LIVING PIECES
Jenny had now on the board all the pieces needed for her great
combination--embracing, as it did, the restoration of her own position,
the regaining of Catsford's loyal allegiance, the extension of her
territory and influence in the county, and "doing the handsome thing by"
Margaret. Nobody who watched her closely--both what she did and the
hints of her mind which she let fall--could long doubt which of these
objects was paramount with her. It was the last. The others were, in a
sense, no more than means to it; though in themselves irresistible to
her temperament, necessary to her happiness, and instinctively sought by
her, yet in the combination they stood subsidiary to the master-stroke
that was to crown her game and redeem the pledge which she had given to
Leonard Octon as he lay dying. But doing the handsome thing by Margaret
carried with it, or, rather, contained within itself, as Jenny conceived
the position, another object to which in its turn it was, if not
subsidiary, so closely related as to be inseparable. Fate had severed
her life from Octon's; Jenny imperiously refused to accept the severance
as complete. Octon, the man she loved, had been at odds with the
neighborhood, had been scorned and rejected by it; she herself had
openly disgraced him at its bidding; because she had not been able to
resist his fascination, she had herself fallen into disgrace. She meant
now to obliterate all that. For him she could directly do nothing; she
would do everything for his name and for the girl whom he had left. She
would vindicate--or avenge--his memory; she would even glorify it in the
person of his daughter. That was the ultimate impulse which gave birth
to her combination and dictated its moves; the achievement of that end
was to be its consummation.
It was not a selfish impulse; it had indeed a touch of something
quixotic and fanciful about it--this posthumous victory which she sought
to win for Octon, this imposing of him in his death on a society which
would have nothing of him while he lived, this proud refusal to court or
to accept oblivion for him or for her friendship with him, this
challenge thrown out to his detractors, in his name, as it were from his
grave. Her personal restoration and aggrandizement, if welcome in
themselves, were also necessary to this final object. The object itself
was not self-seeking save in so far as she stood identified with the
cause which she championed. Yet on the realization of it she did not
scruple to bring to bear all the resources and all the arts which would
have been appropriate to the most cold and calculating selfishness.
Everything was pressed into the service--the resources of her own
wealth, the opportunities afforded by the needs of her neighbors,
Catsford's appetite for holidays and feasts, as well as its aspirations
toward higher education; her own youth and attractiveness no less than
Margaret's beauty; the wiles and the cunning by which she gained power
over men. She spent herself as lavishly as she spent her money; she was
as ready to sacrifice herself as she was eager to make use of others.
She seized on every new ally and fitted him into her scheme. Dormer had
appeared at the last moment--by happy chance. In a moment she saw where
he could be of use, laid her hand on him, and pressed him into the
service. He became a new piece on the board; he had his place in the
combination.
Delicate and difficult is the game when it is played with living pieces.
They may refuse to move--or may move in the wrong direction. There was
one piece, of supreme importance in the scheme, which she must handle
with rarest skill if he were to be induced to move at her bidding and in
the direction that her combination required. He was to be the head and
front of the final attack; at the head of the opposing forces stood his
father! She must be very sure of her control over that piece before she
tried to move it! Only when he had been brought wholly under her sway
could the process of impelling him in the desired direction safely be
begun.
Yes, Fillingford was the great enemy. Round him gathered all the
opposition to her, her proceedings, and her pretensions; he lay right
across her path, and must be conquered if her schemes were to win
success. She was not bitter against him; she was ready to admit that he
had the right to be bitter against her. She shared his pride too much
not to appreciate his attitude. She respected him, in a way she liked
him--but she was minded to fight him to the death if need be, and to use
against him every weapon that she could find--even those that came from
his own household. If he fell before her attack, the whole campaign
would be won. But it was preposterous to suppose that he ever would?
Jenny knew the difficulties, but neither did she underestimate her own
resources. A long purse, a long head, and two remarkably attractive
young women--these formed the nucleus of her forces; they represented a
power by no means to be despised in whatever field they might be brought
into action.
