Jonah and Co Part 13

"Don't top it," said Jill.

"Have I been topping them to-day?".

"No, Boy. Only do be careful. I believe there's a lark's nest down there, and it'd be a shame----"

"There you are," said Jonah.

"Now," said I, "I'm dead certain to top it."

"Well, then, drive more to the right," said Jill. "After all, it's only a game."

"I'll take your word for it," said I.

Of course, I topped the ball, but at the next hole my grey-eyed cousin discovered that our caddie had a puppy in his pocket, so we won easily.

As we made for the club-house--

"Only ten days to Christmas," said Adele. "Can you believe me?"

"With an effort," said I. "It's almost too hot to be true."

Indeed, it might have been a June morning.

The valley was sleepy beneath the mid-day sun; the slopes of the sheltering foot-hills looked warm and comfortable; naked but unashamed, the woods were smiling; southward, a long flash spoke of the sunlit peaks and the dead march of snow; and there, a league away, grey Pau was basking contentedly, her decent crinoline of villas billowing about her sides, lazily looking down on such a fuss and pother as might have bubbled out of the pot of Revolution, but was, in fact, the hospitable rite daily observed on the arrival of the Paris train.

"I simply must get some presents," continued my wife. "We'll start to-morrow."

I groaned.

"You can't get anything here," I protested. "And people don't expect presents when you're in the South of France."

"That's just when they do," said Adele. "All your friends consider that it's a chance in a lifetime, and, if you don't take it, they never forgive you."

"Well, I haven't got any friends," said I. "So that's that. And you used to tell me you had very few."

"Ah," said Adele, "that was before we were engaged. That was to excite your sympathy."

I appealed to my cousins for support.

"Nothing doing," said Jonah. "If you didn't want this sort of thing, what did you marry for? For longer than I can remember you've seen your brother-in-law led off like an ox to the shambles--he's there now--financially crippled, and then compelled to tie up and address innumerable parcels, for the simple reason that, when they're at the shops Daphne's faculty of allotment invariably refuses to function."

Jill slid an arm through her brother's, patted his hand affectionately, and looked at Adele.

"If Boy breaks down," she said sweetly, "I'll lend you my ox. He's simply splendid at parcels."

"You've got to find something to do up first," said I. "This isn't Paris."

A colour was lent to my foreboding within the hour.

As we sat down to luncheon--

"Yes," said Berry, "my vixen and I have spent a delightful morning.

We've been through fourteen shops and bought two amethyst necklets and a pot of marmalade. I subsequently dropped the latter in the Place Royale, so we're actually twelve down."

"Whereabouts in the Place Royale?" I inquired.

"Just outside the Club. Everybody I knew was either going in or coming out, so it went very well indeed."

There was a gust of laughter.

"N-not on the pavement?" whimpered Jill.

"On the pavement," said Daphne. "It was dreadful. I never was so ashamed. Of course I begged him to pick it up before it ran out.

D'you think he'd do it? Not he. Said it was written, and it was no good fighting against Fate, and that he'd rather wash his hands of it than after it, and that sort of stuff. Then n.o.bby began to lick it up.... But for Fitch, I think we should have been arrested.

Mercifully, we'd told him to wait for us by the bandstand, and he saw the whole thing."

"It's all very fine," said her husband. "It was I who furnished and suggested the use of the current issue of _Le Temps_, and, without that, Fitch couldn't have moved. As it was, one sheet made a shroud, another a pall, and n.o.bby's beard and paws were appropriately wiped upon the ever-burning scandal of 'Reparations.'"

"I gather," said Jonah, "that the dissolution of the preserve turned an indifferent success into a howling failure. Of course, I haven't seen the necklets but..."

"I can't pretend it's easy," said Daphne. "It isn't that there aren't any shops----"

"No," said Berry emphatically, "it isn't that."

"--but somehow... Still, if we go on long enough, we shall find something."

"That's it," said her husband. "We're going to put our backs into it this afternoon. After we've done another twelve shops without buying anything, we're going to have police protection. Not that we need it, you know, but it'll improve my morale."

"If only Sally was here," said Jill, "she could have told us where to go."

"If only her sailor would turn up," said Adele, "we might be able to get all our presents from him."

"That's an idea," said Jonah. "What was the merchant's name?"

Amid a buzz of excitement, Daphne sent for the letter which had announced Sarah Featherstone's departure from Pau. When it arrived, she read the material portion aloud.

"_... George, can't get away, so Peter and I are going home for Christmas. We'll be back the first week in January. I've told the Marats that if Planchet (the sailor who sold me the shawl, etc.) turns up before I get back, he's to be sent on to you. If he's got anything extra-special that you're not keen on, you might get it for me..._"

"Well, I never thought I should live to say it," said Berry, "but, after what I've gone through this morning, if Planchet were to totter in this afternoon, laden with at once cheap and pretentious goods, I should fall upon his bull neck."

"Who," said I, "are the Marats?"

"They're the married couple who run the flat. I believe they're wonderful. Sally says she never knew what service was before."

"I do hope," said Jill, twittering, "they don't make any mistake."