Berry And Co. (13 page)

The arrival of Fitch with the car at half-past three reminded my sister that she was going to call upon some one in Regent’s Park, and she withdrew in a state of profound depression.

Jill, who was on the very brink of tears, refused to leave her post until a quarter to four, and, when that hour arrived, slow-treading but coalless, it was only my promise to take her to see Charlie Chaplin forthwith that could coax the ghost of a smile to play about her lips.

As I closed the front-door behind us, a neighbouring clock struck four.

Moodily we walked down the street, talking of cinemas and thinking of coal. Had our thoughts been otherwise employed, the condition of the pavement outside a house about a hundred and twenty yards down on the opposite side would have recalled them pell-mell to our disappointment. It was obvious that a considerable quantity of coal had been recently delivered to a more fortunate
ménage
. Idly I looked at the number of the house.
From either pillar of the porch a freshly painted “38” grinned at me
. For a moment I stared at them blankly. Then Jill gave a choking cry and caught at my arm…

I realized with a shock that, while Mr Lewis had been as good as his word, my brother-in-law’s recollection of our change of address was less dependable.

How Nobby Attended a Wedding,

and Berry Spoke Nothing But the Truth

“If I am to drive,” said Jonah, “I won’t be responsible for doing it in a minute under two hours.” He looked down at Nobby, who, with a section of one of my shoe-trees in his mouth, was importuning him to play by the simple expedient of thrusting the bauble against the calf of his leg. “My good dog, if you expect me to interrupt an agreeable breakfast to join you in the one-sided game of which you never tire, you are doomed to disappointment. Go and worry your owner.”

With a reproachful look the terrier took his advice and, trotting across to the sideboard, laid his toy at my feet and looked up expectantly. I hardened my heart.

“It is not my practice,” said I, “to gambol upon an empty stomach. Try Jill.”

Slowly the brown eyes sank from mine to the bottom button of my waistcoat. As I moved to my place, plate in hand, he gave a protesting bark, which was answered by a fox-terrier from the box-seat of a passing van. In a flash Nobby was upon the sill of the open window, hurling defiance at the intruder.

“Is he coming with us?” said Daphne.

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t. We can leave him at Hillingdon while we’re at Church. By the way, what time does the balloon go up?”

“The marriage,” said Jonah, “is to be solemnized at two o’clock. As I said a moment ago, it’ll take us two hours to get there. If we start at eleven, that’ll give us an hour to brush one another, lunch and rehearse the series of genial banalities with which it is the habit of wedding-guests to insult one another’s intelligence.”

“I believe,” said Jill, “I heard the telephone.”

I called upon Nobby to suspend his fury, and we all listened. Sure enough, a long spasm of ringing came simultaneously from the library and the lobby in the back hall.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said I, “if that was the Club, to tell me I’ve drawn a runner in the three-pound sweep.” And, with that, I left my kidneys and repaired to the library.

“Can I speak to Major Pleydell?” said a voice.

“Who is it, please?”

“The Waddell Institute speaking.”

“Oh, yes. Will you hold the line?”

I went to the foot of the stairs and shouted for Berry. There was no reply. In some annoyance I ascended the first flight and shouted again. From behind a closed door his voice answered me. It was with a malicious pleasure that I located its origin…

A moment later I opened the bathroom door.

From the depths of a luxurious bath Berry regarded me.

“That’s right,” he said. “You come in. Don’t take any notice of me. And don’t shut the door, or the servants won’t be able to see in.”

“You are wanted,” said I, “upon the telephone.”

“How interesting!” said Berry. “I suppose you told them to hold on.”

“I did.”

He sank into a recumbent position and crossed his legs.

“What a marvellous thing,” he said, “the telephone is. There’s that fool, Heaven knows how many miles away, sitting with his ear glued to a piece of vulcanite, and here am I in the midst of an exacting toilet – d’you think he’d hear me if I were to shout? Or would you rather take a message?”

“It is,” said I, “the Waddell Institute.”

The savagery with which my brother-in-law invested a very ordinary expletive was quite remarkable.

“Why,” he added, sitting upright, “cannot they ring up at a lawful hour? Why must they—”

The sentence was never finished. With the rush of a whirlwind, Nobby tore into the room. His delight at having run me to earth was transformed to ecstasy at encountering unexpectedly another member of the household, hitherto missing from his tale, and, observing that the latter’s face was a reasonable distance from the ground, and so less inaccessible than usual, the Sealyham leapt upon the rim of the bath to offer the lick of greeting which it was his practice to bestow.

The result was inevitable.

