Jonah and Co Part 30

CHAPTER VI

HOW BERRY RAN CONTRABAND GOODS, AND THE DUKE OF PADUA PLIGHTED JILL HIS TROTH

That Jill was in love with the Duke of Padua was only less manifest than that the Duke of Padua was in love with Jill. Something, however, was wrong. So much our instinct reported. Our reason refused to believe it, and, with one consent, we pretended that all was well. For all that, there lay a shadow athwart the babies' path. Yet the sky was cloudless.... The thing was too hard for us.

With a sigh, I opened my case and took out a cigarette. Then I handed the case to Berry. The latter waved it aside and wrinkled his nose.

"I'm through," he said shortly. "Offal's all very well in an incinerator, if the wind's the right way, but, as a subst.i.tute for tobacco--well, it soon palls."

I closed the case and slid it into my pocket.

"I must confess," I said, "that I'm nearing the breaking-point."

"Well, I wish you'd be quick and reach it," said Adele. "How you can go on at all, after finding that fly, I can't imagine."

She shuddered at the memory.

Less than a week ago a suspicious protuberance in the line of a local cigarette had attracted my attention. Investigation had revealed the presence of a perfect, if somewhat withered, specimen of the _musca domestica_ imbedded in the vegetation which I had been proposing to smoke. This was too much for the girls, none of whom had since touched a cigarette, and when my brother-in-law suggested that the fly had probably desired cremation, and urged that, however obnoxious, the wishes of the dead should be respected, Daphne had reviled her husband and requested Jonah to open the door, so that she could sit in a draught.

We were in a bad way.

Now that we were in France, the difficulty of obtaining cigars, cigarettes, or tobacco, such as we were used to enjoy, seemed to be insuperable. The prohibitive duty, the uncertainty and by no means infrequent failure of the French mails, brought the cost of procuring supplies from England to a figure we could not stomach: attempts at postal smuggling had ended in humiliating failure: the wares which France herself was offering were not at all to our taste. We were getting desperate. Jonah, who had smoked the same mixture for thirteen years, was miserable. Berry's affection for a certain brand of cigars became daily more importunate. My liver was suffering....

"We'd better try getting a licence to import," I said heavily. "It may do something."

"Ah," said my brother-in-law, drawing a letter from his pocket, "I knew I had some news for you. I heard from George this morning. I admit I don't often take advice, but this little missive sounds an unusually compelling call.

"_Above all, do not be inveigled into obtaining or, worse still, acting upon, a so-called 'licence to import.' It is a copper-bottomed have.

I got one, when I was in Paris, gleefully ordered five thousand cigarettes from Bond Street, and started to count the days. I soon got tired of that. Three months later I got a dirty form from the Customs, advising me that there was a case of cigarettes, addressed to me, lying on the wharf at Toulon--yes, Toulon. They added that the charges to be paid before collection amounted to nine hundred francs by way of duty, eleven hundred and sixty-five by way of freight, and another three francs forty for every day they remained in the Custom House. In this connection, they begged to point out that they had already lain there for six weeks. Friend, can you beat it? But what, then, did I do?

Why, I took appropriate action. I wrote at once, saying that, as I was shortly leaving for New York, I should be obliged if they would forward them via Liverpool to the Piraeus: I inquired whether they had any objection to being paid in roubles: and I advised them that I was shortly expecting a pantechnicon, purporting to contain furniture, but, in reality, full of mines. These I begged them to handle with great care and to keep in a temperature never higher than thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit, as they were notoriously sensitive, and I particularly wished to receive them intact. I added that the pantechnicon would be consigned to me under another name. A fair knowledge of the French temperament suggests to me that the next two or three furniture vans which arrive at Toulon will be very stickily welcomed._"

I threw away my cigarette and stared at the mountains.

"'Though every prospect pleases,'" I murmured, "'and only f.a.gs are vile.'"

"The only thing to do," said Adele, "is to have a little sent out from England from time to time, and ration yourselves accordingly."

Berry shook his head.

