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diff --git a/14669-h/14669-h.htm b/14669-h/14669-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..52fd8a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/14669-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10460 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jaffery, by William J. +Locke.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14669 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="Frontispiece" id= +"Frontispiece"></a> <a href="images/001.jpg"><img src= +"images/001.jpg" width="45%" alt="" title="" /></a><br /> +<b>It was his great arms that lifted her feather-weight with<br /> +extraordinary sureness and gentleness. (<i><a href="#page165">See +page 165</a></i>)</b> +<br /></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>JAFFERY</h1> +<h3>BY</h3> +<h2>WILLIAM J. LOCKE</h2> +<div class="center">ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br /> +F. MATANIA<br /> +<br /> +NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY<br /> +<br /> +1915<br /> +<br /> +Press of<br /> +J.J. Little & Ives Company<br /> +New York, U.S.A.</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>TO MY WIFE</h2> +<p>This book on which it has pleased you to bestow your especial +affection I dedicate to you with my love. It is a memory of many +happy hours and many dreams that we have shared.</p> +<p>You remember how it was begun, one spring morning two years ago, +with the opening scene of the first chapter gay before my eyes as I +wrote. You remember the excitement of ending it before the +Christmas of 1913; so that we could start with free consciences, +early in the New Year, on our Egyptian journey.</p> +<p><i>C'est bien loin, tout cela</i>! War overtook it in its serial +course; and now, in book form, it must go out to the world as an +expression of the moods and fancies almost of a past +incarnation.</p> +<p>These dream figures with whom we delighted, like children, to +people our home, are now replaced by other guests tragically real, +as big-hearted as those most loved of our shadow-folk. Yet +sometimes they seem still to live. . . . While correcting the final +proofs we have been tempted to modify the end, to bring the story +of Jaffery more or less up to date; but we have felt that any +addition would be out of key, so far are we from that happy +Christmastide when, in gaiety of heart, I wrote the last words.</p> +<p>Yet we know, you and I, that Jaffery Chayne is even now over +there, across the Channel; no longer writing of war, but doing his +soldier's work in the thick of it, like a gallant gentleman. And +don't you feel that one day he will come again and we shall hear +his mighty voice thundering across the lawn. . . ?</p> +<p>W.J.L.</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<div class="center"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td align='right'>Facing</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td align='right'>Page</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>It was his great arms that lifted her feather-weight with</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>extraordinary sureness and gentleness</td> +<td align='right'><i><a href= +"#Frontispiece">Frontispiece</a></i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Where the lonely figure in black and white sat brooding</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i064.jpg">64</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, handled the cleek</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i080.jpg">78</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>He drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i190.jpg">186</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>"Go! You're nothing but a brute"</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i234.jpg">228</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Before I realized the danger . . . I was flung aside</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i308.jpg">300</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>strewn papers, . . . lay a tiny, black, moaning</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>heap of a woman</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i325.jpg">316</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>There is war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery is there</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>as war correspondent. Liosha is there, too</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#i361.jpg">350</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="center">THE<br /> +WILLIAM J. LOCKE<br /> +YEAR-BOOK<br /> +<br /> +A <i>bon-mot</i> for each day in<br /> +every year, selected from<br /> +this popular author's works.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Decorated Cloth. $1.00 net</i></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p>I received a letter the day before yesterday from my old friend, +Jaffery Chayne, which has inspired me to write the following +account of that dear, bull-headed, Pantagruelian being. I must say +that I have been egged on to do so by my wife, of whom hereafter. A +man of my somewhat urbane and dilettante temperament does not do +these things without being worried into them. I had the +inspiration, however. I told Barbara (my wife), and she agreed, at +the time, dutifully, that I ought to record our friend Jaffery's +doings. But now, womanlike, she declares that the first suggestion, +the root germ of the idea, came from her; that the "egging on" is +merely the vain man's way of misdefining a woman's serene +insistence; that she has given me, out of her intimate knowledge, +all the facts of the story—although Jaffery Chayne and Adrian +Boldero and poor Tom Castleton, and others involved in the +imbroglio, counted themselves as my bosom cronies, while she, poor +wretch (a man must get home somewhere), was in the nursery; and +that, finally, if she had been taught English grammar and spelling +at school, she would have dispensed entirely with my pedantic +assistance and written the story herself. Anyhow, man-like, I am +broad minded enough to proclaim that it doesn't very much matter. +Man and wife are one. She thinks they are one wife. I know they are +one husband. Between speculation and knowledge why so futile a +thing as a quarrel? I proceed therefore to my originally +self-appointed and fantastic task.</p> +<p>But on reflection, before beginning, I must honestly admit that +if it had not been for Barbara I should write of these things with +half-knowledge. Sex is a queer and incalculable solvent of human +confidence. There are certain revelations that men will make only +to a man, certain revelations likewise that women will make only to +a man. On the other hand, a woman is told things by her sister +women and her brother men which, but for her, would never reach a +man's ears. So by combining the information obtained from our +family encyclopædia under the feminine heading of China with +that obtained under the masculine heading of Philosophy, I can, +figuratively speaking, like the famous student, issue my treatise +on Chinese Philosophy.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>One miraculous morning in late May, not so very many years ago, +when the parrot-tulips in my garden were expanding themselves +wantonly to the sun, and the lilac and laburnum which I caught, as +I sat at my table, with the tail of one eye, and the pink may which +I caught with the tail of the other, bloomed in splendid arrogance, +my quiet outlook on greenery and colour was obscured by a human +form. I may mention that my study-table is placed in the bay of a +window, on the ground floor. It is a French window, opening on a +terrace. Beyond the parapet of the terrace, the garden, with its +apple and walnut trees, its beeches, its lawn, its beds of tulips, +its lilac and laburnum and may and all sorts of other pleasant +things, slopes lazily upwards to a horizon of iron railings +separating the garden from a meadow where now and then a cow, when +she desires to be peculiarly agreeable to the sight, poses herself +in silhouette against the sky. I like to gaze on that adventitious +cow. Her ruminatory attitude falls in with mine. . . . But I +digress. . . .</p> +<p>I glanced up at the obscuring human form and recognized my wife. +She looked, I must confess, remarkably pretty, with her fair hair +<i>blond comme les blés</i>, and her mocking cornflower blue +eyes, and her mutinous mouth, which has never yet (after all these +years) assumed a responsible parent's austerity. She wore a fresh +white dress with coquettish bits of blue about the bodice. In her +hand she grasped a dilapidated newspaper, the <i>Daily +Telegraph</i>, which looked as if she had been to bed in it.</p> +<p>"Am I disturbing you, Hilary?"</p> +<p>She was. She knew she was. But she looked so charming, a petal +of spring, a quick incarnation of pink may and forget-me-not and +laburnum, that I put down my pen and I smiled.</p> +<p>"You are, my dear," said I, "but it doesn't matter."</p> +<p>"What are you doing?" She remained on the threshold.</p> +<p>"I am writing my presidential address," said I, "for the Grand +Meeting, next month, of the Hafiz Society."</p> +<p>"I wonder," said Barbara, "why Hafiz always makes me think of +sherbet."</p> +<p>I remonstrated, waving a dismissing hand.</p> +<p>"If that's all you've got to say—"</p> +<p>"But it isn't."</p> +<p>She crossed the threshold, stepped in, swished round the end of +my long oak table and took possession of my library. I wheeled +round politely in my chair.</p> +<p>"Then, what is it?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Have you read the paper this morning?"</p> +<p>"I've glanced through the <i>Times</i>," said I.</p> +<p>She patted her handful of bedclothing and let fall a blanket and +a bed-spread or two—("Look at my beautifully, orderly folded +<i>Times</i>," said I, with an indicatory gesture) She looked and +sniffed—and shed Vallombrosa leaves of the <i>Daily +Telegraph</i> about the library until she had discovered the page +for which she was searching. Then she held a mangled sheet before +my eyes.</p> +<p>"There!" she cried, "what do you think of that?"</p> +<p>"What do I think of what?" I asked, regarding the acre of +print.</p> +<p>"Adrian Boldero has written a novel!"</p> +<p>"Adrian?" said I. "Well, my dear, what of it? Poor old Adrian is +capable of anything. Nothing he did would ever surprise me. He +might write a sonnet to a Royal Princess's first set of false teeth +or steal the tin cup from a blind beggar's dog, and he would be +still the same beautiful, charming, futile Adrian."</p> +<p>Barbara pished and insisted. "But this is apparently a wonderful +novel. There's a whole column about it. They say it's the most +astounding book published in our generation. Look! A work of +genius."</p> +<p>"Rubbish, darling," said I, knowing my Adrian.</p> +<p>"Take the trouble to read the notice," said Barbara, thrusting +the paper at me in a superior manner.</p> +<p>I took it from her and read. She was right. Somebody calling +himself Adrian Boldero had written a novel called "The Diamond +Gate," which a usually sane and distinguished critic proclaimed to +be a work of genius. He sketched the outline of the story, +indicated its peculiar wonder. The review impressed me.</p> +<p>"Barbara, my dear," said I, "this is somebody else—not our +Adrian."</p> +<p>"How many people in the world are called Adrian Boldero?"</p> +<p>"Thousands," said I.</p> +<p>She pished again and tossed her pretty head.</p> +<p>"I'll go and telephone straight away to Adrian and find out all +about it."</p> +<p>She departed through the library door into the recesses of the +house where the telephone has its being. I resumed consideration of +my presidential address. But Hafiz eluded me, and Adrian occupied +my thoughts. I took up the paper and read the review again; and the +more I read, the more absurd did it seem to me that the author of +"The Diamond Gate" and my Adrian Boldero could be one and the same +person.</p> +<p>You see, we had, all four of us, Adrian, Jaffery Chayne, Tom +Castleton and myself, been at Cambridge together, and formed after +the manner of youth a somewhat incongruous brotherhood. We knew one +another's shortcomings to a nicety and whenever three of the +quartette were gathered together, the physical prowess, the morals +and the intellectual capacity of the absent fourth were discussed +with admirable lack of reticence. So it came to pass that we gauged +one another pretty accurately and remained devoted friends. There +were other men, of course, on the fringe of the brotherhood, and +each of us had our little separate circle; we did not form a mutual +admiration society and advertise ourselves as a kind of exclusive, +Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan swashbucklery; but, in a +quiet way, we recognised our quadruple union of hearts, and talked +amazing rubbish and committed unspeakable acts of lunacy and +dreamed impossible dreams in a very delightful, and perhaps +unsuspected, intimacy. We were now in our middle and late +thirties—all save poor Tom Castleton, over whom, in an alien +grave, the years of the Lord passed unheeded. Poor old chap! He was +the son of the acting-manager of a well-known theatre and used to +talk to us of the starry theatre-folk, his family intimates, as +though they were haphazard occupants of an omnibus. How we envied +him! And he was forever writing plays which he read to us; which +plays, I remember, were always on the verge of being produced by +Irving. We believed in him firmly. He alone of the little crew had +a touch of genius.</p> +<p>Blond, bull-necked Jaffery who rowed in the college boat, and +would certainly have got his blue if he had been amenable to +discipline and, because he was not, got sent down ingloriously from +the University at the beginning of his third year, certainly did +not show a sign of it. Adrian was a bit unaccountable. He wrote +poems for the Cambridge Review, and became Vice-President of the +Union; but he ran disastrously to fancy waistcoats, and shuddered +at Dickens because his style was not that of Walter Pater. For +myself, Hilary Freeth—well—I am a happy nonentity. I +have a very mild scholarly taste which sufficient private means, +accruing to me through my late father's acumen in buying a few +founder's shares in a now colossal universal providing emporium, +enable me to gratify. I am a harmless person of no account. But the +other three mattered. They were definite—Jaffery, blatantly +definite; Adrian Boldero, in his queer, silky way, incisively +definite; Tom Castleton, romantically definite. And poor old Tom +was dead. Dear, impossible, feckless fellow. He took a first class +in the Classical Tripos and we thought his brilliant career was +assured—but somehow circumstances baffled him; he had a +terrible time for a dozen years or so, taking pupils, acting, +free-lancing in journalism, his father having, in the meanwhile, +died suddenly penniless; and then Fortune smiled on him. He secured +a professorship at an Australian University. The three of +us—Jaffery and Adrian and I—saw him off at Southampton. +He never reached Australia. He died on the voyage. Poor old +Tom!</p> +<p>So I sat, with the review of Adrian's book before me, looking +out at my Pleasant garden, and my mind went irresistibly back to +the old days and then wandered on to the present. Tom was dead: I +flourished, a comfortable cumberer of the earth; Jaffery was doing +something idiotically desperate somewhere or the other—he was +a war-correspondent by trade (as regular an employment as that of +the maker of hot-cross buns), and a desperado by +predilection—I had not heard from him for a year; and now +Adrian—if indeed the Adrian Boldero of the review was +he—had written an epoch-making novel.</p> +<p>But Adrian—the precious, finnikin Adrian—how on +earth could he have written this same epoch-making novel? Beyond +doubt he was a clever fellow. He had obtained a First Class in the +Law Tripos and had done well in his Bar examination. But after +fourteen years or so he was making twopence halfpenny per annum at +his profession. He made another three-farthings, say, by selling +elegant verses to magazines. He dined out a great deal and spent +much of his time at country houses, being a very popular and +agreeable person. His other means of livelihood consisted of an +allowance of four hundred a year made him by his mother. Beyond the +social graces he had not distinguished himself. And now—</p> +<p>"It <i>is</i> Adrian," cried my wife, bursting into the library. +"I knew it was. He has had several other glorious reviews which we +haven't seen. Isn't it splendid?"</p> +<p>Her eyes danced with loyalty and gladness. Now that I too knew +it was our Adrian I caught her enthusiasm.</p> +<p>"Splendid," I echoed. "To think of old Adrian making good at +last! I'm more than glad. Telephone at once, dear, for a copy of +the book."</p> +<p>"Adrian is bringing one with him. He's coming down to dine and +stay the night. He said he had an engagement, but I told him it was +rubbish, and he's coming."</p> +<p>Barbara had a despotic way with her men friends, especially with +Adrian and Jaffery, who, each after his kind, paid her very pretty +homage.</p> +<p>"And now, I've got a hundred things to do, so you must excuse +me," said Barbara—for all the world as if I had invited her +into my library and was detaining her against her will.</p> +<p>My reply was smilingly ironical. She disappeared. I returned to +Hafiz. Soon a bumble-bee, a great fellow splendid in gold and black +and crimson, blundered into the room and immediately made furious +racket against a window pane. Now I can't concentrate my mind on +serious things, if there's a bumble-bee buzzing about. So I had to +get up and devote ten minutes to persuading the dunderhead to leave +the glass and establish himself firmly on the piece of paper that +would waft him into the open air and sunlight. When I lost sight of +him in the glad greenery I again came back to my work. But two +minutes afterwards my little seven year old daughter, rather the +worse for amateur gardening, and holding a cage of white mice in +her hand, appeared on the threshold, smiled at me with refreshing +absence of apology, darted in, dumped the white mice on an open +volume of my precious Turner Macan's edition of Firdusi, and +clambering into my lap and seizing pencil and paper, instantly +ordained my participation in her favourite game of "head, body and +legs."</p> +<p>An hour afterwards a radiant angel of a nurse claimed her for +purposes of ablution. I once more returned to Hafiz. Then Barbara +put her head in at the door.</p> +<p>"Haven't you thought how delighted Doria will be?"</p> +<p>"I haven't," said I. "I've more important things to think +about."</p> +<p>"But," said Barbara, entering and closing the door with soft +deliberation behind her and coming to my side—"if Adrian +makes a big success, they'll be able to marry."</p> +<p>"Well?" said I.</p> +<p>"Well," said she, with a different intonation. "Don't you +see?"</p> +<p>"See what?"</p> +<p>It is wise to irritate your wife on occasion, so as to manifest +your superiority. She shook me by the collar and stamped her +foot.</p> +<p>"Don't you care a bit whether your friends get married or +not?"</p> +<p>"Not a bit," said I.</p> +<p>Barbara lifted the Macan's Firdusi, still suffering the +desecration of the forgotten cage of white mice, onto my manuscript +and hoisted herself on the cleared corner of the table.</p> +<p>"Doria is my dearest friend. She did my sums for me at school, +although I was three years older. If it hadn't been for us, she and +Adrian would never have met."</p> +<p>"That I admit," I interrupted. "But having started on the path +of crime we're not bound to pursue it to the end."</p> +<p>"You're simply horrid!" she cried. "We've talked for years of +the sad story of these two poor young things, and now, when there's +a chance of their marrying, you say you don't care a bit!"</p> +<p>"My dear," said I, rising, "what with you and Adrian and a +bumble-bee and the child and two white mice, and now Doria, my +morning's work is ruined. Let us go out into the garden and watch +the starlings resting in the walnut trees. Incidentally we might +discuss Doria and Adrian."</p> +<p>"Now you're talking sense," said Barbara.</p> +<p>So we went into the garden—and discussed the formation +next autumn of a new rose-bed.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>By the afternoon train came Adrian, impeccably vestured and +feverish with excitement. Two evening papers which he brandished +nervously, proclaimed "The Diamond Gate" a masterpiece. The book +had been only out a week—(we country mice knew nothing of +it)—and already, so his publisher informed him, repeat orders +were coming in from the libraries and distributing agents.</p> +<p>"Wittekind, my publisher, declares it's going to be the biggest +thing in first novels ever known. And though I say it as shouldn't, +dear old Hilary,"—he clapped me on the shoulder—"it's a +damned fine book."</p> +<p>I shall always remember him as he said this, in the pride of his +manhood, a defiant triumph in his eyes, his head thrown back, and a +smile revealing the teeth below his well-trimmed moustache. He had +conquered at last. He had put poor old Jaffery and fortune-favoured +me in the shade. At one leap he had mounted to planes beyond our +dreams. All this his attitude betokened. He removed the hand from +my shoulder and flourished it in a happy gesture.</p> +<p>"My fortune's made," he cried.</p> +<p>"But, my dear fellow," I asked, "why have you sprung this +surprise on us? I had no idea you were writing a novel."</p> +<p>He laughed. "No one had. Not even Doria. It was on her account I +kept it secret. I didn't want to arouse possible false hopes. It's +very simple. Besides, I like being a dark horse. It's exciting. +Don't you remember how paralysed you all were when I got my First +at Cambridge? Everybody thought I hadn't done a stroke of +work—but I had sweated like mad all the time."</p> +<p>This was quite true, the sudden brilliance of the end of +Adrian's University career had dazzled the whole of his +acquaintance. Barbara, impatient of retrospect, came to the +all-important point.</p> +<p>"How does Doria take it?"</p> +<p>He turned on her and beamed. He was one of those dapper, +slim-built men who can turn with quick grace.</p> +<p>"She's as pleased as Punch. Gave it to old man Jornicroft to +read and insisted on his reading it. He's impressed. Never thought +I had it in me. Can't see, however, where the commercial value of +it comes in."</p> +<p>"Wait till you show him your first thumping cheque," sympathised +my wife.</p> +<p>"I'm going to," he exclaimed boyishly. "I might have done it +this afternoon. Wittekind was off his head with delight and if I +had asked him to give me a bogus cheque for ten thousand to show to +old man Jornicroft, he would have written it without a murmur."</p> +<p>"How much did he really write a cheque for this afternoon?" I +asked, knowing (as I have said before) my Adrian.</p> +<p>Barbara looked shocked. "Hilary!" she remonstrated.</p> +<p>But Adrian laughed in high good humour. "He gave me a hundred +pounds on account."</p> +<p>"That won't impress Mr. Jornicroft at all," said I.</p> +<p>"It impressed my tailor, who cashed it, deducting a quarter of +his bill."</p> +<p>"Do you mean to say, my dear Adrian," I questioned, "that you +went to your tailor with a cheque for a hundred pounds and said, `I +want to pay you a quarter of what I owe you, will you give me +change?'"</p> +<p>"Of course."</p> +<p>"But why didn't you pass the cheque through your banking account +and post him your own cheque?"</p> +<p>"Did you ever hear such an innocent?" he cried gaily. "I wanted +to impress him, I did. One must do these things with an air. He +stuffed my pockets with notes and gold—there has never been +any one so all over money as I am at this particular +minute—and then I gave him an order for half-a-dozen suits +straight away."</p> +<p>"Good God!" I cried aghast. "I've never had six suits of clothes +at a time since I was born."</p> +<p>"And more shame for you. Look!" said he, drawing my wife's +attention to my comfortable but old and deliberately unfashionable +raiment. "I love you, my dear Barbara, but you are to blame."</p> +<p>"Hilary," said my wife, "the next time you go to town you'll +order half-a-dozen suits and I'll come with you to see you do it. +Who is your tailor, Adrian?"</p> +<p>He gave the address. "The best in London. And if you go to him +on my introduction—Good Lord!"—it seemed to amuse him +vastly—"I can order half-a-dozen more!"</p> +<p>All this seemed to me, who am not devoid of a sense of humour +and an appreciation of the pleasant flippancies of life, somewhat +futile and frothy talk, unworthy of the author of "The Diamond +Gate" and the lover of Doria Jornicroft. I expressed this opinion +and Barbara, for once, agreed with me.</p> +<p>"Yes. Let us be serious. In the first place you oughtn't to +allude to Doria's father as 'old man Jornicroft.' It isn't +respectful."</p> +<p>"But I don't respect him. Who could? He is bursting with money, +but won't give Doria a farthing, won't hear of our marriage, and +practically forbids me the house. What possible feeling can one +have for an old insect like that?"</p> +<p>"I've never seen any reason," said Barbara, who is a brave +little woman, "why Doria shouldn't run away and marry you."</p> +<p>"She would like a shot," cried Adrian; "but I won't let her. How +can I allow her to rush to the martyrdom of married misery on four +hundred a year, which I don't even earn?"</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. "It's time, my friends," said I, "to dress +for dinner. Afterwards we can continue the discussion. In the +meanwhile I'll order up some of the '89 Pol Roger so that we can +drink to the success of the book."</p> +<p>"The '89 Pol Roger?" cried Adrian. "A man with '89 Pol Roger in +his cellar is the noblest work of God!"</p> +<p>"I was thinking," Barbara remarked drily, "of asking Doria to +spend a few days here next week."</p> +<p>"All I can say is," he retorted, with his quick turn and smile, +"that you are the Divinity Itself."</p> +<p>So, a short time afterwards, a very happy Adrian sat down to +dinner and brought a cultivated taste to the appreciation of a now, +alas! historical wine, under whose influence he expanded and told +us of the genesis and the making of "The Diamond Gate."</p> +<p>Now it is a very odd coincidence, one however which had little, +if anything, to do with the curious entanglement of my friend's +affairs into which I was afterwards drawn, but an odd coincidence +all the same, that on passing from the dining room with Adrian to +join Barbara in the drawing room, I found among the last post +letters lying on the hall table one which, with a thrill of +pleasure, I held up before Adrian's eyes.</p> +<p>"Do you recognise the handwriting?"</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" cried he. "It's from Jaffery Chayne. And"—he +scanned the stamp and postmark—"from Cettinje. What the deuce +is he doing there?"</p> +<p>"Let us see!" said I.</p> +<p>I opened the letter and scanned it through; then I read it +aloud.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Dear Hilary,</p> +<br /> +<p>"A line to let you know that I'm coming back soon. I haven't +quite finished my job—"</p> +<p>"What was his job?"</p> +<p>"Heaven knows," I replied. "The last time I heard from him he +was cruising about the Sargasso Sea."</p> +<p>I resumed my reading.</p> +<p>"—for the usual reason, a woman. If it wasn't for women +what a thundering amount of work a man could get through. +Anyhow—I'm coming back, with an encumbrance. A wife. Not my +wife, thank Olympus, but another man's wife—"</p> +<p>"Poor old devil!" cried Adrian. "I knew he would come a mucker +one of these days!"</p> +<p>"Wait," said I, and I read—</p> +<p>"—poor Prescott's wife. I don't think you ever knew +Prescott, but he was a good sort. He died of typhoid. Only quaggas +and yaks and other iron-gutted creatures like myself can stand +Albania. I'm escorting her to England, so look out for us. How's +everybody? Do you ever hear of Adrian? If so, collar him. I want to +work the widow off on him. She has a goodish deal of money and is a +kind of human dynamo. The best thing in the world for Adrian."</p> +<p>Adrian confounded the fellow. I continued—</p> +<p>"Prepare then for the Dynamic Widow. Love to Barbara, the fairy +grasshopper—"</p> +<p>"Who's that?"</p> +<p>"My daughter, Susan Freeth. The last time he saw her, she was +hopping about in a green jumper—Barbara would give you the +elementary costume's commercial name."</p> +<p>"—and yourself," I read. "By the way, do you know of a +granite-built, iron-gated, portcullised, barbicaned, really +comfortable home for widows?</p> +<p>Yours, Jaffery."</p> +</div> +<p>Without waiting for comment from Adrian, I went with the letter +into the drawing room, he following. I handed it to Barbara, who +ran it through.</p> +<p>"That's just like Jaffery. He tells us nothing."</p> +<p>"I think he has told us everything," said I.</p> +<p>"But who and what and whence is this lady?"</p> +<p>"Goodness knows!" said I.</p> +<p>"Therefore, he has told us nothing," retorted Barbara. "My own +belief is that she's a Brazilian."</p> +<p>"But what," asked Adrian, "would a lone Brazilian female be +doing in the Balkans?"</p> +<p>"Looking for a husband, of course," said Barbara.</p> +<p>And like all wise men when staggered by serene feminine +asseveration we bowed our heads and agreed that nothing could be +more obvious.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>Some weeks passed; but we heard no more of Jaffery Chayne. If he +had planted his widow there, in Cettinje, and gone off to Central +Africa we should not have been surprised. On the other hand, he +might have walked in at any minute, just as though he lived round +the corner and had dropped in casually to see us.</p> +<p>In the meantime events had moved rapidly for Adrian. Everybody +was talking about his book; everybody was buying it. The rare +phenomenon of the instantaneous success of a first book by an +unknown author was occurring also in America. Golden opinions were +being backed by golden cash. Adrian continued to draw on his +publishers, who, fortunately for them, had an American house. +Anticipating possible alluring proposals from other publishers, +they offered what to him were dazzling and fantastic terms for his +next two novels. He accepted. He went about the world wearing +Fortune like a halo. He achieved sudden fame; fame so widespread +that Mr. Jornicroft heard of it in the city, where he promoted (and +still promotes) companies with monotonous success. The result was +an interview to which Adrian came wisely armed with a note from his +publisher as to sales up to date, and the amazing contract which he +had just signed. He left the house with a father's blessing in his +ears and an affianced bride's kisses on his lips. The wedding was +fixed for September. Adrian declared himself to be the happiest of +God's creatures and spent his days in joy-sodden idleness. His +mother, with tears in her eyes, increased his allowance.</p> +<p>The book that created all this commotion, I frankly admit, held +me spellbound. It deserved the highest encomiums by the most +enthusiastic reviewers. It was one of the most irresistible books I +had ever read. It was a modern high romance of love and pity, of +tears iridescent with laughter, of strong and beautiful though +erring souls; it was at once poignant and tender; it vibrated with +drama; it was instinct with calm and kindly wisdom. In my humility, +I found I had not known my Adrian one little bit. As the shepherd +of old who had a sort of patronizing affection for the +irresponsible, dancing, flute-playing, goat-footed creature of the +woodland was stricken with panic when he recognised the god, so was +I convulsed when I recognised the genius of my friend Adrian. And +the fellow still went on dancing and flute-playing and I stared at +him open-mouthed.</p> +<p>Mr. Jornicroft, who was a widower, gave a great dinner party at +his house in Park Crescent, in honour of the engagement. My wife +and I attended, fishes somewhat out of water amid this brilliant +but solid assembly of what it pleased Barbara to call +"merchantates." She expressed a desire to shrink out of the glare +of the diamonds; but she wore her grandmother's pearls, and, being +by far the youngest and prettiest matron present, held her own with +the best of them. There were stout women, thin women, white-haired +women, women who ought to have been white-haired, but were not; +sprightly and fashionable women; but besides Barbara, the only +other young woman was Doria herself.</p> +<p>She took us aside, as soon as we were released from the formal +welcome of Mr. Jornicroft, a thickset man with a very bald head and +heavy black moustache.</p> +<p>"The sight of you two is like a breath of fresh air. Did you +ever meet with anything so stuffy?"</p> +<p>Now, considering that all these prosperous folks had come to do +her homage I thought the remark rather ungracious.</p> +<p>"It's apt to be stuffy in July in London," I said.</p> +<p>She laid her hand on Barbara's wrist and pointed at me with her +fan.</p> +<p>"He thinks he's rebuking me. But I don't care. I'm glad to see +him all the same. These people mean nothing but money and +music-halls and bridge and restaurants—I'm so sick of it. You +two mean something else."</p> +<p>"Don't speak sacrilegiously of restaurants, even though you are +going to marry a genius," said I. "There is one in Paris to which +Adrian will take you straight—like a homing bird."</p> +<p>"Wherever Adrian takes me, it will be beautiful," she said +defiantly.</p> +<p>My little critical humour vanished, for she looked so valiantly +adorable in her love for the man. She was very small and slenderly +made, with dark hair, luminous eyes, and ivory-white complexion, a +sensitive nose and mouth, a wisp of nerves and passion. She carried +her head high and, for so diminutive a person, appeared vastly +important.</p> +<p>Adrian, released from an ex-Lady Mayoress, came up all smiles, +to greet us. Doria gave him a glance which in spite of my devotion +to Barbara and my abhorrence of hair's breadth deviation from +strict monogamy dealt me a pang of unregenerate jealousy. There is +only one man in the universe worthy of being so regarded by a +woman; and he is oneself. Every true-minded man will agree with me. +She was inordinately proud of him; proud too of herself in that she +had believed in him and given him her love long before he became +famous. Adrian's eyes softened as they met the glance. He turned to +Barbara.</p> +<p>"It's in a crowd like this that she looks so mysterious—an +Elemental; but whether of Earth, Air, Fire or Water, I shall spend +my life trying to discover."</p> +<p>The faintest flush possible mounted to that pure ivory-white +cheek of hers. She laughed and caught me by the arm.</p> +<p>"I must carry you to Lady Bagshawe—you're taking her in to +dinner. Her husband is Master of the Organ-Grinders' +Company—"</p> +<p>"No, no, Doria," said I.</p> +<p>"—Well, it's some city company—I don't +know—and she is a museum of diseases and a gazetteer of cure +places. Now you know where you are."</p> +<p>She led me to Lady Bagshawe. Soon afterwards we trooped down to +dinner, during which I learned more of my inside than I knew +before, and more of that of Lady Bagshawe than any of her most +fervent adorers in their wildest dreams could have ever hoped to +ascertain; during which, also, I endeavoured to convince an +unknown, but agreeable lady on my left that I did not play polo, +whereat, it seemed, her eight brothers were experts; and that Omar +Khayyam was a contemporary not of the Prophet Isaiah, but of +William the Conqueror. As for the setting—I am not an +observant man—but I had an impression of much gold and silver +and rare flora on the table, great gold frames enclosing (I doubt +not) costly pictures on the walls, many desirable jewels on +undesirable bosoms, strong though unsympathetic masculine faces, +and such food and drink as Lucullus, poor fellow, did not live long +enough to discover.</p> +<p>When the ladies retired, and we moved up towards our host, I +found myself between two groups; one discussing the mercantile +depravity of a gentleman called Wilmot, of whom I had never heard, +the other arguing on dark dilemmas connected with an Abyssinian +loan. A vacant chair happening to be by my side, Adrian, glass in +hand, came round the table and sat down.</p> +<p>"How are you getting on?"</p> +<p>"Well," said I. "Very well." I sipped my port. I recognised +Cockburn 1870.</p> +<p>"You seemed rather at a loose end."</p> +<p>"When one has 1870 port to drink," said I, "why fritter away its +flavour in vain words?"</p> +<p>"It is damned good port," Adrian admitted.</p> +<p>"Earth holds nothing better," said I.</p> +<p>We lapsed into silence amid the talk on each side of us. I +confess that I rather surrendered myself to the wine. A little +taper for cigarettes happened to be in front of me; I held my glass +in its light and lost myself in the wine's pure depths of mystery +and colour; and my mind wandered to the lusty sunshine of +"Lusitanian summers" that was there imprisoned. I inhaled its +fragrance, I accepted its exquisite and spacious generosity. Wine, +like bread and oil—"God's three chief words"—is a thing +of itself—a thing of earth and air and sun—one of the +great natural things, such as the stars and the flowers and the +eyes of a dog. Even the most mouth-twisting new wine of Northern +Italy has its fascination for me, in that it is essentially +something apart from the dust and empty racket of the world; how +much more then this radiant vintage suddenly awakened from its +slumber in the darkness of forty years. So I mused, as I think an +honest man is justified in musing, soberly, over a great wine, when +suddenly my left eye caught Adrian's face. He too was musing; but +musing on unhappy things, for a hand seemed to have swept his face +and wiped the joy from it. He was gazing at his half-emptied glass, +with the short stem of which his fingers were nervously toying. +There was a quick snap. The stem broke and the wine flowed over the +cloth. He started, and with a flash the old Adrian came back, +manifesting itself in his smiling dismay, his boyish apology to Mr. +Jornicroft for smashing a rare glass, spoiling the tablecloth and +wasting precious wine. The incident served to disequilibrate, as +one might say, the two discussions on Wilmot and Abyssinia. Coffee +came and liqueurs. I bade farewell to Lusitanian dreams and found +myself in heart to heart conversation with my neighbour on the +right, a florid, simple-minded sugar-broker, a certain next-year's +Sheriff of the City of London, whose consuming ambition was to +become a member of the Athenæum Club. When I informed him +that I was privileged to enter that Valley of Dry Bones—my +late father, an eminent Assyriologist and a disastrous Master of +Fox hounds, had put me up for all sorts of weird institutions, I +think, before I was born—my sugar broker almost fell at my +feet and worshipped me. Although I told him that the premises were +overrun with Bishops and that we had laid down all kinds of +episcopicide to no avail, he refused to be disillusioned. I told +him that on the occasion of my last visit to the +Megatherium—Thackeray, I explained—a Royal Academician, +with whom I had a slight acquaintance, reading desolate "The +Hibbert Journal" in the smoking-room, embraced me as fondly as the +austerity of the place permitted and related a non-drawing-room +story which was current at my preparatory school—and that in +the library I ran into an equally desolate, though even less +familiar Archdeacon, who seized me, like the Ancient Mariner, and +never let me go until he had impressed upon my mind the name and +address of the only man in London who could cut clerical gaiters. +But the simple child of sugar would have his way. There was but one +Valhalla in London, and it was built by Decimus Burton.</p> +<p>After that we joined the ladies for an unimportant half hour or +so, and then Barbara and I took our leave. As we were motoring +home—we live some thirty miles out of London—we +discussed the dinner party, according to the way of married folks, +home-bound after a feast, and I mentioned the trivial incident of +Adrian and the broken glass. Why should his face have been so +haggard when he had everything to make him happy?</p> +<p>"He was thinking of Mr. Jornicroft's previous insulting +behaviour."</p> +<p>"How do you know?"</p> +<p>"He told me," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"I never knew Adrian to be seriously vindictive," said I.</p> +<p>"It strikes me, my dear," replied Barbara, taking my hand, "that +you are an old ignoramus."</p> +<p>And this from a woman who actively glories in not knowing how +many "r's" there are in "harassed."</p> +<p>She nestled up to me. "We're not going abroad in August, are +we?"</p> +<p>"What?" I cried, "leave the English country during the only part +of the year that is not 'deformed with dripping rains or withered +by a frost'? Certainly not."</p> +<p>"But we did last year, and the year before."</p> +<p>"Pure accident. The year before, Susan was recovering from the +measles and you had some pretty frocks which you thought would look +lovely at Dinard. And last year you also had some frocks and +insisted that Houlgate was the only place where Susan could avoid +being stricken down by scarlet-fever."</p> +<p>"Anyhow," said my wife, "we're not going away this year, for +I've fixed up with Doria and Adrian to spend August at +Northlands."</p> +<p>"Why didn't you tell me so at once? Why did you ask me whether +we were going away?"</p> +<p>"Because I knew we weren't," she answered.</p> +<p>In putting two questions at the same time, I blundered. The +first was a poser and might have elicited some interesting +revelation of feminine mental process. In forlorn hope I repeated +it.</p> +<p>"Why, I've told you, stupid," said Barbara. "You've no objection +to their coming, have you?"</p> +<p>"Good Lord, no. I'm delighted."</p> +<p>"From the way you've argued, any one would have thought you +didn't want them."</p> +<p>Outraged by the illogic, I gasped; but she broke into a +laugh.</p> +<p>"You silly old Hilary," she said. "Don't you see that Doria must +get her trousseau together and Adrian must find a house or a flat, +that has to be decorated and furnished, and the poor child hasn't a +mother or any sensible woman in the world to look after her but +me?"</p> +<p>"I see," said I, "that you intend having the time of your +life."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>My prevision proved correct. In August came the engaged couple +and every day Barbara took them up to town and whirled them about +from house-agent to house-agent until she found a flat to suit +them, and then from emporium to emporium until she found furniture +to suit the flat, and from raiment-vendor to raiment-vendor until +she equipped Doria to suit the furniture. She used to return almost +speechless with exhaustion; but pantingly and with the glaze of +victory in her eyes, she fought all her battles o'er again and told +of bargains won. In the meantime had it not been for Susan, I +should have lived in the solitude of an anchorite. We spent much +time in the garden which we (she less conscious of irony than I) +called our desert island. I was Robinson Crusoe and she was Man +Friday, and on the whole we were quite happy; perhaps I should have +been happier in a temperature of 80° in the shade if I had not +been forced to wear the Polar bear rug from the drawing-room in +representation of Crusoe's goatskins. I did suggest that I should +be Robinson Crusoe's brother, who wore ordinary flannels, and that +she should be Woman Wednesday. But Susan saw through the subterfuge +and that game didn't work. One afternoon, however, Barbara, +returning earlier than usual, caught us at it and expressing horror +and indignation at the uses to which the bearskin was put, +metaphorically whipped me and sent me to bed as being the elder of +the naughty ones. After that we played at fairies in a glade, which +was much cooler.</p> +<p>It was in the evenings that I was loneliest; for then Barbara +went early to bed, and the lovers strolled about together in the +moonlight. With the intention, half-malicious, half-pitiful, of +filling up my time, Doria taught me a new and complicated Patience. +Then finally, when Doria, having spent a couple of polite minutes +in the drawing-room, had retired, and when I was tired out from the +strain of the day and half-asleep through weariness, Adrian would +mix himself the longest possible brandy and soda, light the longest +possible cigar and try to keep me up all night listening to his +conversation.</p> +<p>At last, one Friday evening, while I was engaged in my forlorn +and unprofitable game, the butler entered the drawing-room with +unperturbed announcement:</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne on the telephone, sir."</p> +<p>I sent the card table flying amid the wreckage of my lay-out and +rushed to the telephone.</p> +<p>"Hullo! That you, Jaff?"</p> +<p>"Yes, old man. Very much me. A devil of a lot of me. How are +you?"</p> +<p>His strong bass boomed through the receiver. I have always found +a queer comfort in Jaffery's voice. It wraps you round about in +thundering waves. We exchanged the commonplaces of delighted +greeting. I asked:</p> +<p>"When did you arrive?"</p> +<p>"A couple of days ago."</p> +<p>"Why on earth didn't you let me know at once?"</p> +<p>I heard him laugh. "I'll tell you when I see you. By the way, +can Barbara have me for the week-end?"</p> +<p>This was like Jaffery. Most men would have asked me, taking +Barbara for granted.</p> +<p>"Barbara would have you for the rest of time," said I. "And so +would Susan. I'll expect you by the 11 o'clock train."</p> +<p>"Right," said he.</p> +<p>"And, I say!"</p> +<p>"Yes?"</p> +<p>"Talking of fair ladies—what about—?"</p> +<p>"Oh, Hell!" came Jaffery's great voice. "She's here right +enough."</p> +<p>"Where?" I asked.</p> +<p>"The Savoy. So is Euphemia—"</p> +<p>Euphemia was Jaffery's unmarried sister, as like to her brother +as a little wizened raisin is to a fat, bursting muscat grape.</p> +<p>"Euphemia has taken her on. Wants to convert her."</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" I cried. "Is she a Turk?"</p> +<p>"She's a problem." And his great laugh vibrated in my ears.</p> +<p>"Why not bring her down with Euphemia?"</p> +<p>"I want a couple of days off. I want a good quiet time, with no +female women about save Barbara and my fairy grasshopper whom, as +you know, I love to distraction."</p> +<p>"But will Euphemia be all right with her?"</p> +<p>I had not the faintest notion what kind of a creature the +"problem" was.</p> +<p>"Right as rain. Euphemia has fixed up to take her to-morrow +night to a lecture on Tolstoi at the Lyceum Club, and to the City +Temple on Sunday. Ho! ho! ho!"</p> +<p>His Homeric laughter must have shattered the Trunk Telephone +system of Great Britain, for after that there was silence cold and +merciless. Well, perhaps it was just as well, for if we had been +allowed to converse further I might have told him that another +female woman, Doria Jornicroft, was staying at Northlands, and he +might not have come. Jaffery was always a queer fish where women +were concerned. Not a chilly, fishy fish, but a sort of Laodicean +fish, now hot, now cold. I have seen him shrink like a sensitive +plant in the presence of an ingenue of nineteen and royster in +Pantagruelian fashion with a mature member of the chorus of the +Paris Opera; I ham e also known him to fly, a scared Joseph, from +the allurements of the charming wife of a Right Honourable Sir +Cornifer Potiphar, G.C.M.G., and sigh like a furnace in front of an +obdurate little milliner's place of business in Bond Street. I do +not, for the world, wish it to be supposed that I am insinuating +that my dear old Jaffery had no morals. He had—lots of them. +He was stuffed with them. But what they were, neither he nor I nor +any one else was ever able to define. As a general rule, however, +he was shy of strange women, and to that category did Doria +belong.</p> +<p>When the lovers came in I told them my news. Adrian expressed +extravagant delight. A little tiny cloud flitted over Doria's +brow.</p> +<p>"Shall I like him?" she asked.</p> +<p>"You'll adore him," cried Adrian.</p> +<p>"I'll try to, dear, because he seems to mean so much to you. Are +you going up to town with us to-morrow?"</p> +<p>"There's only a morning's fitting at a dressmaker—no place +for me," he laughed. "I'll stay and welcome old Jaffery."</p> +<p>Again the most transient of tiny little clouds. But I could not +help thinking that if Jaffery had been a woman instead of a mere +man, there would have been a thunderstorm.</p> +<p>When we were alone Adrian threw himself into a chair.</p> +<p>"Women are funny beings," he said. "I do believe Doria is +jealous of old Jaffery."</p> +<p>"You have every reason to be proud," said I, "of your +psychological acumen."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p>A fair-bearded, red-faced, blue-eyed, grinning giant got out of +the train and catching sight of us ran up and laid a couple of +great sun-glazed hands on my shoulders.</p> +<p>"Hullo! hullo! hullo!" he shouted, and gripping Adrian in his +turn, shouted it again. He made such an uproar that people stuck +wondering heads out of the carriage windows. Then he thrust himself +between us, linked our arms in his and made us charge with him down +the quiet country platform. A porter followed with his +suit-case.</p> +<p>"Why didn't you tell me that the Man of Fame was with you?"</p> +<p>"I thought I'd give you a pleasant surprise," said I.</p> +<p>"I met Robson of the Embassy in Constantinople—you +remember Robson of Pembroke—fussy little +cock-sparrow—he'd just come from England and was full of it. +You seem to have got 'em in the neck. Bully! Bully!"</p> +<p>Adrian took advantage of the narrow width of the exit to release +himself and I, who went on with Jaffery, looking back, saw him rub +himself ruefully, as though he had been mauled by a bear.</p> +<p>"And how's everybody?" Jaffery's voice reverberated through the +subway. "Barbara and the fairy grasshopper? I'm longing to see 'em. +That's the pull of being free. You can adopt other fellows' wives +and families. I'm coming home now to my adopted wife and daughter. +How are they?"</p> +<p>I answered explicitly. He boomed on till we reached the station +yard, where his eye fell upon a familiar object.</p> +<p>"What?" cried he. "Have you still got the Chinese Puffhard?"</p> +<p>The vehicle thus disrespectfully alluded to was an ancient, +ancient car, the pride of many a year ago, which sentiment +(together with the impossibility of finding a purchaser) would not +allow me to sell. It had been a splendid thing in those far-off +days. It kept me in health. It made me walk miles and miles along +unknown and unfrequented roads. In the aggregate I must have spent +months of my life doing physical culture exercises underneath it. +You got into it at the back; it was about ten feet high, and you +started it at the side by a handle in its midriff. But I loved it. +It still went, if treated kindly. Barbara loathed it and insulted +it, so that with her as passenger, it sulked and refused to go. But +Susan's adoration surpassed even mine. Its demoniac groans and +rattles and convulsive quakings appealed to her unspoiled sense of +adventure.</p> +<p>"Barbara has gone away with the Daimler," said I, "and as I +don't keep a fleet of cars, I had to choose between this and the +donkey-cart. Get in and don't be so fastidious—unless you're +afraid—"</p> +<p>He took no account of my sarcasm. His face fell. He made no +attempt to enter the car.</p> +<p>"Barbara gone away?"</p> +<p>I burst out laughing. His disappointment at not being welcomed +by Barbara at Northlands was so genuine and so childishly +unconcealed.</p> +<p>"She'll be back in time for lunch. She had to run up to town on +business. She sent you her love and Susie will do the honours."</p> +<p>His face brightened. "That's all right. But you gave me a shock. +Northlands without Barbara—" He shook his head.</p> +<p>We drove off. The Chinese Puffhard excelled herself, and though +she choked asthmatically did not really stop once until we were +half way up the drive, when I abandoned her to the gardeners, who +later on harnessed the donkey to her and pulled her into the +motor-house. We dismounted, however, in the drive. A tiny figure in +a blue smock came scuttling over the sloping lawn. The next thing I +saw was the small blue patch somewhere in the upland region of +Jaffery's beard. Then boomed forth from him idiotic exclamations +which are not worth chronicling, accompanied by a duet of bass and +treble laughter. Then he set her astride of his bull neck and +pitched his soft felt hat to Adrian to hold.</p> +<p>"Hang on to my hair. It won't hurt," he commanded.</p> +<p>She obeyed literally, clawing two handfuls of his thick reddish +shock in her tiny grasp, and Jaffery lumbered along like an +elephant with a robin on his head, unconscious of her weight. We +mounted to the terrace in front of the house and having established +my guests in easy chairs, I went indoors to order such drink as +would be refreshing on a sultry August noon. When I returned I +found Jaffery, with Susan on his knee, questioning Adrian, after +the manner of a primitive savage, on the subject of "The Diamond +Gate," and Adrian, delighted at the opportunity, dazzling our +simple-minded friend with publisher's statistics.</p> +<p>"And you're writing another? Deep down in another?" asked +Jaffery. "Do you know, Susie, Uncle Adrian has just got to take a +pen and jab it into a piece of paper, and—tchick!—up +comes a golden sovereign every time he does it."</p> +<p>Susan turned her serene gaze on Adrian. "Do it now," she +commanded.</p> +<p>"I haven't got a pen," said he.</p> +<p>"I'll fetch you one from Daddy's study," she said, sliding from +Jaffery's knee.</p> +<p>Both Jaffery and Adrian looked scared. I, who was not the father +of a feminine thing of seven years old for nothing, interposed, I +think, rather tactfully.</p> +<p>"Uncle Adrian can only do it with a great gold pen, and poor old +daddy hasn't got one."</p> +<p>"I call that silly," replied my daughter. "Uncle Jaffery, have +you got one?"</p> +<p>"No," said he, "You have to be born, like Uncle Adrian, with a +golden pen in your mouth."</p> +<p>The lucky advent of the Archangel Gabriel, with a grin on his +face and a doll in his mouth—the Archangel Gabriel, commonly +known as Gabs, and so termed on account of his archi-angelic +disposition, a hideous mongrel with a white patch over one eye and +a brown patch over the other, with the nose of a collie and the +legs of a Great Dane and the tail of a fox-terrier, whose +mongreldom, however, Adrian repudiated by the bold assertion that +he was a Zanzibar bloodhound—the lucky advent of this +pampered and over-affectionate quadruped directed Susan's mind from +the somewhat difficult conversation. She ran off, forthwith, to the +rescue or her doll; but later (I heard) her nurse was sore put to +it to explain the mystery of the golden pen.</p> +<p>"So much for Adrian. I'm tired of the auriferous person," said +I, waving a hand. "What about yourself? What about the dynamic +widow?"</p> +<p>"Oh, damn the dynamic widow," he replied, corrugating his serene +and sunburnt forehead. "I've come down here to forget her. I'll +tell you about her later." Then he grinned, in his silly, familiar +way, showing two rows of astonishingly white, strong teeth, between +the hair on lip and chin.</p> +<p>"Well," said I, "at any rate give some account of yourself. What +were you doing in Albania, for instance?"</p> +<p>"Prospecting," said he.</p> +<p>"In what—gold, coal, iron?"</p> +<p>"War," said he. "There's going to be a hell of a bust-up one of +these days—and one of these days very soon—in the +Balkans. From Scutari to Salonica to Rodosto, the whole blooming +triangle—it's going to be a battlefield. The war +correspondent who goes out there not knowing his ground will be a +silly ass. The slim statesman like me won't. See? So poor old +Prescott—you must know Prescott of Reuter's?—anyhow +that was the chap—poor old Prescott and I went out exploring. +When he pegged out with enteric I hadn't finished, so I dumped his +widow down at Cettinje where I have some pals, and started out +again on my own. That's all."</p> +<p>He filled another pint tumbler with the iced liquid (one always +had to provide largely for Jaffery's needs) and poured it down his +throat.</p> +<p>"I don't call that a very picturesque account of your +adventures," said Adrian.</p> +<p>Jaffery grinned. "I'll tell you all sorts of funny things, if +you'll give me time," said he, wiping his lips with a vast red and +white handkerchief about the size of a ship's Union Jack.</p> +<p>But we did not give him time; we plied him with questions and +for the next hour he entertained us pleasantly with stories of his +wanderings. He had a Rabelaisian way of laughing over must of his +experiences, even those which had a touch of the gruesome, and the +laughter got into his speech, so that many amusing episodes were +told in the roars of a hilarious lion.</p> +<p>Presently the familiar sound of the horn announced the return of +Barbara. We sprang to our feet and descended to meet the car at the +front porch. Jaffery, grinning with delight, opened the door, +appeared to lift a radiant Barbara out of the car like a parcel and +almost hugged her. And there they stood holding on to each other's +hands and smiling into each other's faces and saying how well they +looked, regardless of the fact that they were blocking the way for +Doria, who remained in the car, I had to move them on with the +reminder that they had the whole week-end for their effusions. +Adrian helped Doria to alight, and to Doria then, for the first +time, was presented Jaffery Chayne. Jaffery blinked at her oddly as +he held her little gloved fingers in his enormous hand. And, +indeed, I could excuse him; for she was a very striking object to +come suddenly into the immediate range of a man's vision, with her +chiffon and her slenderness, and her black hat beneath which her +great eyes shone from the startling, nervous, ivory-white face.</p> +<p>She smiled on him graciously. "I'm so glad to meet you." Then +after a fraction of a second came the explanation. "I've heard so +much of you."</p> +<p>He murmured something into his beard. Meeting his childlike gaze +of admiration, she turned away and put her arm round Barbara's +waist. The ladies went indoors to take off their things, +accompanied by Adrian, who wanted a lover's word with Doria on the +way. Jaffery followed her with his eyes until she had disappeared +at the corner of the hall-stairs. Then he took me by the arm and +led me up towards the terrace.</p> +<p>"Who is that singularly beautiful girl?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Doria Jornicroft," said I.</p> +<p>"She's the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in my +life."</p> +<p>"I wouldn't find her too astonishing, if I were you," said I +with a laugh, "because there might be complications. She's engaged +to Adrian."</p> +<p>He dropped my arm. "Do you mean—she's going to marry +him?"</p> +<p>"Next month," said I.</p> +<p>"Well, I'm damned," said Jaffery. I asked him why. He did not +enlighten me. "Isn't he a lucky devil?" he asked, instead. "The +most pestilentially lucky devil under the sun. But why the deuce +didn't you tell me before?"</p> +<p>"You expressed such a distaste for female women that we thought +we would give you as long a respite as possible."</p> +<p>"That's all very well," he grumbled. "But if I had known that +Adrian's fiancée was knocking around I'd have lumped her in +my heart with Barbara and Susie."</p> +<p>"You're not prevented from doing that now," said I.</p> +<p>His brow cleared. "True, sonny." He broke into a guffaw. "Fancy +old Adrian getting married!"</p> +<p>"I see nothing funny in it," said I. "Lots of people get +married. I'm married."</p> +<p>"Oh, you—you were born to be married," he said +crushingly.</p> +<p>"And so are you," I retorted.</p> +<p>"I? I tie myself to the stay-strings of a flip of a thing in +petticoats, whom I should have to swear to love, honour and +obey—?"</p> +<p>"My good fellow," I interrupted, "it is the woman who swears +obedience."</p> +<p>"And the man practises it. Ho! Ho! Ho!"</p> +<p>His laughter (at this very poor repartee) so resounded that the +adventitious cow, in the field some hundred yards away, lifted her +tail in the air and scampered away, in terror.</p> +<p>"And as to the stay-strings, to continue your delicate metaphor, +you can always cut them when you like."</p> +<p>"Yes. And then there's the devil to pay. She shows you the ends +and makes you believe they're dripping blood and tears. Don't I +know 'em? They're the same from Cape Horn to Alaska, from Dublin to +Rio."</p> +<p>He bellowed forth his invective. He had no quarrel with marriage +as an institution. It was most useful and salutary—apparently +because it provided him, Jaffery, with comfortable conditions +wherein to exist. The multitude of harmless, necessary males (like +myself) were doomed to it. But there was a race of Chosen Ones, to +which he belonged, whose untamable and omni-concupiscent essence +kept them outside the dull conjugal pale. For such as him, nineteen +hundred women at once, scattered within the regions of the seven +circumferential seas. He loved them all. Woman as woman was the joy +of the earth. It was only the silly spectrum of civilisation that +broke Woman up into primary colours—black, yellow, brunette, +blonde—he damned civilisation.</p> +<p>"To listen to you," said I, when he paused for breath, "one +would think you were a devil of a fellow."</p> +<p>"I am," he declared. "I'm a Universalist. At any rate in theory, +or rather in the conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of +those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs +with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to +live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk +at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a +woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on +the saddle and ride away with her—"</p> +<p>"Lord! That's lovely," said I. "How often have you done it?"</p> +<p>"I've never done that exactly, you silly ass," said he. "But +that's my attitude, my philosophy. You see how impossible it would +be for me to tie myself for life to the stay-strings of one flip of +a thing in petticoats."</p> +<p>"You're a blessed innocent," said I.</p> +<p>Adrian sauntering through the French window of my library joined +us on the terrace. Jaffery, forgetful of his attitude, his +philosophy, caught him by the shoulders and shook him in +pain-dealing exuberance. Old Adrian was going to be married. He +wished him joy. Yet it was no use his wishing him joy because he +already had it—it was assured. That exquisite wonder of a +girl. Adrian was a lucky devil, a pestilentially lucky devil. He, +Jaffery, had fallen in love with her on sight. . . .</p> +<p>"And if I hadn't told him that Miss Jornicroft was engaged to +you," said I, "he would have taken her by the hair of her head and +swung her up behind him on the saddle and ridden away with her. +It's a little way Jaffery has."</p> +<p>In spite of sunburn, freckles and pervading hairiness of face, +Jaffery grew red.</p> +<p>"Shut up, you silly fool!" said he, like the overgrown schoolboy +that he was.</p> +<p>And I shut up—not because he commanded, but because +Barbara, like spring in deep summer, and Doria, like night at +noontide, appeared on the terrace.</p> +<p>Soon afterwards lunch was announced. By common conspiracy +Jaffery and Susan upset the table arrangements, insisting that they +should sit next each other. He helped the child to impossible +viands, much to my wife's dismay, and told her apocalyptic stories +of Bulgaria, somewhat to her puzzledom, but wholly to her delight. +But when he proposed to fill her silver mug (which he, as +godfather, had given her on her baptism) with the liquefied dream +of Paradise that Barbara, <i>sola mortalium</i>, can prepare, +consisting of hock and champagne and fruits and cucumber and borage +and a blend of liqueurs whose subtlety transcends human thought, +Barbara's Medusa glare petrified him into a living statue, the +crystal jug of joy poised in his hand.</p> +<p>"Why mayn't I have some, mummy?"</p> +<p>"Because Uncle Jaff's your godfather," said I. "And your +mother's hock-cup is a sinful lust of the flesh. Spare the child +and fill up your own glass."</p> +<p>"Don't you know," said Barbara, "that this is Berkshire, not the +Balkans? We don't intoxicate infants here to make a summer +holiday!"</p> +<p>At this rebuke he exchanged winks with my daughter, and refusing +a handed dish of cutlets asked to be allowed to help himself to +some cold beef on the sideboard. The butler's assistance he +declined. No Christian butler could carve for Jaffery Chayne. After +a longish absence he returned to the table with half the joint on +his plate. Susan regarded it wide-eyed.</p> +<p>"Uncle Jaff, are you going to eat all that?" she asked in an +audible whisper.</p> +<p>"Yes, and you too," he roared, "and mummy and daddy and Uncle +Adrian, if I don't get enough to eat!"</p> +<p>"And Aunt Doria?"</p> +<p>Again he reddened—but he turned to Doria and bowed.</p> +<p>"In my quality of ogre only—a <i>bonne bouche</i>," said +he.</p> +<p>It was said very charmingly, and we laughed. Of course Susan +began the inevitable question, but Barbara hurriedly notified some +dereliction with regard to gravy, and my small daughter was, so to +speak, hustled out of the conversation. Jaffery by way of apology +for his Gargantuan appetite discoursed on the privations of travel +in uncivilised lands. A lump of sour butter for lunch and a sardine +and a hazelnut for dinner. We were to fancy the infinite +accumulation of hunger-pangs. And as he devoured cold beef and +talked, Doria watched him with the somewhat aloof interest of one +who stands daintily outside the railed enclosure of a new kind of +hippopotamus.</p> +<p>The meal over we sought the deep shade of the terrace which +faces due east. Jaffery, in his barbaric fashion, took Doria by the +elbow and swept her far away from the wistaria arbour beneath which +the remaining three of us were gathered, and when he fondly thought +he was out of earshot, he set her beside him on the low parapet. My +wife, with the responsibilities of all the Chancelleries of Europe +knitted in her brow, discussed wedding preparations with Adrian. I, +to whom the quality of the bath towels wherewith Adrian and his +wife were to dry themselves and that of the sheets between which +their housemaid was to lie, were matters of black and awful +indifference, gave my more worthily applied attention to one of a +new brand of cigars, a corona corona, that had its merits but +lacked an indefinable soul-satisfying aroma; and I was on the +pleasurable and elusive point of critical formulation, when +Jaffery's voice, booming down the terrace, knocked the +discriminating nicety out of my head. I lazily shifted my position +and watched the pair.</p> +<p>"You're subtle and psychological and introspective and analytic +and all that," Jaffery was saying—his light word about an +ogre at lunch was not a bad one; sitting side by side on the low +parapet they looked like a vast red-bearded ogre and a feminine +black-haired elf—she had taken off her hat—engaged in a +conversation in which the elf looked very much on the +defensive—"and you're always tracking down motives to their +roots, and you're not contented, like me, with the jolly face of +things—"</p> +<p>"For an accurate diagnosis," I reflected, "of an individual +woman's nature, the blatant universalist has his points."</p> +<p>"Whereas, I, you see," he continued, "just buzz about life like +a dunderheaded old bumble-bee. I'm always busting myself up against +glass panes, not seeing, as you would, the open window a few inches +off. Do you see what I'm driving at?"</p> +<p>Apparently she didn't; for while she was speaking, he threw away +his corona corona—a dream of a cigar for nine hundred and +ninety-nine men out of a thousand (I glanced at Adrian who had +religiously preserved two inches of ash on his)—and hauled +out pipe and tobacco-pouch. I could not hear what she said. When +she had finished, he edged a span nearer.</p> +<p>"What I want you to understand," said he, "is that I'm a simple +sort of savage. I can't follow all these intricate henry Jamesian +complications of feeling. I've had in my life"—he stuck pouch +and pipe on the stone beside him—"I've had in my life just a +few men I've loved—I don't count women—men—men +I've cared for, God knows why. Do you know why one cares for +people?"</p> +<p>She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.</p> +<p>"The latest was poor Prescott—he has just pegged +out—you'll hear soon enough about Prescott. There was Tom +Castleton—has Adrian told you about Castleton—?"</p> +<p>Again she shook her head.</p> +<p>"He will—of course—a wonder of a fellow—up +with us at Cambridge. He's dead. There only remains Hilary, our +host, and Adrian."</p> +<p>As far as I could gather—for she spoke in the ordinary +tones of civilised womanhood, whereas Jaffery, under the impression +that he was whispering confidentially, bellowed like an honest +bull—as far as I could gather, she said:</p> +<p>"You must have met hundreds of men more sympathetic to you than +Mr. Freeth and Adrian."</p> +<p>"I haven't," he cried. "That's the funny devil of it. I haven't. +If I was struck a helpless paralytic with not a cent and no +prospect of earning a cent, I know I could come to those two and +say, 'Keep me for the rest of my life'—and they would do +it"</p> +<p>"And would you do the same for either of them?"</p> +<p>Jaffery rose and stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and +towered over her.</p> +<p>"I'd do it for them and their wives and their children and their +children's children."</p> +<p>He sat down again in confusion at having been led into +hyperbole. But he took her shoulders in his huge but kindly hands, +somewhat to her alarm—for, in her world, she was not +accustomed to gigantic males laying unceremonious hold of +her—</p> +<p>"All I wanted to convey to you, my dear girl, is this—that +if Adrian's wife won't look on me as a true friend, I'm ready to go +away and cut my throat"</p> +<p>Doria smiled at him with pretty civility and assured him of her +willingness to admit him into her inner circle of friends; +whereupon he caught up his pouch and pipe and lumbered down the +terrace towards us, shouting out his news.</p> +<p>"I've fixed it up with Doria"—he turned his head—"I +can call you Doria, can't I?" She nodded permission—what else +could she do? "We're going to be friends. And I say, Barbara, +they'll want a wedding-present. What shall I give 'em? What would +you like?"</p> +<p>The latter question was levelled direct at Doria, who had +followed demurely in his footsteps. But it was not answered; for +from the drawing-room there emerged Franklin, the butler, who +marched up straight to Jaffery.</p> +<p>"A lady to see you, sir"</p> +<p>"A lady? Good God! What kind of a lady?"</p> +<p>He stared at Franklin, in dismay.</p> +<p>"She came in a taxi, sir. The driver mistook the way, and put +her down at the back entrance. She would not give her name."</p> +<p>"Tall, rather handsome, dressed in black?"</p> +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> +<p>"Lord Almighty!" cried Jaffery, including us all in the sweep of +a desperate gaze. "It's Liosha! I thought I had given her the +slip."</p> +<p>Barbara rose, and confronted him. "And pray who is Liosha?"</p> +<p>Adrian hugged his knee and laughed:</p> +<p>"The dynamic widow," said he.</p> +<p>"I'll go and see what in thunder she wants," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>But Barbara's eyes twinkled. "You'll do nothing of the sort. She +has no business to come running after you like this. She must be +taught manners. Franklin, will you show the lady out here?"</p> +<p>She drew herself up to her full height of five feet nothing, +thereby demonstrating the obvious fact that she was mistress in her +own house.</p> +<p>Presently Franklin reappeared.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Prescott," said he.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p>That there should have been in the uncommon-tall young woman of +buxom stateliness and prepossessing features, attired (to the mere +masculine eye) in quite elegant black raiment—a thing called, +I think, a picture hat, broad-brimmed with a sweeping ostrich +feather, tickled my especial fancy, but was afterwards reviled by +my wife as being entirely unsuited to fresh widowhood—what +there should have been in this remarkable Junoesque young person +who followed on the heels of Franklin to strike terror into +Jaffery's soul, I could not, for the life of me, imagine. In the +light of her personality I thought Barbara's <i>coup de +théâtre</i> rather cruel. . . . Of course Barbara +received her courteously. She, too, was surprised at her outward +aspect, having expected to behold a fantastic personage of comic +opera.</p> +<p>"I am very pleased to see you, Mrs. Prescott."</p> +<p>Liosha—I must call her that from the start, for she exists +to me as Liosha and as nothing else—shook hands with Barbara, +making a queer deep formal bow, and turned her calm, brown eyes on +Jaffery. There was just a little quarter-second of silence, during +which we all wondered in what kind of outlandish tongue she would +address him. To our gasping astonishment she said with an +unmistakable American intonation: "Mr. Chayne, will you have the +kindness to introduce me to your friends?"</p> +<p>I broke into a nervous laugh and grasped her hand "Pray allow +me. I am Mr. Freeth, your much honoured host, and this is my wife, +and . . . Miss Jornicroft . . . and Mr. Boldero. Mr. Chayne has +been deceiving us. We thought you were an Albanian."