Berry Scene (27 page)

“Of such is war,” said Forsyth. “Heat the pot, and the scum will always rise.”

“And here’s another saw,” said Lord Level. “The watched pot never cools. Don’t forget that, Mary. Avert your eyes, my dear. And then one day you’ll look round, to find that taste is improving and manners are coming back.”

“I resemble Rachel. I will not be comforted. Never mind. As you’re all against me—”

“I’m not,” said Berry. “The old order is changing, and I decline to believe that the new will be as good. Say we’re going through a phase, if you please. Well, I don’t like the look of the phase. Why do we talk about money? Because money matters now, as never before. Nothing counts, beside money. Money is ‘news’. But it’s also the root of all evil, and always was.”

Lady Level lifted her voice.

“I have an uneasy feeling that Berry is right. Money is the Lord of Misrule. Some star in America is getting a thousand a week: and Dr — at Oxford is getting four hundred a year. And he’s writing a standard work that will outlive time. Once that kind of rot gets going, it’s terribly hard to stop.”

There was a little silence.

“I should hate,” said Lady Morayne, “to write a dictionary.”

“I do hope you won’t try,” said Berry. “As a censor, Lady Morayne is beyond compare. But lexicography is by no means everyone’s dunghill. Let the cobbler stick to his blast – last.”

“Dr Johnson did both. After defining all day, he sat down and condemned.”

“What did he condemn?” said Elizabeth Pembury.

“Any departure,” said Forsyth, “from what he thought was the proper way to behave. And he was extremely strict.”

“In a word,” said Punch, “he’d have been pretty busy today.”

“I should have loved to hear him,” said Berry, “on gate-crashing.”

Lord Level laughed.

“You never would have,” he said. “The appreciation of the offence would have deprived him of speech.”

“How,” said Athalia Fairfax, “would you define ‘gate-crashing’?”

“‘Vile and verminous conduct,’” said Lady Morayne.

“Too general,” said Berry. “So is the skunk’s reproach. ‘Gate-crashing’ is ‘the usurping by simulation of the privileges of an invited guest’.”

“I will wager,” said Lady Morayne, “that my dictionary would sell a damned sight better than yours.”

“There you are,” said Berry. “Money again. You can’t get off the subject. We’d better go back to barges. After all, a barge on the Thames is worth two at the Wash.”

“Money again,” said Forsyth. “And what has the caravan done?”

“I quite agree,” said Daphne. “A caravan gives you a chance. Two of our tenants are living in one in a barn. It’s dry and warm and gay. Spend the winter like that, and when the summer comes in, you can take to the road. Why don’t you try that, Dick? Whenever I see the Westons, I think how lucky they are. Take ours on from them. They’re going into their house at the end of the month.”

Pembury shook his head.

“We’re through with caravans. The remembrance of them is grievous. You can lock them up, you know, but they can be moved.”

“But I thought that that was a virtue.”

“It depends who moves them,” said Pembury. “The bloke who moved ours usurped the privilege.”

“D’you mean it was pinched?” said Athalia.

“Stolen, taken and carried away,” said Pembury. He looked at Forsyth. “I believe that to be the wording the law prefers.”

Forsyth inclined his head.

“I trust it was used to some purpose before the appropriate Court.”

Pembury shook his head.

“The van has never been found. We informed the police, of course, and they were confident. ‘He won’t get far,’ they said. ‘You can’t hide a caravan.’ They warned all districts forthwith. And when a week had gone by, they warned all garages. Then they went to Great Portland Street. I’ve been there three times myself – by their desire. But the vans I saw were not ours.”

“What a rotten shame,” said my sister. “Never mind. You shall have ours. We shan’t want it after April, and George and Alice have kept it perfectly. If you spend five pounds, it’ll be as good as new.”

“Oh, we couldn’t take it,” said Dot.

“My dear, why not? We got it extremely cheap, and we shall get nothing for it – you know what dealers are.”

“Where did you lose yours?” said Berry.

