But she made no movement, either to let me pass or to show me out.
“I’ve bin ’ere,” she stated,--“these two years, and my darter’s baby
was born in the kitching.”
“Indeed!” I murmured, politely endeavouring to edge my way to the door.
But she stuck her stout arms akimbo and proceeded:
“They wants a premium for this place, and I sez to them, sez I, ‘You’ll
never get it.’ I sez that. No more they won’t. There’s a view of the
Park from the back.”
This last observation was thrown in, as it were, casually.
“I am aware of that,” I said--“But I am not particular about the Park.
Good-morning!”
“Well, that’s what I sez,” she went on morosely--“I sez ‘there’s those
that doesn’t care for the Park and there’s those that does. But a
premium you’ll not get.’ Why, when my darter’s baby was born in that
kitching, we was afraid he would be eat up by the rats, there’s such
a many of them. _And_ beetles. There’s a many of them too. Lord
bless yer, half them premiums goes into the hagents’ pockets! The old
lady as was here last drunk herself to death--and there won’t be a
penny spent on repairs!”
By this time I had found out how to open the street-door for
myself,--and I made my exit thankfully, the Venetian-canal odour being
somewhat overpowering. _En passant_ I may mention that for this
house, dirty, undecorated, and in the worst possible repair, a rent was
asked of £250 per annum, and Four Thousand Pounds premium!
My next experience in the way of “care-takers” was of an excitable lady
who was too far gone in her cups to be aware of her duties. She was
placed in charge of a rather handsome house,--handsome as far as its
exterior went. Of the interior I am unable to speak, as the convival
“care-taker” had not the vaguest idea of admitting me. She opened the
door about the width of half a yard, and peered at me with her rolling,
restless eyes, her blotched and inflamed face producing quite a heating
effect on the immediate atmosphere.
“It’s a good ’ouse,”--she observed, lurching to and fro like a landsman
at sea in a heavy storm--“A good ’ouse! Yes, _I_ say it--a good
’ouse,--and we wants to let it--hic--hic!--to good tenants! Yaah--yaah!”
This wild ejaculation was addressed to a poor thin cat who came feebly
trying to make its way in at the door.
“Git out, you beast! Nasty, dirty brute! Gives me more trouble than
the whitewashers, it do! It’s a good house!” and here she nearly fell
forward--“for good tenants,--I’ve lived here myself for a twelvemonth!”
With that she banged the door full in my face, and I straightway fled,
wondering whether the owner of the “good ’ouse” had any notion as to
the way in which his property was “taken care” of. I suppose not,--for
day after day I see it still “To Let,” and I fancy it will not easily
find a tenant so long as its present “care-taker” finds her lodgment
comfortable.
One morning I came upon an odd “care-taker” in a pretty house near
Kensington Gardens. It was a “he” this time,--a placid, cunning, bent
little old man with the air of the respectable retired butler about
him. He was of a curious disposition,--garrulous, yet reticent;--he
would begin to talk about the former owner of the house, and then would
pull himself up short as though afraid of betraying confidence. The
rooms were very handsomely decorated,--but it seemed that the owner had
given it up abruptly after only three years’ tenancy.
“It looked beautiful,” said the grey-haired cicerone with a smothered
sigh--“when it was all furnished. There was the Venus of Mydeses
(Medicis) in the boudoir, and there was statues and busts all about,
and oak-framed pictures in the dining-room,--yes! it was really quite
_bee_-autiful when he had it all done up--”
Here he broke off and dusted the banisters.
“Why did he leave it after spending so much money upon it?” I asked.
The respectable old gentleman looked at me shrewdly.
“Ah!” he responded with a curious expression in his filmy eyes--“Why
indeed!”
This was baffling, and he seemed to think it so, for by way of
relenting, he confided to me the information (a well-worn ruse) that
there had already been several people after the house, and that I
had better see about it at once if I wished to secure it. I took the
information very unconcernedly.
“Oh, I am not at all keen about it,” I said--“I have seen a house in
Gladys Gardens I like rather better.”
He started as if I had given him a shock.
