And Berry Came Too

by Dornford Yates

  “Ninety pounds,” said Berry. “I had to give the servants a tenner apiece.”

  There was an uneasy silence, and Perdita moistened her lips.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “Boy gave the gang that found it five hundred pounds.”

  The effect of her announcement was that of a bursting-charge. The imperturbable Jonah started like a colt: my sister half-rose from her seat: Jill let out a gasp of dismay: and, his fork halfway to his mouth, Berry stared upon his informant as though she were not of this world.

  At the third attempt—

  “Are you being humorous?” he said.

  “No,” said I, “she isn’t. It’s – it’s perfectly true.”

  Berry dropped his fork and clapped a hand to his head.

  “Five – five hundred pounds?” he screamed.

  I nodded.

  “On the spur of the moment, you know. You see, I assumed we should sell it. I gave them a cheque.”

  “What those blasted—”

  “He was right,” said Jonah, quietly. “‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.’ But I wish to God he’d told me. I did exactly the same.”

  The effect of this frightful confession was that of paralysis. The five of us sat as though frozen or suddenly turned into stone. For myself, I felt more than dazed. Ossa slapped down upon Pelion tends to submerge the wits.

  So for perhaps ten seconds. Then, with a dreadful deliberation, Berry spread his napkin over his plate.

  “You must forgive me,” he said, “but the sight of food has become suddenly obnoxious to me. Not to say, revolting. It’s nothing to worry about – I think perhaps I’ve a touch of bubonic plague. Never mind. Let’s see where we stand. Let us cast up or vomit our accounts… Two minutes ago I believed we were ninety pounds down – a condition which, all things considered, most God-fearing people would find sufficiently disquieting. I now understand that certain – certain pourboires were given – not to the poor and needy, but to six treacherous gaol-birds, who did their best to deprive us of what was ours.”

  “But for them,” said I, “we’d never have known it was there.”

  “In accordance with the best traditions, these alms were done in secret – with the unhappy, if natural, result that two pourboires were given, instead of one. And each pourboire amounted – not to five, or even fifty, but to five…hundred… pounds.”

  “Out of a quarter of a million,” said Jonah. “Don’t forget that. It’s only one fifth per cent. Of course, like Boy, I assumed we were going to sell.”

  “And there I don’t blame you,” said Berry, violently. “All the same, one thousand pounds.” He covered his face with his hands. “And you owe me thirty quid each. You can’t get away from that.”

  Jonah and I sat silent, while Daphne and Jill with one voice compared Berry’s sense of decency unfavourably with ours.

  “Go on,” raged Berry. “Go on. Slosh the sob stuff about. Look for the mote in my eye – with a lumberyard in your own. I’m to lose my money – I mustn’t be paid a just debt, because two Wardour Street Caliphs – Oh, and what about you?”

  “Me?” shrieked Daphne.

  “Yes, you. They’ve only blued a thousand. But you’ve chucked a quarter of a million into the draught.”

  As though overcome with emotion, he snatched away his napkin and, putting his lips to his plate, seized his ham in his teeth and gnashed and worried it, growling, much as a lion or tiger grumbles over his meal.

  Perdita and Jill, as was proper, dissolved into tears of mirth. But Daphne stood fast.

  “I observe,” she said, “that your appetite has returned.”

  Her husband regarded her, munching. “Even so,” he declared, “shall the flesh of mine enemies be devoured. There shall not be left of them – And I’ll tell you another thing. We’ve forgotten the goldsmith’s bill.”

  There was another silence.

  At length—

  “How much will that be?” said Daphne.

  “I should think about a hundred,” said Berry, wiping his mouth.

  “Didn’t you get an estimate?”

  “Of course I didn’t. I thought we were going to sell. One doesn’t squabble over a tenner when one’s just about to receive a quarter of a million pounds.”

  “Well, you’ll have to pay it,” said Daphne. “That and the tips to the servants you’ll have to pay. And Jill and I will help Boy and Jonah out.”

