Jonah and Co. (12 page)

Yours very sincerely,

PADUA.

How Berry Ran Contraband Goods,

and the Duke of Padua Plighted Jill His Troth

That Jill was in love with the Duke of Padua was only less manifest than that the Duke of Padua was in love with Jill. Something, however, was wrong. So much our instinct reported. Our reason refused to believe it, and, with one cop sent, we pretended that all was well. For all that, there lay a shadow athwart the babies’ path. Yet the sky was cloudless…The thing was too hard for us.

With a sigh, I opened my case and took out a cigarette. Then I handed the case to Berry. The latter waved it aside and wrinkled his nose.

“I’m through,” he said shortly. “Offal’s all very well in an incinerator, if the wind’s the right way, but, as a substitute for tobacco – well, it soon palls.”

I closed the case and slid it into my pocket.

“I must confess,” I said, “that I’m nearing the breaking-point.”

“Well, I wish you’d be quick and reach it,” said Adèle. “How you can go on at all, after finding that fly, I can’t imagine.”

She shuddered at the memory.

Less than a week ago a suspicious protuberance in the line of a local cigarette had attracted my attention. Investigation had revealed the presence of a perfect, if somewhat withered, specimen of the
musca domestica
embedded in the vegetation which I had been proposing to smoke. This was too much for the girls, none of whom had since touched a cigarette, and when my brother-in-law suggested that the fly had probably desired cremation, and urged that, however obnoxious, the wishes of the dead should be respected, Daphne had reviled her husband and requested Jonah to open the door, so that she could sit in a draught.

We were in a bad way.

Now that we were in France, the difficulty of obtaining cigars, cigarettes, or tobacco, such as we were used to enjoy, seemed to be insuperable. The prohibitive duty, the uncertainty and by no means infrequent failure of the French mails, brought the cost of procuring supplies from England to a figure we could not stomach: attempts at postal smuggling had ended in humiliating failure: the wares which France herself was offering were not at all to our taste. We were getting desperate. Jonah, who had smoked the same mixture for thirteen years, was miserable. Berry’s affection for a certain brand of cigars became daily more importunate. My liver was suffering…

“We’d better try getting a licence to import,” I said heavily. “It may do something.”

“Ah,” said my brother-in-law, drawing a letter from his pocket, “I knew I had some news for you. I heard from George this morning. I admit I don’t often take advice, but this little missive sounds an unusually compelling call.

“Above all, do not be inveigled into obtaining or, worse still, acting upon, a so-called ‘licence to import.’ it is a copper-bottomed have. I got one, when I was in Paris, gleefully ordered five thousand cigarettes from Bond Street, and started to count the days. I soon got tired of that. Three months later I got a dirty form from the Customs, advising me that there was a case of cigarettes, addressed to me, lying on the wharf at Toulon – yes, Toulon. They added that the charges to be paid before collection amounted to nine hundred francs by way of duty, eleven hundred and sixty-five by way of freight, and another three francs forty for every day they remained in the Custom House. In this connection, they begged to point out that they had already lain there for six weeks. Friend, can you beat it? But what, then, did I do? Why, I took appropriate action. I wrote at once, saying that, as I was shortly leaving for New York, I should be obliged if they would forward them via Liverpool to the Piraeus: I inquired whether they had any objection to being paid in roubles: and I advised them that I was shortly expecting a pantechnicon, purporting to contain furniture, but, in reality, full of mines. These I begged them to handle with great care and to keep in a temperature never higher than thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, as they were notoriously sensitive, and I particularly wished to receive them intact. I added that the pantechnicon would be consigned to me under another name. A fair knowledge of the French temperament suggests to me that the next two or three furniture vans which arrive at Toulon will be very stickily welcomed.”

I threw away my cigarette and stared at the mountains.

“‘Though every prospect pleases,’” I murmured, “‘and only fags are vile.’”

“The only thing to do,” said Adèle, “is to have a little sent out from England from time to time, and ration yourselves accordingly.”

Berry shook his head.

“Easier to stop altogether,” he said. “Tobacco’s not like food. (I’m not speaking of the stuff you get here. Some of that is extremely like food – of a sort. I should think it would, as they say, ‘eat lovely.’) Neither is it like liquor. You don’t carry a flask or a bottle of beer in your hip-pocket – more’s the pity. But nobody’s equipment is complete without a case or a pouch. Why? So that the moment this particular appetite asserts itself, it can be gratified. No. Smoking’s a vice; and as soon as you clap a vice in a strait-jacket, it loses its charm. A cigar three times a day after meals doesn’t cut any ice with me.” He tilted his hat over his eyes and sank his chin upon his chest. “And now don’t talk for a bit. I want to concentrate.”

