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 Sévérac, 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 Sévérac. 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 Sévérac.
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.