The Great Miss Driver Part 6

"I accept most heartily, and I'll try to keep the bargain." I put out my hand to take hers, but, as if on a sudden thought, she drew hers back.

"Wait a moment still. What do you mean by a friend? One who likes me, has my happiness at heart?"

"Yes."

"Gives me the best advice he can, speaking his mind honestly, without fear and in friendship?"

"Yes."

A touch of mockery in her eyes warned me neither to take the questions too seriously nor to make my answers too grave. The mockery crept into her tone with the next interrogation.

"When I don't take his advice and get into a sc.r.a.pe, says, 'I told you so. I'm all right--you get out of your sc.r.a.pe in the best way you can?'"

"Call me no friend when I say that," I answered.

"Ah!" she whispered and gave me the hand which she before had withdrawn.

"Now really!" she cried gayly, with a glance at the clock. "You go back to sleep--I have to get ready for a journey. No, don't come with me.

I'll run up to the house by myself. Good night, my--friend!"

I opened the door for her, answering, "Good night." But she had one more word for me before she went, turning her face to me, merry with a smile and twinkling eyes--

"I suppose you haven't got a wife anywhere, have you, Mr. Austin?" She ran off, not waiting for an answer.

The appearance of Mr. Powers had not cost me my place: but it had defined my position--to Jenny's complete satisfaction! It had also elicited from her some interesting observations on the value of sc.r.a.pes--the place they hold in life, and how a man--or woman--may turn them to account. I felt that I knew Jenny better for our quarrel and our talk.

CHAPTER IV

AN UNPOPULAR MAN

Miss Driver stayed away longer than her words had led me to expect.

London and Paris--the names are in themselves explanation enough. The big world was entirely new to Jenny; though she could not yet take--shall I say storm?--her place in society, much instruction, and more amus.e.m.e.nt, lay open to her grasp even in the days of her obligatory mourning. On the other hand that same period could not but be very tedious to her if pa.s.sed at Breysgate. In regard to her father's memory she felt a great curiosity and displayed a profound interest; for the man himself she could have had little affection and could entertain no real grief; in fact, though she professed and tried to forgive, she never shook herself quite clear of resentment, even though she, if anybody, ought to have come nearest to understanding his stern resolve.

That n.o.body should ever again come so near to him, or become so much to him, as to be able sorely to wound him--that was how I read his determination. Jenny ought to have been able to arrive at some appreciation of that. I think she did--but she protested in her heart that his daughter should have been the one exception. No good lay in going back to the merits of that question. In the result they had been--strangers: her mourning, then, was a matter of propriety, not the true demand of her feelings. Viewed in this light, London and Paris, surveyed from the decent obscurity of a tourist, offered a happy compromise--and bridged a yawning gulf--between duty and the endurable.

Meanwhile the Great Seal was in Commission; Cartmell, Loft, and I administered the Kingdom--Cartmell Foreign Affairs, Loft the Interior, I the Royal Cabinet. Cartmell's sphere was the largest by far--all the business both of the estate and of the various commercial interests; Loft's territory was merely the house, but his sense of importance magnified the weight of his functions; to me fell such of Miss Driver's work as she did not choose to transact herself. In fact I was kept pretty busy and was in constant communication with her. In reply to my letters I received a few notes--very brief ones--and many telegrams--very decisive ones. As I expected, it was not long before she took the reins into her own hands. In matters of business she always knew her mind--even if she did not always tell it; indecision was reserved for another department. But neither in notes, nor in telegrams did she disclose anything of her doings, except that she was well and enjoying herself.

So time rolled on; we came to the month of June--and to the Flower Show.

The great annual festivity of the Catsford Horticultural and Arboricultural a.s.sociation had always, of recent years, been held in the grounds of Breysgate Priory, and at the Mayor's request (Councillor Bindlecombe was also President of the a.s.sociation) I had obtained Miss Driver's consent to the continuance of this good custom. In Jenny's absence the Show was to be opened by Lady Sarah Lacey. I have mentioned that no open rupture had taken place between Fillingford and Breysgate--there was only a very chilly feeling. Lady Sarah came, with her brother Lord Fillingford and his son. Sir John and Lady Aspenick from Overington Grange, the Dormers from Hingston, Bertram Ware--our M.P.--from Oxley Lodge, and many others--in fact all one side of the county--graced the occasion, mingled affably with the elect of Catsford, and made themselves distantly agreeable to the non-elect. (This statement does not, for obvious reasons, apply in all its exact.i.tude to the M.P. If the bulk of the male guests were not elect, they were electors.) Everybody was hospitably entertained, but there was a Special Table, where, in years gone by, Mr. Driver himself had welcomed the most distinguished guests. His death and his daughter's absence--I fear I must add, Cartmell's also (he would have taken place of me, I think)--elevated me to this august position. In fact I had to play host, and so came for the first time into social relations with our august neighbors. I was not without alarm.

Lady Sarah questioned me about Jenny with polite but hostile curiosity.

