Jonah and Co. (26 page)
By now it was a quarter to four, and, so soon as Jonah and I could control our emotion, we took our deliverer by the arms and showed him ‘the best way up.’
He listened attentively.
At length —
“Thanks very much,” he said weakly. “Let’s just go over it again, shall I? Just to be sure I’ve got it cold. First, I swarm up that pillar. Good. I may say I never have swarmed. I never knew anybody did swarm, except bees or people coming out of a football match. Never mind. Then I get hold of the gutter and draw myself up with my hands, while continuing to swarm with my legs. If – if the gutter will stand my weight… Of course, that’s easily ascertained. I just try it. If it will, it does. If it won’t, I should like a penny-in-the-slot machine erected in my memory outside the English Club. Yes, I’ve got that. Well, if it will, I work – I think you said ‘work’ – round until I can reach the down-pipe. The drain – down-pipe will enable me to get my feet into the gutter. Sounds all right, doesn’t it? ‘The drain-pipe will enable.’ A cryptic phrase. Quite the Brigade-Office touch. Where were we? Oh, yes. The drain-pipe having enabled me, etc., I just fall forward on to the tiles, when my hands will encounter and grasp the balustrade. Then I climb over and pat Nobby. Yes, except for the cesspool – I mean the drain-pipe – interlude, it’s too easy.”
We helped him off with his coat…
We watched his reduction of the pillar with trembling lips; we heard his commentary upon gutters and those who make them with shaking shoulders; but it was when, with one foot in the air and the other wedged behind the down-pipe, the English Rose spoke of the uncertainty of life and inquired if we believed in Hell – when, after an exhausting and finally successful effort to get his left knee into the gutter, he first knelt upon a spare tile to his wounding and then found that his right foot was inextricably wedged between the down-pipe and the wall – when, as a result of his struggles, a section of the down-pipe came away in his hand, so that he was left clinging to the gutter with one foot in the air and twelve feet of piping swaying in his arms – then our control gave way and we let ourselves run before a tempest of Homeric laughter. We clasped one another; we leaned against walls; we stamped upon the ground; we fought for breath; tears streamed from our eyes. All the time, in a loud militant voice, Berry spoke of building and architects and mountain goats, of France and of the French, of incitement to suicide, of inquests and the law, of skunks and leprosy, and finally of his descent…
When we told him tearfully to drop, he let out the laugh of a maniac.
“Yes,” he said uncertainly. “To tell you hell-hounds the truth, that solution had already occurred to me. It’s been occurring to me vividly ever since I began. But I’m against it. It isn’t that I’m afraid, but I want something more difficult. Oh, and don’t say, ‘Work round the gutter,’ first, because it’s bad English, and, secondly, because no man born of woman could ‘work round’ this razor-edged conduit with a hundredweight of drain-pipe round his neck. What I want is a definite instruction which is neither murderous nor futile. Burn it, you handed me enough slush when I was rising. Why the hell can’t you slobber out something to help me down?”
By the time his descent was accomplished, it was past four o’clock – summer time – and there was a pale cast about the sweet moonlight that told of the coming of another dawn.
“I say,” said Jill suddenly, “don’t let’s go to bed.”
“No, don’t let’s,” said Berry, with a hysterical laugh. “Let’s – let’s absolutely refuse.”
Jill went on breathlessly —
“Let’s go for a run towards Lourdes and see the sun rise over the mountains.”
Our first impulse was to denounce the idea. Upon examination, however, its hidden value emerged.
We were sick and tired of trying to wake the servants; to effect an entrance was seemingly out of the question; to spend another two hours wandering about the garden or wooing slumber in the cars was not at all to our liking.
Finally, we decided that, since we should be back before the world proper was astir, our appearance, if it was noticed at all, would but afford a few peasants an experience which they could relate with relish for many years, and that, since the sky was cloudless, so convenient an occasion of observing a very famous effect should not be rejected.
Five minutes later Ping and Pong slid silently under the Pont Oscar II. And so down a winding hill, out of the sleeping town and on to the Bizanos road.
Our headlights were powerful, the road was not too bad, and the world was empty .