“Not far from Shaftesbury. We left it one Saturday morning, to stay with the Fairies at Charing for forty-eight hours. And when we got back, it was gone. In fact, we forgot to lock it, but that is beside the point. Happily, we left nothing in it, except its furniture. Oh, and some sausages.” Daphne started violently, but Berry sat like a rock. “We’d meant to throw them away, because they were going bad. If the thief omitted that precaution, whoever opened the larder must have had a pleasant surprise.”

“That’s right,” said Berry. “It damned near knocked me down.” He turned to his wife. “Don’t you remember, darling? Wise in your generation, you left it to me to open and prove the frankincense.”

“D’you mean,” said Daphne faintly, “we bought their caravan?”

“That’s right. From that charming fellow, who’d had such a rotten time.”

“They always have,” murmured Forsyth. “Still, I think the police should have traced it.”

Berry shook his head.

“As receivers of stolen goods, we know our job. The van was moved by night. Twelve hours after the sale, it was fifty miles away and standing within a barn.”

Forsyth began to laugh.

“If those are the facts, you wouldn’t have stood much chance before some of the Courts I know. But what on earth induced you to do such suspicious things?”

“A Mr Wormcast induced us. I mean, Wireworm. A very compelling man.”

“Not of Nether Beauchamp?” screamed Dot.

“That’s right,” said Berry. “D’you know him?”

“Know him?” said Pembury. “We ran into him at – at—”

“Cherries?”

“That’s right. We heard that a van was there, and we went to see if it was ours. It wasn’t, of course. But some van or other had done in Wireworm’s car. During his absence, I mean. And then cleared out. So any caravan was grist to his mill. The state of the one at Cherries suggested extremely strongly that that was the guilty van. But its driver apparently swore to an alibi. So when we rolled up to admit that we had a van, Wireworm fell upon us and swore that we’d done in his car. The thing was absurd, of course. We hadn’t been near Nether Beauchamp. Besides, our van had been stolen before his car was done in.”

“That wouldn’t worry Wireworm,” said Berry.

“You’re perfectly right,” said Dot. “He can’t talk sense. We had to have police protection, to get away. But is it really our van? The one you’ve got, I mean.”

“The sausages prove it,” said Berry. “Forsyth, what do we do? We receive a van, not knowing it to have been stolen. We have the use of that van for more than six months. What is the judgment of the Court?”

“You do it up,” said Forsyth, “and hand it back. But you really must be more careful. Fancy buying a caravan by the side of the way. And now let’s hear what happened. Why did you move it by night?”

Berry related the tale.

When he had done, Daphne turned to Elizabeth Pembury.

“I simply can’t tell you,” she said, “how terribly sorry we are. We did you down good and proper. Until the van is ready, of course you will stay with us. That’s the very least we can do. We owe you six months’ lodging, look at it how you will.”

“That’s absurd,” said Pembury. “You bought the van in good faith.”

“That,” said Berry, “is how Mr Wormwood talks. Give us a chance to discharge a monstrous debt.”

“I refuse to wait any more,” shrieked Lady Morayne. “After hearing this incredible tale, can anyone deny that honesty’s gone by the board? Fancy stealing a caravan. Not the contents – the van itself. Fancy daring to steal it away. And then disposing of it – to most respectable people, as I can testify. And so we come back to money. Seventy-five pounds in an afternoon – and that, by selling something that isn’t yours. That’s the way to get on today. That’s five hundred a week. And very nice, too. But that sort of thing wasn’t done before the war. I wish I’d been born in 1840. Most of you think I was, but I’m younger than that.”

“I confess,” said Lord Level, “that sometimes I feel the same. To have died, full of years, in 1910…”

Berry shrugged his shoulders.

“In 1840,” he said, “the one and only Duke was satisfied that England was going down.”

The argument waxed. But I had no ears to hear. I was wondering what Forsyth would have said, if he had known how we came to acquire The Bold.

In Which We Fight For Our Rights, and an

Old Acquaintance Does Us a Very Good Turn

“It’s bad,” said Berry. “I won’t eat the blasted thing.”

“That’s the medlar,” said I. “Until it’s rotten, it isn’t fit to eat.”

“But it isn’t fit to eat when it is.”

“Connoisseurs say so,” said I. “They wait till decay has set in.”

“They don’t wait till it’s mobile,” said Berry. “I can hardly keep this on my plate. Oh, and why don’t you have one?”

