Read the book: «The Great Miss Driver», page 20

CHAPTER XXI
NATHAN AND DAVID

The state of affairs at Fillingford Manor must have been profoundly uncomfortable. The father and his sister banned and boycotted Breysgate; the son spent there every hour of his leisure – he had much now, for the Parliament session was over – and made small secret of the fact that he cared very little to be anywhere else. Yet care came with him; he had more than a lover's proverbial moodiness. He never spoke of his home; it was the silence of conscious guilt; at Fillingford Manor, no doubt, he avoided all mention of us. More than once he took refuge at Hingston and paid his visits from there in company with his host; it is not probable that Fillingford Manor was deceived by this maneuver, but the daily strain of awkwardness was avoided. Dormer was complaisant. That young man had sharp eyes; he soon began to be at least very doubtful whether he need fear Lacey as a rival; when the two were at Breysgate together, it was Dormer's society now that Jenny sought. She would pair off with him, leaving Margaret and Lacey together. He took from this some encouragement, but he had also a lurking fear that Jenny was angling for Fillingford again, hoping some day to get at him through his son. He would make allusions, in Lacey's absence, to Fillingford's notorious obstinacy in all matters – how that he never changed his mind, was never open to reason, never forgot nor forgave. The more open hints were bestowed on me – for transmission to Jenny; the more covert he risked conveying to her direct. She would agree with a smile of resignation, and redouble her graciousness to Dormer. Yet the graciousness had limits. She kept him at his distance – eager, yet hesitating, and fearful to take the plunge. She had need of him still for a while longer; under the cover he afforded she was gradually, dexterously, unobtrusively, sheering off from Lacey.

The operation needed skill and pertinacity; for at first the young man resisted it vigorously. The more delicately she worked, the less conscious was he that she was working at all. Her avoidance of him seemed to him like his neglect of her; when he had, by her maneuvers, been kept out of her company for an hour together, his loyalty accused him of a lack of attention and of gratitude. He would come back penitent from Margaret's side, and turn again his chivalrous devotion to Jenny; he was remorseful at finding how happy he had been with another – at beginning to find that he was even happier. He did not impute to her any jealousy, or resentment at the fickleness of a lover, but he feared that she would be hurt by any falling-off in the affectionate homage which he had been wont to pay. Insensibly he was courting Margaret – but always by Jenny's permission. If it had been her will to summon him back to her side by his allegiance, he would have come; but, as day followed day, more and more reluctantly. Margaret's spell was gaining in power.

It could not well be otherwise. Youth turned to youth, the fresh heart to the fresh. Over Margaret hung no shadow; she was unspotted from the world. In her there was no calculation, and no scheming; all was instinctive and spontaneous. Her love leaped forth unashamed because it was unconscious of its very self. The fresh strange joy that painted life in new colors was unanalyzed. She was just so much happier, so much more gay, finding the days so much better. She did not ask why, but gave herself whole-heartedly to the new delight. With Jenny effaced by her own choice, this unmeant challenge fired Lacey to response; their fleet-footed feelings raced against one another, still neck and neck as they drew near the goal. A little further, and they would find themselves at it. It would then be time for Jenny to act.

The world misjudged her – which was just what she wished. Opinion was clear and well-nigh unanimous; for Jenny rehabilitation lay in marrying and could not be complete without it: then she meant to marry – Lacey if she could, Dormer if she must. There lay the explanation of the two young men being always at Breysgate! Lacey was the object of Jenny's spring; if she missed the mark, she would fall back on Dormer. But would she miss it? Gossip was rife, eager, interested, over this, and over this opinions varied; much is forgiven to sixty thousand a year, said some; there was one thing which Fillingford Manor would never overlook, said others. But on the whole it was admitted that there was great danger of her success; it was speculated on with the fearful joy that the prospect of a social disaster has the power to excite. Nobody thought of Margaret, or that she had any part to play in the matter, All eyes were on Jenny; it could not be many days before news came! There had hardly been more excitement over the flight itself.

Besides all the gossipers and watchers, there was one man who acted – according to his lights, whether they were right or wrong. I have hinted that Alison took a view of his office and its responsibilities which was at least fully adequate – and seemed to a good many people more than that. He was not content to stand by and see what he thought wrong done without a protest. It was nothing to him that he might be told to mind his own business: he would very confidently challenge your definition of his business and your idea of its limits; he would be very sure what his orders were and where they came from. Moreover he had seen the affair from the other side. He was intimate at Fillingford Manor.

