House That Berry Built (7 page)

Monsieur de Moulin took our hands, one in each of his own.

“There are occasions,” he said, “when words are inadequate. Life is a precious thing. After all, it is all we have. And you two risked that thing to save a stranger from death. You will please believe that I am – very grateful… You see, I know the spot. When I was younger, I used to climb myself. Do not think that that graceless youth would have told me everything. He is an egoist. But I am not a lawyer for nothing. I dragged the truth from him, as one draws a nail from the wood. When he contradicted himself, I tripped him and threw him flat on his back. Question upon merciless question, till I had the truth in my hands. I know how he flouted your instructions, the assassin, and nearly brought both of you down to a terrible end. He has made the admission with tears. And I had to come instantly – first to try to thank you, and then to apologize.”

“Monsieur,” said Jonah, “pray think no more of the matter. Your son is young and will learn. And it gave us both great pleasure to do what we did.” Therèse appeared with coffee and brandy. “You’ll join us, of course.”

The lawyer bowed and sat down.

“First the son and then the father,” he said. “But there you are. You belong to a generous race. And now may I have your account?”

We gave it him faithfully, while he sat on the sofa between us and said no word.

When we had done—

“God is good,” he said quietly. “It was the nearest thing. I have told you I know the place. It is one of the very worst in the Pyrénées. One of the guides was killed there nine years ago, since when no one has touched it. My son, of course, was forbidden to climb without a guide. I fear he found such instructions a reflection upon his skill… Need I say more? I think not. Except that he will not climb for another two years. Tomorrow he leaves for Lyons, to stay with an aunt.” He touched my arm. “I fear the rope cut your wrist when you took the sudden strain.”

“That’s right,” I said: “but it’s nothing.”

“Such a wound can be very painful. And that little brat is complaining about his hair.”

“To do him strict justice,” I said, “he stood his ordeal very well. Not many boys of his age could have hung on that cliff for three hours.”

De Moulin frowned.

“Not more than two, I think. He left at ten this morning and would have reached the cornice at two. And you relieved him at four. Still, two is quite long enough. For himself, I have hopes of his ‘service’. The Army, I think, will do him a world of good. And now if you please, we will talk about something else.” He raised his glass. “Mesdames, Messieurs, your very, very good health. I trust you are happy here.”

“We are, indeed,” said my sister: “it is such a lovely spot.”

“Ah, Madame, there is only one Lally. My home is at Pau, you know: but I have a small villa here, to which I often resort. But you have the better part, for you are upon The Evergreen Mountain, and so better placed.”

For a quarter of an hour, we talked. We told him how we came to be there, and that honest man gave us a sympathy which very few people had shown.

When he rose to take his leave—

“Well,” he said, “I am very happy to think that you have found peace in these hills. This is, of course, a poor lodging, though I see that you have done something to make it habitable.” He caressed an arm of the sofa. “You will have to be very careful whom you receive, for once they sit down in this room they will never get up. But I wish the house was better. If it was, you could stay here longer.”

“How long can we stay?” said Daphne.

“Till mid-October, Madame, if the autumn is fine. You see, you will get the sun here, when Lally is in the shade. All through the winter, Evergreen gets the sun. And people who live at Lally walk up this road in mid-winter, to warm their bones.”

“I can well believe it,” said Berry. “You could live here all the year round in a house which was properly built.”

“You could, indeed,” said the lawyer. “And now let me give you counsel. Why don’t you build a small villa halfway between here and Besse? The peasants would be very ready to sell you some land.”

“To tell you the truth,” said I, “we’ve been playing with the idea. But, you see, there’s no water. Even for this little house, we have to get water from Lally twice in the day.”

De Moulin stood very still.

Then—

“Would you like to build there – higher up, along this road?”

“Yes,” said my sister, “we should. But we cannot consider building, because – well, a cottage with water is better than a palace without.”

“Indubitably, Madame,” said the lawyer. He fingered his chin. “It is strange you should raise this point. Every year for the last six years, Besse has asked for the Lally water – and Lally has always refused. It is not that we have not to spare – I am on the Town Council, you know – but pipes cost money to lay and Besse is very small and has two very good springs. At a meeting of the Council on Friday, the request will come up again…”

Jill was trembling with excitement, and Daphne had a hand to her mouth.

Nobody said anything.

De Moulin was frowning upon his finger-tips.

Then he looked at Daphne and smiled.

