The Great Miss Driver

But if flirting – a thing pleasant in itself, an exercise of essentially feminine power – it was also purposeful flirting. She conciliated the new owner of Hingston, who had his position – who also had his outlying farms; and again she drove a wedge – this time into Lord Fillingford's house-party.

"I'm so glad you can come," she said to Lacey. "I want you to meet Margaret so much." She paused for a second. "Miss Octon, you know." She looked him very straight in the face as she spoke.

"It's very good of you to let me," he said. "I hear she's charming."

"I'm sure the Priory needs no additional attraction." This from Dormer in the dog-cart.

To one who knew Jenny well it was possible to see that this speech was not wholly to her liking – but Dormer was not allowed to see it. He received a passing but sufficient smile of graciousness before she gave the hearty thanks of her eyes to Lacey. "She is charming – you'll think so." A second's pause again, and then – "It's really very good to see you. Some day – a ride? Margaret's having lessons down in the town. Austin can ride still, although he has taken to writing books. We shall make quite a cavalcade."

"I say, don't leave me out, Miss Driver." This, again, from Dormer in the dog-cart.

"You live too far off."

"You try me and see!" he protested. Evidently he was very well pleased with the progress which his short acquaintance was making.

Lacey shook hands with her again. "To-morrow at half-past one, then – both of you!" she said. He turned away – was it reluctantly? – and got into the cart. With wavings of hands and hats the two young men drove off. Jenny stood looking after them.

"What brought you here?" I asked.

"The sight of those young men," answered Jenny, smiling. "May I come into your house? Do you remember how I came in first?"

"I remember; we had parted forever in the afternoon."

"Things are generally like that. The people who seem transient stay, the people who seem permanent go. I'm glad you seemed transient, Austin." She was in my room now, thoughtfully looking round it as she talked.

"Lacey came here to ask whether you would like him to call."

"Of course I should like him to call."

"Against his father's wishes. Lord Fillingford did not forbid him to come, but expressed his hope that the relations between the two houses would be kept as distant as courtesy allowed. I told Lacey that, in view of his father's wish, it would be better for him not to call. He said he'd think it over. It was a question between loyalty to his father and admiration of you."

"Admiration?" Jenny was listening with a slight smile.

"Rather, of your behavior – especially about Margaret. He's enthusiastic about that – he thinks it splendidly brave. In case he decided against calling, he wanted you to know that."

"He would have decided against it?"

"I can't tell. He meant to think it over."

"I came down just by accident. I was going for a stroll when I saw you. And I came down on the chance – the chance of something amusing, Austin." She frowned a little. "I don't think I much like Mr. Dormer."

"Rather a conceited fellow."

She broke into a smile again. "But he may come in very convenient."

"To his own profit and comfort?"

"I think conceited people must take the chance of that. They expose themselves."

"To being robbed of their farms by deceitful wiles?"

"He'd get a very good price for his farms," said Jenny. I do not think that her mind had been occupied with the question of the farms. She was looking thoughtful again. "I don't think I quarrel with what Lord Fillingford said," she added.

"Not unnatural perhaps."

"I've never had any quarrel with Lord Fillingford," she said slowly. "Or only one – a woman's quarrel. He never fell in love with me. If he had, perhaps – !" She shrugged her shoulders. "But all that sort of thing is over now."

"Did it look so like it this afternoon?"

"Didn't we agree that I was – marriageable? Didn't you say that being marriageable was an asset – even though one didn't marry?" She came suddenly closer to me. "I've no right to ask you to trust me. I didn't trust you – I deceived you deliberately, carefully, grossly – and yet I expected you to help me – and took your help with very little thanks. Still – you stayed. Stay now, and don't think too badly."

"I don't think badly at all – why, you know it! But I must have my fun out of it."

"So you shall, Austin!" she laughed, with one of her sudden transitions to gayety. "I'm the fox, and you're the huntsman! Well, I'll try to give you a good run for your money – if you can follow the scent!"

"Through all your doubles?"

"Through all the doubles that lead me to my – earth!"

A dainty merry little face looked in at my window. "Oh, I've tracked you at last, Jenny!"

