The House That Berry Built

By Dornford Yates

A comic romp featuring the famous ‘Berry’ Pleydell and based on Yates’ own experience of building a house for himself in the Pyrenées – sumptuous, expensive and idyllically located. The house was seized by the Germans during World War II, and this tale, written soon afterwards, gives a hilarious account of its construction and early life. Yates at the peak of his form.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Stratus
• Release date: Aug 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9780755127160

Book preview

1

In Which We Remove to the Hills,

and Berry Pulls His Weight

Standing by Berry’s shoulder, I threw a glance round the chamber I knew so well.

The book-lined walls, the chiselled mantelpiece; the original, elegant ceiling; the three, fair windows, whose upper lights were badged with coats of arms; the built-in reader’s stall, the little pulpit-staircase; the rugs and the summer cretonnes, the polished furniture; the tulips peering out of their Lowestoft bowls – I looked upon these things and found them valuable. So, I knew, did the others, but their eyes were upon the ground. Daphne was sitting back in an easy chair: Jill was perched on its arm – her hand, I knew, was in Daphne’s, holding it tight: Jonah was standing behind them, grave-faced with folded arms.

Lord Atlas looked at Berry, sitting behind the carved table, pencil in hand.

As I see it, Major Pleydell, the exact position is this. When you and your cousins inherited White Ladies, the cost of maintaining the place as your father and his brother had maintained it was less than three thousand a year. Today it is nearly eight thousand – eight thousand pounds.

Berry nodded.

That’s right, he said. Very nearly three times as much. The average cost of maintenance for the last three years was seven thousand eight hundred and sixty pounds. That’s sparing no expense: but we never have spared expense where White Ladies was concerned.

Your books show that. Lord Atlas cleared his throat. And now the time has come when you and your cousins are really no longer able to find this very large sum.

I’m afraid that’s so. But I think that I should say this – that that sum does not include the salary of a controller or bailiff. My cousin, Captain Pleydell, and I have always done that work.

What would that come to?

Berry shrugged his shoulders and looked at me.

I think, said I, that a capable, faithful man would deserve six hundred a year and to live rent-free.

Shall we say eight thousand five hundred?

Yes, said Berry, I think that that would be right.

Very well. In these circumstances, you and your cousins are willing to make White Ladies over to the nation, as it stands, with its gardens and park, to be used as an official retreat for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on condition that I endow it in perpetuity by handing to the trustees, of which you will be one, a capital sum which will bring in, free of tax, eight thousand five hundred a year.

Yes.

You stipulate that, except for maintenance and repair, the property shall never be touched, and that the four principal servants shall remain – the butler, as groom of the chambers; the house-keeper and head-gardener in their respective offices, and the chauffeur at the lodge.

Yes. Unless and until they may desire to retire upon pension, for which we shall be responsible.

There was a little silence.

Then—

D’you think, said my sister, there should be a little margin? I mean, we can’t see ahead; and if prices go on rising…

Lord Atlas smiled.

I think Mrs Pleydell is right. My idea was to transfer a sum which will bring in ten thousand a year – any surplus to be placed to reserve.

That’s very handsome of you.

Lord Atlas inclined his head.

I think the word ‘handsome’ must be reserved for you. I have a great deal more money than I can spend. But you are giving away your very beautiful home.

In May, 1937, the Deeds had been signed and sealed.

This was, we hoped, the last of our misfortunes, for Fate had been rough with us for several years. More. Apart from calamities in which we had no say, we had been repeatedly confronted with the unpalatable task of choosing the lesser evil. In this, I think we succeeded; but the exercise was one of which we were growing tired. Of the more personal blows, I shall say nothing. Suffice it that we, who had been seven, were back to five; and when Jonah suggested that we should go right away and seek distraction in the heart of the Pyrénées, Jill spoke for us all by flinging her arms round his neck.

This place, said Berry, ministers to the mind. You can’t get away from that. When we left England, my soul was over at the knees. Now – well, I can’t say it’s leaping like a ram, but it is no longer decrepit.

That, said I, is the mountains. I’ve always—

No laxatives, please, said Berry. Once before—

Protests from Daphne and Jill abbreviated the insult.

