If the old song be true which says that it is not so much the lover who
woos as the lover's way of wooing, Jaffery seemed to have thrown away
his chances by adopting a very unfortunate way indeed. Doria proved to
Barbara, urgently summoned to a bed of prostration and nervous collapse,
that she would never set eyes again upon the unqualifiable savage by
whom her holiest sentiments had been outraged and her person
disgracefully mishandled. She poured out a blood-curdling story into
semi-sympathetic ears. Barbara made short work of her contention that
Jaffery ought to have respected her as he would have respected the wife
of a living friend, characterising it as morbid and indecent nonsense;
and with regard to the physical violence she declared that it would have
served her right had he smacked her.
"If you want to be faithful to the memory of your first husband, be
faithful," she said. "No one can prevent you. And if a good man comes
along with an honourable proposal of marriage, tell him in an honourable
way why you can't marry him. But don't accept for months all a man has
to give, and then, when he tells you what you've known perfectly well
all along, treat him as if he were making shameful proposals to
you--especially a man like Jaffery; I have no patience with you."
Doria wept. No one understood her. No one understood Adrian. No one
understood the bond there was between them. Of that she was aware. But
when it came to being brutally assaulted by Jaffery Chayne, she really
thought Barbara would sympathise. Wherefore Barbara, rather angry at
being brought up to London on a needless errand, involving loss of
dinner and upset of household arrangements, administered a
sleeping-draught and bade her wake in the morning in a less idiotic
frame of mind.
"Perhaps I behaved like a cat," Barbara said to me later--to "behave
like a cat" is her way of signifying a display of the vilest phases of
feminine nature--"but I couldn't help it. She didn't talk a great deal
of sense. It isn't as if I had never warned her about the way she has
been treating Jaffery. I have, heaps of times. And as for Adrian--I'm
sick of his name--and if I am, what must poor old Jaff be?"
This she said during a private discussion that night on the whole
situation. I say the whole situation, because, when she returned to
Northlands, she found there a haggard ogre who for the first time in his
life had eaten a canary's share of an excellent dinner, imploring me to
tell him whether he should enlist for a soldier, or commit suicide, or
lie prone on Doria's doormat until it should please her to come out and
trample on him. He seemed rather surprised--indeed a trifle hurt--that
neither of us called him a Satyr. How could we take his part and not
Doria's--especially now that Barbara had come from the bedside of the
scandalously entreated lady? He boomed and bellowed about the
drawing-room, recapitulating the whole story.
"But, my good friend," I remonstrated, "by the showing of both of you,
she taunted you and insulted you all ends up. You--'a barren
rascal'--you? Good God!"
He flung out a deprecatory hand. What did it matter? We must take this
from her point of view. He oughtn't to have laid hands on her. He
oughtn't to have spoken to her at all. She was right. He was a savage
unfit for the society of any woman outside a wigwam.
"Oh, you make me tired," cried Barbara, at last. "I'm going to bed.
Hilary, give him a strait-waistcoat. He's a lunatic."
The household resources not including a strait-waistcoat, I could not
exactly obey her, but as he had come down luggageless, and with a large
disregard of the hours of homeward trains, I lent him a suit of my
meagre pyjamas, which must have served the same purpose.
He left the next morning. Heedless of advice he called on Doria and was
denied admittance. He wrote. His letter was returned unopened. He passed
a miserable week, unable to work, at a loose end in London during the
height of the season. In despair he went to _The Daily Gazette_ office
and proclaimed himself ready for a job. But for the moment the earth was
fairly calm and the management could find no field for Jaffery's special
activities. Arbuthnot again offered him reports of fires and fashionable
weddings, but this time Jaffery did not enjoy the fine humour of the
proposal. He blistered Arbuthnot with abuse, swung from the newspaper
office, and barged mightily down Fleet Street, a disturber of traffic.
Then he came down to Northlands for a while, where, for want of
something to do, he hired himself out to my gardener and dug up most of
the kitchen garden. His usual occupation of romping with Susan was gone,
for she lay abed with some childish ailment which Barbara feared might
turn into German measles. So when he was not perspiring over a spade or
eating or sleeping he wandered about the place in his most restless
mood. At nights he ransacked my library for gazetteers and atlases
wherein he searched for abominable places likely to afford the explorer
the most horrible life and the bleakest possible death. He was toying
with the idea of making a jaunt on his own account to Thibet, when a
merciful Providence gave him something definite to think about.
