Part 31 (2/2)

Her father frowned and shook his head. ”This isn't the place to discuss them,” he replied.

”Well, father, I'm afraid we must discuss them very soon,” Anne returned; ”because Mr. Jervaise might be coming up after supper.”

”Mr. Jervaise? Coming here?” Banks's tone of dismay showed that he was beginning, however slowly, to appreciate the true significance of the situation.

”Well, we don't know that he is,” Arthur put in. ”I just thought it was possible he and Mr. Frank might come up this evening.”

”They will certainly come. Have no doubt of that,” Mrs. Banks remarked.

The old man turned to his son as if seeking a refuge from the intrigues of his adored but incomprehensible womenfolk.

”What for?” he asked brusquely.

”To take her back to the Hall,” Arthur said with the least possible inclination of his head towards Brenda.

Banks required a few seconds to ponder that, and his wife and daughter waited in silence for his reply. I had a sense of them as watching over, and at once sheltering and directing him. Nevertheless, though I admired their gentle deftness, I think that at that point of the discussion some forcible male element in me sided very strongly with old Banks. I was aware of the pressure that was so insensibly surrounding him as of a subtly entangling web that seemed to offer no resistance, and yet was slowly smothering him in a million intricate intangible folds. And, after all, why should he be torn away from his root-holds, exiled to some forlorn unknown country where his very methods of farming would be inapplicable? Brenda and Arthur were young and capable. Let them wait, at least until she came of age. Let her be tried by an ordeal of patient resistance. If she were worthy she could fight her family for those thirteen months and win her own triumph without injuring poor Banks.

And whether because I had communicated my thought to her by some change of att.i.tude or because she intuitively shared my sympathy for her father, Anne turned to me just before she spoke, with a quick little, impatient gesture as if beseeching me not to interfere. I submitted myself to her wish with a distinct feeling of pleasure, but made no application of my own joy in serving her to the case of her father.

He was speaking again, now, with a solemn perplexity, as if he were confusedly challenging the soft opposition of his women's influence.

”But, of course, she must go back to the Hall,” he said. ”You wouldn't like to get us into trouble, would you, Miss Brenda? You see,” he pushed his chair back once more, in the throes of his effort to explain himself, ”your father would turn me out, if there was any fuss.”

He was going on, but his wife, with a sudden magnificent violence, scattered the web she and her daughter had been weaving.

”And that might be the best thing that could happen to us, Alfred,” she said. ”Oh! I'm so sick and tired of these foolish Jervaises. They are like the green fly on the rose trees. They stick there and do nothing but suck the life out of us. You are a free man. You owe them nothing. Let us break with them and go out, all of us, to Canada with Arthur and Brenda. As for me, I would rejoice to go.”

”Nancy! Nancy!” he reproached her for the third time, with a humouring shake of his head. They were past the celebration of their silver wedding, but it was evident that he still saw in her the adorable foolishness of one who would never be able to appreciate the final infallibility of English standards. He loved her, he would make immense personal sacrifices for her, but in these matters she was still a child, a foreigner. Just so might he have reproached Anne at three years old for some infantile naughtiness.

”It may come to that,” Arthur interjected, gloomily.

”You're talking like a fool, Arthur,” his father said. ”What'd I do at my age--I'll be sixty-one next month--trapesing off to Canada?” He felt on safer ground, more sure of his authority in addressing his son. He was English. He might be rebellious and need chastis.e.m.e.nt, but he would not be swayed by these whimsical notions that sometimes bewitched his mother and sister.

”But, father, we may _have_ to go,” Anne softly reminded him.

”Have to? Have to?” he repeated, with a new note of irritability sounding in his voice. ”He hasn't been doing anything foolish, has he? Nothing as can't be got over?”

It was his wife who replied to that. ”We've had our time, Alfred,” she said. ”We have to think of them now. We must not be selfish. They are young and deeply in love, as you and I were once. We cannot separate them because we are too lazy to move. And sixty? Yes, it is true that you are sixty, but you are strong and your heart is still young. It is not as if you were an old man.”

Arthur and Brenda looked acutely self-conscious. Brenda blushed and seemed inclined to giggle. Arthur's face was set in the stern lines of one who hears his own banns called in church.

Banks leaned back in his chair and stared apprehensively at his wife.

”D'ye mean it, Nancy...?” he asked, and something in his delivery of the phrase suggested that he had come down to a familiar test of decision. I could only infer that whenever she had confessed to ”meaning it” in the past, her request had never so far been denied. I guessed, also, that until now she had never been outrageous in her demands.

”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.

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