You really are filthy, said Daphne. I don’t know about your soul; but your mind—

I know, said her husband. It’s like a dunghill – a thing that steams in the sun. But rich fruit burgeons thereon. That’s Nature. Take the melons you gur-nash twice a day. If you were to visit their birth-place—

It isn’t true, shrieked Jill. They’re most carefully grown in gardens near Angoulême. Katrine told me—

Farms, not gardens, said Berry. I always give full marks to the fellow who thought of that. ‘Farm’ sounds so warm and homely. It, so to speak, draws the sting. Oh, and talking of sewage…

When order had been restored—

The point, said Berry, which I was endeavouring to make was that we are no better than a lot of mugs. We reside in a hired villa at Pau – a house which has been not only constructed, but furnished in the worst of taste: it might be all right for a blind man who was bed-ridden, but it doesn’t exactly subscribe to the well-being of anyone whose eyes and whose hams still function normally.

That, said Jonah, is undeniable.

"Very well. On four days out of five, with one consent, we drive a matter of thirty miles, in order to spend the day in this vicinity. Unless we are to fast until we get back, we must either take our lunch with us or pay a considerable sum of money for the privilege of eating a collation, as inferior as it is pretentious, in some inconveniently situated hotel. We, therefore, take our lunch with us. After a discussion which is invariably characterized by great bitterness, we select some high place upon which we can eat undisturbed, and we then proceed to lug hampers, cushions, rugs, sunshades, thermoi and two buckets of beer upon ice up a gradient that the Gadarene swine would have refused. We then devour this parody of a meal in attitudes not only of extreme discomfort but calculated to embarrass the entrails – a solemn thought. No sooner have we satisfied our cravings than we are faced with the fascinating duty of employing scraps of grease-paper to smear from our platters the traces of our feast, of burying the treasure thus won, and of sousing in some ravening torrent the cups and glasses which we are to use for tea. These are then embalmed in anybody’s napkin and restored to their hamper, which, though obviously containing less than when we started, has to be held together because it will not shut. After an hour or so of diversion, the same bestial rites are observed, in order that we may have tea: and by the time that function is over, if we are to sit down to dinner clothed and in our right minds, it is time to pack the car and drive our thirty odd miles back to the poisonous habitation in which we take our rest.

Now, it’s hardly credible, but, as I have said, we do this four days out of five. With one consent. And we do it four days out of five, because we enjoy this neighbourhood. Well, even blue-based baboons do better than that. Where the sugarcane is sweetest, there their caravan rests. He addressed his wife. What about that villa you spoke of?

‘Spoke of’! said Daphne indignantly. Jill and I were all for it: but you turned it down.

I admit, said Berry, that my enthusiasm was not marked. The ‘usual offices’ were so, er, unusual. But, in the light of what I’ve suffered in the last ten days, I’ve been doing division sums. Two into five won’t go: but if—

That’s more than enough, said Daphne. Does this mean that, if it’s still going, you’re ready to take that house?

I’d consider it, said Berry. The thought of consuming my lunch sitting down in a chair…

My sister rose to her feet.

Come on, Boy, she said. If it hasn’t gone, we’ll take it. And that will be that.

I followed my sister across the sloping meadow, handed her down the bank and into the Rolls.

As I let in the clutch—

The bedrooms will do, she observed, but downstairs is rather bare. We’ll have to get some chairs and a sofa, or Berry will throw in his hand. We can always sell them again at the end of our time.

That was in my mind, I said thoughtfully. Then again, there’s the hot-water system… Oh, and what about ice? Will they deliver up here?

Now don’t say you’re going to rat.

I’m not, indeed, I declared. "I’d put up with quite a lot to be staying up here. But your husband has large ideas; and when he declares that he is prepared to reduce them, you may be perfectly sure that any such reduction will be effected at somebody else’s expense. Take the ice, for instance. He’ll have his ice all right, even if it’s got to be fetched. But he won’t fetch it. Then, again, he’ll take all the hot water every day."

I don’t care, said Daphne. We may have to rough it a bit, but at the present moment I’d rather have a caravan here than a castle anywhere else. Berry’s perfectly right. This district is curiously healing. I don’t know why.

I made no reply. The thought of sharing a caravan with my brother-in-law was precluding speech.

