As Berry and I Were Saying (15 page)

“My dear,” said Daphne, “it must have broken your heart.”

“I confess I was disappointed: but that didn’t matter at all. What did matter was that a very great number of people, who were not scholars, would have been most interested to know that patter does not date from Gilbert and Sullivan, but from 423 BC.”

“A blasted scandal,” said Berry. “‘People won’t get the meaning.’ What filthy tripe. How many people can follow the
Iolanthe
patter, word for word? But it’s the pace they love. Damn it, it’s the pace that makes it. The tongue is doing its best to beat the ear.”

“That’s how I saw it,” said I. “But there we are.”

“That must go in,” said Daphne. “That is a sidelight on history. You must have felt very bitter.”

“Oh, I don’t know. But I did get back on him later.”

“How was that?”

“Well, I wasn’t in favour of a Greek Play, for it meant that some of the best amateur actors in the University were washed out, because they couldn’t speak Greek. But when the Vice-Chancellor, Jowett of Balliol, gave the OUDS their charter, he stipulated that every four years they should produce a Greek play. And so we had to do it. Well, when I was Secretary, this fellow came to me and said that
The Clouds
had been such a success that the four years must be cut to two. As an Officer of the Club, I told him where he got off. ‘You mean you won’t do one next year?’ ‘That,’ said I, ‘is precisely what I mean.’ ‘All right,’ he said, ‘
we’ll
do one. I’ll see to that. And we’ll do it at the Town Hall, during the week in which you do your play. And we’ll see who makes the most money.’ The threat was serious. The Club cost a lot to run, and the state of our finances was not too good. I tried to think what to do. Then I went down to St Aldgates’ and saw the Town Clerk. I didn’t tell him anything. I simply retained the Town Hall for the week in which we should be doing our play. I paid him a fee of two guineas, which, when they had heard my story, the Committee immediately passed. And now it’s Berry’s turn.”

“Nice work,” said Berry. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that he remembered you in his prayers. But let that go…

“It is not generally known that Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, once visited a man’s Club.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Daphne.

“Yes, she did. And I don’t have to tell you that it was all above board. The Queen was driving down St James’s Street, when the last of the scaffolding was being taken away from the facade of a fine, new building close to the bottom of the street on the right-hand side. The Queen asked what it was. The equerry told her that it was the new house of the Conservative Club. ‘It’s very handsome,’ said the Queen. Then she added thoughtfully, ‘I’ve always wished I could see the inside of a Club. I’m told they’re very comfortable.’ A few hours later the equerry informed her that the Chairman and Committee of the Conservative Club would count it a very great honour if Her Majesty would care to visit their new house before the members were admitted. The members were to be admitted at mid-day in a few days’ time. One hour before that, Her Majesty arrived. And she went all over the Club from bottom to top. In memory of her visit a very fine bust of the Queen commanded the landing halfway up the magnificent stairs.

“The Conservative was a very old-fashioned Club. When I became a member, with two or three exceptions, I was the youngest member by many years. The spittoon and the goutstool were still in evidence, though I must confess that the former was never used. Old gentlemen used to wear their hats – silk, of course – in the morning-room. Only in three rooms was smoking allowed. The grates were huge, and the blocks of coal were sometimes so large that it required two servants to put one on. Except for the hall-porters and one or two servants in the coffee-room, all servants always wore breeches, black stockings and buckled shoes. And the service they gave was impeccable. Perhaps I should add that they were, one and all, immensely proud of the Club. When they retired, they were always handsomely pensioned, for so long as they lived. The food was cheap and the kitchen extremely good. The cellar was renowned. The peace within those walls, I shall always remember. All was so quiet and dignified. A footfall on a tessellated floor, the gentle closing of a tall mahogany door, the sudden, sprightly tick of the tape-machine – those seem to me, looking back, to have been the only sounds. But then, you know, it was an old-fashioned Club.”

Jill was looking at me.

“You put the groom of the chambers in
Period Stuff
.”

“That’s perfectly true,” I said: “and his name and all. The picture I drew was strictly accurate.”

