The Great Miss Driver

Cartmell was no gossip and a man of few questions unless about a horse; yet now he turned his rubicund face toward me with an air of humorous puzzle. "Any news from the house?"

"Nothing particular – just at present," I answered.

"I've looked at it this way, and I've looked at it that way, and I'm flummoxed. Why early possession – and five hundred paid for it? She can't want the house – and as business it's ridiculous. But you know her way – 'My wish, Mr. Cartmell, and please no words about it!'"

"She generally has a purpose – she doesn't act at random," I remarked.

"A purpose! Lord love you, half a dozen! And, what's more, I believe you generally know them. But, as she knows, you're devilish safe. There it is! I could make her a really rich woman if she'd let me – but with money thrown away like that, and her Institute, and what not – !" He looked as gloomy as if Jenny were on the verge of bankruptcy and all our livelihoods taking wings.

"I'll tell you one thing. I think you'll have to open the purse-strings wider still before many days are out."

He looked at me very sharply. "The marriage coming off? And a big settlement? Well, that'd be right enough. All the same, I can't say I like it, Austin. Fillingford's son! Doesn't it stick in your throat a bit?"

"I said I'd tell you one thing. I didn't say I'd tell you two or three more."

"All the town says it. My word, you should hear Mrs. Jepps! My wife says it's something terrible." He twinkled in amusement again. "Lord, it's sometimes worth being a bit staggered yourself just to see how much worse the thing takes other people!"

"Mrs. Jepps and the rest of the town had better wait a little. It's a pity to waste good indignation."

"Aye, and folks hate being cheated of a scandal they've made up their minds to."

"Scandal's a hard word in the case that you're thinking of."

"I've no great stock of words outside of a conveyance of land – there I can use as many as any man except counsel. But, to tell the truth, it goes against my stomach."

"It sticks in your throat! And it goes against your stomach! And all this before you've been even asked to swallow it! Aren't you considerably premature?"

"You think there's a chance she won't – ?" His manner was openly eager.

"Yes – but hold your tongue, and pay up your five hundred for early possession."

"Upon my soul, Austin, I never more than half believed it. But when everybody buzzes a thing into a man's ears – and his own wife first among them – and he sees no other meaning of things, why – "

"The best of us are likely to give in – yes! Well, I've got another appointment – at Alison's."

"Alison's? What have you got to do with Alison these days?"

"Come now, does your position interfere with your friendships? What have you to do with Mrs. Jepps?"

"It was my wife. I never see the old witch."

"I've no wife – so I have to face the devil on my own account."

From my talk with Cartmell I was the more anxious for the success of my other appointment. That might help to free Jenny from the danger of being made so angry as to do what she hated to do, and what faithful old Cartmell could not stomach. If anything could drive her to it, it would be a slight, a harshness, a rudeness, toward Margaret. How she had flared up at Alison's objections! If Margaret were spurned, to Jenny's mind Octon also was again spurned. Then the temper would still have to be reckoned with – the temper under disappointment as well as wrath; for Jenny built upon this interview.

Margaret was punctual at Alison's – she came spanking up in the carriage with the big gray horses the moment after I had reached the door – and we went together into the sparely furnished room where he lived and did his work. He was no bookman – his walls looked bare; his very chairs meant labor rather than rest. And he was no student – "My convictions from God, my orders from the Bishop, my time to the ministry," he had once said to me – adding then, with the touch of humor that so often softened his rigorous zeal – "I sometimes think one's Bishop is the final trial of faith, Austin." Our Bishop was a moderate man, highly diplomatic, given to quoting St. Paul as an example of adaptability. "All things to all men if by chance – " So far as the chance lay there, his lordship never missed it.

But to see Alison with Margaret obliterated any criticism left possible by his affectionate nature and (may I add?) his ingenuous consciousness of possessing absolute and exclusive truth. He had so tender a reverence for her youth and receptivity – and with it such a high gentlemanly purpose that she should not think that he held her either too young for courtesy or too receptive for intellectual respect. He had great manners, born of a loving heart. Why, after all, should he worry about reading books? Guesses about appearances – that's books – from novels up to philosophy. But how pleasant is the guessing!

She became to him at once a delighted disciple. Here was no such discrepancy of heart and head as divided him from Jenny – no appeal to another standard – no obstinate defense against his attacks behind the ramparts of her nature. Margaret's nature was his to mold – small blame to him if the thought crossed his mind that it would be to the good if she were set in a high place – if such a light burned under no bushel of obscurity!

Fillingford was announced. Alison gave me a quick glance, as though to say "Now for it!" – and the grave stern man stood on the threshold of the room. I had not seen him without his hat for a long while; he had grown gray: his figure, too, was more set; he was indisputably, even emphatically, middle-aged. His face was more lined and looked careworn. His eyes fell first on me, and there was hesitation in his manner. Alison went quickly to him and greeted him.

