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.