It was Saturday morning. I was shaving peacefully in my dressing-room
when Jaffery, after thunderously demanding admittance, rushed in, clad
in bath gown and slippers, flourishing a letter.
"Read that."
I recognised Liosha's handwriting. I read:
"Dear Jaff Chayne,
"As you are my Trustee, I guess I ought to tell you what I'm going
to do. I'm going to marry Ras Fendihook--"
I looked up. "But you told me the man was married already."
"He is. Read on."
"We are going to be married at once. We are going to be married at
Havre in France. Ras says that because I am a widow and an Albanian
it would be an awful trouble for me to get married in England, and
I would have to give up half my money to Government. But in France,
owing to different laws, I can get married without any fuss at all.
I don't understand it, but Ras has consulted a lawyer, so it's all
right. I suppose when I am married you won't be my trustee any
more. So, dear Jaff Chayne, I must say good-bye and thank you for
all your great kindness to me. I am sorry you and Barbara and
Hilary don't like Ras, which his real name really is Erasmus, but
you will when you know him better.
"Yours affectionately,
"LIOSHA PRESCOTT."
The amazing epistle took my breath away.
"Of all the infernal scoundrels!" I cried.
"There's going to be trouble," said Jaffery, and his look signified that
it was he who intended to cause it.
"But why Havre of all places in the world?" said I.
"I suppose it's the only one he knows," replied Jaffery. "He must have
once gone to Paris by that route. It's the cheapest."
I glanced through the letter again, and I felt a warm gush of pity for
our poor deluded Liosha.
"We must get her out of this."
"Going to," said Jaffery. "Let us have in Barbara at once."
I opened the communicating door and threw the letter into the room where
she was dressing. After a moment or two she appeared in cap and
peignoir, and the three of us in dressing-gowns, I with lather crinkling
over one-half of my face, held first an indignation meeting, and then a
council of war.
"I never dreamed the brute would do this," said Jaffery. "He couldn't
offer her marriage in the ordinary way without committing bigamy, and I
know she wouldn't consent to any other arrangement; so he has invented
this poisonous plot to get her out of England."
"And probably go through some fool form of ceremony," said Barbara.
"But how can she be such a thundering idiot as to swallow it?" asked
Jaffery.
I was going to remark that women would believe anything, but Barbara's
eye was upon me. Yet Liosha's unfamiliarity with the laws and
formalities of English marriage was natural, considering the fact that,
not so very long before, she was placidly prepared to be sold to a young
Albanian cutthroat who met his death through coming to haggle over her
price. I myself had found unworthy amusement in telling her wild fables
of English life. Her ignorance in many ways was abysmal. Once having
seen a photograph in the papers of the King in a bowler-hat she
expressed her disappointment that he wore no insignia of royalty; and
when I consoled her by saying that, by Act of Parliament, the King was
obliged to wear his crown so many hours a day and therefore wore it
always at breakfast, lunch and dinner in Buckingham Palace, she accepted
my assurance with the credulity of a child of four. And when Barbara
rebuked me for taking advantage of her innocence, she was very angry
indeed. How was she to know when and where not to believe me?
"She is fresh and ingenuous enough," said I, "to swallow any kind of
plausible story. And her ingenuousness in writing you a full account of
it is a proof."
"She has given the whole show away," said Jaffery. He smiled. "If
Fendihook knew, he would be as sick as a dog."
"And the poor dear is so honest and truthful," said Barbara. "She
thought she was doing the honourable thing in letting you know."
"No doubt modelling herself on Mrs. Jupp, late Considine," said I.
"Who let us know at the last minute," said Barbara with a quick knitting
of the brow.
"Precisely," said I.
"Good Lord!" cried Jaffery. "Do you think she's gone off with the fellow
already?"
"You had better ring up Queen's Gate and find out."
He rushed from the room. I hastily finished shaving, while Barbara
discoursed to me on the neglect of our duties with regard to Liosha.
Presently Jaffery burst in like a rhinoceros.
"She's gone! She went on Thursday. And this is Saturday. Fendihook left
last Sunday. Evidently she has joined him."
We regarded each other in dismay.
"They're in Havre by now," said Barbara.
"I'm not so sure," said Jaffery, sweeping his beard from moustache
downward. This I knew to be a sign of satisfaction. When he was puzzled
he scrabbled at the whisker. "I'm not so sure. Why should he leave the
boarding-house on Sunday? I'll tell you. Because his London engagement
was over and he had to put in a week's engagement at some provincial
music-hall. Theatrical folks always travel on Sunday. If he was still
working in London and wanted to shift his lodgings he wouldn't have
chosen Sunday. We can easily see by the advertisements in the morning
paper. His London engagement was at the Atrium."
