Section 9 of 25 - Table of Contents
CHAPTER V
HOW JILL'S EDUCATION WAS IMPROVED, AND DAPHNE GAVE HER HUSBAND THE SLIP.
"As I have frequently observed," said Berry, "your education has been
neglected. I'm not blaming those responsible. Your instruction must have
been a thankless task."
"I should think the masters who taught you enjoyed their holidays."
Such a reply from Jill was like a sudden snowstorm in June, and Berry,
who was in the act of drinking, choked with surprise. When he had
recovered his breath--
"You rude child," he said. "My prizes are among my most cherished
possessions."
"Where d'you keep them?"--suspiciously.
"Chancery Lane Safe Deposit," was the reply. "When I die I shall leave
them to the Wallace Collection. The shoes I wore at the first night of
_Buzz-Buzz_ are already promised to the Imperial Institute."
"When you've quite finished," said Daphne, "I'll suggest that we go up
for the day on Friday. I don't mean to-morrow, but the one after."
"It's a little early in the year," said I. "All the same, there's no
reason why we shouldn't go up again later on. It's always open."
"If the weather holds," said Jonah, "it will be looking wonderful."
Oxford. Some reference had been made to the city while we sat at
dessert, and in the midst of a banana Jill had confessed that she had
never been there. The rest of us knew the place well. Berry had been at
Magdalen, Jonah at New College, and I had fleeted four fat years
carelessly as a member of "The House." But, while my sister had spent
many hours there during my residence, Jill had not once visited her
brother--largely, no doubt, because there was a disparity of six years,
in her favour, between their ages.
"I warn you," said Berry, "that I may break down. My return to the
haunts of early innocence may be too much for me. Yes," he added, "I
shouldn't be at all surprised if I were to beat my breast somewhere near
The Martyrs' Memorial."
"An appropriate locality," said Jonah. "If my memory serves me, it was
for a crime committed almost under the shadow of that monument that you
were irrevocably sent down."
Berry selected a cigar before replying. Then--
"Only a malignant reptile would refer to that miscarriage of justice. It
was not my fault that the animal which I employed exceeded its
instructions and, as it were, pushed on after attaining its objective."
"You expected it to consolidate the position?" said I.
"Precisely. To dig itself in. It was like this. It was expedient--no
matter why--that a large boar should be introduced into Balliol College
shortly before 10 p.m. A gigantic specimen was accordingly procured and
brought to the Broad Street entrance in a hansom cab. It was then
induced to take up a position commanding the wicket-door. The
juxtaposition of two hurdles, held in place by my subordinates,
frustrated any attempt at untimely evacuation. At a given signal the
customary kick was administered to the gate, indicating that some person
or persons sought admission to the foundation. Unhesitatingly the porter
responded to the summons. The wicket was opened, and the pig passed in."
"I think it was very cruel," said Daphne.
"Not at all," said her husband. "There was more succulent grass upon the
lawns of Balliol than was dreamt of in its ferocity. To continue. My
mission accomplished, I entered the hansom and drove to the Club. It was
during an unfortunate altercation with the cabman, who demanded an
unreasonably exorbitant sum for the conveyance of the pig, that I was
accosted by a proctor for being gownless. The cab was still redolent of
its late occupant, and, although nothing was said at the time, it was
this which afterwards led the authorities to suspect my complicity. Even
so, nothing would have been said but for a most distressing development.
"I had expected that the pig would confine its attention to the
quadrangles and gardens and to startling such members of the college as
happened casually to encounter it. Fate, however, decreed otherwise. It
appears that the creature's admission coincided with the opening of a
door which led directly into the Senior Common Room, where the Master
and Fellows were still discussing classical criticism and some '34 port.
Attracted by the shaft of light and the mellow atmosphere of good cheer
and hilarity which streamed into the comparative gloom of the
quadrangle, the pig made a bee-line for the doorway, and a moment later
the exclusive circle was enriched by the presence of this simple and
unaffected guest. The details of what followed have never transpired,
but from the Senior Proctor's demeanour at a subsequent interview, and
the amount of the bill for damage which I was requested to pay, I am
inclined to think that the pig must have been a confirmed Bolshevist."