“Because,” I said, “I am not a connoisseur.”

Berry pushed away his plate.

“When I feel like filth,” he said, “I can go and pick it out of the gutters – like other dogs. But I don’t want it served at my table. You know, I feel quite sick. Have we got any sheep-dip? I mean, mouth-wash?”

My sister strove not to laugh.

“Poor old lady,” she said. “The gardeners probably told her that the Rokesby medlars were famous – as they certainly used to be. She’s only trying to be nice.”

“Funny way of being courteous,” said Berry. “Fancy sending a basket of emetics to those you love. It’s almost Borgian. I know. Let’s send them to Boris. If he has a good gorge, he’ll probably pass away.”

“That wouldn’t help us,” said Daphne.

“It’d help me,” said Berry violently.

“Well, you oughtn’t to say such things. Besides, Vandy’s the villain.”

“Hush,” said Berry piously. “Remember that exquisite precept – ‘Speak no ill of the dead.’”

“That didn’t stop you,” said Daphne, “as soon as you saw his Will.”

“No,” said her husband. “It didn’t. It wouldn’t have stopped a Trappist with his mouth full. He might have scourged himself later, but he’d have had his stab.”

It was an outrageous business, and that is the truth. A distant cousin of ours had possessed the family portraits, for what they were worth. Their place was, of course, at White Ladies: and how Vandy had come to have them was never clear. They had been removed from White Ladies before our time. Now Vandy had no children, and, with the death of his sister, his line would die. We had, therefore, arranged with him that, when that came about, the pictures should be returned. He had sworn to leave them in Trust and to direct that, on his sister’s demise, they should be hung at White Ladies in perpetuity. He had actually sent us a copy of the relevant clause in his Will. In return, we had undertaken to pay his surviving sister five hundred pounds a year for so long as she lived. And then, unknown to us, he had made a new Will, and had left the family portraits to the son of a widow whom he had met at Dieppe. What was almost worse, he had left his sister without a penny piece.

Forsyth, when consulted, had shaken his head. Emma, when told the truth, had bad a break-down. Mr Boris Blurt, when approached, had been what he would have called ‘deliciously arch’.

Boris was very modern. He wore his hair very long, he had a high-pitched voice, he believed in
Crème de Menthe
and he was an interior decorator. He considered Chippendale vulgar; St James’s Palace, sordid; the National Gallery, subversive. He cared for no quarter of London except Soho. Best of all, be always called Berry ‘dear’.

At our first interview—

“And I do so deplore money. I always find it so degrading. After a discussion of money, I always have to lie down. But what would you have, my dears? Of course I couldn’t live with them. That Holbein alone…” He shuddered. “I always think Holbein’s so unkind. But Algy Watchet says that they’re worth the Mint. He’s a darling, Algy Watchet – the most enchanting voice. He reads me Goethe sometimes, when I’m very low. And, you see, there’s my mission to think of. And Americans are so generous…”

I need hardly say that Berry’s report to Daphne of Mr Boris Blurt approached the obscene.

Be that as it may, it looked as though we were sunk.

We could not let Emma down – her distress was really painful. ‘I feel dishonoured, Daphne. And I’d always meant you to have them, directly he died.’ And Basing had seen the pictures and had roughly valued the twelve at twenty-five thousand pounds. ‘The Gainsboroughs aren’t very good, but the Reynolds are. The Van Dyck is very nice, and the Holbein is better still. The others are nothing much. But the Holbein will make big money.’

Basing’s appreciation had hit us extremely hard. We had never dreamed – nor had Vandy – that the portraits were worth so much. They had, in fact, been insured for seven thousand pounds. And only the week before, we had felt that we could not afford to purchase a new motor-mower until next year.

Ten years had gone by since we had ‘received’ The Bold and the Pemburys’ caravan: and during that difficult time we had come to regard White Ladies as a house that is built upon rock in the midst of a shifting world. We spent little time in London. We visited Jill and her husband – as a rule in the spring at Irikli, their exquisite villa by Como – and felt refreshed. Rarely we stayed in Paris or toured in France. But wherever we went, we were always glad to get back – to an atmosphere which was stable and as it had always been. ‘The same yesterday, today and for ever.’

