 6 Barbara, having freed Geoffrey from immediate anxieties with regard to Leosha, easily persuaded him to pay a longer visit than he had proposed. A telephonic conversation with a first distracted, then conscious spitton and then much relieved euphemia, had for effect the payment of bills at the Savoy and the retreat of the gentle lady to Tumbridge Wells. Leosha remained with us, pending certain negotiations darkly carried on by my wife and Adoria 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 thoughted, 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 invagle her into childish games and called her Loshy, a disrespectful mode of address which I had all the pains in the world to persuade 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 be attitude. So many difficulties were solved. Not anywhere we spared the problem of what the deuce to do with Leosha during the day-time, 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 Leosha 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 orgy-act plots, and in getting up at seven in the morning—'Good God, is there such an hour?' asked R.A. 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 panned it to it somewhat shamelessly all the time, however keeping an acute eye on the zealous amateur. If, for instance, Leosha 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 on her, only one and a very little ripe one for Susan dear Leosha. And in these matters Leosha was as much overawed by Barbara as with Susan. This, I repeat, was a good sign in Leosha. 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 Rerecinia Arvis in the lands of small girls, one of the few points on which Barbara and I are in an unclouded agreement. No one could have helped falling captive to Susan. But I admit, in the case of Leosha, who is 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. One evening while I was dressing for dinner Barbara burst into my dressing-room. Reynolds has given me notice. 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? Leosha has just gone for her with a pair of scissors. Horrible! said I, getting the ends even. I can imagine nothing more finicky than being garsenous than to cut anybody's throat with nail-scissors, especially when the subject is unwitting. Barbara pished and persured. It was no occasion for levity. I agree, said I, the dressing-house the calmest and most philosophic period of the day. Barbara came up to me blue-eyed and innocent, and with a traitorous jerk undid my beautiful white bow. There, now listen! And I, did lapidated wretch, had to listen to the tale of crime. It appeared that Reynolds, my wife's maid, in putting Leosha into a ready-made gown—a model gown, I believe is the correct term—insisted on her being properly corseted. Leosha, agonizingly constricted, rebelled. The maid was objurate. Leosha flew at her with a pair of scissors. I think I should have done the same. Reynolds bolted from the broom. So should I have done. I sympathized 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. We can't lose Reynolds, said I. Of course we can't. And we can't pack Leosha off as a moment's notice, so as to please Reynolds. Oh, your two wives altogether, said my wife, and left me to the tranquil completion of my dressing. Leosha 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 blood-thirsty behavior she made her wear the gown in the manner prescribed by Reynolds, and she had apologized to Reynolds, who thereupon withdrew her notice. So serenity again prevailed. In some respects Leosha 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 hapless craze, however, led to another outburst of ferocity. Meeting the postman outside the gate she demanded a letter. The man looked through his bundle. Nothing for you this morning, ma'am. I wrote to the dressmaker yesterday, said Leosha, and you've got the reply right there. I sure you haven't, said the postman. You're a liar, cried Leosha, and I guess I'm going to see." Whereupon Leosha, who was as strong as a young horse, sprang to death grapple with the postman, a puny little man, pitched him on to 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. 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 Leosha, she did these things with the bland and deadly air of an inexorable fate. The perspiration still beads on my brow when I think of the cajoling and bribing and blustering and lying I had to practice in order to hush up the matter. As for Leosha, both Geoffrey and I rated her soundly. I explained loftily that not so many years ago, transportation, lifelong imprisonment, death were the penalties for the federally which she had committed. You ought to have a jolly good thrashing! roared Geoffrey. At this, Leosha, who had endured our abuse with the downcast eyes of angelic meekness, took a golf-club from a bag lying on the whole table and handed it to the red-bearded giant. I guess I do, she said, beat me! And as I'm a living man I swear that if Geoffrey had taken her out of word and laid on lustily she'd have taken her thrashing without a murmur. What was one to do with such a woman? Geoffrey considerably disconcerted, fingered the cleak. Gradually she raised her glorious eyes to him, and in them I must startled to see the most extraordinary dog-like submission. He frowned portentously and shook his head. Her lips worked, and after a converse of 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 ferry-tornado, released us from our embarrassing position. She annihilated us with a sweeping glance of scorn. Oh, go away, both of you, go away! say we went away and left her to deal with Leosha. Save for such a little excursion to the alarms, the days passed very pleasantly. Geoffrey spent most of the sweltering hours of daylight, in a pleasant blazing summer, in plain 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 High Fitz Society, worked hard at a Persian grammar. Barbara, the never-idle, was in the meantime arranging for Leosha's future. Her organizing 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. Constantine, and the scheme ran on wheels. Even you, said Barbara, as I am a short of shop and hire, a professional disparager of her sex. Even you have a high opinion of Mrs. Constantine? I had. Everyone had a high opinion of Mrs. Constantine. 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 soldier-man with a son soldering 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 Leosha's duena in the boarding-house. Mrs. Constantine, 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 program that Mrs. Constantine should tactfully carry on Leosha's education, which had been arrested at the age of twelve, instilled into her a sense of western decorum, extend her acquaintance, and gradually root out of her heart for yearning to do her enemies to death. It was a capital program, and I gave it the benediction of a smile, in which, seeing Barbara's shrewd blue eyes fixed on me, I suppressed the irony. When this was all settled, Geoffrey proclaimed himself the most carefree fellow alive. His hitherto grumpy and resentful attitude towards Leosha 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. She's really quite a good sort, said Geoffrey. But if it was pleasant to see him with Leosha, 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. "'Don't you think you're rather wasting your life?' she asked him one day. "'Do you think I am?' "'Yes. "'Oh, but I work hard at my job, you know,' he said apologetically. "'When there's one for me to do. When there isn't, I kind of prepare myself for the next. For instance, I've got to keep myself always fit.' "'But that's all physical and outside,' she smiled, in her little superior way. It's the inside, the personal, the 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.' Geoffrey pulled his red beard. "'In other words, he hasn't lived,' said he. "'Precisely. And you think that I'm just the same sort of old animal from one year's end to another, that I don't progress worth a cent, and so that I don't live?' "'I don't want to say quite that,' she replied graciously. "'Everyone must advance a little bit, unless they deteriorate. "'But the conscious driving after spiritual progress is so necessary. And you seem to put it aside. It is such waste of life.' "'I suppose it is, in a way,' Geoffrey admitted. She pursued the theme of flattering Igaria. "'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.' "'But that's just the difficulty,' cried Geoffrey. "'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 see the things he ought to write about. That's when the training comes in.' Again she smiled. "'I've no idea of belittling your profession, my dear Geoffrey. I think it's a noble one. But should it be the alpha and omega of all things? Don't you see? The real life is intellectual, spiritual, emotional. What are your ideals?' Geoffrey looked at her roofily. 