I was at the luncheon-party--"to talk to Chat," said Jenny; but in fact
I had fallen into the habit of lunching at the Priory. Jenny had human
weaknesses, and, from this time on, manifested a liking for a
sympathetic audience--which she could find only in me. Chat was not, in
her judgment, "safe"; she was too leaky a vessel to be trusted with the
drops of confidence--carefully measured drops--which Jenny was pleased
to let fall. Besides, she needed, now and then, a little help.
The young men arrived in high spirits, and Jenny, flanked by Chat and
myself--Margaret was not down from changing after her riding
lesson--received them gayly. They had a joke between themselves, and it
was not long in coming out. They had been compelled to dodge Lady Sarah;
only a bolt up a side road had prevented them from meeting her carriage
face to face just outside Breysgate Park.
"You're playing truants, I'm afraid!" said Jenny, but with no air of
rebuke.
Loft announced lunch; we went in without waiting for Margaret. She did
not appear till we had been eating for ten minutes. By that time Jenny
had both her guests well in hand. If her manner to Dormer was cordial,
yet it lacked the touch of intimacy, of old-time friendliness, which she
had for Lacey. But neither was she any longer so candidly Lacey's
friend--and so definitely nothing else--as she had once thought it
politic to become. She did not now hold her wiles in leash; she loosed
them in pursuit of him, even as in the earliest days of their
acquaintance.
The door opened. Jenny's eyes flew quickly to it; she stopped talking
and seemed to wait for something. Margaret came running in, her hair
bright in the summer sun, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks glowing--the
very picture of radiant youth and beauty. Only a few feet separated me
from Lacey. I heard him say "By Jove!" half under his breath.
Jenny heard, too. "Here's Margaret," she said. The girl ran to her, took
her hand, and began to make a thousand excuses for being late.
"And, after all the rest, that nice clergyman stopped me on the road and
talked to me!"
"You mean Mr. Alison? He stopped you?" Jenny looked interested. "What
did he say?"
"Oh, nothing--only that he'd known my father, and that he hoped I was
very happy. Of course I am--with you!"
"There's your place--between Mr. Dormer and Austin. Sit down, or Loft
won't give you any lunch."
Between Dormer and me was opposite Jenny and Lacey--Chat and I each
sitting at an end of the oblong table. Jenny showed no remission in her
efforts to keep Lacey amused--indeed she rather engrossed him, and the
other four of us talked together. But from time to time his eyes strayed
across the table--and once he caught Miss Margaret studying his handsome
face with evident interest. The girl blushed. Jenny was smiling
contentedly as she regained her guest's attention.
Dormer made great play with the pretty girl. It did not take long to
discover that this was Dormer's way. He had the gift--one enviable to
slow-tongued folk like myself--of a perpetual flow of small talk; this
he peppered copiously--I must confess to thinking that it needed
seasoning--with flirtation, more or less obvious--generally more. He
plied Margaret with the product, much to her apparent liking; she was at
her prettiest in her timid fencing with his compliments, her shy
enjoyment, her consciously daring little excursions into coquetry. But
Dormer's eyes were not all for his own side of the table either; he made
an effort or two to draw Jenny into conversation; he often looked her
way. With those two in the room together, a man might well be puzzled to
decide on which face to turn his eyes. Jenny assisted Dormer's choice.
She would not be drawn by him--she was still for Lacey. The two couples
talked, Chat and I falling out of the conversation; we could not
condescend to call commonplaces across the space that divided us, and
Chat and I seldom talked anything else to one another.
After lunch we all went into the garden--except Chat, who always took a
siesta when she could. Here Jenny carried off Dormer, to see the
hothouses--it was time to be civil to him. I fancied that she would not
be vexed if I left Lacey and Margaret to a _tete-a-tete_, so, when they
proposed strolling, I was firm for sitting, and we parted company. I
could watch them as I sat. The two were getting on very well. For a
little while I watched. My cigarette came to an end--I followed Chat's
excellent example and fell asleep.