Nobby tried to save himself by reaching for Berry’s shoulder with his forepaws, but at the critical moment his buffer flinched, the paws fell short of their objective, and with a startled grunt the terrier fell heavily into the bath, his desperate claws leaving two long abrasions upon his victim’s ribs.

The scene that followed baffles description.

Berry began to roar like a wounded bull, while a bedraggled Nobby scrambled and blew and slipped and scratched, caring not at all what was his understanding, so long as it provided a foothold and kept his head above water.

“He thinks I’m a straw!” yelled Berry. “He’s catching at me. Don’t stand there like a half-baked corner-boy. Get him
out!
”

But I was helpless with laughter, from which I only recovered in time to rescue the offender, who, with the bath to himself, was swimming sturdily in the deep water and scrabbling fruitlessly on the porcelain, while Berry, in a bath-dressing-gown and a loud voice, identified and enumerated the several scratches upon his person.

“For Heaven’s sake,” said I, “go and answer the telephone.”

“I shall die,” said Berry, slipping his feet into a pair of pumps. “I shall get pneumonia (bis) and die. I got into that bath in the prime, as it were, the very heyday of life. And now… At least, I shall be in the fashion. ‘The body of the deceased bore signs of extreme physical violence.’ Any more for the crime wave?”

I wrapped Nobby in my brother-in-law’s towel and followed the latter downstairs.

My sister was standing in the library’s doorway.

“What on earth,” she demanded, “has been the matter?”

I held up my hand.

“Listen.”

Berry was speaking upon the telephone.

“Is that the Waddell Institute? I am so very sorry – I might almost say distracted – that you should have been kept waiting… You see, I’ve just been mauled… No. Not ‘called,’ mauled. Emma, ak, u, l for leather – I beg your pardon. Yes, isn’t it tawful? Well, if you must know, it was a bloodhound. They told me at the Dogs’ Home that he’d lost his scent as a result of the air raids, but last night the charwoman gave him a sausage I’d left, and he pulled me down this morning… Yes. This is Major Pleydell… Oh, Walter Thomas Dale? Yes, I remember perfectly… Received the requisite number of votes? Splendid… Can be admitted on the fifteenth of June? Thanks very much… What?… Oh, I shall pull round. Yes, thanks. I shall just get the wounds plugged, and… Goodbye.”

We heard the receiver replaced.

“Hurray!” cried Daphne. “I am glad. That’s a real load off my mind. Write and tell them this morning, will you?” I looked up from the operation of drying Nobby and nodded. “Poor people, they’ll be so thankful. And now, what happened upstairs?”

“Mixed bathing,” said I. “Your husband had not left the bath when Nobby entered it. Both were frightened, but neither was hurt.”

As I spoke, Berry emerged from the library with a cigarette in his mouth.

“My milk-white skin,” he said, “has been defaced. My beautiful trunk has been lacerated as with jagged nails. You know, I tremble for that dog’s soul. It mayn’t be his fault, but it’s invariably my misfortune.” He turned to my sister. “You heard about Walter Thomas? Good. And now I shall slip on some iodine and underclothes and come down as I am.”

“Jonah says we must leave at eleven,” said Daphne. “For goodness’ sake, don’t be late.”

“My wedding garments are prepared and but await my entry. The sponge-bag trousers are unrolled, the elastic-sided boots untreed, the made-up tie dusted. Of course, we’re taking Nobby?”

I looked up from my charge, who was by this time fairly dry and as full of beans as an egg is of meat.

“Of course.”

“Of course. You never know. I might get run over. That’d give him an opening.”

“Here,” said I, “is your towel. He’s all right now.”

Carefully Berry fingered the fabric.

“He was wet, wasn’t he?” he said. “Yes. I suppose I can dry myself on the curtains. I wonder which of us he would bite if I were to assault you.” He hung the towel over his arm, picked up the terrier and looked into his eyes. “You wicked scrap! Why, he’s not nearly dry yet.” Nobby licked his face. “Come along up with uncle, and we’ll share the bathmat.”

The two disappeared up the staircase, wrangling amicably regarding my brother-in-law’s right to pull the terrier’s whiskers.

“You won’t forget to write, will you?” said Daphne, as we returned to the dining-room.

I promise,” said I. “You shall see the letter.”

Trooper Dale, W, had been in my squadron in the field, and for three weeks he had taken my first servant’s place. Incidentally he had also taken two pounds ten shillings in notes, which I frankly admit I had no business to have left in my pocket. Taxed with the theft, he had broken down and told me a piteous tale.