“Madame, I can promise nothing. I have but one vote. But they sometimes take my advice, and – and, but for your brother and cousin, I should be bereft tonight.”

Our state of mind was now curious.

Until that first morning, when I had remarked ‘the site’, we had had no idea whatever of building a house: and such is human nature that, had ‘the site’ been practicable, I doubt if we should have given it very much thought. As it was, we had played with the idea, because we knew very well that it was only a game. We had never taken it seriously… And yet, as time went by and the neighbourhood tightened its spell, the game had come to mean a good deal to us. In fact, it had come to mean this – that, if ever, in days to come, we thought of building, we should dismiss that thought – because no site could compare with the one between Lally and Besse. And now, in a flash, the situation had changed. In two days’ time the game might be no longer a game…

The next morning, Thursday, after breakfast, we had things out.

“Let’s get this clear,” said Berry. “If the Council gives Besse the main water, do we really desire to build?”

“Yes,” said Jill.

“I think so,” said Daphne. “Quite a small place, of course. If it’s not going to cost too much.”

Berry looked at me.

“I’d like to,” said I, “simply because I’d like us to have a home. I decline to live in a town, and after White Ladies – well, no home in the English country would be of much use to me.”

“I’m with you there,” said everyone.

There was a little silence.

Then—

“I could bear a home here,” said Daphne.

“So could I,” said Jonah. “That is because the contrast would be so very marked.”

Berry fingered his chin.

“I frequently wonder,” he said, “where you would be without me. I don’t deny the site is attractive. Ludwig, the mad king of Bavaria, would have thrown a fit about it. But we are neither mad nor monarchs: and this is a practical age. The fact that the main water may be available to such a site is a phenomenon. But that is not going to make it practicable. Houses have to be built – and damned well built, if I’m going to live in them. Of bricks or stone or whatever they build them of. And this site is not on the level. Show it to a contractor, and he will become either insolent or unwell. And who shall blame him? From his point of view, the site is like a bad dream. And what of electricity? I know you can make your own, but that pastime is over-rated – unless you can have a turbine; and there’s no head of water for that. So the lack of water is not the only snag. For all that, I hate being beaten. I like this place. And I’d like to wake up in the morning – in a bedroom worth sleeping in and right on the top of the world. And so I say this. If de Moulin can wangle the water, let’s buy the fields – if we can. They shouldn’t cost very much; and, if we get stuck, we can always sell them again. And when we have bought the fields, then we can collect ourselves and consider the fences to come.”

“We’ll fly them all,” said Jill.

“He’s right,” said Jonah. “There may be other snags. But I refuse to see them.”

“So do I,” said my sister. “I want my ivory tower.”

Jill had hold of my arm.

“Oh, Boy, it’ll be all right, won’t it? Our dream’ll come true?”

“God knows,” said I. “But, if we can get the water, we’re over the biggest fence.”

So much for Thursday morning.

The Council was to meet on Friday at four o’clock.

To say these two days were trying means nothing at all. In a way, this was natural enough; for upon the result of that meeting, our future would largely depend. At the moment we had no plans: we had no home and we knew not where we should go or what we should do. But if the Council were to give the main water to Besse – well, I think we all knew in our hearts that upon the site we had chosen would rise our new home. Be that as it may, we could think of nothing else; and the more we thought of the matter, the more glaring became the advantages, not only of building a home, but of building it upon Evergreen, midway between Lally and Besse.

Berry was as bad as anyone.

“It isn’t as if, if we build there, we shall be out of touch. I’ve just been working it out. We can lunch at the Savoy on Thursday and breakfast here – on our terrace, on Friday at nine o’clock.”

“Never!” cried Daphne.

“We can. Afternoon plane to Paris, and then the night train to Pau. That gets in before eight – and there you are. Then again…”

And so on.

We strolled towards Besse and surveyed the site from below: we strolled on through Besse, gained the upper road and surveyed the site from above: armed with field-glasses, we drove through Lally and on to the road to Pau – to survey the site from the opposite side of the valley, two miles away.

After lunch on Friday—

“This is absurd,” said Jonah. “Who’s coming with me to Pau for the afternoon?”

Daphne and Jill refused to leave the house, but Berry and I found Jonah’s suggestion good. We made odd purchases there and presently entered a garage in search of some cotton waste. Whilst the people were getting this, I was looking round, and there, in a row of cars, was Shapely’s caravan.

I pointed her out to Jonah, and together we looked her over from stem to stern.