Her inquiries contrived to suggest that, with such a father and such a childhood, it would be wonderful if Miss Driver had really turned out as well as Lady Sarah hoped. I was not surprised, and set the att.i.tude down to a natural touch of jealousy: between the two ladies t.i.tular precedence and solid power would very likely not coincide. Lord Fillingford talked to the Mayor--who sat between him and me--with a defensively dignified reserve. He was slightly built, and walked rather stiffly; he wore small whiskers, and inclined to baldness. Indisputably a gentleman, he seemed to be afflicted with an unreasonable idea that other people would not remember what he was; a good man, no doubt, and probably a sensible one, but with no gift for popularity. His handsome son easily eclipsed him there. At this time young Lacey was bordering on eighteen; he out-topped his father in stature as in grace. He was a singularly attractive boy with a hearty gayety, a flow of talk, and an engaging conviction that everybody wanted to listen. Childless old Mrs.

Dormer was delighted to listen, to feast her eyes on his comeliness, and to pet him to any extent he desired.

As a whole the company was a little stiff, and the joints of conversation rather in want of oiling, until they struck on that most fruitful and sympathetic subject--a common dislike. The victim was our neighbor and tenant at Hatcham Ford, Leonard Octon. I knew him, for he had been something of a friend of old Mr. Driver's, and had been accorded free leave to walk as he pleased in the park; I had understood--and could well understand--that he was not generally liked, but never before had I realized the sum of his enormities. He had, it seemed, offended everybody. Charitable young Lacey did indeed qualify the a.s.sertion that he was a "bounder" by the admission that he was afraid of n.o.body and could shoot. All the other voices spoke utter condemnation. He had got at odds with town, county, and church. His opinions were considered detestable, his manners aggressive. On various occasions of controversy he had pointed out to the Rector of Catsford that the pulpit was not of necessity a well of truth, to the Mayor that a gilt chain round his neck had no effect on the stuff inside a man's head, to Sir John Aspenick that one might understand horses and fail to understand anything else, to a large political meeting that of all laws mob-law was the worst, to Lord Fillingford that the rule of intelligence (to which Octon wished to revert) was no more the rule of country gentlemen than of their gardeners--perhaps not so much--and so on. These outrages were not narrated by the victims of them: they were recalled by sympathetic questions and reminders, each man tickling the other's wound. It could not be denied that they made up a sad catalogue of social crimes.

"The fellow may think what he likes, but he needn't tread on all our toes," Sir John complained.

"A vulgar man!" observed Lady Sarah with an acid finality.

Here, somewhat to my surprise, Fillingford opposed. He was a dry man, but a just one, and not even against an enemy should more than truth be said.

"No, I don't think he's that. His incivility is aggressive, even rough sometimes, but I shouldn't call it vulgar. I don't know what you think, Mr. Mayor, but it seems to me that vulgarity can hardly exist without either affectation in the man himself or cringing to others. Now Octon isn't affected and he never cringes."

Bindlecombe was a sensible man, and himself--if Fillingford's definition stood--not vulgar.

"You know better than I do, Lord Fillingford," he said. "But I should call him a gentleman spoiled--and perhaps that's a bit different."

"Meant for a gentleman, perhaps?" suggested Lady Aspenick, a pretty thin woman of five-and-thirty, who looked studious and wore double gla.s.ses, yet was a mighty horsewoman and whip withal.

I liked her suggestion. "Really, I believe that's about it," I made bold to remark. "He is meant for a gentleman, but he's rather perverse about it."

Lady Sarah looked at me with just an involuntary touch of surprise. I do not think that, in the bottom of her heart, she expected me to speak--unless, of course, spoken to.

"I intensely dislike both his manners and his opinions--and what I hear of his character," she observed.

"I mean," Lady Aspenick pursued, "that he's been to so many queer places, and must have seen such queer things----"

"And done 'em, if you ask my opinion," interposed her husband.

"That he may have got--what? Rusty? Well, something like that. I mean--forgotten how to treat people. He seems to put everybody down as an enemy at first sight! Well, I'm irritable myself!"

Bertram Ware joined in for the first time. "At the clubs they say he's really a slave-driver in Central Africa, and comes over here when the scent gets too hot after him."

"Really," said Lady Sarah, "it sounds exceedingly likely. But if he teaches his slaves to copy his manners, they'll get some good floggings."

"That's what the fellow wants himself," growled unappeasable Sir John.

"You take it on, Johnny," counseled young Lacey. "He's only a foot taller and four stone heavier than you are. You take it on! It'd be a very sporting event."

This extract--it is no more--from our conversation will show that it was going on swimmingly. In the pursuit of a common prey we were developing a sense of comradeship which leveled barriers and put us at our ease with one another. No doubt our nascent cordiality would have sprung to fuller life--but it suffered a sudden check.

"Well, how have you all got on without me?" said a voice behind my chair.

I turned round with a start. The man himself stood there, his great height and breadth overshadowing me. His face was bronzed under his thick black hair; his mouth wore a wicked smile as his keen eyes ranged round the embarra.s.sed table. He had heard the last part of Lacey's joking challenge to Aspenick.

"What's Sir John Aspenick got to take on? What's the event?"

The general embarra.s.sment grew no less--but then it had never existed in young Lacey. He raised his fearless fresh blue eyes to the big man.

"To give you a thrashing," he said.

"Ah," said Octon, "I'm too old. I'm not like you." Lacey flushed suddenly. "And perhaps I'm a bit too big--and you're hardly that yet, are you?"

Perhaps he was too big! I noticed again his wonderful hands. They were large beyond reasonable limits of size, but full of muscle--no fat. They were restless too--always moving as if they wanted to be at work; if the work were to strangle a bull, I could imagine their being well pleased.

He might need a thrashing--but, st.u.r.dy as the sons of Catsford were, there was none in the park that day who could have given him one.