I awoke to find Jenny standing beside me. She was pulling a rose to
pieces and smiling thoughtfully. Our guests had, it seemed, departed;
Margaret was visible in a hammock under a tree at the other end of the
lawn.
"I've really had to be quite shy with Mr. Dormer in the hothouses," she
said. "He's such a ladies' man! And he's gone away with the impression
that that's the sort of man I like. He has pointed out that Hingston is
only fifteen miles off, and that he has a motor car and can do the
distance in twenty-two--or was it twenty-seven?--minutes, so that lots
can be seen of him, if desired. He has hinted that this is, after all, a
lonely life for me--for a person of my gifts and attractions--and has
congratulated me on the growing prosperity of Catsford. What do you make
of all that, Austin?"
"Perhaps you told him that you wanted a bit of his land?"
"Mr. Cartmell would never have forgiven me if I'd let slip such a
propitious opportunity. I did."
"It rather looks as if he wanted all of yours," I suggested.
"Then he communicated to me the impression that, in his opinion, Lord
Lacey was considerably smitten with Eunice Aspenick and that the match
might come off. In return for which I managed, I believe, to convey to
him a sort of twofold impression--first, that I might possibly marry
myself--some day; secondly, that, when I did, Margaret would be
dismissed with a decent provision--a small addition to the little income
which she has from her father. For reasons of my own I laid some stress
on the latter half of that impression, Austin." She was looking over to
where Margaret lay in the hammock. "She's very young," she said softly,
"and of course, the man's glib and in a way good-looking."
"Are you beginning to feel a little responsible? It's easy work,
marrying off other people!"
"But they make such a beautiful pair!" she pleaded. She did not mean
Margaret and Dormer. "I love just to see them together. And the idea of
it! How Leonard would have laughed! Can't you hear that great big
outrageous guffaw of his breaking out over it? But you don't think I'd
force her?"
"No. And he's a fine lad. You wouldn't be going far wrong."
"She's very young. She might--make a mistake. I thought Mr. Dormer had
better understand her real situation."
"O mistress of many wiles, I understand! But is Lacey to share the
impression?"
"I should like him to--up to the last possible minute. And then--the
fairy godmother! It's all on the old-fashioned lines--but I like it."
Her voice dropped. "The old, mischievous, none-too-respectable fairy
godmother, Austin!"
"Suppose the fairy godmother seemed not so very old herself--that
mischief proved attractive--that----?"
"Impossible--with her here! Oh, you really think so, only you're always
so polite. But anything short of--of that--would be quite within the
four corners of the scheme." She laughed at me, at her schemes, at
herself; yet about the two last she was in deadly earnest. So she grew
grave again in a moment. "He'd have to get over so much to make that
seem even possible."
Well, that was true enough. Fillingford's son--the accomplice of my
evening expedition to Hatcham Ford! There was something to get over,
certainly. But there was something to get over in the other plan, too.
"Still, I don't mind its seeming--just possible," said Jenny. She looked
at me with an air of wondering how I should take what she was going to
say. "It might just be made to seem--a danger!"
"This is walking on a razor's edge, isn't it?"
"Yes--it is rather. Mr. Dormer's got to help a little. I don't like him,
Austin."
"No more do I--since you mention it. And you'd have no pity for him
either?"
"I shall get his bit of land, but he won't get all mine," said Jenny,
serenely pitiless. "He plays his game--I'll play mine. We neither of us
stake our hearts, I think. You can't stake what you've never had--or
what you've lost." She stood silent for a minute, looking down to where
the smoke of busy Catsford rose in a blue mist between us and the
horizon. "He's just ridiculous, but he serves my turn. No need to talk
any more about him!"
Margaret tumbled herself out of the hammock with a grace which was
entirely accidental and narrowly skirted a disaster to propriety. She
came across the lawn, yawning and laughing. "I've been asleep, Jenny,"
she cried, "and having wonderful dreams!"
Jenny's face lit up with an extraordinary tenderness. She drew the girl
to her and stroked her hair. "Why did you wake up? It's a pity to wake
up when the dreams are wonderful."
