HOUSE-HUNTING À LA MODE.
It was a satisfaction to me that my wife did not entertain the idea of
deserting the northwestern part of London, in which I have lived from
my boyhood, and which I regard as the pleasantest district in our
modern Babylon. In no other part of London can you see in such
perfection the tender green of spring, and enjoy air so pure and
bracing, and there are summers when my wife agrees with me that it is
a mistake to give up these advantages for the doubtful enjoyment and
the distinct discomforts of a few weeks in the country. So, with my
mind somewhat relieved, I started upon the expedition which was to
lead me to the deserted house in Lamb's Terrace, and thence to the
strange and thrilling incidents I am about to narrate. And I may
premise here that I do not intend to attempt any explanation of them;
I shall simply describe them as they occurred, and I shall leave the
solution to students more deeply versed than myself in the mysteries
of the visible and invisible life by which we are surrounded. I must,
however, make one observation. There is in my mind no doubt that I was
the chosen instrument in bringing to light the particulars of a foul
and monstrous crime, which might otherwise have remained unrevealed
till the Day of Judgment, when all things shall be made clear. Why I
was thus inscrutably chosen, and was haunted by the Skeleton Cat until
the moment arrived when I was to lay my hand upon the shoulder of the
criminal and say, "Thou art the man!" is to me the most awful and
inexplicable mystery in my life.
In our search for a new house the story of one day is (with the single
exception to which I have incidentally referred) the story of all the
days so employed. We set out every morning, my wife fresh and
cheerful, and I trotting patiently by her side; we returned home every
evening worn out, disheartened, bedraggled, and generally demoralized.
My condition was, of course, worse than that of my wife, whom a
night's rest happily restored to strength and hope. I used to look at
her across the breakfast table in wonder and admiration, for truly her
vigor and powers of recuperation were surprising.
"Are you quite well this morning?" I would ask.
"Quite well," she would reply, smiling amiably at me. "I had a lovely
night."
Wonderful woman! A lovely night! While I was tossing about feverishly,
going up and down innumerable flights of stairs with thousands upon
thousands of steps, opening thousands upon thousands of doors, and
pacing thousands upon thousands of rooms, measuring their length,
breadth, and height with a demon three-foot rule which mocked my most
earnest and conscientious efforts to take correct measurements! The
impression these expeditions produced upon me was that, of all the
trials to which human beings are subject, house-hunting is
incomparably the most exasperating and afflicting. Were I a judge with
the power to legislate, I would make it a punishment for criminal
offenses: "Prisoner at the bar, a jury of your countrymen have very
properly found you guilty of the crime for which you have been tried,
and it is my duty now to pass sentence upon you. I have no wish to
aggravate your sufferings in the painful position in which you have
placed yourself, but for the protection of society the sentence must
be one of extreme severity. You will be condemned to go house-hunting,
and never getting suited, from eight o'clock in the morning until
eight o'clock at night, for a term of three years, and I trust that
the punishment inflicted upon you will deter you from crime for the
rest of your natural life." I should almost be tempted to add, "And
the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"
I could not have wished for a better leader than my wife, who
continued to take charge of the keys and to keep a record of the
premises we had looked over and were still to look over; and in the
little book in which this record is made were set down in admirable
English--occasionally, perhaps, somewhat too forcible--the reasons why
there was not a single house to let which answered her requirements.
Many of the houses had been tenantless for years, and reminded me in a
depressingly odd way of unfortunate men who had fallen too soon into
"the sere and yellow," and were sinking slowly and surely into damp
and weedy graves. The discolored ceilings, the moldy walls, the moist
basements, the woe-begone back yards, and the equally dismal gardens,
the twisted taps, the rusty locks and keys, the dark closets which the
agents had the effrontery to call bedrooms, supplied ample evidence
that their fate was deserved. There were some in a better condition,
having been newly patched and painted; but even to these more likely
tenements there was always, I was ever thankful to hear, an objection,
from one cause or another, raised by my wife. In one the dining room
was too small; in another it was too large; in another the bath was on
an unsuitable floor--down in the basement or up on the roof; in
another the range was old-fashioned; in another there was no getting
into the garden unless you passed through the kitchen or flung
yourself out of the drawing-room window; in another there were no
cupboards, and so on, and so on, without end. Again and again did I
indulge in the hope that she was thoroughly exhausted and would give
up the hunt, and again and again did the wonderful woman, a few hours
afterward, impart to me the disheartening news--smiling cheerfully
as she spoke--that she had been to a fresh house agent and was
provided with another batch of keys and "orders to view." After every
knock-down blow she "came up smiling," as the sporting reporters say.
Meekly I continued to accompany her, knowing that the least resistance
on my part would only strengthen her determination to prolong the
battle. At the end of a more than usually weary day she observed:
"My dear, if we were rich we would build."
"We would," I said, and, with a cunning of which I felt secretly
proud, I encouraged her to describe the house she would like to
possess. I am a bit of a draughtsman, and from the descriptions she
gave me of the house that would complete her happiness I drew out the
plans of an Ideal Residence which I was convinced could not be found
anywhere on the face of the earth. This, however, was not my wife's
opinion.
