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diff --git a/15116.txt b/15116.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a79bcf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/15116.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8312 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jervaise Comedy, by J. D. Beresford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Jervaise Comedy + +Author: J. D. Beresford + +Release Date: February 20, 2005 [EBook #15116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JERVAISE COMEDY *** + + + + +Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +THE JERVAISE COMEDY + + +BY + + +J.D. BERESFORD + + + +New York + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +1919 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + I THE FIRST HOUR + II ANNE + III FRANK JERVAISE + IV IN THE HALL + V DAYBREAK + VI MORNING + VII NOTES AND QUERIES + VIII THE OUTCAST + IX BANKS + X THE HOME FARM + XI THE STORY + XII CONVERSION + XIII FARMER BANKS + XIV MRS. BANKS + XV REMEMBRANCE + POSTSCRIPT--THE TRUE STORY + + + + +THE JERVAISE COMEDY + + +I + +THE FIRST HOUR + + +When I was actually experiencing the thrill, it came delightfully, +however, blended with a threat that proclaimed the imminent consequence of +dismay. I appreciated the coming of the thrill, as a rare and unexpected +"dramatic moment." I savoured and enjoyed it as a real adventure suddenly +presented in the midst of the common business of life. I imaginatively +transplanted the scene from the Hall of Thorp-Jervaise to a West-End +theatre; and in my instant part of unoccupied spectator I admired the art +with which the affair had been staged. It is so seldom that we are given +an opportunity to witness one of these "high moments," and naturally +enough I began instinctively to turn the scene into literature; admitting +without hesitation, as I am often forced to admit, that the detail of +reality is so much better and more typical than any I can invent. + +But, having said that, I wonder how far one does invent in such an +experience? The same night I hinted something of my appreciation of the +dramatic quality of the stir at the Hall door to Frank Jervaise, Brenda's +brother, and he, quite obviously, had altogether missed that aspect of the +affair. He scowled with that forensic, bullying air he is so successfully +practising at the Junior Bar, as he said, "I suppose you realise just what +this may _mean_, to all of us?" + +Jervaise evidently had failed to appreciate the detail that I had relished +with such delight. He had certainly not savoured the quality of it. And in +one sense I may claim to have invented the business of the scene. I may +have added to it by my imaginative participation. In any case my +understanding as interpreter was the prime essential--a fact that shows +how absurd it is to speak of "photographic detail" in literature, or +indeed to attempt a proper differentiation between realism and romance. + +We were all of us in the Hall, an inattentive, chattering audience of +between twenty and thirty people. The last dance had been stopped at ten +minutes to twelve, in order that the local parson and his wife--their name +was Sturton--might be out of the house of entertainment before the first +stroke of Sunday morning. Every one was wound up to a pitch of satisfied +excitement. The Cinderella had been a success. The floor and the music and +the supper had been good, Mrs. Jervaise had thrown off her air of +pre-occupation with some distasteful suspicion, and we had all been +entertained and happy. And yet these causes for satisfaction had been +nothing more than a setting for Brenda Jervaise. It was she who had +stimulated us, given us a lead and kept us dancing to the tune of her +exciting personality. She had made all the difference between an +ordinarily successful dance and what Mrs. Sturton at the open door +continually described as "a really delightful evening." + +She had to repeat the phrase, because with the first stroke of midnight +ringing out from the big clock over the stables, came also the first +intimation of the new movement. Mrs. Sturton's fly was mysteriously +delayed; and I had a premonition even then, that the delay promised some +diversion. The tone of the stable clock had its influence, perhaps. It was +so precisely the tone of a stage clock--high and pretentious, and with a +disturbing suggestion of being unmelodiously flawed. + +Miss Tattersall, Olive Jervaise's friend, a rather abundant fair young +woman, warmed by excitement to the realisation that she must flirt with +some one, also noticed the theatrical sound of that announcement of +midnight. She giggled a little nervously as stroke succeeded stroke in an +apparently unending succession. + +"It seems as if it were going on all night," she said to me, in a +self-conscious voice, as if the sound of the bell had some emotional +effect upon her. + +"It's because it's out of place," I said for the sake of saying something; +"theatrical and artificial, you know. It ought to be..." I did not know +quite what it ought to be and stopped in the middle of the sentence. I was +aware of the wide open door, of the darkness beyond, and of the timid +visiting of the brilliant, chattering crowd by the fragrance of scented +night-stock--a delicate, wayward incursion that drifted past me like the +spirit of some sweet, shabby fairy. What possible bell could be +appropriate to that air? I began, stupidly, to recall the names of such +flowers as bluebell, hare-bell, Canterbury-bell. In imagination I heard +their chime as the distant tinkling of a fairy musical-box. + +Miss Tattersall, however, took no notice of my failure to find the ideal. +"Yes, isn't it?" she said, and then the horrible striking ceased, and we +heard little Nora Bailey across the Hall excitedly claiming that the clock +had struck thirteen. + +"I counted most carefully," she was insisting. + +"I can't think why that man doesn't come," Mrs. Sturton repeated in a +raised voice, as if she wanted to still the superstitious qualms that Miss +Bailey had started. "I told him to come round at a quarter to twelve, so +that there shouldn't be any mistake. It's very tiresome." She paused on +that and Jervaise was inspired to the statement that the fly came from the +Royal Oak, didn't it, a fact that Mrs. Sturton had already affirmed more +than once. + +"What makes it rather embarrassing for the dear Jervaises," Miss +Tattersall confided to me, "is that the other things aren't ordered till +one--the Atkinsons' 'bus, you know, and the rest of 'em. Brenda persuaded +Mrs. Jervaise that we might go on for a bit after the vicar had gone." + +I wished that I could get away from Miss Tattersall; she intruded on my +thoughts. I was trying to listen to a little piece that was unfolding in +my mind, a piece that began with the coming of the spirit of the +night-stock into this material atmosphere of heated, excited men and +women. I realised that invasion as the first effort of the wild romantic +night to enter the house; after that.... After that I only knew that the +consequences were intensely interesting and that if I could but let my +thoughts guide me, they would finish the story and make it exquisite. + +"Oh! did she?" I commented automatically, and cursed myself for having +conveyed a warmth of interest I certainly did not feel. + +"She's so enthusiastic, isn't she? Brenda, I mean," Miss Tattersall went +on, and as I listened I compared her to the stable-clock. She, too, was a +persistent outrage, a hindrance to whatever it was that I was waiting for. + +Mrs. Sturton and her husband were coming back, with an appearance of +unwillingness, into the warmth and light of the Hall. The dear lady was +still at her congratulations on the delightfulness of the evening, but +they were tempered, now, by a hint of apology for "spoiling it--to a +certain extent--I hope I haven't--by this unfortunate contretemps." + +The Jervaises were uncomfortably warm in their reassurances. They felt, no +doubt, the growing impatience of all their other visitors pressing forward +with the reminder that if the Sturtons' cab did not come at once, there +would be no more dancing. + +Half-way up the stairs little Nora Bailey's high laughing voice was +embroidering her statement with regard to the extra stroke of the +stable-clock. + +"I had a kind of premonition that it was going to, as soon as it began," +she was saying. + +Gordon Hughes was telling the old story of the sentry who had saved his +life by a similar counting of the strokes of midnight. + +And at the back of my mind my daemon was still thrusting out little spurts +of enthralling allegory. The Sturtons and Jervaises had been driven in +from the open. They were taking refuge in their house. Presently... + +"Given it up?" I remarked with stupid politeness to Miss Tattersall. + +"They've sent John round to the stables to inquire," she told me. + +I do not know how she knew. "John" was the only man-servant that the +Jervaises employed in the house; butler, footman, valet and goodness knows +what else. + +"Mrs. Sturton seems to be afraid of the night-air," Miss Tattersall +remarked with a complacent giggle of self-congratulation on being too +modern for such prejudices. "I simply love the night-air, don't you?" she +continued. "I often go out for a stroll in the garden the last thing." + +I guessed her intention, but I was not going to compromise myself by +strolling about the Jervaise domain at midnight with Grace Tattersall. + +"Do you? Yes," I agreed, as if I were bound to admire her originality. + +They are afraid of the night-air, my allegory went on, and having begun +their retreat, they are now sending out their servant for help. I began to +wonder if I were composing the plot of a grand opera? + +John's return convinced me that I was not to be disappointed in my +expectation of drama. + +He came out from under the staircase through the red baize door which +discreetly warned the stranger that beyond this danger signal lay the +sacred mysteries of the Hall's service. And he came down to the central +cluster of faintly irritated Sturtons and Jervaises, with an evident +hesitation that marked the gravity of his message. Every one was watching +that group under the electric-lighted chandelier--it was posed to hold the +stage--but I fancy that most of the audience were solely interested in +getting rid of the unhappy Sturtons. + +We could not hear what John said, but we inferred the general nature of +the disaster from the response accorded to his news. The vicar merely +clicked his tongue with a frown of grave disapproval, but his wife +advertised the disaster for us by saying,-- + +"It's that man Carter, from the Oak, you know; not our own man. I've never +liked Carter." + +"Quite hopelessly, eh?" Jervaise asked John, and John's perturbed shake of +the head answered that question beyond any doubt. + +"In any case," Mrs. Sturton began, and I hazarded a guess that she was +going to refuse to drive behind Carter in any stage of intoxication; but +she decided to abandon that line and went on with a splendid imitation of +cheerfulness, "However, there's nothing to be done, now, but walk. It's +quite a fine night, fortunately." She looked at her husband for approval. + +"Oh! quite, quite," he said. "A beautiful night. Let us walk by all +means." + +A general rustle of relief spread up the gallery of the staircase, and was +followed at once by a fresh outburst of chatter. The waiting audience of +would-be dancers had responded like one individual. It was as if their +single over-soul had sighed its thankfulness and had then tried to cover +the solecism. Their relief was short-lived. Mrs. Jervaise "couldn't think" +of the Sturtons walking. They must have the motor. She insisted. Really +nothing at all. Their chauffeur was sure to be up, still. + +"Of course, certainly, by all means," Jervaise agreed warmly, and then, to +John, "He hasn't gone to bed yet, I suppose?" + +"I saw him not half an hour ago, sir," was John's response. + +"Tell him to bring the motor round," Jervaise ordered, and added something +in a lower voice, which, near as I was to them, I could not catch. I +imagined that it might be an instruction to have the chauffeur out again +if he had by any chance slunk off to bed within the last half-hour. + +I think Miss Tattersall said "Damn!" Certainly the over-soul of the +staircase group thought it. + +"They'll be here all night, at this rate," was my companion's translation +of the general feeling. + +"If they have to wake up the chauffeur," I admitted. + +"He's a new man they've got," Miss Tattersall replied. "They've only had +him three months..." It seemed as if she were about to add some further +comment, but nothing came. + +"Oh!" was all that I found appropriate. + +I felt that the action of my opera was hanging fire. Indeed, every one was +beginning to feel it. The Hall door had been shut against the bane of the +night-air. The stimulus of the fragrant night-stock had been excluded. +Miss Tattersall pretended not to yawn. We all pretended that we did not +feel a craving to yawn. The chatter rose and fell spasmodically in short +devitalised bursts of polite effort. + +I looked round for Brenda, but could not see her anywhere. + +"Won't you come back into the drawing-room?" Mrs. Jervaise was saying to +the Sturtons. + +"Oh! thank you, it's _hardly_ worth while, is it?" Mrs. Sturton answered +effusively, but she loosened the shawl that muffled her throat as if she +were preparing for a longer wait. "I'm _so_ sorry," she apologised for the +seventh time. "So very unfortunate after such a really delightful +evening." + +They kept up that kind of conversation for quite a long time, while we +listened eagerly for the sound of the motor-horn. + +And no motor-horn came; instead, after endlessly tedious minutes, John +returned bearing himself like a portent of disaster. + +The confounded fellow whispered again. + +"What, not anywhere?" Jervaise asked irritably. "Sure he hasn't gone to +bed?" + +John said something in that too discreet voice of his, and then Jervaise +scowled and looked round at the ascending humanity of the staircase. His +son Frank detached himself from the swarm, politely picked his way down +into the Hall, and began to put John under a severe cross-examination. + +"What's up now, do you suppose?" Miss Tattersall asked, with the least +tremor of excitement sounding in her voice. + +"Perhaps the chauffeur has followed the example of Carter, and afterwards +hidden his shame," I suggested. + +I was surprised by the warmth of her contradiction. "Oh, no" she said. "He +isn't the least that sort of man." She said it as if I had aspersed the +character of one of her friends. + +"He seems to have gone, disappeared, any-way," I replied. + +"It's getting frightfully mysterious," Miss Tattersall agreed, and added +inconsequently, "He's got a strong face, you know; keen--looks as if he'd +get his own way about things, though, of course, he isn't a gentleman." + +I had a suspicion that she had been flirting with the romantic chauffeur. +She was the sort of young woman who would flirt with any one. + +I wished they would open that Hall door again. The action of my play had +become dispersed and confused. Frank Jervaise had gone off through the +baize door with John, and the Sturtons and their host and hostess were +moving reluctantly towards the drawing-room. + +"We might almost as well go and sit down somewhere," I suggested to Miss +Tattersall, and noted three or four accessible blanks on the staircase. + +"Almost," she agreed after a glance at the closed door that shut out the +night. + +In the re-arrangement I managed to leave her on a lower step, and climbed +to the throne of the gods, at present occupied only by Gordon Hughes, one +of Frank Jervaise's barrister friends from the Temple. Hughes was reputed +"brilliantly clever." He was a tallish fellow with ginger red hair and a +long nose--the foxy type. + +"Rum start!" I cried, by way of testing his intellectual quality, but +before I could get on terms with him, the stage was taken by a dark, +curly-haired, handsome boy of twenty-four or so, generally addressed as +"Ronnie." I had thought him very like a well-intentioned retriever pup. I +could imagine him worrying an intellectual slipper to pieces with great +gusto. + +"I say, it's all U.P. now," he said, in a dominating voice. "What's the +time?" He was obviously too well turned out to wear a watch with evening +dress. + +Some one said it was "twenty-five to one." + +"Fifty to one against another dance, then," Ronnie barked joyously. + +"Unless you'll offer yourself up as a martyr in a good cause," suggested +Nora Bailey. + +"Offer myself up? How?" Ronnie asked. + +"Take 'em home in your car," Nora said in a penetrating whisper. + +"Dead the other way," was Ronnie's too patent excuse. + +"It's only a couple of miles through the Park, you know," Olive Jervaise +put in. "You might easily run them over to the vicarage and be back again +in twenty minutes." + +"By Jove; yes. So I might," Ronnie acknowledged. "That is, if I may really +come back, Miss Jervaise. Awfully good of you to suggest it. I didn't +bring my man with me, though. I'll have to go and wind up the old +buzz-wagon myself, if your fellow can't be found. Do you think ... could +any one..." + +He was looking round, searching for some one who was not there. + +"Want any help?" Hughes asked. + +"No, thanks. That's all right. I know where the car is, I mean," Ronnie +said, and still hesitated as if he were going to finish the question he +had begun in his previous speech. + +Olive Jervaise anticipated, I think wrongly, his remark. "They're in the +drawing-room," she said. "Will you tell them?" + +"Better get the car round first, hadn't I?" Ronnie asked. + +The sandy Atkinson youth found an answer for that. He cleared his long, +thin throat huskily and said, "Might save time to tell 'em first. They'd +be ready, then, when you came round." His two equally sandy sisters +clucked their approval. + +"All serene," Ronnie agreed. + +He was on the bottom step of the stairs when the Hall door was thrown wide +open and Frank Jervaise returned. + +He stood there a moment, posed for us, searching the ladder of our +gallery; and the spirit of the night-stock drifted past him and lightly +touched us all as it fled up the stairs. Then he came across the Hall, and +addressing his sister, asked, in a voice that overstressed the effect of +being casual, "I say, Olive, you don't happen to know where Brenda is, do +you?" + +I suppose our over-soul knew everything in that minute. A tremor of dismay +ran up our ranks like the sudden passing of a cold wind. Every one was +looking at Ronnie. + +Olive Jervaise's reply furnished an almost superfluous corroboration. She +could not control her voice. She tried to be as casual as her brother, and +failed lamentably. "Brenda was here just now," she said. "She--she must be +somewhere about." + +Ronnie, still the cynosure of the swarm, turned himself about and stared +at Frank Jervaise. But it was Gordon Hughes who demonstrated his power of +quick inference and response, although in doing it he overstepped the +bounds of decency by giving a voice to our suspicions. + +"Is the car in the garage? Your own car?" he asked. + +"Yes. Rather. Of course," Jervaise replied uneasily. + +"You've just looked?" Hughes insisted. + +"I know the car's there," was Jervaise's huffy evasion, and he took Ronnie +by the arm and led him off into the drawing-room. + +The Hall door stood wide open, and the tragedy of the night flowed +unimpeded through the house. + +Although the horror had not been named we all recognised its finality. We +began to break up our formation immediately, gabbling tactful +irrelevancies about the delightful evening, the delinquent Carter, and the +foolishness of Sabbatarianism. Mrs. Atkinson appeared in the Hall, cloaked +and muffled, and beckoned to her three replicas. She announced that their +omnibus was "just coming round." + +In the general downward drift of dispersion I saw Grace Tattersall looking +up at me with an expression that suggested a desire for the confidential +discussion of scandal, and I hastily whispered to Hughes that we might go +to the extemporised buffet in the supper-room and get a whisky and seltzer +or something. He agreed with an alacrity that I welcomed at the time, but +regret, now, because our retirement into duologue took us out of the +important movement, and I missed one or two essentials of the development. + +The truth is that we were all overcome at the moment by an irresistible +desire to appear tactful. We wanted to show the Jervaises that we had not +suspected anything, or that if we had, we didn't mind in the least, and it +certainly wasn't their fault. Nevertheless, I saw no reason why in the +privacy of the supper-room--we had the place to ourselves--I should not +talk to Hughes. I had never before that afternoon met any of the Jervaise +family except Frank, and on one or two occasions his younger brother who +was in the army and, now, in India; and I thought that this was an +appropriate occasion to improve my knowledge. I understood that Hughes was +an old friend of the family. + +He may have been, although the fact did not appear in his conversation; +for I discovered almost immediately that he was, either by nature or by +reason of his legal training, cursed with a procrastinating gift of +diplomacy. + +"Awkward affair!" I began as soon as we had got our whiskies and lighted +cigarettes. + +Hughes drank with a careful slowness, put his glass down with superfluous +accuracy, and then after another instant of tremendous deliberation, said, +"What is?" + +"Well, this," I returned gravely. + +"Meaning?" he asked judicially. + +"Of course it may be too soon to draw an inference," I said. + +"Especially with no facts to draw them from," he added. + +"All the same," I went on boldly, "it looks horribly suspicious." + +"What does?" + +I began to lose patience with him. "I'm not suggesting that the Sturtons' +man from the Royal Oak has been murdered," I said. + +He weighed that remark as if it might cover a snare, before he scored a +triumph of allusiveness by replying, "Fellow called Carter. He's got a +blue nose." + +Despite my exasperation I tried once more on a note of forced geniality, +"What sort of man is this chauffeur of the Jervaises? Do you know him at +all?" + +"Wears brown leather gaiters," Hughes answered after another solemn +deliberation. + +I could have kicked him with all the pleasure in life. His awful +guardedness made me feel as if I were an inquisitive little journalist +trying to ferret out some unsavoury scandal. And he had been the first +person to point the general suspicion a few minutes earlier, by his +inquiry about the motor. I decided to turn the tables on him, if I could +manage it. + +"I asked because you seemed to suggest just now that he had gone off with +the Jervaises' motor," I remarked. + +Hughes stroked his long thin nose with his thumb and forefinger. It seemed +to take him about a minute from bridge to nostril. Then he inhaled a long +draught of smoke from his cigarette, closed one eye as if it hurt him, and +threw back his head to blow out the smoke again with a slow gasp of +relief. + +"One never knows," was all the explanation he vouchsafed after this +tedious performance. + +"Whether a chauffeur will steal his master's motor?" I asked. + +"Incidentally," he said. + +"But, good heavens, if he's that sort of man..." I suggested. + +"I'm not saying that he is," Hughes replied. + +I realised then that his idea of our conversation was nothing more nor +less than that of a game to be played as expertly as possible. He had all +the makings of a cabinet minister, but as a companion he was, on this +occasion, merely annoying. I felt that I could stand no more of him, and I +was trying to frame a sentence that would convey my opinion of him without +actual insult, when Frank Jervaise looked in at the door. + +He stared at us suspiciously, but his expression commonly conveyed some +aspect of threat or suspicion. "Been looking all over the place for you," +he said. + +"For me?" Hughes asked. + +Jervaise shook his head. "No, I want Melhuish," he said, and stood +scowling. + +"Well, here I am," I prompted him. + +"If I'm in the way..." Hughes put in, but did not attempt to get himself +out of it. + +Jervaise ignored him. "Look here, Melhuish," he said. "I wonder if you'd +mind coming up with me to the Home Farm?" + +"Oh! no; rather not," I agreed gladly. + +I felt that Hughes had been scored off; but I instantly forgot such small +triumphs in the delight of being able to get out into the night. Out there +was romance and the smell of night-stock, all kinds of wonderment and +adventure. I was so eager to be in the midst of it that I never paused to +consider the queerness of the expedition. + +As we left the Hall, the theatrical stable-clock was just striking one. + + + + +II + +ANNE + + +The moon must have been nearly at the full, but I could not guess its +position behind the even murk of cloud that muffled the whole face of the +sky. Yet, it was not very dark. The broad masses of the garden through +which Jervaise led me, were visible as a greater blackness superimposed on +a fainter background. I believed that we were passing through some kind of +formal pleasance. I could smell the pseudo-aromatic, slightly dirty odour +of box, and made out here and there the clipped artificialities of a yew +hedge. There were standard roses, too. One rose started up suddenly before +my face, touching me as I passed with a limp, cool caress, like the +careless, indifferent encouragement of a preoccupied courtesan. + +At the end of the pleasance we came to a high wall, and as Jervaise +fumbled with the fastening of a, to me, invisible door, I was expecting +that now we should come out into the open, into a paddock, perhaps, or a +grass road through the Park. But beyond the wall was a kitchen garden. It +was lighter there, and I could see dimly that we were passing down an +aisle of old espaliers that stretched sturdy, rigid arms, locked finger to +finger with each other in their solemn grotesque guardianship of the +enciente they enclosed. No doubt in front of them was some kind of +herbaceous border. I caught sight of the occasional spire of a hollyhock, +and smelt the acid insurgence of marigolds. + +None of this was at all the mischievous, taunting fairyland that I had +anticipated, but rather the gaunt, intimidating home of ogres, rank and +more than a trifle forbidding. It had an air of age that was not immortal, +but stiffly declining into a stubborn resistance against the slow rigidity +of death. These espaliers made me think of rheumatic veterans, obstinately +faithful to ancient duties--veterans with knobbly arthritic joints. + +At the end of the aisle we came to a high-arched opening in the ten-foot +wall, barred by a pair of heavy iron gates. + +"Hold on a minute, I've got the key," Jervaise said. This was the first +time he had spoken since we left the house. His tone seemed to suggest +that he was afraid I should attempt to scale the wall or force my way +through the bars of the gates. + +He had the key but he could not in that darkness fit it into the padlock; +and he asked me if I had any matches. I had a little silver box of wax +vestas in my pocket, and struck one to help him in his search for the +keyhole which he found to have been covered by the escutcheon. Before I +threw the match away I held it up and glanced back across the garden. The +shadows leaped and stiffened to attention, and I flung the match away, but +it did not go out. It lay there on the path throwing out its tiny +challenge to the darkness. It was still burning when I looked back after +passing through the iron gates. + +As we came out of the park, Jervaise took my arm. + +"I'm afraid this is a pretty rotten business," he said with what was for +him an unusual cordiality. + + * * * * * + +Although I had never before that afternoon seen Jervaise's home nor any of +his people with the exception of the brother now in India, I had known +Frank Jervaise for fifteen years. We had been at Oakstone together, and +had gone up the school form by form in each other's company. After we left +Oakstone we were on the same landing at Jesus, and he rowed "two" and I +rowed "bow" in the college boat. And since we had come down I had met him +constantly in London, often as it seemed by accident. Yet we had never +been friends. I had never really liked him. + +Even at school he had had the beginning of the artificially bullying +manner which now seemed natural to him. He had been unconvincingly blunt +and insolent. His dominant chin, Roman nose, and black eyebrows were +chiefly responsible, I think, for his assumption of arrogance. He must +have been newly invigorated to carry on the part every time he scowled at +himself in the glass. He could not conceivably have been anything but a +barrister. + +But, to-night, in the darkness, he seemed to have forgotten for once the +perpetual mandate of his facial angle. He was suddenly intimate, almost +humble. + +"Of course, you don't realise how cursedly awkward it all is," he said +with the evident desire of opening a confidence. + +"Tell me as little or as much as you like," I responded. "You know that +I..." + +"Yes, rather," he agreed warmly, and added, "I'd sooner Hughes didn't +know." + +"He guesses a lot, though," I put in. "I suppose they all do." + +"Oh! well, they're bound to guess something," he said, "but I'm hoping +we'll be able to put that right, now." + +"Who are we going to see?" I asked. + +He did not reply at once, and then snapped out, "Anne Banks; friend er +Brenda's." + +My foolishly whimsical imagination translated that queer medley of sounds +into the thought of a stable-pump. I heard the clank of the handle and +then the musical rush of water into the pail. + +"Sounds just like a pump," I said thoughtlessly. + +He half withdrew his arm from mine with an abrupt twitch that indicated +temper. + +"Oh! don't for God's sake play the fool," he said brutally. + +A spasm of resentment shook me for a moment. I felt annoyed, remembering +how at school he would await his opportunity and then score off me with +some insulting criticism. He had never had any kind of sympathy for the +whimsical, and it is a manner that is apt to look inane and ridiculous +under certain kinds of censure. I swallowed my annoyance, on this +occasion. I remembered that Jervaise had a reasonable excuse, for once. + +"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to play the fool. But you must admit that +it had a queer sound." I repeated the adjectival sentence under my breath. +It really was a rather remarkable piece of onomatopoeia. And then I +reflected on the absurdity of our conversation. How could we achieve all +this ordinary trivial talk of everyday in the gloom of this romantic +adventure? + +"Oh! all serene," Jervaise returned, still with the sound of irritation in +his voice, and continued as if the need for confidence had suddenly +overborne his anger. "As a matter of fact she's his sister." + +"Whose sister?" I asked, quite at a loss. + +"Oh! Banks's, of course," he said. + +"But who in the name of goodness is Banks?" I inquired irritably. The +petulant tone was merely an artifice. I realised that if I were meek, he +would lose more time in abusing my apparent imbecility. I know that the +one way to beat a bully is by bullying, but I hate even the pretence of +that method. + +Jervaise grunted as if the endeavour to lift the weight of my ignorance +required an almost intolerable physical effort. + +"Why, this fellow--our chauffeur," he said in a voice so threateningly +restrained that he seemed on the point of bursting. + +There was no help for it; I had to take the upper hand. + +"Well, my good idiot," I said, "you can't expect me to know these things +by intuition. I've never heard of the confounded fellow before. Haven't +even seen him, now. Nor his sister--Anne Banks, Frienderbrenda's." + +Jervaise was calmed by this outburst. This was the sort of attitude he +could understand and appreciate. + +"All right, keep your shirt on," he replied quite amicably. + +"If you'd condescend to explain," I returned as huffily as I could. + +"You see, this chap, Banks," he began, "isn't quite the ordinary chauffeur +Johnnie. He's the son of one of our farmers. Decent enough old fellow, +too, in his way--the father, I mean. Family's been tenants of the Home +Farm for centuries. And this chap, Banks, the son, has knocked about the +world, no end. Been in Canada and the States and all kinds of weird +places. He's hard as nails; and keen. His mother was a Frenchwoman; been a +governess." + +"Is she dead?" I asked. + +"Lord, no. Why should she be?" Jervaise replied peevishly. + +I thought of explaining that he had made the implication by his use of the +past tense, but gave up the idea as involving a waste of energy. "How old +is this chap, Banks; the son?" I asked. + +"I don't know," Jervaise said. "About twenty-five." + +"And his sister?" I prodded him. + +"Rather younger than that," he said, after an evident hesitation, and +added: "She's frightfully pretty." + +I checked my natural desire to comment on the paradox; and tried the +stimulation of an interested "_Is_ she?" + +"Rather." He tacked that on in the tone of one who deplores the +inevitable; and went on quickly, "You needn't infer that I've made an ass +of myself or that I'm going to. In our position..." He abandoned that as +being, perhaps, too obvious. "What I mean to say is," he continued, "that +I can't understand about Brenda. And it was such an infernally silly way +of going about things. Admitted that there was no earthly chance of the +pater giving his consent or anything like it; she needn't in any case have +made a damned spectacle of the affair. But that's just like her. Probably +did it all because she wanted to be dramatic or some rot." + +It was then that I expressed my appreciation of the dramatic quality of +the incident, and was snubbed by his saying,-- + +"I suppose you realise just what this may mean, to all of us." + +I had a vivid impression, in the darkness, of that sudden scowl which made +him look so absurdly like a youthful version of Sir Edward Carson. + +I was wondering why it should mean so much to all of them? Frank Jervaise +had admitted, for all intents and purposes, that he was in love with the +chauffeur's sister, so he, surely, need not have so great an objection. +And, after all, why was the family of Jervaise so much better than the +family of Banks? + +"I suppose it would be very terrible for you all if she married this +chap?" I said. + +"Unthinkable," Jervaise replied curtly. + +"It would be worse in a way than your marrying the sister?" + +"I should never be such an infernal fool as to do a thing like that," he +returned. + +"Has she ... have there been any tender passages between you and Miss +Banks?" I asked. + +"No," he snapped viciously. + +"You've been too careful?" + +"As a matter of fact, I don't think she likes me," he said. + +"Oh!" was all my comment. + +I needed no more explanations; and I liked Jervaise even less than I had +before. I began to wish that he had not seen fit to confide in me. I had, +thoughtlessly, been dramatising the incident in my mind, but, now, I was +aware of the unpleasant reality of it all. Particularly Jervaise's part in +it. + +"Can't be absolutely certain, of course," he continued. + +"But if she did like you?" I suggested. + +"I've got to be very careful who I marry," he explained. "We aren't +particularly well off. All our property is in land, and you know what sort +of an investment that is, these days." + +I tried another line. "And if you find your sister up at the Home Farm; +and Banks; what are you going to do?" + +"Kick him and bring her home," he said decidedly. + +"Nothing else for it, I suppose?" I replied. + +"Obviously," he snarled. + +We had come into a wood and it was very dark under the trees. I wondered +why I should restrain the impulse to strangle him and leave him there? He +was no good, and, to me, quite peculiarly objectionable. It seemed, in +what was then my rather fantastic state of mind, that it would be a +triumph of whimsicality. I should certainly have resisted the impulse in +any case, but my attention was diverted from it at that moment by a sudden +pattering of feet along the leaves of the great trees under which we were +walking--light, clean, sharp, little dancing feet, springing from leaf to +leaf--dozens of them chasing each other, rattling ecstatically up and down +the endless terraces of wide foliage. + +"Damn it all, it's beginning to rain like blazes," remarked the foolish +Jervaise. + +"How much farther is it?" I asked. + +He said we were "just there." + + * * * * * + +I saw the Home Farm first as a little square haze of yellow light far up +in the sky. I didn't realise the sharp rise in the ground immediately in +front of us, and that rectangular beacon, high in the air, seemed a +fantastically impossible thing. I pointed it out to Jervaise who was +holding his head down as if he were afraid the summer rain might do some +serious injury to his face. + +"Some one up, anyway," was his comment. + +"Very far up," I murmured. I could not quite believe, even then, that it +could be a window. I was disappointed when we had climbed the hill and +stood only a few feet below the beacon, to discover that this too, was +another instance of the all too credible commonplace. I suppose men like +Frank Jervaise never long to believe in the impossible. I was, however, +agreeably surprised to find that he could be nervous. + +He hesitated, looking up at the prism of light that splayed out through +the first floor window, and set a silver fire to the falling rain. +"Suppose we'd better knock," he grumbled. + +"D'you know whose window it is?" I asked. + +Apparently he didn't. He made a dive into a deeper obscurity and I lost +him until I heard his knock. I was glad that he should have knocked with +such decent restraint, but all the effect of it was instantly shattered by +the response. For at his first subdued rap, a dog with a penetratingly +strident bark set up a perfectly detestable clamour within the house. It +was just as if Jervaise's touch on the door had liberated the spring of +some awful rattle. Every lovely impulse of the night must have fled +dismayed, back into the peace and beauty of the wood; and I was more than +half inclined to follow. + +Until that appalling racket was set loose I had been regarding this +midnight visit to the farm as a natural and enticing adventure, altogether +in keeping with the dramatic movement preluded by the chime of the +stable-clock. That confounded terrier, whose voice so clearly proclaimed +his breed, had dragged us down to the baldest realism. We were intruders +upon the decencies of civilisation. That dog was not to be misled by any +foolish whimsies of the imagination. He was a thorough-going realist, +living in a tangible, smellable world of reality, and he knew us for what +we were--marauders, disturbers of the proper respectable peace of +twentieth century farms. He lashed himself into ecstasies of fury against +our unconventionality; he rose to magnificent paroxysms of protest that +passionately besought High Heaven and Farmer Banks to open the door and +let him get at us. + +But no one came. There may have been other sounds coming from the house +besides that infuriated demand for vengeance, but all inferior noises--and +surely all other noises must have been inferior to that clamour--were +absorbed and flattened out of existence. We were in a world occupied by +the bark of a single dog, and any addition to that occupation would have +been superfluous. + +The owner of the voice was doing his level best now to get the door down +on his own account. I hoped he might succeed. I should have excuse then to +fly to the woods and claim sanctuary. As it was, I retreated a couple of +steps, holding my breath to ease the pain of my nerves, and some old +instinct of prayer made me lift my face to the sky. I welcomed the cold, +inquisitive touch of the silent rain. + +Then I became aware through the torture of prolonged exasperation that my +upturned face was lit from above; that a steady candle was now perched on +the very sill of the one illuminated window; and that behind the candle +the figure of a woman stood looking down at me. + +She appeared to be speaking. + +I held my hands to my ears and shook my head violently to intimate my +temporary deafness; and the figure disappeared, leaving the placid candle +to watch me as it seemed with a kind of indolent nonchalance. + +I decided to pass on the news to Jervaise, and discovered that besotted +fool in a little trellised porch, stimulating the execrations of the Irish +terrier by a subdued inaudible knocking. I was beginning to scream my news +into his ear when silence descended upon us with the suddenness of a +catastrophe. It was as if the heavens had been rent and all the earth had +fallen into a muffled chaos of mute despair. + +I had actually began my shriek of announcement when all the world of sound +about us so inexplicably ceased to be, and I shut off instantly on the +word "_Someone_...," a word that as I had uttered it sounded like a +despairing yelp of mortal agony. + +Out of the unearthly stillness, Jervaise's voice replied in a frightened +murmur, "Someone coming," he said, as if he, alone, had knowledge of and +responsibility for that supreme event. + +And still no one came. The door remained steadfastly closed. Outside the +porch, the earth had recovered from the recent disaster, and we could hear +the exquisitely gentle murmur of the rain. + +"Damned odd," commented Jervaise. "That cursed dog made enough noise to +wake the dead." + +I was inspired to go out and search the window where burned the indigent, +just perceptibly, rakish candle. + +She was there. She had returned to her eyrie after quelling the racket in +the hall, and now she leaned a little forward so that I could see her +face. + +"Who's there?" she asked quietly. + +Her voice was low and clear as the reed of a flute, but all sounds had the +quality of music at that instant of release. + +I was nonplussed for the moment. I ought to have taken up the key of high +romance. She deserved it. Instead of that I dropped to the awful +commonplaces of a man in evening dress and a light overcoat standing in +the rain talking to a stranger. + +"I came up with Mr. Jervaise, Mr. Frank Jervaise," I explained. "He--he +wants to see you. Shall I tell him you're there?" + +"All serene, I'm here," whispered the voice of Jervaise at my elbow, and +then he cleared his throat and spoke up at the window. + +"Rather an upset down at the Hall, Miss Banks; about Brenda," he said. +"Might we come in a minute?" + +"It's rather late, isn't it?" the vision returned--it wasn't only the ease +of the silence, she had a delicious voice--and added rather mischievously, +"It's raining, isn't it?" + +"Like anything," Jervaise said, and ducked his head and hunched his +shoulders, as if he had suddenly remembered the possible susceptibility of +his exposed face. + +"Is it so very important?" the soft, clear voice asked, still, I thought, +with a faint undercurrent of raillery. + +"Really, Miss Banks, it is," Jervaise implored, risking his delicate face +again. + +She hesitated a moment and then said, "Very well," and disappeared, taking +this time the dissipated candle with her. I heard her address a minatory +remark within the room to "Racket"--most excellently described, I thought; +though I discovered later that I had, in imagination, misspelt him, since +he owed his name to the fact that his mother had sought her delivery on +the bed of a stored tennis-net. + +Jervaise and I hurried back to the front door as if we were afraid that +Miss Banks might get there first; but she kept us waiting for something +like ten minutes before she came downstairs. The silence of that interval +was only broken by such nervous staccato comments as "Long time!" +"Dressing, presumably," and occasional throaty sounds of impatience from +Jervaise that are beyond the representative scope of typography. I have +heard much the same noises proceed from the throat of an unhopeful pig +engaged in some minor investigation. + +The rain was falling less heavily, and towards the west a pale blur of +light was slowly melting its way through the darkness. I noted that spot +as marking the probable position of the setting moon. I decided that as +soon as this infernal inquisition was over, I would get rid of Jervaise +and find some God-given place in which I might wait for the dawn. I knew +that there must be any number of such places between the Farm and the +Hall. I was peering westward towards the rolling obscurity of hills and +woods that were just beginning to bulk out of the gloom, when I heard the +click of the door latch. + +I should not like to be put in the witness-box and cross-examined by +Jervaise as to my reason for entering the house with him that night. All +that part of me with which I have any sort of real friendship, wanted +quite definitely to stay outside. That would have been the tactful thing +to do. There was no reason why I should intrude further on the mystery of +Brenda's disappearance; and as a matter of fact I was no longer very +keenly interested in that brilliant and fascinating young woman's affairs. +The plan that I had in mind when the door opened was to say politely to +Jervaise, "I'll wait for you here"--I had a premonition that he would +raise no objection to that suggestion--and then when he and Miss Banks +were safely inside, I meant to go and find rapture in solitude. The moon +was certainly coming out; the dawn was due in three hours or so, and +before me were unknown hills and woods. I had no sort of doubt that I +should find my rapture. I may add that my plan did not include any further +sight of Jervaise, his family, or their visitors, before breakfast next +morning. + +I had it all clear and settled. I was already thrilling with the first +ecstasies of anticipation. But when the door was opened I turned my back +on all that magical beauty of the night, and accompanied Jervaise into the +house like a scurvy little mongrel with no will of its own. + +I can't account for that queer change of purpose. It was purely +spontaneous, due to something quite outside the realm of reason. I was +certainly not in love with Anne, then. My only sight of her had left an +impression as of an amateur copy of a Rembrandt done in Indian ink with a +wet brush. It is true that I had heard her voice like the low thrilling of +a nightingale--following a full Handel chorus of corncrakes. + + * * * * * + +She had evidently spent an active ten minutes while we waited for her. She +had done her hair, and she was, so far as I could judge from +superficialities, completely dressed. Also she had lighted the lamp in +what I took to be the chief sitting-room of the farm. + +As a room it deserved attention, but it was not until I had been there for +ten minutes or more, that I realised all that the furniture of that room +was not. My first observations were solely directed to Miss Banks. + +Jervaise had grossly