IN THE DOCK
She had gone--and we, her friends, were left to make the best of the
situation.
It proved, indeed, easy enough to deal with Powers; the police court was
not to be added to our troubles! The man was thoroughly frightened and
shaken; confronted with the suggestion that Octon might well return in a
few days, he was eager to hide himself. Cartmell took advantage of his
mood and pared down his money cruelly; he took what he could get--no
doubt he had been well paid from Fillingford Manor--and within two days
was out of Catsford with all his belongings. There, one might well hope,
was an end of Powers; even Jenny would not call him back again!
But an end of Powers did not much mend matters; even the fact that
Jenny's engagement to Fillingford had not been formally announced failed
to assist them to any great extent. The engagement had been a subject of
general speculation, confidently foretold and almost daily expected. Now
the subject of common talk was very different. Jenny was gone, Octon was
gone. So far, perhaps, little. One might return, the other had, no
doubt, good reasons for departure. But there were witnesses of their
departure together, and of circumstances which made it look strange.
Alison the Rector was one of these--a friendly unimpeachable witness. He
had been seeing two lads off to London--former members of his choir who
had returned to pay a visit to old friends--and he told Cartmell (he did
not speak to me, nor, I believe, to anybody but Cartmell) how he had
seen Jenny come hurriedly on to the platform; she was veiled, but her
face was easily to be distinguished, and her bearing alone would have
caused her to be recognized. She stood for a moment looking about her,
then caught sight of Octon's tall figure by the bookstall. She went
straight up to him. He turned with a start. "The man's face when he saw
her was a wonder," said Alison. They talked a little, then walked to the
train. Octon spoke to the guard and gave him money. The guard put them
into a compartment and turned the key. No sign of companion, maid,
footman, or even luggage, appertaining to Jenny! Did Miss Driver of
Breysgate Priory travel by night to London in that fashion?
What he had seen others saw--both Jenny and Octon were well known in
Catsford--and others were less reticent than the Rector. When no
announcement was made of Jenny's return and none of her engagement, when
Powers vanished and Ivydene was shut up, then the stream of talk began
to flow. Fillingford was loyally silent; his silence seemed only to add
significance to the rumors. Lacey abruptly rejoined his regiment, though
he had engagements for three weeks ahead--yet another unexplained
departure! The whole town--the whole neighborhood--were agog. Human
nature being what it is, small blame to them!
Of course his interview with Alison sent Cartmell flying up to me in
excitement and consternation. He had become devoted to Jenny; he was
devoted also to that fabric of influence and importance which she had
been building for herself. He was terribly upset. He had not been so far
behind the scenes as I had, or as Chat; the catastrophe came on him with
unmitigated suddenness. He had been a great partisan of the Fillingford
match; that crumbled before his eyes. But the greater blow was the
mystery of her flight with Octon.
"I can tell you nothing. We must wait for a letter." It was all I could
say unless and until Jenny gave me leave to speak.
That she did promptly, so far as Cartmell was concerned, thereby
enabling me to use his services in regard to Powers. A letter arrived on
Saturday morning--the flight had been on Thursday. It was a brief
letter, and a businesslike one. It showed two things: that Jenny was,
for the moment, in London--she did not say where--and that she was not
coming back. It told me to take Cartmell into my full confidence, to
tell him all I knew; neither he, nor Chat, nor I, was to say a word to
anybody else. "Announce that I am going to winter abroad, and say
nothing else--absolutely nothing--no explanations, no excuses, no
guesses. Say just what I have told you, and nothing else. Tell Chat that
I want nothing sent on. I shall get what I want. I will write at length
about business--to you or to Mr. Cartmell--as soon as I have made my
plans." Then she bade me go to Hatcham Ford, to pay off Octon's two
servants, and have the house put in charge of a caretaker. That
injunction was the only reference to Octon; of her own position,
feelings, or intentions in respect to him she made no mention whatever.
Cartmell heard the letter, and the story which, in obedience to it, I
told him, without signs of very great surprise. He twisted his mouth
about and grunted over Jenny's folly and double-dealing--but to his
practical mind the present situation was the question; my story seemed
to make that more, not less, explicable. Jenny, in honor pledged to
Fillingford, found that she wanted to marry Octon; she had not dared to
tell Fillingford so; hence all the subterfuges, the secret meetings, the
catastrophe, and the flight.
"In a day or two we shall get news of their marriage, no doubt. It's
very silly, and not very creditable--but it's hardly a tragedy, Austin.
Only--there goes Fillingford Manor forever! And what a master for
Breysgate!"
His was as plain and reasonable a view as the situation could be fitted
into. Jenny would now marry Octon, wait till the sensation was over, and
then come back to Breysgate with her husband. Or perhaps she would not
come back to Breysgate; perhaps she would not face the neighborhood with
her record behind her--and Octon by her side, ever recalling it. She
would break up all the fabric which she had made--and start anew
somewhere else. That did not seem unlikely; a suggestion of it filled
Cartmell with fresh dismay.
