Читать книгу The House That is Our Own - O. Douglas - Страница 7

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What I admire most is the total defiance of expense.

Dr. Johnson

It was the middle of the next week before everything was settled and the flat Kitty’s. She had been getting anxious, fearing that her lawyer by over-caution was going to lose the chance, so it was with triumph that she ran into Isobel’s room one morning and announced that all was well.

Isobel looked as pleased as she was expected to.

“Now we can get on,” she said. “What a good thing it’s vacant and the painters can start at once.”

“Yes. Mr. Johnson says the lift-man or whatever he’s called, has the keys. Isobel, could you come with me now? There’s so much to see about.”

Isobel was writing letters, but she laid down her pen and said:

“Of course I’ll come. We’d better take a tape-measure and a pencil and note-book; you’ll want to measure and see how you can place your furniture. Isn’t this exciting?”

“Oh, isn’t it? Do you happen to know any good paper-hanger?”

“I don’t, never having required one, but the lift-man’ll be able to tell us who usually does up the flats. We’d better get ready.”

Isobel gathered her letters and put them tidily into a blotting book.

“I’m going to put a coat over an old frock that won’t mind grubbiness.”

“That’s wise. We’ll be messing about in cupboards and so forth. I’m all right, ‘dressed for drowning’ so to speak; this old rag won’t take any harm. Gracious! I feel like—I don’t know what I feel like!”

In a very short time they were ready; once outside, Isobel suggested that they should walk.

“It’s such a fine morning, and it isn’t very far and, as we approach it we can study the flat from all points, note the lie of the land, what shops are near, and so on.”

Everything and everybody that early April morning seemed to Kitty to be finding life amusing. The shop windows positively twinkled, the girls in the flower-shop at the corner were arranging spring flowers in a way to make the heart sing, the buses were swinging along as if they enjoyed doing it, even a blind man, standing with matches to sell, wore a smile.

“It’s a perfect day,” she told her companion.

Isobel agreed, and, in a minute, said, “You’ve only seen that flat once, haven’t you?”

“Yes, that time you went with me. We looked at it pretty searchingly, but then I was only a possible tenant; now I’ll look at it with entirely different eyes; it’s to be my home.”

As they approached Sloane Street, Isobel pointed out how convenient it would be to live so near shops, so much more amusing than living in a dreary square, or a long dull terrace; there was something, she said, so companionable about shops.

“Especially,” said Kitty, “when one is living alone. I’ll enjoy watching the traffic, and it’ll be company at night. I wonder where I could find a decent middle-aged woman who would do everything—cook, do the housework, and wait at table?”

“Ah, now you’re asking! People seek for such a thing as for hidden treasure. I’m told that if they’re at all capable they’ve generally fiendish tempers, and almost invariably drink.”

Kitty groaned. “And if I get a young one she’ll want to dance three nights a week, and probably bring home gangsters and have me murdered in my bed! How I wish I was one of those courageous women who don’t mind living alone. Life would be so simple then. All I’d need would be a day woman. I’d lock my door and go out, and come in without a qualm.”

“Oh, I know. Lots of people say they like having the house to themselves, but to me it sounds most uncomfortable. I don’t see how it could ever feel like a real home unless there was a settled person in the kitchen. There must be lots of decent women who would be glad of a quiet situation and a good home, and what we’ve got to do is to find one. Here we are! Kitty, it doesn’t look a bit like flats, does it? More like a very nice private house.”

A middle-aged man, with a limp and a row of medals, waited by the lift. His name, he told them, was Gordon, he came from Aberdeen, and had been in the flats since 1920.

“I was lucky to get the job,” he said, “and to keep it. We live on the premises, the wife and me, so whenever you want anything, Mum, you just let me know.”

Kitty thanked him, and asked, rather nervously, who had occupied the flat before her. It was what she much wanted to know, for, as she told Isobel, she liked to live in a house in which people had been happy. “It’s silly, I know, but I don’t believe I could live in a house where there had been a tragedy—it would haunt me.”

So now she waited, breathless, to know her fate.

Gordon put the key in the lock, and turned round to reply.

“To tell ye the truth, Mum, I could never tackle her name. I know what it looked like in writing, but ye dinna say it that way, so we just called her ‘the Countess.’ ”

Kitty’s mouth fell open. What shady foreigner had inhabited the flat that she had chosen for her own? What orgies had taken place within its door? What secret societies had hatched nefarious schemes?

