Jonah and Co. (23 page)

With that, he picked up his hat and, before we could stop him, walked out of the shop.

With such an avowal ringing in our ears, it was too much to expect that he would remember that he had ordered the tea, and had personally consumed seven cakes, not counting the apricot tart.

However…

I followed him to the Club, rang up the agent, and offered to take the house for three years at a rent of twelve thousand francs. He promised to telephone to our villa within the hour.

He was as good as his word.

He telephoned to say that the French gentleman, who had unexpectedly returned from Bordeaux, had just submitted an offer of fourteen thousand francs. He added that, unless we were prepared to offer a higher rent, it would be his duty to accept that proposal.

After a moment’s thought, I told him to do his duty and bade him adieu.

That night was so beautiful that we had the cars open. As we approached the Casino —

“Let’s just go up the Boulevard,” said Daphne. “This is too lovely to leave.”

I slowed up, waited for Jonah to come alongside, and then communicated our intention to continue to take the air.

The Boulevard being deserted, Ping and Pong proceeded slowly abreast…

A sunset which had hung the sky with rose, painted the mountain-tops and turned the West into a blazing smeltery of dreams, had slowly yielded to a night starlit, velvety, breathless, big with the gentle witchcraft of an amber moon. Nature went masked. The depths upon our left seemed bottomless; a grey flash spoke of the Gave de Pau: beyond, the random rise and fall of a high ridge argued the summit of a gigantic screen – the foothills to wit, odd twinkling points of yellow light, seemingly pendent in the air, marking the farms and villas planted about their flanks. And that is all. A row of poplars, certainly, very correct, very slight, very elegant, by the way that we take for Lourdes – the row of poplars should be recorded; the luminous stars also, and a sweet white glow in the heaven, just where the ridge of the foothills cuts it across – a trick of the moonlight, no doubt… Sirs, it is no such trick. That misty radiance is the driven snow resting upon the peaks of the Pyrenees. The moon is shining full on them, and, forty miles distant though they are, you see them rendering her light, as will a looking-glass, and by that humble office clothing themselves with unimaginable splendour.

As we stole into the Place Royale —

“Every minute,” announced Adèle, “I’m more and more thankful that we’re quit of the Villa Buichi. We should have been simply mad to have taken a house in the town.”

“There you are,” said Berry. “My very words. Over and over again I insisted—”

“If you mean,” said Jonah, “that throughout the argument you confined yourself to destructive criticism, deliberate confusion of the issues, and the recommendation of solutions which you knew to be impracticable, I entirely agree.”

“The trouble with you,” said Berry, “is that you don’t appreciate the value of controversy. I don’t blame you. Considering the backlash in your spinal cord, I think you talk very well. It’s only when—”

“What exactly,” said Adèle, bubbling, “is the value of controversy?”

“Its unique ability,” said Berry, “to produce the truth. The hotter the furnace of argument, the harder the facts which eventually emerge. That’s why I never spare myself. I don’t pretend it’s easy, but then I’m like that. Somebody offers you a drink. The easiest way is to refuse. But I don’t. I always ask myself whether my health demands it.”

There was an outraged silence.

Then —

“I have noticed,” I observed, “that upon such occasions your brain works very fast. Also that you invariably choose the – er – harder path.”

“Nothing is easier,” said Berry, “than to deride infirmity.” Having compassed the Place Royale, we returned to the Boulevard. “And now, if you’ve quite finished maundering over the beauties of a landscape which you can’t see, supposing we focused on the object with which we set out. I’ve thought out a new step, I want to show you. It’s called ‘The Slip Stitch.’ Every third beat you stagger and cross your legs above the knee. That shows you’ve been twice to the Crusades. Then you purl two and cast four off. If you’re still together, you get up and repeat to the end of the row knitways, decreasing once at every turn. Then you cast off very loosely.”

Happily the speaker was in the other car, so we broke away and fled up the Rue du Lycée…

The dancing-room was crowded. Every English visitor seemed to be there, but they were not all dancing, and the floor was just pleasantly full.

As we came in, I touched Adèle on the arm.

“Will you dance with me, lass?”

I was not one moment too soon.

As I spoke, two gallants arrived to lodge their claims.

“I’ve accepted my husband,” said Adèle, smiling.

She had to promise the next and the one after.

Whilst we were dancing, she promised the fourth and the fifth.