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?' "'I don't suppose I have any,' said he. "'But you must. Everybody has to a certain extent.' "'Well, to write 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.' "'Have you read Nietzsche?' She asked suddenly. He frowned perplexedly. "'Nietzsche? That's the mad Superman chap, isn't it? No, I've not read a word.' "'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 said to you thinking.' 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. "'Have you read this, Hillary?' he asked. "'Yes,' said I. "'Understand it?' "'More or less.' "'God!' said he, shouting the book. "'I suppose Doria understands it too, or she wouldn't have recommended it. But,' he raised ponderously and looked down on me with serious eyes. "'What the hell is it all about?' I drew up my watch. "'The five seconds that you have before rushing upstairs to dress,' said I, "'don't give me adequate time to expound a philosophic system.' Now, if Agin or I had talked to Geoffrey 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 inquired 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 aesthetics lay outside Geoffrey'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 to disclaim the subtler mental qualities. He diliterated his similitude of the bumblebee. Now, however, he went further, declaring himself to a subordinate host to be a chuckle-headed ass only fit to herd with savages. He would listen with childlike envy to Adrian, limp of tongue, exchanging with Doria the chivalets of the higher life. He'd been considerably impressed by Adrian as the author of a successful novel. But Adrian, as a co-treasurer of the stars with Doria, appeared to him in the light of an immortal. Adrian and I, when alone, laughed over old Geoff, as we had laughed over him for goodness knows how many years. I, who had guessed, with Barbara's aid, the incidents of the thunderbolt, found in his humility something pathetic which was lost to Adrian. The latter only saw the blustering, woman-scorning hulk of fues and sinews at the mercy of anything in petticoats from Susan Upwood. I disagreed. He was not at the mercy of Leosha. You burrowing mole! cried Adrian one morning in the library, Jaffer having gone off to golf. Can't you see that he goes about immortal terror of her? No such thing, I retorted hotly. He's regarded her as an abominable nuisance, a millstone round his neck, a responsibility. A huntress of men, he interrupted, especially an all-too-probable huntress of Jeffrey Chain. With Susan and Barbara and Doria, he knows he's safe, spared the worst, so he yields that they pick him up. Look at him and stand him on his head and do whatever they don't well like to him. But with Leosha he knows he isn't safe. You see, Adrian continued after having lit a cigarette. Jaffer is an honourable old chap in his way. With Leosha, his friend Prescott's widow, it would be a question of marriage or nothing. You're talking rubbish, said I. Jaffer would just as soon think of marrying the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour. That's what I'm telling you, said Adrian. Even a mortal funk lest its animated Statue of Liberty descend from her pedestal and with resistless hands take him away and marry him. For one who has been hailed as the acutist psychologist of the day, said I, you seem to have very limited powers of observation. For some unaccountable reason, Adrian's pale face flushed scarlet. He broke out vexedly. 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 Jaffer and this uncollifiable lady. 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? 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. Why?" I asked. 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. But you'll have to get into it some time or other," said I. Of course. As soon as we come back from Venice and settle down to a normal life in the flat. What does Doria think of the new idea? Thousands who knew him not were looking forward to Avian Baldero'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 him patient fingers. 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, at glance even that was not sympathetic would paralyze me. It would shatter my faith in the whole structure I have 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 instance my first at Cambridge. How much more powerful is the instinct when it's a question of a vital creative thing like a novel? My dear Hillary, 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 close and near, but still outside. And you must promise too. My dear old boy, said I, somewhat confused by this impassioned exposition of the artistic temperament. You've only got to express the wish. I know, said he. Forgive me. He laughed and lit another cigarette. But Vittacind, the editor of Fowlers in America, I've sold him the serial rights, has shrieking out for a synopsis. I'm damned if I'm going to give him a synopsis. They get on my nerves. And we're intimate enough, friends, you and I, for me to confess it. So do I, dearest Barbara, and old Jaffin, and you yourself when you want to know how I'm getting on. Look, dear old Hillary! He laughed again and threw himself into an armchair. Now, 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 any one. Anyway, that's how I feel about the novel. He spoke from his heart. I understood, like Doria. Elizabeth Barrett Browning calls it the sorrowful, great gift, said I. We who haven't got it can only bow to those who have. Adrian rose and took a few strides about the library. I'm afraid I've been talking a lot of infatuated nonsense. Must sound awfully like swelled head. But you know it isn't, don't you? Don't be an idiot, said I. Let us talk of something else. We did not return to the subject. In the course of time came Mrs. Considine to carry off Leosha to the first class boarding-house which she had found in Queensgate. Leosha left us full of love for Barbara and Susan and I think of kindly feeling for myself. A few days afterwards Jaffrey 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. Baldero. So before August was out Barbara and Susan and I found ourselves alone. Now, said I, I can get through some work. Now, said Barbara, we can run over to Dina. What? I shouted. Dina, she said softly. We always go. I was here on account of visitors. We definitely made up our minds, I retorted, that we weren't going to leave this beautiful garden. You know I never changed my mind. I'm not going away." Barbara left the womb whistling a musical comedy air. We went to Dina. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Jaffrey by William John Locke This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Avers. Chapter 7 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 encyclopedia 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 it to 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. Now I have been wondering how to describe the wedding of Doria, an agent. I have recourse to Barbara. 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 thought it might come in useful some day. She cried in triumph. You can stick it in bodily. I began to read in hope the column of precise information. I ended in despair. It leaves me marring but cold. It fails to conjure up to my mind the picture of a single mortal thing. Sadly, I handed back to Barbara. I shall not describe the wedding at all, I say. 