Jonah and Co Part 22

"It does really," Jill agreed. "Never mind," she added cheerfully, slipping an arm through mine. "It was my fault."

Subduing a desire to lie down on my back and scream, I relighted my pipe, and we strolled forward.

A country walk with Jill is never dull.

To do the thing comfortably, you should be followed by a file of pioneers in marching order, a limbered waggon, and a portable pond.

Before we had covered another two hundred yards, I had collected three more sprays, two ferns, and a square foot of moss--the latter, much to the irritation of its inhabitants, many of whom refused to evacuate their homes and therefore accompanied us. I drew the line at frogs, on the score of cruelty to animals, but when we met one about the size of a postage stamp, it was a very near thing. Finally, against my advice, my cousin stormed a bank, caught her foot in an invisible wire, and fell flat upon her face.

"There now!" I cried testily, dropping our spoils and scrambling to her a.s.sistance.

"I'm not a bit hurt," she cried, getting upon her feet. "Not a sc.r.a.p.

And--and don't be angry with me, Boy. Jonah's been cross all day. He says my skirt is too short. And it isn't, is it?"

"Not when you don't fall down," said I. "At least--well, it is rather, isn't it?"

Jill put her feet together and drew the cloth close about her silk stockings. It fell, perhaps, one inch below her knees. For a moment she regarded the result. Then she looked up at me and put her head on one side....

I have grown up with Jill. I have seen her in habits, in ball-dresses, in dressing-gowns. I have seen her hair up, and I have seen it tumbled about her shoulders. I have seen her grave, and I have seen her gay.

I have seen her on horseback, and I have seen her asleep. But never in all my life shall I forget the picture which at this moment she made.

One thick golden tress, shaken loose by her fall, lay curling down past the bloom of her cheek on to her shoulder. The lights in it blazed.

From beneath the brim of her small tight-fitting hat her great grave eyes held mine expectantly. The stars in them seemed upon the edge of dancing. Her heightened colour, the poise of her shapely head, the parted lips lent to that exquisite face the air of an elf. All the sweet grace of a child was welling out of her maidenhood. Her apple-green frock fitted the form of a shepherdess. Her pretty grey legs and tiny feet were those of a fairy. Its very artlessness trebled the attraction of her pose. Making his sudden way between the boughs, the sun flung a warm bar of light athwart her white throat and the fallen curl. Nature was honouring her darling. It was the accolade.

I could have sworn that behind me somebody breathed "Madonna!" but although I swung round and peered into the bushes, I could see no one.

"When you've quite done," said Jill. Clearly she had noticed nothing.

I returned to my cousin.

"Yes," I said, "it's too short. Just a shade. As for you, you're much too sweet altogether. Something'll have to be done about it. You'll be stolen by fairies, or translated, or inveigled into an engagement, or something."

Jill let her dress go and flung her arms round my neck.

"You and Berry and Jonah," she said, "are far too sweet to me. And---- Oh, I can see myself in your eye, Boy. I can really." For a moment she stared at the reflection. "I don't think I look very nice," she added gravely. "However..." She kissed me abstractedly and started to fix the tress errant. "If Jonah asks you, don't say it's too short.

It's not good for him. I'll have it lengthened all right."

For the second time I began to relight my pipe...

After examining the scene of her downfall, the witch caught at a slip of a bough and swung herself athletically to the top of the bank.

Thence she turned a glowing face in my direction.

"No, I shan't, after all," she announced. "It's much too convenient."

Twenty minutes later we reached the point from which we had set out.

Adele was awaiting us with Ping.

As soon as we saw her--

"Good Heavens!" cried Jill. "I quite forgot you were married. You ought to have been with Adele." She ran to the car. "Adele darling, what do you think of me?"

"I am blind," said Adele, "with jealousy. Anyone would be. And now jump in. Berry has taken the others to look at La Barre, and we're to follow them."

Such of the landscape as I was bearing was thereupon bestowed in the boot, I followed my cousin into the car, and a few minutes later we were at the mouth of the Adour. Here we left Ping beside Pong, and proceeded to join three figures on the horizon, apparently absorbed in the temper of a fretful sea.

As we tramped heavily over the s.h.i.+ngle--

"You're not cross with me, Adele?"

"Why should I be, darling?"

"Well, you see," panted Jill, "I've known him so long, and he's still so exactly the same, that I can't always remember----"

"That he's not your property?" said my wife. "But he is, and always will be."

Jill looked at her gravely.

"But he's yours," she said.

Adele laughed lightly.

"Subjects marry, of course," she said, smiling, "but they've only one queen."

Which, I think, was uncommon handsome.

Any way, I kissed her slight fingers....

As we reached our companions--

"I could stay here for ever," said Berry. "Easily. But I'm not going to. The wind annoys me, and the sea's not what it was before the War."

"How can you?" said Daphne. She stretched out a pointing arm. "Just look at that one--that great big fellow. It must be the ninth wave."

"Nothing to the York Ham--I mean the Welsh Harp--on a dirty night,"

replied her husband. "Why, I remember once ..."

In the confusion of a precipitate retreat before the menace of the roller, the reminiscence was lost.

It was certainly a magnificent spectacle.

There was a heavy sea running, and the everlasting battle between the river and the Atlantic was being fought with long swift spasms of unearthly fury. Continually recurring, shock, mellay and rally overlapped, attack and repulse were inextricably mingled, the very lulls between the paroxysms were big with wrath. There was a point, too, where the river's bank became coastline, a blunt corner of land, which seemed to exasperate the sea out of all reason. A stiff breeze abetting them, the gigantic waves crashed upon it with a concussion that shook the air. All the royal rage of Ocean seemed to be concentrated on this little prominence. The latter's indifference appeared to aggravate its a.s.sailant. Majesty was in a tantrum.

With the exception of Berry, we could have watched the display till, as they say, the cows come home. My brother-in-law, however, felt differently. The wind was offending him.

After a violent denunciation of this element--

"Besides," he added, "we ought to be getting back. It's nearly half-past three, and if we're to avoid the playground of the Tanks and return by Bidache, we shall be longer upon the road."