"Is everybody tracking me?" asked Jenny, her eyes mischievously mocking. "Run round to the door and come in, Margaret." She added quickly to me, "I'm glad she didn't come when they were here. I'm saving her up till to-morrow!"

The child came in and ran to Jenny. "Oh, what a delightful little room, Mr. Austin! Did my father ever come here?"

"Yes, pretty often," I answered. "We were friends, you know."

"Yes, and he hadn't many friends. Had he, Jenny?"

Jenny stooped down and kissed her. "Come, we'll go for our walk – to look at Hatcham Ford," she said.

"Shall we go inside?"

"It's all shut up," said Jenny.

CHAPTER XX

LIVING PIECES

Jenny had now on the board all the pieces needed for her great combination – embracing, as it did, the restoration of her own position, the regaining of Catsford's loyal allegiance, the extension of her territory and influence in the county, and "doing the handsome thing by" Margaret. Nobody who watched her closely – both what she did and the hints of her mind which she let fall – could long doubt which of these objects was paramount with her. It was the last. The others were, in a sense, no more than means to it; though in themselves irresistible to her temperament, necessary to her happiness, and instinctively sought by her, yet in the combination they stood subsidiary to the master-stroke that was to crown her game and redeem the pledge which she had given to Leonard Octon as he lay dying. But doing the handsome thing by Margaret carried with it, or, rather, contained within itself, as Jenny conceived the position, another object to which in its turn it was, if not subsidiary, so closely related as to be inseparable. Fate had severed her life from Octon's; Jenny imperiously refused to accept the severance as complete. Octon, the man she loved, had been at odds with the neighborhood, had been scorned and rejected by it; she herself had openly disgraced him at its bidding; because she had not been able to resist his fascination, she had herself fallen into disgrace. She meant now to obliterate all that. For him she could directly do nothing; she would do everything for his name and for the girl whom he had left. She would vindicate – or avenge – his memory; she would even glorify it in the person of his daughter. That was the ultimate impulse which gave birth to her combination and dictated its moves; the achievement of that end was to be its consummation.

It was not a selfish impulse; it had indeed a touch of something quixotic and fanciful about it – this posthumous victory which she sought to win for Octon, this imposing of him in his death on a society which would have nothing of him while he lived, this proud refusal to court or to accept oblivion for him or for her friendship with him, this challenge thrown out to his detractors, in his name, as it were from his grave. Her personal restoration and aggrandizement, if welcome in themselves, were also necessary to this final object. The object itself was not self-seeking save in so far as she stood identified with the cause which she championed. Yet on the realization of it she did not scruple to bring to bear all the resources and all the arts which would have been appropriate to the most cold and calculating selfishness. Everything was pressed into the service – the resources of her own wealth, the opportunities afforded by the needs of her neighbors, Catsford's appetite for holidays and feasts, as well as its aspirations toward higher education; her own youth and attractiveness no less than Margaret's beauty; the wiles and the cunning by which she gained power over men. She spent herself as lavishly as she spent her money; she was as ready to sacrifice herself as she was eager to make use of others. She seized on every new ally and fitted him into her scheme. Dormer had appeared at the last moment – by happy chance. In a moment she saw where he could be of use, laid her hand on him, and pressed him into the service. He became a new piece on the board; he had his place in the combination.

Delicate and difficult is the game when it is played with living pieces. They may refuse to move – or may move in the wrong direction. There was one piece, of supreme importance in the scheme, which she must handle with rarest skill if he were to be induced to move at her bidding and in the direction that her combination required. He was to be the head and front of the final attack; at the head of the opposing forces stood his father! She must be very sure of her control over that piece before she tried to move it! Only when he had been brought wholly under her sway could the process of impelling him in the desired direction safely be begun.

Yes, Fillingford was the great enemy. Round him gathered all the opposition to her, her proceedings, and her pretensions; he lay right across her path, and must be conquered if her schemes were to win success. She was not bitter against him; she was ready to admit that he had the right to be bitter against her. She shared his pride too much not to appreciate his attitude. She respected him, in a way she liked him – but she was minded to fight him to the death if need be, and to use against him every weapon that she could find – even those that came from his own household. If he fell before her attack, the whole campaign would be won. But it was preposterous to suppose that he ever would? Jenny knew the difficulties, but neither did she underestimate her own resources. A long purse, a long head, and two remarkably attractive young women – these formed the nucleus of her forces; they represented a power by no means to be despised in whatever field they might be brought into action.

