B-Berry and I Look Back (5 page)

“Oh, yes, it’s perfectly true. But—”

“I agree with Jonah,” said Berry. “It is a side-light, of course, but its glare is most arresting. Have you got any more like that?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “And for Heaven’s sake don’t think that that memory is a fair sample of what in the ordinary way goes on behind the scenes. It was nothing of the kind. So far as I know, no other Chancery brief was ever delivered to us. And we did try to return it. If Harker had been there when it came, it would have been returned. But on Thursday there was next to no time for the agents to find someone else. They wouldn’t have sent it to us, if they’d had a Chancery man. Any way, they were sure it was ‘a loser’, so what the hell?”

“Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” said Jonah, “your Chambers’ fault, I mean. It mayn’t have been anyone’s fault, for the thing was so rushed. But if the unfortunate clients could have heard your conversation with your friend at the Chancery Bar – well, let us say that it would have spoiled their lunch.”

“They’d have gone stark, staring mad,” said Berry. “Give me the Inns of Court. They’re worse than Harley Street.”

My sister regarded her wristwatch.

“Give us something short, darlings, just to take us to bed.”

I looked at my brother-in-law.

“It’s up to you,” I said. “I’ve talked enough tonight.”

“There’s something in that,” said Berry. “Never mind. Let us pass from the squalid to the sublime, and consider for two or three minutes what are called Persian rugs.”

“Why ‘what are called’?” said Daphne.

“Because it is frequently a misnomer. The famous Tekke Bokhara is styled ‘a Persian rug’. In fact, it is nothing of the kind. It is a Turkoman or Turkestan rug, and it has no more to do with Persia than had that beautiful Kulah that used to hang on the powder-closet’s wall.”

Jill cried out at that.

“You’re not going to say that’s not a Persian rug?”

“I am, indeed, my sweet. The Kulah came out of Turkey and it is a Turkish rug.” He looked at Daphne. “And the Shemakha in your bedroom was a Caucasian rug.”

“Well, I never knew that,” said Daphne. “One always says ‘Persian rugs’.”

“I know. But considerably less than half the so-called ‘Persian rugs’ in fact come out of Persia. So the right word is ‘Oriental’.”

“But ‘Oriental’ means anything.”

“I know. It’s very awkward. All the same, you wouldn’t point to a nice piece of Spode and say ‘That’s Crown Derby’, would you? But that is what you’re doing when you call a Tekke Bokhara a Persian rug.

“The meanest, modern carpet is so expensive today that the market for genuine rugs must now be extremely small. And there can’t be many to buy. A few odd ones now and then, which come to be sold when death duties have to be paid. I suppose they go to collectors. Of course, quite a lot are offered.”

“Fakes,” said Jonah.

Berry nodded.

“As it was and ever shall be. And people are very stupid about Oriental rugs. They mayn’t be experts – very few people are. But they’ve ordinary common sense. If they were offered an old master for forty pounds, they’d laugh in the salesman’s face. But just because it’s a rug, instead of a picture, they have it put in the car and drive home and write the cheque. And, as like as not, it came from a Japanese factory that turns out two hundred a day.

“The real Oriental rug which our fathers knew is now a thing of the past – has been a thing of the past for many years. It was, of course, hand-made; and the wool which was used to make it was dyed with vegetable dyes. The first thing to pass was the dyes. It must be about ninety years since aniline dyes began to reach the East. There they were seized upon, because they saved so much trouble. And now the secrets of the vegetable dyes are lost. But the rugs were never the same, for the colours were not so soft, and wool grows brittle when dyed with an aniline dye. And then, of course, came the machines…

“So another craft sickened and died. Of course, it was easy money – right down machinery’s street. But no machine could do what the craftsman did. For he knew how to knot the pile to the warp, and he had infinite patience. His rugs are works of art and will see out Time. Upon the best of these, use will leave no trace. Some Tekke Bokhara rugs have nearly four hundred knots to every square inch.”

Jill put a hand to her head.

“But how ever long did it take to make such a rug?”

Berry shrugged his shoulders.

“Half a lifetime,” he said, “and sometimes longer than that. That’s why they are worth having. They’re human documents.”

“How’s the book going?” said Jonah.

“I can’t complain,” said I.

Berry looked up.