"I've got the _Daily Telegraph_ here," said Barbara.
She fetched it from her room, in the earthquake-stricken condition to
which she, as usual, had reduced it, and after earnest search among the
ruins disinterred the theatrical advertisement page. The attractions at
the Atrium were set out fully; but the name of Ras Fendihook did not
appear.
"I'm right," said Jaffery. "The brute's not in town. Now where did she
write from?" He fished the envelope from his bath-gown pocket.
"Postmark, 'London, S.W., 5.45 p.m.' Posted yesterday afternoon. So
she's in London." He glanced at the letter, which was written on her own
note-paper headed with the Queen's Gate address, and then held it up
before us. "See anything queer about this?"
We looked and saw that it was dated "Thursday."
"There's something fishy," said he. "Can I have the car?"
"Of course."
"I'm going to run 'em both to earth. I want Barbara to come along. I can
tackle men right enough, but when it comes to women, I seem to be a bit
of an ass. Besides--you'll come, won't you?"
"With pleasure, if I can get back early this afternoon."
"Early this afternoon? Why, my dear child, I want you to be prepared to
come to Havre--all over France, if necessary."
"You've got rather a nerve," said I, taken aback by the vast coolness of
the proposal.
"I have," said he curtly. "I make my living by it."
"I'd come like a shot," said Barbara, "but I can't leave Susan."
"Oh, blazes!" said Jaffery. "I forgot about that. Of course you can't."
He turned to me. "Then Hilary'll come."
"Where?" I asked, stupidly.
"Wherever I take you."
"But, my dear fellow--" I remonstrated.
He cut me short. "Send him to his bath, Barbara dear, and pack his bag,
and see that he's ready to start at ten sharp."
He strode out of the door. I caught him up in the corridor.
"Why the deuce," I cried, "can't you do your manhunting by yourself?"
"There are two of 'em and you may come in useful." He faced me and I met
the cold steel in his eyes. "If you would rather not help me to save a
woman we're both fond of from destruction, I can find somebody else."
"Of course I'll come," said I.
"Good," said he. "Ask Barbara to order a devil of a breakfast."
He marched away, looking in his bath-gown like twenty Roman heroes
rolled into one, quite a different Jaffery from the noisy, bellowing
fellow to whom I had been accustomed. He spoke in the normal tones of
the ordinary human, very coldly and incisively.
I rejoined Barbara. "My dear," said I, "what have we done that we should
be dragged into all these acute discomforts of other people's lives?"
She put her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just
because we've done nothing--nothing otherwise to justify our existence.
We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't
take a share of other people's troubles we should die of congestion of
the soul."
I kissed her to show that I understood my rare Barbara of the steady
vision. But all the same I fretted at having to start off at a moment's
notice for anywhere--perhaps Havre, perhaps Marseilles, perhaps
Singapore with its horrible damp climate, which wouldn't suit
me--anywhere that tough and discomfort-loving Jaffery might choose to
ordain. And I was getting on so nicely with my translation of
Firdusi. . . .
"Don't forget," said I, departing bathwards, "to tell Franklin to put in
an Arctic sleeping-bag and a solar topee."
* * * * *
We drove first to the house in Queen's Gate and interviewed Mrs.
Jardine, a pretentious woman with gold earrings and elaborately done
black hair, who seemed to resent our examination as though we were
calling in question the moral character of her establishment. She did
not know where Mr. Fendihook and Mrs. Prescott had gone. She was not in
the habit of putting such enquiries to her guests.
"But one or other may have mentioned it casually," said I.
"Mr. Fendihook went away on Sunday and Mrs. Prescott on Thursday. It was
not my business to associate the two departures in any way."
By pressing the various points we learned that Fendihook was an old
client of the house. During Mrs. Considine's residence he had been
touring in America. It had been his habit to go and come without much
ceremonial. As for Liosha, she had given up her rooms, paid her bill and
departed with her trunks.
"When did she give notice to leave you?"
"I knew nothing of her intentions till Thursday morning. Then she came
with her hat on and asked for her bill and said her things were packed
and ready to be brought downstairs."
"What address did she give to the cabman?"
Mrs. Jardine did not know. She rang for the luggage porter. Jaffery
repeated his question.