</p> +<p>"I guess I am," said the lady, after having made four +ceremonious bows, "I am the daughter of Albanian patriots. They +were murdered. One day I'm going back to do a little murdering on +my own account."</p> +<p>Barbara drew an audible short breath and Doria instinctively +moved within the protective area of Adrian's arm. Jaffery, with +knitted brow, leaned against one of the posts supporting the old +wistaria arbour and said nothing, leaving me to exploit the +lady.</p> +<p>"But you speak perfect English," said I.</p> +<p>"I was raised in Chicago. My parents were employed in the +stockyards of Armour. My father was the man who slit the throats of +the pigs. He was a dandy," she said in unemotional tones—and +I noticed a little shiver of repulsion ripple through Barbara and +Doria. "When I was twelve, my father kind of inherited lands in +Albania, and we went back. Is there anything more you'd like to +know?"</p> +<p>She looked us all up and down, rather down than up, for she +towered above us, perfectly unconcerned mistress of the situation. +Naturally we made mute appeal to Jaffery. He stirred his huge bulk +from the post and plunged his hands into his pockets.</p> +<p>"I should like to know, Liosha," said he, in a rumble like +thunder, "why you have left my sister Euphemia and what you are +doing here?"</p> +<p>"Euphemia is a damn fool," she said serenely. "She's a freak. +She ought to go round in a show."</p> +<p>"What have you been quarrelling about?" he asked.</p> +<p>"I never quarrel," she replied, regarding him with her calm +brown eyes. "It is not dignified."</p> +<p>"Then I repeat, most politely, Liosha—what are you doing +here?"</p> +<p>She looked at Barbara. "I guess it isn't right to talk of money +before strangers."</p> +<p>Barbara smiled—glanced at me rebukingly. I pulled forward +a chair and invited the lady to sit—for she had been standing +and her astonishing entrance had flabbergasted ceremonious +observance out of me. Whilst she was accepting my belated courtesy, +Barbara continued to smile and said:</p> +<p>"You mustn't look on us as strangers, Mrs. Prescott. We are all +Mr. Chayne's oldest and most intimate friends."</p> +<p>"Do tell us what the row was?" said Jaffery.</p> +<p>Liosha took calm stock of us, and seeing that we were a +pleasant-faced and by no means an antagonistic assembly—even +Doria's curiosity lent her a semblance of a sense of +humour—she relaxed her Olympian serenity and laughed a +little, shewing teeth young and strong and exquisitely white.</p> +<p>"I am here, Jaff Chayne," she said, "because Euphemia is a damn +fool. She took me this morning to your big street—the one +where all the shops are—"</p> +<p>"My dear lady," said Adrian, "there are about a hundred miles of +such streets in London."</p> +<p>"There's only one—" she snapped her fingers, recalling the +name—"only one Regent Street, I ever heard of," she replied +crushingly. "It was Regent Street. Euphemia took me there to shew +me the shops. She made me mad. For when I wanted to go in and buy +things she dragged me away. If she didn't want me to buy things why +did she shew me the shops?" She bent forward and laid her hand on +Barbara's knee. "She must he a damn fool, don't you think so?"</p> +<p>Said Barbara, somewhat embarrassed:</p> +<p>"It's an amusement here to look at shops without any idea of +buying."</p> +<p>"But if one wants to buy? If one has the money to buy?—I +did not want anything foolish. I saw jewels that would buy up the +whole of Albania. But I didn't want to buy up Albania. Not yet. But +I saw a glass cage in a shop window full of little chickens, and I +said to Euphemia: 'I want that. I must have those chickens.' I +said, 'Give me money to go in and buy them.' Do you know, Jaff +Chayne, she refused. I said, 'Give me my money, my husband's money, +this minute, to buy those chickens in the glass cage.' She said she +couldn't give me my husband's money to spend on chickens."</p> +<p>"That was very foolish of her," said Adrian solemnly, "for if +there's one thing the management of the Savoy Hotel love, it's +chicken incubators. They keep a specially heated suite of +apartments for them."</p> +<p>"I was aware of it," said Liosha seriously. "Euphemia was not. +She knows less than nothing. I asked her for the money. She +refused. I saw an automobile close by. I entered. I said, 'Drive me +to Mr. Jaff Chayne, he will give me the money.' He asked where Mr. +Jaff Chayne was. I said he was staying with Mr. Freeth, at +Northlands, Harston, Berkshire. I am not a fool like Euphemia. I +remember. I left Euphemia standing on the sidewalk with her mouth +open like that"—she made the funniest grimace in the +world—"and the automobile brought me here to get some money +to buy the chickens." She held out her hand to Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Confound the chickens," he cried. "It's the taxi I'm thinking +of—ticking out tuppences, to say nothing of the mileage. +Liosha," said he, in a milder roar, "it's no use thinking of buying +chickens this afternoon. It's Saturday and the shops are shut. You +go home before that automobile has ticked out bankruptcy and ruin. +Go back to the Savoy and make your peace with Euphemia, like a good +girl, and on Monday I'll talk to you about the chickens."</p> +<p>She sat up straight in her chair.</p> +<p>"You must take me somewhere else. I've got no use for +Euphemia."</p> +<p>"But where else can I take you?" cried Jaffery aghast.</p> +<p>"I don't know. You know best where people go to in England. +Doesn't he?" She included us all in a smile.</p> +<p>"But you must go back to Euphemia till Monday, at any rate."</p> +<p>"And she has arranged such a nice little programme for you," +said Adrian. "A lecture on Tolstoi to-night and the City Temple +to-morrow. Pity to miss 'em."</p> +<p>"If I saw any more of Euphemia, I might hurt her," said +Liosha.</p> +<p>"Oh, Lord!" said Jaffery. "But you must go somewhere." He turned +to me with a groan. "Look here, old chap. It's awfully rough luck, +but I must take her back to the Savoy and mount guard over her so +that she doesn't break my poor sister's neck."</p> +<p>"I wouldn't go so far as that," said Liosha.</p> +<p>"How far would you go?" Adrian asked politely, with the air of +one seeking information.</p> +<p>"Oh, shut up, you idiot," Jaffery turned on him savagely. "Can't +you see the position I'm in?"</p> +<p>"I'm very sorry you're angry, Jaff Chayne," said Liosha with a +certain kind dignity. "But these are your friends. Their house is +yours. Why should I not stay here with you?"</p> +<p>"Here? Good God!" cried Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Yes, why not?" said Barbara, who had set out to teach this lady +manners.</p> +<p>"The very thing," said I.</p> +<p>Jaffery declared the idea to be nonsense. Barbara and I +protested, growing warmer in our protestations as the argument +continued. Nothing would give us such unimaginable pleasure as to +entertain Mrs. Prescott. Liosha laid her hand on Jaffery's arm.</p> +<p>"But why shouldn't they have me? When a stranger asks for +hospitality in Albania he is invited to walk right in and own the +place. Is it refused in England?"</p> +<p>"Strangers don't ask," growled Jaffery.</p> +<p>"It would make life much more pleasant if they did," said +Barbara, smiling. "Mrs. Prescott, this bear of a guardian or +trustee or whatever he is of yours, makes a terrible +noise—but he's quite harmless."</p> +<p>"I know that," said Liosha.</p> +<p>"He does what I tell him," the little lady continued, drawing +herself up majestically beside Jaffery's great bulk. "He's going to +stay here, and so will you, if you will so far honour us."</p> +<p>Liosha rose and bowed. "The honour is mine."</p> +<p>"Then will you come this way—I will shew you your +room."</p> +<p>She motioned to Liosha to precede her through the French window +of the drawing-room. Before disappearing Liosha bowed again. I +caught up Barbara.</p> +<p>"My dear, what about clothes and things?"</p> +<p>"My dear," she said, "there's a telephone, there's a taxi, +there's a maid, there's the Savoy hotel, and there's a train to +bring back maid and clothes."</p> +<p>When Barbara takes command like this, the wise man effaces +himself. She would run an Empire with far less fuss than most +people devote to the running of a small sweet-stuff shop. I smiled +and returned to the others. Jaffery was again filling his huge +pipe.</p> +<p>"I'm awfully sorry, old man," he said gloomily.</p> +<p>Adrian burst out laughing "But she's immense, your widow! The +most refreshing thing I've seen for many a day. The way she clears +the place of the cobwebs of convention! She's great. Isn't she, +Doria?"</p> +<p>"I can quite understand Mr. Chayne finding her an uncomfortable +charge."</p> +<p>"Thank you," said Jaffery, with rather unnecessary vehemence. "I +knew you would be sympathetic." He dropped into a chair by her +side. "You can't tell what an awful thing it is to be responsible +for another human being."</p> +<p>"Heaps of people manage to get through with it—every +husband and wife—every mother and father."</p> +<p>"Yes; but not many poor chaps who are neither father nor husband +are responsible for another fellow's grown-up widow."</p> +<p>Doria smiled. "You must find her another husband."</p> +<p>"That's a great idea. Will you help me? Before I knew of +Adrian's great good fortune, I wrote to Hilary—ho! ho! ho! +But we must find somebody else."</p> +<p>"Has she any money?" asked Doria, who smiled but faintly at the +jocular notion of a Liosha-bound Adrian.</p> +<p>"Prescott left her about a thousand a year. He was pretty well +off, for a war-correspondent."</p> +<p>"I don't think she'll have much difficulty. Do you know," she +added, after a moment or two of reflection, "if I were you, I would +establish her in a really first-class boarding-house."</p> +<p>"Would that be a good way?" Jaffery asked simply.</p> +<p>She nodded. "The best. She seems to have fallen foul of your +sister."</p> +<p>"The dearest old soul that ever lived," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"That's why. I'm sure I know your sister perfectly. The daughter +of an Albanian patriot who used to kill pigs in Chicago—why, +what can your poor sister do with her? Your sister is much older +than you, isn't she?"</p> +<p>"Ten years. How did you guess?"</p> +<p>Doria smiled with feminine wisdom. "She's the gentlest maiden +lady that ever was. It's only a man that could have thought of +saddling her with our friend. Well—that's impossible. She +would be the death of your sister in a week. You can't look after +her yourself—that wouldn't be proper."</p> +<p>"And it would be the death of me too!" said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"You can't leave her in lodgings or a flat by herself, for the +poor woman would die of boredom. The only thing that remains is the +boarding-house."</p> +<p>Jaffery regarded her with the open-eyed adoration of a heathen +Goth receiving the Gospel from Saint Ursula.</p> +<p>"By Jove!" he murmured. "You're wonderful."</p> +<p>"Let us stretch our legs, Hilary," said Adrian, who had not +displayed enthusiastic interest in the housing of Liosha.</p> +<p>So we went off, leaving the two together, and we discoursed on +the mystic ways of women, omitting all reference, as men do, to the +exceptional paragon of femininity who reigned in our respective +hearts. Perhaps we did a foolish thing in thus abandoning saint and +hungry convert to their sympathetic intercourse. The saint could +hold her own; she had vowed herself to Adrian, and she belonged to +the type for whom vows are irrefragable; but poor old Jaffery had +made no vows, save of loyalty to his friends; which vows, provided +they are kept, are perfectly consistent with a man's falling +hopelessly, despairingly in love with his friend's affianced bride. +And, as far as Barbara and myself have been able to make out, it +was during this intimate talk that Jaffery fell in love with Doria. +Of course, what the French call <i>le coup de foudre</i>, the +thunderbolt of love had smitten him when he had first beheld Doria +alighting from the motor-car. But he did not realise the stupefying +effect of this bang on the heart till he had thus sat at her little +feet and drunk in her godlike wisdom.</p> +<p>The fairy tales are very true. The rumbustious ogre has a +hitherto undescribed, but quite imaginable, gap-toothed, +beetle-browed ogress of a wife. Why he married her has never been +told. Why the mortal male whom we meet for the first time at a +dinner party has married the amazing mortal female sitting +somewhere on the other side of the table is an insoluble mystery, +and if we can't tell even why men mate, what can we expect to know +about ogres? At all events, as far as the humdrum of matrimony is +concerned, the fairy tales are truer than real life. The ogre +marries his ogress. It is like to like. But when it comes to +love—and if love were proclaimed and universally recognised +as humdrum, there would never be a tale, fairy or otherwise, ever +told again in the world worth the hearing—we have quite a +different condition of affairs. Did you ever hear of an ogre +sighing himself to a shadow for love of a gap-toothed ogress? No. +He goes out into the fairy world, and, sending his ogress-wife to +Jericho, becomes desperately enamoured of the elfin princess. There +he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch: there she is, a wraith of a +creature made up of thistledown and fountain-bubbles and stars. He +stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery +tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand. Its +touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his +arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his +fingers and eat her like a quail—the one satisfactory method +of eating a quail is unfortunately practised only by +ogres—but he does not want to eat her. He goes on his knees, +and invites her to chew any portion of him that may please her +dainty taste. In short he makes the very silliest ass of himself, +and the elfin princess, who of course has come into contact with +the Real Beautiful Young Man of the Story Books, won't have +anything to do with the Ogre; and if he is more rumbustious than he +ought to be, generally finds a way to send him packing. And so the +poor Ogre remains, planted there. The Fairy Tales, I remark again, +are very true in demonstrating that the Ogre loves the elf and not +the Ogress. But all the same they are deucedly unsympathetic +towards the poor Ogre. The only sympathetic one I know is Beauty +and the Beast; and even that is a mere begging of the question, for +the Beast was a handsome young nincompoop of a Prince all the +time!</p> +<p>Barbara says that this figurative, allusive adumbration of +Jaffery's love affair is pure nonsense. Anything less like an ogre +than our overgrown baby of a friend it would he impossible to +imagine. But I hold to my theory; all the more because when Adrian +and I returned from our stroll round the garden, we found Jaffery +standing over her, legs apart, like a Colossus of Rhodes, and +roaring at her like a sucking dove. I noticed a scared, +please-don't-eat-me look in her eyes. It was the ogre (trying to +make himself agreeable) and the princess to the life.</p> +<p>Presently tea was brought out, and with it came Barbara, a quiet +laugh about her lips, and Liosha, stately and smiling. My wife to +put her at her ease (though she had displayed singularly little +shyness), after dealing with maid and taxi, had taken her over the +house, exhibited Susan at tea in the nursery, and as much of +Doria's trousseau as was visible in the sewing-room. The +approaching marriage aroused her keen interest. She said very +little during the meal, but smiled embarrassingly on the engaged +pair. Jaffery stood glumly devouring cucumber sandwiches, till +Barbara took him aside.</p> +<p>"She's rather a dear, in spite of everything, and I think you're +treating her abominably."</p> +<p>Jaffery grew scarlet beneath the brick-coloured glaze.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't treat any woman abominably, if I could help it."</p> +<p>"Well, you can help it—" and taking pity on him, she +laughed in his face. "Can't you take her as a joke?"</p> +<p>He glanced quietly at the lady. "Rather a heavy one," he +said.</p> +<p>"Anyhow come and talk to us and be civil to her. Imagine she's +the Vicar's wife come to call."</p> +<p>Jaffery's elementary sense of humour was tickled and he broke +out into a loud guffaw that sent the house cat, a delicate +mendicant for food, scuttling across the lawn. The sight of the +terror-stricken animal aroused the rest of the party to harmless +mirth.</p> +<p>"Tell me, Mrs. Prescott," said Adrian, "was he allowed to do +that in Albania?"</p> +<p>"I guess there aren't many things Jaff Chayne can't do in +Albania," replied Liosha. "He has the <i>bessas</i> that carry him +through and he's as brave as a lion."</p> +<p>"I suppose you like brave men?" said Doria.</p> +<p>"A woman who married a coward would be a damn +fool—especially in Albania. I guess there aren't many in my +mountains."</p> +<p>"I wish you would tell us about your mountains," said Barbara +pleasantly.</p> +<p>"And at the same time," said I, "Jaff might let us hear his +story. That is to say if you have no objection, Mrs. Prescott."</p> +<p>"With us," said Liosha, "the guest is expected to talk about +himself; for if he's a guest he's one of the family."</p> +<p>"Shall I go ahead then?" asked Jaffery, "and you chip in +whenever you feel like it?"</p> +<p>"That would be best," replied Liosha.</p> +<p>And having lit a cigarette and settled herself in her +deck-chair, she motioned to Jaffery to proceed. And there in the +shade of the old wistaria arbour, surrounded by such dainty +products of civilisation as Adrian (in speckless white flannels and +violet socks) and the tea-table (in silver and egg-shell china) +this pair of barbarians told their tale.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p>It is some years now since that golden August afternoon, and my +memory of the details of the story of Liosha as told by Jaffery and +illustrated picturesquely by the lady herself is none of the most +precise. Incidentally I gathered, then and later in the +smoking-room from Jaffery alone, a prodigious amount of information +about Albania which, if I had imprisoned it in writing that same +evening as the perfect diarist is supposed to do, would have been +vastly useful to me at the present moment. But I am as a diarist +hopelessly imperfect. I stare, now, as I write, at the bald, +uninspiring page. This is my entry for Aug. 4th, 19—.</p> +<p>"Weighed Susan. 4 st. 3.</p> +<p>"Met Jaffery at station.</p> +<p>"Albanian widow turned up unexpectedly after lunch. Fine woman. +Going to be a handful. Staying week-end. Story of meeting and +Prescott marriage.</p> +<p>"Promised Susan a donkey ride. Where the deuce does one get +donkeys warranted quiet and guaranteed to carry a lady? <i>Mem:</i> +Ask Torn Fletcher.</p> +<p>"<i>Mem:</i> Write to Launebeck about cigars."</p> +<p>Why I didn't write straight off to Launebeck about the cigars, +instead of "mem-ing" it, may seem a mystery. It isn't. It is a +comfortable habit of mine. Once having "mem-ed" an unpleasant thing +in my diary, the matter is over. I dismiss it from my mind. But to +return to Liosha—I find in my entry of sixty-two words +thirty-five devoted to Susan, her donkey and the cigars, and only +twenty-seven to the really astonishing events of the day. Of course +I am angry. Of course I consult Barbara. Of course she pats the +little bald patch on the top of my head and laughs in a superior +way and invents, with a paralysing air of verity, an impossible +amplification of the "story of meeting and Prescott marriage." And +of course, the frivolous Jaffery, now that one really wants him, is +sitting astride of a cannon, and smoking a pipe and, notebook and +pencil in hand, is writing a picturesque description of the +bungling decapitation by shrapnel of the general who has just been +unfolding to him the whole plan of the campaign, and consequently +is provokingly un-getatable by serious persons like myself<a name= +"FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class= +"fnanchor">[A]</a>.</p> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href= +"#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Hilary is +writing at the end of the late Balkan war.—W.J.L.</p> +</div> +<p>So for what I learned that day I must trust to the elusive +witch, Memory. I have never been to Albania. I have never wanted to +go to Albania. Even now, I haven't the remotest desire to go to +Albania. I should loathe it. Wherever I go nowadays, I claim as my +right bedroom and bath and viands succulent to the palate and +tender to the teeth. My demands are modest. But could I get them in +Albania? No. Could one travel from Scutari to Monastir in the same +comfort as one travels from London to Paris or from New York to +Chicago? No. Does any sensible man of domestic instincts and +scholarly tastes like to find himself halfway up an inaccessible +mountain, surrounded by a band of moustachioed desperadoes in +fustanella petticoats engirdled with an armoury of pistols, daggers +and yataghans, who if they are unkind make a surgical demonstration +with these lethal implements, and if they are smitten with a mania +of amiability, hand you over, for superintendence of your repose, +to an army of satellites of whom you are only too glad to call the +flea brother? I trow not. Personally, I dislike mountains. They +were made for goats and cascades and lunatics and other +irresponsible phenomena of nature. They have their uses, I admit, +as windscreens and water-sheds; and beheld from the valley they can +assume very pretty colours, owing to varying atmospheric +conditions; and the more jagged and unenticing they are, the +greater is their specious air of stupendousness. . . . At any rate +they are hindrances to convenient travel and so I go among them as +little as possible.</p> +<p>To judge from the fervid descriptions given us by Jaffery and +Liosha, Albania must be a pestilentially uncomfortable place to +live in. It is divided into three religious sects, then re-divided +into heaven knows how many tribes. What it will be when it gets +autonomy and a government and a parliament and picture-palaces no +one yet knows. But at the time when my two friends met it was in +about as chaotic a condition as a jungle. Some tribes acknowledged +the rule of the Turk. Others did not. Every mountainside had a +pretty little anarchical system of its own. Every family had a +pretty little blood feud with some other family. Accordingly every +man was handy with knife and gun and it was every maiden's dream to +be sold as a wife to the most bloodthirsty scoundrel in the +neighbourhood. At least that was the impression given me by +Liosha.</p> +<p>When the tragedy occurred she herself was about to be sold to a +prosperous young cutthroat of whom she had seen but little, as he +lived, I gathered, a couple of mountains off. They had been +betrothed years before. The price her father demanded was high. Not +only did he hold a notable position on his mountain, but he had +travelled to the fabulous land of America and could read and write +and could speak English and could handle a knife with peculiar +dexterity. Again, Liosha was no ordinary Albanian maiden. She too +had seen the world and could read and write and speak English. She +had a will of her own and had imbibed during her Chicago childhood +curiously un-Albanian notions of feminine independence. Being +beautiful as well, she ranked as a sort of prize bride worth (in +her father's eyes) her weight in gold.</p> +<p>It was to try to reduce this excessive valuation that the young +cutthroat visited his father's house. During the night two +families, one of whom had a feud with the host and another with the +guest, each attended by an army of merry brigands, fell upon the +sleeping homestead, murdered everybody except Liosha, who managed +to escape, plundered everything plunderable, money, valuables, +household goods and live stock, and then set fire to the house and +everything within sight that could burn. After which they marched +away singing patriotic hymns. When they had gone Liosha crept out +of the cave wherein she had hidden, and surveyed the scene of +desolation.</p> +<p>"I tell you, I felt just mad," said Liosha at this stage of the +story.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>I remember Barbara and Doria staring at her open-mouthed. +Instead of fainting or going into hysterics or losing her wits at +the sight of the annihilation of her entire kith and +kin—including her bridegroom to be—and of her whole +worldly possessions, Liosha "felt just mad," which as all the world +knows is the American vernacular for feeling very angry.</p> +<p>"It was enough to turn any woman into a raving lunatic," gasped +Barbara.</p> +<p>"Guess it didn't turn me," replied Liosha contemptuously.</p> +<p>"But what did you do?" asked Dora.</p> +<p>"I sat down on a stone and thought how I could get even with +that crowd." She bit her lip and her soft brown eyes hardened.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i064.jpg" id="i064.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/064.jpg"><img src="images/064.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>Where the lonely figure in black and white sat +brooding.</b></div> +<p>"And that's where we came in, don't you see?" interposed Jaffery +hastily.</p> +<p>You can imagine the scene. The two Englishmen, one gigantic, red +and hairy, the other wiry and hawk-like, jogging up the mountain +path on ragged ponies and suddenly emerging onto that plateau of +despair where the lonely figure in black and white sat +brooding.</p> +<p>Under such unusual conditions, it was not difficult to form +acquaintance. She told her story to the two horror-stricken men. +British instinct cried out for justice. They would take her +straight to the Vali or whatever authority ruled in the wild land, +so that punishment should be inflicted on the murderers. But she +laughed at them. It would take an army to dislodge her enemies from +their mountain fastnesses. And who could send an army but the +Sultan, a most unlikely person to trouble his head over the +massacre of a few Christians? As for a local government, the +<i>mallisori</i>, the mountain tribes, did not acknowledge any. The +Englishmen swore softly. Liosha nodded her head and agreed with +them. What was to be done? The Englishmen, alter giving her food +and drink which she seemed to need, offered their escort to a place +where she could find relations or friends. Again she laughed +scornfully.</p> +<p>"All my relations lie there"—she pointed to the smoking +ruins. "And I have no friends. And as for your escorting +me—why I guess it would be much more use my escorting +you."</p> +<p>"And where would you escort us?"</p> +<p>"God knows," she said.</p> +<p>Whereupon they realised that she was alone in the wide world, +homeless and penniless, and that for a time, at least, they were +responsible to God and man for this picturesque Albanian damsel who +spoke the English of the stockyards of Chicago. Again what was to +be done? They could take her back to Scutari, whence they had come, +in the hope of finding a Roman Catholic sisterhood. The proposal +evoked but lukewarm enthusiasm. Liosha being convinced that they +would turn her into a nun—the last avocation in the world she +desired to adopt. Her simple idea was to go out to America, like +her father, return with many bags of gold and devote her life to +the linked sweetness of a gradual extermination of her enemies. +When asked how she would manage to amass the gold she replied that +she would work in the packing-houses like her mother. But how, they +asked, would she get the money to take her to Chicago? "It must +come from you!" she said. And the men looked at each other, feeling +mean dogs in not having offered to settle her there themselves. +Then, being a young woman of an apparently practical mind, she +asked them what they were doing in Albania. They explained. They +were travellers from England, wandering for pleasure through the +Balkans. They had come from Scutari, as far as they could, in a +motor-car. Liosha had never heard of a motor-car. They described it +as a kind of little railway-engine that didn't need rails to run +upon. At the foot of the mountains they had left it at a village +inn and bought the ragged ponies. They were just going ahead +exploring.</p> +<p>"Do you know the way?" she asked with a touch of contempt.</p> +<p>They didn't.</p> +<p>"Then I guess I'll guide you. You pay me wages every day until +you're tired and I'll use the money to go out to Chicago." And +seeing them hesitate, she added: "No one's going to hurt me. A +woman is safe in Albania. And if I'm with you, no one will hurt +you. But if you go on by yourselves you'll very likely get +murdered."</p> +<p>Fantastic as was her intention, they knew that, as far as they +themselves were concerned, she spoke common-sense. So it came to +pass that Liosha, having left them for a few moments to take grim +farewell of the charred remains of her family lying hidden beneath +the smouldering wreckage, returned to them with a calm face, +mounted one of the ponies and pointing before her, led the way into +the mountains.</p> +<p>Now, if old Jaff would only sit down and write this absurd +Odyssey in the vivid manner in which he has related bits of it to +me, he would produce the queerest book of travel ever written. But +he never will. As a matter of fact, although he saw Albania as few +Westerners have done and learned useful bits of language and made +invaluable friends, and although he appreciated the journey's +adventurous and humorous side, it did not afford him complete +satisfaction. A day or two after their start, Prescott began to +shew signs of peculiar interest in their guide. In spite of her +unquestioning readiness to shoulder burdens, Prescott would run to +relieve her. Liosha has assured me that Jaffery did the +same—and indeed I cannot conceive Jaffery allowing a female +companion to stagger along under a load which he could swing onto +his huge back and carry like a walnut. To go further—she +maintains that the two quarrelled dreadfully over the alleviation +of her labours, so much so, that often before they had ended their +quarrel, she had performed the task in dispute. This of course +Jaffery has blusteringly denied. She was there, paid to do certain +things, and she had to do them. The way Prescott spoiled her and +indulged her, as though she were a little dressed-up cat in a +London drawing-room, instead of a great hefty woman accustomed to +throw steers and balance a sack of potatoes on her head, was simply +sickening. And it became more sickening still as Prescott's +infatuation clouded more and more the poor fellow's brain. Jaffery +talked (not before Liosha, but to Adrian and myself, that night, +after the ladies had gone to bed) as if the girl had woven a Vivien +spell around his poor friend. We smiled, knowing it was Jaffery's +way. . . .</p> +<p>At all events, whether Jaffery was jealous or not, it is certain +that Prescott fell wildly, blindly, overwhelmingly in love with +Liosha. Considering the close intimacy of their lives; considering +that they were in ceaseless contact with this splendid creature, +untrammelled by any convention, daughter of the earth, yet chaste +as her own mountain winds; and considering that both of them were +hot-blooded men, the only wonder is that they did not fly at each +other's throats, or dash in each other's heads with stones, after +the fashion of prehistoric males. It is my well-supported +conviction, however, that Jaffery, honest old bear, seeing his +comrade's very soul set upon the honey, trotted off and left him to +it, and made pretence (to satisfy his ursine conscience) of +growling his sarcastic disapproval.</p> +<p>"The devil of it was," he declared that night, with a sweep of +his arm that sent a full glass of whiskey and soda hurtling across +space to my bookshelves and ruining some choice bindings—"the +devil of it was," said he, after expressing rueful contrition, +"that she treated him like a dog, whereas I could do anything I +liked with her. But she married him."</p> +<p>Of course she married him. Most Albanian young women in her +position would have married a brave and handsome Englishman of +incalculable wealth—even if they had not Liosha's ulterior +motives. And beyond question Liosha had ulterior motives. Prescott +espoused her cause hotly. He convinced her that he was a power in +Europe. As a Reuter correspondent he did indeed possess power. He +would make the civilised world ring with this tale of bloodshed and +horror. He would beard Sultans in their lairs and Emperors in their +dens. He would bring down awful vengeance on the heads of her +enemies. How Sultans and Emperors were to do it was as obscure as +at the horror-filled hour of their first meeting. But a man +vehemently in love is notoriously blind to practical +considerations. Prescott put his life into her hands. She accepted +it calmly; and I think it was this calmness of acceptance that +infuriated Jaffery. If she had been likewise caught in the +whirlpool of a mad passion, Jaffery would have had nothing to say. +But she did not (so he maintained) care a button for Prescott, and +Prescott would not believe it. She had promised to marry him. That +ideal of magnificent womanhood had promised to marry him. They were +to be married—think of that, my boy!—as soon as they +got back to Scutari and found a British Consul and a priest or two +to marry them. "Then for God's sake," roared Jaffery, "let us trek +to Scutari. I'm fed up with playing gooseberry. The Giant +Gooseberry. Ho! ho! ho!"</p> +<p>So they shortened their projected journey and, making a circuit, +picked up the motor-car—a joy and wonder to Liosha. She +wanted to drive it—over the rutted wagon-tracks that pass for +roads in Albania—and such was Prescott's infatuation that he +would have allowed her to do so. But Jaffery sat an immovable +mountain of flesh at the wheel and brought them safely to Scutari. +There arrangements were made for the marriage before the British +Vice-Consul. On the morning of the ceremony Prescott fell ill. The +ceremony was, however, performed. Towards evening he was in high +fever. The next morning typhoid declared itself. In two or three +days he was dead. He had made a will leaving everything to his +wife, with Jaffery as sole executor and trustee.</p> +<p>This sorry ending of poor Prescott's romance—I never knew +him, but shall always think of him as a swift and vehement +spirit—was told very huskily by Jaffery beneath the wistaria +arbour. Tears rolled down Barbara's and Doria's cheeks. My wife's +sympathetic little hand slid into Liosha's. With her other hand +Liosha fondled it. I am sure it was rather gratitude for this +little feminine act than poignant emotion that moistened Liosha's +beautiful eyes.</p> +<p>"I haven't had much luck, have I?"</p> +<p>"No, my poor dear, you haven't," cried Barbara in a gush of +kindness.</p> +<p>In the course of a few weeks to have one's affianced husband +murdered and one's legal though nominal husband spirited away by +disease, seemed in the eyes of my gentle wife to transcend all +records of human tragedy. Very soon afterwards she made a pretext +for taking Liosha away from us, and I had the extraordinary +experience of seeing my proud little Barbara, who loathes the +caressive insincerities prevalent among women, cross the lawn with +her arm around Liosha's waist.</p> +<p>The rest of the bare bones of the story I have already told you. +Jaffery, after burying his poor comrade, took ship with Liosha and +went to Cettinje, where he entrusted her to the care of old friends +of his, the Austrian Consul and his wife, and made her known as the +widow of Prescott of Reuter's to the British diplomatic +authorities. Then having his work to do, he started forth again, a +heavy-hearted adventurer, and, when it was over, he picked up +Liosha, for whom Frau von Hagen had managed to procure a stock of +more or less civilised raiment, and brought her to London to make +good her claim, under Prescott's will, to her dead husband's +fortune.</p> +<p>Now this is Jaffery all over. Put him on a battlefield with guns +going off in all directions, or in a shipwreck, or in the midst of +a herd of crocodiles, and he will be cool master of the situation, +and will telegraph to his newspaper the graphic, nervous stuff of +the born journalist; but set him a simple problem in social life, +which a child of fifteen would solve in a walk across the room, and +he is scared to death. Instead of sending for Barbara, for +instance, when he arrived in London, or any other sensible woman, +say, like Frau von Hagen of Cettinje, he drags poor Euphemia, a +timid maiden lady of forty-five, from her tea-parties and +Bible-classes and Dorcas-meetings at Tunbridge Wells, and plants +her down as guide, philosopher and friend to this disconcerting +product of Chicago and Albania. Of course the poor lady was at her +wits' ends, not knowing whether to treat her as a new-born baby or +a buffalo. With equal inevitability, Liosha, unaccustomed to this +type of Western woman, summed her up in a drastic epithet. And in +the meanwhile Jaffery went about tearing hair and beard and cursing +the fate that put him in charge of a volcano in petticoats.</p> +<p>"I have a great regard for Euphemia," said Barbara, later in the +day—they were walking up and down the terrace in, the dusk +before dinner—"but I have some sympathy with Liosha. Tolstoi! +My dear Jaffery! And the City Temple! If she wanted to take the +girl to church, why not her own church, the Brompton Oratory or +Farm Street?"</p> +<p>"Euphemia wouldn't attend a Popish place of worship—she +still calls it Popish, poor dear—to save her soul alive, or +anybody else's soul," replied Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Then pack her off at once to Tunbridge Wells," said Barbara. +"She's even more helpless than you, which is saying a great deal. +I'll see to Liosha."</p> +<p>Jaffery protested. It was dear of her, sweet of her, miraculous +of her, but he couldn't dream of it.</p> +<p>"Then don't," she retorted. "Put it out of your mind. And +there's Franklin. Come to dinner."</p> +<p>"I'm not a bit hungry," he said gloomily.</p> +<p>We dined; as far as I was concerned, very pleasantly. Liosha, +who sat on my right, refreshingly free in her table manners +(embarrassingly so to my most correct butler), was equally free in +her speech. She provided me with excellent entertainment. I learned +many frank truths about Albanian women, for whom, on account of +their vaccine subjection, she proclaimed the most scathing +contempt. Her details, in architectural phrase, were full size. +Once or twice Doria, who sat on my left, lowered her eyes +disapprovingly. At her age, her mother would have been shocked; her +grandmother would have blushed from toes to forehead; her +great-grandmother might have fainted. But Doria, a Twentieth +Century product, on the Committee of a Maternity Home and a Rescue +Laundry, merely looked down her nose . . . I gathered that Liosha, +for all her yearning to shoot, flay alive, crucify and otherwise +annoy her enemies, did not greatly regret the loss of the +distinguished young Albanian cutthroat who was her affianced. Had +he lived she would have spent the rest of her days in saying, like +Melisande, "I am not happy." She would have been an instrument of +pleasure, a producer of children, a slaving drudge, while he went +triumphantly about, a predatory ravisher, among the scattered +Bulgarian peasantry. In fact, she expressed a whole-hearted +detestation for her betrothed. I am pretty sure, too, that the +death of her father did not leave in her life the aching gap that +it might have done.</p> +<p>You see, it came to this. Her father, an American-Albanian, +wanted to run with the hare of barbarism and hunt with the hounds +of civilisation. His daughter (woman the world over) was all for +hunting. He had spent twenty years in America. By a law of +gravitation, natural only in that Melting Pot of Nations, Chicago, +he had come across an Albanian wife. . . .</p> +<p>Chicago is the Melting Pot of the nations of the world. Let me +tell you a true tale. It has nothing whatever to do with Jaffery +Chayne or Liosha—except perhaps to shew that there is no +reason why a Tierra del Fuegan foundling should not run across his +long-lost brother on Michigan Avenue, and still less reason why +Albanian male should not meet Albanian female in Armour's +stockyards. And besides, considering that I was egged on, as I said +on the first page, to write these memoirs, I really don't see why I +should not put into them anything I choose.</p> +<p>An English novelist of my acquaintance visiting Chicago received +a representative of a great daily newspaper who desired to +interview him. The interviewer was a typical American reporter, +blue-eyed, high cheekboned, keen, nervous, finely strung, +courteous, intensely alive, desirous to get to the heart of my +friend's mystery, and charmingly responsive to his frank welcome. +They talked. My friend, to give the young man his story, discoursed +on Chicago's amazingly solved problem of the conglomeration of all +the races under Heaven. To point his remarks and mark his contrasts +he used the words "we English" and "you Americans." After a time +the young man smiled and said: "But am not an American—at +least I'm an American citizen, but I'm not a born American."</p> +<p>"But," cried my friend, "you're the essence of America."</p> +<p>"No," said the young man, "I'm an Icelander."</p> +<p>Thus it was natural for Liosha's father to find an Albanian wife +in Chicago. She too was superficially Americanised. When they +returned to Albania with their purely American daughter, they at +first found it difficult to appear superficial Albanians. Liosha +had to learn Albanian as a foreign language, her parents and +herself always speaking English among themselves. But the call of +the blood rang strong in the veins of the elders. Robbery and +assassination on the heroic scale held for the man an irresistible +attraction, and he acquired great skill at the business; and the +woman, who seems to have been of a lymphatic temperament, sank +without murmuring into the domestic subjection into which she had +been born. It was only Liosha who rebelled. Hence her complicated +attitude towards life, and hence her entertaining talk at the +dinner table.</p> +<p>I enjoyed myself. So, I think, did everybody. When the ladies +rose, Jaffery, who was nearest the door, opened it for them to pass +out, Barbara, the last, lingered for a second or two and laid her +hand on Jaffery's arm and looked up at him out of her teasing blue +eyes.</p> +<p>"My dear Jaff," she said, "what kind of a dinner do you eat when +you <i>are</i> hungry?"</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p>Barbara having freed Jaffery from immediate anxieties with +regard to Liosha, easily persuaded him to pay a longer visit than +he had proposed. A telephonic conversation with a first distracted, +then conscience-smitten and then much relieved Euphemia had for +effect the payment of bills at the Savoy and the retreat of the +gentle lady to Tunbridge Wells. Liosha remained with us, pending +certain negotiations darkly carried on by my wife and Doria in +concert. During this time I had some opportunity of observing her +from a more philosophic standpoint and my judgment was—I will +not say formed—but aided by Barbara's confidential +revelations. When not directly thwarted, she seemed to be +good-natured. She took to Susan—a good sign; and Susan took +to her—a better. Finding that her idea of happiness was to +sprawl about the garden and let the child run over her and inveigle +her into childish games and call her "Loshie" (a disrespectful mode +of address which I had all the pains in the world in persuading +Barbara to permit) and generally treat her as an animate instrument +of entertainment, we smoothed down every obstacle that might lie in +this particular path to beatitude. So many difficulties were +solved. Not only were we spared the problem of what the deuce to do +with Liosha during the daytime, but also Barbara was able to send +the nurse away for a short and much needed holiday. Of course +Barbara herself undertook all practical duties; but when she +discovered that Liosha experienced primitive delight in bathing +Susan—Susan's bath being a heathen rite in which ducks and +fish and swimming women and horrible spiders played orgiac parts, +and in getting up at seven in the morning—("Good God! Is +there such an hour?" asked Adrian, when he heard about it)—in +order to breakfast with Susan, and in dressing and undressing her +and brushing her hair, and in tramping for miles by her side while +with Basset, her vassal, in attendance, Susan rode out on her pony; +when Barbara, in short, became aware of this useful infatuation, +she pandered to it, somewhat shamelessly, all the time, however, +keeping an acute eye on the zealous amateur. If, for instance, +Liosha had picked a bushel of nectarines and had established +herself with Susan, in the corner of the fruit garden, for a +debauch, which would have had, for consequence, a child's funeral, +Barbara, by some magic of motherhood, sprang from the earth in +front of them with her funny little smile and her "Only +one—and a very ripe one—for Susan, dear Liosha." And in +these matters Liosha was as much overawed by Barbara as was +Susan.</p> +<p>This, I repeat, was a good sign in Liosha. I don't say that she +would have fallen captive to any ordinary child, but Susan being my +child was naturally different from the vulgar run of children. She +was <i>rarissinia avis</i> in the lands of small girls—one of +the few points on which Barbara and I are in unclouded agreement. +No one could have helped falling captive to Susan. But, I admit, in +the case of Liosha, who was an out-of-the-way, incalculable sort of +creature—it was a good sign. Perhaps, considering the short +period during which I had her under close observation, it was the +best sign. She had grievous faults.</p> +<p>One evening, while I was dressing for dinner, Barbara burst into +my dressing-room.</p> +<p>"Reynolds has given me notice."</p> +<p>"Oh," said I, not desisting (as is the callous way of husbands +the world over) from the absorbing and delicate manipulation of my +tie. "What for?"</p> +<p>"Liosha has just gone for her with a pair of scissors."</p> +<p>"Horrible!" said I, getting the ends even. "I can imagine +nothing more finnikin in ghastliness than to cut anybody's throat +with nail scissors, especially when the subject is unwilling."</p> +<p>Barbara pished and pshawed. It was no occasion for levity.</p> +<p>"I agree," said I. The dressing hour is the calmest and most +philosophic period of the day.</p> +<p>Barbara came up to me blue eyed and innocent, and with a +traitorous jerk, undid my beautiful white bow.</p> +<p>"There, now listen."</p> +<p>And I, dilapidated wretch, had to listen to the tale of crime. +It appeared that Reynolds, my wife's maid, in putting Liosha into a +ready-made gown—a model gown I believe is the correct +term—insisted on her being properly corseted. Liosha, +agonisingly constricted, rebelled. The maid was obdurate. Liosha +flew at her with a pair of scissors. I think I should have done the +same. Reynolds bolted from the room. So should I have done. I +sympathised with both of them. Reynolds fled to her mistress, and, +declaring it to be no part of her duty to wait on tigers, gave +notice.</p> +<p>"We can't lose Reynolds," said I.</p> +<p>"Of course we can't."</p> +<p>"And we can't pack Liosha off at a moment's notice, so as to +please Reynolds."</p> +<p>"Oh, you're too wise altogether," said my wife, and left me to +the tranquil completion of my dressing.</p> +<p>Liosha came down to dinner very subdued, after a short, sharp +interview with Barbara, who, for so small a person, can put on a +prodigious air of authority. As a punishment for bloodthirsty +behaviour she had made her wear the gown in the manner prescribed +by Reynolds; and she had apologised to Reynolds, who thereupon +withdrew her notice. So serenity again prevailed.</p> +<p>In some respects Liosha was very childish. The receipt of +letters, no matter from whom—even bills, receipts and +circulars—gave her overwhelming joy and sense of importance. +This harmless craze, however, led to another outburst of ferocity. +Meeting the postman outside the gate she demanded a letter. The man +looked through his bundle.</p> +<p>"Nothing for you this morning, ma'am."</p> +<p>"I wrote to the dressmaker yesterday," said Liosha, "and you've +got the reply right there."</p> +<p>"I assure you I haven't," said the postman.</p> +<p>"You're a liar," cried Liosha, "and I guess I'm going to +see."</p> +<p>Whereupon Liosha, who was as strong as a young horse, sprang to +death-grapple with the postman, a puny little man, pitched him onto +the side of the road and calmly entered into felonious possession +of His Majesty's mails. Then finding no letter she cast the whole +delivery over the supine and gasping postman and marched +contemptuously into the house.</p> +<p>The most astonishing part of the business was that in these +outbreaks of barbarity she did not seem to be impelled by blind +rage. Most people who heave a postman about a peaceful county would +do so in a fit of passion, through loss of nerve-control. Not so +Liosha. She did these things with the bland and deadly air of an +inexorable Fate.</p> +<p>The perspiration still beads on my brow when I think of the +cajoling and bribing and blustering and lying I had to practise in +order to hush up the matter. As for Liosha, both Jaffery and I +rated her soundly. I explained loftily that not so many years ago, +transportation, lifelong imprisonment, death were the penalties for +the felony which she had committed.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i080.jpg" id="i080.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/080.jpg"><img src="images/080.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, handled the cleek.</b></div> +<p>"You ought to have a jolly good thrashing," roared Jaffery.</p> +<p>At this Liosha, who had endured our abuse with the downcast eyes +of angelic meekness, took a golfclub from a bag lying on the hall +table and handed it to the red-bearded giant.</p> +<p>"I guess I do," she said. "Beat me."</p> +<p>And, as I am a living man, I swear that if Jaffery had taken her +at her word and laid on lustily she would have taken her thrashing +without a murmur. What was one to do with such a woman?</p> +<p>Jaffery, considerably disconcerted, fingered the cleek. +Gradually she raised her glorious eyes to him, and in them I was +startled to see the most extraordinary doglike submission. He +frowned portentously and shook his head. Her lips worked, and after +a convulsive sob or two, she threw herself on the ground, clasped +his knees, and to our dismay burst into a passion of weeping. +Barbara, rushing into the hall at this juncture, like a fairy +tornado, released us from our embarrassing position. She +annihilated us with a sweeping glance of scorn.</p> +<p>"Oh, go away, both of you, go away!"</p> +<p>So we went away and left her to deal with Liosha.</p> +<p>Save for such little excursions and alarms the days passed very +pleasantly. Jaffery spent most of the sweltering hours of daylight +(it was a blazing summer) in playing golf on the local course. +Adrian and Doria trod the path of the perfect lovers, while I, to +justify my position as President of the Hafiz Society, worked hard +at a Persian Grammar. Barbara, the never idle, was in the meantime +arranging for Liosha's future. Her organising genius had brought +Doria's suggestion as to the First Class London Boarding House into +the sphere of practical things. The Boarding House idea alone would +not work; but, combine it with Mrs. Considine, and the scheme ran +on wheels.</p> +<p>"Even you," said Barbara, as though I were a sort of +Schopenhauer, a professional disparager of her sex—"even you +have a high opinion of Mrs. Considine."</p> +<p>I had. Every one had a high opinion of Mrs. Considine. She was +not very beautiful or very clever or very fascinating or very +angelic or very anything—but she was one of those women of +whom everybody has a high opinion. The impoverished widow of an +Indian soldierman, with a son soldiering somewhere in India, she +managed to do a great deal on very small means. She was a woman of +the world, a woman of character. She knew how to deal with people +of queer races. Heaven indicated her for appointment by Barbara as +Liosha's duenna in the Boarding House. Mrs. Considine, herself +compelled to live in these homes for the homeless, gladly accepted +the proposal, came down, interviewed her charge, who happened then +to be in a mood of meekness indescribable, and went away, so to +speak, with her contract in her pocket. It was part of the +programme that Mrs. Considine should tactfully carry on Liosha's +education, which had been arrested at the age of twelve, instil +into her a sense of Western decorum, extend her acquaintance, and +gradually root out of her heart the yearning to do her enemies to +death. It was a capital programme; and I gave it the benediction of +a smile, in which, seeing Barbara's shrewd blue eyes fixed on me, I +suppressed the irony.</p> +<p>When this was all settled Jaffery proclaimed himself the most +care-free fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude +towards Liosha changed. He established himself as fellow slave with +her under the whip of Susan's tyranny. It did one good to see these +two magnificent creatures sporting together for the child's, and +incidentally their own, amusement. For the first time during their +intercourse they met on the same plane.</p> +<p>"She's really quite a good sort," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>But if it was pleasant to see him with Liosha, it was still more +touching to watch his protective attitude towards Doria. He seemed +so anxious to do her service, so deferential to her views, so +puzzle-headedly eager to reconcile them with his own. She took upon +herself to read him little lectures.</p> +<p>"Don't you think you're rather wasting your life?" she asked him +one day.</p> +<p>"Do you think I am?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"Oh! But I work hard at my job, you know," he said +apologetically—"when there's one for me to do. And when there +isn't I kind of prepare myself for the next. For instance I've got +to keep myself always fit."</p> +<p>"But that's all physical and outside." She smiled, in her little +superior way. "It's the inside, the personal, the essential self +that matters. Life, properly understood, is a process of +self-development. If a human being is the same at the end of a year +as he was at the beginning he has made no spiritual progress."</p> +<p>Jaffery pulled his red beard. "In other words, he hasn't lived," +said he.</p> +<p>"Precisely."</p> +<p>"And you think that I'm just the same sort of old animal from +one year's end to another and that I don't progress worth a cent, +and so, that I don't live."</p> +<p>"I don't want to say quite that," she replied graciously. "Every +one must advance a little bit unless they deteriorate. But the +conscious striving after spiritual progress is so +necessary—and you seem to put it aside. It is such waste of +life."</p> +<p>"I suppose it is, in a way," Jaffery admitted.</p> +<p>She pursued the theme, a flattered Egeria. "You see—well, +what do you do? You travel about in out-of-the-way places and make +notes about them in case the knowledge may be useful to you in the +future. When you come across anything to kill, you kill it. It also +pleases you to come across anything that calls for an exercise of +strength. When there is a war or a revolution or anything that +takes you to your real work, as you call it, you've only got to go +through it and report what you see."</p> +<p>"But that's just the difficulty," cried Jaffery. "It isn't every +chap that's tough enough to come out rosy at the end of a campaign. +And it isn't every chap that can <i>see</i> the things he ought to +write about. That's when the training comes in."</p> +<p>Again she smiled. "I've no idea of belittling your profession, +my dear Jaffery. I think it's a noble one. But should it be the +Alpha and Omega of things? Don't you see? The real life is +intellectual, spiritual, emotional. What are your ideals?"</p> +<p>Jaffery looked at her ruefully. Beneath those dark pools of eyes +lay the spirituality that made her a mystery so sacred. He, great +hulking fellow, was a gross lump of clay. Ideals?</p> +<p>"I don't suppose I have any," said he.</p> +<p>"But you must. Everybody has, to a certain extent."</p> +<p>"Well, to ride straight and tell the truth—like the +ancient Persians, I suppose it was the Persians—anyway it's a +sort of rough code I've got."</p> +<p>"Have you read Nietzsche?" she asked suddenly.</p> +<p>He frowned perplexedly. "Nietzsche—that's the mad superman +chap, isn't it? No. I've not read a word."</p> +<p>"I do wish you would. You'll find him so exhilarating. You might +possibly agree with a lot of what he says. I don't. But he sets you +thinking."</p> +<p>She sketched her somewhat prim conception of the Nietzschean +philosophy, and after listening to it in dumb wonder, he promised +to carry out her wishes. So, when I came down to my library that +evening dressed for dinner, I found him, still in morning clothes, +with "Thus Spake Zarathustra" on his knees, and a bewildered +expression on his face.</p> +<p>"Have you read this, Hilary?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Yes," said I.</p> +<p>"Understand it?"</p> +<p>"More or less."</p> +<p>"Gosh!" said he, shutting the book, "and I suppose Doria +understands it too, or she wouldn't have recommended it. But," he +rose ponderously and looked down on me with serious +eyes—"what the Hell is it all about?"</p> +<p>I drew out my watch. "The five seconds that you have before +rushing up-stairs to dress," said I, "don't give me adequate time +to expound a philosophic system."</p> +<p>Now if Adrian or I had talked to Jaffery about soul-progression +and the Will to Power and suggested that he was missing the +essentials of life, we should have been met with bellows of rude +and profane derision. I don't believe he had even roughly +considered what kind of an individuality he had, still less +enquired into the state of his spiritual being. But the flip of a +girl he professed so much to despise came along and reduced him to +a condition of helpless introspection. I cannot say that it lasted +very long. Psychology and metaphysics and æsthetics lay +outside Jaffery's sphere. But while seeing no harm in his own +simple creed of straight-riding and truth-speaking, he added to it +an unshakable faith in Doria's intellectual and spiritual +superiority. On his first meeting with her he had disclaimed the +subtler mental qualities, videlicet his similitude of the +bumble-bee; now, however, he went further, declaring himself, to a +subrident host, to be a chuckle-headed ass, only fit to herd with +savages. He would listen, with childlike envy, to Adrian, glib of +tongue, exchanging with Doria the shibboleths of the Higher Life. +He had been considerably impressed by Adrian as the author of a +successful novel; but Adrian as a co-treader of the stars with +Doria, appeared to him in the light of an immortal.</p> +<p>Adrian and I, when alone, laughed over old Jaff, as we had +laughed over him for goodness knows how many years. I, who had +guessed (with Barbara's aid) the incidence of the thunderbolt, +found in his humility something pathetic which was lost to Adrian. +The latter only saw the blustering, woman-scorning hulk of thews +and sinews, at the mercy of anything in petticoats, from Susan +upward. I disagreed. He was not at the mercy of Liosha.</p> +<p>"You burrowing mole," cried Adrian one morning in the library, +Jaffery having gone off to golf, "can't you see that he goes about +in mortal terror of her?"</p> +<p>"No such thing!" I retorted hotly. "He has regarded her as an +abominable nuisance—a millstone round his neck—a +responsibility—"</p> +<p>"A huntress of men," he interrupted. "Especially an all too +probable huntress of Jaffery Chayne. With Susan and Barbara and +Doria he knows he's safe—spared the worst—so he yields +and they pick him up—look at him and stand him on his head +and do whatever they darn well like to him; but with Liosha he +knows he isn't safe. You see," Adrian continued, after having lit a +cigarette, "Jaffery's an honourable old chap, in his way. With +Liosha, his friend Prescott's widow, it would be a question of +marriage or nothing."</p> +<p>"You're talking rubbish," said I. "Jaffery would just as soon +think of marrying the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour."</p> +<p>"That's what I'm telling you," said Adrian. "He's in a mortal +funk lest his animated Statue of Liberty should descend from her +pedestal and with resistless hands take him away and marry +him."</p> +<p>"For one who has been hailed as the acutest psychologist of the +day," said I, "you seem to have very limited powers of +observation."</p> +<p>For some unaccountable reason Adrian's pale face flushed +scarlet. He broke out vexedly:</p> +<p>"I don't see what my imaginative work has got to do with the +trivialities of ordinary life. As a matter of fact," he added, +after a pause, "the psychology in a novel is all imagination, and +it's the same imaginative faculty that has been amusing itself with +Jaffery and this unqualifiable lady."</p> +<p>"All right, my dear man," said I, pacifically. "Probably you're +right and I'm wrong. I was only talking lightly. And speaking of +imagination—what about your next book?"</p> +<p>"Oh, damn the next book," said he, flicking the ash off his +cigarette. "I've got an idea, of course. A jolly good idea. But I'm +not worrying about it yet."</p> +<p>"Why?" I asked.</p> +<p>He threw his cigarette into the grate. How, in the name of +common sense, could he settle down to work? Wasn't his head full of +his approaching marriage? Could he see at present anything beyond +the thing of dream and wonder that was to be his wife? I was a +cold-blooded fish to talk of novel-writing.</p> +<p>"But you'll have to get into it sometime or other," said I.</p> +<p>"Of course. As soon as we come back from Venice, and settle down +to a normal life in the flat."</p> +<p>"What does Doria think of the new idea?"</p> +<p>Thousands who knew him not were looking forward to Adrian +Boldero's new book. We, who loved him, were peculiarly interested. +Somehow or other we had not touched before so intimately on the +subject. To my surprise he frowned and snapped impatient +fingers.</p> +<p>"I haven't told Doria anything about it. It isn't my way. My +work's too personal a thing, even for Doria. She understands. I +know some fellows tell their plots to any and everybody—and +others, if they don't do that, lay bare their artistic souls to +those near and dear to them. Well, I can't. A word, no matter how +loving, of adverse criticism, a glance even that was not +sympathetic would paralyse me, it would shatter my faith in the +whole structure I had built up. I can't help it. It's my nature. As +I told you two or three months ago, it has always been my instinct +to work in the dark. I instanced my First at Cambridge. How much +more powerful is the instinct when it's a question of a vital +created thing like a novel? My dear Hilary, you're the man I'm +fondest of in the world. You know that. But don't worry me about my +work. I can't stand it. It upsets me. Doria, heart of my heart and +soul of my soul, has promised not to worry me. She sees I must be +free from outside influences—no matter how closely +near—but still outside. And you must promise too."</p> +<p>"My dear old boy," said I, somewhat confused by this impassioned +exposition of the artistic temperament, "you've only got to express +the wish—"</p> +<p>"I know," said he. "Forgive me." He laughed and lit another +cigarette. "But Wittekind and the editor of <i>Fowler's</i> in +America—I've sold him the serial rights—are shrieking +out for a synopsis. I'm damned if I'm going to give 'em a synopsis. +They get on my nerves. And—we're intimate enough friends, you +and I, for me to confess it—so do our dearest Barbara and old +Jaff, and you yourself, when you want to know how I'm getting on. +Look, dear old Hilary"—he laughed again and threw himself +into an armchair—"giving birth to a book isn't very much +unlike giving birth to a baby. It's analogical in all sorts of +ways. Well, some women, as soon as the thing is started, can talk +quite freely—sweetly and delicately—I haven't a word to +say against them—to all their women friends about it. Others +shrink. There's something about it too near their innermost souls +for them to give their confidence to anyone. Well, dear old +Hilary—that's how I feel about the novel."</p> +<p>He spoke from his heart. I understood—like Doria.</p> +<p>"Elizabeth Barrett Browning calls it 'the sorrowful, great +gift,'" said I. "We who haven't got it can only bow to those who +have."</p> +<p>Adrian rose and took a few strides about the library.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid I've been talking a lot of inflated nonsense. It +must sound awfully like swelled head. But you know it isn't, don't +you?"</p> +<p>"Don't he an idiot," said I. "Let us talk of something +else."</p> +<p>We did not return to the subject.</p> +<p>In the course of time came Mrs. Considine to carry off Liosha to +the First Class Boarding House which she had found in Queen's Gate. +Liosha left us full of love for Barbara and Susan and I think of +kindly feeling for myself. A few days afterwards Jaffery went off +to sail a small boat with another lunatic in the Hebrides. A little +later Doria and Adrian went to pay a round of short family visits +beginning with Mrs. Boldero. So before August was out, Barbara and +Susan and I found ourselves alone.</p> +<p>"Now," said I, "I can get through some work."</p> +<p>"Now," said Barbara, "we can run over to Dinard."</p> +<p>"What?" I shouted.</p> +<p>"Dinard," she said, softly. "We always go. We only put it off +this year on account of visitors."</p> +<p>"We definitely made up our minds," I retorted, "that we weren't +going to leave this beautiful garden. You know I never change my +mind. I'm not going away."</p> +<p>Barbara left the room, whistling a musical comedy air.</p> +<p>We went to Dinard.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p>There is a race of gifted people who make their livelihood by +writing descriptions of weddings. I envy them. They can crowd so +many pebbly facts into such a small compass. They know the names of +everybody who attended from the officiating clergy to the shyest of +poor relations. With the cold accuracy of an encyclopædia, +and with expert technical discrimination, they mention the various +fabrics of which the costumes of bride and bridesmaids were +composed. They catalogue the wedding presents with the correct +names of the donors. They remember what hymns were sung and who +signed the register. They know the spot chosen for the honeymoon. +They know the exact hour of the train by which the happy pair +departed. Their knowledge is astonishing in its detail. Their +accounts naturally lack imagination. Otherwise they would not be +faithful records of fact. But they do lack colour, the magic word +that brings a scene before the eye. Perhaps that is why they are +never collected and published in book form.</p> +<p>Now I have been wondering how to describe the wedding of Doria +and Adrian. I have recourse to Barbara.</p> +<p>"Why, I have the very thing for you," she says, and runs away +and presently reappears with a long thing like a paper snake. "This +is a full report of the wedding. I kept it. I felt it might come in +useful some day," she cried in triumph. "You can stick it in +bodily."</p> +<p>I began to read in hope the column of precise information. I end +it in despair. It leaves me admiring but cold. It fails to conjure +up to my mind the picture of a single mortal thing. Sadly I hand it +back to Barbara.</p> +<p>"I shan't describe the wedding at all," I say.</p> +<p>And indeed why should I? Our young friends were married as +legally and irrevocably as half a dozen parsons in the presence of +a distinguished congregation assembled in a fashionable London +church could marry them. Of what actually took place I have the +confused memory of the mere man. I know that it was magnificent. +All the dinner parties of Mr. Jornicroft were splendidly united. +Adrian's troops of friends supported him. Doria, dark eyed, without +a tinge of colour in the strange ivory of her cheek, looked more +elfin than ever beneath the white veil. Jaffery, who was best man, +vast in a loose frock coat, loomed like a monstrous effigy by the +altar-rails. Susan, at the head of the bridesmaids, kept the stern +set face of one at grapple with awful responsibility. She told her +mother afterwards that a pin was running into her all the time. . . +. Well, I, for one, signed the register and I kissed the bride and +shook hands with Adrian, who adopted the poor nonchalant attitude +of one accustomed to get married every day of his life. Driving +from church to reception with Barbara, I railed, in the orthodox +manner of the superior husband, at the modern wedding.</p> +<p>"A survival of barbarism," said I. "What is the veil but a relic +of marriage by barter, when the man bought a pig in a poke and +never knew his luck till he unveiled his bride? What is the ring +but the symbol of the fetters of slavery? The rice, but the +expression of a hope for a prolific union? The satin slipper tied +on to the carriage or thrown after it? Good luck? No such thing. It +was once part of the marriage ceremony for the bridegroom to tap +the wife with a shoe to symbolise his assertion of and her +acquiescence in her entire subjection."</p> +<p>"Where did Lady Bagshawe get that awful hat?" said Barbara +sweetly. "Did you notice it? It isn't a hat; it's a crime."</p> +<p>I turned on her severely. "What has Lady Bagshawe's hat to do +with the subject under discussion? Haven't you been listening?"</p> +<p>She squeezed my hand and laughed. "No, you dear silly, of course +not."</p> +<p>Another instance of the essential inconvincibility of woman.</p> +<p>It was Jaffery Chayne, who, on the pavement before the house in +Park Crescent, threw the satin slipper at the departing carriage. +He had been very hearty and booming all the time, the human +presentment of a devil-may-care lion out for a jaunt, and his great +laugh thundering cheerily above the clatter of talk had infected +the heterogeneous gathering. Unconsciously dull eyes sparkled and +pursy lips vibrated into smiles. So gay a wedding reception I have +never attended, and I am sure it was nothing but Jaffery's +pervasive influence that infused vitality into the deadly and +decorous mob. It was a miracle wrought by a rich Silenic +personality. I had never guessed before the magnetic power of +Jaffery Chayne. Indeed I had often wondered how the overgrown and +apparently irresponsible schoolboy who couldn't make head or tail +of Nietzsche and from whom the music of Shelley was hid, had +managed to make a journalistic reputation as a great war and +foreign correspondent. Now the veil of the mystery was drawn an +inch or two aside. I saw him mingle with an alien crowd, and, by +what On the surface appeared to be sheer brute full-bloodedness, +compel them to his will. The wedding was not to be a hollow clang +of bells but a glad fanfare of trumpets in all hearts. In order +that this wedding of Adrian and Doria should be memorable he had +instinctively put out the forces that had carried him unscathed +through the wildest and fiercest of the congregations of men. He +could subdue and he could create. In the most pithless he had +started the working of the sap of life.</p> +<p>As for his own definite part of best man, he played it with an +Elizabethan spaciousness. . . . There was no hugger-mugger escape +of travel-clad bride and bridegroom. He contrived a triumphal +progress through lines of guests led by a ruddy giant, Master of +the Ceremonies, exuding Pantagruelian life. Joyously he conducted +them to their glittering carriage and pair—and, unconscious +of anthropological truth, threw the slipper of woman's humiliation. +The carriage drove off amid the cheers of the multitude. Jaffery +stood and watched it until it disappeared round the curve. In my +eagerness to throw the unnecessarily symbolic rice I had followed +and stayed a foot or two away from him; and then I saw his face +change—just for a few seconds. All the joyousness was +stricken from it; his features puckered up into the familiar twists +of a child about to cry. His huge glazed hands clenched and +unclenched themselves. It was astonishing and very pitiful. Quickly +he gulped something down and turned on me with a grin and shook me +by the shoulders.</p> +<p>"Now I'm the only free man of the bunch. The only one. Don't you +wish you were a bachelor and could go to Hell or +Honolulu—wherever you chose without a care? Ho! ho! ho!" He +linked his arm in mine, and said in what he thought was a whisper: +"For Heaven's sake let us go in and try to find a real drink."</p> +<p>We went into a deserted smoking-room where decanters and siphons +were set out. Jaffery helped himself to a mighty whisky and soda +and poured it down his throat.</p> +<p>"You seemed to want that," said I, drily.</p> +<p>"It's this infernal kit," said he, with a gesture including his +frock coat and patent leather boots. "For gossamer comfort give me +a suit of armour. At any rate that's a man's kit."</p> +<p>I made some jesting answer; but it had been given to me to see +that transient shadow of pain and despair, and I knew that the +discomfort of the garments of civilisation had nothing to do with +the swallowing of the huge jorum of alcohol.