"Let"s not be tired till our work"s done!" said Jenny.
She risked that "our" and challenged his dissent. He stood swaying between reprobation and admiration, between forswearing and alliance, between sympathy and repulsion. She had so much--yet not that without which, in his eyes, all else was in the end worthless.
But she had brought him--of her subtlety she had brought him--on to the terrace. For no cup of tea tolerably stale! For nothing stale--but that the imploring, aye, the commanding, unconscious desire, the unmeditated appeal, the unmeant urgency, of Margaret"s heart might work. "Are you human?" asked Jenny"s eyes, traveling with a slow meaning from his face to Margaret"s.
The cunning of the serpent--the simplicity of the dove! Ah, dear serpent, what had you in your heart save to make your dove happy?
Another thing--yes! The dove must triumph--for she bore Leonard"s escutcheon, and must bear it victorious against his enemies. The serpent bade the dove wing her happy way!
Might not the dove be made bearer also of an olive branch, made a harbinger of peace? That was the idea which Jenny sought to put in Alison"s mind when she brought him on to the terrace. Could not all that grace and joy avail to blot out the name she bore? It was only a name--a thing intangible--a name, if Jenny"s plan prospered, soon to be deleted, buried under a new and newly significant designation. She must bring memories with her--of old wrong and old humiliation? Could she not herself destroy even what she brought? She seemed made to do it. Who could bear a grudge against that simple joyfulness, who resist that unconscious pleading for oblivion? Alison was to go from the terrace with a new zeal for the commission that he had undertaken, to go with his cause much closer to his heart.
While he was still there, Dormer whizzed up the drive in his motor car.
He had come to meet Lacey at Breysgate, and drive him over to Hingston to dine and sleep. Lacey affected Hingston for his night quarters more than ever now--and Dormer generally fetched him from Breysgate; it was an arrangement convenient to both parties.
Jenny had told so much truth that she was inclined for a little mischief. She greeted the newcomer with coquettish demureness, marking, with a smile and a glance at me, Dormer"s ill-concealed surprise at Alison"s presence, and at the good terms on which he seemed to be with his hostess. Dormer asked for whisky and soda, and I went with him to minister to his wants.
"Did Lacey bring the parson?" he asked, after a first eager gulp.
"Oh, no. Alison came of his own accord--came to call, you know," I answered.
"Did he?" He would obviously have liked to ask more questions. "That"s being neighborly, at all events," he ventured to comment, with a covert leer. "We shall be seeing Fillingford--or even Lady Sarah--here next!"
"More unlikely things than that have happened."
"That"s what I always remember," he remarked, nodding sagaciously over his long tumbler. "What I say is--try your luck, even if it does need a bit of cheek."
I had a notion that Dormer was inclining toward the confidential.
"If it doesn"t come off, you"re no worse than you were before. If it does, there you are, by Jove!"
"I should think that must be every successful man"s philosophy. But what, may I ask, makes this call on your reserve of cheek, Dormer?--which will, I make no doubt, be equal to it."
"Wait and see," he answered, with a p.r.o.nounced wink. Having executed this operation, his eye turned to Lacey, visible through the window of the smoking room where we were. "There"ll be a row at Fillingford Manor some day soon--that"s my opinion."
"Let"s wait and see about that, too," I suggested mildly. Now he was trying to make me confidential.
He winked again. "You"re a pretty safe old chap, Austin," he was good enough to tell me.
When we returned to the terrace, Lacey was ready to start and, with a look at his watch, Dormer went up to Jenny to say good-by. During our brief absence Alison had departed--to set about his commission, as I hoped.
"I say, may I come over the day after to-morrow? Shall you be here?"
Dormer asked.
"The day after to-morrow? Thursday? Yes, I shall be delighted to see you. I want to know how you"re getting on in those negotiations with Mr.
Cartmell, you know." This referred to those farms of his--she had by now settled on three--which she wanted to round off her frontier.
Dormer smiled slyly at her. "All right, we"ll talk about that, too."
"Have we any other business?" she asked, lifting her brows in feigned surprise.
"Something may crop up," he answered with a laugh. "Till then, Miss Driver!"
The young men got in and drove off, Margaret watching and waving her hand as they went--a salutation copiously acknowledged by Lacey; Dormer was busy with his handles.
"If Mr. Alison is prompt with his commission, Thursday may be a busy day," Jenny remarked, as she sat down in a low chair and lay back in it with an air of energy relaxed. Sitting down by her, I began to smoke my pipe. Margaret pa.s.sed us, smiling, and went into the house.
"That was a fight," said Jenny presently, "rather a stiff one--but we"ve got our stiffest still to come. Lord Fillingford will fight; I must move all my battalions against him. I shall bribe--perhaps I shall still have to bully." She sighed. For the moment, the afternoon"s struggle done, a weariness was upon her. She sat silent again for a long while, her brows knit in meditation or in sorrow.
"I won"t tell anybody else," at last she said. "I have told you, because I wouldn"t have you live here on false pretenses--because you"re my friend. I told Mr. Alison to-day for the reason you heard. I"ll tell n.o.body else. The old att.i.tude toward the rest! It"s really no use telling--I can"t tell it right; I can"t put it into words. For myself even I can"t recover the past--can"t quite see how I did it--what woman I was then, or how that woman stands to the woman I am now. A mist has come between the two."
"For Heaven"s sake, vex yourself no more! Let the dead bury its dead.
Alison has upset you."
"I"m in the mist--but Leonard isn"t. He grows clearer and clearer, and"
(she smiled faintly) "larger and larger. His great kind loving-roughness fills all my vision. I suppose it filled all my vision then, and so--it happened!" She turned to me with a quick question. "Do you think I"m right in the determination I"ve come to about myself?"
"I should be far from holding it obligatory either on you or on anyone else. Good things pa.s.s by--and things indifferent--and things bad. The disturbance pa.s.ses off the face of life"s stream; the stream pursues its course. There"s no duty on you, in my opinion. Yet I think that for yourself you"re right."
"I"m glad you do," she told me. "At that we"ll leave it--a fixed point!"
"Unless Lord Fillingford is very obstinate?"
As she looked at me, a smile broke slowly over her face. "From the way you say that, I think you suspect me of having indulged in a little bluff this afternoon. But I think I was honest. I don"t mean to do it, I should hate doing it--but they might make me angry enough."
"I don"t believe you"d ever go through with it. We should have flight again!"
"Too awful!" sighed Jenny, frowning, yet almost smiling. She smiled frankly the next moment, as she turned to me and laid her hand on my arm. "Do let"s agree--you and I--that I"m quite incapable of it and was bluffing most audaciously!"
"We"ll agree to that with all my heart."
"So you spoil me--so you go on spoiling me!" she said very gently.
I went down the hill to my own house, leaving her still sitting there, a stately solitary figure, revolving many thoughts in the depths of her mind.
CHAPTER XXIII
ON ALL GROUNDS--RIDICULOUS!
Alison was prompt as could be wished. The next morning we received our orders. Margaret was to go to tea with him at the Church House, escorted either by Chat or by me, as Jenny preferred. He expected that some business would bring Fillingford there about five--and so the encounter; for the result of it, he added, he took no sort of responsibility.
"You must go, of course," Jenny decided. "Chat wouldn"t be able to tell me anything about what really happened."
I had to see Cartmell earlier in the afternoon, so arranged to meet Margaret at the appointed place. She knew nothing of Fillingford"s being expected, but she had taken a strong liking to Alison and was greatly pleased with her invitation--only surprised that Jenny should not be going, too.
"Oh, I told him I couldn"t," said Jenny. Let us call that a diplomatic evasion.