“There was someone in
Blood Royal
.”

“Something, not someone,” I said. “One night I was dining in Curzon Street, at a well-known physician’s house. He had attended the old Duke of Cambridge, who had died the day before. When the women had left the table, he called me to sit by his side. ‘Would you like to know,’ he said, ‘what were the last words of the Duke of Cambridge?’ I said that I should – very much. ‘They were,
Where the hell’s the barber?
’ So I toned them down and put them into the mouth of the dying Prince in
Blood Royal
.”

“And
Duke Paul
?”

“
Duke Paul
was founded on the picture presented by a man I once came across. It was not, of course, a portrait. But, placed as
Duke Paul
was placed, he would, I am sure, have done as
Duke Paul
did.”

“In every particular?” said Berry.

“In every particular.”

“I gather,” said Berry, “that he was unattractive.”

“I found him so.”

“Rogues,” said Daphne. “You haven’t met any rogues.”

“I’m afraid all my rogues belong to my imagination.”

“They work all right,” said Berry: “the reason, of course, being that, as nobody else knows what a rogue is like, people have to take your word for it.”

“I suppose that’s so. At least, I’ve had no complaints.”

“I always love
Punter
,” said Jill.

“He’s an old friend,” said I, “as he once pointed out himself.”

“
Brevet
,” said Berry, “gave me peculiar pleasure.”

“So he did me. I shouldn’t say that; but he did.”

“Had he run straight, he might have dined out in London almost every night of his life.”

“I quite agree.”

“His scornful appreciation of Pope when he was virtually standing on the scaffold was a brain-wave.”

“The ruling passion,” said I, “is strong in death.”

“Oh, I know,” said Daphne. “Proofs. Don’t you hate correcting your proofs?”

“I can’t say I enjoy it,” I said, “for it’s most exacting work. If I can possibly help it, I never do more than, say, two chapters a day. It demands very high concentration, because the author knows his stuff so well that it is extremely easy for him to miss a mistake. Not a big mistake, of course. He’ll see that at once – as nobody else will see it. If a sentence is omitted, for instance – he’ll never miss that. But ‘literals’, that is to say, misprints, he may easily miss. ‘That’ for ‘than’, for instance, or the omission of inverted commas, or letters misplaced, or ‘man’ for ‘men’ – little things that matter.

“I know I’m particular, but I can see no point in doing your best to write the best English you can, if the reproduction of your prose is to be faulty. And so I get down to it.

“There are two sets of proofs which the author should always read. The first are called the ‘galley proofs’ or ‘slip proofs’. These are accursed things to handle. They’re about six inches wide by twenty-seven inches long, and the paper is usually vile. But the value of the slip proof is this – that you can alter it as you please. If you want to cut out fifty lines, you can: if you want to add fifty lines, you can. You can do anything you like – to the slip proof. Well, you correct or alter your slip proof and send it back. Then you receive a ‘page proof’. Except that the page proof is bound in brown paper, instead of in cloth, it almost exactly resembles the book in its finished form. Title-page, fly-leaves, preface – all are there: and all the pages are numbered. In that page proof should be embodied all the corrections or alterations which you made to the slip proof. Well, you read that: and you are fortunate indeed, if you find no more mistakes. In fact, you find a great many. Some are mistakes which you missed in the slip proof. Others are mistakes, because your instructions upon the slip proof have not been carried out. Others are new mistakes – don’t ask me why, but they are. But the main thing is this – that, except in an emergency, no page must be upset: so that any correction or alteration must be very slight.”

“Emergency?” said my sister.

“Well, supposing that by the carelessness of a compositor, a whole paragraph has been omitted. Well, it’s got to go in. That may upset sixty pages. It may upset the rest of the book. But that can’t be helped.
Blind Corner
was a case in point. I was never sent any slip proofs, as, of course, I should have been. When I was reading the page proof, I found that the well-digger’s statement, which I had marked to be printed in italic, had been printed in type so small that it could hardly be read. Now, as the whole tale was founded on that statement, it was of great importance that it should be at least as easy to read as the rest of the text. Well, it was up to the printers, for I, of course, declined to pass the proof. It meant rearranging about forty pages. But it had to be done.

