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

go out: “Ask Polly to give a hand!” and she never failed us.

All the members of our staff came to be known by their Christian names, Ellen and Emily, Sybil, Marie and Jean, Jane and Margaret, Peter and I as Sir John.

Cold weather. We managed to keep the furnace alight during the day on odd logs, regular tree trunks, and oddments of coke. The painting and decorating was going well, and we were delighted with our scheme. The whole of the ground floor had been papered in Sibyla’s day with that rich and expensive Jacobean pat tern, and the effect with the thin coat of distemper and the brown dado was admirable. I was lusting to see the carpets and furniture back, and all the familiar and lovely things. Somehow I was not afraid of damage being done, for I had a feeling that the people who would come to us would not be of the cigarette-end, spoil everything order. We did not want that kind of casual savage, but folk who needed peace and beauty and quiet spacious days, people to whom the old house would be a friend. In fact we had decided when possible to censor our list of clients, and to refuse to welcome any who had behaved as barbarians on some previous visit. Houses have souls, souls which can be good and evil, and we wanted people who could feel and respond to that which the house could give them.

Peter had painted a little coloured text which he proposed to hang up in the hall:

“We wish to keep the House lovely. Help us.”

I was a little doubtful about this admonition, but Peter was keen on it.

“Not priggery, Uncle, just a word to the wise.”

XVI

PETER has had a shock.

Sybil has written to say that she is going to have a baby.

I think that Peter was more appalled by the news than proud of it, just when all our other responsibilities and problems lay heavy on us. Sybil would be out of action, and more than that; she would have a child to care for in our most busy house.

The lad apologized to me.

“I’m sorry, sir. My fault I suppose.”

I was too worried to see the humour of it. We had been relying so much on Sybil.

“Babies will come, my lad. That’s both a platitude and a cliche.”

“I shall have to get her into a nursing-home.”

“All in good time. She can come here.”

He gave me a most grateful grin.

“But we can’t park all our troubles on you.”

“The trouble is months ahead. Sybil should be able to help us for a while. We shall be in the house by the time the child arrives.”

“You are a sport. Uncle.”

But he was depressed and bothered, worried about Sybil and the problem of a baby tossed into our very new hotel, so much so that I tried to make a joke of it. I told him of my friend Barry Neame who had been obliged to run his show partly with mothers who had babies parked in prams all over the place, and that the babies had been an hotel asset. Benign and philoprogenic souls had found pleasure in bending over prams, and making paternal and maternal noises. It had made Barry’s place seem very much alive.

Peter wrote to Sybil every day, and Sybil wrote to me.

I always knew you were a lamb. Uncle, but now you are a lamb with a halo. I shan’t forget.

She had applied for a release, and of course her release would be inevitable.

I’ll be with you any day. Peter talks about buying a pram. They are hard to get, and horribly expensive. Stop him.

I was rather puzzled by that blunt order. Surely a healthy young woman need not prognosticate miscarriage or a stillborn child?

We were at lunch when I heard a car pull up outside Rose Cottage. I had a better view of it than Peter had, and I saw that it was a taxi.

“Someone calling?”

“By Jove,” I said, “it’s Sybil!”

Peter was up and out of the room before I could move, and that in spite of his artificial leg. I sat down again. Let the young things meet; I should be de trap. I heard their voices, a mild argument, and laughter from Sybil. The taxi man had been paid and was driving off.

“You mustn’t carry that. Hand it over.”

“Mustn’t isn’t used by husbands.”

“Come along, darling, hand it over.”

The gentle conflict appeared to concern her kit-bag, and I gather that she surrendered it to Peter. We were having mince for lunch, and if there is anything I loathe it is mince, and I left my plate to ring the bell for Ellen. Sybil would need lunch even if it was nothing but mince.

They were in the passage, and I heard Peter say: “Go and see Uncle. I’ll carry this up.”

I opened the door and was confronted by Sybil in mufti, a very presentable and jocund young woman. I told myself that pregnancy in its early phases sometimes gives a girl a natural bloom, and then I was kissing Sybil. She felt warm, in spite of the cold weather, and she smelt sweet.

“Well, well, well. Come in and sit down.”

I was paternal and considerate. I admit that I glanced at her figure, but I could see no evidence. In fact she looked more slim and sleek in that silver grey suit.

“I’ve had a sandwich lunch, Uncle.”

“That won’t do. Oh, Ellen—”

Ellen was with us, maternal and smiling. It appeared that mince was in short supply, but Ellen could produce Spam.

“And there’s a gooseberry tart, Mrs. Nash.”

Sybil giggled. Mrs. Nash indeed!

“Oh, scrumptious. Some of your bottled ones, Ellen?”

“Yes, and cream.”

“Cream! I’ll be a pig. By the way, I’ve got a pound of butter, two pounds of sugar and a quarter of tea in my bag.”

Ellen beamed -upon her. Almost her maternal face radiated cookliness and the assertion that prospective mothers must be well fed.