The villa for which we were bound was a modest house, five minutes’ walk from Lally, by the side of the mountain road that climbed to the hamlet of Besse. Had it been built upon the same mountainside – but ten minutes’ walk from Lally, instead of five, its site would have been incomparable, commanding mountains and valleys and league-long forests, laced with the flash of falls: but, though its view was restricted to the meadows which sloped to Lally and the woods in which that village was sunk, the outlook was very pleasing and the house was retired enough to be very quiet. It had been well built, and there were plenty of rooms, but the furniture was scanty and most austere. Still, a little, natural terrace, shaded by sweet-smelling limes, made a most charming pleasance upon which we could lunch and dine, and I would have suffered a much less convenient lodging for the pleasure of sleeping beneath the topless hills.

Well as we knew the mountains, the fifty square miles about Lally had always been for us the sweetest patch of all in a lovely quilt. Every kind of beauty lay in that zone – a rarer beauty than we could find elsewhere. I sometimes think that the fact of the matter was this – that thereabouts the ‘close-up’ never belied the promise the prospect made. Anyway, the tract drew us, as a magnet draws steel: and if ever we went elsewhere, we always were disappointed, because our surroundings fell short of the very lovely standard which Lally’s neighbourhood set.

As we flicked through Lally, I saw a caravan standing beside the petrol-pump. It was not a true caravan: it was something between a caravan and a car. For a couple, that way inclined, it looked a good thing to me. The owner, in shirt and shorts, was standing beside the vehicle, watching the petrol gauge. He did not look round as we passed, but his profile was vaguely familiar. I felt as though I had seen him somewhere before. Then we swung to the left, and down the narrow way to the old, stone bridge. Two minutes later, we reached the Villa Bel Air.

As we made to enter the hall—

Madame, said the hostess, will excuse the state of the place. The workmen are in possession, and workmen know no law.

Workmen? said my sister.

The good woman spread out her hands.

Electricians and plumbers, Madame. But they have almost done. They install an electric heater to furnish baths. A refrigerator also.

Daphne cried out.

But that is marvellous. When I was here three weeks ago…

Madame, what will you? Indeed, it was Madame who taught me. To let a villa today, one must be up to date. The initial expense is fearful; but…

We arranged to take possession in two days’ time.

For five people to take up residence at a villa, which stands some twenty-five miles from the nearest town, necessitates preparation, even in France: and when that villa is very simply found, odd stuff must be hired or purchased, if the tenants are to enjoy their occupation.

At breakfast the following morning, the final arrangements were made.

The chairs and the sofa, said Berry, will be my concern.

The rest of us stopped eating.

Touch of the sun, said Jonah. He ought to have stayed in bed.

Daphne stared upon her husband.

D’you mean to say, she said, that you’re going to pull your weight?

Berry frowned upon a slice of cold ham.

Lesser souls, he observed, can select glass and napery, size up housemaids or order a packet of Vim: but to discover a comfortable chair in the Department of the Basses Pyrénées calls for a brilliance of intellect very seldom encountered and never recognized. Not that I relish the prospect of entering the premises of the average French upholsterer: what you can see from the pavement is quite bad enough for the heart: but there’s a good deal at stake. The blessing and the curse are set before us this day. If we choose the curse, for the next two months those exquisite post-prandial periods which French cooking alone can induce, will be defiled. More. It’s a matter of health. Nothing is so calculated to turn the stomach as to spend two hours after dinner writhing upon a squab which has been so framed as to call into play muscles which nobody but a rowing Blue knows that he has.

Well, don’t spend too much, said Daphne. We can sell them again, when we go, but we’re sure to be stung. And we’ve got to get them up there.

The thing is to find them, said Berry, gloomily. I’m not sure we shouldn’t do better to get some beds.

Some what? said Jill.

Beds, said Berry, helping himself to toast. If we had four single beds—

I refuse, said Daphne, to have a decent sitting-room littered with beds. After all, we’re not animals.

That’s the trouble, said Berry. If we were, we should have more sense. Did you ever see a dog get up in a French chair? He’s not such a fool. And now can I have some more coffee? Or would that be gluttony?

The division of labour was rearranged.

