The Great Miss Driver

So the life was out of the big man – and he had been so full of it. That was strange to think of.

Somehow he seemed incompatible with death. I remember drawing a long breath as I said to myself "Dead!" and thought grewsomely of the carrying out of that great coffin – with all the mighty weight of him inside; even dead he would oppress men by size, insolently crushing their shoulders with his bulk. "Part of the objection to me is because I'm so large," he had said. Even the undertaker's men would share in that objection. "I shall certainly be stamped out. Ah, well, small wonder – and what a pity!"

He had a power over me; something of his force had reached me, too – or my thoughts would not have dwelt on him so long; they would have turned sooner to Jenny. To what end? Her message forbade the one thing which it was in my mind to do – go to her directly. She would not have it; she would be – as she was – alone. I had no thought of disobedience – only a great sorrow that I must obey. I read the telegram again. "Jenny Driver!" She had hesitated too long. Ways could not be kept open forever. Mr. Powers had taught her this truth once, and she had not hearkened. Death himself came to enforce the lesson. She stood no longer between the fascination that she loved and feared and the independence which she cherished and yet wearied of. She was free perforce; the tenure of her liberty was no longer precarious; and the joy of her heart was dead. Her equipoise – another of her delicate balancings – was hopelessly upset; when Death flung his weight into one of her scales, the other kicked the beam.

So long as I was alone, it did not occur to me to think of the bearings of the event – and of its announcement – on her outward fortunes. My mind was with herself – asking how she faced the thing, in what mood it left her; nay, going back to the days before it, viewing them in the alien light of their sudden end. Not what would be said or thought, but what was, engrossed my meditation. Death brings that color to the mind; it takes us "beyond these voices." But they who live must soon return within hearing.

I did not hear Cartmell come in – I had been out before breakfast, and I believe I had left my door ajar. His hand was on my shoulder before I was aware of his presence. He held a morning paper in his hand, but he did not show it to me directly. He looked down in my face as I sat in my arm-chair and then said, "You've heard, haven't you?"

"Yes," I answered, giving him Jenny's telegram.

He read it. "This must be between you and me, Austin. So far, there's nothing in the paper to show that she was there – to show who the woman was, I mean."

"The woman?"

"The woman mentioned in the paper. Read it." He pushed it into my hand. His practical mind did not waste itself in memories or speculation; it flew to the present need. I had lost myself in wonderings about the man and the woman; he was concerned solely with our local institution – Miss Driver of Breysgate. He was right.

The telegram in the paper came from Reuter's news agency. "A quarrel in the Café de l'Univers last night resulted in a duel this morning, in which an Englishman named Octon was mortally wounded at the first fire. He subsequently expired at the house of a lady, understood to be Mrs. Octon, in the Rue Balzac, to which he had been carried at his own request."

Beneath was a short paragraph stating that it was conjectured that the "deceased gentleman" was "Mr. Leonard Octon, the well-known traveler and entomologist." On inquiry at his publishers', those gentlemen had stated that Mr. Octon was, to their knowledge, traveling in France.

"Not much harm done if it stops there," said Cartmell, thoughtfully rubbing his hands together.

"How can it? There'll have to be an inquest – or something corresponding to it, I suppose?"

"She's very clever."

"Will she care about being clever?" I asked, studying the paragraph again. "Understood to be Mrs. Octon" had a smack of Jenny's own ambiguity and elusiveness. And it hardly sounded as though the house to which he had been carried at his own request were the house where he himself had been lodging.

"Of course it'll be all over Catsford in an hour. There's no helping that. But, as I say, there's no particular harm done yet."

"They'll guess, won't they?"

"Of course they will; but there's all the difference between guessing and having it in print. We must wait. I've got to go out of town – and I'm glad of it."

I did not go away, but I hid myself. The only person I saw that day was Chat: she was entitled to the news.

Telling her was sad work; her devotion to Octon rose up against her accusingly. She railed at herself for all her dealings with Jenny; old-time delinquencies in duty at the Simpsons' dressed themselves in the guise of great crimes; she had been a guilty party to Jenny's misdemeanors; they had led to this.

