Jonah and Co Part 33

"Well, why is it, then?"

For a moment there was no answer.

Then all of a sudden the sluice-gate of speech was pulled up.

"Oh, Jill, Jill, Jill... I could go on saying your name for the rest of my life! I say it all the way home. I say it as I'm going to sleep. I say it when I wake in the morning... I saw you first at Biarritz. You never knew. I was staying with some Italian people.

They've got a place there. And I was alone in the grounds. And then I saw you--with Boy. You looked so wonderful.... All in green you were, standing with your feet close together, and your head on one side.

Your hair was coming down, and the sun was shining on it.... I found out who you were, and came to Pau. I wanted to get to know you. I felt I must. And, whenever you all went out, I followed in the two-seater. And then--I got to know you--at St. Bertrand--that wonderful, wonderful day.... I--was--so--awfully--happy.... And now"--his voice sank to a wail--"I wish I hadn't. If only I'd stopped to think.... But I didn't. I just knew I wanted to be with you, and that was all. Oh," he burst out suddenly, "why did I ever do it? Why did I ever follow you--that wonderful day? If I'd dreamed how miserable it'd make me, how miserably wretched I'd be... It's the dreadful hopelessness, Jill, the dreadful hopelessness.... But I can't help it. It's something stronger than me. It's not enough to be with you. I want to touch you: I want to put my arms round your neck: I want to play with your hair.... Of course I'm terribly lucky to be able to kiss your hand, but---- Ah, don't be frightened. I was--only playing, Jill, only pretending. And now I'm going to be all serious again--not quiet, but serious. Good-bye, Madonna. Have you ever seen _Pagliacci_? Where the fellow bursts into tears? I think I could do that part this afternoon...."

A light padding upon the gravel came to our ears.

Then a car's door slammed.

A moment later Piers' two-seater purred its way down the drive....

Adele and I continued to sit very still.

Presently I turned to her and raised my eyebrows.

"Hopelessness?" I whispered. "Hopelessness? What on earth does he mean?"

My wife shrugged her shoulders helplessly.

Then she laid a finger upon her lips.

I nodded obediently.

"Yes," said Berry, "you see in me a nervous wreck. My heart's misfiring, I'm over at the knees, and with the slightest encouragement I can break into a cold sweat."

He sank into a chair and covered his eyes....

I had meant to meet him at the station, but the early train had beaten me, so Fitch had gone with the car. Indeed, it was not yet eight o'clock, and Daphne was still abed. That had not prevented us from following Berry into her room, any more than had the fact that no one of us was ready for breakfast. I had no coat or waistcoat: so far as could be seen, Jonah was attired in a Burberry and a pair of trousers: a glance at Adele suggested that she was wearing a fur coat, silk stockings, and a tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb, while Jill was wrapped in a kimono, with her fresh fair hair tumbled about her shoulders.

Jonah voiced our anxiety.

"You--you've got the goods?"

"They're downstairs," said Berry. "But don't question me. I can't bear it. I'll tell you all in a minute, but you must let me alone.

Above all, don't thwart me. I warn you, my condition is critical."

He sighed heavily.

Apparently impressed by his demeanour, n.o.bby approached, set his paws upon his knee, and licked his face.

"There you are," said Berry, lifting the dog to his lap. "The very fowls of the air pity me. No, it's not a sore, old chap. It's where I cut myself yesterday. But I'm just as grateful. And now lie still, my beauty, and poor old Sit-tight the Smuggler will tell you such a tale as will thicken your blood.

"Upon Friday morning last I purchased a uniform-case. Not a new one--the oldest and most weather-beaten relic I could procure. On Friday evening I packed it. One thousand cigars, five thousand cigarettes, and six pounds of tobacco looked very well in it. My sword, a pair of field boots, breeches, coat--carefully folded to display the staff badges--and my red hat looked even better. I filled up with socks, shirts, puttees, slacks, spurs and all the old emblems of Mars that I could lay my hands on. Finally I leavened the lot with a pound of the best white pepper--to discourage the moths, my fellow, to discourage the moths."

His tone suggesting the discomfiture of the wicked, the Sealyham barked his applause.

"Quite so. Well, I locked the case up and corded it, and precisely at ten o'clock I retired to bed.

"I never remember feeling so full of beans as I did the next morning.

I could have bluffed my way across Europe with a barrel of whiskey on a lead. I felt ready for anything. Sharp at a quarter to eleven I was at the station, and one minute later a porter, with the physique of a blacksmith, had the box on his shoulder and my dressing-case in his hand.

"It was as he was preparing to lay his spoils at the feet of the registration-monger that my bearer trod upon a banana-skin.... To say that he took a toss, conveys nothing at all. It was the sort of fall you dream of--almost too good to be true. And my uniform-case, of which he never let go, described a very beautiful parabola, and then came down upon the weigh-bridge, as the swiple of an uplifted flail comes down upon grain....

"Both hinges went, of course. It says much for the box that the whole thing didn't melt then and there. If I hadn't corded it, most of the stuff would have been all over the Vauxhall Bridge Road.