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. Johnny Croft were splendidly united. Agents, troops of friends supported him. Gloria, dark-eyed, without a tinge of colour in the strange ivory of her cheek, looked more elfin than ever beneath the white veil. Jaffrey, 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. As a rival 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 onto the carriage all 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 symbolize as assertion of and her acquiescence in her entire subjection. Did Lady Bagshaw get that awful hat? said Barbara sweetly. Did you notice it? It isn't a hat. It's a crime. I turned on her severely. What has Lady Bagshaw's hat to do with the subject under discussion? Have you been listening? She squeezed my hand and laughed. No, you dear silly, of course not. Another instance of the essential inconvincibility of woman. It was Jeffrey Chaine from the pavement before the housing-park crescent through the satin slipper at the departing carriage. He had been very hearty and booming all the time, the human presentiment of a devil-maker lion out for a jaunt, and his great laugh thundering cheerily above the clatter of torque had infected the heterogeneous gathering. Unconsciously dull eyes sparkled and Percy Lipps vibrated into smiles. So gay a wedding reception I have never attended, and I am sure it was nothing but Jeffrey's pervasive influence that infused vitality into the deadly and decorous mob. It was a miracle wrought by a rich silenic personality. I'd never guessed before the magnetic power of Jeffrey Chaine. Indeed, I'd often wondered how the overgrown and apparently irresponsible schoolboy who couldn't make head or tail of nature and from whom the music of Shelly was hid have 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 glared fanfare of trumpets in all hearts. In order that this wedding of Eudrin and Doria should be memorable he had instinctively put out the forces and 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. As for his own definite part of Best Man he played it with an Elizabethan spaciousness. There was no hug-a-mugger escape of travel-clad bride and bride-room. He contrived a triumphal progress through lines of guests led by master of the ceremonies exuding pantogroody and life. Joyously he conducted them to their glittering carriage and pair and, unconscious of anthropological truth, through the slipper of women's humiliation. The carriage drove off amid the cheers of the multitude. Giafri 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 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. I'm out of the munch, the only one. Don't you wish you were a bachelor and could go to Pell or Holo Lulu wherever you chose without a care? Ha ha ha ha! He linked his arm in mine and said him what he thought was a whisper. For heaven's sake let us go in and try to find a real drink. We went into a deserted smoking-room where decanters and siphons were set out. Giafri helped himself to a mighty whiskey and soda and poured it down his throat. You seem to want that," said I, Dr. Ily. It is his 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. I made some gesting answer. But it had been given to me to see that trance in shadow of pain and despair. And I knew that the discomfort of the garments of civilisation had nothing to do with the swallowing of a huge joram of alcohol. 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 Giafri. We carried him down with us to Northlands that afternoon, calling at his club for a suitcase. 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 her. And when we reached home and were alone together, she said, with tears very near her eyes, "'Poor old Giaf! What a waste of a life!' "'My dear,' I replied, so said Doria. "'But you speak with the tongue of an angel, whereas Doria, I'm afraid, is still earthbound.' The tear fell with a laugh. She touched my cheek with her hand. "'When you're intelligent like that,' she said, "'I really love you.'" For a mere man to be certified by Barbara as intelligent is praise indeed. "'I wonder,' she said a little later, "'whether those two are going to be happy.'" "'As happy,' said I, "'as a mutual aberration society of two people can possibly be. She rebuked me for a tinge of cynicism in my estimate. They were both of them deers, and the marriage was genuine heaven-made goods. I vowed absolute agreement.' "'But what would have happened,' she said reflectively, "'if Jaffrey had come along first, and there had been no question of Adrian? Would they have been happy?' Then I found my opportunity. "'Woman,' said I, "'aren't you satisfied? You've made one match, you and your pardon me for saying so, not heaven, and now you wanted to un-make it like a brand-new hypothetical one. "'All your talk,' she said, "'doesn't help poor Jaffrey.' 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. During dinner and afterwards in the drawing-room she played the part of Jaffrey'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 aim. He had no possessions.' "'Good Lord,' cried Jaffrey, "'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.' "'But have you a chest of drawers, or a pillow-slip, or a book, or a dinner-plate, or a fork?' "'Thousands, my dear,' said Jaffrey, "'they're waiting to be called for in all the shops of London.' He laughed his great laugh at Barbara's momentary discomforture. I laughed too, for he had scored a point. When a man has, say, a thousand pounds, were with to buy that much money's worth of household clutter, he certainly is that household clutter's potential owner. Between us we develop this incontrovertible proposition.' "'Then why?' said Barbara. "'Don't you go once to Harrod's stalls and purchase a comfortable home?' "'Because, my dear Barbara,' said Jaffrey, "'I'm starting off for the interior of China the day after to-morrow.' "'China?' echoed Barbara vaguely. "'The interior of China?' I re-echoed with masculine indefiniteness. "'Why not? It isn't in-depth to you nor your reigners. You wouldn't go into hysterics if I said I was going to be loin. Let him come with me, Barbara, but do him a thundering lot of good.' 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. "'A year or two?' he replied casually. "'It must be a queer thing,' said I, to be born with no conception of time and space. "'A couple of years pass pretty quick,' said Jaffrey. "'So does a lifetime,' said I. "'Well, this was just like Jaffrey. No sooner home amid the amenities of civilization 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. "'Suppose I sprang a thing like that on you,' said I. "'Suppose I told you I was starting tomorrow morning for the South Pole?' "'What would you say?' "'I should say that you were a liar.' In his mirth he rubbed his hands and feet together like a colossal fly. The joke lasted him for the rest of the evening. "'So the next morning Jaffrey left us with a woman. "'See you as soon as I ever get back.' And the day after that he sailed for China. We felt sad. Not only because Jaffrey'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 a wanderlust 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 when he had gone,' said Barbara.' A man of intense appetite, some primitive passions, like Jaffrey, 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. I had once seen Jaffrey lose his head and the spectacle did not make for edification. It was before I was married when Jaffrey, during his London surgeon, had the spare bedroom in a set of rooms I rented in Tavistock Square. Had a florist's hard buy, a young flower-seller, a hussy, if ever there was one, but a bit witchyly 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 Jaffrey, reading the promise of sicken a 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 Gweny. 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 switchbacks, water-shoots, and scenic railways. At the appointed hour Jaffrey stood him waiting on the pavement. I sat on the first-fall balcony, alternately reading a novel and watching him with a sardonic eye. Presently Gweny turned to 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 Gweny was not alone. Gweny, rigged out in the height of Bloomsbury Forest's fashion, was ostensitiously 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 improved enlinkment of couples in her class who were keeping company, or in other words are, or are about to be, engaged to be married. A curious shock vibrated through Jaffrey's frame. He flamed red. He saw red. Gweny shot a supercilious glance and tossed her chin. Jaffrey crossed the road and barred their path. He fished in his pocket for some coins and addressed the scrubby man, who, poor Reg, had never heard of Jaffrey's existence. Here's Tuppence to go away! Take the Tuppence to go away! Damn you! Take the Tuppence! The man retreated in a scare. Take the Tuppence! I should advise you to. Anybody but a born fool or a hero would have taken the Tuppence. I think the scrubby man had the makings of a hero. He looked up at the blazing giant. You be damned! said he, retreating apace. Then, suddenly, with the swiftness of a panther, Jaffrey 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 could 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 Guenny, caught her up like a doll, and charged with her, now screaming violently, against the shot 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 a Guenny's shrieks, neighbouring windows were thrown up and eager heads appeared. It was very funny. There was Jaffrey 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 bridgroom, caught up the ewer from my wash-stand, 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. Jaffrey dropped the girl. The girl, once on her feet, fled like a cat. Jaffrey 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 Jaffrey 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 eating. We're very shortly afterwards, Jenny joined him, and that, save an enduring ashamedness on the part of Jaffrey, was the end of the matter. So if Jaffrey 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 and 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. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 In the course of time Adrian and Doria returned from Venice their heads full of pictures and lines of pictures and lines of pictures and lines of pictures 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 of the little squabbles over matters of aesthetic taste which often are so disastrous to the serenity of a honeymoon. Touchingly they expounded their views of the world. Even Adrian, whom I must confess to have regarded as an unblushing egotist seldom delivered himself 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 Jacobian entrance hall, a Louis Kahn's drawing-room, an empire-bedroom, and as far as I could judge by the barrenness of the apartment, a Spartan study for Adrian. On our first visit they triumphantly showed us round the establishment. We came last to the study. 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 could be done among luxurious surroundings. Pictures distract one's attention. Arm-shares and sofas invite to sloth. This is my ideal of a novelist's workshop. It's more like a work-house, said Barbara with a chevre, or a condemned cell. But even a condemned cell would have a plank-bed in it. You don't understand a bit, said Doria, with a touch of resentment and 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, you 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. Oh, I quite see, dear, said it Barbara with a familiar little flash in her blue eyes. But do you think up never the seat for that hard-wooden chair, what the French called a rond de couille, would very greatly impair the poor fellow's imagination? It might be economical, too, said I, in the way of saving shyness. Adrian laughed. It does look a bit hard, darling, said he. We'll get a leather seat today, replied Doria. 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 comments sounded like blasphemy in her ears. She even grew somewhat impatient while 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 ink-pot, 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, a stationary case closed and aggressively new. The sight of this last monstrosity I thought would play the deuce with my imagination and set it on a devastating tour round the Tottenham Court Road. But not having the artistic temperament and catchy advance of challenge from Doria, I forbore to make enraged criticism. In the bedroom while Barbara was putting on her veil and powdering her nose but with women one never can tell, Doria broke into confidences not meat for masculine ears. Oh, darling," she cried looking at Barbara with great awestruck 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? 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?" Barbara took the girl's tense face between her two hands and smiled and kissed her. Give him," said she, a moninated quinine whenever he sneezes. 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 reasonable modus. I should treat your genius, dear, just as I treat my stupid old Hillary. 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. Whether Doria followed the advice I am not certain. I have my doubts. Barbara has never knelt by the side of her stupid old Hillary's chair and worshiped him as a god. She is an excellent wife and I have no faults 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 worshiped. 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 a new hand in a chocolate factory lives on chocolate creams. The more he was worshiped 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 Seferion and a way of exhaling a cloud of smoke holier than the fumes of incense in the nostrils of the Adora which moved me at once to envy and exasperation. Yes, there he would sprawl whenever I saw them together either in their own flat or at our house, more luxuriously at Northland 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 wonders of this miraculous being. I said to Barbara she's making a besotted idiot of the man. Barbara professed rare agreement, but on the woman's point of view I don't worry about him, she said, it's of her I'm thinking. When she's turned him into the idiot she'll adore him all the more, I interrupted. But when she finds out the idiot she has made no woman has ever done that since the world began, said I the unwavering love of woman for her home-made idiot and her sole consistency. 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. I suppose that is why I go on loving you, Hillary dear," she said sweetly. I turned upon her with my hand as it were on the flood-gates of a torrent of eloquence, but with her silvery mocking laugh of her apartment. She did. The old-fashioned, high-faluting 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 Jaffrey which I'm 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-selled conundrum that is Barbara Threath. But she, like myself, is but already on ear in the drama. And so, reluctantly, I must keep her in the background. Paula Majora Conalmas, let us come to the horses. All this time we have not lost sight of Leosha. As deputies for the absent trustee we received periodical reports from the admirable Mrs. Constantine and entertained both ladies for an occasional weekend. 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 inquired the cause. He dried his eyes with a napkin in Neuchâtel, a widow, plump and well-to-do. He looked forward to marry her at the end of the year and to pass an unruffled life in the smugness of the delicatessen 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. Hergot! What was he to do? Leosha counseled immediate return to Neuchâtel and assassination of his rival. The kid 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 Neuchâtel. Leosha, espousing his cause warmly, gave him the latter at once. The former she set to work to instill into him. She way-laid him at all 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. Constantine called into consultation was informed that Mrs. Prescott must either cease from instigating the waiters to commit murder or find other quarters. Leosha curled a contentious lip. Have you think I ain't going to have anything more to do with the little skunk you're mistaken? And that evening when Joseph serving coffee in the drawing-room approached her with a tray she waved him off. See here, she said calmly, just you keep out of my way or I might tread on you. Whereupon the terrified Joseph amid the tittering hush of the gentile assembly bolted from the room and then solved the whole difficulty by bolting from the house When taken to task by Barbara over the ethics of this matter Leosha shrugged her shoulders and laughed. 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. But you don't seem to understand what a terrible thing it is to take the life of a human being, said Barbara. I couldn't understand how you feel, Leosha admitted, but I don't feel about it the same as you. I've been brought up different. 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. They were worse than the pigs, said Leosha. Barbara sighed, for Leosha remained unconvinced, but she extracted a promise from our fair barbarian never to shoot or jab a knife into anyone before consulting her with the propriety of so doing. But for this and for one or two other trivial lapses from grace Leosha led a pretty equitable existence at the boarding-house. If she now then scandalised the inmates by her unconventional habits and free expressions of opinion she compensated by affording the macronic topic of conversation. Our large, though somewhat scornful generosity also established her in their esteem. She would lend or give anything she possessed. When one of the full-on and woollen-should-old maids fell ill she sat up at 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 among gorges and crags and ravines and granite cliffs she would have been completely so. She yearned for mountains. Mrs. Constantine to satisfy this nostalgia took her for a week's trip to the English Lakes. She returned railing at scoffel and skidor for unimportant undulations and declaring her preference for London. So in London she remained. In these early stages of our accountants with Leosha she counted in our lives for little more than a freakish interest. Even in the crises of her naughtiness anxiety as to her welfare was the most robust 