“What drives an author quite mad – at least, it drives me quite mad – is to find that some reader or other has amended what I have written, because he prefers his amendment to the original.”

Berry was bristling.

“Look here,” he said, “if any imitation scholiast presumes to ‘improve’ any of my monographs—”

“That’s all right,” I said, laughing. “I’ll see they don’t. But now you understand how I feel. As I always say, query the stuff by all means. Shove your queries down in the margin, and I’ll be grateful to read them: but never alter something, without my consent.”

“Are they ever right?”

“In one case in twenty they are. A curious thing happened once. Quite early on, Ward Lock always sent me what is called a ‘specimen page’, that is to say, two or three pages, for me to approve the lay-out; for these appear as the book itself will appear. They did this, as usual, with – well, one of my books. I thought it looked very nice, and idly enough I began to glance down the first page. After three lines I stopped. A sentence of mine had been altered – that I knew. (You must understand that so far I’d seen no proofs.) I read on rapidly. Sentence after sentence had been altered, entirely destroying the rhythm and generally wrecking my prose. I wrote to Ward Lock there and then, to ask what it meant, for Wilfred Lock knew very well how very particular I was. He was horrified – and went into the matter at once. And this was the explanation. The head of the firm of printers to whom the book had been entrusted had not long succeeded to that position: and he was very anxious to do a first-class job. So he thought he’d begin with the MS and get that right. And so he had been right through it himself, from beginning to end, amending and correcting my English, as best he could.”

“God in heaven,” said Berry.

“All this, with the utmost goodwill. And then he had given it to the compositors. Of course the whole book had to be scrapped and set again. I had a spare copy, and so they set from that. But one couldn’t be angry, for the head of the firm had meant so terribly well. God knows how long it took him to do: but his one idea was to do a first-class job.”

“Poor man,” said Daphne. “He must have been so mortified. But what an extraordinary outlook.”

“It had us all beat. In fact it didn’t matter, for they cleared the decks and did a fresh book at once – of course, at their own expense. But it was a queer business. The mercy was, of course, that they’d sent me a specimen page. Otherwise, we should have known nothing until I received the slips.”

“One moment. ‘Entirely destroying the rhythm.’ What does that actually mean?”

“I always think that rhythm is very hard to define. Either you’re good at rhythm, or you are not. It’s really a matter of ear. When I began to write, I used to read what I’d written over aloud, to see if it was rhythmical. Now I know whether or no it is, without doing that. If, when read aloud, the prose seems to be effortless, then it is rhythmical. If it doesn’t, it isn’t. That’s a very rough definition: Fowler the Great deals with rhythm in his usual, masterly way: but he takes two pages to do it.”

“And when you’ve passed the page proofs, that is that?”

“Yes. Then the corrections are made, and the book goes to press. The next time I see it is when I receive an advance copy. That’s properly bound, of course. I always go carefully through that – and if corrections have been missed, I go off the deep end. And I don’t think you can blame me. But they very seldom have been. Sometimes there are two or three ‘literals’ that I have missed myself. These things are put right in the second edition.”

“Edition,” said Daphne. “That’s what I want to know. I’ve always wanted to know, and I’ve always forgotten to ask. You often see an advertisement of some book, saying ‘Now in its third edition – or fourth or fifth.’ How large is ‘an edition’?”

“An edition, my sweet, can consist of five hundred copies or of fifty thousand copies or of any number in between. Unless you know the size of the editions printed, the information that a book is in its third or fourth edition means nothing at all. And only the publisher, the printer and, sometimes, the author know the truth. ‘Now in its third edition’ may mean that over a thousand copies have already been sold, or that over a hundred thousand have already been sold. Without that information, the statement is valueless.”

“God bless my soul,” said Berry. “And how many poor fools know that?”

