Jonah and Co Part 21

"I think," said I, nodding at a huge pantechnicon, "that we might pa.s.s the furniture."

I know no horn whose note is at once so compelling and offensive as that of the usher with which Pong was equipped. I know no din at once so obliterative and brain-shaking as that induced by the pa.s.sage of a French pantechnicon, towed at a high speed over an abominable road.

That the driver of the tractor failed to hear our demand was not remarkable. That he should have elected to sway uncertainly along the very crown of the road was most exasperating....

Three times did Berry essay to push by; three times at the critical moment did the tractor lurch drunkenly across our bows; and three times did Pong fall back discomfited. The dust, the reek, the vibration, the pandemonium, were combining to create an atmosphere worthy of a place in the Litany. One's senses were cuffed and buffeted almost to a standstill. I remember vaguely that Daphne was clinging to my arm, wailing that "it was no good." I know I was shouting. Berry was howling abusive incoherence in execrable French....

We were approaching the top of a hill..

Suddenly the tractor swung away to its right. With a yell of triumph, my unwitting brother-in-law thrust at the gap.... Pong leapt forward.

Mercifully there was a lane on the left, and I seized the wheel and wrenched it round, at the same time opening the throttle as wide as I dared. I fancy we took the corner on two wheels. As we did so, a pale blue racer streaked by our tail-lamp with the roar of an avalanche.

When Daphne announced that, if she reached Biarritz alive, she should drive home with Jonah, I was hardly surprised.

It was perhaps an hour later that, after pa.s.sing grey-headed Bayonne, we came to her smart little sister and the villa we sought.

The great lodge-gates were open, but Ping was without in the road, while Jonah was leaning languidly against the wall. As we slowed up, he took his pipe from his mouth.

"I shouldn't drive in," he said. "They're out. Won't be back before six, the servants say."

Black as was the evidence against him, my brother-in-law stoutly refused to be held responsible for the affair. All the way to the Hotel du Palais he declared violently that the engagement had been well and truly made, and that if Evelyn and her husband chose to forget all about it, that was no fault of his. Finally, when Jonah suggested that after luncheon we should return to the villa and inquire whether we had indeed been expected the day before, he a.s.sented with disconcerting alacrity. As we pa.s.sed into the restaurant--

"And I'll do the interrogating," he concluded. "I don't want any of your leading questions. 'I quite expect we were expected yesterday, weren't we?' All sweet and slimy, with a five-franc note in the middle distance."

"How dare you?" said Daphne. "Besides, I'd be only too relieved to find it was their mistake."

"Blow your relief," replied her husband. "What about my bleeding heart?"

"I'm not much of a physician," said I, "but there's some cold stuffed venison on the sideboard. I don't know whether that, judiciously administered...."

Berry shook his head.

"I doubt it," he said mournfully. "I doubt it very much....

Still"--he looked round hungrily--"we can always try."

We were at the villa again within the hour.

Almost immediately we elicited the information that Major and Mrs.

Swetecote had spent the previous day at San Sebastian.

Turning a withering and gla.s.sy eye in our direction, my brother-in-law explained the position and desired permission to enter and write a note. This was granted forthwith.

My sister and I followed him into a pleasant salon meekly enough. When he had written his letter, he read it to us with the air of a cardinal.

_DEAR EVELYN,_

"LEST WE FORGET."

_Yes, I know. But you should be more careful. Old friends like us, too. Disgraceful, I call it. To have been unprepared to receive us would have been bad enough, but to be actually absent from home....

Well, as Wordsworth says, that's bent it._

_When I tell you that, in the belief that she was to enjoy a free lunch, my beloved yoke-fellow, who is just now very hot upon economy, forewent her breakfast and arrived upon your threshold faint and ravening, you will conceive the emotion with which she hailed the realization that that same hunger which she had encouraged could only be appeased at an expensive hotel._

_But that is nothing._

_To bless your married life, I have hustled a valuable internal combustion engine over one of the vilest roads in Europe, twice risked a life, the loss of which would, as you know, lower half the flags in Bethnal Green, and postponed many urgent and far more deserving calls upon my electric personality. I was, for instance, to have had my hair cut._

_Worse._

_Upon hearing of your absence, the unnatural infidel above referred to charged this to my account. As is my humble wont, I bent my head to the storm, strong in the fearless confidence that France is France, and that, late as we were, the ever-open bar would not be closed._

"Tell me more of yourself," I hear you say.

_That may not be, che-ild._

_For one thing, that venison has made me sleepy. Secondly, I am just off to find a suitable and sheltered grove, within sound of the Atlantic, where I may spend an hour in meditation. Thirdly, I live for others._

_Jonah wants to know if your husband can play golf. He does, of course. But can he?_

_Your dear old friend, BERRY._

_P.S.--D'you happen to know who owns a large grey cabriolet with a "G.B." plate? I imagine it lives at Biarritz. Anyway, they ought to be prosecuted. Driving about the country like a drunken hornet.

Mercifully we were crawling. Otherwise ... I tell you, it made my b-b-blood b-b-boil. Not at the time, of course._

The pine woods were wholly delightful.

The lisp of the wind among the branches, the faint thunder of the Atlantic, the soft sweet atmosphere showed us a side of Biarritz which we should have been sorry to miss. By rights, if music and perfume have any power, we should have fallen asleep. The air, however, prevented us. Here was an inspiriting lullaby--a sleeping-draught laced with cordial. We plucked the fruit from off the Tree of Drowsiness, ate it, and felt refreshed. Repose went by the board. We left the cars upon the road and went strolling....

"D'you think you could get me that spray?" said Jill suddenly.

In my cousin's eyes flora have only to be inaccessible to become desirable. Remembering this, I did as Berry and Jonah were doing--stared straight ahead and hoped very hard that she was not speaking to me.

"Boy!"

"Yes, dear?"

"D'you think you could...?"

By the time I had torn my trousers, strained my right shoulder, sworn three times, and ruined the appearance of my favourite brogues, the others were out of sight.

"Thanks awfully, Boy. You are good to me. And that'll look lovely in the drawing-room. The worst of it is, this stuff wilts almost at once."

"Seems almost a shame to have picked it," I said grimly, "doesn't it?"