|
 | |  | |
The tall bookcase in the parlour had been constructed for more purposes than to shelter our best jam and our second-best novels, remembers Helen Roberts. At its back was a narrow recess into which was slipped a small portable billiard table. After dinner my parents would often pull out this contrivance, set it on the stout parlour table and enjoy a favourite game.
Helen, born in 1877, spent her childhood in a house called Deverell Cottage in Westbrooke. She shared the house with her parents, sisters and brother. Eliza was the cook; Aggie Pepper, the housemaid; Miss Warner, the governess; and 'Nursie', the nanny. Helen recalls the excitement of when an extension was added to the cottage.
I was never a spectator on these occasions, as we were, at that hour, all safely in bed. But when not asleep, I much liked to listen to the clicking of ivory balls running round the smooth green cloth, and the cheerful voices of my young men cousins, John and Arthur, who, on Friday evenings, came in to make a quartet.
They were much attached to my mother, who was not much older than themselves and shared their high spirits. So when they became too expert to appreciate play on a miniature scale, they approached her with a suggestion.
'Auntie, why don't you ask The Skipper to buy a proper table - with legs?'
'We haven't anywhere to put it'.
'The Skipper could build a room for it. There's a heap of space in the garden. Do ask him, he's such a sport, he'd enjoy it himself. But you keep him up to it, Auntie!'
Helen's father was nicknamed 'The Skipper' by his friends as he used to buy a new sailing boat each spring, not being happy with the pace of the old one.
My father, though his own choice for a happy evening inclined him to a pipe and a book in the dining room, was not unapproachable on the subject. He may have had other reasons for the decision, for now that a baby brother had been added to the nursery, an extra room would be useful to all of us. He said he would go and see his friend, Mr Herbert Snewin, about it.
For a long time the two of them walked about the garden and yard, talking, measuring, and consulting notes and plans. And then, for us, the spectacular 'Event of the Year' began.
It was early spring - too cold yet for the beach, so that we were able, like a trio of guardian angels, to watch over the erection of the billiard room from start to finish. Mr Snewin's men arrived by stages, the diggers, the masons, the carpenters, and the painters.
They cleared away the old woodshed, where we kept the old double and the new single perambulators. They cut down a tall sycamore in the front garden together with sundry bushes, dug foundations, piled up bricks, mixed up a fascinating pudding of mortar in the yard, and the four walls of the billiard room began to arise.
They were nice companionable men and we easily made friends with them. And so did Nursie, and silly Aggie, and plump, pretty Eliza. The chief among them we held to be Mr Raisin, the bricklayer, with his clever trowel, his bushy beard and official bowler hat. But our favourite, who was called merely 'Twinkle', without any mister, was the queer little man in a white smock who pushed the barrow and carried the hod, and wore a pair of gold earrings, which gave additional charm to his unattractive face.
The billiard room had a wooden roof inside, and wooden walls, so that there was a great deal of work - much sawing and planing of narrow planks - for the carpenters, Mr Curly and 'Brownie', who succeeded Mr Raisin and 'Twinkle'. Nursie said that 'Curly' really was the head carpenter's name. Though it was an odd thing that his hair was in fact as curly as the beautiful golden shavings that lay ankle deep about the busy benches.
A doorway was made to unite the parlour with the new room, and the last of Mr Snewin's clever men to enthral us, brought with him a curious gadget with him. With this he made scratches and blobs all over the new door, thus beautifying, (according to the taste of the age) it's erstwhile plain and homely appearance.
The builders were gone, and now it was time to unpack the new furniture. There was brown linoleum on the floor, new armchairs with rush-bottomed seats, a tall mirror over the mantelpiece, and an old bureau with deep drawers and drop handles by the east window. The bright gas jets in the centre of the roof wore shades of green cardboard, and two oil paintings of Arundel Park, remarkable for their bigness, and a fine new billiard-marker and rack decorated wither wall.
And, last of all - as hero here, or presiding Deity - came the billiard table itself, immensely heavy with its slate bed, in the charge of a professional to put it together. It had a polished lid, and could be lowered at will to make a spacious dinner table, and though not quite full size, it seemed in comparison with its little brother behind the bookcase, a giant.
Although I was not present to witness their reactions, I am sure that John and Arthur were pleased with the billiard room and its contents. On Friday nights they now brought in some of their friends. But as the sweetly clicking balls and happy voices were now farther removed from the night-nursery, I found that, in order on occasion to enjoy them, it was necessary to get out of bed and listen from the upper bend of the staircase.
One of our cousins was fond of music, and, at intervals my mother would play to her guests from the scores of 'Pinafore', and 'The Mikado', which were always kept on the lid of the parlour piano.
It was all very agreeable to me, as I leant over the banister, careful to evade Nursie, though I once collided with Eliza, who only laughed and did not give me away. We all liked Eliza, who considered it was no part of her job to keep the children in order, and looked very smart, we thought, in her going out clothes with their extensive flounces and bustle.
And she was a good cook, of the non-stop but long-stay variety, taking no trouble over the children's mid-day meal, but reserving all her talent for late dinner. Her apple fritters, it is recorded, were once so flawless that my father sent her out five shillings (in those days a rich reward) on his empty plate. We thought she might marry Mr Curly, but in the end she fulfilled her destiny, and we attended her wedding to a well set up policeman.
But, to return to the billiard room, it is not to be supposed that it's fresh pleasures were restricted solely to the evening hours. For by daylight it was ours, a bigger and brighter nursery, and the scene of many newly invented and vigorous games. It was a cold room, and, in its early days, suffered from a smoking chimney, which had given Mr Snewin a prolonged headache to cure. But we cared nothing for such minor ills, and putting on our winter coats, ran or raced round the fireless room enjoying it's bracing atmosphere.
In the summer, too, its coolness was welcome. We took Miss Warner and our lesson books into the billiard room on hot afternoons, and our conduct, no doubt, improved from that hour. We dined there on summer Sundays - a cool memory this, of veal and ham pies, big bowls of salad, jugs of iced lemonade, white frocks, an aunt or an uncle or two as guests, the open windows, the green garden with its bright geranium beds, the spreading trees beyond...
And in the corner, by the southwest window, stood a new piece of furniture that belonged solely to us. This was a beautiful new rocking horse, a dapple grey with a flowing white mane and tail, galloping impressively, not on rockers, but on a strong spring. We called it 'Charger', and it carried us to Babylon and other distant lands for many years to come.
Our trick moneyboxes, we also transferred from the parlour to the mantelshelf of the new room. Mine was a bulldog that swallowed the penny placed on his nose if you pulled his tail. Mia's was a buck-jumping donkey of rather similar habit, Mab's the best of all, a little man who took the coin in his outstretched hand and dropped it into his pocket with a polite bow. It seems that the guests who came to play billiards on Friday evenings were unable to resist the lure of those seductive moneyboxes.
At all events, when we shook them on Saturday mornings, we were convinced that they had gained considerably in weight. So it may truthfully be said that we obtained both pleasure and profit from the new billiard room - agreed by us all to be a complete success!
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