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 our own connection. It is any natural that we should have watched them more closely and involved ourselves more intimately in their scheme of things. The first fine rapture of house pride having grown calm the Maldoros settled down to the serene beatitude of the higher life tempered by the amenities of commonplace existence. When Adrian worked Doria read Danty and attended performances of the intellectual drama. When Adrian relaxed she cooked Dantys 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. It merely the perfect freedom of mental adaptation because pragmatism while eating oysters would be destructive to the enjoyment afforded by the delicate sense of taste whereas to that one's mind wander from the plane of philosophic thought when preparing for a Houtman or a Strinberg play would lead to nothing less than the disaster of disequilibrium. Saying this he caught my cold unsympathetic gaze but I think I noticed the flicker of an eyelid. Doria however nodded to her tired approval. So I suppose they really did practice between themselves these modal gymnastics. They were all of a piece with the atmospheres evoked in the various rooms of the flat. To Barbara 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. There's would have been and in fact was a success. Can you be all felicity they certainly achieved? And what else but an impertinence is a criticism of the means? Easter came. They'd been married six months. The Darman Gate had been published for nearly a year and were still selling in England and America. Adrian flourishing his first half-yearly check in January and vowed he had no idea how much money in the world he basked in fortunes at 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 Easter tide 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 beneath the fair mustache 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 of paradox seeking flippancy in the money-article and sonniful wisdom in little titch. He was morose and irritable. He required a nervous habit of secretly rubbing his thumbs swiftly over his fingertips when Doria, in her pride, spoke of his work which abounded almost to ill-breeding. He was only late at night during our last smoke that he assumed assemblance of the old Adrian and by that time he consumed as much champagne and brandy as he had rendered to Jocos the prophet of Jeremiah. He was suffering, poor fellow, from a nervous breakdown. From Doria we learnt 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 and 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-hour spell from nine to one if they had no evening engagement from midnight to four o'clock in the morning if they'd been out. "'But my darling child,' cried Barbara, aghast when she heard of this maniacal timetable, "'you must put your foot down. You mustn't let him do it. He's kidding himself.' "'No man,' said I, in warm support of my wife, could go on putting out creative work for more than four hours a day. Quite famous novelists who might meet at the Athenaeum by themselves. Even prodigious people like Sir Walter Scott and Zola, yes, yes,' said Doria, but they were not Adrien. Every artist must be a law to himself. Adrien's different. Why, those two that you've mentioned, they slide stuff by the bucketful. It didn't matter to them what they wrote. But Adrien 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 of his 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 fitching monger, yes.' Four hours a day is stamped all over the slack drivel they publish. Can you imagine the work like Adrien's is to be done in this dead mechanical way?' "'It is you that don't quite understand,' I protested. My admiration for Adrien'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 offensive for twelve hours a day, day in and day out for months at a time. Look at your husband. He's tried it. Does he sleep well?' "'Has he a hearty appetite?' "'No.' "'Is he a light-hearted, cheery sort of chap to have about the place?' "'He's naturally tarred after his winter's work,' said Doria. "'He's played out,' said I. "'And if you're a wise woman, you'll take him away for a couple of months' rest. When he gets back, see that he works at lower pressure.'" Doria promised to do her best, but she sighed. "'You don't realise, Adrien's husband will. Once more I recognised with a shock that I did not know, my Adrien. I used to think one could blow the thistle-down fellow about with whoever one pleased. Of the two, Doria seemed to have unquestionably the stronger will-power. Surely, said I, you could twist him round your little finger!' Doria sighed again, and a warmly indulgent smile played about her lips. "'You two dear people are so sensible that it makes me almost angry to see how you can't begin to understand, Adrien.' 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 husband's art. I'm not such a narrow-minded, contemptible woman." I threw her little head up proudly. I should loathe myself if I grudge one hour that Adrien gave to his work instead of to me. This time Barbara and I sighed, for we realized how vain had been our arguments. Our considerably greater knowledge of life, our stark common sense, our deep affection for Adrien, counted as naught beside the fact that we had no experience whatever in the rearing of a genius. 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 Adrien, I let slip a mild expression of my feelings. He groaned sympathetically. I wished to heaven she wouldn't do it, said he. It puts a man in such a horrible, false position towards himself. It's beautiful of her, of course. It's a 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. He walked excitedly about the library, flourishing a cigar and scattering the ash about the carpet. I am panickety in a few ways and hate tobacco ash on my carpet. Every room in the house is an arsenal of ash-strays. In normal mood Adrien punctiliously observed the little laws of the establishment. This scattering of cigar ash was a sign of spiritual convulsion. Have you explained the matter to Doria?" I asked. He halted before me, performing his new uncomfortable trick of slithering thumb over fingertips. No, he snapped. How can I?" I replied mildly that it seemed to be the simplest thing in the world. He broke away impatiently, saying that I couldn't understand. All right, said I. For what there was to understand it's an elementary proposition, goodness only knows. I was beginning to resent this perpetual charge of non-intelligence. I think we'd better clear out, he said, I'm only a damn 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. 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, you wrote the darn gate without turning a hair. Why should you worry yourself to death about this new book?" When he answered, I had the shivering impression of a wise and old man speaking to me. The slight cast I had noticed in his blue eyes became oddly accentuated. The darn gate, he said, peering at me uncannily was just a pretty amateur story. The new book is going to stagger the soul of humanity. 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'll do you good. 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. 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'll be the confidence of the confessional. It'll be all the better for it, believe me. 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 dissilently over his shirt-front. You're very good, Hillary, 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. I regarded him in some wonder. My dear fellow, said I, you can't compress a lee-bag's extracts of existence. You can't compress a lee-bag's extracts of existence between the covers of a six-shinning novel. I can, said he. I can. He thumped my writing-table, said that all the loose brass and the glass on it rattled, and by God I'm going to do it. But my dearest friend, I expostulated, this is absurd. It's megalomania, la folie de grandeur. It's the divided folly in the world, said he. 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. You dear dim-el-prig-of-Hellerie, don't worry. It's all going to come straight. When the novel of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is published, I guess you'll be proud of me. And now, good night. He laughed, waved his arm in a cavernier gesture and went from the room, slamming the door masterfully behind him. END OF CHAPTER IX We kept the unreasonable pair at Northlands as long as we could, doing all that lay in our power to restore agents idiotically impaired health. I mated him about the county. I took him to Gulf, 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. 