Part 10 (1/2)
Frank grunted.
”I've no sort of grounds for it, you know,” I explained. ”It was only a casual suggestion.”
”Jolly convincing one, though,” Turnbull congratulated me. ”So exactly the sort of thing she would do, isn't it, Frank?”
”Shouldn't have thought she'd have been gone so long,” Jervaise replied.
He looked at me as he continued, ”And how does it fit with that notion of ours about Miss Banks having expected her?”
”That was only a guess,” I argued.
”Better evidence for it than you had for your guess,” he returned, and we drifted into an indeterminate wrangle, each of us defending his own theory rather because he had had the glory of originating it than because either of us had, I think, the least faith in our explanations.
It was Ronnie who, picking up the thread of our deductions from the Home Farm interview in the course of our discussion, sought to reconcile us and our theories.
”She might have meant to go up to the Farm,” he suggested, ”and changed her mind when she got outside. Nothing very unlikely in that.”
”But why the devil should she have made an appointment at the Home Farm in the first instance?” Frank replied with some cogency.
”If she ever did,” I put in unwisely, thereby provoking a repet.i.tion of the evidence afforded by Miss Banks's behaviour, particularly the d.a.m.ning fact that she, alone, had responded to Racquet's demand for our instant annihilation.
And while we went on with our pointless arguments and the other little group of three continued to lay plans for the re-education of Brenda, the depression of a deeper and deeper ennui weighed upon us all. The truth is, I think, that we were all waiting for the possibility of the runaway's return, listening for the sound of the car, and growing momentarily more uneasy as no sound came. No doubt the Jervaises were all very sleepy and peevish, and the necessity of restraining themselves before Turnbull and myself added still another to their many sources of irritation.
I put the Jervaises apart in this connection, because Ronnie was certainly very wide awake and I had no inclination whatever to sleep. My one longing was to get back, alone, into the night. I was fretting with the fear that the dawn would have broken before I could get away. I had made up my mind to watch the sunrise from ”Jervaise Clump.”
It was Mrs. Jervaise who started the break-up of the party. She was attacked by a craving to yawn that gradually became irresistible. I saw the incipient symptoms of the attack and watched her with a sympathetic fascination, as she clenched her jaw, put her hand up to her lips, and made little impatient movements of her head and body. I knew that it must come at last, and it did, catching her unawares in the middle of a sentence--undertaken, I fancy, solely as a defence against the insidious craving that was obsessing her.
”Oh, dear!” she said, with a mincing, apologetic gesture of her head; and then ”Dear me!” Having committed the solecism, she found it necessary to draw attention to it. She may have been a Shrops.h.i.+re Norman, but at that relaxed hour of the night, she displayed all the signs of the orthodox genteel att.i.tude.
”I don't know when I've been so tired,” she apologised.
But, indeed, she did owe us an apology for her yawning fit affected us all like a virulent epidemic. In a moment we were every one of us trying to stifle the same desire, and each in our own way being overcome. I must do Frank the justice to say that he, at least, displayed no sign of gentility.
”Oh! Lord, mater, you've started us now,” he said, and gave away almost sensuously to his impulses, stretching and gaping in a way that positively racked us with the longing to imitate him.
”Really, my dear, no necessity for you,” began Mr. Jervaise, yawned more or less politely behind a very white, well-kept hand, and concluded, ”no necessity for you or Olive to stay up; none whatever. We cannot, in any case, _do_ anything until the morning.”
”Even if she comes in, now,” supplemented Olive.
”As I'm almost sure she will,” affirmed Mrs. Jervaise.
And she must have put something of genuine confidence into her statement, for automatically we all stopped talking for a few seconds and listened again with the ears of faith for the return of the car.
”But as I said,” Olive began again, abruptly ending the unhopeful suspense of our pause, ”there's nothing more we can do by sitting up. And there's certainly no need for you to overtire yourself, mother.”
”No, really not,” urged Ronnie politely, ”nor for you, either, sir,” he added, addressing his host. ”What I mean is, Frank and I'll do all that.”
”Rather, let's get a drink,” Frank agreed.