Kitabı oku: «The Great Miss Driver», sayfa 2

There seemed to be a good deal in that.

Cartmell gone, we went together up the broad staircase which sprang from the center of the hall. As we passed a chair, she took off her hat and flung it down. The rich masses old brown hair, coiled about her head, caught the sun of a bright spring afternoon; she ran swiftly and lightly up the stairs. "Nice, soft, thick, carpet!" she remarked. I began to perceive that she would enjoy the incidental luxuries of her new position – and that she did enjoy the one great luxury – life. I fancied that she enjoyed it enormously.

We trod another "nice, soft, thick, carpet" for the length of a long passage and came to his door. I opened it, let her pass in, and was about to close it after her. But as we reached his room, a sudden shadow of trouble or of fear had fallen upon her – grief it could hardly be.

"No," she said. "Come in, too. Remember – he's a stranger."

To be in the room with the dead seems to be itself a partaking of death; it is at least, for a moment, a suspension of life. Yet the still welcome is not unfriendly.

She walked toward the bed alone, but in an instant beckoned to me to follow her. She bent down and moved the covering. His broad strong face looked resolute and brave as ever. It looked – to speak truth – as hard as ever also.

Her eyes were set on him; suddenly she caught hold of my hand; "Don't go." I pressed her hand, for I heard her breathing quickly. I just caught her next words: "He might have given me a chance!"

"I believe he was sorry about that at the end." She shook her head. "He's given you a big chance now."

She nodded, but absently. "How strange to – to be his doing – and he there! And then – all this!" She let go my hand, took a step forward, bent and kissed his brow quickly. "How cold!" she murmured and grasped my hand tightly again. To my fancy she seemed surprised – and relieved – that the sleeper did not stir.

We were – as I say – out of the world; we were just two creatures, living for a little while, by the side of a third who lived no more.

"You shouldn't kiss him unless you forgive," I said.

She kissed him again and drew the sheet over his face.

"He must have been a fine man. I forgive. Come, let's go."

Outside, the world was with us – and I wondering whether that was what I had really said.

At least she seemed to bear me no ill-will. "Are you free to come for a walk?" she asked. "I should like some fresh air."

"Would you like to see the gardens?"

"No – that means pottering. Take me for a good spin."

By a happy thought I remembered Tor Hill and took her there. The hill lies at the extremity of the Priory park, looking down on the road which separates our dominions from the Fillingford country; beyond the road the Manor itself can be seen by glimpses through the woods which surround it. Catsford lies in the valley to the left; away to the right, but not in sight, lay Oxley Lodge, and Overington Grange, the seat of Sir John Aspenick. Here she could take a bird's-eye view of her position and that of her nearest neighbors.

"I'm glad to see Fillingford," she remarked. "My father mentioned it – in the earlier part of that letter. He said that he had wanted to buy it, but Lord Fillingford couldn't or wouldn't sell."

"His son's consent was necessary – that's the present man – and he wouldn't give it. Indeed the story runs that he hated Mr. Driver for trying to buy."

She seemed to take as careful a view of Fillingford Manor as the distance and the trees allowed.

"My father seems to have been sorry he couldn't buy it. He seemed to think it might still be sold."

"Surely you've got enough! And, for my part, I should much prefer the Priory. It's muggy down there in the valley – though I believe it's a very fine house."

"You've not been there?"

"No. We of the Priory have had small dealings with Fillingford lately. We've kept up the forms of civility – but it's been very distant. Underneath, there's been a kind of silent feud – well, more or less silent; but I daresay that'll be all over now."

"My father wrote 'Possibly you in your way may succeed better than I in mine.'"

"Fillingford wouldn't sell. He's hard up, but he can get along. And there's always the chance of a rich marriage for his son – or even for himself."

I really spoke without any thought of a personal reference, but I perceived, directly afterward, that I might well seem to have made one; a marriage with Miss Driver would be undoubtedly rich. She gave no sign, however, of taking my remark in that sense, unless any inference can be drawn from her saying, "Oh, he's a widower?"

"He's a widower of forty, or a year or two more – and he's got a son of about seventeen – a very good-looking lad. His sister, Lady Sarah Lacey, keeps house for him, and according to local gossip is a bit of a shrew."

