House That Berry Built

by Dornford Yates

  Everyone worked all out for the whole of that week; but what laid stripes upon us was that on Thursday night the temperature fell.

  We had finished the beams on Tuesday, and they had been carefully covered against a possible frost. So they were safe. But now, though all was ready by Saturday night, though all had fought against time to lay and tie and shutter six thousand square feet – and won the fight, such labour might be in vain. We could take no risks with the platform on which the house was to stand.

  There was nothing to do but go on – and hope for the best.

  I stood on Friday with Joseph and watched the sun go down.

  “And never a cloud,” he muttered. “Who ever saw such weather? And autumn coming in fast.” He shook his head. “There will be a sharp frost tonight.”

  “Tell me,” I said. “If it’s like this on Sunday evening…”

  “Then to run in the concrete on Monday would be a criminal act. You see, Monsieur, it is like this. In the first place, once we begin, we have got to go on. Such a platform cannot be laid piecemeal. By working with all our might, we can do the job in two days. And in two days, do it we must. In the second place, if we run that concrete in and then we have a hard frost before the concrete has set, the platform will never be safe. In such a case, therefore, we should be faced with the task of taking the whole of it down and starting afresh. All the material would be wasted, and as for the labour – well, demolishing ferro-concrete is not amusing work. In this case, such a task is unthinkable. Six thousand square feet! Tied into these beams and these walls!” He threw up his hands. “I am bound to tell Monsieur the truth. Unless the weather changes, we must not attempt the work.”

  “Can we telephone to you on Sunday?”

  Joseph smiled.

  “I shall be here, Monsieur. I shall not leave Lally this weekend. And early on Monday morning, I shall decide ‘yes’ or ‘no’. At the moment I am not hopeful. I am ready to take a risk. To start at all at this season is taking a risk. But to take that risk is worth while, for, if we succeed, we can work right through the winter, except for two or three weeks. Not at this pace, of course: but choosing our time. And walls can be covered while they are being built. And if a frost catches us napping – well, it is not a very great business to pull down six feet of wall and build it again. But the platform – no.”

  “Exactly how long do we need without a sharp frost?”

  “For this platform, Monsieur? Five days. Two to run in the concrete, and three for the concrete to set.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Four would do, but I would rather have five. Well, we have done our best. On Monday all will be ready. If the weather holds out against us, it cannot be helped.”

  “The weather is very capricious. It may be like this on Monday, and ten days later there may be no frost at all.”

  “That, Monsieur, is perfectly true. But every day that passes increases the risk which we are prepared to take. We are very high up here – two thousand six hundred feet. And once October is in, to hope for five days running without a sharp frost would be to tempt Providence.” He shook his head. “No, Monsieur. I am in charge. And so long as I am in charge, if we cannot lay the platform next week, we must wait for the spring.”

  It was just before one o’clock on Saturday afternoon that I noticed a change in the wind.

  Because the work was so urgent, the break for dinner had been cut from two hours to one, and the men were on their way back from Lally and Besse. Jonah and I had broken our fast at the site.

  I hastened to Joseph, standing beside his hut.

  “The wind’s changed, Joseph.”

  His chin was up in a flash.

  Then—

  “I cannot feel it,” he said. “But Monsieur was higher up.” He raised his voice. “Ulysse.”

  One of the men replied.

  “Monsieur Joseph.”

  “Monsieur le Capitaine says there is a change in the wind.”

  “That is so, Monsieur Joseph. Myself, I remarked it as I was coming from Besse. If it lasts, the drought will be broken within twelve hours.”

  Joseph turned to me.

  “Monsieur brings me good tidings,” he said. “Ulysse is knowledgeable. He has been bred as a shepherd, and his advice is better than that of a weather-glass.”

  I think it was. It was certainly four hours ahead of our barometer. This began to fall about five o’clock. And a golden sun went down in a bevy of cloud…

  When I woke on Sunday morning, the opposite side of the valley was not to be seen.