</p> +<p>Of course I told Barbara all about it—it is best to +establish your wife in the habit of thinking you tell her +everything—and she was more than usually gentle to Jaffery. +We carried him down with us to Northlands that afternoon, calling +at his club for a suit-case. In the car he tucked a very tired and +comfort-desiring Susan in the shelter of his great arm. There was +something pathetically tender in the gathering of the child to him. +Barbara with her delicate woman's sense felt the harmonics of +chords swept within him. And when we reached home and were alone +together, she said with tears very near her eyes:</p> +<p>"Poor old Jaff. What a waste of a life!"</p> +<p>"My dear," I replied, "so said Doria. But you speak with the +tongue of an angel, whereas Doria, I'm afraid, is still +earth-bound."</p> +<p>The tear fell with a laugh. She touched my cheek with her +hand.</p> +<p>"When you're intelligent like that," she said, "I really love +you."</p> +<p>For a mere man to be certified by Barbara as intelligent is +praise indeed.</p> +<p>"I wonder," she said, a little later, "whether those two are +going to be happy?"</p> +<p>"As happy," said I, "as a mutual admiration society of two +people can possibly be."</p> +<p>She rebuked me for a tinge of cynicism in my estimate. They were +both of them dears and the marriage was genuine Heaven-made goods. +I avowed absolute agreement.</p> +<p>"But what would have happened," she said reflectively, "if +Jaffery had come along first and there had been no question of +Adrian. Would they have been happy?"</p> +<p>Then I found my opportunity. "Woman," said I, "aren't you +satisfied? You have made one match—you, and you'll pardon me +for saying so, not Heaven—and now you want to unmake it and +make a brand-new hypothetical one."</p> +<p>"All your talk," she said, "doesn't help poor Jaffery."</p> +<p>I put my hand to my head to still the flickering in my brain, +kissed her and retired to my dressing-room. Barbara smiled, +conscious of triumph over me.</p> +<p>During dinner and afterwards in the drawing-room, she played the +part of Jaffery's fairy mother. She discussed his +homelessness—she had an eerie way of treading on delicate +ground. A bed in a tent or a club or an inn. That was his home. He +had no possessions.</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "I should think I have. I've got +about three hundred stuffed head of game stored in the London +Repository, to say nothing of skins and as fine a collection of +modern weapons as you ever saw. I could furnish a place in slap-up +style to-morrow."</p> +<p>"But have you a chest of drawers or a pillow slip or a book or a +dinner plate or a fork?"</p> +<p>"Thousands, my dear," said Jaffery. "They're waiting to be +called for in all the shops of London."</p> +<p>He laughed his great laugh at Barbara's momentary discomfiture. +I laughed too, for he had scored a point. When a man has, say, a +thousand pounds wherewith to buy that much money's worth of +household clutter, he certainly is that household clutter's +potential owner. Between us we developed this incontrovertible +proposition.</p> +<p>"Then why," said Barbara, "don't you go at once to Harrod's +Stores and purchase a comfortable home?"</p> +<p>"Because, my dear Barbara," said Jaffery, "I'm starting off for +the interior of China the day after to-morrow."</p> +<p>"China?" echoed Barbara vaguely.</p> +<p>"The interior of China?" I reëchoed, with masculine +definiteness.</p> +<p>"Why not? It isn't in Neptune or Uranus. You wouldn't go into +hysterics if I said I was going to Boulogne. Let him come with me, +Barbara. It would do him a thundering lot of good."</p> +<p>At this very faintly humorous proposal he laughed immoderately. +I need not say that I declined it. I should be as happy in the +interior of China as on an Albanian mountain. I asked him how long +he would be away.</p> +<p>"A year or two," he replied casually.</p> +<p>"It must be a queer thing," said I, "to be born with no +conception of time and space."</p> +<p>"A couple of years pass pretty quick," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"So does a lifetime," said I.</p> +<p>Well, this was just like Jaffery. No sooner home amid the +amenities of civilisation than the wander-fever seizes him again. +In vain he pleaded his job, the valuable copy he would send to his +paper. I proved to him it was but the mere lust of savagery. And he +could not understand why we should be startled by the announcement +that within forty-eight hours he would be on his way to lose +himself for a couple of years in Crim Tartary.</p> +<p>"Suppose I sprang a thing like that on you," said I. "Suppose I +told you I was starting to-morrow morning for the South Pole. What +would you say?"</p> +<p>"I should say you were a liar. Ho! ho! ho!"</p> +<p>In his mirth he rubbed his hands and feet together like a +colossal fly. The joke lasted him for the rest of the evening.</p> +<p>So, the next morning Jaffery left us with a "See you as soon as +ever I get back," and the day after that he sailed for China. We +felt sad; not only because Jaffery's vitality counted for something +in the quiet backwater of our life, but also because we knew that +he went away a less happy man than he had come. This time it was +not sheer <i>Wanderlust</i> that had driven him into the +wilderness. He had fled in the blind hope of escaping from the +unescapable. The ogre to whatsoever No Man's Land he betook himself +would forever be haunted by the phantom of the elf. . . . It was +just as well he had gone, said Barbara.</p> +<p>A man of intense appetites and primitive passions, like Jaffery, +for all his loyalty and lovable childishness, was better away from +the neighbour's wife who had happened to engage his affections. If +he lost his head. . . .</p> +<p>I had once seen Jaffery lose his head and the spectacle did not +make for edification. It was before I was married, when Jaffery, +during his London sojourn, had the spare bedroom in a set of rooms +I rented in Tavistock Square. At a florist's hard by, a young +flower seller—a hussy if ever there was one—but +bewitchingly pretty—carried on her poetical avocation; and of +her did my hulking and then susceptible friend become ragingly +enamoured. I repeat, she was a hussy. She had no intention of +giving him more than the tip of her pretty little shoe to kiss; but +Jaffery, reading the promise of secular paradise in her eyes, had +no notion of her little hard intention. He squandered himself upon +her and she led him a dog's life. Of course I remonstrated, argued, +implored. It was like asking a hurricane politely not to blow. Her +name I remember was Gwenny. One summer evening she had promised to +meet him outside the house in Tavistock Square—he had +arranged to take her to some Earl's Court Exhibition, where she +could satiate a depraved passion for switch-backs, water-chutes and +scenic railways. At the appointed hour Jaffery stood in waiting on +the pavement. I sat on the first floor balcony, alternately reading +a novel and watching him with a sardonic eye. Presently Gwenny +turned the corner of the square—our house was a few doors +up—and she appeared, on the opposite side of the road, by the +square railings. But Gwenny was not alone. Gwenny, rigged out in +the height of Bloomsbury florists' fashion, was ostentatiously +accompanied by a young man, a very scrubby, pallid, ignoble young +man; his arm was round her waist, and her arm was around his, in +the approved enlinkment of couples in her class who are keeping +company, or, in other words, are, or are about to be, engaged to be +married. A curious shock vibrated through Jaffery's frame. He +flamed red. He saw red. Gwenny shot a supercilious glance and +tossed her chin. Jaffery crossed the road and barred their path. He +fished in his pocket for some coins and addressed the scrubby man, +who, poor wretch, had never heard of Jaffery's existence.</p> +<p>"Here's twopence to go away. Take the twopence and go away. Damn +you—take the twopence."</p> +<p>The man retreated in a scare.</p> +<p>"Won't you take the twopence? I should advise you to."</p> +<p>Anybody but a born fool or a hero would have taken the twopence. +I think the scrubby man had the makings of a hero. He looked up at +the blazing giant.</p> +<p>"You be damned!" said he, retreating a pace.</p> +<p>Then, suddenly, with the swiftness of a panther, Jaffery sprang +on him, grasped him in the back by a clump of clothes—it +seemed, with one hand, so quickly was it done—and hurled him +yards away over the railings. I can still see the flight of the +poor devil's body in mid air until it fell into a holly-bush. With +another spring he turned on the paralysed Gwenny, caught her up +like a doll and charged with her now screaming violently against +the shut solid oak front door. A flash of instinct suggested a +latchkey. Holding the girl anyhow, he fumbled in his pocket. It was +an August London evening. The Square was deserted; but at Gwenny's +shrieks, neighbouring windows were thrown up and eager heads +appeared. It was very funny. There was Jaffery holding a squalling +girl in one arm and with the other exploring available pockets for +his latchkey. I had one of the inspirations of my life. I rushed +into my bedroom, caught up the ewer from my washstand, went out +onto the extreme edge of the balcony and cast the gallon or so of +water over the heads of the struggling pair. The effect was +amazing. Jaffery dropped the girl. The girl, once on her feet, fled +like a cat. Jaffery looked up idiotically. I flourished the empty +jug. I think I threatened to brain him with it if he stirred. Then +people began to pour out of the houses and a policeman sprang up +from nowhere. I went down and joined the excited throng. There was +a dreadful to-do. It cost Jaffery five hundred pounds to mitigate +the righteous wrath of the young man in the holly-bush, and save +himself from a dungeon-cell. The scrubby young man, who, it +appeared, had been brought up in the fishmongering trade, used the +five hundred pounds to set up for himself in Ealing, where very +shortly afterwards Gwenny joined him, and that, save an enduring +ashamedness on the part of Jaffery, was the end of the matter.</p> +<p>So, if Jaffery did lose his head over Doria, there might be the +devil to pay. We sighed and reconciled ourselves to his exile in +Crim Tartary. After all, it was his business in life to visit the +dark places of the earth and keep the world informed of history in +the making. And it was a business which could not possibly be +carried on in the most cunningly devised home that could be +purchased at Harrod's Stores.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p>In the course of time Adrian and Doria returned from Venice, +their heads full of pictures and lagoons and palaces, and took +proud possession of their spacious flat in St. John's Wood. They +were radiantly happy, very much in love with each other. Having +brought a common vision to bear upon the glories of nature and art +which they had beheld, they were spared the little squabbles over +matters of æsthetic taste which often are so disastrous to +the serenity of a honeymoon. Touchingly they expounded their views +in the first person plural. Even Adrian, whom I must confess to +have regarded as an unblushing egotist, seldom delivered himself of +an egotistical opinion. "We don't despise the Eclectics," said he. +And—"We prefer the Lombardic architecture to the purely +Venetian," said Doria. And "we" found good in Italian wines and +"we" found nothing but hideousness in Murano glass. They were, +therefore, in perfect accord over decoration and furnishing. The +only difference I could see between them was that Adrian loved to +wallow in the comfort of a club or another person's house, but +insisted on elegant austerity in his own home, whereas Doria loved +elegant austerity everywhere. So they had a pure Jacobean entrance +hall, a Louis XV drawing-room, an Empire bedroom, and as far as I +could judge by the barrenness of the apartment, a Spartan study for +Adrian.</p> +<p>On our first visit, they triumphantly showed us round the +establishment. We came last to the study.</p> +<p>"No really fine imaginative work," said Adrian, with a wave of +the hand indicating the ascetic table and chair, the iron safe, the +bookcase and the bare walls—"no really fine imaginative work +can be done among luxurious surroundings. Pictures distract one's +attention, arm-chairs and sofas invite to sloth. This is my ideal +of a novelist's workshop."</p> +<p>"It's more like a workhouse," said Barbara, with a shiver. "Or a +condemned cell. But even a condemned cell would have a plank bed in +it."</p> +<p>"You don't understand a bit," said Doria, with a touch of +resentment at adverse criticism of her paragon's idiosyncrasies, +"although Adrian has tried to explain it to you. It's specially +arranged for concentration of mind. If it weren't for the necessity +of having something to sit upon and something to write at and a few +necessary reference books and a lock-up place, we should have had +nothing in the room at all. When Adrian wants to relax and live his +ordinary human life, he only has to walk out of the door and there +he is in the midst of beautiful things."</p> +<p>"Oh, I quite see, dear," said Barbara, with a familiar little +flash in her blue eyes. "But do you think a leather seat for that +hard wooden chair—what the French call a +<i>rond-de-cuir</i>—would very greatly impair the poor +fellow's imagination?"</p> +<p>"It might be economical, too," said I, "in the way of saving +shininess!—"</p> +<p>Adrian laughed. "It does look a bit hard, darling," said he.</p> +<p>"We'll get a leather seat to-day," replied Doria.</p> +<p>But she did not smile. Evidently to her the spot on which Adrian +sat was sacrosanct. The room was the Holy of Holies where mortal +man put on immortality. Flippant comment sounded like blasphemy in +her ears. She even grew somewhat impatient at our lingering in the +august precincts, although they had not yet been consecrated by +inspired labour. Their unblessed condition was obvious. On the +large library table were a couple of brass candlesticks with fresh +candles (Adrian could not work by electric light), a couple of +reams of scribbling paper, an inkpot, an immaculate blotting pad, +three virgin quill pens (it was one of Adrian's whimsies to write +always with quills), lying in a brass dish, and an office +stationery case closed and aggressively new. The sight of this last +monstrosity, I thought, would play the deuce with my imagination +and send it on a devastating tour round the Tottenham Court Road, +but not having the artistic temperament and catching a glance of +challenge from Doria, I forebore to make ignorant criticism.</p> +<p>In the bedroom while Barbara was putting on her veil and +powdering her nose (this may be what grammarians call a <i>hysteron +proteron</i>—but with women one never can tell)—Doria +broke into confidences not meet for masculine ears.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"Oh, darling," she cried, looking at Barbara with great +awe-stricken eyes, "you can't tell what it means to be married to a +genius like Adrian. I feel like one of the Daughters of Men that +has been looked upon by one of the Sons of God. It's so strange. In +ordinary life he's so dear and human—responsive, you know, to +everything I feel and think—and sometimes I quite forget he's +different from me. But at others, I'm overwhelmed by the thought of +the life going on inside his soul that I can never, never +share—I can only see the spirit that conceived 'The Diamond +Gate'—don't you understand, darling?—and that is even +now creating some new thing of wonder and beauty. I feel so little +beside him. What more can I give him beyond what I have given?"</p> +<p>Barbara took the girl's tense face between her two hands and +smiled and kissed her.</p> +<p>"Give him," said she, "ammoniated quinine whenever he +sneezes."</p> +<p>Then she laughed and embraced the Heavenly One's wife, who, for +the moment, had not quite decided whether to feel outraged or not, +and discoursed sweet reasonableness.</p> +<p>"I should treat your genius, dear, just as I treat my stupid old +Hilary."</p> +<p>She proceeded to describe the treatment. What it was, I do not +know, because Barbara refused to tell me. But I can make a shrewd +guess. It's a subtle scheme which she thinks is hidden from me; but +really it is so transparent that a babe could see through it. I, +like any wise husband, make, however, a fine assumption of +blindness, and consequently lead a life of unruffled comfort.</p> +<p>Whether Doria followed the advice I am not certain. I have my +doubts. Barbara has never knelt by the side of her stupid old +Hilary's chair and worshipped him as a god. She is an excellent +wife and I've no fault to find with her; but she has never done +that, and she is the last woman in the world to counsel any wife to +do it. Personally, I should hate to be worshipped. In worship hours +I should be smoking a cigar, and who with a sense of congruity can +imagine a god smoking a cigar? Besides, worship would bore me to +paralysis. But Adrian loved it. He lived on it, just as the new +hand in a chocolate factory lives on chocolate creams. The more he +was worshipped the happier he became. And while consuming adoration +he had a young Dionysian way of inhaling a cigarette—a way +which Dionysus, poor god, might have exhibited, had tobacco grown +with the grape on Mount Cithaeron—and a way of exhaling a +cloud of smoke, holier than the fumes of incense in the nostrils of +the adorer, which moved me at once to envy and exasperation.</p> +<p>Yes, there he would sprawl, whenever I saw them together, either +in their own flat or at our house (more luxuriously at Northlands +than in St. John's Wood, owing to the greater prevalence of +upholstered furniture), cigarette between delicate fingers, paradox +on his tongue and a Christopher Sly beatitude on his face, while +Doria, chin on palm, and her great eyes set on him, drank in all +the wonder of this miraculous being.</p> +<p>I said to Barbara: "She's making a besotted idiot of the +man."</p> +<p>Barbara professed rare agreement. But . . . the woman's point of +view. . . .</p> +<p>"I don't worry about him," she said. "It's of her I'm thinking. +When she has turned him into the idiot—"</p> +<p>"She'll adore him all the more," I interrupted.</p> +<p>"But when she finds out the idiot she has made?"</p> +<p>"No woman has ever done that since the world began," said I. +"The unwavering love of woman for her home-made idiot is her sole +consistency."</p> +<p>Barbara with much puckering of brow sought for argument, but +found none, the proposition being incontrovertible. She mused for a +while and then, quickly, a smile replaced the frown.</p> +<p>"I suppose that is why I go on loving you, Hilary dear," she +said sweetly.</p> +<p>I turned upon her, with my hand, as it were, on the floodgates +of a torrent of eloquence; but with her silvery mocking laugh she +vanished from the apartment. She did. The old-fashioned +high-falutin' phrase is the best description I can give of the +elusive uncapturable nature of this wife of mine. It is a pity that +she has so little to do with the story of Jaffery which I am trying +to relate, for I should like to make her the heroine. You see, I +know her so well, or imagine I do, which comes to the same thing, +and I should love to present you with a solution, of this +perplexing, exasperating, adorable, high-souled conundrum that is +Barbara Freeth. But she, like myself, is but a <i>raisonneur</i> in +the drama, and so, reluctantly, I must keep her in the background. +<i>Paullo majora canamus</i>. Let us come to the horses.</p> +<p>All this, time we had not lost sight of Liosha. As deputies for +the absent trustee we received periodical reports from the +admirable Mrs. Considine, and entertained both ladies for an +occasional week-end. On the whole, her demeanour in the Queen's +Gate boarding-house was satisfactory. At first trouble arose over a +young curly haired Swiss waiter who had won her sympathy in the +matter of a broken heart. She had entered the dining-room when he +was laying the table and discovered him watering the knives and +forks with tears. Unaccustomed to see men weep, she enquired the +cause. He dried his eyes with a napkin and told a woeful tale of a +faithless love in Neuchatel, a widow plump and well-to-do. He had +looked forward to marry her at the end of the year, and to pass an +unruffled life in the snugness of the <i>delicatessen</i> shop +which she conducted with such skill; but now alas, she had +announced her engagement to another, and his dream of bliss among +the chitterlings and liver-sausages was shattered. Herr Gott! what +was he to do? Liosha counselled immediate return to Neuchatel and +assassination of his rival. To kill another man for her was the +surest way to a woman's heart. The waiter approved the scheme, but +lacked the courage—also the money to go to Neuchatel. Liosha, +espousing his cause warmly, gave him the latter at once. The former +she set to work to instil into him. She waylaid him at odd corners +in odd moments, much to the scandal of the guests, and sought to +inspire him with the true Balkan spirit. She even supplied him with +an Albanian knife, dangerously sharp. At last, the poor craven, +finding himself unwillingly driven into crime, sought from the +mistress of the boarding-house protection against his champion. +Mrs. Considine, called into consultation, was informed that Mrs. +Prescott must either cease from instigating the waiters to commit +murder or find other quarters. Liosha curled a contemptuous +lip.</p> +<p>"If you think I'm going to have anything more to do with the +little skunk, you're mistaken."</p> +<p>And that evening when Josef, serving coffee in the drawing-room, +approached her with the tray, she waved him off.</p> +<p>"See here," she said calmly, "just you keep out of my way or I +might tread on you."</p> +<p>Whereupon the terrified Josef, amid the tittering hush of the +genteel assembly, bolted from the room, and then solved the whole +difficulty by bolting from the house, never to return.</p> +<p>When taken to task by Barbara over the ethics of this matter, +Liosha shrugged her shoulders and laughed.</p> +<p>"I guess," she said, "if a man loves a woman strongly enough to +cry for her, he ought to know what to do with the guy that butted +in, without being told."</p> +<p>"But you don't seem to understand what a terrible thing it is to +take the life of a human being," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"I can understand how you feel," Liosha admitted. "But I don't +feel about it the same as you. I've been brought up different."</p> +<p>"You see, my dear Barbara," I interposed judicially, "her father +made his living by slaughter before she was born. When he finished +with the pigs he took on humans who displeased him."</p> +<p>"And they were worse than the pigs," said Liosha.</p> +<p>Barbara sighed, for Liosha remained unconvinced; but she +extracted a promise from our fair barbarian never to shoot or jab a +knife into anyone before consulting her as to the propriety of so +doing.</p> +<p>But for this and for one or two other trivial lapses from grace, +Liosha led a pretty equable existence at the boarding-house. If she +now and then scandalised the inmates by her unconventional habits +and free expressions of opinion, she compensated by affording them +a chronic topic of conversation. A large though somewhat scornful +generosity also established her in their esteem. She would lend or +give anything she possessed. When one of the forlorn and +woollen-shawled old maids fell ill, she sat up of nights with her, +and in spite of her ignorance of nursing, which was as vast as that +of a rhinoceros, magnetised the fragile lady into well-being. I +think she was fairly happy. If London had been situated amid gorges +and crags and ravines and granite cliffs she would have been +completely so. She yearned for mountains. Mrs. Considine to satisfy +this nostalgia took her for a week's trip to the English Lakes. She +returned railing at Scawfell and Skiddaw for unimportant +undulations, and declaring her preference for London. So in London +she remained.</p> +<p>In these early stages of our acquaintance with Liosha, she +counted in our lives for little more than a freakish interest. Even +in the crises of her naughtiness anxiety as to her welfare did not +rob us of our night's sleep. She existed for us rather as a toy +personality whose quaint vagaries afforded us constant amusement +than as an intense human soul. The working out of her destiny did +not come within the sphere of our emotional sympathies like that of +Adrian and Doria. The latter were of our own kind and class, bound +to us not only by the common traditions of centuries, but by ties +of many years' affection. It is only natural that we should have +watched them more closely and involved ourselves more intimately in +their scheme of things.</p> +<p>The first fine rapture of house-pride having grown calm, the +Bolderos settled down to the serene beatitude of the Higher Life +tempered by the amenities of commonplace existence. When Adrian +worked, Doria read Dante and attended performances of the +Intellectual Drama; when Adrian relaxed, she cooked dainties in a +chafing dish and accompanied him to Musical Comedy. They +entertained in a gracious modest way, and went out into cultivated +society. The Art of Life, they declared, was to catch atmosphere, +whatever that might mean. Adrian explained, with the gentle pity of +one addressing himself to the childish intelligence.</p> +<p>"It's merely the perfect freedom of mental adaptation. To +discuss pragmatism while eating oysters would be destructive to the +enjoyment afforded by the delicate sense of taste, whereas, to let +one's mind wander from the plane of philosophic thought when +preparing for a Hauptmann or a Strindberg play would lead to +nothing less than the disaster of disequilibrium."</p> +<p>Saying this he caught my cold, unsympathetic gaze, but I think I +noticed the flicker of an eyelid. Doria, however, nodded, in +wide-eyed approval. So I suppose they really did practise between +themselves these modal gymnastics. They were all of a piece with +the "atmospheres" evoked in the various rooms of the flat. To +Barbara and myself, comfortable Philistines, all this appeared +exceeding lunatic. But every married couple has a right to lay out +its plan of happiness in its own way. If we had made taboo of +irrelevant gossip between the acts of a serious play our evening +would have been a failure. Theirs would have been, and, in fact, +was a success. Connubial felicity they certainly achieved: and what +else but an impertinence is a criticism of the means?</p> +<p>Easter came. They had been married six months. "The Diamond +Gate" had been published for nearly a year and was still selling in +England and America. Adrian flourishing his first half-yearly +cheque in January had vowed he had no idea there was so much money +in the world. He basked in Fortune's sunshine. But for all the +basking and all the syllabus of the perfect existence, and all his +unquestionable love for Doria, and all her worship for him together +with its manifestation in her admirable care for his material +well-being, Adrian, just at this Eastertide, began to strike me as +a man lacking some essential of happiness. They spent a week or so +with us at Northlands. Adrian confessed dog-weariness. His looks +confirmed his words. A vertical furrow between the brows and a +little dragging line at each corner of the mouth below the fair +moustache forbade the familiar mockery in his pleasant face. In +moments of repose the cross of strain, almost suggestive of a +squint, appeared in his blue eyes. He was no longer debonair, no +longer the lightly laughing philosopher, the preacher of paradox +seeing flippancy in the Money Article and sorrowful wisdom in +Little Tich. He was morose and irritable. He had acquired a nervous +habit of secretly rubbing his thumbs swiftly over his finger-tips +when Doria, in her pride, spoke of his work, which amounted almost +to ill-breeding. It was only late at night during our last smoke +that he assumed a semblance of the old Adrian; and by that time he +had consumed as much champagne and brandy as would have rendered +jocose the prophet Jeremiah.</p> +<p>He was suffering, poor fellow, from a nervous breakdown. From +Doria we learned the cause. For the last three months he had been +working at insane pressure. At seven he rose; at a quarter to eight +he breakfasted; at half past he betook himself to his ascetic +workroom and remained there till half-past one. At four o'clock he +began a three-hour spell of work. At night a four hours' +spell—from nine to one, if they had no evening engagement, +from midnight to four o'clock in the morning if they had been +out.</p> +<p>"But, my darling child!" cried Barbara, aghast when she heard of +this maniacal time-table, "you must put your foot down. You mustn't +let him do it. He is killing himself."</p> +<p>"No man," said I, in warm support of my wife, "can go on putting +out creative work for more than four hours a day. Quite famous +novelists whom I meet at the Athenæum have told me so +themselves. Even prodigious people like Sir Walter Scott and +Zola—"</p> +<p>"Yes, yes," said Doria. "But they were not Adrian. Every artist +must be a law to himself. Adrian's different. Why—those two +that you've mentioned—they slung out stuff by the bucketful. +It didn't matter to them what they wrote. But Adrian has to get the +rhythm and the balance and the beauty of every sentence he +writes—to say nothing of the subtlety of his analysis and the +perfect drawing of his pictures. My dear, good people"—she +threw out her hands in an impatient gesture—"you don't know +what you're talking about. How can you? It's impossible for you to +conceive—it's almost impossible even for me to +conceive—the creative workings of the mind of a man of +genius. Four hours a day! Your mechanical fiction-monger, yes. Four +hours a day is stamped all over the slack drivel they publish. But +you can't imagine that work like Adrian's is to be done in this +dead mechanical way."</p> +<p>"It is you that don't quite understand," I protested. "My +admiration for Adrian's genius is second to none but yours. But I +repeat that no human brain since the beginning of time has been +capable of spinning cobwebs of fancy for twelve hours a day, day in +and day out for months at a time. Look at your husband. He has +tried it. Does he sleep well?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Has he a hearty appetite?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Is he a light-hearted, cheery sort of chap to have about the +place?"</p> +<p>"He's naturally tired, after his winter's work," said Doria.</p> +<p>"He's played out," said I, "and if you are a wise woman, you'll +take him away for a couple of months' rest, and when he gets back, +see that he works at lower pressure."</p> +<p>Doria promised to do her best; but she sighed.</p> +<p>"You don't realise Adrian's iron will."</p> +<p>Once more I recognised with a shock that I did not know my +Adrian. I used to think one could blow the thistledown fellow about +whithersoever one pleased. Of the two, Doria seemed to have +unquestionably the stronger will-power.</p> +<p>"Surely," said I, "you can twist him round your little +finger."</p> +<p>Doria sighed again—and a wanly indulgent smile played +about her lips.</p> +<p>"You two dear people are so sensible, that it makes me almost +angry to see how you can't begin to understand Adrian. As a man, of +course I have a certain influence over him. But as an +artist—how can I? He's a thing apart from me altogether. I +know perfectly well that thousands of artists' wives wreck their +happiness through sheer, stupid jealousy of their husbands' art. +I'm not such a narrow-minded, contemptible woman." She threw her +little head up proudly. "I should loathe myself if I grudged one +hour that Adrian gave to his work instead of to me."</p> +<p>This time Barbara and I sighed, for we realised how vain had +been our arguments. Our considerably greater knowledge of life, our +stark common-sense, our deep affection for Adrian counted as naught +beside the fact that we had no experience whatever in the rearing +of a genius.</p> +<p>That word "genius" came too often from Doria's lips. At first it +irritated me; then I heard it with morbid detestation. In the +course of a more or less intimate conversation with Adrian, I let +slip a mild expression of my feelings. He groaned +sympathetically.</p> +<p>"I wish to heaven she wouldn't do it," said he. "It puts a man +into such a horrible false position towards himself. It's beautiful +of her, of course—it's her love for me. But it gets on my +nerves. Instead of sitting down at my desk with nothing in my mind +but my day's work to slog through, I hear her voice and I have to +say to myself, 'Go to. I am a genius. I mustn't write like any +common fellow. I must produce the work of a genius.' It really +plays the devil with me."</p> +<p>He walked excitedly about the library, flourishing a cigar and +scattering the ash about the carpet. I am pernicketty in a few ways +and hate tobacco ash on my carpet; every room in the house is an +arsenal of ash trays. In normal mood Adrian punctiliously observed +the little laws of the establishment. This scattering of cigar ash +was a sign of spiritual convulsion.</p> +<p>"Have you explained the matter to Doria?" I asked.</p> +<p>He halted before me performing his new uncomfortable trick of +slithering thumb over finger tips.</p> +<p>"No," he snapped. "How can I?"</p> +<p>I replied, mildly, that it seemed to be the simplest thing in +the world. He broke away impatiently, saying that I couldn't +understand.</p> +<p>"All right," said I, though what there was to understand in so +elementary a proposition goodness only knows. I was beginning to +resent this perpetual charge of non-intelligence.</p> +<p>"I think we had better clear out," he said. "I'm only a damned +nuisance. I've got this book of mine on the brain"—he held up +his head with both hands—"and I'm not a fit companion for +anybody."</p> +<p>I adjured him in familiar terms not to talk rubbish. He was here +for the repose of country things and freedom from day-infesting +cares. Already he was looking better for the change. But I could +not refrain from adding:</p> +<p>"You wrote 'The Diamond Gate' without turning a hair. Why should +you worry yourself to death about this new book?"</p> +<p>When he answered I had the shivering impression of a wizened old +man speaking to me. The slight cast I had noticed in his blue eyes +became oddly accentuated.</p> +<p>"'The Diamond Gate,'" he said, peering at me uncannily, "was +just a pretty amateur story. The new book is going to stagger the +soul of humanity."</p> +<p>"I wish you weren't such a secretive devil," said I. "What's the +book about? Tell an old friend. Get it off your mind. It will do +you good."</p> +<p>I put my arm round his shoulders and my hand gave him an +affectionate grip. My heart ached for the dear fellow, and I +longed, in the plain man's way, to break down the walls of reserve, +which like those of the Inquisition Chamber, I felt were closing +tragically upon him.</p> +<p>"Come, come," I continued. "Get it out. It's obvious that the +thing is suffocating you. I'll tell nobody—not even that +you've told me—neither Doria nor Barbara—it will be the +confidence of the confessional. You'll be all the better for it. +Believe me."</p> +<p>He shrugged himself free from my grasp and turned away; his +nervous fingers plucked unconsciously at his evening tie until it +was loosened and the ends hung dissolutely over his shirt +front.</p> +<p>"You're very good, Hilary," said he, looking at every spot in +the room except my eyes. "If I could tell you, I would. But it's an +enormous canvas. I could give you no idea—" The furrow +deepened between his brows—"If I told you the scheme you +would get about the same dramatic impression as if you read, say, +the letter R, in a dictionary. I'm putting into this novel," he +flickered his fingers in front of me—"everything that ever +happened in human life."</p> +<p>I regarded him in some wonder.</p> +<p>"My dear fellow," said I, "you can't compress a Liebig's Extract +of Existence between the covers of a six-shilling novel."</p> +<p>"I can," said he, "I can!" He thumped my writing table, so that +all the loose brass and glass on it rattled. "And by God! I'm going +to do it."</p> +<p>"But, my dearest friend," I expostulated, "this is absurd. It's +megalomania—<i>la folie des grandeurs</i>."</p> +<p>"It's the divinest folly in the world," said he.</p> +<p>He threw a cigar stump into the fireplace and poured himself out +and drank a stiff whisky and soda. Then he laughed in imitation of +his familiar self.</p> +<p>"You dear prim old prig of a Hilary, don't worry. It's all going +to come straight. When the novel of the eighteenth, nineteenth and +twentieth centuries is published I guess you'll be proud of me. And +now, good-night."</p> +<p>He laughed, waved his arm in a cavalier gesture and went from +the room, slamming the door masterfully behind him.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p>We kept the unreasonable pair at Northlands as long as we could, +doing all that lay in our power to restore Adrian's idiotically +impaired health. I motored him about the county; I took him to +golf, a pastime at which I do not excel; and I initiated him into +the invigorating mysteries of playing at robbers with Susan. We +gave a carefully selected dinner-party or two, and accepted on his +behalf a few discreet invitations. At these +entertainments—whether at Northlands or elsewhere—we +caused it to be understood that the lion, being sick, should not be +asked to roar.</p> +<p>"It's so trying for him," said Doria, "when people he doesn't +know come up and gush over 'The Diamond Gate'—especially now +when his nerves are on edge."</p> +<p>On the occasion of our second dinner-party, the guests having +been forewarned of the famous man's idiosyncrasies, no reference +whatever was made to his achievements. We sat him between two +pretty and charming women who chattered amusingly to him with what +I, who kept an eye open and an ear cocked, considered to be a very +subtly flattering deference. Adrian responded with adequate +animation. As an ordinary clever, well-bred man of the world he +might have done this almost mechanically; but I fancied that he +found real enjoyment in the light and picturesque talk of his two +neighbours. When the ladies left us, he discussed easy politics +with the Member for our own division of the County. In the +drawing-room, afterwards, he played a rubber at bridge, happened to +hold good cards and smiled an hour away. When the last guest +departed, he yawned, excused himself on the ground of healthy +fatigue and went straight off to bed. Barbara and I congratulated +ourselves on the success of our dinner-party. The next day Adrian +went about as glum as a dinosaur in a museum, and conveyed, even to +Susan's childish mind, his desire for solitude. His hang-dog +dismalness so affected my wife, that she challenged Doria.</p> +<p>"What in the world is the matter with him, to-day?"</p> +<p>Doria drew herself up and flashed a glance at Barbara—they +were both little bantams of women, one dark as wine, the other fair +as corn. If ever these two should come to a fight, thought I who +looked on, it would be to the death.</p> +<p>"Your friends are very charming, my dear, and of course I've +nothing to say against them; but I was under the impression that +every educated person in the English-speaking world knew my +husband's name, and I consider the way he was ignored last night by +those people was disgraceful."</p> +<p>"But, my dear Doria," cried Barbara, aghast, "we thought that +Adrian was having quite a good time."</p> +<p>"You may think so, but he wasn't. Adrian's a gentleman and plays +the game; but you must see it was very galling to him—and to +me—to be treated like any stockbroker—or +architect—or idle man about town."</p> +<p>"You are unfortunate in your examples," said I, intervening +judicially. "Pray reflect that there are architects alive whose +artistic genius is not far inferior to Adrian's."</p> +<p>"You know very well what I mean," she snapped.</p> +<p>"No, we don't, dear," said Barbara dangerously. "We think you're +a little idiot and ought to be ashamed of yourself. We took the +trouble to tell every one of those people that Adrian hated any +reference to his work, and like decent folk they didn't refer to +it. There—now round upon us."</p> +<p>The pallor deepened a shade in Doria's ivory cheek.</p> +<p>"You have put me in the wrong, I admit it. But I think it would +have been better to let us know."</p> +<p>What could one do with such people? I was inclined to let them +work out their salvation in their own eccentric fashion; but +Barbara decided otherwise. When one's friends reached such a degree +of lunacy as warranted confinement in an asylum, it was one's plain +duty to look after them. So we continued to look after our genius +and his worshipper, and we did it so successfully that before he +left us he recovered his sleep in some measure, and lost the +squinting look of strain in his eyes.</p> +<p>On the morning of their departure I mildly counselled him to +temper his fine frenzy with common-sense.</p> +<p>"Knock off the night work," said I.</p> +<p>He frowned, fidgeted with his feet.</p> +<p>"I wish to God I hadn't to work at all," said he. "I hate it! +I'd sooner be a coal-heaver."</p> +<p>"Bosh!" said I. "I know that you're an essentially idle beggar; +but you're as proud as Punch of your fame and success and all that +it means to you."</p> +<p>"What does it mean after all?"</p> +<p>"If you talk in that pessimistic way," I said, "you'll make me +cry. Don't. It means every blessed thing in the world to you. At +any rate it has meant Doria."</p> +<p>"I suppose that's true," he grunted. "And I suppose I am +essentially idle. But I wish the damned thing would get written of +its own accord. It's having to sit down at that infernal desk that +gets on my nerves. I have the same horrible apprehension of +it—always have—as one has before a visit to the +dentist, when you know he's going to drill hell into you."</p> +<p>"Why do you work in such a depressing room?" I asked. "If I were +shut up alone in it, I would stick my nose in the air and howl like +a dog."</p> +<p>"Oh, the room's all right," said he. Then he looked away +absently and murmured as if to himself, "It isn't the room."</p> +<p>"Then what is it?" I persisted.</p> +<p>He turned with a dreary sort of smile. "It's the born butterfly +being condemned to do the work of the busy bee."</p> +<p>A short while afterwards we saw them drive off and watched the +car disappear round the bend of the drive.</p> +<p>"Well, my dear," said I, "thank goodness I'm not a man of +genius."</p> +<p>"Amen!" said Barbara, fervently.</p> +<p>As soon as they had settled down in their flat, Adrian began to +work again, in the same unremitting fashion. The only concession he +made to consideration of health was to go to bed immediately on his +return from dinner-parties and theatres instead of spending three +or four hours in his study. Otherwise the routine of toil went on +as before. One afternoon, happening to be in town and in the +neighbourhood of St. John's Wood, I called at the flat with the +idea of asking Doria for a cup of tea. I also had in my pocket a +letter from Jaffery which I thought might interest Adrian. The maid +who opened the door informed me that her mistress was out. Was Mr. +Boldero in? Yes; but he was working.</p> +<p>"That doesn't matter," said I. "Tell him I'm here."</p> +<p>The maid did not dare disturb him. Her orders were absolute. She +could not refuse to admit me, seeing that I was already in the +hall; but she stoutly refused to announce me. I argued with the +damsel.</p> +<p>"I may have business of the utmost importance with your +master."</p> +<p>She couldn't help it. She had her orders.</p> +<p>"But, my good Ellen," said I—the minx had actually been in +our service a couple of years before!—"suppose the place were +on fire, what would you do?"</p> +<p>She looked at me demurely. "I think I should call a policeman, +sir."</p> +<p>"You can call one now," said I, "for I'm going to announce +myself. Don't tell me I'll have to walk over your dead body first, +for it won't do."</p> +<p>I know it is not looked upon as a friendly act to interrupt a +man in his work and to disregard the orders given to his servants, +but I was irritated by all this Grand Llama atmosphere of +mysterious seclusion. Besides, I had been walking and felt just a +little hot and dusty and thirsty, and I felt all the hotter, +dustier and thirstier for my argument with Ellen.</p> +<p>"I'll announce myself," I said, and marched to the door of +Adrian's study. It was locked. I rapped at the door.</p> +<p>"Who's there?" came Adrian's voice.</p> +<p>"Me. Hilary."</p> +<p>"What's the matter?"</p> +<p>"I happen to be a guest under your roof," said I, with a touch +of temper.</p> +<p>"Wait a minute," said he.</p> +<p>I waited about two. Then the door was unlocked and opened and I +strode in upon Adrian who looked rather pale and dishevelled.</p> +<p>"Why the deuce," said I, "did you keep me hanging about like +that?"</p> +<p>"I'm sorry," he replied. "But I make it a fixed rule to put away +my work"—he waved a hand towards the safe—"whenever +anybody, even Doria, wants to come into the room."</p> +<p>I glanced around the cheerless place. There were no traces of +work visible. Save that the quill pens and blotting pad were inky, +his library table seemed as immaculate, as unstained by toil, as it +did on the occasion of my first visit.</p> +<p>"You needn't have made all that fuss," said I. "I only dropped +in for a second or two. I wanted to ask for a drink and to show you +a letter from Jaffery."</p> +<p>"Oh, Jaffery!" He smiled. "How's the old barbarian getting +on?"</p> +<p>"Tremendously. He's the guest of a Viceroy and living in +sumptuousness. Read for yourself."</p> +<p>I took from my pocket letter and envelope. Now I am a man who +keeps few letters and no envelopes. The second post bringing +Jaffery's epistle had just arrived when I was leaving Northlands +that morning, and it was but an accident of haste that the envelope +had not been destroyed. I took the opportunity of tearing it up +while Adrian was reading. With the pieces in my hand, I peered +about the room.</p> +<p>"What are you looking for?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Your waste-paper basket."</p> +<p>"Haven't got such a thing."</p> +<p>I threw my litter into the grate.</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"I'm not going to pander to the curiosity of housemaids," he +replied rather irritably.</p> +<p>"What do you do with your waste paper, then?"</p> +<p>"Never have any," he said, with his eyes on Jaffery's +letter.</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" I cried. "Do you pigeon-hole bills and +money-lenders' circulars and second-hand booksellers' catalogues +and all their wrappers?"</p> +<p>He folded up the letter, took me by the arm and regarded me with +a smile of forced patience.</p> +<p>"My dear Hilary, can't you ever understand that this room is +just a workshop and nothing else? Here I think of nothing but my +novel. I would as soon think of conducting my social correspondence +in the bathroom. If you want to see the waste-paper basket where I +throw my bills and unanswered letters from duchesses, and the +desk—I share it with Doria—where I dash off my +brilliant replies to money-lenders, come into the drawing-room. +There, also, I shall be able to give you a drink."</p> +<p>My eyes, following an unconscious glance from his, fell upon a +new and hitherto unnoticed object—a little table, now +startlingly obvious, in a corner of the all but unfurnished room, +bearing a tray with half full decanter, syphon and glass.</p> +<p>"You've got all I want here," said I.</p> +<p>"No. That's mere stimulant. <i>Sapit lucernam</i>. It has a +horrible flavour of midnight oil. There's not what you understand +by a drink in it. Let's get out of the accursed hole."</p> +<p>He dragged me almost by force into the drawing-room, where he +entertained me courteously. It was curious to observe how his +manner changed in—I have to use the Boldero jargon—in +the different atmosphere. He expounded the qualities of his +whisky—a present from old man Jornicroft, a rare blend which +just a few "merchantates" (Barbara's word, he declared, was +delicious) in Glasgow and Dundee and here and there a one in the +City of London were able to procure. In its flavour, said he, +lurked the mystery of strange and barbaric names. He showed me a +Bonington water colour which he had picked up for a song. On +enquiry as to the signification of a song as a unit of value, I +learned that since eminent tenors and divas had sung into +gramophones, the standard had appreciated.</p> +<p>"My dear man," he laughed, in answer to my protest. "I can +afford it."</p> +<p>For the quarter of an hour that I spent with him in his own +drawing-room, he was quite the old Adrian. I drove to Paddington +Station under the influence of his urbanity. But in the train, and +afterwards at home, I was teased by vague apprehensions. Hitherto I +had loosely and playfully qualified his methods of work as lunatic, +without a thought as to the exact significance of the term. Now a +horrible thought harassed me. Had I been precise without knowing +it?</p> +<p>Novelists may have their little idiosyncrasies, and the privacy +of their working hours deserves respect; but none I have ever heard +of are such fearful wildfowl as to need the precautions with which +Adrian surrounded himself. Why should he put himself under lock and +key? Why should he not allow human eye to fall, even from the +distance prescribed by good manners, upon his precious manuscript? +Why need he use care so scrupulous as not to expose even torn up +bits of rough draft to the ancillary publicity of a waste-paper +basket? Soundness of mind did not lie that way. The terms in which +he alluded to his book were not those of a sane man filled with the +joy of his creation. None of us, not even Doria, knew how the story +was progressing. He had signed a contract with an American editor +for serialisation to begin in July. Here we were in the middle of +May, and not a page of manuscript had been delivered. Doria told +Barbara that the editor had been cabling frenziedly. How much of +the story was written? I recalled his wild talk at Easter about +putting into the novel the whole of human life. I had jested with +him, calling it a megalomaniac notion. But suppose, unwittingly, I +had been right? I thought of the ghastly name physicians give to +the malady and shivered.</p> +<p>Suddenly, a day or two afterwards, came news that, to some +extent, relieved my mind.</p> +<p>While the Bolderos were at breakfast, a cable arrived from the +Editor. It ran: "Unless half of manuscript is delivered to-day at +London Office will cancel contract." Adrian read it, frowned and +handed it to Doria. It seems that in all business matters she had +his confidence.</p> +<p>"Well, dear?" she said, looking up at him.</p> +<p>He broke out angrily. "Did you ever hear such amazing insolence? +I give this pettifogging tradesman the privilege of publishing my +novel in his rubbishy periodical and he dares to dictate terms to +me! Half a novel, indeed! As if it were half a bale of calico. The +besotted fool! As well ask a clock-maker to deliver half a +clock."</p> +<p>"Argument by analogy is rather dangerous," she said gently, +seeking to turn aside his wrath with a smile. "It's not quite the +same thing. Can't you give him something to go on with?"</p> +<p>"I can, but I won't. I'll see him damned first." He turned to +the maid and demanded a telegraph form.</p> +<p>"What are you going to do?"</p> +<p>"I'm going to teach him a lesson. He thinks I'm going to be +taken in by his bluff and run round with a brown paper parcel to +Fleet Street or wherever his beastly office is. He's mistaken. +There," he wrote the cable hurriedly and read it aloud, "'Shall not +deliver anything. Only too glad to cancel contract.' He'll he the +most surprised and disgusted man in America!"</p> +<p>"Need you put it quite like that?" said Doria.</p> +<p>"It's the only way to make him understand. He has been buzzing +round me like a wasp for the past month. Now he's squashed. And +now," said he, getting up and lighting a cigarette, "I'm not going +to do another stroke of work for three months."</p> +<p>It was the news of this last announcement that relieved my mind: +not the story of Adrian's intolerable treatment of the editor, +which was of a piece with his ordinary attitude towards his own +genius. The capriciousness of the resolution startled me; but I +approved whole-heartedly. I would have counselled immediate change +of scene, had not Adrian anticipated my advice by rushing off then +and there to Cook's and taken tickets to Switzerland. Having some +business in town, I motored up with Barbara earlier than I need +have done, and we saw them off at Victoria Station. Adrian, in +holiday spirits, talked rather loudly. Now that he was free from +the horror of that bestial vampire sucking his blood—that was +his way of referring to the long suffering and hardly used +editor—life emerged from gloom into sunshine. Now his spirit +could soar untrammelled. It had taken its leap into the Empyrean. +He beheld his book beneath him dazzlingly clear. Three months +communing with nature, three months solitude on the pure mountain +heights, three months calm discipline of the soul—that was +what he needed. Then to work, and in another three months, +<i>currente calamo</i>, the book would be written.</p> +<p>"And what is Doria going to do on top of the Matterhorn?" asked +my wife.</p> +<p>Doria cried out, "Oh, don't tease. We're not going near the +Matterhorn. We're going to read beautiful books, and see beautiful +things and think beautiful thoughts." She dragged Barbara a step or +two aside. "Don't you think this is the best thing that could have +happened?" she asked, with her anxious, earnest gaze.</p> +<p>"The very, very best, dear," replied Barbara gently.</p> +<p>And indeed it was. If ever a man realised himself to be on the +verge of the abyss, I am sure it was Adrian Boldero. Some haunting +fear was set at the back of his laughing eyes—the expression +of an animal instinct for self-preservation which discounted the +balderdash about the soaring yet disciplined soul.</p> +<p>I whispered to Doria: "Don't go too far into the wilds out of +reach of medical advice."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>"You're taking away a sick man."</p> +<p>"Do you really think so?"</p> +<p>"I do," said I.</p> +<p>She looked to right and left and then at me full in the face, +and she gripped my hand.</p> +<p>"You're a good friend, Hilary. God knows I thank you."</p> +<p>From which I clearly understood that her passionately loyal +heart was grievously sore for Adrian.</p> +<p>During their absence abroad, which lasted much longer than three +months, we heard fairly regularly from Doria; twice or thrice from +Adrian. After a time he grew tired of mountaintops and solitude and +declared that his inspiration required steeping in the past, +communion with the hallowed monuments of mankind. So they wandered +about the old Italian cities, until he discovered that the one +thing essential to his work was the gaiety of cosmopolitan society; +whereupon they went the round of French watering-places, where +Adrian played recklessly at baccarat and spent inordinate sums on +food. And all the time Doria wrote glowingly of their doings. +Adrian had put the book out of his head, was always in the best of +spirits. He had completely recovered from the strain of work and +was looking forward joyously to the final spurt in London and the +achievement of the masterpiece.</p> +<p>Meanwhile we played the annual comedy of our August migration; +the only change being that instead of Dinard we went to the West +Coast of Scotland to stay with some of Barbara's relatives. One +gleam of joy irradiated that grey and dismal sojourn—the news +that Jaffery, his mission in Crim Tartary being accomplished, would +be home for Christmas. Our host and hostess were sporting folk with +red, weatherbeaten faces and a mania (which they expected us to +share) for salmon-fishing in the pouring rain. As neither Barbara +nor I were experts—I always trembled lest a strong young fish +getting hold of the end of Barbara's line should whisk her over +like a feather into the boiling current—and as for myself, I +prefer the more contemplative art of bottom fishing from a punt in +dry weather—our friends caught all the salmon, while we +merely caught colds in the head. Many an hour of sodden misery was +cheered by the whispered word of comfort: Jaffery would be home for +Christmas. And when, at ten o'clock in the evening, just as we were +beginning to awake from the nightmare of the day, and to desire +sprightly conversation, our host and hostess fell into a lethargy, +and staggered off to slumber, we beguiled the hour before bedtime +with talk of Jaffery's homecoming.</p> +<p>At last we escaped and took the good train south. The Bolderos +had already returned to London. They came to spend our first +week-end at Northlands. Adrian professed to be in the robustest of +health and to have not a care in the world. The holiday, said he, +had done him incalculable good. Already he had begun to work in the +full glow of inspiration. We thought him looking old and +hag-ridden, but Doria seemed happy. She had her own reason for +happiness, which she confided to Barbara. It would be early in the +New Year. . . . Her eyes, I noticed, were filled with a new and +wonderful love for Adrian. On the Sunday afternoon as we were +sauntering about the garden, Adrian touched upon the subject in a +man's shy way when speaking to his fellow man.</p> +<p>"Why," said I with a laugh, "that's just about the time you +expect the book to be out."</p> +<p>He gave me a queer, slanting look. "Yes," said he, "they'll both +be born together."</p> +<p>That night, to my consternation and sorrow, he went to bed quite +fuddled with whisky.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p>Never shall I forget that Christmastide. Its shadow has fallen +on every Christmas since then. And, in the innocent insolence of +our hearts, we had planned such a merry one. It was the first since +our marriage that we were spending at Northlands, for like dutiful +folk we had hitherto spent the two or three festival days in the +solid London house of Barbara's parents. Her father, Sir Edward +Kennion, retired Permanent Secretary of a Government Office, was a +courtly gentleman with a faultless taste in old china and wine, and +Lady Kennion a charming old lady almost worthy of being the mother +of Barbara. To speak truly, I had always enjoyed my visits. But +when the news came that, for the sake of the dear lady's health, +the Kennions were starting for Bermuda, in the middle of December, +it did not strike us desolate. On the contrary Barbara clapped her +hands in undisguised glee.</p> +<p>"It will do mother no end of good, and we can give Susan a real +Christmas of her own."</p> +<p>So we laid deep schemes to fill the house to overflowing and to +have a roystering time. First, for Susan's sake, we secured a +widowed cousin of mine, Eileen Wetherwood, with her four children; +and we sent out invitations to the <i>ban</i> and <i>arrière +ban</i> of the county's juvenility, to say nothing of that of +London, for a Boxing-day orgy. Having accounted satisfactorily for +Susan's entertainment, we thought, I hope in a Christian spirit, of +our adult circle. Dear old Jaffery would be with us. Why not ask +his sister Euphemia? They had a mouse and lion affection for each +other. Then there was Liosha. Both she and Jaffery met in Susan's +heart, and it was Susan's Christmas. With Liosha would come Mrs. +Considine, admirable and lonely woman. We trusted to luck and to +Mrs. Considine's urbane influence for amenable relations between +Liosha and Euphemia Chayne. With Jaffery in the house, Adrian and +Doria must come. Last Christmas they had spent in the country with +old Mrs. Boldero; old Mrs. Boldero was, therefore, summoned to +Northlands. In the lightness of our hearts we invited Mr. +Jornicroft. After the letter was posted my spirits sank. What in +the world would we do with ponderous old man Jornicroft? But in the +course of a few posts my gloom was lightened by a refusal. Mr. +Jornicroft had been in the habit for many years of spending +Christmas at the King's Hotel, Hastings, and had already made his +arrangements.</p> +<p>"Who else is there?" asked Barbara.</p> +<p>"My dear," said I. "This is a modest country house, not an +International Palace Hotel. Including Eileen's children and their +governess and nurse and Doria's maid, we shall have to find +accommodation for fifteen people."</p> +<p>"Nonsense!" she said. "We can't do it."</p> +<p>"Count up," said I.</p> +<p>I lit a cigar and went out into the winter-stricken garden, and +left her reckoning on her fingers, with knitted brow. When I +returned she greeted me with a radiantly superior smile.</p> +<p>"Who said it couldn't be done? I do wish men had some kind of +practical sense. It's as easy as anything."</p> +<p>She unfolded her scheme. As far as my dazed wits could grasp it, +I understood that I should give up my dressing-room, that the maids +should sleep eight in a bed, that Franklin, our excellent butler, +should perch in a walnut-tree and that planks should be put up in +the bath-rooms for as many more guests as we cared to invite.</p> +<p>"That is excellent," said I, "but do you realise that in this +house party there are only three grown men—three ha'porth of +grown men" (I couldn't forbear allusiveness) "to this intolerable +quantity of women and children?"</p> +<p>"But who is preventing you from asking men, dear? Who are +they?"</p> +<p>I mentioned my old friend Vansittart; also poor John Costello's +son, who would most likely be at a loose end at Christmas, and one +or two others.</p> +<p>"Well have them, dear," said Barbara.</p> +<p>So four unattached men were added to the party. That made +nineteen. When I thought of their accommodation my brain reeled. In +order to retain my wits I gave up thinking of it, and left the +matter to Barbara.</p> +<p>We were going to have a mighty Christmas. The house was filled +with preparations. Susan and I went to the village draper's and +bought beautifully coloured cotton stockings to hang up at her +little cousins' bedposts. We stirred the plum pudding. We planned +out everything that we should like to do, while Barbara, without +much reference to us, settled what was to be done. In that way we +divided the labour. Old Jaffery, back from China, came to us on the +twentieth of December, and threw himself heart and soul into our +side of the work. He took up our life just as though he had left it +the day before yesterday—just the same sun-glazed hairy red +giant, noisy, laughter-loving and voracious. Susan went about +clapping her hands the day he arrived and shouting that Christmas +had already begun.</p> +<p>The first thing he did was to clamour for Adrian, the man of +fame. But the three Bolderos were not coming till the +twenty-fourth. Adrian was making one last glorious spurt, so Doria +said, in order to finish the great book before Christmas. We had +not seen much of them during the autumn. Trivial circumstances had +prevented it. Susan had had measles. I had been laid up with a +wrenched knee. One side happened to be engaged when the other +suggested a meeting. A trumpery series of accidents. Besides, +Adrian, with his new lease of health and inspiration, had plunged +deeper than ever into his work, so that it was almost impossible to +get hold of him. On the few occasions when he did emerge from his +work-room into the light of friendly smiles, he gave glowing +accounts of progress. He was satisfying his poet's dreams. He was +writing like an inspired prophet. I saw him at the beginning of +December. His face was white and ghastly, the furrow had deepened +between his brows, and the strained squint had become permanent in +his eyes. He laughed when I repeated my warnings of the spring. +Small wonder, said he, that he did not look robust; virtue was +going from him into every drop of ink. He could easily get through +another month.</p> +<p>"And then"—he clapped me on the shoulder—"my +boy—you shall see! It will be worth all the <i>enfantement +prodigieux</i>. You thought I was going off my chump, you dear old +fuss-box. But you were wrong. So did Doria—for a week or two. +Bless her! she's an artist's wife in ten million."</p> +<p>"Have you thought of a title?" I asked.</p> +<p>"'God'," said he. "Yes—'God'—short like that. Isn't +it good?"</p> +<p>I cried out that it was in the worst possible taste. It would +offend. He would lose his public. The Non-conformists and +Evangelicals would be frightened by the very name. He lost his +temper and scoffed at my Early Victorianism. "Little Lily and her +Pet Rabbit" was the kind of title I admired. He was going to call +it "God."</p> +<p>"My dear fellow, call it what you please," said I, anxious to +avoid a duel of plates and glasses, for we were lunching on +opposite sides of a table at his club.</p> +<p>"I please to call it," said he, "by the only conceivable title +that is adequate to such a work." Then he laughed, with a gleam of +his old charm, and filled up my wine glass. "Anyhow, Wittekind, who +has the commercial end of things in view, thinks it's ripping." He +lifted his glass. "Here's to 'God.'"</p> +<p>"Here's to the new book under a different name," said I.</p> +<p>When I told Barbara about this, she rather agreed with +Wittekind. It all depended on the matter and quality of the book +itself.</p> +<p>"Well, anyhow," said I, abhorrent of dissension, "thank Heaven +the wretched composition's nearly finished."</p> +<p>On the morning of the twenty-third came my cousin Eileen and her +offspring, and in the afternoon came Liosha and Mrs. Considine. +Jaffery met his dynamic widow with frank heartiness, and for the +hour before bedtime, there were wild doings in the nursery, in +which neither my wife, nor my cousin, nor Mrs. Considine, nor +myself were allowed to participate. When nurses sounded the +retreat, our two Brobdingnagians appeared in the drawing-room, +radiant, and dishevelled, with children sticking to them like +flies. It was only when I saw Liosha, by the side of Jaffery, +unconsciously challenging him, as it were, physical woman against +physical man, with three children—two in her generous arms +and one on her back—to his mere pair—that I realised, +with the shock that always attends one's discovery of the obvious, +the superb Olympian greatness of the creature. She stood nearly six +feet to his six feet two. He stooped ever so little, as is the way +of burly men. She held herself as erect as a redwood pine. The +depth of her bosom, in its calm munificence, defied the vast, thick +heave of his shoulders. Her lips were parted in laughter shewing +magnificent teeth. In her brown eyes one could read all the +mysteries and tenderness of infinite motherhood. Her hair was +anyhow: a debauched wreckage of combs and wisps and hairpins. Her +barbaric beauty seemed to hold sleekness in contempt. I wanted, +just for the picture, half her bodice torn away. For there they +stood, male and female of an heroic age, in a travesty of modern +garb. Clap a pepperpot helmet on Jaffery, give him a skin-tight +suit of chain mail, moulding all his swelling muscles, consider his +red sweeping moustache, his red beard, his intense blue eyes +staring out of a red face; dress Liosha in flaming maize and +purple, leaving a breast free, and twist a gold torque through her +hair, dark like the bronze-black shadows under autumn bracken; +strip naked-fair the five nesting bits of humanity—it was an +unpresented scene from Lohengrin or the +Götterdämmerung.</p> +<p>I can only speak according to the impression produced by their +entrance on an idle, dilettante mind. My cousin Eileen, a smiling +lady of plump unimportance, to whom I afterwards told my fancy, +could not understand it. Speaking entirely of physical attributes, +she saw nothing more in Jaffery than an uncouth red bear, and +considered Liosha far too big for a drawing-room.</p> +<p>When the children departed after an orgy of osculation, Jaffery +surveyed with a twinkling eye the decorous quartette sitting by the +fire. Then in his familiar fashion, he took his companion by the +arm.</p> +<p>"They're too grown up for us, Liosha. Let's leave 'em. Come and +I'll teach you how to play billiards."</p> +<p>So off they went, to the satisfaction of Barbara and myself. +Nothing could be better for our Christmas merriment than such +relations of comradeship. We had the cheeriest of dinners that +evening. If only, said Jaffery, old Adrian and Doria were with us. +Well, they were coming the next day, together with Euphemia and the +four unattached men. As I said before, I had given up enquiring +into the lodging of this host, but Barbara, doubtless, as is her +magic way, had caused bedrooms and beds to smile where all had been +blank before. She herself was free from any care, being in her +brightest mood; and when Barbara gave herself up to gaiety she was +the most delicious thing in the wide world.</p> +<p>In the morning the shadow fell. About eleven o'clock Franklin +brought me a telegram into the library where Jaffery and I were +sitting. I opened it.</p> +<p>"<i>Terrible calamity. Come at once. Boldero</i>."</p> +<p>I passed it to Jaffery. "My God!" said he, and we stared at each +other. Franklin said:</p> +<p>"Any answer, sir?"</p> +<p>"Yes. 'Boldero. Coming at once.' And order the car round +immediately—for London. Also ask Mrs. Freeth kindly to come +here. Say the matter's important." Franklin withdrew. "It's +Adrian," said I, my mind rushing back to my horrible apprehensions +of the summer.</p> +<p>"Or Doria. I understood—" He waved a hand.</p> +<p>"Then Barbara must come."</p> +<p>"She would in any case. It may be Adrian, so I'll come too, if +you'll let me."</p> +<p>Let the great, capable fellow come? I should think I would. "For +Heaven's sake, do," said I.</p> +<p>Barbara entered swinging housewifely keys.</p> +<p>"I'm dreadfully busy, dear. What is it?"</p> +<p>Then she saw our two set faces and stopped short. Her quick eyes +fell on the telegram which Jaffery had put down in the arm of a +couch, and before we could do or say anything, she had snatched it +up and read it. She turned pale and held her little body very +erect.</p> +<p>"Have you ordered the car?"</p> +<p>"Yes. Jaffery's coming with us."</p> +<p>"Good, I'll get on my coat. Send Eileen to me. I must tell her +about house things."</p> +<p>She went out. Jaffery laid his heavy hand on my shoulder.</p> +<p>"What a wonder of a wife you've got!"</p> +<p>"I don't need you to tell me that," said I.</p> +<p>We went downstairs to put on our coats and then round to the +garage to hurry up the car.</p> +<p>"There's some dreadful trouble at Mr. Boldero's," I said to the +chauffeur. "You must drive like the devil."</p> +<p>Barbara, veiled and coated, met us at the front door. She has a +trick of doing things by lightning. We started; Barbara and Jaffery +at the back, I sideways to them on one of the little chair seats. +We had the car open, as it was a muggy day. . . . It is astonishing +how such trivial matters stick in one's mind. . . . We went, as I +had ordained, like the devil.</p> +<p>"Who sent that telegram?" asked Barbara.</p> +<p>"Doria," said I.</p> +<p>"I think it's Adrian," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I think," said Barbara, "it's that silly old woman, Adrian's +mother. Either of the others would have said something definite. +Ah!" she smote her knee with her small hand, "I hate people with +spinal marrow and no backbone to hold it!"</p> +<p>We tore through Maidenhead at a terrific pace, the Christmas +traffic in the town clearing magically before us. Sometimes a car +on an errand of life or death is recognised, given way to, like a +fire engine.</p> +<p>"What makes you so dead sure something's happened to Adrian?" +Jaffery asked me as we thundered through the railway arch.</p> +<p>Then I remembered. I had told him little or nothing of my fears. +Ever since I learned that Adrian was putting the finishing touches +to his novel, I had dismissed them from my mind. Such accounts as I +had given of Adrian had been in a jocularly satirical vein. I had +mentioned his pontifical attitude, the magnification of his office, +his bombastic rhetoric over the Higher Life and the Inspiration of +the Snows, and, all that being part and parcel of our old Adrian, +we had laughed. Six months before I would have told Jaffery quite a +different story. But now that Adrian had practically won through, +what was the good of reviving the memory of ghastly +apprehensions?</p> +<p>"Tell me," said Jaffery. "There's something behind all +this."</p> +<p>I told him. It took some time. We sped through Slough and +Hounslow, and past the desolate winter fields. The grey air was as +heavy as our hearts.</p> +<p>"In plain words," said Jaffery, "it's G.P.—General +Paralysis of the Insane."</p> +<p>"That's what I fear," said I.</p> +<p>"And you?" He turned to Barbara.</p> +<p>"I too. Hilary has told you the truth."</p> +<p>"But Doria! Good God! Doria! It will kill her!"</p> +<p>Barbara put her little gloved fingers on Jaffery's great raw +hand. Only at weddings or at the North Pole would Jaffery wear +gloves.</p> +<p>"We know nothing about it as yet. The more we tear ourselves to +pieces now, the less able we'll be to deal with things."