Jonah and Co. (25 page)

“Now,” said I, “you
will
have something to tell them.”

Susan gurgled delightedly.

The French are nothing if not artistic. They are also good showmen.

It was largely due to the interest of Señor Don Fedriani that, five days later, I had the privilege of sitting for fifty minutes upon an extremely uncomfortable chair in the Oratory of Jeanne d’Albret, and listening at intervals, by means of a delicate instrument, to the biggest receiver in France and his confederates stumbling still more uncomfortably along a dank and noisome passage towards penal servitude for life.

Had he known that the Villa Buichi was surrounded, that the caretaker was already in custody, that a file of soldiers was following a quarter of a mile in his rear, and that the van which was to take him to prison was waiting in the Château’s courtyard, my gentleman, who had ‘lived soft,’ could not have been more outspoken about the condition of his path.

Not until he had quite finished and had inquired in a blasphemous whisper if all were present, was the strip of magnesium ignited and the photograph made…

I have a copy before me.

The knaves are not looking their best, but the grouping is superb.

The Toilet of Venus makes a most exquisite background.

How Berry Put Off His Manhood,

and Adèle Showed a Fair Pair of Heels

But for Susan, I should not have seen the Château, and, but for the merest accident, we should not have revisited Gavarnie. And that would have been a great shame.

It was the day before we were spared this lasting reproach that my brother-in-law stood stiffly before a pier-glass in his wife’s bed-chamber. Deliberately Berry surveyed himself.

We stood about him with twitching lips, not daring to trust our tones.

At length —

“But what a dream!” said my brother-in-law.

“What an exquisite, pluperfect dream!” Jill shut her eyes and began to shake with laughter. “I suppose it was made to be worn, or d’you think someone did it for a bet? ‘A Gentleman of the Court of Louis XIV.’ Well, I suppose a French firm ought to know. Only, if they’re right, I don’t wonder there was a revolution. No self-respecting nation could hold up its head with a lot of wasters shuffling about Versailles with the seats of their breeches beginning under their hocks. That one sleeve is three inches shorter than the other and that the coat would comfortably fit a Boy Scout, I pass over. Those features might be attributed to the dictates of fashion. But I find it hard to believe that even in that fantastic age a waistcoat like a loose cover ever really obtained.”

Adèle sank into a chair and covered her eyes.

With an effort I mastered my voice.

“I think, perhaps,” I ventured, “if you wore them for an hour or two, they might – might shake down. You see,” I continued hurriedly, “you’re not accustomed—”

“Brother,” said Berry gravely, “you’ve got it in one. I’m not accustomed to wearing garments such as these. I confess I feel strange in them. Most people who are not deformed would. If I hadn’t got any thighs, if my stomach measurement was four times that of my chest, and I’d only one arm, they’d be just about right. As it is, short of mutilation—”

“Can’t you brace up the breeches a little higher?” said Daphne.

“No, I can’t,” snapped her husband. “As it is, my feet are nearly off the ground.”

Seated upon the bed, Jonah rolled over upon his side and gave himself up to a convulsion of silent mirth.

“The sleeves and the waistcoat,” continued my sister, “are nothing. Adèle and I can easily alter them. What worries me is the breeches.”

“They’d worry you a damned sight more if you had ‘em on,” said Berry. “And if you think I’m going to wear this little song-without-words, even as amended by you and Adèle, you’re simply unplaced. To say I wouldn’t be seen dead in it conveys nothing at all.”

“My dear boy,” purred Daphne, “be reasonable. It’s far too late to get hold of anything else: it’s the ball of the season, and fancy dress is de rigueur. I’m sure if you would only brace up—”

With an unearthly shriek, Berry collapsed in my arms. “Take her away!” he roared. “Take her away before I offer her violence. Explain my anatomy. Tell her I’ve got a trunk. Conceal nothing. Only…”

Amid the explosion of pent-up laughter, the rest of the sentence was lost.

As soon as we could speak coherently, we endeavoured to smooth him down.

At length —

“It’s transparently plain,” said Jonah, “that that dress is out of the question.” Here he took out his watch. “Let’s see. It’s now three o’clock. That gives us just seven hours to conceive and execute some other confection. It shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Berry. “I know. I’ll go as a mahout. Now, that’s easy. Six feet of butter muslin, four pennyworth of woad, and a harpoon. And we can lock the elephant’s switch and park him in the rhododendrons.”

“Why,” said Jonah, “shouldn’t you go as Mr Sycamore Tight? You’re not unlike him, and the excitement would be intense.”

After a little discussion we turned the suggestion down.