She began to laugh as she said with a mock sigh, "One's too old for me, and the other's too young – they must look somewhere else, I'm afraid! And then – how should I get on with the shrew? I'm rather a shrew myself – at least I've been told so."

"You'd better let them alone," I counseled her with a smile.

"Oh, no, I shan't do that," she rejoined with a decisiveness which I began to recognize as an occasional feature of her speech. "It'll be more amusing to see what they're like – presently. And what of the Dormers? My father mentioned them."

"A very nice old couple – but I fear he's failing."

A slight grimace dismissed the Dormers as not holding much interest for her.

"Oh, you won't want for neighbors. There are plenty of them, and they'll all be tremendously excited about you and will flock to call as soon as you can receive them."

"It must seem funny to them. I suppose they'd never heard of me?"

"I don't believe any of them had. Your father had no intimates, unless Mr. Cartmell can be called one. Besides – well, I'd never heard of you myself!"

"And here we are old friends!" she said graciously.

"That's very kind – but you mustn't think yourself bound to take over the secretary with the rest of the furniture."

She looked steadily in my face for several seconds, seeming to size me up – if I may be allowed the expression. Then she smiled – not gayly, yet again by no means sadly. It was the smile which I came to call later her mystery smile; and, as a general rule, it meant – in plain language – mischief. Of course, on this first day I did not attach these associations to it. It struck me as merely rather curious; as a man talks to himself, so she seemed to smile to herself, forgetting her interlocutor.

"Oh, well – stay and see how you like me," she said.

CHAPTER III
ON THE USE OF SCRAPES

We were settling down. It was a week since the funeral. The borough and the neighborhood had survived their first stupefaction at the apparition of Miss Driver; the local journals had achieved their articles, organs of wider circulation and greater dignity their paragraphs; the charities which received legacies had given thanks, those which did not were turning resigned but hopeful eyes to the future. The undertaker sent in his bill, and the Town Council discussed the project of a Driver Memorial Hall – with a hardly disguised anticipation of the quarter from which the bulk of the money was to come.

There was really not much more to do till Miss Driver's first days of mourning were over, and the fascinating speculations as to her personal gifts and qualities could look to find some satisfaction from her appearances on public and private occasions. Only Cartmell still was – and would be for weeks – busy on the labors attendant on the transfer of a great estate, and the rearrangements necessitated by the loss of an able and experienced man – a masterly worker – and the succession of a girl ignorant of business. For the rest we were, as I say, settling down. Even Cartmell's activity caused us at Breysgate no sense of bustle, for it took him to London the day after the funeral and kept him there for above a fortnight.

When I say that "we" were settling down I mean the trio formed by Miss Driver, myself – and Miss Emily Chatters. It is my duty to introduce Miss Chatters with proper formality, and I will introduce her presently – but let us take people in their order. Miss Driver had inspected her property (except the wine cellar which, to Loft's dismay, she declined to enter); she had chosen her own set of rooms and given orders for them to be entirely refurnished; she had announced her intention – and small blame to her – of extending the refurnishing process to all the sitting-rooms – at least to the sitting-rooms; she had chosen her own hack from the stables – and I have no doubt that she had done what was immediately requisite as regards her wardrobe. At any rate, an air of achievement dwelt about her. For my part I performed my duties, and began to find that I had less work to do – and more time occupied in doing it. In Mr. Driver's day we worked as few men except Mr. Driver understood work from ten to one; then, as a rule, I was free. Under the new régime we worked at a gentler pressure – a much gentler pressure – for the same morning hours; but I stayed to lunch always, I came back to tea frequently, and I returned to dinner two or three evenings in the week. My duties as secretary grew lighter, but I seemed to be assuming the functions of a companion. I may do myself the incidental justice of saying that I rather resented this tendency to transform my office; but it was not easy to resist. She was paying for my whole time as her father had paid for it; it was her right, within wide limits, to say to what uses it should be put. Or – I could go. The liberty – perhaps it is rather theoretical – of "chucking my job" remained to me as to every free-born Englishman – who sees his way to getting another whereby to live. Not that I wished to surrender mine; I was interested and – to tell the truth – I grew, within our jurisdiction, important. She approached the assumption of her power cautiously, and at first would return almost any answer to almost any letter at my suggestion. I did not expect this to last, but so it was for the moment. For instance it was I, in ultimate reality, who offered that ten thousand pounds toward the Memorial Hall. I had a great difficulty in fixing the proper figure. If I may judge from the language employed by the Mayor (Councillor Bindlecombe) in public, I exceeded all possible anticipations of munificence; in private, I am told, he confessed to having entertained a hope of fifteen thousand. I imagine that my figure was not, on a balancing of considerations, far wide of the mark. Cartmell thought five thousand would have served – but old Cartmell was a screw with other people's money. I remembered "Give handsomely when you give." So, I think, did Jenny Driver. All the same, Bindlecombe did, in my opinion, open his mouth a bit too wide.

