THE INSTITUTE CLERK
Mr. Bindlecombe was jubilant. Jenny's vacillations were over--the
Institute was really on the way. A Provisional Committee had been
formed; it was composed of Bindlecombe (in the Chair, in virtue of his
office of Mayor, which he still held), Fillingford, Cartmell, Alison the
Rector of the old parish church, and Jenny. I was what I believe they
term in business circles "alternate" with--or to?--Jenny; when she could
not attend, I was to act and, if need be, vote in her place. As a fact,
I generally went even when she did. Since the Institute was to serve for
women as well as for men, a subsidiary and advisory Ladies' Committee
was formed--and Lady Sarah Lacey was induced to accept the chairmanship
of it. Jenny was justifiably proud of this triumph; but the Ladies'
Committee had nothing to do with finance, and finance was, of course,
the question of paramount interest, in the early stages at least. The
original ten thousand pounds which I had allocated to the Memorial Hall
looked a mere trifle now. The talk was of eighty thousand--with a
hundred thousand for a top limit. Over these figures Cartmell looked
important, but not outraged--evidently the Driver estate was shaping
well. But it was, as Jenny remarked, impossible to be precise on the
subject of figures, until we had more definite ideas about what we
wanted to do. Plans were, she declared, the first necessity--provisional
plans, at all events--and she was for having them drawn up at once.
Bindlecombe was in no way reluctant, but opined that plans depended
largely on site; must not the question of site be taken in hand
simultaneously? Jenny replied that Mr. Bindlecombe had so convinced her
of the unique suitability of Hatcham Ford that she was in negotiation
with Mr. Octon. Cartmell looked a trifle surprised--I do not think that
he had heard of these negotiations. Jenny added that in two years' time
she would be free to act of her own will; but in the first place two
years was long to wait, and in the second she was anxious to deal with
Mr. Octon in a friendly spirit. There was a feeling that this was
carrying neighborliness too far, but Fillingford, content with what
Jenny had already done in regard to Octon, came to her help, pronouncing
that the diplomatic way was expedient: No excuse for any opposition
should be given; you could never tell who might or might not, for his
own purposes, get up a party. If Mr. Octon proved unapproachable--he
chose the word with care and gave it with a neutral impassiveness--it
would be time enough to talk of rights.
"We can begin on something at once," Jenny declared. "I'm going to ask
Mr. Cartmell to make arrangements to put a house at our disposal for
offices. We should hold our meetings there, and I should propose to
employ a clerk to keep our records and, as time goes on, to help with
the plans and so on." She turned to Bindlecombe. "You know that house
next to Hatcham Ford--a new red house? It's got very good windows and an
open outlook. Wouldn't that do for us? I forget the name--something
rather absurd."
"Ivydene," said Cartmell. He had every detail of her property at his
finger ends.
"Yes, that's it," said Jenny, with a nod of recollection.
Everybody approved of Ivydene for the suggested purpose, and the
Committee broke up with the usual expressions of gratitude to and
admiration of Miss Driver. "She does things so handsomely--and with such
head, too!" said Bindlecombe.
I walked away with Alison, the Rector, for whom I had a great liking. He
was a fine fellow, physically and mentally--a tall, strong-built man of
forty, with a keen blue eye. He had "done wonders," as they say, in
Catsford and was on the sure road to promotion--if he would take it. He
was sincere, pious, and humble; but his humility was personal. It did
not extend to his office or to the claims of the Church he represented.
He asked me if I would lay before Jenny the merits of a fund he was
raising to build yet another new district church, to meet the ever
growing needs of Catsford. I replied that I had no doubt she would be
glad to give a donation.
"So far, so good," said Alison--but his tone did not sound contented.
"She's sure to give something substantial--she's like her father in
that."
"In the way of money I had nothing to complain of from Mr. Driver.
Anything else I suppose you'll tell me I couldn't expect, as he was a
Unitarian."
"I remember he used to say he'd been brought up a Unitarian."
"That's what we seem to be coming to! When it's a question of a man's
religion, you remember what he used to say he was brought up as!"
Alison's tone became sarcastic. "Well, then, his daughter's a
Church-woman, isn't she--by the same excellent evidence?"
"She lived five years in a clergyman's family," I answered
discreetly--feeling that it was safer to stick to indisputable facts.
"She attends church fairly often, doesn't she?"
"Yes, fairly often." He repeated my words with a contemptuous grimace.
"People who attend church fairly often, Austin, are the people whom, if
the good old days could come back, I should like to burn."
"Of course you would. You all would, if you dared say so."