Daphne and Jill were to engage servants, purchase the necessary appointments and take in stores. Jonah was to arrange for transport and to see what he could do about finding a run-about car. I was to answer for the drinks, find some garden furniture and purchase the cord and the lamps, for hanging light in the limes of the terrace of the Villa Bel Air.

We were about our business by ten o’clock.

My brother-in-law did not return for lunch, but a taxi brought him to the villa by four o’clock.

Where ever have you been? said Daphne. When you didn’t appear, we nearly didn’t get any lunch. Eugène kept us waiting for hours, because you’d specially ordered—

I know, said Berry. "I know. I thought of that lovely confection when I was making shift with broiled trout. But duty will be duty. Besides, the trout was quite good; and the omelet aux olives that followed belonged to the books. But that’s by the way. I’ve lighted a candle today that it will take years to put out. Our sitting-room at Bel Air will become a household word. I mean, it makes you drowsy to look at them."

Have you really got there? said Jonah.

Got there? said Berry. I’ve soared. My feet are still off the ground. You know, when I extend myself, I really get quite frightened at what I can do. No other man—

Let’s have it, I said brutally.

How offensive, said Berry. "Never mind. In your next life you’ll probably be a corner-boy again. As I was about to say, I visited four emporia without success. And that is putting it low. Might as well have inspected a lot of rock-gardens. The fifth emporium was owned by a man of incredible age. I don’t think his eye was dim, but his hearing was abated. He seemed to think I was asking the way to Bayonne. Took me out on the pavement and showed me. When he’d quite done, I approached my lips to his ear and shouted ‘fauteuils’. Then we re-entered the shop and had a short talk about Voltaire. Finally, he went and got an ear-trumpet which – well, I can’t swear I saw it move, but I think it would have come if he’d called. And then at last he understood what I said. I knew that, because he laughed – gave me the spittoon to hold and laughed like hell. When the convulsion was over, ‘I know what you want,’ he crowed, ‘for I have cared for the furniture in more than one English house: but you’ll never get it here – or anywhere else in France, unless you attend a sale at an English house. And that you may do, if you please, this afternoon. An Englishman died at Violet six months ago, and now his household stuff has come to be sold. Beds and carpets and chairs, at the Château Philippe. I do not know the contents myself, but if you think it worth while to drive seventeen miles…’ I blared my thanks into the helpmeet, shook its master’s time-honoured hand and rushed about the streets like a madman, trying to sight the Rolls. God knows what you do with that car. In the end I took a taxi and drove the seventeen miles in the sweat of my face. You see, I couldn’t wait, for the private view was to end at twelve o’clock. I got there at ten minutes to. And there they were – in the hall. Two chairs and a glorious Chesterfield…made in England, my hearties, three sumptuous chapels of ease…

"Be sure I tested them. But England builds stuff to last. A little rubbed here and there, but all their springs were sound. The trouble was that it was a four-days’ sale. So I found the auctioneer and asked him to lunch…

"You know, I like this country. Before we had reached the cheese, it was all arranged. The chairs and the sofa were to be put up at three, and if anyone tried to run the stranger up – well, the auctioneer would fix him. I said I’d give twenty-five pounds, which the auctioneer agreed was a proper price. Over the second brandy, he told me not to come in till he lighted a cigarette…

"Well, all went according to plan. The stuff was put up at three, and the dealers got round. They’d made a ring, of course… I stood at the back, watching. The bidding rose to twenty, and there it hung. The auctioneer tried to raise it, without success. I saw the dealers laughing and moving away. Then the auctioneer struck a match and I nodded my head. ‘Twenty-one pounds,’ he snapped, and knocked them down. Before the ring had recovered, he was selling a bust of Flora, which was short of one ear.

And there you are. When I gave his clerk the cheque, he gave me the dealers’ names, so that when we want to sell, we’ve only to let them know.

Of course, said Daphne, one of these days you’ll be prosecuted.

Nonsense, said Berry. It was a business deal. For once the wicked were routed, and the righteous came into their own. What about transport, Jonah?

That’s all right, said my cousin. I’ve got a small furniture-van. We can go round by Violet and pick them up.

What about the covers? said Daphne. They’ll have to go and be cleaned.

