But one picture did hang in the Madonna Parlor – a half-length of a beautiful high-bred girl with large dark eyes and a figure slight almost to emaciation. Lacey and I, who were behind, entered the room just as the other two came to a stand before it. I saw Jenny's face turn toward Fillingford in inquiry.
"My wife," he said. "She died thirteen years ago – when Amyas was only five." His voice was dry, but he looked steadily at the picture with a noticeable intentness of gaze.
"This was mother's own room, Miss Driver," Lacey interposed.
"Yes. How – how it must have suited her!" said Jenny in a low voice.
Fillingford turned his head sharply round and looked at her; with a slight smile he nodded his head. "She was very fond of this room. She had it furnished in blue – instead of yellow." Then he moved quickly to the door. "There's nothing else you'd care to see here, I think."
After lunch Lacey carried Jenny off to the garden – his father seemed to think that he had done enough as host and to acquiesce readily in the devolution of his duties – and I sat awhile with Fillingford, smoking cigarettes – well, he only smoked one. It seemed to me that the man was like his house; just as the state of its fortune was not rudely declared in anything unbecoming or shabby, but had to be gathered from the gaps where beauties once had figured, so the essence of him, and the road to understanding him, lay in his reserves, his silences, his defensiveness. What he refrained from doing, being, or saying, was the most significant thing about him. His manners were irreproachable, his courtesy cast in a finer mold than that of an ordinary gentleman, yet he did not achieve real cordiality and remained at a very long arm's length from intimacy. His highest degree of approval seemed to consist in an absence of disapprobation; yet, feeling that this negative reward of merit was hard to win, the recipient took the unsubstantial guerdon with some gratification. My own hope was to escape from his presence without having caused him to think that I had done anything offensive; if he had nothing against me, I should be content. I wondered whether he were satisfied to have the like measure meted out to him. His son had said he was "not expansive": that was like denying silkiness to a porcupine. Yet there was that about him which commanded respect – at least a respect appropriately negative; you felt certain that he would do nothing sordid and touch nothing unclean; he would always be true to the code of his class and generation.
We heard laughter from Jenny and Lacey echoing down the long passages as they returned from the garden; from the noise their feet made they seemed to be racing again. The sounds interrupted a rather perfunctory conversation about Nicholas Driver and the growth of Catsford. Rather to my surprise – I must confess – his face lit up with a smile – a smile of pensive sweetness.
"That sounds cheerful," he said. "More like old days!" Then he looked at me apprehensively, as though afraid that he had proffered an uninvited confidence. He went on almost apologetically. "It's very quiet here. My health doesn't fit me for public life, or even for much work in the county. We do our duty, I hope, but we tend rather to fall out of the swim. It wasn't so in my wife's time. Well, Amyas will bring all that back again some day, I hope."
"I'm glad to hear that he's got his commission," said I.
"Yes, he must go and do some work, while I hold the fort for him at home. Landed property needs a great deal of attention nowadays, Mr. Austin." Again he smiled, but now wearily, as though his stewardship were a heavy burden.
The laughing pair burst into the room. Amyas was flushed, Jenny seemed out of breath; they had a great joke to tell.
"We've found a picture of Miss Driver in the West Gallery," cried Amyas. "Really it must be her – it's exactly like!"
"Fancy my picture being in your house all this time, Lord Fillingford – and you never told me!"
Fillingford was looking intently at Jenny now. He raised his brows a little and smiled, as the result of his survey.
"Yes – I'm afraid I know which picture Amyas means, though I don't often go to the West Gallery. The one on the right of the north door, Amyas?"
"Yes – in a wonderful gown all over pearls, you know."
"Who is she – besides me?" asked Jenny. "Because I believe she has a look of me really."
"She's an ancestress – a collateral ancestress at least – of ours. She was one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies. But we're not proud of her – and you mustn't be proud of the likeness – if there is one, Miss Driver."
"But I am proud of it. I think she's very pretty – and some day I'll have a gown made just like that."
"Why aren't we proud of her, father?" asked young Lacey.
"She got into sad disgrace – and very nearly into the Tower, I believe. Elizabeth made her kinsman Lord Lacey – one of my predecessors – take her away from Court and bring her down to the country. Here she was kept – in fact more or less imprisoned. But it didn't last many years. Smallpox carried her off, poor thing – it was very bad in these parts about 1590 – and, unluckily for her, before the queen died.
"What was her name?"
"Mistress Eleanor Lacey."
"And what had she done?" pursued Jenny, full of interest.
"Ah, well, what was the truth about it – who can tell now? It was never important enough to get put on record. But the family tradition is that the Queen was jealous of her place in Leicester's affections." He smiled at Jenny. "I wish Amyas had found you a more acceptable prototype!"
"Oh, I don't know," said Jenny thoughtfully. "I like her looks. Do you believe that what they said was true?"
"I'm sorry to say that, again according to the family tradition, it was."
Our dog-cart had been ready for some minutes. Jenny said good-by, and both father and son escorted her to the door.
"I hope we shall see you at dinner as soon as my sister comes back," said Fillingford, as he helped her to mount into the cart. "We must have a little festivity for Amyas before he joins."
Jenny was all thanks and cordiality, and drove off smiling and waving her hand gayly.
"Isn't that really rather interesting about Eleanor Lacey? Mind you go and see the picture next time you're there! It's really very like."
I promised to see the picture, and asked her how she had got on with Fillingford.
"Oh, I like him well enough, but – " She paused and smiled reflectively. "Down at the Simpsons' there was a certain young man – boy he really was – whom we called Rabbit. That was only because of the shape of his mouth, and has nothing to do with the story! I used sometimes to walk home with Rabbit – from evening church, or lawn-tennis parties, and so on, you know." (Were these the occasions on which she was rather late for supper – without incurring Chat's rebuke?) "We girls used to laugh at him because he always began by taking great pains to show you that he didn't mean to flirt – well, at all events, didn't mean to begin the flirtation. If you wanted to flirt, you must begin yourself – that was Rabbit's attitude, and he made it perfectly plain in his behavior.
"Rabbit can't have been a very amusing youth to walk home with in the gloaming?" I ventured to suggest.
"He wasn't, but then there wasn't much choice down at the Simpsons', you know. Besides, it could be made rather funny with Rabbit. You see, he wouldn't begin because he had such a terror of being snubbed." She laughed in an amused reminiscence. "I think I shall call Lord Fillingford Rabbit," she ended.
"It'll be very disrespectful."
"Oh, you can't make all the nicknames for yourself!" She paused and added, apparently with a good deal of satisfaction – "Rabbit – and Volcano – yes!"
CHAPTER VII
THE FLICK OF A WHIP
Jenny spent a large part of the winter in Italy, Chat being with her, Cartmell and I left in charge at home. But early in the New Year she came back and then, her mourning being over, she launched out. Without forgetting her father's injunction against spending all her income, she