"I shall have to render an account for it," said poor Chat, rocking her body to and fro, as was her habit in moments of agitation: her speech was obviously reminiscent of church services. "If I had done my duty by her, this would never have happened." I am afraid that "this" meant the scandal, rather than any conduct which gave rise to it. But if Chat were going to be so aggressively penitent as this, the case was lost.

"We must hope for the best – and, anyhow, put the best face on it," I urged.

Chat cheered up a little. "Dear Jenny is very resourceful." Cartmell had observed that she was clever. I was waiting with a vague expectancy for some move from her, some turn or twist in her favor. We had not lost faith in her, any of us; the faith had become blind – if you will, instinctive – surviving even the Waterloo of her flight and this calamitous tragedy.

Were we wrong? Only the future could show that; but the next day brought us some encouragement. There was a fuller paragraph, confirming the conjectured identification of Octon, giving a notice of his work, and the name of his opponent in the duel – an officer belonging to an old family distinguished for its orthodox Catholic opinions. "The quarrel is said to have originated in a discussion of religious differences." That sounded quite likely, and relieved the fear that it might have sprung from a more compromising origin. Then came – well, something very like an apology for that phrase about the lady "understood to be Mrs. Octon." The lady was not, it now appeared, Mrs. Octon; she was "a Miss Driver" (A Miss Driver – that would sound odd to Catsford!) to whom the deceased gentleman was engaged to be married. This Miss Driver had taken a house in the Rue Balzac, where she was residing with another lady, her friend: the deceased gentleman had recently arrived at the Hôtel de l'Univers; notice of their intended marriage had been given at the British Consulate three days before the fatal occurrence. A few days more would have seen them man and wife. "Much sympathy is felt for the lady under the very painful circumstances of the case. It is understood that she will leave Tours immediately after the funeral."

It would hardly be doing Cartmell a wrong to describe him as gleeful; the statement was so much less damaging than might have been expected. To the world at large it was, indeed, not damaging at all; it rather appealed to sympathy and invested Jenny with a pathetic interest. In Catsford the case was different: there was the flight, the silence, the interval. But even for Catsford we had a case – and the difference between even a bad case and no case at all is, in matters like this, enormous.

What was the truth of it? It was not possible to believe that the notice to the Consulate was a mere maneuver, a pretense, and a sham. She was neither so cold-blooded nor so foolish as that – and Octon would have ridiculed such a sham out of existence. The notice to the Consulate showed that her long hesitation had at last ended – possibly on Octon's entreaties, though I continued to doubt that – possibly for conscience' sake, possibly from regard for the world's opinion. She had made up her mind to let go her "precarious liberty." But for this stroke of fate she would have become Octon's wife.

How did the stroke of fate leave her? Or, rather, leave her fame? Of herself I knew nothing – save that she would be alone. She loved an equipoise. Her fame was balanced in one now. Fillingford and Lady Sarah, Mrs. Jepps and Alison, would think still what they had thought; probably the bulk of opinion would be with them. But we had a case. We could brazen it out. Bertram Ware could still be provisional, Lady Aspenick could use the road through the park – even Eunice might ride with her; and old Mr. Dormer would scarcely strain the proprieties to breaking point if he permitted himself to be accompanied by his wife. The verdict could be "Not Proven."

A week later the French authorities forwarded to me a letter from Octon – found on his table at the hotel and written the evening before the meeting:

"My Dear Austin – I have to fight a fellow to-morrow – a very decent fellow – on the ostensible ground of my having spoken disrespectfully of the Pope, which naturally is not at all the real cause of quarrel. I rather think I shall be killed – first, for the sensible reason that he is angry (I hit him. 'Of course you did,' I hear you say) and a good shot; secondly, because she has at last elected to settle things and that offers a temptation to chance – not such a sensible reason – indeed an utterly nonsensical one, which accordingly entirely convinces me. I leave her to you. Don't try to marry her – it only worries her – but serve her well, and as you serve her, so may God Almighty, in whom I believe though you think I don't, serve you. You couldn't spend your life (you're not a great man, you know) to better account. How I have spent mine doesn't matter. I have on the credit side of the balance the discovery of five new insects. It is to be hoped that this will not be overlooked. – Yours,

"L. O."

New insects – five! Private faults – how many? What is the Table of Weights? That must be known, to strike the balance of Leonard Octon's life.