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. 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 in between two pretty and charming women who chatted 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 on afterwards he played a rubber at bridge, happened to hold good cards and smiled an hour away. When the last guest departed he yawned, accused 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 dumb as a dinosaur in a museum and conveyed, even to Susan's childish mind, the power for solitude. His hang-dog dismalness so affected my wife that she challenged Doria. What in the world is the matter with him today? Doria drew herself up and flashed at glance at Barbara. There were both little bantams of women, one at darker's 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. Your friends are very charming, my dear, and of course I have 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. But my dear Doria, cried Barbara aghast, we thought that Adrian was having quite a good time. You may think so, but he wasn't. Adrian's a gentleman and plays the game, but you must see it was very calling to him and to me to be treated like any stockbroker or architect or idle man about town. You are unfortunate in your examples, said I, intervening judiciously. Pray reflect that there are architects alive whose artistic genius is not far inferior to Adrian's. You know very well what I mean," she snapped. 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. The palanquin deepened a shade in Doria's ivory cheek. You have put me in the wrong, I admit it. But I think it would have been better to let us know. What could one do with such people? I've inclined to let them work out their salvation in their own eccentric fashion. But Barbara decided otherwise. I think it would have been better to let us know. What could one do with such people? 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. On the morning of their departure I mildly counseled him for his fine frenzy with common sense. Knock off the night-work, said I. He frowned fidgety with his feet. I wished to God I hadn't to work at all, said he. I hate it. I tend to be a coal-heaver. Bosh, said I. I know that you're an essentially idle beggar, but you're as proud as punt of your fame and success and all that it means to you. What does it mean, after all? If you talk in that pessimistic way, I said, you'll make me cry. Don't. It means every bledged thing in the world to you. At any rate, it has meddoria. I suppose that's true, he grunted. And I suppose I am essentially idle. But I wish the damn thing would get written of its own accord. It's having to sit down to 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. Why do you work in such a depressing room?" I asked. If I was shut up alone in it, I would stick my nose in the air and howl like a dog. I hope the room's all right, said he. And he looked away absently a murmur as if to himself. Isn't the room? Then what is it? I persisted. He turned with a dreary sort of smile. It's the born butterfly being condemned to do the work of the busy bee. A short while afterwards we saw them drive off and watched the car disappear round the bend of the drive. Well, my dear, did I thank goodness I'm not a man of genius. Our men, said Barbara fervently. 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 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, having 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 Jeffrey which I thought might interest Adrian. The maid who opened the door informed me that her mistress was out. Was Mr. Baldera in? Yes, but he was working. Oh, that doesn't matter, said I. Turn him I'm here. 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 statically refused her to announce me. I argued with the damsel. I may have business of the utmost importance with your master. She couldn't help it. She had her orders. But my good Elin," 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? She looked at me demurely. I think I should call a placement, sir. You can call one now, said I, prior going to announce myself. Don't tell me I'll have to walk over your dead body first, for it won't do. I know it is not looked upon as a friendly act to interrupt a man at his work and to disregard the orders given to his servants, but I was irritated by all this grand, lama atmosphere of a mysterious seclusion. Besides, I'd been walking and felt just a little hot and dusty and thirsty, and I felt all the hotter, dustier and thirstier from my argument with Elin. I'll announce myself, I said, and marched to the door of Adrian's study. It was locked. I rapped at the door. Who's there? came Adrian's voice. It was me, Hillary. What's the matter? I happened to be a guest under your roof, said I, with a touch of temper. Wait a minute," said he. I waited about two. Then the door was unlocked and opened, and I strode in upon Adrian, who looked rather pale and dishevelled. Why the deuce, said I, do you keep me hanging about like that? I'm sorry," he replied, and I made a fixed rule to put him away by my work. I brought the safe. Whenever anybody, even Doria, wants to come into the room, I'd lanced 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. He needn't have made all that fuss, said I. I only dropped him for a second or two. I wanted to ask for a drink and to show you a letter from Geoffrey. Oh, Geoffrey! he smiled. How's the old barbarian getting on? Tremendously, he's the guest of a viceroy in living in sumptuousness. Read for yourself. I took from my pocket letter and envelope. Now, I am a man who keeps few letters and no envelopes. The second post, bringing Geoffrey'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 was tearing it up while Adrian was reading. With the pieces in my hand I peered about the room. What are you looking for?" he asked. Your waste-paper basket. Haven't got such a thing. I threw my letter into the grate. Why? I'm not going to pander to the curiosity of housemaids," he replied, rather irritably. What do you do with your waste-paper, then? Never have any," he said with his eyes on Geoffrey's letter. Good Lord, I cried. Do you pigeon-hell bills on moneylenders' circulars and second-hand booksellers' catalogues and all their wrappers?" He folded up the letter, took me by the arm, and regarded me with a smile of forced patience. My dear Henry, 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 moneylenders, come into the drawing-room. There also I shall be able to give you a drink. My eyes, following an unconscious glance from his, fell upon a new and hitherto unnoticed object. A little table, now startling the obvious, in a corner of the all but unfurnished room, in a tray with half full decanter, siphon, and glass. You've got all I want here, said I. Oh, that's mere stimulant, sapid lucurnum. 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." He dragged me almost by force into the drawing-room, where he entertained me courteously. He was curious to observe how his manner changed in—I have the Baldero jargon—in the different atmosphere. He expounded the qualities of his whisky. A present from old man Johnny Croft, a rare blend which just a few merchant-tates. 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, he said, he lurked the mystery of strange and barbaric names. He showed me a Bonnington watercolour and picked up for a song. On inquiries to the significant of a song as a unit of value, I learned that since eminent tenors and divas had sung into gramophones the standard had appreciated. My dear man, he laughed in answer to my protest. I can afford it! 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. Here the two 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. A novelist may have that little idiosyncrasies, and the privacy of their working hours deserves respect. But none I have ever heard of such fearful wildfowl as beneath 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 serialization 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 to the novel the whole of human life. I gested with him, calling it a megalomaniac notion. But suppose, unwittingly, I had been right. I thought of the ghastly name physicians give to the melody, and shivered. Suddenly, a day or two afterwards, came news that, to some extent, relieved my mind. While the Balderas were at breakfast, a cable arrived from the editor. It ran, unless half of manuscript is delivered today at London office will cancel contract. Agent read it, frowned, and handed it to Doria. It seemed that in all business matters she had his confidence. Well, dear, she said, looking up at him. He broke out angrily. Did you ever hear such a smazing insolence? I give this petty-fogging tradesman the privilege of watching 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 as a clock-maker to deliver half a clock. 