maligned her by saying that she was "frightfully +pretty." No one but a fool would have called her "pretty." Either she was +beautiful or plain. I saw, even then, that if the light of her soul had +been quenched, she might appear plain. Her features were good, her +complexion, her colouring--she was something between dark and fair--but +she did not rely on those things for her beauty. It was the glow of her +individuality that was her surpassing charm. She had that supremely +feminine vitality which sends a man crazy with worship. You had to adore +or dislike her. There was no middle course. + +And Jervaise quite obviously adored her. All that tactful confession of +his in the park had been a piece of artifice. It had not, however, been +framed to deceive _me_. I do not believe that he considered me worth +bothering about. No, those admissions and denials of his had been +addressed, without doubt, to a far more important person than myself. They +had been in the nature of a remonstrance and assurance spoken to Frank +Jervaise by the heir to the estate; which heir was determined with all the +force of his ferocious nose and dominant chin to help him, that he would +not make a fool of himself for the sake of the daughter of a tenant +farmer. I had been nothing more than the register upon which he had +tentatively engraved that resolve. But he should have chosen a more stable +testament than this avowal made to a whimsically-minded playwright with an +absurd weakness for the beauties of a midnight wood. + +And if I had been a witness to his oath, I was, now, a witness to his +foreswearing. + +He began well enough on the note proper to the heir of Jervaise. He had +the aplomb to carry that off. He stood on the hearthrug, austere and +self-controlled, consciously aristocrat, heir and barrister. + +"I'm so sorry, Miss Banks. Almost inexcusable to disturb you at this time +of night." He stopped after that beginning and searched his witness with a +stare that ought to have set her trembling. + +Anne had sat down and was resting her forearms on the table. She looked up +at him with the most charming insouciance when he paused so portentously +at the very opening of his address. Her encouraging "yes" was rather in +the manner of a child waiting for the promised story. + +Jervaise frowned and attempted the dramatic. "My sister, Brenda, has run +away," he said. + +"When?" + +"This evening at the end of the Cinderella. You knew we were giving a +dance?" + +"But where to?" + +"Oh! Precisely!" Jervaise said. + +"But how extraordinary!" replied Miss Banks. + +"Is she here?" asked Jervaise. He ought to have snapped that out +viciously, and I believe that was his intention. But Anne's exquisitely +innocent, absorbed gaze undid him; and his question had rather the sound +of an apology. + +"No, certainly not! Why ever should she come here?" Anne said with +precisely the right nuance of surprise. + +"Is your brother here?" + +"No!" + +It looks such an absurd little inexpressive word on paper, but Anne made a +song of it on two notes, combining astonishment with a sincerity that was +absolutely final. If, after that, Jervaise had dared to say, "Are you +sure?" I believe I should have kicked him. + +How confounded he was, was shown by the change of attitude evident in his +next speech. + +"It's horribly awkward," he said. + +"Oh! horribly," Anne agreed, with a charming sympathy. "What are you going +to do?" + +"You see, we can't find your brother, either," Jervaise tried tactfully. + +"I don't quite see what that's got to do with Brenda," Anne remarked with +a sweet perplexity. + +Apparently Jervaise did not wish to point the connection too abruptly. "We +wanted the car," he said; "and we couldn't find him anywhere." + +"Oh! he's almost sure to have gone to sleep up in the woods," Anne +replied. "Arthur's like that, you know. He sort of got the habit in Canada +or somewhere. He often says that sometimes he simply can't bear to sleep +under a roof." + +I had already begun to feel a liking for Anne's brother, and that speech +of hers settled me. I knew that "Arthur" was the right sort--or, at least, +my sort. I would have been willing, even then, to swap the whole Jervaise +family with the possible exception of Brenda, for this as yet unknown +Arthur Banks. + +Jervaise's diplomacy was beginning to run very thin. + +"You don't think it conceivable that Brenda..." he began gloomily. + +"That Brenda what?" + +"I was going to say..." + +"Yes?" She leaned a little forward with an air of expectancy that +disguised her definite refusal to end his sentences for him. + +"It's a most difficult situation, Miss Banks," he said, starting a new +line; "and we don't in the least know what to make of it. What on earth +could induce Brenda to run off like this, with no apparent object?" + +"But how do you know she really has?" asked Anne. "You haven't told me +anything, yet, have you? I mean, she may have gone out into the Park to +get cool after the dance, or into the woods or anything. Why should you +imagine that she has--run away?" + +I joined in the conversation, then, for the first time. I had not even +been introduced to Anne. + +"That's very reasonable, surely, Jervaise," I said. "And wouldn't it--I +hardly know her, I'll admit--but wouldn't it be rather like your sister?" + +So far as I was concerned, Anne's suggestion carried conviction. I was +suddenly sure that our suspicions were all a mistake. + +Jervaise snubbed me with a brief glance of profoundest contempt. He +probably intended that commentary on my interruption to go no further; but +his confounded pose of superiority annoyed me to the pitch of +exasperation. + +"You see, my dear chap," I continued quickly, "your unfortunate training +as a lawyer invariably leads you to suspect a crime; and you overlook the +obvious in your perfectly unreasonable and prejudiced search for the +incriminating." + +Jervaise's expression admirably conveyed his complete boredom with me and +my speeches. + +"You don't know anything about it," he said, with a short gesture of final +dismissal. + +"But, Mr. Jervaise," Anne put in, "what can you possibly suspect, in this +case?" + +"He'd suspect anything of anybody for the sake of making a case of it," I +said, addressing Anne. I wanted to make her look at me, but she kept her +gaze fixed steadily on Jervaise, as if he were the controller of all +destinies. + +I accepted my dismissal, then, so far as to keep silence, but I was +annoyed, now, with Anne, as well as with Jervaise. "What on earth could +she see in the fellow?" I asked myself irritably. I was the more irritated +because he had so obviously already forgotten my presence. + +"Have you no reason to suspect anything yourself, Miss Banks?" he asked +gravely. + +"If you're suggesting that Brenda and Arthur have run away together," she +said, "I'm perfectly, perfectly certain that you're wrong, Mr. Jervaise." + +"Do you mean that you know for certain that they haven't?" he returned. + +She nodded confidently, and I thought she had perjured herself, until +Jervaise with evident relief said, "I'm very glad of that; very. Do you +mind telling me how you know?" + +"By intuition," she said, without a trace of raillery in her face or her +tone. + +I forgave her for ignoring me when she said that. I felt that I could +almost forgive Jervaise; he was so deliciously sold. + +"But you've surely some other grounds for certainty besides--intuition?" +he insisted anxiously. + +"What other grounds could I possibly have?" Anne asked. + +"They haven't, either of them, confided in you?" + +"Confided? What sort of things?" + +"That there was, or might be, any--any sort of understanding between +them?" + +"I know that they have met--occasionally." + +"Lately! Where?" + +"Brenda has been having lessons in driving the motor." + +"Oh! yes, I know that. You didn't mean that they had been meeting here?" + +"No, I didn't mean that," Anne said definitely. All through that quick +alternation of question and answer she had, as it were, surrendered her +gaze to him; watching him with a kind of meek submission as if she were +ready to do anything she could to help him in his inquiry. And it was very +plain to me that Jervaise was flattered and pleased by her attitude. If I +had attempted Anne's method, he would have scowled and brow-beaten me +unmercifully, but now he really looked almost pleasant. + +"It's very good of you to help me like this, Miss Banks," he said, "and +I'm very grateful to you. I do apologise, most sincerely for dragging you +out of bed at such an unholy hour, but I'm sure you appreciate my--our +anxiety." + +"Oh! of course," she agreed, with a look that I thought horribly +sympathetic. + +I began to wonder if my first estimate of her--based to a certain extent, +perhaps, on Jervaise's admission that she did not like him--had not been +considerably too high. She might, after all, be just an ordinary charming +woman, enlivened by a streak of minx, and eager enough to catch the heir +of Jervaise if he were available. How low my thought of her must have sunk +at that moment! But they were, now, exchanging courtesies with an air that +gave to their commonplaces the effect of a flirtation. + +I distracted my attention. I couldn't help hearing what they said, but I +could refrain from looking at Anne. She was becoming vivacious, and I +found myself strangely disliking her vivacity. It was then that I began to +take note of the furnishing of the room which, when I considered it, was +so peculiarly not in the manner of the familiar English farm-house. +Instead of the plush suite, the glass bell shades, the round centre table, +and all the other stuffy misconceptions so firmly established by the +civilisation of the nineteenth century, I discovered the authentic marks +of the old English aesthetic--whitewashed walls and black oak. And the +dresser, the settles, the oblong table, the rush-bottomed chairs, the big +chest by the side wall, all looked sturdily genuine; venerably conscious +of the boast that they had defied the greedy collector and would continue +to elude his most insidious approaches. Here, they were in their proper +surroundings. They gave the effect of having carelessly lounged in and +settled themselves; they were like the steady group of "regulars" in the +parlour of their familiar inn. + +I came out of my reflection on the furniture to find that Jervaise was +going, at last. He was smiling and effusive, talking quickly about +nothing, apologising again for the unseemliness of our visit. Anne was +pathetically complacent, accepting and discounting his excuses, and +professing her willingness to help in any way she possibly could. "But I +really and truly expect you'll find Brenda safe at home when you get +back," she said, and I felt that she honestly believed that. + +"I hope so; I hope so," Jervaise responded, and then they most +unnecessarily shook hands. + +I thought that it was time to assert myself above the clatter of their +farewells. + +"We might add, Miss Banks," I put in, "that we've been making a perfectly +absurd fuss about nothing at all. But, no doubt, you're used to that." + +She looked at me, then, for the first time since I had come into the +house; and I saw the impulse to some tart response flicker in her face and +die away unexpressed. We stood and stared at one another for a long +half-second or so; and when she looked away I fancied that there was +something like fear in her evasion. It seemed to me that I saw the true +spirit of her in the way her glance refused me as some one with whom she +did not care to sport. Her voice, too, dropped, so that I could not catch +the murmur of her reply. + +We had, indeed, recognised each other in that brief meeting of our eyes. +Some kind of challenge had passed between us. I had dared her to drop that +disguise of trickery and show herself as she was; and her response had +been an admission that she acknowledged not me, but my recognition of her. + +How far the fact that I had truly appraised her real worth might influence +her, in time, to think gently of me, I could not guess; but I hoped, even +a little vaingloriously, that she would respond to our mutual appreciation +of truth. I had shown her, I believed, how greatly I admired the spirit +she had been at such pains to conceal during that talk in the honest +sitting-room of the Home Farm. And I felt that her failure to resent the +impertinence of my "No doubt, you're used to that," had been due to an +understanding of something she and I had in common against the whole +solid, stolid, aristocratic family of Jervaise. + +Moreover, she gave me what I counted as two more causes for hopefulness +before we left the house. The first was her repetition, given, now, with a +more vibrating sincerity, of the belief that we should find Brenda safely +at home when we got back to the Hall. + +"I feel sure you will, Mr. Jervaise," she said, and the slight pucker of +anxiety between her eyebrows was an earnest that even if her belief was a +little tremulous, her hope, at least, was unquestionably genuine. + +The second sign was the acceptance of a hackneyed commonplace; the proffer +of a friendly message through the medium of a cliche which, however false +in its general application, offered a short cut to the interpretation of +feeling. Racquet who had maintained a well-bred silence from the first +moment of his mistress's reproof, had honoured me with his approval while +we sat in the farm-house sitting-room, and sealed the agreement by a +friendly thrust of his nose as we said "Goodnight." + +Anne did not look at me as she spoke, but her soft comment, "You are fond +of dogs," seemed to me a full acknowledgment of our recognition of each +other's quality. + +I must admit, however, that at two o'clock in the morning one's sense of +values is not altogether normal. + + + + +III + +FRANK JERVAISE + + +I should have preferred to maintain a thoughtful, experiencing silence +throughout our walk home. I had plenty of material for reflection. I +wanted, now, to look at all this disappearing Brenda business from a new +angle. I had a sense of the weaving of plots, and of the texture of them; +such a sense as I imagine a blind man may get through sensitive +finger-tips. Two new characters had come into my play, and I knew them +both for principals. That opening act without Brenda, Arthur Banks, or his +sister was nothing more than a prologue. The whole affair had begun again +to fascinate my interest. Moreover, I was becoming aware of a stern, +half-tragic background that had not yet come into proper focus. + +And the circumstances of our walk home were of a kind that I find +peculiarly stimulating to the imagination. The sky was clearing. Above us, +widening pools of deep sky, glinting here and there, with the weak +radiance of half-drowned stars, opened and closed again behind dispersing +wreaths of mist. While in the west, a heaped indigo gloom that might in +that light have been mistaken for the silhouette of a vast impending +forest, revealed at one edge a thin haze of yellow silver that stretched +weak exploring arms of light towards the mysterious obscurity of the upper +clouds. I knew precisely how that sky would look at sunset, but at moonset +it had a completely different quality that was at once more ethereal and +more primitive. It seemed to me that this night-sky had the original, +eternal effect of all planetary space; that it might be found under the +leaping rings of Saturn or in the perpetual gloom of banished Neptune. +Compared to the comprehensible, reproducible effects of sunlight, it was +as the wonder of the ineffable to the beauty of a magnificent picture. + +But I was not left for many minutes to the rapture of contemplation. Even +the primitive had to give place to the movement of our tiny, civilised +drama. Jervaise and I were of the race that has been steadily creating a +fiction of the earth since the first appearance of inductive science in +the days of prehistoric man; and we could not live for long outside the +artificial realism of the thing we were making. We were not the creatures +of a process, but little gods in a world-pantheon. + + * * * * * + +I made no attempt to check him when he began to talk. I knew by the raised +tone of his voice--he was speaking quite a third above his ordinary +pitch--that he was pleasantly excited by our interview with Anne: an +excitement that he now wished either to conceal, or, if that were +impossible, to attribute to another cause. + +"It occurs to me that there are one or two very puzzling points about that +visit of ours, Melhuish," he began. + +"At least two," I agreed. + +"Which are?" he asked. + +"I'd prefer to hear yours first," I said, having no intention of +displaying my own. + +He was so eager to exhibit his cleverness that he did not press me for my +probably worthless deductions. + +"Well, in the first place," he said, "did it strike you as a curious fact +that Miss Banks, and she alone, was apparently disturbed by that dog's +infernal barking?" + +"It hadn't struck me," I admitted; and just because I had not remarked +that anomaly for myself, I was instantly prepared to treat it as unworthy +of notice. "I suppose her father and mother and the servants, and so on, +heard her let us in," I said. + +Jervaise jeered at that. "Oh! my good man," he said. + +"Well, why not?" I returned peevishly. + +"I put it to you," he said, "whether in those circumstances the family's +refusal to make an appearance admits of any ordinary explanation?" + +I could see, now, that it did not; but having committed myself to a point +of view, I determined to uphold it. "Why _should_ they come down?" I +asked. + +"Common curiosity would be a sufficient inducement, I should imagine," +Jervaise replied with a snort of contempt, "to say nothing of a reasonable +anxiety to know why any one should call at two o'clock in the morning. It +isn't usual, you know--outside the theatrical world, perhaps." + +I chose to ignore the sneer conveyed by his last sentence. + +"They may be very heavy sleepers," I tried, fully aware of the inanity of +my suggestion. + +Jervaise laughed unpleasantly, a nasty hoot of derision. "Don't be a +damned fool," he said. "The human being isn't born who could sleep through +that hullabaloo." + +I relinquished that argument as hopeless, and having no other at the +moment, essayed a weak reprisal. "Well, what's your explanation?" I asked +in the tone of one ready to discount any possible explanation he might +have to make. + +"It's obvious," he returned. "There can be only one. They were expecting +us." + +"Do you mean that Miss Banks was deliberately lying to us all the time?" I +challenged him with some heat. + +"Why that?" he asked. + +"Well, if she were expecting us..." + +"Which she never denied." + +"And had warned all her people..." + +"As she had a perfect right to do." + +"It makes her out a liar, in effect," I protested. "I mean, she implied, +if she didn't actually state, that she knew nothing whatever of your +sister's movements." + +"Which may have been true," he remarked in the complacent tone of one who +waits to formulate an unimpeachable theory. + +"Good Lord! How?" I asked. + +"Brenda may have been expected and not have arrived," he explained, +condescending, at last, to point out all the obvious inferences I had +missed. "In which case, my friend, Miss Banks's _suppressio veri_ was, in +my judgment, quite venial. Indeed, she was, if the facts are, as I +suppose, perfectly honest in her surprise. Let us assume that she had +arranged to let Brenda in, at say twelve-thirty, and having her father and +mother under her thumb, had warned them to take no notice if Racquet +started his cursed shindy in the middle of the night. The servant may have +been told that Mr. Arthur might be coming. You will notice, also, that +Miss Banks had not, at one-thirty, gone to bed, although we may infer that +she had undressed. Furthermore, it is a fair assumption that she saw us +coming, and having, by then given up, it may be, any hope of seeing +Brenda, she was, no doubt, considerably at a loss to account for our +presence. Now, does that or does it not cover the facts, and does it +acquit Miss Banks of the charge of perjury?" + +I was forced, something reluctantly, to concede an element of probability +in his inferences, although his argument following the legal tradition was +based on a kind of average law of human motive and took no account of +personal peculiarities. He did not try to consider what Anne would do in +certain circumstances, but what would be done by that vaguely-conceived +hermaphrodite who figures in the Law Courts and elsewhere as "Anyone." I +could hear Jervaise saying, "I ask you, gentlemen, what would you have +done, what would Anyone have done in such a case as this?" + +"Hm!" I commented, and added, "It still makes Miss Banks appear +rather--double-faced." + +"Can't see it," Jervaise replied. "Put yourself in her place and see how +it works!" + +"Oh! Lord!" I murmured, struck by the grotesque idea of Jervaise +attempting to see life through the eyes of Anne. Imagine a rhinoceros +thinking itself into the experiences of a skylark! + +Jervaise bored ahead, taking no notice of my interruption. "Assuming for +the moment the general probability of my theory," he said, "mayn't we +hazard the further assumption that Brenda was going to the farm in the +first instance to meet Banks? His sister, we will suppose, being willing +to sanction such a more or less chaperoned assignation. Then, when the +pair didn't turn up, she guesses that the meeting is off for some reason +or another, but obviously her friendship for Brenda--to say nothing of +loyalty to her brother--would make her conceal the fact of the proposed +assignation from us. Would you call that being 'double-faced'? I +shouldn't." + +"Oh! yes; it's all very reasonable," I agreed petulantly. "But how does it +affect the immediate situation? Do you, for instance, expect to find your +sister at home when we get back?" + +"I do," assented Jervaise definitely. "I believe that Miss Banks had some +good reason for being so sure that we should find her there." + +I am not really pig-headed. I may not give way gracefully to such an +opponent as Jervaise, but I do not stupidly persist in a personal opinion +through sheer obstinacy. And up to Jervaise's last statement, his general +deductions were, I admitted to myself, not only within the bounds of +probability but, also, within distance of affording a tolerable +explanation of Anne's diplomacy during our interview. But--and I secretly +congratulated myself on having exercised a subtler intuition in this one +particular, at least--I did not believe that Anne expected us to find +Brenda at the Hall on our return. I remembered that anxious pucker of the +brow and the pathetic insistence on the belief--or might it not better be +described as a hope?--that Brenda had done nothing final. + +"You haven't made a bad case," I conceded; "but I differ as to your last +inference." + +"You don't think we shall find Brenda at home?" + +"I do not," I replied aggressively. + +I expected him to bear me down under a new weight of argument founded on +the psychology of Anyone, and I was startled when he suddenly dropped the +lawyer and let out a whole-hearted "Damnation," that had a ring of fine +sincerity. + +I changed my tone instantly in response to that agreeably human note. + +"I may be quite mistaken, of course," I said. "I hope to goodness I am. By +the way, do you know if she has taken any luggage with her?" + +"Can't be sure," Jervaise said. "Olive's been looking and there doesn't +seem to be anything missing, but we've no idea what things she brought +down from town with her. If she'd been making plans beforehand..." + +We came out of the wood at that point in our discussion, and almost at the +same moment the last barrier of cloud slipped away from before the moon. +She was in her second quarter, and seemed to be indolently rolling down +towards the horizon, the whole pose of the scene giving her the effect of +being half-recumbent. + +I turned and looked at Jervaise and found him facing me with the full +light of the moon on his face. He was frowning, not with the domineering +scowl of the cross-examining counsel, but with a perplexed, inquiring +frown that revealed all the boy in him. + +Once at Oakstone he had got into a serious scrape that had begun in +bravado and ended by a public thrashing. He had poached a trout from the +waters of a neighbouring landowner, who had welcomed the opportunity to +make himself more than usually objectionable. And on the morning before +his thrashing, Jervaise had come into my study and confessed to me that he +was dreading the coming ordeal. He was not afraid of the physical pain, he +told me, but of the shame of the thing. We were near to becoming friends +that morning. He confessed to no one but me. But when the affair was +over--he bore himself very well--he resumed his usual airs of superiority, +and snubbed me when I attempted to sympathise with him. + +And I saw, now, just the same boyish dread and perplexity that I had seen +when he made his confession to me at Oakstone. He looked to me, indeed, +absurdly unchanged by the sixteen years that had separated the two +experiences. + +"You know, Melhuish," he said; "I'm not altogether blaming Brenda in one +way." + +"Do you think she's really in love with Banks?" I asked. + +"I don't know," he said. "How can any one know? But it has been going on a +long time--weeks, anyhow. They were all getting nervous about it at home. +The mater told me when I came down this afternoon. She wanted me to talk +to B. about it. I was going to. She doesn't take any notice of Olive. +Never has." He stopped and looked at me with an appeal in his face that +begged contradiction. + +We were standing still in the moonlight at the edge of the wood and the +accident of our position made me wonder if Jervaise's soul also hesitated +between some gloomy prison of conventional success and the freedom of +beautiful desires. I could find no words, however, to press that +speculation and instead I attempted, rather nervously, to point the way +towards what I regarded as the natural solution of the immediate problem. +"Come," I said, "the idea of a marriage between Banks and your sister +doesn't appear so unreasonable. The Bankses are evidently good old yeoman +stock on the father's side. It is a mere accident of luck that you should +be the owners of the land and not they." + +"Theoretically, yes!" he said with a hint of impatience. "But we've got to +consider the opinions--prejudices, if you like--of all my people--to say +nothing of the neighbours." + +"Oh! put the neighbours first," I exclaimed. "It's what we think other +people will think that counts with most of us." + +"It isn't," Jervaise returned gloomily. "You don't understand what the +idea of family means to people like my father and mother. They've been +brought up in it. It has more influence with them than religion. They'd +prefer any scandal to a mesalliance." + +"In your sister's case?" I put in, a trifle shocked by the idea of the +scandal, and then discovered that he had not been thinking of Brenda. + +"Perhaps not in that case," he said, "but..." he paused noticeably before +adding, "The principle remains the same." + +"Isn't it chiefly a matter of courage?" I asked. "It isn't as if ... the +mesalliance were in any way disgraceful." + +I can't absolve myself from the charge of hypocrisy in the making of that +speech. I was thinking of Jervaise and Anne, and I did not for one moment +believe that Anne would ever marry him. My purpose was, I think, +well-intentioned. I honestly believed that it would be good for him to +fall in love with Anne and challenge the world of his people's opinion for +her sake. But I blame myself, now, for a quite detestable lack of +sincerity in pushing him on. I should not have done it if I had thought he +had a real chance with her. Life is very difficult; especially for the +well-intentioned. + +Jervaise shrugged his shoulders. "It's all so infernally complicated by +this affair of Brenda's," he said. + +Yet it has seemed simple enough to him, I reflected, an hour before. "Kick +_him_ and bring _her_ home," had been his ready solution of the +difficulties he thought were before us. Evidently Anne's behaviour during +our talk at the farm had had a considerable effect upon his opinions. +That, and the moon. I feel strongly inclined to include the moon--lazily +declining now towards the ambush of a tumulus-shaped hill, crowned, as is +the manner of that country, with a pert little top-knot of trees. + +"Complicated or simplified?" I suggested. + +"Complicated; damnably complicated," he replied irritably. "Brenda's a +little fool. It isn't as if she were in earnest." + +"Then you don't honestly believe that she's in love with Banks?" I asked, +remembering his "I don't know. How can any one know," of a few minutes +earlier. + +"She's so utterly unreliable--in every way," he equivocated. "She always +has been. She isn't the least like the rest of us." + +"Don't you count yourself as another exception?" I asked. + +"Not in that way, Brenda's way," he said. "She's scatter-brained; you +can't get round that. Going off after the dance in that idiotic way. It's +maddening." + +"Well, there are two questions that must be resolved before we can get any +further," I commented. "The first is whether your sister has gone +back--she may have been safe in bed for the last hour and a half for all +we know. And the second is whether she is honestly in love with Banks. +From what I've heard of him, I should think it's very likely," I added +thoughtfully. + +Jervaise had his hands in his pockets and was staring up at the moon. +"He's not a bad chap in some ways," he remarked, "but there's no getting +over the fact that he's our chauffeur." + +I saw that. No badge could be quite so disgraceful in the eyes of the +Jervaises as the badge of servitude. Our talk there, by the wood, had +begun to create around us all the limitations of man's world. I was +forgetting that we were moving in the free spaces of a planetary republic. +And then I looked up and saw the leaning moon, whimsically balanced on the +very crown of the topknot that gave a touch of impudence to the +pudding-basin hill. + +"What's the name of that hill?" I asked. + +He looked at it absently for a moment before he said, "The people about +here call it 'Jervaise Clump.' It's a landmark for miles." + +There was no getting away from it. The Jervaises had conquered all this +land and labelled it. I watched the sharp edge of the tree-clump slowly +indenting the rounded back of the moon; and it seemed to me that +Jervaise-Clump was the solid permanent thing; the moon a mere incident of +the night. + +"Oh! Lord! Lord! What bosh it all is!" I exclaimed. + +"All what?" Jervaise asked sharply. + +"This business of distinctions; of masters and servants; of families in +possession and families in dependence," I enunciated. + +"It isn't such dangerous bosh as socialism," Jervaise replied. + +"I wasn't thinking of socialism," I said; "I was thinking of +interplanetary space." + +Jervaise blew contemptuously. "Don't talk rot," he said, and I realised +that we were back again on the old footing of our normal relations. +Nevertheless I made one more effort. + +"It isn't rot," I said. "If it is, then every impulse towards beauty and +freedom is rot, too." (I could not have said that to Jervaise in a house, +but I drew confidence from the last tip of the moon beckoning farewell +above the curve of the hill.) "Your, whatever it is you feel for Miss +Banks--things like that ... all our little efforts to get away from these +awful, clogging human rules." + +I had given him his opportunity and he took it. He was absolutely +ruthless. "No one but a fool tries to be superhuman," he said. "Come on!" + +He had turned and was walking back in the direction of the Hall, and I +followed him, humiliated and angry. + +It was so impossible for me at that moment to avoid the suspicion that he +had led me on by his appealing confidences solely in order to score off me +when I responded. It is not, indeed, surprising that that should be my +reaction while the hurt of his sneer still smarted. For he had pricked me +on a tender spot. I realised the weakness of what I had said; and it was a +characteristic weakness. I had been absurdly unpractical, as usual, aiming +like a fool, as Jervaise had said, at some "superhuman" ideal of freedom +that perhaps existed solely in my own imagination; and would certainly be +regarded by Mr. and Mrs. Jervaise and their circle of county friends as +the vapourings of a weak mind. In short, Jervaise had made me aware of my +own ineptitude, and it took me a full ten minutes before I could feel +anything but resentment. + +We had passed back through the kitchen garden with its gouty espaliers, +and come into the pleasance before I forgave him. According to his habit, +he made no apology for his rudeness, but his explicit renewal of +confidence in me more nearly approached an overt expression of desire for +my friendship than anything I had ever known him to show hitherto. + +"Look here, Melhuish," he said, stopping suddenly in the darkness of the +garden. I could not "look" with much effect, but I replied, a trifle +sulkily, "Well? What?" + +"If she hasn't come back..." he said. + +"I don't see that we can do anything more till to-morrow," I replied. + +"No use trying to find her, of course," he agreed, irritably, "but we'd +better talk things over with the governor." + +"If I can be of any help..." I remarked elliptically. + +"You won't be if you start that transcendental rot," he returned, as if he +already regretted his condescension. + +"What sort of rot do you want me to talk?" I asked. + +"Common sense," he said. + +I resisted the desire to say that I was glad he acknowledged the Jervaise +version of common sense to be one kind of rot. + +"All serene," I agreed. + +He did not thank me. + +And when I looked back on the happenings of the two hours that had elapsed +since Jervaise had fetched me out of the improvised buffet, I was still +greatly puzzled to account for his marked choice of me as a confidant. It +was a choice that seemed to signify some weakness in him. I wondered if he +had been afraid to trust himself alone with Anne at the Farm; if he were +now suffering some kind of trepidation at the thought of the coming +interview with his father? I found it so impossible to associate any idea +of weakness with that bullying mask which was the outward expression of +Frank Jervaise. + + + + +IV + +IN THE HALL + + +We found the family awaiting us in the Hall--Mr. and Mrs. Jervaise, Olive, +and "Ronnie" Turnbull, whose desire to become one of the family by +marrying its younger daughter was recognised and approved by every one +except the young lady herself. Ronnie had evidently been received into the +fullest confidence. + +We had come in by the back door and made our way through the rather arid +cleanliness of the houses' administrative departments, flavoured with a +smell that combined more notably the odours of cooking and plate-polish. +The transition as we emerged through the red baize door under the majestic +panoply of the staircase, was quite startling. It was like passing from +the desolate sanitation of a well-kept workhouse straight into the lighted +auditorium of a theatre. That contrast dramatised, for me, the Jervaises' +tremendous ideal of the barrier between owner and servant; but it had, +also, another effect which may have been due to the fact that it was, now, +three o'clock in the morning. + +For just at the moment of our transition I had the queerest sense not only +of having passed at some previous time through a precisely similar +experience, but, also, of taking part in a ridiculous dream. At that +instant Jervaise Hall, its owners, dependants and friends, had the air of +being not realities but symbols pushed up into my thought by some prank of +the fantastic psyche who dwells in the subconscious. I should not have +been surprised at any incongruity in the brief passing of that illusion. + +The sensation flashed up and vanished; but it left me with the excited +feeling of one who has had a vision of something transcendental, something +more vivid and real than the common experiences of life--just such a +feeling as I have had about some perfectly absurd dream of the night. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Jervaise was a man of nearly sixty, I suppose, with a clean-shaven +face, a longish nose, and rather loose cheeks which fell, nevertheless, +into firm folds and gave him a look of weak determination. I should have +liked to model his face in clay; his lines were of the kind that give the +amateur a splendid chance in modelling. + +Mrs. Jervaise was taller and thinner than her husband, but lost something +by always carrying her head with a slight droop as if she were for ever +passing through a low doorway. Her features were sharper than his--she had +a high hawk nose and a thin line of a mouth--but either they were +carelessly arranged or their relative proportions were bad, for I never +felt the least desire to model her. Jervaise's face came out as a +presentable whole, my memory of his wife delivers the hawk nose as the one +salient object of what is otherwise a mere jumble. + +Old Jervaise certainly looked the more aristocratic of the pair, but Mrs. +Jervaise was a woman of good family. She had been a Miss Norman before her +marriage--one of the Shropshire Normans. + + * * * * * + +The four people in the Hall looked as if they had reached the stage of +being dreadfully bored with each other when we arrived. They did not hear +us immediately, and as my momentary dream dissolved I had an impression of +them all as being on the verge of a heartrending yawn. They perked up +instantly, however, when they saw us, turning towards us with a movement +that looked concerted and was in itself a question. + +Frank Jervaise, striding on ahead of me, answered at once, with a gloomy +shake of his head. + +"Isn't she there?" his mother asked. And "Hasn't she been there at all?" +she persisted when Frank returned a morose negative. + +"Who did you see?" put in young Turnbull. + +"Miss Banks," Frank said. + +"You are quite sure that Brenda hadn't been there?" Olive Jervaise added +by way of rounding up and completing the inquiry. + +It was then Frank's turn to begin an unnecessary interrogation by saying +"She isn't here, then?" He must have known that she was not, by their +solicitude; but if he had not put that superfluous question, I believe I +should; though I might not have added as he did, "You're absolutely +certain?" + +Young Turnbull then exploded that phase of the situation by remarking, "I +suppose you know that the car's gone?" + +Frank was manifestly shocked by that news. + +"Good Lord! no, I didn't. How do you know?" he said. + +"I left my own car in the ditch, just outside the Park," Ronnie explained. +"Don't know in the least how it happened. Suppose I was thinking of +something else. Anyway, I've fairly piled her up, I'm afraid. I was coming +back from the vicarage, you know. And then, of course, I walked up here, +and Mr. Jervaise was good enough to offer me your car to get home in; and +when we went out to the garage, it had gone." + +"But was it there when you went to get your own car?" Frank asked. + +"I'm bothered if I know," Ronnie confessed. "I've been trying hard to +remember." + +Mr. Jervaise sighed heavily and took a little stroll across to the other +side of the Hall. He seemed to me to be more perturbed and unhappy than +any of the others. + +Frank stood in a good central position and scowled enormously, while his +mother, his sister, and Ronnie waited anxiously for the important decision +that he was apparently about to deliver. And they still looked to him to +find some expedient when his impending judgment had taken form in the +obvious pronouncement, "Looks as if they'd gone off together, somewhere." + +"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Jervaise said; and then Olive slightly lifted +the awful flatness of the dialogue by saying,-- + +"We ought to have guessed. It's absurd that we let the thing go on." + +"One couldn't be sure," her mother protested. + +"If you're going to wait till you're sure, of course..." Frank remarked +brutally, with a shrug of his eyebrows that effectively completed his +sentence. + +"It was so impossible to believe that she would do a thing like that," his +mother complained. + +"Point is, what's to be done now," Ronnie said. "By gad, if I catch that +chap, I'll wring his neck." + +Mr. Jervaise, who was taking a lonely promenade up and down the far side +of the Hall, looked up more hopefully at this threat. + +"Oh! we can _catch_ him," Frank commented. "He has stolen the car, for one +thing..." his inflection implied that catching Banks might be only the +beginning of the trouble. + +"Well, once we've got him," returned Ronnie hopefully. + +"Don't be an ass," Frank snubbed him. "We can't advertise it all over the +county that he has gone off with Brenda." + +"I don't see..." Ronnie began, but Mrs. Jervaise interrupted him. + +"It was so unfortunate that the Atkinsons should have been here," she +remarked. + +"Every one will know, in any case," Olive added. + +Those avowals of their real and altogether desperate cause for distress +raised the emotional tone of the two Jervaise women, and for the first +time since I had come into the Hall, they looked at me with a hint of +suspicion. They made me feel that I was an outsider, who might very well +take this opportunity to withdraw. + +I was on the point of accepting the hint when Frank Jervaise dragged me +into the conclave. + +"What do you think, Melhuish?" he asked, and then they all turned to me as +if I might be able in some miraculous way to save the situation. Even old +Jervaise paused in his melancholy pacing and waited for my answer. + +"There is so little real evidence, at present," I said, feeling their need +for some loophole and searching my mind to discover one for them. + +"It really does seem almost impossible that Brenda should have--run away +with that man," Mrs. Jervaise pleaded with the beginning of a gesture that +produced the effect of wanting to wring her hands. + +"She's under age, too," Frank put in. + +"Does that mean they can't get married?" asked Ronnie. + +"Not legally," Frank said. + +"It's such madness, such utter madness," his mother broke out in a tone +between lament and denunciation. But she pulled herself up immediately and +came back to my recent contribution as presenting the one possible straw +that still floated in this drowning world. "But, as Mr. Melhuish says," +she went on with a little gasp of annoyance, "we really have very little +evidence, as yet." + +"It has occurred to me to wonder," I tried, "whether Miss Jervaise might +not have been moved by a sudden desire to drive the car by moonlight..." I +was going on to defend my suggestion by pleading that such an impulse +would, so far as I could judge, be quite in character, but no further +argument was needed. I had created a sensation. My feeble straw had +suddenly taken the form of a practicable seaworthy raft, big enough to +accommodate all the family--with the one exception of Frank, who, as it +were, grasped the edge of this life-saving apparatus of mine, and tested +it suspiciously. His preliminary and perfectly futile opening to the +effect that the moon had already set, was, however, smothered in the +general acclamation. + +"Oh! of _course_! So she may!" Mrs. Jervaise exclaimed. + +"Well, we might have thought of that, certainly," Olive echoed. "It would +be so _like_ Brenda." + +While Ronnie hopefully murmured "That _is_ possible, quite possible," as a +kind of running accompaniment. + +Then Mr. Jervaise began to draw in to the family group, with what seemed +to me quite an absurd air of meaning to find a place on the raft of the +big rug by the fireplace. Indeed, they had all moved a little closer +together. Only Frank maintained his depressing air of doubt. + +"Been an infernally long time," he said. "What's it now? Half-past three?" + +"She may have had an accident," Olive suggested cheerfully. + +"Or gone a lot farther than she originally meant to," Ronnie substituted; +the suggestion of an accident to Brenda obviously appearing less desirable +to him than it apparently did to Brenda's sister. + +"It seems to me," Mr. Jervaise said, taking the lead for the first time, +"that there may very well be half a dozen reasons for her not having +returned; but I can't think of one that provides the semblance of an +excuse for her going in the first instance. Brenda must be--severely +reprimanded. It's intolerable that she should be allowed to go on like +this." + +"She has always been spoilt," Olive said in what I thought was a slightly +vindictive aside. + +"She's so impossibly headstrong," deplored Mrs. Jervaise. + +Her husband shook his head impatiently. "There is a limit to this kind of +thing," he said. "She must be made to understand--_I_ will make her +understand that we draw the line at midnight adventures of this kind." + +Mrs. Jervaise and Olive agreed warmly with that decision, and the three of +them drew a little apart, discussing, I inferred, the means that were to +be adopted for the limiting of the runaway, when she returned. But I was +puzzled to know whether they were finally convinced of the truth of the +theory they had so readily adopted. Were they deceiving, or trying very +hard, indeed, to deceive themselves into the belief that the whole affair +was nothing but a prank of Brenda's? I saw that my casual suggestion had a +general air of likelihood, but if I had been in their place, I should have +demanded evidence before I drew much consolation from so unsupported a +conclusion. + +I joined young Turnbull. + +"Good idea of yours, Melhuish," Ronnie said. + +Frank grunted. + +"I've no sort of grounds for it, you know," I explained. "It was only a +casual suggestion." + +"Jolly convincing one, though," Turnbull congratulated me. "So exactly the +sort of thing she would do, isn't it, Frank?" + +"Shouldn't have thought she'd have been gone so long," Jervaise replied. +He looked at me as he continued, "And how does it fit with that notion of +ours about Miss Banks having expected her?" + +"That was only a guess," I argued. + +"Better evidence for it than you had for your guess," he returned, and we +drifted into an indeterminate wrangle, each of us defending his own theory +rather because he had had the glory of originating it than because either +of us had, I think, the least faith in our explanations. + +It was Ronnie who, picking up the thread of our deductions from the Home +Farm interview in the course of our discussion, sought to reconcile us and +our theories. + +"She might have meant to go up to the Farm," he suggested, "and changed +her mind when she got outside. Nothing very unlikely in that." + +"But why the devil should she have made an appointment at the Home Farm in +the first instance?" Frank replied with some cogency. + +"If she ever did," I put in unwisely, thereby provoking a repetition of +the evidence afforded by Miss Banks's behaviour, particularly the damning +fact