House That Berry Built

by Dornford Yates

  “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.”

  “If it makes things simpler…”

  Henri took up the running.

  “It does two things, Madame. First of all, it speaks for itself: secondly, it shows us that you, Madame, know your own mind. If, as I hope, you employ us, we shall, I know, find it a pleasure to do your will. And now may we see the site?”

  Jonah and I led the way. We surveyed the site from the road. Then we made our way to the ledge and surveyed it from there.

  “You mentioned a terrace, Monsieur.”

  “That’s right. We want a broad terrace, running the length of the house. Say, four metres fifty in width.”

  I saw Henri bite his lip.

  “What we feel,” said Jonah, “is this. If we are to build we don’t want to waste any time. Now we cannot build in the winter, because of the frosts. But neither can we start building, until we have shifted a very great deal of soil. I mean, to build upon a mountain the house that we want, you must first make a ledge or platform – do you agree?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Well, to make your platform, you cut soil out of the slope and, with the soil you displace, you raise the ground below you to the level at which you stand.”

  “Quite so.”

  “In this way, when you have dislodged five metres of soil, you will, in fact, have a platform eight metres deep – not ten, of course, because of the wastage: but I think you can fairly say eight. So far, so good. But three of those metres will be ‘made’ ground: and on ‘made’ ground you cannot build safely, until it has settled right down. If, then, we begin the excavation at once, the soil can settle through the winter and we can build in the spring.”

  The brothers looked grave.

  Then—

  “Monsieur,” said Jean, “we should like to consider the matter. Please remember this. You have asked us to build, not a chalet, but a château – a large, substantial home.” He paused. “Today is Friday. Will you receive us on Monday at ten o’clock?”

  “That will do well,” said Berry. “Always provided that you bring some concrete suggestions. I don’t want to rush you unfairly; but autumn is coming on and we do not want to waste time. And if you cannot help us, we shall have to ask someone else.”

  The brothers bowed.

  “Monsieur may count upon us. On Monday we will submit a definite plan.”

  When the two had gone their way—

  “Are they scared?” said Daphne.

  “No,” said I. “They’re only overwhelmed. It’s a bigger private house than they’ve ever built before; and, from their point of view, the most damned awful site that they’ve ever seen. But they’re out to get the contract. Just look at the advertisement. You’ll be able to see the house for seven miles.”

  This was literally true. Once built, it would be a landmark.

  “They’re most deeply impressed,” said Berry.

  “And what are they saying at this moment – in the safe seclusion of their car?”

  “That all English are mad,” said everyone.

  “But we aren’t, really,” said Jill. “ If it comes off, it’ll be the most perfect thing.”

  “I entirely agree,” said Berry. “If it comes off.”

  The brothers were back on Monday at ten o’clock.

  Jean had a roll of tracings under his arm.

  When the two had paid their respects, Henri addressed himself to Jonah.

  “Monsieur insisted on Friday that before the house could be built, a platform must first be prepared upon which to build. Very good. Monsieur is right. But we do not like ‘made’ ground, and to delve for twenty metres into the mountainside is quite unthinkable. Besides, who wants a house let into a mountainside? Indeed, if we delve for five metres, that will be quite enough. But your house, with its terrace, is twenty-five metres deep. Very well, then, we build a wall. We build a wall which is thirty metres long, directly across the slope and exactly twelve metres below where you wish your house to stand. That wall is immensely strong and exactly twelve metres high. Now when that wall has been built, there will be a V-shaped gulf between it and the mountainside. That gulf we shall cover with a platform – a platform of ferro-concrete. And upon that platform, Monsieur, we build the house. The terrace and two thirds of the house will stand upon the platform; the remaining third will rest on the mountain itself.”

  We all cried out at the excellence of the idea.

  “What is more, we can start at once. With luck, our wall should be up before the hard frosts come in. The platform, no. But we can get all ready against the coming of spring; and during the winter we quietly cut our five metres out of the mountainside.”

  “The wall will have wings,” said Jonah.

  “Quite so, Monsieur. Wings at each end which rise
with the wall and run into the mountainside. And the platform itself will be supported by piers.” Jean began to unroll the tracings. “The wall will be all of stone – from the quarry across the valley, two miles away. It is a kind of granite, and very suitable. Its foundations will be of ferro-concrete, and at every four metres it will be girded with steel.”

  “Wings and all,” said Jonah.

  “Precisely, Monsieur. So it will be, so to speak, welded into the mountainside. The base of the wall will be two metres thick: and it will taper gradually to half a metre thick at the top. Such a wall and its platform will cost you five hundred pounds.”

  There was a little silence.

  Then—

  “That’s a lot of money,” said Berry. “I mean, to pay that out, before you begin to build…”

  Jean Lafargue spread out his hands.

  “Monsieur, what will you? That is the price of building on such a site. But I must be frank with Monsieur. Unless we may build such a platform, we cannot undertake to build such a house. And it will have advantages. The excavation, for one thing, will be very slight. And excavation costs money. The house will require no foundations and will be as dry as a bone. You will have a most spacious chamber beneath the house – such storerooms, work-rooms and cellars as never were seen.”

  “It’s a grand idea,” said Jonah. “We must think it over, of course: but I give you best. A mighty retaining wall. And the earth from the excavation goes to make terraced gardens on either side.”

  “Monsieur should have been a builder,” said Henri fervently.

  “Terraced gardens be damned,” said Berry. “What of the terrace itself? Fifteen feet by ninety, full in the sun – and commanding as fine a view as I ever saw. Projected, as it were, into space. It’ll be the eighth wonder of the world. And less than twenty hours from the grill-room of the Savoy.”