"Westminster Abbey, sir," answered the man.
I laughed. It seemed rather comic. But every one else regarded it as the
most natural thing in the world. Jaffery frowned on me.
"I see nothing to laugh at. She was obeying instructions--covering up
her tracks. When she got to Westminster she told the driver to cross the
bridge--and what railway station is the other end of the bridge?"
"Waterloo," said I.
"And from Waterloo the train goes to Southampton, and from Southampton
the boat leaves for Havre. There's nothing funny, believe me."
I said no more.
The porter was dismissed. Jaffery drew the letter from his pocket.
"On the other hand she was in London yesterday afternoon in this
district, for here is the 5:45 postmark."
"Oh, I posted that letter," said Mrs. Jardine.
"You?" cried Jaffery. He slapped his thigh. "I said there was something
fishy about it."
"There was nothing fishy, as you call it, at all, Mr. Chayne, and I'm
surprised at your casting such an aspersion on my character. I had a
short letter from Mrs. Prescott yesterday enclosing four other letters
which she asked me to stamp and post, as I owed her fourpence change on
her bill."
"Where did she write from?" Jaffery asked eagerly.
"Nowhere in particular," said the provoking lady.
"But the postmark on the envelope."
She had not looked at the postmark and the envelope had been destroyed.
"Then where is she?" I asked.
"At Southampton, you idiot," said Jaffery. "Let us get there at once."
So after a visit to my bankers--for I am not the kind of person to set
out for Santa Fé de Bogotà with twopence halfpenny in my pocket--and
after a hasty lunch at a restaurant, much to Jaffery's impatient
disgust--"Why the dickens," cried he, "did I order a big breakfast if
we're to fool about wasting time over lunch?"--but as I explained, if I
don't have regular meals, I get a headache--and after having made other
sane preparations for a journey, including the purchase of a toothbrush,
an indispensable toilet adjunct, which Franklin, admirable fellow that
he is, invariably forgets to put into my case, we started for
Southampton. And along the jolly Portsmouth Road we went, through
Guildford, along the Hog's Back, over the Surrey Downs rolling warm in
the sunshine, through Farnham, through grey, dreamy Winchester, past St.
Cross, with its old-world almshouse, through Otterbourne and up the hill
and down to Southampton, seventy-eight miles, in two hours and a
quarter. Jaffery drove.
We began our search. First we examined the playbills at the various
places of entertainment. Ras Fendihook was not playing in Southampton.
We went round the hotels, the South-Western, the Royal, the Star, the
Dolphin, the Polygon--and found no trace of the runaways. Jaffery
interviewed officials at the stations and docks, dapper gentlemen with
the air of diplomatists, tremendous fellows in uniform, policemen,
porters, with all of whom he seemed to be on terms of familiar
acquaintance; but none of them could trace or remember such a couple
having crossed by the midnight boats of Thursday or Friday. Nor were
their names down on the list of those who had secured berths in advance
for this Saturday night.
"You're rather at fault," said I, rather maliciously, not displeased at
my masterful friend's failure.
"Not a bit," said he. "Fendihook's leaving on Sunday certainly means
that he was starting to fulfill a provincial engagement on Monday. If it
was a week's engagement, he crosses to-night. We've only to wait and
catch them. If it was a three nights' engagement, which is possible, he
and Liosha crossed on Thursday night. In that case we'll cross ourselves
and track them down."
"Even if we have to go over the Andes and far away," I murmured.
"Even so," said he. "Now listen. If he's had a week's engagement he must
be finishing to-night. In order to catch the boat he must be working in
the neighbourhood. Savvy? The only possible place besides this is
Portsmouth. We'll run over to Portsmouth, only seventeen miles."
"All right," said I, with a wistful look back at my peaceful,
comfortable home, "let us go to Portsmouth. I'll resign myself to dine
at Portsmouth. But supposing he isn't there?" I asked, as the car drove
off.
"Then he went to Havre on Thursday."
"But suppose he's at Birmingham. He would then take to-morrow night's
boat."
"There isn't one on Sundays."
"Then Monday night's boat."
"Well, if he does, won't we be there on Tuesday morning to meet him on
the quay? Lord!" he laughed, and brought his huge grip down on my leg
above the knee, thereby causing me physical agony, "I should like to
take you on an expedition. It would do you a thundering lot of good."