that she, alone, had responded to Racquet's demand for our instant +annihilation. + +And while we went on with our pointless arguments and the other little +group of three continued to lay plans for the re-education of Brenda, the +depression of a deeper and deeper ennui weighed upon us all. The truth is, +I think, that we were all waiting for the possibility of the runaway's +return, listening for the sound of the car, and growing momentarily more +uneasy as no sound came. No doubt the Jervaises were all very sleepy and +peevish, and the necessity of restraining themselves before Turnbull and +myself added still another to their many sources of irritation. + +I put the Jervaises apart in this connection, because Ronnie was certainly +very wide awake and I had no inclination whatever to sleep. My one longing +was to get back, alone, into the night. I was fretting with the fear that +the dawn would have broken before I could get away. I had made up my mind +to watch the sunrise from "Jervaise Clump." + +It was Mrs. Jervaise who started the break-up of the party. She was +attacked by a craving to yawn that gradually became irresistible. I saw +the incipient symptoms of the attack and watched her with a sympathetic +fascination, as she clenched her jaw, put her hand up to her lips, and +made little impatient movements of her head and body. I knew that it must +come at last, and it did, catching her unawares in the middle of a +sentence--undertaken, I fancy, solely as a defence against the insidious +craving that was obsessing her. + +"Oh, dear!" she said, with a mincing, apologetic gesture of her head; and +then "Dear me!" Having committed the solecism, she found it necessary to +draw attention to it. She may have been a Shropshire Norman, but at that +relaxed hour of the night, she displayed all the signs of the orthodox +genteel attitude. + +"I don't know when I've been so tired," she apologised. + +But, indeed, she did owe us an apology for her yawning fit affected us all +like a virulent epidemic. In a moment we were every one of us trying to +stifle the same desire, and each in our own way being overcome. I must do +Frank the justice to say that he, at least, displayed no sign of +gentility. + +"Oh! Lord, mater, you've started us now," he said, and gave away almost +sensuously to his impulses, stretching and gaping in a way that positively +racked us with the longing to imitate him. + +"Really, my dear, no necessity for you," began Mr. Jervaise, yawned more +or less politely behind a very white, well-kept hand, and concluded, "no +necessity for you or Olive to stay up; none whatever. We cannot, in any +case, _do_ anything until the morning." + +"Even if she comes in, now," supplemented Olive. + +"As I'm almost sure she will," affirmed Mrs. Jervaise. + +And she must have put something of genuine confidence into her statement, +for automatically we all stopped talking for a few seconds and listened +again with the ears of faith for the return of the car. + +"But as I said," Olive began again, abruptly ending the unhopeful suspense +of our pause, "there's nothing more we can do by sitting up. And there's +certainly no need for you to overtire yourself, mother." + +"No, really not," urged Ronnie politely, "nor for you, either, sir," he +added, addressing his host. "What I mean is, Frank and I'll do all that." + +"Rather, let's get a drink," Frank agreed. + +We wanted passionately to get away from each other and indulge ourselves +privately in a very orgie of gapes and stretchings. And yet, we stuck +there, idiotically, making excuses and little polite recommendations for +the others to retire, until Frank with a drastic quality of determination +that he sometimes showed, took command. + +"Go on, mater," he said; "you go to bed." And he went up to her, kissed +her in the mechanical way of most grown-up sons, and gently urged her in +the direction of the stairs. She submitted, still with faint protestations +of apology. + +Olive followed, and with a last feint of hospitality, her father brought +up the tail of the procession. + +"Coming for a drink?" Frank asked me with a jerk of his head towards the +extemporised buffet. + +"Well, no, thanks. I think not," I said, seeking the relief afforded by +the women's absence; although, now, that I could indulge my desire without +restraint, the longing to gape had surprisingly vanished. + +"Going to bed?" Jervaise suggested. + +"Yes. Bed's the best place, just now," I lied. + +"Right oh! Good-night, old chap," Ronnie said effusively. + +I pretended to be going upstairs and they did not wait for me to +disappear. As soon as they had left the Hall, I sneaked down again, +recovered from the cloak-room the light overcoat I had worn on our +expedition to the Farm--I have no idea to whom that overcoat +belonged--borrowed a cap, and let myself out stealthily by the front door. + +As I quietly shut the door behind me, a delicious whiff of night-stock +drifted by me, as if it had waited there for all those long hours seeking +entrance to the stale, dry air of the Hall. + + * * * * * + +And it must have been, I think, that scent of night-stock which gave me +the sense of a completed episode, or first act, as I stood alone, at last, +on the gravel sweep before the Hall. Already the darkness was lifting. The +dawn was coming high up in the sky, a sign of fair weather. + +I have always had a sure sense of direction, and I turned instinctively +towards the landmark of my promised destination, although it was invisible +from that side of the Hall--screened by the avenue of tall forest trees, +chiefly elms, that led up from the principal entrance to the Park. I had +noticed one side road leading into this avenue as I had driven up from the +station the previous afternoon, and I sought that turning now, with a +feeling of certainty that it would take me in the right direction. As, +indeed, it did; for it actually skirted the base of "Jervaise Clump," +which touched the extreme edge of the Park on that side. + +As I cautiously felt my way down the avenue--it was still black dark under +the dark trees--and later up the tunnel of the side road which I hit upon +by an instinct that made me feel for it at the precise moment when I +reached the point of its junction with the avenue--I returned with a sense +of satisfaction to the memory of the last four hours. I was conscious of +some kind of plan in the way the comedy of Brenda's disappearance had been +put before us. I realised that, as an art form, the plan was essentially +undramatic, but the thought of it gave me, nevertheless, a distinct +feeling of pleasure. + +I saw the experience as a prelude to this lonely adventure of mine--a +prelude full of movement and contrast; but I had no premonition of any +equally diverting sequel. + +The daylight was coming, and I believed, a trifle regretfully, that that +great solvent of all mysteries would display these emotions of the night +as the phantasmagoria of our imagination. + +Before I had reached the end of the tunnel through the wood and had come +out into the open whence I could, now, see the loom of Jervaise Clump +swelling up before me in the deep, gray gloom of early dawn, I had decided +that my suggestion had been prompted by an intuition of truth. Brenda had +fallen under the spell of the moon, and gone for a long drive in the +motor. She had taken Banks with her, obviously; but that action need not +be presumed to have any romantic significance. And the Jervaises had +accepted that solution. They had been more convinced of its truth than I +had imagined. They would never have gone to bed, tired as they were, if +they had not been satisfied that Brenda had committed no other +indiscretion than that of indulging herself in the freak of a moonlight +drive. It had, certainly, been unduly prolonged; but, as old Jervaise had +said, there might be half a dozen reasons to account for that. + +As I turned off the road and breasted the lower slopes of the hill, I was +constructing the details of the Jervaises' explanatory visit to the +Atkinsons. I had reached the point of making Mrs. Jervaise repeat the +statement she had made in the Hall that "dear Brenda was so impossibly +headstrong," when I heard the sweet, true notes of some one ahead of me, +whistling, almost miraculously, in tune. + +It isn't one man in a million who can whistle absolutely true. + + + + +V + +DAYBREAK + + +He was whistling Schubert's setting of "Who is Sylvia?" and as I climbed +slowly and as silently as I could towards him, I fitted the music to the +words of the second verse:-- + + Is she kind as she is fair? + For beauty lives with kindness. + +Only a man in love, I thought, could be whistling that air with such +attention and accuracy. He hit that unusual interval--is it an augmented +seventh?--with a delicacy that was quite thrilling. + +He had the world to himself, as yet. The birds of the morning had not +begun their orisons, while the birds of the night, the owls and the +corncrakes had, happily, retired before the promise of that weakening +darkness which seemed nevertheless to have reached a moment of +suspense--indeed, I fancied that it was darker, now, than when I had come +out of the Hall a quarter of an hour before. + +The whistler had stopped before I reached the crest of the hill, and after +trying vainly to locate his whereabouts in the gloom, I leaned up against +one of the outermost trunks of the perky little clump of trees, and facing +East awaited developments. A thin, cold wind had sprung up, and was +quietly stirring the leaves above me to an uneasy sibilance. I heard, now, +too, an occasional sleepy twitter as if a few members of the orchestra had +come into their places and were indolently testing the tune of their +pipes. It came into my mind that the cold stir of air was the spirit of +the dying night, fleeing westward before the sun. Also, I found myself +wondering what would be the effect on us all if one morning we waited in +vain for the sunrise? I tried to picture my own emotions as the truth was +slowly borne in upon me that some unprecedented calamity had silently and +without any premonition befallen the whole world of men. Would one crouch +in a terror of apprehension? I could not see it that way. I believed that +I should be trembling with a furious excitement, stirred to the very +depths by so inspiring and adventurous a miracle. I had forsaken my +speculation and was indulging in the philosophical reflection that a real +and quite unaccountable miracle, the more universal the better, would be +the most splendid justification of life I could possibly conceive, when +the whistler began again, only a few yards away from me. + +I could just see him now, sitting propped against the trunk of another +tree, but I waited until he had finished what I chose to believe was the +third verse of his lyric before I hailed him. It came to me that I might +test his quality by continuing the play in proper form, so when he paused, +I went on with the speech of the "host" which immediately follows the song +in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." + +"How now?" I said. "Are you sadder than you were before?" + +He did not move, not even to turn his head towards me, and I inferred that +he was aware of my presence before I spoke. + +"You, one of the search party?" he asked. + +I went over and sat down by him. I felt that the situation was +sufficiently fantastic to permit of free speech. I did not know who he was +and I did not care. I only knew that I wanted to deliver myself of the +dreams my lack of sleep had robbed from me. + +"The only one," I said, "unless you also belong to the very small and +select party of searchers." + +I fancy that he turned his head a little towards me, but I kept my gaze +fixed on the indigo masses of the obscure prospect before us. + +"Who are you looking for?" he asked. + +"Not so much who as what," I said. "And even then it isn't so easy to +define. I've heard men call it beauty and mystery, and things like that; +but just now it seemed to me that what I wanted most was a universal +miracle--some really inexplicable happening that would upset every law the +physicists have ever stated. I was thinking, for instance, how thrilling +it would be if the sun did not rise this morning. One would know, then, +that all our scientific guesses at laws were just so many baby +speculations founded on nothing more substantial than a few thousand years +of experience which had, by some chance given always more or less the same +results. Like a long run on the red, you know." + +"I know," he said. "Well? Go on." + +I was greatly stimulated by his encouragement. Here, at last, was the +listener I had been waiting for all through the night. + +"One gets so infernally sick of everything happening according to fixed +rules," I continued. "And the more you learn the nearer you are to the +deadly ability of being able to foretell the future. If we ever do reach +that point in our intellectual evolution, I only hope that I shan't be +there to see it. Imagine the awful ennui of a world where the expected +always happened, and next year's happenings were always expected! And yet +we go on seeking after knowledge, when we ought surely to avoid it, as the +universal kill joy." + +"Hm!" commented my new friend on what I felt to be a note of doubtful +agreement. + +"You don't agree with that?" I asked. + +"Well, I see what you're after, in a way," he acknowledged; "but it +doesn't seem to me that it amounts to very much--practically." + +I was a trifle disappointed. I had not expected any insistence on the +practical from a man who could whistle Schubert and Shakespeare to the +dawn. + +"Oh, practically! Perhaps not," I replied with a hint of contempt for +anything so common. + +He gave a little self-conscious laugh. "You can't get away from the +practical in this life," he said. "Even in--" He seemed to bite off the +beginning of confidence with an effort. "You may dream half the night," he +began again, with a thin assumption of making an impersonal statement, +"but before the night's over you'll come up against the practical, or the +practicable, or the proper right thing, or something, that makes you see +what a fool you are. The way this world's run, you can't avoid it, +anyhow." + +I knew that what he said was true, but I found it damping. It fitted all +too well with the coming realism of day. The contours of the landscape +were slowly resigning themselves to the formal attitudes imposed upon them +by expectation. The blood of colour was beginning to run weakly through +the monochrome. The nearer slopes of the hill and the leaves of the trees +were already professing a resolute green. Moment by moment the familiar +was taking prudent shape, preparing itself for the autocrat whose +outriders were multitudinously busy about their warnings of his approach. +Presently the scene would take on the natural beauty of our desire, but +the actual process of transformation rather depressed me that morning. I +had been so deeply in love with the night. + +I took up my companion's last sentence--spoken, I fancied, with a +suggestion of brooding antagonism. + +"You think the world might be 'run,' at least, more interestingly?" I put +in. + +"More sensibly," he said in a voice that hinted a reserve of violence. +"There's no _sense_ in it, the way we look at things. Only we don't look +at 'em, most of us, not with any intelligence. We just take everything for +granted because we happen to be used to it, that's all." + +"But would any form of socialism..." I tried tentatively. + +"I don't know that I'm a socialist," he returned. "I don't belong to any +union, or anything of that kind." He stopped and looked at me with a +defiant stare that was quite visible now. "You know who I am, I suppose?" +he challenged me. + +"No idea," I said. + +"Banks, the chauffeur," he said, as if he were giving himself up as a +well-known criminal. + +I was not entirely unprepared for that reply, but I had no tactful answer +to make. I rejected the spontaneous impulse that arose, as I thought quite +fantastically, to say "I believe I have met your sister;" and fell back on +an orthodox "Well?" I tried to convey the effect that I still waited to be +shocked. + +"I suppose you're staying up at the Hall?" he said. + +"For the week-end only," I admitted. + +"Been a pretty fuss there, I take it?" he said. + +"Some," I acknowledged. + +He set his resolute-looking mouth and submitted me to cross-examination. + +"Been looking for me?" he began. + +"In a way. Frank Jervaise and I went up to your father's house." + +"What time?" + +"Between two and three." + +"Not since?" + +"No; we left about half-past two." + +"Is she back?" + +"Who?" I asked. I was thinking of his sister, and could find no +application for this question. + +"Miss Jervaise." + +"Oh--er--Miss Brenda? No. She hadn't come in when I left the house." + +"What time was that?" + +"About four. I came straight here." + +"Not back, eh?" he commented with a soft, low whistle, that mingled, I +thought, something of gladness with its surprise. + +"You don't know where she is, then?" I ventured. + +He turned and looked at me suspiciously. "I don't see why I should help +your friends," he said. + +I realised that my position was a difficult one. My sympathies were +entirely with Banks. I felt that if there was to be any question of making +allowances, I wanted to be on the side of Brenda and the Home Farm. But, +at the same time, I could not deny that I owed something--loyalty, was +it?--to the Jervaises. I pondered that for a few seconds before I spoke +again, and by then I had found what I believed to be a tolerable attitude, +though I was to learn later that it compromised me no less than if I had +frankly thrown in my lot with the Banks faction. + +"You are quite right," I said. "And I would sooner you gave me no +confidences, now I come to think of it. But I should like you to know, all +the same, that I'm not taking sides in this affair. I have no intention, +for instance, of telling them at the Hall that I've seen you." + +The daylight was flooding up from the North-West, now, in a great stream +that had flushed the whole landscape with colour; and I could see the full +significance of honest inquiry in my companion's face as he probed me with +his stare. But I could meet his gaze without confusion. My purpose was +single enough, and if I had had a moment's doubt of him when he failed to +respond to my mood of fantasy; I was now fully prepared to accept him +without qualification. + +He was not like his sister in appearance. He favoured the paternal stock, +I inferred. He was blue-eyed and fairer than Anne, and the tan of his face +was red where hers was dusky. Nevertheless, I saw a likeness between them +deeper than some family trick of expression which, now and again, made me +feel their kinship. For Banks, too, gave me the impression of having a +soul that came something nearer the surface of life than is common in +average humanity--a look of vitality, zest, ardour--I fumbled for a more +significant superlative as I returned his stare. And yet behind that +ardour there was, in Arthur Banks, at least, a hint of determination and +shrewdness that I felt must be inherited from the sound yeoman stock of +his father. + +Our pause of mutual investigation ended in a smile. He held out his hand +with a pleasant frankness that somehow proclaimed the added colonial +quality of him. + +"That's all right," he said, "but anyway I couldn't give you any +confidences, yet. I don't know myself, you see." + +"Are you going back to the Hall?" I asked. + +"I don't know that, either," he said, and added, "I shan't go back as the +chauffeur, anyway." + +And, indeed, there was little of the chauffeur in his appearance, just +then. He was wearing a light tweed suit and brown brogues, and his clothes +sat upon him with just that touch of familiarity, of negligence, that your +professional servant's mufti can never accomplish. + +There was a new air of restlessness about him since he had put me under +cross-examination. He looked round him in the broadening day as if he were +in search of something, or some one, hopefully yet half-despairingly +expected. + +"Look here--if you'd sooner I went..." I began. + +He had risen to his feet after his last statement and was looking back +towards the Hall, but he faced me again when I spoke. + +"Oh, no!" he said with a hint of weariness. + +"It isn't likely that..." He broke off and threw himself moodily down on +the grass again before he continued, "It's not that I couldn't trust you. +But you can see for yourself that it's better I shouldn't. When you get +back to the Hall, you might be asked questions and for your own sake it'd +look better if you didn't know the answers." + +"Oh, quite," I agreed, and added, "I'll stay and see the sun rise." + +"You won't see the sun for some time," he remarked. "There'll be a lot of +cloud and mist for it to break through. It's going to be a scorcher +to-day." + +"Good," I replied; and for a few minutes we discussed weather signs like +any other conventional Englishmen. A natural comparison led us presently +to the subject of Canada. But through it all he bore himself as a man with +a preoccupation he could not forget; and I was looking for a good opening +to make an excuse of fatigue and go back to the Hall, when something of +the thought that was intriguing him broke through the surface of his talk. + +"I'm going back there as soon as I can," he said with a sudden impatience. +"There's room to turn round in Canada without hitting up against a notice +board and trespassing on the preserves of some landed proprietor. I'd +never have come home if it hadn't been for the old people. They thought +chauffering for Mr. Jervaise would be a chance for me! Anyhow my father +did. He's got the feeling of being dependent. It's in his bones like it is +with, all of 'em--on the estate. It's a tradition. Lord, the old man would +be horrified, if he knew! The Jervaises are a sort of superior creation to +him. We've been their tenants for God knows how many hundred years. And +serfs before that, I suppose. I get the feeling myself, sometimes. It's +infectious. When you see every one kow-towing to old Jervaise as if he +were the angel Gabriel, you begin to feel as if there must be something in +it." + +The full day had come, and the cold draught of air that had preceded the +sunrise came now from behind me as if the spirits of the air had +discovered that their panic-stricken flight had been a mistake and were +tentatively returning to inquire into the new conditions. The birds were +fully awake now, and there was a tremendous gossiping and chattering going +on, that made me think of massed school-children in a railway station, +twittering with the excitement of their coming excursion. In the +North-East the gray wall of mist was losing the hardness of its edge, and +behind the cloud the sky was bleaching to an ever paler blue. + +"And yet," I said, as my companion paused, "the Jervaises aren't anything +particular as a family. They haven't done anything, even in the usual way, +to earn ennoblement or fame." + +"They've squatted," Banks said, "that's what they've done. Set themselves +down here in the reign of Henry II., and sat tight ever since--grabbing +commons and so on, now and again, in the usual way, of course. The village +is called after them, Thorp-Jervaise, and the woods and the hills, and +half the labourers in the neighbourhood have got names like Jarvey and +Jarvis. What I mean is that the Jervaises mayn't be of any account in +London, or even in the county, alongside of families like Lord +Garthorne's; but just round here they're the owners and always have been +since there have been any private owners. Their word's law. If you don't +like it, you can get out, and that's all there is about it." He gazed +thoughtfully in front of him and thrust out his lower lip. "I've got to +get out," he added, "unless..." + +I hesitated to prompt him, fearing the possibly inquisitive sound of the +most indirect question, and after what I felt was a very pregnant silence, +he continued rather in the manner of one allusively submitting a case. + +"But you get to a point where you feel as if no game's worth winning if +you can't play it fair and open." + +"So long as the other side play fair with you," I commented. + +"They can afford to," he returned. "They get every bit of pull there is to +have. I told you we've been tenants of the Home Farm ever since there's +been a Home Farm, but old Jervaise could turn my father out any time, at +six months' notice. Would, too. Probably have to, for the sake of public +opinion. Well, would you call that playing fair?" + +"I shouldn't," I said with emphasis. + +"Most people would," he replied gloomily. I was wondering what his own +"pull" might be, the pull he would not use because the use of it +conflicted with his ideal of playing the game. I was inclined, with a +foolish romanticism to toy with the notion of some old blood relationship +between the families of Jervaise and Banks--some carefully hidden scandal +that might even throw a doubt on the present owner's right of +proprietorship. I was still rebuilding that foolish, familiar story of the +lost heir, when my new friend put an end to further speculation by +saying,-- + +"But what's the good of thinking about that--yet? Why, I don't even +know..." + +I could not resist a direct question this time. "Don't even know what?" I +asked. + +"I was forgetting," he said. He got to his feet again, looked round for a +moment, and then gave a yawn which seemed to spring from a nervous rather +than a muscular origin. + +"No good my compromising you, just now," he said with a friendly smile. +"You've probably guessed more, already, than'll be altogether convenient +for you when you see the family at breakfast. Perhaps, we'll meet again +some day." + +"I'm staying here till Monday," I said. + +"But I don't know if I am," he replied with a whimsical twist of his firm +mouth. "Well, so long," he went on quickly. "Glad to have met you, +anyway." He nodded with a repetition of that frank, engaging smile of his, +and turned away. + +He did not take the road by which I had found Jervaise Clump, but +descended the hill on the opposite side; and, after he had gone for five +minutes or so, I got up and took a view of the prospect in that direction. +I had no thought of spying upon him. I just wished to see if the Home Farm +lay over there, as I guessed it must from my memory of the general lie of +the land during our moonlit return to the Hall. + +I was right. The farm was clearly visible from the northern slope of the +hill--an L-shaped, low, white house with a high, red-tiled roof. It stood +on another little tumulus about a mile away, a small replica of Jervaise +Clump; and the whole house was visible above the valley wood that lay +between us. + +At first I could not decide why the effect of the place gave me an +impression of being unusual, and finally decided that this apparent air of +individuality was due to the choice of site. In that country all the farms +were built in the lower lands, crouching under the lee of woods and hills, +humbly effacing themselves before the sovereignty of the Hall. The Home +Farm alone, as far as I could see, presented a composed and dignified face +to its overlord. + +"There is a quality about these Bankses," I thought, and then corrected +the statement by adding, "about the children, at least." From what Arthur +Banks had said, I gathered that his father conformed to the faith of the +estate, both in act and spirit. + +I stared at the Farm for a few minutes, wondering what that French wife +might be like. I found it difficult to picture the ci-devant governess in +those surroundings, and more particularly as the mother of these two +fascinating children. They, like their home, produced an effect of being +different from the common average.... + +I became aware that the green of woods and grass had leapt to attention, +and that sprawling shadows had suddenly come into being and were giving a +new solidity to the landscape. Also, I felt a touch of unexpected warmth +on my right cheek. + +I returned to the place where Banks and I had talked, and sat down again +facing the glorious light of the delivered sun. And almost at once I was +overcome by an intense desire to sleep. My purpose of walking back to the +Hall, undressing and going to bed had become impossible. I stretched +myself full length on the turf, and surrendered myself, exquisitely, to +the care of the sunlight. + + + + +VI + +MORNING + + +I awoke suddenly to the realisation of sound. The world about me was alive +with a murmurous humming. It was as if in passing through the silent +aisles of sleep, some door had been unexpectedly thrown open and let in +the tumultuous roar of life from without--or as if after a brief absence I +had returned and with one movement had re-established all the +communications of my body. + +All sense of tiredness had left me. I opened my eyes and saw that the sun +had leapt far up into the sky. The whole population of Jervaise Clump was +plunged into the full bustle of its daily business. Industrious bees were +methodically visiting the buttercups; their bustling, commercial eagerness +in marked contrast to the bluebottles and flies that seemed to choose +their point of alighting with a sham intentness which did not disguise +their lack of any definite purpose. Now and again a feral, domineering +wasp would join the crowd, coming up with the air of a fussy, inquisitive +overseer. + +I looked at my watch and found that the time was a quarter past eight. I +had been asleep for nearly three hours. I had no idea what time the +Jervaises had breakfast, but I knew that it was high time I got back to +the Hall and changed my clothes. + +I unbuttoned my coat and looked down at my shirt front and thought how +incongruous and silly that absurd garb of evening dress appeared in those +surroundings. + +And as I trotted back to the Hall, I found a symbol in my dress for the +drama of the night. It was, I thought, all artificial and unreal, now that +I looked back upon it in the blaze of a brilliant August morning. +Beginning with the foolishness of a dance at that time of year--even a +"tennis-dance" as they called it--the subsequent theatrical quality of the +night's adventure seemed to me, just then, altogether garish and +fantastic. I began to wonder how far I had dramatised and distorted the +actual events by the exercise of a romantic imagination? In the sweet +freshness of the familiar day, I found myself exceedingly inclined to be +rational. Also, I was aware of being quite unusually hungry. + +The front door of the Hall was standing wide open, and save for a glimpse +of the discreet John very busy in his shirt-sleeves, I saw no one about. I +was glad to reach my room unobserved. I knew that my feeling was +unreasonable, but entering that sedate house, under the blaze of the +morning sun, I was ashamed of my tawdry dress. A sense of dissipation and +revelry seemed to hang about me--and of an uncivilised dirtiness. + +A cold bath and a change of clothes, however, fully restored my +self-respect; and when I was summoned by the welcome sound of a booming +gong, the balance of sensation was kicking the other beam. My sleep in the +open had left me finally with a feeling of superiority. I was inclined to +despise the feeble, stuffy creatures who had been shut up in a house all +night. + +I knew the topography of the house fairly well after my night's experience +of it, and inferred the breakfast-room without any difficulty. But when I +reached the door I stood and listened in considerable astonishment. +Luckily, I was not tempted to make the jaunty entrance my mood prompted. I +had not seen a soul as I had made my way from my room in the north wing +down into the Hall. The place seemed to be absolutely deserted. And, now, +in the breakfast-room an almost breathless silence was broken only by the +slow grumbling of one monotonous voice, undulating about the limited range +of a minor third, and proceeding with the steady fluency of a lunatic's +muttering. I suppose I ought to have guessed the reasonable origin of +those sounds, but I didn't, not even when the muttering fell to a pause +and was succeeded by a subdued chorus, that conveyed the effect of a score +of people giving a concerted but strongly-repressed groan. After that the +first voice began again, but this time it was not allowed to mumble +unsupported. A murmured chant followed and caricatured it, repeating as +far as I could make out the same sequence of sounds. They began "Ah! Fah! +Chah! Hen...." That continued for something like a minute before it came +to a ragged close with another groan. Then for a few seconds the original +voice continued its grumbling, and was followed by an immense quiet. + +I stared through the open door of the Hall at the gay world of colour +outside and wondered if I was under the thrall of some queer illusion. But +as I moved towards the garden with a vague idea of regaining my sanity in +the open air, the silence in the breakfast-room was broken by the sigh of +a general movement, the door was opened from within, and there poured out +a long procession of servants: a grave woman in black, a bevy of +print-gowned maids, and finally John--all of them looking staid and a +trifle melancholy, they made their way with a kind of hushed timidity +towards the red-baized entrance that led to the freedoms of their proper +condition. + +Within the breakfast-room a low chatter of voices was slowly rising to the +level of ordinary conversation. + +My entrance was anything but jaunty. This was the first intimation I had +received of the Jervaises' piety; and my recognition of the ceremonial of +family worship to which I had so unintuitively listened, had evoked long +undisturbed memories of my boyhood. As I entered the breakfast-room, I +could not for the life of me avoid a feeling of self-reproach. I had been +naughty again. My host, taking the place of my father, would be vexed +because I had missed prayers. + +My reception did little to disperse my sense of shame. The air of Sunday +morning enveloped the whole party. Even Hughes and Frank Jervaise were +dressed as for a special occasion in black tail-coats and gray trousers +that boasted the rigidity of a week's pressing. Not only had I been guilty +of cutting family prayers; I was convicted, also of disrespect on another +count. My blue serge and bright tie were almost profane in those +surroundings. The thought of how I had spent the night convicted me as a +thorough-going Pagan. + +"I hope you managed to get a little sleep, Mr. Melhuish," Mrs. Jervaise +said tepidly. "We are having breakfast half an hour later than usual, but +you were so very late last night." + +I began to mumble something, but she went on, right over me, speaking in a +voice that she obviously meant to carry "And Brenda isn't down even now," +she said. "In fact she's having breakfast in her own room, and I am not at +all sure that we shan't keep her there all day. She has the beginning of a +nasty cold brought on by her foolishness--and, besides, she has been very, +very naughty and will have to be punished." She gave a touch of grim +playfulness to her last sentence, but I should not in any case have taken +her statement seriously. If I knew anything of our Brenda, it was that she +was not the sort of young lady who would submit to being kept in her own +room as a punishment. + +"I hope the cold won't be serious," was all I could find to say. + +I looked at Mr. Jervaise, who was standing despondently by the fireplace, +but he did not return my glance. He presented, I thought, the picture of +despair, and I suffered a sharp twinge of reaction from my championship of +the Banks interest at sunrise. Those two protagonists of the drama, Banks +and Brenda, were so young, eager and active. Life held so much promise for +them. This ageing man by the fireplace--he must have been nearly +sixty--had probably ceased to live for his own interests. His ambitions +were now centred in his children. I began to feel an emotional glow of +sympathy for him in his distress. Probably this youngest, most brilliant, +child of his was also the most tenderly loved. It might well be that his +anxiety was for her rather than for himself; that the threat to his pride +of family was almost forgotten in his sincere wish for his daughter's +happiness. It would appear so certain to him that she could never find +happiness in a marriage with Arthur Banks. + +And with that thought a suspicion of my late companion of the hill-top +leapt into my mind. He had hinted at some influence or "pull" over +Brenda's father that might perhaps be used in a last emergency, although +the use of it implied the taking of a slightly dishonourable advantage. +Was it not probable, I now wondered, that this influence was to be +obtained by working on Jervaise's too tender devotion to his daughter? Was +she, perhaps, to be urged as a last resource to bear on that gentle +weakness by threat or cajolery? + +I began to wish that I had not been quite so friendly with Mr. Banks. I +had been led away by the scent and glamour of the night. Here, in this +Sunday morning breakfast-room, I was able for the first time to appreciate +the tragedy in its proper relation to the facts of life. I saw that +Brenda's rash impulsiveness might impose a quite horrible punishment on +her too-devoted father. + +I turned away towards one of the window-seats. Miss Tattersall and Nora +Bailey were sitting together there, pretending a conversation while they +patiently awaited the coming of breakfast. Mrs. Jervaise was talking now +to her elder daughter; Frank was arguing some point with Gordon Hughes, +and as I felt unequal to offering comfort to the lonely head of the house, +so evidently wrapped in his sorrow, I preferred to range myself with the +fourth group. I thought it probable that the sympathies of those two young +women might at the moment most nearly correspond to my own. + +I was surprised to be greeted by Miss Tattersall with what had all the +appearance of a discreetly covert wink, and I raised my eyebrows with that +air of half-jocular inquiry which I fancied she would expect from me. She +evaded the implied question, however, by asking me what time I "really got +to bed, after all." + +"The sun was up before I went to sleep," I replied, to avoid the possible +embarrassment of her comments should I admit to having slept in the open +air; and then John and a female acolyte came in with the long-desired +material of breakfast. + +"Good!" I commented softly. "I'm simply ravenous." + +"Are you?" Miss Tattersall said. "You deserve to go without breakfast for +having missed prayers," and added in precisely the same undertone of +conventional commonplace, "I don't believe she came back at all last +night." + +But, having thus piqued my curiosity, she gave me no opportunity to +gratify it. She checked the question that my change of expression must +have foreshadowed by a frown which warned me that she could not give any +reason for her suspicion in that company. + +"Later on," she whispered, and got up from her seat in the window, leaving +me to puzzle over the still uncertain mystery of Brenda's disappearance. +Miss Bailey had not, apparently, overheard the confidence. She did not, in +any case, relinquish for an instant that air of simple, attentive +innocence which so admirably suited the fresh prettiness of her style. + +There was little conversation over the breakfast table. We were all glad +to find an excuse for silence either in the pretence or reality of hunger. +Old Jervaise's excuse was, quite pathetically, only a pretence; but he +tried very hard to appear engrossed in the making of a hearty meal. His +manner had begun to fascinate me, and I had constantly to check myself +from staring at him. I found it so difficult to account satisfactorily for +the effect of dread that he in some way conveyed. It was, I thought, much +the effect that might have been produced by a criminal in danger of +arrest. + +But all of us, in our different ways, were more than a little +uncomfortable. The whole air of the breakfast-table was one of +dissimulation. Gordon Hughes made occasional efforts in conversation that +were too glaringly irrelevant to the real subject of our thoughts. And +with each beginning of his, the others, particularly Olive, Mrs. Jervaise, +and little Nora Bailey, plunged gallantly into the new topic with +spasmodic fervour that expended itself in a couple of minutes, and +horribly emphasised the blank of silence that inevitably followed. We +talked as people talk who are passing the time while they wait for some +great event. But what event we could be awaiting, it was hard to +imagine--unless it were the sudden return of Brenda, with or without +Banks. + +And, even when we had all finished, and were free to separate, we still +lingered for unnecessary minutes in the breakfast-room, as if we were +compelled to maintain our pretence until the last possible moment. + +Old Jervaise was the first to go. He had made less effort to disguise his +preoccupation than any of us, and now his exit had something of +abruptness, as if he could no longer bear to maintain any further +semblance of disguise. One could only infer from the manner of his going +that he passionately desired either solitude or the sole companionship of +those with whom he could speak plainly of his distress. + +We took our cue from him with an evident alacrity. Every one looked as if +he or she were saying something that began with a half-apologetic +"Well..."; and Mrs. Jervaise interpreted our spirit when she remarked to +the company in general, "Well, it's very late, I'm afraid, and I dare say +we've all got a lot to do before we start for church. We shall have to +leave soon after half-past ten," she explained. + +Frank had already left the room when she said that, she herself went out +with her elder daughter, and the four of us who remained, all visitors, +were left to pair with each other as we chose. It was Miss Tattersall who +determined the arrangement. She cleverly avoided the submissive glance of +little Nora Bailey, and asked me unequivocally if I would care to take a +"stroll" with her in the garden. + +I agreed with a touch of eagerness and followed her, wondering if her +intriguing sentence before breakfast had been nothing more than a clever +piece of chicane, planned to entice me into a tete-a-tete. + +(I admit that this may sound like a detestable symptom of vanity on my +part, but, indeed, I do not mean to imply that she cared a snap of the +fingers for me personally. She was one of those women who must have some +man in tow, and it happened that I was the only one available for that +week-end. Frank was supposed to be in love with Miss Bailey; Gordon Hughes +was engaged to some girl in the north, and used that defence without shame +when it suited him.) + +I did not, however, permit Miss Tattersall to see my eagerness when we +were alone on the terrace together. If she was capable of chicane, so was +I; and I knew that if she had anything to tell me, she would not be able +to keep it to herself for long. If, on the other hand, I began to ask +questions, she would certainly take a pleasure in tantalising me. + +"What's this about going to church?" was my opening. + +"Didn't you know?" she replied. "We all go in solemn procession. We +walk--for piety's sake--it's over a mile across the fields--and we are +rounded up in lots of time, because it's a dreadful thing to get there +after the bell has stopped." + +"Interrupting the service," I put in with the usual inanity that is +essential to the maintenance of this kind of conversation. + +"It's worse than that," Miss Tattersall explained gaily; "because Mr. +Sturton waits for the Jervaises, to begin. When we're late we hold up the +devotions of the whole parish." + +"Good Lord!" I commented; sincerely, this time; and with a thought of my +socialist friend Banks. I could still sympathise with him on that score, +even though I was now strongly inclined to side with the Jervaises in the +Brenda affair. + +"Yes, isn't it?" Miss Tattersall agreed. "Of course, they _are_ the only +important people in the place," she added thoughtfully. + +"So important that it's slightly presumptuous to worship God without the +sanction of their presence in church," I remarked. And then, feeling that +this comment was a trifle too strong for my company, I tried to cover it +by changing the subject. + +"I say, do you think we _ought_ to stay on here over the week-end?" I +asked. "Wouldn't it be more tactful of us to invent excuses and leave them +to themselves?" + +"Certainly it would. Have you only just thought of it?" Miss Tattersall +said pertly. "Nora and I agreed about that before we came down to prayers. +But there's a difficulty that seems, for the moment, insuperable." + +"Which is?" I prompted her. + +"No conveyance," she explained. "There aren't any Sunday trains on the +loop line, Hurley Junction is fifteen miles away, and the Jervaises' car +is Heaven knows where and the only other that is borrowable, Mr. +Turnbull's, is derelict just outside the Park gates." + +I thought she was rather inclined to make a song of it all, genuinely +thankful to have so sound an excuse for staying to witness the dramatic +developments that might possibly be in store for us. I do not deny that I +appreciated her feeling in that matter. + +"And the horses?" I suggested. + +"Too far for them, in the omnibus," she said. "And nothing else would be +big enough for four people and their luggage. But, as a matter of fact, +Nora and I talked it all over with Mrs. Jervaise before prayers, and she +said we weren't to think of going--especially as it was all right, now, +about Brenda." + +"I'm glad it is all right, if only for old Jervaise's sake," I said, +craftily. + +She looked up at me, trying to guess how far I was honest in that remark. + +"But you don't really believe..." she said. + +"I don't see why not," I returned. + +"That Brenda _has_ come back?" + +"Mrs. Jervaise said..." + +"Had to, of course," Miss Tattersall replied curtly. + +I pursed my mouth and shook my head. "It would be too risky to deceive us +as crudely as that," I said. "Make it so much more significant if we +discovered that they had been lying about her." + +Miss Tattersall looked obstinate, putting on that wooden enduring +expression peculiar to fair people with pale eyes. + +"I don't believe she has come back," she said. + +I continued to argue. I guessed that she had some piece of evidence in +reserve; also, that for some reason she was afraid to produce it. And at +last, as I had hoped, my foolish, specious arguments and apparent +credulity irritated her to a pitch of exasperation. + +"Oh! you can talk till all's blue," she broke in with a flash of temper, +"but she hasn't come back." + +"But..." I began. + +"I know she hasn't," Miss Tattersall said, and the pink of her cheeks +spread to her forehead and neck like an overflowing stain. + +"Of course if you know..." I conceded. + +"I do," she affirmed, still blushing. + +I realised that the moment had come for conciliation. "This is +tremendously interesting," I said. + +She looked up at me with