I was at the luncheon-party – "to talk to Chat," said Jenny; but in fact I had fallen into the habit of lunching at the Priory. Jenny had human weaknesses, and, from this time on, manifested a liking for a sympathetic audience – which she could find only in me. Chat was not, in her judgment, "safe"; she was too leaky a vessel to be trusted with the drops of confidence – carefully measured drops – which Jenny was pleased to let fall. Besides, she needed, now and then, a little help.

The young men arrived in high spirits, and Jenny, flanked by Chat and myself – Margaret was not down from changing after her riding lesson – received them gayly. They had a joke between themselves, and it was not long in coming out. They had been compelled to dodge Lady Sarah; only a bolt up a side road had prevented them from meeting her carriage face to face just outside Breysgate Park.

"You're playing truants, I'm afraid!" said Jenny, but with no air of rebuke.

Loft announced lunch; we went in without waiting for Margaret. She did not appear till we had been eating for ten minutes. By that time Jenny had both her guests well in hand. If her manner to Dormer was cordial, yet it lacked the touch of intimacy, of old-time friendliness, which she had for Lacey. But neither was she any longer so candidly Lacey's friend – and so definitely nothing else – as she had once thought it politic to become. She did not now hold her wiles in leash; she loosed them in pursuit of him, even as in the earliest days of their acquaintance.

The door opened. Jenny's eyes flew quickly to it; she stopped talking and seemed to wait for something. Margaret came running in, her hair bright in the summer sun, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks glowing – the very picture of radiant youth and beauty. Only a few feet separated me from Lacey. I heard him say "By Jove!" half under his breath.

Jenny heard, too. "Here's Margaret," she said. The girl ran to her, took her hand, and began to make a thousand excuses for being late.

"And, after all the rest, that nice clergyman stopped me on the road and talked to me!"

"You mean Mr. Alison? He stopped you?" Jenny looked interested. "What did he say?"

"Oh, nothing – only that he'd known my father, and that he hoped I was very happy. Of course I am – with you!"

"There's your place – between Mr. Dormer and Austin. Sit down, or Loft won't give you any lunch."

Between Dormer and me was opposite Jenny and Lacey – Chat and I each sitting at an end of the oblong table. Jenny showed no remission in her efforts to keep Lacey amused – indeed she rather engrossed him, and the other four of us talked together. But from time to time his eyes strayed across the table – and once he caught Miss Margaret studying his handsome face with evident interest. The girl blushed. Jenny was smiling contentedly as she regained her guest's attention.

Dormer made great play with the pretty girl. It did not take long to discover that this was Dormer's way. He had the gift – one enviable to slow-tongued folk like myself – of a perpetual flow of small talk; this he peppered copiously – I must confess to thinking that it needed seasoning – with flirtation, more or less obvious – generally more. He plied Margaret with the product, much to her apparent liking; she was at her prettiest in her timid fencing with his compliments, her shy enjoyment, her consciously daring little excursions into coquetry. But Dormer's eyes were not all for his own side of the table either; he made an effort or two to draw Jenny into conversation; he often looked her way. With those two in the room together, a man might well be puzzled to decide on which face to turn his eyes. Jenny assisted Dormer's choice. She would not be drawn by him – she was still for Lacey. The two couples talked, Chat and I falling out of the conversation; we could not condescend to call commonplaces across the space that divided us, and Chat and I seldom talked anything else to one another.

After lunch we all went into the garden – except Chat, who always took a siesta when she could. Here Jenny carried off Dormer, to see the hothouses – it was time to be civil to him. I fancied that she would not be vexed if I left Lacey and Margaret to a tête-à-tête, so, when they proposed strolling, I was firm for sitting, and we parted company. I could watch them as I sat. The two were getting on very well. For a little while I watched. My cigarette came to an end – I followed Chat's excellent example and fell asleep.

I awoke to find Jenny standing beside me. She was pulling a rose to pieces and smiling thoughtfully. Our guests had, it seemed, departed; Margaret was visible in a hammock under a tree at the other end of the lawn.