“I can see,” said I, “that I’m in for my usual evening. Of course, we’re too highly civilised. I feed you, I lodge you, I clothe you” – I held her off and looked at her – “yes, with outstanding success. You’ve a glorious colour, your eyes are like stars, and your frock is a marvel. In fact, you’re almost too good to be true. From your wonderful, sweet-smelling hair to the soles of your little pink feet, you’re an exquisite production. Whoever did see such a mouth? I suppose you know I married you for your mouth? And your throat? And – but I digress. As I was saying, all this is due to me. If I fed you exclusively on farinaceous food, you’d look pale. If I locked you out of nights, you’d look tired. If I didn’t clothe you, you’d look – well, you wouldn’t be here, would you? I mean, I know we move pretty fast nowadays, but certain conventions are still observed. Very well, then. I am responsible for your glory. I bring you here, and everybody in the room dances with you, except myself. To complete the comedy, I have only to remind you that I love dancing, and that you are the best dancer in the room. I ask you.”

“That’s just what you don’t do,” said Adèle, with a maddening smile. “If you did…”

“But—”

“Certain conventions,” said Adèle, “are still observed. Have I ever refused you?”

“You couldn’t. That’s why I don’t ask you.”

“O-o-oh, I don’t believe you,” said Adèle. “If it was Leap Year—”

“Pretend it is.”

“–and I wanted to dance with you—”

“Pretend you do.”

The music stopped with a crash, and a moment later a Frenchman was bowing over my wife’s hand.

“May I come for a dance later?” he asked.

“Not this evening. I’ve promised the next four—”

“There will, I trust, be a fifth?”

“–and, after that, I’ve given my husband the lot. You do understand, don’t you? You see, I must keep in with him. He feeds me and lodges me and clothes me and—”

The Frenchman bowed.

“If he has clothed you tonight, Madame, I can forgive him anything.”

We passed to a table at which Berry was superintending the icing of some champagne.

“Ah, there you are!” he exclaimed. “Had your evening dance? Good. I ordered this little hopeful
pour passer le temps
. They’ve two more baubles in the offing, and sharp at one-thirty we start on fried eggs and beer. Judging from the contracts into which my wife has entered during the last six minutes, we shall be here till three.” Here he produced and prepared to inflate an air-cushion. “The great wheeze about these shock-absorbers is not to—”

There was a horrified cry from Daphne and a shriek of laughter from Adèle and Jill.

“I implore you,” said my sister, “to put that thing away.”

“What thing?” said her husband, applying the nozzle to his lips.

“That cushion thing. How could you—”

“What! Scrap my blow-me-tight?” said Berry. “Darling, you rave. You’re going to spend the next four hours afloat upon your beautiful toes, with a large spade-shaped hand supporting the small of your back. I’m not. I’m going to maintain a sitting posture, with one of the ‘nests for rest’ provided by a malignant Casino directly intervening between the base of my trunk and the floor. Now, I know that intervention. It’s of the harsh, unyielding type. Hence this air-pocket.”

With that, he stepped on to the floor, raised the air-cushion as if it were an instrument of music, and, adopting the attitude and manners of a cornet soloist, exhaled into the nozzle with all his might.

There was a roar of laughter.

Then, mercifully, the band started, and the embarrassing attention of about sixty pairs of eyes was diverted accordingly.

A moment later my brother-in-law and I had the table to ourselves.

“And now,” said Berry, “forward with that bauble. The Rump Parliament is off.”

Perhaps, because it was a warm evening, the Casino’s furnaces were in full blast. After a while the heat became oppressive. Presently I left Berry to the champagne and went for a stroll in the Palmarium.

As I was completing my second lap —

“Captain Pleydell,” said a dignified voice.

I turned to see Mrs Waterbrook, leaning upon a stick, accompanied by a remarkably pretty young lady with her hair down her back.

I came to them swiftly.

“Have you met with an accident?” I inquired.

“I have. I’ve ricked my ankle. Susan, this is Captain Pleydell, whose cousin is going to marry Piers. Captain Pleydell, this is Susan – my only niece. Now I’m going to sit down.” I escorted her to a chair. “That’s better. Captain Pleydell, have you seen the Château?”

“Often,” said I. “A large grey building with a red keep, close to the scent-shop.”

“One to you,” said Mrs Waterbrook. “Now I’ll begin again. Captain Pleydell, have you seen the inside of the Château?”

“I have not.”

“Then you ought,” said Mrs Waterbrook, “to be ashamed of yourself. You’ve been six months in Pau, and you’ve never taken the trouble to go and look at one of the finest collections of tapestries in the world. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“Going to see the inside of the Château,” I said.