"I hope you apologized to the Master."
"I did. I received in reply a letter which I shall always value. It ran
as follows--
_SIR,_
_I beg that you will think no more of the matter. Youth must be served.
Many years ago I assisted your father in a somewhat similar enterprise.
Till the other evening I had always believed that the havoc provoked by
the introduction of a dancing bear into a concert-room could not be
surpassed. I am now less certain._
_Yours very faithfully,_
.."
"I think," said Jill, "he was very forgiving."
"It was deep," said Berry, "calling to deep. By the way, you'll all be
pleased to hear that I have received peremptory instructions 'within one
week to abolish the existing number by which this house is
distinguished, and to mark or affix on some conspicuous part thereof a
new number, and to renew the same as often as it is obliterated or
defaced.' Selah."
"Whatever," said Daphne, "do you mean?"
"Sorry," said Berry. "Let me put it another way. Some genii,
masquerading as officials, have got a move on. Snuffing the air of
'Reconstruction,' they have realized with a shock that the numbers of
the houses in this street have not been changed for over half a century.
Thirstily they have determined to repair the omission. We've always been
'38.' In a few days, with apologies to Wordsworth, we shall be '7.' A
solemn thought."
"But can we do nothing?"
"Certainly. In that case somebody else will obliterate the existing
number, and I shall be summoned to appear before a Justice of the
Peace."
"It's outrageous," said Daphne. "It'll cause endless confusion, and
think of all our notepaper and cards. All the dies will have to be
scrapped and new ones cut."
"Go easy," said I. "After a decent interval they'll alter the name of
the street. Many people feel that The Quadrant should be renamed 'The
Salient,' and Piccadilly 'High Street.' I'm all for Progress."
"Is this renumbering stunt a fact?" said Jonah. "Or are you Just being
funny?"
"It's a poisonous but copper-bottomed fact," said Berry. "This is the
sort of thing we pay rates and taxes for. Give me Germany."
"Can't we refuse?"
"I've rung up Merry and Merry, and they've looked up the law, and say
there's no appeal. We are at the mercy of some official who came out top
in algebra in '64 and has never recovered. Let us be thankful it wasn't
geography. Otherwise we should be required to name this house 'Sea View'
or 'Clovelly.' Permit me to remark that the port has now remained
opposite you for exactly four minutes of time, for three of which my
goblet has been empty."
"I think it's cruel," said Jill, passing on the decanter. "I think----"
"Hush," said Berry. "That wonderful organ, my brain, is working."
Rapidly he began to write upon the back of a _menu_. "We must inform the
world through the medium of the Press. An attractive paragraph must
appear in _The Times_. What could be more appropriate than an epitaph?
Ply me with wine, child. The sage is in labour with a song." Jill filled
his glass and he drank. "Another instant, and you shall hear the
deathless words. I always felt I should be buried in the Abbey. Anybody
give me a rhyme for 'bilge'? No, it doesn't matter. I have ingeniously
circumvented the crisis."
He added one line, held the card at arm's length, regarded it as a
painter a canvas, sighed, and began to read.
_A painful tale I must relate.
We used to live at thirty-eight,
But as we hope to go to heaven,
We've come to live at number seven.
Now, if we'd lived at number nine,
I'd got a simply priceless line--
I didn't want to drag in heaven,
But nothing else will rhyme with seven._
"Soldier, mountebank, and rhymester too!" said Jonah. "And yet we
breathe the same air."
"I admit it's strange," said my brother-in-law. "But it was foretold by
my predecessor. I think you'll find the prophecy in _Henry the Fifth_.
'And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Neighboured by fruit of
baser quality.' My game, I think. What?"