“Close quarters for two,” said my cousin. “Except for that, she’s a very convenient job.”

This was no more than the truth, for most caravans must be trailed, or else are too unwieldy to use upon lesser roads. But this was compact – about half as big again as a full-sized limousine.

“Come on, you two,” called Berry. “It’s nearly a quarter to five, and we may as well be in at the death.”

Forty-five minutes later, the Rolls stole up to Bel Air…

Daphne looked up from a
chaise longue
beneath the limes.

“No news yet,” she said. “Jill’s up at a bedroom-window, watching the road.”

Not until six o’clock did a servant deliver a note.

This was addressed to Daphne.

We crowded about her to read the momentous words.

Madame,

I have the great pleasure to inform you that, at the meeting of the Town Council this afternoon, it was decided by four votes to three to give the Lally water to Besse. The pipe-line will pass up the road and any owner of property on the mountain called Evergreen will naturally be conceded the right to a branch. The work will be put in hand this autumn.

I need hardly say that, if I can be of any service in approaching the present owners of any fields which may attract you, I am entirely at your disposal.

With profound respect, Madame,

Most cordially yours,

JEAN DE MOULIN.

In Which Three Fields Become Ours,

and Daphne and Jill Produce a Work of Art

On Sunday, at a quarter past twelve, we showed de Moulin the meadows we hoped to buy.

We chose that hour, because from twelve till two the peasants are within doors, and we saw no sense in publishing what we proposed to do. Indeed, we were perfectly sure that the lawyer himself was accustomed to lunch at midday, so he and Madame de Moulin were going to share our meal. While Daphne entertained the lady, the rest of us walked with her husband up to the site.

“Those three fields,” I said, pointing. “The one on the road, the one directly above it, and, again, the one above that.”

“But that is simple,” said de Moulin, “for the
ruisseau
(rill) edges all three.” He took out a little notebook and made a rough sketch. “I shall check them tomorrow upon the cadastral plan. And then I will send for the owners.” He pointed to the field by the road. “That is the most valuable, for it is not only more flat, but it lies on the road. I think it belongs to old Coulie; but we shall see.”

I looked at the elegant meadow that lay to the right – the one that the grotto graced, with the trough at its foot.

“It would be nice to have that.”

The lawyer shook his head.

“Later, Monsieur, later. On no account now. In fact, if you take my advice, you will purchase but two, to begin with, instead of three. You see, the thing is like this. I shall, of course, say that you mean to build a house. Now any one of these fields would very well contain such a house as a peasant would build. That you should need two for one house will make him open his eyes. But that any man could need three, he simply will not believe. ‘Hullo,’ he will say, ‘there is something behind all this. These strangers are speculators.’ And up will go his price, in the hope of sharing the profits which you are certain to make. They are simple serpents, the peasants: don’t forget that.”

“Yes, I see that,” said Jonah, “but let me put it this way. The third field may not be essential – and by the third, I mean the field at the top. But we must build well back from the road, and I am inclined to think that, when we cut into the mountain, as we shall have to do, we shall either reach that field or else undermine its edge. And then, if we do not own it, we shall be sunk: for we shall have to have it – at any price.”

De Moulin nodded.

“I see your point,” he said. “And in building one never knows. Very well, then. These three fields. But you must not buy more for the present – unless you are millionaires.”

“Which brings us,” said Berry, “directly to the question of price. We must, of course, accept that, now that the water is coming, any property here is worth twice as much as it was.”

De Moulin smiled.

“Monsieur,” he said, “dismiss such a notion at once. The peasants will not give it a thought. They use so little water, compared with you. Besse only desired Lally’s water that she might be able to boast. For all that, I must tell you at once that you will be forced to pay much more than these meadows are worth. Take this first meadow, for instance. If a peasant was to buy this, he would pay at the very most some thirty-five pounds. It is roughly ninety yards long by some forty deep; but land so far from a town is of very little value and, when it is sloping, as this is, it is of less value still. But you will be asked three hundred.”

“Good lord,” said everyone.

“And will pay one hundred and fifty – about five times its value, yet half what its owner asks.” The lawyer spread out his hands. “I shall do my best for you. You may count upon that. Of course, if you are prepared to wait for six or eight months—”

“We aren’t,” said Jill.

“Precisely, Miladi. If you could wait for so long, the owners would come to heel. But if you cannot wait, you will have to pay.”

“Say, roughly, four hundred for the three.”

