Jaffery Part 29

I laughed. "Then you did write it?"

"Of course," he growled. "But I didn't want you to know. I tried to get as near Tom Castleton as I could. Look here"--he gripped my shoulder--"if it's such a transparent fraud, what the blazes is going to happen?"

To some extent I rea.s.sured him. I was in a peculiar position, having peculiar knowledge. Save Barbara, no other soul in the world had the faintest suspicion of Adrian's tragedy. The forthcoming book would be received without shadow of question as the work of the author of "_The Diamond Gate_." The difference of style and treatment would be attributed to the marvellous versatility of the dead genius... .

Jaffery's brow began to clear.

"What do you think of it--as far as you've gone?"

My enthusiastic answer expressed the sincerity of my appreciation. He positively blushed and looked at me rather guiltily, like a schoolboy detected in the act of helping an old woman across the road.

"It's awful cheek," said he, "but I was up against it. The only alternative was to say the d.a.m.n thing had been lost or burnt and take the consequences. Somehow I thought of this. I had written about half of it all in bits and pieces about three or four years ago and put it aside. It wasn't my job. Then I pulled it out one day and read it and it seemed rather good, so, having the story in my head, I set to work."

"And that's why you didn't go to Persia?"

"How the devil could I go to Persia? I couldn't write a novel on the back of a beastly camel!"

He walked a few steps in silence. Then he said with a rumble of a laugh.

"I had an awful fright about that time. I suddenly dried up; couldn't get along. I must have spent a week, night after night, staring at a blank sheet of paper. I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew and was going the way of Adrian. By George, it taught me something of the Hades the poor fellow must have pa.s.sed through. I've been in pretty tight corners in my day and I know what it is to have the cold fear creeping down my spine; but that week gave me the fright of my life."

"I wish you had told me," said I, "I might have helped. Why didn't you?"

"I didn't like to. You see, if this idea hadn't come off, I should have looked such a stupendous a.s.s."

"That's a reason," I admitted.

"And I didn't tell you at first because you would have thought I was going off my chump. I don't look the sort of chap that could write a novel, do I? You would have said I was attempting the impossible, like Adrian. You and Barbara would have been scared to death and you would have put me off."

Franklin came from the house. Luncheon was on the table. We hurried to the dining-room. Jaffery sat down before a gigantic crab.

"Is it all right?" he asked.

"Doria has interceded for you," said Barbara. "You owe her your life."

Doria smiled. "It's the least I could do for you."

Jaffery grinned by way of delicate rejoinder and immersed himself in crab. From its depths, as it seemed, he said:

"Hilary has read half the book."

"What do you think of it?" Barbara asked.

I repeated my dithyrambic eulogy. Doria's eyes shone.

"I do wish you could see your way to read it," said Jaffery.

"I would give my heart to," said Doria. "But I've told you why I can't."

"Circ.u.mstances alter cases," said I, plat.i.tudinously. "In happier circ.u.mstances you would have been presented with the novelist's fine, finished product. As it happens, Jaffery has had to fill up little gaps, make bridges here and there. I'm sure if you had been well enough," I added, with a touch of malice, for I had not quite forgiven his leaving me in the dark, "Jaffery would have consulted you on many points."

I was very anxious to see what impression the book would make upon her.

Although I had rea.s.sured Jaffery, I could, scarcely conceive the possibility of the book being taken as the work of Adrian.

"Of course I would," said Jaffery eagerly. "But that's just it. You weren't equal to the worry. Now you're all right and I agree with Hilary. You ought to read it. You see, some of the bridges are so jolly clumsy."

Doria turned to my wife. "Do you think I would be justified?"

"Decidedly," said Barbara. "You ought to read it at once."

So it came to pa.s.s that, after lunch, Doria came into my study and demanded the set of proofs. She took them up to her bedroom, where she remained all the afternoon. I was greatly relieved. It was right that she should know what was going to be published under Adrian's name.

