Miss Cass

“ Beneath the entranced gaze of Master Peter and Miss Joan the hated Miss Cass made a slow and dignified exit. They were quite surprised that she didn’t even slam the door. But if looks are a guide she must have been really sorry for herself that she was so awfully much of a lady.
“Jo-an darling, run and ask dear Dolores to look out the London trains. Or stay, I’ll go and ask her myself. And then I’ll write to Canon Carnaby.” ”

“ Miss Cass could hardly believe her ears. For the tone, beyond the shadow of a doubt, was quite serious. “I don’t know any one at Clavering Park and I don’t suppose any one knows you.”
“But——” pleaded Miss Cass.
Elfreda was not in a mood for “buts.” The wicked Genie now had her firmly in its grip. So simple, yet so radiant was the idea that already it was glowing with the colors of destiny. There were obstacles, of course, but a dynamic will could remove them.
“In size we are much of a muchness, aren’t we? ”

“ She was, said Miss Cass, superstitious beyond all belief, actually divining by teacups, and believing in the future as foretold by the position of the tea-leaves, after the fashion of illiterate servant-girls. Miss Migral never went to church, she had--so far as Miss Cass knew, no Bible in her possession; but read books dealing with fortune-telling and necromancy. One of her favourite volumes was "The Book of Fate," another "The Book of Dreams," and she appeared to have an insatiable desire to know the future; but for what reason, Miss Cass--in spite of all efforts--was unable to discover. ”

“ But, if Cass found no material result from his treasure, it stimulated his lazy imagination, and, albeit a dangerous and seductive stimulant, at least lifted him out of the monotonous grooves of his half-careless, half-slovenly, but always self-contented camp life. Heeding the wise caution of his comrades, he took the habit of wearing the ring only at night. Wrapped in his blanket, he stealthily slipped the golden circlet over his little finger, and, as he averred, "slept all the better for it." ”

“ Cass melted. He moved. Miss Porter put her head out of the window and drew it back in a moment, dry-eyed.
"One meets all sorts of folks traveling," said Cass, with what he wished to make appear a cheerful philosophy.
"I dare say. I don't know. I never before met any one who was rude to me. I have traveled all over the country alone, and with all kinds of people ever since I was so high. I have always gone my own way, without hindrance or trouble. I always do. I don't see why I shouldn't. Perhaps other people mayn't like it. I do. I like excitement. I like to see all that there is to see. ”

“ Small, ready at all times to obey his mistress, was prepared to do so now. He may or he may not have had a full grasp of the case. Such fellows are not always so wooden-witted as they appear. But he valued his place and beyond a doubt he would not have waited for General Norris had it not been for the prompt intervention of the lady who shared with him the front seat. With a suddenness very disconcerting to John, the shameless Miss Cass sprang to her feet. ”

“ Trenchard-Simpson fairly itched to fly at the little vixen; indeed it was almost a miracle that they did not, but an ever-present sense of personal dignity was again her salvation.
[Pg 256]
As for Miss Cass, she was amazing. The light in her eyes positively invited the older and the weightier lady to a rough and tumble. It was that light, no doubt, which enabled Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson to realize that the situation was now at the extreme verge of the permitted for really well-bred people. Certainly, if the human eye can speak Miss Cass asked Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson “to come on.” ”

“ And Pikey, who, after all, had had the lion’s share of it, sat back on her cushions in a state of most agreeable somnolence. As for Miss Cass, her pencil began to fly across the paper.
“Mr. John Galsworthy in common with Mr. Arnold Bells and Mr. H. G. Wennett has a singular power of visualizing——”
Has the power of visualizing!
“What Mr. James Henry so beautifully calls the Human Scene.” The fair phrase came clear and pat, but before the page could receive it Miss Cass was again in the toils of the incarnate demon opposite.
“Suppose you take my part in the ‘Lady of Laxton’?” ”

“ Marshall is not a man I admire--a dissipated rake, that's what he is. Still, he is Mr. Cass's partner, and for the sake of Mr. Cass I wish to hear nothing against him. Besides, he is going to marry Miss Cass."
"What--Inez Cass-the sister of my old master?" cried Jenner, looking up. ”

“ Of course, it would not bear any sort of analysis, but when one is possessed by a perfectly heavenly feeling all things seem possible. Such a sense of “uplift” was quite new in Miss Cass’s experience and she felt unable just now to adjust her mind to a phase which although delicious was yet without a parallel.
The train sped on through a country which grew steadily richer and more pastoral. Lady Elfreda looked again at the watch on her wrist. It was after three. Already the light of the brief November day had begun to wane. Pikey was snoring now with slow, deep, reassuring regularity. ”

“ Somehow at the moment this legend meant nothing to Miss Cass; the land she was living in now was east of the sun, west of the moon. But a voice amazingly dominant said: “Here we are. Pikey, wake up.” And then the owner of the voice put her head out of the window and summoned a porter.
A leisurely functionary came up to the carriage door and opened it. As he did so the lady of the green ulster said with an air of quiet competence which in the circumstances was almost uncanny, “There are two trunks in the luggage van. Or is it three, Pikey? Do wake up.” ”

“ Nor had he ever been so much attracted by any one. A young man of practical rather than ardent temperament, he hoped he was not going to make a fool of himself or to lose his head.
[Pg 213]
XXVIII By the powers that obtained in the drawing room the point was much debated whether Miss Cass could or could not be allowed to accompany the children on Tuesday afternoon to the Assembly Rooms. There was much to be said both “for” and “against.” Had it been left to Miss Parbury to decide the question “the againsts” would have had it easily. ”

“ The tall blond man of forty is not much changed in feature from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in flesh, and has only lost the indefinable look of youth—a loss which is marked even when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles are not yet come. Perhaps the pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is leaning on his arm, is more changed than her husband: the lovely bloom that used to be always on her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh morning air or with some strong surprise ”