“Good. So’s Susan. She’ll meet you at the gate on the Boulevard at half past ten. She only arrived yesterday, and now her mother wants her, and she’s got to go back. She’s wild to see the Château before she goes, and I can’t take her because of this silly foot.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said I. “But it’s an ill wind, etc.”

“Susan,” said Mrs Waterbrook, “that’s a compliment. Is it your first?”

“No,” said Susan. “But it’s the slickest.”

“The what?” cried her aunt.

“I mean, I didn’t see it coming.”

I began to like Susan.

“‘Slickest,’” snorted Mrs Waterbrook. “Nasty vulgar slang. If you were going to be here longer, Captain Pleydell’s wife should give you lessons in English. She isn’t a teacher, you know. She’s an American – with a silver tongue. And there’s that wretched bell.” She rose to her feet. “If I’d remembered that
Manon
had more than three acts, I wouldn’t have come.” She turned to me. “Is Jill here tonight?”

“She is.”

“Will you tell her to come and find us in the next interval?”

“I will.”

“Good. Half past ten tomorrow. Goodnight.”

On the way to the doors of the theatre she stopped to speak with someone, and Susan came running back.

“Captain Pleydell, is your wife here?”

I nodded.

“Well, then, when Jill’s with Aunt Eleanor, d’you think I could – I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d – I’d love a lesson in English.”

I began to like Susan more than ever.

“I’ll see if she’s got a spare hour tomorrow,” I said. “At half past ten.”

Susan knitted her brows.

“No, don’t upset that,” she said quickly. “It doesn’t matter. I want to be able to tell them I had you alone. But if I could say I’d met your wife, too, it’d be simply golden.”

As soon as I could speak —

“You wicked, forward child,” I said. “You—”

“Toodle-oo,” said Susan. “Don’t be late.”

Somewhat dazedly I turned in the direction of the
salle de danse
– so dazedly, in fact, that I collided with a young Frenchman who was watching the progress of
le jeu de boule
. This was hardly exhilarating. Of the seven beings gathered about the table, six were croupiers and the seventh was reading
Le Temps
.

I collided roughly enough to knock a cigarette out of my victim’s hand.

“Toodle-oo – I mean
pardon, Monsieur. Je vous demande pardon
.”

“It’s quite all right,” he said, smiling. “I shouldn’t have been standing so far out.”

I drew a case from my pocket.

“At least,” I said, “you’ll allow me to replace the cigarette” – he took one with a laugh – “and to congratulate you upon your beautiful English.”

“Thank you very much. For all that, you knew I was French.”

“In another minute,” said I, “I shall be uncertain. And I’m sure you’d deceive a Frenchman every time.”

“I do frequently. It amuses me to death. Only the other day I had to produce my passport to a merchant at Lyons before he’d believe I was a foreigner.”

“A foreigner?” I cried, with bulging eyes. “Then you
are
English.”

“I’m a pure-bred Spaniard,” was the reply. “I tell you, it’s most diverting. Talk about ringing the changes. I had a great time during the War. I was a perfect mine of information. It wasn’t strictly accurate, but Germany didn’t know that. As a double-dyed traitor, they found me extremely useful. As a desirable neutral, I cut a great deal of ice. And now I’m loafing. I used to take an interest in the prevention of crime, but I’ve grown lazy.”

For a moment or two we stood talking. Then I asked him to come to our table in the dancing-room. He declined gracefully.

“I’m Spanish enough to dislike Jazz music,” he said.

We agreed to meet at the Club on the following day, and I rejoined Berry to tell him what he had missed.

I found the fifth dance in full swing and my brother-in-law in high dudgeon.

As I sat down, he exploded.

“This blasted breath-bag is a fraud. If you blow it up tight, it’s like trying to sit on a barrel. If you fill it half full, you mustn’t move a muscle, or the imprisoned air keeps shifting all over the place till one feels sick of one’s stomach. In either case it’s as hard as petrified bog-oak. If you only leave an imperial pint in the vessel, it all goes and gathers in one corner, thus conveying to one the impression that one is sitting one’s self upon a naked chair with a tennis-ball in one’s hip-pocket. If one puts the swine behind one, it shoves one off the seat altogether. It was during the second phase that one dropped or let fall one’s cigar into one’s champagne. One hadn’t thought that anything could have spoiled either, but one was wrong.”