The Jervaise Comedy. John Davys Beresford
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