"It is the exact thing, Edward," she said, and she took my plans to
the agents, who said they were very nice, and that they had on their
books just the place she was looking for--with one trifling exception
scarcely worth mentioning. But this trifling exception proved ever to
be of alarming proportions, was often hydra-headed, and was always
insurmountable. Then would she glow with indignation at the duplicity
of the agents, and would call them names which, had they been publicly
uttered, would have laid us open to a great number of actions for
libel and slander. Thus a month passed by, and, except for prostration
of spirits, we were precisely where we had been when we commenced. The
Ideal Residence was still a castle in Spain.
One evening, when we were so tired out that we could hardly crawl
along, my indomitable wife, after slamming the last street door behind
her, informed me that she intended to call upon another house agent
whom she had not yet patronized.
"That will be the ninth, I think," I said, in a mild tone.
"Yes, the ninth," she said. "They are a dreadful lot. You can't place
the slightest dependence upon them."
Gascoigne was the name of the agent we now visited, and he entertained
us in the old familiar way. As a matter of course, he had the very
house to suit us; in fact, he had a dozen, and he went through them
_seriatim_. But my wife, who during the past month had learned
something, managed, by dint of skillful questioning, to lay her hand
on the one weak spot which presented itself in all.
"I am afraid they will not do," she said, "but we will look at them
all the same."
I sighed; I was in for it once more. A dozen fresh keys, a dozen fresh
orders to view--in a word, a wasted, weary week. Mr. Gascoigne drummed
with his fingers on his office table, and, after a pause, said:
"I have left the best one to the last."
"Indeed!" said my wife, brightening up.
"The house that cannot fail," said he; "a chance seldom met
with--perhaps once in a lifetime. I shall not have it long on my
books; it will be snapped up in no time. It possesses singular
advantages."
"Where is it?" asked my wife eagerly.
"In Lamb's Terrace, No. 79. Detached and charmingly situated. Ten
bedrooms, three reception rooms, two bath rooms, hot and cold water to
top floor, commodious kitchen and domestic offices, conservatory,
stabling, coach house, coachman's rooms over, two stalls and loose
box, large garden well stocked with fruit trees, and two greenhouses."
My wife's eyes sparkled. I also was somewhat carried away, but I soon
cooled down. Such an establishment would be far beyond my means.
"To be let on lease?" I inquired.
"To be let on lease," Mr. Gascoigne replied.
"The rent would be too high," I observed.
"I don't think so. Ninety pounds a year."
"What?" I cried.
"Ninety pounds a year," he repeated.
I looked at my wife; her face fairly beamed. She whispered to me, "A
prize! Why did we not come here before? It would have saved us a world
of trouble."
For my part, I could not understand it. Ninety pounds a year! It was a
ridiculous rent for such a mansion.
I turned to the agent. "Is there a care-taker in the house?"
"No," he replied, "it is quite empty."
"Has it been long unlet?"
"Scarcely any time."
"The tenant has only just left it, I suppose?"
"The tenant has not been living in it."
"He has been abroad?"
"I really cannot say. I know nothing of his movements. You see, we are
not generally acquainted with personal particulars. A gentleman has a
house which he wishes to let, and he places it in our hands. All that
we have to do is to ascertain that the particulars with which he
furnishes us are correct. We let the house, and there is an end of the
matter so far as we are concerned."
I recognized the common sense of this explanation, and yet there
appeared to me something exceedingly strange in such a house being to
let at so low a rent, and which had just lost a tenant who had not
occupied it.
"Is it in good repair?" I asked.
"Frankly, it is not; but that is to your advantage."
"How do you make that out?"
"Because the landlord is inclined to be unusually liberal in the
matter. He will allow the incoming tenant a handsome sum in order that
he may effect the repairs in the manner that suits him best. There is
a little dilapidation, I believe, in one or two of the rooms, a bit of
the flooring loose here and there, some plaster has dropped from the
ceilings, and a few other such trifling details to be seen to; and the
garden, I think, will want attention."
"The house seems to be completely out of repair?"
"Oh, no, not at all; I am making the worst of it, so that you shall
not be disappointed. But there is the money provided to set things in
order."
"Roughly speaking, what sum does the landlord propose to allow?"
"Roughly speaking, a hundred pounds or so."
"About one-third," I remarked, "of what I should judge to be
necessary."
"Not at all; a great deal can be done with a hundred pounds; and my
client might feel disposed to increase the amount. You can examine the
house and see if it suits you, which I feel certain it will."
Here my wife broke in. She had listened impatiently to my questions,
and had nodded her head in approval of every answer given by the agent
to the objections I had raised.
"I am sure it will suit us," she said. "The next best thing to
building a house for one's self is to have a sufficient sum of money
allowed to spend on one already built; to repair it, and paint and
paper it after our own taste."
"I agree with you, madam," said the agent, "and you will find the
landlord not at all a hard man to deal with. He makes only one
stipulation--that whoever takes the house shall live in it."
"Why, of course we should live in it," said my wife. "What on earth
should we take it for if we didn't?"
"Quite so," said the agent.
"I should like to ask two more questions," I said. "Are the drains in
good order?"
"The drains," replied the agent, "are perfection."
"And is it damp?"
"It is as dry," replied the agent, "as a bone."
Some further conversation ensued, in which, however, I took no part,
leaving the management to my wife, who had evidently set her heart
upon moving to No. 79 Lamb's Terrace. The agent handed her the keys
with a bow and a smile, and we left his office.