* * * * *
As was fitting, St. George's Day dawned fair and cloudless. Her
passionate weeping of the day before dismissed, April was smiling--shyly
at first, as if uncertain that her recent waywardness had been forgiven,
and by and by so bravely that all the sweet o' the year rose up out of
the snowy orchards, dewy and odorous, danced in the gleaming meadows and
hung, glowing and breathless, in every swaying nursery that Spring had
once more built upon the patient trees.
The Rolls sailed through the country, proudly indifferent to hill or
dale, melting the leagues to miles with such swift deadliness as made
you sorry for the lean old road that once had been so much to reckon
with.
I was on the point of communicating this Quixotic reflection to Agatha
Deriot, who was seated in front between Jill and myself, when there fell
upon my reluctant ears that heavy sigh which only an expiring tire can
heave. As I slowed up, it occurred to me that the puissance of the roads
of England was still considerable.
"Which is it?" said Agatha.
"Off hind, I fancy." We were in the midst of a pleasant beechwood, and I
pulled in to the side of the road with a grunt. "If it had to be, it
might have happened in a less pleasing locality."
"I gather," said Berry's voice, "I gather that something untoward has
befallen the automobile. Should I be wrong, correct me and explain the
stoppage."
"With that singular clarity of intellect which never fails to recognize
the obvious, you have correctly diagnosed the case. We have picked up a
puncture."
"Speak for yourself," said Berry. "I always let them lie. I did gather a
bunch of bursts once, but----"
"Sorry," said I. "I forgot how near we were to Oxford. What I meant was
that some hostile body of a sharp nature had penetrated a tire, thus
untimely releasing the air hitherto therein confined."
"Thank you," said Berry. "Experience leads me to anticipate a slight
delay, the while you effect the necessary repairs. I shall therefore
compose myself to slumber and meditation. Possibly I shall toy with a
cigarette. Possibly----"
"Your programme will, I fear, miscarry for more than one reason. In the
first place, you're sitting on the jack. In the second place, clumsy
fool though you are, Jonah can change the wheel quicker if you help
him." With that I climbed out of the driver's seat, and lighted a
cigarette. "Who," I added, "will come for a little walk?"
"I'm coming," said Daphne, setting aside the rug and rising from her
seat between Jonah and her husband.
"I forbid you," said the latter, "to consort with that blasphemous
viper."
My sister leaned down and kissed him.
"A little gentle exercise," she said, "will do you good. I expect it'll
make you hot, so take your coat off. Then you'll have something to put
on again."
Coldly Berry regarded her.
"How long," he said, "did it take you to work that out?"
As we strolled down the sun-flecked road in the wake of Miss Deriot and
Jill, I turned and looked back at the car. Something was squatting on
the tarmac close to the petrol tank. The fact that Jonah was unstrapping
a spare wheel suggested that my brother-in-law was taking exercise....
My sister slid an arm through mine, and we walked idly on. The road
curled out of the wood into the unchecked sunlight, rising to where its
flashing hedgerows fell back ten paces each, leaving a fair green ride
on either side of the highway. Here jacketed elms made up a stately
colonnade, ready to nod their gay green crests at each stray zephyr's
touch, and throwing broad equidistant bars of shadow across the fresh
turf and the still moist ribbon of metalling beyond. Two piles of stones
lay heaped upon the sward, and, as we drew near, we heard the busy chink
of a stone-breaker's hammer, a melodious sound that fitted both morning
and venue to perfection. Again I fell to thinking on the old coach
road....
The stone-breaker was an old, old man, but the tone in which he gave us
"Good day" was blithe and good to hear, while he looked as fit as a
fiddle.
"You work very fast," said I, as he reached for a mammoth flint.
"Aye," he said. "But it come easy, sir, after so many year."
"Have you always done this?" said Daphne.
The old fellow plucked the gauze from his brow and touched his battered
hat.
"Naught else, m'm. Nine-and-seventy year come Michaelmas I've kep' the
Oxford road. An' me father before me."
"That's a wonderful record," said I amazedly. "And you carry your years
well."
"Thank you, sir. There's a many as tells me that. I'll be ninety-one in
the month o' June. An' can't write me own name, sir."
