Laughing House - Warwick Deeping (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

some speedy alterations. The orangery ceased to be a latrine, and litter became less evident — broken doors and windows were repaired, and I gather that the men were forbidden to cut or break down trees. In fact some of them volunteered to work in the garden, and to rescue it from weeds, and since there were trained gardeners among them the place became far less of a wilderness. The fruit-cage was repaired, and fruit trees cut back and nailed to the walls, and the vegetable garden once more grew spuds and peas. Old Potter was so reassured that he used to go pottering round in the evening, hob-nobbing with kindred souls in khaki,

Moreover, our barbed wire defences became super fluous while this unit was with us. We even got help from some of the lads on summer evenings in hoeing and cutting rough grass, and earthening up our potatoes. I laid in a barrel of beer, keeping it and a dozen glasses in one of the huts, and I dispensed it to our volunteer workers. It seemed to make me somewhat popular.

But my great discovery was Peter. I think he grew to love this deep green valley with its steep woods almost as much as I did. He was a reader, and something of an artist in black and white, and he liked to wander about when he was off duty and forget the war. He was a good soldier against his inclination. I lent his brother officers my gun and got them to help keep the rabbits down, but Peter was not a gunman. He preferred to sit and stare and think, and let the peace of the place seep into him, for the war-world was not very lovely to the sensitives among the young.

He was a Public School boy, and I was surprised to find that he had been training as an hotelier before the war. He had spent time in Paris and Vienna. His father, now dead, had been a somewhat famous hotelier, and Peter appeared to have inherited the paternal interests. He made me think of the “Chocolate Soldier,” and those Swiss or French fellows who could treat hotel-keeping as an art, an art so rare in England.

He showed me a photograph one day of a pretty, fair young thing of the name of Sybil. The name moved me like a memory. Sybil was a Wren, and Sybil and Peter had young dreams of their own, but like most of the new young their dreams were practical,

In fact Peter and his brother officers re-educated me in some of the tendencies and aspirations of the post-war world. They were nice lads, and they did not talk about the Idle Rich, or bore one with slogans about “Cap-it-alism.” Maybe they regarded me as a likeable old boy who was not to have his feelings and prejudices hurt and offended, but from what they read and talked about, and from what Peter told me, they contemplated the creation of a new world of planned justice and efficiency.

Why not so? These lads were good England, but what would they make of the rough, lewd lot who had preceded them?

So, the war and the world went on, and there was for me and the House a happy interlude. It was a good year for the land, and the orchard trees were carrying heavy crops, and I came to an agreement with Peter’s crowd. We would share the produce if they would help us with the picking. I proposed to market my share of hand-picked Coxes, Bramleys, Laxtons, Monarchs, and Lanes, for already I was beginning to be worried about finance. Even in a small way I should have to be a merchant, and put the fruits of the, earth to use. Was I to become a poultry-farmer and fruit-grower? If my profits could pay the men’s wages, that would be something. But I was worried.

About harvest time Sybil had a week’s leave, and since she and Peter wished to be together, I invited her to Rose Cottage and gave her the spare room. She was a sturdy little person with a broad and pleasant face, a wonderful set of teeth and a lovely smile. Her fair hair curled all over her head, and her blue eyes could be infinitely serious and just as infinitely merry. Peter had chosen well, for this child had wisdom and integrity, and a way with her, and her sincerity was such that I an old fellow could listen and feel good.

Sybil was both the old and the new. She could do that which had been the pride and the prerogative of man, and yet be woman, and she and Peter made a comely couple. Almost I felt that I had adopted two children. When Peter came down to the cottage I left them alone together, and they would lie side by side in the orchard, and I used to wonder what they talked about. Not as Sibilla and I had talked, but with the young tongues of the new world. But Peter was a devout lover, and not of the casual, slangy, slap and tickle brigade, and I think Sybil would have smacked him had he been cheap and nasty. Nor would he have been her Peter.

I liked the child’s helpfulness. She was not like so many of the young who appear to assume that house hold chores are the business of the elderly. She made her own bed; she helped to lay a table and to clear it, and was fersona grata to Ellen. Sometimes Peter joined us for the evening meal, and I brought out a bottle of wine and we were merry. I did not mind being teased by either of them. At the end of her week’s leave Sybil was calling me Uncle.