“Thereabouts,” said the lawyer. “Mark you, I may be wrong: but if you will leave it to me, I will bear that figure in mind. In a little while now, you will come to know the peasants: and then, when you want more land, you will deal direct. But now you are strangers… That makes a big difference, you know. But you will come to like them, and they will come to like you. And they will be proud to know that you are to be their neighbours.”

“Well, we leave it to you,” said Berry. “We won’t fix any figure, until we hear what you say. But let me make this clear. We are well content to pay more than a peasant would pay. Much more. It’s only fair. But we’re not content to be robbed. The money apart, they’d only despise us if we were.”

“Permit me,” said de Moulin, “ to commend that point of view. If you take that line with the peasants, you will get on very well. They will both like and respect you. And that is everything.”

“You think,” said Jill, “that they will be willing to sell?”

“Miladi,” said the lawyer, “have no concern as to that. It is only a question of price. When we can agree about that, the fields will be yours.”

The lawyer was right.

By the following Wednesday night, three ‘agreements to sell and to purchase’ had all been signed.

For the meadow by the road, we had agreed to pay one hundred and sixty pounds: for the one above that, one hundred and forty pounds: and for the one above that, one hundred and twenty-five. With the government tax and the fees, the three would cost us, roughly, five hundred pounds.

So the site became ours.

The second crop of hay had been recently cut. A third was to come. In return for this third crop of hay, the vendors had agreed to give us immediate possession; for two or three weeks would elapse before the three deeds were signed.

The following morning, therefore, we all walked up to the site, clambered into the lowest meadow and started to climb.

When Berry had fallen twice, he sat up and spoke to the point.

“The first thing to build,” he declared, “is a decent flight of steps. A gradual, curving ascent, with several rests. No good building a house if you can’t get near the swine.”

“We’ll have to be careful,” said Daphne: “we don’t want to spoil the grass.”

“Spoil the grass!” said her husband. “You wait till they start to build.”

“Oh, they’ll make a mess, of course. But steps are permanent.”

“All right. Don’t you have them,” said Berry. “One thing we shall be spared, and that is visitors. Those that survive will warn all the others off. And for those that don’t – well, the graveyard is nice and close. We’d better keep a bier in the garage.”

“Don’t be absurd,” said his wife. “If we build the house I want, it will take more than a mountain lawn to keep people away. They’ll simply fall over themselves to see inside.”

“They’ll fall over themselves all right,” said Berry, grimly. Here Daphne fell down herself. “There you are. Supposing you’d been dolled up, with your Jaeger step-in on and your co-respondent boots. You’d feel like going on up and sliming round some woman who hadn’t got broken knees.”

His apology having been accepted, I pointed to the foot of the bluff, where our second meadow adjoined the elegant field.

“There’s a shelf there,” I said. “A sort of half-ledge, half-dip, where we can sit down.”

With one consent, we all converged upon this haven. After all, it is exhausting to survey a slippery site whose gradient is one in two.

My recommendation proved better than I had dreamed. The shelf was nearly level, jutted out a little and lay precisely in line with where we proposed to build. We were, therefore, ideally placed to consider the site of the house, yet could do so in comparative comfort – that is to say, without standing on the side of the foot.

One by one we reached port.

As Berry lay down on his back in the shade of a walnut tree–

“One thing,” said Daphne. “I won’t have an architect.”

“I’m with you there,” said I. “Let’s have our own house.”

“No staircase, no architect,” said Berry. “Let’s think of the things we won’t have. I know. Don’t let’s have a tennis court.”

“Be quiet,” said everyone.

“Daphne and Jill,” said Jonah, “can get out the plans: Boy and I can look after the actual building; and Berry can do liaison.”

“What do you mean – liaison?” said Berry.

“Well, the girls can sit here and watch, and we shall be up at the house. And you can move between us, conveying ideas and instructions and, occasionally, a tankard of beer.”

“And there you’re wrong,” said Berry. “I shall design the house, and I shall lie here on a couch and see my orders obeyed.”

“Concrete,” said Jonah. “Proportion of sand to cement?”

Berry waved him away.

“Such bestial detail,” he said, “is beneath my mind. I shall confine myself to the sweep of the roof, to the hue of my bathroom, to the spread of the terrace upon which I propose to bask. And what about drains? Do we have a septic tank? Or just install a shoot and hope for the best?”

After arguing for two hours, we came to a rough conclusion regarding the size of the house and where it should stand; and Carson, who was in waiting, produced a number of pegs and drove them into the ground.