I let Jonah, who was leading, get well away, and then gave the car her head.
Well as we knew it, our way seemed unfamiliar.
We saw the countryside as through a glass darkly. A shadowy file of poplars, a grey promise of meadowland, a sable thicket, far in the distance a great blurred mass rearing a sombre head, a chain of silent villages seemingly twined about our road, and once in a long while the broad, brave flash of laughing water – these and their ghostly like made up our changing neighbourhood. Then came a link in the chain that even Wizard Night could not transfigure – sweet, storied Coarraze, fencing our way with its peculiar pride of church and state; three miles ahead, hoary Bétharram, defender of the faith, lent us its famous bridge – at the toll of a break-neck turn, of which no manner of moonshine can cheat the memory.
We were nearing Lourdes now, but there was no sign of Jonah. I began to wonder whether my cousin was faring farther afield…
It was so.
Lourdes is a gate-house of the Pyrenees; it was clear that my sister and cousins had threaded its echoing porch. Their way was good enough for us. We swung to the right, dived into and out of the sleeping town, and flung up the pale, thin road that heads for Spain…
It was when we had slipped through Argelès, and Jonah was still before us, that we knew that if we would catch him we must climb to Gavarnie.
The daylight was waxing now, and when we came to Pierrefitte I switched off the lights.
There is a gorge in the mountains some seven miles long. It is, I think, Nature’s boudoir. Its tall, steep walls are hung with foliage – a trembling, precious arras, which spring will so emblazon with her spruce heraldry that every blowing rod breathes a refreshing madrigal. Its floor is a busy torrent – fretting its everlasting way by wet, grey rocks, the vivid green of ferns, and now and again a little patch of greensward – a tender lawn for baby elves to play on. Here is a green shelf, ladies, stuck all with cowslips; and there, another – radiant with peering daffodils. In this recess sweet violets grow. Look at that royal gallery; it is fraught with crocuses – laden with purple and gold. Gentians and buttercups, too, have their own nurseries. But one thing more – this gorge is full of fountains. They are its especial glory. All the beauty in the world of falling water is here exhibited. Tremendous falls go thundering: long, slender tresses of water plunge from a dizzy height, lose by the way their symmetry, presently vanish into sparkling smoke; cascades, with a delicate flourish, leap from ledge to ledge; stout heads of crystal well bubbling out of Earth; elegant springs flash musically into their brimming basins of the living rock. The mistress of this shining court is very beautiful. A bank is overhanging a little bow-shaped dell, as the eaves of an old house lean out to shelter half a pavement. As eaves, too, are thatched, so the brown bank is clad with emerald moss. From the edge of the moss dangles a silver fringe. Each gleaming, twisted cord of it hangs separate and distinct, save when a breath of wind plaits two or three into a transient tassel. The fringe is the waterfall.
Enchanted with such a fairyland, we lingered so long over our passage that we only reached Gavarnie with a handful of moments to spare.
As we had expected, here were the others, a little apart from the car, their eyes lifted to the ethereal terraces of the majestic Cirque.
The East was afire with splendour. All the blue dome of sky was blushing. Only the Earth was dull.
Suddenly the topmost turret of the frozen battlements burst into rosy flame…
One by tremendous one we saw the high places of the world suffer their King’s salute. Little wonder that, witnessing so sublime a ceremony, we forgot all Time…
The sudden clack of shutters flung back against a wall brought us to earth with a jar.
We turned in the direction of the noise. From the window of a cottage some seventy paces away a woman was regarding us steadily…
We re-entered the cars with more precipitation than dignity.
A glance at the clock in the dashboard made my heart sink.
A quarter past six – summer time.
It was clear that Gavarnie was lazy. Argelès, Lourdes, and the rest must be already bustling. Long ere we could reach Pau, the business of town and country would be in full swing…
The same reflection, I imagine, had bitten Jonah, for, as I let in the clutch, Ping swept past us and whipped into the village with a low snarl.
Fast as we went, we never saw him again that memorable morning. Jonah must have gone like the wind.
As for us, we wasted no time.