We arrived at Portsmouth, where we conducted the same kind of enquiries
as at Southampton. Neither there nor at adjoining Southsea could we find
a sign of the Variety Star, Ras Fendihook, and still less of the obscure
Liosha. We dined at a Southsea hotel. We dined very well. On that I
insisted--without much expenditure of nervous force. Jaffery rails at me
for a Sybarite and what not, but I have never seen him refuse viands on
account of succulency or wine on account of flavour. We had a quart of
excellent champagne, a pint of decent port and a good cigar, and we felt
that the gods were good. That is how I like to feel. I felt it so
gratefully that when Jaffery suggested it was time to start back to
Southampton in order to waylay the London train at the docks, on the
off-chance of our fugitives having come down by it, and to catch the
Havre boat ourselves, I had not a weary word to say. I cheerfully
contemplated the prospect of a night's voyage to Havre. And as Jaffery
(also humanised by good cheer) had been entertaining me with juicy
stories of China and other mythical lands, I felt equal to any
dare-devil adventure.
We went back to Southampton and collected our luggage at the
South-Western Hotel--the hotel porter in charge thereof. Our uncertainty
as to whether we would cross or not horribly disturbed his dull brain.
Ten shillings and Jaffery's peremptory order to stick to his side and
obey him slavishly took the place of intellectual workings. It was
nearly midnight. We walked through the docks, a background of
darkness, a foreground of confusing lights amid which shone vivid
illuminated placards before the brightly lit steamers--"St.
Malo"--"Cherbourg"--"Jersey"--"Havre." At the quiet gangway of the
Havre boat we waited. The porter deposited our bags on the quay and
stood patiently expectant like a dog who lays a stick at its master's
feet.
One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad ants
swarmed to the various boats. At the Havre boat I took the fore, he the
aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, vague human forms
encumbered with queer projecting excrescences of impedimenta. They all
seemed alike--just a herd of Britons, impelled by irrational instinct,
like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway, to cross the sea. And all
around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures
mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the
slither and thud of trunks being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail
of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I
went to the aft gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us had
seen Fendihook or Liosha.
A second train produced results equally barren.
There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We went
aboard followed by the porter with the luggage.
My method of travel has always been to arrange everything beforehand
with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains and boats I have
thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear therefore that there were
no berths free and that we should have to pass the night either on the
windy deck or in the red-plush discomfort of the open saloon caused me
not unreasonable dismay. I had to choose and I chose the saloon.
Jaffery, of course, chose the raw winds of heaven. All night I did not
get a wink of sleep. There was a gross fellow in the next section of
red-plush whose snoring drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards long
after they had cleared away the remains of supper from the long central
table chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing stables of the
world with a loudly dressed, red-faced man who, judging from the popping
of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three a minute. I
understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the human brain. I
devised exquisite means of removing him from a nauseated world. Then
there was a lamp which swung backwards and forwards and searched my
eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I covered them.
What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child
and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea.
There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of
stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I
was fully dressed and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body
were tied up with twine. What was I doing in this galley?
When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Jaffery was grinning over me and
all was deathly still.
"Good God!" I cried, sitting up. "Why has the ship stopped? Is there a
fog?"
"Fog?" he boomed. "What are you talking of? We're alongside of Havre."
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Half-past six."
"A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock," said I, lying
down again.
He shook me rudely. "Get up," said he.
The sleepless, unshaven, unkempt, twine-bound, self-hating wreck of
Hilary Freeth rose to his feet with a groan.
"What a ghastly night!"
"Splendid," said Jaffery, ruddy and fresh. "I must have tramped over
twenty miles."
There was an onrush of blue-bloused porters, with metal plate numbers
on their arms. One took our baggage. We followed him up the companion
onto the deck, and joined the crowd that awaited the releasing gangway.
I stood resentful in the sardine pack of humans. The sky was overcast.
It was very cold. The universe had an uncared-for, unswept appearance,
like a house surprised at dawn, before the housemaids are up. The forced
appearance of a well-to-do philosopher at such an hour was nothing less
than an outrage. I glared at the immature day. The day glared at me, and
turned down its temperature about twenty degrees. From fool
thoughtlessness I had not put on my overcoat, which was now far away in
charge of the blue-bloused porter. I shivered. Jaffery was behind me. I
glanced over my shoulder.
"This is our so-called civilisation," I said bitterly.
At the sound of my voice a tall woman in the rank five feet deep from us
turned instinctively round, and Liosha and I looked into each other's
eyes.