House That Berry Built (5 page)

“So you shall,” said I. “It’s window-shopping, of course. But I’d like to hear what you think.”

Jonah came, too. They surveyed it from every angle and found it extremely good. But its lack of water confined it to the realm of dreams. About that, no one could argue.

“It’s a pity,” said Jonah, setting a match to his pipe. “A house built there would be incomparable. Facing full south, with this air and outlook and surroundings, it would diminish most homesteads that I have seen. And talk about landscape – gardening – you’d never be through.”

“It’s tantalizing,” said Daphne. “I’m ripe for an ivory tower.”

“I know,” said my cousin. “Never mind. Plenty of fish in the sea. I’m told that château by Brace has a first-class spring.”

My sister wrinkled her nose.

“I’m not mad about Brace,” she said. “Anyway we’re all of us fools. Who wants to buy or build?”

“We’ve never lived in hired houses.”

“I know. It can’t be helped.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Jonah, “to build a house just now would do us a lot of good. It’s a primitive instinct, of course: but it’s none the worse for that.”

In Which We Cast Our Bread Upon the Waters,

and Find It in Two Days’ Time

The summer days went by, and the country about us tightened the spell it had cast. If ever we drove down to Pau, we were actually relieved to get back. Twice the clouds came down, to swathe Bel Air in their delicate folds of moisture for twenty-four hours. On the second occasion, the five of us walked in cloud halfway to the Col de Fer. By road, of course. The exercise acted like a cure. I never remember feeling fitter in all my life. And the music of the orchestra of waters we could not see was unforgettable.

Old Rowley’s death was forgotten – or so it seemed. Jonah had written to Falcon, but the latter’s courteous acknowledgment had given no news.

It was, I shall always remember, upon the first day of July that we took the two cars and drove to Paradise. This was one of the loveliest places we had found, and it lay perhaps thirty minutes from our front door.

To reach it, we ran through Lally, turned to the right and on to the road to Pau: before we came to Nareth, we switched to the left, threading a thunderous gorge and taking the curling road which climbed by Cluny and Jules up to the Spanish frontier some twenty-five miles off. Some of the handsomest country lay this way, and he who left the road could have it all to himself. Once in a while, a tent would argue the presence of some enthusiast: sometimes a lonely angler fished some stream: but ninety per cent of the visitors stuck to the road, content to survey the prospects which we went up to and proved. But we were not visitors. Living among them, we had the freedom of the hills.

We slowed through the village of Cluny, hanging on our heel at the Customs, to give our assurance that we were not bound for Spain: then we swept on up the gorge, for a short two miles. And there we left the road for a ramp on the left.

Few would have marked this track, for the beeches grew thick about it, interlacing their boughs above it, as though to keep it hidden from curious eyes. Fewer still would have taken this track, for who could say that you could turn, when once you were down? And it was not a place up which to drive a car backwards… But turn you could, at the foot of the shadowed ramp; or you could berth your car there and, getting out, take your choice of the pleasances there displayed. Each was five minutes’ walk, and it always seemed strange to me that two so different havens should have lain side by side.

Turn to the left, and you came to a blowing meadow of fine, sweet grass. It was very small, very retired, with oaks and chestnuts about it, to offer a grateful shade. It was a true mountain lawn; but it might have been plucked from the English countryside. Lying there, supine, by merely moving his eyes, a man could command on all sides the peaks of the Pyrénées, could mark their bulwarks and tell their glorious towers, observe their hanging forests and glancing falls, could doze and dream of beauty – and wake to find the truth more lovely still.

Turn to the right, and you came to a little path which led some sixty feet down to the torrent’s bed. To more than its bed – to a natural bathing-pool. Fringed by a strip of sand, this actually shelved to a depth of eleven feet. In fact, for a third of the year, the torrent passed it by, detailing a waterfall to feed it and keep its burden running and ever fresh. Because it lay full in the sun, except in its depths, it was never cold as the torrent, while the burly rocks about it grew hot and gave off heat.

Little wonder we gave such perfection the name of Paradise.

This particular morning we spent at the pool, and I have a photograph still which Carson took. Watched by Jill and Therèse, Daphne and Berry are playing a game of backgammon upon the strand; Jonah is waist-deep in the water; and I am poised on a rock, about to dive.

At one we adjourned to the meadow, and there, despite Berry’s misgivings, we ate our lunch.

