Jaffery | Page 9

glass. Why should his face have been so haggard when he had everything to make him happy?
"He was thinking of Mr. Jornicroft's previous insulting behaviour."
"How do you know?"
"He told me," said Barbara.
"I never knew Adrian to be seriously vindictive," said I.
"It strikes me, my dear," replied Barbara, taking my hand, "that you are an old ignoramus."
And this from a woman who actively glories in not knowing how many "r's" there are in "harassed."
She nestled up to me. "We're not going abroad in August, are we?"
"What?" I cried, "leave the English country during the only part of the year that is not 'deformed with dripping rains or withered by a frost'? Certainly not."
"But we did last year, and the year before."
"Pure accident. The year before, Susan was recovering from the measles and you had some pretty frocks which you thought would look lovely at Dinard. And last year you also had some frocks and insisted that Houlgate was the only place where Susan could avoid being stricken down by scarlet-fever."
"Anyhow," said my wife, "we're not going away this year, for I've fixed up with Doria and Adrian to spend August at Northlands."
"Why didn't you tell me so at once? Why did you ask me whether we were going away?"
"Because I knew we weren't," she answered.
In putting two questions at the same time, I blundered. The first was a poser and might have elicited some interesting revelation of feminine mental process. In forlorn hope I repeated it.
"Why, I've told you, stupid," said Barbara. "You've no objection to their coming, have you?"
"Good Lord, no. I'm delighted."
"From the way you've argued, any one would have thought you didn't want them."
Outraged by the illogic, I gasped; but she broke into a laugh.
"You silly old Hilary," she said. "Don't you see that Doria must get her trousseau together and Adrian must find a house or a flat, that has to be decorated and furnished, and the poor child hasn't a mother or any sensible woman in the world to look after her but me?"
"I see," said I, "that you intend having the time of your life."
* * * * *
My prevision proved correct. In August came the engaged couple and every day Barbara took them up to town and whirled them about from house-agent to house-agent until she found a flat to suit them, and then from emporium to emporium until she found furniture to suit the flat, and from raiment-vendor to raiment-vendor until she equipped Doria to suit the furniture. She used to return almost speechless with exhaustion; but pantingly and with the glaze of victory in her eyes, she fought all her battles o'er again and told of bargains won. In the meantime had it not been for Susan, I should have lived in the solitude of an anchorite. We spent much time in the garden which we (she less conscious of irony than I) called our desert island. I was Robinson Crusoe and she was Man Friday, and on the whole we were quite happy; perhaps I should have been happier in a temperature of 80° in the shade if I had not been forced to wear the Polar bear rug from the drawing-room in representation of Crusoe's goatskins. I did suggest that I should be Robinson Crusoe's brother, who wore ordinary flannels, and that she should be Woman Wednesday. But Susan saw through the subterfuge and that game didn't work. One afternoon, however, Barbara, returning earlier than usual, caught us at it and expressing horror and indignation at the uses to which the bearskin was put, metaphorically whipped me and sent me to bed as being the elder of the naughty ones. After that we played at fairies in a glade, which was much cooler.
It was in the evenings that I was loneliest; for then Barbara went early to bed, and the lovers strolled about together in the moonlight. With the intention, half-malicious, half-pitiful, of filling up my time, Doria taught me a new and complicated Patience. Then finally, when Doria, having spent a couple of polite minutes in the drawing-room, had retired, and when I was tired out from the strain of the day and half-asleep through weariness, Adrian would mix himself the longest possible brandy and soda, light the longest possible cigar and try to keep me up all night listening to his conversation.
At last, one Friday evening, while I was engaged in my forlorn and unprofitable game, the butler entered the drawing-room with unperturbed announcement:
"Mr. Chayne on the telephone, sir."
I sent the card table flying amid the wreckage of my lay-out and rushed to the telephone.
"Hullo! That you, Jaff?"
"Yes, old man. Very much me. A devil of a lot of me. How are you?"
His strong bass boomed through the receiver. I have always found a queer comfort in Jaffery's