"Just two or three to start with. I should like it done very
conspicuously--in the market place."
"The worst of it is that you're really quite sincere in all this."
He pressed my arm. "I don't want to burn you. You've thought, though
you've thought wrong. And you've been through tribulation. It's the
people who in their hearts just don't----"
"Care a damn?" I profanely suggested.
"Yes," he agreed with a laugh and a grip on my wrist which distinctly
hurt.
"But I don't think Miss Driver's quite one of those. At any rate she's
intellectually interested--talks about things, and so on."
He nodded. "Yes, I daresay. Well, she's a remarkable girl. Look
here--she's worth having, and I'm going to try to get hold of her."
"You never will, though you try for ever--not in your sense. She never
surrenders."
"Not even to God?"
"Speaking through you?"
"Through my office--yes."
"Aye, there's the rub! Besides--well, I can't discuss her from a moral
point of view; any information I may have seems somehow to have been
acquired confidentially."
"That's quite right, Austin."
"I'll only put before you a general suggestion. Doesn't our disposition
determine our attitude to these things much oftener than our attitude is
shaped by our opinions? Hence individual modifications--variations from
the general trend, whatever that may be. What a man--or woman--is in
worldly relations, isn't he apt to be in regard to religious affairs? If
a man thinks for himself in worldly affairs----"
"I'm not against thought," he broke in. "That's the eternal
misunderstanding!"
"But so often against the results of it?" I suggested. "And one reason
among others for that is because the result of individual thought is
often a decision to suspend generally accepted views in one's own
case--which you fellows don't like. I don't mind going so far as to say
that I think Miss Driver would be capable of suspending a generally
accepted view in her own case--but she wouldn't do it without thought or
indifferently. She would do it as a well-considered exercise of power.
Some people like power--I don't know whether a priest can understand
that?"
We had come to the "Church House" where he dwelt in barracks with his
curates. His eyes twinkled. "I know what you mean--and you can chaff as
much as you like--but I shall have a go at Miss Driver."
After a conversation a man of candid mind will often--and, if the
discussion has partaken in any degree of an argumentative character, I
would say generally--he left reflecting whether what he has said was
even as true as he meant to make it. As I had hinted, I talked to Alison
about Jenny with reserves, but even within their limits I doubted
whether I had given him the impression I had meant to convey. Perhaps he
understood, though he could never acknowledge as legitimate, my view
that she would feel entitled to treat herself as a special case. He
might even act on this view--always without acknowledging it; surely
Churches have been known to do that? He might approach her on that
footing--with the hope of changing it. I had meant to point out an
impossibility; I fancied I had indicated a task and communicated a
stimulus. Had I cast aside the reserves, I should have told him plainly
that in my judgment the emotional basis for his appeal was lacking in
her. Emotions existed, but not in that direction; that was more what I
had wanted to say, but, not feeling at liberty to adduce evidence, I had
lost myself in generalities. My poor modicum of truth stopped at the
dictum that to Jenny Jenny would seem an exceptional person; I had at
least come near to putting it in the hazardous and unorthodox form that
everybody might have a right, on sufficient occasion, so to treat
himself. And he himself judge of the sufficiency of the occasion? That
amounts to anarchy--as Alison, of course, perceived, and, had we pursued
the argument, I must have found myself in a very tight place.
I was shaking my head over my own controversial incompetence--with,
perhaps, a furtive saving plea that it was very hard to tell all one's
thoughts to an ecclesiastic--when I was suddenly brought back to more
tangible matters; perhaps also to my modicum of truth--that Jenny would
seem to Jenny an exceptional person. In short, on turning the next
corner, I all but ran into Mr. Nelson Powers.
He looked as greasily insinuating as ever. He also appeared to be more
prosperous than when I had last seen him. He looked, so to say,
established--as if he had a right to be where he was, not so much as if
he were "trying it on"--with eyes open for kicks or the police. He was
strolling about the streets of Catsford quite with the air of belonging
to it.
He did not recognize me, or would not. He was almost by me when I
stopped him.
"Mr. Powers? Surely it is? What brings you to Catsford?"
"Mr. Austin? Yes! Well, now, how do you do, sir? I'm glad to meet you
again. I was unlucky in missing that dinner--well, never mind! But
you've heard? Miss Driver has mentioned my appointment?"
"I've heard nothing of any appointment."
"Ah, perhaps I'm premature in mentioning it. I'll say good afternoon,
Mr. Austin."
I seemed to have nothing to say to him. I was rather bewildered; I
thought that we had really seen the end of Powers.