  I walked up to the site before breakfast.

  Hadrian’s Wall was looming out of the mist, and a sound of hammering came from the heights above.

  I made my way to the waste of steel above wood.

  Joseph was there, with the rain running down his face, checking the shuttering and putting finishing touches to the holes for which the plumber had asked.

  When he saw me, he pulled off his beret.

  “Good morning, Monsieur. That we are the favourites of Fortune, there can be no doubt. This is the weather I have prayed for. While it lasts, there will be no frosts – there was none last night – and, for what we have to do, it is the finest weather that we could have. Give me a week of this, and your house will stand as though it were built upon rock. The sun is not good for concrete, until it has set: we should have had to water with watering-cans, and, with the ruisseau so low, we should have had to bring the water from Besse. Oh, we are very lucky. But I wish that today was tomorrow, and that is the truth.”

  “Have you seen Ulysse?” said I.

  “My weather-glass, Monsieur? Yes. I walked up to Besse this morning and turned him out. He says that this will certainly last for three days – and possibly more: but he adds that, when it clears, there will be a very sharp frost.”

  “Oh, hell,” said I. “If it only lasts three days…”

  “We must pray,” said Joseph. “We must work, and Mesdames must pray very hard. And in case their prayers are not heard, I am having tarpaulins sent up. And braziers. I do not like the idea. I shall not be satisfied. But, with weather like this, I am bound to take a chance. It is too promising.”

  I may have worked harder than I did in the next two days, but, if I have, I cannot remember when. Each evening, at six o’clock, I could hardly stand up. Jonah and Carson worked, I think, rather harder – and seemed not at all fatigued. On Tuesday morning Berry’s back gave out – this to his genuine distress, but to no one’s surprise. The day before he had worked for eleven hours, for quite six of which he had been soaked to the skin. This was, of course, asking for trouble. Muscular rheumatism has been his familiar for years.

  Sand and stones and cement…sand and cement…sand and stones and cement…

  This was mixed on the ‘drive’ and shovelled into buckets which could have contained a boar. The buckets were hauled to the scaffold, some seventy feet above: there their contents were emptied into the travelling trucks. These ran on a little railway, along the footbridge scaffold and up to Hadrian’s Wall. There the lines branched and ran to right and to left, up to the end of the platform, now being made. (These lines were continually shifted, according to where, upon the platform, the concrete, so mixed, was required.) When they reached the point at which the masons were working, the trucks were tipped and their burden fell on to a raft: and from the raft it was shovelled on to the waiting steel. Once there, it had to be ‘worked’. And when it had been well ‘worked’, so that every rod was embedded and there were no ‘pockets’ left, then it had to be carefully levelled just to the top of the steel. Then the grilles were laid and tied: and then a finer mixture was spread upon them. And when these, too, were embedded and out of sight, then the whole was levelled to precisely the height of the wall.

  The men worked magnificently. After all, it was not their home. But everyone knew of the gamble and what was at stake. It became a point of honour that the rafts should never be empty, that the trucks should not wait upon the buckets
nor the buckets upon the trucks.

  All day long the lorries were bringing sand and cement. All day long men were shovelling and hauling, their bodies streaming with a mixture of rain and sweat. All day long men were ‘working’ the concrete, stirring, slicing with trowels till it shuddered like any quicksand and found its level itself. All day long the masons were finishing the surface, checking it with square edge and level and leaving it true and flawless, as only a craftsman can.

  One or other of the brothers was there the whole of the time, while Joseph directed the battle and fought himself. His energy was inspiring. If ever a hitch occurred, he was there and was bearing a hand before anyone else: when a section of railway jammed, he had it free before I could send for a pick: one moment he would be on the scaffold, urging the mixers below, and the next he would be at the farther end of the platform, checking a level with a mason or tying a grille into place. And once, when a truck jumped the rails and men were straining like madmen to keep it from spilling its load, he seized a raft and carried it single-handed and set it down by the truck in the nick of time. I mention this, because it was not only a great feat of strength but, to me, a great example of presence of mind. He saw that the men were failing, that even his added strength could not hold the truck up, that Mahomet must be brought to the mountain – and that at once. And so he did it somehow. Not one man in a thousand would have ‘got there’. But Joseph did.