“Was she Russian?” she faltered.

“No, no.” Gordon’s voice was reassuring. “She wasna Russian. There was nothing of the Bolshie about her. French she was, poor body, a perfectly decent lady, very quiet living. She had a maid who had lived with her all her life—a ‘bun’ she called her—and she told me that the Countess had been very wealthy at one time, but troubles had come to her. She had a son in London, something to do with the French Government, and she left because her son was sent to another country. They’re ay wandering, thae foreigners, but I must say she was a pleasant lady. It’s a gey job to be away from your native land. Me being in France I could talk to her about it. She didna like the fog (I dinna like it masel’), and she had a French word for the rain, treest she called it, and shook her head at it. I learned her a rhyme we used to say when we were bairns:

Rainy rainy Rattle-sticks, dinna rain on me,

Rain on Johnny Groat’s house far across the sea;

and she laugh’d and clap’t her hands just like a bairn. Well, here we are, Mum.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Kitty, “thank you for everything, coming up with us and telling us nice things about the Countess. And you’ll introduce me to your wife, won’t you? Perhaps she might know of someone who could come and clean up after the painters. Oh, about painters. Do you know who generally does the painting work here?”

“Well,” said Gordon, “as a rule each tenant has his own man. But we had those staircases done in the autumn, and I can tell you the name of the firm who did them—Clark and Robinson, in Cleaver Street.”

Kitty asked if they had done it well, and was assured that it had been a satisfactory job.

“If ye like,” said Gordon, “I could call round and make an appointment for them to see you, mebbe the day. Ye’ll likely want it done as quick as possible, and this is the painters’ busy time ye must mind.”

“Of course it is,” said Kitty, “and I’d be very grateful if you’d let them know I’m here for a few hours. But are you sure you can spare the time?”

“Fine that. I’m gaun out, anyway.” He lowered his voice suddenly. “The folk above ye are called Boothby, a retired couple, and underneath there’s an old lady, Mistress Temple.”

He nodded his head several times in a mysterious manner, and withdrew.

“Ought I to have tipped him?” Kitty asked.

“I don’t think so. You can’t tip him every time he comes upstairs. Wait until you get settled, and if he’s been helpful, give him something substantial. After that, tip at set times, as we do in Queen’s Court. He seems an honest sort of man, don’t you think?”

But no answer made Kitty, for she was in her flat.

The hall was only a fairly wide passage, from which rooms opened on either side. The first on the left was the dining-room. “Here we must take measurements,” Kitty announced. “I want the sideboard to stand in the recess, if possible, a carving-table here and—there is more room than I remembered.”

Isobel followed her into the next room, a narrow slip of a room, but well lighted.

“This,” said Kitty, “is going to be my book-room. I think the long bookcase will get in along that wall. The writing-table in the window. A sofa in front of the fire—it’s so nice to lie with books piled all around you—and an arm-chair, if I can get it in. My ‘Peter Scott’ above the mantelpiece. This is the room I’ll sit in most, and I want my wild geese beside me. I’ll get the electric man to put a light over it. We had that at Hampstead, and we used to sit in the gloaming, and look up at the lighted picture, and think we heard the geese honk-honk——”

The drawing-room was at the end of the passage, a good-sized room with three windows.

Kitty gave a skip when she saw it. “It’s quite as nice as I thought it was. I was thinking I’d have the walls a sort of turquoise-blue paint, it makes such a good background for tulip-wood cabinets and tables. What luck that it has a decent hardwood floor, for I happen to have some quite good rugs, and it’ll save the camel-y carpet for my bedroom. It may not be healthy, but I do like a good thick carpet all over a bedroom floor. It’s so bleak sliding about on rugs—I wonder if my curtains are long enough? Luckily I’ve got three pairs the same, but I’ll need plain net for underneath ones.”

Isobel walked over to the window. “It’s a good thing to be at a corner,” she said, “you can see all round. This room’ll get sun all day—when there is any—so your turquoise walls won’t be too cold. Personally, I always like cream walls.”

“Everything’ll be cream except this room,” Kitty promised; “but blue is so pretty with golden wood. Now for the bedrooms—I’m afraid they’ve been sacrificed to the living-rooms. No—this isn’t bad. I’ll have this one for my own, seeing I’ll always be here. The bed’ll go between the two windows, and, oh! my dear, two cupboards! This is riches. They are more than cupboards, they’re closets. Hold that, will you, and I’ll measure the place for the bed. Have you got your finger on it? Then write it down—please. I wonder if the Countess slept here and found it triste? What d’you suppose her drawing-room was like? Rather bare, I should think, with a gas-fire. The French have very little idea of comfort.”

