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

“That’s very helpful of you.”

He smiled at me.

“Well if you don’t mind my saying so, you are giving good social service, sir. It is not merely a luxury show. As I see it, one of the needs of the future will be places such as this.”

“I am glad you see it in that way.”

He was emphatic.

“I do. You are not commercialists. You are giving what many people are hungry for.”

When I told Peter he nearly fell off his mock leg. We got hold of Mr. Brown and put it to him. Could he do the work if the costs were passed? He could. Whisky still seemed to be warm in him.

But there was the question of noise, punching holes through brickwork with cold chisels, and the taking up and re-laying of floorboards. The one thing we did not want was noise, and energetic operatives hammering hard and punctually at two o’clock, just when elderly souls were seeking an afternoon nap.

We put this up to Mr. Brown. If the work was sanctioned, could he do it in the mornings?

It surprised me to find that he saw our point. He was fond of his Sunday, post-dinner snooze, and I blessed the habit. Comprehension makes the whole world kin.

We were having to refuse applications, which was flattering, but bad business. Peter appealed to me. Why not let two or three of the upper bedrooms while the work was proceeding? Brown could hurry the second bathroom into action, and we could take the rooms in series.

I agreed, provided that our visitors were given to understand that there was no running water in these rooms as yet, and that alterations were in progress. He could say that no work was carried on in the afternoon.

I believed in frankness, and in telling people the truth. If they were wise as to a situation before they reserved accommodation they had no grievance. I had suffered much from the lack of candour in English hotels, and the activities of an insensitive and half-trained staff who clattered and gossiped in corridors. I had visited numbers of English hotels where work was in progress, and the noise insufferable, and always I had asked the question “Why did you not warn me that you had workmen in?” and I had been met with blank and unhelpful faces.

Apparently it had been no business of mine.

I had considered it very much my business.

I had not come away to listen to hammering and tramping feet, and loud, brainless gossip.

I had always left such places.

So, one of the virtues we impressed upon our staff was the blessedness of silence. Nor should they get into a huddle and chatter outside doors.

We were a somewhat civilized crowd, and our people understood me. It was everybody’s show, and our ideal was to make it oiled and noiseless.

I am sorry to have to say it, but the most considerate and enlightened hotel I had known had been German. They had treated their calling as an art, and had been proud of it. The English have little art, and seem to take pride in being ashamed of their job.

Just snobbery.

I decided to have cards printed which could be hung outside bedroom doors:

Please Do Not Disturb.

I first saw such a notice in Germany.

IT was one curious and characteristic thing about the House, it took people in, not in the vulgar sense, and in accepting them persuaded them to accept each other. It surprised me how people settled down together, and chummed up, and were kind to each other. Almost our community might have been an old-fashioned country-house party. There was sufficient space for those who felt separative or who wanted to read, to get away in a quiet corner, and I put my library at the service of my guests. The garden appeared to be a great solace to many of them, and you would find deck chairs parked in solitary places; people were a little thoughtless about returning them to store. We were too busy to go about collecting lost deck chairs, and I put up a little notice:

Will guests please return deck chairs to the house.

Washing-up! What a business. And how boring until you became used to it. I think the washing bowl might be accepted as the symbol of the new world. Yet there is an art even in washing-up, oh very much so, and conscience and pride. Unlimited hot water, plenty of Lux, an abundance of dry glass-cloths, and in my case a rubber scraper, for on three evenings a week I gave a hand. I had a feeling that the staff had been at it all day, and that I had no right to escape from what might be drudgery. We joked and chattered. I remember breaking a wine glass; the stem seemed to snap in my hand, and someone said: “It just broke in my hand.” But there came to me a kind of satisfaction in this cleansing, and of seeing that which had been unclean become clean and polished. Often Peter was with me, for he was an expert washer, with quick and sensitive hands.

“You seem to like the job, sir.”

They all called me “Sir,” though I sometimes put on an apron.

“Yes, funny, but I do. Didn’t at first. Call it transcending egg stains on a fork, or a smeary glass.”

He gave me a sidelong grin.

“No wonder you have us all on toast. It’s like the old tradition.”

“Which one?”

“The Saxon thane going into the hardest fields with his men.”

“And why not?”

“Yes, why not? Gentleman is as gentleman does.”

Peter came to me rattling the keys and cash in his trouser pockets. Even those pockets suggested extreme satisfaction.

“We are on the right side at last, Uncle.”

“Politically?”

“No, on the wrong side with the jabberers. We are making a profit.”

“Splendid,” said I, “what scum we are!”

