HOW A GOLDEN CALF WAS SET UP, AND NOBBY SHOWED HIMSELF A TRUE PROPHET
Five fat weeks had rolled by since Adèle had eased Jonah of sixty
pounds, and the Antoinette ring we had given her to commemorate the
feat was now for the first time in danger of suffering an eclipse. In
a word, a new star had arisen.
"I dreamed about it," said Daphne. "I knew I should."
I knitted my brows.
"I wish," said I, "I could share your enthusiasm."
"Ah, but you haven't seen it."
"I know, but I don't even want to. If you'd come back raving about a
piece of furniture or a jewel or a picture, I should have been
interested. But a shawl... A shawl leaves me cold."
"I agree," said Jonah. "I've learned to appear attentive to the
description of a frock. I keep a special indulgent smile for the
incoherence inspired by a hat. But when you pipe to me the praises of
a shawl--well, I'm unable to dance."
"Wait till you see it," said Adèle. "Besides, there were some lovely
rugs."
"That's better," said I. "I like a good rug."
"Well, these were glorious," said Jill. "They had the most lovely
sheen. But, of course, the shawl..."
"If anyone," said Jonah, "says that ugly word again, I shall scream."
It was half-past nine of a very beautiful morning, and we were
breakfasting.
The last two days had been wet. In the night, however, the clouds had
disappeared, leaving the great sky flawless, an atmosphere so rare as
tempted shy Distance to approach, and the mountains in all the powdered
glory of their maiden snow.
Seventy miles of magic--that is what Pau stares at. For the Pyrenees,
viewed from this royal box, are purely magical. They do not rise so
high--eleven thousand feet, as mountains go, is nothing wonderful.
There is no might nor majesty about them--distant some thirty odd
miles. They are just an exquisite wall, well and truly laid, and
carved with that careless cunning of the great Artificer into the
likeness of some screen in Heaven.
Where, then, is the magic? Listen. These mountains are never the
same. To-day they are very nigh; to-morrow they will stand farther
than you have ever seen them. On Monday they will lie a mere ridge
above the foot-hills; on Tuesday they will be towering, so that you
must lift up your eyes to find the summits. But yesterday you
marvelled at their stablishment; this morning they will be floating
above the world. One week the clear-cut beauty of their lines and
curves gladdens your heart; the next, a mocking mystery of soft blurred
battlements will tease your vision. Such shifting sorcery is never
stale. Light, shade, and atmosphere play such fantastic tricks with
Pau's fair heritage that the grey town, curled comfortably in the
sunshine upon her plateau's edge, looks not on one, but upon many
prospects. The pageant of the Pyrenees is never done.
As for the wedding garment which they had put on in the night--it made
us all late for breakfast.
The door opened to admit Berry.
The look of resignation upon his face and the silence in which he took
his seat where highly eloquent.
There was no need to ask what was the matter. We knew. Big with the
knowledge, we waited upon the edge of laughter.
As he received his coffee--
"I'm not going on like this," he said shortly. "It's insanitary."
Adèle's lips twitched, and Jill put a hand to her mouth.
"I can't think how it is," said Daphne. "Mine was all right."
"Of course it was," retorted her husband. "So was Adèle's. So was
Jill's. By the time you three nymphs are through, there's no hot water
left."
"That," said I, "is where the geyser comes in. The agent was at some
pains to point out that it was an auxiliary."
"Was he, indeed?" said Berry. "Well, if he'd been at some pains to
point out that it leaked, stank, became white-hot, and was generally
about the finest labour-wasting device ever invented, he'd 've been
nearer the mark. If he'd added that it wasn't a geyser at all, but a
cross between a magic lantern and a money-box----"
"Knack," said Jonah. "That's all it needs. You haven't got the hang
of it yet."
The savagery with which my brother-in-law attacked a roll was almost
frightening.
"W-why money-box?" said Jill tremulously.
"Because," said Berry, "it has to be bribed to devil you. Until you've
put ten centimes in the metre, you don't get any gas. It's a pretty
idea."
Adèle began to shake with laughter.
"You must have done something wrong," said I.
Berry shrugged his shoulders.
"Provided," he said, "that you are fairly active and physically fit,
you can't go wrong. But it's a strain on one's sanity.... No, I don't
think I'll have any omelet. They're so impatient."