“Sub-conscious brain pulling well?”

“Like a train,” said I.

“I think you’ll love it,” said Jill. “He’s read me some.”

“Alleged humour?” said Berry.

“Quite a lot.”

“The conscious brain,” said Jonah, “is really an amanuensis?”

“More than that,” said I. “A kind of interpreter. For instance, not long ago the sub-conscious brain led me to a Roman road.”

“Our Roman road?” said Daphne.

“No, my darling,” I said. “I’d never seen this one before. Like ours, it had shrunk to a lane, but it had a gate in one side that gave to a lovely view. Well, I had a good look round, and then, with my conscious brain, I tried to describe the lane and the lovely view.”

“And when you’d done that?” said my sister.

“The sub-conscious brain took over and told me how to go on.”

“And till that moment,” said Jonah, “you’d no idea?”

“None whatever,” I said. “And I wasn’t expecting what happened. I don’t think you’ll see it coming, when I read you the tale. And yet it’s completely natural.”

“I remember once,” said Berry, “being led – no doubt by the sub-conscious brain, for I’d lost my way – to a very beautiful dunghill. I wasn’t expecting that, either. And I didn’t have to look round to describe how it smelt.”

Jonah and I were laughing, but Daphne and Jill were not at all amused.

When they paused for breath –

“All right, all right,” said Berry. “I was only seeking to embroider the hem of the Maestro’s garment.”

“You wicked liar,” said Daphne. “And it wasn’t your brain that led you to the dunghill. It was the homing instinct.”

“Oh, the vixen,” said Berry. “Now I shan’t buy you those digitated bed-socks you wanted. More. I shall keep to myself the first of some handsome trifles I had in mind.”

“What’s this?” said I.

“Oh, it’s too good, really,” said Berry, “to go in a book like this. It’s one of my
belles-lettres
. It ought to be bound in vellum and kept in a case. One hundred numbered copies at twenty guineas a go.”

“Let’s have it,” said Jonah.

“Oh, not just like that,” said Berry. “We ought really to have a fanfare. I suppose you couldn’t go on your knees.”

“We’ll leave that to posterity,” said Jonah.

“That you may do,” said Berry, “with every confidence.”

With that, he emptied his glass and sat back in his seat.

“The average man,” he observed, “has little inclination and less time to read what are commonly called ‘the standard works’. I mean, they’ve got to be got down to.” He looked at me. “Your comic strips make no such demand upon the intelligence. And so, since today the average man is always tired, they and their like offer him an easy escape from the trivial round. Which is, of course, why you sell your rotten books. Jane Austen is still read, and so is Trollope; but not by everyone. And there are many authors of even higher standing whose works the average man never considers.”

“That,” said I, “is undeniable. But that is because, as you have pointed out, leisure is a dead letter today.”

“As is liberty. Never mind. L seems unpopular. Now the point I am seeking to make is this. Neither you nor I are qualified to appraise the masterpiece: but we do know something about them. And since the treatises which are written by the great about the great are invariably beyond us, I make bold to assume that they are, often enough, beyond the average man. Yet for the masterpiece, there is a great deal to be said.”

“It’s like pictures,” said Jill. “No one’s ever got time to go inside a picture-gallery. But, if they did, they’d have to be turned out.”

“Exactly. And since the average man today has no time to study Velasquez or Spenser, I feel that an effort should be made to offer him, say, a slice of one of those glorious loaves. That can’t be done by a high-brow: he is too big a man. But the low-brow’s forte is the low-down…”

“I think you should take Chaucer,” said Daphne.

In a silence big with suspicion, Berry regarded his wife.

Then –

“You will now,” he said, “have the privilege of listening to the first of my collection of
belles-lettres
.

“It’s funny to think of somebody having a keen sense of humour six hundred years ago. Especially Dan Chaucer. (Why Dan? His name was Geoffrey: but Spenser calls him Dan.) For his portraits insist upon a reverend, sad-faced, bearded bloke, soberly apparelled. Yet he was a humorist of the first water. That his humour is sometimes broad, I frankly admit: but it’s damned good. Of course, till you get the hang of it, he isn’t easy to read: for his perfect English is old – ‘pore persoun’ for ‘poor parson’, for instance – and he uses many beautiful words, now out of currency. But he was not only a very great poet. He found time in his life to be a courtier, a soldier, a diplomat and a member of parliament. Geoffrey Chaucer, MP.”