CHAPTER XVII

ONE OF TWO LEGACIES

The clouds settled down over Jenny; a veil of silence obscured her. Business letters were still exchanged through the bankers at Paris, but hers bore no postmarks; they must have arrived in Paris under cover; they came under cover to Breysgate, and thus gave no indication of her whereabouts. She was in constant communication with Cartmell about her affairs; to me she wrote much seldomer and only on necessity; to Chat she never wrote at all. To none of us, I believe, did she say a word about what had happened – and she certainly said no word to Catsford. Nor did we; her orders stood – no excuses, no explanations, no guesses. Thus starved of food, Catsford's interest at last languished; they did not forget Jenny, but talk about her catastrophe and Octon's death died down. Nobody having anything fresh to tell or any guess to make that had not been made already, the topic grew stale.

The long wait began – it was a wait to me, for I knew that she meant to come back in the end – and lasted for nearly three years. I employed an ample leisure in writing my essay on "The Future of Religious and Ethical Thought." It brought me some credit in the outside world – or rather the small part of it that cares for such speculations; but indifference was the best I hoped from Catsford – and I did not altogether achieve that. Friendship sometimes gives a writer what I may term unnatural readers – and not with the happiest results. Alison continued to be kind and cordial to me, but he would not talk about my book. Mrs. Jepps – what business had she with such a book at all? – shook her head over it, and over me, very solemnly, and, as I heard, was not slow to trace a connection between Jenny's acts and my opinions. I did the local reputation of Breysgate no good by that book, though its reception in the Press flattered my vanity considerably.

More important things happened in the neighborhood – for three years make differences in a little society. Old Mr. Dormer died, carrying off with him into the inaudible much agreeable anecdote; his cousin, a young man of thirty, reigned at Kingston in his stead. Bertram Ware was no longer M.P.; the domestic dissensions, in which Jenny had once seen an opportunity for herself, had ended in his retiring at the General Election; he was said to be sulky, and to be talking of selling his place and going away. Lacey, his majority just attained, had been put forward in his stead, and elected after a stiff fight with an eloquent stranger from London – (Bindlecombe reserved himself till Catsford should be given a borough member!) – I did not follow closely Lacey's doings – or anybody's – at Westminster, but he was assiduous in his social duties in the constituency. There was no change at Fillingford Manor, save that its master looked more definitely middle-aged, and its mistress riveted on our necks the power which Jenny's rise had threatened. Finally, Lady Aspenick's growing girl had grown, had "come out," and was a personage in our society. She was a rather pretty, tall, fair girl, great at all outdoor pursuits. The gossips had already begun to say that she would make a capital bride for Lacey – if only there were more money! The little cloud which had arisen between the two households over Jenny had naturally passed away, when absence and silence removed Jenny from the arena of discussion. None the less Lady Aspenick still used our road – and still Fillingford Manor did not.

Such was the petty chronicle. The Institute found no place in it. There nothing was done; even Bindlecombe seemed no longer sanguine. Hatcham Ford, with its windows shuttered and its gravel-path grass-grown, witnessed to a project apparently still-born, no less than it recalled the catastrophe of that last night. When I passed by, I could not help expecting to see Octon's great figure come out and slouch across the road – to smoke a pipe with Mr. Powers! He did not come, and a most respectable insurance agent now dwelt where Mr. Powers had played his unedifying game. Nor was the Flower Show any longer part of our Breysgate programme. Cartmell had offered the grounds, but the Committee preferred to accept a proposal from Fillingford. For the last two years it had been held at the Manor, and was to be held there again this year – this the third summer since Jenny left us.

Then she came back. Her return was as sudden and as unannounced as her departure, but otherwise marked by considerably more decorum.

I was writing one morning after lunch, and had wandered to the window, to seek from the empty air an improbable inspiration. Suddenly I saw the unparalleled spectacle of Loft running. Loft running! I had never associated him with running, and should about as soon have expected to see St. Paul's Cathedral dancing a fling down Ludgate Hill. But there he came, down the path from the Priory. As soon as he got near me, he shouted excitedly, "She's come back, sir, she's come back!" Then he came to a stand outside the window, and recovered his professional demeanor at the cost of some confusion. "I beg your pardon, sir, but Miss Driver orders me to tell you that she has just returned, and will be glad to see you in half an hour."

"When did she come?"

