TRIX TRIUMPHANT
It was more than an hour before Trix departed, exultant, rejoicing.
Nicholas sat staring at the chair she had just vacated. He had been
bewitched, utterly bewitched, and he knew it. Her vitality, her
insistence had carried him with her despite himself,--that and an odd
under-current of something he could not entirely explain. He might have
called it faith, only it was not faith as he had been accustomed to think
of it, when he thought at all. It was so infinitely more alive and
personal. And yet she had only once touched on what he would have termed
religion.
"You've wandered entirely from the object of your visit," he had remarked
at one point in the conversation, "and I can't for the life of me see why
you are taking this extraordinary interest in what you consider my
welfare. What on earth can it matter to any one else, how I choose to
live my life?"
"Ah, but it does matter," she had answered earnestly, "it matters quite
supremely. I know we often pretend to ourselves that it doesn't in the
least matter how we live our lives so long as we don't commit actual sin;
but we can't isolate ourselves from others without loss to them and to
ourselves."
"How about monks and nuns, who shut themselves up, and never see their
fellow-creatures at all?" he had retorted, greatly pleased with himself
for the retort.
Trix had opened eyes of wonder.
"The contemplative orders! Why, Mr. Danver, they're the cog-wheels of the
whole machinery. They only keep their bodies apart that their minds may
be more free. Nobody has the good of mankind so much at heart as a
contemplative. They are keeping the machinery going by prayer the whole
time."
The utter conviction in her words was unmistakable. For an odd flashing
moment he had had something like a mental vision of an irresistible force
pouring forth from those closed houses, a force like the force of a great
river, carrying all things with it, and with healing virtue in its
waters. The thought was utterly foreign to him. But it had been there.
"I am not much of a believer in prayer," he had said dryly. He had
expected her to ask if he had ever tried it. She had not done so.
"Most of us do it so badly," she had said with a little sigh, "but they
don't." And then she had flashed a glance of amusement at him. "Did you
ever hear of the story of the old lady who said she was going to pray one
night with entire faith that the hill beyond her garden might be removed?
In the morning she found it still there. 'I knew it would be!' said the
old lady triumphantly."
Nicholas joined in her laugh, but somewhat grimly.
"We're all like that," he said.
Trix shook her head.
"Not all, mercifully; but a good many." And then she had returned to her
former charge.
Well, she had ended by bewitching him, and the queer thing was he was
quite glad of the bewitchment. Now and again he pulled himself up with a
jerk and a muttered word or two of irritation; but it was all a pretence,
and he knew it. There was an odd excitement pulsing at his heart; despite
his age and crippled state, he was feeling boyishly, absurdly young. For
the first time for fifteen years he was looking forward to the morrow
with pleasure.
He began to consider his programme. It was entirely simple. First there
was Antony Gray to be interviewed. She had insisted on that. It was due
to him to be given an entire, full, and detailed account of the whole
business, so she had decreed. Nicholas shrugged his shoulders at the
thought. There was just a question in his mind as to how the young man
might regard the matter. Secondly, there was to be a tea-party in the
library, at which Trix, the Duchessa, Miss Tibbutt, Antony, and Doctor
Hilary were to be present. After that--well, events might take their own
course. The villagers get to hear? Let them. Any amount of gossip? Of
course, what did he expect? Anyhow he'd be a benefactor to mankind in
giving poor, dull little Byestry something more interesting to talk about
than the latest baby's first tooth, or the last injustice of Mr. Curtis.
Yes; she meant it. Mr. Curtis was unjust, and the sooner Mr. Danver got
rid of him and put Antony Gray in his place the better it would be for
everyone concerned. And if he wanted a really dramatic moment he had
better have Mr. Curtis up, and inform him that his services were no
longer needed, and introduce him to the new agent at the same time. Trix
only wished she could be present at the interview, but Mr. Danver would
have to describe it to her in the minutest detail.
It is not at all certain that the thought of this interview, suggested
before Trix had wrung the final promise from him, did not go a remarkably
long way towards extracting that promise. The idea appealed to Nicholas.
In the first place there would be the agent's profound amazement at the
fact that Nicholas was not lying, as he had supposed, in the tomb of his
ancestors; in the second place there would be his discomfiture in
realizing that Nicholas had been entirely aware of his own movements, and
the small act of petty spite towards Job Grantley and Antony; and in the
third place there would be his amazement and discomfiture combined when
he found that Nicholas was not the doddering old ass he had taken him
for, but a man prepared to take matters into his own hands, and put a
stop once and for all to a long system of tyranny.
"Yes sir, a man, and not the crippled fool you have taken me for,"
Nicholas heard himself saying. He chuckled at the thought.
And then he sat upright. What need to wait till the morrow for that
interview? It was barely lunch time. A message to Antony requesting his
presence at two o'clock, another to Mr. Curtis requesting his an hour
later, and the game could be begun immediately.
Once more Nicholas chuckled. Then he pressed the electric button attached
to the arm of his chair.
* * * * *
For once, and once only, in the long course of his butlership did the
placid and unmoved calm of his manner entirely desert Jessop. The
occasion was the present one.
He was in the pantry cleaning silver, when the whirr of the electric bell
just above his head broke the silence. He put down the spoon he was
polishing, discarded his green baize apron, donned his coat, and made his
dignified way to the library.
Nicholas looked up at his entrance.
Accustomed to note every slightest variance in his master's moods, Jessop
was at once aware of something unusual in his bearing. There was an odd,
suppressed excitement; the nonchalance of his manner was unquestionably
assumed.
"Ah, Jessop, I rang."
"Yessir," said Jessop, imperturbably, as who should say, "Naturally,
since I have answered the summons."
Nicholas cleared his throat.
"Er--Jessop, you can bring Michael Field here at two o'clock this
afternoon, when he returns from his dinner. You can also let Mr. Curtis
know that he is to be here at three o'clock. You had better go to Byestry
and give the message yourself. If he wishes to know by whose orders, you
need mention no names, but merely say that orders have been given you to
that effect. I fancy curiosity will bring him, even if he resents the
non-mention of actual authority."
Jessop stared, actually stared, a prolonged, amazed survey of his
master's face.
"You are seeing them, sir!" he gasped.
For a moment testiness swung to the fore at the question. Then the
amazement on Jessop's face unloosed his sense of humour.
"Yes," said Nicholas quietly.
"But--" began Jessop. His mind was in a chaos. The order was so utterly
unexpected. There were at least a million things he wished to point out,
but the only one on which his brain would focus was the fact that if
these men saw Nicholas, they would no longer imagine him to be dead. And
yet that fact was so obvious, it was evident it must have occurred to
Nicholas's own mind.
"Don't try to think," remarked Nicholas grimly, "merely obey orders."
The words pricked, restoring Jessop's balance. He drew himself to rigid
attention, the mask suddenly resumed.
"Very good, sir," and Jessop left the room.
"What the blue blazes!" he muttered, as he returned, almost stumbling,
towards the pantry.
The expression had belonged to the youthful Nicholas. Jessop borrowed it
only at moments of the severest stress. It was borrowed now.