tment of the
question of the Institute. Although this was a public matter, it was (or
she made it) closely connected with certain private affairs which
inevitably had a profound interest for all of us who surrounded her. My
own belief is that a lift of Lady Sarah Lacey's brows started the
Institute. When she called--this necessary courtesy was punctually
forthcoming from the Manor to the Priory--she heard from Jenny about the
proposed Driver Memorial Hall, how it was to look, where it was to be,
and so forth. She put a question as to funds; Jenny owned to the ten
thousand pounds. All Lady Sarah said was, "Do you feel called upon to do
as much as that?" But she also lifted her brows--conveying thereby (as
Jenny confidently declared) that Miss Driver was taking an exaggerated
view of her father's importance and of her own, and was assuming a
position toward the borough of Catsford which properly belonged to her
betters (perhaps Lady Sarah was recollecting the Mayor's feudal speech!)
At any rate from that day forward Jenny began to hint at bigger things.
The Memorial Hall by itself no longer sufficed. She made a great friend
of Mr. Bindlecombe, and he often came up to Breysgate. Where his beloved
borough was concerned, Bindlecombe was openly and avowedly unscrupulous;
he meant to get all he could out of Miss Driver, and made no concealment
about it. Jenny delighted in this attitude; it gave her endless
opportunities of encouraging and discouraging, of setting up and putting
down, the hopes of Bindlecombe. Between them they elaborated the
idea--Jenny was great at elaborating it, but careful to insist that it
was no more than an idea--of extending the Memorial Hall into a great
Institute, which was to include a memorial hall but to comprise much
besides. It was to be a Driver Literary, Scientific, and Technical
Institute on the handsomest scale. Bindlecombes' patriotic and sanguine
mind hardly hesitated to see in it the nucleus of a future University
for the City of Catsford. (Catsford was in the future to be promoted to
be a "city," though I did not see how Jenny could have anything to do
with that!) The notion of this great Driver Institute pleased Jenny
immensely. How high it would lift Lady Sarah's eyebrows! It made
Cartmell apprehensive about the expense--and she liked to tease him by
suggested extravagance. Finally, it would, she declared, provide me with
a splendid post--as librarian, or principal, or something--which w