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Then people began to pour out of the houses and a policeman sprang up from nowhere. I went down and joined the excited throng. There was a dreadful to-do. It cost Jaffery five hundred pounds to mitigate the righteous wrath of the young man in the holly-bush, and save himself from a dungeon-cell.
The writing was Tom Castleton's; and the writing of the script hastily flung open by Jaffery was Tom Castleton's Tom Castleton, the one genius of our boyish brotherhood, who had died on his voyage to Australia. There was no mistake. The great square virile hand was only too familiar as different from Adrian's precise, academical writing as Tom Castleton from Adrian.
"Now let us have a drink," cried Jaffery, huge pioneer through the crowd. Liosha would have left us three men to our masculine devices. But Jaffery swept her along. Why shouldn't we have a pretty woman at our table as well as other people? She flushed at the compliment, the first, I think, he had ever paid her.
The ecstasies of encounter having subsided, Jaffery dragged him to the car. "This is my good old friend, Captain Maturin," he shouted, opening the door. "Mrs. Prescott. Mr. Freeth. Get in. We'll have a drink at Tortoni's." Captain Maturin, unconfused by Jaffery's unceremonious whirling, took off his hat very politely and entered the car in a grave, self-possessed manner.
"You've got some sense, Hilary," she admitted. "Tell me," said Jaffery. "How did we come to miss you on the boat? We watched the London trains carefully." "I came from Southsea about an hour before the boat started and went to bed at once." "Southsea? Why, we were there all the evening," said I. "What were you doing at Southsea?" "Staying with Emma Mrs. Jupp. The General lives there.
For Jaffery could not find a word to utter. A chill crept about his heart and his blood became as water. He could not move; a nightmare horror of dismay held him in its grip. The inconceivable had happened. He no longer desired her.
"Let Jaffery stay away as long as possible," said Barbara. "I can't be bothered with him. I wish his old voyage could be extended for a year." The first time I met Doria, when she crawled out of her room, a great pity smote my heart. The ivory of her face had turned to wax, and she had dwindled into a fragile reed, and in her eyes quivered the apprehension of an ill-treated dog.
She would be the death of your sister in a week. You can't look after her yourself that wouldn't be proper." "And it would be the death of me too!" said Jaffery. "You can't leave her in lodgings or a flat by herself, for the poor woman would die of boredom. The only thing that remains is the boarding-house."
The three of us Jaffery and Adrian and I saw him off at Southampton. He never reached Australia. He died on the voyage. Poor old Tom! So I sat, with the review of Adrian's book before me, looking out at my Pleasant garden, and my mind went irresistibly back to the old days and then wandered on to the present.
When the children departed after an orgy of osculation, Jaffery surveyed with a twinkling eye the decorous quartette sitting by the fire. Then in his familiar fashion, he took his companion by the arm. "They're too grown up for us, Liosha. Let's leave 'em. Come and I'll teach you how to play billiards." So off they went, to the satisfaction of Barbara and myself.
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