For all that, it was not without merit.

Mr Sycamore Tight was wanted – wanted badly. There was a price upon his head. Two days after he had landed in France, a large American bank had discovered good reason to believe that Mr Tight had personally depleted its funds to the tune of over a million.

Daily, for the last four days, the gentleman’s photograph had appeared in every French paper, illustrating a succinct and compelling advertisement, which included a short summary of his characteristics and announced the offer of a reward of fifty thousand francs for such information as should lead to his arrest.

The French know the value of money.

If the interest excited at Pau was any criterion, every French soul in France went about his business with bulging eyes. Indeed, if Mr Sycamore Tight were yet in the country, there was little doubt in most minds that his days were numbered.

“No,” said Berry. “It’s very nice to think that I look so much like the brute, but I doubt if a check suit quite so startling as that he seems to have affected could be procured in time. Shall I go as Marat – on his way to the bathroom? With a night-shirt, a flannel, and a leer, I should be practically there. Oh, and a box of matches to light the geyser with.”

“I suppose,” said Daphne, “you wouldn’t go as a clown? Adèle and I could do that easily. The dress is nothing.”

“Is it, indeed?” said her husband. “Well, that would be simplicity itself, wouldn’t it? A trifle classical, perhaps, but most arresting. What a scene there’d be when I took off my overcoat. ‘Melancholy’ would be almost as artless. I could wear a worried look, and there you are.”

“Could he go as a friar?” said Jill. “You know. Like a monk, only not so gloomy. We ought to be able to get a robe easily. And, if we couldn’t get sandals, he could go barefoot.”

“That’s right,” said Berry. “Don’t mind me. You just fix everything up, and tell me in time to change. Oh, and you might write down a few crisp blessings. I shall get tired of saying
‘Pax vobiscum’
when anyone kicks my feet.”

“I tell you what,” said Adèle. “Would you go as ‘a flapper’?”

“A what?” said my brother-in-law.

“‘A twentieth-century miss,’” said Adèle. “‘The golf girl,’ if you like. Daphne and I can fit you out, and you can wear your own shoes. As for a wig – any
coiffeur
’ll do. A nice fluffy bobbed one would be best – the same shade as your moustache.”

Instinctively none of us spoke.

The idea was so admirable – the result would be so triumphant, that we hardly dared to breathe lest Berry should stamp upon our hopes.

For one full slow-treading minute he fingered his chin…

Then he wrinkled his nose.

“Not ‘The Golf Girl,’” he said. “That’s much too pert. I couldn’t deliver the goods. No. I must go as something more luscious. What about ‘The Queen of the May’?”

At twenty-five minutes to ten that evening I was writing a note, and wondering, while I did so, whether the original ‘Incroyables’ ever sat down.

I had just decided that, rather than continually risk dislocation of the knee, they probably either reclined or leaned against pillars when fatigued, when something impelled me to glance over my shoulder.

Framed in the doorway was standing Berry.

A frock of pale pink georgette, with long bell-shaped sleeves and a black velvet girdle knotted at one side, fitted him seemingly like a glove. A large Leghorn hat, its black velvet streamers fastened beneath his chin, heavily weighted with a full-blown rose over one eye, threatened to hide his rebellious mop of hair. White silk stockings and a pair of ordinary pumps completed his attire A miniature apron, bearing the stencilled legend ‘AN ENGLISH ROSE’ upon its muslin, left no doubt about his identity.

Beneath my gaze he looked down and simpered, swinging his bead bag ridiculously.

I leaned back in my chair and began to laugh like a madman. Then I remembered my knee-caps, and got up and leaned against the wall, whence I could see him better.

As if his appearance alone were not enough, he spoke in an absurd falsetto.

“No, I’m not supposed to be out till after Easter. But don’t let that stop you. I mean – you know I do say such dreadful things, and all the time… Father always calls me a tom-cat – I mean, tom-boy, but I don’t care. Haven’t you any sisters? What not even a ‘step’? Oh, but what luck – I mean, I think we’ll sit this one out, shall I? I know a lovely place – in the inspection pit. I often go and sit there when I want to have a good fruity drink – I mean, think. I always think it’s so wonderful to look up and see the gear-box, and the differential, and the dear old engine-shield and feel you’re alone with them all – absolutely alone…”

The tempestuous arrival of Adèle, looking sweet as “Pierrette,” and Jonah in the traditional garb of “Harlequin,” cut short the soliloquy…

It was ere the two had recovered from their first paroxysm of laughter that Berry minced to the fireplace and, with the coyest of pecks, rang the electric bell.

A moment later Falcon entered the room.