I decided to apply the spur.
"But the agent showed us exactly----"
"Look here," said Berry, "you enter that bathroom, clothed--after a
fashion--and in your right mind. Then you leave it for some matches.
On your return you turn on the gas. After wasting four matches, you
laugh pleasantly, put on your dressing-gown again, and go about the
house asking everyone for a ten-centime piece... This you place in the
slot. Then you go out again and try to remember where you put the
matches. By the time you're back, the whole room is full of gas, so
you open the window wide and clean your teeth to fill up the time.
Long before it's safe you strike another match. The thing lights with
an explosion that shortens your life.... In about two minutes it emits
a roaring sound and begins to shake all over. By now all the taps are
red-hot, and, by the time you've burnt yourself to hell, you're
wondering whether, if you start at once, you'll have time to leave the
house before the thing bursts. Finally, you knock the gas off with the
cork mat....
"After a decent interval you start again. This time you turn on the
water first. Stone cold, of course. When you've used enough gas to
roast an ox, you hope like anything and reduce the flow." He paused to
pass a hand wearily across his eyes. "Have you ever seen Vesuvius in
eruption?" he added. "I admit no rocks were discharged--at least, I
didn't see any. There may be some in the bath. I didn't wait to
look.... Blinded by the steam, deafened by the noise, you make a rush
for the door. This seems to have been moved. You feel all over the
walls, like a madman. In the frenzy of despair--it's astonishing how
one clings to life--you hurl yourself at the bath and turn on both
taps.... As if by magic the steam disappears, the roaring subsides,
and two broad streams of pure cold water issue, like crystal founts,
into the bath. Now you know why I'm so jolly this morning."
With tears running down her cheeks--
"You must have a bath in the dressing-room," wailed Daphne. "The
others do."
"I won't," said Berry. "It faces North."
"Then you must have it at night."
"Not to-night," I interposed. "Nobby's bagged it."
With the laugh of a maniac, my brother-in-law requested that the facts
should be laid before the Sealyham, and the latter desired to waive his
rights.
"Of course," he concluded, "if you want me to become verminous, just
say so."
There was a shriek of laughter.
"And now be quick," said Daphne, "or we shall be late for the meet.
And I particularly want to see Sally."
Sarah Featherstone was the possessor of the coveted shawl.
We had met her by chance upon the boulevard two days before. No one of
us had had any idea that she was not in Ireland, whither she had
retired upon her marriage, and where her passion for hunting kept her
most of the year, and when we learned that she had already spent six
months in the Pyrenees, and would be at Pau all the winter, we could
hardly believe our ears. Her little son, it appeared, had been ailing,
and the air of the Pyrenees was to make him well. So their summer had
been passed in the mountains, and, with three good hunters from
Ireland, the winter was to be supported under the shadow of the healing
hills.
"It hurts me to think of Ireland, but I'm getting to love this place.
I want the rain on my face sometimes, and the earth doesn't smell so
sweet; but the sun's a godsend--I've never seen it before--and the air
makes me want to shout. Oh, I've got a lot to be thankful for.
Peter's put on a stone and a half to date, George'll be out for
Christmas, and, now that you've come to stay..."
We were all glad of Sarah--till yesterday.
Now, however, she had set up a golden calf, which our womenkind were
worshipping out of all reason and convenience.
At the mention of the false prophet's name, Jonah and I pushed back our
chairs.
"Don't leave me," said Berry, "I know what's coming. I had it last
night until I fell asleep. Then that harpy"--he nodded at
Daphne--"dared to rouse me out of a most refreshing slumber to ask me
whether I thought 'the Chinese did both sides at once or one after the
other.' With my mind running on baths, I said they probably began on
their feet and washed upwards. By the time the misunderstanding had
been cleared up, I was thoroughly awake and remained in a hideous and
agonising condition of sleepless lassitude for the space of one hour.
The tea came sharp at half-past seven, and the shawl rolled up twenty
seconds later. I tell you I'm sick of the blasted comforter."
A squall of indignation succeeded this blasphemy.
When order had been restored--
"Any way," said Jill, "Sally says the sailor who sold it her 'll be
back with some more things next month, and she's going to send him
here. He only comes twice a year, and----"
"Isn't it curious," said Jonah, "how a sailor never dies at sea?"