He wrote to Jenny asking if he might call on her; he wanted to have a few words with her on a matter of importance relating to herself. He added that he was acting entirely on his own responsibility and in no way at the suggestion of any other person.

Jenny twisted his letter in her hands with an air of irresolution, almost of shrinking.

"I don't want to see him," she said to me plaintively. "It won't be – comfortable. He's let me severely alone up to now. Can't he let me alone still? I suppose he'll lecture me horribly! If there were anything to be got by it! But there isn't."

"He sent you a pleasant message about Margaret," I reminded her.

"Yes, so he did. And I don't want him to think me afraid. I'll see him. But I'm afraid of him. Austin, you must be there."

"I don't think he'll expect that."

"Never mind what he expects. If I see him, it's on my own conditions. I want you there. It's cowardly, but I do. Tell him he can come, but that I propose to see him in your presence."

So she would have it, being obviously disturbed at the idea of the interview. Was he coming to her as Nathan came to David – to denounce her sin? He was no doubt wrong about her intentions for the future, but he was fatally right in his opinion about what she had done in the past. He had a locus standi, too, or so he would conceive – a professional right to tell her the truth.

"I'm spoiled. I haven't had half enough of the disagreeables," she said with a woeful smile.

There was truth in that – so far as external things went, visible and palpable pains and penalties. She had not paid full toll. Luck had been with her and had afforded her a case – not a good one, but good enough to give her courage a handle. Her other advantages – her attractiveness, her position, her wealth, she had used with dexterity and without scruple to protect her from punishment. She had cajoled and she had bribed – both successfully; only the irreconcilables remained unreconciled. To no small extent she had jockeyed outraged morality – in externals. Many people did it even more successfully – by not being even half found out, and therefore not put on their defense at all. But for one who had been at least half found out, against whom circumstantial evidence was terribly strong although direct proof might be lacking, she had come off very cheaply. Nobody about her told her so; we spoiled her. She was afraid that Alison, in manner, very likely even in words, would tell her now, face to face. Being taken to task was terribly against the grain with her. Only Jenny might punish Jenny – and the blows must fall in secret.

Alison came to my house first a quarter of an hour before the time of his appointment with Jenny. He was grave and silent; in the spirit, though naturally not in the flesh, he wore full canonicals; the consciousness of his office was about him. I had grown – and I may as well confess it – into an intellectual hostility to all this, a skepticism which prompted rebellion. But he was doing what he disliked very much in obedience to his view of duty. It is churlish to show disrespect to a man acting in that way, simply because one may consider his view incorrect or exaggerated. I had once charged him with wanting to burn people; let me not fall into the temptation of wanting to burn him – or where stood my boasted liberality of thought?

"I'm not sorry that you're to be with us, Austin," he said, as we walked up to the Priory. "Interfere if I show any signs of growing hot."

"If she tells you the truth, you won't grow hot. But if you grow hot, she won't tell you the truth," I answered.

"I don't go in my own strength," he reminded me with gentle gravity.

On the terrace, by the door, Margaret lay on a long wicker chair. She sprang up when we came near, blushing in her artless fashion at the encounter. Alison's stern-set face flashed out into a tender delighted smile. "God bless the pretty child!" he murmured as he went forward and shook hands with her. She had her little pet dog with her, and they talked a minute or two about it. He was country-bred and had dog-lore; she listened with an interest almost reverential. "Now!" he said with a sigh, as he left her to go into the house. He had welcomed that little interlude of brightness.

Jenny received him with stately dignity; if Nathan came to David, still let him remember that David was a King! She rose for a moment from the high-backed elbow-chair in which she sat; she did not offer her hand but, with a slight inclination of her head, indicated a chair. Then, seated again, she awaited his opening with the stillness of a forced composure. She might be afraid; she would show no fear. She faced him full where he sat, and challenged the light that fell on her face from the big window. I stood leaning against the mantelpiece, a few paces from her on her left.

"In coming to you, Miss Driver," he said, "I'm doing an unconventional thing. The circumstances seem to me to call for it; it's the only thing left to do, and nothing will be gained unless I face it and do it plainly. I want to tell you something about a household which you have no opportunity of seeing – something about Fillingford Manor. I go there, you know; you don't."