"Just in, sir – the 2.45 from London, it must be."

"How does she look?"

"Much the same as usual, sir – a little thinner in the face perhaps."

I looked at Loft; he was grinning. So, I suppose, was I. "This is good, Loft."

"You may say that, sir!"

"Did she come alone?"

"No, sir. Her maid – a Frenchwoman, I think, sir – and a young lady. If she'd brought twenty, she'd have found the house all ready for them."

"I'm sure she would. Tell her I'll come up in half an hour."

Her coming transformed everything for me; it seemed to put life into the place, life into the big dull house on the hill, life into my little den, life into that summer's day. It was the breaking of a long frost, the awakening from a stupor. The coming that I had always believed in began to seem incredible only now, when it had happened; incredible it seemed that by just walking up the hill I could see Jenny again and hear her voice. Absence and silence had rendered her so distant to sight or sound, so intangible and remote. My last clear memory of her was still at Hatcham Ford – as she asked Fillingford for the loan of his carriage, and, with "God bless you, Austin," vanished into the night. A man can, I suppose, get on without anyone, if he must; but he cannot always make out how he has managed to do it.

I found her sitting in her old place in the big drawing-room; she wore – whether by purpose or not what was in effect slight mourning, a white summer frock with touches of black. Yes, her face was a little thinner, but it had not lost its serenity. She was less a girl, more a woman – but not a woman prematurely aged.

"Dear Austin!" she said, as I kissed the hand she held out to me. "You've waited a long while – here I am at last! You've become famous in the interval – yes, you have. I've seen your book, and I wish Leonard could have read it. He'd have liked it. But though you're famous, still you waited for me!"

"I don't think you expected me to do anything else."

She smiled at me. "Perhaps not. But, do you know, I'm afraid you've done something else than grow famous. Have you grown into an old bachelor? You look rather like it."

"I expect I have," said I ruefully, and with an anxious gaze at my coat. "It's rather an old coat, isn't it?"

"And the knees of your trousers!" pursued Jenny remorselessly.

They were atrocious – there was no denying it. "There's been nobody to dress for. I'll order a new suit to-morrow."

"Things begin to move directly I come back, don't they? Is there any news in the neighborhood?"

I told her my little budget, sketching it in as lightly as I could and with as little reference to herself. She fastened on the news about Eunice Aspenick.

"Grown up, of course, by now, isn't she? And you say she's pretty. Very pretty?"

"Not so very, in my judgment. Very fresh and healthy, and rather handsome."

Jenny smiled mysteriously. "Oh, that doesn't matter – if it comes to no more than that," she said contemptuously. She saw me smiling. "Oh, yes, I'm scheming again!" she declared with a laugh. "Not for myself, though. I've done with schemes about myself."

"At five-and-twenty?"

Jenny grew grave. "Things count, not years – or, anyhow, sooner than years. Have I any friends left?"

She smiled again when I told her of Lady Aspenick's faction, and how Lady Aspenick still used the road. "Come, that's not so bad," was her comment, rather playfully than seriously given. "And you ask me no questions?" she said the next moment, rather abruptly.

"No, I don't want to ask you any questions. I was very much grieved for him."

She nodded. "When I went away with him," she said, "I burned my boats. I wanted them burned, Austin. I was so sick of doubts – and of tricks and maneuvers. Recklessness seemed fine; and everything seemed to have gone out of the world – except me and him. There was some business to be done and I did it – with the surface of my mind; it made no real part of my thoughts. There I was all hatred for what I had been doing – yes, and horrible hatred of having been found out – I'd better be frank about that. I'd been tricking – I wanted to defy. Leonard didn't mind defying either, did he? That lasted a week – ten days, perhaps. Then the old thing came back – the fear of him, the fear of it. I couldn't help it – it's so deep in my blood, Austin. He told me I ought to marry him for my own sake – for his own he was indifferent. I think he really was. I was terribly afraid but, as you must know from the papers, I agreed, and everything was in train when – he died. That was my fault partly – but only partly. The young man did – make a mistake about me – but he apologized most humbly and courteously. But Leonard wouldn't take it properly, and picked a quarrel with him the next evening."

"Then it doesn't seem to have been your fault."