Don’t be silly, said Berry. You don’t clean morocco leather. You use a damp cloth and a chammy, to bring it up.

As soon as she could speak—

And they’re not in ribbons? said Daphne.

A little rubbed, said Berry. But I didn’t see any holes.

And you paid twenty-one pounds for a three-piece suite? You and that auctioneer ought to be in jail.

All right, said Berry. Don’t you sit on them. Don’t be involved in my iniquity. He laughed wildly. I achieve the impossible, I secure our sanity for two months to come, only to be branded—

Good God! said Jonah suddenly, and lowered The Times.

What is it? said everyone.

Old Rowley’s been murdered.

Murdered? breathed Daphne. Old Rowley?

Murdered, said Jonah.

All of us sat very still.

Sir Steuart Rowley was more than a King’s Bench Judge. He was a great gentleman. He had the spirit and the manners of another and finer age; and though our acquaintance was slight, we set great store by it. He had always dined at White Ladies, when he was at Brooch on Assize, and had seemed to enjoy his visits as much as had we. Little more than a year ago, his work at Brooch being done, he had spent the weekend with us, and it was the very great interest which he had shown in our home that had encouraged us to name him as one of White Ladies’ Trustees. That was two months ago. To our delight, he had consented and had been appointed to act.

And now he was dead – murdered.

What a filthy shame, cried Jill. And he was so nice and so gentle in every way.

Jonah sighed.

Someone doesn’t seem to have thought so. Chloroformed and then strangled – with a piece of flexible cord.

Good God!

Found by the servants in the morning, dead in his chair.

What a shocking thing, said my sister. Have they any idea who did it?

If they have, it doesn’t say so. But that doesn’t mean a thing.

And his wife? Oh, no. She’s dead. What a merciful thing. Wasn’t she John Shapely’s widow?

That’s right. She died last year. The murder was done at Dewlap, the Shapelys’ place.

Shapely, said I. That’s who it was – his stepson. He was taking in petrol at Lally yesterday afternoon.

That caravan? said my sister.

That’s right, said I. I knew I knew him, but I couldn’t put a name to his face.

Which way was he going? said Jonah.

Towards the Col de Fer.

Then he doesn’t know what’s occurred. I mean, today is Thursday, and poor old Rowley was murdered on Monday night.

They can call him on the wireless, said Jill.

I didn’t notice an aerial on the van. D’you think we should—

No, said Jonah. Sooner or later he’ll hear. And he can’t do any good. It isn’t as if his mother was still alive.

But what an alibi! said Berry.

Yes, it lets him out, said Jonah. But I hope they get the swine. Both on and off the Bench, Old Rowley was one of the best.

That night we listened to the news.

Sure enough, the call was made.

Before I read the news, here is an SOS. Will Fergus Colin Shapely, believed to be touring in the Pyrénées, return home at once, as his presence is urgently required?

However slight, a move is a hectic business, and we were all down the next morning by half-past eight. All, of course, except Berry. Half-past nine was his hour, though the heavens fell.

Jonah had found and had purchased an excellent run-about car. Again, our luck had come in, for, if we had had our choice, this was the make and the model which we would have owned. A brand new, four-cylinder Andret – a black saloon, and a very good bargain indeed at one hundred and fifty pounds. It had, of course, been ordered by somebody else, but he had grown sick of waiting and had purchased another car: so this one was free when Jonah walked into the shop.

And almost everything else was only awaiting collection by Jonah’s van.

I suggest, said my cousin, that Berry and I should shepherd the furniture-van. When we’ve picked up the stuff here in Pau, we can drive to Violet and take in the nests for rest. And thence to Lally. We should be there about one.

That’s all right, said Daphne. The servants are leaving at nine and should get there at half-past ten. They’re taking some food with them, so they can give you lunch. Monique’s not coming, so she will stay and clear up. The inventory here should be finished by twelve o’clock. Therèse will attend to that, but I must have a car this morning – I’ve two or three things to get. Then we can lunch in the town, and Boy can drive us to Lally. We ought to be there by three.

You bring Therèse with you?

Yes. Did you wire for Carson?

I did, said Jonah. He’ll be here tomorrow morning.