In Jaffery's presence, I disclosed to Barbara the ident.i.ty of the author. He said to her much the same as he had said to me before lunch, with, perhaps, a little more shamefacedness. Were it not for reiteration upon reiteration of the same things in talk, life would be a stark silence broken only by staccato announcement of facts. At last Barbara's eyes grew uncomfortably moist. Impulsively she flew to Jaffery and put her arms round his vast shoulders--he was sitting, otherwise she could not have done it--and hugged him.

"You're a blessed, blessed dear," she said; and ashamed of this exhibition of sentiment she bolted from the room.

Jaffery, looking very shy and uncomfortable, suggested a game of billiards.

To Barbara and myself awaiting our guests in the drawing-room before dinner, the first to come was Doria, whom we hadn't seen since lunch; an arresting figure in her low evening dress; you can imagine a Tanagra figure in black and white ivory. Her face, however, was a pa.s.sion of excitement.

"It's wonderful," she cried. "More than wonderful. Even I didn't know till to-day what a great genius Adrian was. All these things he describes--he never saw them. He imagined, created. Oh, my G.o.d! If only he had lived to finish it." She put her two hands before her eyes and dashed them swiftly away--"Jaffery has done his best, poor fellow. But oh! the bridges he speaks of--they're so crude, so crude! I can see every one. The murder--you remember?"

It occurred in the first part of the novel. I had read it. Three or four splashes of blood on the page instead of ink and the thing was done.

Admirable. The instinctive high light of the artist.

"I thought it one of the best things in the book," said I.

"Oh!" she waved a gesture of disgust. "How can you say so? It's horrible. It isn't Adrian. I can see the point where he left it to the imagination. Jaffery, with no imagination, has come in and spoiled it.

And then the scene on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco, where Fenton finds Ellina Ray, the broken-down star of London musical comedy. Adrian never wrote it. It's the sort of claptrap he hated. He has often told me so. Jaffery thought it was necessary to explain Ellina in the next chapter, and so in his dull way, he stuck it in."

That scene also had I read. It was a little flaming cameo of a low dive on the Barbary Coast, and a presentation of the thing seen, somewhat journalistic, I admit--but such as very few journalists could give.

"That's pure Adrian," said I brazenly.

"It isn't. There are disgusting little details that only a man that had been there could have mentioned. Oh! do you suppose I don't know the difference between Adrian's work and that of a penny-a-liner like Jaffery?"

The door opened and Jaffery appeared. Doria went up to him and took him by the lapels of his dress coat.

"I've read it. It's a work of genius. But, oh! Jaffery, I do want it to be without a flaw. Don't hate me, dear--I know you've done all that mortal man could do for Adrian and for me. But it isn't your fault if you're not a professional novelist or an imaginative writer. And you, yourself, said the bridges were clumsy. Couldn't you--oh!--I loathe hurting you, dear Jaffery--but it's all the world, all eternity to me--couldn't you get one of Adrian's colleagues--one of the famous people"--she rattled off a few names--"to look through the proofs and revise them--just in honour of Adrian's memory? Couldn't you, dear Jaffery?" She tugged convulsively at the poor old giant's coat. "You're one of the best and n.o.blest men who ever lived or I couldn't say this to you. But you understand, don't you?"

Jaffery's ruddy face turned as white as chalk. She might have slapped it physically and it would have worn the same dazed, paralysed lack of expression.

"My life," said he, in a queer toned voice, that wasn't Jaffery's at all, "my life is only an expression of your wishes. I'll do as you say."

"It's for Adrian's sake, dear Jaffery," said Doria.

Jaffery pa.s.sed his great glazed hand over his stricken face, from the roots of his hair to the point of his beard, and seemed to wipe therefrom all traces of day-infesting cares, revealing the sunny Reubens-like features that we all loved.

"But apart from my amateur joining of the flats, you think the book's worthy of Adrian?"