Growing Up by Angela Thirkell

Author:Angela Thirkell [Thirkell, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781472123770
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2016-11-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VII

AFTER a great deal of nervous politeness on both sides the question of terms was approached, shied away from, reapproached, argued, counter-argued, and finally reduced to a provisional agreement.

The Mertons, who were very comfortable at the Priory and very grateful to the Warings for having them, felt that nothing they could pay would represent the kindness they were receiving. This position put before them an alternative of nothing at all, or about a hundred pounds a month. As neither of these sums (if you can call nothing a sum) came anywhere within the region of practical finance, the whole matter had to be reconsidered. Lydia, studying the back page of The Times, saw that delightful homes with h. and c., near bus route, cinema, and shopping centre, with use of kitchen and bathroom, vegetables, eggs, golf, fishing, bridge, refined and cultured or bright and cheery society, could be had for anything from three and a half to twelve guineas a week. Against this must be put the facts that she and Noel did not want buses (much preferring the train), cinemas, shopping centres, golf, fishing or bridge; that they did not feel particularly refined or cultured and certainly not bright or cheery, and though they did want to have a bath would have thought twice before meddling in the kitchen. Inquiries among friends of Lydia’s who were being or having paying guests were of little more help, as there was always some special factor, such as living in a very large decaying house in a hollow five miles from the lodge gates with no servants, bad and irregular meals, lots of drink and an aerodrome in the grounds, which made the rent outrageously high, or living as one of the family in a very small villa in a dormitory town with excellent but huggermugger meals and any amount of talk about the neighbours, which made the rent ridiculously low.

The Warings, who had never taken paying guests before, were equally at a loss. When Sir Harry had said often enough that no guest under his roof should ever pay a penny, not to speak of all the work Mrs. Merton did in the garden and the stables, and what was hospitality coming to, his wife, who had always been paymaster and done the accounts, pointed out that their overdraft was not getting any smaller and it would not be fair to Cecil to miss any chance of improving the financial situation even by a few pounds. This Sir Harry poohpoohed, but when Lady Waring suggested that Major Merton might feel hurt if asked to accept what would really be charity, and that if Sir Harry did not like to take money from a guest he could always put it into National Savings, her husband was so overcome by this point of view and, we may add, this very fallacious reasoning, that he gave in, on the condition that he should not be bothered about it.

Having got so far, Lady Waring,

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