"No – not now," said Jenny.

"I say nothing about Lady Sarah. She is not, perhaps, very wise or very generous. Yet even for her allowances are to be made."

"I make such allowance as consists in absolute indifference, Mr. Alison."

"That's beyond your right – but no matter. In that house there is a father who loves his son and who respects himself. The father is miserable and humiliated. Do you recognize any responsibility in yourself for that?"

"Lord Fillingford once wanted to marry me – for my money, I think."

"I think you do him less than justice. Never mind that. I answer by asking you why he doesn't want to marry you now – even with your money."

"A very palpable hit!" said Jenny with a slight smile. "But did you come here only to say things like that? I know you think you have a right to say them – but what's the good?"

"The good is if they make you think – and I have a right to say them, though I fear your bitterness made me put them too harshly. If so, I beg your pardon. In whatever way I put them, the facts are there. Father and son are strangers in heart already; very soon they will be enemies if you persist in what you are doing."

"What am I doing?" asked Jenny, smiling again.

"Evil," he replied uncompromisingly. "Wanton evil if you don't mean to marry this young man – deliberate evil if you do."

"Why deliberate evil if I do?"

"You have no right to marry the son of that man. It would create a position unnatural, cruel, hideous."

"Alison, Alison!" I murmured. I thought that he was now "growing hot." But he took no notice of me – nor did Jenny.

"An inevitable and perpetual quarrel between father and son, a perpetual humiliation for a man who trusted you – and was wrong in doing it! Dare you do that – with what there is lying between you and Lord Fillingford?"

"What is there?"

"At least deceit, broken faith, trust betrayed, honor threatened. Is there no more?"

Jenny looked at him now with somber thoughtfulness.

"We're not children," he went on. "If there is no more, what was easier than to say so, to lay scandal to rest, to give an account of yourself? Wasn't that easy?"

"Lying is generally pretty easy," said Jenny.

He raised his hands in the air and let them fall in a despairing gesture. "You yourself have said it!"

"Yes, I have said it, Mr. Alison. You've always believed it. Now you know it. We're face to face."

"Then face to face I say to you that you're no fit wife for that young man."

"No fit companion either, perhaps?"

"I'll say no more than I need say. A sinner who repents is a fit companion for the angels, and joyfully welcomed. Haven't you read it? I am on your duty, not to God – I pray Him that He may teach you that – but to the honorable man whom you deceived and humiliated. You charge him with having wanted to marry you for your money. Take it on that basis, if you will. What did you want to marry him for? Was it love? No; his title, his position. Was the exchange unfair? The bargain was fair, if not very pretty. Even to that bargain you were grossly false. If I'm wrong in my facts, say so: but if my facts are right, in very decency let his house – let his son – alone."

"Your facts are right," she said. "I was false to the bargain. Have you said all you have to say, Mr. Alison?"

"I have done – save to say that what I have said to you I have said to nobody else. I am no chatterer. What I've said to-day I've said in virtue of my office. What you have admitted to me I treat as told me in the confessional."

She bowed her head slightly, accepting his pledge. "I know that," she said. Then she turned to me, smiling sadly. "I'm afraid we must tell him our plans, Austin – in strict confidence?" She did not wait for an answer, but went on to him immediately: "I'll speak to you on the terms on which you have already heard me – as though I were in the confessional."

"What you are pleased to say is safe – but it's your deeds I want, not your words."

"My words will make my deeds plain to you," she answered, and then sat silent for a while, resting her cheek on her hand, looking very steadily in his face. At last she spoke in a low even voice:

"I don't admit your authority; and yet, as Austin knows, I shrank from this meeting. You claim the right to lay your hands on my very soul, to tear it out and look at it. I don't like that. I resent it. And what good does it do? We remain too far apart. I shall make to you no apology for what I have done; I don't desire to defend myself. The thing is very different to me, and you wouldn't even try to see the difference. Yet it is not less a great thing to me – as great as to you, though different. Yes, a great thing and a decisive one. I may look at it wrongly – I don't look at it lightly."

"I'm glad to be able to think that – at least," he remarked.

"I like you, and I want to work with you in the future. That's why I've listened to you, and why I now tell you what's in my mind – why I have come face to face with you. There was no obligation on me; my soul's my own, not yours, nor the world's. But I have chosen to do it. You came here, Mr. Alison, to tell me that I was not a fit wife for Lord Fillingford's son?"