It was then that we spoke of the virtue of Lally’s water…

Berry emptied his glass and called to Carson for another bottle of beer.

“I do take it,” he said. “I take it in my coffee and quite a lot of it goes to the preparation of my food. I probably swallow some when cleaning my teeth.”

“Not that water,” said my sister. “The other. The – the thermal spring. The stuff that invalids drink. It’s warm and sulphurous.”

“All right. You take it,” said her husband. “I’ve more respect for my stomach. I’m not going to insult it with a beverage reminiscent of rotten eggs.”

“Roger says it’s not bad,” said Daphne, “and terribly good for the chest. He says, if you drink it, you never have a cold the next winter. And here it is, at our door.”

“Have you entered the establishment?” said Berry. “And seen the vomitories?”

My sister repressed a shoulder – which meant that she had.

“You don’t have to use them,” she said. “They just give you your dose, and then you go out and sip it.”

“If I’m going to be sick,” said Berry, “I’d rather—”

“Be quiet,” said Daphne. “Nobody’s going to be sick. And they’re not vomi – vomidaries. They’re for gargling.”

“The one day I was there,” said Berry, “there was a very large woman—”

Shrieks of protest cut short the memory.

“I know,” said Daphne. “It’s filthy. It oughtn’t to be allowed. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the water is beneficial. I think it’s absurd not to take it.”

“My sweet,” said her husband, “for all I care, you can drink a gallon a day. I decline to be interested in an evil-smelling liquor which wells from the bowels of the earth. When you spoke of ‘the Lally water’, I thought you meant that exquisite crystal fount which serves the taps of Lally, the surplus of which runs in the gutters of Lally by day and night, while we, who live five hundred yards off, must have it dragged to our door in a donkey-cart. Now if we had that on tap – well, I shouldn’t drink it all the time, but if we ran out of beer, you never know.”

It was about half-past two that Jill and Jonah and I strolled out of the meadow towards the forest-clad heights which were opposed to those upon which the road had been cut.

Our way led past a toy barn: that this belonged to the meadow was very clear, for it was built against it, just under the lea of a rise.

Where there is grass in the mountains, there is always a barn, substantially built, as a rule, with dry stone walls and a carefully slated roof. In the upper part, under the slates, the hay is stacked, while the lower part, unfloored, is used as a byre.

Jonah spoke over his shoulder.

“If I believed in camping, I think I should make an endeavour to buy this place. The barn and the meadow, I mean. Half an hour’s walk from Cluny…good shelter against rough weather, which you could elaborate…a bathing-pool at hand…and utter privacy.”

I nodded.

“You could spend five months of the year here. No doubt about that.”

“Why don’t we do it?” said Jill.

“Because, my sweet, I am too old for camping – unless I must. If I’ve got to do it, I will: but I like to get home to dinner, and a well-found bathroom suits me down to the socks. The lusts of the flesh get a grip, when you’re over a certain age. As you are ageless, you can’t appreciate that.”

“Comfort first,” said Jonah, and left it there.

We climbed for twenty-five minutes between the trees: then we bore to the right, to gain a broad ledge or plateau, commanding the gorge we had left. We were now high above the road on the opposite side – we could see a car crawling upon it, making its way towards Spain. Far below us lay the meadow, where Daphne was sitting by Berry, still fast asleep. Therèse was talking to her, but Carson was not to be seen.

“Higher,” said Jill, relentlessly.

Nearly an hour went by before we passed out of the forest on to a second plateau which fairly deserved that name. A thousand square yards of downland commanded a prospect which made a man hold his breath. To the north, we could look down the valley, no longer a gorge, and could trace its glorious run to the gap through which we had driven, which led to the lowland plains. Cluny was round a bend, and just out of our sight. To the west, rose peak upon peak, in that superb disorder with which no order on earth can ever compare. To the south, where three gorges met, a miniature Jules lay land-locked, beside a glittering serpent of blue and white; and, beyond her, the Pic du Midi, queen of the range, lifted her lovely head to the westering sun.

“I think,” said Jonah, “we can’t be far from a path of which I’ve heard. It runs from Lally to Jules, right over the tops of the hills. If I’m right—”

“Hush,” said his sister, setting her head on one side. “I may be wrong, but I think I heard someone calling.”

The three of us listened intently.

After a long moment, a very faint “
À moi
” was borne to our ears.

“Over there,” said Jill, pointing south-east…

We hastened over the plateau, moving that way.

After five minutes, we stopped to listen again.