We leapt through the village, dropped down the curling pass, snarled through Saint-Sauveur, left Luz staring, and sailed into Argelès as it was striking seven.
From Argelès to Lourdes is over eight miles. It was when we had covered exactly four of these in six minutes that the engine stuttered, sighed, and then just fainted away.
We had run out of petrol.
This was annoying, but not a serious matter, for there was a can on the step. The two gallons it was containing would easily bring us to Pau.
What was much more annoying and of considerable moment was that the can, when examined, proved to be dry as a bone.
After a moment’s consideration of the unsavoury prospect, so suddenly unveiled, I straightened my back, pushed my ridiculous hat to the nape of my neck, and took out a cigarette-case.
Adèle and Berry stared.
“That’s right,” said the latter bitterly. “Take your blinking time. Why don’t you sit down on the bank and put your feet up?”
I felt for a match.
Finger to lip, Adèle leaned forward.
“For Heaven’s sake,” she cried, “don’t say there’s none in the can!”
“My darling,” said I, “you’ve spoken the naked truth.”
There was a long silence. The gush of a neighbouring spring was suggesting a simple peace we could not share.
Suddenly —
“Help!” shrieked the English Rose. “Help! I’m being compromised.”
So soon as we could induce him to hold his tongue, a council was held.
Presently it was decided that I must return to Argelès, if possible, procure a car, and bring some petrol back as fast as I could. Already the day was growing extremely hot, and, unless I encountered a driver who would give me a lift, it seemed unlikely that I should be back within an hour and a half.
We had, of course, no hope of salvation. Help that arrived now would be too late. Lourdes would be teeming. The trivial round of Pau would be in full blast. The possible passage of another car would spare us – me particularly – some ignominy, but that was all.
It was arranged that, should a car appear after I had passed out of sight, the driver should be accosted, haply deprived of petrol, and certainly dispatched in my pursuit.
Finally we closed Pong, and, feeling extremely self-conscious and unpleasantly hot, I buttoned my overcoat about me and set out for Argelès.
The memory of that walk will stay with me till I die. If, a few hours before, I had been satisfied that ‘Incroyables’ seldom sat down, I was soon in possession of most convincing evidence that, come what might, they never did more than stroll. The pantaloons, indeed, curtailed every pace I took. It also became painfully obvious that their ‘foot-joy’ was intended for use only upon tiled pavements or parquet, and since the surface of the road to Argelès was bearing a closer resemblance to the bed of a torrent, I suffered accordingly. What service their headgear in any conceivable circumstances could have rendered, I cannot pretend to say. As a protection from the rays of the sun, it was singularly futile…
Had I been wearing flannels, I should have been sweltering in a quarter of an hour. Dressed as I was, I was streaming with honest sweat in less than five minutes… Before I had covered half a mile I tore off my overcoat and flung it behind a wall.
My reception at the first hamlet I reached was hardly promising.
The honour of appreciating my presence before anyone else fell to a pair of bullocks attached to a wain piled high with wood and proceeding slowly in the direction of Lourdes.
Had they perceived an apparition shaking a bloody goad, they could not have acted with more concerted or devastating rapidity.
In the twinkling of an eye they had made a complete volte-face, the waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of cobbles.
Had I announced my coming by tuck of drum, I could not have attracted more instant and faithful attention.
Before the explosion of agony with which the driver – till then walking, as usual, some thirty paces in rear – had greeted the catastrophe, had turned into a roaring torrent of abuse, every man, woman, and child within earshot came clattering upon the scene.
For a moment, standing to one side beneath the shelter of a flight of steps, I escaped notice. It was at least appropriate that the luckless waggoner should have been the first to perceive me…
At the actual moment of observation he was at once indicating the disposition of his wood with a gesture charged with the savage despair of a barbaric age and letting out a screech which threatened to curdle the blood.
The gesture collapsed. The screech died on his lips. With dropped jaw and bulging eyes, the fellow backed to the wall… When I stepped forward, he put the waggon between us.
I never remember so poignant a silence.
Beneath the merciless scrutiny of those forty pairs of eyes I seemed to touch the very bottom of abashment.
Then I lifted my ridiculous hat and cleared my throat.