"My being – vulnerable – made Leonard more, even more, than usually aggressive. That's all. They brought him back to me dying. He lived only about half an hour. We were curiously happy in that half hour – but it was terrible afterwards." She fell into silence, her eyes very sorrowful. Then she turned to me, with a gesture of her hands. "That's all the story – and it's for you alone – because you're Austin."

I took her hand for a moment and pressed it. "For me alone – I thank you."

"A thing like that seems to sweep across life like a hurricane, doesn't it? Leveling everything, destroying such a lot!"

"You've come back to build it all up again."

She smiled for a moment. "So you've found that out? But I can't build it all up. Some things I shall never try to build again. The track of the hurricane will always be left."

"Time, time, time!" said I.

"Not even time. Life's not over – but it's life with a difference. I don't complain. I accept that readily. I almost welcome it. I may cheat the world, but I won't cheat myself. I'm not at my old trick of having it both ways for myself, Austin."

She was determined to see clearly herself, but admitted no obligation to allow outsiders a view. She would not minimize the thing for herself, but was quite ready to induce the rest of the world to ignore it. It was her affair. To her the difference was made, over her life the hurricane had swept.

"I have no kith or kin; nobody is bound to me. The love of my friends is free – free to withhold, free to give. I did it for myself, open-eyed. There is nobody who has a right to harbor it against me."

And she meant that there never should be? It sounded like that.

"As a private offense against him, or her, I mean – as a personal offense. Of course they've a right to their opinions – and with their opinions I expect I should agree."

She would agree with the opinions, but did not feel bound to furnish material for them. She could hardly be blamed there. The candle and the white sheet – in open congregation – have fallen into such general disuse that Jenny could not be asked to revive them. So far she might be excused – people do not expect confessions. But she seemed to underrate what she termed "opinions" even though, as opinions, she thought that she would agree with them. On this subject neither Alison nor Mrs. Jepps would talk of "opinions"; they would use other words. When she said that there was nobody who had a right to harbor the affair against her, it was easy to understand her meaning; but her meaning did not exhaust the case. Society claims the right – and has the power – to harbor things against us; hence the gallows, the prisons, and decrees of social banishment. However, this sort of talk was confidential – between her and me only. If society were disposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, it would be very unlike Jenny not to make the thing as easy as possible for society. Often society has no objection to being "cheated"; it will let you shut its eyes to what you have done – strictly on condition that you do not so much as hint that you had any right to do it. But it was doubtful whether Jenny would find all Catsford in this accommodating temper.

"What's your opinion?" she asked abruptly.

"If I understand you rightly, you did a serious thing; on any theory and to anybody who thinks – never mind his precise views – a very serious thing. But you seem to know that well enough, and more talk about it won't mend matters."

"It was a wonderful time – my time of defiance – my time of surrender. At least I tried to make it surrender – and my greatest surrender was to consent not to go on defying. While I defied, I could surrender – because I could lose sight of everything in him. He was big enough, Austin! I seemed then to be putting the world – both worlds, if you like – quite out of sight, annihilating them for myself, saying I could get on without them if only I had Leonard – or, rather, if only Leonard would – would swallow me up!" She looked at me with one of her straight candid glances. "Well, he had no objection to that." Her lips curved in a reluctant smile. "You wouldn't expect him to have, would you? We made a plan. We were to go to Africa – somewhere in British East Africa – and live there – away from everything. Not because of fear or anything of that sort, you know – but because we felt we could get on better there. I wanted to strip myself of everything that made me distinct from him – of all I had or was, apart from him. I knew all the time that here, at home, we should be impossible together; you know I felt that because you watched the whole thing, Austin, and must have known that only that feeling could have kept me from him. Well, I could only try to drive out that fear of him by accepting all it meant – by being quite natural about it – by saying, 'I've an instinct that you'll absorb me; I yield to it – only make it easy – give it the best chance – don't keep me where all sorts of things compel me to struggle against it. Struggling isn't a possible life; perhaps surrender is. Let's try.' All this was the underlying thing – the real thing that was going on. On the top we were doing all sorts of interesting outside things – he was a wonderful companion – but this was what we were battling out all the time – how to make it work – how we could give our lives a chance of working together. We both wanted that – and we both knew that it was horribly difficult. The greatest thing about him is that he knew my side of the difficulty so extraordinarily well. Isn't that rather rare?"