“What wonderful people there are in the world,” he sighed.
But he withstood her generous blandishments. No, there was an eternal fitness of things. Besides, he must live at the garage, ready to attend telephone calls by day or by night. He couldn’t be hobbling backwards and forwards between Fanstead and Pendish. Against this practical side of the question there could be no argument.
“And what shall I do with the money you’ve paid in advance?”
“Keep it for a while,” said he. “Perhaps Randor will give me the sack and I’ll come creeping back to you.”
Thus did Triona, with bag and baggage take up his quarters in an attic loft in the garage yard at Fanstead.
Not since his flight from Olivia had he felt so free of care. Fate had condemned him to the backwater and in the backwater he would pass his contented life, a life of truth and honesty. And he had before him an essential to his soul’s health—an ideal. He would inspire the spiritless with spirit, the ineffectual with efficiency, the sick heart with health. The man Radnor had deserved well of his country through gallant service, wounds and imprisonment. His country had given him the military Cross and a lieutenant’s gratuity, and told him not to worry it any more. If Mrs. Pettiland’s prophecy came true and he failed, he would be cast upon a country that wouldn’t be worried. Triona swore that he should pull through. He would save a fellow-man from shipwreck, without his knowledge. It was something to live for. He became once more the perfect chauffeur, the enthusiastic motor-man, dreaming of a great garage—a sort of Palace of Automobiles for the West of England.
And as he dreamed, so did it begin to come to pass. The efficiency of the Quantock Garage became known for miles around. Owners of valuable cars forsook the professional wreckers in the great junction town and sent them to Fanstead. Radnor soon bought his second car; by the end of the autumn a third car; and increased his staff. Triona was foreman mechanician. Had he not so desired, he need not have driven. Nor need he have driven in the brass-buttoned livery on which he insisted that Radnor’s chauffeurs should be attired. Smartness, he argued rightly, caught the eye and imagination. But he loved the wheel. Driving cooled the vagabond fire in his veins. There was an old touring-car of high horse-power, excellent when nursed with loving hand and understanding heart, but a box of dismal caprice to the inexpert, which he would allow no one to drive but himself. Radnor held the thing in horror and wanted to sell it as a bad bargain. He had had it out once and it had broken down ten miles from home and had suffered the ignominy of a tow back. Triona wrought at it for three weeks, conjuring up spare parts from nowhere, and fitting to it new devices, and turned out a going concern in which he took inordinate pride. He whirled touring parties prodigious distances in this once rickety creature of his adoption. He could get thirty-five or forty out of her easily.
“All right. It’s your funeral, not mine,” said Radnor during one of their discussions.
It was a healthy life. His lameness did not matter. Whatever internal lesions he suffered from gave no symptoms of existence. His face lost its lines of suffering, his eyes their shifty haggardness. He put on flesh, as far as is possible for a naturally spare-built man. Randor, an honourable soul, when the business in the new year shewed proof of immense development, offered him a substantial increase in salary. But Triona refused.
“What do I want with money, my dear fellow? If I had more I’d only spend it for books. And I’ve more of them now than I know where to put them. No; keep all you can for capital in the business. Or stick it into an advertisement scheme I’ve been working out—”