Miss Chatters came two days after the funeral – in the new black silk dress: it rustled powerfully. She was tall, had pale-brown hair with a broad parting in the middle, a very long inquiring nose, faded blue eyes, an absolutely flat chin, and – inconceivable gentility. If we others were settling she settled far quicker. She took the bedroom next to Jenny Driver's; she annexed a small sitting-room for her own – next but one to Jenny Driver's; she had a glass of the best port every day at eleven. ("She came down to the cellar and chose the bin herself, sir," Loft informed me with a wry smile of grudge for his dearest possessions.) Yet all these acts of proprietorship – for they pretty nearly came to that – were performed with a meekness, a deprecation, a ladylikeness (I can find no other word) that made opposition seem unkind and criticism ungenerous. It was only "Poor Chat!" She had a habit of talking to Jenny in a kind of baby-language, and used to refer to herself as "Poor Chat." "Poor Chat doesn't know!" "Poor Chat's not wise!" Also she did keep talking about her name and the respectability of her descent. In fact she was a woman of a number of silly affectations and one or two exasperating foibles, and Cartmell never varied from his impromptu judgment – expressed before he had seen her – that she was a fool. It is my deliberate opinion that she wished to be thought more of a fool than she was – partly from an idea that little sillinesses and affectations were genteel, partly with the notion that they were disarming. She seemed always bent on showing you that she was not the sort of person from whom any opposition need be feared, nor any undue exercise of influence apprehended. It could only be supposed that she had found this line of conduct useful in her relations toward her employers; by contrast it flattered both their superior brains and their superior positions. I allow for her natural taste, for her standards of gentility. But she was a snob, too, "Poor Chat," and a time-server.

No harder words than those need be used about her – and they are too hard perhaps; for there is one thing to be said on the other side – and it is a thing of weight. Chat was fifty; as a governess she was hopelessly out of date; I do not suppose that she saw her daily bread secure for three months ahead. For a hundred pounds a year certain – secure from the caprice of employers or of fate – she would probably have done or been anything – even, so far as she could, honest.

But honesty alone, as she may well have reflected, does not breed security of tenure in subordinate positions. I am far from saying that it ought; on the whole I consider it to be a commoner, and therefore a cheaper and more easily obtainable – and replaceable – commodity than either a good brain or an agreeable demeanor. At any rate how easily it may come near to costing a man his place I was very soon to discover by my own experience. Well, perhaps, to honesty I ought to add a lack of diplomacy and a temper naturally hot. But I am not sure: I cannot see how any man could have done anything very different – given that he was barely honest.

"There's a person in the drawing-room with the ladies, sir," said Loft one day when I came up to tea at four o'clock.

Loft's social terminology was exact. When he said a "person" he did not mean a "gentleman" – who was a gentleman – nor a "man" – who was a member of the definitely lower orders of the community; he meant somebody in between, one of the doubtful cases.

"A Mr. Powers, sir. He's been here perhaps half an hour."

It may readily be supposed that I had not forgotten the name of Powers; the name and the incident were irrevocably – and uncomfortably – fixed in my mind. This "person" might not be the same Powers, but in overwhelming probability he was. Even if Jenny had not been in communication with him – and I did not believe that she had – the paragraphs would easily have brought about this visit – or visitation. He came scenting prey – he had read of the heiress! But why had she let him in?

"Did he give you a card, Loft?"

"Yes, sir. I took it in, and Miss Driver told me to ask the person to come in."