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? I can, but I won't. I'll see him damned first. He turned to the maid and demanded a telegraph form. What are you going to do? 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'd be the most surprised and disgusted man in America. Need you put it quite like that? said Doria. It's the only way to make him understand. He's 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. 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 peace with his ordinary attitude towards his own genius. The capriciousness of the resolution startled me, but I approved wholeheartedly. I would have counseled immediate change of scene, had not Adrian had anticipated my advice by rushing off, then and there, to Cook's and taking tickets to Switzerland. Having some business in town, I moted 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 untrammeled. 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 another three months, currenti calimo, the book would be written. And what is Doria going to do on top of the Matterhorn? asked my wife. 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? The very, very best, dear, replied Barbara. And indeed it was. Ever a man realized himself to be on the verge of the abyss. I'm sure it was Adrian Baldero. 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. I whispered to Doria, Don't go too far into the wilds out of reach of medical advice. Why? You're taking away a sick man. Do you really think so? I do, said I. She looked to left and right and then at me, full in the face, and she gripped my hand. You're a good friend, Hilary. God knows I thank you. From which I clearly understood that her passionately loyal heart was grievously in love. 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 his work and the one 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, who put the book out of his head, was always in the best of spirits. He completely recovered from the strain of work and was looking forward joyously to the final spurt in London and the achievement of the masterpiece. Meanwhile we play the annual comedy of our August migration. The only change being that instead of dinar we went to the west coast of Scotland to stay with some of Barbara's relatives. One gleam of joy radiated that grey and dismal sojourn. The news that Jaffrey, his mission in crim tartary being accomplished, would be home for Christmas. Our host and hostess were sporting folk with red weather-beaten 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 coals in the head. Many an hour of sodden misery was cheered by the whispered word of comfort. Jaffrey 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 spiteful conversation, our host and hostess fell into a lethargy and staggered off to slumber. We beguiled the hour before bedtime with talk of Jaffrey's homecoming. At last we escaped and took the good train south. The Balderos had already returned to London. They came to spend our first weekend 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 haggred in, 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. Why? said I with a laugh. That's just about the time you expect the book to be out. He gave me a queer, slanting look. Yes, said he. They'll both be born together. That night to my consternation and sorrow he went to bed quite fuddled with whiskey. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Jaffrey by William John Locke this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Simon Evers Chapter 10 Never shall I forget that Christmas tide. Its shadow has fallen on every Christmas since then. And in the innocent insolence of our hearts and 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 Kenyon, retired permanent secretary of a government office, was a courtly gentleman with a fortless taste in old China and wine. And Lady Kenyon, 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 Kenyons were starting for Bermuda in the middle of December, it did not strike us desolate. On the contrary, Barbara clapped her hand in undisguised glee. It will do mother no end of good and we can give Susan a real Christmas of her own. So we laid deep schemes to fill the house to overflowing 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 ban and arier ban 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. Daryl Jaffrey would be with us. They had a mouse and lawn affection for each other. Then there was Leosha. Both she and Jaffrey met in Susan's heart, and it was Susan's Christmas. Both Leosha would come Mrs. Constantine, an aborable and lonely woman. We trusted to luck and to Mrs. Constantine's urbane influence for amenable relations between Leosha and Euphemia chain. With Jaffrey on the house, Agin and Doria must come. Last Christmas they had spent in the country with old Mrs. Baldero. Old Mrs. Baldero was therefore summoned to Northlands. In the likeness of our hearts we invited Mr. Jornicroft. After that it 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 in listings, and had already made his arrangements. Who else is there? asked Barbara. 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. Nonsense, she said, we can't do it. Count up, said I. I lit a cigar and went out into the winter-stricken her reckoning on her fingers with knitted brow. When I returned she greeted me with a radiantly superior smile. Who said it couldn't be done? I do wish men at some kind of practical sense it as easy as anything. 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 her bed, that frankly our excellent butler should perch in a walnut tree that planks should be put up in the bathrooms for as many more guests as we cared to invite. That is excellent, said I. But do you realise that in this house-party there are only three grown men, three apath of grown men I couldn't forbear or luciveness to this intolerable quantity of women and children? But who is preventing you from asking men, dear? Who are they? I mentioned my old friend Vansitat, also poor John Costello's son, who most likely be at a loose end at Christmas and one or two others. We'll have them, dear, said Barbara. 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. We were going to have a mighty Christmas. The house was filled with preparations. Susan and I went to the village drapers and bought beautifully coloured cotton stockings to hang up at her little cousin's bed-posts. 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 Jaffrey, back from China, came to us on the 20th of December and threw himself heart and soul into our side of the work. He took up our life just as though he'd left it to the day before yesterday. Just the same sun-laced, 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. The first thing he did was to clamour for Adrian, the man of fame. But the three Balderos were not coming till the 24th. 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 trumpeterious 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 a 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 strain to squint had become permanent in his eyes. He laughed when I repeated my warnings of the spring. Small wonder said he that it did not look robust. Virtue was going from him into every drop of ink. He could easily get through another month. And then he clapped me on the shoulder, my boy, you shall see, it will be worth all the old Fontmore prodigio. You thought I was going off my chump, you dear old fuss-box, but you were wrong. Said Edoria for a week or two. Bless her. She's an artist's wife in ten million. Have you thought of a title? I asked. Said he, yes, God, short like that. Isn't it good? I cried out that it was in the worst possible taste. He 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 am hard. He was going to call it God. 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. I pleased 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. Here's to the new book under a different name, said I. When I told Barbara about this she rather agreed with wittekind. It all depended on the matter and quality of the book itself. Well, anyway, said I, abhorrent of dissension. Thank heaven the wretched compositions nearly finished. On the morning of the twenty-third came my cousin Eileen and her offspring, and in the afternoon came Leosha and Mrs. Constantine. Geoffrey 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. Constantine, nor myself were allowed to participate. When nurses sounded the retreat, our two public naggians appeared in the drawing-room, radiant and dishevelled, with children sticking to them like flies. It was only when I saw Leosha by the side of Geoffrey unconsciously challenging him, as it were, a 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 in his six feet to his six feet too. 