</p> +<p>Through the bottle-neck of Brentford, the most disgraceful main +entrance in the world into any great city, with bare room for a +criminal double line of tramways blocked by heavy, horse-drawn +traffic, an officially organised murder-trap for all save the +shrinking pedestrian on the mean, narrow, greasy side-walk, we +crawled as fast as we were able. Then through Chiswick, over +Hammersmith Bridge, into the heart of London. All London to cross. +Never had it seemed longer. And the great city was smitten by a +blight. It was not a fog, for one could see clearly a hundred yards +ahead. But there was no sky and the air was a queer yellow, almost +olive green, in which the main buildings stood out in startling +meanness, and the distant ones were providentially obscured. Though +it was but little past noon, all the great shops blazed with light, +but they illuminated singularly little the yellow murk of the +roadway. The interiors were sharply clear. We could see swarms of +black things, seething with ant-like activity amid a phantasmagoria +of colours, draperies, curtains, flashes of white linen, streaks of +red and yellow meat gallant with rosettes and garlands, +instantaneous, glistening vistas of gold, silver and crystal, warm +reflections of mahogany and walnut; on the pavements an +agglutinated yet moving mass by the shop fronts, the inner stream a +garish pink ribbon of faces, the outer a herd of subfuse brown. And +in the roadway, through the translucent olive, the swirling traffic +seemed like armies of ghosts mightily and dashingly charioted.</p> +<p>The darkness had deepened when we, at last, drew up at the +mansions in St. John's Wood. No lights were lit in the vestibule, +and the hall-porter emerged as from a cavern of despair. He opened +the car-door and touched his peaked cap. I could see from the man's +face that he had been expecting us. He knew us, of course, as +constant visitors of the Bolderos.</p> +<p>"What's the matter?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Don't you know, sir?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>He glanced at Barbara, as if afraid to give her the shock of his +news, and bent forward and whispered to me:</p> +<p>"Mr. Boldero's dead, sir."</p> +<p>I don't remember clearly what happened then. I have a vague +memory of the man accompanying us in the lift and giving some +unintelligible account of things. I was stunned. We had interpreted +the ambiguous telegram in all other ways than this. Adrian was +dead. That was all I could think of. The only coherent remark I +heard the man make was that it was a dreadful thing to happen at +Christmas. Barbara gripped my hand tight and did not say a word. +The next phase I remember only too vividly. When the flat door +opened, in a blaze of electric light, it was like a curtain being +lifted on a scene of appalling tragedy. As soon as we entered we +were sucked into it. A horrible hospital smell of +anæsthetics, disinfectants—I know not +what—greeted us.</p> +<p>The maid Ellen who had admitted us, red-eyed and scared, flew +down the corridor into the kitchen, whence immediately afterwards +emerged a professional nurse, who, carrying something, flitted into +Doria's room. From the spare room came for a moment an elderly +woman whom we did not know. The study door was flung wide +open—I noticed that the jamb was splintered. From the +drawing-room came sounds of awful moaning. We entered and found +Adrian's mother alone, helpless with grief. Barbara sat by her and +took her in her arms and spoke to her. But she could tell us +nothing. I heard a man's step in the hall and Jaffery and I went +out. He was a young man, very much agitated; he looked relieved at +seeing us.</p> +<p>"I am a doctor," said he, "I was called in. The usual medical +man is apparently away for Christmas. I'm so glad you've come. Is +there a Mrs. Freeth here?"</p> +<p>"Yes. My wife," said I.</p> +<p>"Thank goodness—" He drew a breath. "There's no one here +capable of doing anything. I had to get in the nurse and the other +woman."</p> +<p>Jaffery had summoned Barbara from her vain task.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Boldero is very ill—as ill as she can be. Of course +you were aware of her condition—well—the shock has had +its not very uncommon effect."</p> +<p>"Life in danger?" Jaffery asked bluntly.</p> +<p>"Life, reason, everything. Tell me. I'm a stranger. I know +nothing—I was summoned and found a man lying dead on the +floor in that room"—he pointed to the study—"and a +woman in a dreadful state. I've only had time to make sure that the +poor fellow was dead. Could you tell me something about them?"</p> +<p>So we told him, the three of us together, as people will, who +Adrian Boldero was, and how he and his genius were all this world +and a bit of the next to his wife. How I managed to talk sensibly I +don't know, for beating against the walls of my head was the +thought that Adrian lay there in the room where I had seen the +strange woman, lifeless and stiff, with the laughing eyes forever +closed and the last mockery gone from his lips. Just then the woman +appeared again. The young doctor beckoned to her and said a few +words. Jaffery and I followed her into the death-chamber, leaving +the doctor with Barbara. And then we stood and looked at all that +was left of Adrian.</p> +<p>But how did it happen? It was not till long afterwards that I +really knew more than the scared maid-servant and the porter of the +mansions then told us. But that little more I will set down +here.</p> +<p>For the past few days he had been working early and late, +scarcely sleeping at all. The night before he had gone to bed at +five, had risen sleepless at seven, and having dressed and +breakfasted had locked himself in his study. The very last page, he +told Doria, was to be written. He was to come down to us for +Christmas, with his novel a finished thing. At ten o'clock, in +accordance with custom, when he began to work early, the maid came +to his door with a cup of chicken-broth. She knocked. There was no +reply. She knocked louder. She called her mistress. Doria hammered +. . . she shrieked. You know how swiftly terror grips a woman. She +sent for the porter. Between them they raised a din to +awaken—well—all but the dead. The man forced the +door—hence the splinters on the jamb—and there they +found Adrian, in the great bare room, hanging horribly over his +writing chair, with not a scrap of paper save his blotting-pad in +front of him. He must have died almost as soon as he had reached +his study, before he had time to take out his manuscript from the +jealous safe. That this was so the harassed doctor afterwards +affirmed, when he could leave the living to make examination of the +dead. Still later than that we heard the cause of death—a +clot of blood on the brain. . . .</p> +<p>To go back . . . They found him dead. And then arose an +unpicturable scene of horror. It seems that the cook, a stolid +woman, on the point of starting for a Christmas visit, took charge +of the situation, sent for the doctor, despatched the telegram to +us, and with the help of the porter's wife, saw to Adrian. The +elder Mrs. Boldero collapsed, a futile mass of sodden hysteria. +Much that was fascinating and feminine in Adrian came from this +amiable and incapable lady.</p> +<p>We went into the dining-room and helped ourselves to whisky and +soda—we needed it—and talked of the catastrophe. As +yet, of course, we knew nothing of the clot of blood. Presently +Barbara came in and put her hands on my shoulders.</p> +<p>"I must stay here, Hilary, dear. You must get a bed at your +club. Jaffery will take the car and bring us what we want from +Northlands, and will look after things with Eileen. And put off +Euphemia and the others, if you can."</p> +<p>And that was the Christmas to which we had looked forward with +such joyous anticipation. Adrian dead; his child stillborn: Doria +hovering on the brink of life and death. I did what was possible on +a Christmas eve in the way of last arrangements. But to-morrow was +Christmas Day. The day after, Boxing Day. The day after that, +Sunday. The whole world was dead. And all those awful days the thin +yellow fog that was not fog but mere blight of darkness hung over +the vast city.</p> +<p>God spare me such another Christmastide.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p>The first stages of our grievous task were accomplished. We had +buried Adrian in Highgate Cemetery with the yellow fog around us. +His mother had been put into a train that would carry her to the +quiet country cottage wherein she longed to be alone with her +sorrow. Doria still lay in the Valley of the Shadow unconscious, +perhaps fortunately, of the stealthy footsteps and muffled sounds +that strike a note of agony through a house of death. And it was +many days before she awoke to knowledge and despair. Barbara stayed +with her.</p> +<p>We had found Adrian's will, leaving everything to Doria and +appointing Jaffery and myself joint executors and trustees for his +wife and the child that was to come, among his private papers in +the Louis XV cabinet in the drawing-room. We had consulted his +bankers and put matters in a solicitor's hands with a view to +probate. Everything was in order. We found his own personal bills +and receipts filed, his old letters tied up in bundles and +labelled, his contracts, his publisher's returns, his lease, his +various certificates neatly docketed. It was the private desk of a +careful business man, rather than that of our old unmethodical +Adrian. There are few things more painful than to pry into the +intimacies of those we have loved; and Jaffery and I had to pry +alone, because Doria, who might have saved our obligatory search +from impertinence, lay, herself, on the Borderland.</p> +<p>All that we required for the simple settlement of his affairs +had been found in the cabinet. On the list of assets for probate we +had placed the manuscript of the new book, its value estimated on +the sales of "The Diamond Gate." We had not as yet examined the +safe in the study, knowing that it held nothing but the manuscript, +and indeed we had not entered the forbidding room in which our poor +friend had died. We kept it locked, out of half foolish and half +affectionate deference to his unspoken wishes. Besides, Barbara, +most exquisitely balanced of women, who went in and out of the +death-chamber without any morbid repulsion, hated the door of the +study to be left ajar, and, when it was closed, professed relief +from an inexplicable maccabre obsession, and being an inmate of the +flat its deputy lady in charge of nurses and servants and household +things, she had a right to spare herself unnecessary nervous +strain. But, all else having been done for the dead and for the +living, the time now came for us to take the manuscript from the +safe and hand it over to the publisher.</p> +<p>So, one dark morning, Jaffery and I unlocked the study-door and +entered the gloom-filled, barren room. The curtains were drawn +apart, and the blinds drawn up, and the windows framed squares of +unilluminating yellow. It was bitterly cold. The fire had not been +laid since the morning of the tragedy and the grate was littered +with dim grey ash. The stale smell of the week's fog hung about the +place. I turned on the electric light. With its white distempered, +pictureless walls, and its scanty office furniture, the room looked +inexpressibly dreary. We went to the library table. A quill pen lay +on the blotting pad, its point in the midst of a couple of square +inches of idle arabesques. On three different parts of the pad +marked by singularly little blotted matter the quill had scrawled +"God. A Novel. By Adrian Boldero." On a brass ash-tray I noticed +three cigarettes, of each of which only about an eighth of an inch +had been smoked. Jaffery, who had the key that used to hang at the +end of Adrian's watch-chain, unlocked the iron safe. Its heavy door +swung back and revealed its contents: Three shelves crammed from +bottom to top with a chaos of loose sheets of paper. Nowhere a sign +of the trim block of well-ordered manuscript.</p> +<p>"Pretty kind of hay," growled Jaffery, surveying it with a +perplexed look. "We'll have our work cut out."</p> +<p>"It'll be all right," said I. "Lift out the top shelf as +carefully as you can. You may be sure Adrian had some sort of +method."</p> +<p>Onto the cleared library table Jaffery deposited three loose, +ragged piles. We looked through them in utter bewilderment. Some of +the sheets unnumbered, unconnected one with the other, were pages +of definite manuscript; these we put aside; others contained +jottings, notes, fragments of dialogue, a confused multitude of +names, incomprehensible memoranda of incidents. Of the latter one +has stuck in my memory. "Lancelot Sinlow seduces Guinevere the +false 'Immaculata' and Jehovah steps in." Other sheets were covered +with meaningless phrases, the crude drawings that the writing man +makes mechanically while he is thinking over his work, and +arabesques such as we found on the blotting pad.</p> +<p>"What the blazes is all this?" muttered Jaffery, his fingers in +his beard.</p> +<p>"I can't make it out," said I. And then suddenly I laughed in +great relief, remembering the absence of the waste-paper basket. We +were turning over what evidently would have been its contents. I +explained Adrian's whimsy.</p> +<p>"What a funny devil the poor old chap was," said Jaffery, with a +laugh at the harmless foible of the artist who would not give even +an incurious housemaid a clue to his mystery. "Well, clear the +rubbish away, and we'll look at the second shelf."</p> +<p>The second shelf was more or less a replica of the first. There +were more pages of consecutive composition—of such we sorted +out perhaps a couple of hundred, but the rest were filled with the +same incoherent scribble, with the same drawings, and with bits of +scenarios of a dozen stories.</p> +<p>"The whole damn thing seems to be waste-paper basket," said +Jaffery, standing over me. There was but one chair in the +room—Adrian's famous wooden writing chair with the leathern +pad for which Barbara had pleaded, the chair in which the poor +fellow had died, and I was sitting in it, as I sorted the +manuscript which rose in masses on the table.</p> +<p>"There's quite a lot of completed pages," said I, putting +together those found on the two shelves. "Let us see what we can +make of them."</p> +<p>We piled the obvious rubbish on the floor, and examined the +salvage. We could make nothing of it. Jaffery wrinkled a hopeless +brow.</p> +<p>"It will take weeks to fix it up."</p> +<p>"What licks me," said I, "is the difference between this and the +old-maidish tidiness of his other papers. Anyhow let us go on."</p> +<p>In a little while we tried to put the sheets together in their +order, going by the grammatical sequence of the end of one page +with the beginning of the next, but rarely could we obtain more +than three or four of such consecutive pages. We were confused, +too, by at least a dozen headed "Chapter I."</p> +<p>"There's another shelf, anyhow," said Jaffery, turning away.</p> +<p>I nodded and went on with my puzzling task of collation. But the +more I examined the more did my brain reel. I could not find the +nucleus of a coherent story. A great shout from Jaffery made me +start in my chair.</p> +<p>"Hooray! At last! I've got it! Here it is!"</p> +<p>He came with three thick clumps of manuscript neatly pinned +together in brown paper wrappers and dumped them with a bang in +front of me.</p> +<p>"There!" he cried, bringing down his great hand on the top of +the pile.</p> +<p>"Thank God!" said I.</p> +<p>He removed his hand. Then, as he told me afterwards, I sprang to +my feet with a screech like a woman's. For there, staring me in the +face, on a white label gummed onto the brown paper, was the +hand-written inscription:</p> +<p>"The Diamond Gate. A Novel—by Thomas Castleton."</p> +<p>"Look!" I cried, pointing; and Jaffery looked. And for a second +or two we both stood stock-still.</p> +<p>The writing was Tom Castleton's; and the writing of the script +hastily flung open by Jaffery was Tom Castleton's—Tom +Castleton, the one genius of our boyish brotherhood, who had died +on his voyage to Australia. There was no mistake. The great square +virile hand was only too familiar—as different from Adrian's +precise, academical writing as Tom Castleton from Adrian.</p> +<p>Then our eyes met and we realized the sin that had been +committed.</p> +<p>There was the original manuscript of "The Diamond Gate." "The +Diamond Gate" was the work not of Adrian Boldero, but of Tom +Castleton. Adrian had stolen "The Diamond Gate" from a dead man. +Not only from a dead man, but from the dead friend who had loved +and trusted in him.</p> +<p>We stared at each other open-mouthed. At last Jaffery threw up +his hands and, without a word, cleared the lowest shelf of the +safe. Quickly we ran through the mass. We could not trust ourselves +to speak. There are times when words are too idle a medium for +interchange of thought. We found nothing different from the +contents of the two upper shelves. The apparently coherent +manuscript we placed with the rest. Again we examined it. A +sickening fear gripped our hearts, and steadily grew into an awful +certainty.</p> +<p>The great epoch-making novel did not exist.</p> +<p>It had never existed. Even if Adrian had lived, it would have +had no possibility of existing.</p> +<p>"What in God's name has he been playing at?" cried Jaffery, in +his great, hoarse bass.</p> +<p>"God knows," said I.</p> +<p>But even as I spoke, I knew.</p> +<p>I looked round the room which Barbara had once called the +Condemned Cell. The ghastly truth of her prescience shook me, and I +began to shudder with the horror of it, and with the hitherto +unnoticed cold. I was chilled to the bone. Jaffery put his arm +round my shoulders and hugged me kindly.</p> +<p>"Go and get warm," said he.</p> +<p>"But this?" I pointed to the litter.</p> +<p>"I'll see to it and join you in a minute."</p> +<p>He pushed me outside the door and I went into the drawing-room, +where I crouched before a blazing fire with chattering teeth and +benumbed feet and hands. I was alone. Doria had taken a faint turn +for the better that morning and Barbara had run down to Northlands +for the day. It was just as well she had gone, I thought. I should +have a few hours to compose some story in mitigation of the +tragedy.</p> +<p>Soon Jaffery returned with a glass of brandy, which I drank. He +sat down on a low chair by the fire, his elbows on his knees and +his shoulders hunched up, and the leaping firelight played queer +tricks with the shadows on his bearded face, making him look old +and seamed with coarse and innumerable furrows. But for the blaze +the room was filled with the yellow darkness that was thickening +outside; yet we did not think of turning on the lights.</p> +<p>"What have you done?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Locked the stuff up again," he replied. "This afternoon I'll +bring a portmanteau and take it away."</p> +<p>"What are you going to do with it?"</p> +<p>"Leave that to me," said he.</p> +<p>What was in his mind I did not know, but, for the moment, I was +very glad to leave it to him. In a vague way I comforted myself +with the reflection that Jaffery was a specialist in crises. It was +his job, as he would have said. In the ordinary affairs of life he +conducted himself like an overgrown child. In time of cataclysm he +was a professional demigod. He reassured me further.</p> +<p>"That's where I come in. Don't worry about it any more."</p> +<p>"All right," said I.</p> +<p>And for a while he said nothing and stared at the fire. +Presently he broke the silence.</p> +<p>"What was the poor devil playing at?" he repeated. "What, in +God's name?"</p> +<p>And then I told him. It took a long time. I was still in the +cold grip of the horror of that condemned cell, and my account was +none too consecutive. There was also some argument and darting up +side-tracks, which broke the continuity. It was also difficult to +speak of Adrian in terms that did not tear our hearts. As a +despoiler of the dead, his offence was rank. But we had loved him; +and we still loved him, and he had expiated his crime by a year's +unimaginable torture.</p> +<p>Often have I said that I thought I knew my Adrian, but did not. +Least of all did I know my Adrian then, as I sat paralysed by the +revelation of his fraud. Even now, as I write, looking at things +more or less in perspective, I cannot say that I know my Adrian. +With all his faults, his poses, his superficialities, his +secrecies, his egotisms, I never dreamed of him as aught but a +loyal and honourable gentleman. When I think of him, I tremble +before the awful isolation of the human soul. What does one man +know of his brother? Yes; the coldest of poets was right: "We +mortal millions live alone." It is only the unconquerable faith in +Humanity by which we live that saves us from standing aghast with +conjecture before those who are so near and dear to us that we feel +them part of our very selves.</p> +<p>Adrian was dead and could not speak. What was it that in the +first place made him yield to temptation? What kink in the brain +warped his moral sense? God is his judge, poor boy, not I. Tom +Castleton had put the manuscript of "The Diamond Gate" into his +hands. Undoubtedly he was to arrange for its publication. +Castleton's appointment to the professorship in Australia had been +a sudden matter, as I well remember, necessitating a feverish +scramble to get his affairs in order before he sailed. Why did not +Adrian in the affectionate glow of parting send the manuscript +straight off to a publisher? At first it was merely a question of +despatching a parcel and writing a covering letter. Why were not +parcel and letter sent? Merely through the sheer indolence that was +characteristic of Adrian. Then came the news of Castleton's death. +From that moment the poison of temptation must have begun to work. +For years, in his easy way, he struggled against it, until, +perhaps, desperate for Doria, he succumbed. What script, +type-written or hand-written, he sent to Wittekind, the publisher +of "The Diamond Gate," I did not learn till later. But why did he +not destroy Tom Castleton's original manuscript? That was what +Jaffery could not understand. Yet any one familiar with morbid +psychology will tell you of a hundred analogical instances. Some +queer superstition, some reflex action of conscience, some dim, +relentless force compelling the hair shirt of penitence—that +is the only way in which I, who do not pretend to be a +psychologist, can explain the sustained act of folly.</p> +<p>And when the book blazed into instantaneous success, and he +accepted it gay and debonair, what could have been the state of +that man's soul? I remembered, with a shiver, the look on Adrian's +face, at Mr. Jornicroft's dinner party, as if a hand had swept the +joy from it, and the snapping of the stem of the wineglass. In the +light of knowledge I looked back and recognised the feverishness of +a demeanour that had been merely gay before. Well . . . he had been +swept off his feet. If any man ever loved a woman passionately and +devoutly, Adrian loved Doria. For what it may be worth, put that to +his credit: he sinned for love of a woman. And the rest? The tragic +rest? His undertaking to write another novel? Indomitable +self-confidence was the keynote of the man. Careless, casual lover +of ease that he was, everything he had definitely set himself to do +heretofore, he had done.</p> +<p>As I have said, he had got his First Class at Cambridge, to the +stupefaction of his friends. With the exception of a brilliant bar +examination, he had done nothing remarkable afterwards, merely for +lack of incentive. When the incentive came, the writing of a novel +to eclipse "The Diamond Gate," I am absolutely certain that he had +no doubt of his capacity.</p> +<p>When he married, I think his sunny nature dispelled the cloud of +guilt. He looked forward with a gambler's eagerness to the autumn's +work, the beginning of the apotheosis of his real imaginary self, +the genius that was Adrian Boldero. And yet, behind all this +light-hearted enthusiasm, must have run a vein of cunning, +invariable symptom of an unbalanced mind, which prompted secrecy, +the secrecy which he had always loved to practise, and inspired him +with the idea of the mysterious, secret room. The latter originated +in his brain as a fantastic plaything, an intellectual Bluebeard's +chamber whose sanctity he knew his awe-stricken wife would respect. +It developed into a bleak prison; and finally into the condemned +cell.</p> +<p>As I said to Jaffery, on that morning of fog and firelight, in +the midst of Adrian's artificial French Lares and Penates, dimly +seen, like spindle-shanked ghosts of chairs and tables, just +consider the mind-shattering facts. Here was a man whose whole +literary output was a few precious essays and a few scraggy poems, +who had never schemed out a novel before, not even, as far as I am +aware, a short story; who had never, in any way, tested his +imaginative capacity, setting out, in insane self-conceit, to +write, not merely a commercial work of fiction, but a novel which +would outrival a universally proclaimed work of genius. And he had +no imaginative capacity. His mind was essentially critical; and the +critical mind is not creative. He was a clever man. All critics are +clever men; if they were just a little more, or just a little less +than clever, they wouldn't be critics. Perhaps Adrian was, by a +barleycorn, a little more; but he had a blind spot in his brain +which prevented him from seeing that the power to do imaginative +work in a literary medium is as much a special gift as the power to +interpret human life on canvas. It was exactly the same thing as if +you or I, who have not the remotest notion how to draw a man on +horseback correctly, were to try to paint a Velasquez portrait. It +did not seem to enter the poor fellow's head that the novelist, in +no matter how humble a way, no matter how infinitesimal the +invisible grain of muse may be, must have the especial, +incommunicable gift, the queer twist of brain, if you like, but the +essential quality of the artist.</p> +<p>And there the man had sat in that stark cell of a room, for all +those months, whipping, in intolerable agony, a static imagination. +He had never begun to get his central incident, his plot, his +character scheme, such as all novelists must do. He had grasped at +one elusive vision of life, after another. His mind had become a +medley of tags of the comedy and tragedy of human things. The more +confused, the more universal became the poor limited vision. The +whole of illimitable life, he had told me in his flogged, crazed +exaltation, was to be captured in this wondrous book. The pity of +it!</p> +<p>How he had retained his sanity I cannot to this day +understand—that is to say, if he had retained it. The +hypothesis of madness comforted. I would give much to feel that he +had really believed in his progress with the work, that his +assurance of having come to the end was genuine. If he had deceived +himself, God had been merciful. But if not, if he had sat down day +after day, with the appalling consciousness of his impotence, there +have been few of the sons of men to whom God had meted out, in this +world, greater punishment for sin. It is incredible that he should +have lasted so long alive. No wonder he could not sleep. No wonder +he drank in secret. Barbara, who had gone through the household +accounts, had already been staggered by the wine-merchant's bills +for whisky. Had he stupefied himself day after day, night after +night for the last few months? I cannot but hope that he did. At +any rate God was merciful at last. He killed him.</p> +<p>Jaffery threw a couple of logs on the fire—the ship-logs +that Adrian loved, and the sea-salts, barium, strontium and +what-not, gave green and crimson and lavender flames.</p> +<p>"I've seen as much suffering in my time as any man living," he +said. "A war-correspondent does. He sees samples of every +conceivable sort of hell. But this sample I haven't struck before +and it's the worst of the lot. My God! and only the day before +yesterday I took him to be married."</p> +<p>"It was fifteen months ago, Jaff, and since then you've plucked +hairs out of Prester John's beard, or been entertained by a Viceroy +of China, which comes to the same thing. I was right in saying you +had no idea of time or space."</p> +<p>He paid no attention to my poor, watery jest.</p> +<p>"It was the day before yesterday. And now he's dead and the +child stillborn—"</p> +<p>I uttered a short cry which interrupted him. A memory had +smitten me; that of his words in September, and of the queer +slanting look in his eyes: "They'll both be born together."</p> +<p>I told Jaffery. "Was there ever such a ghastly prophecy?" I +said. "Both stillborn together. The more one goes into the matter, +the more shudderingly awful it is."</p> +<p>Jaffery nodded and stared into the fire.</p> +<p>"And she at the point of death—to complete the tragedy," +he said below his breath.</p> +<p>Then suddenly he shook himself like a great dog.</p> +<p>"I would give the soul out of my body to save her," he cried +with a startling quaver in his deep voice.</p> +<p>"I know you love her dearly, old man," said I, "but is life the +best thing you can wish for her?"</p> +<p>"Why not?"</p> +<p>"Isn't it obvious? She recovers—she will, most probably, +recover; Jephson said so this morning—she comes back to life +to find what? The shattering of her idol. That will kill her. My +dear old Jaff, it's better that she should die now."</p> +<p>Rugged lines that I had never seen before came into his brow, +and his eyes blazed.</p> +<p>"What do you mean—shattering of idols?"</p> +<p>"She is bound to learn the truth."</p> +<p>He darted forward in his chair and gripped my knee in his mighty +grasp, so that I winced with pain.</p> +<p>"She's not going to learn the truth. She's not going to have any +dim suspicion of the truth. By God! I'd kill anybody, even you, who +told her. She's not to know. She must never know." In his sudden +fit of passion he sprang to his feet and towered over me with +clenched fists,—the sputtering flames casting a weird Brocken +shadow on wall and ceiling of the fog-darkened room—I shrank +into my chair, for he seemed not a man but one of the primal forces +of nature. He shouted in the same deep, shaken voice.</p> +<p>"Adrian is dead. The child is dead. But the book lives. You +understand." His great fist touched my face. "The book lives. You +have seen it."</p> +<p>"Very well," said I, "I've seen it."</p> +<p>"You swear you've seen it?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said I, in some bewilderment.</p> +<p>He turned away, passed his hand over his forehead and through +his hair, and walked for a little about the room.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry, Hilary, old chap, to have lost control of myself. +It's a matter of life and death. I'm all right now. But you +understand clearly what I mean?"</p> +<p>"Certainly. I'm to swear that I saw the manuscript. I'm to lend +myself to a pious fraud. That's all right for the present. But it +can't last forever."</p> +<p>Jaffery thrust both hands in his pockets and bent and fixed the +steel of his eyes on me. I should not like to be Jaffery's +enemy.</p> +<p>"It can. And it's going to. I'll see to that."</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" I asked. "There's no book. We can't conjure +something out of nothing."</p> +<p>"There is a book, damn you," he roared fiercely, "and you've +seen it, and I've got it. And I'm responsible for it. And what the +hell does it matter to you what becomes of it?"</p> +<p>"Very well," said I. "If you insist, I can wash my hands of the +whole matter. I saw a completed manuscript. You are my co-executor +and trustee. You took it away. That's all I know. Will that do for +you?"</p> +<p>"Yes. And I'll give you a receipt. Whatever happens, you're not +responsible. I can burn the damned thing if I like. Do anything I +choose. But you've seen the outside of it."</p> +<p>He went to the writing table by the gloomy window and scribbled +a memorandum and duplicate, which we both signed. Each pocketed a +copy. Then he turned on me.</p> +<p>"I needn't mention that you're not going to give a hint to a +human soul of what you have seen this day?"</p> +<p>I faced him and looked into his eyes. "What do you take me for? +But you're forgetting. . . . There is one human soul who must +know."</p> +<p>He was silent for a minute or two. Then, with his great-hearted +smile:</p> +<p>"You and Barbara are one," said he.</p> +<p>Presently, after a little desultory talk, he took a folded paper +from his pocket and shook it out before me. I recognized the top +sheet of the blotting-pad on which Adrian had written thrice: "God: +A Novel: By Adrian Boldero."</p> +<p>"We had better burn this," said he; and he threw it into the +fire.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p>The slow weeks passed. Fog gave way to long rain and rain to a +touch of frost and timid spring sunshine; and it was only then that +Doria emerged from the Valley of the Shadow. The first time they +allowed me to visit her, I stood for a fraction of a second, almost +in search of a human occupant of the room. Lying in the bed she +looked such a pitiful scrap, all hair and eyes. She smiled and held +droopingly out to me the most fragile thing in hands I have ever +seen.</p> +<p>"I'm going to live, after all, they tell me."</p> +<p>"Of course you are," I answered cheerily. "It's the season for +things to find they're going to live. The crocuses and aconite have +already made the discovery."</p> +<p>She sighed. "The garden at Northlands will soon be beautiful. I +love it in the spring. The dancing daffodils—"</p> +<p>"We'll have you down to dance with them," said I.</p> +<p>"It's strange that I want to live," she remarked after a pause. +"At first I longed to die—that was why my recovery was so +slow. But now—odd, isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Life means infinitely more than one's own sorrow, no matter how +great it is," I replied gently.</p> +<p>"Yes," she assented. "I can live now for Adrian's memory."</p> +<p>I suppose most women in Doria's position would have said much +the same. In ordinary circumstances one approves the pious +aspiration. If it gives them temporary comfort, why, in Heaven's +name, shouldn't they have it? But in Doria's case, its utterance +gave me a kind of stab in the heart. By way of reply I patted her +poor little wrist sympathetically.</p> +<p>"When will the book be out?" she asked.</p> +<p>"I'm afraid I don't quite know," said I.</p> +<p>"I suppose they're busy printing it."</p> +<p>"Jaffery's in charge," I replied, according to instructions.</p> +<p>"He must get it out at once. The early spring's the best time. +It won't do to wait too long. Will you tell him?"</p> +<p>"I will," said I.</p> +<p>I don't think I have ever loathed a thing so wholly as that +confounded ghost of a book. Naturally it was the dominant thought +in the poor child's mind. She had already worried Barbara about it. +It formed the subject of nearly her first question to me. I foresaw +trouble. I could not plead bland ignorance forever; though for the +present I did not know the nature of Jaffery's scheme. Anyhow I +redeemed my promise and gave him Doria's message. He received it +with a grumpy nod and said nothing. He had become somewhat grumpy +of late, even when I did not broach the disastrous topic, and made +excuses for not coming down to Northlands.</p> +<p>I attributed the unusual moroseness to London in vile weather. +At the best of times Jaffery grew impatient of the narrow +conditions of town; yet there he was week after week, staying in a +poky set of furnished chambers in Victoria Street, and doing +nothing in particular, as far as I could make out, save riding on +the tops of motor-omnibuses without an overcoat.</p> +<p>After his silent acknowledgment of the message, he stuffed his +pipe thoughtfully—we were in the smoking-room of a club (not +the Athenæum) to which we both belonged—and then he +roared out:</p> +<p>"Do you think she could bear the sight of me?"</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Well"—he grinned a little—"I'm not exactly a kind +of sick-room flower."</p> +<p>"I think you ought to see her—you're as much trustee and +executor as I am. You might also save Barbara and myself from +nerve-racking questions."</p> +<p>"All right, I'll go," he said.</p> +<p>The interview was only fairly successful. He told her that the +book would be published as soon as possible.</p> +<p>"When will that be?" she asked.</p> +<p>Jaffery seemed to be as vague as myself.</p> +<p>"Is it in the printer's hands?"</p> +<p>"Not yet."</p> +<p>"Why?"</p> +<p>He explained that Adrian had practically finished the novel; but +here and there it needed the little trimming and tacking together, +which Adrian would have done had he lived to revise the manuscript. +He himself was engaged on this necessary though purely mechanical +task of revision.</p> +<p>"I quite agree," said Doria to this, "that Adrian's work could +not be given out in an imperfect state. But there can't be very +much to do, so why are you taking all this time over it?"</p> +<p>"I'm afraid I've been rather busy," said he.</p> +<p>Which tactless, though I admit unavoidable, reply did not +greatly please Doria. When she saw Barbara, to whom she related +this conversation, she complained of Jaffery's unfeeling conduct. +He had no right to hang up Adrian's great novel on account of his +own wretched business. Letting the latter slide would have been a +tribute to his dead friend. Barbara did her best to soothe her; but +we agreed that Jaffery had made a bad start.</p> +<p>A short while afterwards I was in the club again and there I +came across Arbuthnot, the manager of Jaffery's newspaper, whom I +had known for some years—originally I think through Jaffery. +I accepted the offer of a seat at his luncheon table, and, as men +will, we began to discuss our common friend.</p> +<p>"I wonder what has come over him lately," said he after a +while.</p> +<p>"Have you noticed any difference?" I was startled.</p> +<p>"Yes. Can't make him out."</p> +<p>"Poor Adrian Boldero's death was a great shock."</p> +<p>"Quite so," Arbuthnot assented. "But Jaff Chayne, when he gets a +shock, is the sort of fellow that goes into the middle of a +wilderness and roars. Yet here he is in London and won't be +persuaded to leave it."</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" I asked.</p> +<p>"We wanted to send him out to Persia, and he refused to go. We +had to send young Brodie instead, who won't do the work half as +well."</p> +<p>"All this is news to me," said I.</p> +<p>"And it was a first-class business with armed escorts, caravans, +wild tribes—a matter of great danger and subtle +politics—railways, finance—the whole hang of the +international situation and internal conditions—a big +scoop—everything that usually is butter and honey to Jaff +Chayne—an ideal job for him in every way. But no. He was fed +up with scalliwagging all over the place. He wanted a season in +town!"</p> +<p>At the idea of Jaffery yearning to play the Society butterfly I +could not help laughing. Jaffery lounging down Bond Street in +immaculate vesture! Jaffery sipping tea at afternoon At Homes! +Jaffery dancing till three o'clock in the morning! It was all very +comic, and Arbuthnot seeing the matter in that aspect laughed too. +But, on the other hand, it was all very incomprehensible. To +Jaffery a job was a sacred affair, the meaning of his existence. He +was a Mercury who took himself seriously. The more remote and rough +and uncomfortable and dangerous his mission, the more he liked it. +He had never spared himself. He had been a model special +correspondent ever ready at a moment's notice to set off to the +ends of the earth. And now, all of a sudden, behold him declining a +task after his own heart, and, as I gathered from Arbuthnot, of the +greatest political significance, and thereby endangering his +peculiar and honourable position on the paper.</p> +<p>"If it had been any other man alive who had turned us down like +that," said Arbuthnot, "we would have chucked him altogether. In +fact we didn't tell him that we wouldn't."</p> +<p>It was very mysterious; all the more so because Jaffery had +never been a man of mystery, like Adrian. I went away wondering. If +it had occurred to me at the time that I was destined to play +Boswell to Jaffery's Johnson, perhaps I might have gone straight to +him and demanded a solution of my difficulties. As it was, in my +unawakened condition, I did nothing of the kind. I spent an hour or +two looking up something in the British Museum, stopped at the +bootmaker's to give an order concerning Susan's riding-boots +(<i>vide</i> diary) and drove home to dinner, to a comfortable chat +with Barbara, during which I gave her an account of the day's +doings, and eventually to the peaceful slumber of the contented and +inoffensive man.</p> +<p>A fortnight or so passed before I saw Jaffery again. Happening +to be in Westminster in the forenoon—I had come up to town on +business—I mounted to his cheerless eyrie in Victoria Street, +and rang the bell. A dingy servitor in a dress suit, on transient +duty, admitted me, and I found Jaffery collarless and minus jacket +and waistcoat, smoking a pipe in front of the fire. It wasn't even +a good coal fire. Some austere former tenant had installed an +electric radiator in the once comfort-giving grate. But Jaffery did +not seem to mind. The remains of breakfast were on the table which +the dingy servitor began to clear. Jaffery rose from the depths of +his easy chair like an agile mammoth.</p> +<p>"Hullo, hullo, hullo!"</p> +<p>His usual greeting. We shook hands and commended the weather. +When the alien attendant had departed, he began to curse London. It +was a hole for sick dogs, not for sound men. He loathed its +abominable suffocation.</p> +<p>"Then why the deuce do you stay in it?"</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "I can't do anything else."</p> +<p>This gave me an opening to satisfy my curiosity.</p> +<p>"I understood you could have gone to Persia."</p> +<p>He frowned and tugged his red beard. "How did you know +that?"</p> +<p>"Arbuthnot—" I began.</p> +<p>"Arbuthnot?" he boomed angrily. "What the blazes does he mean by +telling you about my affairs? I'll punch his damned head!"</p> +<p>"Don't," said I. "Your hands are so big and he's so small. You +might hurt him."</p> +<p>"I'd like to hurt him. Why can't he keep his infernal tongue +quiet?"</p> +<p>He proceeded to wither up the soul of Arbuthnot with awful +anathema. Then in his infantile way he shouted: "I didn't want any +of you to know anything about it."</p> +<p>"Why?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Because I didn't."</p> +<p>"But I suppose you wanted to go to Persia?"</p> +<p>He paused in his lumbering walk about the little room and +collecting a litter of books and papers and a hat or two and a +legging from a sofa, pitched it into a corner.</p> +<p>"Here. Sit down."</p> +<p>I had been warming my back at the fire hitherto and surveying +the half-formal, half-unkempt sitting-room. It was by no means the +comfortable home from Harrod's Stores that Barbara had prescribed; +and he had not attempted to furnish it in slap-up style with the +heads of game and skins and modern weapons which lay in the London +Repository. It was the impersonal abode of the male bird of +passage.</p> +<p>"Sit down," said he, "and have a drink."</p> +<p>I declined, alleging the fact that a philosophically minded +country gentleman of domestic habits does not require alcohol at +half past eleven in the morning, except under the stress of +peculiar circumstances.</p> +<p>"I'm going to have one anyway!"</p> +<p>He disappeared and presently reëntered with a battered +two-handled silver quart pot bearing defaced arms and inscription, +a rowing trophy of Cambridge days, which he always carried about +with him on no matter what lightly equipped expedition—it is +always a matter of regret to me that Jaffery, as I have mentioned +before, missed his seat in the Cambridge boat; but when one +despoils a Proctor of his square cap and it is found the central +feature of one's rooms beneath a glass shade such as used to +protect wax flowers from the dust, what can one expect from the +priggish judgment of university authority?—he reëntered, +with this vessel full of beer. He nodded, drank a huge draught and +wiped his moustache with his hand.</p> +<p>"Better have some. I've got a cask in the bedroom."</p> +<p>"Good God!" said I, aghast. "What else do you keep there? A side +of bacon and a Limburger cheese and Bombay duck?"</p> +<p>Now just imagine a civilised gentleman keeping a cask of beer in +his bedroom.</p> +<p>Jaffery laughed and took another swig and called me a long, +lean, puny-gutted insect; which was not polite, but I was glad to +hear the deep "Ho! ho! ho!" that followed his vituperation.</p> +<p>"All the same," said I, reclining on the cleared sofa and +lighting a cigarette, "I should like to know why you missed one of +the chances of your life in not going out to Persia."</p> +<p>He stood, for a moment or two, scrabbling in whisker and beard; +and, turning over in his mind, I suppose, that Barbara was my wife, +and Susan my child, and I myself an inconsiderable human not evilly +disposed towards him, he apparently decided not to annihilate +me.</p> +<p>"It was hell, Hilary, old chap, to chuck the Persian +proposition," said he, his hands in his trouser pockets, looking +out of the window at the infinitely reaching landscape of the +chimney pots of south London, their grey smoke making London's +unique pearly haze below the crisp blue of the March sky. "Just +hell!" he muttered in his bass whisper, and craning round my neck I +could, with the tail of my eye, catch his gaze, which was very +wistful and seemed directed not at the opalescent mystery of the +London air, but at the clear vividness of the Persian desert. Away +and away, beyond the shimmering sand, gleamed the frosted town with +white walls, white domes, white minarets against the horizon band +of topaz and amethystine vapours. And in his nostrils was the +immemorable smell of the East, and in his ears the startling jingle +of the harness and the pad of the camels, and the guttural cries of +the drivers, and in his heart the certainty of plucking out the +secret from the soul of this strange land. . . .</p> +<p>At last he swung round and throwing himself into the armchair +enquired politely after the health of Barbara and Susan. As far as +the Persian journey was concerned the palaver was ended. He did not +intend to give me his reasons for staying in England and I could +not demand them more insistently. At any rate I had discovered the +cause of his grumpiness. What creature of Jaffery's temperament +could be contented with a soft bed in the centre of civilisation, +when he had the chance of sleeping in verminous caravanserais with +a saddle for pillow? In spite of his amazing predilections, Jaffery +was very human. He would make a great sacrifice without hesitation; +but the consequences of the sacrifice would cause him to go about +like a bear with a sore head.</p> +<p>And the cause of the sacrifice? Obviously Doria. Once having +been admitted to her bedside, he went there every day. Flowers and +fruit he had sent from the very beginning in absurd profusion; a +grape for Doria failed in adequacy unless it was the size of a +pumpkin. Now he brought the offerings personally in embarrassing +bulk. One offering was a gramophone which nearly drove her mad. +Even in its present stage of development it offends the sensitive +ear; but in its early days it was an instrument of torturing +cacophony. And Jaffery, thinking the brazen strains music of the +spheres, would turn on the hideous engine, when he came to see her, +and would grin and roar and expect her to shew evidence of ravished +senses. She did her best, poor child, out of politeness and +recognition of his desire to alleviate her lot; but I don't think +the gramophone conveyed to her heart the poor dear fellow's +unspoken message. But gently criticising the banality of the tunes +the thing played and sending him forth in quest of records of +recondite and "unrecorded" music, she succeeded in mitigating the +terror. To the present moment, however, I don't think Jaffery has +realised that she had a higher æsthetic equipment than the +hypnotised fox-terrier in the advertisement. . . . Jaffery also +bought her puzzles and funny penny pavement toys and gallons of +eau-de-cologne (which came in useful), and expensive scent (which +she abominated), and stacks of new novels, and a fearsome machine +of wood and brass and universal joints, by means of which an +invalid could read and breakfast and write and shave all at the +same time. The only thing he did not give her—the thing she +craved more than all—was a fresh-bound copy of Adrian's +book.</p> +<p>Obviously, as I have remarked, it was Doria that kept him out of +Persia. But I could not help thinking that this same Persian +journey might have afforded a solution of the whole difficulty. +Despatched suddenly to that vaguely known country, he could have +taken the mythical manuscript to revise on the journey: the convoy +could have been attacked by a horde of Kurds or such-like +desperadoes, all could have been slain save a fortunate handful, +and the manuscript could have been looted as an important political +document and carried off into Eternity. Doria would have hated +Jaffery forever after; but his chivalrous aim would have been +accomplished. Adrian's honour would have been safe. But this simple +way out never occurred to him. Apparently he thought it wiser to +sacrifice his career and remain in London so as to buoy Doria up +with false hope, all the time praying God to burn down St. +Quentin's Mansions (where he lived) and Adrian's portmanteau of +rubbish and himself all together.</p> +<div><a name="page165" id="page165"></a></div> +<p>Suddenly, as soon as Doria could be moved, Mr. Jornicroft +stepped in and carried her to the south of France. Barbara and +Jaffery and myself saw her off by the afternoon train at Charing +Cross. She was to rest in Paris for the night and the next day, and +proceed the following night to Nice. She looked the frailest thing +under the sun. Her face was startling ivory beneath her widow's +headgear. She had scarcely strength to lift her head. Mr. +Jornicroft had made luxurious arrangements for her comfort—an +ambulance carriage from St. John's Wood, a special invalid +compartment in the train; but at the station, as at Doria's +wedding, Jaffery took command. It was his great arms that lifted +her feather-weight with extraordinary sureness and gentleness from +the carriage, carried her across the platform and deposited her +tenderly on her couch in the compartment. Touched by his solicitude +she thanked him with much graciousness. He bent over her—we +were standing at the door and could not choose but hear:</p> +<p>"Don't you remember what I said the first day I met you?"</p> +<p>"Yes."</p> +<p>"It stands, my dear; and more than that." He paused for a second +and took her thin hand. "And don't you worry about that book. You +get well and strong."</p> +<p>He kissed her hand and spoiled the gallantry by squeezing her +shoulder—half her little body it seemed to be—and +emerging from the compartment joined us on the platform. He put a +great finger on the arm of the rubicund, thickset, black-moustached +Jornicroft.</p> +<p>"I think I'll come with you as far as Paris," said he. "I'll get +into a smoker somewhere or the other."</p> +<p>"But, my dear sir"—exclaimed Mr. Jornicroft in some +amazement—"it's awfully kind, but why should you?"</p> +<p>"Mrs. Boldero has got to be carried. I didn't realise it. She +can't put her feet to the ground. Some one has got to lift her at +every stage of the journey. And I'm not going to let any damned +clumsy fellow handle her. I'll see her into the Nice train +to-morrow night—perhaps I'll go on to Nice with you and fix +her up in the hotel. As a matter of fact, I will. I shan't worry +you. You won't see me, except at the right time. Don't be +afraid."</p> +<p>Mr. Jornicroft, most methodical of Britons, gasped. So, I must +confess, did Barbara and I. When Jaffery met us at the station he +had no more intention of escorting Doria to Nice than we had +ourselves.</p> +<p>"I can't permit it—it's too kind—there's no +necessity—we'll get on all right!" spluttered Mr. +Jornicroft.</p> +<p>"You won't. She has got to be carried. You're not going to take +any risks."</p> +<p>"But, my dear fellow—it's absurd—you haven't any +luggage."</p> +<p>"Luggage?" He looked at Mr. Jornicroft as if he had suggested +the impossibility of going abroad without a motor veil or the +Encyclopædia Britannica. "What the blazes has luggage got to +do with it?" His roar could be heard above the din of the hurrying +station. "I don't want <i>luggage</i>." The humour of the +proposition appealed to him so mightily that he went off into one +of his reverberating explosions of mirth.</p> +<p>"Ho! ho! ho!" Then recovering—"Don't you worry about +that."</p> +<p>"But have you enough on you—it's an expensive +journey—of course I should be most happy—"</p> +<p>Jaffery stepped back and scanned the length of the platform and +beckoned to an official, who came hurrying towards him. It was the +station master.</p> +<p>"Have you ever seen me before, Mr. Winter?"</p> +<p>The official laughed. "Pretty often, Mr. Chayne."</p> +<p>"Do you think I could get from here to Nice without buying a +ticket now?"</p> +<p>"Why, of course, our agent at Boulogne will arrange it if I send +him a wire."</p> +<p>"Right," said Jaffery. "Please do so, Mr. Winter. I'm crossing +now and going to Nice by the Côte d'Azur Express to-morrow +night. And see after a seat for me, will you?"</p> +<p>"I'll reserve a compartment if possible, Mr. Chayne."</p> +<p>The station master raised his hat and departed. Jaffery, his +hands stuffed deep in his pockets, beamed upon us like a +mountainous child. We were all impressed by his lordly command of +the railway systems of Europe. It was a question of credit, of +course, but neither Mr. Jornicroft, solid man that he was, nor +myself could have undertaken that journey with a few loose +shillings in his possession. For the first time since Adrian's +death I saw Jaffery really enjoying himself.</p> +<p>And that is how Jaffery without money or luggage or even an +overcoat travelled from London to Nice, for no other purpose than +to save Doria's sacred little body from being profaned by the touch +of ruder hands.</p> +<p>Having carried her at every stage beginning with the transfer +from train to steamer at Folkestone and ending with a triumphant +march up the stairs to the third floor of the Cimiez hotel, he took +the first train back straight through to London.</p> +<p>He returned the same old grinning giant, without a shadow of +grumpiness on his jolly face.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p>About this time a bolt came from the blue or a bomb fell at our +feet—the metaphor doesn't matter so long as it conveys a +sense of an unlooked-for phenomenon. True, in relation to cosmic +forces, it was but a trumpery bolt or a squib-like bomb; but it +startled us all the same. The admirable Mrs. Considine got married. +A retired warrior, a recent widower, but a celibate of twenty years +standing owing to the fact that his late wife and himself had +occupied separate continents (<i>on avait fait continent à +part</i>, as the French might say) during that period, a +Major-General fresh from India, an old flame and constant +correspondent, had suddenly swooped down upon the boarding-house in +Queen's Gate and, in swashbuckling fashion, had abducted the +admirable and unresisting lady. It was a matter of special license, +and off went the tardily happy pair to Margate, before we had +finished rubbing our eyes.</p> +<p>It was grossly selfish on the part of Mrs. Considine, said +Barbara. She thought her—no; perhaps she didn't think +her—God alone knows the convolutions of feminine mental +processes—but she proclaimed her anyhow—an unscrupulous +woman.</p> +<p>"There's Liosha," she said, "left alone in that +boarding-house."</p> +<p>"My dear," said I, "Mrs. Jupp—I admit it's deplorable +taste to change a name of such gentility as Considine for that of +Jupp, but it isn't unscrupulous—Mrs. Jupp did not happen to +be charged with a mission from on High to dry nurse Liosha for the +rest of her life."</p> +<p>"That's where you're wrong," Barbara retorted. "She was. She was +the one person in the world who could look after Liosha. See what +she's done for her. It was her duty to stick to Liosha. As for +those two old faggots marrying, they ought to be ashamed of +themselves."</p> +<p>Whether they were ashamed of themselves or not didn't matter. +Liosha remained alone in the boarding-house. Not all Barbara's +indignation could turn Mrs. Jupp into the admirable Mrs. Considine +and bring her back to Queen's Gate. What was to be done? We +consulted Jaffery, who as Liosha's trustee ought to have consulted +us. Jaffery pulled a long face and smiled ruefully. For the first +time he realised—in spite of tragic happenings—the +comedy aspect of his position as the legal guardian of two young, +well-to-do and attractive widows. He was the last man in the world +to whom one would have expected such a fate to befall. He too swore +lustily at the defaulting duenna.</p> +<p>"I thought it was all fixed up nicely forever," he growled.</p> +<p>"Everything is transitory in this life, my dear fellow," said I. +"Everything except a trusteeship. That goes on forever."</p> +<p>"That's the devil of it," he growled.</p> +<p>"You must get used to it," said I. "You'll have lots more to +look after before you've done with this existence!"</p> +<p>His look hardened and seemed to say: "If you go and die and +saddle me with Barbara, I'll punch your head."</p> +<p>He turned his back on me and, jerking a thumb, addressed +Barbara.</p> +<p>"Why do you take him out without a muzzle? Now you've got sense. +What shall I do?"</p> +<p>Then Liosha superb and smiling sailed into the room.</p> +<p>I ought to have mentioned that Barbara had convened this meeting +at the boarding-house. The room into which Liosha sailed was the +elegant "<i>bonbonnière</i>" of a chamber known as the +"boudoir." There was a great deal of ribbon and frill and +photograph frame and artful feminine touch about it, which Liosha +and, doubtless, many other inmates thought mightily refined.</p> +<p>Liosha kissed Barbara and shook hands with Jaffery and me, bade +us be seated and put us at our ease with a social grace which could +not have been excelled by the admirable Mrs. Considine (now Jupp) +herself. That maligned lady had performed her duties during the +past two years with characteristic ability. Parenthetically I may +remark that Liosha's table-manners and formal demeanour were now +irreproachable. Mrs. Considine had also taken up the Western +education of the child of twelve at the point at which it had been +arrested, and had brought Liosha's information as to history, +geography, politics and the world in general to the standard of +that of the average schoolgirl of fifteen. Again, she had developed +in our fair barbarian a natural taste in dress, curbing, on her +emergence from mourning, a fierce desire for apparel in primary +colours, and leading her onwards to an appreciation of suaver +harmonies. Again she had run her tactful hand over Liosha's +stockyard vocabulary, erasing words and expressions that might +offend Queen's Gate and substituting others that might charm; and +she had done it with a touch of humour not lost on Liosha, who had +retained the sense of values in which no child born and bred in +Chicago can be deficient.</p> +<p>"I suppose you're all fussed to death about this marriage," she +said pleasantly. "Well, I couldn't help it."</p> +<p>"Of course not, dear," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"You might have given us a hint as to what was going on," said +Jaffery.</p> +<p>"What good could you have done? In Albania if the General had +interfered with your plans, you might have shot him from behind a +stone and everyone except Mrs. Considine would have been happy; but +I've been taught you don't do things like that in South +Kensington."</p> +<p>"Whoever wanted to shoot the chap?"</p> +<p>"I, for one," said Barbara. "What are we to do now?"</p> +<p>"Find another dragon," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"But supposing I don't want another dragon?"</p> +<p>"That doesn't matter in the least. You've got to have one."</p> +<p>"Say, Jaff Chayne," cried Liosha, "do you think I can't look +after myself by this time? What do you take me for?"</p> +<p>I interposed. "Rather a lonely young woman, that's all. Jaffery, +in his tactless way, by using the absurd term 'dragon,' has missed +the point altogether. You want a companion, if only to go about +with, say to restaurants and theatres."</p> +<p>"I guess I can get heaps of those," said Liosha, a smile in her +eyes. "Don't you worry!"</p> +<p>"All the more reason for a dragon."</p> +<p>"If you mean somebody who's going to sit on my back every time I +talk to a man, I decidedly object. Mrs. Considine was different and +you're not going to find another like her in a hurry. +Besides—I had sense enough to see that she was going to teach +me things. But I don't want to be taught any more. I've learned +enough."</p> +<p>"But it's just a woman companion that we want to give you, +dear," said Barbara. "Her mere presence about you is a protection +against—well, any pretty young woman living alone is liable +to chance impertinence and annoyance."</p> +<p>Liosha's dark eyes flashed. "I'd like to see any man try to +annoy me. He wouldn't try twice. You ask Mrs. Jardine"—Mrs. +Jardine was the keeper of the boarding-house—"she'll tell you +a thing or two about my being able to keep men from annoying +me."</p> +<p>Barbara did, afterwards, ask Mrs. Jardine, and obtained a few +sidelights on Liosha's defensive methods. What they lacked in +subtlety they made up in physical effectiveness. There were not +many spruce young gentlemen who, after a week's residence in that +establishment, did not adopt a peculiarly deferential attitude +towards Liosha.</p> +<p>"Still," said Jaffery, "I think you ought to have somebody, you +know."</p> +<p>"If you're so keen on a dragon," replied Liosha defiantly, "why +not take on the job yourself?"</p> +<p>"I? Good Lord! Ho! ho! ho!"</p> +<p>Jaffery rose to his feet and roared with laughter. It was a fine +joke.</p> +<p>"There's a lot in Liosha's suggestion," said Barbara, with an +air of seriousness.</p> +<p>"You don't expect me to come and live here?" he cried, waving a +hand to the frills and ribbons.</p> +<p>"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said I. "You would get all the +advantages and refining influences of a first-class English +home."</p> +<p>He pivoted round. "Oh, you be—"</p> +<p>"Hush," said Barbara. "Either you ought to stay here and look +after Liosha more than you do—"</p> +<p>He protested. Wasn't he always looking after her? Didn't he +write? Didn't he drop in now and then to see how she was getting +on?</p> +<p>"Have you ever taken the poor child out to dinner?" Barbara +asked sternly.</p> +<p>He stood before her in the confusion of a schoolboy detected in +a lapse from grace, stammering explanations. Then Liosha rose, and +I noticed just the faintest little twitching of her lip.</p> +<p>"I don't want Jaff Chayne to be made to take me out to dinner +against his will."</p> +<p>"But—God bless my soul! I should love to take you out. I +never thought of it because I never take anybody out. I'm a +barbarian, my dear girl, just like yourself. If you wanted to be +taken out, why on earth didn't you say so?"</p> +<p>Liosha regarded him steadily. "I would rather cut my tongue +out."</p> +<p>Jaffery returned her gaze for a few seconds, then turned away +puzzled. There seemed to be an unnecessary vehemence in Liosha's +tone. He turned again and approached her with a smiling face.</p> +<p>"I only meant that I didn't know you cared for that sort of +thing, Liosha. You must forgive me. Come and dine with me at the +Carlton this evening and do a theatre afterwards."</p> +<p>"No, I wont!" cried Liosha. "You insult me."</p> +<p>Her cheeks paled and she shook in sudden wrath. She looked +magnificent. Jaffery frowned.</p> +<p>"I think I'll have to be a bit of a dragon after all."</p> +<p>I recalled a scene of nearly two years before when he had +frowned and spoken thus roughly and she had invited him to chastise +her with a cleek. She did not repeat the invitation, but a sob rose +in her throat and she marched to the door, and at the door, turned +splendidly, quivering.</p> +<p>"I'm not going to have you or any one else for a dragon. +And"—alas for the superficiality of Mrs. Considine's +training—"I'm going to do as I damn well like."</p> +<p>Her voice broke on the last word, as she dashed from the room. I +exchanged a glance with Barbara, who followed her. Barbara could +convey a complicated set of instructions by her glance. Jaffery +pulled out pouch and pipe and shook his head.</p> +<p>"Woman is a remarkable phenomenon," said he.</p> +<p>"A more remarkable phenomenon still," said I, "is the +dunderheaded male."</p> +<p>"I did nothing to cause these heroics."</p> +<p>"You asked her to ask you to ask her out to dinner."</p> +<p>"I didn't," he protested.</p> +<p>I proved to him by all the rules of feminine logic that he had +done so. Holding the match over the bowl of his pipe, he puffed +savagely.</p> +<p>"I wish I were a cannibal in Central Africa, where women are in +proper subjection. There's no worry about 'em there."</p> +<p>"Isn't there?" said I. "You just ask the next cannibal you meet. +He is confronted with the Great Conundrum, even as we are."</p> +<p>"He can solve it by clubbing his wife on the head."</p> +<p>"Quite so," said I. "But do you think the poor fellow does it +for pleasure? No. It worries him dreadfully to have to do it."</p> +<p>"That's specious rot, and platitudinous rubbish such as any soft +idiot who's been glued all his life to an armchair can reel off by +the mile. I know better. A couple of years ago Liosha would have +eaten out of my hand, to say nothing of dining with me at the +Canton. It's all this infernal civilisation. It has spoiled +her."</p> +<p>"You began this argument," said I, "with the proposition that +woman was a remarkable phenomenon—a generalisation which +includes woman in fig-leaves and woman in diamonds."</p> +<p>"Oh, dry up," said Jaffery, "and tell me what I ought to do. I +didn't want to hurt the girl's feelings. Why should I? In fact I'm +rather fond of her. She appeals to me as something big and +primitive. Long ago, if it hadn't been that poor old +Prescott—you know what I mean—I gave up thinking of her +in that way at once—and now I just want to be +friends—we have been friends. She's a jolly good sort, and, +if I had thought of it, I would have taken her about a bit. . . . +But what I can't stand is these modern neurotics—"</p> +<p>"You called them heroics—"</p> +<p>"All the same thing. It's purely artificial. It's cultivated by +every modern woman. Instead of thinking in a straight line they're +taught it's correct to think in a corkscrew. You never know where +to have 'em."</p> +<p>"That's their artfulness," said I. "Who can blame them?"</p> +<p>Meanwhile Liosha, pursued by Barbara, had rushed to her bedroom, +where she burst into a passion of tears. Jaff Chayne, she wailed, +had always treated her like dirt. It was true that her father had +stuck pigs in the stockyards; but he was of an old Albanian family, +quite as good a family as Jaff Chayne's. It had numbered princes +and great chieftains, the majority of whom had been most gloriously +slain in warfare. She would like to know which of Jaff Chayne's +ancestors had died out of their feather beds.</p> +<p>"His grandfather," said Barbara, "was killed in the Indian +Mutiny, and his father in the Zulu War."</p> +<p>Liosha didn't care. That only proved an equality. Jaff Chayne +had no right to treat her like dirt. He had no right to put a +female policeman over her. She was a free woman—she wouldn't +go out to dinner with Jaff Chayne for a thousand pounds. Oh, she +hated him; at which renewed declaration she burst into fresh +weeping and wished she were dead. As a guardian of young and +beautiful widows Jaffery did not seem to be a success.</p> +<p>Barbara, in her wise way, said very little, and searched the +paraphernalia on the dressing table for eau-de-cologne and such +other lotions as would remove the stain of tears. Holding these in +front of Liosha, like a stern nurse administering medicine, she +waited till the fit had subsided. Then she spoke.</p> +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Liosha, going on like a +silly schoolgirl instead of a grown-up woman of the world. I wonder +you didn't announce your intention of assassinating Jaffery."</p> +<p>"I've a good mind to," replied Liosha, nursing her +grievance.</p> +<p>"Well, why don't you do it?" Barbara whipped up a +murderous-looking knife that lay on a little table—it was the +same weapon that she had lent the Swiss waiter. "Here's a dagger." +She threw it on the girl's lap. "I'll ring the bell and send a +message for Mr. Chayne to come up. As soon as he enters you can +stick it into him. Then you can stick it into me. Then if you like +you can go downstairs and stick it into Hilary. And having +destroyed everybody who cares for you and is good to you, you'll +feel a silly ass—such a silly ass that you'll forget to stick +it into yourself."</p> +<p>Liosha threw the knife into a corner. On its way it snicked a +neat little chip out of a chair-back.</p> +<p>"What do you want me to do?"</p> +<p>"Clean your face," said Barbara, and presented the +materials.</p> +<p>Sitting on the bed and regarding herself in a hand-mirror Liosha +obeyed meekly. Barbara brought the powder puff.</p> +<p>"Now your nose. There!" For the first time Barbara smiled. "Now +you look better. Oh, my dear girl!" she cried, seating herself +beside Liosha and putting an arm round her waist. "That's not the +way to deal with men. You must learn. They're only overgrown +babies. Listen."</p> +<p>And she poured into unsophisticated but sympathetic ears all the +duplicity, all the treachery, all the insidious cunning and all the +serpent-like wisdom of her unscrupulous sex. What she said neither +I nor any of the sons of men are ever likely to know! but so proud +of belonging to that nefarious sisterhood, so overweening in her +sex-conceit did she render Liosha, that when they entered the +little private sitting-room next door whither, according to the +instructions conveyed by Barbara's parting glance downstairs, I had +dragged a softly swearing Jaffery, she marched up to him and said +serenely:</p> +<p>"If you really do want me to dine with you, I'll come with +pleasure. But the next time you ask me, please do it in a decent +way."</p> +<p>I saw mischief lurking in my wife's eye and shook my head at her +rebukingly. But Jaffery stared at Liosha and gasped. It was all +very well for Doria and Barbara to be ever putting him in the +wrong: they were daughters of a subtle civilisation; but here was +Liosha, who had once asked him to beat her, doing the +same—woman was a more curious phenomenon than ever.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry if my manners are not as they should be," said he +with a touch of irony. "I'll try to mend 'em. Anyhow, it's awfully +good of you to come."</p> +<p>She smiled and bowed; not the deep bow of Albania, but the +delicate little inclination of South Kensington. The quarrel was +healed, the incident closed. He arranged to call for her in a taxi +at a quarter to seven. Barbara looked at the clock and said that we +must be going. We rose to take our leave. Maliciously I said:</p> +<p>"But we've settled nothing about a remplaçante for Mrs. +Considine."</p> +<p>"I guess we've settled everything," Liosha replied sweetly. "No +one can replace Mrs. Considine."</p> +<p>I quite enjoyed our little silent walk downstairs. Evidently +Jaffery's theory of primitive woman had been knocked endways; and, +to judge by the faint knitting of her brow, Barbara was uneasily +conscious of a mission unfulfilled. Liosha had gained her +independence.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Our friends carried out the evening's programme. Liosha behaved +with extreme propriety, modelling her outward demeanour upon that +of Mrs. Considine, and her attitude towards Jaffery on a literal +interpretation of Barbara's reprehensible precepts. She was so +dignified that Jaffery, lest he should offend, was afraid to open +his mouth except for the purpose of shovelling in food, which he +did, in astounding quantity. From what both of us gathered +afterwards—and gleefully we compared notes—they were +vastly polite to each other. He might have been entertaining the +decorous wife of a Dutch Colonial Governor from whom he desired +facilities of travel. The simple Eve travestied in guile took him +in completely. Aware that it was her duty to treat him like an +overgrown baby and mould him to her fancy and twist him round her +finger and lead him whithersoever she willed, making him feel all +the time that he was pointing out the road, she did not know how to +begin. She sat tongue-tied, racking her brains to loss of appetite; +which was a pity, for the maître d'hôtel, given a free +hand by her barbarously ignorant host, had composed a royal menu. +As dinner proceeded she grew shyer than a chit of sixteen. Over the +quails a great silence reigned. Hers she could not touch, but she +watched him fork, as it seemed to her, one after the other, whole, +down his throat: and she adored him for it. It was her ideal of +manly gusto. She nearly wept into her <i>Fraises +Diane</i>—vast craggy strawberries (in March) rising from a +drift of snow impregnated by all the distillations of all the +flowers of all the summers of all the hills—because she would +have given her soul to sit beside him on the table with the bowl on +her lap and feed him with a tablespoon and, for her share of it, +lick the spoon after his every mouthful. But it had been drummed +into her that she was a woman of the world, the fashionable and all +but incomprehensible world, the English world. She looked around +and saw a hundred of her sex practising the well-bred deportment +that Mrs. Considine had preached. She reflected that to all of +those women gently nurtured in this queer English civilisation, +equally remote from Armour's stockyards and from her Albanian +fastness, the wisdom that Barbara had imparted to her a few hours +before was but their A.B.C. of life in their dealings with their +male companions. She also reflected—and for the reflection +not Mrs. Considine or Barbara, only her woman's heart was +responsible—that to the man whom she yearned to feed with +great tablespoonfuls of delight, she counted no more than a pig or +a cow—her instinctive similes, you must remember, were +pastoral—or that peculiar damfool of a sister of his, +Euphemia.