Part 33 (1/2)

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 bl.u.s.tered 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!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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.”

Old Jervaise's expression was certainly one of relief. He would, I am sure, have agreed to that compromise if he had been alone; he might even have agreed, as it was, if he had been given the chance. But Frank realised his father's weakness not less surely than we did, and although this was probably not the precise moment he would have chosen, he instantly took the case into his own hands.

”Oh! no, Mrs. Banks, certainly not,” he said. ”In the first place we did not come here to bargain with you, and in the second it must be perfectly plain to you that the scandal remains none the less because you have all gone away. We have come to fetch my sister home, that's the only thing that concerns you.”

”And if she will not go with you?” asked Mrs. Banks.

”She must,” Frank returned.

”And still, if she will not go?”

”Then we shall bring an action against you for abducting her.”

Mrs. Banks smiled gently and pursed her mouth ”To avoid a scandal?” she asked.

”If you persist in your absurd demands, there will be a scandal in any case,” Frank replied curtly.

”I suppose my wishes don't count at all?” Brenda put in.

”Obviously they don't,” Frank said.

”But, look here, father,” Brenda continued, turning to old Jervaise; ”_why_ do you want me to come back? We've never got on, I and the rest of you. _Why_ can't you let me go and be done with it?”

Jervaise fidgeted uneasily and looked up with a touch of appeal at his son. He had begun to mumble some opening when Frank interposed.

”Because we won't,” he said, ”and that's the end of it. There's nothing more to be said. I've told you precisely how the case stands. Either you come back with us without a fuss, or we shall begin an action at once.”

I know now that Frank Jervaise was merely bluffing, and that they could have had no case, since Brenda was over eighteen, and was not being detained against her will. But none of us, probably not even old Jervaise himself, knew enough of the law to question the validity of the threat.

Little Mrs. Banks, however, was not depending on her legal knowledge to defeat her enemies. What woman would? She had been exchanging glances with her husband during the brief interval in which she had entrusted a minor plea to her junior, and I suppose she, now, considered herself free to produce her trump card. Banks had turned his back on the room--perhaps the first time he had ever so slighted his landlord and owner--and was leaning his forehead against the gla.s.s of the window. His att.i.tude was that of a man who had no further interest in such trivialities as this bickering and scheming. Perhaps he was dimly struggling to visualise what life in Canada might mean for him?

His wife's eyes were still s.h.i.+ning with the zest of her present encounter.

She was too engrossed by that to consider just then the far heavier task she would presently have to undertake. She shrugged her shoulders and made a gesture with her hands that implied the throwing of all further responsibility upon her antagonists. ”If you will have it,” she seemed to say, ”you must take the consequences.” And old Jervaise, at all events, foresaw what was coming, and at that eleventh hour made one last effort to avert it.

”You know, Frank...” he began, but Mrs. Banks interrupted him.

”It is useless, Mr. Jervaise,” she said. ”Mr. Frank has been making love to my daughter and she has shown him plainly how she despises him. After that he will not listen to you. He seeks his revenge. It is the manner of your family to make love in that way.”

”Impertinence will not make things any easier for you, Mrs. Banks,” Frank interpolated.

”Impertinence? From me to you?” the little woman replied magnificently.