B-Berry and I Look Back (26 page)

There was a little silence.

Then –

“How many pages had you written?” said Daphne.

“Fifty-one,” wailed Jill.

I took her small hand in mine.

“I’m sorry, my darling. But it’s just one of those things. You see, I shouldn’t have tried. I was asking too much.”

“There I’m with you,” said Berry. “Somewhere in
The Stolen March
you speak of ‘a spring, schooled into a fountain, playing beneath an oak’. Well, that exactly describes the artless
joie de vivre
of the book itself.”

“Steady,” I said. “I’m glad it appealed to you. But many of my fans can’t read it. One of them wrote and said I’d gone round the bend. Say rather that, good or bad, the subconscious brain felt unable to do it again. And fifty pages is not a terrible lot. I wrote more than two hundred once – and tore them up.”

“What ever happened?” said Jonah.

“I don’t really know,” I said. “I think I was worried at the time: but the book never settled down. Some of it wasn’t too bad. Of course I was very foolish not to have stopped before.”

“What was it called?” said Daphne.

“I don’t think I’d thought of a title. It was a romance.”

“Has this kind of thing often happened?”

“Only three times, I think: so I can’t complain. Say, three hundred pages in all: about the length of a book.
Absit omen
. We don’t want to have to scrap this.”

Berry covered his face.

“Surely it’s long enough,” said Daphne.

“It may be – in the rough. But it’s got to be pruned, you know.”

“Not my monographs!” screamed Berry. “They’re twice as finished as anything else in the book.”

Jill, beside me, began to shake with laughter.

“I’m afraid you’re a little too fond of The Wife of Bath.”

“Damn the man,” cried Berry. “I knew he was going to say that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, laughing. “But we must not repeat ourselves. And some of the memoir, I think, should be considered again. Any way, I’ll tell you next week.”

Jonah laid a hand on my shoulder.

“One last look at The Temple, before you close down. I mean, after Lamb, strolling down Crown Office Row.”

I leaned back, closing my eyes.

“Crown Office Row and The Cloisters… I can see Lord Cecil of Chelwood – then Lord Robert Cecil – striding along. A tall, notable figure, with a very definite stoop. Tall hat and short coat, always. He must be terribly old, for it’s more than seventy years since he was called to the Bar… Darling J, very dapper as always – grey morning-coat suit and a grey top-hat, which he was continually raising, for every counsel that passed him uncovered his head. (Whether or no he knew you, you always raised your hat when passing a Judge.)…Sir Harry Poland, once, I think, of Treasury Counsel, old and wise and diligent, a small and bird-like man, on his way to the Inner Temple Library, where he spent most of his time: a pleasant, encouraging manner towards everyone that he met… Tiverton, son of Lord Halsbury, a little older than me. (I came to know him at Oxford, for though he went down the year before I came up, he used to return sometimes. He had been President of the OUDS. He was a most amusing fellow, later to become a QC. He used to go down in the country and defend motorists for the AA. If he couldn’t do anything else, he took a point of law. His father, late Lord Chancellor, had given him his library, and he used to delve into long-forgotten Law Reports and discover some ancient case which suited his book. He’d take the volume with him and scare a country Bench with some monstrous argument, backed, so he said, by something some Judge had said in 1610. And he would produce the Report. I was in the Divisional Court on one occasion, when he was up on his feet. You see, the Crown had appealed against some Magistrates’ decision in his favour: so ‘Tivvy’, as he was known, had to try and make good his contention before two Queen’s Bench Judges – a very different thing to three Justices of the Peace. One of the two, I remember, was the Lord Chief – Alverstone. Of course he’d known ‘Tivvy’ all his life and I can see him now shaking with laughter at the ridiculous argument which ‘Tivvy’ was endeavouring to invest with some semblance of dignity. I’m sorry to say he died young, for he was most entertaining in all he said and did…) McCarthy, wan and abstracted, still at the Junior Bar… Jones, always ready with a jest, waddling rather than walking, simply because he was fat beyond all belief… Swinton – then Lloyd Greame – with a quizzical look in his eye, saying something which made his companions laugh… R D Muir, unsmiling and portly, very conscious of his importance as Senior Treasury Counsel, living for work… F E Smith, very well turned out and the picture of health, silk hat on the back of his head, with his supercilious air and, rarely, the ghost of a smile… And, nicest of all, Theo Mathew, short coat and silk hat on one side, wearing, I think, an eyeglass, radiating goodwill and good humour, so plainly finding the world an excellent place; though, able and charming as he was, he never met the success he most justly deserved. Finally, if you want it, myself, morning coat and striped trousers, silk hat just out of the straight, remarking the lively passage of famous men, finding the sunshine too brave to return to chambers and trying to make up my mind whether to lunch at
The Cock
or in Inner Temple Hall.”