"A pretty thing that!" he said. "After all our tall talk about our love
for Catsford, and our Institute, and all the rest of it! How am I to
face Bindlecombe, eh? And look at the money she's put into the estate!
She'll never get that back on a sale."
I found Cartmell rather comforting--at least he created a diversion in
my thoughts. His care for the externals of the position, for the
material and even the pecuniary aspects of it, was a relief to an
imagination which, all against its will, had been engrossed in the state
and the struggle of Jenny's heart--dwelling on her intentions not about
her estate and her Institute, but about herself, picturing the strong
rush of feeling which had impelled her to her flight, asking whither it
would lead or had led her--and asking doubtfully.
Cartmell tapped my knee with the end of his stick. "The sooner we get
news of the marriage, the better--though bad's the best!" he said with a
solemn nod of his head.
He was right--but most heartily did I echo his "Bad's the best!" Had
Jenny herself ever thought differently--at least before that fatal
night? What was she thinking now--when the night was past?
Two days later a long letter reached Cartmell; he came up to me with it
directly after breakfast, when I was in my office at the Priory. A
lonely, weary great place was the house now--no life in it; Chat in bed
and probably in flutters--she had taken to both on the night of the
disaster, and clung to both; Loft's face and gait was pronouncedly
funereal. Visitors, of course, there were none. The establishment seemed
to be in quarantine.
Jenny's letter was in her best style--concise, clear--and handsome.
Everything was to go on at Breysgate as though she herself were there.
Cartmell was given full control of finances--a power of attorney was to
follow from London. Chat was to stay till further orders. Nothing was to
be shut up, nobody to be dismissed. I was directed to take full charge
of the house and grounds, allotted ample funds for the expenses, and
intrusted with the care of all her correspondence. Urgent letters were
to be sent under cover to her bankers at Paris; there all communications
were to be addressed, thence all would come. Money for her own use was
to be deposited there also. Finally, the Committee was fully empowered
to proceed with the plans and preliminaries of the Institute; they were
to be credited with five thousand pounds for this purpose. I was to act
on her behalf and report progress to her from time to time. Whatever her
feelings were, her brain was active, busy, and efficient.
"It doesn't look as if she meant to give up Breysgate, anyhow," said
Cartmell.
"Neither does it look as if she meant to come back," said I.
That, again, was like Jenny. She did not mean to come back, but neither
did she mean to let go. She elaborately provided for a long absence, but
by careful implication negatived the idea that the absence was to be
permanent. Though she was not there, her presence was to be felt. Though
she was away, she would rule through her deputies--Chat, Cartmell, the
Institute Committee, myself. She forsook Catsford, but would remain a
power there.
With all this, not a word of what she herself meant to do or where she
meant to go--no explanation of the past or information about the future.
Not a word of Octon--not a word of marriage! The old signature held
still, "Jenny Driver." The silences of the letter were even more
remarkable than its contents. The whole effect was one of personal
isolation. That great local institution, Miss Driver of Breysgate, was
all to the fore. Jenny had withdrawn behind an impenetrable veil. Miss
Driver of Breysgate was benign, conciliatory, gracious, loyal to
Catsford. Jenny was enigmatic, unapologetic, defiant. Jenny slapped
while Miss Driver stroked. What would they make out of these
contradictory attitudes of the dual personality?
Cartmell put his common-sense finger on the spot--on the very pulse of
Catsford and the neighborhood.
"What they'll want to hear about is the marriage. Any irregularity in
her position--!" He waved his hands expressively.
Graciousness and loyalty, charities continued and institutes
built--excellent in their way, but no real use if there were any
irregularity in her position! Cartmell was right--and I am far from
wishing to imply that Catsford was wrong, or that its pulse beat
otherwise than the pulse of a healthy locality should. The rules must be
kept--at any rate, homage must be paid to them. Jenny herself never
denied the obligation, whether it were to be regarded as merely social
or as something more. It is no business of mine to question it on her
behalf--and I feel no call to do it on my own account.
Cartmell's words flung a doubt. Was there much positive reason for that
doubt yet? People may get married without advertising the fact. Even
although they have departed by the same train for the same place, they
may behave with propriety pending arrangements for a wedding. Jenny had
great possessions; she was not to be married out of hand, like a
beggar-girl. Settlements clamored to be made, lawyers to be consulted.
Cartmell cut across these soothing reflections of mine.
"It's a funny thing that I've had no instructions about settlements.
She'd surely never marry him without settlements?"
I cut my reflections adrift, it was the only line left open to me. "How
could you expect a girl to think about them in such circumstances?"