"Most strange," said Berry. "The best way will be to ask him to stay
here. Then he can have a bath in the morning, and we can bury him
behind the garage."
* * * * *
With that confident accuracy which waits upon a player only when it is
uncourted, Jill cracked her ball across the six yards of turf and into
the hole.
"Look at that," said Adèle.
Jonah raised his eyes to heaven.
"And the game," he said, "means nothing to her. It never has. Years
ago she and I got into the final at Hunstanton. She put me dead on the
green at the thirteenth, and I holed out. When I turned round to say
we were three up, she wasn't there. Eventually I found her looking for
her iron. She'd laid it down, to start on a daisy chain."
"I only put it down for a second," protested Jill, "and you must admit
the daisies were simply huge."
"What happened?" said Adèle, bubbling.
"The daisy chain won us the match. She was much more interested in the
former, and actually continued its fabrication between her shots."
We passed to the next tee.
As I was addressing the ball--
"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 Adèle. "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 Adèle. "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 Adèle, "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 Adèle.
"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 Nobby 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 Nobby'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 Adèle, "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."
"I've no fear of that," said Adèle. "I can't answer for the man,
because we didn't see him, but Madame Marat's no fool."
"Incidentally," said I, "it's one thing giving Planchet our address,
but it's quite another persuading him to fetch up. He may have other
sheep to shear."
"We can only pray that he hasn't," said Daphne. "It's too much to
expect him to have another shawl, but I should like the first pick of
what he has."
Berry regarded his wife.
"If," he said, "you will swear to select from his wares all the
blinkin' presents with which you propose to signalise this Yuletide,
I'll--I'll tie them all up without a word."
"Same here," said I. "Our gifts will cost us more, but we shall live
the longer."
"Ditto," said Jonah.
The girls agreed cheerfully, and, before luncheon was over, it had been
decided to give Planchet three days in which to make his appearance,
and that, if he had not arrived by that time, then and then only should
we resort to the shops.
Less than an hour had elapsed, and we were just about to make ready to
take the air by the simple expedient of proceeding at a high speed in
the direction of Biarritz, when Falcon entered the room.
"There's an individual, madam, 'as come to the door----"
"Planchet? Is it Planchet?"
"I'm afraid I can 'ardly say, madam, but 'e 'as this address upon a
piece of note-paper, madam, and----"
"All right, Falcon, I'll come."
The butler's valiant endeavours to cope with the heritage of Babel were
better known to us than he imagined. More than once his efforts to
extract from strangers that information which was his due, and at the
same time, like a juggler of many parts, to keep the balls of Dignity
and Courtesy rolling, had been overheard, and had afforded us
gratification so pronounced as to necessitate the employment of
cushions and other improvised gags if our faithful servant's feelings
were to come to no harm.
"I'll go," said Jill and Adèle simultaneously.
We all went, and we were all just in time to see our visitor precede
the Sealyham in the direction of the lodge.
Aghast at such ill-timed pleasantry, we erupted pellmell into the
drive, all frantic by word or deed to distract the terrier from his
purpose. Shrieks, curses, and a copy of _La Fontaine's Fables_ were
hurled simultaneously and in vain at our favourite, and it was Berry,
to whom the fear of further acquaintance with the emporiums of Pau must
have lent wings, who actually overtook and discomfited the pursuer some
three yards from the road.
It was with feelings of inexpressible relief that we presently beheld
the three returning--Berry alternately rebuking the Sealyham, who was
under his arm, and apologising to his guest, the latter wide-eyed,
something out of breath, and anything but easy, and Nobby apparently
torn between an aggressively affectionate regard for his captor and a
still furiously expressed suspicion of the stranger within our gates.
As the trio drew nigh--
"It is Monsieur Planchet," called Berry. "He's brought some things for
us to see. His man's behind with a barrow."
With beating hearts we trooped back into the house....
As I returned from thrusting Nobby into a bedroom, Monsieur Planchet's
hireling staggered into the hall, a gigantic basket-trunk poised
precariously upon his hunched shoulders.
The inspection was held in the drawing-room.
It was rather late in the day to assume that nonchalant air which has,
from time immemorial, adorned the armouries of all accomplished
hucksters.