Jill put in her oar.

“I never knew they had MPs when Chaucer – What’s the word, Boy?”

“The high-brow term,” said I, “is ‘flourished’.”

“‘Did his stuff’,” said Berry. “This is a low-brow book. Well, they hadn’t been going long. Anyway, as everyone knows, Chaucer’s most famous work was
The Canterbury Tales
. He was a very quiet fellow and, I think on his own admission, he kept his eyes upon the ground. But he didn’t miss much –
The Canterbury Tales
show that. They show beyond all argument that his knowledge and understanding of human nature were most exceptional. There are the pilgrims before you, in their habits, as they lived – the squire, the parson, the doctor, the lawyer, the undergraduate, the sailor, the carpenter, the ploughman, the cook and the gay widow of Bath. And others. Quite apart from the glorious entertainment of the tales they tell, their portraits are most beautifully presented – and all, in exquisite verse.

“The Wife of Bath was rather deaf, which, says Chaucer, was a pity. She was very jealous of her standing, and if any other lady of Bath presumed to precede her, such lady was never forgiven. She was bold-faced, handsome and raddled. Her stockings were scarlet and were always nice and tight. She had had five husbands and, in her youth, had never looked at another man. Her middle age, observes Chaucer, is no affair of ours. To tell the truth, he adds, her teeth were set wide apart. She was a traveller: she had visited Jerusalem, Rome and Cologne – which is more than most of us can say. She rode well and easily – astride, of course, but her spurs were sharp. For decency’s sake, an ample apron was girt about her substantial hips. Finally, says Chaucer, among friends she was excellent company. ‘In fellowship well could she laugh and talk.’ But, as a mistress, you could teach her nothing. ‘Of that art, she knew the old game.’

“Whether that can be beaten as a portrait, is not for me to say. The fact remains that it was written in 1389.

“Yet, so often as I think of Chaucer, the first thing that always comes to my mind is his haunting picture of the poor parish priest – ‘a pore Persoun of a town’. And especially the last two lines, which I have by heart. ‘But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte: but first he folwed it himselve.’”

“Quite perfect,” said Daphne. “And only a very nice man could have written such lovely words.”

“Of such,” said Berry, “was ‘the well of English undefyled’. At least, so Spenser called him; and he was a pretty good judge.”

“Is that all?” said Jill.

Berry nodded.

“I don’t want to bore: I just want to whet the taste. When the lords of the films read that, they’ll send a man over at once, contract in hand. Not to see me. To find Chaucer and get the rights. And while he’s on the way, they’ll retain the rage of Broadway to play The Wife of Bath. I think I’ll do Smollett next. And now let’s hear some more about British Justice.”

“One moment,” I said. “I believe it to be a fact that, when Playfair revived
The Beggar’s Opera
, Somerset House sent an income-tax form to John Gay.”

“What does that mean?” said Jill.

“Well, he was the author, my sweet. And as the revival was an immense success, Somerset House thought they’d have a slice of his royalties. But he wasn’t in the telephone-book, so they sent the demand to the theatre. But he never got it, for nobody knew where he was. You see, John Gay had been dead for two hundred years.”

“Tell us,” said Daphne, “about the case you did that Whitsun weekend.”

I smiled.

“Fancy your remembering that.”

“Well, it was a great triumph, Boy.”

“It was for me. But then I was very small fry.”

“You gave all you’d got,” said Daphne, “because it was touch and go. When you got to White Ladies that night – well, I’d never seen you so done.”

“It had been worrying. And, as the Duke would have said, ‘it was a close-run thing’.”

“Who was against you?” said Berry.

“No mortal man, but a very dangerous opponent who cares for no rules of law. We call him Prejudice.”

“Let’s have it,” said Jonah.

“I warn you,” I said, “it was not spectacular. I didn’t save anyone’s neck. And I don’t suppose it was reported, except in the local Press.”

“Proceed,” said Berry.

