“You’re quite right—I won’t.”
The discussion had somehow become a dialogue between Gervase and Doris. Why Doris should appoint herself as Alard’s spokesman no one exactly knew, but none of the rest made any effort to join in. Lady Alard was too deeply preoccupied with the house and its impending changes to worry about the land, Rose was angry with Doris for having repulsed her, so would give her no support, Mary was indifferent, Godfrey diffident, and Jenny, though revolting deeply from her brother’s choice, was too loyal to him to take anyone else’s part.
“I won’t because I can’t,” continued Gervase; “I can’t leave the Abbey, even if I knew that by doing so I could save Conster. I went there long before I’d the slightest notion I should ever succeed to this place, but even if I’d known I should have gone just the same. The only other thing I could do now would be to appoint a trustee to administer the estate for me, but in that way I should only be adding to the difficulties all round. By selling the place I’m doing the best possible thing for the land and for everyone else. The land will run a chance of being developed to its fullest value, instead of being neglected and allowed to deteriorate, and I’ll be making a fairly decent provision for Mother and all the rest of you—you’ll be far better off than if we’d stuck to the old arrangement; you’ll have ready money for about the first time in your lives. Mother and Doris and Mary can live on here if they like, or they can go and live in Hastings or in town. I think the sale ought to realise enough to make everyone fairly comfortable—anyhow, much more comfortable than they are in the present state of things.”
“But, Gervase,” sobbed Doris—“you don’t seem to think of the family.”
“What else am I thinking of? I’m just telling you that you and Mary and Mother——”
“But we’re not the family. I mean the whole thing—the house of Alard. What’s to become of it if you go and sell the estate, and shut yourself up in an Abbey, instead of coming here and looking after the place, and marrying and having children to succeed you? Don’t you realise that if you don’t marry, the whole thing comes to an end?”
“I’m afraid it will have to come to an end, Doris. I can’t save it that way.”
Doris sprang to her feet. She looked wild.
“But you must save it—you must. Oh, Gervase, you don’t understand. I’ve given up my life to it—to the family. I’ve given up everything. I could have married—but I wouldn’t—because he wasn’t the sort of man for our family—he wasn’t well-connected and he wasn’t rich—it would have been a comedown for an Alard, so I wouldn’t have him—though I loved him. I loved him ... but I wouldn’t have him, because I thought of the family first and myself afterwards. And now you come along, undoing all my work—making my sacrifice worthless. You don’t care twopence about the family, so you’re going to let it be sold up and die out. We’re going to lose our house, our land, our position, our very name.... I gave up my happiness for Alard, and you go and make my sacrifice useless. Gervase, for God’s sake save us. You can—if only you’ll come away from those monks and be Squire here. I’m sure God can’t wish you to desert us. Gervase, I beg you, I pray you to save the family—I pray you on my knees....”
And suiting the action to the word, she went down on her knees before him.