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Updated: May 27, 2025
"They aren't what you think they are, father," he began, and then, seeing the incredulity on the old man's face, he went on in a slightly raised voice, "Well, I know they aren't. I've been up there twice to-day. I saw Mr. Jervaise this morning; went to the front door and asked for him, and when I saw him I put it to him straight that I meant to that we were going to get married."
They would never have gone to bed, tired as they were, if they had not been satisfied that Brenda had committed no other indiscretion than that of indulging herself in the freak of a moonlight drive. It had, certainly, been unduly prolonged; but, as old Jervaise had said, there might be half a dozen reasons to account for that.
"There is so little real evidence, at present," I said, feeling their need for some loophole and searching my mind to discover one for them. "It really does seem almost impossible that Brenda should have run away with that man," Mrs. Jervaise pleaded with the beginning of a gesture that produced the effect of wanting to wring her hands. "She's under age, too," Frank put in.
"Do you always follow your impulses like this?" she put in. "I've never had one worth following before," I said. "What about wanting to fight Frank Jervaise?" she asked. "And running away from the Hall? And suddenly taking Arthur's side in the row? and all those things? Didn't you follow your impulses, then?" And yet, it had never before occurred to me that I was impulsive.
As we left the Hall, the theatrical stable-clock was just striking one. The moon must have been nearly at the full, but I could not guess its position behind the even murk of cloud that muffled the whole face of the sky. Yet, it was not very dark. The broad masses of the garden through which Jervaise led me, were visible as a greater blackness superimposed on a fainter background.
I had never before that afternoon met any of the Jervaise family except Frank, and on one or two occasions his younger brother who was in the army and, now, in India; and I thought that this was an appropriate occasion to improve my knowledge. I understood that Hughes was an old friend of the family.
"For goodness' sake, let's drop this question of Melhuish's interference and settle the more important one of what we're going to do about you." "I resent that word 'interference," I put in. "Oh! resent it, then," Jervaise snarled. "Really, I think Mr. Melhuish is perfectly justified," Brenda said. "I feel horribly ashamed of the way you've been treating him at home.
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.
"What makes it rather embarrassing for the dear Jervaises," Miss Tattersall confided to me, "is that the other things aren't ordered till one the Atkinsons' 'bus, you know, and the rest of 'em. Brenda persuaded Mrs. Jervaise that we might go on for a bit after the vicar had gone." I wished that I could get away from Miss Tattersall; she intruded on my thoughts.
Finally, old Jervaise would be able to take up his life again with his old zest. I believed that he was a man who took his pleasures with a certain gusto. He had been quite gay at the dance before the coming of the scandal that had temporarily upset his peace of mind. All this imaginary restitution was perfectly reasonable. I could "see" things happening just as I had thought them.
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