“If I might make a suggestion,” said Isobel, “it would be better to see all there’s to see, and then go round and measure methodically.”

“Yes. Well, we’ve only one bedroom to see now, and the maid’s room and kitchen. Oh, this is grim; Brown paint, and purple and red striped wall-paper. What a guest-room! Truly a ‘field to bury strangers in’! I’ll tell you what, when you come to stay you’ll have my room, and I’ll come in here.”

“Indeed I shan’t,” said Isobel. “You’d be wishing me away all the time, in order to regain possession.”

“I’m sure I would,” Kitty agreed. “But I promise to make this so nice for you that you won’t know it again. This isn’t a bad kitchen, quite light and cheerful. That, I suppose, is the stove they put in for the Countess; we shall have a gas-cooker as well. With such a good scullery this kitchen would be quite comfortable to sit in.”

“Quite. The scullery is as large as most kitchens nowadays. And a nice little bedroom. Any woman might be happy here and not at all overworked.”

“And,” said Kitty, “I’d give her—my not impossible she—a gas-fire in her bedroom. Only the bathroom to see now. Well! This betrays the age of the building. Isobel, I simply must have a new bath. How could Mr. Johnson think it would do, squalid old man; and the wash-hand basin’s cracked, and brown paint in a bathroom is revolting. I don’t believe the place has been touched since the year 1877, when, I understand, it was built.” Kitty sat down on the edge of the bath, looking very determined. “D’you know what I’ve made up my mind to do? Get hot and cold water put into the bedrooms, and gut this bathroom.”

“Heil Hitler!” cried Isobel. “Keep that expression for Mr. Johnson. But I think myself you’re wise to have everything done at once, and then you’ll have satisfaction in your new house. This will make a really superior bathroom when you’ve finished with it; it’s biggish and it’s got a window.”

“I’d like to have it tiled,” said Kitty, “but that’s beyond me.”

“You can get all sorts of varnished papers now,” Isobel reminded her, “that really look very well. And it isn’t as if it would have hard usage. Now then, what d’you want measured?”

After an hour’s work Isobel straightened herself and remarked that she was hungry.

“Go out and buy some biscuits,” said Kitty, still absorbed in planning her new home.

Isobel, naturally indignant, said, “I’ll do nothing of the kind. You say you want to go on later and see about your stored furniture, that’ll take us most of the afternoon, and if you think I’m going about all day, hungry, and with filthy hands, you’re mistaken. We’d better go to some shop, and wash, and have lunch. Look at my hands! and yours are worse.”

“But I want to wait till the painter comes,” Kitty protested. “Gordon said he’d send him at once.”

“Your faith, my dear, is touching. As we go out we’ll get hold of Gordon and see if he’s done anything about it at all.”

Most unwillingly Kitty put on her coat and accompanied her friend downstairs.

When, after some difficulty, Gordon was discovered in the area. “The painters?” Kitty accosted him eagerly.

“Eh? O aye, the penters. I’m just awa’ to him the now. I had to tak’ ma denner early, for the wife’s gaun out in the afternoon. Here she is. Jessie! Come ’ere. This is the new lady.”

The wife, a comely little woman, very neat and tidy, with a Glasgow accent, said, “Pleased to meet you,” and grasped Kitty’s hand warmly. “We don’t like any of our flats to be empty, and I must say, it doesn’t often happen. Gordon tells me you’re getting the place done up, and you’d like to get someone to clean up after the painters, and that. If you like, I’ll clean up for you. Me being on the premises, I could do it in ma own time like.”

“If you would,” said Kitty gratefully. “I only wish I saw it ready for cleaning. There’s a lot to be done, and plumbers and painters take such a long time. However—Mrs. Gordon, you don’t happen to know of anyone, a middle-aged woman would be best, who would take full charge? I mean, cook, clean, wait, do everything? There’s only me, so it wouldn’t be a heavy place.”

“Uch, no!” said Mrs. Gordon, “these flats are that easy worked. You wouldn’t like a nice young girl? It would be cheerier like. The older ones are apt to be cranky a bit.”