“The other night,” I said, “I mentioned
Valerie French
. I had no idea of writing that book, but my publishers were greatly upset by the end of
Anthony Lyveden
and put great pressure upon me to alter it. This, I refused to do. But they were so insistent that I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll write a sequel. And at the end of
Anthony Lyveden
, print these words,
To be followed by
Valerie French.’ With this, they were quite content, and you can see those words in the first edition today.”

“Did you ever alter the end of any book?”

“Once, when the book was appearing in serial form.
This Publican
appeared in serial form in
Woman’s Journal
, and the Lady Editor begged me to change the last few words. ‘They’re absolutely true to life, but they’re too savage.’ So I laughed and rewrote the last few sentences – only for the serial, of course. The book stayed as it was.”

“Very interesting,” said Berry. “She knew her public, and she knew it would shrink from the truth.”

“Something like that.”

“‘True to life’,” said Jill. “It was because it wouldn’t have been true to life that you wouldn’t…you wouldn’t…”

I put an arm about her and held her against my heart.

“Yes, my darling. That’s why.”

“Bung it in,” said Berry, fiercely. “Let people know the truth. Hundreds of letters you’ve had, all begging you to take us back to
Gracedieu
. You always meant to do it. You said as much at the very end of the book. Well, why haven’t you? Because we
did
go back…for eight soul-searing months…and had to clear out again. And this time, not because of the Boche, but
because of the French
. And ours was no isolated case. Look at the Duchess of —. Left her lovely villa and fled in front of the Boche. And the Boche never touched a thing. And the moment the Boche was gone, the place was stripped –
by the French
.

“Let
me
tell the sordid story. I don’t care. People mayn’t fancy the truth, but they ought to know. And, damn it, this
is
history.”

“As you please,” said I.

“All through the war we were thinking and dreaming of
Gracedieu
. By a round-about route, the servants kept us informed. Our home was inviolate…they had moved the more valuable pictures and hidden them at a farm…they had packed and removed our clothes to a secret place…all was well…the Gestapo had occupied the villa, but were behaving well…the silver had been buried, the liquor had been concealed…the house was
never
left: food was hard to come by, but one or other of them was always there: they were but waiting for the day when they could once again ‘surround us with their devotion’… We continually thanked our God for such fidelity.

“In October 1944, we found ourselves in Lisbon. It was not until February 1945, and then only at the instance of a Minister I happened to know, that visas were issued to us to re-enter France. The war was then drawing to a close, and the South of France was clear. We wired to our faithful servants to expect us in five days’ time, and on the following morning we took the familiar roads which would lead us back.

“One incident, I remember. We had been delayed at the Spanish-Portuguese frontier, and night had fallen before we had reached Ciudad Rodrigo, at whose agreeable guest-house we meant to pass the night. The outskirts of the town were not lighted and we lost our way. We encountered a Spanish Officer, whom, having no Spanish, I addressed in French. His manner was rather stiff, but he told me the way. Then he said, ‘You’re German.’ We all yelled ‘No’, and I pointed to the flag on the car. He peered at this, for the light was none too good. Then he saw it was the Union Jack. Instantly, his manner changed. His face alight with pleasure, he stood to attention and saluted – and stood with his hand to his hat until we had gone.

“Ciudad Rodrigo, Burgos, San Sebastian… And then, at last, the frontier which we knew so well. At eleven o’clock one morning we crossed the bridge into France. Our reception was civil. Boy, who was driving, took out his crowns and put them on to the shoulder-straps of his British Warm. At our request, Cook’s representative – a Frenchman – showed us the way to the American Post. Boy spoke to the Officer on duty, who promised to telephone to
Gracedieu
and say that we should arrive in three hours’ time.

“Within three hours we sighted the lovely place, and we stopped by the side of the road and looked across the valley, to mark the bulwarks which meant so much to us. Then we drove on through
Lally
and up the familiar road. The faithful servants were there, to wring our hands. I think, to be honest, that tears were in all our eyes. After much tribulation, we had come home again.