  At half-past six on Tuesday, the platform was done – and the cloud was still thick about us, filling the valley with vapour, drenching the world with rain too fine to be seen, and blotting out things material at fifty yards. In fact this weather prevailed until Saturday afternoon; but by Thursday night it was clear that the game had been won. No frost, however severe, could now damage the work of our hands: the concrete had set – and that, under perfect conditions – conditions seldom encountered upon the plains.

  On Friday, by our desire, the men were told that the morrow would be a day off, though all would be paid: by this, rather natural gesture, Joseph was deeply impressed and, because, I think, of what he had said, every man came to thank us, high and low: but he would not avail himself of it and spent the day, as usual, upon the site.

  He was, of course, jubilant. So, indeed, were we all: for a very great effort had been made – men had done their utmost, and Nature had rewarded their efforts as they deserved.

  As though to ram this home, on Saturday even a glorious sun set red. That night the sky was clear, and, as Ulysse had predicted, there was a very sharp frost. When we awoke the next morning, the mountain-tops were covered thick with snow. And the forests had changed their habit. Autumn was in.

  We all went to Church on Sunday – out of pure gratitude.

  And then we walked up to the site and took our stand on the platform which we had helped to build.

  It was an impressive experience.

  For the very first time we could capture the days to come and could tell what it would feel like to live and move upon the terrace of what was to be our home. We could see exactly the prospects which we should command and could hear exactly the sounds which would reach our ears. We could judge when the sun would meet us and when he would take his leave; and we could consider the lay-out of the gardens we meant to make.

  “Oblige me,” said Berry, “by keeping twelve feet from that brink. I know it’s quite all right and that all last week men did contortions upon it and waltzed all over the scaffold and never fell down. But to me, standing here, the illusion of depth is frightful. I shan’t feel safe till they get that parapet up.”

  For this point of view there was a lot to be said. The waste of concrete jutted into the air. In fact, it concealed at most a forty-feet drop: but, standing back from its edge, we could not see the valley, but only its opposite side, rising out of the depths, and a man who had been taken there blindfold and then permitted to see might well have supposed that he stood upon the brink of some canyon which might be bottomless.

  My sister lifted her voice.

  “I don’t want to be silly, but—”

  “I know,” said Berry, “but don’t you take it to heart. It’s an accident of birth. And we’ll always protect you, darling. Forget the word ‘asylum’. People may stare sometimes, but—”

  “Come and look at the view,” said Daphne, advancing towards the edge.

  “No,” screamed Berry. “I forbid you. It makes me go all bugbears – I mean, goosegogs. U-u-ugh!”

  “Am I wise?” said Daphne, who has a good head for heights.

  “You’re Pallas Athene,” howled Berry. “If I’d been Paris, you should have had the apple. My sweet, I implore you…”

  “That’s much better,” said Daphne, turning. She was less than one foot from the edge. “And now I’ll begin again. I don’t want to be silly, but I simply cannot believe that this is where we’re to live. It – it’s so fantastic.”

  “It’s like a dream,” said Jill. “Think of waking up in the morning and seeing this – this bird’s eye view.”

  Berry looked up from the business of drying the palms of his hands.

  “Think of coming home in the evening and seeing two hundred steps between you and a drink.”

  “Good for muscular rheumatism,” said Jonah. “If you’d had steps to climb for the last twenty years, you would not in your old age—”

  “No doubt,” said Berry; “no doubt. And if I’d been making grilles ever since I was ten, what stumps I had left would now be tipped with horn. And what’s biting The Blue Boy?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” said I.