Peter came clumbering down the stairs. He put his arm round his wife, and drew her towards the fire.

“Do sit down, darling. Get warm. You must be tired.”

She suffered his carefulness, but she smiled at me, an oblique and Mona Lisa smile, and I was puzzled by it. The carrying of a child might seem humorous to Sybil; most certainly it was not depressing to her.

Sybil ate Spam, and she had two helpings of goose berry tart, and half a pint of beer. Obviously her appetite was excellent, and not yet subject to the puckishness of pregnancy. I saw Peter watching her with loving and responsible eyes. Ellen brought us coffee, and the young things lit cigarettes.

“Come and put your feet up, darling.”

He wanted her to rest on the sofa by the fire, but in the vulgar parlance Sybil wasn’t having any. She shook her curls and perched on a tuffet, and blew smoke at her husband.

“I want to see the house. How are things going, Uncle?”

Peter looked at me. Did he expect me to assist in exerting husbandly pressure?

“Fine,” said I, “I can drive you up, if my wretched old car will function.”

She laughed.

“Drive? What’s wrong with flat feet? I haven’t got the vapours.”

Peter looked bothered.

“Do you think you ought to, darling?”

“Dear boy, I’m not a hospital case yet.”

So, walk we did, and Sybil was as light as ever on those pretty legs of hers. Peter had been for taking her arm, but she shrugged him off gently, and he looked hurt. Her spruce apartness seemed to say “Don’t fuss, darling. You need not worry about me.”

When she saw the house in all its recovered white ness, with the huts gone, and the weeds effaced, and the young grass sprouting she stood still and held my arm. Her face was soft and her eyes liquid. Even the weather was being kind to us with its cold sparkle, for, in this dear old country’s foul moods it can drive a man to drink.

“Oh, Uncle, it’s perfect.”

I glanced at Peter. Poor Peter was looking bothered, for she had held my arm, not his.

Thomas Brown & Co. were at work on the first floor. The furnace was going and the old house felt warm. As for the scheme of decoration it delighted Sybil, as it had delighted us.

I pulled Peter into the picture.

“You see all the staining, and the curtain rods, that i has been one of Peter’s jobs.”

“I can do curtains. Have you a step-ladder?”

Peter frowned at me.

“No step-ladders for you, darling. I won’t have it.”

She smiled at him with sudden tenderness, and went and put an arm round him.

“I’ll be very careful. Haven’t I got a considerate hus band, Uncle?”

I said: “One in a thousand, my dear, and I mean that. Some men wear well. Give me kindness.”

She turned her face up to Peter’s.

“Darling, don’t worry. You’re such a dear.” And she kissed him.

I confess that we were proposing to wrap Sybil in cotton-wool and surround her with a protective idleness, but Sybil would not stay idle, and I became more and more puzzled. She appeared to be more active than ever, and full of energy and enthusiasm. Peter had suggested a medical attendant and she had laughed it off.

He came to me.

“I wish you would try and persuade her to see a doctor.”

“She doesn’t seem to need one at present.”

“No, that’s what’s worrying me. She ought not to take risks and tire herself. I caught her hanging curtains, and I’m afraid we had a row.”

I said: “I don’t think Sybil is reckless. She is a wise little person, you know.”

He was frowning.

“Yes, but there is something I don’t understand, something I can’t get at. She’s not moody or fussy, but she won’t be—”

“Coerced?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. She won’t let me persuade her to—”

“Shall I—?”

“I wish you would.”

I did, and the result was devastating. Sybil began to laugh, and to laugh most immoderately.

“Oh you two sweet lambs!”

Were we two sweet lambs, and why? I began to feel a trifle peeved, for an old fellow does like to be listened to.

“I think I might suggest, my dear, that Peter’s interest in your er condition is somewhat rational.”

“Oh, quite,” said she, “you are both utter dears, but so innocent.”

I innocent! No man quite likes to be considered that. Maybe I became a little throaty and high coloured, and she saw that she had offended me, for she came across and sat down on my knee.

“Uncle, you’re such a lamb. I’m a minx. You and Peter are both dears. Didn’t you suspect that I’d done a wangle?”

“A wangle?”

“Yes, I did so want to get busy and be with Peter.”

“Do you mean to tell me you’re not—”

“No, I don’t think I am.”

I stared at her wholesome, naughty little face, and felt as though I had burst my braces.

“Good God, do you mean you have been fooling?”

“Not quite fooling, Uncle.”

“But how the devil—”

“Well, I spun a yarn, and there was a dear idiot of a doctor who swallowed—”

“You are a very disgraceful young woman.”

“Oh, Uncle!”

“Yes you are. Fve a good mind to turn you over and spank you.”

“Spank away if you like.”

“Don’t you realize that you’ve made yourself liable —?”

“Have I? But, can’t a young wife make mistakes?”

“Like your nice idiot of a doctor?”

“Yes, just like that.”

I turned her over and gave one good, hearty smack.

“That’s from me, for being a bold-faced,