Alfred was smiling at nothing again when he walked into the pub that evening. His good mood had persisted throughout the day, surviving even Evander and the constant small reminder that Evander would be married before him. He'd been thinking, off and on, of writing Zelda a letter. He probably ought to apologize for showing up in her garden last night, and he certainly ought to reassure her that he had no intention of doing it again, drunk or otherwise. It was hard to regret it, though, with how well it had gone. Yes, they'd fought, but he'd been expecting them to fight. That had been the whole point in going, actually — in person she couldn't just send him a two-word letter and insist they were fine. Things spilled out, boiled over, but then they talked through them and ended up actually fine. So that was what he'd been expecting; that was his plan. He hadn't planned on anything that had happened afterwards, but neither did he regret it — and it was that smug smile that kept showing up on his face for no reason that he wouldn't have been able to put in a letter. Anything he said would've been an inadequate descriptor, or might've gotten her in trouble if anyone happened to be around when she got the mail, one or the other.

Not that he'd had time to write, anyway. He'd returned from his sailing venture with Evander late in the afternoon, with sea spray on his clothes and salt in his hair, and he'd needed to wash and change before setting out again to meet his uncle. He arrived first, chose a table, and ordered two pints. He didn't see his uncle half as often as he would have liked, but they did this frequently enough that he was well aware of the older man's drink preferences.

"Uncle H!" he called with a cheerful wave as he saw his uncle at the doorway. He raised the glasses he'd procured for both of them with a grin, so Hamish would know he could skip the bar on the way to the table.

"You've heard about Evander, I take it?" he asked when his uncle had settled into the seat across from him. Alfred hadn't been paying enough attention to the paper to know if it had been publicly announced yet or not, but since he'd been engaged nearly two months now Alfred assumed all the relevant parties had already been informed.

Hamish Darrow Aldous Crouch