“The garden had run to seed…the box had not been trimmed…the lawn didn’t look like a lawn…and the fountain was stained… But such things didn’t matter. Tea was served in the library, beside a handsome fire: and, later on, a dinner of sorts was produced, with some of our own champagne. But the house was very cold; and two days later I had pneumonia.

“Between you, you pulled me through; and I was myself again, before April was in. But things were difficult. Food was scarce and the beer was not fit to drink. And petrol was hard to come by. But Boy had made friends with the Commandant of the District, an old-type, sad-faced Frenchman, and he had German petrol and gave us what he could spare. We’d just enough to get into Pau once a week. For they said that I must be fed up: and there you could buy butter – under the counter of course, at two pounds ten a pound. But these things didn’t matter, for we were at home. And our faithful servants were looking after us. When we went down to Pau, we always took the maid or the butler, to give them a treat. There was one other servant, a little local girl; and, of course, we all pulled our weight.

“And then, almost exactly two months from the day on which we had returned, the storm broke.

“It was after dinner, and we were in the library. The butler came in to take the coffee-cups. Daphne told him she wanted to speak to her maid. Two minutes later, perhaps, the woman came in.

“‘Oh, —, in case I forget, we’re not going to Pau tomorrow, but on Monday, instead.’

“The faithful servant stared.

“‘But I have an appointment with my
couturier
. He is to fit the frock which I am to wear at my cousin’s wedding next week.’

“We all looked at her.

“‘In that case,’ said Daphne, ‘you may have leave tomorrow to go to Pau by train.’

“‘And walk to and from the station?’

“‘Yes,’ said Daphne. ‘We cannot spare the petrol to take you there and back.’

“The woman went off the deep end, shouting abuse in
patois
, like a fish-wife of Dieppe.

“In a flash, Boy had the door open and I ordered her out of the room.

“After a moment or two, the butler appeared.

“‘
Madame
will understand that — is greatly upset.’

“‘Have you come to apologize for her?’

“The faithful servant sniggered.

“‘By no means. But as her husband–’

“‘Leave the room,’ said I.

“When we were alone, I looked round.

“‘And now,’ said I.

“‘Not now,’ said Boy. He looked at the door. ‘We’ll have it out tomorrow on what used to be the lawn.’

“And so we did. I’d been in bed for three weeks, so I hadn’t seen or observed what the others had. But they had discovered quite a lot – regarding the faithful servants who had wept for joy to see their patrons again. The reason why I had gone down with pneumonia was that the house had been unoccupied for several weeks. Not a picture had been moved, though we had paid for their transport to and from some farm. The under-clothes which Daphne and Jill had been wearing the day before we left in 1940 were still unwashed in 1945. The shirts which — had been making for me in June 1940 were still unfinished after five years. A pipe had burst in January 1941, and some of the books in the library had been wet. They were still wet on our return, for they had never been taken from their shelves. And that, after four years. Our milk, which had always been delivered, had to be fetched now by the little local maid. The farmer, to whom I had lent money in 1939, asked the maid why I didn’t come and get it myself. Boy had come in by the guard-room, wearing his British Warm. Passing through the servants’ quarters he had seen the priest of Besse, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking with the butler and the maid. All had risen, so Boy went in to greet the
curé
whom he had known so well. The man had insulted the British uniform. However well we had known them, no peasant uncovered when Daphne or Jill approached. And they never used the third person, as they had always done. In his efforts to obtain petrol, Boy had been grossly insulted by one of the
Prefet
’s staff.

“Well, we were up against it. If we fired ‘the faithful servants’ we couldn’t go on, for the little local maid knew nothing at all, but they obtained the food which we had to have to live. And no hotel would take you for more than two or three nights.

“The nearest British Consul was the man at Bordeaux. He was passing through Pau on Monday. That was why we were going down, for I wanted to visit London for three or four days. And I wanted my passport endorsed, so that I could get back. But now we had to consider whether or no we could stay.

“Finally we decided that we couldn’t, and the bitter months that followed proved our decision good.