  “Stop that noise,” said Berry, addressing The Columbine. “The sage is in travail. And may we, poor scum, be permitted to foul the luscious meads of philosophy on which you stroll?”

  “You,” I said shortly, “would foul a neglected grease-trap. All the same, this is a matter to which you must be admitted. I mean, it’s of some importance – even to you.”

  “Oh, Boy,” said Jill, “don’t say you’ve discovered some snag.”

  “Call it a snare, my beauty. But I think I must point it out.”

  “Oh, I can’t bear it,” said Daphne.

  “Don’t worry,” said I. “It’s going to be quite all right. About three weeks ago, the one and only Joseph asked me in so many words why we had chosen this site. I said that we’d looked all round and we liked it best. He said that no doubt we were right, but that, the evening before, he had walked up to Besse, and that he had been struck by that meadow.”

  I pointed to the one on the other side of the ruisseau – a really beautiful field and easily twice the size of any one of our three.

  “He said that, had we built there, the ground rose so much more gently that Hadrian’s Wall need not have been half its height and that, since the road is very much higher just there, we could have made a drive that ran right up to the house. I said that we’d marked all that, but that any house built there would be looking straight on to the graveyard, and that it was for that reason that we had turned it down.”

  This was quite true. The graveyard stood on a spur on the southern side of the road which ran from Lally to Besse – the only spur that there was in all that mile. It was very beautifully placed, and I think the dead must lie happy in such a spot. But graveyards in France have not the beauty their fellows in England have; and, in any event, it would have lain full in the foreground, and that was a shade too much. But, because the road curled higher up, from the platform itself we could only see the edge of its wall.

  “Well, Joseph is very polite and he said that he quite understood. But to me it was clear that he didn’t. He could see no objection at all to looking over a graveyard; and he found our distaste peculiar – no doubt about that. Now his point of view is the point of view of the French. Till then, it hadn’t entered my head: but now I’m perfectly sure that, had we been French, and not English, we should have built in that field.

  “Well, there you are. This house will attract much attention
. What we have done so far seems to be the talk of the Basses Pyrénées. Is it too much to suppose that any day somebody else may think that to build up here is not such a bad idea? And may stroll up here to look for a possible site? And may be struck, as Joseph himself was struck, with the eminent desirability of that very handsome meadow next door?”

  “Oh, Boy!”

  “Exactly,” said I. “It’s very instructive to stand where we’re standing now.” I pointed to the elegant meadow, down on our left. “We need have no fear of that. No one could ever build there. It’s much too wet. But what of the other side? We never intended our home to be one of a row. And how should we like some Frenchman’s conception of beauty slapped down in that field? For one thing alone, it would blast our view to the west.”

  “It would ruin everything,” cried Daphne.

  “The bare idea,” said Berry, “has given me a pain in the stomach. I mean, that’s quite true. I very much doubt if I can eat any lunch.”

  “Lunch be damned,” said Jonah. “Boy’s perfectly right. If we can buy that field, we must buy it at any price. A residence there, however beautiful, would simply tear everything up. And, as Boy hinted just now – well, we all know what the French architect can do when he really tries.”

  “Conceive,” said Berry, “a neo-Moorish trifle in ruby pink, kitchen-yard running down to the ruisseau – convenient for garbage and washing and clear of the sanitation which would enter slightly below. I wonder where they’ll put the conservatory.”

  With one voice, we insisted that he should hold his peace.

  “I’m thankful you saw it,” said Daphne, “but it is a bit of a blow.”

  “It’ll be all right,” I said. “But we mustn’t waste any time.”

  “But what do we do? De Moulin?”

  “He’s back in Pau. Besides, he advised us next time to deal direct.”

  “But we don’t know the owner,” said Jill.

  “We’ll soon find out,” said I. “I’ll talk to Joseph tomorrow. He’s no damned fool. But neither are the peasants. We’ll have to pay through the nose.”