Adèle laid a hand upon his arm.

“One moment,” she said. “If the car arrives before you’ve finished, are we to interrupt you?”

“Certainly not, darling. Signal to the driver to stop in the middle distance. Oh, and ask approaching pedestrians to keep on the grass. Should any children draw near, advise their nurse that I have the mumps.”

We were sitting upon a seat in the Parc Beaumont, revelling in the temper of the sunshine and the perfection of the air. A furlong away, Daphne, Jill, and Jonah were playing tennis, with Piers, Duke of Padua, to make a fourth. Nobby and a fox-terrier were gambolling upon an adjacent lawn.

Pau has many virtues, all but one of which may, I suppose, be severally encountered elsewhere upon the earth. The one, however, is her peculiar. The place is airy, yet windless. High though she stands, and clear by thirty miles of such shelter as the mountains can give, by some queer trick of Nature’s, upon the map of Aeolus Pau and her pleasant precincts are shown as forbidden ground. There is no stiff breeze to rake the boulevard: there are no gusts to buffet you at corners: there are no draughts in the streets. The flow of sweet fresh air is rich and steady, but it is never stirred. A mile away you may see dust flying; storm and tempest savage the Pyrenees: upon the gentlest day fidgety puffs fret Biarritz, as puppies plague an old hound. But Pau is sanctuary. Once in a long, long while some errant blast blunders into the town. Then, for a second of time, the place is Bedlam. The uncaught shutters are slammed, the unpegged laundry is sent whirling, and, if the time is evening, the naked flames of lamps are blown out. But before a match can be lighted, the air is still again. And nobody cares. It was an accident, and Pau knows it. Probably the gust had lost its way and was frightened to death. Such a thing will not happen again for two or three months…

“I like Piers,” said Adèle suddenly. “But I think he might kiss my hand.”

“How dare you?” said I.

“I do really,” said Adèle. “He kisses Daphne’s and he actually kisses Jill’s.”

“That’s all wrong,” said I. “You don’t kiss a maiden’s hand.”

“Of course you do,” grunted Berry. “A well-bred son of Italy—”

“But he isn’t a son of Italy. He’s English on both sides.”

“I’m not talking of his sides,” said Berry. “It’s a matter of bosom. You may have English forbears, but if they’ve been Italian dukes for two centuries, it’s just possible that they’ve imbibed something besides Chianti. Personally, I think it’s a very charming custom. It saves wiping your mouth, and—”

“Well, why doesn’t he kiss my hand?” said Adèle.

“Because, sweetheart, you are – were American. And – he’s very punctilious – he probably thinks that a quondam citizen might have no use for such circumstance.”

“I should,” said Adèle. “I should just love it. I like Piers.”

I looked across at my brother-in-law.

“D’you hear that?” I inquired. “She likes him.”

Berry shrugged his shoulders.

“I told her not to marry you,” he said.

“No, you didn’t,” said Adèle. “You egged me on.”

“Oh, you wicked story,” said Berry. “Why, I fairly spread myself on the brutality of his mouth.”

“You said he was honest, sober, and hard-working.”

“Nonsense,” said Berry. “I was talking of somebody else. I have seen him sober, of course, but – Besides, you were so precipitate. You had an answer for everything. When I spoke of his ears, you said you’d get used to them: and when I asked you if you’d noticed—”

“I shan’t,” said Adèle. “I mean, I didn’t. However, it’s done now. And, after all, he’s very convenient. If we hadn’t got married, I shouldn’t have wintered at Pau. And if I hadn’t wintered at Pau, I shouldn’t have met Piers.”

“True,” said Berry, “true. There’s something in that.” He nodded in my direction. “D’you find he snores much?”

“Nothing to speak of,” said Adèle. “Used he to?”

“Like the devil,” said Berry. “The vibration was fearful. We had to have his room underpinned.”

“Oh, he’s quite all right now,” said my wife. “Indeed, as husbands go, he’s – he’s very charming.”

“You don’t mean to say you still love him?”

“I – I believe I do.”