He stretched out his hand, and took hold of mine, depriving me of all
initiative in the matter.
"Miss Driver will speak in her own time, sir. I--I should only like to
say, sir, that I--I recognize the change in Miss Driver's position. One
learns wisdom, Mr. Austin. Good afternoon, sir." He pressed my hand--he
was wearing gloves and I was not sorry for it--and was round the corner
while I was still gaping.
I walked up to the Priory, immersed in a rather scandalized, rather
amused, would-be psychological line of reflection. "She can't help it!"
I said to myself. "She can't let anyone go! Not even Powers! At the
first chance (I did not yet guess what the chance was) she calls him to
heel again. Even the meanest hound must keep with the pack. It's very
curious, but that's it!"
In fact that was only part of it--and not the most significant for
present purposes.
Jenny had gone from the Committee to call on Mrs. Jepps, a person of
much consideration in Catsford, wife of its first Mayor (now deceased),
owner of an important business house in the drapery line, _vir_ (save
that she was a woman) _pietate gravis_, and eminently meet to be
enrolled among the active adherents of the Institute.
"And I've got her!" said Jenny complacently, as she gave me my tea.
"Mr. Alison wants to get you--I've been talking to him."
"Oh, well, I like Mr. Alison."
"He wants to get you. Don't misunderstand. He doesn't want you to get
him, you know."
"Friendship is surely mutual?" suggested Jenny, with a lurking smile.
I mentioned the matter of the subscription: Jenny was satisfactorily
liberal.
"Not that you'll be quit of him with that," I warned her.
"I'm not afraid. Going? Will you come back to dinner?"
I stood for a moment looking at her. We might just as well have it out
now.
"You remember your promise? I'm not to be called upon to meet Mr.
Powers? I happened to meet him in the town this afternoon."
Jenny began to laugh--without the smallest sign of embarrassment. "I was
going to break it to you over your glass of port. That's why I asked you
to dinner. Now don't look grave and silly. Can't you really see any
difference between me as I am and the girl who came here a year ago?
Well, then, you're stupider than poor Powers himself! He sees it clearly
enough and accepts the position--he won't expect to come to dinner.
Besides he's very sorry for what happened. Besides why shouldn't I give
a chance to an old acquaintance rather than to a stranger? Besides--how
I'm piling up 'besides' just to keep you quiet!--Mrs. Powers has come,
too, and all the children--three now instead of one! So really it must
be all right."
"But what are you going to do with him?"
"Why, he's a first-class draughtsman--trained in a very good architect's
office. Mr. Bindlecombe has seen specimens of his work and says it's
excellent. I should think that Mr. Bindlecombe knew!" (Meaning thereby,
as the lawyers say, that I did not!)
"Well?"
"Can't you really guess? He's to be the Institute clerk. He'll draw
plans and so on for us--and she'll keep the house, and have it all ready
for our Committees."
"He's to live at Ivydene?"
"Have you any objection?"
Up to now Jenny's tone had been evenly compounded of merriment--over my
absurdities--and plausibility for her own admirable management. Now a
slightly different note crept in. "Have you any objection?" was not said
in a very conciliatory manner.
"I might have anticipated," she went on--"in fact I do anticipate--these
stupid objections from Mr. Cartmell--and I'm prepared to meet them. But
from you I looked for more perception. The man is a clever man; he's out
of employment. Why shouldn't I employ him? Is it to be fatal to him that
he was once unwise--worse than unwise? Against that, put that he's an
old friend, and that even I have my human feelings. I was a fool, but I
was fond of him once."
"It's for you to judge," I said.
"Can't you see--can't you understand?" she exclaimed. "Powers is
nothing--it's all over, gone, done with!" She clasped her hands
excitedly. "Oh, when I've so much on my shoulders, why do you worry me
with trifles?"
"If you've so much on your shoulders, why add even trifles?"
"I add nothing," she said. "On the contrary I--" She broke off suddenly,
and added quickly, "It's done--I'm pledged to him. Oh, don't bother me
about Powers!" She calmed down again. She returned to plausibility. She
went on with a smile, "You've found me out in one way, of course. I do
want my own man there. I want my own way in everything, so I want a man
who'll back me up--a man who'll always be on my side, who won't suddenly
go over to Lord Fillingford, or the Rector--or even Lady Sarah! Poor
Powers will have to agree with me always--he'll have to be a blind
adherent. He can't afford to differ."
"That's frank, at all events," I commented.
Jenny's face lit up. "Yes, it is," she said, with much better temper.