“Were you lucky, darling?”

“Yes, indeed,” I said. “To vary Lamb’s famous words, ‘A man would be fortunate to have loitered in such a place.’”

(In the shape of a letter from Bridget Ightham to her brother, John Ightham, farmer, of Bilberry, in the County of Hampshire.)

Dear Jack,

Thank you for your nice long letter. I’m thankful young Arthur is shaping so well and ready to listen to you. It was very kind of Colonel Scarlett to send me such a nice message. Next time you see him, please thank him very much and say how happy we all are to think of him being in charge of White Ladies. It does make it better, you know. Fancy Bluecoat being an institution. I shouldn’t be in a hurry to sell them the Dale. I mean, wait and see what sort of Institution it is. It might be for lunatics: and if it was – well, you wouldn’t want to have them too close to the house.

All well here, thank God. Very quiet living, of course, but we’re happier so. The Major and Madam seem exactly the same – so gentle and kind and natural, just as they always were. My lady as sweet as ever – always so gay and loving in all she says and does. Colonel Mansel is here a lot, I’m thankful to say, for it does us all good just to know he’s about the place. But I’m worried about the Captain, for he is so very tired. You know, Jack, he works like he used to twenty years ago; and he’s over seventy now, though he doesn’t look his age.

Ed Fitch and I think we’re lucky to be here and I know George Carson is always glad to be back. ‘You want to be young,’ he says, ‘to live in England today.’ It’s quiet, of course, but we’re all of us thankful for that. And the people are very nice. We’ve quite a good cook and three maids, as willing as ever you saw. And they take a pride in their work. Just like the old days, Jack. I’ve very little to do, except keep an eye on things, and I’m often with Madam and my lady. They’re very sweet to me: if there’s anything doing they never leave me out. They often take me to Lisbon: it’s really a lovely city and heaps of lovely shops, and beautiful English films right up to date. And all in English, too. I don’t know how the Portuguese get on, but the houses are always full. I had a perm the other day, and my lady says, ‘We’ll take you to our place, Bridget; but mind you’re not shocked.’ ‘If it’s good enough for you, my lady,’ says I. ‘Well,’ says she, ‘it’s where all the ladies of the town go; but it’s spotlessly clean and it’s very much better and cheaper than anywhere else.’ You know, if she hadn’t told me, I’d never have dreamed. Their manners were that perfect. And I’ll say they did me a treat, and most respectful. And I had a manicure. And some of the shops are a sight. Talk about dressing a window – London’s got something to learn. And everything you can think of. Sometimes we three go in to see a film – Ed Fitch and George Carson and me. And when it’s over we sit down outside a café and have a glass of beer. And all the foreigners so pleasant and so polite, you wouldn’t believe. And then George drives us home.

The house – quinta, they call it – is very nice. It stands well back from the road, so it’s very quiet. It’s got a courtyard in front, with walls on three sides, and you drive in under an archway and up to the steps. It’s quite an old house, you know, but it has been modernized: lovely big rooms, but rather cold in the winter so we have to keep up good fires: still, we get a lot of sun and in the summer it’s lovely and ever so cool. Ed and George and I have a beautiful sitting-room and a splendid radio, so we get all the English programmes, and you know, Jack, I can’t help feeling we’re very fortunate. It’s not as we was young. I’ll soon be sixty-eight and Ed is older than me. And with all the changes at home – and what good have they done, Jack? That’s what I want to know. I tell you straight, I’m glad to be out of it all. But here we’re comfortable and happy, just as we used to be; and no one can ask more than that. It was a good day when I went to White Ladies, fifty-one years ago. Dear me, what a long time that is. D’you remember Mary Anne – the strawberry roan that Father used to drive? Funny how one remembers little odd things like that. And old Chalk in his cottage garden, wearing his smock and tall hat and half asleep in the sun? He was very old when he died. Ninety-eight, I think. I know he was born in the reign of George the Third.

