The Jervaise Comedy

“What else can be done, dear?” she replied gently. “There is no choice otherwise, except for them to separate.”

He looked at the culprits with an expression of bewilderment. Why should their little love affair be regarded as being of such tragic consequence, he seemed to ask. What did they mean to him and his wife and daughter? Why should they be considered worthy of what he could only picture as a supreme, and almost intolerable sacrifice? These young people were always having love affairs.

He thrust his inquiry bluntly at Brenda. “Are you in earnest, then, Miss Brenda?” he asked. “D’you tell me that you want to marry him—that you’re set on it?”

“I mean to marry him whatever happens,” Brenda replied in a low voice. She was still abashed by this public discussion of her secrets. And it was probably with some idea of diverting him from this intimate probing of her desires that she continued more boldly. “We would go off together, without your consent, you know, if we thought it would do any good. But it wouldn’t, would it? They’d probably be more spiteful still, if we did that. Even if they could keep it dark, they’d never let you stay on here. But do you really think it would be so awful for us all to go to Canada together? It’s a wrench, of course, but I expect it would be frightfully jolly when we got there. Arthur says it is.”

He turned from her with the least hint of contempt to look at his son. “You’ve lost your place a’ready, I suppose?” he said, trying to steady himself by some familiar contact, an effort that would have been absurd if it had not been so pathetic.

Arthur nodded, as stolid as an owl.

His father continued to search him with the same half-bewildered stare.

“What are you going to do, then?” he asked.

“She and I are going back, whatever happens.” Arthur said.

“And suppose they won’t let her go?”

“They’ll have to.”

“Have to!” Banks recited, raising his voice at the repetition of this foolish phrase. “And how in the world are you going to make ’em?”

“The Jervaises aren’t everybody,” Arthur growled.

“You’ll find they’re a sight too strong for the like of us to go against,” Banks affirmed threateningly.

Arthur looked stubborn and shook his head. “They aren’t what you think they are, father,” he began, and then, seeing the incredulity on the old man’s face, he went on in a slightly raised voice, “Well, I know they aren’t. I’ve been up there twice to-day. I saw Mr. Jervaise this morning; went to the front door and asked for him, and when I saw him I put it to him straight that I meant to—that we were going to get married.”

“You did,” murmured Banks in an undertone of grieved dismay.

“I did, father,” Arthur proceeded; “and if it hadn’t been for young Mr. Frank, we’d have come to some sort of understanding. Mr. Jervaise didn’t actually say ‘No,’ as it was.”

“And you went up again this evening?” Banks prompted him.

“Yes; I only saw Mr. Frank, then,” Arthur replied, “and he was in such a pad, there was no talking to him. Anne can tell you why.”

Banks did not speak but he turned his eyes gravely to his daughter.

Anne lifted her head with the movement of one who decides to plunge and be done with it. “He’d been making love to me in the morning,” she said; “and I—played with him for Arthur’s sake. I thought it might help, and afterwards I showed him that I’d been letting him make a fool of himself for nothing, that’s all.”

The old man made no audible comment, but his head drooped a little forward and his body seemed to shrink a little within the sturdy solidity of his oak armchair. Anne, also, had betrayed him. Perhaps, he looked forward and saw the Home Farm without Anne—she could not stay after that—and realised that the verdict of his destiny was finally pronounced.

I turned my eyes away from him, and I think the others, too, feigned some preoccupation that left him a little space of solitude. We none of us spoke, and I knew by the sound of the quick intake of her breath that Mrs. Banks was on the verge of weeping.

I looked up, almost furtively, when I heard the crash of footsteps on the gravel outside, and I found that the other three with the same instinctive movement of suspense were turning towards Mrs. Banks.

She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and nodded to Anne, a nod that said plainly enough, “It’s them—the Jervaises.”

And then we were all startled by the sound of the rude and unnecessary violence of their knock at the front door. No doubt, Frank was still “in a pad.”

Yet no one moved until the old man at the head of the table looked up with a deep sigh, and said,—

“They’d better come in and be done with it, Nancy.”

His glance was slowly travelling round the room as if he were bidding those familiar things a reluctant farewell. All his life had been lived in that house.

XIV

Mrs. Banks

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.”