"That's no shame," said I. "Tell me, you must remember the coaches."
"That do I. They was took off my road just afore I started breakin'
meself, but long afore that I used to bring me father 'is dinner, an' I
remember them well. Many a time I've watched the 'Tantivy' go by, an'
Muster Cracknell drivin'. Always nodded to father, 'e did, an' passed
the time o' day. An' father, 'e'd wave 'is 'ammer, an' call me an' tell
me 'is name, an' what a fine coachman 'e were. 'Twas a Birmin'ham coach,
the 'Tantivy,' but Muster Cracknell used to 'and over at Oxford. London
to Oxford was 'is stretch, sir. An' back."
"Isn't that wonderful?" said Daphne.
Agatha and Jill, who had joined us, agreed in awestruck whispers.
The old fellow laughed.
"I've seen the coaches, m'm, and I've seen the motors, an' they can't
neither of them do without the road, m'm. As it was in the beginnin', so
ever it shall be. Soon I'll pass, but the road'll go on, an' others'll
break for 'er. For she must needs be patched, you know, m'm, she must
needs be patched...."
We gave him money, and he rose and uncovered and pulled his white
forelock with the antique courtesy of his class. As we turned away, I
pinched Daphne's arm.
"I'll bet no man's ever done that to you before."
She shook her head, smiling.
"I don't think so. It was very nice of him."
"What would you call him?" said Jill. "A stone-breaker?"
I raised my eyebrows.
"I suppose so. Or roadman."
"I know," said Agatha softly. "He's a Gentleman of the Road."
"Good for you," said I. "The title never became a highwayman one half so
well."
As I spoke, the Rolls stole up alongside. We climbed in, Jill and I
sitting behind for a change. With a foot on the step, Daphne looked at
her husband.
"Did you get very hot?" she said.
"I did," said Berry. "Every pore in my body has been in action. I always
think it's so nice to start a day like that."
"How would you like to break stones," said I, "for seventy-nine years?"
Jonah let in the clutch.
"I perceive," said Berry, "that you are under the influence of drink. At
the present moment I am more interested in the breaking of backs. Have
you ever jacked up a car?"
"Often. You must stoop to conquer."
"Stoop? You must have a comic spine. My trunk kept getting in the way.
And my nether limbs were superfluous. To do it properly you should be
severed below the armpits."
"The correct way," said I, "is to face the jack, and then bend backwards
till you face it again. Then it's simplicity itself. You work, as it
were, between your own legs."
My brother-in-law sighed.
"I used to do my boots up like that, when an agent in Germany. In that
way no one could assault me from behind. Those detailed to stab me in
the back were nonplussed and in several cases shot for incompetence."
A quarter of an hour later we slid over Magdalen Bridge.
* * * * *
The venerable city was unchanged. That same peculiar dignity, which no
impertinence can scathe, that same abiding peace, the handiwork of
labouring centuries, that immemorial youth, which drains the cups of
Time and pays no reckoning--three wonders of the world, rose up to meet
us visitors.
Oxford has but two moods.
This day she was _allegro_. The Sunshine Holyday of Spring had won her
from her other soberer state, and Mirth was in all her ways. Her busy
streets were bright, her blistered walls glowed and gave back the warmth
vouchsafed them, her spires and towers were glancing, vivid against the
blue: the unexpected green, that sprawled ragged upon scaly parapets,
thrust boldly out between the reverend mansions and smothered up the
songs of architects, trembled to meet its patron: the blowing meadows
beamed, gates lifted up their heads, retired quadrangles smiled in their
sleep, the very streams were lazy, and gardens, walks, spaces and
alleyed lanes were all betimes a-Maying.
