Laughing House by Warwick Deeping (grave mercy .txt) 📕

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I pushed the letter across the table to Peter.

“Read that. We are for it.”

I saw his face light up. Sometimes it was a face old beyond his years, because of what he had suffered, and still suffered, but at this moment it was almost the face of a young lover. The young do not call on God, and all Peter said was: “So that is that.”

I do not think one could tolerate the old, facile and oleaginous emotions, we who have gone through so much, and I rather like the brittle brevity of the young. Peter drank his coffee, with his bright eyes still glued ‘to that letter.

“Still meaning to go through with it, Uncle?”

“I am.”

His eyes lifted to my face.

“Ulterior motives, what! It means a lot to us. Sybil and I

He became hesitant and self-conscious, and he smiled into his cup.

“Gratitude is supposed to be bunk by the moderns, but if we are in this with you we’ll be in it like—”

He could not find the word.

“A happy family.”

He nodded.

“I bet Sybil will have something to say.”

She had.

I remember her coming up to me like a sturdy, solemn child. She put her hands round my neck and kissed me. Her blue eyes were set and steady.

“You are a perfect lamb.”

Was I? I smiled into her solid, clear and solemn face, and kissed her forehead.

“I rather like being a lamb.”

“You don’t know what it means to Peter, yes, and to me.”

XII

WHEN I read some of the modern literature I often wonder whether we are as complex and life as complicated as these clever young people would per suade us. Or is it that we older folk do not register so freely and so subtly as the younger generation? We are fresh to the glandular theory, and the new psychology, Freud and all that, and maybe our mental pattern is simpler and broader, which leads me to remember that a clever cartoonist will sketch in a few lines a study far more mordant and vivid than tangled shreds of complicated fuss.

Our situation seemed quite simple to me. Peter and Sybil were in love, Peter and Sybil wanted marriage and a job. I wanted to preserve the old house and save it from being vulgarized or bought up and pulled down. I was being useful to Peter and Sybil, but when I thought of Sybil’s sturdy young arms round my neck I felt that I might be more than utility. Moreover, as one grows old the purpose and significance of life are apt to wane, and the House and these young things were re-stoking my furnace with a feeling of purpose and adventure.. Should one end as a wet-nosed, grum bling old codger, or function to the last like gallant veterans such as G.B.S. and Churchill?

Scared I may have been of all the vicissitudes that loomed upon us, but I was not alone, and these two young things bless them did not allow me to feel alone. It was Uncle-this and Uncle-that, and they chattered to me like friendly children.

I made a point of letting them enjoy the Sunday morning together, for Sybil wanted to go over the house, and perhaps censor some of our masculine ideas. If she were to play the parts of manageress and housekeeper, her views would be of value, and as an officer in the Wrens she had had plenty of experience in dealing with young women. Also, I gather that Sybil had taken a course in Domestic Science. Peter, in the part of hotelier, could not have made a wiser choice.

I was bothered about the good Ellen having all this extra work to do; but I need not have worried. Sybil was down bright and early, helping with chores. She had made her own bed, and later made Peter’s, and I heard cheerful voices in the kitchen. We had buttered eggs for breakfast, shell-eggs strange term, and they were of Sybil’s making, and jolly good they were.

“Ellen’s a pet, Uncle. It’s so jolly to deal with comfortable people.”

Comfortable people! Excellent phrase that!

I did my morning jobs at the farm, and had a gossip with old Potter. I told him the house was coming back to us, and I broached the subject of an hotel. I rather feared that old Potter might prove awkward, but when I told him that the garden would be his, and that he and I and Tom would be food and fruit producers, he waggled his backside rather like a duck, a strange trick of his.

“There beant nothing wrong with that,” said he.

“I am glad you see it in that way.”

“I reckon most old ‘ouses’ll have to change their ‘abits.”

“And old men,” said I.

“Sure. What them young ones says is ‘Get on or get out.’”

When I had finished my palaver and my jobs I went and sat on the wall by the pool, and watched the moor hens, and the reflections in the water. Happening to glance at the house, I saw the lower sash of a bedroom window thrown up, and Peter and Sybil leaning out together. So, she had got him up the stairs.

She waved to me.

“Uncle ahoi, we want you.”

I accepted the invitation, feeling that it was pleasant to be wanted and hailed in that naval and friendly fashion.

I met them coming down the stairs, Peter using only one crutch, and Sybil serving as a second crutch, with her arm round him. She watched every step he took and I watched them both while I pressed tobacco into a pipe.

“Well, how does the great idea shape to you?”

Sybil watched the last step before she looked at me with those very blue eyes of hers. I have never seen a face that could so express extreme innocence and extreme shrewdness at one and the same moment.

“Pretty shipshape.”

“No snags?”

She found Peter’s other crutch while he held on to the handrail.

“Just a bit more bath.”