“Gladys Gardens!” he exclaimed--“Lord love you! Why, Gladys Gardens is
going down every year! It’s gone down since my time--I used to live
there--I was there when the murder was committed!”
This was rather an unpleasant light to throw on Gladys Gardens, and its
desirability seemed at once on the wane.
“What murder?” I asked.
“Oh, well, it was some time ago,” he said, now appearing benevolently
anxious not to cause me unnecessary alarm--“But it was a shocking
murder!--and Gladys Gardens has gone down ever since. You’d much better
live here than there!”
With which parting recommendation he bowed me out urbanely, having done
his utmost best, at all risks, for his employer’s advantage.
Of the number of babies born in “desirable mansions” and “Noble
Residences” it would be hopeless to attempt any calculation. The
comfortable quarters enjoyed by “care-takers,” coupled with good pay,
make them, as a rule, unwilling to move when once installed, and
reluctant to praise the qualities of the house they inhabit, lest
they should be forced to vacate for an actual paying tenant. So that
if they are very cosy, and have made a family home and birthplace of
some warm and roomy basement in De Vere Gardens or Kensington Gate
or other fashionable neighbourhoods, and you want to take the house
that serves them so well as lodging, you may be sure you will hear
something doubtful about the drainage, the water, or the waste-pipes,
or the “closeness” or the “darkness,”--something to scare you off, in
fact, and enable them to stay where they are in peace, and leave you
out in the cold. This plan of action is so obviously natural, that it
is very strange lessees of houses do not perceive it. Many houses in
London have been occupied by “care-takers” for three or four years,
never seeming to have any chance of letting--and considering what a
loss of money this means to the actual owners, surely the question of
“care-taking” deserves some consideration. Of course, the fabulous
rents asked for mere boxes and barns of accommodation in good centres
is one great reason for the non-letting of houses, as also the
prevailing preference for “flats,”--but the “care-takers” have their
share in the obstruction, and so have the house-agents. So, also,
has the system of demanding “premiums”--a system which is positively
nefarious. Recently a friend of mine was asked two thousand guineas
premium for a house whose rental was £180 per annum. He was a big,
broad-shouldered American, and took matters coolly.
“What do you want a premium for?” he demanded.
“For the improvements--the position,--the last owner spent a great deal
on the place.”
“He did, did he? Well, where’s he gone to now?”
“He has bought a place in the country.”
“Oh! Well, you just ask him if he was thinking about me when he fixed
up those ‘improvements’? If he was, I’ll give him a hundred dollars!
But if he was planning out all those things for himself and his own
comfort, and now wants _me_ to pay for what _he_ got the
newest and best of, he’s just as mean a cuss as ever hung between this
world and the next!”
This was a sort of logic not accepted by house-agents,--and the
consequence of his refusal to pay the premium demanded lost him
the “desirable residence” he had been inclined to take. But it is
still unlet, and seems likely to remain so. It may here be remarked
that house-agents themselves generally _suggest_ the asking of
premiums. And why? Because they get their own percentage out of it.
In the business of house-letting, as in other trades and professions,
things would go on much better without the “middle-man.” If owners of
houses could and would come into direct communication with intending
tenants, they would find matters much more satisfactory in every
respect, but no doubt it will take some time, and a good deal of
bitter experience as well, to persuade them of the fact. And meantime,
excellent houses remain empty for years, given over to dirt and neglect
and “care-takers” who do not pay for the roof that shelters them, and
who take no sort of interest in their employer’s loss or gain.
One of the strangest “care-takers” I ever came across was a small old
boy with a wizened pale face,--and spectacles. Out of sheer curiosity I
asked him how old he was--he said fourteen, and I was bound to believe
him. But he looked more like seventy, and badly worn at that. He had
the most precocious knowledge of domestic arrangements,--he knew all
about gas-stoves and “kitcheners,”--and, what was rather remarkable, he
had an æsthetic taste in colours. He showed me over a newly-decorated
house, not far off Cadogan Square, and observed that it would probably
have to be re-done for “any person of taste who was still young enough
to care!”