"Easier to stop altogether," he said. "Tobacco's not like food. (I'm not speaking of the stuff you get here. Some of that is extremely like food--of a sort. I should think it would, as they say, 'eat lovely.') Neither is it like liquor. You don't carry a flask or a bottle of beer in your hip-pocket--more's the pity. But n.o.body's equipment is complete without a case or a pouch. Why? So that the moment this particular appet.i.te a.s.serts itself, it can be gratified. No.

Smoking's a vice; and as soon as you clap a vice in a strait-jacket, it loses its charm. A cigar three times a day after meals doesn't cut any ice with me." He tilted his hat over his eyes and sank his chin upon his chest. "And now don't talk for a bit. I want to concentrate."

Adele laid a hand upon his arm.

"One moment," she said. "If the car arrives before you've finished, are we to interrupt you?"

"Certainly not, darling. Signal to the driver to stop in the middle distance. Oh, and ask approaching pedestrians to keep on the gra.s.s.

Should any children draw near, advise their nurse that I have the mumps."

We were sitting upon a seat in the Parc Beaumont, revelling in the temper of the suns.h.i.+ne and the perfection of the air. A furlong away, Daphne, Jill, and Jonah were playing tennis, with Piers, Duke of Padua, to make a fourth. n.o.bby and a fox-terrier were gambolling upon an adjacent lawn.

Pau has many virtues, all but one of which may, I suppose, be severally encountered elsewhere upon the earth. The one, however, is her peculiar. The place is airy, yet windless. High though she stands, and clear by thirty miles of such shelter as the mountains can give, by some queer trick of Nature's, upon the map of aeolus Pau and her pleasant precincts are shown as forbidden ground. There is no stiff breeze to rake the boulevard: there are no gusts to buffet you at corners: there are no draughts in the streets. The flow of sweet fresh air is rich and steady, but it is never stirred. A mile away you may see dust flying; storm and tempest savage the Pyrenees: upon the gentlest day fidgety puffs fret Biarritz, as puppies plague an old hound. But Pau is sanctuary. Once in a long, long while some errant blast blunders into the town. Then, for a second of time, the place is Bedlam. The uncaught shutters are slammed, the unpegged laundry is sent whirling, and, if the time is evening, the naked flames of lamps are blown out. But before a match can be lighted, the air is still again. And n.o.body cares. It was an accident, and Pau knows it.

Probably the gust had lost its way and was frightened to death. Such a thing will not happen again for two or three months....

"I like Piers," said Adele suddenly. "But I think he might kiss my hand."

"How dare you?" said I.

"I do really," said Adele. "He kisses Daphne's and he actually kisses Jill's."

"That's all wrong," said I. "You don't kiss a maiden's hand."

"Of course you do," grunted Berry. "A well-bred son of Italy----"

"But he isn't a son of Italy. He's English on both sides."

"I'm not talking of his sides," said Berry. "It's a matter of bosom.

You may have English forbears, but if they've been Italian dukes for two centuries, it's just possible that they've imbibed something besides Chianti. Personally, I think it's a very charming custom. It saves wiping your mouth, and----"

"Well, why doesn't he kiss my hand?" said Adele.

"Because, sweetheart, you are--were American. And--he's very punctilious--he probably thinks that a quondam citizen might have no use for such circ.u.mstance."

"I should," said Adele. "I should just love it. I like Piers."

I looked across at my brother-in-law.

"D'you hear that?" I inquired. "She likes him."

Berry shrugged his shoulders.

"I told her not to marry you," he said.

"No, you didn't," said Adele. "You egged me on."

"Oh, you wicked story," said Berry. "Why, I fairly spread myself on the brutality of his mouth."

"You said he was honest, sober, and hard-working."

"Nonsense," said Berry. "I was talking of somebody else. I have seen him sober, of course, but---- Besides, you were so precipitate. You had an answer for everything. When I spoke of his ears, you said you'd get used to them: and when I asked you if you'd noticed----"

"I shan't," said Adele. "I mean, I didn't. However, it's done now.

And, after all, he's very convenient. If we hadn't got married, I shouldn't have wintered at Pau. And if I hadn't wintered at Pau, I shouldn't have met Piers."

"True," said Berry, "true. There's something in that." He nodded in my direction. "D'you find he snores much?"