a question in her face, but I did not understand +until she spoke, that what had been keeping back her confession was not +doubt of my trustworthiness but her fear of losing my good opinion. + +"I expect you'll think it was horrid of me," she said. + +I made inarticulate sounds intended to convey an effect of reassurance. + +"You _will_," she insisted, and gave her protest a value that I felt to be +slightly compromising. I could only infer that the loss of my good opinion +would be fatal to her future happiness. + +"Indeed, I shan't," I protested, although I had to say it in a tone that +practically confirmed this talk of ours as a perfectly genuine flirtation. + +"Men have such queer ideas of honour in these things," she went on with a +recovering confidence. + +"Do you mean that you--peeped," I said. "Into Brenda's room?" + +She made a _moue_ that I ought to have found fascinating, nodding +emphatically. + +"The door wasn't locked, then?" I put in. + +She shook her head and blushed again; and I guessed in a flash that she +had used the keyhole. + +"But could you be sure?" I persisted. "Absolutely sure that she wasn't +there?" + +"I--I only opened the door for a second," she said, "But I saw the bed. It +hadn't been slept in." + +"And this happened?" I suggested. + +"Just before I came down to prayers," she replied. + +"Well, where is she?" I asked. + +Miss Tattersall laughed. Now that we had left the dangerous topic of her +means of obtaining evidence, she was sure of herself again. + +"She might be anywhere by this time," she said. "She and her lover +obviously went off in the motor together at twelve o'clock. They are +probably in London, by now." + +I did not give her confidence for confidence. I had practically promised +Banks not to say that I had seen him on Jervaise Clump at five o'clock +that morning, and I was not the least tempted to reveal that important +fact to Miss Tattersall. I diverted the angle of our talk a trifle, at the +same time allowing my companion to assume that I agreed with her +conclusion. + +"Do you know," I said, "that the person I'm most sorry for in this affair +is Mr. Jervaise. He seems absolutely broken by it." + +Miss Tattersall nodded sympathetically. "Yes, isn't it dreadful?" she +said. "At breakfast this morning I was thinking how perfectly detestable +it was of Brenda to do a thing like that." + +"Or of Banks?" I added. + +"Oh! it wasn't his fault," Miss Tattersall said spitefully. "He was just +infatuated, poor fool. She could do anything she liked with him." + +I reflected that Olive Jervaise and Nora Bailey would probably have +expressed a precisely similar opinion. + +"I suppose he's a weak sort of chap?" I said. + +"No. It isn't that," Miss Tattersall replied. "He doesn't look weak--not +at all. No! he is just infatuated--for the time being." + +We had been pacing up and down the lawn, parallel to the front of the +house and perhaps fifty yards away from it--a safe distance for +maintaining the privacy of our conversation. And as we came to the turn of +our walk nearest to the drive, I looked back towards the avenue that +intervened between us and the swelling contours of Jervaise Clump. I was +thinking about my expedition towards the sunrise; and I was taken +completely off my guard when I saw a tweed-clad figure emerge from under +the elms and make its way with a steady determination up the drive. + +"Well, one of them isn't in London, anyway," I said. + +"Why? Who?" she returned, staring, and I realised that she was too +short-sighted to make out the identity of the advancing figure from that +distance. + +"Who is it?" she repeated with a hint of testiness. + +I had seen by then that I had inadvertently given myself away, and I had +not the wit to escape from the dilemma. + +"I don't know," I said, hopelessly embarrassed. "It--it just struck me +that this might be Banks." + +He had come nearer to us now, near enough for Miss Tattersall to recognise +him; and her amazement was certainly greater than mine. + +"But you're right," she said with a little catch in her breath. "It is +Banks, out of uniform." + +For a moment I hoped that her surprise might cover my slip, but she was +much too acute to pass such a palpable blunder as that. + +"It is," she repeated; "but how did you know? I thought you had never seen +him." + +"Just an intuition," I prevaricated and tried, I knew at the time how +uselessly, to boast a pride in my powers of insight. + +The effect upon my companion was neither that I hoped to produce, nor that +I more confidently expected. Instead of chaffing me, pressing me for an +explanation of the double game I had presumably been playing, she looked +at me with doubt and an obvious loss of confidence. Just so, I thought, +she might have looked at me if I had tried to take some unfair advantage +of her. + +"Well, I suppose it's time to get ready for church," she remarked coldly. +"Are you coming?" + +I forget what I replied. She was already slipping into the background of +my interest. I was so extraordinarily intrigued by the sight of Arthur +Banks, the chauffeur, boldly ringing at the front door of Jervaise Hall. + + + + +VII + +NOTES AND QUERIES + + +Miss Tattersall had started for the house and her preparations for +church-going, but she paused on the hither side of the drive and pretended +an interest in the flower beds, until Banks had been admitted to the Hall. + +I could not, at that distance, mark the expression on John's face when he +answered the bell, but I noticed that there was a perceptible interval of +colloquy on the doorstep before the strange visitor was allowed to enter. +I should have liked to hear that conversation, and to know what argument +Banks used in overcoming John's reluctance to carry the astounding message +that the chauffeur had "called" and wished to see Mr. Jervaise. But, no +doubt, John's diplomacy was equal to the occasion. Banks's fine effort in +self-assertion was probably wasted. John would not mention the affront to +the family's prestige. He would imply that Banks had come in the manner +proper to his condition. "Banks wishes to know if he might speak to you a +minute, sir," was all the warning poor old Jervaise would get of this +frontal attack upon his dignities. + +So far I felt a certain faith in my ability to guess the hidden action of +the drama that was being played in the Hall; but beyond this point my +imagination would not carry me. I could not foresee the attitude of either +of the two protagonists. I thought over what I remembered of my +conversation with Banks on the hill, but the only essential that stuck in +my mind was that suggestion of the "pull," the admittedly unfair advantage +that he might possibly use as a last resource. I was conscious of an +earnest wish that that reserve would not be called upon. I felt, +intuitively, that it would shame both the chauffeur and his master. I had +still less material for any imaginative construction of old Jervaise's +part in the scene now being played; a scene that I could only regard as +being of the greatest moment. Indeed I believed that the conversation then +taking place would reach the climax of the whole episode, and I bitterly +regretted that I had apparently no possible chance of ever learning the +detail of that confrontation of owner and servant. Worse still, I realised +that I might have some difficulty in gathering the upshot. Whether Banks +were accepted or rejected the Jervaises would not confide the story to +their visitors. + +I must admit that my curiosity was immensely piqued; though I flatter +myself that my interest was quite legitimate, that it contained no element +of vulgar inquisitiveness. Nevertheless, I did want to know--the outcome, +at least--and I could decide upon no intermediary who would give me just +the information I desired. + +Miss Tattersall I ruled out at once. She so persistently vulgarised the +affair. I felt that in her mind she regarded the elopement as subject for +common gossip; also, that she was not free from a form of generalised +jealousy. She did not want Arthur Banks for herself, but she evidently +thought him a rather admirable masculine figure and deplored his +"infatuation" for Brenda. Moreover, I had a notion that I had fallen from +Miss Tattersall's favour. There was something in her expression when she +discovered my deceit in pretending ignorance of the heroic chauffeur that +portrayed a sense of personal injury. No doubt she thought that I had +squeezed her confidence, while I treacherously withheld my own; and she +would certainly regret that confession of having peeped into Brenda's +room, even if she did not guess that I had inferred the final shame of +using the keyhole. Subsequent evidence showed that my only mistake in this +connection was a fatuous underestimation of the lady's sense of injury. + +Of the other members of the house-party, Frank Jervaise was the only one +who seemed likely or able to post me in the progress of the affair, and I +felt considerable hesitation in approaching him. I could not expect a +return of that mood of weakness he had exhibited the night before; and I +had no intention of courting a direct snub from him. + +There remained Banks, himself, but I could not possibly have questioned +him, even if my sympathies had still been engaged on his side. + +And I must admit that as I paced the lawn in front of the house my +sympathies were very markedly with old Jervaise. It hurt me to remember +that look of apprehension he had worn at breakfast. I wanted, almost +passionately, to defend him from the possibly heart-breaking consequences +that might arise from no fault of his own. + +I was still pondering these feelings of compassion for my host, when the +church-party emerged from the front door of the Hall. If my watch were +right they were very late. Mr. Sturton and his congregation would have to +wait ten minutes or so in patient expectation before they could begin +their devotions. And I would gladly have effaced myself if only to save +the Jervaises the vexation of a still further delay. But I was too near +the line of their approach. Any attempt at retreat would have been a +positive rudeness. + +I was framing an apology for not accompanying them to church as they came +up--Mrs. Jervaise and her daughter leading, with their three visitors in a +bunch behind. But I was spared the necessity to offer what would certainly +have been a transparent and foolish excuse for absenting myself from their +religious observances. Mrs. Jervaise pulled herself together as the party +approached me. She had had her head down even more than usual as they came +out of the Hall, as if she were determined to butt her way through any +further obstacles that might intervene between her and her duty as a +Christian. At sight of me, however, she obviously stiffened. She almost +held herself erect as she faced me; and her hawk nose jerked up like the +head of a pick. + +"So you're not coming with us, Mr. Melhuish?" she said. + +"I hope you will excuse me," I replied with, I hope, a proper air of +courtesy. + +"Of course," she said stiffly, her nose still balanced, as it were, in +preparation to strike. Then she lowered her head with the air of one who +carefully replaces a weapon, and mumbling something about being +"dreadfully late as it was," continued her interrupted plunging into the +resistances that separated her from her goal. The others followed, as if +they were being trailed in her wake by invisible hawsers. None of them +took any notice of me--particularly Miss Tattersall, whose failure to see +me was a marked and positive act of omission. + +I realised that I had been disapproved and snubbed, but I was not at all +distressed by the fact. I put it all down to my failure in piety, begun +with my absence from prayers and now accentuated by my absence from +church. Olive, Nora Bailey, and Hughes had, I supposed, followed Mrs. +Jervaise's lead in duty bound, and I knew nearly enough why Miss +Tattersall had cut me. I had no idea, then, that I had come under +suspicion of a far more serious offence than that of a sectarian +nonconformity. Indeed, I hardly gave the matter a moment's attention. The +composition of the church-party had provided me with material for further +speculation concerning the subject that was absorbing all my interest. Why +were old Jervaise and his son also absent from the tale of those devoted +pilgrims? Was that interview in the Hall developing some crucial +situation, and had Frank been called in? One thing was certain: Banks had +not, as yet, come out. I had kept my eye on the front door. I could not +possibly have missed him. + +And it was with the idea of seeing what inferences I could draw from his +general demeanour when he did come, rather than with any thought of +accosting him, that I maintained my thoughtful pacing up and down the lawn +on the garden side of the drive. I was relieved by the knowledge that that +party of church-goers were out of the way. I had a feeling of freedom such +as I used to have as a boy when I had been permitted to stay at home, on +some plea or another, on a Sunday morning. I had a sense of enlargement +and opportunity. + + * * * * * + +I must have been on that lawn for more than an hour, and my thoughts had +covered much ground that is not appropriate to this narrative, when I was +roused to a recognition of the fact that my brief freedom was passing and +that I was taking no advantage of any opportunity it might afford me. + +The thing that suddenly stirred me to a new activity was the sound of the +stable-clock striking twelve. Its horrible bell still had the same note of +intrusive artificiality that had vexed me on the previous night, but it no +longer thrilled me with any sense of stage effect. It was merely a +mechanical and inappropriate invasion of that lovely Sunday morning. + +There was a strange stimulation, however, in the deductions that I drew +from that portentous chiming, for my interest was at once called to the +fact that this was the first time that clock had struck since I had been +on the lawn. I could not conceivably have missed its earlier efforts at +the hours of ten and eleven. There was an insistence about the beastly +thing that demanded one's attention. Had it, then, run down overnight and +been recently re-wound? And if so, by whom? + +It may seem absurd that I should have made so much of the inferences that +followed my consideration of this problem, but the truth is that my mind +was so intensely occupied with one subject that everything seemed to point +to the participation of the important Arthur Banks. At any other time I +should not have troubled about the clock; now, I looked to it for +evidence. And however ridiculous it may appear, I was influenced in my +excited search for clues by the fact that the clock had, after it was +re-wound, only struck the hour of twelve. The significance of that +deduction lay in the observation--my experience is, admittedly, +limited--that clocks which have run down must be patiently made to re-toll +the hours they have missed, or they will pick up their last neglected +reminders of the time at the point at which they stopped. And from that I +inferred an esoteric knowledge of mechanics from that rewinder of the +stable-clock who had got the horrid contrivance correctly going again +without imposing upon us the misery of slowly working through an almost +endless series of, as it were, historical chimes. I agree that my premises +were faulty, far too lightly supported, but my mind leapt to the deduction +that the mechanic in this connection could be none other than Banks. And +granting that, the further inferences were, undoubtedly, important. For as +I saw them they pointed infallibly to the conclusion that Banks had +accepted once more the yoke of servitude; that he had made his exit +through the servants' quarters and had meekly taken up his tasks again +with the winding of the stable-clock. + +(I may add that strangely enough the weak inference was correct, and the +well-grounded one fallacious. If you would interpret the riddle of human +motives, put no confidence in logic. The principles of logic are founded +on the psychology of Anyone. And Anyone is a mechanical waxwork, an +intellectual abstraction, a thing without a soul or a sub-consciousness.) + +Having taken the side of old Jervaise, I ought to have been comforted by +this conclusion, and I tried to persuade myself that it indicated the only +satisfactory termination to the brief drama of the night. I attempted to +see the affair as a slightly ridiculous episode that had occupied exactly +twelve hours and ended with an inevitable bathos. I pictured the return of +a disgraced and penitent Brenda, and the temporary re-employment, as an +antidote to gossip, of the defeated Banks. They would be parted, of +course. She might be taken abroad, or to Scotland, and by the time she +returned, he would have been sent back to the country from which he had +been injudiciously recalled. Finally, old Jervaise would be able to take +up his life again with his old zest. I believed that he was a man who took +his pleasures with a certain gusto. He had been quite gay at the dance +before the coming of the scandal that had temporarily upset his peace of +mind. + +All this imaginary restitution was perfectly reasonable. I could "see" +things happening just as I had thought them. The only trouble was that I +could find no personal satisfaction in the consideration of the Jervaises' +restored happiness. I was aware of a feeling of great disappointment for +which I could not account; and although I tried to persuade myself that +this feeling was due to the evaporation of the emotional interest of the +moving drama that had been playing, I found that explanation insufficient. +I was conscious of a loss that intimately concerned myself, the loss of +something to which I had been unconsciously looking forward. + +I came out of my reverie to find that I had wandered half round the house, +across the formal pleasance, and that I was now at the door leading into +the kitchen garden. + +I hesitated a moment with a distinct sense of wrong-doing, before I opened +the door with the air of one who defies his own conscience, and passed up +the avenue between the gouty espaliers--fine old veterans they were, and +as I could see, now, loaded with splendid fruit. The iron gates that led +out into the Park were locked, but a gardener--the head gardener, I +suppose--came out of one of the greenhouses close at hand, and let me +through. + +I began to hurry, then. It was already twenty past twelve, and lunch was +at half-past one. Just what I proposed to do, or whom I expected to see, +at the Home Farm, I had no idea; but I was suddenly determined to get +there and back before lunch. The walk would not take me more than a +quarter of an hour each way, but, for no reason that I could explain, the +balance of half an hour or so that remained to me appeared far too short. +I remember that as I walked through the wood, I persuaded myself that I +wanted to see Arthur Banks, who, according to my neat and convincing +theory, had taken up his work again and was, therefore, probably at the +Hall. But, as I have said, our impulses are never guided, and seldom +altered, by that form of reasoning known as logic. + + * * * * * + +But I never reached the farm, and I forgot all about the pretended motive +of my excursion. For in two seconds I came to an entirely new judgment on +the whole problem of the Jervaise-Banks intrigue, a judgment that had +nothing in common with any earlier turns of sympathy from one party to the +other. + +Such a little thing it was that temporarily turned me into a disgusted +misanthrope, nothing more than a sight of two people seen for a moment in +an arresting shock of outraged amazement before I turned a disgusted back +upon them and retreated moodily to the Hall. But the sight was enough to +throw the affair into a new perspective, and beget in me a sense of +contempt for all the actors in that midsummer comedy. "A plague on both +your houses," I muttered to myself, but I saw them no longer as the +antagonists of a romantic drama. I was suddenly influenced to a mood of +scorn. Jervaises and Banks alike seemed to me unworthy of any admiration. +The members of those families were just a crowd of self-seeking creatures +with no thought beyond their own petty interests. The Jervaises were snobs +upset by the threat to their silly prestige. Brenda was a feather-headed +madcap without a scrap of consideration for any one but herself. Banks was +an infatuated fool, and the best I could hope for him was that he would +realise the fact before it was too late. Frank, confound and confound him, +was a coarse-minded sensualist. The thought of him drove me crazy with +impatience.... + +And what on earth could have tempted Anne to let him kiss her, if she had +not been a crafty, worldly-minded schemer with an eye on the glories of +ruling at the Hall? + +It is true that I did not actually see him kiss her. I turned away too +quickly. But the grouping left me in no doubt that if he had not kissed +her already, he was on the point of doing it. In any case he had had his +arm round her, and she had shown no signs of resisting him. + + + + +VIII + +THE OUTCAST + + +My first impression of the curious change in demeanour shown towards me by +the Jervaises and their friends at lunch was that it had no existence +outside my own recently embittered mind. I thought that I was avoiding +them, not that they were avoiding me. It was not until I condescended to +come down from my pinnacle of conscious superiority that I realised my own +disgrace. + +My effort at conversation with Mrs. Jervaise was a mere act of politeness. + +"I'm afraid you were rather late this morning," I said. It was not, +perhaps, a tactful remark, but I could think of nothing else. All the +church-party were stiff with the slightly peevish righteousness of those +who have fulfilled a duty contrary to their real inclinations. + +Mrs. Jervaise lifted her nose savagely. No doubt her head went with it, +but only the nose was important. + +"Very late, Mr. Melhuish," she said, stared at me as if debating whether +she would not instantly give me the coup de grace, and then dipped again +to the threat of the imaginary doorway. + +"Mr. Sturton give you a good sermon?" I continued, still suffering from +the delusion that I was graciously overlooking their obvious inferiority +to myself. + +"He is a very able man; very able," Mrs. Jervaise said, this time without +looking up. + +"You are lucky to have such a good man as vicar," I said. "Sometimes there +is--well, a lack of sympathy between the Vicarage and the Hall. I +remember--the case isn't quite parallel, of course, but the moral is much +the same--I remember a curate my father had once..." + +Now, my story of that curate is thoroughly sound. It is full of incident +and humour and not at all derogatory to the prestige of the church. I have +been asked for it, more than once, by hostesses. And though I am rather +sick of it myself, I still fall back on it in cases of such urgency as I +judged the present one to be. I thought that I had been lucky to get so +easy an opening to produce the anecdote with relevance, and I counted on +it for a good five minutes relief from the constraint of making polite +conversation. + +Mrs. Jervaise's response began to open my eyes to the state of the new +relations that now existed between myself and the rest of the party. She +did not even allow me to begin. She ignored my opening entirely, and +looking down the table towards her husband said, "Mr. Sturton preached +from the tenth of Hebrews, 'Let us hold fast the profession of our faith +without wavering.' Quite a coincidence, wasn't it?" + +"Indeed? Yes, quite a coincidence," Mr. Jervaise replied without +enthusiasm. He did not look as cheerful as I had anticipated, but he wore +the air of a man who has had at least a temporary reprieve. + +"Olive and I were quite struck by it; weren't we, dear?" Mrs. Jervaise +continued, dragging in her daughter's evidence. + +"Yes, it was very odd," Olive agreed tepidly. + +I never knew what the coincidence was, but I judge from Mrs. Jervaise's +insistence that it was something perfectly futile. + +I glanced across at Hughes, and guessed that he was not less bored than I +was myself, but when I caught his eye he looked hastily away. + +I was beginning to wonder what I had done, but I valiantly tried again. + +"Don't you think it possible that many cases of apparent coincidences are +probably due to telepathy?" I said genially, addressing the +dangerous-looking profile of my hostess. + +She gave an impatient movement of her head that reminded me of a parrot +viciously digging out the kernel of a nut. + +"I really can't say," she said, pointedly turned to Gordon Hughes, who was +on her other side, and asked him if he had played much tennis lately. + +I looked round the table for help, but none of the party would meet my +eyes, avoiding my glance with a determination that could not be mistaken. +I might have suffered from some loathsome deformity. Frank, alone, +appeared unaware of my innocent appeal for an explanation. He was bending +gloomily over his plate, apparently absorbed in his own thoughts--though +how any man could be gloomy after his recent experience it was beyond me +to imagine. + +My astonishment flamed into a feeling of acute annoyance. If any one had +spoken to me at that moment, I should have been unforgivably rude. But no +one had the least intention of speaking to me, and I had just sense enough +to restrain myself from demanding an apology from the company at large. +That was my natural inclination. I had been insulted; outraged. I was the +Jervaises' guest, and whatever they imagined that I had done, they owed it +to me and to themselves to treat me with a reasonable courtesy. + +It was a detestable situation, and I was completely floored by it for the +moment. We were not half-way through lunch, and I felt that I could not +endure to sit there for another twenty minutes, avoided, proscribed, held +fast in a pillory, a butt for the sneers of any fool at the table. On the +other hand, if I got up and marched out of the room, I should be +acknowledging my defeat--and my guilt of whatever crime I was supposed to +have committed. If I ever wished to justify my perfect innocence, I should +forfeit my chances, at once, by accepting the snub I had received. To do +that would be to acknowledge my sense of misbehaviour. + +I leaned a little forward and glanced at Miss Tattersall who was sitting +just beyond Nora Bailey on my side of the table. And I saw that my late +confidante, the user of keyholes, was faintly smiling to herself with an +unmistakable air of malicious satisfaction. + +I wished, then, that I had not looked. I was no longer quite so conscious +of outraged innocence. It is true that I was guiltless of any real +offence, but I saw that the charge of complicity with the chauffeur--a +charge that had certainly not lost in substance or in its suggestion of +perfidy by Miss Tattersall's rendering--was one that I could not wholly +refute. I was in the position of a man charged with murder on good +circumstantial evidence; and my first furious indignation began to give +way to a detestable feeling of embarrassment, momentarily increased by the +necessity to sit in silence while the inane chatter of the luncheon table +swerved past me. If I had had one friend with whom I could have talked, I +might have been able to recover myself, but I defy any one in my situation +to maintain an effective part with no active means of expression. + +I glanced a trifle desperately at Olive Jervaise. I judged her to be +rather a colourless creature who would not have the spirit openly to snub +me. She was nearly opposite to me, between her brother and Hughes, and +well placed for an open attack if I could once engage her attention. But +when I came to consider an opening, every reasonably appropriate topic +seemed to have some dangerous relation to the _affaire Brenda_. Any +reference to the dance, to the Sturtons, the place, the weather, suddenly +assumed in my mind the appearance of a subtle approach to the subject I +most wished to avoid. If I was, indeed, regarded in that house as a spy in +league with the enemy, the most innocent remark might be construed into an +attempt to obtain evidence. + +I fancy, too, that I was subject to an influence other than the heightened +self-consciousness due to my awkward situation. I had only just begun to +realise that the absence of Brenda must be a horribly insistent fact to +her own family. She was so entirely different from the rest of them. Her +vivacity, her spirit must have shown amidst the nervous respectability of +this dull and fearful household like the gleam of unexpected water in the +blankness of a desert. Her absence must have seemed to them a positive +thing. Probably every one at the table was thinking of her at that moment. +And the result of this combined thought was producing a hallucination of +Brenda in my mind, strong enough to hypnotise me. In any case, her +apparition stood at the end of every avenue of conversation I could +devise. I could think of no opening that did not lead straight up to the +subject of her absence. + +And even while I was still pondering my problem (I had come to such +fantastic absurdities as contemplating an essay on the Chinese gamut, +rejecting it on the grounds that Brenda was the only musician in the +family), that awful lunch was abruptly closed by a unanimous refusal of +the last course. Perhaps the others were as eager as I was to put an end +to that ordeal; all of them, that is, with the exception of the spiteful +snake who was responsible for my humiliation. + +The family managed to get out of the room this time without their usual +procrastinating civilities. I went ahead of Frank and Hughes. I intended +to spend a lonely afternoon in thinking out some plan for exposing the +treachery of Grace Tattersall, but as I was crossing the Hall, Frank +Jervaise came up behind me. + +"Look here, Melhuish," he said. + +I looked. I did more than that; I confronted him. There is just a +suspicion of red in my hair, and on occasion the influence of it is shown +in my temper. It must have shown then, for Jervaise was visibly +uncomfortable. + +"It's no damned good being so ratty, Melhuish," he said. "Jolly well your +own fault, anyway." + +"What's my own fault?" I demanded. + +"We can't talk here," he said uneasily. "Let's go down the avenue." + +I had an impression that he was going to offer to fight me. I certainly +hoped that he would. + +"Very well," I agreed. + +But when he spoke again, I realised that it was as a lawyer and not as a +fighter. He had, indeed, been preparing a cautious impeachment of me. We +had reached the entrance to the avenue before he began, and the cloister +of its cool shade seemed a sufficiently appropriate setting for his +forensic diplomacy. Outside, in the glare of the brilliant August sun, I +should have flared out at him. In the solemnity of that Gothic aisle, I +found influences which helped me to maintain a relative composure. + +He posed his first question with an assumed indifference. + +"Why didn't you sleep in the house last night?" he asked. + +I took time to consider my answer; I was taken aback by his knowledge of +the fact he had disclosed. My first impulse was to retort "How do you know +that I didn't sleep in the house?" but I was determined to be very +cautious at the outset of this cross-examination. Obviously he meant it to +take the form of a cross-examination. I was equally determined that I +would presently reverse the parts of counsel and witness--or was I the +prisoner giving evidence on my own behalf? + +We must have gone another fifteen or twenty deliberate paces before I +replied,-- + +"I'll answer that question in a minute. I should like to know first what +grounds you have for stating that I didn't sleep in the house?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You admit that you didn't?" he retorted. + +"If you're going to conduct your conversation on the principles of the +court room," I said, "the only thing I can do is to adopt the same +method." + +He ignored that. "You admit that you didn't sleep in the house?" he +repeated. + +"I'll admit nothing until I know what the devil you're driving at," I +replied. + +He did not look at me. He was saving himself until he reached the +brow-beating stage. But I was watching him--we were walking a yard or two +apart--and I noted his expression of simulated indifference and +forbearance, as he condescendingly admitted my claim to demand evidence +for his preliminary accusation. + +"You were very late coming down," he began and paused, probably to tempt +me into some ridicule of such a worthless piece of testimony. + +"Go on," I said. + +"You were seen coming into the house after eight o'clock in the morning," +he continued, paused again and then, as I kept silence, added, "In evening +dress." + +"Is that all?" I asked. + +It was not. He had kept the decisive accusation until the end. + +"Your bed had not been slept in," he concluded wearily, as if to say, "My +good idiot, why persist in this damning assumption of innocence?" + +"You've been examining the servants, I see," I remarked. + +He was not to be drawn by such an ingenuous sneer as that. "The +housekeeper told the mater when she came back from church," he said. "I +suppose the thing came up in some arrangement of household affairs." + +"Very likely," I agreed; "but why did your mother tell _you_?" + +I saw at once that he meant to evade that question if possible. For some +reason Miss Tattersall was to be kept out of the case. Possibly she had +made terms to that effect. More probably, I thought, Jervaise was a trifle +ashamed of the source of his evidence against me. + +"Oh! look here, Melhuish," he said, with a return to his bullying manner. +"You're only making things look worse for yourself by all this beating +about the bush. It's evident that you didn't sleep in the house, and I +want to know why." + +"Is sleeping in the house a condition of your hospitality?" I asked. + +"Not in ordinary circumstances," he said. "But the circumstances are not +ordinary. I suppose you haven't forgotten that something happened last +night which very seriously affects us?" + +"I haven't, but I don't see what the deuce it's got to do with me," I +returned. + +"Nor I; unless it's one of your idiotic, romantic tricks," he retorted; +"but I have very good evidence, all the same, that you were concerned in +it." + +"Oh! is that what you're accusing me of?" I said. + +"It is," Jervaise replied. + +"Then I can put your mind at rest," I said. "I am ready to swear by any +oath you like that I had nothing whatever to do with your sister's +elopement, and that I know..." I was going to add "nothing more about it +than you do yourself," but remembering my talk with Banks, I decided that +that was not perfectly true, and with the layman's respect for the +sanctity of an oath I concluded, "and that I know very little more about +it than _you_ do." + +"It's that little bit more that is so important," Jervaise commented +sardonically. + +After all, a legal training does count for something. I was not his match +in this kind of give and take, and I decided to throw down my hand. I was +not incriminating Banks. I knew nothing about his movements of the night, +and in that morning interview with old Jervaise the most important +admission of all must almost certainly have been made. + +"Well, you have a right to know that," I began, "although I don't think +you and your family had any right whatever to be so damnably rude to me at +lunch, on the mere spiteful accusations of Miss Tattersall." + +"Miss Tattersall?" Jervaise put in, with a very decent imitation of +surprise. + +"Oh! I'm going to be perfectly honest with you," I returned. "Can't you +drop that burlesque of the legal manner and be equally honest with me?" + +"Simply dunno what you're driving at," he said. + +"Very well, then, answer the question you shirked just now," I retorted. +"Why did your mother rush to tell you that I hadn't slept in the house +last night?" + +"The mater's in an awful state of nerves," he said. + +Incidentally I had to admit to myself that I had not made sufficient +allowance for that indubitable fact, but I chose to disregard it at the +moment. I wanted to be sure of the treachery of Grace Tattersall. + +"You asked me not to beat about the bush, a minute ago," I said, "and now +you're trying to dodge all my questions with the most futile and palpable +evasions." + +"For instance?" he replied calmly, with a cunning that nearly trapped me. +For when I tried to recall, as I thought I could, a specific and +convincing instance of his evasion, I realised that to cite a case would +only draw us into an irrelevant bickering over side issues. + +"Your last three or four answers were all obvious equivocations," I said, +and raising my voice I went straight on over his attempt to expostulate by +adding, "And if Mrs. Jervaise's state of nerves is an excuse for her +confiding in _you_, it isn't, in my opinion, any excuse for her confiding +in Miss Tattersall and Nora Bailey and Hughes, and setting them on +to--ostracise me." + +"Oh! come," Jervaise protested, a little taken aback. I had put him in a +quandary, now. He had to choose between an imputation on his mother's good +taste, savoir faire, breeding--and an admission of the rather shameful +source of the present accusation against me. + +"As a matter of fact, it's absolutely clear to me that Grace Tattersall is +at the bottom of all this," I continued, to get this point settled. "I'm +perfectly sure your mother would not have treated me as she did unless her +mind had been perverted in some way." + +"But why should she--Miss Tattersall--I mean she seemed rather keen on +you..." + +"I can explain that," I interrupted him. "She wanted to gossip with me +about the whole affair this morning, and she made admissions that I +suppose she was subsequently ashamed of. And after that she discovered by +an accident that I had met Banks, and jumped to the totally false +conclusion that I had been drawing her out for my own disreputable +purposes." + +"Where did you meet Banks?" was Jervaise's only comment on this +explanation. + +"I'm going to tell you that," I said. "I told you that I meant to be +perfectly honest with you, but I want to know first if I'm not right about +Miss Tattersall." + +"She has been a bit spiteful about you," he admitted. + +"So that's settled," I replied by way of finally confirming his admission. +"Now, I'll tell you exactly what happened last night." + +I made a fairly long story of it; so long that we reached the lodge at the +Park gates before I had finished, and turned back again up the avenue. I +was careful to be scrupulously truthful, but I gave him no record of any +conversation that I thought might, however indirectly, inculpate Banks. + +Jervaise did not once interrupt me, but I saw that he was listening with +all his attention, studying my statement as he might have studied a +complicated brief. And when I had done, he thrust out his ugly underlip +with an effect of sneering incredulity that I found almost unendurably +irritating. + +"Do you mean to say that you don't believe me?" I asked passionately. + +We were just opposite the side road that I had taken the night before, the +road that led through the thickest part of the spinney before it came out +into the open within a quarter of a mile of Jervaise Clump. And as if both +our minds had been unconsciously occupied with the same thought, the need +for a still greater privacy, we turned out of the avenue with an air of +deliberate intention and a marked increase of pace. It seemed as though +this secluded alley had, from the outset, been the secret destination of +our walk. + +He did not reply to my challenging question for perhaps a couple of +minutes. We were walking quite quickly, now. Until the heat of our rising +anger could find some other expression, we had to seek relief in physical +action. I had no doubt that Jervaise in his own more restrained way was as +angry as I was myself. His sardonic sneer had intensified until it took +the shape of a fierce, brooding anger. + +We were out of sight of the junction of the side road with the avenue, +when he stopped suddenly and faced me. He had manifestly gathered himself +together for a great effort that was, as it were, focussed in the +malignant, dominating scowl of his forbidding face. The restraint of his +language added to the combined effect--consciously studied, no doubt--of +coarse and brutal authority. + +"And why did you spy on me this morning?" he asked. "Why did you follow me +up to the Home Farm, watch me while I was talking to Miss Banks, and then +slink away again?" + +I have two failings that would certainly have disqualified me if I had +ever attempted to adopt the legal profession. The first is a tendency to +blush violently on occasion. The second is to see and to sympathise with +my opponent's point of view. Both these failings betrayed me now. The +blush seemed to proclaim my guilt; my sudden understanding of Jervaise's +temper confirmed it. + +For, indeed, I understood precisely at that moment how enraged he must be +against me. He, like Miss Tattersall, had been playing an underhand game, +though his was different in kind. He had been seduced (my bitterness +against Anne found satisfaction in laying the blame at her door!) into +betraying the interests of his own family. _I_ did not, in a sense, blame +him for that; I had, the night before, been more than a little inclined to +honour him for it; but I saw how, from the purely Jervaise point of view, +his love-making would appear as something little short of criminal. And to +be caught in the act, for I had caught him, however unwillingly, must have +been horribly humiliating for him. Little wonder that coming home, hot and +ashamed from his rendezvous, and being confronted with all the tale of my +duplicity, he had flamed into a fury of resentment against me. I +understood that beyond any question. Only one point still puzzled me. How +had he been able until this moment to restrain his fury? I could but +suppose that there was something cold-blooded, calculating, almost +reptilian in his character; that he had planned cautiously and +far-sightedly what he regarded as the best means for bringing about my +ultimate disgrace. + +And now my blush and my powers of sympathy had betrayed me. I felt like a +convicted criminal as I said feebly, "Oh! that was an accident, absolutely +an accident, I assure you. I had no sort of idea where you were when I +went up to the Home Farm...." + +"After keeping an eye on the front of the house all the morning," he put +in viciously. + +A sense of awful frustration overcame me. Looking back on the past fifteen +hours, I saw all my actions ranged in a long incriminating series. Each +one separately might be explained, but regarded as a consequent series, +those entirely inconsequent doings of mine could bear but one explanation: +I was for some purpose of my own, whether idiotically romantic or not, on +the side of Banks and Brenda. I had never lifted a finger to help them; I +was not in their confidence; and since the early morning I had withdrawn a +measure of my sympathy from them. But I could not prove any of these +things. I could only affirm them, and this domineering bully, who stood +glowering at me, wanted proof or nothing. He was too well accustomed to +the methods of criminals to accept explanations. + +"You don't believe me?" I said. + +"Candidly, I don't," he replied. + +And at that my temper finally blazed. I could not bear any longer either +that awful sense of frustration or the sight of Frank Jervaise's absurdly +portentous scowl. + +I did not clench my fists, but I presume my purpose showed suddenly in my +face, for he moved quickly backwards with a queer, nervous jerk of the +head that was the precise counterpart of the parrot-like twist his mother +had given at the luncheon table. It was an odd movement, at once timid and +vicious, and in an instant I saw the spirit of Frank Jervaise revealed to +me. He was a coward, hiding his weakness under that coarse mask of the +brooding, relentless hawk. He had winced and retreated at my unspoken +threat, as he had winced at the thought of his thrashing at school. He had +taken his punishment stoically enough then, and might take another with +equal fortitude now; though he had been weakened in the past five or six +years by the immunity his frowning face had won for him. But he could not +meet the promise of a thrashing. I saw that he would do anything, make any +admission, to avoid that. + +"Look here, Melhuish..." he began, but I cut him short. + +"Oh! go to hell," I said savagely. + +I was disappointed. I wanted to fight him. I knew now that since the scene +I had witnessed in the wood the primitive savage in me had been longing +for some excuse to break out in its own primitive, savage way. And once +again I was frustrated. I was just too civilised to leap at him without +further excuse. + +He gave me none. + +"If you're going to take that tone..." he said with a ridiculous +affectation of bravado, and did not complete his sentence. His evasion +was, perhaps, the best that he could have managed in the circumstances. It +was so obvious that only the least further incentive was required to make +me an irresponsible madman. And he dared not risk it. + +He turned away with a pretence of dignity, the craven brag of a schoolboy +who says, "I could lick you if I wanted to, but I don't happen to want +to." I watched him as he walked back towards the avenue with a +deliberation that was so artificial, I could swear that when he reached +the turn he would break into a run. + +I stood still in the same place long after he was out of sight. As my +short-lived passion evaporated, I began to realise that I was really in a +very awkward situation. I could not and would not return to the Hall. I +had offended Frank Jervaise beyond all hope of reconciliation. He would +never forgive me for that exposure of his cowardice. And if I had not had +a single friend at the house before, I could, after the new report of my +treachery had been spread by Frank, expect nothing but the bitterness of +open enemies. No doubt they would essay a kind of frigid politeness, their +social standards would enforce some show of outward courtesy to a guest. +But I simply could not face the atmosphere of the Hall again. And here I +was without my luggage, without even a hat, and with no idea where I could +find refuge. The only idea I had was that of walking fifteen miles to +Hurley Junction on the chance of getting a train back to town. + +It was an uncommonly queer situation for a perfectly innocent man, +week-ending at a country house. I should have been ashamed to face the +critics if I had made so improbable a situation the crux of a play. But +the improbability of life constantly outruns the mechanical inventions of +the playwright and the novelist. Where life, with all its extravagances, +fails, is in its refusal to provide the apt and timely coincidence that +shall solve the problem of the hero. As I walked on slowly