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.