  “Why them and not me?” snarled Berry. “Why should their immorality be visited on my head? They elected to encourage felony – to put a premium upon wickedness and vice…”

  “We gave,” said Jonah, “a consolation prize. Unhappily, we gave it twice over, but that was because we had no time to consult. It wasn’t particularly generous, because we both expected to get it back very shortly a hundredfold. As it turns out, we’re not going to get it back: but that is our affair, and we’re not going to take any help from Daphne and Jill. But we’re going to accept your assistance to this extent – that you shall pay our shares of the tips and the goldsmith’s bill.”

  “But I haven’t offered it,” screamed Berry.

  “I know,” said Jonah, “I know. But we’re going to accept it just the same. We’ve had, er, a lot of expenses lately.”

  I took up the running with a rush.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “we’re all in the same tureen. Each of us did what he did, believing that the stuff would be sold. If it had been sold, neither Jonah nor I would have spoken, and you’d have paid the tips and the goldsmith without a word.”

  “Perhaps,” said Berry, “perhaps. But it hasn’t been sold.”

  “So we’re each of us down,” I continued. “If you think we should pool our losses—”

  “Strange as it may seem,” said Berry, “that solution had not occurred to me. If you like to play with a skunk, you can burn your own clothes… As an act of grace and on the distinct understanding that this – this Danse Macabre is never again discussed, I will discharge the just debts of this frightening deal. Of course the whole thing’s a nightmare: but let that go. We’ve made such fools of ourselves as never were seen. If you wrote it down, no one would ever believe it – it’s mathematics gone mad. Take twelve hundred from half a million, and the answer’s a stomach pump.”

  Here Falcon came in with the letters, that moment arrived.

  Since there were none for me, I picked up The Times.

  By the great generosity of the family…

  With his hand to his heart, my brother-in-law was making a rattling noise.

  “What on earth’s the matter?” shrieked Daphne.

  “Angina pectoris,” said Berry. “Get me a cordial, someone. I shan’t last long.” He held up a bill. “I should like this buried with me. It’ll soon be a deodand.”

  Standing about him we studied the fatal note.

  MAJOR PLEYDELL Dr. to

  BAUBLE AND LEVITY

  Goldsmiths to HM the King.

  Cleaning and polishing twenty-nine important pieces of fine Church Plate, unsetting, cleaning and resetting one hundred and forty-seven precious and semi-precious stones, together with three weeks’ insurance of the whole: £295-0-0

  “I’m not surprised,” said Jonah. “When you said it’d be a hundred, I thought you were putting it low. And then, of course, the insurance… We ought to have thought of that.”

  “I won’t pay it,” yelled Berry. “It’s an obscene demand. I hereby refuse to contemplate it. I expunge its filth from my mind.”

  Weak with laughter, his wife laid her cheek against his.

  “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I really am. But you did ask for it, you know – not having an estimate.”

  “And you’ll still be up,” quavered Jill, “on Jonah and Boy. You’ll only be down three – three hundred and eighty-five pounds.”

  “Less,” said I. “They’ll allow him five per cent discount, if he pays cash.”

  With a loud and shaking vo
ice, my brother-in-law prophesied no good to any one of us, but evil.

  Nine hours had gone by, and the pocket village of Quality offered us such as it had. This was the work of men’s hands – so old, so simple and so exquisite as to seem not made but natural as the spread of an English oak.

  A road runs round the roughly three-sided green – a quiet, well-kept road that leads to another world: beyond the road, on two sides, are gathered Quality’s homes, each with its apron of garden, alight with flowers: on the third side a baby river has called for an old, stone bridge.

  The houses are ancient and not at all alike: white walls and thatched roofs are neighboured by rose-red bricks and liveried tiles: half-timber faces cut stone: mullioned windows and dormers and fan-lights may all be seen at one glance: yet all agree together, because all are beautifully done. Of the gardens the same may be said: clipped yew and fine turf, worn brick paths and a riot of stocks, a mulberry ringed by a bench and roses clambering over a miniature porch disclose that orderly disorder the secret of which belongs to Nature herself.