Our instant recognition of the salesman, our energetic solicitude for
his safety, and our obvious anxiety to dissociate ourselves from the
policy of direct action adopted by the terrier, had not only betrayed,
but emphasised, the fact that the sailor's arrival was very much to our
taste. Clearly, if we did not wish to pay through the nose for what we
purchased, our only course was to feign disappointment when the wares
were produced.
For what it was worth I circulated a covert recommendation of this
wile, which was acknowledged with sundry nods and inaudible
assurances--the latter, so far as Jill was concerned, too readily given
to inspire me with confidence.
Sure enough, when the lid of the trunk was lifted, and Planchet plucked
forth a truly exquisite rug and flung it dexterously across a chair, my
grey-eyed cousin let out a gasp which an infant in arms could not have
misinterpreted.
There was only one thing to be done, and Daphne did it.
With a heroic disregard for her reputation, she shook her head.
"Too bright," she said shortly. "Don't you think so?" she added,
turning to Berry.
The latter swallowed before replying.
"It's positively gaudy," he said gloomily.
Planchet shrugged his shoulders and began to unfasten a bale....
By the time seven more Persian rugs--all old and all more than
ordinarily pleasing in design and colouring--were sprawling about the
chamber, any organised depreciation was out of the question. Where all
were so beautiful, it required a larger output of moral courage than
any one of us could essay to decry the whole pack. By way of doing his
or her bit, everybody decided to praise one or two to the implied
condemnation of the remainder. In the absence of collusion, it was
inevitable that those rugs which somebody had thus branded as goats
should invariably include somebody else's sheep. The result was that
every single rug had its following. A glance at their owner, who was
standing aside, making no offer to commend his carpets, but fingering
his chin and watching us narrowly with quick-moving eyes, showed that
he was solely engaged in considering how much he dared ask.
I moved across to him.
"You only come here twice a year?" I inquired.
"That is so, _Monsieur_."
"And how do you get these things? By barter?"
"Yes, _Monsieur_."
After a little encouragement, he explained that before each voyage he
laid in a stock of knives, gramophones, mirrors, trinkets, and the
like, these to exchange with the natives in the bazaars of the smaller
Eastern ports at which his ship touched. From Bordeaux he used to set
out, and to Bordeaux he as regularly returned. An aunt dwelling at Pau
was responsible for his selection of the town as a market for his
goods. I should not have taken him for a sailor, and said as much.
With a shy smile, he confessed that he was a steward, adding that he
was a landsman at heart, and that, but for the opportunities of trading
which his occupation presented he should go to sea no more.
Suddenly--
"What else have you got?" said Daphne.
Six panels of Chinese embroidery--all powder-blue and gold, 'laborious
Orient ivories,' a gorgeous hanging that had been the coat of a proud
mandarin, three Chinese mats, aged and flawless, a set of silken
doilies--each one displaying a miniature landscape limned with a
subtlety that baffled every eye--one by one these treasures were laid
before us.
Even Jonah went down before the ivories.
Ere the trunk was empty, we had, one and all, dropped our masks and
were revelling openly.
"Now, isn't that beautiful?" "Sally's got a ball like that, but it
isn't so big." "It's just as well she's in Ireland, or we shouldn't
have had those mats." "You know, that rug on the chair's a devilish
fine one." "They all are." "Yes, but that--my dear fellow, it's the
sort of rug they put in the window and refuse to sell, because it's
such an advertisement." "I'll tell you what, if we had those panels
made into curtains, they'd look simply priceless in the drawing-room."
"Give me the ivories."
It was Adèle who pulled the check-string.
"What's the price of this rug?" she said quietly.
There was an expectant and guilty hush.
With a careless flourish we had called the tune--clamoured for it....
If the piper's fee was exorbitant, we had only ourselves to thank.
Planchet hesitated. Then--
"Five hundred francs, _Madame_."
Ten pounds.
You could have heard a pin drop.
The rug was worth sixty. In Regent Street or Fifth Avenue we should
have been asked a hundred. If this was typical of Planchet's prices,
no wonder Sally had plunged....
I took out a pencil and picked up a pad of notepaper.
"And the other rugs?" I inquired.
"The same price, _Monsieur_."
The rugs went down.
Slowly, and without a shadow of argument, the prices of the other
valuables were asked, received, and entered.
With a shaking hand I counted up the figures--eight thousand six
hundred francs.