</p> +<p>When I think of these two children of nature, sitting opposite +to one another in the fashionable restaurant trying to behave like +super-civilised dolls, I cannot help smiling. They were both so +thoroughly in earnest; and they bored themselves and each other so +dreadfully. Conversation patched sporadically great expanses of +silence and then they talked of the things that did not interest +them in the least. Of course they smiled at each other, the smirk +being essential to the polite atmosphere; and of course Jaffery +played host in the orthodox manner, and Liosha acknowledged +attentions with a courtesy equally orthodox. But how much happier +they both would have been on a bleak mountain-side eating stew out +of a pot! Even champagne and old brandy failed to exercise +mellowing influences. The twain were petrified in their own awful +correctitude. Perhaps if they had proceeded to a musical comedy or +a farce or a variety entertainment where Jaffery could have +expanded his lungs in laughter, their evening as a whole might have +been less dismal. But a misapprehension as to the nature of the +play had caused Jaffery to book seats for a gloomy drama with an +ironical title, which stupefied them with depression.</p> +<p>When they waited for the front door of the house in Queen's Gate +to open to their ring, Liosha in her best manner thanked him for a +most enjoyable evening.</p> +<p>"Most enjoyable indeed," said Jaffery. "We must have another, if +you will do me the honour. What do you say to this day week?"</p> +<p>"I shall be delighted," said Liosha.</p> +<p>So that day week they repeated this extraordinary performance, +and the week after that, and so on until it became a grim and +terrifying fixture. And while Jaffery, in a fog of theory as to the +Eternal Feminine, was trying to do his duty, Liosha struggled hard +to smother her own tumultuous feelings and to carry out Barbara's +prescription for the treatment of overgrown babies; but the deuce +of it was that though in her eyes Jaffery was pleasantly overgrown, +she could not for the life of her regard him as a baby. So it came +to pass that an unnatural pair continued to meet and mystify and +misunderstand each other to the great content of the high gods and +of one unimportant human philosopher who looked on.</p> +<p>"I told you all this artificiality was spoiling her," Jaffery +growled, one day. "She's as prim as an old maid. I can't get +anything out of her."</p> +<p>"That's a pity," said I.</p> +<p>"It is." He reflected for a moment. "And the more so because she +looks so stunning in her evening gowns. She wipes the floor with +all the other women."</p> +<p>I smiled. You can get a lot of quiet amusement out of your +friends if you know how to set to work.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p>It was a gorgeous April day—one of those days when young +Spring in madcap masquerade flaunts it in the borrowed mantle of +summer. She could assume the deep blue of the sky and the gold of +the sunshine, but through all the travesty peeped her laughing +youth, the little tender leaves on the trees, the first shy bloom +of the lilac, the swelling of the hawthorn buds, the pathetic +immature barrenness of the walnuts.</p> +<p>And even the leafless walnuts were full of alien life, for in +their hollow boles chippering starlings made furtive nests, and in +their topmost forks jackdaws worked with clamorous zeal. A pale +butterfly here and there accomplished its early day, and queen +wasps awakened from their winter slumber in cosy crevices, the +tiniest winter-palaces in the world, sped like golden arrow tips to +and from the homes they had to build alone for the swarms that were +to come. The flower beds shone gay with tulips and hyacinths; in +the long grass beyond the lawn and under the trees danced a +thousand daffodils; and by their side warmly wrapped up in furs lay +Doria on a long cane chair.</p> +<p>She could not literally dance with the daffodils as I had +prophesied, for her full strength had not yet returned, but there +she was among them, and she smiled at them sympathetically as +though they were dancing in her honour. She was, however, restored +to health; the great circles beneath her eyes had disappeared and a +tinge of colour shewed beneath her ivory cheek. Beside her, in the +first sunbonnet of the year, sat Susan, a prim monkey of nine. . . +. Lord! It scarcely seemed two years since Jaffery came from +Albania and tossed the seven year old up in his arms and was struck +all of a heap by Doria at their first meeting. So thought I, +looking from my study-table at the pretty picture some thirty +yards, away. And once again—pleasant self repetition of +history—Jaffery was expected. Doria, fresh from Nice, had +spent a night at her father's house and had come down to us the +evening before to complete her convalescence. She had wanted to go +straight to the flat in St. John's Wood and begin her life anew +with Adrian's beloved ghost, and she had issued orders to servants +to have everything in readiness for her arrival, but Barbara had +intervened and so had Mr. Jornicroft, a man of limited sympathies +and brutal common sense. All of us, including Jaffery, who seemed +to regard advice to Doria as a presumption only equalled by that of +a pilgrim on his road to Mecca giving hints to Allah as to the way +to run the universe, had urged her to give up the abode of tragic +memories and find a haven of quietude elsewhere. But she had +indignantly refused. The home of her wondrous married life was the +home of her widowhood. If she gave it up, how could she live in +peace with the consciousness ever in her brain that the Holy of +Holies in which Adrian had worked and died was being profaned by +vulgar tread? Our suggestions were callous, monstrous, everything +that could arise from earth-bound non-percipience of sacred things. +We could only prevail upon her to postpone her return to the flat +until such time as she was physically strong enough to grapple with +changed conditions.</p> +<p>The pink sunbonnet was very near the dark head; both were +bending over a book on Doria's knee—<i>Les Malheurs de +Sophie</i>, which Susan, proud of her French scholarship, had +proposed to read to Doria, who having just returned from France was +supposed to be the latest authority on the language. I noticed that +the severity of this intellectual communion was mitigated by +Susan's favourite black kitten, who, sitting on its little +haunches, seemed to be turning over pages rather rapidly. Then all +of a sudden, from nowhere in particular, there stepped into the +landscape (framed, you must remember, by the jambs of my door) a +huge and familiar figure, carrying a great suit-case. He put this +on the ground, rushed up to Doria, shook her by both hands, swung +Susan in the air and kissed her, and was still laughing and making +the welkin ring—that is to say, making a thundering +noise—when I, having sped across the lawn, joined the +group.</p> +<p>"Hello!" said I, "how did you get here?"</p> +<p>"Walked from the station," said Jaffery. "Came down by an +earlier train. No good staying in town on such a morning. +Besides—" He glanced at Doria in significant aposiopesis.</p> +<p>"And you lugged that infernal thing a mile and a half?" I asked, +pointing to the suit-case, which must have weighed half a ton. "Why +didn't you leave it to be called for?"</p> +<p>"This? This little <i>sachet</i>?" He lifted it up by one finger +and grinned.</p> +<p>Susan regarded the feat, awe-stricken. "Oh, Uncle Jaff, you are +strong!"</p> +<p>Doria smiled at him admiringly and declared she couldn't lift +the thing an inch from the ground with both her hands.</p> +<p>"Do you know," she laughed, "when he used to carry me about, I +felt as if I had been picked up by an iron crane."</p> +<p>Jaffery beamed with delight. He was just a little vain of his +physical strength. A colleague of his once told me that he had seen +Jaffery in a nasty row in Caracas during a revolution, bend from +his saddle and wrench up two murderous villains by the armpits, one +in each hand, and dash their heads together over his horse's neck. +But that is the sort of story that Jaffery himself never told.</p> +<p>Barbara, who, flitting about the house on domestic duty, had +caught sight of him through a window, came out to greet him.</p> +<p>"Isn't it glorious to have her back?" he cried, waving his great +hand towards Doria. "And looking so bonny. Nothing like the South. +The sunshine gets into your blood. By Jove! what a difference, eh? +Remember when we started for Nice?"</p> +<p>He stood, legs apart and hands on hips, looking down on her with +as much pride as if he had wrought the miracle himself.</p> +<p>"Get some more chairs, dear," said Barbara.</p> +<p>By good fortune seeing one of the gardeners in the near +distance, I hailed him and shouted the necessary orders. That is +the one disadvantage of summer: during the whole of that otherwise +happy season, Barbara expects me to be something between a +scene-shifter and a Furniture Removing Van.</p> +<p>The chairs were fetched from a far-off summer house and we +settled down. Jaffery lit his pipe, smiled at Doria, and met a very +wistful look. He held her eyes for a space, and laid his great hand +very gently on hers.</p> +<p>"I know what you're thinking of," he said, with an arresting +tenderness in his deep voice. "You won't have to wait much +longer."</p> +<p>"Is it at the printer's?"</p> +<p>"It's printed."</p> +<p>Barbara and I gave each a little start—we looked at +Jaffery, who was taking no notice of us, and then questioningly at +each other. What on earth did the man mean?</p> +<p>"From to-morrow onwards, till publication, the press will be +flooded with paragraphs about Adrian Boldero's new book. I fixed it +up with Wittekind, as a sort of welcome home to you."</p> +<p>"That was very kind, Jaffery," said Doria; "but was it +necessary? I mean, couldn't Wittekind have done it before?"</p> +<p>"It was necessary in a way," said Jaffery. "We wanted you to +pass the proofs."</p> +<p>Doria smiled proudly. "Pass Adrian's proofs? I? I wouldn't +presume to do such a thing."</p> +<p>"Well, here they are, anyway," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>And to the bewilderment of Barbara and myself, he snapped open +the hasps of his suit-case and drew out a great thick clump of +galley-proofs fastened by a clip at the left hand top corner, which +he deposited on Doria's lap. She closed her eyes and her eyelids +fluttered as she fingered the precious thing. For a moment we +thought she was going to faint. There was breathless silence. Even +Susan, who had been left out in the cold, let the black kitten leap +from her knee, and aware that something out of the ordinary was +happening, fixed her wondering eyes on Doria. Her mother and I +wondered even more than Susan, for we had more reason. Of what +manuscript, in heaven's name, were these the printed proofs? Was it +possible that I had been mistaken and that Jaffery, in the +assiduity of love, had made coherence out of Adrian's farrago of +despair?</p> +<p>Jaffery touched Doria's hand with his finger tips. She opened +her eyes and smiled wanly, and looked at the front slip of the long +proofs. At once she sat bolt upright.</p> +<p>"'<i>The Greater Glory</i>.' But that wasn't Adrian's title. His +title was '<i>God</i>.' Who has dared to change it?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i190.jpg" id="i190.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/190.jpg"><img src="images/190.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>He drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs.</b></div> +<p>Her eyes flashed; her little body quivered. She flamed an +incarnate indignation. For some reason or other she turned +accusingly on me.</p> +<p>"I knew nothing of the change," said I, "but I'm very glad to +hear of it now."</p> +<p>Many times before had I been forced to disclaim knowledge of +what Jaffery had been doing with the book.</p> +<p>"Wittekind wouldn't have the old title," cried Jaffery eagerly. +"The public are very narrow minded, and he felt that in certain +quarters it might be misunderstood."</p> +<p>"Wittekind told dear Adrian that he thought it a perfect +title."</p> +<p>"Our dear Adrian," said I, pacifically, "was a man of enormous +will-power and perhaps Wittekind hadn't the strength to stand up +against him."</p> +<p>"Of course he hadn't," exclaimed Doria. "Of course he hadn't +when Adrian was alive: now Adrian's dead, he thinks he is going to +do just as he chooses. He isn't! Not while I live, he isn't!"</p> +<p>Jaffery looked at me from beneath bent brows and his eyes were +turned to cold blue steel.</p> +<p>"Hilary!" said he, "will you kindly tell Doria what we found on +Adrian's blotting pad—the last words he ever wrote?"</p> +<p>What he desired me to say was obvious.</p> +<p>"Written three or four times," said I, "we found the words: 'The +Greater Glory: A Novel by Adrian Boldero.'"</p> +<p>"What has become of the blotting pad?"</p> +<p>"The sheet seemed to be of no value, so we destroyed it with a +lot of other unimportant papers."</p> +<p>"And I came across further evidence," said Jaffery, "of his +intention to rename the novel."</p> +<p>Doria's anger died away. She looked past us into the void. "I +should like to have had Adrian's last words," she whispered. Then +bringing herself back to earth, she begged Jaffery's pardon very +touchingly. Adrian's implied intention was a command. She too +approved the change. "But I'm so jealous," she said, with a catch +in her voice, "of my dear husband's work. You must forgive me. I'm +sure you've done everything that was right and good, Jaffery." She +held out the great bundle and smiled. "I pass the proofs."</p> +<p>Jaffery took the bundle and laid it again on her lap. "It's +awfully good of you to say that. I appreciate it tremendously. But +you can keep this set. I've got another, with the corrections in +duplicate."</p> +<p>She looked at the proofs wistfully, turned over the long strips +in a timid, reverent way, and abruptly handed them back.</p> +<p>"I can't read it. I daren't read it. If Adrian had lived I +shouldn't have seen it before it was published. He would have given +me the finally bound book—an advance copy. These +things—you know—it's the same to me as if he were +living."</p> +<p>The tears started. She rose; and we all did the same.</p> +<p>"I must go indoors for a little. No, no, Barbara dear. I'd +rather be alone." She put her arm round my small daughter. "Perhaps +Susan will see I don't break my neck across the lawn."</p> +<p>Her voice ended in a queer little sob, and holding on to Susan, +who was mighty proud of being selected as an escort, walked slowly +towards the house. Susan afterwards reported that, dismissed at the +bedroom door, she had lingered for a moment outside and had heard +Auntie Doria crying like anything.</p> +<p>Barbara, who had said absolutely nothing since the miraculous +draught of proofs, advanced, a female David, up to Goliath +Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Look here, my friend, I'm not accustomed to sit still like a +graven image and be mystified in my own house. Will you have the +goodness to explain?"</p> +<p>Jaffery looked down on her, his head on one side.</p> +<p>"Explain what?"</p> +<p>"That!"</p> +<p>She pointed to the proofs of which I had possessed myself and +was eagerly scanning. Unblenching he met her gaze.</p> +<p>"That is the posthumous novel of Adrian Boldero, which I, as his +literary executor, have revised for the press. Hilary saw the rough +manuscript, but he had no time to read it."</p> +<p>They looked at one another for quite a long time.</p> +<p>"Is that all you're going to tell me?"</p> +<p>"That's all."</p> +<p>"And all you're going to tell Hilary?"</p> +<p>"Telling Hilary is the same as telling you."</p> +<p>"Naturally."</p> +<p>"And telling you is the same as telling Hilary."</p> +<p>"By no manner of means," said Barbara tartly. She took him by +the sleeve. "Come and explain."</p> +<p>"I've explained already," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>Barbara eyed him like a syren of the cornfields. "I'm going to +dress a crab for lunch. A very big crab."</p> +<p>Jaffery's face was transfigured into a vast, hairy smile. +Barbara could dress crab like no one else in the world. She herself +disliked the taste of crab. I, a carefully trained gastronomist, +adored it, but a Puckish digestion forbade my consuming one single +shred of the ambrosial preparation. Doria would pass it by through +sheer unhappiness. And it was not fit food for Susan's tender +years. Old Jaff knew this. One gigantic crab-shell filled with +Barbara's juicy witchery and flanked by cool pink, meaty claws +would be there for his own individual delectation. Several times +before had he taken the dish, with a "One man, one crab. Ho! ho! +ho!" and had left nothing but clean shells.</p> +<p>"I'm going to dress this crab," said Barbara, "for the sake of +the servants. But if you find I've put poison in it, don't blame +me."</p> +<p>She left us, her little head indignantly in the air. Jaffery +laughed, sank into a chair and tugged at his pipe.</p> +<p>"I wish Doria could be persuaded to read the thing," said +he.</p> +<p>"Why?" I asked looking up from the proofs.</p> +<p>"It's not quite up to the standard of 'The Diamond Gate.'"</p> +<p>"I shouldn't suppose it was," said I drily.</p> +<p>"Wittekind's delighted anyhow. It's a different <i>genre</i>; +but he says that's all the better."</p> +<p>Susan emerged from my study door on to the terrace.</p> +<p>"My good fellow," said I, "yonder is the daughter of the house, +evidently at a loose end. Go and entertain her. I'm going to read +this wonderful novel and don't want to be disturbed till +lunch."</p> +<p>The good-humoured giant lumbered away, and Susan finding herself +in undisputed possession took him off to remote recesses of the +kitchen garden, far from casual intruders. Meanwhile I went on +reading, very much puzzled. Naturally the style was not that of +"The Diamond Gate," which was the style of Tom Castleton and not of +Adrian Boldero. But was what I read the style of Adrian Boldero? +This vivid, virile opening? This scene of the two derelicts who +hated one another, fortuitously meeting on the old tramp steamer? +This cunning, evocation of smells, jute, bilge water, the warm oils +of the engine room? This expert knowledge so carelessly displayed +of the various parts of a ship? How had Adrian, man of luxury, who +had never been on a tramp steamer in his life, gained the +knowledge? The people too were lustily drawn. They had a flavour of +the sea and the breeziness of wide spaces; a deep-lunged folk. So +that I should not be interrupted I wandered off to a secluded nook +of the garden down the drive away from the house and gave myself up +to the story. From the first it went with a rare swing, incident +following incident, every trait of character presented objectively +in fine scorn of analysis. There were little pen pictures of grim +scenes faultless in their definition and restraint. There was a +girl in it, a wild, clean-limbed, woodland thing who especially +moved my admiration. The more I read the more fascinated did I +become, and the more did I doubt whether a single line in it had +been written by Adrian Boldero.</p> +<p>After a long spell, I took out my watch. It was twenty past one. +We lunched at half-past. I rose, went towards the house and came +upon Jaffery and Susan. The latter I despatched peremptorily to her +ablutions. Alone with Jaffery, I challenged him.</p> +<p>"You hulking baby," said I, "what's the good of pretending with +me? Why didn't you tell me at once that you had written it +yourself?"</p> +<p>He looked at me anxiously. "What makes you think so?"</p> +<p>"The simple intelligence possessed by the average adult. First," +I continued, as he made no reply but stood staring at me in +ingenuous discomfort, "you couldn't have got this out of poor +Adrian's mush; secondly, Adrian hadn't the experience of life to +have written it; thirdly, I have read many brilliant descriptive +articles in <i>The Daily Gazette</i> and have little difficulty in +recognising the hand of Jaffery Chayne."</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" said he. "It isn't as obvious as all that?"</p> +<p>I laughed. "Then you did write it?"</p> +<p>"Of course," he growled. "But I didn't want you to know. I tried +to get as near Tom Castleton as I could. Look here"—he +gripped my shoulder—"if it's such a transparent fraud, what +the blazes is going to happen?"</p> +<p>To some extent I reassured him. I was in a peculiar position, +having peculiar knowledge. Save Barbara, no other soul in the world +had the faintest suspicion of Adrian's tragedy. The forthcoming +book would be received without shadow of question as the work of +the author of "<i>The Diamond Gate</i>." The difference of style +and treatment would be attributed to the marvellous versatility of +the dead genius. . . . Jaffery's brow began to clear.</p> +<p>"What do you think of it—as far as you've gone?"</p> +<p>My enthusiastic answer expressed the sincerity of my +appreciation. He positively blushed and looked at me rather +guiltily, like a schoolboy detected in the act of helping an old +woman across the road.</p> +<p>"It's awful cheek," said he, "but I was up against it. The only +alternative was to say the damn thing had been lost or burnt and +take the consequences. Somehow I thought of this. I had written +about half of it all in bits and pieces about three or four years +ago and put it aside. It wasn't my job. Then I pulled it out one +day and read it and it seemed rather good, so, having the story in +my head, I set to work."</p> +<p>"And that's why you didn't go to Persia?"</p> +<p>"How the devil could I go to Persia? I couldn't write a novel on +the back of a beastly camel!"</p> +<p>He walked a few steps in silence. Then he said with a rumble of +a laugh.</p> +<p>"I had an awful fright about that time. I suddenly dried up; +couldn't get along. I must have spent a week, night after night, +staring at a blank sheet of paper. I thought I had bitten off more +than I could chew and was going the way of Adrian. By George, it +taught me something of the Hades the poor fellow must have passed +through. I've been in pretty tight corners in my day and I know +what it is to have the cold fear creeping down my spine; but that +week gave me the fright of my life."</p> +<p>"I wish you had told me," said I, "I might have helped. Why +didn't you?"</p> +<p>"I didn't like to. You see, if this idea hadn't come off, I +should have looked such a stupendous ass."</p> +<p>"That's a reason," I admitted.</p> +<p>"And I didn't tell you at first because you would have thought I +was going off my chump. I don't look the sort of chap that could +write a novel, do I? You would have said I was attempting the +impossible, like Adrian. You and Barbara would have been scared to +death and you would have put me off."</p> +<p>Franklin came from the house. Luncheon was on the table. We +hurried to the dining-room. Jaffery sat down before a gigantic +crab.</p> +<p>"Is it all right?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Doria has interceded for you," said Barbara. "You owe her your +life."</p> +<p>Doria smiled. "It's the least I could do for you."</p> +<p>Jaffery grinned by way of delicate rejoinder and immersed +himself in crab. From its depths, as it seemed, he said:</p> +<p>"Hilary has read half the book."</p> +<p>"What do you think of it?" Barbara asked.</p> +<p>I repeated my dithyrambic eulogy. Doria's eyes shone.</p> +<p>"I do wish you could see your way to read it," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I would give my heart to," said Doria. "But I've told you why I +can't."</p> +<p>"Circumstances alter cases," said I, platitudinously. "In +happier circumstances you would have been presented with the +novelist's fine, finished product. As it happens, Jaffery has had +to fill up little gaps, make bridges here and there. I'm sure if +you had been well enough," I added, with a touch of malice, for I +had not quite forgiven his leaving me in the dark, "Jaffery would +have consulted you on many points."</p> +<p>I was very anxious to see what impression the book would make +upon her. Although I had reassured Jaffery, I could, scarcely +conceive the possibility of the book being taken as the work of +Adrian.</p> +<p>"Of course I would," said Jaffery eagerly. "But that's just it. +You weren't equal to the worry. Now you're all right and I agree +with Hilary. You ought to read it. You see, some of the bridges are +so jolly clumsy."</p> +<p>Doria turned to my wife. "Do you think I would be +justified?"</p> +<p>"Decidedly," said Barbara. "You ought to read it at once."</p> +<p>So it came to pass that, after lunch, Doria came into my study +and demanded the set of proofs. She took them up to her bedroom, +where she remained all the afternoon. I was greatly relieved. It +was right that she should know what was going to be published under +Adrian's name.</p> +<p>In Jaffery's presence, I disclosed to Barbara the identity of +the author. He said to her much the same as he had said to me +before lunch, with, perhaps, a little more shamefacedness. Were it +not for reiteration upon reiteration of the same things in talk, +life would be a stark silence broken only by staccato announcement +of facts. At last Barbara's eyes grew uncomfortably moist. +Impulsively she flew to Jaffery and put her arms round his vast +shoulders—he was sitting, otherwise she could not have done +it—and hugged him.</p> +<p>"You're a blessed, blessed dear," she said; and ashamed of this +exhibition of sentiment she bolted from the room.</p> +<p>Jaffery, looking very shy and uncomfortable, suggested a game of +billiards.</p> +<p>To Barbara and myself awaiting our guests in the drawing-room +before dinner, the first to come was Doria, whom we hadn't seen +since lunch; an arresting figure in her low evening dress; you can +imagine a Tanagra figure in black and white ivory. Her face, +however, was a passion of excitement.</p> +<p>"It's wonderful," she cried. "More than wonderful. Even I didn't +know till to-day what a great genius Adrian was. All these things +he describes—he never saw them. He imagined, created. Oh, my +God! If only he had lived to finish it." She put her two hands +before her eyes and dashed them swiftly away—"Jaffery has +done his best, poor fellow. But oh! the bridges he speaks +of—they're so crude, so crude! I can see every one. The +murder—you remember?"</p> +<p>It occurred in the first part of the novel. I had read it. Three +or four splashes of blood on the page instead of ink and the thing +was done. Admirable. The instinctive high light of the artist.</p> +<p>"I thought it one of the best things in the book," said I.</p> +<p>"Oh!" she waved a gesture of disgust. "How can you say so? It's +horrible. It isn't Adrian. I can see the point where he left it to +the imagination. Jaffery, with no imagination, has come in and +spoiled it. And then the scene on the Barbary Coast of San +Francisco, where Fenton finds Ellina Ray, the broken-down star of +London musical comedy. Adrian never wrote it. It's the sort of +claptrap he hated. He has often told me so. Jaffery thought it was +necessary to explain Ellina in the next chapter, and so in his dull +way, he stuck it in."</p> +<p>That scene also had I read. It was a little flaming cameo of a +low dive on the Barbary Coast, and a presentation of the thing +seen, somewhat journalistic, I admit—but such as very few +journalists could give.</p> +<p>"That's pure Adrian," said I brazenly.</p> +<p>"It isn't. There are disgusting little details that only a man +that had been there could have mentioned. Oh! do you suppose I +don't know the difference between Adrian's work and that of a +penny-a-liner like Jaffery?"</p> +<p>The door opened and Jaffery appeared. Doria went up to him and +took him by the lapels of his dress coat.</p> +<p>"I've read it. It's a work of genius. But, oh! Jaffery, I do +want it to be without a flaw. Don't hate me, dear—I know +you've done all that mortal man could do for Adrian and for me. But +it isn't your fault if you're not a professional novelist or an +imaginative writer. And you, yourself, said the bridges were +clumsy. Couldn't you—oh!—I loathe hurting you, dear +Jaffery—but it's all the world, all eternity to +me—couldn't you get one of Adrian's colleagues—one of +the famous people"—she rattled off a few names—"to look +through the proofs and revise them—just in honour of Adrian's +memory? Couldn't you, dear Jaffery?" She tugged convulsively at the +poor old giant's coat. "You're one of the best and noblest men who +ever lived or I couldn't say this to you. But you understand, don't +you?"</p> +<p>Jaffery's ruddy face turned as white as chalk. She might have +slapped it physically and it would have worn the same dazed, +paralysed lack of expression.</p> +<p>"My life," said he, in a queer toned voice, that wasn't +Jaffery's at all, "my life is only an expression of your wishes. +I'll do as you say."</p> +<p>"It's for Adrian's sake, dear Jaffery," said Doria.</p> +<p>Jaffery passed his great glazed hand over his stricken face, +from the roots of his hair to the point of his beard, and seemed to +wipe therefrom all traces of day-infesting cares, revealing the +sunny Reubens-like features that we all loved.</p> +<p>"But apart from my amateur joining of the flats, you think the +book's worthy of Adrian?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I do," she cried passionately. "I do. It's a work of +genius. It's Adrian in all his maturity, in all his greatness!"</p> +<p>The door opened.</p> +<p>"Dinner is served, madam," said Franklin.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p>When, by way of comforting Jaffery, I criticised Doria's +outburst, he fell upon me as though about to devour me alive. After +what he had done for her, said I, given up one of the great chances +of his career, carried her bodily from London to Nice, and made her +a present of a brilliant novel so as to save Adrian's memory from +shame, she ought to go on her knees and pray God to shower +blessings on his head. As it was, she deserved whipping.</p> +<p>Jaffery called me, among other things, an amazing ass—he +has an Eastern habit of, facile vituperation—and roared about +the drawing-room. The ladies, be it understood, had retired.</p> +<p>"You don't seem to grip the elements of the situation. You +haven't the intelligence of a rabbit. How in Hades could she know +I've written the rotten book? She thinks it's Adrian's. And she +thinks I've spoiled it. She's perfectly justified. For the little +footling services I rendered her on the journey, she's idiotically +grateful—out of all proportion. As for Persia, she knows +nothing about it—"</p> +<p>"She ought to," said I.</p> +<p>"If you tell her, I'll break your neck," roared Jaffery.</p> +<p>"All right," said I, desiring to remain whole. "So long as +you're satisfied, it doesn't much matter to me."</p> +<p>It didn't. After all, one has one's own life to live, and +however understanding of one's friends and sympathetically inclined +towards them one may be, one cannot follow them emotionally through +all their bleak despairs and furious passions. A man doing so would +be dead in a week.</p> +<p>"It doesn't seem to strike you," he went on, "that the poor +girl's mental and moral balance depends on the successful carrying +out of this ghastly farce."</p> +<p>"I do, my dear chap."</p> +<p>"You don't. I wrote the thing as best I could—a labour of +love. But it's nothing like Tom Castleton's work—which she +thinks is Adrian's. To keep up the deception I had to crab it and +say that the faults were mine. Naturally she believes me."</p> +<p>"All right," said I, again. "And when the book is published and +Adrian's memory flattered and Doria is assured of her mental and +moral balance—what then?"</p> +<p>"I hope she'll be happy," he answered. "Why the blazes do you +suppose I've worried if it wasn't to give her happiness?"</p> +<p>I could not press my point. I could not commit the gross +indelicacy of saying: "My poor friend, where do you come in?" or +words to that effect. Nor could I possibly lay down the proposition +that a living second husband—stretching the imagination to +the hypothesis of her taking one—is but an indifferent hero +to the widow who spends her life in burning incense before the +shrine of the demigod husband who is dead. We can't say these +things to our friends. We expect them to have common sense as we +have ourselves. But we don't, and—for the curious reason, +based on the intense individualism of sexual attraction, that no +man can appreciate, save intellectually, another man's desire for a +particular woman—we can't realize the poor, fool hunger of +his heart. The man who pours into our ears a torrential tale of +passion moves us not to sympathy, but rather to psychological +speculation, if we are kindly disposed, or to murderous +inclinations if we are not. On the other hand, he who is silent +moves us not at all. In any and every case, however, we entirely +fail to comprehend why, if Neæra is obdurate, our swain does +not go afield and find, as assuredly he can, some complaisant +Amaryllis.</p> +<p>I confess, honestly, that during this conversation I felt +somewhat impatient with my dear, infatuated friend. There he was, +casting the largesse of his soul at the feet of a blind woman, a +woman blinded by the bedazzlement of a false fire, whose flare it +was his religion to intensify. There he was doing this, and he did +not see the imbecility of it! In after time we can correlate +incidents and circumstances, viewing them in a perspective more or +less correct. We see that we might have said and done a hundred +helpful things. Well, we know that we did not, and there's an end +on't. I felt, as I say, impatient with Jaffery, although—or +was it because?—I recognised the bald fact that he was in +love with Doria to the maximum degree of besottedness.</p> +<p>You see, when you say to a man: "Why do you let the woman kick +you?" and he replies, with a glare of indignation: "She has deigned +to touch my unworthy carcass with her sacred boot!" what in the +world are you to do, save resume the interrupted enjoyment of your +cigar? This I did. I also found amusement in comparing his meek +wooing, like that of an early Italian amorist, with his rumbustious +theories as to marriage by capture and other primitive methods of +bringing woman to heel.</p> +<p>Doria, seeing him unresentful of kicking, continued to kick +(when Barbara wasn't looking—for Barbara had read her a +lecture on the polite treatment of trustees and executors) and made +him more her slave than ever. He fetched and carried. He read +poetry. He was Custodian of the Sacred Rubbers, when the grass was +damp. He shielded her from over-rough incursions on the part of +Susan. He chanted the responses in her Litany of Saint Adrian. He +sacrificed his golf so that he could sit near her and hold +figurative wool for her to unwind. It was very pretty to watch +them. The contrast between them made its unceasing appeal. Besides, +Doria did not kick all the time; there were long spells during +which, touched by the giant's devotion, she repaid it in tokens of +tender regard. At such times she was as fascinating an elf as one +could wish to meet on a spring morning. He could bring, like no one +else, the smile into her dark, mournful eyes. There is no doubt +that, in her way and as far as her Adrian-bound emotional +temperament permitted, she felt grateful to Jaffery. She also felt +safe in his company. He was like a great St. Bernard dog, she +declared to Barbara.</p> +<p>These idyllic relations continued unruffled for some days, until +a letter arrived from the eminent novelist to whom, with Doria's +approval, Jaffery had sent the proofs.</p> +<p>"A marvellous story," was the great man's verdict; "singularly +different from 'The Diamond Gate,' only resembling it in its +largeness of conception and the perfection of its kind. The +alteration of a single word would spoil it. If an alien hand is +there, it is imperceptible."</p> +<p>At this splendid tribute Jaffery beamed with happiness. He +tossed the letter to Barbara across the breakfast table.</p> +<p>"No alien hand perceptible. Ho! ho! ho! But it's stunning, isn't +it? I do believe the old fraud of a book is going to win through. +This ought to satisfy Doria, don't you think so?"</p> +<p>"It ought to," said Barbara. "I'll send it up to her room."</p> +<p>But Doria with Adrian's impeccability on the brain—and how +could a work of Adrian's be impeccable when an alien hand, however +imperceptible, had touched it?—was not satisfied. Towards +noon, when she came downstairs, she met Jaffery on the terrace, +with a familiar little knitting of the brow before which his +welcoming smile faded.</p> +<p>"It's all right up to a point," she said, handing him back the +letter. "Nobody with the rudiments of a brain could fail to +recognise the merits of Adrian's work. But no novelist is possessed +of the critical faculty."</p> +<p>"Then why," asked Jaffery, after the way of men, "did you ask me +to send him the novel?"</p> +<p>"I took it for granted he had common sense," replied Doria, +after the way of women.</p> +<p>"And he hasn't any?"</p> +<p>"Read the thing again."</p> +<p>Jaffery scanned the page mechanically and looked up: "Well, +what's to be done now?"</p> +<p>"I should like to compare the proofs with Adrian's original +manuscript. Where is it?"</p> +<p>Here was the question we had all dreaded. Jaffery lied +convincingly.</p> +<p>"It went to the printers, my dear, and of course they've +destroyed it."</p> +<p>"I thought everything was typed nowadays."</p> +<p>"Typing takes time," replied Jaffery serenely. "And I'm not an +advocate of feather-beds and rose-water baths for printers. As I +wanted to rush the book out as quickly as possible, I didn't see +why I should pamper them with type. Have you the original +manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate'?"</p> +<p>"No," said Doria.</p> +<p>"Well—don't you see?" said Jaffery, with a smile.</p> +<p>For the first time I praised Old Man Jornicroft. He had brought +up his daughter far from the madding mechanics of the literary +life. To my great relief, Doria swallowed the incredible story.</p> +<p>"It was careless of you not to have given special instructions +for the manuscript to be saved, I must say. But if it's gone, it's +gone. I'm not unreasonable."</p> +<p>"I think you are," said Barbara, who had been arranging flowers +in the drawing-room, and had emerged onto the terrace. "You made +Jaffery submit his careful editing to an expert, and you're +honourably bound to accept the expert's verdict."</p> +<p>"I do accept it," she retorted with a toss of her head and a +flash of her eyes. "Have I ever said I didn't? But I'm at liberty +to keep to my own opinion."</p> +<p>Jaffery scratched his whiskers and beard and screwed up his face +as he did in moments of perplexity.</p> +<p>"What exactly do you want changed?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Just those few coarse touches you admit are yours."</p> +<p>"Adrian wanted to get an atmosphere of rye-whisky and bad +tobacco—not tea and strawberries." The eminent novelist's +encomium had aroused the artist's pride in his first-born. An +altered word would spoil the book. "My dear girl," said he, +stretching out his great hand, from beneath which she wriggled an +impatient shoulder, "my dear Doria," said he, very gently, "the +possessor of the Order of Merit is both a critic and a man of +common sense. Anyway, he knows more about novels than either of us +do. If it weren't for him I would give you the proofs to blue +pencil as much as you liked. But I'm sure you would make a +thundering mess of it."</p> +<p>Doria made a little gesture—a bit of a shrug—a bit +of a resigned flicker of her hands.</p> +<p>"Of course, do as you please, dear Jaffery. I'm quite alone, a +woman with nobody to turn to"—she smiled with her lips, but +there was no coordination of her eyes—"as I said before, I +pass the proofs."</p> +<p>She went quickly through the drawing-room door into the house, +leaving Jaffery still scratching a red whisker.</p> +<p>"Oh, Lord!" said he, ruefully, "I've gone and done it now!"</p> +<p>He turned to follow her, but Barbara interposed her small body +on the threshold.</p> +<p>"Don't be a silly fool, Jaff. You've pandered quite enough to +her morbid vanity. It's your book, isn't it? You have given it +birth. You know better than anybody what is vital to it. Just you +send those proofs straight back to the publisher. If you let her +persuade you to change one word, as true as I'm standing here, I'll +tell her the whole thing, and damn the consequences!"</p> +<p>My exquisite Barbara's rare "damns" were oaths in the strictest +sense. They connoted the most irrefragable of obligations. She +would no more think of breaking a "damn" than her marriage vows or +a baby's neck.</p> +<p>"Of course, I'm not going to let her touch the thing," said +Jaffery. "But I don't want her to look on me as a bullying +brute."</p> +<p>"It would be better, both for you and her, if she did," snapped +Barbara. "The ordinary woman's like the dog and the walnut tree. +It's only the exceptional woman that can take command."</p> +<p>I, who had been sitting calm, on the low parapet beneath the +tenderly sprouting wistaria arbour, broke my philosophic +silence.</p> +<p>"Observe the exceptional woman," said I.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>For a day or so Doria stood upon her dignity, treating Jaffery +with cold politeness. In the mornings she allowed him to wrap her +up in her garden chair and attend to her comforts, and then, +settled down, she would open a volume of Tolstoi and courteously +signify his dismissal. Jaffery with a hang-dog expression went with +me to the golf-course, where he drove with prodigious muscular +skill, and putted execrably. Had it not been a question of good +taste, to say nothing of human sentiment, I would have reminded him +that the thing he was hitting so violently was only a little white +ball and not poor Adrian's skull. If ever a man was loyal to a dead +friend Jaffery Chayne was loyal to Adrian Boldero. But poor old +Jaffery was being checked in every vital avenue, not by the memory +of the man whom he had known and loved, but by his cynical and +masquerading ghost. It is not given to me, thank God! to know from +direct speech what Jaffery thought of Adrian—for Jaffery is +too splendid a fellow to have ever said a word in depreciation of +his once living friend and afterward dead rival; but both I, who do +not aspire to these Quixotic heights and only, with masculine power +of generalisation, deduce results from a quiet eye's harvest of +mundane phenomena, and Barbara, whose rapier intuition penetrates +the core of spiritual things, could, with little difficulty, divine +the passionate struggle between love and hatred, between loyalty +and tenderness, between desire and duty that took place in the soul +of this chivalrous yet primitive and vastly appetited +gentleman.</p> +<p>You may think I am trying to present Jaffery as a hero of +romance. I am not. I am merely trying to put before you, in my +imperfect way, a barbarian at war with civilised instincts; a lusty +son of Pantagruel forced into the incongruous rôle of Sir +Galahad. . . . During the term of his punishment he behaved in a +bearish and most unheroic manner. At last, however, Doria forgave +him, and, smiling on him once more, permitted him to read Tolstoi +aloud to her. Whereupon he mended his manners.</p> +<p>The day following this reconciliation was a Sunday. We had +invited Liosha (as we constantly did) to lunch and dine. She +usually arrived by an early train in the forenoon and returned by +the late train at night. But on Saturday evening, she asked +Barbara, over the telephone, for permission to bring a friend, a +gentleman staying in the boarding house, the happy possessor of a +car, who would motor her down. His name was Fendihook. Barbara +replied that she would be delighted to see Liosha's friend, and of +course came back to us and speculated as to who and what this Mr. +Fendihook might be.</p> +<p>"Why didn't you ask her?" said I.</p> +<p>"It would scarcely have been polite."</p> +<p>We consulted Jaffery. "Never heard of him," he growled. "And I +don't like to hear of him now. That young woman's running loose a +vast deal too much."</p> +<p>"What an old dog in the manger you are!" cried Barbara; and thus +started an old argument.</p> +<p>On Sunday morning we saw Mr. Fendihook for ourselves. I met the +car, a two-seater, which he drove himself, at the front door, and +perceived between a motoring cap worn peak behind and a tightly +buttoned Burberry coat a pink, fleshy, clean shaven face, from the +middle of which projected an enormous cigar. I helped Liosha +out.</p> +<p>"This is Mr. Fendihook."</p> +<p>"Commonly called Ras Fendihook, at your service," said he.</p> +<p>I smiled and shook hands and gave the car into the charge of my +chauffeur, who appeared from the stable-yard. In the hall, aided by +Franklin, Mr. Ras Fendihook divested himself of his outer wrappings +and revealed a thickset man of medium height, rather flashily +attired. I know it is narrow-minded, but I have a prejudice against +a black and white check suit, and a red necktie threaded through a +gold ring.</p> +<p>"Against the rules?" he asked, holding up his cigar, a very good +one, on which he had retained the band.</p> +<p>"By no means," said I, "we smoke all over the house."</p> +<p>"Tiptop!" He looked around the hall. "You seem to have a bit of +all right here."</p> +<p>"I told you you would like it. Everybody does," said Liosha. +"Ah, Barbara, dear!" She ran up the stairs to meet her. We +followed. Mr. Fendihook was presented. I noticed, with a little +shock, that he had kept on his gloves.</p> +<p>"Very kind of you to let me come down, madam. I thought a bit of +a blow would do our fair friend good."</p> +<p>Barbara took off Liosha, looking very handsome and fresh beneath +the motor-veil, to her room, leaving me with Mr. Fendihook. As he +preceded me into the drawing-room I saw a bald patch like a tonsure +in the middle of a crop of coarse brown hair. Again he looked round +appreciatively and again he said "Tiptop!" He advanced to the open +French window.</p> +<p>"Garden's all right. Must take a lot of doing. Who are our +friends? The long and the short of it, aren't they?"</p> +<p>He alluded to Jaffery and Doria, who were strolling on the lawn. +I told him their names.</p> +<p>"Jaffery Chayne. Why, that's the chap Mrs. Prescott's always +talking about, her guardian or something."</p> +<p>"Her trustee," said I, "and an intimate friend of her late +husband."</p> +<p>"Ah!" said he, with a twinkle in his eyes which, I will swear, +signified "Then there was a Prescott after all!" He waved his +cigar. "Introduce me." And as I accompanied him across the +lawn—"There's nothing like knowing everybody—getting it +over at once. Then one feels at home."</p> +<p>"I hope you felt at home as soon as you entered the house," said +I.</p> +<p>"Of course I did, old pal," he replied heartily. "Of course I +did." And the amazing creature patted me on the back.</p> +<p>I performed the introductions. Mr. Fendihook declared himself +delighted to make the acquaintance of my friends. Then as +conversation did not start spontaneously, he once more looked +around, nodded at the landscape approvingly, and once more said +"Tiptop!"</p> +<p>"That's what I want to have," he continued, "when I can afford +to retire and settle down. None of your gimcrack modern villas in a +desirable residential neighbourhood, but an English gentleman's +country house."</p> +<p>"It's your ambition to be an English gentleman, Mr. Fendihook?" +queried Doria.</p> +<p>He laughed good-humouredly. "Now you're pulling my leg."</p> +<p>I saw that he was not lacking in shrewdness.</p> +<p>Susan, never far from Jaffery during her off-time, came running +up.</p> +<p>"Hallo, is that your young 'un?" Mr. Fendihook asked. "Come and +say how d'ye do, Gwendoline."</p> +<p>Susan advanced shyly. He shook hands with her, chucked her under +the chin and paid her the ill compliment of saying that she was the +image of her father. Jaffery stood with folded arms holding the +bowl of his pipe in one hand and looked down on Mr. Fendihook as on +some puzzling insect.</p> +<p>"Do you mind if I take off my gloves?" our strange visitor +asked.</p> +<p>"Pray do," said I. The sight of the fellow wandering about a +garden bareheaded and gloved in yellow chamois leather had begun to +affect my nerves. He peeled them off.</p> +<p>"Look here, Gwendoline Arabella, my dear," he cried. +"Catch!"</p> +<p>He made a feint of throwing them.</p> +<p>"Haven't you caught 'em?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>She stared at the man open-mouthed, for behold, his hands were +empty.</p> +<p>"Tut, tut!" said he. "Perhaps you can catch a handkerchief." He +flicked a red silk handkerchief from his pocket, crumpled it into a +ball and threw; but like the gloves it vanished. "Now where has it +gone to?"</p> +<p>Susan, who had shrunk beneath Jaffery's protecting shadow, crept +forward fascinated. Mr. Fendihook took a sudden step or two towards +a flower bed.</p> +<p>"Why, there it is!"</p> +<p>He stretched out a hand and there before our eyes the +handkerchief hung limp over the pruned top of a standard rose.</p> +<p>"Jolly good!" exclaimed Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I hope you don't mind. I like amusing kiddies. Have you ever +talked to angels, Araminta? No? Well, I have. Look."</p> +<p>He threw half-crowns up into the air until they disappeared into +the central blue, and then held a ventriloquial conversation, not +in the best of taste, with the celestial spirits, who having caught +the coins announced their intention of sticking to them. But +threats of reporting to headquarters prevailed, and one by one the +coins dropped and jingled in his hand. We applauded. Susan regarded +him as she would a god.</p> +<p>"Can you do it again?" she asked breathlessly.</p> +<p>"Lord bless you, Eustacia, I can keep on doing it all day +long."</p> +<p>He balanced his cigar on the tip of his nose and with a snap +caught it in his mouth. He turned to me with a grin, which showed +white strong teeth. "More than you could do, old pal!"</p> +<p>"You must have practised that a great deal," said Doria.</p> +<p>"Two hours a day solid year in and year out—not that trick +alone, of course. Here!" he burst into a laugh. "I'm blowed if you +know who I am—I'm the One and Only Ras +Fendihook—Illusionist, Ventriloquist, and General Variety +Artist. Haven't you ever seen my turn?"</p> +<p>We confessed, with regret, that we had missed the privilege.</p> +<p>"Well, well, it's a queer world," he said philosophically. +"You've never heard of me—and perhaps you two gentlemen are +big bugs in your own line—and I've never heard of you. But +anyhow, I never asked you, Mr. Chayne, to catch my gloves."</p> +<p>"I haven't your gloves," said Jaffery, with his eye on +Susan.</p> +<p>"You have. You've got 'em in your pocket."</p> +<p>And diving into Jaffery's jacket pocket, he produced the +wash-leather gloves.</p> +<p>"There, Petronella," said he, "that's the end of the +matinée performance."</p> +<p>Susan looked at him wide-eyed. "I'm not at all tired."</p> +<p>"Aren't you? Then don't let that big black dog there chase the +little one."</p> +<p>He pointed with his finger and from behind the old yew arbour +came the shrill clamour of a little dog in agony. It brought +Barbara flying out of the house. Liosha followed leisurely. The +yelping ceased. Mr. Ras Fendihook went to meet his hostess. Doria, +Jaffery and I looked at one another in mutual and dismayed +comprehension.</p> +<p>"Old pal," quoted Doria.</p> +<p>I glanced apprehensively across the strip of lawn. "I hope, for +his sake, he's not calling Barbara 'old girl.'"</p> +<p>"He calls everybody funny names," Susan chimed in. "See what a +lot he called me."</p> +<p>"Does your Royal Fairy Highness approve of him?" asked +Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I should think so, Uncle Jaff," she replied fervently. +"He's—he's <i>marvelious</i>!"</p> +<p>"He is," said Jaffery, "and even that jewel of language doesn't +express him."</p> +<p>"My dear," said I, "you stick close to him all day, as long as +mummy will let you."</p> +<p>I have never got the credit I deserved for the serene wisdom of +that suggestion. All through lunch, all through the long afternoon +until it was Susan's bedtime, her obedience to my command saved +over and over again a tense situation. To the guest in her house +Barbara was the perfection of courtesy. But beneath the mask of +convention raged fury with Liosha. A woman can seldom take a queer +social animal for what he is and suck the honey from his flowers of +unconventionality. She had never heard a man say "Right oh!" to a +butler when offered a second helping of pudding. She had never +dreamed of the possibility of a strange table-neighbour laying his +hand on hers and requesting her to "take it from me, my dear." It +sent awful shivers down her spine to hear my august self alluded to +as her "old man." She looked down her nose when, to the apoplectic +joy of Susan (supposed to be on her primmest behaviour at meals), +he, with a significant wink, threw a new potato into the air, +caught it on his fork and conveyed it to his mouth. Her smile was +that of the polite hostess and not of the enthusiastic listener +when he told her of triumphs in Manchester and Cincinnati. To her +confusion, he presupposed her intimate acquaintance with the +personalities of the World of Variety.</p> +<p>"That's where I came across little Evie Bostock," he said +confidentially. "A clipper, wasn't she? Just before she ran off +with that contortionist—you know who I mean—handsome +chap—what's his name?—oh, of course you know him."</p> +<p>My poor Barbara! Daughter of a distinguished Civil servant, a +K.C.B., assumed to be on friendly terms with a Boneless Wonder!</p> +<p>"But indeed I don't, Mr. Fendihook," she replied +pathetically.</p> +<p>"Yes, yes, you must." He snapped his fingers. "Got it. Romeo! +You must have heard of Romeo."</p> +<p>I sniggered—I couldn't help it—at Barbara's face. He +went on with his reminiscences. Barbara nearly wept, whilst I, +though displeased with Liosha for introducing such an incongruous +element into my family circle, took the rational course of deriving +from the fellow considerable entertainment. Jaffery would have done +the same as myself, had not his responsibility as Liosha's guardian +weighed heavily upon him. He frowned, and ate in silence, vastly. +Doria, like my wife, I could see was shocked. The only two who, +beside myself, enjoyed our guest were Susan and Liosha. Well, Susan +was nine years old and a meal at which a guest broke her whole +decalogue of table manners at once—to say nothing of the +performance of such miracles as squeezing an orange into +nothingness, without the juice running out, and subsequently +extracting it from the neck of an agonised mother—was a feast +of memorable gaudiness. Susan could be excused. But Liosha? Liosha, +pupil of the admirable Mrs. Considine? Liosha, descendant of proud +Albanian chieftains who had lain in gory beds for centuries? How +could she admire this peculiarly vulgar, although, in his own line, +peculiarly accomplished person? Yet her admiration was obvious. She +sat by my side, grand and radiant, proud of the wondrous gift she +had bestowed on us. She acclaimed his tricks, she laughed at his +anecdotes, she urged him on to further exhibition of prowess, and +in a magnificent way appeared unconscious of the presence at the +table of her trustee and would-be dragon, Jaffery Chayne.</p> +<p>After lunch Susan obeyed my instructions and stuck very close to +Mr. Fendihook. Doria retired for her afternoon rest. Jaffery, +having invited Liosha to go for a long walk with him and she having +declined, with a polite smile, on the ground that her best +Sunday-go-to-meeting long gown was not suitable for country roads, +went off by himself in dudgeon. Barbara took Liosha aside and +cross-examined her on the subject of Mr. Fendihook and as far as +hospitality allowed signified her non-appreciation of the guest. +After a time I took him into the billiard room, Susan following. As +he was a brilliant player, giving me one hundred and fifty in two +hundred and running out easily before I had made thirty, he found +less excitement in the game than in narrating his exploits and +performing tricks for the child. He did astonishing things with the +billiard balls, making them run all over his body like mice and +balancing them on cues and juggling with them five at a time. I +think that day he must have gone through his whole +répertoire.</p> +<p>The party assembled for tea in the drawing-room. Fendihook's +first words to Liosha were:</p> +<p>"Hallo, my Balkan Queen, how have you been getting on?"</p> +<p>"Very well, thank you," smiled Liosha.</p> +<p>He turned to Jaffery. "She's not up to her usual form to-day. +But sometimes she's a fair treat! I give you my word."</p> +<p>He laughed loudly and winked. Jaffery, whose agility in repartee +was rather physical than mental, glowered at him, rumbled something +unintelligible beneath his breath, and took tea out to Doria, who +was established on the terrace.</p> +<p>"Seems to have got the pip," Mr. Fendihook remarked +cheerfully.</p> +<p>Barbara, with icy politeness, offered him tea. He refused, +explaining that unless he sat down to a square meal, which, in view +of the excellence of his lunch, he was unable to do, he never drank +tea in the afternoon.</p> +<p>"Could I have a whisky and soda, old pal?"</p> +<p>The drink was brought. He pledged Barbara—"And may I drink +to the success of that promising little affair"—he jerked a +backward thumb—"between our pippy friend and the charming +widow?"</p> +<p>Barbara had passed the gasping stage.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne," she said in the metallic voice that, before now, +had made strong men grow pale, "Mr. Chayne stands in the same +relation of trustee to Mrs. Boldero as he does to Mrs. +Prescott."</p> +<p>But Fendihook was undismayed. "Some fellows have all the luck! +Here's to him, and here's to you, Sheba's Queen."</p> +<p>He nodded to Liosha and pulled at his drink. But Liosha did not +respond. A hard look appeared in her eyes and the knuckles of her +hand showed white. Presently she rose and went onto the terrace, +where she found Jaffery fixing a rebellious rug round Doria's feet. +And this is what happened.</p> +<p>"Jaff Chayne," she said, "I want to have a word with you. You'll +excuse me, Doria, but Jaff Chayne's as much my trustee as he is +yours. I have business to talk."</p> +<p>Doria eyed her coldly. "Talk as much business as you like, my +dear girl. I'm not preventing you." Jaffery strode off with Liosha. +As soon as they were out of earshot, she said:</p> +<p>"Are you going to marry her?"</p> +<p>"Who?"</p> +<p>"Doria."</p> +<p>Jaffery bent his brows on her. He was not in his most angelic +mood.</p> +<p>"What the blazes has that got to do with you? Just you mind your +own business."</p> +<p>"All right," she retorted, "I will."</p> +<p>"Glad to hear it," said he. "And now I want a word with you. +What do you mean by bringing that howling cad down here?"</p> +<p>"It's you who howl, not he. He's a very kind gentleman and very +clever and he makes me laugh. He's not like you."</p> +<p>"He's a performing gorilla," cried Jaffery.</p> +<p>They were both exceedingly angry, and having walked very fast, +they found themselves in front of the gate of the walled garden. +Instinctively they entered and had the place to themselves.</p> +<p>"And a confounded bounder of a gorilla at that!" Jaffery +continued.</p> +<p>"How dare you speak so of my friend?"</p> +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for having such a friend. +And you're just going to drop him. Do you understand?"</p> +<p>"Shan't!" said Liosha.</p> +<p>"You shall. You're not going to be seen outside the house with +him."</p> +<p>There was battle clamorous and a trifle undignified. They said +the same things over and over again. Both had worked themselves +into a fury.</p> +<p>"I forbid you to have anything to do with the fellow."</p> +<p>"You, Jaff Chayne, told me to mind my own business. Just you +mind yours."</p> +<p>"It is my business," he shouted, "to see that you don't disgrace +yourself with a beast of a fellow like that."</p> +<p>"What did you say? Disgrace myself?" She drew herself up +magnificently. "Do you think I would disgrace myself with any man +living? You insult me."</p> +<p>"Rot!" cried Jaffery. "Every woman's liable to make a blessed +fool of herself—and you more than most."</p> +<p>"I know one that's not going to make a fool of herself," she +taunted, and flung an arm in the direction of the house.</p> +<p>Jaffery blazed. "You leave me alone."</p> +<p>"And you leave me alone."</p> +<p>They glared inimically into each other's eyes. Liosha turned, +marched superbly away, opened the garden door and, passing through, +slammed it in his face. It had been a very pretty, primitive +quarrel, free from all subtlety. Elemental instinct flamed in +Jaffery's veins. If he could have given her a good sound thrashing +he would have been a happy man. This accursed civilisation +paralysed him. He stood for a few moments tearing at whiskers and +beard. Then he started in pursuit, and overtook her in the middle +of the lawn.</p> +<p>"Anyhow, you'll take the infernal fellow away now and never +bring him here again."</p> +<p>"It's Hilary's house, not yours," she remarked, looking straight +before her.</p> +<p>"Well, ask him."</p> +<p>"I will. Hilary!"</p> +<p>At her hail and beckon I left the terrace where Mr. Fendihook +had been discoursing irrepressibly on the Bohemian advantages of +widowhood to a quivering Doria, and advanced to meet her, a flushed +and bright-eyed Juno.</p> +<p>"Would you like me to bring Ras Fendihook here again?"</p> +<p>"Tell her straight," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>Even Susan, looking from one to the other, would have been +conscious of storms. I took her hand.</p> +<p>"My dear Liosha," said I, "our social system is so complicated +that it is no wonder you don't appreciate the more delicate +ramifications—"</p> +<p>"Oh! Talk sense to her," growled Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Mr. Fendihook is not quite"—I hesitated—"not quite +the kind of person, my dear, that we're accustomed to meet."</p> +<p>"I know," said Liosha, "you want them all stamped out in a +pattern, like little tin soldiers."</p> +<p>"I see the point of your criticism, and it's true, as far as it +goes."</p> +<p>"Oh, go on—" Jaffery interrupted.</p> +<p>"But—" I continued.</p> +<p>"You'd rather not see him again?"</p> +<p>"No," roared Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I'm talking to Hilary, not you," said Liosha. She turned to me. +"You and Barbara would like me to take him away right now?"</p> +<p>I still held her hand, which was growing moist—and I +suppose mine was too—and I didn't like to drop it, for fear +of hurting her feelings. I gave it a great squeeze. It was very +difficult for me. Personally, I enjoyed the frank, untrammelled and +prodigiously accomplished scion of a vulgar race. As a mere +bachelor, isolated human, meeting him, I should have taken him +joyously, if not to my heart, at any rate to my microscope and +studied him and savoured him and got out of him all that there was +of grotesqueness. But to every one of my household, save Susan who +did not count, he was—I admit, deservedly—an object of +loathing. So I squeezed Liosha's hand.</p> +<p>"The beginning and end of the matter, my dear," said I, "is that +he's not quite a gentleman."</p> +<p>"All right," said Liosha, liberating herself. "Now I know."</p> +<p>She left me and sailed to the terrace. I use the metaphor +advisedly. She had a way of walking like a full-rigged ship before +a breeze.</p> +<p>"Ras Fendihook, it's time we were going."</p> +<p>Mr. Fendihook looked at his watch and jumped up.</p> +<p>"We must hook it!"</p> +<p>Barbara asked conventionally: "Won't you stay to supper?"</p> +<p>"Great Scott, no!" he exclaimed. "No offence meant. You're very +kind. But it's Ladies' Night at the Rabbits and I'm Buck Rabbit for +the evening and the Queen of Sheba's coming as my guest."</p> +<p>"Who are the Rabbits?" asked Doria.</p> +<p>Even I had heard of this Bohemian confraternity; and I explained +with a learned inaccuracy that evoked a semi-circular grin on the +pink, fleshy face of Mr. Ras Fendihook.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"Ouf! Thank goodness!" said Barbara as the two-seater scuttered +away down the drive.</p> +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Doria.</p> +<p>Jaffery shook his fist at the disappearing car.</p> +<p>"One of these days, I'll break his infernal neck!"</p> +<p>"Why?" asked Doria, on a sharp note of enquiry.</p> +<p>"I don't like him," said Jaffery. "And he's taking her out to +dine among all that circus crowd. It's damnable!"</p> +<p>"For the lady whose father stuck pigs in Chicago," said Doria. +"I should think it was rather a rise in the social scale."</p> +<p>And she went indoors with her nose in the air. To every one save +the puzzled Jaffery it was obvious that she disapproved of his +interest in Liosha.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p>"The Greater Glory" came out in due season, puzzled the +reviewers and made a sensation; a greater sensation even than a +legitimate successor to "The Diamond Gate" dictated by the spirit +of Tom Castleton. The contrast was so extraordinary, so +inexplicable. It was generally concluded that no writer but Adrian +Boldero, in the world's history, had ever revealed two such +distinct literary personalities as those that informed the two +novels. The protean nature of his genius aroused universal wonder. +His death was deplored as the greatest loss sustained by English +letters since Keats. The press could do nothing but hail the new +book as a masterpiece. Barbara and myself, who, alone of mortals, +knew the strange history of the two books, did not agree with the +press. In sober truth "The Greater Glory" was not a work of genius; +for, after all, the only hallmark of a work of genius that you can +put your finger on is its haunting quality. That quality Tom +Castleton's work possessed; Jaffery Chayne's did not. "The Greater +Glory" vibrated with life, it was wide and generous, it was a +capital story; but, unlike "The Diamond Gate," it could not rank +with "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "David Copperfield." I say this +in no way to disparage my dear old friend, but merely to present +his work in true proportion. Published under his own name it would +doubtless have received recognition; probably it would have made +money; but it could not have met with the enthusiastic reception it +enjoyed when published under the tragic and romantic name of Adrian +Boldero.</p> +<p>Of course Jaffery beamed with delight. His forlorn hope had +succeeded beyond his dreams. He had fulfilled the immediate needs +of the woman he loved. He had also astonished himself +enormously.</p> +<p>"It's darned good to let you and Barbara know," said he, "that +I'm not a mere six foot of beef and thirst, but that I'm a chap +with brains, and"—he turned over a bundle of +press-cuttings—"and 'poetic fancy' and 'master of the human +heart' and 'penetrating insight into the soul of things' and +'uncanny knowledge of the complexities of woman's nature.' Ho! ho! +ho! That's me, Jaff Chayne, whom you've disregarded all these +years. Look at it in black and white: 'uncanny knowledge of the +complexities of a woman's nature'! Ho! ho! ho! And it's selling +like blazes."</p> +<p>It did not enter his honest head to envy the dead man his fresh +ill-gotten fame. He accepted the success in the large simplicity of +spirit that had enabled him to conceive and write the book. His +poorer human thoughts and emotions centred in the hope that now +Adrian's restless ghost would be laid forever and that for Doria +there would open a new life in which, with the past behind her, she +could find a glory in the sun and an influence in the stars, and a +spark in her own bosom responsive to his devotion. For the +tumultuous moment, however, when Adrian's name was on all men's +tongues, and before all men's eyes, the ghost walked in triumphant +verisimilitude of life. At all the meetings of Jaffery and Doria, +he was there smiling beneath his laurels, whenever he was evoked; +and he was evoked continuously. Either by law of irony or perhaps +for intrinsic merit, the bridges to whose clumsy construction +Jaffery, like an idiot, had confessed, had been picked out by many +reviewers as typical instances of Adrian Boldero's new style. Such +blunders were flies in Doria's healing ointment. She alluded to the +reviewers in disdainful terms. How dared editors employ men to +write on Adrian's work who were unable to distinguish between it +and that of Jaffery Chayne?</p> +<p>One day, when she talked like this, Barbara lost her temper.</p> +<p>"I think you're an ungrateful little wretch. Here has Jaffery +sacrificed his work for three months and devoted himself to pulling +together Adrian's unfinished manuscript and making a great success +of it, and you treat him as if he were a dog."</p> +<p>Doria protested. "I don't. I <i>am</i> grateful. I don't know +what I should do without Jaffery. But all my gratitude and fondness +for Jaffery can't alter the fact that he has spoiled Adrian's work; +and when I hear those very faults in the book praised, I am fit to +be tied."</p> +<p>"Well, go crazy and bite the furniture when you're all by +yourself," said Barbara; "but when you're with Jaffery try to be +sane and civil."</p> +<p>"I think you're horrid!" Doria exclaimed, "and if you weren't +the wife of Adrian's trusted friend, I would never speak to you +again."</p> +<p>"Rubbish!" said Barbara. "I'm talking to you for your good, and +you know it."</p> +<p>Meanwhile Jaffery lingered on in London, in the cheerless little +eyrie in Victoria Street, with no apparent intention of ever +leaving it. Arbuthnot of <i>The Daily Gazette</i> satirically +enquiring whether he wanted a job or still yearned for a season in +Mayfair he consigned, in his grinning way, to perdition. Change was +the essence of holiday-making, and this was his holiday. It was +many years since he had one. When he wanted a job he would go round +to the office.</p> +<p>"All right," said Arbuthnot, "and, in the meantime, if you want +to keep your hand in by doing a fire or a fashionable wedding, ring +us up."</p> +<p>Whereat Jaffery roared, this being the sort of joke he +liked.</p> +<p>The need of a holiday amid the bricks and mortar of Victoria +Street may have impressed Arbuthnot, but it did not impress me. I +dismissed the excuse as fantastic. I tackled him one day, at lunch, +at the club, assuming my most sceptical manner.</p> +<p>"Well," said he, "there's Doria. Somebody must look after +her."</p> +<p>"Doria," said I, "is a young woman, now that she is in sound +health, perfectly capable of looking after herself. And if she does +want a man's advice, she can always turn to me."</p> +<p>"And there's Liosha."</p> +<p>"Liosha," I remarked judiciously, "is also a young woman capable +of looking after herself. If she isn't, she has given you very +definitely to understand that she's going to try. Have you had any +more interesting evenings out lately?"</p> +<p>"No," he growled. "She's offended with me because I warned her +off that low-down bounder."</p> +<p>"I think you did your best," said I, "to make her take up with +him."</p> +<p>He protested. We argued the point, and I think I got the best of +the argument.</p> +<p>"Well, anyhow," he said with an air of infantile satisfaction, +"she can't marry him."</p> +<p>"Who's going to prevent her, if she wants to?"</p> +<p>"The law of England." He laughed, mightily pleased. "The beggar +is married already. I've found that out. He's got three or four +wives in fact—oh, a dreadful hound—but only one real +one with a wedding ring, and she lives up in the north with a pack +of children."</p> +<p>"All the more dangerous for Liosha to associate with such a +villain."</p> +<p>He waved the suggestion aside. No fear of that, said he. It was +not Liosha's game. Hers was an Amazonian kind of chastity. Here I +agreed with him.</p> +<p>"All the less reason," said I, "for you to stay in London, so as +to look after her."</p> +<p>"But I don't like her to be seen about in the fellow's company. +She'll get a bad name."</p> +<p>"Look here," said I, "the idea of a vast, hairy chap like you +devoting his life to keeping a couple of young widows out of +mischief is too preposterous. Try me with something else."</p> +<p>Then, being in good humour, he told me the real reason. He was +writing another book.</p> +<p>He was writing another novel and he did not want any one to +know. He was getting along famously. He had had the story in his +head for a long time. Glad to talk about it; sketched the outline +very picturesquely. Perhaps I was more vitally interested in the +development of the man Jaffery than in the story. A queer thing had +happened. The born novelist had just discovered himself and +clamoured for artistic self-expression. He was writing this book +just because he could not help it, finding gladness in the mere +work, delighting in the mechanics of the thing, and letting himself +go in the joy of the narrative. What was going to become of it when +written, I did not enquire. It was rather too delicate a matter. +Jaffery Chayne could be nothing else than Jaffery Chayne. A new +novel published by him would resemble "The Greater Glory" as +closely as "Pendennis" resembles "Philip." And then there would be +the deuce to pay. If he published it under his own name, he would +render himself liable to the charge of having stolen a novel from +the dead author of "The Greater Glory," and so complicate this +already complicated web of literary theft; and if he threw +sufficient dust into the eyes of Doria to enable him to publish +under Adrian's name, he would be performing the task of the +altruistic bees immortalised by Virgil.