towards +Jervaise Clump, I had little hope of finding the peculiarly appropriate +vehicle that would convey me to Hurley Junction; and I did not relish the +thought of that fifteen mile walk, without a hat. + +I kept to the road, skirting the pudding basin hill, and came presently to +the fence of the Park and to what was evidently a side gate--not an +imposing wrought-iron erection between stone pillars such as that which +announced the front entrance, but just a rather high-class six-barred +gate. + +I hesitated a minute or two, with the feelings of one who leaves the +safety of the home enclosure for the unknown perils of the wild, and then +with a sigh of resignation walked boldly out on to the high road. + +I had no notion in which direction Hurley Junction lay, but luck was with +me, so far. There was a fourth road, opposite the Park gate, and a +sign-post stood at the junction of what may once have been the main +cross-roads--before some old Jervaise land-robber pushed the park out on +this side until he was stopped by the King's highway. + +On the sign-post I read the indication that Hurley Junction was distant +14-1/2 miles, and that my direction was towards the north; but I felt a +marked disinclination to begin my walk. + +It was very hot, and the flies were a horrible nuisance. I stood under the +shadow of the hedge, flapped a petulant handkerchief at the detestably +annoying flies, and stared down the road towards the far, invisible +distances of Hurley. No one was in sight. The whole country was plunged in +the deep slumber of a Sunday afternoon, and I began to feel uncommonly +sleepy myself. I had, after all, only slept for a couple of hours or so +that morning. + +I yawned wearily and my thoughts ran to the refrain of "fourteen and a +half miles; fourteen and a half miles to Hurley Junction." + +"Oh! well," I said to myself at last. "I suppose it's got to be done," and +I stepped out into the road, and very lazily and wearily began my awful +tramp. The road ran uphill, in a long curve encircling the base of the +hill, and I suppose I took about ten minutes to reach the crest of the +rise. I stayed there a moment to wipe my forehead and slap peevishly at my +accompanying swarm of flies. And it was from there I discovered that I had +stumbled upon another property of the Jervaise comedy. Their car--I +instantly concluded that it was their car--stood just beyond the rise, +drawn in on to the grass at the side of the road, and partly covered with +a tarpaulin--it looked, I thought, like a dissipated roysterer asleep in +the ditch. + +I decided, then, without the least compunction, that this should be my +heaven-sent means of reaching the railway. The Jervaises owed me that; and +I could leave the car at some hotel at Hurley and send the Jervaises a +telegram. I began to compose that telegram in my mind as I threw off the +tarpaulin preparatory to starting the car. But Providence was only +laughing at me. The car was there and the tank was full of petrol, but +neither the electric starter nor the crank that I found under the seat +would produce anything but the most depressing and uninspired clanking +from the mechanism that should have responded with the warm, encouraging +thud of renewed life. + +I swore bitterly (I can drive, but I'm no expert), climbed into the +tonneau, pulled back the tarpaulin over me like a tent to exclude those +pestilent flies, and settled myself down to draw one or two deep and +penetrating inductions. + +My first was that Banks had brought the car here the night before with the +fixed intention of abducting Brenda Jervaise. + +My second was that the confounded fellow had cautiously removed some +essential part of the car's mechanism. + +My third, that he would have to come back and fetch the car sometime, and +that I would then blackmail him into driving me to Hurley Junction. + +I did not trouble to draw a fourth induction. I was cool and comfortable +under the shadow of the cover. The flies, although there were many +openings for them, did not favour the darkness of my tent. I leaned well +back into the corner of the car and joined the remainder of the county in +a calm and restful sleep. + + + + +IX + +BANKS + + +I was awakened by the sound of footsteps on the road--probably the first +footsteps that had passed during the hour and a half that I had been +asleep. I was still lazily wondering whether it was worth while to look +out, when the tarpaulin was smartly drawn off the car and revealed me to +the eyes of the car's guardian, Arthur Banks. + +His first expression was merely one of surprise. He looked as startled as +if he had found any other unlikely thing asleep in the car. Then I saw his +surprise give way to suspicion. His whole attitude stiffened, and I was +given an opportunity to note that he was one of those men who grow cool +and turn pale when they are angry. + +My first remark to him was ill-chosen. + +"I've been waiting for you," I said. + +Probably my last thought before I went to sleep had concerned the hope +that Banks would be the first person I should see when I woke; and that +thought now came up and delivered itself almost without my knowledge. + +"They have put you in charge, I suppose," he returned grimly. "Well, you +needn't have worried. I'd just come to take the car back to the house." + +I had again been taken for a spy, but this time I was not stirred to +righteous indignation. The thing had become absurd. I had for all intents +and purposes been turned out of Jervaise Hall for aiding and abetting +Banks, and now he believed me to be a sort of prize crew put aboard the +discovered motor by the enemy. + +My situation had its pathetic side. I had, by running away, finally +branded myself in the Jervaises' eyes as a mean and despicable traitor to +my own order; and now it appeared that I was not to be afforded even the +satisfaction of having proved loyal to the party of the Home Farm. I was a +pariah, the suspect of both sides, the ill-treated hero of a romantic +novel. I ought to have wept, but instead of that I laughed. + +Perhaps I was still a little dazed by sleep, for I was under the +impression that any kind of explanation would be quite hopeless, and I +had, then, no intention of offering any. All I wanted was to be taken to +Hurley Junction; to get back to town and forget the Jervaises' existence. + +Banks's change of expression when I laughed began to enlighten my fuddled +understanding. I realised that I had no longer to deal with a suspicious, +wooden-headed lawyer, but with a frank, kindly human being. + +"I don't see the joke," he said, but his look of cold anger was fading +rapidly. + +"The joke," I said, "is a particularly funny one. I have quarrelled with +the entire Jervaise family and their house-party. I have been openly +accused by Frank Jervaise of having come to Thorp-Jervaise solely to aid +you in your elopement; and my duplicity being discovered I hastened to run +away, leaving all my baggage behind, in the fear of being stood up against +a wall and shot at sight. I set out, I may add, to walk fourteen miles to +Hurley Junction, but on the way I discovered this car, from which you seem +to have extracted some vital organ. So I settled myself down to wait until +you should return with its heart, or lungs, or whatever it is you removed. +And now, my dear chap, I beseech you to put the confounded thing right +again and drive me to Hurley. I've suffered much on your account. It's +really the least you can do by way of return." + +He stared at me in amazement. + +"But, honestly, no kid..." he remarked. + +I saw that, naturally enough, he could not make head or tail of my story. + +"Oh! it's all perfectly true, in effect," I said. "I can't go into +details. As a matter of fact, all the Jervaises' suspicions came about as +a result of our accidental meeting on the hill last night. I said nothing +about it to them, you understand; and then they found out that I hadn't +slept in the house, and Miss Tattersall discovered by accident that I knew +you by sight--that was when you came up to the house this morning--and +after that everything I've ever done since infancy has somehow gone to +prove that my single ambition in life has always been to help you in +abducting Brenda Jervaise. Also, I wanted to fight Frank Jervaise an hour +or two ago in the avenue. So, my dear Banks, have pity on me and help me +to get back to London." + +Banks grinned. "No getting back to London to-night," he said. "Last train +went at 3.19." + +"Well, isn't there some hotel in the neighbourhood?" I asked. + +He hesitated, imaginatively searching the county for some hotel worthy of +receiving me. + +"There's nothing decent nearer than Godbury," he said. "Twenty-three +miles. There's an inn at Hurley of a sort. There's no town there to speak +of, you know. It's only a junction." + +"Oh! well, I'll risk the inn at Hurley for one night," I said. + +"What about your things?" he asked. + +"Blast!" was my only comment. + +"Rummest go I ever heard of," Banks interjected thoughtfully. "You don't +mean as they've actually _turned you out?_" + +"Well, no, not exactly," I explained. "But I couldn't possibly go back +there." + +"What about writing a note for your things?" he suggested. "I'd take it +up." + +"And ask them to lend me the motor?" + +"I don't expect they'd mind," he said. + +"Perhaps not. Anything to get rid of me," I returned. "But I'm not going +to ask them any favours. I don't mind using the bally thing--they owe me +that--but I'm not going to ask them for it." + +"Must have been a fair old bust up," he commented, evidently curious still +about my quarrel at the Hall. + +"I told you that it ended with my wanting to fight Frank Jervaise," I +reminded him. + +He grinned again. "How did he get out of it?" he asked. + +"What makes you think he wanted to get out of it?" I retorted. + +He measured me for a moment with his eye before he said, "Mr. Frank isn't +the fighting sort. I've seen him go white before now, when I've took the +corner a bit sharp." He paused a moment before adding, "But they're all a +bit like that." + +"Nervous at dangerous corners," I commented, sharpening his image for him. + +"Blue with funk," he said. + +It occurred to me that possibly some hint of the family taint in Brenda +had influenced, at the last moment, the plan of her proposed elopement; +but I said nothing of that to Banks. + +"I'd better leave my things," I said, returning to the subject which was +of chief importance to me. You take me to that inn at Hurley. If I arrive +in a motor, they'll take me in all right, even though I haven't any +luggage. I'll invent some story as we go." + +"They'd take you _in_," Banks replied thoughtfully. "'Tisn't hardly more +than a public house, really." + +I thought that some strain of the gentleman's servant in him was concerned +with the question of the entertainment proper to my station. + +"It's only for one night," I remarked. + +"Oh! yes," he said, obviously thinking of something else. + +"Too far for you to go?" I asked. + +He glanced at his wrist watch. "Quarter past five," he said. "It'd take me +the best part of two hours to get there and back--the road's none too +good." + +"You don't want to go?" I said. + +"Well, no, honestly I don't," he replied. "The fact is I want to see Mr. +Jervaise again." He smiled as he added, "My little affair isn't settled +yet by a good bit, you see." + +I sheered away from that topic; chiefly, I think, because I wanted to +avoid any suggestion of pumping him. When you have recently been branded +as a spy, you go about for the next few days trying not to feel like one. + +"Isn't there any place in the village I could go to?" I asked. + +He shook his head. "There's one pub--a sort of beerhouse--but they don't +take people in," he said. + +"No lodgings?" I persisted. + +"The Jervaises don't encourage that sort of thing," he replied. "Afraid of +the place getting frippery. I've heard them talking about it in the car. +And as they own every blessed cottage in the place...." He left the +deduction to my imagination, and continued with the least touch of +bashfulness, "You wouldn't care to come to us, I suppose?" + +"To the Home Farm?" I replied stupidly. I was absurdly embarrassed. If I +had not chanced to see that grouping in the wood before lunch, I should +have jumped at the offer. But I knew that it must have been Miss Banks who +had seen me--spying. Jervaise had had his back to me. And she would +probably, I thought, take his view of the confounded accident. She would +be as anxious to avoid me as I was to avoid her. Coming so unexpectedly, +this invitation to the Farm appeared to me as a perfectly impossible +suggestion. + +Banks, naturally, misinterpreted my embarrassment. + +"I suppose it would put you in the wrong, as it were--up at the Hall," he +said. "Coming to us after that row, I mean, 'd look as if what they'd been +saying was all true." + +"I don't care a hang about _that_," I said earnestly. In my relief at +being able to speak candidly I forgot that I was committing myself to an +explanation; and Banks inevitably wandered into still more shameful +misconceptions of my implied refusal. + +"Only a farm, of course..." he began. + +"Oh! my dear chap," I interposed quickly. "Do believe me, I'd far sooner +stay at the Home Farm than at Jervaise Hall." + +He looked at me with rather a blank stare of inquiry. + +"Well, then?" was all he found to say. + +I could think of nothing whatever. + +For a second or two we stared at one another like antagonists searching +for an unexposed weakness. He was the first to try another opening. + +"Fact is, I suppose," he said tentatively, "that you'd like to be out of +this affair altogether? Had enough of it, no doubt?" + +I might have accepted that suggestion without hurting Banks's +self-respect. I saw the excuse as a possibility that provided an +honourable way of escape. I had but to say, "Well, in a way, yes. I have, +in all innocence, got most confoundedly entangled in an affair that hasn't +anything whatever to do with me, and it seems that the best thing I can do +now is to clear out." He would have believed that. He would have seen the +justice of it. But the moment this easy way of escape was made clear to +me, I knew that I did not want to take it; that in spite of everything, I +wanted, almost passionately, to go to the Home Farm. + +I was aware of a sudden clarity of vision. The choice that lay before me +appeared suddenly vital; a climax in my career, a symbol of the essential +choice that would determine my future. + +On the one hand was the security of refusal. I could return, unaffected, +to my familiar life. Presently, when the Jervaise nerves had become normal +again, the Jervaises themselves would recognise the egregious blunder they +had made in their treatment of me. They would apologise--through Frank. +And I should go on, as I had begun. I was already decently successful. I +should become more successful. I could look forward to increased financial +security, to a measure of fame, to all that is said to make life worth +living. And as I saw it, then, the whole prospect of that easy future, +appeared to me as hopelessly boring, worthless, futile. + +On the other hand...? I had no idea what awaited me on the other hand. I +could see that I should have to accept the stigma that had been put upon +me; that I should be thrown into the company of a young woman whose +personality had extraordinarily attracted me, who probably detested me, +and who might now be engaged to a man I very actively disliked; that I +should involve myself in an affair that had not fully engaged my sympathy +(I still retained my feeling of compassion for old Jervaise); that I +should, in short, be choosing the path of greatest resistance and +unpleasantness, with no possibility of getting any return other than scorn +and disgrace. + +I saw these alternatives in a flash, and no sane man would have hesitated +between them for one moment. + +"But look here, Banks," I said. "What would your mother and--and your +sister say to having an unknown visitor foisted upon them without notice?" + +"Oh! that'd be all right," he said with conviction. + +"There's nothing I should like better than to stay with you," I continued, +"if I thought that your--people would care to have me." + +"Well, as a matter of fact," he said, "my father and mother haven't come +home yet. They drove over to some relations of ours about twelve miles +away, yesterday afternoon, and they won't be back till about seven, +probably. Last chance my father had before harvest, and my mother likes to +get away now and again when she can manage it." + +"They don't know yet, then, about you and...?" I said, momentarily +diverted by the new aspect this news put on the doings of the night. + +"Not yet. That'll be all right, though," Banks replied, and added as an +afterthought, "The old man may be a bit upset. I want to persuade 'em all +to come out to Canada, you see. There's a chance there. Mother would come +like a shot, but I'm afraid the old man'll be a bit difficult." + +"But, then, look here, Banks," I said. "You won't want a stranger up there +to-night of all nights--interfering with your--er--family council." + +Banks scratched his head with a professional air. "I dunno," he said. "It +might help." He looked at me reflectively before adding, "You know She's +up there--of course?" + +"I didn't," I replied. "Was she there last night when Jervaise and I went +up?" + +He shook his head. "We meant to go off together and chance it," he said. +"May as well tell you now. There's no secret about it among ourselves. And +then she came out to me on the hill without her things--just in a cloak. +Came to tell me it was all off. Said she wouldn't go, that way.... Well, +we talked.... Best part of three hours. And the end of it was, she came +back to the Farm." + +"And it isn't all off?" I put in. + +"The elopement is," he said. + +"But not the proposed marriage?" + +He leaned against the door of the car with the air of one who is preparing +for a long story. "You're sure you want to hear all this?" he asked. + +"Quite sure--that is, if you want to tell me," I said. "And if I'm coming +home with you, it might be as well if I knew exactly how things stand." + +"I felt somehow as if you and me were going to hit it off, last night," he +remarked shyly. + +"So did I," I rejoined, not less shy than he was. + +Our friendship had been admitted and confirmed. No further word was +needed. We understood each other. I felt warmed and comforted. It was good +to be once more in the confidence of a fellowman. I have not the stuff in +me that is needed to make a good spy. + +"Well, the way things are at present," Banks hurried on to cover our lapse +into an un-British sentimentality, "is like this. We'd meant, as I told +you, to run away...." + +"And then she was afraid?" + +"No, it was rather the other way round. It was me that was afraid. You +see, I thought I should take all the blame off the old man by going off +with her--him being away and all, I didn't think as even the Jervaises +could very well blame it on to him, overlooking what she pointed out, as +once we'd gone they'd simply have to get rid of him, too, blame or no +blame. They'd never stand having him and mother and Anne within a mile of +the Hall, as sort of relations. _I_ ought to have seen that, but one +forgets these things at the time." + +I nodded sympathetically. + +"So what it came to," he continued, "was that we might as well face it out +as not. She's like that--likes to have things straight and honest. So do +I, for the matter of that; but once you've been a gentleman's servant it +gets in your blood or something. I was three years as groom and so on up +at the Hall before I went to Canada. Should have been there now if it +hadn't been for mother. I was only a lad of sixteen when I went into +service, you see, and when I came back I got into the old habits again. I +tell you it's difficult once you've been in service to get out o' the way +of feeling that, well, old Jervaise, for instance, is a sort of little +lord god almighty." + +"I can understand that," I agreed, and added, "but I'm rather sorry for +him, old Jervaise. He has been badly cut up, I think." + +Banks looked at me sharply, with one of his keen, rather challenging turns +of expression. "Sorry for him? You needn't be," he said. "I could tell you +something--at least, I can't--but you can take it from me that you needn't +waste your pity on him." + +I realised that this was another reference to that "pull" I had heard of, +which could not be used, and was not even to be spoken of to me after I +had been admitted to Banks's confidence. I realised, further, that my +guessing must have gone hopelessly astray. Here was the suggestion of +something far more sinister than a playing on the old man's affection for +his youngest child. + +"Very well, I'll take it from you," I said. "On the other hand, you can +take it from me that old Jervaise is very much upset." + +Banks smiled grimly. "He's nervous at dangerous corners, like you said," +he returned. "However, we needn't go into that--the point is as I began to +tell you, that we've decided to face it out; and well, you saw me go up to +the Hall this morning." + +"What happened?" I asked. + +"Nothing," Banks said. "I saw the old man and Mr. Frank, and they were +both polite in a sort of way--no shouting nor anything, though, of course, +Mr. Frank tried to browbeat me--but very firm that nothing had got to +happen; no engagement or running away or anything. She was to come home +and I was to go back to Canada--they'd pay my fare and so on..." + +"And you?" + +"Me? I just stuck to it we were going to get married, and Mr. Frank tried +to threaten me till the old man stopped him, and then I came out." + +"Did you wind up the stable-clock?" I put in. + +"Yes. I forgot it last night," he said. "And I hate to see a thing not +working properly." + +Dear Banks! I did not know, then, how characteristic that was of him. + +I returned to the subject in hand. + +"What do you propose to do, then?" I asked. "To get their consent?" + +"Just stick to it," he said. + +"You think they'll give way?" + +"They'll have to, in the end," he affirmed gravely, and continued in a +colder voice that with him indicated a flash of temper. "It's just their +respectability they care about, that's all. If they were fond of her, or +she of them, it would be another thing altogether. But she's different to +all the others, and they've never hit it off, she and them, among +themselves. Why, they treat her quite differently to the others; to Miss +Olive, for instance." + +"Do they?" I said, in astonishment. I had been romantically picturing +Brenda as the favourite child, and I could not, at once, see her in this +new light. + +"She never got on with 'em, somehow," Banks said. "Anyway, not when they +were alone. Always rows of one sort or another. They couldn't understand +her, of course, being so different to the others." + +I was not satisfied with this explanation, but I did not press him for +further details. His insistence on Brenda's difference from the rest of +the Jervaises was evidently as far as he could get. The difference was +obvious enough, certainly, but he would naturally exaggerate it. He was, +as Miss Tattersall had said, "infatuated," but I put a more kindly +construction on the description than she had done--perhaps "enthralled" +would have been a better word. + +We had come to a pause. His confidences were exhausted for the present. He +had told me all that it was necessary for me to know before I met Brenda +and his sister; and I waited for him, now, to renew his invitation. I +preferred that _he_ should re-open that subject; but he came to it rather +obliquely. + +"Well!" he remarked. "Might as well be getting on, I suppose?" + +I nodded and got out of the car. + +"Can you find your way up?" he proceeded. + +"Alone?" I asked. + +"It's only about half a mile," he explained, "You can't miss it. You see, +I want to get the car back to the house. Don't do it any good standing +about here. Besides, it wouldn't do for them to think as I was holding it +over them." + +Even the picture of a herculean Banks holding that car over the Jervaises +failed to divert me, just then. I was too much occupied with my new +friend's simple absence of tact. I would sooner have faced a return to the +Hall than an unsupported appearance at the Farm. + +"Oh! I'm not going up there alone," I said. + +Banks was honestly surprised. "Why not?" he asked. "You met Anne last +night, didn't you? That'll be all right. You tell her I told you to come +up. _She'll_ understand." + +I shook my head. "It won't take you long to run up to the Hall and put the +car in," I said. "I'll cut across the Park and meet you in that wood just +below your house--the way that Jervaise and I went last night." + +He looked distressed. He could not understand my unwillingness to go +alone, but his sense of what was due to me would not permit him to let me +wait for him in the wood. + +"But, I can't see..." he began, and then apparently realising that he was +failing either in respect or in hospitality, he continued, "Oh! well, I'll +just run up with you at once; it won't take us ten minutes, and half an +hour one way or the other won't make any difference." + +I accepted his sacrifice without further protestation; and after he had +carefully replaced the tarpaulin over the tonneau of the car, we set off +briskly towards the Farm. About a third of a mile farther on we left the +highroad for a side road, and another three or four minutes' walk up the +hill brought us to the main entrance to the Farm. I saw, now, that I had +come with Jervaise to a side door last night. This front approach was more +imposing--up a drive through an avenue of limes. The house seen from this +aspect looked very sweet and charming. It was obviously of a date not +later than the sixteenth century, and I guessed that the rough-cast +probably concealed a half-timber work structure. In front of it was a good +strip of carefully kept lawn and flower garden. The whole place had an air +of dignity and beauty that I had not expected, and I think Banks must have +noticed my surprise, for he said,-- + +"Not bad, is it? Used to be a kind of dower house once upon a time, they +say." + +"Absolutely charming," I replied. "Now, this is the sort of house I should +like to live in." + +"I dare say it'll be to let before long," Banks said with a touch of grim +humour. + +"Not to me, though," I said. + +He laughed. "Perhaps not," he agreed. + +We had paused at the end of the little avenue for me to take in the effect +of the house, and as we still stood there, the sound of a man's voice came +to us through the open window of one of the rooms on the ground floor. + +"Your father's home sooner than you expected," I remarked. + +"That's not the old man," Banks said in a tone that instantly diverted my +gaze from the beauties of the Home Farm. + +"Who is it, then?" I asked. + +"Listen!" he said. He was suddenly keen, alert and suspicious. I saw him +no longer as the gentleman's servant, the product of the Jervaise estate, +but as the man who had knocked about the world, who often preferred to +sleep in the open. + +"There are two of them there," he said; "Frank Jervaise and that young +fellow Turnbull, if I'm not mistaken." And even as he spoke he began +hurriedly to cross the little lawn with a look of cold anger and +determination that I was glad was not directed against myself. + +As I followed him, it came into my mind to wonder whether Frank Jervaise +had taken me with him as a protection the night before? Had he been afraid +of meeting Banks? I had hitherto failed to find any convincing reason for +Jervaise's queer mark of confidence in me. + + + + +X + +THE HOME FARM + + +I must own that I was distinctly uncomfortable as I followed Banks into +the same room in which I had sat on my previous visit to the Home Farm. +The influence of tradition and habit would not let me alone. I cared +nothing for the Jervaises' opinion, but I resented the unfairness of it +and had all the innocent man's longing to prove his innocence--a feat that +was now become for ever impossible. By accepting Banks's invitation, I had +confirmed the worst suspicions the Jervaises could possibly have harboured +against me. + +Indeed, it seems probable that I was now revealing more shameful depths of +duplicity than their most depraved imaginings had been able to picture. As +I entered the room, I looked first at Frank, and his dominant emotion, +just then, appeared to be surprise. For a moment I had a sense of +reprieve. I guessed that he had not been truly convinced of the truth of +his own accusations against me. But any relief I may have felt was +dissipated at once. I saw Jervaise's look of surprise give place to a kind +of perplexed anger, an expression that I could only read as conveying his +amazement that any gentleman (I am sure his thought was playing about that +word) could be such a blackguard as I was now proving myself to be. + +Ronnie Turnbull, also, evidently shared that opinion. The boyish and +rather theatrical movement with which he turned his back upon me, showed +at once that he had been coached in the suspicions that were now so +finally clinched. + +"This fellow simply isn't worth speaking to," was the inarticulate message +of his gesture. + +And certainly I gave neither of them any occasion to speak to me. Banks's +opening plunged us into one of those chaotic dialogues which are only made +more confused by any additional contribution. + +"What have you come up here for?" Banks asked, displaying his immediate +determination to treat the invaders without respect of class on this +common ground of his father's home. + +"That's our affair," Frank snapped. He looked nervously vicious, I +thought, like a timid-minded dog turned desperate. + +"What the devil do you mean?" Turnbull asked at the same moment, and +Brenda got up from her chair and tried to address some explanation to her +lover through the ominous preparatory snarlings of the melee. + +I heard her say, "Arthur! They've been trying to..." but lost the rest in +the general shindy. + +Turnbull, by virtue of his lung-power, was the most audible of the four. + +"You've jolly well got to understand, my good man," he was saying, "that +the sooner you get out of this the better"; and went on with more +foolishness about Banks having stolen the motor--all painfully tactless +stuff, if he still had the least intention of influencing Brenda, but he +was young and arrogant and not at all clever. + +Banks and Jervaise were sparring at each other all the time that Turnbull +fulminated, and Brenda's soprano came in like a flageolet obbligato--a +word or two here and there ringing out with a grateful clearness above the +masculine accompaniment. + +I dared, in the confusion, to glance at Anne, and she looked up at me at +the same moment. She was slightly withdrawn from the tumult that drew +together about the counter of the sturdy oak table in the centre of the +room. She was sitting in the towering old settle by the fireplace, leaning +a little forward as if she awaited her opportunity to spring in and +determine the tumult when something of this grotesque male violence had +been exhausted. + +She looked at me, I thought, with just a touch of supplication, a look +that I misinterpreted as a request to use my influence in stopping this +din of angry voices that was so obviously serving no useful purpose. But I +felt no inclination to respond to that appeal of hers. I had an idea that +she might be going to announce her engagement to Jervaise, an announcement +that would critically affect the whole situation; and I had no wish to +help her in solving the immediate problem by those means. + +Perhaps she read in my face something of the sullen resentment I was +feeling, for she leaned back quickly into the corner of the settle, with a +movement that seemed to indicate a temporary resignation to the +inevitable. I saw her as taking cover from this foolish masculine din +about the table; but I had no doubt that she was still awaiting her +opportunity. + +It was Jervaise who brought back the unintelligible disputants to +reasonable speech. He stopped speaking, stepped back on to the hearth-rug, +and then addressed the loudly vociferous Turnbull. + +"Ronnie!" Jervaise said in a tone that arrested attention, and having got +his man's ear, added, "Half a minute!" + +"But look here, you know," Turnbull protested, still on the same note of +aggressive violence. "What I mean to say is that this feller seems to +confoundedly well imagine..." + +"Do for God's sake _shut up!_" Jervaise returned with a scowl. + +"I suppose you think that I haven't any right..." Turnbull began in a +rather lower voice; and Brenda at last finding a chance to make herself +heard, finished him by saying quickly,-- + +"Certainly you haven't; no right whatever to come here--and _brawl_..." +She spoke breathlessly, as though she were searching in the brief +interlude of an exhausting struggle for some insult that would fatally +wound and offend him. She tried to show him in a sentence that he was +nothing more to her than a blundering, inessential fool, interfering in +important business that was no concern of his. And although the hurry of +her mind did not permit her to find the deadly phrase she desired, the +sharpness of her anxiety to wound him was clear enough. + +"Oh! of course, if you think that..." he said, paused as if seeking for +some threat of retaliation, and then flung himself, the picture of +dudgeon, into a chair by the wall. He turned his back towards Brenda and +glared steadfastly at his rival. I received the impression that the poor +deluded boy was trying to revenge himself on Brenda. At the back of his +mind he seemed still to regard her escapade as a foolish piece of bravado, +undertaken chiefly to torture himself. His attitude was meant to convey +that the joke had gone far enough, and that he would not stand much more +of it. + +For a time at least he was, fortunately, out of the piece. Perhaps he +thought the influence of his attitude must presently take effect; that +Brenda, whom he so habitually adored with his eyes, would be intimidated +by his threat of being finally offended? + +The three other protagonists took no more notice of the sulky Ronnie, but +they could not at once recover any approach to sequence. + +"I want to know why you've come up here," Banks persisted. + +"That's not the point," Jervaise began in a tone that I thought was meant +to be conciliatory. + +"But it is--partly," Brenda put in. + +"My dear girl, do let's have the thing clear," her brother returned, but +she diverted his apparent intention of making a plain statement by an +impatient,-- + +"Oh! it's all _clear_ enough." + +"But it isn't, by any means," Jervaise said. + +"To us it is," Banks added, meaning, I presume, that he and Brenda had no +doubts as to their intentions. + +"You're going to persist in the claim you made this morning?" Jervaise +asked. + +Banks smiled and shrugged his shoulders. + +"Don't be silly, Frank," Brenda interpreted. "You must know that we can't +do anything else." + +"It's foolish to say you _can't_," he returned irritably, "when so +obviously you _can_." + +"Well, anyway, we're going to," Banks affirmed with a slight +inconsequence. + +"And do you purpose to stay on here?" Jervaise said sharply, as if he were +posing an insuperable objection. + +"Not likely," Banks replied. "We're going to Canada, the whole lot of us." + +"Your father and mother, too?" + +"Yes, if I can persuade 'em; and I can," Banks said. + +"You haven't tried yet?" + +"No, I haven't." + +"Don't they know anything about this? Anything, I mean, before last +night's affair?" + +"Practically nothing at all," Banks said. "Of course, nothing whatever +about last night." + +"And you honestly think..." began Jervaise. + +"That'll be all right, won't it, Anne?" Banks replied. + +But Anne, still leaning back in the corner of the settle, refused to +answer. + +Jervaise turned and looked down at her. "If you all went...?" he said, +giving his incomplete sentence the sound of a question. + +"Oh! I should certainly go, too," she replied. + +Jervaise frowned moodily. I could see that he was caught in an awkward +dilemma, but I was not absolutely sure as to the form it took. Had Anne +made conditions? Her remark seemed, I thought, to hint a particular +stipulation. Had she tried to coerce him with the threat of accompanying +her brother to Canada unless the engagement to Brenda was openly +sanctioned by the family? + +"But you must see how impossible it is," Jervaise said, still looking at +Anne. + +"_We_ don't think so," Brenda put in. + +"You don't understand," her brother returned savagely. + +"_You_ don't," Brenda replied. + +Jervaise snorted impatiently, but he had enough control of himself to +avoid the snare of being drawn into a bickering match. + +"It isn't as if the decision rested with me," he went on, looking down at +the hearth-rug, but still, I fancy, addressing himself almost exclusively +to Anne. "I can't make my father and mother see things as you do. No one +could. Why can't you compromise?" + +"Oh! _How_?" Brenda broke out with a fierce contempt. + +"Agree to separate--for a time," Jervaise said. "Let Banks go to Canada +and start a farm or something, and afterwards you could join him without +any open scandal." + +"Any mortal thing to save a scandal, of course," Brenda commented +scornfully. + +"Would _you_ be prepared to do that?" Jervaise asked, turning to Banks. + +I thought Banks seemed a trifle irresolute, as though the bribe of finally +possessing Brenda was tempting enough to outweigh any other consideration. +But he looked at her before replying, and her contemptuous shake of the +head was completely decisive. He could not question any determination of +hers. + +"No, I wouldn't," he said. + +"But look here, Brenda, why..." Jervaise began on a note of desperate +reasonableness. + +"Because I'm going out _with_ him," Brenda said. They might have chased +that argument round for half an hour if Ronnie had not once more +interposed. + +His dudgeon had been slowly giving place to a shocked surprise. It was +being borne in upon his reluctant mind that Brenda and Banks honestly +intended to get married. And here was Frank Jervaise, for some mistaken +purpose of his own, calmly admitting the possibility of the outrage, +instead of scorning the bare idea of it with violence. + +"I think you're making a ghastly mistake, Frank," he said with a composure +that was intended to be extremely ominous. + +Jervaise clutched at the interruption, probably to give himself a little +more time. The women were proving so unamenable to his excellent +reasoning. One simply contradicted him, and the other refused to speak. +"What's a mistake, Ronnie?" he asked. + +"Listening to them at all," Turnbull said, with a preposterous attempt to +be dignified. He would not look at Brenda as he continued, but he was +certainly aware that she had turned towards him when he spoke, and the +consciousness that she was watching him steadily increased his +embarrassment. "It's perfectly absurd, I mean, to talk as if you and your +people would allow the thing to go on--under any circumstances--perfect +rot! Why can't you say at once that it's got to stop--absolutely, +and--Good Lord!--I don't care what any one thinks--if I were in your place +I'd jolly well sling Banks off the premises--I tell you I would--" he +got to his feet, his vehemence was increasing, as if he would shout down +Brenda's silent disdain--"I'd confoundedly well kick him out of the +county..." He looked almost equal to the task as he stood there roaring +like a young bull-calf; but although he could have given his rival a good +three stone in weight there was, I fancy, a difference in the quality of +their muscles that might have left the final advantage with Banks in a +rough-and-tumble engagement. + +But despite, or perhaps on account of his complete ineptitude, I had a +feeling of sympathy for Turnbull. It must have been very exasperating for +him to stand there, roaring out his sincerest convictions and to be +received by every one of us with a forbearing contempt. + +Even Brenda expressed something of pity for him. + +"My dear Ronnie, don't be absolutely idiotic," she said, forbearingly, but +rather as though she warned him that he had said quite enough. + +He breathed heavily, resentfully, but still declined to look at her. "Of +course if you'd sooner I went away altogether..." he remarked. + +"I don't see that you can help us by staying," Brenda said. + +"I mean for good," he explained tragically. + +I heard afterwards that he had been in love with Brenda since she was nine +years old, but I might have inferred the fact from his present attitude. +He simply could not believe, as yet, that she would let him go--for good, +as he said. No doubt she had tricked and plagued him so often in the past +that the present situation seemed to him nothing more than the repetition +of a familiar experience. + +Brenda must have realised that, too; but, no doubt, she shrank from +wounding him mortally in public. The ten years of familiar intercourse +between her and Ronnie were not to be obliterated in a day, not even by +the fury of her passion for Arthur Banks. + +"I know," she said. "But you _are_ interrupting, Ronnie. Do go!" + +"And leave you here?" He was suddenly encouraged again by her tone. He +looked down at her, now; pleading like a great puppy, beseeching her to +put a stop to this very painful game. + +"Surely, Ronnie, you must realise that I--mean it, this time," she said. + +"Not that you're going to ... going to Canada," he begged. + +"Yes. Yes. Definitely and absolutely finally yes," she said. + +"With--him?" + +"Yes." + +"But, _Brenda_!" The long-drawn appeal of her name showed that the full +bitterness of the truth was coming home to him at last. + +"I'm sorry," she said, and the sound of it was in some way painfully +final. + +"It isn't because..." he began, but she anticipated his well-known reasons +by saying,-- + +"It's nothing to do with you or with anything you've done, nothing +whatever. I'm sorry, Ronnie, but it's fate--just fate. Do go, now. I'll +see you again before--before we go." + +And still he stood for an instant undecided; and I could see the struggle +that was going on in him, between the influence of Harrow and Oxford and +those of the honest, simple primitive man. He knew that the right, +conventional thing for him to do was to be magnanimous; to admit that he +was the defeated lover, and to say something that would prove how splendid +he could be in the moment of disaster. The traditions of Harrow, Oxford, +and the melodrama united to give him an indication of the proper conduct +of the situation, and against them was ranged nothing more than one feral +impulse to take Banks by the throat and settle his blasphemous assumption +of rivalry off-hand. + +But it was, I think, a third influence that decided the struggle for that +time. His glare of wrath at Banks had been followed by one last yearning +look at Brenda, and some sentimental realisation of his loss rose and +choked him, temporarily superseding the powers both of make-believe and +instinct. One lesson he had learnt at Harrow and Oxford so thoroughly that +he re-acted to it even in this supreme crisis of his life. He might give +expression to brutal passion, but in no circumstances whatever must he +break down and weep in public. + +He turned quickly and blundered out of the room with a stumbling eagerness +to be alone that was extraordinarily pathetic. + +"You'll admit, B., that it's cursedly hard lines on Ronnie after all these +years," Frank said with what sounded like genuine emotion. + +She took that up at once. "I know it is," she said. "It's going to be hard +lines on lots of people, but there's no way out of it. You may think it's +silly tosh to talk about Fate; but it _is_ Fate." + +And then she looked at Banks with something in her expression that was +surely enough to compensate him for any pain or sacrifice he might have to +endure for her. + +"_We_ can't help it, can we, Arthur?" she said. + +He was too moved to answer. He set his lips tightly together and shook his +head, gazing at her with a look of adoration and confidence that was +almost violent in its protestation of love. + +Jervaise turned round and leaned his forehead against the high +mantelpiece. I looked out of the window. Anne remained hidden in the +corner of the settle. We all, no doubt, had the same feeling that this +love-affair was showing itself as something too splendid to be interfered +with. Whether or not it had the qualities that make for endurance, it had +a present force that dwarfed every other emotion. Those two lovers ruled +us by their perfect devotion to each other. I felt ashamed of my presence +there, as if I had intruded upon some fervent religious ceremony. They +were both so sincere, so gallant, and so proud. + +It was Banks who re-started the conversation. The solitude we had +permitted to the lovers was at once too little and too much for them. What +had passed between them by an exchange of signals in the brief interval, I +could only guess; they certainly had not spoken, but Banks's new subject +suggested that they had somehow agreed to divert the interest momentarily +from themselves. + +"I've brought Mr. Melhuish back with me," he said. "He's going to stay the +night with us." He may have been addressing Brenda in answer to some look +of inquiry that had indicated my resolutely unconscious back. + +Since Turnbull had gone, I was more than ever the outsider and intruder, +and I was all too keenly aware of that fact as I turned back towards the +room. My embarrassment was not relieved by the slightly perplexed +astonishment the announcement had evoked in the faces of the two women. + +"But I thought you were staying at the Hall," Brenda said, looking at me +with that air of suspicion to which I was rapidly growing accustomed. + +"I was," I said; "but for reasons that your brother may be able to +explain, I'm staying there no longer." + +She looked at Jervaise, then, but he had no reply ready. I had put him in +a difficult position. I had a chance to revenge myself at last. + +"I don't understand, Frank," Brenda prompted him; and Anne began to come +to life for the first time since I had entered the room--there was a new +effect of mischief about her, as if she had partly guessed the cause of my +expulsion from the Hall. + +"It's a long story," Jervaise prevaricated. + +"But one that I think you ought to tell," I said, "in justice to me." + +"We found that Melhuish had been, most unwarrantably, interfering in--in +this affair of yours, B.," he grumbled; "and, in any case, it's no +business of his." + +Brenda's dark eyebrows lifted with that expression of surprised +questioning to which she could give such unusual effect. I suppose it +emphasised that queer contrast--unique in my experience--between her +naturally fair hair, and her black eyebrows and eyelashes. I have to +emphasise the fact that the straw gold of her abundant vital hair was its +_natural_ colour. She had often, I believe, threatened to dye it, in order +to avoid the charge of having already done so. + +"What piffle!" she remarked. "How has Mr. Melhuish interfered? Why, this +is the first time I've seen him since last night at the dance. Besides," +she glanced at me with a half-whimsical touch of apology, "I hardly know +him." + +"Oh! it's some romantic rot of his, I suppose," Jervaise returned +sullenly. "I never thought it was serious." + +"But," Anne interposed, "it sounds very serious...if Mr. Melhuish has had +to leave the Hall in the middle of his visit--and come to us." I inferred +that she was deliberately overlooking my presence in the room for some +purpose of her own. She certainly spoke as if I were not present. + +"Partly a misunderstanding," Jervaise said. "No reason why he shouldn't +come back with me now if he wants to." + +"You would in that case explain, of course, how the misunderstanding +arose?" I put in. + +"_I_ don't know what your game is," he returned allusively. + +"I never had one," I said. + +"Looked infernally suspicious," was his grudging answer. + +The two girls exchanged a look of understanding, but I had no notion what +they intended by it. I had not learnt, then, how cleverly they played up +to each other. + +"Yes, but suspicious of what, Mr. Jervaise?" Anne said, taking up the +cross-examination. + +"Spying upon us," Jervaise growled. + +"Upon you or me?" asked Brenda. + +"Both," Jervaise said. + +"But why?" asked Anne. + +"Lord knows," Jervaise replied. + +I made no effort to interrupt them. The two girls were clearing my +character for me by the simple obvious method that I had not had the wit +to adopt for myself. I might have argued and protested for hours, and the +only result would have been to confirm Jervaise's suspicions. Confronted +by an innocent demand for explanation, he had not a leg to stand on. + +Brenda's eyebrows went up again, with that slightly bizarre, exotic air +which was so arresting. She spoke to me this time. + +"And do you mean to say that they were all so horrid to you that you had +to come away?" she asked. + +"Precisely that," I said. + +"But you don't tell us what Mr. Melhuish has _done!