He assented with a nod and a gentle motion of his hand.

"I agree with you there – with all you've said about that – but I go much farther. I don't think myself a fit wife for any man's son."

He looked up at her with a quick jerk of his head.

"I could go to no man as his wife without telling my story. And if I told it, what would he say? He might say, 'Go away!' Probably most men would, though there are some I know who, I think, would not. Or he might say, 'That's all over – forget all that. Be happy with me.' If he said that, what should I answer? I should have to say, 'It's not all over; it's not a wretched thing in the past that I've bitterly repented of and may now hope to be allowed to forget and to be forgiven for. It's not over and never will be. For me it's decisive; it will always be there. And it will always be there for you, too, and you will hate it.'" She spoke the last words with a strong intensity. "'Always something to be ashamed of, something to hide, something breeding a secret unconquerable grudge!' That's handicapping marriage very heavily – even though my husband were not son to Lord Fillingford! Do you know that it was only with the bitterest fear that I agreed to marry Leonard himself? Should I easily marry another man now?"

"Don't ask her to marry you – it only worries her." The words of Leonard Octon's letter came back; I could imagine the grimly humorous smile with which he penned that bit of advice to me.

She went on with a sudden suppressed passion: "I want none of it – none of it at all. I can make a happy life for myself. I can be useful – even if I have to lie – in deeds if not in words – before I can be allowed to be useful. Why am I to seek unhappiness, to seek fearfulness, to create misery? The burden I bear now my own shoulders are broad enough to carry. I had sooner carry it myself than have another groaning under it at my side!"

"Cast your burden upon God, and He will bear it. This is penitence, if only you would open the eyes of your heart!"

"Call it what you like," she said, a trifle impatiently. "Let it be pride – pride for Leonard and pride for myself; let it be calculation, precaution, fear, independence – what you will. You shall do your own name-giving, and you may give the name that satisfies your theories. But I have given you my names for it and my account of what I feel. Feeling that, am I eager to marry Amyas Lacey? I'm not eager, Mr. Alison."

There was a moment's pause. The sound of a horse trotting up to the house fell on my ears; Jenny gave me a quick glance. Alison seemed not to notice; he was looking down at the floor, deep in thought. Jenny's eyes returned to his face; she watched him with a smile as he sat pondering her explanation.

"I respect your conclusion," he said at last. "Even if there were nothing but the worldly point of view, I should say it was wise – as wise as it is severe. I hope you may find better reasons still for it, and new sources of strength to carry it out."

"You shall hope – and we shall see," she answered, not carelessly, but rather with an honest skepticism which was willing to respect his prepossessions, but would pay them no insincere homage.

"There is more for me to do than merely to hope – but enough of that just now." He smiled a little, for the first time in the interview. "I mustn't be too instant out of season. But if that is your conclusion, Miss Driver, how does it fit in with your conduct?"

"It fits in very well," she replied.

"That wouldn't be the general opinion. It's not the opinion at Fillingford Manor." He leaned back in his chair, looking rather weary and discouraged. "You're still minded to fence with me, I see," he said.

"No, I'll deal with you plainly – but I rely on your pledge. Nothing goes beyond these walls – neither to Fillingford Manor nor elsewhere?"

"I am bound to that: but pretenses are dangerous."

"It will soon be time to end this one."

As she spoke, merry voices floated into the room from the terrace outside. Jenny listened with a happy smile, and then went on, "You want to know what I mean by my conduct? Why I make Fillingford Manor unhappy, and all my neighbors mad with curiosity?" She laughed as she rose from her chair. "Come to the window here," she said to Alison.

They went to the window, and I followed. There, in the mellow sun of the late afternoon, Margaret lay on her long chair, her brown hair touched to gold, her merry laugh breaking out again, her face upturned to Lacey's. He stood beside her, his eyes set on her face, a smile of admiration plain to see on his lips. It was a fair picture of young lovers – and the complacent artist whose hand had designed it turned triumphantly to Alison.

"You ask what I mean. I mean that," she said.

Alison gave a violent start. "Miss Octon! And Amyas?" He looked for a moment at the pair, then turned back to Jenny, rather helplessly. "But that's pretty nearly as bad as the other!" he blurted out.

"Who speaks now?" she asked. "The priest in his office? Or Mr. Worldly Wiseman?"