</p> +<p>Anyhow, there he was, perfectly happy, pegging away at his +novel, looking after Doria, pretending to look after Liosha, and +enjoying the society of the few cronies, chiefly adventurous birds +of passage like himself, who happened to be passing through London. +Being a man of modest needs, save need of mere bulk of simple food, +he found his small patrimony and the savings from his professional +earnings quite adequate for amenable existence. When he wanted +healthy, fresh air he came down to us to see Susan; when he wanted +anything else he went to see Doria, which was almost daily.</p> +<p>Doria was living now in the flat surrounded by the Lares and +Penates consecrated by Adrian. Now and then for purposes of airing +and dusting, she entered the awful room—neither servants nor +friends were allowed to cross the threshold; but otherwise it was +always locked and the key lay in her jewel case. Adrian was the +focus of her being. She put heavy tasks on Jaffery. There was to be +a fitting monument on Adrian's grave, over which she kept him busy. +In her blind perversity she counted on his coöperation. It was +he who carried through negotiations with an eminent sculptor for a +bust of Adrian, which in her will, made about that time, she +bequeathed to the nation. She ordered him to see to the inclusion +of Adrian in the supplement to the Dictionary of National +Biography. . . . And all the time Jaffery obeyed her sovereign +behests without a murmur and without a hint that he desired reward +for his servitude. But, to those gifted with normal vision, signs +were not wanting that he chafed, to put it mildly, under this +forced worship of Adrian; and to those who knew Jaffery it was +obvious that his one-sided arrangement could not last forever. +Doria remained blind, taking it for granted that every one should +kiss the feet of her idol and in that act of adoration find august +recompense. That the man loved her she was fully aware; she was not +devoid of elementary sense; but she accepted it, as she accepted +everything else, as her due, and perhaps rather despised Jaffery +for his meekness. Why, again, she disregarded what her instinct +must have revealed to her of the primitive passions lurking beneath +the exterior of her kind and tender ogre, I cannot understand. For +one thing, she considered herself his intellectual superior; vanity +perhaps blinded her judgment. At all events she did not realise +that a change was bound to come in their relations. It came, +inevitably.</p> +<p>One day in June they sat together on the balcony of the St. +John's Wood flat, in the soft afternoon shadow, both conscious of +queer isolation from the world below, and from the strange world +masked behind the vast superficies of brick against which they were +perched. Jaffery said something about a nest midway on a cliff side +overlooking the sea. He also, in bass incoherence, formulated the +opinion that in such a nest might he found true happiness. The +pretty languor of early summer laughed in the air. Their situation, +'twixt earth and heaven, had a little sensuous charm. Doria replied +sentimentally:</p> +<p>"Yes, a little house, covered with clematis, on a ledge of +cliff, with the sea-gulls wheeling about it—bringing messages +from the sunset lands across the blue, blue sea—" Poor dear! +She forgot that sea lit by a westering sun is of no colour at all +and that the blue water lies to the east; but no matter; Jaffery, +drinking in her words, forgot it likewise. "Away from everything," +she continued, "and two people who loved—with a great, great +love—"</p> +<p>Her eyes were fixed on the motor omnibuses passing up and down +Maida Vale at the end of her road. Her lips were parted—the +ripeness of youth and health rendered her adorable. A flush stained +her ivory cheek—you will find the exact simile in Virgil. She +was too desirable for Jaffery's self-control. He bent forward in +his chair—they were sitting face to face, so that he had his +back to the motor omnibuses—and put his great hand on her +knee.</p> +<p>"Why not we two?"</p> +<p>It was silly, sentimental, schoolboyish—what you please; +but every man's first declaration of love is bathos—the +zenith of his passion connoting perhaps the nadir of his +intelligence. Anyhow the declaration was made, without shadow of +mistake.</p> +<p>Doria switched her knee away sharply, as her vision of sunset +and gulls and blue sea and a clematis-covered house vanished from +before her eyes, and she found herself on her balcony with Jaff +Chayne.</p> +<p>"What do you mean?" she asked.</p> +<p>"You know very well what I mean."</p> +<p>He rose like a leviathan and made a step towards her. The +three-foot balustrade of the balcony seemed to come to his ankles. +She put out a hand.</p> +<p>"Oh, don't do that, Jaff. You might fall over. It makes me so +nervous."</p> +<p>He checked himself and stood up quite straight. Again he felt as +if she had dealt him a slap in the face.</p> +<p>"You know very well what I mean," he repeated. "I love you and I +want you and I'll never be happy till I get you."</p> +<p>She looked away from him and lifted her slender shoulders.</p> +<p>"Why spoil things by talking of the impossible?"</p> +<p>"The word has no meaning. Doesn't exist," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"It exists very much indeed," she returned, with a quick upward +glance.</p> +<p>"Not with an obstinate devil like me."</p> +<p>He leaned against the low balustrade. She rose.</p> +<p>"You'll drive me into hysterics," she cried and fled to the +drawing-room.</p> +<p>He followed, impatiently. "I'm not such an ass as to fall off a +footling balcony. What do you take me for?"</p> +<p>"I take you for Adrian's friend," she said, very erect, brave +elf facing horrible ogre—and, either by chance or design, her +hand touched and held the tip of a great silver-framed photograph +of her late husband.</p> +<p>"I think I've proved it," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Are you proving it now? What value can you attach to Adrian's +memory when you say such things to me?"</p> +<p>"I'm saying to you what every honest man has the right to say to +the free woman he loves."</p> +<p>"But I'm not a free woman. I'm bound to Adrian."</p> +<p>"You can't be bound to him forever and ever."</p> +<p>"I am. That's why it's shameful and dishonourable of +you,"—his blue eyes flashed dangerously and he clenched his +hands, but heedless she went on—"yes, mean and base and +despicable of you to wish to betray him. Adrian—"</p> +<p>"Oh, don't talk drivel. It makes me sick. Leave Adrian alone and +listen to a living man," he shouted, all the pent-up intellectual +disgusts and sex-jealousies bursting out in a mad gush. "A real +live man who would walk through Hell for you!" He caught her frail +body in his great grasp, and she vibrated like a bit of wire caught +up by a dynamo. "My love for you has nothing whatever to do with +Adrian. I've been as loyal to him as one man can be to another, +living and dead. By God, I have! Ask Hilary and Barbara. But I want +you. I've wanted you since the first moment I set eyes on you. +You've got into my blood. You're going to love me. You're going to +marry me, Adrian or no Adrian."</p> +<p>He bent over her and she met the passion in his eyes bravely. +She did not lack courage. And her eyes were hard and her lips were +white and her face was pinched into a marble statuette of hate. And +unconscious that his grip was giving her physical pain he +continued:</p> +<p>"I've waited for you. I've waited for you from the moment I +heard you were engaged to the other man. And I'll go on waiting. +But, by God!"—and, not knowing what he did, he shook her +backwards and forwards—"I'll not go on waiting for ever. +You—you little bit of mystery—you little bit of +eternity—you—you—ah!"</p> +<p>With a great gesture he released her. But the poor ogre had not +counted on his strength. His unwitting violence sent her spinning, +and she fell, knocking her head against a sofa. He uttered a gasp +of horror and in an instant lifted her and laid her on the sofa, +and on his knees beside her, with remorse oversurging his passion, +behaved like a penitent fool, accusing himself of all the +unforgivable savageries ever practised by barbaric male. Doria, who +was not hurt in the least, sat up and pointed to the door.</p> +<p>"Go!" she said. "Go. You're nothing but a brute."</p> +<p>Jaffery rose from his knees and regarded her in the hebetude of +reaction.</p> +<p>"I suppose I am, Doria, but it's my way of loving you."</p> +<p>She still pointed. "Go," she said tonelessly. "I can't turn you +out, but if Adrian was alive—Ha! ha! ha!—" she laughed +with a touch of hysteria. "How do you dare, you barren +rascal—how do you dare to think you can take the place of a +man like Adrian?"</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i234.jpg" id="i234.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/234.jpg"><img src="images/234.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>"Go! You are nothing but a brute."</b></div> +<p>The whip of her tongue lashed him to sudden fury. He picked her +up bodily and held her in spite of struggles, just as you or I +would hold a cat or a rabbit.</p> +<p>"You little fool," said he, "don't you know the difference +between a man and a—"</p> +<p>Realisation of the tragedy struck him as a spent bullet might +have struck him on the side of the head. He turned white.</p> +<p>"All right," said he in a changed voice. "Easy on. I'm not going +to hurt you."</p> +<p>He deposited her gently on the sofa and strode out of the +room.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p>If the old song be true which says that it is not so much the +lover who woos as the lover's way of wooing, Jaffery seemed to have +thrown away his chances by adopting a very unfortunate way indeed. +Doria proved to Barbara, urgently summoned to a bed of prostration +and nervous collapse, that she would never set eyes again upon the +unqualifiable savage by whom her holiest sentiments had been +outraged and her person disgracefully mishandled. She poured out a +blood-curdling story into semi-sympathetic ears. Barbara made short +work of her contention that Jaffery ought to have respected her as +he would have respected the wife of a living friend, characterising +it as morbid and indecent nonsense; and with regard to the physical +violence she declared that it would have served her right had he +smacked her.</p> +<p>"If you want to be faithful to the memory of your first husband, +be faithful," she said. "No one can prevent you. And if a good man +comes along with an honourable proposal of marriage, tell him in an +honourable way why you can't marry him. But don't accept for months +all a man has to give, and then, when he tells you what you've +known perfectly well all along, treat him as if he were making +shameful proposals to you—especially a man like Jaffery; I +have no patience with you."</p> +<p>Doria wept. No one understood her. No one understood Adrian. No +one understood the bond there was between them. Of that she was +aware. But when it came to being brutally assaulted by Jaffery +Chayne, she really thought Barbara would sympathise. Wherefore +Barbara, rather angry at being brought up to London on a needless +errand, involving loss of dinner and upset of household +arrangements, administered a sleeping-draught and bade her wake in +the morning in a less idiotic frame of mind.</p> +<p>"Perhaps I behaved like a cat," Barbara said to me +later—to "behave like a cat" is her way of signifying a +display of the vilest phases of feminine nature—"but I +couldn't help it. She didn't talk a great deal of sense. It isn't +as if I had never warned her about the way she has been treating +Jaffery. I have, heaps of times. And as for Adrian—I'm sick +of his name—and if I am, what must poor old Jaff be?"</p> +<p>This she said during a private discussion that night on the +whole situation. I say the whole situation, because, when she +returned to Northlands, she found there a haggard ogre who for the +first time in his life had eaten a canary's share of an excellent +dinner, imploring me to tell him whether he should enlist for a +soldier, or commit suicide, or lie prone on Doria's doormat until +it should please her to come out and trample on him. He seemed +rather surprised—indeed a trifle hurt—that neither of +us called him a Satyr. How could we take his part and not +Doria's—especially now that Barbara had come from the bedside +of the scandalously entreated lady? He boomed and bellowed about +the drawing-room, recapitulating the whole story.</p> +<p>"But, my good friend," I remonstrated, "by the showing of both +of you, she taunted you and insulted you all ends up. You—'a +barren rascal'—you? Good God!"</p> +<p>He flung out a deprecatory hand. What did it matter? We must +take this from her point of view. He oughtn't to have laid hands on +her. He oughtn't to have spoken to her at all. She was right. He +was a savage unfit for the society of any woman outside a +wigwam.</p> +<p>"Oh, you make me tired," cried Barbara, at last. "I'm going to +bed. Hilary, give him a strait-waistcoat. He's a lunatic."</p> +<p>The household resources not including a strait-waistcoat, I +could not exactly obey her, but as he had come down luggageless, +and with a large disregard of the hours of homeward trains, I lent +him a suit of my meagre pyjamas, which must have served the same +purpose.</p> +<p>He left the next morning. Heedless of advice he called on Doria +and was denied admittance. He wrote. His letter was returned +unopened. He passed a miserable week, unable to work, at a loose +end in London during the height of the season. In despair he went +to <i>The Daily Gazette</i> office and proclaimed himself ready for +a job. But for the moment the earth was fairly calm and the +management could find no field for Jaffery's special activities. +Arbuthnot again offered him reports of fires and fashionable +weddings, but this time Jaffery did not enjoy the fine humour of +the proposal. He blistered Arbuthnot with abuse, swung from the +newspaper office, and barged mightily down Fleet Street, a +disturber of traffic. Then he came down to Northlands for a while, +where, for want of something to do, he hired himself out to my +gardener and dug up most of the kitchen garden. His usual +occupation of romping with Susan was gone, for she lay abed with +some childish ailment which Barbara feared might turn into German +measles. So when he was not perspiring over a spade or eating or +sleeping he wandered about the place in his most restless mood. At +nights he ransacked my library for gazetteers and atlases wherein +he searched for abominable places likely to afford the explorer the +most horrible life and the bleakest possible death. He was toying +with the idea of making a jaunt on his own account to Thibet, when +a merciful Providence gave him something definite to think +about.</p> +<p>It was Saturday morning. I was shaving peacefully in my +dressing-room when Jaffery, after thunderously demanding +admittance, rushed in, clad in bath gown and slippers, flourishing +a letter.</p> +<p>"Read that."</p> +<p>I recognised Liosha's handwriting. I read:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Dear Jaff Chayne,</p> +<br /> +<p>"As you are my Trustee, I guess I ought to tell you what I'm +going to do. I'm going to marry Ras Fendihook—"</p> +</div> +<p>I looked up. "But you told me the man was married already."</p> +<p>"He is. Read on."</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"We are going to be married at once. We are going to be married +at Havre in France. Ras says that because I am a widow and an +Albanian it would be an awful trouble for me to get married in +England, and I would have to give up half my money to Government. +But in France, owing to different laws, I can get married without +any fuss at all. I don't understand it, but Ras has consulted a +lawyer, so it's all right. I suppose when I am married you won't be +my trustee any more. So, dear Jaff Chayne, I must say good-bye and +thank you for all your great kindness to me. I am sorry you and +Barbara and Hilary don't like Ras, which his real name really is +Erasmus, but you will when you know him better.</p> +<p>"Yours affectionately,</p> +<p>"LIOSHA PRESCOTT."</p> +</div> +<p>The amazing epistle took my breath away.</p> +<p>"Of all the infernal scoundrels!" I cried.</p> +<p>"There's going to be trouble," said Jaffery, and his look +signified that it was he who intended to cause it.</p> +<p>"But why Havre of all places in the world?" said I.</p> +<p>"I suppose it's the only one he knows," replied Jaffery. "He +must have once gone to Paris by that route. It's the cheapest."</p> +<p>I glanced through the letter again, and I felt a warm gush of +pity for our poor deluded Liosha.</p> +<p>"We must get her out of this."</p> +<p>"Going to," said Jaffery. "Let us have in Barbara at once."</p> +<p>I opened the communicating door and threw the letter into the +room where she was dressing. After a moment or two she appeared in +cap and peignoir, and the three of us in dressing-gowns, I with +lather crinkling over one-half of my face, held first an +indignation meeting, and then a council of war.</p> +<p>"I never dreamed the brute would do this," said Jaffery. "He +couldn't offer her marriage in the ordinary way without committing +bigamy, and I know she wouldn't consent to any other arrangement; +so he has invented this poisonous plot to get her out of +England."</p> +<p>"And probably go through some fool form of ceremony," said +Barbara.</p> +<p>"But how can she be such a thundering idiot as to swallow it?" +asked Jaffery.</p> +<p>I was going to remark that women would believe anything, but +Barbara's eye was upon me. Yet Liosha's unfamiliarity with the laws +and formalities of English marriage was natural, considering the +fact that, not so very long before, she was placidly prepared to be +sold to a young Albanian cutthroat who met his death through coming +to haggle over her price. I myself had found unworthy amusement in +telling her wild fables of English life. Her ignorance in many ways +was abysmal. Once having seen a photograph in the papers of the +King in a bowler-hat she expressed her disappointment that he wore +no insignia of royalty; and when I consoled her by saying that, by +Act of Parliament, the King was obliged to wear his crown so many +hours a day and therefore wore it always at breakfast, lunch and +dinner in Buckingham Palace, she accepted my assurance with the +credulity of a child of four. And when Barbara rebuked me for +taking advantage of her innocence, she was very angry indeed. How +was she to know when and where not to believe me?</p> +<p>"She is fresh and ingenuous enough," said I, "to swallow any +kind of plausible story. And her ingenuousness in writing you a +full account of it is a proof."</p> +<p>"She has given the whole show away," said Jaffery. He smiled. +"If Fendihook knew, he would be as sick as a dog."</p> +<p>"And the poor dear is so honest and truthful," said Barbara. +"She thought she was doing the honourable thing in letting you +know."</p> +<p>"No doubt modelling herself on Mrs. Jupp, late Considine," said +I.</p> +<p>"Who let us know at the last minute," said Barbara with a quick +knitting of the brow.</p> +<p>"Precisely," said I.</p> +<p>"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "Do you think she's gone off with +the fellow already?"</p> +<p>"You had better ring up Queen's Gate and find out."</p> +<p>He rushed from the room. I hastily finished shaving, while +Barbara discoursed to me on the neglect of our duties with regard +to Liosha.</p> +<p>Presently Jaffery burst in like a rhinoceros.</p> +<p>"She's gone! She went on Thursday. And this is Saturday. +Fendihook left last Sunday. Evidently she has joined him."</p> +<p>We regarded each other in dismay.</p> +<p>"They're in Havre by now," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"I'm not so sure," said Jaffery, sweeping his beard from +moustache downward. This I knew to be a sign of satisfaction. When +he was puzzled he scrabbled at the whisker. "I'm not so sure. Why +should he leave the boarding-house on Sunday? I'll tell you. +Because his London engagement was over and he had to put in a +week's engagement at some provincial music-hall. Theatrical folks +always travel on Sunday. If he was still working in London and +wanted to shift his lodgings he wouldn't have chosen Sunday. We can +easily see by the advertisements in the morning paper. His London +engagement was at the Atrium."</p> +<p>"I've got the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> here," said Barbara.</p> +<p>She fetched it from her room, in the earthquake-stricken +condition to which she, as usual, had reduced it, and after earnest +search among the ruins disinterred the theatrical advertisement +page. The attractions at the Atrium were set out fully; but the +name of Ras Fendihook did not appear.</p> +<p>"I'm right," said Jaffery. "The brute's not in town. Now where +did she write from?" He fished the envelope from his bath-gown +pocket. "Postmark, 'London, S.W., 5.45 p.m.' Posted yesterday +afternoon. So she's in London." He glanced at the letter, which was +written on her own note-paper headed with the Queen's Gate address, +and then held it up before us. "See anything queer about this?"</p> +<p>We looked and saw that it was dated "Thursday."</p> +<p>"There's something fishy," said he. "Can I have the car?"</p> +<p>"Of course."</p> +<p>"I'm going to run 'em both to earth. I want Barbara to come +along. I can tackle men right enough, but when it comes to women, I +seem to be a bit of an ass. Besides—you'll come, won't +you?"</p> +<p>"With pleasure, if I can get back early this afternoon."</p> +<p>"Early this afternoon? Why, my dear child, I want you to be +prepared to come to Havre—all over France, if necessary."</p> +<p>"You've got rather a nerve," said I, taken aback by the vast +coolness of the proposal.</p> +<p>"I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it."</p> +<p>"I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave +Susan."</p> +<p>"Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you +can't." He turned to me. "Then Hilary'll come."</p> +<p>"Where?" I asked, stupidly.</p> +<p>"Wherever I take you."</p> +<p>"But, my dear fellow—" I remonstrated.</p> +<p>He cut me short. "Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack +his bag, and see that he's ready to start at ten sharp."</p> +<p>He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor.</p> +<p>"Why the deuce," I cried, "can't you do your manhunting by +yourself?"</p> +<p>"There are two of 'em and you may come in useful." He faced me +and I met the cold steel in his eyes. "If you would rather not help +me to save a woman we're both fond of from destruction, I can find +somebody else."</p> +<p>"Of course I'll come," said I.</p> +<p>"Good," said he. "Ask Barbara to order a devil of a +breakfast."</p> +<p>He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like twenty Roman +heroes rolled into one, quite a different Jaffery from the noisy, +bellowing fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the +normal tones of the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively.</p> +<p>I rejoined Barbara. "My dear," said I, "what have we done that +we should be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other +people's lives?"</p> +<p>She put her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's +just because we've done nothing—nothing otherwise to justify +our existence. We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and +Susan. If we didn't take a share of other people's troubles we +should die of congestion of the soul."</p> +<p>I kissed her to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the +steady vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at +a moment's notice for anywhere—perhaps Havre, perhaps +Marseilles, perhaps Singapore with its horrible damp climate, which +wouldn't suit me—anywhere that tough and discomfort-loving +Jaffery might choose to ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with +my translation of Firdusi. . . .</p> +<p>"Don't forget," said I, departing bathwards, "to tell Franklin +to put in an Arctic sleeping-bag and a solar topee."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>We drove first to the house in Queen's Gate and interviewed Mrs. +Jardine, a pretentious woman with gold earrings and elaborately +done black hair, who seemed to resent our examination as though we +were calling in question the moral character of her establishment. +She did not know where Mr. Fendihook and Mrs. Prescott had gone. +She was not in the habit of putting such enquiries to her +guests.</p> +<p>"But one or other may have mentioned it casually," said I.</p> +<p>"Mr. Fendihook went away on Sunday and Mrs. Prescott on +Thursday. It was not my business to associate the two departures in +any way."</p> +<p>By pressing the various points we learned that Fendihook was an +old client of the house. During Mrs. Considine's residence he had +been touring in America. It had been his habit to go and come +without much ceremonial. As for Liosha, she had given up her rooms, +paid her bill and departed with her trunks.</p> +<p>"When did she give notice to leave you?"</p> +<p>"I knew nothing of her intentions till Thursday morning. Then +she came with her hat on and asked for her bill and said her things +were packed and ready to be brought downstairs."</p> +<p>"What address did she give to the cabman?"</p> +<p>Mrs. Jardine did not know. She rang for the luggage porter. +Jaffery repeated his question.</p> +<p>"Westminster Abbey, sir," answered the man.</p> +<p>I laughed. It seemed rather comic. But every one else regarded +it as the most natural thing in the world. Jaffery frowned on +me.</p> +<p>"I see nothing to laugh at. She was obeying +instructions—covering up her tracks. When she got to +Westminster she told the driver to cross the bridge—and what +railway station is the other end of the bridge?"</p> +<p>"Waterloo," said I.</p> +<p>"And from Waterloo the train goes to Southampton, and from +Southampton the boat leaves for Havre. There's nothing funny, +believe me."</p> +<p>I said no more.</p> +<p>The porter was dismissed. Jaffery drew the letter from his +pocket.</p> +<p>"On the other hand she was in London yesterday afternoon in this +district, for here is the 5:45 postmark."</p> +<p>"Oh, I posted that letter," said Mrs. Jardine.</p> +<p>"You?" cried Jaffery. He slapped his thigh. "I said there was +something fishy about it."</p> +<p>"There was nothing fishy, as you call it, at all, Mr. Chayne, +and I'm surprised at your casting such an aspersion on my +character. I had a short letter from Mrs. Prescott yesterday +enclosing four other letters which she asked me to stamp and post, +as I owed her fourpence change on her bill."</p> +<p>"Where did she write from?" Jaffery asked eagerly.</p> +<p>"Nowhere in particular," said the provoking lady.</p> +<p>"But the postmark on the envelope."</p> +<p>She had not looked at the postmark and the envelope had been +destroyed.</p> +<p>"Then where is she?" I asked.</p> +<p>"At Southampton, you idiot," said Jaffery. "Let us get there at +once."</p> +<p>So after a visit to my bankers—for I am not the kind of +person to set out for Santa Fé de Bogotà with +twopence halfpenny in my pocket—and after a hasty lunch at a +restaurant, much to Jaffery's impatient disgust—"Why the +dickens," cried he, "did I order a big breakfast if we're to fool +about wasting time over lunch?"—but as I explained, if I +don't have regular meals, I get a headache—and after having +made other sane preparations for a journey, including the purchase +of a toothbrush, an indispensable toilet adjunct, which Franklin, +admirable fellow that he is, invariably forgets to put into my +case, we started for Southampton. And along the jolly Portsmouth +Road we went, through Guildford, along the Hog's Back, over the +Surrey Downs rolling warm in the sunshine, through Farnham, through +grey, dreamy Winchester, past St. Cross, with its old-world +almshouse, through Otterbourne and up the hill and down to +Southampton, seventy-eight miles, in two hours and a quarter. +Jaffery drove.</p> +<p>We began our search. First we examined the playbills at the +various places of entertainment. Ras Fendihook was not playing in +Southampton. We went round the hotels, the South-Western, the +Royal, the Star, the Dolphin, the Polygon—and found no trace +of the runaways. Jaffery interviewed officials at the stations and +docks, dapper gentlemen with the air of diplomatists, tremendous +fellows in uniform, policemen, porters, with all of whom he seemed +to be on terms of familiar acquaintance; but none of them could +trace or remember such a couple having crossed by the midnight +boats of Thursday or Friday. Nor were their names down on the list +of those who had secured berths in advance for this Saturday +night.</p> +<p>"You're rather at fault," said I, rather maliciously, not +displeased at my masterful friend's failure.</p> +<p>"Not a bit," said he. "Fendihook's leaving on Sunday certainly +means that he was starting to fulfill a provincial engagement on +Monday. If it was a week's engagement, he crosses to-night. We've +only to wait and catch them. If it was a three nights' engagement, +which is possible, he and Liosha crossed on Thursday night. In that +case we'll cross ourselves and track them down."</p> +<p>"Even if we have to go over the Andes and far away," I +murmured.</p> +<p>"Even so," said he. "Now listen. If he's had a week's engagement +he must be finishing to-night. In order to catch the boat he must +be working in the neighbourhood. Savvy? The only possible place +besides this is Portsmouth. We'll run over to Portsmouth, only +seventeen miles."</p> +<p>"All right," said I, with a wistful look back at my peaceful, +comfortable home, "let us go to Portsmouth. I'll resign myself to +dine at Portsmouth. But supposing he isn't there?" I asked, as the +car drove off.</p> +<p>"Then he went to Havre on Thursday."</p> +<p>"But suppose he's at Birmingham. He would then take to-morrow +night's boat."</p> +<p>"There isn't one on Sundays."</p> +<p>"Then Monday night's boat."</p> +<p>"Well, if he does, won't we be there on Tuesday morning to meet +him on the quay? Lord!" he laughed, and brought his huge grip down +on my leg above the knee, thereby causing me physical agony, "I +should like to take you on an expedition. It would do you a +thundering lot of good."</p> +<p>We arrived at Portsmouth, where we conducted the same kind of +enquiries as at Southampton. Neither there nor at adjoining +Southsea could we find a sign of the Variety Star, Ras Fendihook, +and still less of the obscure Liosha. We dined at a Southsea hotel. +We dined very well. On that I insisted—without much +expenditure of nervous force. Jaffery rails at me for a Sybarite +and what not, but I have never seen him refuse viands on account of +succulency or wine on account of flavour. We had a quart of +excellent champagne, a pint of decent port and a good cigar, and we +felt that the gods were good. That is how I like to feel. I felt it +so gratefully that when Jaffery suggested it was time to start back +to Southampton in order to waylay the London train at the docks, on +the off-chance of our fugitives having come down by it, and to +catch the Havre boat ourselves, I had not a weary word to say. I +cheerfully contemplated the prospect of a night's voyage to Havre. +And as Jaffery (also humanised by good cheer) had been entertaining +me with juicy stories of China and other mythical lands, I felt +equal to any dare-devil adventure.</p> +<p>We went back to Southampton and collected our luggage at the +South-Western Hotel—the hotel porter in charge thereof. Our +uncertainty as to whether we would cross or not horribly disturbed +his dull brain. Ten shillings and Jaffery's peremptory order to +stick to his side and obey him slavishly took the place of +intellectual workings. It was nearly midnight. We walked through +the docks, a background of darkness, a foreground of confusing +lights amid which shone vivid illuminated placards before the +brightly lit steamers—"St. +Malo"—"Cherbourg"—"Jersey"—"Havre." At the quiet +gangway of the Havre boat we waited. The porter deposited our bags +on the quay and stood patiently expectant like a dog who lays a +stick at its master's feet.</p> +<p>One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad +ants swarmed to the various boats. At the Havre boat I took the +fore, he the aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, +vague human forms encumbered with queer projecting excrescences of +impedimenta. They all seemed alike—just a herd of Britons, +impelled by irrational instinct, like the fate-driven lemmings of +Norway, to cross the sea. And all around, weird in the conflicting +lights, hurried gnome-like figures mountainously laden, and in the +confusion of sounds could be heard the slither and thud of trunks +being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail of the packed wedge +disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I went to the aft +gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us had seen Fendihook +or Liosha.</p> +<p>A second train produced results equally barren.</p> +<p>There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We +went aboard followed by the porter with the luggage.</p> +<p>My method of travel has always been to arrange everything +beforehand with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains +and boats I have thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear +therefore that there were no berths free and that we should have to +pass the night either on the windy deck or in the red-plush +discomfort of the open saloon caused me not unreasonable dismay. I +had to choose and I chose the saloon. Jaffery, of course, chose the +raw winds of heaven. All night I did not get a wink of sleep. There +was a gross fellow in the next section of red-plush whose snoring +drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards long after they had +cleared away the remains of supper from the long central table +chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing stables of the +world with a loudly dressed, red-faced man who, judging from the +popping of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three +a minute. I understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the +human brain. I devised exquisite means of removing him from a +nauseated world. Then there was a lamp which swung backwards and +forwards and searched my eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I +covered them.</p> +<p>What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife +and child and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got +out to sea. There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and +swift scurrying of stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly +hate a ship to do. And I was fully dressed and it seemed as if all +the tender parts of my body were tied up with twine. What was I +doing in this galley?</p> +<p>When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Jaffery was grinning +over me and all was deathly still.</p> +<p>"Good God!" I cried, sitting up. "Why has the ship stopped? Is +there a fog?"</p> +<p>"Fog?" he boomed. "What are you talking of? We're alongside of +Havre."</p> +<p>"What time is it?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Half-past six."</p> +<p>"A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock," said +I, lying down again.</p> +<p>He shook me rudely. "Get up," said he.</p> +<p>The sleepless, unshaven, unkempt, twine-bound, self-hating wreck +of Hilary Freeth rose to his feet with a groan.</p> +<p>"What a ghastly night!"</p> +<p>"Splendid," said Jaffery, ruddy and fresh. "I must have tramped +over twenty miles."</p> +<p>There was an onrush of blue-bloused porters, with metal plate +numbers on their arms. One took our baggage. We followed him up the +companion onto the deck, and joined the crowd that awaited the +releasing gangway. I stood resentful in the sardine pack of humans. +The sky was overcast. It was very cold. The universe had an +uncared-for, unswept appearance, like a house surprised at dawn, +before the housemaids are up. The forced appearance of a well-to-do +philosopher at such an hour was nothing less than an outrage. I +glared at the immature day. The day glared at me, and turned down +its temperature about twenty degrees. From fool thoughtlessness I +had not put on my overcoat, which was now far away in charge of the +blue-bloused porter. I shivered. Jaffery was behind me. I glanced +over my shoulder.</p> +<p>"This is our so-called civilisation," I said bitterly.</p> +<p>At the sound of my voice a tall woman in the rank five feet deep +from us turned instinctively round, and Liosha and I looked into +each other's eyes.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER +XVIII</h2> +<p>Jaffery caught sight of her at the same time and gripped my arm. +Her eyes travelling from mine to his flashed indignant anger. Then +she turned haughtily. We tried to edge nearer her, but she was just +beyond the convergence of two side currents which pushed us even +further away. The gangway was fixed and the movement of the +conglomerate mass began. Presently Jaffery again seized my arm.</p> +<p>"There's the brute waiting for her."</p> +<p>And there on the quay, with a flower in his buttonhole and a +smile on his fat face, stood Mr. Ras Fendihook. He met her at the +foot of the gangway, and obviously told at once of our presence, +sought us anxiously with his gaze; then with an air of bravado +waved his hat—a hard white felt—and cried out: "Cheer +O!" We did not respond. He grinned at us and linking his arm +through Liosha's joined the stream of passengers hurrying across +the stones to the custom-sheds.</p> +<p>"Stop," Jaffery roared.</p> +<p>They turned, as indeed did everybody within earshot. Fendihook +would have gone on, but Liosha very proudly drew him out of the +stream into a clear space and, prepared for battle, awaited us. +When we had struggled our slow way down and reached the quay she +advanced a few steps looking very terrible in her wrath.</p> +<p>"How dare you follow me?"</p> +<p>"Come further away from the crowd," said Jaffery, and with an +imperious gesture he swept the three of us along the quay to the +stern of the boat, where only a few idle sailor men were lounging, +and a sergeant de ville was pacing on his leisurely beat.</p> +<p>"I said you would make a fool of yourself one of these days if I +didn't play dragon," he said, at a sudden halt. "I've come to play +dragon with a vengeance." He marched on Fendihook. "Now you."</p> +<p>"How d'ye do, old cock? Didn't expect you here," he said +jauntily.</p> +<p>"Don't be insolent," replied Jaffery in a remarkably quiet tone. +"You know very well why I'm here."</p> +<p>"Jaff Chayne—" Liosha began.</p> +<p>He waved her off. "Take her away, Hilary."</p> +<p>"Come," said I. "I'll tell you all about it."</p> +<p>"He has got to tell me, not you."</p> +<p>"I certainly don't know why the devil you're here," said +Fendihook, with sudden nastiness.</p> +<p>"I've come to save this lady from a dirty blackguard."</p> +<p>"How are you going to do it?"</p> +<p>Jaffery addressed Liosha. "You said in your letter—"</p> +<p>"You wrote to him, you crazy fool, after all my instructions?" +snarled Fendihook.</p> +<p>"You said in your letter you were going to marry this man."</p> +<p>"Sure," said Liosha.</p> +<p>"And are you going to marry this lady?"</p> +<p>"Certainly."</p> +<p>"Why didn't you marry her in England?"</p> +<p>"I told you in my letter," said Liosha. "See here—we don't +want any of your interference." And she planted herself by the side +of her abductor, glaring defiance at Jaffery.</p> +<p>Jaffery smiled. "You told her that because she was a widow and +an Albanian she would find considerable obstacles in her way and +would forfeit half her money to the Government. You lying little +skunk!"</p> +<p>The vibration in Jaffery's voice arrested Liosha. She looked +swiftly at Fendihook.</p> +<p>"Wasn't it true what you told me?"</p> +<p>"Of course not," I interposed. "You were as free to marry in +England as Mrs. Considine."</p> +<p>She paid no attention to me.</p> +<p>"Wasn't it true?" she repeated.</p> +<p>Fendihook laughed in vulgar bluster. "You didn't take all that +rot seriously, you silly cuckoo?"</p> +<p>Liosha drew a step away from him and regarded him wonderingly. +For the first time doubt as to his straight-dealing rose in her +candid mind.</p> +<p>"She did," said Jaffery. "She also took seriously your promise +to marry her in France."</p> +<p>"Well, ain't I going to marry her?"</p> +<p>"No," said Jaffery. "You can't."</p> +<p>"Who says I can't?"</p> +<p>"I do. You've got a wife already and three children."</p> +<p>"I've divorced her."</p> +<p>"You haven't. You've deserted her, which isn't the same thing. +I've found out all about you. You shouldn't be such a famous +character."</p> +<p>Liosha stood speechless, for a moment, quivering all over, her +eyes burning.</p> +<p>"He's married already—" she gasped.</p> +<p>"Certainly. He decoyed you here just to seduce you."</p> +<p>Liosha made a sudden spring, like a tigress, and had it not been +for Jaffery's intervening boom of an arm, her hands would have been +round Fendihook's throat.</p> +<p>"Steady on," growled Jaffery, controlling her with his iron +strength. Fendihook, who had started back with an oath, grew as +white as a sheet. I tapped him on the arm.</p> +<p>"You had better hook it," said I. "And keep out of her way if +you don't want a knife stuck into you. Yes," I added, meeting a +scared look, "you've been playing with the wrong kind of woman. You +had better stick to the sort you're accustomed to."</p> +<p>"Thank you for those kind words," said he. "I will."</p> +<p>"It would be wise also to keep out of the way of Jaffery Chayne. +With my own eyes I've seen him pick up a man he didn't like +and"—I made an expressive gesture—"throw him clean +away."</p> +<p>"Right O!" said he.</p> +<p>He nodded, winked impudently and walked away. A thought struck +me. I overtook him.</p> +<p>"Where are you staying in Havre?"</p> +<p>He looked at me suspiciously. "What do you want to know +for?"</p> +<p>"To save you from being murdered, as you would most certainly be +if we chanced upon the same hotel."</p> +<p>"I'm staying at the Phares—the swagger one on the beach +near the Casino."</p> +<p>"Excellent," said I. "Go on swaggering. Good-bye."</p> +<p>"Good-bye, old pal," said he.</p> +<p>He tilted his white hat to a rakish angle and marched away.</p> +<p>I rejoined Jaffery and Liosha. He still held her wrists; but she +stood unresisting, tense and rigid, with averted head, looking +sidewise down. Her lip quivered, her bosom heaved. Jaffery had +mastered her fury, but now we had to deal with her shame and +humiliation.</p> +<p>"Let her go!" I whispered.</p> +<p>Jaffery freed her. She rubbed her wrists mechanically, without +moving her head. I wished Barbara had been there; she would have +known exactly what to do. As it was, we stood by her, somewhat +helplessly.</p> +<p>"<i>Monsieur</i>," said a voice close by, and we saw our little +blue-bloused porter. He explained that he had been seeking us +everywhere. If we did not make haste we would lose the Paris +train.</p> +<p>I replied that as we were not going to Paris, we were not +pressed for time; but this little outside happening broke the +situation.</p> +<p>"Better give this fellow your luggage ticket, Liosha," said +Jaffery.</p> +<p>She looked about her bewildered and then I noticed on the ground +a leather satchel which she had been carrying. I picked it up. She +extracted the ticket and we all went to the custom-house.</p> +<p>"What's the programme now?" I asked Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Hotel," said he. "This poor girl will want a rest. Besides, +we'll have to stay the night."</p> +<p>"Our friend is staying at the Hotel des Phares."</p> +<p>"Then we'll go to Tortoni's."</p> +<p>An ordinary woman would have drawn down the motor veil which she +wore cockled-up on her travelling hat; but Liosha, grandly +unconcerned with such vanities, showed her young shame-stricken +face to all the world. I felt intensely sorry for her. She realised +now from what a blatant scoundrel she had been saved; but she still +bitterly resented our intervention. "I felt as if I was stripped +naked walking between them"—that was her primitive account +later of her state of mind.</p> +<p>"Barbara," said I, "sent you her very dear love."</p> +<p>She nodded, without looking at me.</p> +<p>"Barbara would have come too, if Susan had not been ill."</p> +<p>She gave a little start. I thought she was about to speak; but +she remained silent. We entered the customs-shed, when she attended +mechanically to her declarations.</p> +<p>On emerging free into the open air again, we found that the +cheery sun had pierced the morning clouds and gave promise of a +glorious day. The luggage was piled on the hotel omnibus. We took +an open cab and rattled through the narrow flag-paved streets of +the harbour quarter of the town. As we emerged into a more spacious +thoroughfare, suddenly from a gaudy column at the corner flared the +name of Ras Fendihook. I caught the heading of the <i>affiche</i>: +"Music-Hall-Eldorado." Part of the mystery was solved. Jaffery had +been right in his deduction that he had left London on a +professional engagement; but we had not thought of an engagement +out of England. I had a correct answer now to my question: "Why +Havre of all places?" Jaffery sitting with Liosha on the back seat +of the victoria saw it too and we exchanged glances. But Liosha had +eyes for nothing save her hands tightly clasped in her lap. We +passed another column before we entered the Place Gambetta, where +already at that early hour, above its wide terrace, the striped +awning of Tortoni's was flung. We alighted at the hotel and ordered +our three rooms; coffee and roll to be taken up to madame; we men +would eat our petit déjeuner downstairs. Liosha left us +without saying a word.</p> +<p>Bathed, shaved, changed, refreshed by the good <i>café au +lait</i>, gladdened by the sunshine and smugly satisfied with our +morning's work, quite a different Hilary Freeth sat with Jaffery on +the terrace from the sleepless wreck he had awakened two hours +before. My urbane dismissal of Ras Fendihook lingered suave in my +memory. The glow of conscious heroism warmed me, even like last +night's dinner, to sympathy with my kind. After despatching, by the +chasseur, a long telegram to Barbara, and sending up to Liosha's +room a bunch of red roses we bought at a florist's hard by, I +surrendered myself idly to the contemplation of the matutinal +Sunday life of provincial France, while Jaffery smoked his pipe and +uttered staccato maledictions on Mr. Ras Fendihook.</p> +<p>I love provincial France. It is narrow, it is bourgeois, it is +regarding of its <i>sous</i>, it is what you will. But it lives a +spacious, out-of-door, corporate life. On Sundays, it does not bury +itself, like provincial England, in a cellular house. It walks +abroad. It indulges in its modest pleasures. It is serious, it is +intensely conscious of family, but it can take deep breaths of +freedom. It is not Sundayfied into our vacuous boredom. It clings +to the picturesque, in which it finds its dignified delight. The +little soldier clad in blue tunic and red trousers struts along +with his <i>fiancée</i> or <i>maîtresse</i> on his +arm; the cuirassier swaggers by in brass helmet and horsehair +plume; the cavalry officer, dapper in light blue, with his pretty +wife, drinks syrup at a neighbouring table in your café. The +work-girls, even on Sunday, go about bareheaded, as though they +were at home in the friendly street. The curé in shovel hat +and cassock; the workmen for whom Sunday happens not to be the +<i>jour de repos hebdomadaire</i> ordained by law, in their blue +<i>sarreau</i>; the peasants from outlying villages—the men +in queer shell-jackets with a complication of buttons, the women in +dazzling white caps astonishingly gauffered; the lawyer in decent +black, with his white cambric tie; the fat and greasy citizen with +fat and greasy wife and prim, pig-tailed little daughter clad in an +exiguous cotton frock of loud and unauthentic tartan, and showing a +quarter of an inch of sock above high yellow boots; the superb pair +of gendarmes with their cocked hats, wooden epaulettes and swords; +the white-aproned waiters standing by café tables—all +these types are distinct, picked out pleasurably by the eye; they +give a cheery sense of variety; the stage is dressed.</p> +<p>So when Jaffery asked me what in the world we were going to do +all day, I replied:</p> +<p>"Sit here."</p> +<p>"Don't you want to see the place?"</p> +<p>"The place," said I, "is parading before us."</p> +<p>"We might hire a car and run over to Etretat."</p> +<p>"There's Liosha," I objected. "We can't leave her alone and +she's not in a mood for jaunts."</p> +<p>"She won't leave her room to-day, poor girl. It must be awful +for her. Oh, that swine of a blighter!"</p> +<p>His wrath exploded again over the iniquitous Fendihook. For the +dozenth time we went over the story.</p> +<p>"What on earth are we going to do with her?" he asked. "She +can't go back to the boarding-house."</p> +<p>"For the time being, at any rate, I'll take her down to +Barbara."</p> +<p>"Barbara's a wonder," said he fervently. "And do you know, +Hilary, there's the makings of a devilish fine woman in Liosha, if +one only knew the right way to take her."</p> +<p>The right way, I think, was known to me, but I did not reveal +it. I assented to Jaffery's proposition.</p> +<p>"She has a vile temper and the mind and facile passions of a +Spanish gipsy, but she has stunning qualities. She's the soul of +truth and honour and as straight as a die. And brave. This has been +a nasty knock for her; but I don't mind betting you that as soon as +she has pulled herself together she'll treat the thing quite in a +big way."</p> +<p>And as if to prove his assertion, who should come sailing +towards us past the long line of empty tables but Liosha herself. +Another woman would have lain weeping on her bed and one of us +would have had to soothe her and sympathise with her, and coax her +to eat and cajole her into revisiting the light of day. Not so +Liosha. She arrayed herself in fresh, fawn-coloured coat and skirt, +fitting close to her splendid figure, which she held erect, a smart +hat with a feather, and new white gloves, and came to us the +incarnation of summer, clear-eyed as the morning, our roses pinned +in her corsage. Of course she was pale and her lips were not quite +under control, but she made a valiant show.</p> +<p>We arose as she approached, but she motioned us back to our +chairs.</p> +<p>"Don't get up. I guess I'll join you."</p> +<p>We drew up a chair and she seated herself between us. Then she +looked steadily and unsmilingly from one to the other.</p> +<p>"I want to thank you two. I've been a damn fool."</p> +<p>"Well, old girl," said Jaffery kindly, "I must own you've been +rather indiscreet."</p> +<p>"I've been a damn fool," she repeated.</p> +<p>"Anyhow it's over now. Thank goodness," said I. "Did you eat +your breakfast?"</p> +<p>She made a little wry face. No, she could not touch it. What +would she have now? I sent a waiter for café-au-lait and a +brioche and lectured her on the folly of going without proper +sustenance. The ghost of a smile crept into her eyes, in +recognition, I suppose, of the hedonism with which I am wrongly +credited by my friends. Then she thanked us for the roses. They +were big, like her, she said. The waiter set out the little tray +and the <i>verseur</i> poured out the coffee and milk. We watched +her eat and drink. Having finished she said she felt better.</p> +<p>"You've got some sense, Hilary," she admitted.</p> +<p>"Tell me," said Jaffery. "How did we come to miss you on the +boat? We watched the London trains carefully."</p> +<p>"I came from Southsea about an hour before the boat started and +went to bed at once."</p> +<p>"Southsea? Why, we were there all the evening," said I. "What +were you doing at Southsea?"</p> +<p>"Staying with Emma—Mrs. Jupp. The General lives there. I +couldn't stick that boarding-house by myself any longer so I wrote +to Emma to ask her to put me up."</p> +<p>"So that's why you went on Thursday?"</p> +<p>"That's why."</p> +<p>"Pardon me if I'm inquisitive," said I, "but did you take Mrs. +Considine—I mean Mrs. Jupp—into your confidence?"</p> +<p>"Lord no! She's not my dragon any longer. She knew I was going +to Havre—to meet friends. Of course I had to tell her that. +But Jaff Chayne was the only person that had to know the +truth."</p> +<p>We questioned her as delicately as we could and gradually the +intrigue that had puzzled us became clear. Ras Fendihook left +London on Sunday for a fortnight's engagement at the Eldorado of +Havre. As there was no Sunday night boat for Southampton he had to +travel to Havre via Paris. Being a crafty villain, he would not run +away with Liosha straight from London. She was to join him a week +later, after he had had time to spy out the land and make his +nefarious schemes for a mock marriage. His fortnight up, he was +sailing away again to America. Liosha was to accompany him. In all +probability, for I delight in thinking the worst of Mr. Ras +Fendihook, he would have found occasion, towards the end of his +tour, of sending her on a fool's errand, say, to Texas, while he +worked his way to New York, where he would have an unembarrassed +voyage back to England, leaving Liosha floundering helplessly in +the railway network of the United States. I have made it my +business to enquire into the ways of this entertaining but unholy +villain. This is what I am sure he would have done. One girl some +half dozen years before he had left penniless in San Francisco and +the door over which burns the Red Lamp swallowed her up +forever.</p> +<p>For the present, however, Liosha was to join him in Havre. Not a +soul must know. He gave sordid instructions as to secrecy. As +Jaffery had guessed, he had instigated the comic destination of +Westminster Abbey. Although her open nature abhorred the deception, +she obeyed his instructions in minor details and thought she was +acting in the spirit of the intrigue when she enclosed the letters +to Mrs. Jardine to be posted in London. By risking discovery of her +secret during her visit to the admirable lady at Southsea and by +ingenuously disclosing the plot to Jaffery she showed herself to be +a very sorry conspirator.</p> +<p>She spoke so quietly and bravely that we had not the heart to +touch upon the sentimental side of her adventure. As we could not +stay in Havre all day at the risk of meeting Mr. Ras Fendihook, who +might swagger into the town from his swagger hotel on the +<i>plage</i>, we carried out Jaffery's proposal, hired an +automobile and drove to Etretat. We came straight from inland into +the tiny place, so coquettish in its mingling of fisher-folk and +fashion, so cut off from the coast world by the jagged needle gates +jutting out on each side of the small bay and by the sudden +grass-grown bluff rising above them, so cleanly sparkling in the +sunshine, and for the first time Liosha's face brightened. She drew +a deep breath.</p> +<p>"Oh, let us all come and live here."</p> +<p>We laughed and wandered among the tarred, up-turned boats +wherein the fishermen store their tackle and along the pebbly beach +where a few belated bathers bobbed about in the water and up the +curious steps to the terrace and listened to the last number of the +orchestra. Then lunch at the clean, old-fashioned Hotel Blanquet +among the fishing boats; and afterwards coffee and liqueurs in the +little shady courtyard. Jaffery was very gentle with Liosha, +treating her tenderly like a bruised thing, and talked of his +adventures and cracked little jokes and attended solicitously to +her wants. Several times I saw her raise her eyes in shy gratitude, +and now and then she laughed. Her healthy youth also enabled her to +make an excellent meal, and after it she smoked cigarettes and +sipped <i>crême de menthe</i> with frank gusto. To me she +appeared like a naughty child who instead of meeting with expected +punishment finds itself coddled in affectionate arms. All +resentment had died away. Unreservedly she had laid herself as a +"damn fool" at our feet—or rather at Jaffery's feet, for I +did not count for much. Instead of blundering over her and tugging +her up and otherwise exacerbating her wounds, he lifted her with +tactful kindness to her self-respect. For the first time, save when +Susan was the connecting-link, he entered into a spiritual relation +with Liosha. She fulfilled his prophecy—she was dealing with +a soul-shrivelling situation in a big way. He admired her +immensely, as his great robust nature admired immense things. At +the same time he realised all in her that was sore and grievously +throbbing and needed the delicate touch. I shall never forget those +few hours.</p> +<p>To dream away a summer's afternoon had no place, however, in +Jaffery's category of delights. He must be up and doing. I have +threatened on many restless occasions to rig up at Northlands a +gigantic wheel for his benefit similar to that in which Susan's +white mice take futile exercise. If there was such a wheel he must, +I am sure, get in and whirl it round; just as if there is a boat he +must row it, or tree to be felled he must fell it, or a hill to be +climbed he must climb it. At Etretat, as it happens, there are two +hills. He stretched forth his hand to one, of course the highest, +crowned by the fishermen's chapel and ordained an ascent. Liosha +was in the chastened mood in which she would have dived with him to +the depths of the English Channel. I, with grudging meekness and a +prayer for another five minutes devoted to the deglutition of +another liqueur brandy, acquiesced.</p> +<p>It was not such an arduous climb after all. A light breeze +tempered the fury of the July sun. The grass was crisp and +agreeable to the feet. The smell of wild thyme mingling with the +salt of the low-tide seaweed conveyed stimulating fragrance. When +we reached the top and Jaffery suggested that we should lie down, I +protested. Why not walk along the edge of the inspiring cliffs?</p> +<p>"It's all very well for you, who've slept like a log all night," +said he throwing his huge bulk on the ground, "but Liosha and I +need rest."</p> +<p>Liosha stood glowing on the hilltop and panting a little after +the quick ascent. A little curly strand on her forehead played +charmingly in the wind which blew her skirts close around her in +fine modelling. I thought of the Winged Victory.</p> +<p>"I'm not a bit tired," she said.</p> +<p>But seeing Jaffery definitely prone with his bearded chin on his +fists, she glanced at me as though she should say: "Who are we to +go contrary to his desires?" and settled down beside him.</p> +<p>So I stretched myself, too, on the grass and we watched the +dancing sea and the flashing sails of fishing boats and the long +plume from a steamer in the offing and the little town beneath us +and the tiny golfers on the cliff on the other side of the bay, and +were in fact giving ourselves up to an idyllic afternoon, when +suddenly Liosha broke the spell.</p> +<p>"If I had got hold of that man this morning I think I would have +killed him."</p> +<p>Since leaving Havre we had not referred to unhappy things.</p> +<p>"It would have served him right," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I did strike him once."</p> +<p>"Oh?" said I.</p> +<p>"Yes." She looked out to sea. There was a pause. I longed to +hear the details of the scene, which could not have lacked humorous +elements. But she left them to my imagination. "After that," she +continued, "he saw I was an honest woman and talked about +marriage."</p> +<p>Jaffery's fingers fiddled with bits of grass. "What licks me, my +dear," said he, "is how you came to take up with the fellow."</p> +<p>She shrugged her shoulders—it was the full shrug of the +un-English child of nature. "I don't know," she said, with her gaze +still far away. "He was so funny."</p> +<p>"But he was such a bounder, old lady," said Jaffery, in gentle +remonstrance.</p> +<p>"You all said so. But I thought you didn't like him because he +was different and could make me laugh. I guess I hated you all very +much. You seemed to want me to behave like Euphemia, and I couldn't +behave like Euphemia. I tried very hard when you used to take me +out to dinner."</p> +<p>Jaffery looked at her comically. But all he said was: "Go +on."</p> +<p>"What can I say?"—she shrugged her shoulders again. "With +him I hadn't to be on my best behaviour. I could say anything I +liked. You all think it dreadful because I know, like everybody +else, how children come into the world, and can make jokes about +things like that. Emma used to say it was not ladylike—but +he—he did not say so. He laughed. His friends used to laugh. +With him and his friends, I could, so to speak, take off my +stays"—she threw out her hands largely—"ouf!"</p> +<p>"I see," said Jaffery, frowning at his blades of grass.</p> +<p>"But between liking, figuratively, to take off your corsets in a +crowd of Bohemians and wanting to marry the worst of them lies a +big difference. You must have got fond of the fellow," he added, in +a low voice.</p> +<p>I said nothing. It was their affair. I was responsible to +Barbara for her safe deliverance and here she was delivered. My +attitude, as you can understand, was solely one of kindly +curiosity. Liosha, for some moments, also said nothing. Rather +feverishly she pulled off her new white gloves and cast them away; +and I noticed an all but imperceptible something—something, +for want of a better word, like a ripple—sweep through her, +faintly shaking her bosom, infinitesimally ruffling her neck and +dying away in a flush on her cheek.</p> +<p>"You loved the fellow," said Jaffery, still picking at the +grass-blades.</p> +<p>She bent forward, as she sat; hovered over him for a second or +two and clutched his shoulder.</p> +<p>"I didn't," she cried. "I didn't." She almost screamed. "I +thought you understood. I would have married anybody who would have +taken me out of prison. He was going to take me out of prison to +places where I could breathe." She fell back onto her heels and +beat her breast with both hands. "I was dying for want of air. I +was suffocating."</p> +<p>Her intensity caught him. He lumbered to his feet.</p> +<p>"What are you talking about?"</p> +<p>She rose, too, almost with a synchronous movement. An interested +spectator, I continued sitting, my hands clasped round my +knees.</p> +<p>"The little prison you put me into. I felt this in my +throat"—and forgetful of the admirable Mrs. Considine's +discipline she mimed her words startlingly—"I was +sick—sick—sick to death. You forget, Jaff Chayne, the +mountains of Albania."</p> +<p>"Perhaps I did," said he, with his steady eyes fixed on her. +"But I remember 'em now. Would you like to go back?"</p> +<p>She put her hands for a few seconds before her face, as though +to hide swift visions of slaughtered enemies, then dashed them +away. "No. Not now. Not after—No. But mountains, +freedom—anything unlike prison. Oh, I've gone mad sometimes. +I've wanted to take up a fender and smash things."</p> +<p>"I've felt like that myself," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"And what have you done?"</p> +<p>"I've broken out of prison and run away."</p> +<p>"That's what I did," said Liosha.</p> +<p>Then Jaffery burst into his great laugh and held her hands and +looked at her with kindly, sympathetic mirth in his eyes. And +Liosha laughed, too.</p> +<p>"We're both of us savages under our skins, old lady. That's what +it comes to."</p> +<p>No more was said of Ras Fendihook. The man's broad, flashy +good-humour had caught her fancy; his vagabond life stimulated her +imagination of wider horizons; he promised her release from the +conventions and restrictions of her artificial existence; she was +ready to embark with him, as his wife, into the Unknown; but it was +evident that she had not given him the tiniest little scrap of her +heart.</p> +<p>"Why didn't you tell me all this long ago?" asked Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I tried to be good to please you—you and Barbara and +Hilary, who've been so kind to me."</p> +<p>"It's all this infernal civilisation," he declared. "My dear +girl, I'm as much fed up with it as you are; I want to go somewhere +and wear beads."</p> +<p>"So do I," said Liosha.</p> +<p>I thought of Barbara's lecture on the whole duty of woman and I +chuckled. The attitude in which I was, my hands clasped round my +knees, consorted with sardonic merriment. I was checked, however, a +moment afterwards, by the sight of my barbarians in the perfect +agreement of babyhood calmly walking away from me along the cliff +road. I jumped to my feet and pursued them.</p> +<p>"At any rate while you're with me," I panted, "you'll observe +the decencies of civilised life."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<p>"<i>Arrêtez! 'Arrêtez!</i>" roared Jaffery all of a +sudden.</p> +<p>We had just passed the Havre Casino on our way back from +Etretat. The chauffeur pulled up. Jaffery flung open the door, +leaped out and disappeared. In a few seconds we heard his voice +reverberating from side to side of the Boulevard Maritime.</p> +<p>"Hullo! hullo! hullo!"</p> +<p>I raised myself and, looking over the back of the car, saw +Jaffery in characteristic attitude, shaking a strange man by the +shoulders and laughing in delighted welcome. He was a squat, broad, +powerful-looking fellow, with a heavy black beard trimmed to a +point, and wearing a curiously ill-fitting suit of tweeds and a +bowler-hat. I noticed that he carried neither stick nor gloves. The +ecstasies of encounter having subsided, Jaffery dragged him to the +car.</p> +<p>"This is my good old friend, Captain Maturin," he shouted, +opening the door. "Mrs. Prescott. Mr. Freeth. Get in. We'll have a +drink at Tortoni's."</p> +<p>Captain Maturin, unconfused by Jaffery's unceremonious whirling, +took off his hat very politely and entered the car in a grave, +self-possessed manner. He had clear, unblinking, grey-green eyes, +the colour of a stormy sea before the dawn. I was for surrendering +him my seat next Liosha, but with a courteous "Pray don't," he +quickly established himself on the small seat facing us, hitherto +occupied by Jaffery. Jaffery jumped up in front next the chauffeur +and leaned over the partition. The car started.</p> +<p>"Captain and I are old shipmates." All Havre must have heard +him. "From Christiania to Odessa, with all the Baltic and +Mediterranean ports thrown in. In the depth of winter. +Remember?"</p> +<p>"It was five years ago," said Captain Maturin, twisting his head +round. "We sailed from the port of Leith on the 27th of +December."</p> +<p>"And by gosh! Didn't it blow? Gales the whole time, there and +back."</p> +<p>"It was as dirty a voyage as ever I made," said Captain +Maturin.</p> +<p>"A ripping time, anyhow," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Weren't you very seasick?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Ho! ho! ho!" Jaffery roared derisively.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne's pretty tough, sir," said the Captain with a grave +smile. "He has missed his vocation. He's a good sailor lost."</p> +<p>"Remember that night off Vigo?"</p> +<p>"I don't ever want to see such another, Mr. Chayne. It was touch +and go." Captain Maturin's smile faded. No commander likes to think +of the time when a freakish Providence and not his helpless self +was responsible for the saving of his ship.</p> +<p>"He was on the bridge sixty hours at a stretch," said +Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Sixty hours?" I exclaimed.</p> +<p>"Thousands have done it before and thousands have done it since, +myself included. On this occasion Mr. Chayne saw it through with +me."</p> +<p>Two days and nights and a day without sleep; standing on a few +planks, holding on to a rail, while you are tossed up and down and +from side to side and drenched with dashing tons of ice-cold water +and fronting a hurricane that blows ice-tipped arrows, and all the +time not knowing from one minute to the next whether you are going +to Kingdom come—No. It is my idea of duty, but not my idea of +fun. And even as duty—I thanked merciful Heaven that never +since the age of nine, when I was violently sick crossing to the +Isle of Wight, have I had the remotest desire to be a mariner, +either professional or amateur. I looked at the two adventurers +wonderingly; and so did Liosha.</p> +<p>"I love the sea," she said. "Don't you?"</p> +<p>"I can't say I do, ma'am. I've got a wife and child at Pinner, +and I grow sweet peas for exhibition. All of which I can't attend +to on board ship."</p> +<p>He said it very seriously. He was not the man to talk flippantly +for the entertainment of a pretty woman.</p> +<p>"But if he's a month ashore, he fumes to get back," boomed +Jaffery.</p> +<p>"It's the work I was bred to," replied the Captain soberly. "If +a man doesn't love his work, he's not worth his salt. But that's +not saying that I love the sea."</p> +<p>With such discourse did we beguile the short journey to the +Hotel, Restaurant and Café Tortoni in the Place Gambetta. +The terrace was thronged with the good Havre folks, husbands and +wives and families enjoying the Sunday afternoon +<i>apéritif</i>.</p> +<p>"Now let us have a drink," cried Jaffery, huge pioneer through +the crowd. Liosha would have left us three men to our masculine +devices. But Jaffery swept her along. Why shouldn't we have a +pretty woman at our table as well as other people? She flushed at +the compliment, the first, I think, he had ever paid her. A waiter +conjured a vacant table and chairs from nowhere, in the midst of +the sedentary throng. For Liosha was brought grenadine syrup and +soda, for me absinthe, at which Captain Maturin, with the steady +English sailor's suspicion of any other drink than Scotch whisky, +glanced disapprovingly. Jaffery, to give himself an appetite for +dinner, ordered half a litre of Munich beer.</p> +<p>"And now, Captain," said he genially, "what have you been doing +with yourself? Still on the Baltic-Mediterranean?"</p> +<p>"No, Mr. Chayne. I left that some time ago. I'm on the Blue +Cross Line—Ellershaw & Co.—trading between Havre +and Mozambique."</p> +<p>"Where's Mozambique?" Liosha asked me.</p> +<p>I looked wise, but Captain Maturin supplied the information. +"Portuguese East Africa, ma'am. We also run every other trip to +Madagascar."</p> +<p>"That's a place I've never been to," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Interesting," said the Captain. He poured the little bottle of +soda into his whisky, held up his glass, bowed to the lady, and to +me, exchanged a solemnly confidential wink with Jaffery, and sipped +his drink. Under Jaffery's questioning he informed us—for he +was not a spontaneously communicative man—that he now had a +very good command: steamship <i>Vesta</i>, one thousand five +hundred tons, somewhat old, but sea-worthy, warranted to take more +cargo than any vessel of her size he had ever set eyes on.</p> +<p>"And when do you sail?" asked Jaffery.</p> +<p>"To-morrow at daybreak. They're finishing loading her up +now."</p> +<p>Jaffery drained his tall glass mug of beer and ordered +another.</p> +<p>"Are you going to Madagascar this trip?"</p> +<p>"Yes, worse luck."</p> +<p>"Why worse luck?" I asked.</p> +<p>"It cuts short my time at Pinner," replied Captain Maturin.</p> +<p>Here was a man, I reflected, with the mystery and romance of +Madagascar before him, who sighed for his little suburban villa and +plot of garden at Pinner. Some people are never satisfied.</p> +<p>"I've not been to Madagascar," said Jaffery again.</p> +<p>Captain Maturin smiled gravely. "Why not come along with me. Mr. +Chayne?"</p> +<p>Jaffery's eyes danced and his smile broadened so that his white +teeth showed beneath his moustache. "Why not?" he cried. And +bringing down his hand with a clamp on Liosha's shoulder—"Why +not? You and I. Out of this rotten civilisation?"</p> +<p>Liosha drew a deep breath and looked at him in awed amazement. +So did I. I thought he was going mad.</p> +<p>"Would you like it?" he asked.</p> +<p>"Like it!" She had no words to express the glory that sprang +into her face.</p> +<p>Captain Maturin leaned forward.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Chayne, we've no license for passengers, and +certainly there's no accommodation for ladies."</p> +<p>Jaffery threw up a hand. "But she's not a lady—in your +silly old sailor sense of the term. She's a hefty savage like me. +When you had me aboard, did you think of having accommodation for a +gentleman? Ho! ho! ho! At any rate," said he, at the end of the +peal, "you've a sort of spare cabin? There's always one."</p> +<p>"A kind of dog-hole—for you, Mr. Chayne."</p> +<p>Jaffery's keen eye caught the Captain's and read things. He +jumped to his feet, upsetting his chair and causing disaster at two +adjoining and crowded tables, for which, dismayed and +bareheaded—Jaffery could be a very courtly gentleman when he +chose—he apologized in fluent French, and, turning, caught +Captain Maturin beneath the arm.</p> +<p>"Let us have a private palaver about this."</p> +<p>They threaded their way through the tables to the spaciousness +of the Place Gambetta. Liosha followed them with her glance till +they disappeared; then she looked at me and asked breathlessly:</p> +<p>"Hilary! Do you think he means it?"</p> +<p>"He's demented enough to mean anything," said I.