"Oh, but waking up's great fun, too! Everything's great fun at
Breysgate."
Stroking Margaret's hair, Jenny looked down at me in my wicker
arm-chair. "I've been having fun, too--telling Austin secrets!"
"Tell me some."
"The day after to-morrow--or just about then!" laughed Jenny.
The ensuing days were full of triumph for Jenny. Her munificent donation
was gratefully and enthusiastically accepted; a new Committee, composed
of members of the Corporation, was appointed to take in hand the
erection of the Institute immediately; there was no danger of this
Committee's adjourning _sine die_! Her holiday and her feast went off in
a blaze of success. She received a wonderful ovation from the town;
there was no appearance of her being ostracized by the county. She came
out to greet her guests, supported by the Aspenicks, by Dormer, even by
Lacey; it was significant that the last-named should appear on so public
an occasion. His presence compromised the attitude of Fillingford Manor;
though its master was not there, though the lady who presided over the
house was severely absent, the heir was there--and there, evidently, on
terms of friendship and intimacy.
Lady Aspenick came, I think, not merely because she was committed to
civility; she also desired to spy out the land, to get some light on the
situation. Lacey's visits to Breysgate were becoming frequent; they had
not passed unnoticed by vigilant eyes in the neighborhood, and the
report of them had reached Overington Grange. Did Lacey brave the
disapproval of his family for nothing? While Eunice joined the gay group
which followed Jenny as she made a progress round the tables, Lady
Aspenick fell to my share.
"All this is a great triumph for Jenny's friends," she remarked. "Those
of us who have been her friends all through, I mean."
"It must be very gratifying to you, Lady Aspenick."
"I have been loyal," she said with candid pride, "and I am loyal still,
although, as I told you, I can't approve of everything she does." Her
eyes were on the group in front of us, where Lacey walked between Eunice
and Margaret. Dormer was escorting Jenny, with the new Mayor of
Breysgate on her other side.
"She has her own way of doing things," I murmured. "Sometimes they come
off."
"Amyas Lacey here, too! How is that regarded at the Manor?"
"You ask me--but I shouldn't wonder if you knew better than I do," said
I, smiling.
"Well, I admit I know Lady Sarah's views; she makes no secret of them. I
was thinking of--well, of his father, you know. He doesn't share these
visits!"
"If common gossip was right, there's an obvious explanation of that."
"Yes, but it seems to me to apply to the son almost as strongly." She
turned her eyeglasses sharply round to my face. "Having jilted his
father----"
"I didn't say I believed the common gossip; but even the fact of its
having existed might make him shy of----"
"Oh, come, we both know a good deal more than that about it! However,
let's hope they'll make it up--through Amyas. He can act as peacemaker,
and then we may have the wedding after all!"
Lady Aspenick's voice failed to carry conviction. It was borne in upon
me that she did not believe in her own forecast--that she knew very
well, from information gleaned in the enemy's camp, that there was small
chance of Lacey's effecting a reconciliation, and none at all of a
marriage between Jenny and Fillingford coming off. She threw out the
suggestion as a feeler; another possible alliance was really in her
mind. She might elicit some hint about that; if people spoke truly, she
was interested in the subject for her daughter's sake. Was it possible
that Jenny, having lost the father, would annex the son? That was in her
mind. It would be rather a strong thing to do--but then, Lady Aspenick
would retort, "Only look at the things she does!" The woman who brought
Margaret Octon to Breysgate--would she hesitate at capturing young Lacey
if she could?
"I can only say that in my opinion it's not at all likely, and has never
entered Miss Driver's head."
"Then it's very funny that Amyas should come here so much!"
"Young men like young company," I remarked.
"It's not quite the only house in the neighborhood where there's young
company," she retorted sharply. My remark had certainly rather
overlooked the claims of Overington Grange.
She said no more, perhaps because her fish--my humble self--did not
bite, perhaps merely because at that moment the Mayor of Catsford began
to make a speech, highly eulogistic of Jenny and all her works. Lady
Aspenick listened--or at least looked on (listening was not easy)--with
an air which was distinctly critical.