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 his calm munificence defied the vast thick heave of his shoulders. Her lips were parted in laughter showing 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 body's torn away. For there they stood, male and female of an heroic age in a travesty of modern garb. Clap a pepperpot helmet on Jaffrey. 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 her red face. Dress Lyosha in flaming maze and purple, leaving a breast free, and twist a gold talc through her hair, dark like the bronze-black shadows under autumn bracken. Strip naked fair the five nesting bits of humanity. It was an unprecedented scene from Lehengrin or the God of Amarung. I can only speak according to the impression produced by their entrance on an idle didotante 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 Jaffrey than an uncouth red bear, and considered Lyosha far too big for a drawing-room. When the children departed after an orgy of osculation, Jaffrey surveyed with a twinkling eye the decorous quartet sitting by the far. Then, in his familiar fashion, he took his companion by the arm. Let's do grown up for us here, Lyosha. Let's leave him. Come and I'll teach you how to play billiards. 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 Jaffrey, old Agin and Dorre were with us. Well, they were coming the next day, together with Euphemia and the four unattached men. As I said before, I'd given up inquiring into the lodging of this host, 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 Gearty, she was the most delicious thing in the whole wide world. In the morning the shadow fell. About eleven o'clock Franklin brought me a telegram into the library where Jaffrey and I were sitting. I opened it. Terrible calamity. Come at once, Baldero. I passed it to Jaffrey. My God! said he, and we stared at each other. Franklin said, Ineon, sir, sir. Yes, Baldero, coming at once. And ordered the car round immediately, for London. Also asked Mrs. Threath 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. Well, Doria, I understood. He waved a hand. Then Barbara must come. No, she would in any case. It may be Adrian, so I'll come too, if you'll let me. Let the great capable fellow come. I should think I would. For heaven's sake, do, said I. Barbara entered, swinging how swiftly keys. I'm dreadfully busy, dear. What is it? Then she saw our two set faces and stopped short. Her quick eyes fell on the telegram and 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 hurled her little body very erect. Have you ordered the car? Yes, Jaffery's coming with us. Good, I'll get on my coat. Send Irene to me. I must tell her about house things. She went out. Jaffery ate his heavy hand on my shoulder. What a wonder of a wife you've got! I don't need you to tell me that, I. We went downstairs to put on our coats and then round to the garage to hurry up the car. There's some dreadful trouble at Mr. Baldero's, I said to the chauffeur. He must drive like the devil. 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 side-wasted 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'd ordained, like the devil. Who sent that telegram? asked Barbara. Doria, said I. I think it's Adrian, said Jaffery. I think, said it Barbara, it's that silly old woman Adrian's mother. Either of the others would have said something definite. Ah! She spoke her knee with her small hand. I hate people with spinal marrow and the backbone to hold it. We tore through maiden-tent at a terrific pace, the Christmas traffic of 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. What makes you so dead sure something's happened to Adrian? Jaffery asked me, as we thundered through the railway arch. Then I remembered. I had told him little or nothing of my fears. Since I learned that Adrian was putting the finishing touches to his novel, I'd dismissed them from my mind. Such accounts as I'd given of Adrian have been in a jocularly satirical vein. I'd 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 a good of reviving the memory of ghastly apprehensions? Tell me, Sir Jaffery, there's something behind all this. I told him it took some time. We sped through Slough and Hounslow and passed the desolate winter fields. The grey air was as heavy as our hearts. In plain words, Sir Jaffery, it's GP, general paralysis of the insane. That's what I fear, said I. And you? he turns to Barbara. I too, Henry has told you the truth. But Doria, good God, Doria, he will kill her. Barbara put her little gloved fingers on Jaffery's great raw hand. Only at weddings or at the North Pole would Jaffery wear gloves. 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. The darkness had deepened when we, at last, drew up at the mansion 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 big cap. I could see from the man's face that he'd been expecting us. He knew us, of course, as constant visitors of the Bald Eros. What's the matter? I asked. I don't you know, Sir? No. As if afraid to give a shock of his news and bent forward and whispered to me, Mr. Bald Eros dead, Sir. 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. Adrien 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 anesthetics, disinfectants. Greeted us. The maid Ellen, who'd admitted us, red-eyed and scared, flew down the corridor into the kitchen, went immediately afterwards and emerged a professional nurse who, carrying something, flitted into Doria's room. From the spare room came from a moment an elderly woman whom he did not know. The study-door was flung wide open and it is that the jam was splintered. From the drawing-room came sounds of awful moaning. We entered and found Agent'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 step in the hall and Geoffrey and I went out. He was a young man, very much agitated. He looked relieved to see us. I am a doctor, said he. I was called in. The usual medical man is apparently away for Christmas. I am so glad you have come. Is there a Mrs. Threeth here? Yes, my wife, said I. Thank goodness, he drew a breath. There is no one here capable of doing anything. I had to get in the nurse and the other woman. Geoffrey had summoned Barbara from her vain task. Mrs. Baldero is very ill, as ill as she can be. Of course, you were aware of her condition. Well, the shockers had its not very uncommon effect. Life in danger, Geoffrey asked bluntly. Life, reason, everything. Tell me, I am 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 have only had time to make sure that the poor fellow was dead. Could you tell me something about them? So we told him, the three of us together, as people will, who Adrian Baldero was and how he and his genius world and a bit of the next to his wife. 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. Geoffrey 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. 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. For the past few days he'd 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 of 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 all but the dead. The man forced to the door, hence the splinters on the jam. 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 and escaped from the jealous safe. For this was so the Harris 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. To go back they found him dead. And then arose an unpicturable scene of horror. It seemed that the cook, a stolid woman on the point of starting for a Christmas visit, took charge and sent for the doctor, dispatched the telegram to us, and with the help of the porter's wife, sought to Adrian. The elder Mrs. Baldero collapsed a futile mass of sodden hysteria. Much that was fascinating and feminine in Adrian came from this amiable and incapable lady. We went into the dining-room and helped ourselves to whiskey 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. I must stay here, Hilary dear. You must get a bed at your club. Geoffrey will take the car and bring us what we want from Northlands, and we'll look after things with Eileen. And put off you feminine and the others if you can. And that was the Christmas to which we had looked forward with such joy, anticipation. Adrian dead. His child stillborn. He was buried on the brink of life and death. I did what was possible on a Christmas Eve in the way of last arrangements. But tomorrow 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. God spare me such another Christmas died. End of chapter 10.