“And now,” said Jonah, “we can’t do much more here, till we get a contractor up. But we can get out a plan. This will have to be to scale.” He looked at Daphne and Jill. “When we’ve done the plan, could you do a model – in paste-board? I mean, if you could, it would save a lot of time. You see, we send for a builder and show him the model first. Then we show him the site. Then—”

“–we hold him down,” said Berry, “until the fit has passed. We’d better have a cork ready to shove up his nose.”

When order had been restored—

“Then we tell him,” said Jonah, “that we want that house on this site. ‘Can you do it or not?’ we say. ‘And, if you can, what will it cost?’”

This very simple idea was well received, and we made our way back to Bel Air in excellent cue. And directly after lunch, Carson went off to Lally, in search of some cartridge-paper made up into blocks. Knowing his patrons, he took care to bring back five blocks – and half a dozen pencils and box-wood rules…

I pass over the next few days.

Enough that they were distinguished by many visits to the site, by brain-splitting excursions into the realm of lower mathematics and elementary draughtsmanship, by some of the most violent disputes to which I have ever subscribed and by a wealth of destructive criticism which frequently declined from the level of calculated offence to that of personal insult.

“But I tell you it is,” screamed Berry. “Only a blue-based baboon that was mentally deficient—”

“The trouble with you,” said Daphne, “is that you can’t divide. Forty-seven by nine is five and two over.”

“But you’re adding in the wall,” raved Berry. “The wall that divides the two rooms.”

“Well, you’ve got to have a wall,” said my sister. “You can’t have a wall-less room.”

“Oh, give me strength,” yelled her husband. “How many times have I told you that in all my calculations I add half a wall to a room?”

“What you mean,” said Jonah, “is—”

“Look here,” said Berry, savagely. “If anyone tells me what I mean again, I’ll shove his face through his head.”

“All right, all right,” said Jonah. “But you can’t have a room with one wall.”

Berry took a deep breath.

“This particular apartment,” he said, “is an outside room. I don’t count outside walls, as being part of the shell. Now bearing that postulate in mind—”

“Listen,” said Jill. “I think I’ve got it this time. If we bring the morning-room down to twenty-five feet—”

“You mean the library,” said Jonah. “The morning-room was twenty-five.”

“Not with the fireplace. If—”

“One minute,” said Daphne. “What did we say the width of the terrace was?”

“Seven ells,” said her husband. “With or without an ‘h’. To reduce that to roods you multiply by five and divide by eight and a half above the Plimsoll line. You then hand the result to any blue-based baboon who will immediately dispose of it in the traditional way.”

With that, he rose to his feet, pitched his block out of the window and, ignoring the storm of protest, stalked from the room.

One minute later he was back.

He set his back to the door and threw a look round.

“Shape of the house,” he said. “We’re damned well stuck, aren’t we? Well, what of the letter ‘T’? Cross-piece facing due south: stem running back to the mountain. Principal rooms in the cross-piece: offices, servants’ quarters all in the stem. The two completely separate. Simple to build, and plenty of light all round. Can anyone beat that idea?”

Nobody could. We all admitted as much. No architect would have approved it. But on the following morning the paste-board model itself began to take shape.

Henri and Jean Lafargue were two efficient men. So much one could see at a glance. We had been advised that they were the best of the builders who practised in the Basses Pyrénées.

Together, they regarded the model, which was really a work of art. It was, of course, to scale – three centimetres to a metre – and it was very well finished within as without. The walls separating the rooms had been carefully done, and every doorway and window had been most carefully cut. Even the shutters existed, painted in blue. Moreover, the model itself could be taken apart. The roof could be lifted off, and then the first floor, so that it could be examined from stem to stern.

Henri turned to my sister.

“It does not surprise me, Madame, that you desire no architect. He would be superfluous.”

“Well, if you don’t mind not having one…”

The brothers laughed.

“Madame,” said Jean, “we shall not regret his absence. We have suffered too much in the past at architects’ hands.” He returned to the model. “Twenty-eight metres long, you desire, by twenty deep. This will be a big villa, Madame.”

(A metre is three feet three inches.)

“Not very big,” said Daphne. “One thing you’ve probably noticed – we couldn’t get in the stairs.”

The brothers laughed again.

“Many an architect, Madame, has broken down over the stairs. But we will submit some suggestions. And, if you will permit me to say so, you have done a most beautiful job.”