My brother-in-law laughed and looked down, fingering his dress.

“Oh, Falcon,” he said archly, “about tomorrow. I don’t know whether Mrs Pleydell’s told you, but there’ll be four extra to lunch.”

I have seen Falcon’s eyes twinkle, and I have seen his mouth work – times without number. I have seen him thrust a decanter upon the sideboard and disappear shaking from the apartment. But never before have I seen his self-control crumple as a ripped balloon.

For a second he stared at the speaker.

Then he flung us one desperate, appealing glance, emitted a short wail, and, looking exactly as if he was about to burst into tears, clapped both hands to his mouth and made a rush for the door.

As he reached it, a little Dutch Jill danced into the room, looking adorable.

Use holds.

Falcon straightened his back, stepped to one side, and bowed his apologies. The temporary check, however, was his undoing. As Jill flashed by, he turned his face to the wall and sobbed like a child…

When Daphne made her appearance, amazingly beautiful as ‘Jehane Saint-Pol,’ we climbed into the cars and slipped down the sober drive into the fragrant dalliance of an April night.

The ball was over.

It would have been a success anyway, but from the moment that Berry had, upon arrival, been directed to the ladies’ cloak-room, its enduring fame had been assured.

When, with my wife and sister, reluctant and protesting, upon either arm, he erupted into the ballroom, giggling excitedly and crying “Votes for Women!” in a shrill treble, even the band broke down, so that the music died an untimely and tuneless death. When he danced a Tango with me, wearing throughout an exalted expression of ineffable bliss and introducing a bewildering variety of unexpected halts, crouchings and saggings of the knees – when, in the midst of an interval, he came flying to Daphne, calling her “Mother,” insisting that he had been insulted, demanding to be taken home forthwith, and finally burying his face in her shoulder and bursting into tears – when, during supper, with a becoming diffidence, he took his stand upon a chair and said a few words about his nursing experiences in Mesopotamia and spoke with emotion of the happy hours he had spent as a Sergeant-Minor of the Women Police – then it became manifest that my brother-in-law’s construction of the laws of hospitality had set up such a new record of generosity as few, if any, of those present would ever see broken.

“…Oh, and the flies, you know. The way they flew. Oh, it was dreadful. And, of course, no lipstick would stick. My dears, I was simply terrified to look in the biscuit box. And then we had to wash in bits – so embarrassing. Talk about divisional reserve… And they were so strict with it all. Only ten little minutes late on parade, and you got it where auntie wore the gew-gaws. I lost my temper once. To be sworn at like a golf-sphere, just because one day I couldn’t find my
Poudre d’Amour
… And, when he’d quite finished, the Colonel asked me what powder was for. I just looked round and gave him some of his own back. ‘To dam your pores with,’ I said…”

It was past three o’clock before our departure was sped.

Comfortably weary, we reached our own villa’s door to make the grisly discovery that no one had remembered the key…

There was no knocker: a feeble electric bell signalled out distress to a deserted basement: the servants were asleep upon the second floor.

After we had all reviled Berry and, in return, been denounced as ‘a gang of mut-jawed smoke-stacks,’ accused of ‘blasphemy’ and compared to ‘jackals and vultures about a weary bull,’ we began to shout and throw stones at the second-floor windows. Perhaps because their shutters were closed, our labour was lost.

To complete our disgust, for some mysterious reason Nobby refused to bark and so sound the alarm. In the ordinary way the Sealyham was used to give tongue – whatever the hour and no matter what indignation he might excite – upon the slightest provocation. This morning we perambulated the curtilage of the villa, alternately yelling like demoniacs and mewing like cats, without the slightest result.

Eventually it was decided that one of us must effect an entrance by climbing on to the balcony of my sister’s room…

Jonah had a game leg: the inflexibility of my pantaloons put any acrobatics out of the question: Berry’s action, at any rate, was more than usually unrestricted. Moreover, it was Berry whom we had expected to produce the key.

It became necessary to elaborate these simple facts, and to indicate most definitely the moral which they were pointing, before my brother-in-law was able to grasp the one or to appreciate the other. And when it had been, as they say, borne in upon him that he was for the high jump, another ten minutes were wasted while he made one final, frantic, solitary endeavour to attract the servants’ attention. His feminine personality discarded, he raved about the house, barking, screeching and braying to beat the band; he thundered upon the door with his fists; he flung much of the drive in the direction of the second floor. Finally, when we were weak with laughter, he sat down upon the steps, expressed his great satisfaction at the reception of his efforts to amuse, and assured us that his death-agony, which we should shortly witness, would be still more diverting.