“And so, on Monday, I had a talk with the man.

“I said we had tried and had failed, and he didn’t seem much surprised. Then I asked about visas for Spain and Portugal. ‘They’re easy,’ he said. ‘The exit permit’s the snag.’ ‘What, from this country?’ He nodded. ‘Can’t I get that at The Prefecture?’ He shook his head. ‘Your application must be submitted to the French Foreign Office. You must have a very good reason, which must be supported by documentary evidence. And the application may or may not be granted in two months’ time.’ ‘What, to leave this blasted country?’ ‘That is so.’ ‘I’m a British Subject by birth, and you are the British Consul.’ ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I can do nothing at all.’

“No Englishman likes living in a foreign country which he is not permitted to leave. So our applications went in without delay. We made inquiries about accommodation in Pau. This could not be obtained. When we asked about servants, people laughed in our face. ‘Do you seek to take a bandit into your house?’

“So there was nothing for it. We had to stay at
Gracedieu
and we had to retain our ‘faithful servants’, in order to live. As did everyone else, we lived upon the black market – the lawful ration of meat was four ounces a month. And they alone knew the ropes. Why they stayed, I don’t know: I suppose it suited their book. But life was more than unpleasant. The hatred, malice and uncharitableness, with which we met, became the order of the day. From high and low. It was intolerable.

“About this time the French Government called in all banknotes. The idea was to reduce the unlawful issue by handing back ten francs for twenty. But the Government lost its nerve. So it handed back twenty for twenty. But at least it knew what money in notes was out. Our parish consisted of just five hundred souls – that was the complement of three villages. If those five hundred souls had handed in six hundred thousand francs in 1939, I should have been surprised. In 1945 they handed in fifty-three million. And I know that that figure is true.

“Nearly three months of hell went by, with things growing worse and worse. We came to hate our condition. Our one idea was to leave for ever the home which we loved so much. The summer was nonpareil. Day after glorious day. But we found no pleasure in it. We stayed on the terrace and on our property: and, when we talked, we talked in the open air. We dreaded being called in the morning. There was no health in us. At last Boy wrote to our Military Attaché in Paris. Five days later we had the visas we sought. We obtained our Spanish visas and those for Portugal. And we wrote to Cook’s man at Hendaye, to say that we should be leaving on October the tenth. (I seem to be out in my dates: but I know we were there for eight months and that that was the day we left.) And we asked him to arrange with an agent for the passage through Spain of the car. As is always done. He wrote back and said that he would.

“Boy went to call on the Commandant of the District.

“‘
Mon Colonel
, our visas have come, and very soon now we shall go.’

“The Commandant shook his head.

“‘No, my friend,’ he said. ‘You have your visas, yes. But you will not leave France. You will be stopped at the frontier. I know what I know. Visas or no, they do not mean you to leave.’

“‘Impossible,’ cried Boy. ‘And what do they want with us?’

“‘I do not know,’ said the other. ‘I only know that they will not allow you to leave. They will find some fault in your passports or something wrong with the papers concerning your car. They do not mean you to go. Do not think that I blame you at all. I wish I could go myself. And now please listen to me. As the military authority here, I can get you out. But I alone can do it. I have an officer at Hendaye, and, if you will give me the date, I will instruct him myself to do as I say. And you must do as I say in every particular.’

“‘We propose to leave,’ said Boy, ‘on October the tenth. We have dismissed the servants, and they are to leave on the eighth. On the ninth a responsible caretaker will come in. That day we shall leave for Pau, where we shall pass the night. And on the tenth we shall leave for San Sebastian.’

“‘Today is the twenty-ninth. I shall visit Hendaye in three days’ time. Please come to bid me goodbye one week from today.’

“Wide-eyed, Boy thanked him and left. One week later, he took his most careful instructions and bade that good man farewell.

“‘Drive to the Town-hall in Hendaye. The tricolour hangs outside. Be there exactly at two. On no account enter the front: go round to the back. There, in a little office, my officer will be waiting. Do as he says, for he is a faithful man.’