“Oh, the girl’s ill,” said Berry. “Put your head between your knees, dear, and think of a bullock trying to pass through a turnstile. And why ‘as husbands go’? As a distinguished consort, I must protest against that irreverent expression.”

“Listen,” said Adèle, laughing. “All women adore ceremonious attention – even Americans. The ceremonious attentions of the man they love are the sweetest of all. It’s the tragedy of every happy marriage that, when comradeship comes in at the door, ceremony flies out of the window. Now, my husband’s my king. Once he was my courtier. I wouldn’t go back for twenty million worlds, but – I’ve got a smile for the old days.”

“I know,” said Berry softly. “I know. Years ago Daphne told me the same. And I tried and tried… But it wouldn’t work somehow. She was very sweet about it, and very wise. ‘Ceremony,’ she said, ‘gets as far as the fingertips.’ I vowed I’d carry it further, but she only smiled… We retired there and then, ceremoniously enough, to dress for dinner. I’d bathed and changed and got as far as my collar, when the stud fell down my back. I pinched it between my shoulder blades. At that moment she came to the door to see if I was ready…” He spread out expressive hands. “They talk about the step from the sublime to the ridiculous. We didn’t use any stairs: we went down in the lift. After that I gave up trying. A sense of humour, however, has pulled us through, and now we revile one another.”

“And so, you see,” said Adèle, slipping an arm through mine, “Piers has wares to offer me which you haven’t. The shame of it is, he won’t offer them. Still, he’s very nice. The way in which he solemnly takes us all for granted is most attractive. He’s as natural as a baby a year old. He just bows very courteously and then joins in the game. The moment it’s over, he makes his bow and retires. We call him Piers: he calls us by our Christian names – and we haven’t known him a week. It’s not self-confidence; it’s just pure innocence.”

“I confess it’s remarkable,” said I. “And I don’t wonder you like him. All the same, I’m sorry—”

“There!” cried Adèle suddenly, pointing across the lawn. “Boy, he’s gone in again.”

I reached the edge of the ornamental water in time to observe the Sealyham emerge upon the opposite bank.

“You naughty dog,” said I. “You naughty, wicked dog.” Nobby shook himself gleefully. “No, don’t come across. Go round the other way. Go
back!
”

The dog hesitated, and, by way of turning the scale, I threw my stick for him to retrieve. As this left my hand, the hook caught in my cuff, and the cane fell into mid-stream…

As Nobby climbed out with the stick, the park-keeper arrived – a crabbed gentleman, in a long blue cloak and the deuce of a stew.

The swans, he said, would be frightened. (There was one swan, three hundred yards away.) Always they were being pursued by bold dogs.
Mon Dieu
, but it was shameful. That hounds should march unled in the Parc Beaumont was forbidden – absolutely. Not for them to uproot were the trees and flowers planted. Where, then, was my attachment? And I had encouraged my dog. Actually I had made sport for him. He had seen the deed with his eyes…

One paw raised, ears pricked, his little head on one side, his small frame quivering with excitement, his bright brown eyes alight with expectation, a dripping Nobby regarded us…

I took a note from my pocket.

“He is a wicked dog,” I said. “There. He pays his fine. As for me, I shall be punished enough. My home is distant, and I was to have driven. Now he is wet and must grow dry, so I must walk. I will think out his punishment as I go.” And, with that, I hooked my cane to the delinquent’s collar and turned away.

“
Pardon, Monsieur
.” The old fellow came shambling after us. “
Pardon
, but do not punish him, I pray you.” Nobby screwed round his head and looked at him. “Oh, but how handsome he is! Perhaps he did not understand. And I should be sorry to think…” Nobby started towards him and moved his tail. “See how he understands. He has the eyes of a dove.” He stooped to caress his protégé. “Ah, but you are cold, my beauty. Unleash him,
Monsieur
, I pray you, that he may warm himself. I shall not notice him.” As I did his bidding, and Nobby capered away, “
Bon
,” he said pleasedly. “
Bon. Au revoir, mon beau.
” He straightened his bowed shoulders and touched his hat. “
A votre service, Monsieur
.”

I returned thoughtfully to where Adèle and Berry were sitting, watching us closely and pretending that we did not belong to them. So far as personal magnetism was concerned, between Nobby and the Duke of Padua there seemed to be little to choose. To judge by results, the two were equally irresistible. In the race for the Popularity Stakes the rest of the males of our party were simply nowhere.