Perhaps because it was St. George's Day, ghosts that the grey old stones
can conjure up, at Fancy's whim came thronging. The state of Kings rode
by familiar, shrewd virgin Majesty swayed in a litter down the roaring
streets, and the unruly pomp of a proud cardinal wended its scarlet way
past kneeling citizens. Cavaliers ruffled it in the chequered walks,
prelates and sages loaded the patient air with discourse, and phantom
tuck of drum ushered a praise-God soldiery to emptied bursaries. With
measured tread statesmen and scholars paced sober up and down the flags,
absorbed in argument, poets roamed absent by, and Law and bustling
Physic, learned and gowned and big with dignity, swept in and out the
gates of colleges whose very fame, that spurred their young intent, they
lived to magnify.
After a random drive about the city, in the course of which we visited
St. John's and Magdalen, we put the car in a garage and repaired to _The
Mitre_ for lunch.
Such other spectacles as we proposed to view lay more or less close
together, and could be inspected more conveniently without the car,
which claimed the constant vigilance of one of us just at the very times
we least could spare it.
Fortified by the deference shown him by his scout, whom we had
encountered while visiting his old rooms overlooking the Deer Park, my
brother-in-law had in some measure succeeded--so far as Jill and Agatha
were concerned--in investing his sojourn at Magdalen with an ill-merited
dignity; and Daphne, Jonah and I were quite justifiably delighted when a
prosperous-looking individual, with a slip in his waistcoat and a
diamond ring, left his table and laid a fat hand familiarly upon Berry's
shoulder.
"Hullo, Pleydell, old man. How's things? Don't remember me, I suppose.
Lewis." He mentioned the name of the minor college he had once adorned.
"You were at Magdalen, weren't you?"
Taken completely by surprise, Berry hesitated before replying in a tone
which would have chilled a glacier.
"Er--yes. I'm afraid my memory's not as good as yours. You must excuse
me."
"That's all right," said the other, with a fat laugh. "I was one of the
quiet little mice," he added archly, "and you were always such a gay
dog." To our indescribable delectation he actually thrust a stubby
forefinger into his victim's ribs.
"Er--yes," said Berry, moving his chair as far from his tormentor as
space would permit. "I suppose you were. One of the mice, I think you
said. You know, I still don't seem to remember your face or name. You're
quite sure...."
"Anno Domini," was the cheerful reply. "We're both older, eh? Don't you
remember the night we all----But p'r'aps I oughtn't to tell tales out of
school, ought I, old bean?" Again the forefinger was employed, and its
owner looked round expectantly. Beads of perspiration became visible
upon Berry's forehead, and Jonah and I burst into a roar of laughter.
Greatly encouraged by our mirth, Mr. Lewis beamed with geniality, and,
slapping Berry upon the back with the diamond ring, commended the good
old times, observed that the undergraduates of to-day were of a very
different class to "me and you," and added that England was in such a
rotten state that, if the Coal Controller had not personally begged him
to "carry on," he would have "up stick and cleared out to Australia long
ago."
At his concluding words Daphne sat up as if she had been shot. Then,
administering to me a kick, which she afterwards explained had been
intended for Berry, she smiled very charmingly.
"I suppose you're just up for the day, Mr. Lewis. As we are," she
inquired.
With an elaborate bow Mr. Lewis agreed, and in a moment the two were
carrying on an absurd conversation, to which Jonah and I contributed by
laughing unfeignedly whenever a remark justified an expression of mirth.
Jill and Agatha were on the edge of hysteria, and Berry sat sunk in a
condition of profound gloom, from which he occasionally emerged to fix
one or other of us with a stare of such malevolence as only served to
throw us into a fresh paroxysm of laughter.
Had Mr. Lewis for one moment appreciated the true cause of our
amusement, he would have been a broken man. Happily his self-confidence
was sublime, and, when Daphne finally bowed and remarked with a dazzling
smile that no doubt he and her husband would like to have a little chat
after luncheon, he retired in a perfect ecstasy of gratification.
When he was out of earshot--
"Why not ask him to come and live with us?" said Berry. "He could go to
the Loganberrys' ball on Tuesday, and Jonah and I can put him up for the
Club. He might even stay for Ascot."
"I think he's a topper," said I.
"Old college pal, I suppose," said Jonah. "Let's call the Stilton after
him."
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