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."