I remember the evening after she had left us. Peter came down and sat with me in the orchard. He was silent, but not with the silence of aloofness. I smoked my pipe, and pretended to read the Times. If he wanted to talk, he could if it pleased him.

It did please him.

He asked me a question.

“Do you think I have been right, sir?”

“About what?”

“Not marrying.”

I laid my paper down on the grass.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes, and no, but not till this beastly business is over.”

“And Sybil?”

“She said she would marry me to-morrow.”

“That would be Sybil. But I rather think you are right. If I may say so, you are a lucky lad.”

“I am that, sir. What’s more, I’m thinking of the afterwards. Life is not going to be easy for the ex-officer. Sybil hasn’t a bean, and I’ve got only just a little capital.”

“Be careful of it.”

“But one has to take a risk. I’m doing a lot of thinking these days.”

It was early next spring that I received the bad news, Peter’s crowd were going. I was more than sorry to lose Peter, for I had grown fond of the lad, and I was a lonely old buffer, and feeling more so as this dreary and difficult war dragged on. Also, the House would be sorry to lose Peter’s crowd, and to be once more at the mercy of strangers. It would be Africa, Sicily and Italy for Peter and his people, or that was their guess.

I remember so well the evening before they left us. Peter was coming to supper with me, but happening to stroll up to Beechhanger late in the afternoon I saw a brown figure sitting like Pan on the edge of the wood, a sad and contemplative figure, legs drawn up and arms wrapped around them. It was Peter taking a last look at the valley in the spring, with all its young greenness and promise. I wondered for a moment whether he wished to be disturbed, and I was standing there hesitant when he turned and saw me.

I remember the half smiling, half poignant look in his eyes. His arms came unwreathed, his legs straightened.

“Don’t get up,” said L

I moved on and sat down beside him, and for a minute we looked in silence at the valley and the woods, the pool, and the old white house. The sheen of sunlight was upon them. I glanced at the lad, and saw a shimmer in his eyes, and profound sadness. He was going into exile. He might not return. The thought hurt me. I was fonder of this lad than I had suspected.

Suddenly he spoke, while looking at the house.

“It’s all so good—something to remember.”

The English are apt to be mute or monosyllabic when emotion moves them.

I said: “It has been good having you here. If Sybil wants anywhere to spend her leave, I’d be glad to have her.”

“She’d love it. Thanks ever so much, sir.”

“Oh, that’s all right. You young things have done me good. I was getting rather crusty.”

He gave a little and almost soundless laugh.

“Like old wine? Well, we haven’t mixed so badly. I hope the next crowd won’t be as nasty as the first.”

“I hope not.”

“It has been a kind of home here, even for the chaps. I’d like to see it again.”

“You will.”

He was silent, and I knew what he was thinking.

“You’ll write to me?” said I.

“I will. I want to.”

“You had better copy Sybil, and call me Uncle.”

The House was empty for two days between Peter’s going and the arrival of the new people, and I was able to go all over the place at my leisure and appreciate the difference between the then and the now. The House was clean, and some of the rooms had been distempered, and there were no obscene scribblings on the walls. Worn stair-treads had been replaced and the gap in the bannisters repaired. In fact the House seemed happier than it had been for a year or more, and I could call this period the Season of Recovery after the foul winter it had suffered. It was the same in the stable-quarters and the outhouses. There was no mess here, and broken doors had been repaired and rehung, and windows mended. Nor was the garden a mass of weeds, some of it had been dug over, and early crops were in, crops that others would enjoy.

I looked into some of the huts. They too were clean, and I took my hat off to Peter, his CO. and his crowd. Here were cleanliness and decency, symbols of a new world. Peter might be sensitive and something of a dreamer, but he could do the job, and from what I had heard he had a great reputation with the men.

I stood between the two porch-pillars and looked about me. What of the future? What the devil was to be done with all these huts? When if ever would the place be cleared and in its right mind? I will confess that the problem frightened me. Should I an old man live again and alone in the House? Could I afford to live in it? And what sort of life would it be?

For I too had changed like the House. I had my con tact with youth in the persons of Peter and Sybil. I was younger, more fit, less crabbed and self-centred. In some ways I was leading the life of a working-man, using my hands and my wits, and the head my fore fathers had given me. Change and transformation were in the air, and I knew that after all the devastation of this war we should have to toil and reconstruct and try to keep our tempers sweet. Was I to share in the labour, or just sit and sneer?

I strolled down to where the blue railings had stood, and