  The village green has been cared for for many years. Here and there a white post is still standing to show that once it was fenced against the rule of the road. But now it is a thing of such beauty that no one would ever offend its emerald pile. Not quite in the middle of the sward are the ancient stocks, sounding a trumpet-call to summon yesterday. Their oak is grey but as sound as the hour it was sawn, and, though they remember a justice which we call rough, the passage of Time has made them a reverend hatchment, announcing the dissolution of an antique world.

  Behind the houses rises the quiet church tower, grey against the green of the chestnuts which stand beyond: to the left is a pride of elms to which rooks have repaired at sundown since James the First was king: and beyond are woodland and meadow and rolling park, whose lord is a jealous lord and will not sell an acre of all his heritage. So Quality has been saved – a shred of the stuff that English dreams are made of…some local habitations, gathered about a green.

  Miss Perdita Boyte sat down on the velvet sward.

  “Why,” she said, “have you kept the good wine until now?”

  “Because you are going,” I said. “So that when you sail away, a picture of what you have left may be fresh in your mind.”

  “I’ve seen so many pictures, and I remember them all.”

  “Perhaps. But this is the source from which all the others have come. Close and manor and farm – they, one and all, descend from the village green. The heart of England is beating under this turf.”

  Perdita smiled very gently and patted the grass by her side.

  As I took my seat–

  “I’ve so much,” she said, “such a great deal to thank you for.”

  “I don’t see that,” said I. “I had to make some return.”

  “What for?”

  “The pictures I’ve seen,” said I. “And I remember them all. A hand on my sleeve, with its delicate, pointed fingers and exquisite fingernails…a knee such as Actaeon died for – and found it cheap at the price… Eve herself looking out of your beautiful eyes…and a mouth that Psyche saw in the dew that Cupid brought her, cupped in his palms.”

  Perdita sighed.

  “Your young men shall see visions,” she said. With a gesture of helplessness she indicated the scene. “And now you’ve left me nothing to give in exchange for this.”

  “You wouldn’t say that, if somebody set up a pierglass six paces away.”

  “What should I see, Paris?”

  “A child,” said I. “An eager, beautiful child – who knows her world but belongs to a Nursery Rhyme: for whom, when they see her coming, the gates of that pretty country will always lift up their heads: whose charm, like soft music, precedes her, wherever she goes.”

  “Oh, Boy, what an epitaph!”

  “With my love,” said I, and laid a hand to my heart…

  For the short half hour that followed we two considered in detail the rare and unsullied virtue of Quality’s gorgeous fee. Then the Rolls floated over the bridge to come to rest in the shade of a whispering lime.

  Berry was at the wheel, with Jill by his side. After setting us down at cross roads, the two had driven to Warfare, where Berry must sign some papers which could not be sent by post. And now they were back – rather later than I had a right to expect.

  The Knave leapt out of the car, chased an indignant blackbird into the thick of a yew and then came, panting, towards us, cheerful under rebuke.

  Jill preceded Berry over the turf.

  “Oh, Boy,” she cried, “we’ve had the most awful time. As we were leaving Warfare, a woman backed into the Rolls.”

  “Good Lord,” said I, starting up.

  “It’s all right. The bumper saved us. But she really was awful about it. She said—”

  “It’s a hideous satire,” said Berry, “from first to last.” He laid himself down on the sward and closed his eyes. “Swift might have done it justice – I can’t think of anyone else. With illustrations by Hogarth… I suppose she was a woman: she’d a voice like a bugle-band and her upper parts were just about twice life-size.”

  “What exactly happened?” said Perdita.

  Berry drew a deep breath.

  “You won’t believe me,” he said, “but Jill will confirm what I say. About to emerge from Warfare, I found myself directly behind a mechanically-propelled vehicle which for some reason which I was unable to see had ceased to advance. I, therefore, stopped too, as did the lorry behind me and the hackney-coach or omnibus, apparently designed for the conveyance of eight elephants or a hundred and twenty men, a short two inches away from my offside wings. After a considerable delay – which was nonchalantly improved by one of the younger patrons of the omnibus by spitting such plum stones as he no longer required across the gulf between us into my lap – the driver of the car before me saw fit to recoil upon the Rolls. At once I sounded my horn… Retire myself I could not – the lorry was biting my neck. But the car before me came on. I continued to protest – frantically. Then the car ahead of me stopped, and its driver leaned out and looked round…

  “‘Stop that noise,’ she blared, ‘and reverse your ridiculous car.’