</p> +<p>"But, seriously." She caught my wrist, and only then did I +notice that her hands were bare, her gloves reposing where she had +cast them on the hillside at Etretat. "Did he mean it? I'd give my +immortal soul to go."</p> +<p>I looked into her eyes, and if I did not see stick, stark, +staring craziness in them I don't know what stick, stark, staring +craziness is.</p> +<p>"Do you know what you're letting yourself in for?" said I, +pretending to believe in her sanity. "Here's a rotten old tub of a +tramp—without another woman on board, with all the inherited +smells of all the animals in Noah's Ark, including the descendants +of all the cockroaches that Noah forgot to land, with a crew of +Dagoes and Dutchmen, with awful food, without a bath, with a beast +of an unventilated rabbit-hutch to sleep in—a wallowing, +rolling, tossing, pitching, antiquated parody of a steamer, a +little trumpery cockleshell always wet, always shipping seas, +always slithery, never a dry place to sit down upon, with people +always standing, sixty hours at a time, without sleep, on the +bridge to see that she doesn't burst asunder and go down—a +floating—when she does float—a floating inferno of +misery—here it is—I can tell you all about it—any +child in a board school could tell you—an inferno of misery +in which you would be always hungry, always sleepless, always +suffering from indigestion, always wet through, always violently +ill and always dirty, with your hair in ropes and your face bloused +by the wind—to say nothing of icebergs and fogs and the cargo +of cotton goods catching fire, and the wheezing mediæval +boilers bursting and sending you all to glory—"</p> +<p>I paused for lack of breath. Liosha, who, elbows on table and +chin on hands, had listened to me, first with amusement, then with +absorbed interest, and lastly with glowing rapture, cried in a +shaky voice:</p> +<p>"I should love it! I should love it!"</p> +<p>"But it's lunatic," said I.</p> +<p>"So much the better."</p> +<p>"But the proprieties."</p> +<p>She shifted her position, threw herself back in her chair, and +flung out her hands towards me.</p> +<p>"You ought to be keeping Mrs. Jardine's boarding-house. What +have Jaff Chayne and I to do with proprieties? Didn't he and I +travel from Scutari to London?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said I. "But aren't things just a little bit different +now?"</p> +<p>It was a searching question. Her swift change of expression from +glow to defensive sombreness admitted its significance.</p> +<p>"Nothing is different," she said curtly. "Things are exactly the +same." She bent forward and looked at me straight from beneath +lowering brows. "If you think just because he and I are good +friends now there's any difference, you're making a great mistake. +And just you tell Barbara that."</p> +<p>"I will do so—" said I.</p> +<p>"And you can also tell her," she continued, "that Liosha +Prescott is not going to let herself be made a fool of by a man +who's crazy mad over another woman. No, sirree! Not this child. Not +me. And as for the proprieties"—she snapped her +fingers—"they be—they be anything'd!"</p> +<p>To this frank exposition of her feelings I could say nothing. I +drank the remainder of my absinthe and lit a cigarette. I fell back +on the manifest lunacy of the Madagascar voyage. I urged, somewhat +anti-climatically after my impassioned harangue, its +discomfort.</p> +<p>"You'll be the fifth wheel to a coach. Your petticoats, my dear, +will always be in the way."</p> +<p>"I needn't wear petticoats," said Liosha.</p> +<p>We argued until a red, grinning Jaffery, beaming like the fiery +sun now about to set, appeared winding his way through the tables, +followed by the black-bearded, grey-eyed sea captain.</p> +<p>"It's all fixed up," said he, taking his seat. "The Cap'en +understands the whole position. If you want to come to 'Jerusalem +and Madagascar and North and South Amerikee,' come."</p> +<p>"But this is midsummer madness," said I.</p> +<p>"Suppose it is, what matter?" He waved a great hand and +fortuitously caught a waiter by the arm. "<i>Même chose pour +tout le monde</i>." He flicked him away. "Now, this is business. +Will you come and rough it? The <i>Vesta</i> isn't a Cunard Liner. +Not even a passenger boat. No luxuries. I hope you understand."</p> +<p>"Hilary has been telling me just what I'm to expect," said +Liosha.</p> +<p>"We'll do our best for you, ma'am," said Captain Maturin; "but +you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know you'll have to sign +on as one of the crew?"</p> +<p>"And if you disobey orders," said I, "the Captain can tie you up +to the binnacle, and give you forty lashes and put you in +irons."</p> +<p>"I guess I'll be obedient, Captain," said Liosha, proud of her +incredulity.</p> +<p>"I don't allow my ship's company to bring many trunks and +portmanteaux aboard," smiled Captain Maturin.</p> +<p>"I'll see to the dunnage," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>"The <i>what</i>?" I asked.</p> +<p>"It's only passengers that have luggage. Sailor folk like Liosha +and me have dunnage."</p> +<p>"I see," said I. "And you bring it on board in a bundle together +with a parrot in a cage."</p> +<p>Earnest persuasion being of no avail, I must have recourse to +light mockery. But it met with little response. "And what," I +asked, "is to become of the forty-odd <i>colis</i> that we passed +through the customs this morning?"</p> +<p>"You can take 'em home with you," said Jaffery. He grinned over +his third foaming beaker of dark beer. "Isn't it a blessing I +brought him along? I told him he'd come in useful."</p> +<p>"But, good Lord!" I protested, aghast, "what excuse can I, a +lone man, give to the Southampton customs for the possession of all +this baggage? They'll think I've murdered my wife on the voyage and +I shall be arrested. No. There is the parcel post. There are +agencies of expedition. We can forward the luggage by <i>grande +vitesse</i> or <i>petite vitesse</i>—how long are you likely +to be away on this Theophile Gautier voyage—'<i>Cueillir la +fleur de neige. Ou la fleur d'Angsoka</i>'?"</p> +<p>"Four months," said Captain Maturin.</p> +<p>"Then if I send them by the Great Swiftness, they'll arrive just +in time."</p> +<p>I love my friends and perform altruistic feats of astonishing +difficulty; but I draw the line at being personally involved in a +nightmare of curved-top trunks and green canvas hat-containing +crates belonging to a woman who is not my wife.</p> +<p>There followed a conversation on what seemed to me fantastic, +but to the others practical details, in which I had no share. A +suit of oilskins and sea-boots for Liosha formed the subject of +much complicated argument, at the end of which Captain Maturin +undertook to procure them from marine stores this peaceful Sunday +night. Liosha, aglow with excitement and looking exceedingly +beautiful, also mentioned her need of thick jersey and woollen cap +and stout boots not quite so tempest-defying as the others; and +these, too, the foolish and apparently infatuated mariner promised +to provide. We drifted mechanically, still talking, into the +interior of the Café-Restaurant, where we sat down to a +dinner which I ordered to please myself, for not one of the others +took the slightest interest in it. Jaffery, like a schoolboy son of +Gargamelle, shovelled food into his mouth—it might have been +tripe, or bullock's heart or chitterlings for all he knew or cared. +His jolly laugh served as a bass for the more treble buzz and +clatter of the pleasant place. I have never seen a man exude such +plentiful happiness. Liosha ate unthinkingly, her elbows on the +table, after the manner of Albania, her hat not straight—I +whispered the information as (through force of training) I should +have whispered it to Barbara, with no other result than an +impatient push which rendered it more piquantly crooked than ever. +Captain Maturin went through the performance with the grave face of +another classical devotee to duty; but his heart—poor +fellow!—was not in his food. It was partly in Pinner, partly +in his antediluvian tramp, and partly in the prospect of having as +cook's mate during his voyage the superbly vital young woman of the +stone-age, now accidentally tricked out in twentieth century +finery, who was sitting next to him.</p> +<p>Captain Maturin took an early leave. He had various things to do +before turning in—including, I suppose, the purchase of his +cook's mate's outfit—and he was to sail at five-thirty in the +morning. If his new deck-hand and cook's mate would come alongside +at five or thereabouts, he would see to their adequate +reception.</p> +<p>"You wouldn't like to ship along with me, too, Mr. Freeth?" said +he, with a grip like—like any horrible thing that is hard and +iron and clamping in a steamer's machinery—and athwart his +green-grey eyes filled with wind and sea passed a gleam of +humour—"There's still time."</p> +<p>"I would come with pleasure," said I, "were it not for the fact +that all my spare moments are devoted to the translation of a +Persian poet."</p> +<p>If I am not urbane, I am nothing.</p> +<p>He went. Liosha bade me good-bye. She must retire early. The +rearrangement of her luggage—"dunnage," I +corrected—would be a lengthy process. She thanked me, in her +best Considine manner, for all the trouble I had taken on her +account, sent her love to Barbara and to Susan, whose sickness, she +trusted, would be transitory, expressed the hope that the care of +her belongings would not be too great a strain upon my +household—and then, like a flash of lightning, in the very +middle of the humming restaurant filled with all the notabilities +and respectabilities of Havre, she flung her generous arms around +my neck in a great hug, and kissed me, and said: "Dear old Hilary, +I do love you!" and marched away magnificently through the staring +tables to the inner recesses of the hotel.</p> +<p>Puzzledom reigned in Havre that night. English people are +credited in France with any form of eccentricity, so long as it +conforms with traditions of <i>le flègme britannique</i>; +but there was not much <i>flègme</i> about Liosha's embrace, +and so the good Havrais were mystified.</p> +<p>There was no following Liosha. She had made her exit. To have +run after her were an artistic crime; and in real life we are more +instinctively artistic and dramatic than the unthinking might +suppose. Besides, there was the bill to pay. We sat down again.</p> +<p>"That little chap never seems to have any luck," said Jaffery. +"He's one of the finest seamen afloat, with a nerve of steel and a +damnable way of getting himself obeyed. He ought to be in command +of a great liner instead of a rotten old tramp of fifteen hundred +tons."</p> +<p>I beamed. "I'm glad you call it a rotten old tramp. I described +it in those terms to Liosha."</p> +<p>"Oh!" said Jaffery. "Precious lot you know about it." He yawned +cavernously. "I'll be turning in soon, myself."</p> +<p>It was not yet ten o'clock. "And what shall I do?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Better turn in, too, if you want to see us off."</p> +<p>"My dear Jaff," said I, "you have always bewildered me, and when +I contemplate this new caprice I am beyond the phenomenon of +bewilderment. But in one respect my mind retains its serene +equipoise. Nothing short of an Act of God shall drag me from my bed +at half-past four in the morning."</p> +<p>"I wanted to give you a few last instructions."</p> +<p>"Give them to me now," said I.</p> +<p>He handed me the key of his chambers. "If you wouldn't mind +tidying up, some day—I left my papers in a deuce of a +mess."</p> +<p>"All right," said I.</p> +<p>"And I had better give you a power of attorney, in case anything +should crop up."</p> +<p>He called for writing materials, and scribbled and signed the +document, which I put into my letter case.</p> +<p>"And what about letters?"</p> +<p>"Don't want any. Unless"—said he, after a little pause, +frowning in the plenitude of his content—"if you and Barbara +can make things right again with Doria—then one of you might +drop me a line. I'll send you a schedule of dates."</p> +<p>"Still harping on my daughter?" said I.</p> +<p>"You may think it devilish funny," he replied; "but for me +there's only one woman in the world."</p> +<p>"Let us have a final drink," said I.</p> +<p>We drank, chatted a while, and went to bed.</p> +<p>When I awoke the next morning the <i>Vesta</i> was already four +hours on her way to Madagascar.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<p>I have one failing. Even I, Hilary Freeth, of Northlands in the +County of Berkshire, Esquire, Gent, have one failing, and I freely +confess it. I cannot keep a key. Were I as other men +are—which, thank Heaven, I am not—I might wear a pound +or so of hideous ironmongery chained to my person. This I decline +to do, with the result that, as I say, I cannot keep a key. Of all +the household stowaway places under my control (and Barbara limits +their number) only one is locked; and that drawer containing I know +not what treasures or rubbish is likely to continue so forever and +ever—for the key is lost. Such important documents as I +desire to place in security I send to bankers or solicitors, who +are trained from childhood in the expert use of safes and +strong-boxes. My other papers the world can read if it choose to +waste its time; at any rate, I am not going to lock them up and +have the worry of a key preying on my mind. I should only lose it +as I lost the other one. Now, by a freak of fortune, the key of +Jaffery's flat remained in the suit-case wherein I had flung it at +Havre, until it was fished out by Franklin on my arrival at +Northlands.</p> +<p>"For goodness' sake, my dear," said I to Barbara, "take charge +of this thing."</p> +<p>But she refused. She had too many already to look after. I must +accept the responsibility as a moral discipline. So I tied a +luggage label to the elusive object, inscribed thereon the legend, +"Key of Jaffery's flat," and hung it on a nail which I drove into +the wall of my library.</p> +<p>"Besides," said Barbara, satirically watching the operation, "I +am not going to have anything to do with this crack-brained +adventure."</p> +<p>"To hear you speak," said I, for she had already spoken at +considerable length on the subject, "one would think that I could +have prevented it. If Jaffery chooses to go Baresark and Liosha to +throw her cap over the topmasts, why in the world shouldn't +they?"</p> +<p>"I suppose I'm conventional," said Barbara. "And from the +description you have given me of the boat, I'm sure the poor child +will be utterly miserable, and she'll ruin her hands and her figure +and her skin."</p> +<p>I wished I had drawn a little less lurid picture of the +steamship <i>Vesta</i>.</p> +<p>As soon as business or idleness took me to town, I visited St. +Quentin's Mansions, and after consultation with the porter, who, +knowing me to be a friend of Mr. Chayne's, assured me that I need +not have burdened myself with the horrible key, I entered Jaffery's +chambers. I found the small sitting-room in very much the same +state of litter as when Jaffery left it. He enjoyed litter and +hated the devastating tidiness of housemaids. Give a young horse +with a long, swishy tail a quarter of an hour's run in an ordinary +bachelor's rooms, and you will have the normal appearance of +Jaffery's home. As I knew he did not want me to dust his books and +pictures (such as they were) or to make order out of a chaos, of +old newspapers, or to put his pipes in the rack or to remove spurs +and physical culture apparatus from the sofa, or to bestow tender +care upon a cannon ball, an antiquated eighteen or twenty-pounder, +which reposed—most useful piece of furniture—in the +middle of the hearth-rug, or to see to the comfortless electric +radiator that took the place of a grate, I let these things be, and +concentrated my attention on his papers which lay loose on desk and +table. This was obviously the tidying up to which he had referred. +I swept his correspondence into one drawer. I gathered together the +manuscript of his new novel and swept it into another. On the top +of a pedestal bookcase I discovered the original manuscript of "The +Greater Glory," neatly bound in brown paper and threaded through +with red tape. This I dropped into the third drawer of the desk, +which already contained a mass of papers. I went into his bedroom, +where I found more letters lying about. I collected them and looked +around. There seemed to be little left for me to do. I noticed two +photographs on his dressing-table—one of his mother, whom I +remembered, and, one of Doria—these I laid face downwards so +that the light should not fade them. I noticed also a battered +portmanteau from beneath the lid of which protruded three or four +corners of scribbling paper, and lastly my eyes fell upon the +offending beer-barrel in a dark alcove. The basin set below the +tap, in order to catch the drip, was nearly full. In four months' +time the room would be flooded with sour and horrible beer. Full of +the thought, I deposited the letters in the drawer with the rest of +the correspondence, and, leaving the flat, summoned the lift, and +in Jaffery's name presented a delighted porter with the contents of +a nine-gallon cask. I went away in the rich glow that mantles from +man's heart to check when he knows that he has made a friend for +life. It was only afterwards, when I got home, and hung the +labelled key on my library wall, that I realised that old Jaffery +and myself had, at least, one thing in common—videlicet, the +keyless habit. I had often suspected that deep in our souls lurked +some hidden <i>trait-d'union</i>. Now I had found it.</p> +<p>And looking back on that wreck of a room, I reflected how +congenial Jaffery must have found his surroundings on board the +<i>Vesta</i>. The weather had changed from summer calm to storm. +The gentleman from the meteorological office who writes for the +newspapers talked about cyclonic disturbances, and reported gales +in the channel and on the west coasts of France. The same was +likely to continue. The wind blew hard enough in Berkshire, what +must it have done in the Bay of Biscay? As a matter of fact, as we +learned from a picture postcard from Jaffery and a short letter +from Liosha posted at Bordeaux, and from their lips considerably +later—for impossible as it may seem, they did not go to the +bottom or die of scurvy or the cannibal's pole-axe—they had +made their way from Havre in an ever-increasing tempest, during +which they apparently had not slept or put on a dry rag. Heavy seas +washed the deck, and kept out the galley fires, so that warm food +had not been procurable. It seemed that every horror I had +prophesied had come to pass. I should have pitied them, but for the +blatant joyousness of their communications. "I was not seasick a +minute, and I have never been so happy in my life," wrote Liosha. +"Hilary should have been with us," wrote Jaffery. "It would have +made a man of him. Liosha in splendid fettle. She goes about in +men's clothes and oilskins and can turn her hand to anything when +she isn't lashed to a stanchion." You can just imagine them having +cast off all semblance of Christians and wallowing in wet and dirt. +. . .</p> +<p>About this time, according to the sequence of events recorded in +my all too scraggy diary, Doria came to us for a week-end, her +first visit since Jaffery's outrageous conduct. She was glad to +make friends with us once more, and to prove it showed the +pleasanter side of her character. She professed not to have +forgiven Jaffery; but she referred to the terrible episode in less +vehement terms. It was obvious to us both that she missed him more +than she would confess, even to herself. In her reconstituted +existence he had stood for an essential element. Unconsciously she +had counted on his devotion, his companionship, his constant +service, his bulky protection from the winds of heaven. Now that +she had driven him away, she found a girder wanting in her life's +neat structure, which accordingly had begun to wobble +uncomfortably. After all, she had provoked the man (this with some +reluctance she admitted to Barbara), and he had only picked her up +and shaken her. He had had no intention of dashing out her brains +or even of giving her a beating. In her heart she repented. +Otherwise why should she take so ill Jaffery's flight with Liosha, +which she characterised as abominable, and Liosha's flight with +Jaffery, which she characterised as monstrous?</p> +<p>"I can't talk to Barbara about it," she said to me on the Sunday +morning, perching herself on the corner of my library table, a +disrespectful trick which she had caught from my wife, while I sat +back in my writing-chair. "Barbara seems to be bemused about the +woman. One would think she was a kind of saint, incapable of +stain."</p> +<p>"In one specific way," I replied, "I think she is."</p> +<p>"Oh, rubbish, Hilary!" she smiled, and swung her little foot. +"You, a man of the world, how can you talk so? First she runs off +with that dreadful fellow and a few hours afterwards runs off with +Jaffery. What respectable woman—well, what honest woman, +according to the term of the lower classes—would run away +with two men within twenty-five hours?"</p> +<p>"She went off with Fendihook, honourably, thinking he was going +to marry her. She has joined Jaffery honourably, too, because +there's no question of marriage or anything else between them."</p> +<p>"<i>Sancta simplicitas!</i>" She shook her head from side to +side and looked at me pityingly. "I'll allow Jaffery is just a +fool. But she isn't. The best one can say for her is that she has +no moral sense. I know the type."</p> +<p>"Where have you studied it, my dear?" I asked.</p> +<p>She coloured, taken aback, but after half a second she replied +with her ready sureness:</p> +<p>"In my father's drawing-room among city people and in my own +among literary people."</p> +<p>"H'm!" said I. "Lioshas don't grow on every occasional +chair."</p> +<p>"You're as bemused as Barbara."</p> +<p>"I haven't studied what you call the type," I replied. "But I've +studied an individual, which you haven't."</p> +<p>She swung off the table. "Oh, well, have it your own +way—Paul and Virginia, if you like. What does it matter to +me?"</p> +<p>"Yes, my dear," said I. "That's just it—what the dickens +does it matter to you?"</p> +<p>"Nothing at all." She snapped a dainty finger and thumb.</p> +<p>"You've turned Jaffery out of your house," I continued, with +malicious intent. "You've sworn never to set eyes on him again. +You've banished him beyond your horizon. His doings now can be no +concern of yours. If he chose to elope with the fat woman in a +freak museum, why shouldn't he? What would it have to do with +you?"</p> +<p>"Only this," said Doria, coming back to the table corner but not +sitting on it. "It would make Jaffery's declaration to me all the +more insulting."</p> +<p>"'Having known me to decline'?" I quoted.</p> +<p>"Precisely."</p> +<p>She tossed her head, in her wounded pride. But unknowingly she +had swallowed my bait. I had hooked my little fish. I smiled to +myself. She was eaten up with jealousy.</p> +<p>"Well," said I, "you remember the French proverb about the +absent being always in the wrong. Let us wait until they come back +and hear what they've got to say for themselves."</p> +<p>She put her hands behind her back. As she stood, her little +black and ivory head was not much above the level of mine. "What +they may say is a matter of perfect indifference to me."</p> +<p>I bent forward. "I think I ought to tell you what +Jaffery's—practically—last words to me were: 'There's +only one woman in the world for me.' Meaning you." She broke away +with a laugh. "And to prove it, he elopes with the fat woman! Oh, +Hilary"—with the tips of her fingers she brushed my +hair—"you really are a simple old dear!"</p> +<p>"All the same—" I began.</p> +<p>"All the same," she interrupted, "this is a very untidy +conversation. I didn't come in here to talk, but to borrow a copy +of Baudelaire, if you have one."</p> +<p>She turned to scan my shelves. I joined her and took down <i>Les +Fleurs du Mal</i>. She thanked me, tucked the book under her arm, +and went out.</p> +<p>Rather uncharitably I rejoiced in her soreness. It was good +discipline. It would give her a sense of values. Should she ever +get Jaffery back again, with no Liosha hanging round his neck, I +was certain that not only would she forgive past mishandling, but +for the sake of keeping him would put up with a little more. +Whether she would marry him was another story. I had every reason +to believe that she would not. Adrian reigned her bosom's lord. In +her worshipping fidelity she never wavered. She regarded a second +marriage with horror. That was comprehensible enough, with her +husband but seven months dead. No, should she ever get Jaffery +back, I didn't think she would marry him; but beyond doubt she +would treat him with more consideration and respect. These, of +course, were my conjectures and deductions (confirmed by Barbara) +from the patent fact that she found herself lost without Jaffery +and that she was furiously jealous of Liosha.</p> +<p>It was several weeks before we saw her again. August arrived. +Barbara and I played the ever-fresh summer comedy. I swore by all +my gods I would not leave Northlands. I went on vowing until I +arrived with a mountain of luggage, a wife and a child and a maid +at a great hotel on the Lido. Our days were unimportant. We bathed +in the Adriatic. We revisited familiar churches and picture +galleries in Venice. We mingled with a cosmopolitan crowd and +developed the complexions (not only in our faces) of an Othello +family. Doria, too, made holiday abroad. Every August, Mr. +Jornicroft repaired the ravages of eleven months' civic and other +feasting at Marienbad, and Doria, as she had done before her +marriage, accompanied him. She and Barbara exchanged letters about +nothing in particular. The time passed smoothly.</p> +<p>Once or twice we had word from our runagates. The fury of the +sea having subsided after they had left Bordeaux, they had settled +down to the normal life of shipboard, and Jaffery took his turn +with the hands, coiled ropes, sweated over cargo, and kept his +watch. Liosha, we were given to understand, besides helping in the +galley and the cabin and swabbing decks, found much delight in +painting the ship's boats with paint which Jaffery had bought for +the purpose at Bordeaux. She had struck up a friendship with the +first mate, who, possessing a camera, had taken their photographs. +They sent us one of the two standing side by side, and a more +villainous-looking yet widely smiling pair you could not wish to +see. Both wore sailors' caps and jerseys and sea-boots, and +Barbara's keen eye detected the fact that Liosha, for freedom's +sake, had cut a foot or so off the bottom of her skirt without +taking the trouble to hem up the edge, which, now frayed, hung +about her calves in disgraceful fringes.</p> +<p>"I think you were wrong, my dear," said I. "The poor thing looks +anything but utterly miserable."</p> +<p>"I'm sure I was right about her hands and skin," she +maintained.</p> +<p>"Well, it's her own skin."</p> +<p>"More's the pity," Barbara retorted.</p> +<p>What on earth she meant, I do not know; but, as usual, she had +the last word.</p> +<p>The middle of September found us back in England, and shortly +afterwards Doria returned also, and resumed her lonely life in the +Adrian-haunted flat. But by and by she grew restless, complaining +that no one but her father, of whose society she had wearied, was +in town, and went off on a series of country-house visits. The +flat, I suspected, for all its sacred memories, was dull without +Jaffery. She still maintained her unrelenting attitude, and spoke +scornfully of him; but once or twice she asked when this mad voyage +would be over, thereby betraying curiosity rather than +indifference.</p> +<p>Meanwhile the autumn publishing season was in full swing. +Wittekind's list of new novels in its deep black framing border +stared at you from the advertisement pages of every periodical you +picked up, and so did the list of every other publisher. Day after +day Doria's eyes fell on this announcement of Wittekind, and day +after day her indignation swelled at the continued omission of "The +Greater Glory." All these nobodies, these ephemeral scribblers, +were being thrust flamboyantly on public notice and her Adrian, the +great Sun of the firm, was allowed to remain in eclipse. For what +purpose had he lived and died if his memory was treated with this +dark ingratitude? I strove to reason with her. Adrian's book had +been prodigally advertised in the spring. It had sold enormously. +It was still selling. There was no need to advertise it any longer. +Besides, advertisement cost money, and poor Wittekind had to do his +duty by his other authors. He had to push his new wares. +"Tradesman!" cried Doria. If he wasn't, I remonstrated, if he +wasn't a tradesman in a certain sense, an expert in the art of +selling books, how could Adrian's novels have attained their wide +circulation? It was to his interest to increase that circulation as +much as possible. Why not let him run his very successful business +his own way? Doria loftily assured me that she had no interest in +his business, in the mere vulgar number of copies sold. Adrian's +glory was above such sordid things. Of far higher importance was it +that his name should be kept, like a beacon, before the public. Not +to do so was callous ingratitude and tradesman's niggardliness on +the part of Wittekind. Something ought to be done. I confessed my +inability to do anything.</p> +<p>"I know you have nothing to do with the literary side of the +executorship. Jaffery undertook it. And now, instead of looking +after his duties, he has gone on this impossible voyage."</p> +<p>Here was another grievance against the unfortunate Jaffery. I +might have asked her who drove him to Madagascar, for had she been +kind, he would have made short work of Liosha, after having rescued +her from Fendihook, and would have returned meekly to Doria's feet. +But what would have been the use? I was tired of these windy +arguments with Doria, and worn out with the awful irony of +upholding our poor Adrian's genius.</p> +<p>"I'm sorry he's not here," said I, somewhat tartly, "because he +might have prevailed upon you to listen to common sense."</p> +<p>A little while after this, another firm of publishers announced +an <i>édition de luxe</i> of the works of a brilliant +novelist cut off like Adrian in the flower of his age. It was +printed on special paper and illustrated by a famous artist, and +limited to a certain number of copies. This set Doria aflare. From +Scotland, where she was paying one of her restless visits, she sent +me the newspaper cutting. If the commercial organism, she said, +that passed with Wittekind for a soul would not permit him to +advertise Adrian's spring book in his autumn list, why couldn't he +do like Mackenzie & Co., and advertise an <i>édition de +luxe</i> of Adrian's two novels? And if Mackenzie & Co. thought +it worth while to bring out such an edition of an entirely +second-rate author, surely it would be to Wittekind's advantage to +treat Adrian equally sumptuously. I advised her to write to +Wittekind. She did. Accompanied by a fury of ink, she sent me his +most courteous and sensible answer. Both books were doing +splendidly. There was every prospect of a golden aftermath of cheap +editions. The time was not ripe for an <i>édition de +luxe</i>. It would come, a pleasurable thing to look forward to, +when other sales showed signs of exhaustion.</p> +<p>"He talks about exhaustion," she wrote. "I suppose he means when +he sends the volumes to be pulped, 'remainder or +waste'—there's a foolish woman here who evidently has written +a foolish book, and has shown me her silly contract with a +publisher. 'Remainder or waste.' That's what he's thinking of. It's +intolerable. I've no one, dear Hilary, to turn to but you. Do +advise me."</p> +<p>I sent her a telegram. For one thing, it saved the trouble of +concocting a letter, and, for another, it was more likely to +impress the recipient. It ran:</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"I advise you strongly to go to Wittekind yourself and bite +him."</p> +<p>I was rather pleased at the humour—may I venture to +qualify it as mordant?—of the suggestion. Even Barbara +smiled. Of course, I was right. Let her fight it out herself with +Wittekind.</p> +<p>But I have regretted that telegram ever since.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<p>Luckily, I have kept most of Jaffery's letters written to me +from all quarters of the globe. Excepting those concerned with the +voyage of the <i>S.S. Vesta</i>, they were rare phenomena. +Ordinarily, if I heard from him thrice a year I had to consider +that he was indulging in an orgy of correspondence. But what with +Doria and Adrian and Liosha, and what with Barbara and myself being +so intimately mixed up in the matters which preoccupied his mind, +the voyage of the <i>Vesta</i> covered a period of abnormal +epistolary activity. Instead of a wife, our amateur sailor found a +post office at every port. He wrote reams. He had the journalist's +trick of instantaneous composition. Like the Ouidaesque hero, who +could ride a Derby Winner with one hand, and stroke a University +Crew to victory with the other, Jaffery could with one hand hang on +to a rope over a yawning abyss, while with the other he could +scribble a graphic account of the situation on a knee-supported +writing-pad. In ordinary circumstances—that is to say in +what, to Jaffery, were ordinary circumstances—he performed +these literary gymnastics for the sake of his newspaper; but the +voyage of the <i>Vesta</i> was an exceptional affair. Save +incidentally—for he did send descriptive articles to <i>The +Daily Gazette</i>—he was not out on professional business. +The gymnastics were performed for my benefit—yet with an +ulterior motive. He had sailed away, not on a job, but to satisfy a +certain nostalgia, to escape from civilisation, to escape from +Doria, to escape from desire and from heartache . . . and the +deeper he plunged into the fatness of primitive life, the closer +did the poor ogre come to heartache and to desire. He wrote +spaciously, in the foolish hope that I would reply narrowly, +following a Doria scent laid down with the naïveté of +childhood. I received constant telegrams informing me of dates and +addresses—I who, Jaffery out of England, never knew for +certain whether he was doing the giant's stride around the North +Pole or horizontal bar exercise on the Equator. It was rather +pathetic, for I could give him but little comfort.</p> +<p>Besides the letters, he (and Liosha) deluged us with photographs +taken chiefly by the absurd second mate, from which it was possible +to reconstruct the <i>S.S. Vesta</i> in all her dismalness. You +have seen scores of her rusty, grimy congeners in any port in the +world. You have only to picture an old, two-masted, well-decked +tramp with smokestack and foul clutter of bridge-house amidships, +and fore and aft a miserable bit of a deck broken by hatches and +capstans and donkey-engines and stanchions and chains and other +unholy stumbling blocks and offences to the casual promenader. From +the photographs and letters I learned that the dog-hole, intended +by the Captain for Jaffery, but given over to Liosha, was away aft, +beneath a kind of poop and immediately above the scrunch of the +propeller; and that Jaffery, with singular lack of privacy, bunked +in the stuffy, low cabin where the officers took their meals and +relaxations. The more vividly did they present the details of their +life, the more heartfelt were my thanksgivings to a merciful +Providence for having been spared so dreadful an experience.</p> +<p>Our two friends, however, found indiscriminate joy in +everything; I have their letters to prove it. And Jaffery +especially found perpetual enjoyment in the vagaries of Liosha. For +instance, here is an extract from one of his letters:</p> +<p>"It's a grand life, my boy! You're up against realities all the +time. Not a sham within the horizon. You eat till you burst, work +till you sleep, and sleep till you're kicked awake. You should just +see Liosha. Maturin says he has only met one other woman sailor +like her, and that was the daughter of a trader sailing among the +Islands, who had lived all her life since birth on his ship and had +scarcely slept ashore. She's as much born to it as any shell-back +on board. She has the amazing gift of looking part of the tub, like +the stokers and the man at the wheel. Unlike another woman, she's +never in the way, and the more work you can give her to do, the +happier she is. She's in magnificent health and as strong as a +horse. At first the hands didn't know what to make of her; now +she's friends with the whole bunch. The difficulty is to keep her +from overfamiliar intercourse with them, for though she signed on +as cook's mate, she eats in the cabin with the officers, and +between the cabin and the fo'c'sle lies a great gulf. They come and +tell her about their wives and their girls and what rotten food +they've got—'Everybody has got rotten food on board ship, you +silly ass!' quoth Liosha. 'What do you expect—sweetbreads and +ices?'—and what soul-shattering blighters they've shipped +with, and what deeds of heroism (mostly imaginary) they have +performed in pursuit of their perilous calling. They're all +children, you know, when you come to the bottom of them, these +hell-tearing fellows—children afflicted with a perpetual +thirst and a craving to punch heads—and Liosha's a child, +too; so there's a kind of freemasonry between them.</p> +<p>"There was the devil's own row in the fo'c'sle the other +evening. The first mate went to look into it and found Liosha +standing enraptured at the hatch looking down upon a free fight. +There were knives about. The mate, being a blasphemous and +pugilistic dog, soon restored order. Then he came up to +Liosha—you and Barbara should have seen her—it was +sultry, not a breath of air—and she just had on a thin bodice +open at her throat and the sleeves rolled up and a short ragged +skirt and was bareheaded.</p> +<p>"'Why the Hades didn't you stop 'em, missus?'</p> +<p>"For some reason or the other, the whole ship's company, except +the skipper and myself, call her 'missus.' She gazed on him like an +ox-eyed Juno; you know her way.</p> +<p>"'Why should I interfere with their enjoyment?'</p> +<p>"'Enjoyment—!' he gasped. 'Oh, my Gawd!' He flung out his +arms and came over to me. I was smoking against the taffrail. +'There they was trying to cut one another's throats, and she calls +it enjoyment.'</p> +<p>"He went off spluttering. I watched Liosha. A +Dutchman—what you would call a Swede—a hulking beggar, +came up from the fo'c'sle very much the worse for wear. Liosha +says:</p> +<p>"'Mr. Andrews was very angry, Petersen.'</p> +<p>"He grinned. 'He was, missus.'</p> +<p>"'What was it all about?'</p> +<p>"He explained in his sea-English, which is not the English of +that mildewed Boarding House in South Kensington. Bill Figgins had +called him a ——, he had retaliated, and the others had +taken a hand, too."</p> +<p>It is I who suppress the actual words reported by Jaffery. But, +believe me, they were enough to annoy anybody.</p> +<p>"She shouted down the stairway. 'Here you, Bill Figgins, come on +deck for a minute.'</p> +<p>"A lean, wiry, black-looking man-spawn of the Pool of London, +emerged.</p> +<p>"'what's the matter?'</p> +<p>"Why did you call Petersen a ——?' she asked +pleasantly and word-perfect.</p> +<p>"'Cos he is one.'</p> +<p>"'He isn't,' said Liosha. 'He's a very nice man. And so are you. +And you both fought fine; I was looking on, and I was mad not to +see the end of it. But Mr. Andrews doesn't like fighting. So see +here, if you two don't shake hands, right now, and make friends and +promise not to fight again, I'll not speak a word to either of you +for the rest of the voyage.'</p> +<p>"If I had tackled them like this, hefty chap that I am, they +would have consigned me to a shambles of perdition. And if any +other woman had attempted it, even our valiant Barbara, they would +have told her in perhaps polite, but anyhow forcible, terms to mind +her own business. In either case they would have resented to the +depths of their simple souls the alien interference. But with +Liosha it was different. Of course sex told. Naturally. But she was +a child like themselves. She had looked on, placidly, and had +caught the flash of knives without turning a hair. They felt that +if she were drawn into a mêlée she would use a knife +with the best of them. I'm panning out about this, because it seems +so deuced interesting and I should like to know what you and +Barbara think. Do you remember Gulliver? For all the world it was +like Glumdalclitch making the peace between two little +nine-year-old Brobdingnagians. The two men looked at each other +sheepishly. Half a dozen grinning heads appeared at the fo'c'sle +hatch. You never saw anything so funny in your life. At last the +lean Bill Figgins stuck out his hand sideways to the Dutchman, +without looking at him.</p> +<p>"'All right, mate.'</p> +<p>"And the Swede shook it heartily, and the grimy hands cried +'Bravo, missus!' and Liosha, turning and catching sight of me just +a bit abaft the funnel beneath the bridge, for the first time, +swung up the deck towards me, as pleased as Punch."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Here is another extract. . . . Well, wait for a minute.</p> +<p>Jaffery's letters are an embarrassment of riches. If I printed +them in full they would form a picturesque handbook to the coast of +the African continent from Casablanca in Morocco, all the way round +by the Cape of Good Hope to Port Said. But Jaffery, in his lavish +way, duplicated these travel-pictures in articles to <i>The Daily +Gazette</i>, which, supplemented by memory, he has already +published in book form for all the world to read. Therefore, if I +recorded his impressions of Grand Bassam, Cape Lopez, Boma, Matadi, +Delagoa Bay, Montirana, Mombasa and other apocalyptic places, I +should be merely plagiarising or infringing copyright, or what-not; +and in any case I should be introducing matter entirely irrelevant +to this chronicle. You must just imagine the rusty <i>Vesta</i> +wallowing along, about nine knots an hour, around Africa, +disgorging cotton goods and cheap jewelry at each God-forsaken +port, and making up cargo with whatever raw material could find a +European market. If I had gone this voyage, I would tell you all +about it; but you see, I remained in England. And if I subjected +Jaffery's correspondence to microscopic examination, and read up +blue books on the exports and imports of all the places on the +South African coast line, and told you exactly what was taken out +of the <i>S.S. Vesta</i> and what was put into her, I cannot +conceive your being in the slightest degree interested. To do so, +would bore me to death. To me, cargo is just cargo. The +transference of it from ship to shore and from shore to ship is a +matter of awful noise and perspiring confusion. I have travelled, +in so-called comfort, as a first-class passenger to Africa. I know +all about it. Generally, the ship cannot get within quarter of a +mile of the shore. On one side of it lies a fleet of flat-bottomed +lighters manned by glistening and excited negroes. On board is a +donkey-engine working a derrick with a Tophetical clatter. Vast +bales and packing cases are lifted from the holds. A dingily +white-suited officer stands by with greasy invoice sheets, while +another at the yawning abyss whence the cargo emerges makes the +tropical day hideous with horrible imprecations. And the +merchandise swings over the side and is received in the lighter, by +black uplifted arms, in the midst of a blood-curdling babel of +unmeaning ferocity. That is all that unloading cargo means to me; +and I cannot imagine that it means any more to any of the sons or +daughters of men who are not intimately concerned in a particular +trade. . . . You must imagine, I say, the <i>S.S. Vesta</i> +repeating this monotonous performance; Jaffery and Liosha and the +little, black-bearded skipper, all clad in decent raiment, going +ashore, and being entertained scraggily or copiously by German, +French, Portuguese, English, fever-eyed commissioners, who took +them on the <i>tour du propriétaire</i>, among the white +wooden government buildings, the palm-covered huts of the natives, +and shewed them the Mission Chapels and the new Custom Houses and +the pigeon-like fowls and the little dirty naked nigger children, +and the exiguity of their stock of glass and china, and the +yearning of their souls for the fleshpots of the respective Egypts +to which they belonged. You must imagine this. If anything relevant +to the story of Jaffery, which, as you will remember, is all that I +have to relate, happened at any of these ports, I should tell you. +I should have chapter and verse for it in Jaffery's letters. But as +far as I can make out, the moment they put foot on shore, they +behaved like the best-conducted globe-trotters who dwell habitually +in a semi-detached residence in Peckham Rye. I know Jaffery will be +furious when he reads this. But great is the Truth, and it shall +prevail. It was on the sea, away from ports and mission stations +and exiles hungering for the last word of civilisation, and +shore-going clothes, that life as depicted by Jaffery swelled with +juiciness; and to my taste, the juiciest parts of his letters are +those humoristically concerned with the doings of Liosha.</p> +<p>As to his hopeless passion for Doria, he says very little. When +Jaffery put pen to paper he was objective, loving to describe what +he saw and letting what he felt go hang. In consequence the shy +references to Doria were all the more poignant by reason of their +rarity. But Liosha was the central figure in many a picture.</p> +<p>Here, I say, is another extract:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Liosha continues to thrive exceedingly. But there's one thing +that worries me about her. What the blazes are we going to do with +her after this voyage? No doubt she would like to keep on going +round and round Africa for the rest of her life. But I can't go +with her. I must get back and begin to earn my living. And I don't +see her settling down to afternoon tea and respectability again. I +think I'll have to set her up as a gipsy with a caravan and a +snarling tyke for company. How a creature with her physical energy +has managed to lie listless for all these months I can't imagine. +It shews strength of character anyway. But I don't see her putting +in another long stretch. . . .</p> +<p>"She has taken her position as cook's mate seriously, and shares +the galley with the cook, a sorrow-stricken little Portugee whose +wife ran away with another man during the last trip. He pours out +his woes to her while she wipes away the tears from the lobscouse. +I don't know how she stands it, for even I, who've got a pretty +strong stomach, draw the line at the galley. But she loves it. Now +and again, when it's my watch—I'm on the starboard watch, you +know—I see her turn out in the morning at two bells. She +stands for a few moments right aft of her cabin-door, and fills her +lungs. And the wind tugs at her hair beneath her cap, and at her +skirts, and the spindrift from the pale grey sea of dawn stings at +her face; and then she lurches like a sailor down the wet, slanting +deck—and I can tell you, she looks a devilish fine figure of +a woman. And soon afterwards there comes from the galley the smell +of bacon and eggs—my son, if you don't know the conglomerate +smell of fried bacon and eggs, bilge water, and the salt of the +pure early morning ocean, your ideas of perfume are rudimentary. +She and the Portugee between them, he contributing the science and +she the good-will, give us excellent grub; of course you would turn +your nose up at it—but you've never been hungry in your life! +and there hasn't been a grumble in the cabin. Maturin has offered +her the permanent job. Certainly she looks after us and attends to +our comforts in a way sailor men on tramps aren't accustomed to. +She's a great pal of the second mate's and at night they play +spoiled-five at a corner of the table, with the greasiest pack of +cards you ever saw, and she's perfectly happy.</p> +<p>"Now and again we discuss the future, without arriving at any +result. A day or two ago I chaffed her about marriage. She +considered the matter gravely.</p> +<p>"'I guess I'll have to. I'm twenty-four. But I haven't had much +luck so far, have I?'</p> +<p>"I replied: 'You won't always strike wrong 'uns.'</p> +<p>"'I don't know what kind of a man I'm going to strike,' she +said. 'Not any of those little billy-goats in dinner jackets I used +to meet at Mrs. Jardine's. No, sirree. And no more Ras +Fendihooks!'</p> +<p>"She rose—we had been sitting on the cabin +sky-light—and leaned over the taffrail and looked wistfully +out to sea. I joined her. She was silent for a bit. Then she +said:</p> +<p>"'I guess I'm not going to marry at all; for I'm not going to +marry a man I don't love, and I couldn't love a man who couldn't +beat me—and there ain't many. That's the kind of fool way I'm +built.'</p> +<p>"She turned and left me. I suppose she meant it. Liosha doesn't +talk through her hat. But if she ever does fall in love with a man +who can beat her, there'll be the devil to pay. Liosha in love +would be a tornado of a spectacle. But I shouldn't like it. +Honest—I shouldn't like it. I've got so used to this clean +great Amazon of a Liosha, that I should loathe the fellow were he +as decent a sort as you please."</p> +</div> +<p>It is curious to observe how, as the voyage proceeded, Jaffery's +horizon gradually narrowed to the small shipboard circle, just as +an invalid's interests become circumscribed by the walls of his +sick-room. He tells us of childish things, a catch of fish, a +quarrel between the first and second mate over Liosha, second +having accused first of a disrespectful attitude towards the lady, +the sail-cloth screen rigged up aft behind which Liosha had her +morning tub of sea-water, the stubbing of Liosha's toe and her +temporary lameness, the illness of the Portugee cook and Liosha's +supremacy in the galley. And he wrote it all with the air of the +impresario vaunting the qualities of his prima donna, nay +more—with a fatuous air of proprietorship, as though he +himself had created Liosha.</p> +<p>Here is the beginning of another letter, addressed to us +both:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"A thousand thanks, dearest people, for what you tell me of +Doria. If she just misses me a little bit, all may be well. I've +bought some jolly gold barbaric ornaments that she may accept when +I reach home; and do try to persuade her that the poor old bear is +rough only on the outside.</p> +<p>"Things going on just as usual. Liosha has got a monkey given +her by the donkey-man. . . .</p> +</div> +<p>There follows a description of the monkey and its antics, and a +long account of a chase all over the ship, in which all the ship's +company including the captain took part, to the subversion of +discipline and navigation. But you see—he switches off at +once to Liosha and the trivial records of the humdrum day.</p> +<p>At last he had something less trivial to write about. They were +in the Mozambique Channel, making for Madagascar:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Now that this darned cabin table is comparatively straight, I +can scribble a few lines to you. We've had a beast of a time. The +dirtiest weather ever since we left Beira and the cranky old tub +rolling and pitching and standing on her head as I've never known +ship do before. Consequence was the cargo got shifted and there was +a list to port, so that every time she ducked that side, she +shipped half the channel. Skies black as thunder and the sea the +colour of inky water. We had the devil's own job getting the cargo +straight. Just imagine a black rolling dungeon full of great +packing cases weighing about half a ton each all gone murderous +mad. Just imagine getting down among them, as practically all hands +had to do, save the engine-room, and sweating and fighting and +straining and lashing for hour after hour. And half the time the +port side of the lame old duck under water. How she didn't turn +turtle is known only to Allah and Maturin; and One is great and the +other's a damned fine sailor. Of course, I had to go down into the +inferno of the hold like the others. Part of the day's work; but I +didn't like it; no one liked it.</p> +<p>"When the order was given all hands tumbled up to the hatchway +and began swarming down the iron ladder. It was a swaying, +staggering crowd. When you stand on a wet deck at an angle of +forty-five degrees one way and thirty degrees another and +constantly shifting both angles, with nothing but a rope lashed +athwart the ship to catch hold of, your mind is pretty well +concentrated on yourself. I know mine was. I slipped and wallowed +on my belly hanging on to the rope like grim death till my turn +came for the ladder. I got my feet on the rungs. I was all right, +when looking up into the livid daylight whom do you think I saw +calmly preparing to follow me? Liosha. I hadn't noticed her. She +had sea-boots and a jersey and looked just like a man. I +roared:</p> +<p>"'Clear out. This is no place for you.'</p> +<p>"'I'm coming. Go along down.'</p> +<p>"She put her foot on the rung just below my face. I gripped as +much of her ankle as the stiff leather allowed.</p> +<p>"'Clear out. Don't be a fool.'</p> +<p>"Andrews, the first mate, poured out a flood of blasphemy. What +the this, that and the other were we waiting for?</p> +<p>"'Mr. Andrews,' I shouted, 'send this woman to her cabin.'</p> +<p>"'Oh, go to hell! Tumble down every one of you, or I'll damn +soon make you,' cried Andrews.</p> +<p>"He was in a vile temper, being responsible for the snugness of +the cargo, and the cargo lay about as snug as a dormitory of +devils. He was sorry afterwards, poor chap, for his lack of +courtesy, but at the moment he didn't care who went down into the +hold, or who was killed, so long as this infernal cargo was righted +and the crazy old tub didn't go down.</p> +<p>"So I descended. It was ordained. Liosha followed. And once down +we were carried away out of ourselves by a nightmare of toil and +peril. Andrews and second were there yelling orders. We obeyed in +some subconscious way. How we heard I don't know. For peace and +quiet give me a battlefield. Twenty men in semi-darkness, scarce +able to stand, fighting blind, mad forces of half a ton each. The +huge crates of deal seemed so innocent and harmless on the +quay-side, but charging about that swaying, rocking lower deck, +they looked malignant, like grimy blocks of Hell's anger. I don't +know what I did. All I can say is that I never before felt my +muscles about to snap—queer feeling that—and I think +I'm about as tough as they make 'em.</p> +<p>"Liosha worked as well as any man in the bunch. I only caught +sight of her now and then . . . you see what we had to do, don't +you? . . . We had to secure all these infernal things that were +running amuck and ease up the rest of the cargo that had got jammed +on the port side. There were accidents. Three or four were knocked +out. Petersen, the Swede, had his leg crushed. I don't know what +was wrong at the time. He was working next me, and a roll of the +ship brought an ugly crate over him. He couldn't get up. He looked +ghastly. So I took him on my back and clawed my way up the iron +ladder and reached the deck somehow, and staggered along, barging +into everything—it was blowing half a gale—and once I +fell and he screamed like a pig, poor devil. But I picked him up +and got him into the fo'c'sle and stuck him in a bunk. The Portugee +cook, sick of fever—I think he's a blighted +malingerer—was the only creature there. I routed him out, in +the dim mephitic place reeking of sour bedding, and put Petersen in +his charge. Then I went back through the drenching seas to the +hatch. There was just enough room for a man's body to squeeze +through down the ladder. I went down into the same hell-broth of +sweat and confusion. The ground you stood upon might have been the +back of a super-Titanic butterfly. Stability was a nonexistent +term. It was a helpless scuttering surge of men and vast wooden +cubes. Most of the men had torn off their upper garments and fought +half naked, the sweat glistening on their skins in the feeble +light. Soon the heat became unbearable and I too tore off jersey +and shirt. Liosha joined me and we worked together without +speaking. Her long thick hair had come down and she had hastily +tied it in a knot, just as you might tie a knot in a towel, and she +had thrown off things like everybody else and only a flimsy cotton, +sleeveless bodice, or whatever it's called, drenched through and +sticking to her, made a pretence of covering her from her +waist.</p> +<p>"You had to get like flies round these infernal things and wait +your time—if you could—for the roll, and push and then +scramble with ropes and make fast; awl at the same time dance out +of the way of the slithering hulks that bore down on you with +fantastic murderousness. And through it all thundered the roaring +of the storm, the grind of the engines, the shattering of the +propeller lifted above the waves, and the shrieks and creakings of +every plank and plate of this steam-driven old Noah's Ark.</p> +<p>"We had just, with exhausted muscles, made a whole stack fast, +and were standing by, panting, haggard eyed, the sweat running down +anyhow, twenty of us, Dagoes, Dutchmen, Englishmen, in the dim +twilight—just a shaft of pale illumination coming slick down +the ladder where the hatch was open,—hanging on to edges and +corners of cargo, when suddenly the ship, caught on top of a wave, +vibrated in a sickening shudder, plunged, and then with an impetus +of cataclysm wallowed to starboard. Andrews shrieked, 'Stand +clear!' Most of the men leaped and flung themselves away. But I +stumbled and fell. Before I realized the danger of a vast sliding +crate, two strong arms were curled round my waist and I was flung +aside, to slither and roll down the swaying deck until I was +stopped by the bulkhead. When I picked myself up, I saw half the +men securing the crate and the other half grovelling around +something on the deck. It was Liosha. She lay white and senseless +with blood streaming from her head.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i308.jpg" id="i308.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/308.jpg"><img src="images/308.jpg" width="60%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>Before I realized the danger . . . I was flung aside.</b></div> +<p>"In a mortal funk I took her up the ladder with the help of +another fellow, and carried her to her cabin. I never before +realised the appalling length of this vessel. We got her into her +bunk aft; I sent the other chap for brandy and first-aid appliances +from the ship's stores, and did what I could to discover how far +she was injured. . . .</p> +<p>"Thank God, nothing worse had happened than a nasty scalp wound. +But her escape had been miraculous. She had saved my life; for as I +lay on the deck, the crate charging direct would have squashed my +skull into jelly, and crushed my body against the side of the hold. +A fraction of a second later and it would have been her skull and +her body instead of mine; but she just managed to roll practically +clear until she got caught by the swerving side of the crate. I +hope you'll understand what a heroic thing she did. She faced what +seemed to be certain death for me; and it is thanks to Liosha that +I'm able to tell you that I'm alive. And she, God bless her, walks +about with her head bandaged, among an adoring ship's company, and +refuses to admit having done anything wonderful."</p> +</div> +<p>And, indeed, to confirm Jaffery's last statement, here is a bit +of a scrawl from Liosha—her complete account of the +incident:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"We've just had the most awful storm I ever did see. The cargo +go loose in the hold and we had to fix it up. I got a cut on the +head and had to stay in bed till the storm finished. I must say it +gave me an awful headache, but there I guess I'm better now."</p> +</div> +<p>Well, that seems to be the most exciting thing that happened to +them. Afterwards, in the mind of each, it loomed as the great event +in the amazing voyage. A man does not forget having his life saved +by a woman at the risk of her own; and a woman, no matter how +heroic in action and how magnanimous in after modesty, does not +forget it either. Although he had been credited (to his ingenuous +delight) by reviewers of "The Greater Glory" with uncanny knowledge +of the complexities of a woman's nature, I have never met a more +dunder-headed blunderer in his dealings with women. He perceived +the symptoms of this unforgetfulness on Liosha's part, but seems to +have been absolutely fogged in diagnosis.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Liosha flourishes," he writes in one of his last <i>Vesta</i> +letters, "like a virgin forest of green bay trees. Gosh! She's +splendid. I take back and swallow every presumptuous word I've said +about her. And, I suppose, owing to our knockabout sort of +intimacy, she has adopted a protective, motherly attitude towards +me. In her great, spacious, kind way, she gives you the impression +that she owns Jaffery Chayne, and knows exactly what is for his +good. Women's ways are wonderful but weird."</p> +</div> +<p>He must have thought himself vastly clever with his alliterative +epigram. But he hadn't the faintest idea of the fount of Liosha's +motherliness.</p> +<p>"Owing to our knockabout sort of intimacy"! Oh, the silly +ass!</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<p>It was not until the end of October that Doria completed her +round of country-house visits and returned to the flat in St. +John's Wood. The morning after her arrival in town she took my +satirical counsel and called at Wittekind's office, and, I am +afraid, tried to bite that very pleasant, well-intentioned +gentleman. She went out to do battle, arraying herself in subtle +panoply of war. This I gather from Barbara's account of the matter. +She informs me that when a woman goes to see her solicitor, her +banker, her husband's uncle, a woman she hates, or a man who really +understands her, she wears in each case an entirely different kind +of hat. Judging from a warehouse of tissue-paper-covered millinery +at the top of my residence, which I once accidentally discovered +when tracking down a smell of fire, I know that this must be true. +Costumes also, Barbara implies, must correspond emotionally with +the hats. I recognised this, too, as philosophic truth; for it +explained many puzzling and apparently unnecessary transformations +in my wee wife's personal appearance. And yet, the other morning +when I was going up to town to see after some investments, and I +asked her which was the more psychological tie, a green or a +violet, in which to visit my stockbroker, she lost as much of her +temper as she allows herself to lose and bade me not he silly. . . +. But this has nothing to do with Doria.</p> +<p>Doria, I say, with beaver cocked and plumes ruffled, intent on +striking terror into the heart of Wittekind, presented herself in +the outer office and sent in her card. At the name of Mrs. Adrian +Boldero, doors flew open, and Doria marched straight away into +Wittekind's comfortably furnished private room. Wittekind himself, +tall, loose-limbed, courteous, the least tradesman-like person you +can imagine, rose to receive her. For some reason or the other, or +more likely against reason, she had pictured a rather soapy, smug +little man hiding crafty eyes behind spectacles; but here he was, +obviously a man of good breeding, who smiled at her most charmingly +and gave her to understand that she was the one person in the world +whom he had been longing to meet. And the office was not a sort of +human <i>charcuterie</i> hung round with brains of authors for +sale, but a quiet, restful place to which valuable prints on the +walls and a few bits of real Chippendale gave an air of +distinction. Doria admits to being disconcerted. She had come to +bite and she remained to smile. He seated her in a nice old +armchair with a beautiful back—she was sensitive to such +things—and spoke of Adrian as of his own blood brother. She +had not anticipated such warmth of genuine feeling, or so fine an +appreciation of her Adrian's work.</p> +<p>"Believe me, my dear Mrs. Boldero," said he, "I am second only +to you in my admiration and grief, and there's nothing I wouldn't +do to keep your husband's memory green. But it is green, thank +goodness. How do I know? By two signs. One that people wherever the +English language is spoken are eagerly reading his books—I +say reading, because you deprecate the purely commercial side of +things; but you must forgive me if I say that the only proof of all +their reading is the record of all their buying. And when people +buy and read an author to this prodigious extent, they also discuss +him. Adrian Boldero's name is a household word. You want +advertisement and an <i>édition de luxe</i>. But it is only +the little man that needs the big drum."</p> +<p>"But still, Mr. Wittekind," Doria urged, "an <i>édition +de luxe</i> would be such a beautiful monument to him. I don't care +a bit about the money," she went on with a splendid disregard of +her rights that would have sent a shiver down the incorporated back +of the Incorporated Society of Authors, "I'm only too willing to +contribute towards the expense. Please understand me. It's a +tribute and a monument."</p> +<p>"You only put up monuments to those who are dead," said +Wittekind.</p> +<p>"But my husband—"</p> +<p>"—isn't dead," said he.</p> +<p>"Oh!" said Doria. "Then—"</p> +<p>"The time for your <i>édition de luxe</i> is not +yet."</p> +<p>"Yet? But—you don't think Adrian's work is going to +die?"</p> +<p>She looked at him tragically. He reassured her.</p> +<p>"Certainly not. Our future sumptuous edition will be a sign that +he is among the immortals. But an <i>édition de luxe</i> now +would be a wanton <i>Hic jacet</i>."</p> +<p>All of this may have been a bit sophistical, but it was sound +business from the publisher's point of view, and conveyed through +the medium of Wittekind's unaffected urbanity it convinced Doria. I +listened to her account of it with a new moon of a smile across my +soul—or across whatever part of oneself one smiles with when +one's face is constrained to immobility.</p> +<p>"I'm so glad I plucked up courage to come and see you, Mr. +Wittekind," she said. "I feel much happier. I'm quite content to +leave Adrian's reputation in your hands. I wish, indeed, I had come +to see you before." "I wish you had," said he.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne has been most kind; but—"</p> +<p>"Jaffery Chayne isn't you," he laughed. "But all the same, he's +a splendid fellow and an admirable man of business."</p> +<p>"In what way?" she asked, rather coldly.</p> +<p>"Well—so prompt."</p> +<p>"That's the very last word I should apply to him. He took an +unconscionable time," said Doria.</p> +<p>"He had a very difficult and delicate work of revision to do. +Your husband's work was a first draft. The novel had to be pulled +together. He did it admirably. That sort of thing takes time, +although it was a labour of love."</p> +<p>"It merely meant writing in bits of scenes. Oh, Mr. Wittekind," +she cried, reverting to an old grievance, "I do wish I could see +exactly what he wrote and what Adrian wrote. I've been so worried! +Why do your printers destroy authors' manuscripts?"</p> +<p>"They don't," said Wittekind. "They don't get them nowadays. +They print from a typed copy."</p> +<p>"'The Greater Glory' was printed from my husband's original +manuscript."</p> +<p>Wittekind smiled and shook his head. "No, my dear Mrs. Boldero. +From two typed copies—one in England and one in America."</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne told me that in order to save time he sent you +Adrian's original manuscript with his revisions."</p> +<p>"I'm sure you must have misunderstood him," said Wittekind. "I +read the typescript myself. I've never seen a line of your +husband's manuscript."</p> +<p>"But 'The Diamond Gate' was printed from Adrian's +manuscript."</p> +<p>"No, no, no. That, too, I read in type."</p> +<p>Doria rose and the colour fled from her cheeks and her great +dark eyes grew bigger, and she brought down her little gloved hand +on the writing desk by which the publisher, cross-kneed, was +sitting. He rose, too.</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne has definitely told me that both Adrian's original +manuscripts went to the printers and were destroyed by the +printers."</p> +<p>"It's impossible," said Wittekind, in much perplexity. "You're +making some extraordinary mistake."</p> +<p>"I'm not. Mr. Chayne would not tell me a lie."</p> +<p>Wittekind drew himself up. "Neither would I, Mrs. Boldero. Allow +me."</p> +<p>He took up his "house" telephone. "Ask Mr. Forest to come to me +at once." He turned to Doria. "Let us get to the bottom of this. +Mr. Forest is my literary adviser—everything goes through his +hands."</p> +<p>They waited in silence until Mr. Forest appeared. "You remember +the Boldero manuscripts?"</p> +<p>"Of course."</p> +<p>"What were they, manuscript or typescript?"</p> +<p>"Typescript."</p> +<p>"Have you even seen any of Mr. Boldero's original +manuscript?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"Do you think any of it has ever come into the office?"</p> +<p>"I'm sure it hasn't."</p> +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Forest."</p> +<p>The reader retired.</p> +<p>"You see," said Wittekind.</p> +<p>"Then where are the original manuscripts of 'The Diamond Gate' +and 'The Greater Glory'?"</p> +<p>"I'm very sorry, dear Mrs. Boldero, but I have no means of +knowing."</p> +<p>"Mr. Chayne said they were sent here, and used by the printers +and destroyed by the printers."</p> +<p>"I'm sure," said Wittekind, "there's some muddling +misunderstanding. Jaffery Chayne, in his own line, is a +distinguished man—and a man of unblemished honour. A word or +two will clear up everything."</p> +<p>"He's in Madagascar."</p> +<p>"Then wait till he comes back."</p> +<p>Doria insisted—and who in the world can blame her for +insisting?</p> +<p>"You may think me a silly woman, Mr. Wittekind; but I'm +not—not to the extent of an hysterical invention. Mr. Chayne +has told me definitely that those two manuscripts came to your +office, that the books were printed from them and that they were +destroyed by the printers."</p> +<p>"And I," said Wittekind, "give you my word of honour—and I +have also given you independent testimony—that no manuscript +of your husband's has ever entered this office."</p> +<p>"Suppose they had come in his handwriting, would they have been +destroyed?"</p> +<p>"Certainly not. Every sheet would have been returned with the +proofs. Typed copy may or may not be returned."</p> +<p>"But autograph copy is valuable?"</p> +<p>"Naturally."</p> +<p>"The manuscripts of Adrian's novels might be worth a lot of +money?"</p> +<p>"Quite a lot of money."</p> +<p>"So you don't think Mr. Chayne destroyed them?"</p> +<p>"It's an act of folly of which a literary man like Mr. Chayne +would be incapable."</p> +<p>"And you've never seen any of it?"</p> +<p>"I've given you my word of honour."</p> +<p>"Then it's very extraordinary," said Doria.</p> +<p>"It is," said Wittekind, stiffly.</p> +<p>She thrust out her hand and flashed a generous glance.</p> +<p>"Forgive me for being bewildered. But it's so upsetting. You +have nothing whatever to do with it. It's all Jaffery Chayne." She +looked up at the loosely built, kindly man. "It's for him to give +explanations. In the meanwhile, I leave my dear, dear husband's +memory in your hands—to keep green, as you say"—tears +came into her eyes—"and you will, won't you?"</p> +<p>The pathos of her attitude dissolved all resentment. He bent +over her, still holding her hand.</p> +<p>"You may be quite sure of that," said he. "Even we publishers +have our ideals—and our purest is to distribute through the +world the works of a man of genius."</p> +<p>So Doria having telephoned for permission to come and see us on +urgent business, arrived at Northlands late in the afternoon, full +of the virtues of Wittekind and the vices of Jaffery. She gave us a +full account of her interview and appealed to me for explanations +of Jaffery's extraordinary conduct. I upbraided myself bitterly for +having counselled her to bite Wittekind. I ought, instead, to have +thrown every possible obstacle in the way of her meeting him. I +ought to have foreseen this question of the manuscripts, the one +weak spot in our web of deception. Now I may be a liar when driven +by necessity from the paths of truth, but I am not an accomplished +liar. It is not my fault. Mere providence has guided my life +through such gentle pastures that I have had no practice worth +speaking of. Barbara, too, is an amateur in mendacity. Both of us +were sorely put to it under Doria's indignant and suspicious +cross-examination.</p> +<p>"You saw the original manuscript of 'The Greater Glory'?"</p> +<p>"Yes," I lied.</p> +<p>"Did you see the original manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate'?"</p> +<p>"No," I lied again.</p> +<p>"Was it among Adrian's papers?"</p> +<p>"Not to my knowledge. Probably if Adrian didn't send it to the +printers, he destroyed it."</p> +<p>"I don't believe he destroyed it. Jaffery has got it, and he has +also got the manuscript of 'The Greater Glory.' What does he want +them for?"</p> +<p>"That's a leading question, my dear, which I can't answer, +because I don't know whether he has them or not. In fact, I know +nothing whatever about them."