The Jervaise Comedy Part 18

"You don't believe me?" I said.

"Candidly, I don't," he replied.

And at that my temper finally blazed. I could not bear any longer either that awful sense of frustration or the sight of Frank Jervaise's absurdly portentous scowl.

I did not clench my fists, but I presume my purpose showed suddenly in my face, for he moved quickly backwards with a queer, nervous jerk of the head that was the precise counterpart of the parrot-like twist his mother had given at the luncheon table. It was an odd movement, at once timid and vicious, and in an instant I saw the spirit of Frank Jervaise revealed to me. He was a coward, hiding his weakness under that coa.r.s.e mask of the brooding, relentless hawk. He had winced and retreated at my unspoken threat, as he had winced at the thought of his thrashing at school. He had taken his punishment stoically enough then, and might take another with equal fort.i.tude now; though he had been weakened in the past five or six years by the immunity his frowning face had won for him. But he could not meet the promise of a thrashing. I saw that he would do anything, make any admission, to avoid that.

"Look here, Melhuish..." he began, but I cut him short.

"Oh! go to h.e.l.l," I said savagely.

I was disappointed. I wanted to fight him. I knew now that since the scene I had witnessed in the wood the primitive savage in me had been longing for some excuse to break out in its own primitive, savage way. And once again I was frustrated. I was just too civilised to leap at him without further excuse.

He gave me none.

"If you're going to take that tone..." he said with a ridiculous affectation of bravado, and did not complete his sentence. His evasion was, perhaps, the best that he could have managed in the circ.u.mstances. It was so obvious that only the least further incentive was required to make me an irresponsible madman. And he dared not risk it.

He turned away with a pretence of dignity, the craven brag of a schoolboy who says, "I could lick you if I wanted to, but I don't happen to want to." I watched him as he walked back towards the avenue with a deliberation that was so artificial, I could swear that when he reached the turn he would break into a run.

I stood still in the same place long after he was out of sight. As my short-lived pa.s.sion evaporated, I began to realise that I was really in a very awkward situation. I could not and would not return to the Hall. I had offended Frank Jervaise beyond all hope of reconciliation. He would never forgive me for that exposure of his cowardice. And if I had not had a single friend at the house before, I could, after the new report of my treachery had been spread by Frank, expect nothing but the bitterness of open enemies. No doubt they would essay a kind of frigid politeness, their social standards would enforce some show of outward courtesy to a guest.

But I simply could not face the atmosphere of the Hall again. And here I was without my luggage, without even a hat, and with no idea where I could find refuge. The only idea I had was that of walking fifteen miles to Hurley Junction on the chance of getting a train back to town.

It was an uncommonly queer situation for a perfectly innocent man, week-ending at a country house. I should have been ashamed to face the critics if I had made so improbable a situation the crux of a play. But the improbability of life constantly outruns the mechanical inventions of the playwright and the novelist. Where life, with all its extravagances, fails, is in its refusal to provide the apt and timely coincidence that shall solve the problem of the hero. As I walked on slowly towards Jervaise Clump, I had little hope of finding the peculiarly appropriate vehicle that would convey me to Hurley Junction; and I did not relish the thought of that fifteen mile walk, without a hat.

I kept to the road, skirting the pudding basin hill, and came presently to the fence of the Park and to what was evidently a side gate--not an imposing wrought-iron erection between stone pillars such as that which announced the front entrance, but just a rather high-cla.s.s six-barred gate.

I hesitated a minute or two, with the feelings of one who leaves the safety of the home enclosure for the unknown perils of the wild, and then with a sigh of resignation walked boldly out on to the high road.

I had no notion in which direction Hurley Junction lay, but luck was with me, so far. There was a fourth road, opposite the Park gate, and a sign-post stood at the junction of what may once have been the main cross-roads--before some old Jervaise land-robber pushed the park out on this side until he was stopped by the King's highway.

On the sign-post I read the indication that Hurley Junction was distant 14-1/2 miles, and that my direction was towards the north; but I felt a marked disinclination to begin my walk.

It was very hot, and the flies were a horrible nuisance. I stood under the shadow of the hedge, flapped a petulant handkerchief at the detestably annoying flies, and stared down the road towards the far, invisible distances of Hurley. No one was in sight. The whole country was plunged in the deep slumber of a Sunday afternoon, and I began to feel uncommonly sleepy myself. I had, after all, only slept for a couple of hours or so that morning.

I yawned wearily and my thoughts ran to the refrain of "fourteen and a half miles; fourteen and a half miles to Hurley Junction."

"Oh! well," I said to myself at last. "I suppose it's got to be done," and I stepped out into the road, and very lazily and wearily began my awful tramp. The road ran uphill, in a long curve encircling the base of the hill, and I suppose I took about ten minutes to reach the crest of the rise. I stayed there a moment to wipe my forehead and slap peevishly at my accompanying swarm of flies. And it was from there I discovered that I had stumbled upon another property of the Jervaise comedy. Their car--I instantly concluded that it was their car--stood just beyond the rise, drawn in on to the gra.s.s at the side of the road, and partly covered with a tarpaulin--it looked, I thought, like a dissipated roysterer asleep in the ditch.