I passed the paper to Berry.
"Will you pay him?" I said. "I haven't got enough at the bank here,
and you can't expect him to take a foreign cheque."
"Right oh!"
"He may not want to part with them all at one house," said Daphne.
"You'd better ask him."
Adèle smiled very charmingly.
"We like your pretty things very much," she said. "May we have what
you've shown us?"
Planchet inclined his head.
"As _Madame_ pleases."
I crossed to where he was standing and went through my list,
identifying each article as I came to it, and making him confirm the
price. When we had finished, I insisted upon him checking my figures.
He did so with some show of reluctance. The total, seemingly, was good
enough.
When the reckoning was over, I hesitated.
Then--
"You know," I said slowly, "we'd have to pay much more than this in the
shops."
It seemed only fair.
Planchet spread out his hands.
"_Monsieur_ is very kind: but for me, I should not obtain more from the
merchants. I know them. They are robbers. I prefer infinitely to
deal with you."
"All right. You don't mind a cheque?"
"A cheque, _Monsieur_?"
"Yes, on the bank here. We haven't so much money in the house."
The little man hesitated. Nervously the big brown eyes turned from me
to fall upon his possessions....
"That's all right," said Berry. "The bank's still open. Fitch can run
up in the car and get the money. He's probably had a dud cheque some
time or other. Anyway, considering he knows nothing of us, and Sally's
out of reach, I don't blame him."
Such a way out of the difficulty was unanimously approved, and when I
communicated our intention to Planchet, the latter seemed greatly
relieved. It was not, he explained volubly, that he did not trust us,
but when a poor sailor produced such a cheque to a bank....
As Berry left to give the chauffeur his instructions--
"Last time you came," said Daphne, "you brought a beautiful shawl.
Mrs. Featherstone bought it."
Planchet frowned thoughtfully. Then his face lighted with recollection.
"Perfectly, _Madame_. I remember it. It was very fine. I have
another like it at home."
My sister caught her breath.
"For sale?"
"If _Madame pleases_." Adèle and Jill clasped one another. "I will
bring it to-morrow."
With an obvious effort Daphne controlled her excitement.
"I--we should like to have a look at it," she said.
Planchet inclined his head.
"To-morrow morning, _Madame_."
Without more ado he packed up his traps, announced that, as he was
returning on the morrow, there was now no occasion for him to wait for
his money, and, thanking us profusely for our patronage and assuring us
that he was ever at our service, summoned his employee and withdrew
humbly enough.
It was fully a quarter of an hour before the first wave of our pent-up
enthusiasm had spent itself. After a positive debauch of
self-congratulation, amicable bickering with regard to the precise
order of precedence in which an antiquary would place our acquisitions,
and breathless speculation concerning their true worth, we sank into
sitting postures about the room and smiled affectionately upon one
another.
"And now," said Berry, "what about tying them up?"
"What for?" said Jill.
"Well, you can't send them through the post as they are."
"You don't imagine," said Daphne, in the horrified tone of one who
repeats a blasphemy, "you don't imagine that we're going to give these
things away?"
Berry looked round wildly.
"D'you mean to say you're going to keep them?" he cried.
"Of course we are," said his wife.
"What, all of them?"
My sister nodded.
"Every single one," she said.
With an unearthly shriek, Berry lay back in his chair and drummed with
his heels upon the floor.
"I can't bear it!" he roared. "I can't bear it! I won't. It's
insufferable. I've parted with the savings of a lifetime for a whole
roomful of luxuries, not one of which, in the ordinary way, we should
have dreamed of purchasing, not one of which we require, to not one of
which, had you seen it in a shop, you would have given a second
thought, all of which are probably spurious----"
"Shame!" cried Jill.
"----only to be told that I've still got to prosecute the mutually
revolting acquaintance with infuriated shopkeepers forced upon me this
morning. It's cruelty to animals, and I shall write to the Y.M.C.A.
Besides, it's more blessed----"
"I can't help it," said Daphne. "The man had absolutely nothing that
would have done for anybody. If----"
"One second," said her husband. "I haven't parsed that sentence yet.
And what d'you mean by 'done for'? Because----"
"If," Daphne continued doggedly, "we sent one of those rugs to someone
for Christmas, they'd think we'd gone mad."