“The Whitsun weekend,” I said, “in 1914. Saturday morning – a very beautiful day. I was just going out of Town, when the telephone went. When I took the receiver off, I heard the voice of my clerk. He said that the matter was urgent – a motor car case. He couldn’t get hold of Harker, who had already left Town: so the AA would be glad if I would help them out. An inquest at Laidlow that very afternoon. A cyclist was dead, and a chauffeur stood in grave danger of a verdict of manslaughter. Local solicitors had been instructed on his behalf, but this was a case for counsel. The solicitors would hand me a brief. Would I undertake the case? If so, a train for Laidlow was leaving in half an hour. An AA official would meet that particular train and put me wise.”

“Laidlow,” said Daphne. “Where’s that?”

“I’ve changed the name, my darling. You know the town quite well.”

“I understand.”

“I said, Very well, I’d go – and put the receiver back… And I’d hoped to lunch at White Ladies…and then go on to play tennis at Merry Down…

“I sent a wire to Daphne and managed to catch the train. The AA man met me at Laidlow, as arranged, and we drove at once to see the solicitors.”

“How did you get your robes?”

“Counsel don’t wear robes in the Coroner’s Court. Nor, of course, in the Police Court. At a Court Martial, they do.”

“Usedn’t you to carry your robes in a dark-blue bag?”

“Seldom, if ever, out of London. The bag was all right, so long as it only contained your robes and your brief. But when you had to take volumes of Law Reports, it became very unwieldy: and so, for the sake of convenience, you used a small, leather kit-bag – at least, I did.”

“What was it made of – the blue one?”

“Well, it looked like damask,” I said. “I should say it was figured mohair – I may be wrong. But it was very strong. You closed the neck by drawing two cords together – two stout blue cords. When your progress at the Bar had attracted the attention of a ‘silk’, he would tell the robe-makers to deliver to you a red bag, with his compliments. I need hardly say I never received that attention.”

“I wonder Charles Gill didn’t send you one. I mean, he did ask you to enter his Chambers.”

“He probably didn’t think of it. And I’m much more proud of that than of any red bag.”

“You ought to have had one,” said Jill.

“Quite honestly, my darling, I don’t think that I deserved it.”

Jill sighed.

“You always say that,” she said, “about everything. What about—”

“My sweet,” I said, “I beg that you’ll leave it there. And now let’s get back to Laidlow.

“The solicitors received me very kindly. The brief was non-existent – they’d had no time. So they gave me a back-sheet, and, what was more to the point, the use of a very nice room. Would I like to see the chauffeur? ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Please tell me about the case.’

“Well, we all know Laidlow – as it was, and the line of the London road… Out of the town and up a long, straight rise – with side-roads on the left, running very sharply up-hill.

“Two days before, the chauffeur had driven to Folkestone and seen his master and mistress on board a Channel steamer,
en route
for the South of France. His orders were to drive the car back to London and then take a fortnight’s leave.

“The car was a landaulette and a powerful car.

“Once clear of the streets of Laidlow, the chauffeur is popping along, up the long, straight rise and well on his left-hand side. Then a cyclist, moving fast, swings suddenly out of a side-road, only a few feet ahead. The cyclist is bound for Laidlow and so he bears half-right. He has to do that, you see, to get to his proper side of the London road. In a frantic endeavour to avoid him, the chauffeur bears to his right… In fact he ends up on the pavement and knocks a lamp-post down. But he can’t quite clear the cyclist, who hits the near-side panel right at the end of the car. And the poor fellow breaks his neck.

“There were one or two witnesses, but none were valuable. They swore, of course, that it was the chauffeur’s fault. Cars were unpopular then, and that particular stretch was inviting speed. Just clear of the town, you know, a good straight road ahead and a steady rise. Many a time I’ve put my foot down there.”

“So’ve I,” said Jonah. “I’m afraid we were lucky – that’s all.”

“Well, what did the police find? A cyclist dead in the road of a broken neck: and the car that did it not only upon its wrong side, but with one of its wheels on the pavement and half a lamp-post upon its canopy.

“And now for the strong stuff.

“The cyclist was a Laidlow man and immensely popular: a modest, hard-working joiner and everyone’s friend. He was very happily married – with seven children, the eldest of whom was fourteen. Side-road and main road – he knew them as the palm of his hand, for, while he worked in Laidlow, the side-road led to his home. In other words, for more than seven years he had rounded that fatal corner at least once every day.