I could not help smiling at her cleanliness and her brevity.

“And basins?”

“Oh rather. Harrods have baths and basins. Gosh, why didn’t I learn plumbing.”

Peter grinned at me.

“You’d think, Uncle, she was all baths and basins, and without a thrill for—”

“Shut up, Pete. I think it’s perfect, all of it. I wish I’d seen it as it was.”

I was surprised. I was under the impression that all young things liked tubular chairs and Epstein art.

“Well, you can and will. All the old furniture can come back, the china and the pictures.”

“Oh, splendid, Uncle. You have the great idea.”

“Have I?”

“One doesn’t want a besotted boarding-house atmos phere, fumed oak and bronze statuettes and Pampasgrass, and ‘Marcus Stone stuff. Why couldn’t an hotel look like home?”

I lit my pipe.

“Peter, a wise woman speaks. I rather thought that Sybil might want —”

She took me up.

“American Bar stuff, and all that! Shame on you, Uncle.”

“Apologies,” said I, “and I think you are God’s own prize lamb. I used to think the old house looked rather lovely.”

Her face went dreamy.

“I’m simply itching to see it look like that again.”

After tea we held a council of war in the Rose Cot tage garden. I had been given to understand that we could not enter the house until the figure for dilapidations had been assessed and agreed upon, but there were a whole host of problems to be confronted. I had a feeling that Peter and Sybil had been talking over some urgent, personal problem, and I caught them looking at each other questioningly.

And then Sybil looked at me.

“Do you mind if we talk shop, Uncle? Our shop. You see—”

I saw further than she imagined.

“You and Peter want to be married.”

She nodded, and I smiled at her determined little chin.

“I am telling Peter that he should apply to be demobbed. You might help with that, Uncle.”

“Yes, I think I could. But wait a moment. It Is only fair to you that we should have a definite agreement. Perhaps you would like it all in writing, that I promise to take on the adventure, and agree to engage Peter as manager and you as—”

Again they looked at each other, and Peter shook his head.

“We’ll take your word for it, Uncle.”

I pulled hard at my pipe.

“Thank you, my dears, but to satisfy myself, I’ll have something down on paper. I’m an old fellow—”

“You’re not,” said Sybil, “and never will be.”

So it was decided that Peter should apply for his freedom, and that Sybil when married should do the same. It seemed to me the war would not last much longer, and that we should not suffer another winter’s black-out, and I was wrong. Meanwhile we attacked our principal problems, and one or two of them seemed to me insoluble.

How to get the house put in order? I understood that unless we obtained a certificate, we should be limited to an outlay of 10.

“Yes,” said Peter, “unless we do the work ourselves.”

“We?”

“Yes, it does sound a bit difficult. You might apply for a certificate.”

Then those damned huts. How were we to be rid of them?

“Wouldn’t some farmer buy the things?”

That was an idea, and I thought of my friend Wicks. He was a progressive person, always ready for adven ture, and able to produce labour.

“Yes, I’ll try Wicks.”

But labour? How were we to staff the place? I bit hard on my pipe.

Then Sybil spoke.

“I want to do some of the cooking. And I’ve had a pow-wow with Ellen. She would come to us.”

“And cook for thirty people?”

“Yes, with help. Ellen’s rather a dear.”

I indulged in topical slang.

“You’re telling me! We’ll pay her well.”

“She’s not greedy. My feeling about it is, Uncle, that we ought to be a team.”

“A little community.”

“That’s it, communal but not communist. All working together, ten per cent on the bills, and no tips. We don’t want the luxury pigs getting their hoofs in the trough.”

“I am with you, my lass, absolutely. But—”

“Well, Uncle?”

“Peter has listed two waitresses and two chamber maids, and two helps in the kitchen.”

Sybil nodded solemnly.

“I have an idea about part of that. I have two girls in my crowd who would like to come with me. Jolly good girls. They have done some waiting.”

“You seem to have an answer to everything.”

“Not quite. Ask Peter.”

I looked at Peter and he grinned.

“I have a lad who was my batman. He’d come. Turn his hand to anything.”

I scratched my head.

“That leaves only two chambermaids, and someone in the kitchen.”

“What about your Emily. Ellen thinks—”

“I’ll write to her.”

“I think we could manage the rest somehow. Be sides at a pinch Peter and I can wire in. We shall all be in the show.”

XIII

I HAD a feeling that things were going too well, and that frustration might be waiting for us round the corner. It was proving a bad and a difficult summer, spiteful and hostile even to our men in France, and we were having trouble with weeds and the harvest. As for fruit it was one of the worst years I remember. The Rose Cottage orchard exhibited about six scabby apples, and there was not a plum on the place.

We three old men John and Jim and Tom, were tired, and so a little out of temper. Wicks had cut our oats and wheat for us, but getting it in was another business. I was opening up the stocks to dry one morning when the sun deigned to shine, and