Dormer was remarkably jubilant that day--perhaps as a result of his
exchange of impressions with Jenny in the hothouses. He danced
attendance on her constantly and was evidently only too glad to be seen
in her train. Jenny received his homage with the utmost graciousness; he
might well flatter himself that he stood high in her favor. There was a
familiarity in his manner toward her which grated on my nerves; it had
been there from his first meeting with her. It looked as though he
thought that her past history gave him an advantage, and entitled him to
consider himself a better match for her than he would have been held to
be for another woman in her position. Perhaps Jenny would have had no
right to resent such an idea; at any rate she showed no signs of
resenting his behavior. She let him almost monopolize her--saving the
Mayor's official rights--leaving Lacey to the care of Eunice Aspenick
and of Margaret.
Lacey looked much less happy than might have been expected in such
company. He appeared restless and ill at ease. When we were having a
smoke together, while the ladies were getting ready for dinner (which
was to be eaten hastily and followed by fireworks), I got some light on
the cause of his discontent.
"It's curious," he observed over his cigar, "how disagreeable girls can
manage to be to one another without saying a word that you can lay hold
of."
"It is," said I. "Who's been exercising the gentle art this afternoon?"
"Why, Eunice Aspenick! You saw us three walking together? Well, we must
have been walking like that--round the tables, you know--for the best
part of an hour. Upon my honor, I don't believe she once addressed a
remark directly to Miss Octon! And when Miss Octon spoke to her, she
answered through me. And why?"
"The tandem whip, I suppose--hereditary feud and that sort of thing."
"It's not Miss Octon's fault; it's a shame to make her responsible."
"There doesn't seem to be any other reason."
He pulled his trim little fair mustache; I rather think that he blushed
a little. "I don't like it, and I've a good mind to tell Eunice so. Miss
Octon is Miss Driver's guest, just as we are, and on that ground anyhow
entitled to civility."
I believe that he carried out his possibly chivalrous but certainly
unwise purpose, and no doubt he got a snubbing for his pains. At any
rate he had a short interview with Eunice just before we dined--and,
afterwards, spoke to her no more that evening. While the fireworks
blazed and the rockets roared, he placed himself between Jenny and
Margaret. I managed to get near Margaret on the other side, just for the
love of seeing the beauty of the girl's face as she watched the show
with an intensity of excitement and delight. She clapped her hands, she
laughed, she almost crowed in exultation. Once or twice she caught Lacey
by the arm, as you see a child do with its father when the pleasure is
really too much to hold all by itself. Jenny seemed to heed her very
little--and to heed Amyas Lacey even less; she looked decidedly
ruminative, gazing with a grave face at the spectacle, her clean-cut
pallid profile standing out like a coin against the blaze of light.
Amyas glanced at her now and again, but he was not proof against the
living, exuberant, ebullient joy that bubbled and gurgled on his other
side. Presently he abandoned himself altogether to the charm of it, fell
under its sway, and became partaker of its mood. Now they were two
children together, their shouts of laughter, of applause, of simulated
alarm, filling the air. Grim looked the Aspenick ladies, very scornful
that elegant gentleman Mr. Dormer! Margaret had never a thought for
them; if Lacey had, he cast it away.
Thus they were when the show ended--but its ending did not check their
talk and their laughter. Jenny rose, refreshments were spread within; to
call Lacey's attention to her, she touched his shoulder. He turned round
suddenly--with a start.
"Oh, I say, I beg your pardon! I--I didn't know you were still there,
Miss Driver."
"There's something to eat indoors," said Jenny. "If you want it!"
"Oh, no, Jenny, dear, it's much nicer here. I'm sure Lord Lacey isn't
hungry!"
He was not. Jenny turned away. As she passed me, she gave me an odd sort
of smile, amused, satisfied, just a trifle--the least trifle--scornful.
"Success number one!" she whispered. "But it's just as well that I'm not
a vain woman, Austin!"
"You could undo it all in ten minutes if you liked."
Jenny's smile broadened a little--and her eyes confessed.