_" Anne persisted, +continuing her cross-examination of Jervaise. + +"Well, for one thing, he went out to meet your brother at three o'clock +this morning," he replied grudgingly. + +"Didn't come out to meet me," Banks put in. "We did meet all right, but it +was the first time we'd ever seen each other." + +We all four looked at Jervaise, awaiting his next piece of evidence with +the expectant air of children watching a conjurer. + +He began to lose his temper. "I can't see that this has got anything to do +with what we're discussing..." he said, but I had no intention of letting +him off too easily. He had saved me the trouble of making tedious +explanations, and my character had been cleared before Anne and Brenda, +which two things were all that I really cared about in this connection; +but I wanted, for other reasons, to make Jervaise appear foolish. So I +interrupted him by saying,-- + +"Hadn't you better tell them about Miss Tattersall?" + +He turned on me, quite savagely. "What the devil has this affair of ours +got to do with you, Melhuish?" he asked. + +"Nothing whatever," I said. "You dragged me into it in the first instance +by bringing me up here last night, but since then I haven't interfered one +way or the other. What does affect me, however, is that you and your +family have--well--insulted me, and for that you do owe me, at least, an +explanation." + +"What made you come up here, now?" he asked with that glowering legal air +of his; thrusting the question at me as if I must, now, be finally +confuted. + +"After you ran away from me in the avenue," I said promptly, "it seemed +that the only thing left for me to do was to walk to Hurley Junction; but +a quarter of a mile from the Park gate I found your car drawn up by the +side of the road. And as I had no sort of inclination to walk fourteen +miles on a broiling afternoon, I decided to wait by the car until some one +came to fetch it. And when presently Banks came, I tried my best to +persuade him to take me to the station in it. He refused on the grounds +that he wanted to take the car back at once to the garage; but when I +explained my difficulty to him, his hospitable mind prompted him to offer +me temporary refuge at the Home Farm. He brought me back to introduce me, +and we found you here. Simple, isn't it?" + +Jervaise scowled at the hearth-rug. "All been a cursed misunderstanding +from first to last," he growled. + +"But what was that about Grace Tattersall?" Brenda asked. "If you'd +accused _her_ of spying, I could have understood it. She was trying to +pump me for all she was worth yesterday afternoon." + +"I've admitted that there must have been some misunderstanding," Jervaise +said. "For goodness' sake, let's drop this question of Melhuish's +interference and settle the more important one of what we're going to do +about--you." + +"I resent that word 'interference,'" I put in. + +"Oh! resent it, then," Jervaise snarled. + +"Really, I think Mr. Melhuish is perfectly justified," Brenda said. "I +feel horribly ashamed of the way you've been treating him at home. I +should never have thought that the mater..." + +"Can't you understand that she's nearly off her head with worrying about +you?" Jervaise interrupted. + +"No, I can't," Brenda returned. "If it had been Olive, I could. But I +should have thought they would all have been jolly glad to see the last of +me. They've always given me that impression, anyhow." + +"Not in this way," her brother grumbled. + +"What do you mean by that exactly?" Anne asked with a great seriousness. + +I think Jervaise was beginning to lose his nerve. He was balanced so +dangerously between the anxiety to maintain the respectability of the +Jervaises and his passion, or whatever it was, for Anne. Such, at least, +was my inference; although how he could possibly reconcile his two +devotions I could not imagine, unless his intentions with regard to Anne +were frankly shameful. And Jervaise must, indeed, be an even grosser fool +than I supposed him to be if he could believe for one instant that Anne +was the sort of woman who would stoop to a common intrigue with him. For +it could be nothing more than that. If they loved each other, they could +do no less than follow the shining example of Brenda and Anne's brother. I +could see Anne doing that, and with a still more daring spirit than the +other couple had so far displayed. I could not see her as Frank Jervaise's +mistress. Moreover, I could not believe now, even after that morning's +scene in the wood, that she really cared for him. If she did, she must +have been an actress of genius, since, so far as I had been able to +observe, her attitude towards him during the last half-hour had most +nearly approached one of slightly amused contempt. + +Jervaise's evident perplexity was notably aggravated by Anne's question. + +"Well, naturally, my father and mother don't want an open scandal," he +said irritably. + +"But why a scandal?" asked Anne. "If Arthur and Brenda were married and +went to Canada?" + +"I don't say that _I_ think it would be a scandal," he said. "I'm only +telling you the way that _they'd_ certainly see it. It might have been +different if your brother had never been in our service. You must see +that. _We_ know, of course, but other people don't, and we shall never be +able to explain to them. People like the Turnbulls and the Atkinsons and +all that lot will say that Brenda eloped with the chauffeur. It's no good +beating about the bush--that's the plain fact we've got to face." + +"Then, hadn't we better face it?" Anne returned with a flash of +indignation. "Or do you think you can persuade Arthur to go back to +Canada, alone?" + +Jervaise grunted uneasily. + +"You know it's no earthly, Frank," Brenda said. "Why can't you be a sport +and go back and tell them that they might as well give in at once?" + +"Oh! my dear girl, you must know perfectly well that they'll _never_ give +in," her brother replied. + +"Mr. Jervaise might," Banks put in. + +Frank turned to him sharply. "What do you mean by that?" he asked. + +"He'd have given in this morning, if it hadn't been for you," Banks said, +staring with his most dogged expression at Jervaise. + +"What makes you think so?" Jervaise retaliated. + +"What he said, and the way he behaved," Banks asserted, the English yeoman +stock in him still very apparent. + +"You're mistaken," Jervaise snapped. + +"Give me a chance to prove it, then," was Banks's counter. + +"How?" + +"I've got to take that car back. Give me a chance for another talk with +Mr. Jervaise; alone this time." + +I looked at Banks with a sudden feeling of anxiety. I was afraid that he +meant at last to use that "pull" he had hinted at on the hill; and I had +an intuitive shrinking from the idea of his doing that. This open defiance +was fine and upright. The other attitude suggested to my mind the +conception of something cowardly, a little base and underhand. He looked, +I admit, the picture of sturdy virtue as he stood there challenging his +late master to permit this test of old Jervaise's attitude, but the prize +at stake was so inestimably precious to Banks, that it must have altered +all his values. He would, I am sure, have committed murder for Brenda--any +sort of murder. + +Frank Jervaise did not respond at once to the gage that had been offered. +He appeared to be moodily weighing the probabilities before he decided his +policy. And Brenda impatiently prompted him by saying,-- + +"Well, I don't see what possible objection you can have to that." + +"Only want to save the pater any worry I can," Jervaise said. "He has been +more cut up than any one over this business." + +"The pater has?" queried Brenda on a note of amazement. "I shouldn't have +expected him to be half as bad as the mater and Olive." + +"Well, he is. He's worse--much worse," Jervaise asserted. + +I was listening to the others, but I was watching Banks, and I saw him +sneer when that assertion was made. The expression seemed to have been +forced out of him against his will; just a quick jerk downwards of the +corners of his mouth that portrayed a supreme contempt for old Jervaise's +distress. But that sneer revealed Banks's opinion to me better than +anything he had said or done. I knew then that he was aware of something +concerning the master of the Hall that was probably unknown either to +Brenda or Frank, something that Banks had loyally hidden even from his +sister. He covered his sneer so quickly that I believe no one else noticed +it. + +"But, surely, it would be better for the pater to see Arthur and have done +with it," Brenda was saying. + +"Oh! I dare say," Jervaise agreed with his usual air of grudging the least +concession. "Are you ready to go now?" he asked, addressing Banks. + +Banks nodded. "I'll pick up the car on the way," he said. + +"I'll come with you--as far as the car," Brenda said, and the pair of them +went out together. + +Jervaise stretched himself with a self-conscious air. "It will take him +the best part of an hour getting the car into the garage and all that," he +remarked, looking at me. + +I could see, of course, that he wanted me to go; his hint had been, +indeed, almost indecently pointed; and I had no wish to intrude myself +upon them, if Anne's desire coincided with his. I got to my feet and stood +like an awkward dummy trying to frame some excuse for leaving the room. I +could think of nothing that was not absurdly obvious. I was on the point +of trying to save the last remnant of my dignity by walking out, when Anne +relieved my embarrassment. I knew that she had been watching me, but I was +afraid to look at her. I cannot say why, exactly, but I felt that if I +looked at her just then I should give myself away before Jervaise. + +"I must go and see about Mr. Melhuish's room," she said. + +She was half-way to the door when Jervaise stopped her. + +"I should rather like to speak to you for a minute first," he remarked, +and scowled again at me. + +"There's nothing more to be said until Arthur has seen Mr. Jervaise," Anne +replied, as though any subject other than the affair Brenda, could not +conceivably be of interest to her. + +"It wasn't about them," Jervaise said awkwardly. + +"What was it, then?" Anne asked. I dared to look at her, now, and her face +was perfectly serious as she added, "Was it about the milk, or eggs, or +anything?" + +Without doubt there was a delicious strain of minx in her! + +Jervaise lost his temper. I believe that if I had offered to fight him, +then, he would have welcomed the opportunity. + +"Oh! you know what I want to say," he snorted. + +"Then why not say it?" Anne replied. + +He turned savagely upon me. "Haven't you got the common sense..." he +began, but Anne cut him short. + +"Oh! we don't suspect _our_ guests of spying," she said. + +I was nearly sorry for Jervaise at that moment. He could not have looked +any more vindictive than he looked already, but he positively trembled +with anger. He could not endure to be thwarted. Nevertheless, he displayed +a certain measure of self-control. + +"Very well," he said as calmly as he could. "If you're going to take that +tone..." + +"Yes?" Anne prompted him. She showed no sign of being in any way +disconcerted. + +"It will hardly help your brother," he concluded. + +"I made a mistake in trying to help him this morning," she said. "I shan't +make the same mistake twice in one day." + +He evidently knew what she meant, although I did not. His heavy eyebrows +twitched, and then, with a half-contemptuous shrug of his shoulders he +strode out of the room with an air of leaving us to the doom we so justly +deserved. + +"The worst of it is that the second mistake doesn't cancel the first," +Anne remarked thoughtfully. + + + + +XI + +THE STORY + + +She still stood by the great oak table, her hands resting lightly on its +dark polished surface. I could see the vague reflection of her fingers +reaching up through the deep solidity of the oak to join hands with her. +She produced, I thought, an impressive effect of fragility and power in +her contrast with that massive table. The material of her flesh was so +delicate compared to the inert, formidable mass before her. She could not +have lifted or moved it by her own effort. And yet it seemed that she had +absolute command over that ponderous obstacle, that in some way the +mobility of her spirit must give her control of it, that she might, if she +wished, plunge those relatively fragile hands of hers deep into the lake +of that dark and adamant surface. + +She had not looked at me since Jervaise left the room, and when she spoke +again she gazed with a kind of concentrated abstraction out of the window +at the quiet glory of the calm August evening. Nevertheless her speech +showed that all her attention was being given to the human interests that +had just been absorbing us. + +"Are you really a friend of ours?" she asked, "or did you just come here +faute de mieux?" The little French phrase came like an unexpected jewel, +as if she had relapsed unconsciously into a more familiar language. + +I was strangely confused by the fact of our being alone together. I had an +entirely unwarranted feeling that we were about to make up a quarrel. And +I wanted to do my utmost to produce the best possible impression upon her. + +"I hope I may call myself your brother's friend," I began lamely. "All my +sympathies are with him." + +"You don't know the Jervaises particularly well?" she inquired. For one +moment she glanced down at her poised hands, but almost instantly returned +to her rather absent-minded gazing through the open window. + +"Except for Frank and his brother, I never met one of them until last +night," I explained. "I was at school and Cambridge with Frank." + +"But they are your sort, your class," she said. "Don't you agree with them +that it's a dreadful thing for Arthur, their chauffeur--and he was in the +stables once, years ago--to try to run away with their daughter?" + +"All my sympathies are with Arthur," I repeated. + +"Not because the Jervaises were so rude to you?" she asked. + +"I liked him before that; when we met on the hill, very early this +morning," I said. "But, perhaps, he didn't tell you." + +"Yes, he told me," she said. "And was that the beginning of all the +trouble between you and the Jervaises?" + +"In a way, it was," I agreed. "But it's an involved story and very silly. +I admit that they had grounds for suspecting that I had interfered." + +"Mrs. Jervaise and Olive are always suspecting people," she volunteered. +"I've often wondered why?" + +"Like that, by nature," I suggested. + +"Perhaps," she said carelessly as if she did not care to pursue that +speculation. "You know that my mother was governess to Olive and Frank +before she married my father?" she continued, still with that same air of +discussing some remote, detached topic. + +"I heard that she had been a governess. I didn't know that she had ever +been with the Jervaises," I said. + +"She was there for over two years," pursued Anne. "She is French, you +know, though you'd probably never guess it, now, except for an occasional +word here and there. She left years before Brenda was born. Brenda is so +much younger than the others. There's eight years between her and Robert, +the next one. Olive's the eldest, of course, and then Frank." + +I made some conventional acknowledgment for this information. I was +wondering if she were merely talking to save the embarrassment of silence. +We had drifted, apparently, a long way from any matter of personal +interest and I was hesitating as to whether I should not attempt a new +opening, when she began again with the least little frown of +determination. + +"I'm talking about them, because if you are to be Arthur's friend you +ought to know more or less how things are between us and the Jervaises, +and I might just as well say right out at once that we don't like them; +we've never liked them. Mother, more particularly. She has got something +against them that she has never told us, but it isn't that." Her frown was +more pronounced as she went on, "They aren't nice people, any of them, +except Brenda, and she's so absolutely different from the rest of them, +and doesn't like them either--in a way." + +"You don't even except Frank?" I mumbled. I could not resist the +opportunity she had offered to ask that too pointed question; but I looked +down at the floor as I spoke; I wanted her to understand that I was not +cross-examining her. + +"I knew you saw us," she returned in the same even tone that she had used +all through this conversation of ours. She had not once raised or lowered +her voice. She might have been speaking a part, just to test her memory. + +"Yes, I did," I said. "Quite by accident, of course. I had no idea that he +had come up here. I hadn't seen him since breakfast." + +"It was a mistake," she said simply. + +I looked up at her, hoping with no shadow of reason that I might have +played some part in her discovery that that caress in the wood had been a +mistake. But she had not changed colour nor moved her attitude, and her +voice was still free from any emotion as she said,-- + +"We thought, Brenda and I thought, that we might trick him. It was a piece +of chicane. She and I were rather silly this morning. We excite each +other. In a sort of way she dared me. But I was sorry afterwards and so +was Brenda, although she thought it might be better as I'd gone so far to +keep it up until Arthur had got a promise or something out of Mr. +Jervaise. I had meant to do that. I don't know why I didn't." + +"But do you think that Frank Jervaise realises that you were only playing +with him for your own ends, this morning?" I asked. + +"Oh! yes," she said with perfect assurance. "As a matter of fact, he was +very suspicious this morning. He's like his mother and sister in +suspecting everybody." + +"Do you think he'll make trouble?" I said. "Now? Up at the Hall?" + +"Yes, I do. He's vindictive," she replied. "That's one reason why I'm glad +you are with us, now. It might help--though I don't quite see how. Perhaps +it's just the feeling of having some one else on our side. Because I'm +afraid that there's going to be a lot of trouble when my father and mother +come home. With my father, more particularly. He'll be afraid of being +turned out. It will be very difficult to make him take up a new idea. +He'll hate the thought of leaving here and starting all over again in +Canada. He loves this place so." + +"And I suppose he likes, or at least respects, the Jervaises?" I said. + +"Not much," she replied. "They've made it very difficult for us in many +ways." + +"Deliberately?" I suggested. + +"They don't care," she said, warming a little for the first time. "They +simply don't think of any one but themselves. For instance, it mayn't seem +much to you, but it's part of our agreement with Mr. Jervaise to provide +the Hall with dairy when they're at home--at market prices, of course. And +then they'll go to town for two or three months in the summer and take a +lot of the servants with them, and we're left to find a market for our +dairy as best we can, just when milk is most plentiful." She lifted her +hands for a moment in a graceful French gesture as she added, "Often it +means just giving milk away." + +"Does your father complain about that?" I asked. + +She turned and looked at me with a complete change of expression. Her +abstraction had vanished, giving place to an air that confessed a +deliberate caprice. + +"To _us_," she said with a laugh that delightfully indulged her father's +weakness. + +I needed nothing more to illuminate the relations of the Banks family. +With that single gesture she had portrayed her father's character, and her +own and her mother's smiling consideration for him. Nevertheless I was +still interested in his attitude towards the Hall--with Anne as +interpreter. I knew that I should get a version noticeably different from +the one her brother had given me on the hill that morning. + +"But you said that your father hadn't much _respect_ for the Jervaises?" I +stipulated. + +"Not for the Jervaises as individuals," she amended, "but he has for the +Family. And they aren't so much a family to him as an Idea, an +Institution, a sort of Religion. Nothing would break him of that, nothing +the Jervaises themselves ever could do. He'd be much more likely to lose +his faith in God than in the Rights of the Hall. That's one of his +sayings. He says they have rights, as if there was no getting over that. +It's just like people used to believe in the divine right of kings." + +I do not know whether I was more fascinated by her theme or by her +exposition of it. "Then, how is it that the rest of you...?" I began, but +she had not the patience to wait while I finished the question. She was +suddenly eager, vivid, astonishingly alive; a different woman from the +Anne who had spoken as if in her sleep, while plunged in some immense, +engrossing meditation. + +"My mother," she broke in. "The Jervaises mean nothing to her, nothing of +that sort. She wasn't brought up on it. It isn't in her blood. In a way +she's as good as they are. Her grandfather was an emigre from the +Revolution--not titled except just for the 'de', you know--they had an +estate near Rouen ... but all this doesn't interest you." + +"It does, profoundly," I said. + +She looked at me with a spice of mischief in her eyes. "Why?" she asked. + +It was a tempting opening for a flirtation, but I could not flirt with +her. When I had first heard the clear, soft tones of her voice at the +window, I must have known that my meeting with her was a new and decisive +experience. I had always idealised a certain type of woman, and perhaps +for that reason I had always held back from the possible disillusions of +an exploring intimacy. But my recognition of Anne had nothing in common +with all my old deliberately romantic searchings for a theoretical +affinity. If I had been asked at any time before two o'clock that morning +to define my ideal, the definition would not have described Anne. Indeed, +I could never have imagined her. She was altogether too individual, too +positive, too independently real, to fit the mawkish vapourings of a man's +imaginary woman. There was something about her that conquered me. Already +I was blushingly ashamed of my jealous suspicion that she could sell +herself by a marriage with Jervaise. In all her moods, she appeared to me +with an effect that I can only describe as "convincing." + +She was a perpetual revelation, and each new phase of her thrilled me with +admiration, and a sense of long-sought satisfaction. I could be content to +watch and to listen to her. The revelations of her personality were to me +as a continual and glorious adventure. To flirt with her would be a +confession on my part of a kind of superiority that I could never feel; a +suggestion of the ridiculous assumption that I could afford to dally with +and in certain circumstances flout her. I could sooner have dallied with +and flouted a supreme work of art. Wherefore when she challenged me with +her daring "Why?" I met her eyes with a look that if it in any way +represented what I was feeling, must have expressed a grave and sincere +humility. + +"I can hardly tell you why," I said. "I can only assure you that I am +profoundly interested." + +She accepted that statement with a readiness that gave me another thrill +of satisfaction. She understood my desire and gave way to it, instantly +fulfilling my present need of her. + +"My great-grandfather went back to Paris after things had settled down," +she went on, as if there had been no break in her narrative; "just as a +common workman. He was about thirty-five, then, I believe; his first wife +and his two children had died of small-pox in Holland, and he didn't marry +again until he was sixty. He had only one child afterwards; that was my +grandmother. But I can't tell you the story properly. You must get my +mother to do that. She makes such a lovely romance out of it. And it _is_ +rather romantic, too, isn't it? I like to feel that I've got that behind +me rather than all the stodgy old ancestors the Jervaises have got. +Wouldn't you?" + +"Rather," I agreed warmly. + +"If I didn't miss all the important points you'd think so," Anne replied +with a little childish pucker of perplexity coming in her forehead. "But +story-telling isn't a bit in my line. I wish it were. I can listen to +mother for hours, and I can never make out quite what it is she does to +make her stories so interesting. Of course she generally tells them in +French, which helps, but I'm no better in French than in English. Mother +has a way of saying 'Enfin' or 'En effet' that in itself is quite +thrilling." + +"You don't know quite how well you do it yourself," I said. + +She shook her head. "Not like mother," she asserted. With that childish +pucker still wrinkling her forehead she looked like a little girl of +fourteen. I could see her gazing up at her mother with some little halting +perplexed question. I felt as if she were giving me some almost miraculous +confidence, obliterating all the strangeness of new acquaintanceship by +displaying the story of her girlhood. + +"She puts mystery into it, too," she went on, still intent on the +difference between her own and her mother's methods. "And, I think, there +really is some mystery that she's never told us," she added as an +afterthought. "After my grandfather died, her mother married again, a +widower with one little girl, and when she grew up mother got her over +here as a sort of finishing governess to Olive Jervaise. She came a year +or two before Brenda was born. She was born in Italy. Did you know that? I +always wonder whether that's why she's so absolutely different from all +the others." + +"She certainly is. I don't know whether that's enough to explain it," I +commented. "And did your mother's step-sister go abroad with them?" + +"I believe so. She never came back here afterwards. She has been dead for +ages, now. But mother's always rather mysterious about her. That's how I +began, wasn't it? I know that she was very beautiful, and sometimes I +think I can just remember her. I must have been about four when she left +here, because I'm rather more than four years older than Brenda." + +The thought of Anne at four was not less fascinating to me than the +picture of her at fourteen. I was jealous of all her twenty-three years of +life. I wanted to have an intimate knowledge of all her past being; of +every least change and development that she had suffered since babyhood. + +But I was to have no more confidences of that sort just then. The child +disappeared from her face and speech as quickly as it had come. She +appeared to be dreaming, again, as she continued almost without a pause,-- + +"But it isn't my mother I'm sorry for in this affair. She'll arrange +herself. I think she'll be glad, in a way. We all should if it weren't for +my father. We're so ruled by the Jervaises here. And it's worse than that. +Their--their prestige sort of hangs over you everywhere. It's like being +at the court of Louis Quatorze. The estate is theirs and they are the +estate. Mother often says we are still feodal down here. It seems to me +sometimes that we're little better than slaves." + +I smiled at the grotesqueness of the idea. It was impossible to conceive +Anne as a slave. + +She was still gazing out of the window with that appearance of +abstraction, but she was evidently aware of my smile, for she said,-- + +"You think that's absurd, do you?" + +"In connection with you," I replied. "I can't see you as any one's slave." + +She gave me her attention again. "No, I couldn't be," she threw at me with +a hint of defiance; and before I had time to reply, continued, "I was +angry with Arthur for coming back. To go into service! I almost quarrelled +with mother over that. She was so weak about it. She hated his being so +far away. She didn't seem to mind anything as long as she could get him +home again. But Arthur's more like my father. He's got a strain of +Jervaise-worship in him, somewhere." + +"A very strong strain, just now," I suggested. + +She laughed. "Yes, he's Brenda's slave; always will be," she said. "But I +don't count her as a Jervaise. She's an insurgee like me--against her own +family. She'd do anything to get away from them." + +"Well, she will now," I said, "and your brother, too." + +That seemed to annoy her. "It may sound easy enough to you," she said, +"but it's going to be anything but easy. You can't possibly understand how +difficult it's going to be." + +"Can't you tell me?" I asked. + +She shrugged her shoulders as if she had suddenly become tired of my +questions, perhaps of myself, also. + +"You're so outside it all," she said. + +"I know I am," I admitted. "But--I don't want to remain outside." + +"I don't know why I've been telling you as much as I have," she returned. + +"I can only plead my profound interest," I said. + +"In Arthur? Or in us, generally?" she inquired and frowned as if she +forbade me to say that my chief interest might be in herself. + +"In all of you and in the situation," I tried, hoping to please her. "I +was prepared to dislike the Jervaises and all they stood for, before this +talk with you. Now..." + +"But you're well off, aren't you?" she said with a faint air of contempt. +"_You_ can't be an insurge. You'd be playing against your own side." + +"If you think that, why did you give me so much confidence to begin with?" +I retaliated. + +"Oh! I'm always doing silly things," she said. "It was silly to play with +that foolish Jervaise man this morning. It was silly to offend him this +evening. I don't--_think_. I ought to be whipped." She had apparently +forgotten her recent distrust of me, for she continued in the tone of one +who makes an ultimate confession. "As a matter of fact, I suppose I'm +chiefly responsible for the whole thing. I egged them on. Arthur would +have gone on adoring Brenda as a kind of divinity for ever, if I hadn't +brought them together. He's afraid to touch her, even now. I just didn't +think. I never do till it's too late." + +"But you're not sorry--about them, are you?" I put in. + +"I'm sorry for my father," she said. "Oh! I'm terribly sorry for him." Her +eyes were extraordinarily tender and compassionate as she spoke. I felt +that if any lover of Anne's could ever inspire such devotion as showed in +her face at that moment, he would indeed be blest. + +"He's sixty," she went on in a low, brooding voice, "and he's--he's +so--rooted." + +"Is there no chance of their letting you stay on, if Arthur and Brenda +went to Canada?" I asked. + +Her face was suddenly hard again as she replied. "I don't think there's +one chance in a million," she said. "The Jervaise prestige couldn't stand +such relations as us, living at their very doors. Besides, I know I've +upset that horrid Jervaise man. He'll be revengeful. He's so weak, and +that sort are always vindictive. He'll be mean and spiteful. Oh! no, it's +one of two things, either Arthur will have to go back to Canada without +Brenda, or we'll all have to go together." + +Her tone and attitude convinced me. If I had been able to consider the +case logically and without prejudice, I should probably have scorned this +presentation of rigid alternatives as the invention of a romantic mind; I +might have recognised in it the familiar device of the dramatist. But I +had so far surrendered myself to the charm of Anne's individuality that I +accepted her statement without the least shadow of criticism. It was the +search to find some mechanical means of influencing the Jervaises' +decision that reminded me of Arthur Banks's hint of an advantage that he +might use in a last emergency. + +"But your brother told me last night," I said, "that there was +some--'pull' or other he had, that might make a difference if it came to +desperate measures." + +"He didn't tell you what it was?" she asked, and I knew at once that she +was, after all, in her brother's confidence. + +"No, he gave me no idea," I replied. + +"He couldn't ever use that," she said decidedly. "He told me about it this +morning, before he went up to the Hall, and I--" + +"Dissuaded him?" I suggested, as she paused. + +"No! He saw it, himself," she explained. + +"It wasn't like Arthur--to think of such a thing, even--at ordinary times. +But after his quarrel with Brenda on the hill--if you could call it a +quarrel, when, so far as I can make out, Arthur never said a word the +whole time--after that, and Brenda being so eager to face them all out, +this morning; he got a little beyond himself." + +"Does Brenda know about this--pull?" I asked. + +"Of course not!" Anne replied indignantly. "How could we tell her that?" + +"I haven't the least notion what it is, you see," I apologised. + +"Oh! it's about old Mr. Jervaise," Anne explained without the least show +of reluctance. "There's some woman or other he goes to see in town. And +once or twice Arthur took him in the car. They forget we're human beings +at all, sometimes, you know. They think we're just servants and don't +notice things; or if we do notice them, that we shouldn't be so +disrespectful as to say anything. I don't know what they think. Anyhow, he +let Arthur drive him--twice, I believe it was--and the second time Arthur +looked at him when he came out of the house, and Mr. Jervaise must have +known that Arthur guessed. Nothing was said, of course, but he didn't ever +take Arthur again; but Arthur knows the woman's name and address. It was +in some flats, and the porter told him something, too." + +I realised that I had wasted my sympathy on old Jervaise. His air of a +criminal awaiting arrest had been more truly indicative than I could have +imagined possible. He had been expecting blackmail; had probably been +willing to pay almost any price to avoid the scandal. I wondered how far +the morning interview had relieved his mind? + +"That explains Mr. Jervaise's state of nerves this morning," I remarked. +"I could see that he was frightfully upset, but I thought it was about +Brenda. I had an idea that he might be very devoted to her." + +Anne pushed that aside with a gesture, as quite unworthy of comment. + +"But, surely, that really does give your brother some kind of advantage," +I went on thoughtlessly. I suppose that I was too intent on keeping Anne +in England to understand exactly what my speech implied. + +She looked at me with a superb scorn. "You don't mean to say," she said, +"that you think we'd take advantage of a thing like that? Father--or any +of us?" + +I had almost the same sense of being unjustly in disgrace that I had had +during the Hall luncheon party. I do not quite know what made me grasp at +the hint of an omission from her bravely delivered "any of us." I was +probably snatching at any straw. + +"Your mother would feel like that, too?" I dared in my extremity. + +Any ordinary person would have parried that question by a semblance of +indignation or by asking what I meant by it. Anne made no attempt to +disguise the fact that the question had been justified. Her scorn gave way +to a look of perplexity; and when she spoke she was staring out of the +window again, as if she sought the spirit of ultimate truth on some, to +me, invisible horizon. + +"She isn't practical," was Anne's excuse for her mother. "She's so--so +romantic." + +"I'm afraid I was being unpractical and romantic, too," I apologised, +rejoicing in my ability to make use of the precedent. + +Anne just perceptibly pursed her lips, and her eyes turned towards me with +the beginning of a smile. + +"You little thought what a romance you were coming into when you accepted +the invitation for that week-end--did you?" she asked. + +"My goodness!" was all the comment I could find; but I put a world of +feeling into it. + +"And I very nearly refused," I went on, with the excitement of one who +makes a thrilling announcement. + +Anne humoured my eagerness with a tolerant smile. "_Did_ you?" she said +encouragingly. + +"It was the merest chance that I accepted," I replied. "I was curious +about the Jervaise family." + +"Satisfied?" Anne asked. + +"Well, I've been given an opportunity of knowing them from the inside," I +said. + +"You'll be writing a play about us," Anne remarked carelessly. + +I was astonished to find that she knew I had written plays. "How did you +know that I did that sort of thing?" I asked. + +"I've seen one of them," she said. "'_The Mulberry Bush_'; when mother and +I were in London last winter. And Arthur said you were the same Mr. +Melhuish. I suppose Frank Jervaise had told him." + +"People who go to the theatre don't generally notice the name of the +author," I commented. + +"I do," she said. "I'm interested in the theatre. I've read dozens of +plays, in French, mostly. I don't think the English comedies are nearly so +well done. Of course, the French have only one subject, but they are so +much more witty. Have you ever read _Les Hannetons_, for instance?" + +"No. I've seen the English version on the stage," I said. + +I was ashamed of having written _The Mulberry Bush_, of having presumed to +write any comedy. I felt the justice of her implied criticism. Indeed, all +my efforts seemed to me, just then, as being worthless and insincere. All +my life, even. There was something definite and keen about this girl of +twenty-three that suddenly illuminated my intellectual and moral +flabbiness. She had already a definite attitude towards social questions +that I had never bothered to investigate. She had shown herself to have a +final pride in the matter of blackmailing old Jervaise. And in half a +dozen words she had exposed the lack of real wit in my attempts at +playwriting. I was humbled before her superior intelligence. Her speech +had still a faint flavour of the uneducated, but her judgments were +brilliantly incisive; despite her inferentially limited experience, she +had a clearer sight of humanity than I had. + +"You needn't look so depressed," she remarked. + +"I was thinking what a pity it is that you should go to Canada," I +returned. + +"I want to go," she said. "I want to feel free and independent; not a +chattel of the Jervaises." + +"But--Canada!" I remonstrated. + +"You see," she said, "I could never leave my father and mother. Wherever +they go, I must go, too. They've no one but me to look after them. And +this does, at last, seem, in a way, a chance. Only, I can't trust myself. +I'm too impulsive about things like this. Oh! do you think it might kill +my father if he were torn up by the roots? Sometimes I think it might be +good for him, and at others I'm horribly afraid." + +"Well, of course, I've never seen him..." I began. + +"And in any case, you're prejudiced," she interrupted me. Her tone had +changed again; it was suddenly light, almost coquettish, and she looked at +me with a challenging lift of her eyebrows, as if, most astonishingly, she +had read my secret adoration of her and defied me to acknowledge it. + +"In what way am I prejudiced?" I asked. + +"Hush! here's Brenda coming back," she said. + +I regretted extremely that Brenda should have returned at that moment, but +I was tremendously encouraged. Anne seemed in that one sentence to have +sanctioned the understanding that I was in love with her. Her warning of +the interruption seemed to carry some unspoken promise that I should be +given another opportunity. + + + + +XII + +CONVERSION + + +Anne had not once moved from her original place by the table in the course +of that long conversation of ours, and she still stood there, her +finger-tips resting on the oak with a powerful effect of poise when Brenda +came into the room. + +Brenda's actions were far more vivacious than her friend's. She came in +with an air of youthful exuberance, looked at me with a shade of inquiry, +and then sat down opposite Anne. + +"I came back over the hill and through the wood," she said, resting her +elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. "It's a topping evening. +Poor Arthur; I wish I could have gone with him. I offered to, but he +didn't want me to come. I'm not sure he didn't think they might kidnap me +if I went too near." She turned to me with a bright smile as she added, +"Could they keep me, Mr. Melhuish; shut me up or something?" + +"I'm not quite sure about that," I said, "but they could +arrest--Arthur"--(I could not call him anything else, I found)--"if he ran +away with you. On a charge of abduction, you know." + +"They could make it pretty nasty for us all round, in fact," Brenda +concluded. + +"I'm afraid they could," I agreed. + +She was looking extraordinarily pretty. The bizarre contrast between her +dark eyelashes and her fair hair seemed to find some kind of echo in the +combination of health and fragility that she expressed in her movements. +She appeared at once vital and delicate without being too highly-strung. I +could well understand how the bucolic strain in Arthur Banks was prostrate +with admiration before such a rare and exciting beauty. + +By the side of Brenda, Anne looked physically robust. The developed lines +of her figure emphasised Brenda's fragility. And yet Anne's eyes, her +whole pose, expressed a spirituality that Brenda lacked. Anne, with her +amazing changes of mood, her rapid response to emotion, gave expression to +some spirit not less feminine than Brenda's, but infinitely deeper. Behind +the moving shadows and sunlight of her impulses there lay always some +reminder of a constant orientation. She might trifle brilliantly with the +surface of life, but her soul was more steadfast than a star. Brenda might +love passionately, but her love would be relatively personal, selfish. +When Anne gave herself, she would love like a mother, with her whole +being. + +I came out of my day-dream to find that she was speaking of me. + +"Mr. Melhuish is half asleep," she was saying. "And I haven't got his room +ready after all this time." + +"He didn't get much sleep last night," Brenda replied. "We none of us did +for that matter. We were wandering round the Park and just missing each +other like the people in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_." + +"Come and help me to get that room ready," Anne said. "Father and mother +may be home any minute. They ought to have been back before." + +Brenda was on her feet in a moment. She appeared glad to have some excuse +for action. She was, no doubt, nervous and excited as to the probable +result of her lover's mission to the Hall, and wanted to be alone with +Anne in order that they might speculate upon those probabilities which +Banks's return would presently transform into certainties. + +Anne turned to me before they left the room and indicated three shelves of +books half hidden behind the settle. "You might find something to read +there, unless you'd sooner have a nap," she said. "We shan't be having +supper until eight." + +I preferred, however, to go out and make my own estimate of probabilities +in the serenity of the August evening. My mind was too full to read. I +wanted to examine my own ideas just then, not those of some other man or +woman. + +"I'm going for a walk," I said to Anne. "I want to think." And I looked at +her with a greater boldness than I had dared hitherto. I claimed a further +recognition of that understanding she had, as I believed, so recently +admitted. + +"To think out that play?" she returned lightly, but her expression did not +accord with her tone. She had paused at the door, and as she looked back +at me, there was a suggestion of sadness in her face, of regret, or it +might even have been of remorse. She looked, I thought, as though she were +sorry for me. + +She was gone before I could speak again. + + * * * * * + +I found my way out by the back door through which Jervaise and I had +entered all those incalculable hours ago; and I looked up at the window +from which Anne's beautiful voice had hailed me out of the night. I wanted +to think about her, to recall how she had looked and spoken--at that +window; in the course of her talk with Frank Jervaise; in the recent scene +in the farm sitting-room when she had ambushed herself so persistently +behind the ear of the settle; and, most of all, I desired to weigh every +tone and expression I could remember in that last long conversation of +ours; every least gesture or attention that might give me a hope of having +won, in some degree, her regard or interest. + +But the perplexing initiative of my intelligence would not, for some +reason, permit me to concentrate my thoughts on her at that moment. My +mind was bewilderingly full of Anne, but I could not think of her. When I +fell into the pose of gazing up at her window, the association suggested +not the memory I desired, but the picture of Frank Jervaise fumbling in +the darkness of the porch, and the excruciating anguish of Racquet's bark. +From that I fell to wondering why I had not seen Racquet on this occasion +of my second visit? I had not remembered him until then. + +I pulled myself up with an effort, and finding the surroundings of the +yard so ineffectual as a stimulus, I wandered down the hill towards the +wood. I suggested to myself that I might meet Banks returning from the +Hall, but my chief hope was that I might revive the romance of