"We've been having a little tea-party, but I shall soon be ready for business. Austin you know. This is my friend Miss Octon."

Fillingford came forward – slowly, but with no change of expression. He bowed gravely to Margaret, and gave me his hand with a limp pressure. "I hope you're well, Mr. Austin? We've met very little of late."

Margaret was regarding him with curiosity complicated by alarm. This was Amyas Lacey's father – and Amyas had given the impression that his father was formidable; there was a knowledge in her own heart which might well make him seem formidable to her, even had his bearing been far more cordial.

"I'm afraid I've come too soon," he said. "I interrupt your party."

"Sit down with us and have a cup of tea – Miss Octon will give you one."

He did not refuse the invitation, and sat down opposite Margaret. She ministered to him with a graceful assiduity, offering her timid services with smiles that begged a welcome for them. He remained gravely courteous, watching her with apparent interest.

"I hope Miss Driver is well?" he said to me with a carefully measured civility.

Very wisely Alison did not leave the pair he had brought together to entertain one another. Plunging again into the description of his work which had so won Margaret's interest before, he enabled Fillingford to see the gay charm which he himself could not elicit. Then, branching off to herself, he got her to describe the wonderful delights of her new existence – her horse, her dog, the little room that Jenny had given her for her own snuggery at the top of the house. "I can see your chimneys from the window!" she told Fillingford with a sudden turn toward him, followed by a lively blush – how came her interest in those chimneys to be so great? Fear kept her from Lacey's name; some instinct, I think, from more than casual reference to the donor of all the fine gifts which she catalogued and praised; little reference used to be made to Fillingford at Breysgate, and perhaps she had caught the cue thus given.

"But I haven't got enough work to do," she complained gayly to Alison. "And if you would let me come and work for you – "

"I'll find you plenty of work to do," he promised. "Lots of wicked old women to visit!" He smiled at us. "I might try you on the wicked young men, too," he added. "There are lots of them about. But plenty of very good fellows, too, if only we could really get hold of them."

"Try her on Mrs. Jepps," Fillingford suggested dryly; yet the smallest unbending, the least hint of a joke, from him seemed something gained.

"That's the old lady with the fat horses, isn't it? She looks very kind and nice."

"Hum!" said Alison. Fillingford gave a wintry smile. "Mrs. Jepps and I are considered the two ogres of the neighborhood," he said.

Her little hand darted impulsively across the table toward him, and was as quickly drawn back – one of her ventures, followed by her merry confusion. "You! Oh, nonsense! I don't believe that!"

"Ah, you haven't heard all the stories about me!"

"I've only heard that you're very – really very kind and – and just." She was summoning all her courage; she was full of deprecation and appeal.

"Who told you that?"

She cast a look of dismay at me, and I came to her rescue. "Your son, of course, Lord Fillingford. We see him sometimes at Breysgate."

"I know you do." He shot out the words and shut his lips close after them.

She looked distressed and rather puzzled; after thawing a little, he had relapsed into frost at the first mention of his son. Alison seemed to think a diversion desirable.

"Before you go, I should like to show you our chapel. We have a little one of our own here. We use it in the early mornings sometimes, and for prayers after supper."

She jumped at the proposal, both for its own sake, I think, and for a refuge from her embarrassment.

"We'll be back directly," said Alison, as they left Fillingford and myself together.

Fillingford sat in silence for some moments. Then he said slowly, "I didn't know that your newcomer at Breysgate was so attractive."

Jenny had not reckoned on my being left alone with him. I had no instructions, and had to choose my own course. "I thought that perhaps Lacey would have told you about her?"

He looked me in the face with his heavy deliberate gaze. "We don't often speak of his visits to Breysgate." He paused and then added, with something of restrained vehemence in his tone, "I don't care to ask either the number or the object of his visits – and he hasn't volunteered any information to me on either point."

"His visits are frequent," I remarked. "As to their object – "

"I don't think we need discuss that – you and I, Mr. Austin."

"I was only going to say that we could neither of us do more than guess at it."

For a moment he lost his self-control. "I hope to Heaven my guess is wrong – that's all," he said hotly.

Surprised out of reserve, he leaned forward toward me, with a sudden look of eagerness in his eyes. "I should like to know what you mean by that – if you're at liberty to tell me."

"I'd sooner not. It would come better from your son, I think."

"I prefer not to talk to my son about the matter just now. I might wrong him. I have many worries just now – business and others – and I don't trust myself to discuss it with him with all the calmness which I should desire."

"I'm afraid I can do no more than venture to advise you not to come to any conclusion prematurely."

He broke out again; it was evident that he was living under a strain which taxed his endurance sorely. "But Amyas is always there! And she – !"

