The Jervaise Comedy | Page 7

invigorated to carry on the part every time he scowled at himself in the glass. He could not conceivably have been anything but a barrister.
But, to-night, in the darkness, he seemed to have forgotten for once the perpetual mandate of his facial angle. He was suddenly intimate, almost humble.
"Of course, you don't realise how cursedly awkward it all is," he said with the evident desire of opening a confidence.
"Tell me as little or as much as you like," I responded. "You know that I..."
"Yes, rather," he agreed warmly, and added, "I'd sooner Hughes didn't know."
"He guesses a lot, though," I put in. "I suppose they all do."
"Oh! well, they're bound to guess something," he said, "but I'm hoping we'll be able to put that right, now."
"Who are we going to see?" I asked.
He did not reply at once, and then snapped out, "Anne Banks; friend er Brenda's."
My foolishly whimsical imagination translated that queer medley of sounds into the thought of a stable-pump. I heard the clank of the handle and then the musical rush of water into the pail.
"Sounds just like a pump," I said thoughtlessly.
He half withdrew his arm from mine with an abrupt twitch that indicated temper.
"Oh! don't for God's sake play the fool," he said brutally.
A spasm of resentment shook me for a moment. I felt annoyed, remembering how at school he would await his opportunity and then score off me with some insulting criticism. He had never had any kind of sympathy for the whimsical, and it is a manner that is apt to look inane and ridiculous under certain kinds of censure. I swallowed my annoyance, on this occasion. I remembered that Jervaise had a reasonable excuse, for once.
"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to play the fool. But you must admit that it had a queer sound." I repeated the adjectival sentence under my breath. It really was a rather remarkable piece of onomatopoeia. And then I reflected on the absurdity of our conversation. How could we achieve all this ordinary trivial talk of everyday in the gloom of this romantic adventure?
"Oh! all serene," Jervaise returned, still with the sound of irritation in his voice, and continued as if the need for confidence had suddenly overborne his anger. "As a matter of fact she's his sister."
"Whose sister?" I asked, quite at a loss.
"Oh! Banks's, of course," he said.
"But who in the name of goodness is Banks?" I inquired irritably. The petulant tone was merely an artifice. I realised that if I were meek, he would lose more time in abusing my apparent imbecility. I know that the one way to beat a bully is by bullying, but I hate even the pretence of that method.
Jervaise grunted as if the endeavour to lift the weight of my ignorance required an almost intolerable physical effort.
"Why, this fellow--our chauffeur," he said in a voice so threateningly restrained that he seemed on the point of bursting.
There was no help for it; I had to take the upper hand.
"Well, my good idiot," I said, "you can't expect me to know these things by intuition. I've never heard of the confounded fellow before. Haven't even seen him, now. Nor his sister--Anne Banks, Frienderbrenda's."
Jervaise was calmed by this outburst. This was the sort of attitude he could understand and appreciate.
"All right, keep your shirt on," he replied quite amicably.
"If you'd condescend to explain," I returned as huffily as I could.
"You see, this chap, Banks," he began, "isn't quite the ordinary chauffeur Johnnie. He's the son of one of our farmers. Decent enough old fellow, too, in his way--the father, I mean. Family's been tenants of the Home Farm for centuries. And this chap, Banks, the son, has knocked about the world, no end. Been in Canada and the States and all kinds of weird places. He's hard as nails; and keen. His mother was a Frenchwoman; been a governess."
"Is she dead?" I asked.
"Lord, no. Why should she be?" Jervaise replied peevishly.
I thought of explaining that he had made the implication by his use of the past tense, but gave up the idea as involving a waste of energy. "How old is this chap, Banks; the son?" I asked.
"I don't know," Jervaise said. "About twenty-five."
"And his sister?" I prodded him.
"Rather younger than that," he said, after an evident hesitation, and added: "She's frightfully pretty."
I checked my natural desire to comment on the paradox; and tried the stimulation of an interested "Is she?"
"Rather." He tacked that on in the tone of one who deplores the inevitable; and went on quickly, "You needn't infer that I've made an ass of myself or that I'm going to. In our position..." He abandoned that as being, perhaps, too obvious. "What I mean to say is," he continued, "that I can't understand about Brenda. And it was