And heard nothing.

“Call again,” I shouted, cupping my lips.

“
À moi
,” came the answer, from well away to our right.

The plateau rose sharply to the east, but to the south it ran level, until it came again to the trees. Here the ground ran up in a very steep ramp, and, as I scrambled ahead, I saw that I was approaching the top of some ridge. And then I perceived that it was not a ridge at all, but the edge of some cliff, for the trees stopped short at the top, and there was the Pic du Midi, fairly ablaze in the sunshine, clear to be seen.

As I threw myself forward, the cry for help came very clear.

“
À moi, à moi!
”

And then I knew that the cry was coming from over and down the cliff.

I called to Jill to keep back and to Jonah to have a care.

Then I lay down on the ground and drew myself up to the brink.

I have not a good head for heights, and when I saw what I saw, the palms of my hands grew wet and my senses reeled.

I was lying on the edge of a cornice. Beneath me was a sheer drop of well over a thousand feet.

On a ledge beneath the cornice, some twelve feet down, was standing a youth. The ledge was three inches wide. He was holding himself to the cliff by the brittle, protruding roots of one of the firs which was growing close to the brink. The ledge was too close to the cornice for him to hold himself straight: the projecting portion of cliff was thrusting his head and shoulders away from the wall. Seemingly miles below him, Jules looked smaller than ever; and the glittering serpent beside it, a thread, for some reason, of gold.

The upturned eyes met mine, and the tongue spoke French.

“My rope has broken. That was three hours ago. But I think that, if you will help, there will still be enough. The tree on your right.”

I looked at the tree on my right.

About its trunk was a fragment of climbing rope.

Before I had this unfastened, Jonah was lying down and looking over the brink.

I measured the fragment of rope.

“Say thirteen feet,” I said: “and his shoulders are seven feet down. We should be able to do it, provided it holds.”

Together, we examined the fragment, which was old, but seemed to be sound.

My cousin made a slip-knot and drew the loop wide. Then we lay down again, and he lowered it over the edge.

It was not very hard to drop the loop round the boy’s neck. The rope now lay upon his shoulders.

“Get it under your arms,” said Jonah. “First one arm and then the other. When you have done that, I’m going to draw the rope tight.”

“But—”

“Do as I say, you young fool.”

Red in the face, the other did as he said. The manoeuvre presented no danger, for one hand was quite enough to hold him to the face of the cliff.

Then, very gently, my cousin drew the rope tight.

Our end now reached the edge with sixteen inches to spare.

While Jonah took hold of this, I tied a knot as close to the end as I dared.

“And now what?” said Jonah.

“I think we must risk it,” I said, wiping my palms on the ground for the fourth or fifth time. “I don’t like this blasted cornice, and I’m not too sure of this rope. But I don’t see what else we can do. True, I can hold him here, while you go for the rope in the car. And Carson. But that means a delay of two hours, and he says he’s been there three. If he faints before you get back, as he very well may…”

“I agree,” said Jonah. “And now you lay hold on life, while I take off my shirt.”

As I took hold of the rope, I heard a movement beside me.

“I must see, Boy.”

Jill.

“Get back, for God’s sake,” I cried.

“My weight won’t make that much difference. And if you’re both going down, I’d like to go, too.”

“Jill, I implore you. For my sake…”

My small cousin kissed my ear – and wriggled back from the edge. A moment later I felt her firm hands on my ankles, holding most tight.

Jonah had folded his shirt and made it into a pad. This he inserted between the rope and the edge.

Then he looked down to the boy.

“We’re going to pull you up,” he said. “But the rope is so short that we’re very close to the edge. Much too close for my liking. That can’t be helped. So when I give the word, you must try and take some of your weight by climbing yourself.”

“If I could have climbed up, I should not have called for help.”

My cousin looked at me, and wrung the sweat from his eyes.

Then he returned to the youth.

“If you answer me back again, we shall leave you to die. Your life is worth nothing at all, compared with ours: yet we’re risking our lives to save it. And now stand by. When you hear me say ‘Go’, you will forget this rope and will try to climb up the face.”

I took a turn round my wrist, which left some eight inches of rope between my hand and the edge.

Then slowly I drew myself forward, until I could kneel. Jill must have moved with me, for her hands were still fast on my ankles when I was upon my knees.

Jonah got to his feet.

“Go back, Jill,” he said gently. “Ten paces back, my darling. We’ll be all right.”