the night. + +The sun was setting clear and red, a different portent from the veiled +thing that had finally hidden itself in a huddle of purple and gray cloud +the night before. I had seen it from my bedroom at the Hall as I dressed +for dinner and had mildly regretted the threat of possible bad weather. I +had been a little bored by the anticipations I had formed of my week-end. +The Jervaises, from what I had seen of them, promised, I thought, to be +uncommonly dull. I had not seen Brenda before dinner. + +I roused myself again and made an effort to shift the depression that was +settling upon me, but the mood was not to be exorcised by any deliberate +attempt to revive the glow of adventure that had warmed my earlier +excursions through the wood. The very stillness of the evening, the air of +preparation for repose, the first faint suggestions of the passage from +summer to autumn, all had some effect of pervading melancholy. I found +myself speculating on the promise of change that my talk with Anne had +foreshadowed; of the uprooting of Farmer Banks, of the family's +emigration, and the sadness of their farewells to this exquisitely +peaceful country of England. + +And then the thought that I had unconsciously feared and repressed since I +had left the farm, broke through all these artificial abstractions and +forced itself upon my attention. I struggled against it vainly for a few +seconds and then braced myself to meet the realisation of my own failure. +For it was that shadow which had been stalking me since Anne had so +obliquely criticised my comedy. And it seemed to me now that her last +strange expression as she left the room, that look of pity and regret, had +all too surely indicated the certainty that she--I faced it with a kind of +bitter despair--that she despised me. I was "well-off." I belonged to the +Jervaises' class. She had flung those charges at me contemptuously before +she had finally dismissed my one futile claim to distinction by classing +me among the writers of that artificial English comedy which had not even +the redeeming virtue of wit. + +Not once in that long conversation with her had she shown the sudden spark +of recognition that had so wonderfully lighted my parting with her in the +night. She had given me her confidence about her family affairs because +she counted me as a new ally, however ineffective, coming in unexpectedly +to fight against the Jervaises. She had acknowledged my worship of her +because she was too clear-sighted and too honest to shirk my inevitable +declaration. But I could not doubt that she rated me as unworthy of her +serious attention. Her whole attitude proclaimed that her one instant of +reaching out towards me had been a mistake; one of the many impulses that +continually blossomed and died in her close intercourse with the spirit of +life. + +And I could not blame her for her contempt of me. I despised myself. I was +a man without a serious interest. I had escaped vice, but I had always +lived among surface activities. My highest ambition after I left Cambridge +had been to have one of my foolish plays mounted in a West-End theatre. I +had wanted to be talked about, to be a social success. And I had achieved +that ambition without much difficulty. I had had an independent +income--left me by my father who had died when I was in my second year at +Jesus--only three hundred a year, but enough for me to live upon without +working. I had gone often to the theatre in those days, and had scraped up +an acquaintance with a middle-aged actor, whose chief occupation had been +the stage-managing of new productions. With his help I had studied +stagecraft by attending rehearsals, the best possible school for a +would-be dramatist. And my first accepted play had been written in +collaboration with him. It had not been a great success, but I had gained +invaluable experience, and, after that, success had come to me rapidly and +easily. I found that I had the knack of writing pleasant little artificial +comedies. None of them had run for longer than eight months, and I had +only written five in all, but they had made me comparatively rich. At that +time my investments alone were bringing me in nearly two thousand a year. + +I was thirty-two, now, and it seemed to me looking back, that I had never +had one worthy ambition in all those years. I had never even been +seriously in love. Most deplorable of all I had never looked forward to a +future that promised anything but repetitions of the same success. + +What had I to live for? I saw before me a life of idleness with no decent +occupation, no objects, but the amassing of more money, the seeking of a +wider circle of acquaintances, dinner-parties at more select houses, an +increasing reputation as a deviser of workmanlike, tolerably amusing +plays. If I had had vices such as a promiscuous love of women, I might +have found the anticipation of such a future more tolerable. There might, +then, have been some incitement to new living, new experience. But I had +nothing. + +Yet until that evening in the wood I had hardly paused to consider what +would presently become of me. The gradual increase in my scale of personal +luxury had brought sufficient diversion and satisfaction. I had lived in +the pleasures of the moment, and had only rarely been conscious that those +pleasures were growing stale; that the crust of life upon which I had so +diligently crawled, was everywhere and always the same. + +Now it was as if that monotonous surface had amazingly split. My crawling +was paralysed and changed to a terrified stillness. I had paused, +horrified, at the mouth of a pit, and gazed down with a sick loathing at +the foundations of my life that had been so miraculously revealed. I did, +indeed, stand suddenly stock still in the wood, and staring down the +darkening vista of the path, saw not the entranced twilight that was +sinking the path in a pool of olive green shadows, but a kind of bioscopic +presentation of my own futile, monotonous existence. + +If Anne would have nothing to do with me, what, I asked myself, did the +world hold that could conceivably make my life worth living? + +I suppose most men and women have asked themselves the same question when +they have been unexpectedly stirred by a great love. The sense of +unworthiness comes with a shock of surprise that seems violently to tear +open the comfortable cloak of self-satisfaction. I had been content with +my life, even a little vain of my achievement, until that last +conversation with Anne; now I loathed the thought of my own inefficiency +and all my prospects of success appeared unendurably tame. I was in the +spiritual state of a religious convert, suddenly convinced of sin. + +And yet somehow in the depths of my consciousness there was a sensible +stir of resentment. The artificial being I had created during my +thirty-two years of life had an existence of its own and protested against +this threat of instant annihilation. I wanted to defend myself, and I was +petulantly irritable because I could find no defence. + +For the strange Fate that had planned this astounding revelation to me, +had apparently led up to it by the subtlest arrangement of properties and +events. My disgrace at the Jervaises' had prepared me for this moment. My +responses to humiliation had been, as it were, tested and strained by that +ordeal. And at the same time I had been powerfully influenced to despise +the life of the Jervaises and all that they stood for, socially and +ethically. Then, almost without a pause, a new ideal of life had been +presented to me; and the contrast had been so vivid as to awaken even my +dulled powers of apprehension. The Jervaise type was more or less familiar +to me; their acceptance of security as an established right, their lack of +anything like initiative, their general contentment with themselves, their +standards of judgment and their surroundings, represented the attitude +towards life with which I was most familiar. It had been my own attitude. +I had even dreamed of re-establishing the half-ruined home of the elder +branch of the Melhuish family in Derbyshire! + +And the contrast afforded by the lives and ambitions of Anne and her +brother had been so startling that I believe I must have been stirred by +it to some kind of awakening even had I not fallen in love with Anne. I +had been given so perfect an opportunity to enter into their feelings and +views by my strange and intimate association with their antagonism to all +that was typified by the rule of the Hall. By reason of my sympathy with +the Banks I had been able to realise the virtue of struggle and the evils +of the almost unlimited and quite indiscriminating power wielded by such +landowners as old Jervaise. And in condemning him and his family, I must +condemn myself also. We were all of us so smug and self-satisfied. We had +blindly believed that it was our birthright to reap where we had not sown. + +Nevertheless, though the truth was so plain to me in that moment, I +accepted it grudgingly. The voice of my artificial self clamoured for a +hearing. But these things were so, had always been so, it protested; what +could I do to change them? And probably, if it had not been for the force +of the thrilling passion of reverence and admiration for Anne that had +suddenly illuminated my whole being, the cultivated inertia of a life-time +would finally have conquered me. I should have thrust the problem away +from me and returned with a sensual satisfaction to the familiar way of +life I understood. I should have consoled myself with the reflection that +mine was not the temperament to face the ardours and disappointments of +struggle. + +As it was, I longed so furiously to justify myself before Anne; to win, by +some heroic measure, her good opinion, that the incentive of my passion +bore me triumphantly over the first re-actions of inertia and protest. I +could never return to my old complacency, although the mechanical, +accustomed habit of my thought had for me, as yet, no suggestion other +than some change in the ideal and manner of my writing. I thought vaguely +of attempting some didactic drama to illustrate the tragic contrast +between gentle and simple that had been so glaringly illuminated for me by +recent experience. Yet, even as I played with that idea, I recognised it +as a device of my old self to allay my discontent. I caught myself +speculating on the promise of the play's success, on the hope of winning +new laurels as an earnest student of sociology. I thrust that temptation +from me with a sneer at my own inherent hypocrisy. + +"But what else can you do?" argued my old self and my only reply was to +bluster. I bullied myself. I treated myself as a foolish child. The new +spirit in me waved its feeble arms and shouted wildly of its splendid +intentions. I could be immensely valiant in the presence of this single +listener, but the thought of Anne humiliated and subdued even this bright +new spirit that had so amazingly taken possession of me. I wondered if I +might not submit my problem to her ask her what she would have me to do. +Nevertheless, I knew that if I would win her esteem, I must act on my own +initiative. + +My conflict and realisation of new desires had had, however, one salutary +effect. The depression of my earlier mood had fallen from me. When I +looked round at the widening pool of darkness that flowed and deepened +about the undergrowth, I found that it produced no longer any impression +of melancholy. + +I lifted my head and marched forward with the resolution of a conqueror. + + * * * * * + +I was nearly clear of the wood when I saw Banks coming towards me. He was +carrying my suit-case, and behind him Racquet with a sprightly bearing of +the tail that contradicted the droop of his head, followed with the body +of a young rabbit. + +"Loot from the Hall?" I asked when I came within speaking distance. + +"Yes, he's been poaching again," Banks said, disregarding the application +of my remark to the suit-case. "Well, he can, now, for all I care. He can +have every blessed rabbit and pheasant in the Park if he likes. I'm done +with 'em." + +"Things gone badly?" I asked, stretching out my hand for the suit-case. + +"I'll carry it," he said, ignoring my question. "John had it ready packed +when I got there." + +I remembered with a passing qualm that John had not been tipped, but put +that thought away as a matter of no pressing importance. "Had he?" I +commented. "Well, you've carried it half-way, now, I'll carry it the other +half." + +"I can do it," he said. + +"You can but you won't," I replied. "Hand it over." I regarded the +carrying of that suit-case as a symbol of my new way of life. I hoped that +when we arrived at the Farm, Anne might see me carrying it, and realise +that even a writer of foolish comedies, who was well off and belonged to +the Jervaises' class, might aspire to be the equal of her brother. + +"It's all right," Banks said, and his manner struck a curious mean between +respect and friendship. + +I laid hold of the suit-case and took it from him almost by force. + +"You see, it isn't so much a suit-case as a parable," I explained. + +He looked at me, still reluctant, with an air of perplexity. + +"A badge of my friendship for you and your family," I enlarged. "You and +I, my boy, are pals, now. I take it you've left the Jervaises' service for +good. Imagine that this is Canada, not an infernal Park with a label on +every blade of grass warning you not to touch." + +"That's all right," he agreed. "But it's extraordinary how it hangs about +you. You know--the feeling that they've somehow got you, everywhere. Damn +it, if I met the old man in the wood I don't believe I could help touching +my hat to him." + +"Just habit," I suggested. + +"A mighty strong one, though," he said. + +"Wait till you're breathing the free air of Canada again," I replied. + +"Ah! that's just it," he said. "I may have to wait." + +I made sounds of encouragement. + +"Or go alone," he added. + +"They've cut up rough, then?" I inquired. + +"Young Frank has, anyway," he said with a brave assumption of breaking +away from servility. + +"You didn't see the old man?" + +"Never a sight of him." + +"And young Frank...?" + +"Shoved it home for all he was worth. Threatened me with the law and what +not. Said if I tried to take Her with me they'd have us stopped and take +an action against me for abduction. I suppose it's all right that they can +do that?" + +"I'm afraid it is," I said; "until she comes of age." + +"Glad I'd taken the car back, anyhow," Banks muttered, and I guessed that +young Frank's vindictiveness had not been overestimated by Anne. No doubt, +he would have been glad enough to complicate the issue by alleging Banks's +theft of that car. + +"Well, what do you propose to do now?" I asked, after a short interval of +silence. + +"_I_ don't know," Banks said desperately, and then added, "It depends +chiefly on Her." + +"She'll probably vote for an elopement," I suggested. + +"And if they come after us and I'm bagged?" + +"Don't let yourself get bagged. Escape them." + +"D'you think she'd agree to that? Sneaking off and hiding? Dodging about +to get out of the country, somehow?" His tone left me uncertain whether he +were asking a question or spurning the idea in disgust. + +"Well, what's the alternative?" I replied. + +"We might wait," he said. "She'll be of age in thirteen months' time." + +I had no fear but that Banks would wait thirteen months, or thirteen +years, for Brenda. I was less certain about her. Just now she was head +over ears in romance, and I believed that if she married him his sterling +qualities would hold her. But I mistrusted the possible effect upon her of +thirteen months' absence. The Jervaises would know very well how to use +their advantage. They would take her away from the Hall and its +associations, and plunge her into the distractions of a society that could +not yet have lost its glamour for her. I could picture Brenda looking back +with wonder at the foolishness of the girl who had imagined herself to be +in love with her father's chauffeur. And even an hour earlier, so recent +had been my true conversion, I should have questioned the advisability of +a hasty, secret marriage between these two temporarily infatuated people. +Now I was hot with the evangelising passion of a young disciple. I wanted +to deliver Brenda from the thrall of society at any price. It seemed to me +that the greatest tragedy for her would be a marriage with some one in her +own class--young Turnbull, for instance. + +"I shouldn't wait," I said decidedly. + +"Why not?" he asked with a touch of resentment, as if he had guessed +something of my mistrust of Brenda. + +"All very well, in a way, for you," I explained. "But think what an awful +time she'd have, with all of them trying to nag her into a marriage with +young Turnbull, or somebody of that kind." + +"He isn't so bad as some of 'em," Banks said, evading the main issue. +"She'd never marry him though. She knows him too well, for one thing. He's +been scouring the county in a dog-cart all the morning--went to Hurley to +make inquiries before breakfast, and all over the place afterwards. John's +been telling me. He heard 'em talking when young Turnbull turned up at +tea-time. He's got guts all right, that fellow. I believe he'd play the +game fair enough if they tried to make her marry him. Besides, as I said, +she'd never do it." + +"I don't suppose she would," I said, humouring him--it was no part of my +plan to disturb his perfect faith in Brenda--"I only said that she'd have +a rotten bad time during those thirteen months." + +"Well, we've got to leave that to her, haven't we?" Banks returned. + +I thought not, but I judged it more tactful to keep my opinion to myself. + +"We shall be quite safe in doing that," I said as we turned into the back +premises of the Home Farm. + +Banks had forgotten about my suit-case, and I bore the burden of it, +flauntingly, up the hill. Racquet followed us with an air of conscious +humility. + +And it was Racquet that Anne first addressed when she met us at the door +of the house. + +"Whose rabbit is that?" she asked sternly. + +Racquet instantly dropped his catch and slowly approached Anne with a mien +of exaggerated abasement. + +"If you were an out and out socialist, I shouldn't mind," Anne continued, +"but you shouldn't do these things if you're ashamed of them afterwards." + +Racquet continued to supplicate her with bowed head, but he gave one +surreptitious flick of his stumpy tail, that to me had the irresistible +suggestion of a wink. + +"Hypocrite!" Anne said, whereupon Racquet, correctly judging by her tone +that his forgiveness was assured, made one splendid leap at her, returned +with an altogether too patent eagerness to his rabbit, picked it up, and +trotted away round the corner of the house. + +"Isn't he a humbug?" Anne asked looking at me, and continued without +waiting for my confirmation of the epithet, "Why didn't you let Arthur +carry that?" + +"He carried it half the way," I said. "He and I are the out and out kind +of socialist." + +She did not smile. "Father and mother are home," she said, turning to her +brother. "I can see by your face the sort of thing they've been saying to +you at the Hall, so I suppose we'd better have the whole story on the +carpet over supper. Father's been asking already what Brenda's here for." + + + + +XIII + +FARMER BANKS + + +Anne showed me up to my room as soon as we entered the house, but her +manner was that of the hostess to a strange guest. She was polite, formal, +and, I thought, a trifle nervous. She left me hurriedly as soon as she had +opened the door of the bedroom, with some apology about having to "see to +the supper." (The smell of frying bacon had pervaded the staircase and +passages, and had helped me to realise that I was most uncommonly hungry. +Except for a very light lunch I had eaten nothing since breakfast.) + +I got my first real feeling of the strangeness of the whole affair while I +was unpacking my suit-case in that rather stiff, unfriendly spare-room. +Until then the sequence of events had followed a hot succession, in the +current of which I had had no time to consider myself--my ordinary, daily +self--in relation to them. But the associations of this familiar position +and occupation, this adaptation of myself for a few hours to a strange +household, evoked the habitual sensations of a hundred similar +experiences. Twenty-four hours earlier I had been dressing for dinner at +Jervaise Hall, and despite my earnest affirmations that in the interval my +whole life and character had changed, I was very surely aware that I was +precisely the same man I had always been--the man who washed, and changed +his tie, and brushed his hair in just this same manner every day; who +looked at himself in the glass with that same half-frowning, half-anxious +expression, as if he were uncertain whether to resent or admire the +familiar reflection. I was confronted by the image of the Graham Melhuish +to whom I had become accustomed; the image of the rather well-groomed, +rather successful young man that I had come to regard as the complete +presentation of my individuality. + +But now I saw that that image in the glass could never have done the +things that I had done that day. I could not imagine that stereotyped +creature wanting to fight Frank Jervaise, running away from the Hall, +taking the side of a chauffeur in an intrigue with his master's daughter, +falling in love with a woman he had not known for twenty-four hours, and, +culminating wonder, making extraordinary determinations to renounce the +pleasures and comforts of life in order to ... I could not quite define +what, but the substitute was something very strenuous and difficult and +self-sacrificing. + +Nevertheless, some one had done all these things, and if it were not that +conventional, self-satisfied impersonation now staring back at me with a +look of perplexed inquiry, where was I to find his outward likeness? Had I +looked a different man when I was talking to Anne in the Farm parlour or +when I had communed with myself in the wood? Or if the real Graham +Melhuish were something better and deeper than this fraudulent reflection +of him, how could he get out, get through, in some way or other achieve a +permanent expression to replace this deceptive mask? Also, which of us was +doing the thinking at that moment? Did we take it turn and turn about? +Five minutes before the old, familiar Melhuish had undoubtedly been +unpacking his bag in his old familiar way, and wondering how he had come +to do all the queer things he unquestionably had been doing in the course +of this amazing weekend. Now, the new Melhuish was uppermost again, +speculating about the validity of his soul--a subject that had certainly +never concerned the other fellow, hitherto. + +But it was the other fellow who was in the ascendant when I entered the +farm sitting-room in answer to the summons of a falsetto bell. I was shy. +I felt like an intruder. I was afraid that Farmer Banks would treat me as +a distinguished visitor, and that my efforts to attain the happy freedom +of an equal might--in the eyes of Anne--appear condescending. The new self +I had so lately discovered was everybody's equal, but, just then, I was +out of touch with my new self. + +Nor did Farmer Banks's natural courtesy tend to put me at ease. He and +Arthur were alone in the room when I came down and it was Arthur who, with +an evident self-consciousness, introduced me. + +"Mr. Melhuish, father," was all he said, and I had no idea how much of the +story the old man had, as yet, been told. + +He made a kind of stiff bow and held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, +Mr. Melhuish," he said, and his manner struck a mean between +respectfulness and self-assertion. It was the kind of manner that he might +have shown to a titled canvasser just before an election. + +He was a notably handsome man, tall and broad, with regular, impassive +features and blue eyes exactly the colour of Arthur's. Save that his back +was slightly rounded and that his closely-cropped hair was iron-gray, he +showed little mark of his sixty years. He seemed to me the very type of an +English yeoman, not markedly intelligent outside his own speciality, and +conservative to the point of fanaticism. When I thought of trying to +persuade him to forsake the usage of a lifetime and begin again in a +foreign country under new conditions, my heart failed me. Upstairs, before +the looking-glass, I had had my doubts of the possibility of ever ousting +the old Graham Melhuish; but those doubts appeared the most childish +exaggerations of difficulty when compared with my doubts of persuading the +man before me to alter his habits and his whole way of life. It seemed to +me that the spirit of Farmer Banks must be encrusted beyond all hope of +release. + +I mumbled some politeness in answer to his unanswerable opening, and +started the one possible topic of the weather. I was grossly ignorant of +the general requirements of agriculture in that or any other connection, +but any one knows a farmer wants fine weather for harvest. + +He took me up with a slightly exaggerated air of relief, and I dare say we +could have kept the subject going for ten minutes if it had been +necessary, but he had hardly begun his reply before the three women for +whom we had been waiting came into the room together. + +When I met Mr. Banks I felt, at once, that I might have inferred him with +nice accuracy from what I already knew of him. Mrs. Banks was a surprise. +I had pictured her as tall and slight, and inclined to be sombre. Anne's +hints of the romantic side of her mother's temperament had, for some +reason, suggested that image to me, and I was quite absurdly dumfounded +for the moment when I saw this little, roundabout, dark-haired +Frenchwoman, as typically exotic as her husband was home-grown, voluble, +brisk despite the handicap of her figure, and with nothing English about +her unless it were her accent. + +Fortunately she gave me no time to display the awkwardness of my surprise. +She came straight at me, talking from the instant she entered the door. +"Discussing the crops already?" she said. "You must forgive us, Mr. +Melhuish, for being so interested in the weather. When one's fortune +depends upon it, one naturally thinks of little else." She gave me her +small plump hand with an engaging but, as it were, a breathless smile. +"And you must be starving," she continued rapidly. "Anne tells me you had +no tea at all anywhere, and that the people at the Hall have been treating +you outrageously. So! will you sit there and Anne next to you, and those +two dreadful children who won't be separated, together on the other side." + +She was apparently intent only upon this business of getting us into our +places about the supper-table, and not until I had sat down did I realise +that her last sentence had been an announcement intended for her husband. + +"What did you say, Nancy?" he asked with a puzzled air. He was still +standing at the head of the table and staring with obvious embarrassment +at his wife. + +She waved her hands at him. "Sit down, Alfred," she commanded him, and in +her pronunciation of his name I noticed for the first time the ripple of a +French "r." Possibly her manner of speaking his name was a form of +endearment. "All in good time, you shall hear about it directly. Now, we +are all very hungry and waiting for you." And without the least hint of a +pause she turned to me and glided over an apology for the nature of the +meal. "We call it supper," she said, "and it is just a farm-house supper, +but better in its way, don't you think, than a formal dinner?" She took me +utterly into her confidence with her smile as she added, "Up at the Hall +they make so much ceremony, all about nothing. I am not surprised that you +ran away. But it was very original, all the same." She introduced me to +the first course without taking breath, "Eggs and bacon. So English. Isn't +there a story of a man who starved to death on a walking-tour because he +could no longer endure to eat eggs and bacon? And when you have eaten +something you must tell us what you have all four been doing while my +husband and I were away. So far as I can understand you have turned the +universe completely inside out. We came back believing that we return to +the Farm, but I think it has become a Fortress...." + +I ventured a glance at her husband. These flickering allusions of hers to +the tragedy that was threatening him, seemed to me indiscreet and rather +too frivolous. But when I saw his look of puzzled wonder and admiration, I +began to appreciate the subtlety and wisdom of her method. Using me as a +convenient intermediary, she was breaking the news by what were, to him, +almost inappreciable degrees. He took in her hints so slowly. He was not +sure from moment to moment whether or not she was in earnest. +Nevertheless, I recognised, I thought, at least one cause for +perturbation. He had been perceptibly ruffled and uneasy at the reference +to an understanding between his son and Brenda. Probably the fear of that +complication had been in his mind for some time past. + +Mrs. Banks had slid away to the subject of local scenery. + +"It is beautiful in its own way," she was saying, "but I feel with Arthur +that it has an air of being so--preserved. It is so proper, well-adjusted, +I forget the English word ..." + +I suggested "trim" as a near translation of "propre" and "bien-ajuste." + +"Trim, yes," she agreed enthusiastically. "My daughter tells me you are an +author. There are three lime trees in the pasture and the cattle have +eaten the branches as high as they can reach, so that now the trees have +the precise shape of a bell. Even the trees in the Park, you see, are +trim--not, it is true, like Versailles, where the poor things are made to +grow according to plan--but all the county is one great landscape garden; +all of England, nearly. Don't you agree with me? One feels that there must +always be a game-keeper or a policeman just round the corner." + +She waited for my answer this time, and something in the eagerness of her +expression begged me to play up to her lead. + +"I know exactly what you mean," I said, intensely aware of Anne's +proximity. "I was thinking something of the same kind, only this evening, +when I went to meet Arthur in the wood. He and I were discussing it, too, +as we came back. That sense of everything belonging to some one else, of +having no right, hardly the right to breathe without the Jervaises' +permission." + +Her gesture finally confirmed the fact that perfect confidence was +established between us. I felt as if she had patted my shoulder. But she +may have been afraid that I might blunder into too obvious a statement, if +I were permitted to continue, for she abruptly changed her tactics by +saying to Brenda,-- + +"So you ran away in the middle of the dance?" + +"Well, we'd finished dancing, as a matter of fact," Brenda explained. + +Mr. Banks shifted uneasily in his chair. "Ran away, Miss Brenda?" he +asked. "Did you say you'd run away?" + +She flattered him with a look that besought his approval. "I simply +couldn't stand it any longer," she said. + +"But you'll be going back?" he returned, after a moment's pause. + +She shook her head, still regarding him attentively with an air of appeal +that implied submission to his judgment. + +He had stopped eating, and now pushed his chair back a little from the +table as though he needed more space to deal with this tremendous problem. + +"You'll be getting us into trouble, Miss Brenda," he warned her gravely. +"It wouldn't do for us to keep you here, if they're wanting you to go back +home." + +"Well, Alfred, we've as much right to her as they have," Mrs. Banks put +in. + +The effect upon him of that simple speech was quite remarkable. He opened +his fine blue eyes and stared at his wife with a blank astonishment that +somehow conveyed an impression of fear. + +"Nancy! Nancy!" he expostulated in a tone that besought her to say no +more. + +She laughingly waved her hands at him, using the same gesture with which +she had commanded him to sit down. "Oh! we've got to face it, Alfred," she +said. "Arthur and Brenda believe they're in love with one another, and +that's all about it." + +Banks shook his head solemnly, but it seemed to me that his manner +expressed relief rather than the added perturbation I had expected. "No, +no, it won't do. That'd never do," he murmured. "I've been afraid of this, +Miss Brenda," he continued; "but you must see for yourself that it'd never +do--our position being what it is. Your father'd never hear of such a +thing; and you'd get us all into trouble with him if he thought we'd been +encouraging you." + +He drew in his chair and returned to his supper as if he regarded the +matter as being now definitely settled. "I don't know what Mr. Melhuish +will be thinking of us," he added as an afterthought. + +"Oh! Mr. Melhuish is on our side," Mrs. Banks returned gaily. + +"Nancy! Nancy!" he reproved her. "This is too serious a matter to make a +joke about." + +I was watching Mrs. Banks, and saw the almost invisible lift of the +eyebrows with which she passed on the conduct of the case to Anne. + +"Mother isn't joking, dear," Anne said, accepting the signal without an +instant's hesitation. "Really serious things have been happening while you +were away." + +Her father frowned and shook his head. "This isn't the place to discuss +them," he replied. + +"Well, father, I'm afraid we must discuss them very soon," Anne returned; +"because Mr. Jervaise might be coming up after supper." + +"Mr. Jervaise? Coming here?" Banks's tone of dismay showed that he was +beginning, however slowly, to appreciate the true significance of the +situation. + +"Well, we don't know that he is," Arthur put in. "I just thought it was +possible he and Mr. Frank might come up this evening." + +"They will certainly come. Have no doubt of that," Mrs. Banks remarked. + +The old man turned to his son as if seeking a refuge from the intrigues of +his adored but incomprehensible womenfolk. + +"What for?" he asked brusquely. + +"To take her back to the Hall," Arthur said with the least possible +inclination of his head towards Brenda. + +Banks required a few seconds to ponder that, and his wife and daughter +waited in silence for his reply. I had a sense of them as watching over, +and at once sheltering and directing him. Nevertheless, though I admired +their gentle deftness, I think that at that point of the discussion some +forcible male element in me sided very strongly with old Banks. I was +aware of the pressure that was so insensibly surrounding him as of a +subtly entangling web that seemed to offer no resistance, and yet was +slowly smothering him in a million intricate intangible folds. And, after +all, why should he be torn away from his root-holds, exiled to some +forlorn unknown country where his very methods of farming would be +inapplicable? Brenda and Arthur were young and capable. Let them wait, at +least until she came of age. Let her be tried by an ordeal of patient +resistance. If she were worthy she could fight her family for those +thirteen months and win her own triumph without injuring poor Banks. + +And whether because I had communicated my thought to her by some change of +attitude or because she intuitively shared my sympathy for her father, +Anne turned to me just before she spoke, with a quick little, impatient +gesture as if beseeching me not to interfere. I submitted myself to her +wish with a distinct feeling of pleasure, but made no application of my +own joy in serving her to the case of her father. + +He was speaking again, now, with a solemn perplexity, as if he were +confusedly challenging the soft opposition of his women's influence. + +"But, of course, she must go back to the Hall," he said. "You wouldn't +like to get us into trouble, would you, Miss Brenda? You see," he pushed +his chair back once more, in the throes of his effort to explain himself, +"your father would turn me out, if there was any fuss." + +He was going on, but his wife, with a sudden magnificent violence, +scattered the web she and her daughter had been weaving. + +"And that might be the best thing that could happen to us, Alfred," she +said. "Oh! I'm so sick and tired of these foolish Jervaises. They are like +the green fly on the rose trees. They stick there and do nothing but suck +the life out of us. You are a free man. You owe them nothing. Let us break +with them and go out, all of us, to Canada with Arthur and Brenda. As for +me, I would rejoice to go." + +"Nancy! Nancy!" he reproached her for the third time, with a humouring +shake of his head. They were past the celebration of their silver wedding, +but it was evident that he still saw in her the adorable foolishness of +one who would never be able to appreciate the final infallibility of +English standards. He loved her, he would make immense personal sacrifices +for her, but in these matters she was still a child, a foreigner. Just so +might he have reproached Anne at three years old for some infantile +naughtiness. + +"It may come to that," Arthur interjected, gloomily. + +"You're talking like a fool, Arthur," his father said. "What'd I do at my +age--I'll be sixty-one next month--trapesing off to Canada?" He felt on +safer ground, more sure of his authority in addressing his son. He was +English. He might be rebellious and need chastisement, but he would not be +swayed by these whimsical notions that sometimes bewitched his mother and +sister. + +"But, father, we may _have_ to go," Anne softly reminded him. + +"Have to? Have to?" he repeated, with a new note of irritability sounding +in his voice. "He hasn't been doing anything foolish, has he? Nothing as +can't be got over?" + +It was his wife who replied to that. "We've had our time, Alfred," she +said. "We have to think of them now. We must not be selfish. They are +young and deeply in love, as you and I were once. We cannot separate them +because we are too lazy to move. And sixty? Yes, it is true that you are +sixty, but you are strong and your heart is still young. It is not as if +you were an old man." + +Arthur and Brenda looked acutely self-conscious. Brenda blushed and seemed +inclined to giggle. Arthur's face was set in the stern lines of one who +hears his own banns called in church. + +Banks leaned back in his chair and stared apprehensively at his wife. +"D'ye mean it, Nancy...?" he asked, and something in his delivery of the +phrase suggested that he had come down to a familiar test of decision. I +could only infer that whenever she had confessed to "meaning it" in the +past, her request had never so far been denied. I guessed, also, that +until now she had never been outrageous in her demands. + +"What else can be done, dear?" she replied gently. "There is no choice +otherwise, except for them to separate." + +He looked at the culprits with an expression of bewilderment. Why should +their little love affair be regarded as being of such tragic consequence, +he seemed to ask. What did they mean to him and his wife and daughter? Why +should they be considered worthy of what he could only picture as a +supreme, and almost intolerable sacrifice? These young people were always +having love affairs. + +He thrust his inquiry bluntly at Brenda. "Are you in earnest, then, Miss +Brenda?" he asked. "D'you tell me that you want to marry him--that you're +set on it?" + +"I mean to marry him whatever happens," Brenda replied in a low voice. She +was still abashed by this public discussion of her secrets. And it was +probably with some idea of diverting him from this intimate probing of her +desires that she continued more boldly. "We would go off together, without +your consent, you know, if we thought it would do any good. But it +wouldn't, would it? They'd probably be more spiteful still, if we did +that. Even if they could keep it dark, they'd never let you stay on here. +But do you really think it would be so awful for us all to go to Canada +together? It's a wrench, of course, but I expect it would be frightfully +jolly when we got there. Arthur says it is." + +He turned from her with the least hint of contempt to look at his son. +"You've lost _your_ place a'ready, I suppose?" he said, trying to steady +himself by some familiar contact, an effort that would have been absurd if +it had not been so pathetic. + +Arthur nodded, as stolid as an owl. + +His father continued to search him with the same half-bewildered stare. + +"What are you going to do, then?" he asked. + +"She and I are going back, whatever happens." Arthur said. + +"And suppose they won't let her go?" + +"They'll have to." + +"Have to!" Banks recited, raising his voice at the repetition of this +foolish phrase. "And how in the world are you going to make 'em?" + +"The Jervaises aren't everybody," Arthur growled. + +"You'll find they're a sight too strong for the like of us to go against," +Banks affirmed threateningly. + +Arthur looked stubborn and shook his head. "They aren't what you think +they are, father," he began, and then, seeing the incredulity on the old +man's face, he went on in a slightly raised voice, "Well, I know they +aren't. I've been up there twice to-day. I saw Mr. Jervaise this morning; +went to the front door and asked for him, and when I saw him I put it to +him straight that I meant to--that we were going to get married." + +"You did," murmured Banks in an undertone of grieved dismay. + +"I did, father," Arthur proceeded; "and if it hadn't been for young Mr. +Frank, we'd have come to some sort of understanding. Mr. Jervaise didn't +actually say 'No,' as it was." + +"And you went up again this evening?" Banks prompted him. + +"Yes; I only saw Mr. Frank, then," Arthur replied, "and he was in such a +pad, there was no talking to him. Anne can tell you why." + +Banks did not speak but he turned his eyes gravely to his daughter. + +Anne lifted her head with the movement of one who decides to plunge and be +done with it. "He'd been making love to me in the morning," she said; "and +I--played with him for Arthur's sake. I thought it might help, and +afterwards I showed him that I'd been letting him make a fool of himself +for nothing, that's all." + +The old man made no audible comment, but his head drooped a little forward +and his body seemed to shrink a little within the sturdy solidity of his +oak armchair. Anne, also, had betrayed him. Perhaps, he looked forward and +saw the Home Farm without Anne--she could not stay after that--and +realised that the verdict of his destiny was finally pronounced. + +I turned my eyes away from him, and I think the others, too, feigned some +preoccupation that left him a little space of solitude. We none of us +spoke, and I knew by the sound of the quick intake of her breath that Mrs. +Banks was on the verge of weeping. + +I looked up, almost furtively, when I heard the crash of footsteps on the +gravel outside, and I found that the other three with the same instinctive +movement of suspense were turning towards Mrs. Banks. + +She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and nodded to Anne, a nod +that said plainly enough, "It's them--the Jervaises." + +And then we were all startled by the sound of the rude and unnecessary +violence of their knock at the front door. No doubt, Frank was still "in a +pad." + +Yet no one moved until the old man at the head of the table looked up with +a deep sigh, and said,-- + +"They'd better come in and be done with it, Nancy." + +His glance was slowly travelling round the room as if he were bidding +those familiar things a reluctant farewell. All his life had been lived in +that house. + + + + +XIV + +MRS. BANKS + + +The insulting attack upon the front door was made again with even greater +violence while we still waited, united, as I believe, in one sympathetic +resolve to shield the head of the house from any unnecessary distress. He +alone was called upon to make sacrifice; it was our single duty and +privilege to encircle and protect him. And if my own feelings were +representative, we fairly bristled with resentment when this vulgar demand +for admittance was repeated. These domineering, comfortable, +respectability-loving Jervaises were the offenders; the sole cause of our +present anxiety. We had a bitter grievance against them and they came +swaggering and bullying, as if the threat to their silly prestige were the +important thing. + +"You'd better go, dear," Mrs. Banks said with a nod to Anne. The little +woman's eyes were bright with the eagerness for battle, but she continued +to talk automatically on absurdly immaterial subjects to relieve the +strain of even those few seconds of waiting. + +"Our maid is out, you see, Mr. Melhuish," she explained quickly, and +turning to Brenda, continued without a pause, "So Anne has even had to +lend you a dress. You're about of a height, but you're so much slighter. +Still, with very little alteration, her things would fit you very well. If +we should be obliged ..." She broke off abruptly as Anne returned, +followed by Mr. Jervaise and the glowering, vindictive figure of his son. + +Anne's manner of entrance alone would have been sufficient to demonstrate +her attitude to the intruders, but she elected to make it still more +unmistakable by her announcement of them. + +"The Jervaises, mother," she said, with a supercilious lift of her head. +She might have been saying that the men had called for the rent. + +Little Mrs. Banks looked every inch an aristocrat as she received them. +The gesture of her plump little white hands as she indicated chairs was +almost regal in its authority. + +Old Jervaise, obviously nervous, accepted the invitation, but Frank, after +closing the door, stood leaning with his back against it. The position +gave him command of the whole room, and at the same time conveyed a +general effect of threat. His attitude said, "Now we've got you, and none +of you shall leave the room until you've paid in full for your +impertinence." I had guessed from his knock that he had finally put his +weakness for Anne away from him. He was clever enough to realise just how +and why she had fooled him. His single object, now, was revenge. + +Banks brooded, rather neglected and overlooked in a corner by the window. +He appeared to have accepted his doom as assured, and being plunged into +the final gulf of despair, he had, now, no heart even to be apologetic. +The solid earth of his native country was slipping away from him; nothing +else mattered. + +There was one brief, tense interval of silence before old Jervaise began +to speak. We all waited for him to state the case; Frank because he meant +to reserve himself for the dramatic moment; we others because we preferred +to throw the onus of statement upon him. (I do believe that throughout +that interview it is fair to speak of "we others," of the whole six of us, +almost as of a single mind with a single intention. We played our +individual parts in our own manners, but we were subject to a single will +which was, I firmly believe, the will of Mrs. Banks. Even her husband +followed her lead, if he did it with reluctance, while the rest of us +obeyed her with delight.) + +Old Jervaise