The sound of Alison's voice came from the hall. "Hush! They're just coming back. You must wait and see."

A light broke over his face. "You can't possibly mean that it's this girl?" There was undoubted relief in his tone – but utter surprise, too, and even contempt. "Oh, but that's on all grounds utterly ridiculous!"

They were in the room again. "Don't say so, don't say so," I had just time to whisper.

Margaret came in, laughing and merry, recovered from her confusion, delighted with the chapel, she and Alison one another's slaves. While she worshiped him, she had almost got to ordering him about; she laughed at her own airs, and he industriously humored them. They were a pretty sight together. The grave careworn man at my side watched them, as I thought, with a closer interest. But it was time for us to go – Lord Fillingford's business had been long awaiting – and Margaret began to make her farewells, extracting from Alison a promise that she should come again soon, and that he would come again soon to Breysgate. I think that this was the first Fillingford had heard of his having been at Breysgate at all; his eyes looked wary at the news.

Margaret came to him. "Good-by, Lord Fillingford," she said with shy friendliness.

He looked intently at her. "I'm glad to have met a friend of my son's," he said gravely. She blushed again; he turned to me with brows knit and eyes full of brooding question.

On the way home Margaret was silent for a while; then she asked, "Did Lord Fillingford know my father?"

"Yes, he knew him slightly."

"Were they friends?"

"Well, no, I don't think they were, particularly. Not very congenial, I fancy."

"No, they wouldn't be," she agreed. "Father would have thought him dull and pompous, wouldn't he? But I think I should get to like him and" – she smiled audaciously – "I believe I could make him like me. He looks sad, though, poor man! Though I suppose he's got everything!"

"A good many worries included, I think, Margaret."

"He spoke of Lord Lacey as if he was fond of him." The smile lingered on her lips. I think that she was day-dreaming of how, if he were fond of Lacey, he would be fond of what Lacey loved, and that so she might soothe him over his worries and take the lines out of his painful brow. "Anyhow I'm very glad I've met him."

I was glad of that, too – on the whole. The interview had gone as well as could be expected. Margaret had won no such sudden and complete victory as had attended the beginning of her acquaintance with Alison. Fillingford was not the man to yield a triumph like that; he was far too slow and wary in his feelings, too suspicious and afraid of efforts to approach him; he had, besides, a personal grudge against Breysgate that must needs go deeper than Alison's enforced but reluctant disapproval of the mistress of that house. His words had not been encouraging – "on all grounds utterly ridiculous!" Yet there had been kindness in his grave tones when he told her that he was glad to have met a friend of his son's. I wondered whether Jenny would be content with this somewhat mixed result – and what she would say to the share I had taken in the interview.

I got no chance of making my report to her till late at night, for Cartmell came to dinner – to talk business – and the two were busy discussing Oxley Lodge. Cartmell was still sore about the price, especially sore about that five hundred pounds to satisfy a mysterious whim for early possession. But Jenny was radiant over her new acquisition, and full of merriment at the story of Aspenick's sulky comments.

"Really I think they've every right to hate me – and I suppose they do. But I can't stand still just because the Aspenicks have stood still for six hundred years, can I? Anyhow I think he'll be quite safe about the wire. His new neighbors will probably be hunting people themselves."

Cartmell pricked up his ears. "Hunting people, will they? Well, that's good. I didn't know who – "

"No more do I yet – exactly," she laughed, obviously enjoying his baffled curiosity, and casting a glance across at me for my sympathy in the joke. "But I'll have people of a good class, Mr. Cartmell – no one to offend his high nobility! No tradesman's son at Oxley! Breysgate is bad enough!" Her eyes dwelt for a moment on Margaret. "And Margaret tells me that she's made a conquest of Mr. Alison, and, as a consequence, is going in for all manner of good works."

Cartmell did not follow the connection of her thoughts, and she laughed again at that.

"I'm quite serious about it, Jenny," Margaret protested.

"Of course you are, my dear, I'm very glad of it. And I believe it would appeal even to Lady Aspenick!"

At last we were alone together – just before I said good night.

"Margaret has told me some of her impressions. What are yours?" she asked.

"I think that, on the whole, we did fairly well. I also think that Margaret and I between us pretty well let the cat out of the bag."

"Oh, you did! How was the animal liked?"

"It was pronounced ridiculous – on all grounds ridiculous!"

"Was it? We shall see." Jenny looked dangerous.

"But all the same it was thought better than – the fox."

"Ah!" she cried eagerly. "Better than the fox!" Her eyes sparkled. "Tell me all you can remember."

I told her my tale, not forgetting what had passed between Fillingford and myself when we were alone.

"Not so bad! I think we'll go ahead now!" said Jenny.