Berry sighed.
"I'm not sure we haven't," he said. "Any way--" he nodded at Jonah and
myself--"I'll trouble each of you gents for a cheque for sixty pounds.
As it is, I shall have to give up paying my tailor again, and what with
Lent coming on..." Wearily he rose to his feet. "And now I'm going to
have a good healthy cry. Globules the size of pigeons' eggs will well
from my orbs."
"I know," said Jill. "These things can be our Christmas presents to
one another."
Berry laughed hysterically.
"What a charming idea!" he said brokenly. "And how generous! I shall
always treasure it. Every time I look at my pass-book..."
Overcome with emotion he stepped out of the room.
A muffled bark reminded me that Nobby was still imprisoned, and I rose
to follow my brother-in-law.
As I was closing the door, I heard my wife's voice.
"You know, I'm simply pining to see that shawl."
* * * * *
At ten o'clock the next morning the most beautiful piece of embroidery
I have ever seen passed into our possession in return for the
ridiculously inadequate sum of two thousand francs.
Obviously very old, the pale yellow silk of which the shawl was made
was literally strewn with blossoms, each tender one of them a work of
art. All the matchless cunning, all the unspeakable patience, all the
inscrutable spirit of China blinked and smiled at you out of those
wonderful flowers. There never was such a show. Daring walked
delicately. Daintiness was become bold. Those that wrought the
marvel--for so magnificent an artifice was never the work of one
man--were painters born--painters whose paints were threads of silk,
whose brushes, needles. Year after year they had toiled upon these
twenty-five square feet of faded silk, and always perfectly. The thing
was a miracle--the blazing achievement of a reachless ideal.
Upon both lovely sides the work was identical: the knotted
fringe--itself bewildering evidence of faultless labour--was three feet
deep, and while the whole shawl could have been passed through a
bracelet, it scaled the remarkable weight of nearly six pounds.
Daphne, Adèle, and Jill with one voice declared that it was finer than
Sally's. As for Berry, Jonah, and myself, we humbly withdrew such
adverse criticism as we had levelled at the latter, and derived an
almost childish glee from the possession of its fellow.
It was, indeed, our joy over this latest requisition that stiffened
into resolution an uneasy feeling that we ought to give Sally a slice
of our luck.
After considerable discussion we decided to make her a present of the
three Chinese mats. She had bought three of Planchet upon his last
visit, and those we had just purchased would bring her set up to six.
Lest we should repent our impulse, we did them up there and then and
sent them off by Fitch the same afternoon.
* * * * *
Christmas was over and gone.
In the three days immediately preceding the festival, such popularity
with the tradesmen of the town as we had forfeited was more than
redeemed at the expense, so far as I was concerned, of an overdraft at
the bank. Absurdly handsome presents were purchased right and left.
Adèle's acquaintance was extremely wide. Observing that it was also in
every instance domiciled in the United States, with the density of a
male I ventured to point out that upon the day which my wife's presents
were intended to enrich, all of them would indubitably be lying in the
custody of the French postal authorities. Thereupon it was gently
explained to me that, so long as a parcel had been obviously posted
before Christmas, its contents were always considered to have arrived
"in time"--a conceit which I had hitherto imagined to be the property
of bookmakers alone. In short, from first to last, my wife was
inexorable. But for the spectacle of Berry and Jonah being
relentlessly driven along the same track, life would have lost its
savour. Indeed, as far as we three were concerned, most of the working
hours of Christmas Eve were spent at the post office.
The registration of a postal packet in France is no laughing matter.
When a coloured form has to be obtained, completed, and deliberately
scrutinised before a parcel can be accepted, when there is only one
pen, where there are twenty-seven people in front of you--each with two
or more packages to be registered--when there is only one registration
clerk, when mental arithmetic is not that clerk's _forte_, when it is
the local custom invariably to question the accuracy first of the
postage demanded and then of the change received, when the atmosphere
of the post office is germane to poison-gas, and when, you are bearing
twelve parcels and leading a Sealyham, the act of registration and its
preliminaries are conducive to heart-failure.
The miniature of herself, however, with which my wife presented me on
Christmas Day atoned for everything....
And now--Christmas was over and gone.
The New Year, too, had come in with a truly French explosion of
merriment and good-will.