"I should expect Jenny Driver to," he said.
"She'd be thinking of nothing except the romance of it."
"Is that the impression you get from her letter?"
"There are always two sides to her mind," I urged.
"One's in that letter," he said, pointing to it. "What's the other
doing, Austin?"
To ask that question was, as things stood, to cry to an oracle which was
dumb. Miss Driver of Breysgate spoke--but Jenny was obstinately mute.
Before many days were out, Catsford became one colossal "Why?" It must
have been by a supreme effort, by a heartrending sacrifice to
traditional decorum, that the editor of the _Herald and Times_ refrained
from writing articles or "opening our columns to a correspondence" on
the subject.
At last there came a word about herself--to me and to me only. It was
contained in the last communication I received from her before she left
London; she spoke of herself as being "just off." The letter dealt with
nothing more important than the treatment of a pet spaniel which had
been ailing at the time of her flight. But there was a postscript,
squeezed in at the foot of the page; the ink was paler than in the
letter itself. It looked as though the postscript had been added by an
afterthought--perhaps after hesitation--and blotted immediately. "I
still hold my precarious liberty."
The one sentence answered one question--she was not married. There were
things which it left unanswered; her present position and her intentions
for the future lay still in doubt. She held her liberty, but the liberty
was precarious. Here was no material for a reassuring public
announcement; even if I had not been sure that the postscript was meant
for me alone--and of that I was sure--I could only have held my tongue;
it was charged with so fatal an ambiguity, it left so much in the dark.
Yet in its way it was to me full of meaning, most characteristic, most
illuminating--and it fitted in with the picture which my own imagination
had drawn. Out of a tangle of hesitations and doubts she had plunged
into her wild adventure. How far it had carried her it was not possible
to say; but here were the hesitations and doubts back again. After the
impulsive fervor of feeling had had its way with her, the cool and
cautious brain was awake again--awake and struggling. The issue was
doubtful; the liberty to which her mind clung was "precarious"--menaced
and assailed by a potent influence. Past experience made it easy to
appreciate the state in which she was--her wishes on one side, her fears
on the other--her strong inclination to Octon against her obstinate
independence, her feelings crying for surrender, her mental instinct
urging that she should still keep the line of retreat open.
But was it still open in any effective sense? As regards her position,
so far as the opinion of the world--of her world--went, every day barred
it more and more. She must know that; she must realize how her silence
would be interpreted, how no news about her would be confidently
reckoned the worst of news. For Octon she had sacrificed so much that
there was nothing for it but to give him all--to give him even her
liberty, if marriage with him meant the loss of it. There was no other
possible conclusion if she would look at the matter as others looked at
it, if she would use the eyes and ears of Catsford, and see what they
made of her situation. But perhaps she was no readier to surrender
herself to them than to Octon himself. She might answer that in her own
soul she would still be free, though her freedom were bought at a great
price, though in the eyes of the world she had forfeited her right to
it.
My memory harked back to a conversation which I had once held with
Alison. A mind that thought for itself in worldly matters, I had
suggested to him, would very likely think for itself in moral or
religious ones, too--and such thought was apt to issue in suspending
general obligations in a man's own case. I had hazarded the opinion that
Miss Driver would be capable of suspending a general obligation in her
own case--as the result of careful thought about it--as an exercise of
power, to repeat the phrase I had used. If that were her disposition
now--if what I had foreshadowed as a possibility had become a
fact--would Octon save her from the results of it? He was the last man
in the world to do that. Skeptic in mind and rebel in temper, he would
not insist on obedience to obligations in whose sanction he did not
believe, nor be urgent in counseling outward conformity with conventions
which he disliked and took a positive pleasure in scorning. On the other
hand, he would not be swayed by a vulgar self-interest; he would be too
proud to seek to bind her to him that he might thus bind her money also.
If she said "I will remain free," he would acquiesce and might even
applaud. If she said "I will be free and yet with you," it was not
likely that he would offer any strong opposition.
Meanwhile she stood where people who arrogate to themselves the liberty
of defying the law cannot reasonably complain of standing--in the dock.
That is the fair cost of the freedom they claim. Jenny was arraigned at
the bar of the public opinion of her neighbors; unless she could and
would clear herself of suspicion, there was not much doubt how the
verdict would go. The first overt step in the proceedings took place
under my own eyes.
Cartmell had apprised Bindlecombe of Jenny's wish that the work of the
Institute should proceed in her absence, and of her financial
arrangements to this end. Bindlecombe, as Chairman, convened a meeting
of the Committee. Cartmell was out of town that day and did not attend,
but I went to represent Jenny's side of the affair. Fillingford and
Alison were talking together in low voices when I came in. Fillingford
greeted me with his usual reserved courtesy, Alison with even more than
his wonted kindness. Bindlecombe was visibly nervous and perturbed as he
read to us Cartmell's letter. When he had finished it, he looked across
the table to Alison and said, "I understand that you have something to
say, Mr. Alison?"