“The colouring in the drawing-room,” said the small old boy, with
an inimitable air of fastidious repugnance, “is quite trying to the
nerves.”
I looked in, and found it really was so--garish and gaudy to an
extreme--and I asked him playfully how he managed to stand it.
“I am accustomed to it,” said the small old boy wearily, taking off his
spectacles, wiping them, and putting them on again--“that is, in a
way, you know. One never does get out-and-out hardened to it. This--”
and he threw open a door--“is the dining-room. It should have had an
oak dado!”
“Of course!” I said, delighted with the small old boy’s feeling for
art. He seemed cheered by my encouragement and proceeded:
“An oak dado and overmantel to match. The tint of the ceiling would
then have to be modified. As it is at present no person of taste would
stand it--not as a permanency.”
“How long have you been here?” I inquired.
“I shall have occupied this position some three months to-morrow,” said
the small old boy with a certain stateliness of manner--“But I think
of resigning it shortly to my mother. I’m rather tired of it myself,
though it has served me well for reading purposes.”
“For reading purposes!” I looked at him wonderingly,--he was so meagre
and wan and worn and ancient of aspect.
“You see,” he went on placidly--“you want quiet when you are studying
for anything. And it’s very quiet here. As they say in _Hamlet_,
‘not a mouse stirring.’”
“Ah! you read Shakespeare then?”
“I learn the various parts in the principal plays,” he replied with
dignity--“I am going to be an actor.”
“Indeed!” I did my best not to laugh,--the small old boy was so earnest
and solemn.
“I have calculated,” he said, “that in from eight to ten years Henry
Irving will be, as they say, on his last legs. I shall be twenty-four,
and shall have played any small parts I can get in the provinces
till then. I shall save all the money I can, and live as the Greek
philosophers lived, on simple food,--and when I am about thirty-two I
shall take the Lyceum or Her Majesty’s. That is my plan.”
“A very ambitious one!” I observed--“Plans are not always realized, you
know!”
The small old boy smiled a superior smile.
“Not unless one is _determined_ to realize them,” he said with
singular emphasis--“Then things arrange themselves somehow. I am quite
certain of my game!”
And he escorted me to the door.
“You think you’ll take this house?” he asked.
“N-n-no! I fancy not.”
“You are right!” said the small old boy approvingly--“It’s only a
patched-up concern--just made to look new for the present. In six
months all the gloss will be off, and it will appear as just what it
is--a badly-built barrack. Good-morning!”
“Good-morning!”
The door closed. I waited a minute, then peered curiously in through
the window, and dimly perceived the small old boy seated in solitary
state on a kitchen chair in the bleak empty dining-room, patiently
studying a book that rested on his knee. I moved away reluctantly at
last and with a veritable sensation of awe, feeling that, whatever
annoyances I had been subjected to in the way of “care-takers,” I had
been repaid at last by my interview with this particular example of
the species! For if ambition, perseverance, study, self-reliance and
determination count for anything in this world--(and they do go a long
way in the furtherance of one’s desires) then I had seen a future
“star” of the histrionic firmament. We all know how fond actors are of
telling us in after-dinner speeches how they arrived in London ready
to take the world by storm with only sixpence in their pockets,--in
fact this dramatic sixpence has become quite proverbial, and many a
deep-mouthed ranter has alluded to the possession of that humble coin
as the grand foundation of all his after career.
“Ladies and gentlemen,”--he will remark in his mellow-throated
way--“When I first started in life with only sixpence in my pocket--”
and so on. This is the generally accepted and acceptable opening of a
truly “telling” mummer’s speech, after a watch or a piece of plate has
been presented to him by his admirers.
Now, if I should live another ten years, and at the end of that time,
a celebrated actor dear to the fashionable public should make his
after-dinner observations thus: “Ladies and gentlemen,--When I first
started in life as a ‘care-taker’--” I shall know it is the small old
boy, and that I, by happy chance, was privileged to behold in that
menial, though rent-and-tax-free position, the successor to the fame of
Henry Irving!