</p> +<p>"It sounds horrid and ungracious, Hilary, after all you've done +for me," said Doria, "but I really think you ought to know +something."</p> +<p>From her point of view, and from any outside person's point of +view, she was perfectly right. My bland ignorance was disgraceful. +If she had brought an action against us for recovery of these +wretched manuscripts and we managed to keep the essential secret, +both counsel and judge would have flayed me alive. . . . Put +yourself in her place for a minute—God knows I tried to do so +hard enough—and you will see the logic of her position, all +through. She was not a woman of broad human sympathies and generous +outlook; she was intense and narrow. Her whole being had been +concentrated on Adrian during their brief married life; it was +concentrated now on his memory. To her, as to all the world, he +flamed a dazzling meteor. Her faults, which were many and hard to +bear with, all sprang from the bigotry of love. Nothing had +happened to cloud her faith. She had come up against many +incomprehensible things: the delay in publication of Adrian's book; +the change of title; the burning of Adrian's last written words on +the blotting pad; the vivid pictures that were obviously not +Adrian's; the consignment to a printer's Limbo of the original +manuscripts; my own placid disassociation from the literary side of +the executorship. She had accepted them—not without protest; +but she had in fact accepted them. Now she struck a reef of things +more incomprehensible still. Jaffery had lied to her outrageously. +I, for one, hold her justified in her indignation.</p> +<p>But what on earth could I do? What on earth could my poor +Barbara do? We sat, both of us, racking our brains for some +fantastic invention, while Doria, like a diminutive tragedy queen, +walked about my library, inveighing against Jaffery and crying for +her manuscripts. And I dared not know anything at all about them. +She had every reason to reproach me.</p> +<p>Barbara, feeling very uncomfortable, said: "You mustn't blame +Hilary. When Adrian died each of the executors took charge of a +special department. Jaffery Chayne did not interfere with Hilary's +management of financial affairs, and Hilary left Jaffery free with +the literary side of things. It has worked very well. This silly +muddle about the manuscripts doesn't matter a little bit."</p> +<p>"But it does matter," cried Doria.</p> +<p>And it did. Now that she knew that those sacred manuscripts +written by the dear, dead hand had not been destroyed by printers, +every fibre of her passionate self craved their possession. We +argued futilely, as people must, who haven't the ghost of a +case.</p> +<p>"But why has Jaffery lied?"</p> +<p>"The manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate,'" I declared, again +perjuring myself, "has nothing whatever to do with Jaffery and me. +As I've told you it was not among Adrian's papers which we went +through together. We're narrowed down to 'The Greater Glory.' +Possibly," said I, with a despairing flash, "Jaffery had to pull it +about so much and deface it with his own great scrawl, that he +thought it might pain you to see it, and so he told you that it had +disappeared at the printer's. Now that I remember, he did say +something of the kind."</p> +<p>"Yes, he did," said Barbara.</p> +<p>Doria brushed away the hypothesis. "You poor things! You're +merely saying that to shield him. A blind imbecile could see +through you"—I have already apologised to you for our being +the unconvincing liars that we were—"you know nothing more +about it than I do. You ought to, as I've already said. But you +don't. In fact, you know considerably less. Shall I tell you where +the manuscripts are at the present moment?"</p> +<p>"No, my dear," said Barbara, in the plaintive voice of one who +has come to the end of a profitless talk; for you cannot imagine +how utterly wearied we were with the whole of the miserable +business. "Let us wait till Jaffery comes home. It won't be so very +long."</p> +<p>"Yes, Doria," said I, soothingly. "Barbara's right. You can't +condemn a man without a hearing?"</p> +<p>Doria laughed scornfully. "Can't I? I'm a woman, my dear friend. +And when a woman condemns a man unheard she's much more merciful +than when she condemns him after listening to his pleadings. Then +she gets really angry, and perhaps does the man injustice."</p> +<p>I gasped at the monstrous proposition; but Barbara did not seem +to detect anything particularly wrong about it.</p> +<p>"At any rate," said I, "whether you condemn him or not, we can't +do anything until he comes home. So we had better leave it at +that."</p> +<p>"Very well," said Doria. "Let us leave it for the present. I +don't want to be more of a worry to you dear people than I can +help. But that's where Adrian's manuscripts are, both of +them"—and she pointed to the key of Jaffery's flat hanging +with its staring label against my library wall.</p> +<p>Of course it was rather mean to throw the entire onus on to +Jaffery. But again, what could we do? Doria put her pistol at our +heads and demanded Adrian's original manuscripts. She had every +reason to believe in their existence. Wittekind had never seen +them. Vandal and Goth and every kind of Barbarian that she +considered Jaffery to be, it was inconceivable that he had +deliberately destroyed them. It was equally inconceivable that he +had sold the precious things for vulgar money. They remained +therefore in his possession. Why did he lie? We could supply no +satisfactory answer; and the more solutions we offered the more did +we confirm in her mind the suspicion of dark and nefarious +dealings. If it were only to gain time in order to think and +consult, we had to refer her to the absent Jaffery.</p> +<p>"My dear," said I to Barbara, when we were alone, "we're in a +deuce of a mess."</p> +<p>"I'm afraid we are."</p> +<p>"Henceforward," said I, "we're going to live like selfish pigs, +with no thought about anybody but ourselves and our own little pig +and about anything outside our nice comfortable sty."</p> +<p>"We'll do nothing of the kind," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"You'll see," said I. "I'm a lion of egotism when I'm +roused."</p> +<p>We dined and had a pleasant evening. Doria did not raise the +disastrous topic, but talked of Marienbad and her visits, and +discussed the modern tendencies of the drama. She prided herself on +being in the forefront of progress, and found no dramatic salvation +outside the most advanced productions of the Incorporated Stage +Society. I pleaded for beauty, which she called wedding-cake. She +pleaded for courage and truth in the presentation of actual life, +which I called dull and stupid photography which any dismal fool +could do. We had quite an exciting and entirely profitless +argument.</p> +<p>"I'm not going to listen any longer," she cried at last, "to +your silly old early Victorian platitudes!"</p> +<p>"And I," I retorted, "am not going to be browbeaten in my own +home by one-foot-nothing of crankiness and chiffon."</p> +<p>So, laughingly, we parted for the night, the best of friends. If +only, I thought, she could sweep her head clear of Adrian, what a +fascinating little person she might be. And I understood how it had +come to pass that our hulking old ogre had fallen in love with her +so desperately.</p> +<p>The next morning I was in the garden, superintending the +planting of some roses in a new, bed, when Doria, in hat and furs, +came through my library window, and sang out a good-bye. I hurried +to her.</p> +<p>"Surely not going already? I thought you were at least staying +to lunch."</p> +<p>No; she had to get back to town. The car, ordered by Barbara, +was waiting to take her to the station.</p> +<p>"I'll see you into the train," said I.</p> +<p>"Oh, please don't trouble."</p> +<p>"I will trouble," I laughed, and I accompanied her down the +slope to the front door where stood Barbara by the car and Franklin +with the luggage. Doria and I drove to the station. For the few +minutes before the train came in we walked up and down the +platform. She was in high spirits, full of jest and laughter. An +unwonted flush in her cheeks and a brightness in her deep eyes +rendered her perfectly captivating.</p> +<p>"I haven't seen you looking so well and so pretty for ever such +a long time," I said.</p> +<p>The flush deepened. "You and Barbara have done me all the good +in the world. You always do. Northlands is a sort of Fontaine de +Jouvence for weary people."</p> +<p>That was as graceful as could be. And when she shook hands with +me a short while afterwards through the carriage window, she +thanked me for our long-sufferance with more spontaneous cordiality +than she had ever before exhibited. I returned to my roses, feeling +that, after all, we had done something to help the poor little lady +on her way. If I had been a cat, I should have purred. After an +hour or so, Barbara summoned me from my contemplative +occupation.</p> +<p>"Yes, dear?" said I, at the library window.</p> +<p>"Have you written to Rogers?"</p> +<p>Rogers was a plumber.</p> +<p>"He's a degraded wretch," said I, "and unworthy of receiving a +letter from a clean-minded man."</p> +<p>"Meanwhile," said Barbara, "the servants' bathroom continues to +be unusable."</p> +<p>"Good God!" said I, "does Rogers hold the cleanliness of this +household in his awful hands?"</p> +<p>"He does."</p> +<p>"Then I will sink my pride and write to him."</p> +<p>"Write now," said Barbara, leading me to my chair. "You ought to +have done it three days ago."</p> +<p>So with three days' bathlessness of my domestic staff upon my +conscience, and with Barbara at my elbow, I wrote my summons. I +turned in my chair, holding it up in my hand.</p> +<p>"Is this sufficiently dignified and imperious?"</p> +<p>I began to declaim it. "Sir, it has been brought to my notice +that the pipes—". I broke off short. "Hullo!" said I, my eyes +on the wall, "what has become of the key of Jaffery's flat?"</p> +<p>There was the brass-headed nail on which I had hung it, +impertinently and nakedly bright. The labelled key had +vanished.</p> +<p>"You've got it in your pocket, as usual," said Barbara.</p> +<p>I may say that I have a habit of losing things and setting the +household from the butler to the lower myrmidons of the kitchen in +frantic search, and calling in gardeners and chauffeurs and nurses +and wives and children to help, only to discover that I have had +the wretched object in my pocket all the time. So accustomed is +Barbara to this wolf-cry that if I came up to her without my head +and informed her that I had lost it, she would be profoundly +sceptical.</p> +<p>But this time I was blameless. "I haven't touched it," I +declared, "and I saw it this morning."</p> +<p>"I don't know about this morning," said Barbara. "But I grant +you it was there yesterday evening, because Doria drew our +attention to it."</p> +<p>"Doria!" I cried, and I rose, with mouth agape, and our eyes met +in a sudden stare.</p> +<p>"Good Heavens! do you think she has taken it?"</p> +<p>"Who else?" said I. "She came out from here to say good-bye to +me in the garden. She had the opportunity. She was preternaturally +animated and demonstrative at the station—your sex's little +guileful way ever since the world began. She had the stolen key +about her. She's going straight to Jaffery's flat to hunt for those +manuscripts."</p> +<p>"Well, let her," said Barbara. "We know she can't find them, +because they don't exist."</p> +<p>"But, my darling Barbara," I cried, "everything else does. And +everything else is there. And there's not a blessed thing locked up +in the place!"</p> +<p>"Do you mean—?" she cried aghast.</p> +<p>"Yes, I do. I must get up to town at once and stop her."</p> +<p>"I'll come with you," said Barbara.</p> +<p>So once more, on altruistic errand, I motored post-haste to +London. We alighted at St. Quentin's Mansions. My friend the porter +came out to receive us.</p> +<p>"Has a lady been here with a key of Mr. Chayne's flat?"</p> +<p>"No, sir, not to my knowledge."</p> +<p>We drew breaths of relief. Our journey had been something of a +strain.</p> +<p>"Thank goodness!" said Barbara.</p> +<p>"Should a lady come, don't allow her to enter the flat," said +I.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i325.jpg" id="i325.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/325.jpg"><img src="images/325.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>And there, in a wilderness of ransacked drawers and strewn<br /> +papers, . . . lay a tiny, black, moaning heap of a woman.</b></div> +<p>"I shouldn't give a strange lady entrance in any case," said the +porter.</p> +<p>"Good!" said I, and I was about to go. But Barbara, with her +ready common-sense, took me aside and whispered:</p> +<p>"Why not take all these compromising manuscripts home with +us?"</p> +<p>In my letter case I had the half-forgotten power of attorney +that Jaffery had given me at Havre. I shewed it to the porter.</p> +<p>"I want to get some things out of Mr. Chayne's flat."</p> +<p>"Certainly, sir," said the porter. "I'll take you up."</p> +<p>We ascended in the lift. The porter opened Jaffery's door. We +entered the sitting-room. And there, in a wilderness of ransacked +drawers and strewn papers, with her head against the cannon-ball on +the hearthrug, lay a tiny, black, moaning heap of a woman.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER +XXIII</h2> +<p>If a ministering angel walks abroad through this world of many +sorrows, it is my wife Barbara. To her and to her alone did the +soul-stricken little creature owe her life and her reason. For a +fortnight she scarcely left Doria's room, sleeping for odd hours +anywhere, and snatching meals with the casual swiftness of a +swallow. For a whole fortnight she wrestled with the powers of +darkness, which like Apollyon straddled quite over all the breadth +of the way, and by sheer valiancy and beauty of heart, she made +them spread forth their dragon's wings and speed them away so that +Doria for a season saw them no more. How she fought and with what +weapons, who am I to tell you? These things are written down; but +in a Book which no human eye can see.</p> +<p>We carried her moaning and distraught from that room of awful +revelation, put her into the car, and brought her back to +Northlands. It was the only thing to be done. Barbara's instinct +foresaw madness if we took her to the flat in St. John's Wood. Her +father's house, her natural refuge, was equally impossible. For +what explanation could we have given to the worthy but +uncomprehending man? He would have called in doctors to minister to +a mind afflicted with a disease beyond their power of diagnosis. +Unless, of course, we made public the facts of the tragedy; which +was unthinkable. Barbara's instinct pierced surely through the +gloom. The first coherent words that Doria said were:</p> +<p>"Let me stay with you for a little. I've nowhere in the world to +go. I can't ask father—and I can't go back home. It would +drive me mad."</p> +<p>Of course it would have driven her mad to return to the haunted +flat—haunted now by no gracious ghost, but by an Unutterable +Presence, the thought of which, even in her quiet, lavender-scented +country bedroom, made her scream of nights. For she knew all. To +save her reason, Barbara, with her wonderful tenderness, had +bridged over the chasms between her stark peaks of discovery. She +knew all that we knew. Further attempts at deception would have +been vain cruelty. Barbara could palliate the offence; she could +show how irresistible had been the temptation; she could prove how +our love for Adrian had been unshaken by disastrous knowledge and +urge that Doria's love should be unshaken likewise; she could apply +all the healing remedies of which she only has the secret—but +she could not leave the poor soul to stumble blindly in +uncertainty.</p> +<p>Doria could never enter her dishallowed paradise again. Even I, +when I went through the place in order to make arrangements for +closing it altogether, felt a teeth-chattering shiver in the +condemned cell where Adrian had worked out his doom. It had been +sacrosanct; not a thing had been disturbed; there was the iron safe +empty, but yet a grim receptacle of abominable secrets; the quill +pen, its point stained with idle ink, lay on the office +writing-table. And the blotting-pad was still there under a clump +of dusty, unused scribbling-paper. On a little stool in the corner +stood the half-emptied decanter of brandy and a glass and a syphon +of soda-water. . . . Goodness knows, I'm not a superstitious or +even an imaginative man; I had been in that room before and had +hated it, on account of its poignant associations; nothing +transcendental had affected me; but now I shuddered, physically +shuddered, as though the cubic space were informed with a spirit in +the torture of an everlasting despair. Doria not knowing, he could +have borne his punishment. But now Doria knew. He had lost her +love, the rock on which he had built his hope of salvation. He was +damned to eternity. It is the supreme and unspeakable horror of +eternal life that you cannot dash your head against a wall and +plunge into nothingness. Yet he tried. The awful Presence of Adrian +was dashing his head against those bare and ghastly walls. . . +.</p> +<p>I never was so glad to breathe God's honest November fog again. +Of course my affright was a silly matter of nerves. But I would not +have slept in that flat for anything in the world.</p> +<p>I had to make, of course, another expedition to Jaffery's +chambers, in order to restore to order the chaos that Doria had +made. She had ransacked every drawer in the place and strewn the +contents of the old portmanteau, Adrian's mass of incoherent +manuscript, about the floor. I did what I ought to have done on my +first visit; I brought the tragic lumber to Northlands, and having +made a bonfire in a corner of the kitchen garden, burned the whole +lot. Why Jaffery had not got rid of the evidence of Adrian's guilt, +I could not at the time imagine. It was only later that I heard the +trivial and mechanical reason. He could not burn the papers in his +flat, because he had no fire—only the electric radiator. You +try, in these circumstances, to destroy five or six thousand sheets +of thick paper, and see how you get on. Jaffery had his idea, when +he transferred the manuscript from Adrian's study; on his next +voyage he would take the portmanteau with him, weight it with the +cannon-ball, which he used after his bath for physical exercise, +and throw it overboard. By singular ill-luck, he had started on his +two voyages that year—if a channel crossing can be termed a +voyage—at a moment's notice. In each case he had not had +occasion to call at his chambers, and the destroying journey had +yet to be made. As for discovery of the secrets lying in unlocked +receptacles, who was there to discover them? Such friends as he had +would never pry into his private concerns; and as for housemaids +and waiters and porters, the whole matter to them was +unintelligible. While he was living in St. Quentin's Mansions, he +considered himself secure. When he realised, at Havre, that he +would be absent for some months, he put things into my charge. That +I bitterly regretted not having put tinder lock and key or taken +steps to destroy papers and manuscripts, I need not say. For a long +time I felt the guiltiest wretch outside prison in the three +kingdoms. If I had been a wild man of the jungle like Jaffery, it +would not have mattered; but I have always prided myself on +being—not the last word, for that would not be consonant with +my natural modesty—but, say, the penultimate word of our +modern civilisation; and the memory of having acted like an +ingenuous child of nature still burns whenever it floats across my +brain. Metaphorically, Jaffery and I sobbed with remorse on each +other's bosoms, and called ourselves all the picturesque synonyms +for careless fools we could think of; but that, naturally, did not +a bit of good to anybody.</p> +<p>The fact was accomplished. Our dear Humpty-Dumpty had had his +great fall, and not all the king's horses and all the king's men +could ever set Humpty-Dumpty up again.</p> +<p>Greek tragedies are all very well in their way. They are vastly +interesting in the inevitableness of their prearranged doom. <i>Moi +qui vous parle</i>, I have read all of them; and I like them. I +have even seen some of them acted. I have seen, for instance, the +Agamemnon given by the boys of Bradfield College, in their model +open-air Greek theatre, built out of a chalk-pit, and I have sat +gripped from beginning to end by the tremendous drama. I am not +talking foolishly. I know as much as the ordinary man need know +about Greek tragedy. But in spite of Aristotle (who ought to have +been strangled at birth, like all other bland +doctrinaires—and of all the doctrinaires on art, there has +none been so blandly egregious since the early morning long ago +when the pre-historic artist who drew an elk on the omoplate of a +bison was clubbed by the superior person of his day who could not +draw for nuts)—in spite of Aristotle and the rest of the +theorists, I assert that, as far as my experience goes, in the +ordinary wary modern life to which we are accustomed, doom and +inevitableness do not matter a hang. If we have any common-sense we +can dodge them. Most of us do. Of course, if a woman marries a +congenital idiot there are bound to be ructions—here we are +entering the domain of pathology, which is as doomful as you +please; but in our ordinary modern life ninety per cent. of the +tragedies are determined by sheer million to one fortuities. The +history of our great criminal trials, for instance, is a romance of +coincidence. It is your melodramatist and not your Aristotelian +purist that knows what he's talking about when he writes a play. He +only has to look about him and draw what happens in real life. That +there may be an Eternal Puckish Malice arranging and deranging +human destinies is another question. I am neither a theologian nor +a metaphysician, and I do not desire to discuss the subject. I only +maintain that, had it not been for sheer chance, Adrian's secret +would never have been discovered a second time. I cannot see any +doom about it. A series of sheer, silly accidents on the part of +Jaffery and myself had brought Doria face to face with these +incriminating papers. As for her having gained access to the flat +without the porter's knowledge, that had been calculation on her +part. She had watched at the street entrance until he had taken +some one up in the lift, and then she had mounted the interminable +stairs.</p> +<p>I could have caught Jaffery by letter at Genoa or Marseilles; +but in view of his imminent return, I did not write to him. What +useful purpose would have been served? He would have left the +steamship <i>Vesta</i> and travelled post-haste overland, dragging +with him a resentful Liosha, and rushed like a mad bull into an +upheaval in which he could have no place. We had arranged by +correspondence that, after he had parted from the good Captain +Maturin at Havre, he would come straight to us, in order to leave +Liosha temporarily in our care. For what else could be done with +her? Let him bring her, then, according to programme. It would be +far better, we agreed, Barbara and I, to let them fulfil their +lunatic adventure undisturbed, and on Jaffery's arrival at +Northlands to break the disastrous tidings. It would give us time +to watch Doria and see what direction the resultant of the forces +now tearing her soul would take.</p> +<p>"Let Jaffery stay away as long as possible," said Barbara. "I +can't be bothered with him. I wish his old voyage could be extended +for a year."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>The first time I met Doria, when she crawled out of her room, a +great pity smote my heart. The ivory of her face had turned to wax, +and she had dwindled into a fragile reed, and in her eyes quivered +the apprehension of an ill-treated dog. I put my arm round her and +hugged her reassuringly, not knowing what else to do, and mumbled a +few silly words. Then I settled her down before the drawing-room +fire, and rushed out into the garden and cut the last poor +lingering autumn roses, and, returning, cast them into her lap. And +we talked hard about the roses; and I told her which were Madame +Abel Chatenay, which Marquise de Salisbury, and which Frau Karl +Druska, which Lady Ursula and which Lady Hillingdon. We did not +refer at all to unhappy things.</p> +<p>It was only some days afterwards that she ventured to raise the +veil of her awful desolation. But she had no need to tell me. Any +fool could have divined it. Together with far less shattering of +idols has many a woman's reason been brought down. And in our poor +Doria's case it was not only the shattering of idols.</p> +<p>"Hilary, dear," she said, with a mournful attempt at a smile. "I +can't go on living here for ever."</p> +<p>"Why not?" I asked. "This is a vast barrack of a place, and +you're only just a bit of a wee white mouse. And we love our pets. +Why do you want to go?"</p> +<p>We were walking up and down the drive. It was a warm, damp +morning and the trees shaken by the mild southwester shed their +leaves around us in a golden shower; and the leaves that had fallen +lay sodden on the grass borders. Here and there a surviving blossom +of antirrhinum swaggered among its withered brethren as if to +maintain the illusion of summer. A partridge or two whirred across +the path from copse to meadow. The gentle sadness of the autumn day +had moved her to discourse on the mutability of mundane things. +Hence, by chain of association, I suppose, her sudden remark.</p> +<p>"I don't want to go," she replied. "I should like to stay in the +dreamy peace of Northlands for ever. But I have been a pet for such +a long time—for years, and I've shown myself to be such a bad +pet—biting the hand that fed me."</p> +<p>I bade her not talk foolishly. She moved her small shoulder.</p> +<p>"It's true. While the three of you—you and Barbara and +Jaffery—were doing for me what has never been done for +another human being, I was all the time snarling and snapping. I +can't make out how you can bear the sight of me." She clenched her +hands and straightened her arms down tense. "The thought of it +scorches me," she cried suddenly.</p> +<p>"Whatever you did, dear," said I, "was so natural; and we +understood it all. How could we blame you?"</p> +<p>We had, in fact, blamed her on many occasions, not being as gods +to whom human hearts are open books; but this was not the occasion +on which to tell her so. I don't like the devil being called the +father of lies. I am convinced that the discoverer of mendacity was +a warm-hearted philanthropist, who has never received due credit, +and that the devil having seized hold of his discovery perverted it +to his own diabolical uses. It is the sort of plagiaristic thing +that devils, whether they promote ancient Gehennas or modern +companies, have been doing since the world began.</p> +<p>"That doesn't make it any the easier to me," said Doria. "The +horrible things I said and did—the ghastliness of +it—"</p> +<p>"My dear girl," I interrupted, as kindly as I could. "Don't let +this mere fringe of tragedy worry you."</p> +<p>She laughed shrilly, with a set, white face; which is the most +unmirthful kind of laugh you can imagine.</p> +<p>"Don't you know that it's the fringe that is the maddening +irritation? The big central thing numbs and stupefies, when it +doesn't kill. And for some reason"—she threw out her little +gloved hands—"the big thing hasn't killed me—it has +paralysed me. The springs of feeling"—she clutched her +bosom—"are dried up. My heart is withered and dead. I can't +explain. For all the dead things I'm not responsible. I've gone +through Hell the last two or three weeks and they've been burned up +altogether. But what hasn't been burned up is the fringe, as you +call it. That's only red-hot. It scorches me, and I can't sleep for +the torture of it. . . ." She stopped, and fronting me laid an +appealing touch on my arm. "Oh, Hilary, forgive me. I didn't mean +to go on in this wild way. I thought I had a better hold on +myself."</p> +<p>"I don't see," said I, "why you shouldn't unburden your heart to +one who has proved himself to be a friend not only of yours, but of +Adrian."</p> +<p>She released me, and with a wide gesture, swayed across the +gravel path. I stepped to her side and mechanically we walked on, a +few paces, before either of us spoke.</p> +<p>"I have told you," she said at last. "I have no heart to +unburden. There never was an Adrian."</p> +<p>"There was indeed," said I, warmly.</p> +<p>"Yours. Not mine."</p> +<p>"Have you no forgiveness for him, then?" I asked earnestly.</p> +<p>She halted again and looked at me and at the back of her great +eyes gleamed black ice.</p> +<p>"No," she said.</p> +<p>I went straight to bed-rock.</p> +<p>"He was the father of your dead child," said I.</p> +<p>Her small frame heaved and she looked away from me down the +drive. "I can only thank God that the child didn't live."</p> +<p>Barbara had told me something of the fear in which she seemed to +hold Adrian's memory. But I had not in the least realised it till +now when I heard the profession from her own lips. In fact, I know +that she had never yet spoken to Barbara with such passionate +directness.</p> +<p>"You oughtn't to say such a thing, Doria," I said sternly.</p> +<p>"I am as God made me."</p> +<p>"Adrian loved you. He sinned for your sake—in order to get +you."</p> +<p>She dismissed the argument with a gesture.</p> +<p>"You must have pity on him," I insisted, "for the unspeakable +torment of those months of barrenness, of abortive attempts at +creation."</p> +<p>She was silent for a moment. Having reached the front gates we +turned and began to walk up the drive. Then she said:</p> +<p>"Yes, I do pity him. It's enough to tear one's brain +out,—his when he was alive—and mine now. The thought of +it will freeze my soul for all eternity. I can't tell you what I +feel." She cast out her hands imploringly to the autumn fields. "I +pity him as I would pity some one remote from me—a criminal +whom I might have seen done to death by awful tortures. It's a +matter of the brain, not of the heart. No. I have all the +understanding. But I can't find the pardon."</p> +<p>"That will come," said I.</p> +<p>"In the next world, perhaps, not in this."</p> +<p>Her tone of finality forbade argument. Besides what was there to +argue about? She had said: "There never was an Adrian." From her +point of view, she was mercilessly right.</p> +<p>"It's horrible to think," she went on after a pause, "that all +this time I've been living, first on stolen property and now on +charity—Jaffery's charity—and he hasn't even had a word +of thanks. Quite the contrary." Again she laughed the shrill, dead +laugh. "You see, I must go home—to my father's—I'm +strong enough now—and start my life, such as it is, all over +again. I can't touch another penny of the Wittekind money. +Castleton's people and Jaffery must be paid."</p> +<p>"Tom Castleton," I said, "was alone in the world, and Jaffery's +not the man to take back a free gift beautifully given. If you +don't like to keep the money—I appreciate your +feelings—you can devote it to philanthropic purposes."</p> +<p>"Yes, I might do that," she agreed. "But is this +fraud—this false reputation—to go on forever?"</p> +<p>"I'm afraid it must," said I. "Nobody would be benefited by +throwing such a bombshell of scandal into society. If anybody +living were suffering from wrong it might be different. But there's +no reason to blacken unnecessarily the name you bear."</p> +<p>"Then you really think I should be justified in keeping the +secret?" she asked anxiously.</p> +<p>"I think it would be outrageous of you to do anything else," +said I.</p> +<p>"That eases my mind. If it were essential for me to make things +public, I would do it. I'm not a coward. But I should die of the +disgrace."</p> +<p>"To poor Adrian," said I.</p> +<p>She flashed a quick, defiant glance.</p> +<p>"To me."</p> +<p>"To Adrian," I insisted, smitten with a queer inspiration. "He +sinned—the unpardonable sin, if you like. But he expiated it. +He's expiating it now. And you love him. And it's for his sake, not +yours, that you shrink from public disgrace. You were so +irrevocably wrapped up in him"—I pursued my +advantage—"that you feel yourself a partner in his guilt. +Which means that you love him still."</p> +<p>She raised a stark, terror-stricken face. I touched her +shoulder. Then, all of a sudden, she collapsed, and broke into an +agony of sobs and tears. I drew her to a desolate rustic bench and +put my arm round her and let her sob herself out.</p> +<p>After that we did not speak of Adrian.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<p>At last news came from Havre of the end of the preposterous +voyage.</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Crossing to-night. Coming straight to you. Send car to meet us +Reading. Local trains beastly. Both fit as elephants. Love to +all.</p> +<p>"JAFFERY."</p> +</div> +<p>Such was the telegram. I wired to Southampton acquiescence in +his proposal. It was far more sensible to come direct to Reading +than to make a détour through London. Rooms were got ready. +In the one destined for Liosha, we had already stowed the cargo of +trunks which the Great Swiftness had delivered in the nick of time. +The next day I took the car to Reading and waited for the +train.</p> +<p>From the far end of it I saw two familiar figures descend, and a +moment afterwards the station resounded with a familiar roar.</p> +<p>"Hullo! hullo! hullo!"</p> +<p>Jaffery, red-bearded, grinning, perhaps a bit mightier, hairier, +redder than ever, his great hands uplifted, rushed at me and shook +me in his lunatic way, so that train, passengers, porters and +Liosha all rocked and reeled before my eyes. He let me go, and, +before I could recover, Liosha threw her arms round my neck and +kissed me. A porter who picked up my hat restored me to mental +equipoise. Then I looked at them, and anything more splendid in +humanity than that simple, happy pair of gigantic children I have +never seen in my life. I, too, felt the laughter of happiness swell +in my heart, for their gladness at the sight of me was so true, so +unaffected, and I wrung their hands and laughed aloud foolishly. It +is good to be loved, especially when you've done nothing particular +to deserve it. And in their primitive way these two loved me.</p> +<p>"Isn't she fit?" roared Jaffery.</p> +<p>"Magnificent," said I.</p> +<p>She was. The thick tan of exposure to wind and sun gave her a +gipsy swarthiness beneath which glowed the rich colour of health. +When I had parted from her at Havre there had been just a thread of +soft increase in her generous figure; but now all superfluous flesh +had hardened down into muscle, and the superb lines proclaimed her +splendour. And there seemed to be more authority in her radiant +face and a new masterfulness and a quicker intelligence in her +brown eyes. I noticed that it was she who first broke away from the +clamour of greeting and gave directions as to the transport of +their "dunnage." Jaffery followed her with the tail of his eye; +then turned to me with a bass chuckle.</p> +<p>"We're a sort of Jaff Chayne and Co., according to her, and she +thinks she's managing director. Ho! ho! ho!" He put his arm round +my shoulder and suddenly grew serious. "How's everybody?"</p> +<p>"Flourishing," said I.</p> +<p>"And Doria?"</p> +<p>"At Northlands."</p> +<p>"She knows I'm coming?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said I.</p> +<p>Liosha joined us, accompanied by a porter, carrying their +exiguous baggage. We walked to the exit, without saying much, and +settled ourselves in the limousine, my guests in the back seat, I +on one of the little chairs facing them. We started.</p> +<p>"My dear old chap," said I, leaning forward. "I've got something +to tell you. I didn't like to write about it. But it has got to be +told, and I may as well get it over now."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>It was a subdued and half-scared Jaffery who greeted Barbara and +Susan at our front door. The jollity had gone out of him. He was +nothing but a vast hulk filled with self-reproach. It was his +fault, his very grievous and careless fault for having postponed +the destruction of the papers, and for having left them loose and +unsecured in his rooms. He all but beat his breast. If Doria had +died of the shock his would be the blame. He saluted Barbara with +the air of one entering a house of mourning.</p> +<p>"You mustn't look so woe-begone," she said. "Something like this +was bound to happen. I have dreaded it all along—and now it +has happened and the earth hasn't come to an end."</p> +<p>We stood in the hall, while Franklin divested the visitors of +their outer wraps and trappings.</p> +<p>"And, Liosha," Barbara continued, throwing her arms round as +much of Liosha as they could grasp—she had already kissed her +a warm welcome—"it's a shame, dear, to depress you the moment +you come into the place. You'll wish you were at sea again."</p> +<p>"I guess not," said Liosha. "I know now I'm among folks who love +me. Isn't that true, Susan?"</p> +<p>"Daddy loves you and mummy loves you and I adore you," cried +Susan.</p> +<p>Whereupon there was much hugging of a spoiled monkey.</p> +<p>We went upstairs. At the drawing-room door Barbara gave me one +of her queer glances, which meant, on interpretation, that I should +leave her alone with Jaffery for a few minutes so that she could +pour the balm of sense over his remorseful soul, and that in the +meantime it would be advisable for me to explain the situation to +Liosha. Aloud, she said, before disappearing:</p> +<p>"Your old room, Liosha, dear—you'll find everything +ready."</p> +<p>In order to carry out my wife's orders, I had to disentangle +Susan from Liosha's embrace and pack her off rueful to the nursery. +But the promise to seat her at lunch between the two seafarers +brought a measure of consolation.</p> +<p>"Come into the library, Liosha," said I, throwing the door open. +I followed her and settled her in an armchair before a big fire; +and then stood on the hearthrug, looking at her and feeling rather +a fool. I offered her refreshment. She declined. I commented again +on her fine physical appearance and asked her how she was. I drew +her attention to some beautiful narcissi and hyacinths that had +come from the greenhouse. The more I talked and the longer she +regarded me in her grave, direct fashion, the less I knew how to +tell her, or how much to tell her, of Doria's story. The drive had +been a short one, giving time only for a narration of the facts of +the discovery. Liosha, although accepting my apology, had sat +mystified; also profoundly disturbed by Jaffery's unconcealed +agitation. Her life with him during the past four months had drawn +her into the meshes of the little drama. For her own sake, for +everybody's sake, we could not allow her to remain in complete +ignorance. . . . I gave her a cigarette and took one myself. After +the first puff, she smiled.</p> +<p>"You want to tell me something."</p> +<p>"I do. Something that is known only to four people in the +world—and they're in this house."</p> +<p>"If you tell me, I guess it'll be known only to five," said +Liosha.</p> +<p>To have questioned the loyalty of her eyes would have been to +insult truth itself.</p> +<p>"All right," said I. "You'll be the fifth and last." And then, +as simply as I could, I told her all there was to know. She grasped +the literary details more quickly than I had anticipated. I found +afterwards that the long months of the voyage had not been entirely +taken up with the cooking of bacon and the swabbing of decks; there +had been long stretches of tedium beguiled by talk on most things +under heaven, and aided by her swift and jealous intelligence her +mental horizon had broadened prodigiously through constant +association with a cultivated man. . . . When I reached the point +in my story where Jaffery gave up the Persian expedition, she +gripped the arms of her chair, and her lips worked in their +familiar quiver.</p> +<p>"He must have loved her to do that," she said in a low +voice.</p> +<p>I went on, and the more involved I became in the disastrous +affair, the more was I convinced that it would he better for her to +understand clearly the imbroglio of Jaffery and Doria. You see, I +knew all along, as all along I hope I have given you to +understand—ever since the day when she asked him to beat her +with a golf-stick—that the poor girl loved Jaffery, heart and +soul. I knew also that she made for herself no illusions as to +Jaffery's devotion to Doria. On that point her words to me at Havre +had left me in no doubt whatever. But since Havre all sorts of +extraordinary things had happened. There had been their intimate +comradeship in the savagery (from my point of view) of the last few +months. There was now Doria's awful change of soul-attitude towards +Adrian. It was right that Liosha should be made aware of the +emotional subtleties that underlay the bare facts. It seemed cruel +to tell her of the last scene, so pathetic, so tragic, so +grotesque, between the man she loved and the other woman. But her +unflinching bravery and her great heart demanded it. And as I told +her, walking nervously about the room, she followed me with her +steadfast eyes.</p> +<p>"So that's why Jaff Chayne came abroad with me."</p> +<p>"I suppose so," said I.</p> +<p>"If I had been a man I should have strangled her, or flung her +out of the window."</p> +<p>"I dare say. But you wouldn't have been Jaff Chayne."</p> +<p>"That's true," she assented. "No man like him ever walked the +earth. And how a woman could be so puppy-blind as not to see it, I +can't imagine."</p> +<p>"Her head was full of another man, you see."</p> +<p>"Oh yes, I see," she said with a touch of contempt. "And such a +man! You were fond of him I know. But he was a sham. He used to +look on me, I remember, as an amusing sort of animal out of the +Zoological Gardens. It never occurred to him that I had sense. He +was a fool."</p> +<p>Intimately as we had known Liosha, this was the first time she +had ever expressed an opinion regarding Adrian. We had assumed +that, having touched her life so lightly, he had been but a shadowy +figure in her mind, and that, save in so far as his death concerned +us, she had viewed him with entire indifference. But her keen +feminine brain had picked out the fatal flaw in poor Adrian's +character, the shallow glitter that made us laugh and the want of +vision from which he died.</p> +<p>"Go on," said Liosha.</p> +<p>I continued. In justice to Doria, I elaborated her reasons for +setting Adrian on his towering pinnacle. Liosha nodded. She +understood. False gods, whatever degree of godhead they usurped, +had for a time the mystifying power of concealing their falsehood. +And during that time they were gods, real live dwellers on Olympus, +flaming Joves to poor mortal Semeles. Liosha quite understood.</p> +<p>I ended, more or less, a recapitulation of what she had heard, +uncomprehending, in the car.</p> +<p>"And that's how it stands," said I.</p> +<p>I was rather shaken, I must confess, by my narrative, and I +turned aside and lit another cigarette. Liosha remained silent for +a while, resting her cheek on her hand. At last she said in her +deep tones:</p> +<p>"Poor little devil! Good God! Poor little devil!"</p> +<p>Tears flooded her eyes.</p> +<p>"By heavens," I cried, "you're a good creature."</p> +<p>"I'm nothing of the sort," said Liosha. She rose. "I guess I +must have a clean up before lunch," and she made for the door.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. "You just have time," said I.</p> +<p>I opened the door for her to pass out, and fell a-musing in +front of the fire. Here was a new Liosha, as far apart from the +serene young barbarian who had come to us two and a half years +before blandly characterising Euphemia as a damn fool because she +would not let her buy a stocked chicken incubator and take it to +the Savoy Hotel, as a prairie wolf from the noble Great Dane. Her +nature had undergone remarkable developments. As Jaffery had +prophesied at Havre, she treated things in a big way, and she had +learned restraint, not the restraint of convention, for not a +convention would have stopped her from doing what she chose, but +the restraint of self-discipline. And she had learned pity. A year +ago she would not have wept over Doria, whom she had every woman's +reason for hating. A new, generous tenderness had blossomed in her +heart. If all the cutthroats of Albania who had murdered her family +had been brought bound and set on their knees with bared necks +before her and she had been presented with a sharp sword, I doubt +whether she would have cut off one single head.</p> +<p>A tap at the window aroused me. It was Jaffery in the rain, +which had just begun to fail, seeking admittance. I let him in.</p> +<p>"This is an awful business, old man," he said gloomily.</p> +<p>From which I gather that for once Barbara's soothing had been of +little avail.</p> +<p>"Have you seen Doria yet?" I asked.</p> +<p>He shook his head. "Barbara is with her. She's coming in to +lunch."</p> +<p>At the anti-climax, I smiled. "That shews she's not quite dead +yet."</p> +<p>But to Jaffery it was no smiling matter. "Look here, Hilary," he +said hoarsely, "don't you think it would be better for me to cut +the whole thing and go away right now?"</p> +<p>"Go away—?" I stared at him. "What for?"</p> +<p>"Why should I force myself on that poor, tortured child? Think +of her feelings towards me. She must loathe the sound of my +name."</p> +<p>"Jaff Chayne," said I, "I believe you're afraid of mice."</p> +<p>He frowned. "What the blazes do you mean?"</p> +<p>"You're in a blue funk at the idea of meeting Doria."</p> +<p>"Rot," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>But he was.</p> +<p>Franklin summoned us to luncheon. We went into the drawing-room +where the rest of our little party were assembled, Susan and her +governess, Liosha, Barbara and Doria. Doria stepped forward +valiantly with outstretched hand, looking him squarely in the +face.</p> +<p>"Welcome back, Jaffery. It's good to see you again."</p> +<p>Jaffery grew very red and bending over her hand muttered +something into his beard.</p> +<p>"You'll have to tell me about your wonderful voyage."</p> +<p>"There was nothing so wonderful about it," said Jaffery.</p> +<p>That was all for the moment, for Barbara hustled us into the +dining-room. But the terrible meeting that both had dreaded was +over. Nobody had fainted or shed tears; it was over in a perfectly +well-bred way. At lunch Susan, between Liosha and Jaffery, became +the centre of attention and saved conversation from constraint.</p> +<p>To Doria, who had lingered at Northlands, in order to lose no +time in setting herself right with Jaffery,—her own +phrase—the ordinary table small-talk would have been an +ordeal. As it was, she sat on my left, opposite Liosha, lending a +polite ear to the answers to Susan's eager questions. The child had +not received such universal invitation to chatter at mealtime since +she had learned to speak. But, in spite of her inspiring +assistance, a depressing sense of destinies in the balance pervaded +the room, and we were all glad when the meal came to an end. Susan, +refusing to be parted from her beloved Liosha, carried her off to +the nursery to hear more fairy-tales of the steamship <i>Vesta</i>. +Barbara and Doria went into the drawing-room, where Jaffery and I, +after a perfunctory liqueur brandy, soon joined them. We talked for +a while on different things, the child's robustious health, the +garden, the weather, our summer holiday, much in the same dismal +fashion as assembled mourners talk before the coffin is brought +downstairs. At last Barbara said:</p> +<p>"I must go and write some letters."</p> +<p>And I said: "I'm going to have my afternoon nap."</p> +<p>Both the others cried out with simultaneous anxiety and scarlet +faces:</p> +<p>"Oh, don't go, Barbara, dear."</p> +<p>"Can't you cut the sleep out for once?"</p> +<p>"I must!" said Barbara.</p> +<p>"No," said I.</p> +<p>And we left our nervous ogre and our poor little elf to fight +out between themselves whatever battle they had to fight. Perhaps +it was cold-blooded cruelty on our part. But these two had to come +to mutual understanding sooner or later. Why not at once? They had +the afternoon before them. It was pouring with rain. They had +nothing else to do. In order that they should be undisturbed, +Barbara had given orders that we were not at home to visitors. +Besides, we were actuated by motives not entirely altruistic. If I +seem to have posed before you as a noble-minded philanthropist, I +have been guilty of careless misrepresentation. At the best I am +but a not unkindly, easy-going man who loathes being worried. And I +(and Barbara even more than myself) had been greatly worried over +our friends' affairs for a considerable period. We therefore +thought that the sooner we were freed from these worries the better +for us both. Deliberately we hardened our hearts against their +joint appeal and left them together in the drawing-room.</p> +<p>"Whew!" said I, as we walked along the corridor. "What's going +to happen?"</p> +<p>"She'll marry him, of course."</p> +<p>"She won't," said I.</p> +<p>"She will. My dear Hilary, they always do."</p> +<p>"If I have any knowledge of feminine character," said I, "that +young woman harbours in her soul a bitter resentment against +Jaffery."</p> +<p>"If," she said. "But you haven't."</p> +<p>"All right," said I.</p> +<p>"All right," said Barbara.</p> +<p>We paused at the library door. "What," I asked, "is going to +become of Liosha?"</p> +<p>Barbara sighed. "We're not out of this wood yet."</p> +<p>"And with Liosha on our hands, I don't think we ever shall +be."</p> +<p>"I should like to shake Jaffery," said Barbara.</p> +<p>"And I should like," said I, "to kick him."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<p>So, as I have said, we left those two face to face in the big +drawing-room. The man in an agony of self-reproach, helpless pity +and realised failure; the woman—as it seemed to me, smoking +reflectively in my library armchair, for sleep was +impossible—the woman in the calm of desperation. The man who +had performed a thousand chivalrous acts to shield her from harm, +who lavished on her all the devotion and tenderness of his simple +heart; the woman who owed him her life, and, but for fool accident +and her own lack of faith in him, would still be owing him the +twilight happiness of her Fool's Paradise. They had not met, or +exchanged written words, since the early summer day at the St. +John's Wood flat, when he had told her that he loved her, and by +the sheer mischance of his hulking strength had thrown her to the +ground; since that day when she had spat out at him her hatred and +contempt, when she had called him "a barren rascal," and had lashed +him into fury; when, white with realisation that the secret was +about to escape from his lips, he had laid her on the sofa and had +gone blindly into the street. Now facing each other for the first +time after many months, they remembered all too poignantly that +parting. The barren rascal who stood before her was the man who had +written every word of Adrian's triumphant second novel, and had +given it to her out of the largesse of his love. And he had borne +with patience all her imperious strictures and had obeyed all her +crazy and jealous whims. He had fooled her—quixotically +fooled her, it is true—but fooled her as never woman had been +fooled in the world before. And knowing Adrian to be the barren +rascal, all the time, never had he wavered in his loyalty, never +had he uttered one disparaging word. And he had secured the +insertion of a life of Adrian in the next supplement to the +Dictionary of National Biography; and he had helped her to set up +that staring white marble monument in Highgate Cemetery, with its +lying inscription. Never had human soul been invested in such a +Nessus shirt of irony. No wonder she had passed through Hell-fire. +No wonder her soul had been scorched and shrivelled up. No wonder +the licking fires of unutterable shame kept her awake of nights. +And if she writhed in the flaming humiliation of it all when she +was alone, what was that woman's anguish of abasement when she +stood face to face, and compelled to speech, with the man whose +loving hand had unwittingly kindled that burning torment?</p> +<p>The poor human love for Adrian was not dead. That secret I had +plucked out of her heart a few weeks ago in the garden. How did she +regard the man who must have held Adrian in the worst of contempt, +the contempt of pity? She hated him. I was sure she hated him. I +could not take my mind off those two closeted together. What was +happening? Again and again I went over the whole disastrous story. +What would be the end? I wearied myself for a long, long time with +futile speculation.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>My library door opened, and Liosha, bright-eyed, with quivering +lip and tragic face, burst in, and seeing me, flung herself down by +my side and buried her head on the arm of the chair and began to +cry wretchedly.</p> +<p>"My dear, my dear," said I, bewildered by this tornado of +misery. "My dear," said I, putting an arm round her shoulders, +"what is the matter?"</p> +<p>"I'm a fool," she wailed. "I know I'm a fool, but I can't help +it. I went in there just now. I didn't know they were there. +Susan's music mistress came and I had to go out of the +nursery—and I went into the drawing-room. Oh, it's hard, +Hilary, dear—it's damned hard."</p> +<p>"My poor Liosha," said I.</p> +<p>"There doesn't seem to be a place in the world for me."</p> +<p>"There's lots of places in our hearts," I said as soothingly as +I could. But the assurance gave her little comfort. Her body +shook.</p> +<p>"I wish the cargo had killed me," she said.</p> +<p>I waited for a little, then rose and made her sit in my chair. I +drew another near her.</p> +<p>"Now," said I. "Tell me all about it."</p> +<p>And she told me in her broken way.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>She walked into the drawing-room thinking to find Barbara. +Instead, she sailed into a surging sea of passion. Doria crouched +on a sofa hiding her face—the flame, poor little elf in the +Nessus shirt, had been lapping her round, and with both hands +outstretched she motioned away Jaffery who stood over her.</p> +<p>"Don't touch me, don't touch me! I couldn't bear it!" she cried; +and then, aware of Liosha's sudden presence, she started to her +feet. Liosha did not move. The two women glared at each other.</p> +<p>"What do you mean by coming in here?" cried Doria.</p> +<p>"You had better leave us, Liosha," said Jaffery sombrely.</p> +<p>But Liosha stood firm. The spurning of Jaffery by Doria struck a +chord of the heroic that ran through her strange, wild nature. If +this man she loved was not for her, at least no other woman should +scorn him. She drew herself up in her full-bosomed +magnificence.</p> +<p>"Instead of telling him not to touch you, you little fool, you +ought to fall at his feet. For what he has done for you, you ought +to steal the wide world and give it to him. And you refuse your +footling little insignificant self. If you had a thousand selves, +they wouldn't be enough for him."</p> +<p>"Stop!" shouted Jaffery.</p> +<p>She wheeled round on him. "Hold your tongue, Jaff Chayne. I +guess I've the right, if anybody has, to fix up your concerns."</p> +<p>"What right?" Doria demanded.</p> +<p>"Never mind." She took a step forward. "Oh, no; not that right! +Don't you dare to think it. Jaff Chayne doesn't care a tinker's +curse for me that way. But I have a right to speak, Jaff Chayne. +Haven't I?"</p> +<p>Jaffery's mind went back to the Bedlam of the slithering cargo. +He turned to Doria.</p> +<p>"Let her say what she wants."</p> +<p>"I want nothing!" cried Liosha. "Nothing for myself. Not a +thing! But I want Jaff Chayne to be happy. You think you know all +he has done for you, but you don't. You don't know a bit. They +offered him thousands of pounds to go to Persia, and he would have +come back a great man, and he didn't go because of you."</p> +<p>"Persia? I never heard of that," said Doria.</p> +<p>"The job didn't suit me," Jaffery growled.</p> +<p>"And you told her all about it?"</p> +<p>"No, he didn't," said Liosha. "Hilary told me to-day."</p> +<p>"I take your word for it," said Doria coldly. "It only shows +that I'm under one more obligation than I thought to Mr. +Chayne."</p> +<p>From what I could gather, the word "obligation" infuriated +Liosha. She uttered an avalanche of foolish things. And Jaffery +(for what is man in a woman's battle but an impotent spectator?) +looked in silence from one: to the other; from the little ivory, +black and white Tanagra figure to the great full creature whom he +had seen, but a few days ago, with the salt spray in her hair and +the wind in her vestments. And at last she said:</p> +<p>"If I were a woman like you and wouldn't marry a man who loved +me like Jaff Chayne, and who had done for me all that Jaff Chayne +had done for you, I'd pray to God to blast me and fill my body with +worms."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>And then she burst out of the room, and, like a child seeking +protection, came and threw herself down by my side.</p> +<p>What happened when she left them I know, because Jaffery kept me +up till three o'clock in the morning narrating it to me, while he +poured into his Gargantuan self hogsheads of whisky and soda.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>When Liosha had gone, they eyed one another for a while in +embarrassing silence, until Doria spoke:</p> +<p>"She misunderstood—when she came in. Quite natural. It was +your touch of pity that I couldn't bear. I wasn't repelling you, as +she seemed to think."</p> +<p>"It cut me to the heart to see you in such grief," said Jaffery. +"I only thought of comforting you."</p> +<p>"I know." She sat on a chair by the window and looked out at the +pouring rain.</p> +<p>"Tell me," she said, without turning round, "what did she mean +by saying she had the right to interfere in your affairs?"</p> +<p>"She saved my life at the risk of her own," replied Jaffery.</p> +<p>"I see. And you saved my life once; so perhaps you have rights +over me."</p> +<p>"That would be damnable!" he cried. "Such a thought has never +entered my head."</p> +<p>"It is firmly fixed in mine," said Doria.</p> +<p>She sat for a while, with knitted brows deep in thought. Jaffery +stood dejectedly by the fire, his hands in his pockets. Presently +she rose.</p> +<p>"Besides saving my life and doing for me the things I know, +there must be many things you've done for me that I never heard +of—like this sacrifice of the Persian expedition. Liosha was +right. I ought to go on my knees to you. But I can't very well do +that, can I?"</p> +<p>"No," replied Jaffery, scrabbling at whiskers and beard. "That +would be stupid. You mustn't worry about me at all. Whatever I did +for you, my dear, I'd do a thousand times over again!"</p> +<p>"You must have your reward, such as it is. God knows you have +earned it."</p> +<p>"Don't talk about rights or rewards," said he. "As I've said +repeatedly this afternoon, I've forfeited even your thanks."</p> +<p>"And I've said I forgive you—if there's anything to +forgive," she smiled, just a little wearily. "So that is wiped out. +All the rest remains. Let us bury all past unhappiness between us +two."</p> +<p>"I wish we could. But how?"</p> +<p>"There is a way."</p> +<p>"What is that?"</p> +<p>"You make things somewhat hard for me. You might guess. But I'll +tell you. Liosha again was right. . . . If you want me still, I +will marry you. Not quite yet; but, say, in six months' time. You +are a great-hearted, loyal man"—she continued bravely, +faltering under his gaze—"and I will learn to love you and +will devote my life to making you happy."</p> +<p>She glanced downwards with averted head, awaiting some outcry of +gladness, surrendering herself to the quick clasp of strong arms. +But no outcry came, and no arms clasped. She glanced up, and met a +stricken look in the man's eyes.</p> +<p>For Jaffery could not find a word to utter. A chill crept about +his heart and his blood became as water. He could not move; a +nightmare horror of dismay held him in its grip. The inconceivable +had happened. He no longer desired her. The woman who had haunted +his thoughts for over two years, for whom he had made quixotic +sacrifices, for whom he had made a mat of his great body so that +she should tread stony paths without hurt to her delicate feet, was +his now for the taking—nobly self-offered—and with all +the world as an apanage he could not have taken her. The phenomenon +of sex he could not explain. Once he had desired her passionately. +The ivory-white of her daintiness had fired his blood. He had +fought with beasts. He had wrestled with his soul in the night +watches. He had loved her purely and sweetly, too. But now, as she +stood before him, recoiling a little from his fixed stare of pain, +though she had suffered but little loss in beauty and in that of +her which was desirable, he realised, in a kind of paralysis, that +he desired her no more, that he loved her no more with the +idealised love he had given to the elfin princess of his dreams. +Not that he would not still do her infinite service. The pathos of +her broken life moved him to an anguish of pity. For her soothing +he would give all that life held for him, save one +thing—which was no longer his to give. Another man glib of +tongue and crafty of brain might have lied his way out of an +abominable situation. But Jaffery's craft was of the simplest. He +could not trick the dead love into smiling semblance of life. His +nature was too primitive. He could only stare in spellbound +affright at the icy barrier that separated him from Doria.</p> +<p>"I see," she said tonelessly, moving slowly away from him. "Your +feelings have changed. I am sorry."</p> +<p>Then he found power of motion and speech. He threw out his arms. +"My God, dear, forgive me he groaned, and sat down and clutched his +head in his hands. She returned to the window and looked out at the +rain. And there she fought with her woman's indignant humiliation. +And there was a long, dead silence, broken only by the faintly +heard notes of Susan's piano in the nursery and the splash of water +on the terrace.</p> +<p>Presently all that was good in Doria conquered. She crossed the +room and laid a light hand on Jaffery's head. It was the finest +moment in her life.</p> +<p>"One can't help these things. I know it too well. And no hearts +are broken. So it's all for the best."</p> +<p>He groaned again. "I didn't know. I'd like to shoot myself."</p> +<p>She smiled, conscious of feminine superiority. "If you did, I +should die, too. I tell you, it's all for the best. I love you as I +never loved you before. I usen't to love you a little bit. But I +should have had to learn to love you as a wife—and it might +have been difficult."</p> +<p>A moment afterwards she appeared in the library, serenely +matter-of-fact. Liosha started round in her chair and looked +defiantly at her rival.</p> +<p>"Would both of you mind coming into the drawing-room for a +minute?"</p> +<p>We followed her. She held the door, which I was about to shut, +and left it open. Before Jaffery had time to rise at our entrance, +I caught sight of him sitting as she had left him, great clumps of +his red hair sticking through his fingers. His face was a picture +of woe. I can imagine nothing more like it than that of a +conscience smitten lion. Doria ran her arm through mine and kept me +near the doorway.</p> +<p>"I've asked Jaffery to marry me," she said, in a steady voice, +"and he doesn't want to. It's because he loves a much better woman +and wants to marry her."</p> +<p>Then while Jaffery and Liosha gasped in blank astonishment, she +swung me abruptly out of the room and slammed the door behind +her.</p> +<p>"There," she said, and flung up her little bead, "what do you +think of that?"</p> +<p>"Magnificent," said I, "but bewildering. Did Jaffery +really—?"</p> +<p>In a few words, she put me into possession of the bare +facts.</p> +<p>"I'm not sorry," she added. "Sometimes I love +Jaffery—because he's so lovable. Sometimes I hate +him—because—oh, well—because of Adrian. You can't +understand."</p> +<p>"I'm not altogether a fool," said I.</p> +<p>"Well, that's how it is. I would have worn myself to death to +try to make him happy. You believe me?"</p> +<p>"I do indeed, my dear," I replied. And I replied with unshakable +conviction. She was a woman who once having come under the +domination of an idea would obey it blindly, ruthlessly, marching +straight onwards, looking neither to right nor left. The very +virtue that had made her overcruel to him in the past would have +made her overkind to him in the future. Unwittingly she had used a +phrase startlingly true. She would have worn herself to death in +her determination to please. Incidentally she would have driven him +mad with conscientious dutifulness.</p> +<p>"He would have found no fault with me that I could help," she +said. "But we needn't speak of it any more. I'm not the woman for +him. Liosha is. It's all over. I'm glad. At any rate, I've made +atonement—at least, I've tried—as far as things lay in +my power."</p> +<p>I took both her hands, greatly moved by her courage.</p> +<p>"And what's going to happen to you, my dear?"</p> +<p>"Now that all this is straight," she replied, with a faint +smile, "I can turn round and remake my life. You and Barbara will +help."</p> +<p>"With all our hearts," said I.</p> +<p>"It won't be so hard for you, ever again, I promise. I shall be +more reasonable. And the first favour I'll ask you, dear Hilary, is +to let me go this afternoon. It would be a bit of a strain on me to +stay."</p> +<p>"I know, my dear," I said. "The car is at your service."</p> +<p>"Oh, no! I'll go by train."</p> +<p>"You'll do as you're told, young woman, and go by car."</p> +<p>At this rubbishy speech, the tears, for the first time, came +into her eyes. She pulled down my shoulders—I am rather lank +and tall—and kissed me.</p> +<p>"You're a dear," she said, and went off in search of +Barbara.</p> +<p>I returned to my library, rang the bell, and gave orders for the +chauffeur to stand at Mrs. Boldero's disposal. Then I sat down at a +loose end, very much like a young professional man, doctor or +estate-agent, waiting for the next client. And like the young +professional man at a loose end, I made a pretence of looking +through papers. Presently I became aware that I only had to open a +window in order to summon a couple of clients at once. For there in +the gathering November dusk and in the rain—it had ceased +pouring, but it was drizzling, and therefore it was rain—I +saw our pair of delectable savages strolling across the wet, sodden +lawn, in loverlike proximity, for all the world as though it were a +flowery mead in May. I might have summoned them, but it would have +been an unprofessional thing to do. Instead, I drew my curtains and +turned on the light, and continued to wait. I waited a long time. +At last Barbara rushed in.</p> +<p>"Doria's ready."</p> +<p>"You've heard all about it?" She nodded. "I said there would be +no marriage," I remarked blandly.</p> +<p>"You said she wouldn't marry him. I said she would. And so she +would, if he had let her. I know you're prepared to argue," she +said, rather excitedly, "but it's no use. I was right all the +time."</p> +<p>I yielded.</p> +<p>"You're always right, my dear," said I.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>That is practically all, up to the present, that I have to tell +you about Jaffery. What words passed between him and Liosha in the +drawing-room I have never known. Jaffery, with conscience still +sore, and childishly anxious that I should not account him a +traitor and a scoundrel, and a brute too despicable for human +touch, told me, as I have already stated, over and over again, +until I yawned for weariness in the small hours of the morning, +what had taken place in his staggering interview with Doria; but as +regards Liosha, he was shyly evasive. After all, I fancy, it was a +very simple affair. She had told me bluntly that when the two men, +Jaffery and Prescott, rode into the scene of Balkan desolation in +which she was the central figure, Jaffery was the one who caused +her heart to throb. And in her chaste, proud way she had loved him +ever since that extraordinary moment. And though Jaffery has never +confessed it, I am absolutely certain that, just as Monsieur +Jourdain spoke prose, <i>sans le savoir</i>, so, without knowing +it, was Jaffery in love with Liosha when she drove away from +Northlands in Mr. Ras Fendihook's car. Perhaps before. <i>Quien +sabe?</i> But he imagined himself to be in love with a moonbeam. +And the moonbeam shot like a glamorous, enchanted sword between him +and Liosha, and kept them apart until the moment of dazed +revelation, when he saw that the moonbeam was merely a pale, +earnest, anxious, suffering little human thing, alien to his every +instinct, a firmament away, in every vital essential, from the +goddess of his idolatry.</p> +<div class="figcenter"><br /> +<a name="i361.jpg" id="i361.jpg"></a> <a href= +"images/361.jpg"><img src="images/361.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /></a><br /> +<b>There is war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery is there as<br /> +war correspondent. Liosha is there, too.</b></div> +<p>That is how I explain—and I have puzzled my head into +aching over any other possible explanation—the attitude of +Jaffery towards Liosha on the <i>Vesta</i> voyage. Well, my +conjectures are of not much value. I have done my best to put the +facts, as I know them, before you; and if you are interested in the +matter you can go on conjecturing to your heart's content. "Look +here, my friend," said I, as soon as I could attune my mind to new +conditions, "what about your new novel?"</p> +<p>He frowned portentously. "It can go to blazes!" "Aren't you +going to finish it?"</p> +<p>"No."</p> +<p>"But you must. Don't you realise that you're a born +novelist?"</p> +<p>"Don't you realise," he growled, "that you're a born fool?"</p> +<p>"I don't," said I.</p> +<p>He walked about the library in his space—occupying +way.</p> +<p>"I'm going to tear the damned thing up! I'm never going to write +a novel again. I cut it out altogether. It's the least I can do for +her."</p> +<p>"Isn't that rather quixotic?" I asked.</p> +<p>"Suppose it is. What have you to say against it?"</p> +<p>"Nothing," said I.</p> +<p>"Well, keep on saying it," replied Jaffery, with the steel flash +in his eyes.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>They were married. Our vicar performed the ceremony. I gave the +bride away. Liosha revealed the feminine kink in her otherwise +splendid character by insisting on the bridal panoply of white +satin, veil and orange blossoms. I confess she looked superb. She +looked like a Valkyr. A leather-visaged war correspondent, named +Burchester, whom I had never seen before, and have not seen since, +acted as best man. Susan, tense with the responsibilities of +office, was the only bridesmaid. Mrs. Jupp (late Considine) and her +General were our only guests. Doria excused herself from +attendance, but sent the bride a travelling-case fitted with a +myriad dazzling gold-stoppered bottles and a phantasmagoria of +gold-mounted toilette implements.</p> +<p>And then they went on their honeymoon. And where do you think +they went? They signed again on the steamship <i>Vesta</i>. And +Captain Maturin gave them his cabin, which is more than I would +have done, and slept, I presume, in the dog-hole. And they were as +happy as the ship was abominable.</p> +<p>Now, as I write, there is a war going on in the Balkans. Jaffery +is there as the correspondent of <i>The Daily Gazette</i>. Liosha +is there, too, as the inseparable and peculiarly invaluable +companion of Jaffery Chayne. They live impossible lives. But what +has that got to do with you or me? They like it. They adore it. A +more radiantly mated pair the earth cannot produce. Their +two-year-old son is learning the practice of the heroic virtues at +Cettinje, while his parents loaf about battlefields in full +eruption.</p> +<p>"Poor little mite!" says Barbara.</p> +<p>But I say:</p> +<p>"Lucky little Pantagruel!"</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14669 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/14669-h/images/001.jpg b/14669-h/images/001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cce50d --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/001.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/064.jpg b/14669-h/images/064.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..929231b --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/064.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/080.jpg b/14669-h/images/080.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f20b95 --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/080.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/190.jpg b/14669-h/images/190.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a02e25c --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/190.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/234.jpg b/14669-h/images/234.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd9444e --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/234.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/308.jpg b/14669-h/images/308.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0480cc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/308.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/325.jpg b/14669-h/images/325.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b32e30e --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/325.jpg diff --git a/14669-h/images/361.jpg b/14669-h/images/361.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a52f8b --- /dev/null +++ b/14669-h/images/361.jpg |