"I've really had to be quite shy with Mr. Dormer in the hothouses," she said. "He's such a ladies' man! And he's gone away with the impression that that's the sort of man I like. He has pointed out that Hingston is only fifteen miles off, and that he has a motor car and can do the distance in twenty-two – or was it twenty-seven? – minutes, so that lots can be seen of him, if desired. He has hinted that this is, after all, a lonely life for me – for a person of my gifts and attractions – and has congratulated me on the growing prosperity of Catsford. What do you make of all that, Austin?"

"Perhaps you told him that you wanted a bit of his land?"

"Mr. Cartmell would never have forgiven me if I'd let slip such a propitious opportunity. I did."

"It rather looks as if he wanted all of yours," I suggested.

"Then he communicated to me the impression that, in his opinion, Lord Lacey was considerably smitten with Eunice Aspenick and that the match might come off. In return for which I managed, I believe, to convey to him a sort of twofold impression – first, that I might possibly marry myself – some day; secondly, that, when I did, Margaret would be dismissed with a decent provision – a small addition to the little income which she has from her father. For reasons of my own I laid some stress on the latter half of that impression, Austin." She was looking over to where Margaret lay in the hammock. "She's very young," she said softly, "and of course, the man's glib and in a way good-looking."

"Are you beginning to feel a little responsible? It's easy work, marrying off other people!"

"But they make such a beautiful pair!" she pleaded. She did not mean Margaret and Dormer. "I love just to see them together. And the idea of it! How Leonard would have laughed! Can't you hear that great big outrageous guffaw of his breaking out over it? But you don't think I'd force her?"

"No. And he's a fine lad. You wouldn't be going far wrong."

"She's very young. She might – make a mistake. I thought Mr. Dormer had better understand her real situation."

"O mistress of many wiles, I understand! But is Lacey to share the impression?"

"I should like him to – up to the last possible minute. And then – the fairy godmother! It's all on the old-fashioned lines – but I like it." Her voice dropped. "The old, mischievous, none-too-respectable fairy godmother, Austin!"

"Suppose the fairy godmother seemed not so very old herself – that mischief proved attractive – that – ?"

"Impossible – with her here! Oh, you really think so, only you're always so polite. But anything short of – of that – would be quite within the four corners of the scheme." She laughed at me, at her schemes, at herself; yet about the two last she was in deadly earnest. So she grew grave again in a moment. "He'd have to get over so much to make that seem even possible."

Well, that was true enough. Fillingford's son – the accomplice of my evening expedition to Hatcham Ford! There was something to get over, certainly. But there was something to get over in the other plan, too.

"Still, I don't mind its seeming – just possible," said Jenny. She looked at me with an air of wondering how I should take what she was going to say. "It might just be made to seem – a danger!"

"This is walking on a razor's edge, isn't it?"

"Yes – it is rather. Mr. Dormer's got to help a little. I don't like him, Austin."

"No more do I – since you mention it. And you'd have no pity for him either?"

"I shall get his bit of land, but he won't get all mine," said Jenny, serenely pitiless. "He plays his game – I'll play mine. We neither of us stake our hearts, I think. You can't stake what you've never had – or what you've lost." She stood silent for a minute, looking down to where the smoke of busy Catsford rose in a blue mist between us and the horizon. "He's just ridiculous, but he serves my turn. No need to talk any more about him!"

Margaret tumbled herself out of the hammock with a grace which was entirely accidental and narrowly skirted a disaster to propriety. She came across the lawn, yawning and laughing. "I've been asleep, Jenny," she cried, "and having wonderful dreams!"

Jenny's face lit up with an extraordinary tenderness. She drew the girl to her and stroked her hair. "Why did you wake up? It's a pity to wake up when the dreams are wonderful."

"Oh, but waking up's great fun, too! Everything's great fun at Breysgate."

Stroking Margaret's hair, Jenny looked down at me in my wicker arm-chair. "I've been having fun, too – telling Austin secrets!"

"Tell me some."

"The day after to-morrow – or just about then!" laughed Jenny.