"Quite frank--the whole truth about Jenny Driver! He'll be what I
want--and do you seriously mean to say that you think there's any
danger? Nobody here knows anything about him, except you and Mr.
Cartmell. Are you traitors? Will Powers speak--and lose his livelihood?
It's absurd to talk of danger from Powers."
I had come to agree with her that it was. So far as I could judge, there
was no longer any appreciable danger from the man--neither from his
presence in Catsford nor from Jenny's meetings with him. He could not
afford to threaten; she had grown far out of any peril of being cajoled.
But if not dangerous, neither was the arrangement attractive to one's
taste. It was difficult to suppose that Jenny herself liked it, unless
indeed my highly philosophical speculations covered the whole ground.
Did they? Must she really recall Powers? Couldn't she help it? Was a
present and immediate domination over even such as Powers essential to
her content?
I could not believe it and accused my own speculations, if not of entire
error (they had an element of truth), yet of inadequacy. In fact a doubt
had begun to creep into my mind. Never in my life had I heard so many
sound reasons for doing a thing that was obviously quite uncalled
for--unless there was one other reason still--a reason not plausible,
nor producible, but compelling. Yet what? For I was convinced that the
man had no hold, that she was not in the least afraid of Powers.
"I hate your standing opposite me and thinking about me," remarked Jenny
suddenly. "I'm sure it's not comfortable, and I don't think it's polite.
Besides, after all, it's possible that you might find out something!"
"Surely that 'Besides' is superfluous, anyhow?"
"I don't know--I don't quite trust you. But shall I tell you your
mistake? You're too ready to think that I have a reason for everything I
do. You're wrong. Where reason comes in with me is about the things I
don't do. If you reason about things, most of them look either dull or
dangerous. So you let them alone. But if you don't reason, you chance
it--either the dullness or the danger, as the case may be."
"A juggle with words! You reason all the same."
"Not always. Sometimes you're--driven."
On her face was a look almost as if she were being driven. I fancied
that I might have said too much about deliberate exercises of power in
my conversation with the Rector.
"I suppose you'd explain that, if you wished to," I remarked after a
pause. "You appear to be as free from being driven as most people.
You're pretty independent!"
"I should explain it if I wished--perhaps even if I could. But do you
always find it easy to explain yourself--even to yourself, to say
nothing of other people?"
"It seems to me that you've only got yourself to please."
"And it also seems to you that that would be very easy?"
"Now you're in one of your fencing moods--there's no plain English to be
got out of you."
"Fencing is useful to parry thrusts, Austin."
"Heavens, have I been making thrusts at you? You mean about that
miserable Powers?"
She sat there looking at me, with the mystery smile on her lips; but her
brow was knit. "Yes, about Powers," she said--after a pause, but without
hesitation. The manner of her answer said plainly "Call it about
Powers--it is about something else." So I think she meant me to read it.
She told me that there was some trouble lest, suspecting but not
knowing, I should make wild thrusts and wound her blindly.
"No one but you would put up with such an impertinent retainer," I said.
"You always stop when I want you to. And I rather like--sometimes--to
try over my feelings and ideas in talk. One gets a kind of outside look
at them in that way." She broke into a little laugh. "And I must keep
you in a good temper, because I've a favor to ask. Are we going to be
terribly busy in the immediate future?"
"I should think so--with your Institute!"
"No time for riding?" she suggested insinuatingly.
"Oh, well, one must consider one's health."
"I don't want to give up my morning ride; but I want you to come with
me--well, as often as you can. Make it the regular thing to come,
barring most pressing business."
"I see what I get out of this, Lady Jenny. Now what do you?"
"I knew you'd ask that. Of course I'm never disinterested!"
"I won't ask. I'll take the gift Heaven sends!"
"I daren't leave it like that. You're too conscientious; you'd stay at
home and work. I'm afraid I must give you the reason."
Her thoughts had passed away, it seemed, from the difficulty which had
made her now irritable, now melancholy, while we talked about reasoning
and being "driven." She was gay and chaffed me with enjoyment. If there
were any perplexity in the case here, evidently it struck her as a
comedy, complicated by no threat of a tragic catastrophe. Her lips
twitched with merriment.
"Yes, you must have it--and really plain English this time--no
fencing--the downright blunt truth!"
"I wait for it."
"Lord Lacey comes home on leave to-morrow."
The explanation here was certainly plain. In fact it was both plain and
pregnant. While it confessed to a flirtation in the past, it also
admitted a project for the future.
"I must ride as often as possible," I said gravely. "Does he stay long?"
"I should think that might depend," answered Jenny. She laughed again as
she added, "Not even you can ask 'On what?'"