Without our gates, many changes had taken place.

Bell Hammer was closed. The Plagues were in Town for good, and the Lyvedens were travelling abroad. For this lamentable state of affairs, a famous, fatal house-party had been responsible. Reasonable precautions had been taken, but robbery under arms had not been foreseen. Lady Plague and Valerie Lyveden had seen three servants shot dead… And so Bell Hammer was closed. For the model village of Pouncet, an agent was doing his best.

Old Ludlow had died, full of years, and Jonathan and Natalie Baldric reigned in his stead. Punch and Athalia Fairfax were now a power in Mayfair.

Mrs Medallion was dead, and Toby, now lord of Rokesby, had married Cicely Voile – a very attractive girl. But they had let Rokesby furnished for several years. Here, I think they were wise. It was not a home for a bride.

The Beaulieus had become very rich: the Pemburys, now the Larches, were still very poor.

Richard Chandos of Maintenance, Wiltshire, had come to be our very good friend. So had his colleague, George Hanbury – a merry man. And Chandos had married a queen… And then, after four short years, his queen had been killed…with Mr and Mrs Hanbury…flying from France… And now he had married again – a white witch of a girl, whom everyone loved.

Jill was mostly in Italy. Jonah was much abroad, though he had a flat in Town. The war had left him restless: he never seemed so happy as when he was quietly taking his life in his hand. American-born, my wife had her eyes on her country. Her visits there were protracted; but, though I had gone over twice, I could not stand the pace.

That, I suppose, was the trouble with Daphne, with Berry, with me. We ‘could not compete’. Perhaps I should say that we did not care to compete. There seemed to be nothing to compete for – nothing one-tenth so precious as that which White Ladies offered for nothing at all.

But even within our gates, we could not feel secure. Uncertainty’s lease was running; and Pleasure, Uncertainty’s steward, was calling the tune. People were grasping the present, because they had no idea what the future might hold. They lived for the moment – often from hand to mouth. High and low gambled, like madmen. Expenses were continually rising, while income was going down. The best was still to be had – at a fearful price. But craftsmanship was dying. The silversmith could not live: though he beat his vessels out in the sweat of his face, he could not earn a quarter of what the machinist made. People glanced at the headlines and went their way – to spend in less than an evening the price of a pair of shoes that would laugh at Time: and the man that might have made them was staking his dole at ‘the dogs’. The old world was giving way to a less substantial structure, whose motive power was so huge that it seemed as though its engines would shake themselves from their seats.

And so we held fast to White Ladies, for there the world stood still. And now our Rock of Ages was to be robbed of its rights…

“You don’t really feel sick?” said Daphne.

“Of course I do,” said her husband. “I’m not accustomed to refuse. Besides, my stomach is proud.”

“A peach,” said I, “would be better than any mouth-wash.”

“If it could be peeled,” said Berry. “Peaches are rather like Holbein. They’re so unkind. They always seem to repel me – I can’t think why.”

His reproduction of Boris was hideously accurate.

“All right. I’ll peel it,” said Daphne. “But I shall be sick in a minute, if you go on like that. By the way, you never told me. What’s Jonah say?”

“He leaves it to us,” said Berry. “I knew he would.”

“And now what?”

Her husband shrugged his shoulders.

“It can be done,” he said, “if darling Boris will play. It won’t be a pleasant transaction: but Boris has every right to require his pound of flesh. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t. But I think he might stop short of the USA. After all, these are English portraits of English men. And twenty-five thousand pounds should set his business up. To say we can afford it is nonsense. It’s going to hit us damned hard. And then there’s Emma’s allowance. But I cannot stomach the fact of those portraits going elsewhere. White Ladies is where they belong. It’s not complete without them. They are the illustrations, painted by famous artists, of this old English record of other days.”

“Well, how do we do it?” said Daphne. “Assuming that Jill agrees.”

“Have to have a meeting,” said Berry. “Boris can bring whom he likes, and we’ll take Basing along. Our only card is this – that twenty-five thousand pounds is a hell of a bird in the hand. If he sends the pictures to Christie’s, he may get more. But he may get considerably less. And he’ll have to pay their commission in any event.”

“Where will you meet?”

