Jonah and Co Part 64

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 ap.r.o.n, bearing the stencilled legend 'AN ENGLISH ROSE' upon its muslin, left no doubt about his ident.i.ty.

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-s.h.i.+eld and feel you're alone with them all--absolutely alone...."

The tempestuous arrival of Adele, 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 to-morrow. 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 any way, but from the moment that Berry had, upon arrival, been directed to the ladies' cloak-room, its enduring fame had been a.s.sured.

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 embarra.s.sing. 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 bas.e.m.e.nt: 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 n.o.bby 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 a.s.sured us that his death-agony, which we should shortly witness, would be still more diverting.

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 bal.u.s.trade. Then I climb over and pat n.o.bby. 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 h.e.l.l--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 h.e.l.l-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 h.e.l.l can't you s...o...b..r 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--