The ensuing days were full of triumph for Jenny. Her munificent donation was gratefully and enthusiastically accepted; a new Committee, composed of members of the Corporation, was appointed to take in hand the erection of the Institute immediately; there was no danger of this Committee's adjourning sine die! Her holiday and her feast went off in a blaze of success. She received a wonderful ovation from the town; there was no appearance of her being ostracized by the county. She came out to greet her guests, supported by the Aspenicks, by Dormer, even by Lacey; it was significant that the last-named should appear on so public an occasion. His presence compromised the attitude of Fillingford Manor; though its master was not there, though the lady who presided over the house was severely absent, the heir was there – and there, evidently, on terms of friendship and intimacy.

Lady Aspenick came, I think, not merely because she was committed to civility; she also desired to spy out the land, to get some light on the situation. Lacey's visits to Breysgate were becoming frequent; they had not passed unnoticed by vigilant eyes in the neighborhood, and the report of them had reached Overington Grange. Did Lacey brave the disapproval of his family for nothing? While Eunice joined the gay group which followed Jenny as she made a progress round the tables, Lady Aspenick fell to my share.

"All this is a great triumph for Jenny's friends," she remarked. "Those of us who have been her friends all through, I mean."

"It must be very gratifying to you, Lady Aspenick."

"I have been loyal," she said with candid pride, "and I am loyal still, although, as I told you, I can't approve of everything she does." Her eyes were on the group in front of us, where Lacey walked between Eunice and Margaret. Dormer was escorting Jenny, with the new Mayor of Breysgate on her other side.

"She has her own way of doing things," I murmured. "Sometimes they come off."

"Amyas Lacey here, too! How is that regarded at the Manor?"

"You ask me – but I shouldn't wonder if you knew better than I do," said I, smiling.

"Well, I admit I know Lady Sarah's views; she makes no secret of them. I was thinking of – well, of his father, you know. He doesn't share these visits!"

"If common gossip was right, there's an obvious explanation of that."

"Yes, but it seems to me to apply to the son almost as strongly." She turned her eyeglasses sharply round to my face. "Having jilted his father – "

"I didn't say I believed the common gossip; but even the fact of its having existed might make him shy of – "

"Oh, come, we both know a good deal more than that about it! However, let's hope they'll make it up – through Amyas. He can act as peacemaker, and then we may have the wedding after all!"

Lady Aspenick's voice failed to carry conviction. It was borne in upon me that she did not believe in her own forecast – that she knew very well, from information gleaned in the enemy's camp, that there was small chance of Lacey's effecting a reconciliation, and none at all of a marriage between Jenny and Fillingford coming off. She threw out the suggestion as a feeler; another possible alliance was really in her mind. She might elicit some hint about that; if people spoke truly, she was interested in the subject for her daughter's sake. Was it possible that Jenny, having lost the father, would annex the son? That was in her mind. It would be rather a strong thing to do – but then, Lady Aspenick would retort, "Only look at the things she does!" The woman who brought Margaret Octon to Breysgate – would she hesitate at capturing young Lacey if she could?

"I can only say that in my opinion it's not at all likely, and has never entered Miss Driver's head."

"Then it's very funny that Amyas should come here so much!"

"Young men like young company," I remarked.

"It's not quite the only house in the neighborhood where there's young company," she retorted sharply. My remark had certainly rather overlooked the claims of Overington Grange.

She said no more, perhaps because her fish – my humble self – did not bite, perhaps merely because at that moment the Mayor of Catsford began to make a speech, highly eulogistic of Jenny and all her works. Lady Aspenick listened – or at least looked on (listening was not easy) – with an air which was distinctly critical.

Dormer was remarkably jubilant that day – perhaps as a result of his exchange of impressions with Jenny in the hothouses. He danced attendance on her constantly and was evidently only too glad to be seen in her train. Jenny received his homage with the utmost graciousness; he might well flatter himself that he stood high in her favor. There was a familiarity in his manner toward her which grated on my nerves; it had been there from his first meeting with her. It looked as though he thought that her past history gave him an advantage, and entitled him to consider himself a better match for her than he would have been held to be for another woman in her position. Perhaps Jenny would have had no right to resent such an idea; at any rate she showed no signs of resenting his behavior. She let him almost monopolize her – saving the Mayor's official rights – leaving Lacey to the care of Eunice Aspenick and of Margaret.