“In his bestial shop, I suppose. There’s never anyone there. That, of course, is hardly surprising. It’s like a damned awful dream. There are stains all over the walls – I thought it was damp. But, damn it, he’s had them put there. He calls them decoration. And he’s got a one-sided fireplace.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Daphne, passing the peach.

“It’s perfectly true,” said I. “There’s the grate all right; and on the left there’s roughly forty square feet of burnt-brick rockery. I tell you, it’s lunatic. The sort of work that belongs to the padded cell. And the district is more than squalid. I mean, a fried-fish shop would actually tone it up.”

“It’d finish Boris,” said Berry. “I think his personal scent is
Vers l’Aube du Jour
. Cheruit used to sell it. I may be wrong. But the shop’s is rather more pungent. After ten minutes there, I wouldn’t dare go to the Club.”

“Well, if Jill agrees

Here Falcon came in with a cable.

Of course I leave it to you expect me on Thursday next such a wonderful day here Elaine swims just like a fish and a poor woman got stung by a sort of Jelly-fish they had to knock it off her and the life-saver’s arms got burnt right through the towels all my love.

Padua.

Basing sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.

“The thing is this, Mr Blurt. If you were a picture-dealer, you’d jump at an offer like this, for dealers know how tricky the markets are. You might get more. You’re very much more likely to get much less. Call in Peruke, if you like, and I’ll lay he tells you the same. Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very attractive offer. To be honest, I’d take twenty thousand, if I was placed as you are – I would, indeed.”

“I don’t agree,” said Watchet – a long-nailed, bull-necked brute, who was plainly the worse for wear. “Detestable as I find them, there is a section of the public that likes these things. They don’t look at the work: the name is enough for them. They can’t understand that Gainsborough couldn’t paint, because Gainsborough couldn’t see.”

“How true,” said Boris. “Algy darling, you always put things so well.” He turned to Berry. “I’m inarticulate, dear. The words I crave for won’t come. The feeling’s there, you know, but the faculty of speech is denied. Once, long ago, I foamed.”

“What, not at the ears?” said Berry.

“No, no, at the mouth. D’you remember when I foamed, Algy? Because the words wouldn’t come? Hubert was playing his concerto… I had to go out, you know. I wanted to speak of mountains, riven by storm.”

“The gorge was rising,” said Berry.

“That’s right,” cried Boris. “That’s right. Emotion had taken charge. They had a terrible time with me. Oscar told me later I cried all night.”

“That’s bowels,” said Berry. “You know. What you yearn with, The seat of all the emotions. When somebody kicks you, the bowels inform the brain. The brain instructs the tear ducts – and there you are. And now what about this offer. How do the bowels react?”

Boris regarded Berry with starting eyes.

At length—

“I – I don’t quite know,” he stammered, wiping his brow. “At least – I mean, Algy feels very strongly that I oughtn’t to give them away.”

“Of course you mustn’t,” said Berry. “It’d mean a major operation for one thing. And who would you give them to?”

“I mean the pictures,” screamed Boris. “I mustn’t give the pictures away.”

“There’s no reason on earth why you should. And I hope very much that you won’t – unless you give them to us.”

“But that’s what you’re asking me to do.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Berry.

Boris squirmed.

“You – you make it so difficult, dear. I’ve told you how it revolts me to talk about dross. I always feel so degraded. And I simply couldn’t haggle. But, you see, I must do myself justice. Of course, it doesn’t make sense, but Algy says that these daubs are worth at least fifty thousand…”

Basing gave a short laugh.

“I cannot answer,” he said, “for Mr Watchet’s experience in this particular field: but when I detest a certain class of work, I study neither the artists nor the prices their work will fetch. He finds these pictures detestable: I do not. And so I feel it likely that my opinion is worth rather more than his. And I tell you this, Mr Blurt – the figure of fifty thousand is quite absurd. I’m not going into details, because you have had a copy of my report. But this I will say – that only one of the portraits is an uncertain quantity. And that is the Holbein. The other eleven would make ten thousand pounds. I’m speaking roughly, of course: but thereabouts. The Holbein might make ten or it might make fifteen. It is possible that it would make twenty. But it won’t make a penny more.”