If it were not material, neither was it necessary to ask what Loft thought about the matter. Plainly Mr. Powers was not up to his standard for drawing-room visitors.

"Have you got the card?"

He took it from the hall table. "Mr. Nelson Powers." There was no address.

"All right, Loft. But before I join them, I want to telephone to London." Of course Mr. Driver had installed a telephone, and many a day we had kept it very busy.

By luck I got into speedy communication with Cartmell at his hotel. He heard my news. His answer was to the point: "Kick him out."

"But if I try to do that, it gives you away. You're not supposed to have told me."

"Then give me away," came back instantly. "Only get him out. He's a dangerous rascal – and not fit for any decent man or woman to talk to. How in Heaven's name she can – "

"Perhaps she's frightened," I pleaded. He answered only "Kick him out," and cut off communication.

She did not look at all frightened when I went in. She was standing opposite Powers, smiling gayly and mischievously. Powers was apparently just taking his leave. So much gained! I determined to go to the hall with him and give him a hint, on Cartmell's behalf, that he need not come again. But things were not to be as easy as that.

"Well, then, we shall see you at eight o'clock," said Jenny, giving him her hand.

"Delighted," said he, bowing low. "Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Miss Chatters." Chat was sitting by, tatting. She habitually tatted.

"This is my old friend Mr. Nelson Powers," said Jenny. "Mr. Powers – Mr. Austin." We bowed – neither of us cordially. The man's eyes were wary and very alert; he looked at me as though I might be a policeman in plain clothes; possibly my expression gave him some excuse.

Jenny rang the bell. "Mr. Powers is coming back to dinner. You'll come, of course? We shall have a pleasant little party of four!"

"I'm sorry, but I'm engaged to dinner to-night."

Jenny gave me a quick look, Chat gave me a long one. Loft appeared. "Au revoir, Mr. Powers!" With a pronounced bow over his hat Powers was out of the room. I made no effort to follow. Jenny's face told me that the battle was to be fought where we were.

She poured out a cup of tea and gave it to me. Then, as she sat down, she said, "I'm sorry you can't come to-night. Where are you going?"

I did not want Chat there – but I remembered what happened to Cartmell when he did not want me there.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

Her pallid face flushed a little, but she smiled. Chat looked at her and got up; no, Chat was not altogether a fool! "Yes, please, Chat," said Jenny very quietly. Chat left us. I finished my tea – it was cold, and easy to gulp down – and waited for the storm.

"You've nothing to add to your polite excuses?" she inquired.

"Does that gentleman come from Cheltenham?"

"Yes, from Cheltenham, Mr. Austin. But how did you come to know that? Did my father mention him?" She was not embarrassed – only very angry.

"No."

"It was Mr. Cartmell?"

"Yes. He had no right, I daresay, but I'm glad he did – and so will he be."

"If both my solicitor and my secretary are glad – !" She broke off with a scornful laugh. "I'm not going to discuss the matter with you, but I like people who are about me to receive my invitations with politeness."

"This isn't easy for me, Miss Driver, but – that man oughtn't to come to this house. He oughtn't to be allowed to see you."

She rose from her chair, her eyes set unmovingly on my face. Her voice was low. "How dare you say that? How dare you? Am I to take orders from you – my secretary – my servant?"

"You called me your friend the other day."

"I seem to have been hasty. A kind friend indeed to listen to stories against me!"

"The story is against the man – not against you."

"Are you dining with any other friends to-night?"

"I've told you that I'm not."

"Then I request – I desire – that you will make it convenient to give me the pleasure of your company – to meet my friend, Mr. Powers."

My temper went suddenly. "I won't sit at meat with the blackguard – above all, not in your company."

I saw her fist clench itself by her side. "I repeat my request," she said.

"I repeat my refusal, but I can do no less than offer you my resignation."

"You won't accept my offer – but I accept yours very gladly."

"It will be kind of you to relieve me from my duties as soon as possible."

"To-morrow." She turned her back on me and walked off to the window. I stood there a minute, and then went to the door. She turned round, and our eyes met. I waited for a moment, but she faced round to the window again, and I went out.