"What I have to say, sir, is soon said," Alison answered. He spoke low
and very gravely, like a man who discharges an imperative but
distasteful task. "The Institute is very closely connected with the
personality of the liberal--the very liberal--donor. In my opinion--and
I believe that I am very far from being alone in the opinion--it is
inexpedient to proceed with the work until we can feel sure of being
able to enjoy Miss Driver's personal cooperation. I move that, while
thanking Miss Driver for the offer contained in the letter we have just
heard, we express to her our opinion in that sense." He had not looked
at any of us, but had kept his eyes lowered as he spoke.
There was a moment's pause. Then Fillingford said, "I agree, and I
second the motion." His voice was entirely impassive. "I don't think it
is necessary for me to add anything."
Bindlecombe turned to me with an air of inquiry.
"I can take no part in this," I said. "It is simply for me to hear the
decision of the Committee and to communicate it to Miss Driver in due
course."
Bindlecombe clasped his hands nervously; he was acutely distressed--and
not only for the threatened loss of his darling Institute. He knew how
Jenny would read the resolution, and Jenny had been his idol.
"Is--is this really necessary?" he ventured to ask, though Alison's sad
gravity and Fillingford's cold resoluteness evidently overawed him.
"Perhaps some of the preliminary work could----?"
Alison interposed; "I fear I must ask that my resolution be put as it
stands."
Fillingford nodded, drumming lightly on the table with his fingers.
Evidently they had made up their minds; if the resolution were not
passed, they would secede. That would be worse than the resolution
itself, and would make progress just as impossible.
"Then I'll put it," said Bindlecombe reluctantly. "No gentleman desires
to say any more?"
No more was said. The resolution was carried, I, of course, not voting.
"And I suppose that we adjourn--_sine die_?" said Bindlecombe.
That followed as of course, and we all three assented. Bindlecombe rose
from the chair. There, for the present at all events, was an end of the
Institute, there Jenny's first public and official rebuff. Catsford
would have to be told what had been decided, why no more was done about
the Institute. I had no doubt that Alison had thought of this and had
worded his resolution with a view to its publication.
Fillingford and Alison went out of the room together, and I was left
with Bindlecombe. (We had met at his house, Ivydene being shut up.) "I'm
very sorry for this, Mr. Austin," he said.
I was very sorry, too. The decision would not be a grateful one to
Jenny. It was an intimation that her idea of keeping her hold on
Catsford, even while she defied it, would not work; the dual personality
of munificent Miss Driver of Breysgate and wayward Jenny Driver--of
where?--would not find acceptance.
"A winter abroad is not eternity, Mr. Bindlecombe," said I, smiling. "We
shall be busy at the Institute again by the spring, I hope." That, of
course, was speaking to my cue--Jenny's official version of her
departure; she was wintering abroad--that was all.
"I hope so, I hope so," he said, but he hardly pretended that he was
imposed upon. He shook his head dolefully and looked at me with a gloomy
significance. "The Rector's a hard fellow to deal with. Pleasant as can
be, but hard as a brick on--well, where his own views come in. He's not
a man of the world, Mr. Austin."
Evidently in Bindlecombe's opinion a man of the world would have stuck
to the Institute, even if he could not stick to its donor--stuck to the
Institute and carved _Non Olet_ on its handsome facade; it would have
been in no worse case than many imposing public buildings--to say
nothing of luxurious private residences. But Alison was not a man of the
world--and in this instance the current of opinion was with him. The two
worlds joined in condemning Jenny; neither as an individual nor as a
local institution could she be defended. A lurking loyalty in
Bindlecombe--if I mistook not, a reluctant admiration in Lacey--were the
only exceptions to the general verdict--outside her own retainers. I do
not think that we asked ourselves questions about approval or
disapproval, condemnation or condonation. We were not judges; we were,
in one way, in the fight.
To my surprise Alison was waiting outside the house. When I came out, he
approached me.
"Austin, I want you to shake hands with me," he said. "I had to do that,
you know. You don't suppose I liked doing it?"
"I'll shake hands," I said. "I'm not particular. But I don't feel called
upon to have any opinion as to whether you're right, nor as to whether
you liked doing it or not."
"That last bit's unfair, anyhow," he declared indignantly.
"Fair and unfair! Man, man, do you suppose I'm worrying about things
like that?"
I had lost control for a moment. He was not angry with me; he seemed to
understand, and patted my shoulder affectionately.
"Of course I know you didn't like doing it," I growled. "But does that
make things any better?"
"Tell her I didn't like doing it," he said. "If only she understood why
I had to do it!"
Well, from neither of the worlds can defiance look for mercy.