.o.d or a brute, as the philosopher has it, can be absolutely unrevealing. If Fillingford could have succeeded in attaining to that--and I have no doubt that he tried--his son would have spoiled the mystery. Familiarity taught him to read more clearly his father's visage. His face beamed with exultation; as he had "wished the governor luck with all his heart," now, without question, the moment I was out of hearing, he wished him joy.

I went in to Jenny, without stopping to think whether she had bidden me come or not. I could not keep away; it even seemed to be something like hypocrisy to keep away now on the pretext that I had not been expressly summoned. She had told me that she liked me to stay--as "somebody to catch her if she fell." That was, surely, at least a permission to be near her?

She was alone, save for Loft who was setting out the tea-tray in his usual deft, speedy, deliberate way. She sat in the middle of the sofa, looking straight in front of her. But she spoke to me directly I came in, while Loft and the footman were still in the room.

"You've just missed Lord Fillingford. Or did you see him as he went away?

"Yes, I met him and had a little talk with him. Young Lacey's been gossiping with me most of the afternoon."

Loft must have wanted to hear, but you'd never have known it! He withdrew, imperturbable and serene. I think that Loft should be added to the G.o.d and the brute, to form a trinity of impeccable illegibility.

At a sign from Jenny I took my tea and drank it. She sat very quiet, exhausted as it seemed, yet still thinking hard. I did not speak.

"A long call, wasn't it?" she said at last, and a faint smile flickered on her lips.

"It was--and it seemed so, I daresay."

"How did he look?"

"Exceedingly well-content. And Lacey seemed most contented with his appearance."

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled again rather contemptuously. I set down my cup and came to her. "Well, good-night, Lady Jenny," I said.

She looked up at me and suddenly spoke out the truth--in a hard voice, bitter and resentful.

"With prayers and vows--yes, and tears," she said, "I've saved a week."

"Before you give your answer?"

"No. The answer is given. Before the engagement is announced."

"If you've given your answer, announce it to-night."

She did not resent my counsel. But she shook her head. "I've fought that battle with him already. I--I can't." She rose suddenly to her feet and stood before me. "I've done it. I've managed to do it. It's done--and I stand by it. But not to-day! I must have a week." She stretched out her hands to me in appeal; there was a curious mixture of mockery and of pa.s.sion in her voice. She mocked me for certain--perhaps she mocked herself, too; yet she was strongly moved. "Dear old, kind, little-understanding Austin, you must give poor Jenny Driver her last week!"

The last week, which she must have, did all the mischief.