Well, goodbye, Jack, for the present. Give my love to Amy and write again when you can.

Your loving sister,

Bridget.

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

(in order of first publication)

Published by House of Stratus

Adèle & Co This is the first full-length novel featuring Yates’ finest comic creation, Bertram ‘Berry’ Pleydell. The popular character of Adéle is based on the author’s first wife, Bettine, a highly gregarious American dancer and actress. Written in response to massive public demand for the Berry stories, this is regarded as one of Yates’ best books. Amongst the madcap escapades of the Pleydell clan as they career about the French countryside you will find ‘crime, criminals, and some of the funniest writing in the English language’.

And Berry Came Too Eight stories in which we encounter ‘the hair-raising adventures and idiotic situations of the Pleydell family’ ( Punch ). Along with John Buchan and ‘Sapper’, Yates dominated the adventure book market of the inter-war years, and Berry is regarded as one of British comic writing’s finest creations, including Tom Sharpe amongst his fans. Read these and weep (with laughter).

As Berry & I Were Saying Reprinted four times in three months, this semi-autobiographical novel is a humorous account of the author’s hazardous experiences in France, at the end of the World War II. Darker and less frivolous than some of Yates’ earlier books, he describes it as ‘really my own memoir put into the mouths of Berry and Boy’, and at the time of publication it already had a nostalgic feel. A great hit with the public and a ‘scrapbook of the Edwardian age as it was seen by the upper-middle classes’.

B-Berry & I Look Back This is Yates’ final book, a semi-autobiographical novel spanning a lifetime of events from the sinking of the Titanic to the notorious Tichborne murder case. It opens with Berry, one of British comic writing’s finest creations, at his funniest, and is a companion volume to As Berry and I Were Saying . Pure, vintageYates.

Berry & Co This collection of short stories featuring ‘Berry’ Pleydell and his chaotic entourage established Dornford Yates’ reputation as one of the best comic writers in a generation, and made him hugely popular. The German caricatures in the book carried such a sting that when France was invaded in 1939 Yates, who was living near the Pyrenées, was put on the wanted list and had to flee.

The Berry Scene These stories, written by huge popular demand, give us classic Berry Pleydell – Yates’ finest comic character – at the top of his form. The first story sees Berry capturing a German spy at a village cricket match in 1914, and things get more bizarre from then on. A self-consciously nostalgic work harking back to more decorous days, here are tense plotting and high farce of the best kind.

Blind Corner This is Yates’ first thriller: a tautly plotted page-turner featuring the crime-busting adventures of suave Richard Chandos. Chandos is thrown out of Oxford for ‘beating up some Communists’, and on return from vacation in Biarritz he witnesses a murder. Teaming up at his London club with friend Jonathan Mansel, a stratagem is devised to catch the killer. The novel has compelling sequels: Blood Royal , An Eye For a Tooth, Fire Below and Perishable Goods .

Blood Royal At his chivalrous, rakish best in a story of mistaken identity, kidnapping, and old-world romance, Richard Chandos takes us on a romp through Europe in the company of a host of unforgettable characters. This fine thriller can be read alone or as part of a series with Blind Corner , An Eye For a Tooth , Fire Below and Perishable Goods .

Brother of Daphne Daphne is ‘well-born, elegant, beautiful, and not especially bright’. In this, Yates’ earliest collection of stories, we meet the Pleydell clan and encounter their high-spirited comic adventures. It is a world of Edwardian gentility and accomplished farce that brought the author instant fame when the stories appeared in Windsor Magazine .

Cost Price A story from Dornford Yates’ later career, of stolen treasure, set against a backdrop of World War II: adventure, a travelling circus and much more besides. Lots of favourite Yates characters are here, as well as some new ones, like the Portuguese mule in trousers, and a few striking villains. This is the legendary Chandos’ final fictional appearance. A tense, assured plot and vintage comedy from a master of the genre.