A delicate wife and a little boy with curvature of the spine needed every honest halfpenny that could be turned – and more also. Between a chauffeur’s wages and his Army pay there was fixed a great gulf, and – well, it was hard to know that the child was suffering for want of nourishment.

I caused inquiries to be made. A convenient aunt investigated the case and found it genuine. Between us we did what we could. Then, on her return from Egypt, my sister visited the family and reported that they would be most thankful if the child could be admitted to a first-class home. With the Waddell Institute Berry had influence, and at last a coveted vacancy had been obtained…

Before we left for Monk’s Honour I composed a suitable letter to the ex-trooper, telling him that his little boy could soon be received into an institution, from which there was every reason to believe that he would eventually emerge comparatively restored to health.

It was a lovely day. And we were glad of it, for at two o’clock my Cousin Madrigal was to be married from the old house where she was born, and in the old church in which she was baptized. A special train was being run from London, but Monk’s Honour lay four miles from the nearest station, and it was doubtful if the supply of cars and carriages would prove equal to the demand. Therefore we had decided to go down by road. With my uncle’s land marched the well-timbered acres of Hillingdon, where the Tanyons lived, and they had very kindly invited us to luncheon, so that we should not descend untimely upon a simmering household. In their keeping we proposed to leave Nobby and the car. The house was only five minutes’ walk from the church and as many again from Madrigal’s home, so that once we had reached the village we should need no conveyance until the time came for us to return to Town.

For a wonder we were all on time, and it was barely eleven o’clock when Jonah let in the clutch and the Rolls began to move. Daphne sat in front, and Jill between Berry and me on the back seat. The girls wore dust-cloaks to save their finery, and two large bandboxes concealed their respective hats. Berry, Jonah and I wore light overcoats above our morning-dress, and three tall hats, ironed to perfection, each in his stiff white hat-box, jostled one another on the mat at our feet. A smaller box by their side contained three blooming gardenias.

Once clear of London Jonah gave the Rolls her head, and we were soon floating through the midst of blowing cherry orchards and fragrant hop gardens, which of the great sun were quick with radiance.

The deeper we plunged into the countryside, the richer this became. Here was a treasure of woodland, and there a wealth of pasture: grey lichened walls hoarded a precious park, keeping the timid deer in generous custody: a silver stream stole between smiling hayfields, crept shadowed and cool under the dusty road and, beyond, braided a spreading cloth of golden buttercups, that glowed with a soft brilliancy, such as no handicraft on earth could coax from the hard heart of costly metal.

Presently we left the main road to sail up a curling hill, and over and down past a fair steading into a friendly valley, where the cattle stood drowsy under the shelter of giant chestnut trees, and luxuriant hawthorns in full blossom filled all the neighbouring air with timely sweetness. At the bidding of an aged finger-post Jonah turned to the left, and a moment later the car was scudding up a leafy lane, high-banked, narrow, and soon so screened and arched with foliage that in a little we were being swept through a veritable tunnel, seemingly driven through the living green. More than once the lane changed direction, but the tunnel held: the ground was rising, but we sailed on, the steady purr of the engine swelling into a low snarl as we swung to right and left between the cool green walls…

As we slid through Marvel, the clock of the old grey church showed us that it was five and twenty to one. We were in good time, for now but a short seven miles lay between us and the village which we sought.

Jonah settled himself in his seat and prepared to cover the last lap at an easier pace…

Before we had realized what was happening, it was all over.

The road which we were using ran at right angles into a better-class way by the side of an old oast-house. Here, for Monk’s Honour, we must turn to the left. Jonah, prince of drivers, slowed for the turn and sounded his horn carefully, for ours was the lesser road. As we rounded the corner there was a deafening roar, a cry, a violent shock, a splintering crash, the Rolls quivered like a ship that has struck, and a great green touring car tore past and was gone in a cloud and a flurry of dust before we had come to rest with our near forewheel eighteen inches up the near-side bank.

Dazedly I watched a little white dog with a black patch take a flying leap into the road, stumble, pick himself up, and hurl himself in the wake of the monster, barking furiously. Then the whirling dust swallowed him up, and I saw him no more.

“LF 8057,” said Daphne. “LF 8057. Write it down, somebody. Quick. LF 8057.”

“That’s right,” said Jonah. “I got it too. LF 8057.”

In silence I dragged a pencil out of my pocket and with trembling fingers wrote down the precious figures on the back of an envelope.

“Anybody hurt?” continued Jonah, screwing himself round to look at the back seat.

“We’re all right,” said I. “But it was a close call.”

“The brute!” cried Jill passionately. “The beastly stinking—”