I walked quickly down the hill. I was very unhappy, but I was not remorseful. I knew that another man could have done the thing much better, but it had been the right thing to do and I had done it as well as I could. She had made no attempt to defend Powers, nor to deny what she must have known that Cartmell had said about him. Yet, while tacitly admitting that he was a most obnoxious description of blackguard, she asked him to dinner – and ordered me to sit by and see them together. If her service entailed that sort of thing, then indeed there must be an end to service with her. But grieved as I was that this must be so – and the blow to me was heavy on all grounds, whether of interest or of feeling – I grieved more that she should sit with him herself than that she bade me witness what seemed in my eyes her degradation. What was the meaning of it? I was at that time nowhere near understanding her.

My home was no more than a cottage, built against the south wall of the Old Priory. The front door opened straight into my parlor, without hall or vestibule; a steep little stair ran up from the corner of the room itself and led to my bedroom on the floor above. Behind my parlor lay the kitchen and two other rooms, occupied by my housekeeper, Mrs. Field, and her husband, who was one of the gardeners. It was all very small, but it was warm, snug, and homely. The walls were covered almost completely with my books, which overflowed on to chairs and tables, too. When fire and lamp were going in the evening, the little room seemed to glow with a studious cheerfulness, and my old leather arm-chair wooed me with affectionate welcome. In four years I had taken good root in my little home. I had to uproot myself – to-morrow.

With this pang, there came suddenly one deeper. I was about to lose – perforce – what was now revealed to me as a great, though a very new, interest in my life. From the first both Cartmell and I had been keenly interested in the heiress – the lonely girl who came to reign over Breysgate and to dispose of those millions of money. We had both, I think, been touched with a certain romantic, or pathetic, element in the situation. We had not talked about it, much less had we talked about what we felt ourselves or about what we meant to do; but it had grown into a tacit understanding between us that more than our mere paid services were due from us to Jenny Driver. No man had been very near her father, but we had been nearest; we did not mean that his daughter should be without friends if she would accept friendship. Nay, I think we meant a little more than that. She was young and ignorant; Nick Driver's daughter might well be willful and imperious. We meant that she should not easily escape our service and our friendship; they should be more than offered; they should be pressed; if need be, they should be secretly given. It had been an honest idea of ours – but it seemed hard to work in practice. Such service as I could give was ended well-nigh before it had begun. I thought it only too likely that Cartmell's also would soon end, save, at least, for strictly professional purposes. And I could not see how this end was to be avoided in his case any more than it had been found possible to avoid it in mine. With the best will in the world, there were limits. "Some things are impossible to some men," old Mr. Driver had said in that letter; it had been impossible to me – as it would, I think, have been to most men – to see Powers welcomed by her as a gentleman and a friend.

Yet I began almost to be sorry – almost to ask why I had not swallowed Powers and accepted the invitation to dinner. Might I, in that way, have had a better chance of getting rid of Powers in the end? It would have been a wrong thing to do – I was still quite clear about that – wrong in every way, and very disgusting, to boot; quite fatal to my self-respect, and an acquiescence in a horrible want of self-respect in Jenny. But I might have been useful to her. Now I could be of no use. That evening I first set my feet on what I may perhaps call a moral slope. It looked a very gentle slope; there did not appear to be any danger in it; it did not look as though you could slip on it or as if it would be difficult to recover yourself if slip you did. But, in fact, at the bottom of that moral slope – which grew steeper as it descended – lay a moral precipice. Nothing less can I call the conclusion that anything which might be useful to Jenny Driver became, by the mere force of that possible utility, morally right – conduct, so to speak, becoming to an officer and a gentleman. I was not, of course, at all aware that my insidious doubt – or, rather, my puzzling discontent with myself – could lead to any such chasm as that.

I ate my chop and tried to settle down to my books. First I tried theology, the study of which I had by no means abandoned. But I was not theologically inclined that night. Then I took up a magazine; politics emphatically would not do! I fell back on anthropology, and got on there considerably better. Yet presently my attention wandered even from that. I sat with the book open before me, at a page where three members of the Warramunga tribe were represented in adornments that, on an ordinary evening, would have filled me with admiration. No, I was languid about it. The last thing I remembered was hearing the back door locked – which meant that the Fields were going to bed. After that I fail to trace events, but I imagine that I speedily fell sound asleep – with the book open before me and my pipe lying by it on the table.