“And something more?”

“Are we socially septic as well?”

“Booked up to the end of October. And quite a number of people want to winter with us.”

“Good for you, Peter.”

“Good because of everybody. But a point arises.”

“Well?”

“I think we ought to limit visits to three weeks in the spring and summer seasons. Only fair. Besides we don’t want to collect chronics.”

I agreed. Does not everybody know some of those “Chronics,” crusty nuisances, exacting, making personal property of the best chairs, boring the world with garrulous egoism.

“Quite right, my lad. We don’t want people who cough and creak.”

Hitherto we had been lucky. We had no old blow-flies buzzing around, save on one occasion, a school marm lady who had persisted in giving lectures, and so driving people out of their chairs. We had dealt with her by telling her that her room was wanted, and had been reserved. Then, we had an old gentleman with a large nose and a persistent verbosity, who had cleared his throat loudly three times a minute, and smoked very foul pipes, and insisted on talking to people when it was obvious that they did not want to be talked to. He spread a dank frost wherever he chose to sit, and he would sit for hours and gaggle. We got rid of him in the same way, and he was rude to us.

After all, one wishes to protect one’s show and one’s people from flatulent egoism, obfuscated asses male or female, who bray a whole community into boredom.

We had managed to find another chambermaid, so our staff was complete, save that young Potter had not yet come back to us, though I kept applying for him. I suppose the Army and Whitehall will hold on to the men to the bitter end, in order to save their own jobs. Though Polly was as strong as a young pony and worked harder than most men, we needed a lusty fellow about the place, for Potter, Tom and I were not in our prime. We had to grow more vegetables for the House, and our miniature farm was in full production. More over, we had a bumper crop of fruit, which was fortu nate, for one fruit-farming friend of mine had not a plum or an apple worth selling. Frost and apple blossom weevil had played havoc with his orchards.

Some of our guests volunteered to pick fruit, and I think they enjoyed it, especially filling baskets with rosy and purple plums. Ellen and Mrs. Hobson were busy bottling all the plums we could spare, but they had mostly to bottle in water, for sugar was scarce. I may say that we were honest about sugar and butter. Each guest’s weekly ration was placed in a glass jar and labelled, and put upon their tables. It was up to them to make it do. Nor were we doing too badly for food; we had our geese, poultry and ducks, and an occasional rabbit, unlimited fresh vegetables and fruit. Both Ellen and Mrs. Hobson had ideas and hands, and worked well together, and they served up tasteful and spicy stuff. Our food was never flat and flatulent, and it piqued people. Above all we were punctual.

Our scheme of one day off a week worked well. The girls could catch a Framley bus into Melford, and train to London, if they wished. They did not always wish, but lazed about the place. At any rate the day’s choice and the freedom were theirs.

In Edwardian days I had been an expert croquet player, and something of a bowlster, and after tea I would join in croquet matches, or trundle bowls. We were agreed not to take these games too seriously, for life and the future were sufficiently grim, and we joked and chipped each other. I found my old skill with a mallet coming back, and I was somewhat the star turn. The good ladies selected me as a partner.

“I’m going to play with Sir John.”

I had routed out an old white flannel suit which the moths had not eaten to pieces, and in the afternoon I shed my working breeches and my blue overalls, and enjoyed myself. I was “reminded of some of the old and more gracious days, and the House looked at us benignly.

Our top-floor was now in action, and we were full to the roof. Peter produced his account book and smiled over it.

“Like to see the week’s profit, Uncle?”

“Not half,” said I.

I began to contemplate opening our staff-fund.

One morning I found Peter at his desk with what appeared to be a plan before him. He was busy with pencil and ruler.

“What’s on?” I asked him.

He laughed up at me.

“Extensions.”

I sat down beside him.

“When and where, my lad? Will hotels be permitted to grow fat?”

For the Socialists were crowing, and the country had ratted on the man who had saved it, just as I had expected it would do, but it seemed to me that in five years time the Socialist cock, while still crowing, might be a very ragged and moth-eaten bird. But Peter’s plan was Peter’s plan, and I saw that he had sketched out an extension at the back of the house o the same character and white simplicity. It fitted on very well, and would occupy a piece of ground that would not matter. He explained it to me, the ground floor would house a new dining-room capable of seating some fifty people, and on the upper floor there would be twelve more bed rooms, two bathrooms and two lavatories. The old dining-room could be used in emergencies, that is to say if we admitted non-residents or gave weekend dances.

“I like it,” said I, “but isn’t it very much in the future?”