I decided, then, without the least compunction, that this should be my heaven-sent means of reaching the railway. The Jervaises owed me that; and I could leave the car at some hotel at Hurley and send the Jervaises a telegram. I began to compose that telegram in my mind as I threw off the tarpaulin preparatory to starting the car. But Providence was only laughing at me. The car was there and the tank was full of petrol, but neither the electric starter nor the crank that I found under the seat would produce anything but the most depressing and uninspired clanking from the mechanism that should have responded with the warm, encouraging thud of renewed life.

I swore bitterly (I can drive, but I'm no expert), climbed into the tonneau, pulled back the tarpaulin over me like a tent to exclude those pestilent flies, and settled myself down to draw one or two deep and penetrating inductions.

My first was that Banks had brought the car here the night before with the fixed intention of abducting Brenda Jervaise.

My second was that the confounded fellow had cautiously removed some essential part of the car's mechanism.

My third, that he would have to come back and fetch the car sometime, and that I would then blackmail him into driving me to Hurley Junction.

I did not trouble to draw a fourth induction. I was cool and comfortable under the shadow of the cover. The flies, although there were many openings for them, did not favour the darkness of my tent. I leaned well back into the corner of the car and joined the remainder of the county in a calm and restful sleep.

IX

BANKS

I was awakened by the sound of footsteps on the road--probably the first footsteps that had pa.s.sed during the hour and a half that I had been asleep. I was still lazily wondering whether it was worth while to look out, when the tarpaulin was smartly drawn off the car and revealed me to the eyes of the car's guardian, Arthur Banks.

His first expression was merely one of surprise. He looked as startled as if he had found any other unlikely thing asleep in the car. Then I saw his surprise give way to suspicion. His whole att.i.tude stiffened, and I was given an opportunity to note that he was one of those men who grow cool and turn pale when they are angry.

My first remark to him was ill-chosen.

"I've been waiting for you," I said.

Probably my last thought before I went to sleep had concerned the hope that Banks would be the first person I should see when I woke; and that thought now came up and delivered itself almost without my knowledge.

"They have put you in charge, I suppose," he returned grimly. "Well, you needn't have worried. I'd just come to take the car back to the house."

I had again been taken for a spy, but this time I was not stirred to righteous indignation. The thing had become absurd. I had for all intents and purposes been turned out of Jervaise Hall for aiding and abetting Banks, and now he believed me to be a sort of prize crew put aboard the discovered motor by the enemy.

My situation had its pathetic side. I had, by running away, finally branded myself in the Jervaises' eyes as a mean and despicable traitor to my own order; and now it appeared that I was not to be afforded even the satisfaction of having proved loyal to the party of the Home Farm. I was a pariah, the suspect of both sides, the ill-treated hero of a romantic novel. I ought to have wept, but instead of that I laughed.

Perhaps I was still a little dazed by sleep, for I was under the impression that any kind of explanation would be quite hopeless, and I had, then, no intention of offering any. All I wanted was to be taken to Hurley Junction; to get back to town and forget the Jervaises' existence.

Banks's change of expression when I laughed began to enlighten my fuddled understanding. I realised that I had no longer to deal with a suspicious, wooden-headed lawyer, but with a frank, kindly human being.

"I don't see the joke," he said, but his look of cold anger was fading rapidly.

"The joke," I said, "is a particularly funny one. I have quarrelled with the entire Jervaise family and their house-party. I have been openly accused by Frank Jervaise of having come to Thorp-Jervaise solely to aid you in your elopement; and my duplicity being discovered I hastened to run away, leaving all my baggage behind, in the fear of being stood up against a wall and shot at sight. I set out, I may add, to walk fourteen miles to Hurley Junction, but on the way I discovered this car, from which you seem to have extracted some vital organ. So I settled myself down to wait until you should return with its heart, or lungs, or whatever it is you removed.

And now, my dear chap, I beseech you to put the confounded thing right again and drive me to Hurley. I've suffered much on your account. It's really the least you can do by way of return."

He stared at me in amazement.

"But, honestly, no kid..." he remarked.

I saw that, naturally enough, he could not make head or tail of my story.

"Oh! it's all perfectly true, in effect," I said. "I can't go into details. As a matter of fact, all the Jervaises' suspicions came about as a result of our accidental meeting on the hill last night. I said nothing about it to them, you understand; and then they found out that I hadn't slept in the house, and Miss Tattersall discovered by accident that I knew you by sight--that was when you came up to the house this morning--and after that everything I've ever done since infancy has somehow gone to prove that my single ambition in life has always been to help you in abducting Brenda Jervaise. Also, I wanted to fight Frank Jervaise an hour or two ago in the avenue. So, my dear Banks, have pity on me and help me to get back to London."

Banks grinned. "No getting back to London to-night," he said. "Last train went at 3.19."

"Well, isn't there some hotel in the neighbourhood?" I asked.

He hesitated, imaginatively searching the county for some hotel worthy of receiving me.

"There's nothing decent nearer than G.o.dbury," he said. "Twenty-three miles. There's an inn at Hurley of a sort. There's no town there to speak of, you know. It's only a junction."