Thank heaven for that, said Daphne. With Therèse and Carson behind me, I could face the end of the world. No crisis faces them. They just get down to things.

This was most true. Therèse was Daphne’s maid – had been her personal maid for several years. And Carson was Jonah’s servant. I have yet to learn what Carson could not do.

Well, we’ll take the Andret, said Jonah, and you can have the Rolls. That’ll work out very well, for the van will do about twenty and, because our engine is new we shall have to go slow.

So it fell out – except that, as I had expected, Daphne and Jill, between them, were not prepared to leave Pau until half-past four.

Forty-five minutes later I brought the Rolls to rest in the drive of the Villa Bel Air.

Berry was at ease on the terrace – in two of the really excellent garden-chairs. By his side, a very large mug had contained some beer.

Up to time, as usual, he murmured. Or did you say three o’clock? Ah, there’s Therèse. Therèse, did you get that silk?

Yes, indeed, Monsieur. And it is very fine. I purchased a metre, as Monsieur told me to do.

What silk? said Daphne.

In her spare time, said Berry, Therèse is going to make me some ties. Dress ties. The ones I am wearing, she says, are unworthy of me.

But it is true, Madame. All that Monsieur has is above reproach – excepting only his ties for evening wear. The merchant who sold him them was a man without conscience. A robber. There, I have said it. That Monsieur should be arrayed in stuff that Eugène would reject!

Oh, it’s outrageous, said Berry. But there you are. If you have a lamb for a master—

Monsieur exaggerates. Not altogether a lamb.

Half lamb, half archangel. Oh, and here’s our water coming.

Water? said Jill. What water?

Our water, said Berry, pointing.

Up the hill towards us was moving a donkey-cart. In this was wedged a gigantic, covered bucket, such as the French employ in the washing of clothes.

You see, said Berry, you can’t drink the water here. At least, you can if you like; but if you do, you probably won’t drink it long. It’s quite all right for washing, but Eugène won’t use it for cooking: he says it isn’t safe.

My God, said Daphne. D’you mean to say—

Twice a day, said Berry, that patient beast of burden will bring us the Lally water, that we may live. It’s all arranged – at two francs fifty a voyage. Eugène and Jonah did it – and I approved their deed.

But that rill at the back of the house!

Oh, that’s still there, said Berry. I wouldn’t be without it for worlds. I count upon its babble to send me to sleep. But the trouble seems to be that we reside at its foot and not at its head. Eugène is a countryman and he’s reconnoitred its source. It’s quite all right for lavatories. By the time it gets to us, it’s used to them.

But what about washing? screamed Jill.

Well, I’m told it won’t stain, said Berry, unless they’re dipping the sheep at the farm above. Besides, we can strain it for ticks.

Where’s Jonah? said Daphne. I don’t believe—

A shriek from Therèse cut short the dialogue.

Daphne and Jill and I made for the hall.

Weak and helpless with laughter, Therèse was leaning against the sitting-room door.

What is it? demanded Daphne.

By a stupendous effort, Therèse controlled her mirth.

Madame must excuse me, she said. "I am well accustomed to Monsieur, but not to this. Madame has not seen her salon."

With that, she opened the door…

Jonah was in his shirt-sleeves, lovingly polishing a truly mountainous chair. Beyond this stood its fellow, another sumptuous product of the upholsterer’s art. And against the wall on the left stood the very largest sofa that I have ever seen. It was just under twelve feet long by four feet wide. Had it stood in a banqueting-hall, its astounding proportions would have occasioned remark; in a sitting-room twenty-two feet by seventeen…

I began to yell with laughter.

Then Jill broke down, and, finally, Daphne herself.

It can’t be true, she wailed. We’re imagining things.

Jonah looked round, pipe in mouth.

You wouldn’t say that, he observed, if you’d helped to get it in. It took six of us to do it. We brought it in by the window – it wouldn’t go through the door. And look at these chairs. Upon my soul, I give your husband best. These three bits together are worth two hundred and fifty to any London Club.

But look at the room, wept Jill. It’s like a Pullman car.

A sitting-room, said Jonah, should justify its name. Besides, there’ll be room for a table, in case we want to write.

Berry appeared at a window.

Am I commended, he said.