  “There are upon this earth some beings whom having seen one feels it would be imprudent to thwart. To be assaulted in public by a harridan of such dimensions would have been unsatisfactory. And violence sat in her face.

  “I turned to the lorry driver and asked if he could give place. From his reply, which included two oaths I had never before encountered, I gathered that he was reluctant to do so. The man may be forgiven. I later perceived that he had behind him two trailers, laden with stone.

  “As I returned to my bugbear, the threatened collision occurred, and, as if it had been waiting for that, the traffic jam was relieved and we all were free to proceed. But only for a moment or two. As I got to the side of the street, we were stopped again – this time with my nose abreast of the bugbear herself.

  “Well, I got out to see the damage – which, happily, hadn’t been done, and as I looked up from the bumper, the bugle-band voice rang out. Will you believe me? That hell-cat ticked me off. Said that by sounding my horn I had sought to impose upon her my ‘vulgar will.’ That she pitied my womenkind. That I was ‘a tin-pot tyrant,’ and that next time I wanted a lesson I’d only to let her know. When I tried to reply, she told me to hold my tongue, to go and ‘bully my slaves,’ or, better still, to hire a children’s nurse to teach me how to behave… She broadcast these recommendations – screeched her rotten lies for the world to hear. And of course it did. A crowd began to collect. Everyone within earshot began to rush to the scene. And though nobody knew what had happened, everyone heard the monstrous suggestions she made. And then the traffic gave way and off she went… And as I got back in the car, the police came up and told me to ‘move along.’…

  “You know that’s the kind of show that shortens one’s life. It’s brutal injustice gone mad. And what can I do
? Nothing. Jill got her number, but what can I charge her with? In the old days she’d have been ducked for a common scold: but today she can scorch my soul for something I never did, and because there’s no mark on my car…”

  “Poor old fellow,” said Jill. “You really behaved like a saint.” She turned to us. “When he found she wouldn’t listen, he bowed very gravely to her and then came back to me and began to tell me how Warfare got its name.”

  “One had,” said Berry, “to try and carry it off. I mean, that was all that was left. And now let’s dismiss the affair. I’ve not felt too good all day – since Bauble and Levity landed their kidney-punch.”

  Perdita lifted her voice.

  “If Daphne were here, she’d drink to you with her eyes, and you’d feel refreshed. But she isn’t here, and so we must – call for wine.” She pointed across the lawn. “There’s an inn there, The Running Footman, just out of sight. It looks like a woodcut – a tail-piece to some old volume of Georgian days. But I expect it’s meant to be used… And Jill and I will wait here, if you’re not too long.”

  As Berry got to his feet—

  “My dear,” he said, “you’ll make a marvellous wife.”

  Perdita’s judgment was good. To be stayed with a flagon was just what Berry required: the creature comfort ministered to his mind. For myself, it quenched a thirst which I was thankful to slake. And when we returned, the girls were unwilling to move. So we lay on the greensward, talking…and sipping another liquor, older and rarer than any the innkeepers sell. And Quality made a good host. Sip as we would, our cup was always full.

  Even the Knave fell under the spell of the place. He moved about gently, proving the beautiful turf, raising his head and snuffing, as though the scented past was stealing upon the air. And once, when a cat came out of a garden gate, he watched her take to the road and then returned to a reverent study of the stocks. Perhaps, on Quality’s green the lion would lie down with the lamb.

  When we took our leave of the village, the sun was low, and I had to let the Rolls out, to make up the time we had fleeted, gathering rosebuds that bloomed when Herrick was young. We ripped the veil of evening for thirty sweet-smelling miles, while meadow, wood and hamlet flashed to our side – as though to bid farewell to the pretty stranger who loved them with all her heart. Perdita Boyte was to leave us the following day.