* * * * *
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 æsthetic--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 cliché 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.