"Well, I was so rattled that I could hardly think. I joined mechanically in the laughter, I a.s.sured complete strangers that it didn't matter at all, I carried through the registration like a man in a dream, and I tipped everybody I could see. It was as I was thrusting blindly towards the gates that I first realised that half the people in the place were sneezing to glory. I was still digesting this phenomenon when I sneezed myself....

"Still it never occurred to me. There are times when you have to be told right out. I didn't have to wait long.

"As I presented my ticket, a truck full of luggage was pushed through the gate next to mine. The porters about it were sneezing bitterly.

'Snuff?' said one of them contemptuously. 'Snuff be blarsted! _It's pepper!_'

"Whether at that moment my stomach in fact slipped or not I am unable to say, but the impression that my contents had dropped several inches was overwhelming.

"I staggered into the Pullman, more dead than alive.... After a large barley and a small water, I felt somewhat revived, but it was not until the train was half-way to Dover that I had myself in hand. I was just beginning under the auspices of a second milk and soda, to consider my hideous plight, when a genial fool upon the opposite side of the table asked me if I had 'witnessed the comedy at Victoria.' Icily I inquired: 'What comedy?' He explained offensively that 'some cuckoo had tried the old wheeze of stuffing pepper in his trunk to put off the Customs,' and that the intended deterrent had untimely emerged. My brothers, conceive my exhilaration. 'The old wheeze.' I could have broken the brute's neck. When he offered me a filthy-looking cigar with a kink in it, and said with a leer that I shouldn't 'get many like that on the other side of the Chops,' I could have witnessed his mutilation unmoved....

"Still, it's an ill wind.... The swine's words were like a spur. I became determined to get the stuff through.

"Grimly I watched the case go on to the boat, to the accompaniment of such nasal convulsions as I had never believed to be consistent with life itself. By way of diverting suspicion, I asked one of the crew what was the matter. His blasphemous answer was charged with such malignity that I found it necessary to stay myself with yet another still lemonade.

"Arrived at Calais, I hurried on board the train.

"The journey to Paris was frightful. The nearer we got, the more dishevelled became my wits. The power of concentration deserted me.

Finally, as we were running in, I found that I had forgotten the French for 'moths.' I'd looked it out the night before: I'd been murmuring it all day long: and now, at the critical moment, it had deserted me. I clasped my head in my hands and thought like a madman. Nothing doing.

I thought all round it, of course. I thought of candles and camphor and dusk. My vocabulary became gigantic, but it did not include the French equivalent for 'moths.' In desperation I approached my _vis-a-vis_ and, in broken accents, implored him to tell me 'the French for the little creatures which you find in your clothes.'...

"I like the French. If I'd asked an Englishman, he'd have pulled the communication-cord, but this fellow never so much as stared. He just released a little spurt of good-will and then started in, as if his future happiness depended on putting me straight. 'But I was meaning the fleas. Oh, indubitably. Animals most gross. Only last November he himself....' It took quite a lot of persuasion to get him off fleas. Then he offered me lice. I managed to make him understand that the attack was delivered when the clothes were unoccupied. Instantly he suggested rats. With an effort I explained that the things I meant were winged. As the train came to a standstill, he handed me '_chauvesouris_.' Bats! I ask you....

"I stepped on to the platform as if I was descending into my tomb. How I got to the baggage-room, I'm hanged if I know; but I remember standing there, shivering and wiping the sweat off my face. Truck by truck the registered baggage appeared....

"I heard my case coming for about a quarter of a mile.

"The architecture of the baggage-room at the _Gare du Nord_ may be crude, but its acoustic properties are superb. The noise which accompanied the arrival of the cortege was simply ear-splitting. I was in the very act of wondering whether, if I decided to retire, my legs would carry me, when, with a crash, my uniform-case was slammed on to the counter three paces away....

"A cloud of pepper arose from it, and in an instant all was confusion.

Pa.s.sengers and porters in the vicinity dropped everything and made a rush for the doors. A Customs official, who was plumbing the depths of a basket-trunk, turned innocently enough to see the case smoking at his elbow, dropped his cigar into some blouses, let out the screech of a maniac and threw himself face downward upon the floor. Somebody cried: 'Women and children first!' And, the supreme moment having arrived, I--I had the brain-wave.

"I stepped to the case and, with most horrible oaths, flung my hat upon the ground, smote upon the counter with my fist and started to rave like a fanatic. I made the most awful scene. I roared out that it was my box, and that it and its contents were irretrievably ruined.

Gradually curiosity displaced alarm, and people began to return. I yelled and stamped more than ever. I denounced the French railways, I demanded the station-master, I swore I'd have damages, I tore off the cords, I lifted the lid, I alternately sneezed and raged, and, finally, I took out my tunic and shook it savagely. In vain the excis.e.m.e.n insisted that it was not their business. I cursed them bitterly, jerked an ounce of pepper out of a pair of brogues, and replied that they were responsible....

"It was after I had shaken my second pair of slacks that the officials, with streaming eyes, began to beseech me to unpack the case no further.

If only they'd known, I didn't need much inducing. I could see the shape of a cigarette-box under one of my shirts. Of course I argued a bit, for the look of the thing, but eventually I allowed myself to be persuaded and shoved the kit back. Finally they scrawled all over the lid with pieces of chalk, and, vowing the most hideous vengeance and invoking the British Amba.s.sador, I stalked in the wake of my box out of the station.