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 dæmon 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.