fumbled his opening. He looked pale and tired, as if he would +be glad to be out of it. + +"We have called," he began, striving for an effect of magisterial gravity; +"we have come here, Mrs. Banks, to fetch my daughter. I understand that +you've been away from home--you and your husband--and you're probably not +aware of what has taken--has been going on in your absence." + +"Oh! yes, we know," Mrs. Banks put in disconcertingly. She was sitting +erect and contemptuous in her chair at the foot of the table. For one +moment something in her pose reminded me of Queen Victoria. + +"Indeed? You have heard; since your return?" faltered old Jervaise. "But I +cannot suppose for one moment that either you or your husband approve +of--of your son's gross misbehaviour." He got out the accusation with an +effort; he had to justify himself before his son. But the slight stoop of +his shoulders, and his hesitating glances at Mrs. Banks were propitiatory, +almost apologetic. It seemed to me that he pleaded with her to realise +that he could say and do no less than what he was saying and doing; to +understand and to spare him. + +"But that is new to me," Mrs. Banks replied. "I have heard nothing of any +gross misbehaviour." + +She was so clearly mistress of the situation that I might have been sorry +for old Jervaise, if it had not been for the presence of that scowling +fool by the door. + +"I--I'm afraid I can describe your son's conduct as--as nothing less than +gross misbehaviour," the old man stammered, "having consideration to his +employment. But, perhaps, you have not been properly informed of the--of +the offence." + +"Is it an offence to love unwisely, Mr. Jervaise?" Mrs. Banks shot at him +with a sudden ferocity. + +He blustered feebly. "You _must_ see how impossible it is for your son to +dream of marrying my daughter," he said. The blood had mounted to his +face; and he looked as if he longed to get up and walk out. I wondered +vaguely whether Frank had had that eventuality in mind when he blockaded +the door with his own gloomy person. + +"Tchah!" ejaculated Mrs. Banks with supreme contempt. "Do not talk that +nonsense to me, but listen, now, to what I have to say. I will make +everything quite plain to you. We have decided that Arthur and Brenda +shall be married; but we condescend to that amiable weakness of yours +which always demands that there shall be no scandal. It must surely be +your motto at the Hall to avoid scandal--at any cost. So we are agreed to +make a concession. The marriage we insist upon; but we are willing, all of +us, to emigrate. We will take ourselves away, so that no one can point to +the calamity of a marriage between a Banks and a Jervaise. It will, I +think, break my husband's heart, but we see that there is nothing else to +be done." + +Old Jervaise's expression was certainly one of relief. He would, I am +sure, have agreed to that compromise if he had been alone; he might even +have agreed, as it was, if he had been given the chance. But Frank +realised his father's weakness not less surely than we did, and although +this was probably not the precise moment he would have chosen, he +instantly took the case into his own hands. + +"Oh! no, Mrs. Banks, certainly not," he said. "In the first place we did +not come here to bargain with you, and in the second it must be perfectly +plain to you that the scandal remains none the less because you have all +gone away. We have come to fetch my sister home, that's the only thing +that concerns you." + +"And if she will not go with you?" asked Mrs. Banks. + +"She must," Frank returned. + +"And still, if she will not go?" + +"Then we shall bring an action against you for abducting her." + +Mrs. Banks smiled gently and pursed her mouth "To avoid a scandal?" she +asked. + +"If you persist in your absurd demands, there will be a scandal in any +case," Frank replied curtly. + +"I suppose my wishes don't count at all?" Brenda put in. + +"Obviously they don't," Frank said. + +"But, look here, father," Brenda continued, turning to old Jervaise; +"_why_ do you want me to come back? We've never got on, I and the rest of +you. _Why_ can't you let me go and be done with it?" + +Jervaise fidgeted uneasily and looked up with a touch of appeal at his +son. He had begun to mumble some opening when Frank interposed. + +"Because we won't," he said, "and that's the end of it. There's nothing +more to be said. I've told you precisely how the case stands. Either you +come back with us without a fuss, or we shall begin an action at once." + +I know now that Frank Jervaise was merely bluffing, and that they could +have had no case, since Brenda was over eighteen, and was not being +detained against her will. But none of us, probably not even old Jervaise +himself, knew enough of the law to question the validity of the threat. + +Little Mrs. Banks, however, was not depending on her legal knowledge to +defeat her enemies. What woman would? She had been exchanging glances with +her husband during the brief interval in which she had entrusted a minor +plea to her junior, and I suppose she, now, considered herself free to +produce her trump card. Banks had turned his back on the room--perhaps the +first time he had ever so slighted his landlord and owner--and was leaning +his forehead against the glass of the window. His attitude was that of a +man who had no further interest in such trivialities as this bickering and +scheming. Perhaps he was dimly struggling to visualise what life in Canada +might mean for him? + +His wife's eyes were still shining with the zest of her present encounter. +She was too engrossed by that to consider just then the far heavier task +she would presently have to undertake. She shrugged her shoulders and made +a gesture with her hands that implied the throwing of all further +responsibility upon her antagonists. "If you will have it," she seemed to +say, "you must take the consequences." And old Jervaise, at all events, +foresaw what was coming, and at that eleventh hour made one last effort to +avert it. + +"You know, Frank..." he began, but Mrs. Banks interrupted him. + +"It is useless, Mr. Jervaise," she said. "Mr. Frank has been making love +to my daughter and she has shown him plainly how she despises him. After +that he will not listen to you. He seeks his revenge. It is the manner of +your family to make love in that way." + +"Impertinence will not make things any easier for you, Mrs. Banks," Frank +interpolated. + +"Impertinence? From me to you?" the little woman replied magnificently. +"Be quiet, boy, you do not know what you are saying. My husband and I have +saved your poor little family from disgrace for twenty years, and I would +say nothing now, if it were not that you have compelled me." + +She threw one glance of contempt at old Jervaise, who was leaning forward +with his hand over his mouth, as if he were in pain, and then continued,-- + +"But it is as well that you should know the truth, and after all, the +secret remains in good keeping. And you understand that it is apropos to +that case you are threatening. It might be as well for you to know before +you bring that case against us." + +"Well," urged Frank sardonically. He was, I think, the one person in the +room who was not tense with expectation. Nothing but physical fear could +penetrate that hide of his. + +"Well, Mr. Frank," she did not deign to imitate him, but she took up his +word as if it were a challenge. "Well, it is as well for you to know that +Brenda is not your mother's daughter." She turned as she spoke to Brenda +herself, with a protective gesture of her little hand. "I know it will not +grieve you, dear, to hear that," she continued. "It is not as if you were +so attached to them all at the Hall..." + +"But who, then...?" Brenda began, evidently too startled by this +astonishing news to realise its true significance. + +"She was my step-sister, Claire Severac, dear," Mrs. Banks explained. "She +was Olive's governess. Oh! poor Claire, how she suffered! It was, perhaps, +a good thing after all that she died so soon after you were born. Her +heart was broken. She was so innocent; she could not realise that she was +no more than a casual mistress for your father. And then Mrs. Jervaise, +whom you have believed to be your mother, was very unkind to my poor +Claire. Yet it seemed best just then, in her trouble, that she should go +away to Italy, and that it should be pretended that you were Mrs. +Jervaise's true daughter. I arranged that. I have blamed myself since, but +I did not understand at the time that Mrs. Jervaise consented solely that +she might keep you in sight of your father as a reminder of his sin. She +was spiteful, and at that time she had the influence. She threatened a +separation if she was not allowed to have her own way. So! the secret was +kept and there were so few who remember my poor Claire that it is only +Alfred and I who know how like her you are, my dear. She had not, it is +true, your beautiful fair hair that is so striking with your dark eyes. +But your temperament, yes. She, too, was full of spirit, vivacious, +gay--until afterwards." + +She paused with a deep sigh, and I think we all sighed with her in +concert. She had held us with her narrative. She had, as a matter of fact, +told us little enough and that rather allusively, but I felt that I knew +the whole history of the unhappy Claire Severac. Anne had not overrated +her mother's powers in this direction. And my sigh had in it an element of +relief. Some strain had been mercifully relaxed. + +The sound of Frank's harsh voice came as a gross intrusion on our silence. + +"What evidence have you got of all this?" he asked, but the ring of +certainty had gone from his tone. + +Mrs. Banks pointed with a superb gesture at his father. + +The old man was leaning forward in his chair with his face in his hands. +There was no spirit in him. Probably he was thinking less of the present +company than of Claire Severac. + +Frank Jervaise showed his true quality on that occasion. He looked down at +his father with scowling contempt, stared for a moment as if he would +finally wring the old man's soul with some expression of filial scorn, and +then flung himself out of the room, banging the door behind him as a +proclamation that he finally washed his hands of the whole affair. + +Old Jervaise looked up when the door banged and rose rather feebly to his +feet. For a moment he looked at Arthur, as though he were prepared, now, +to meet even that more recent impeachment of his virtue which he had +feared earlier in the day. But Arthur's face gave no sign of any +vindictive intention, and the old man silently followed his son, creeping +out with the air of a man who submissively shoulders the burden of his +disgrace. + +I had been sorry for him that morning, but I was still sorrier for him +then. Banks was suffering righteously and might find relief in that +knowledge, but this man was reaping the just penalties of his own acts. + + + + +XV + +REMEMBRANCE + + +I do not believe that any of them saw me leave the room. + +As soon as old Jervaise had gone, all of them had turned with an instinct +of protection towards the head of the family. He, alone, had been +sacrificed. Within an hour his whole life had been changed, and I began to +doubt, as Anne had doubted, whether so old a tree would bear +transplanting. Whatever tenderness and care could do, would be done for +him, but the threat of uprooting had come so suddenly. In any case, I +could not help those gentle foresters whose work it would be to conduct +the critical operation; and I walked out of the room without offering any +perfunctory excuse for leaving them. + +I made my way into the garden by the side door through which I had first +entered the Home Farm; and after one indeterminate moment, came to a halt +at the gate on the slope of the hill. I did not want to go too far from +the house. For the time being I was no more to the Banks than an +inconvenient visitor, but I hoped that presently some of them--I put it +that way to myself--would miss me, and that Arthur or Anne would come and +tell me what had been arranged in my absence. I should have been glad to +talk over the affair with Arthur, but I hoped that it would not be Arthur +who would come to find me. + +For a time my thoughts flickered capriciously over the astonishing events +of my adventurous week-end. I was pleasantly replete with experience. In +all my life I had never before entered thus completely into any of the +great movements of life. I recalled my first thrills of anticipation +amidst the glowing, excited youth of the resting dancers at the Hall. We +had been impatient for further expression. The dragging departure of the +Sturtons had been an unbearable check upon the exuberance of our desires. +In my thought of the scene I could see the unspent spirit of our vitality +streaming up in a fierce fount of energy. + +And with me, at least, that fount, unexpectedly penned by the first hints +of disaster, had still played furiously in my mind as I had walked with +Frank Jervaise through the wood. My intoxicated imagination had created +its own setting. I had gone, exalted, to meet my wonderful fate. Through +some strange scene of my own making I had strayed to the very feet of +enduring romance. + +But after that exciting prelude, when the moon had set and slow dawn, like +a lifting curtain, had been drawn to reveal the landscape of a world +outside the little chamber of my own being, I had been cast from my +heights of exaltation into a gloomy pit of disgrace. Fate, with a +fastidious particularity, had hauled me back to the things of everyday. I +was not to be allowed to dream too long. I was wanted to play my part in +this sudden tragedy of experience. + +My thought went off at a tangent when I reached that point of my +reflection. I had found myself involved in the Banks's drama, but what +hope had I of ever seeing them again after the next day? What, moreover, +was the great thing I was called upon to do? I had decided only an hour or +two before that my old way of life had become impossible for me, but +equally impossible was any way of life that did not include the presence +of Anne. + +I looked at my watch, and found that it was after ten o'clock, but how +long I had been standing at the gate, I had no idea; whether an hour or +ten minutes. I had been dreaming again, lost in imaginative delights; +until the reminder of this new urgency had brought me back to a reality +that demanded from me an energy of participation and of initiative. + +I wished that Anne would come--and by way of helping her should she, +indeed, have come out to look for me, I strolled back to the Farm, and +then round to the front of the house. + +The windows of the sitting-room had been closed but the blinds were not +drawn. The lamp had been lit and splayed weak fans of yellow light on to +the gravel, and the flower-beds of the grass plot. The path of each beam +was picked out from the diffused radiance of the moonlight, by the dancing +figures of the moths that gathered and fluttered across the prisms of +these enchanted rays. But I did not approach the windows. In the stillness +of the night I could hear Anne's clear musical voice. She was still there +in the sitting-room, still soothing and persuading her father. Her actual +words were indistinguishable, but the modulations of her tone seemed to +convey the sense of her speech, as a melody may convey the ideas of form +and colour. + +I returned to my vigil at the gate and to thoughts of Anne--to romantic +thoughts of worship and service; of becoming worthy of her regard; of +immense faithfulness to her image when confronted with the most +provocative temptations; to thoughts of self-sacrifice and bravado, of +humility and boasting; of some transcending glorification of myself that +should make me worthy of her love. + +I was arrested in the midst of my ecstatic sentimentalism by the sight of +the Hall, the lights of which were distantly visible through the trees. +The path by the wood was not the direct line from the Hall to the Farm; +the sanctities of the Park were not violated by any public right of way. +The sight of the place pulled me up, because I was suddenly pierced by the +reflection that perhaps old Jervaise had thus postured to win the esteem +of his daughter's governess. He, it is true, had had dignity and prestige +on his side, but surely he must have condescended to win her. Had he, too, +dreamed dreams of sacrifice at the height of his passion? Had he +alternately grovelled and strutted to attract the admiration of his lady? +I found the reflection markedly distasteful. I was sorry again, now, for +the old man. He had suffered heavy penalties for his lapse. I remembered +Mrs. Banks's hint that his wife had adopted Brenda in the first place in +order that he might have before him a constant reminder of his disgrace. I +could believe that. It was just such a piece of chicane as I should expect +from that timid hawk, Mrs. Jervaise. But while I pitied the man, I could +not look upon his furtive gratifications of passion with anything but +distaste. + +No; if my love for Anne was to be worthy of so wonderful an object, I must +not stupefy myself with these vapours of romance. The ideal held something +finer than this, something that I could not define, but that conveyed the +notion, however indeterminately, of equality. I thought of my fancy that +we had "recognised" each other the night before. Surely that fancy +contained the germ of the true understanding, of the conceptions of +affinity and remembrance. + +No tie of our present earth life could be weighed against that idea of a +spirit love, enduring through the ages; a love transcending and immortal, +repeating itself in ever ascending stages of rapture. The flesh was but a +passing instrument of temporal expression, a gross medium through which +the spirit could speak only in poor, inarticulate phrases of its +magnificent recognition of an eternal bond. ... Oh! I was soon high in the +air again, riding my new Pegasus through the loftiest altitudes of lonely +exaltation. I was a conqueror while I had the world to myself. But when at +last I heard the rustle of a woman's dress on the path behind me, I was +nothing more than a shy, self-conscious product of the twentieth century, +all too painfully aware of his physical shortcomings. + + * * * * * + +She came and stood beside me at the gate, without speaking; and my mind +was so full of her, so intoxicated with the splendour of my imaginings, +that I thought she must surely share my newfound certainty that we had met +once more after an age of separation. I waited, trembling, for her to +begin. I knew that any word of mine would inevitably precipitate the +bathos of a civilised conversation. I was incapable of expressing my own +thought, but I hoped that she, with her magic voice, might accomplish a +miracle that was beyond my feeble powers. Indeed, I could imaginatively +frame for her, speech that I could not, myself, deliver. I knew what I +wanted her to say--or to imply. For it was hardly necessary for her to say +anything. I was ready, wholly sympathetic and receptive. If she would but +give me the least sign that she understood, I could respond, though I was +so unable to give any sign myself. + +I came down from my clouds with a feeling of bitter disappointment, a +sense of waking from perfect dreams to the realisation of a hard, inimical +world, when she said in a formal voice. + +"It's after eleven. My mother and father have gone to bed." + +"Is he--is he in any way reconciled?" I asked, and I think I tried to +convey something of resentment by my tone. I still believed that she must +guess. + +"In a way," she said, and sighed rather wearily. + +"It must have been very hard for him to make up his mind so quickly--to +such a change," I agreed politely. + +"It was easier than I expected," she said. "He was so practical. Just at +first, of course, while Mr. Jervaise was there, he seemed broken. I didn't +know what we should do. I was almost afraid that he would refuse to come. +But afterwards he--well, he squared his shoulders. He is magnificent. He's +as solid as a rock. He didn't once reproach us. He seemed to have made up +his mind; only one thing frightened him..." + +"What was that?" I asked, as she paused. + +"That we haven't any capital to speak of," she said. "Even after we have +sold the furniture here, we shan't have more than five or six hundred +pounds so far as we can make out. And he says it isn't enough. He says +that he and mother are too old to start again from small beginnings. +And--oh! a heap of practical things. He is so slow in some ways that it +startled us all to find out how shrewd he was about this. It was his own +subject, you see." + +"There needn't be any difficulty about capital," I said eagerly. I had +hardly had patience for her to finish her speech. From her first mention +of that word "capital" I had seen my chance to claim a right in the +Banks's fortunes. + +"I don't see..." she began, and then checked herself and continued +stiffly, "My father would never accept help of any kind." + +"Arthur might--from a friend," I said. + +"He thinks we've got enough--to begin with," she replied. "They've been +arguing about it. Arthur's young and certain. Father isn't either, and +he's afraid of going to a strange country--and failing." + +"But in that case Arthur must give way," I said. + +Anne was silent for a moment and then said in a horribly formal voice. "Am +I to understand, Mr. Melhuish, that you are proposing to lend Arthur this +money?" + +"On any terms he likes," I agreed warmly. + +"Why?" + +I could not mistake her intention. I knew that she expected me to say that +it was for her sake. I was no less certain that if I did say that she +would snub me. Her whole tone and manner since she had come out to the +gate had challenged me. + +"Here we are alone in the moonlight," her attitude had said. "You've been +trying to hint some kind of admiration for me ever since we met. Now, let +us get that over and finished with, so that we can discuss this business +of my father's." + +"Because I like him," I said. "I haven't known him long, of course; only a +few hours altogether; but..." I stopped because I was afraid she would +think that the continuation of the argument might be meant to apply to her +rather than to Arthur; and I had no intention of pleading by innuendo. +When I did speak, I meant to speak directly, and there was but one thing I +had to say. If that failed, I was ready to admit that I had been suffering +under a delusion. + +"Well?" she prompted me. + +"That's all," I said. + +"Weren't you going to say that it wasn't how long you'd known a person +that mattered?" + +"It certainly didn't matter in Arthur's case," I said. "I liked him from +the first moment I saw him. It's true that we had been talking for some +time before there was light enough for me to see him." + +"You like him so much that you'd be willing to lend him all the money he +wanted, without security?" she asked. + +"Yes, all the money I have," I said. + +"Without any--any sort of condition?" + +"I should make one condition," I replied. + +"Which is?" + +"That he'd let me come and stay with him, and Brenda, and all of you--on +the farm." + +"And, of course, we should all have to be very nice to you, and treat you +as our benefactor--our proprietor, almost," she suggested cruelly. + +I was hurt, and for a moment I was inclined to behave much as young +Turnbull had behaved that afternoon, to turn away and sulk, and show that +I had been grievously misunderstood. I overcame that impulse, however. "I +shouldn't expect you to curtsey!" I said. + +She turned to me with one of her instant changes of mood. + +"Why don't you tell me the truth?" she asked passionately. + +"The truth _you_ mean hasn't anything whatever to do with what we're +talking about now," I said. + +"Oh! but it has. It must have," she protested. "Aren't you trying to buy +my good-will all the time? All this is so heroic and theatrical. Aren't +you being the splendid benefactor of one of your own plays--being +frightfully tactful and oh! _gentlemanly_? It wouldn't be the right thing, +of course, to--to put any sort of pressure on me; but you could put us all +under every sort of obligation to you, and afterwards--when you came to +stay with us--you'd be very forbearing and sad, no doubt, and be very +sweet to my mother--she likes you already--but every one would know just +why; and you'd all expect me--to--to do the right thing, too." + +If I had not been truly in love with her I should have been permanently +offended by that speech. It stung me. What she implied was woundingly true +of that old self of mine which had so recently come under my observation +and censure. I could see that; and yet if any one but Anne had accused me +I should have gone off in high dudgeon. The hint of red in my hair would +not permit me to accept insult with meekness. And while I was still +seeking some way to avoid giving expression to my old self whose influence +was painfully strong just then, she spoke again. + +"Now you're offended," she said. + +I avoided a direct answer by saying, "What you accused me of thinking and +planning might have been true of me yesterday; it isn't true, now." + +"Have you changed so much since yesterday?" she asked, as if she expected +me to confess, now, quite in the familiar manner. She had given me an +opportunity for the proper continuation. I refused it. + +"I have only one claim on you," I said boldly. + +"Well?" she replied impatiently. + +"You recognised me last night." + +It was very like her not to fence over that. She had a dozen possible +equivocations, but she suddenly met me with no attempt at disguise. + +"I _thought_ I did," she said. "Just for a minute." + +"And now? You know...?" + +She leaned her elbows on the gate and stared out over the moonlit +mysteries of the Park. + +"You're not a bit what I expected," she said. + +I misunderstood her. "But you can't..." I began. + +"To look at," she interrupted me. + +I felt a thrill of hope. "But neither are you," I said. + +"Oh!" she commented softly. + +"I've had romantic visions, too," I went on; "of what she would look like +when I did meet her. But when I saw you, I remembered, and all the +visions--oh! scattered; vanished into thin air." + +"If you hadn't been so successful..." she murmured. + +"I'm sorry for that," I agreed. "But I'm going to make amends. I realised +it all this afternoon in the wood when I went to meet Arthur. I'm going to +begin all over again, now. I'm coming to Canada--to work." The whole +solution of my problem was suddenly clear, although I had not guessed it +until that moment. "I'm going to buy a farm for all of us," I went on +quickly, "and all the money that's over, I shall give away. The hospitals +are always willing to accept money without asking why you give it. They're +not suspicious, _they_ don't consider themselves under any obligation." + +"How much should you have to give away?" she asked. + +"Thirty or forty thousand pounds," I said. "It depends on how much the +farm costs." + +"Hadn't you better keep a little, in case the farm fails?" she put in. + +"It won't fail," I said. "How could it?" + +"And you'd do all that just because you've--remembered me?" + +"There was another influence," I admitted. + +"What was that?" she asked, with the sound of new interest in her voice. + +"All this affair with the Jervaises," I said. "It has made me hate the +possession of money and the power money gives. That farm of ours is going +to be a communal farm. Our workers shall have an interest in the profits. +No one is to be the proprietor. We'll all be one family--no scraping for +favours, or fears of dismissal; we'll all be equal and free." + +She did not answer that, at once; and I had an unpleasant feeling that she +was testing my quality by some criterion of her own, weighing the +genuineness of my emotion. + +"Did you feel like this about things this afternoon?" she asked, after +what seemed to me an immense interval. + +I was determined to tell her nothing less than the truth. "No," I +confessed, "much of it was a result of what you said to me. I--I had an +illumination. You made me see what a poor thing my life had been; how +conventional, artificial, worthless, it was. What you said about my plays +was so true. I had never realised it before--I hadn't bothered to think +about it." + +"I don't remember saying anything about your plays," she interrupted me. + +"Oh! you did," I assured her; "very little; nothing directly; but I knew +what you felt, and when I came to think it over, I agreed with you." + +"I've only seen _one_," she remarked. + +"They're all the same," I assured her, becoming fervent in my humility. + +"But why go to Canada?" she asked. "Why not try to write better plays?" + +"Because I saw my whole life plainly, in the wood this afternoon," was my +reply. "I did not know what to do then. I couldn't see any answer to my +problem. But when you were speaking to me a minute ago, I realised the +whole thing clearly. I understood what I wanted to do. + +"It's a form of conversion," I concluded resolutely. + +"I'm sure you mean it all--now," she commented, as if she were speaking to +herself. + +"It isn't a question of _meaning_ anything," I replied. "The experiences +of this week-end have put the whole social question in a new light for me. +I could never go back, now, to the old life. My conscience would always be +reproaching me, if I did." + +"But if you're rich, and feel like that, oughn't you to shoulder your +responsibilities?" she asked. + +"Do something? Wouldn't it be rather like running away to give your money +to the hospitals and go to Canada to work on a farm?" + +"That's my present impulse," I said. "And I mean to follow it. I don't +know that I shall want to stay in Canada for the rest of my life. I may +see further developments after I've been there for a few years. But..." + +"Go on," she urged me. + +"But I want to--to stay near you--all of you. I can't tell you how I +admire your father and mother and Arthur and--all of you. And you see, I +admit that this conversion of mine has been very sudden. I--I want to +learn." + +"Do you always follow your impulses like this?" she put in. + +"I've never had one worth following before," I said. + +"What about wanting to fight Frank Jervaise?" she asked. "And running away +from the Hall? And suddenly taking Arthur's side in the row? and all those +things? Didn't you follow your impulses, then?" + +And yet, it had never before occurred to me that I was impulsive. I had +imagined myself to be self-controlled, rather business-like, practical. I +was frankly astonished at this new light on my character. + +"I suppose I did, in a way," I admitted doubtfully. + +"To say nothing of..." she began, and stopped with a little, rather +embarrassed laugh. + +"Of what?" I urged her. + +"How many times before have you imagined yourself to be head over ears in +love?" she asked. + +I was repaid in that moment for all the self-denials and fastidious +shrinkings of my youth. + +"Never once!" I acclaimed triumphantly. "It's the one common experience +that has passed me by. I've often wondered why I could never fall in love. +I've admired any number of women. I've tried to fall in love with them. +And I have never been able to, try as I would. I could deceive myself +about other things, but never about that. Now, I know why." + +I waited for her encouragement, but as she did not speak I went on with +more hesitation. "You'll think me a romantic fool, I suppose, if I tell +you why?" + +"Oh! I know, I know," she said. "You've told me already in so many words. +You mean that you've been waiting for me; that you _had_ to wait for me. +You've been very frank. You deserve some return. Shall I tell you just how +I feel? I will. I don't mind telling you the truth, too. I did remember +you last night. But not since; not even now. But I like you--I like you +very much--as you are this evening. More than I've ever liked any man +before. And if you went away, I should remember you; and want you to come +back. But you must give me time. Lots of time. Don't make love to me any +more; not yet; not till I've really remembered. I think I shall--in a +little while--when you've gone away. You're so near me, now. And so _new_. +You don't belong to my life, yet." + +She paused and then went on in another tone. "But I believe you're right +about Canada. I'll explain it all to the others. We'll make some kind of +arrangement about it. I expect it will have to be _your_ farm, nominally, +for a time--until we all know you better. I can feel that you do--that you +have taken a tremendous fancy to all of us. I felt it just now, after +supper. I was watching you and--oh! well, I knew what you were feeling +about my father and mother; and it seemed to be just what I should have +liked you to feel. But I don't think I would give _all_ my money to the +hospitals, if I were you. Not without thinking it over a bit, first. Wait +until we get to Canada and see--how we get on." + +"You don't trust my impulses," I said. + +She laughed. "Wait till to-morrow anyway," she replied. + +And as she spoke I heard far away, across the Park, the sound of the +stable-clock at the Hall, striking twelve. The artificial sound of it was +mellowed and altered by distance; as different from that theatrical first +striking I had noticed in the exciting atmosphere of the crowd, as was my +present state of mind from that in which I had expectantly waited the +coming of romance.... + +"To-morrow begins now," I said. + +"And I have to be up before six," she added, in the formal voice she knew +so well how to assume. + +I felt as though she had by that one return to civility cancelled all that +she said, and as we turned back to the house, I began to wonder whether +the promise of my probation was as assured as I had, a minute earlier, so +confidently believed. + +We were nearly at the little porch that would for ever be associated in my +mind with the fumbling figure of Frank Jervaise, when she said, + +"One moment. I'll get you something," and left me standing in almost +precisely the same spot from which I had gazed up at her window the night +before. + +She returned almost immediately, but it was not until we were inside the +house and she had lighted my candle that she gave me the "something," +pressing it into my hand with a sudden delicious, girlish embarrassment. + +She was gone before I recognised that the precious thing she had given me +was a sprig of Rosemary. + + + + +POSTSCRIPT + +THE TRUE STORY + + +It was by the merest accident that we gathered that delightful piece of +information--on our first trip to England, not quite three years after we +were married. + +I did not know that "_The Mulberry Bush_" had been revived for a few weeks +as a stop-gap, until we saw the boards outside the theatre. Anne insisted +that we should go in, and the arbiters of coincidence ordained that I +should take seats in the stalls immediately behind one of those +well-informed society women who know the truth about everything. + +We were somewhat amused by her omniscience during the first interval, but +it was not until the second that she came to the priceless report of our +own two selves. + +I was not listening to her when she began, but Anne's sudden grasp of my +arm and the inclination of her head, awoke me to the fact that the gossip +just in front of us must, for some reason or other, be instantly attended +to. + +There was a good deal of chatter going on in the auditorium and I missed +an occasional sentence here and there in addition to the opening, but +there could be no doubt as to the application of the reminiscence I heard. + +"Got himself into a scrape and had to leave the country," was the first +thing that reached me. "As a matter of fact I had the whole story from +some one who was actually staying in the house at the time." She dropped +her voice as she added something confidentially of which I only caught the +sound of the name Jervaise. Anne was squeezing my arm violently. + +"Yes, his father's house," the gossip continued in answer to a question +from her companion. "A young man of great promise. He took silk last year, +and is safe for a place in the Cabinet sooner or later." + +"Our Frank," Anne whispered. + +I nodded and waited eagerly, although I had not, then, realised my own +connection with the story. + +"Oh! yes, that other affair was four years ago--nothing to do with the +dear Jervaises, except for the unfortunate fact that they were +entertaining him at the time. He ran away with a farmer's daughter; eloped +with her in the middle of a dance the Jervaises were giving. Never seen +her before that evening, I believe. The father was one of the Jervaises' +tenants.... A superior kind of young woman in some ways, I've heard; and a +friend of the youngest Jervaise girl ... you wouldn't remember her ... she +went with her friend to Australia or somewhere ... some quixotic idea of +protecting her, I believe ... and married out there. The farmer's name was +Baggs. The whole family were a trifle queer, and emigrated afterwards ... +yes, it was a pity about Melhuish, in a way. He was considered quite a +promising young dramatist. This thing of his was a distinct success. Very +amusing. But naturally, no one would receive him after he'd married this +Baggs girl. Besides which ..." + +But at that point the orchestra began, the woman dropped her voice again, +and the only other fragment I heard was, "... after the disgraceful scene +at the dance ... quite impossible...." + +I looked at Anne and was surprised to find that she was white with +indignation. + +"I must tell them," she whispered passionately. + +"Oh! no, please," I whispered back. "They wouldn't believe you. It would +only add another shocking detail to the next exposition of the scandal." + +"Detestable people," she said, in a voice that must have been heard by our +gossip, although she evidently did not realise the application of the +description to herself and her friend. + +"Let's be thankful," I whispered to Anne, "that I'm no longer writing this +sort of piffle to amuse them. If it hadn't been for you..." + +The two women had left the theatre before the end of the third act, but +long before that Anne had seen the humour of this true story of our +elopement. + + + + +THE END + + + + +The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books +on kindred subjects. + + * * * * * + + +MAY SINCLAIR'S NEW NOVEL + +Mary Olivier: A Life + +BY MAY SINCLAIR, + +Author of "The Tree of Heaven," etc. + +Cloth, 12mo. + + +No novel of the war period made a more profound impression than did Miss +Sinclair's "The Tree of Heaven." The announcement of a new book by this +distinguished author is therefore most welcome. "Mary Olivier" is a story +in Miss Sinclair's best manner. Once again she has chosen a theme of vital +interest and has treated it with the superb literary skill which has put +her among the really great of contemporary novelists. + +A woman's life, her thoughts, sensations and emotions directly presented, +without artificial narrative or analysis, without autobiography. + +The main interest lies in Mary Olivier's search for Reality, her relations +with her mother, father and three brothers, and her final passage from the +bondage of infancy, the conflicts of childhood and adolescence, the +disenchantments (and other drawbacks) of maturity, to the freedom, peace +and happiness of middle-age. + +The period covered is from 1865 when Mary is two years old to 1910 when +she is forty-seven. + + * * * * * + + +EDEN PHILLPOTTS' NEW NOVEL + +Storm in a Teacup + +BY EDEN PHILLPOTTS + +Author of "The Spinners," "Old Delabole," "Brunel's Towers," etc. + +_Cloth, 12mo._ + + +This carries on Mr. Phillpotts' series of novels dealing with the human +side of the different industries. Here the art of paper making furnishes +the background. The theme is somewhat humorous in nature. A young wife +picks a quarrel with her husband because he is commonplace, and elopes +with a man of high intellectual ability. Finding him, however, extremely +prosaic and a bore, she is glad in the end to return to her first love. + +The elopement, it might be explained, was purely a nominal one, carried +out on a high moral basis with the most tender respect for the lady's +reputation and character. This fact leads to a number of unusual and +frequently amusing situations. + + * * * * * + + +From Father to Son + +BY MARY S. WATTS + +Author of "Nathan Burke," "The Rise of Jennie Gushing," "The Boardman +Family," etc. + +_Cloth, 12 mo._ + + +The hero of Mrs. Watts' new story is a young man belonging to a very +wealthy family, who has had every sort of luxury and advantage and who, +upon entering his father's office after leaving college, finds that the +huge fortune founded by his grandfather was mainly made by profiteering on +the grandfather's part during the Civil War. The question is what is this +young man of the present day to do? He is high-minded and sensitive and +the problem is a difficult one. What, too, is his own father to do--also a +man of sterling character, though of a sterner type. The theme which grows +out of this situation is one of singular interest and power and involves a +moving crowd of characters. + +Among these is the hero's sister, who marries a German attache at the +embassy in Washington; and another sister, who marries a young man of the +same social set--and things happen. There is a drunken scalawag of a +relative--who might be worse, and there are one or two other people whom +readers of Mrs. Watts' books have met before. The dates of the story are +from 1911 to the present year. + + * * * * * + + +_H. G. WELLS' NEW NOVEL_ + +Joan and Peter + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.75_ + + +"Never has Mr. Wells spread for such a gorgeous panorama ... a living +story ... a vivacious narrative imperturbable in interest on every page, +always fresh and personal and assured.... This is not a novel--it is a +library. It is everything that one needs to know about the public life of +the significant classes in England for last twenty-five years."--_The +Dial_. + +"Mr Wells, at his highest point of attainment.... An absorbingly +interesting book ... consummate artistry ... here is Wells, the story +teller, the master of narrative."--_N.Y. Evening Sun_. + + * * * * * + + +_A NEW NOVEL BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE_ + +In the Heart of a Fool + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.60_ + + +"A big novel--a book that will profoundly affect the thoughts and the +feelings of the many who will read it.... Behind this chronicle lies the +secret of the next fifty years of American history. The fruit of this book +will be an awakening of the sleeping consciences in many men and a glimpse +of what it is to live in America to-day."--_N.Y. Sun_. + +"A great work. In its scope it is one of the most comprehensive American +romances ever written.... An intensely dramatic story.... We have seen no +truer nor more vital portraiture of distinctive and important American +types."--_N.Y. Tribune_. + + * * * * * + + +Our House + +BY HENRY S. CANBY + +_Cloth, 12mo._ + + +Mr. Canby, known as a teacher of literature and critic, also as a writer +of books on literary subjects, has written a novel, and one of singular +appeal. Its central character is a young man facing the world, taking +himself perhaps over-seriously, but genuinely perplexed as to what to do +with himself. Coming back from college to a sleepy city on the borders of +the South, his problem is, whether he shall subside into local business +affairs, keep up the home which his father has struggled to maintain, or +whether he shall follow his instinct and try to do something worth while +in literature. This problem is made intensely practical through the death +of his father. The story of what the young man does is exceedingly +interesting. It takes the hero to New York and into the semi-artificial +life of young Bohemia and ultimately brings him back home, where he finds +the real happiness and success. + + * * * * * + +All the Brothers Were Valiant + +BY BEN AMES WILLIAMS + +_Cloth, 12mo._ + + +This is a stirring story of the sea somewhat suggestive in manner of Jack +London's work. It has to do with two brothers of a sea-going family who go +on a cruise with the hope of ultimately finding their older brother, Mark, +who was lost on his last voyage. The adventures which they have on a +mid-sea island, where Mark, pagan, pirate, pearl-hunter, is found, are +absorbing. Hidden treasure, mutinies, tropic love, all these are here. The +book thrills with its incident and arouses admiration for its splendid +character portrayal. + + * * * * * + + +The Flaming Crucible: The faith of the Fighting Men + +BY ANDRE FRIBOURG + +_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50_ + + +Under the title _Croire_, this autobiography of a French infantryman was +published in Paris in 1917. It is a revelation of the French spirit. It is +rather a biography of the spirit, than an account of the amazing +experiences M. Fribourg encountered, from 1911 at Agadir, through the +fighting on the Meuse, and part of the campaign in Flanders. The +descriptions are memorable for their beautiful style, their pathos or +their elevation. There is a definite climax toward the end where M. +Fribourg returns to a hospital in Paris, broken and dulled, his faith +momentarily befogged. Gradually he readapts himself, regains and confirms +his faith in the human spirit that was so vivid when he lived with his +fellow soldiers. + +"An autobiographical novel, which was a close competitor for the last +Goncourt Academy Prize and which was seriously considered in connection +with the recently awarded Grand Prix of the French Academy." + +"It emphasizes the benumbing monotony of the 'life in a circle' of billet +and trench." + +"It portrays realistically, if a shade too methodically at times, the +racking torments of hunger and thirst, the dreary importunity of the rain, +the loathsomeness of the all-invading mud, the sickening horror of the +carrion smells, the pathetically inadequate relaxations of the +cantonments." + +"It dissects (a shade too scientifically and cold-bloodedly at times +perhaps) the sentiments and emotions associated with attack and defence; +the impulses that eventuate in heroism; the alternating +super-sensitiveness and callousness of the nerves; fear and the mastery of +fear; the 'hope deferred that maketh the heart sick'; the devious +stratagems of the terrible 'cafard' (blues)." + +"It narrates dramatically the outstanding episodes; the perilous corvee of +bringing up fresh supplies of cartridges, the digging of an advance trench +under fire, the pinioning of a comrade suddenly seized with dementia." + +"All this, with sanity, simplicity, and sincerity and in a language of +almost classical restraint, as a rule, but engagingly piquant and +picturesque and fantastic even upon occasions."--_Boston Evening +Transcript_. + + * * * * * + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York + + * * * * * + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jervaise Comedy, by J. 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