It was, in fact, the fourth day of January, and, with the exception of
my cousins, who were upon the links, we were proceeding gingerly down
the Rue du Lycée, en route for Lourdes, when my sister gave a cry and
called upon me to stop.
As I did so, I saw Mrs. Featherstone stepping towards us across the
open space which fronts the market.
Berry climbed out of the dickey, and Adèle and Daphne got out of the
car.
As I followed them--
"Sally, my dear," said Daphne, "I never knew you were back."
"I wasn't, till this morning," panted Sally. "I only arrived at eight.
For the last three hours I've been----"
"Before you tell us anything," said Daphne, "we want to thank you.
Since you've been away, Planchet's been. He's sold us the most lovely
things I've ever seen. We're so grateful to you, we don't know what to
do."
"Well, for goodness' sake," rejoined Sally, "insure them to-day. I've
just been cleaned out of everything I've got."
"Cleaned out?" cried Daphne. "D'you mean to say you've been robbed?"
"That's right," said Sally. "Peter and I got back this morning to find
the Marats gone and the place stripped. Of course, the furniture
belonging to the flat's there, but the only decent things were what I'd
added, and those have vanished."
"Not all the things you got from Planchet?"
"Rather," said Sally. "Shawl and everything. Jolly, isn't it?"
"What an awful shame!" cried Adèle. "But who's taken them? Not the
Marats?"
"Must be," said Mrs. Featherstone. She nodded over her shoulder.
"I've just been to the police about it, but you know how hopeless they
are."
"If I can do anything," said Berry, "you know I'd only be too happy..."
"Thanks awfully," was the reply, "but to tell you the truth, I don't
see what there is to be done. As far as I can make out, they left
before Christmas, so they've got a pretty good start."
"I'm terribly sorry," said I. "Of course I never saw the goods, but,
if they were anything like the things we bought, it's a cruel shame."
Mrs. Featherstone laughed.
"I do feel sore," she admitted. "The maddening part of it is, I meant
to take the shawl home to show George, and then, in the rush at the
last, I left it out." She turned to my sister. "And you know I
trusted that couple implicitly."
"I know you did."
"The queer thing is, they seem to have suffered one solitary pang of
remorse. Did I show you those Chinese mats I was so crazy about?
Well, after they'd gone, I suppose, their hearts smote them, because
they did the three up and sent them back."
For a moment we looked at one another.
Then--
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Sally," said Daphne gently, "but you
mustn't give the brutes that credit. We sent you the mats as a
Christmas present." Sally knitted her brows. "They're not yours. We
bought them from Planchet. Directly I saw them, I thought how
beautifully they'd match yours, and we wanted you to have a set."
Sally stared at her.
"But I could have sworn-----"
"I know," said Daphne. "It was because they were such a wonderful
match that we----"
"What else did he sell you?"
A sudden thought came to me, and I turned to catch Berry by the arm....
As men in a film, he and I looked at one another with open mouths....
Sublimely unconscious. Daphne and Adèle were reciting the list of our
treasures.
Mrs. Featherstone heard them out solemnly. Then--
"And what," she said, "does Planchet look like?"
It became Daphne's turn to stare.
I moistened my lips.
"Slight, dark, clean-shaven, large brown eyes, nervous manner, scar on
the left temple--_or am I describing Marat?_"
Sally spread out her hands.
"To the life," she said simply.
There was a dreadful silence.
At length--
"'Sold,'" I said slowly. "'By order of the trustees. Owner going
abroad.' Marat was with you when you bought them, of course? But what
a smart bit of work!"
Sally covered her face and began to shake with laughter. Daphne and
Adèle stared at her as if bewitched.
At his third attempt to speak--
"Well, that's topping," said Berry. "And now will you come back and
get your things now, or shall we bring them over to-morrow? We've
taken every care of them." He sighed. "When I think," he added,
"that, but for my good offices, Nobby would have sent that treacherous
drawlatch away, not only empty, but with the modern equivalent of a
flea in his ear, I could writhe. When I reflect that it was I who
supported the swine's predilection for hard cash, I could scream. But
when I remember that ever since our purchase of the shawl, my wife has
never once stopped enumerating and/or indicating the many superiorities
which distinguish it from yours, I want to break something." He looked
round savagely. "Where's a grocer's?" he demanded. "I want some
marmalade."