I awoke with a little shiver, pretended to myself that I had never stopped reading, gave up the pretence, pushed back my chair from the table, rose, and turned to the fire behind me.

In my old leather arm-chair sat Jenny Driver.

She wore a black evening dress, with a cloak of brown fur thrown open in front – both, no doubt, new acquisitions. The fire had died down to a small heap of bright red embers. When first I saw her, she was crouching close over it – the night was chilly – and her face was red with its glow.

"Miss Driver! I – I'm afraid I've been asleep," I stammered. "Have you been here long?"

She glanced at the clock; it was half-past ten. "About twenty minutes. I've had a good look round – at your room, and your books, and that queer picture which seems to have sent you to sleep. Your room's very comfortable."

"Yes, it's a jolly little room," I agreed. "But what – ?"

"And I've had a good look at you, too," she continued. "Do you know, Mr. Austin, you're really rather handsome?"

"I daresay I look my best by lamplight," I suggested, smiling.

"No, really I think you are – in the thin ascetic style. I like that – anyhow for a change. Well, I wanted a word with you, so I waited till Chat went to bed, and then slipped down."

It was on the tip of my tongue to observe that it was rather late; but a smile on Jenny's lips somehow informed me that she expected just such an objection. So I said nothing.

"Chat and I are going to London to-morrow – to shop. Perhaps we may go on to Paris. I thought you might like to say good-by."

"That's very kind of you. I'm glad we're not to part in – well, as we parted this afternoon."

"If you regretted that, you might have done something to prevent it. Light your pipe again; you'll be able to think better – and I want you to think a little."

I obeyed her direction, she sitting for the moment silent. I came and stood opposite to her, leaning my elbow on the mantelpiece.

"When I first knew Mr. Powers, I was sixteen, and I'd been with the Smalls since I was eleven. You didn't get very discriminating, living with the Smalls. I met him at a subscription dance: I didn't know anything about his wife. He was clerk to an architect, or surveyor, or something of that sort. I met him a good many times afterwards – for walks. He was good-looking in his way, and he said he was in love with me. I fell in love with him and, when I couldn't get away to meet him, I wrote letters. Then I heard about the wife – and I wrote more letters. You know the sort – very miserable, and, I suppose, very silly – that I didn't know what to do, only the world was over for me – and so on. You can imagine the sort of letter. And I saw him – once or twice. He told me that he was in great trouble; he'd been racing and playing cards and couldn't pay; he'd be shown up, and lose his place – and what would become of his wife and child? I flared up and said that I was the last person who was likely to care about his wife and child. Then he suggested that I should get money from my father – he knew all about my father – by saying that I was in some trouble. I told him I couldn't possibly; I was never allowed to write and should only get an answer from a lawyer if I did – and certainly no money. He persisted – and I persisted. He threatened vaguely what he could do. I told him to do as he liked – that I'd done with him for good. I never wrote again – and I never saw him till to-day."

"When you asked him to dinner!"

She smiled, but took no more heed. "Well, I was in a scrape, wasn't I? I saw that clearly – rather a bad scrape. I didn't see what to do, though I did a lot of thinking. Being in a scrape does teach one to think, doesn't it? Then suddenly – when I was at my wits' end – it flashed across me that possibly it might all have happened for the best. My great object all through my girlhood was, somehow or other, to get into touch with my father. I believed that, if I could get a fair chance, I could win him over and persuade him to let me pay him a visit – even live with him perhaps. That was my great dream – and I was prepared to go through a lot for the hope of it. Well, it didn't come off. I don't know what Mr. Powers did – but it was not my father who came, it was Mr. Cartmell. I was taken away from the Smalls, but not allowed to come here. I was sent to the Simpsons. My father never wrote one word, good or bad, to me. Mr. Cartmell gave me a lecture. I didn't mind that. I was so furious with him for coming that I didn't care a straw what he said."

"His coming upset your brilliant idea?"

"Yes – that time. One can't always succeed. Still it's wonderful how often a scrape can be turned to account, if you think how to use it. You're in a corner: that sharpens your brains; you hit on something."