“ So you can take my things and I’ll take yours.”
“Oh, but——” faltered Miss Cass.
“You might have quite an amusing fortnight”—Pikey, who had been traveling all through the long night was sleeping very comfortably now—“One hears the place will be full of new people. With a bit of luck ... if you really play up ... you might even....” ... Get one of them to marry you!—was the thought in the mind of the abandoned Elfreda. ”

“ And yet if the truth must be told the wicked Genie was now beginning to stir in her, also. A voice was heard in the subliminal self of Miss Cass. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. ”

“ Trenchard-Simpson, but as she considered the problem over an irritating and inadequate early luncheon in the schoolroom, with Miss Joan one side of her and Master Peter the other, she came within an ace of flatly refusing to go.
Her charges were not entirely responsible for Miss Cass’s frame of mind. It is true that ten days of intimacy with their ways had caused their governess to dislike them more cordially than she had ever thought it possible to dislike any human beings, but there were other reasons. ”

“ Illogically enough, she was deeply angry with Miss Cass for making such a pitiable exhibition of herself, yet when she came to think matters over amid the boredom and discomfort of thick bread and butter and lukewarm tea and the table talk of Master Peter and Miss Joan, she was ready to believe that the ignominious collapse of the play added a new spice to the adventure. A set of vulgar people had been properly “scored off” and for the time being that was all she cared.
Nevertheless, before the evening was out she had to [Pg 249] withstand a threat of “cold feet.” ”

“ Yet, as he [Pg 243] looked at this little fool, as he looked into those gray eyes now filmed with tears that from the first had appealed to him so oddly, he clearly perceived that she was not the culprit-in-chief. There was sterner stuff, a force far more potent behind it all. The real Lady Elfreda, whoever she was, whoever she might be, was the prime mover in what had happened. At her door must be laid the guilt of this mad escapade. Common justice required that on her shoulders the whip must fall.
Still this absurd, this charmingly pretty Miss Cass ought not to be let off lightly. ”

“ In five minutes he returned to his seat by the fire, bringing with him an oval enamelled with a pack of cards.
"That is all I have," he said. "Mildred has the one with the horse on it; you have the other with the champagne bottle."
"And the ballet girl? Where is that one?" Mr. Cass was silent and shifted uneasily in his chair. "That I cannot tell you until I know more clearly what you have discovered."
"You shall know all. It may save a certain person from a relentless enemy. Yes; you may look, Mr. Cass! ”

“ And he had but himself to blame. In a kind of dull rage he stepped up to the open door to watch the lading of Miss Cass’s luggage on to the [Pg 268] chariot. The mien of John Small was a comedy in itself. He at least was ready to welcome the departure of one who had kept him in his place as determinedly as he attempted to rise above it. As John Small hoisted the tin trunk on to the back of the dog cart he had the look of a man well satisfied.
That look was oddly reflected in the bearing of Miss Dolores Parbury, who at the chosen moment emerged from the morning room to speed the parting guest. ”

“ Miss Cass looked coldly down her arrogant nose. The little idiot must have taken leave of her wits!
The new governess did not seem to be anywise flattered by having such a very interesting young woman to call upon her. Thunderclouds gathered even more heavily about her as she rose from the table and made her way to the drawing room.
Consumed by an intense curiosity, Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson would dearly have liked to put her ear to the keyhole of the drawing room door. But the line has [Pg 146] to be drawn somewhere, and with a sigh Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson remembered that she was “a lady.” ”

“ He quite determined to leave Blazing Star, to settle himself seriously to the task of money-getting, and to return to his comrades, some day, a sarcastic, cynical, successful man, and so overwhelm them with confusion. For poor Cass had not yet reached that superiority of knowing that success would depend upon his ability to forego his past. Indeed, part of his boyhood had been cast among these men, and he was not old enough to have learned that success was not to be gauged by their standard. The moon lit up the dark interior of the coach with a faint poetic light. ”

“ When the young man had told his story and produced his treasure he paused. The banker scarcely glanced at it, but said, impatiently:
"Well, your papers?"
"My papers?"
"Yes. Proof of your identity. You say your name is Cass Beard. Good! What have you got to prove it? How can I tell who you are?"
To a sensitive man there is no form of suspicion that is as bewildering and demoralizing at the moment as the question of his identity. Cass felt the insult in the doubt of his word, and the palpable sense of his present inability to prove it. ”

“ Cass has lectured before some of the most fashionable and representative women in the country. Though still a young woman, she has won phenomenal success in her chosen work. She goes in society a great deal, and is a great favorite in Newport, being a very clever entertainer. She is an expert horsewoman, plays a fine game of tennis, and makes a good partner at golf. She has but little time for social and club life, but is intelligently alive to all movements which tend to elevate American womanhood. ”

“ Beyond doubt a wise woman would have made it, but do as she would at this fatal moment she simply could not find the necessary courage.
[Pg 100]
“Address the parcel to Miss Cass, in the care of Mrs. Trenchard-Simpson at The Laurels. I will write it down for you so that there shall be no mistake.”
The amazing Elfreda calmly unbuttoned the green ulster, produced a small pocket diary and wrote down the address with a deliberate care that seemed decidedly ironical. Then she tore out the leaf. “As soon as ever you can, Pikey. You quite understand?” ”

“ Cass felt an uncomfortable sense of incongruity in himself, in his story, in his treasure, to this temple of disenchanting realism. With the awkwardness of an embarrassed man he was holding prominently in his hand an envelope containing the ring and advertisement as a voucher for his intrusion, when the nearest clerk took the envelope from his hand, opened it, took out the ring, returned it, said briskly, "T'other shop, next door, young man," and turned to another customer. ”