“And the young ones are never in,” said Kitty. “On the whole I think I’d be better with an older one. Not elderly, you understand, just a sensible woman who would be glad to be settled and comfortable, and who wouldn’t want to leave me alone too much in the evenings.”

Mrs. Gordon put her head on one side. “What about a companion?” she asked.

“She’d have to eat with me and sit with me, and I’d hate that. Besides, I’d need to keep another woman to do the work. Do try to think of someone, Mrs. Gordon.”

“Oh, I will. I will that.” Mrs. Gordon’s tone was most hearty, and turning to her husband, she said, “Jock, what about Jeanie?” She explained: “It’s Gordon’s step-brother’s widow. She lives out Clapham way with a sister, and she was saying to me just yesterday, when she looked in for a cup of tea, that she whiles feels herself in the way. You see, there’s a husband in the house and three girls, and, uch, you know how it is, when girls grow up. They’ll not take a word, and mebbe Jeanie’s too free with her advice. I’ll be seeing Mrs. Auchinvole (that’s her name; isn’t it a queer one?) this very day, for we’ve planned to go to the pictures to see Little Lord Fauntleroy; they say Freddie Bartholomew’s lovely, and if you like I’ll sound her about it and let you know.”

“That would be very kind,” Kitty said, and then rather hesitatingly added, “She can cook, I suppose, your friend?”

“Well, she cooked for her husband for twenty years.”

“Ye-es,” said Kitty, feeling that this was hardly a convincing testimonial. After all, the husband was dead.

Isobel, who by this time was starving, clinched matters by saying, “If Mrs. Auchinvole considers it, she could come and meet you here some day, and you’d find out all you want to know.”

Mrs. Gordon, who was also anxious to be about her own business, chimed in, “That’s it. Any time you were coming to see how things were gettin’ on you could let me know and I’d have her here. I’ll tell her about it, of course, and she can be turning it over in her mind. You’ll not want anybody till the flat’s ready, and the dear knows when that’ll be.”

“We’ll hurry them up,” said Gordon. “Would two-thirty be a good time for you to see the painter, always supposin’ I can get him?”

So it was arranged, and Isobel thankfully dragged her friend luncheon-wards.

“Where shall we go? The nearest? Come on then, for measuring in an empty house is the hungriest work I’ve ever tried. It’s the feeling of bareness, like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. I’ve been planning what I’d eat for the last hour.”

Kitty objected. “We’re not fit to go into a decent place.”

“We won’t look so bad when we’ve washed, and, anyway, nobody’ll look at us.”

It was as well that they were fortified by a good lunch, for they had an exhausting afternoon seeing the foreman painter, calling on Mr. Johnson to ask him about getting estimates for the plumbing work, and inspecting the stored furniture. Kitty was depressed to see her household gods looking so much less rich and rare than she remembered them, but Isobel pointed out that you couldn’t expect furniture that had been stored in the basement of a warehouse for two years to look its best.

She said, “Once the chairs and cushions have been thoroughly well beaten, and the cabinets and tables and so on washed and polished, you’ll begin to recognise them as your own. I can see you’ve a lot of most desirable things. I’m quite looking forward to seeing them adorn the flat. And they’re really in wonderfully good condition. I heard such stories about storing that I sold most of my things. When I see yours I wish I hadn’t, though mine perhaps were not worth keeping—solid, ugly Victorian stuff.”

As Isobel watched Kitty moving from one piece of furniture to another, as if greeting familiar friends, she knew how sad her heart must be seeing again the inanimate things that had been part of her happy married life. She knew, also, that it is not wise to allow oneself to indulge in unavailing regrets, so, after a little, she suggested that Kitty should tell the people in the warehouse that the furniture would be required shortly, and give directions about having carpets and rugs beaten, and curtains sent to be cleaned.

“You don’t want dirty things brought into your clean flat.”

“No,” said Kitty, still held by the past. “No. And I suppose they are dirty. Everything was bundled away in a hurry. I didn’t care at the time if I never saw them again. I’ve hardly ever thought of the poor things, and here they are, patiently waiting for me. Now I’m longing to have them all about me. And my books! I’ll enjoy putting them all back on their shelves, and reading bits out of one and another.”

“At that rate,” said Isobel, “you won’t get on very fast, but it won’t matter. Why should one be in a hurry getting into order when it’s such a pleasant process? Well, don’t you think you’ve done enough for one day? I think tea, and a rest before dinner, are indicated. You go at things with such force, my dear, that you wear yourself out.”