“CARE-TAKERS”
A WARNING TO HOUSE-OWNERS
The word “care-taker” conveys, or would seem to convey, an impression that is both Christian and consolatory. To “take care” of things or persons is eminently proper and virtuous,—to accept care, another way of “taking” it,—namely, to willingly undergo a certain amount of trouble and vexation in order to spare others, is really almost sublime. But in these degenerate days of ours it does not always do to give literal significations to words in common use. They often, with strange and unaccountable capriciousness, mean the exact reverse of what they seem. “Care-taker” is a notable example of this fact,—for in the modern acceptance of the term it really signifies an individual who, so far as material and mundane needs go, is totally free from care, and who, moreover, has no intention of “taking care” of anything or anybody. “Care-taker” means a person, sometimes masculine, but more often feminine, who lives rent-free and pays no taxes,—who has a small stock of generally useful second-hand furniture which is moved at his or her command from house to house wherever best convenience calls, and who is paid for eating, drinking, sleeping, and doing nothing in “desirable mansions” whose owners are out of town, or who, for some dark reason connected with the funds, are wishful “To Let Immediately.” Care-takers are not at all like the rest of humanity; they are a race apart, with peculiar manners and customs of their own. Many of them have a fondness for the “cup that cheers;” many more exhibit a decided partiality for the glass which “inebriates.” Some of them would even appear to use whisky as a general and agreeable perfume, to judge from the odours which are diffused from their hair and clothes, when they open front doors to belated inquirers after absent friends, or any seekers after unfurnished houses. Whosoever is in the latter category of sufferers and martyrs deserves and shall have our sincerest sympathy. We know what he is going through! We know what the “agents” will do to him! He will be told that there is a “Charming Residence” on the “delightful elevation” of Campden Hill, for instance, and he will find out that it is nothing but a small and paltry “semi-detached” in the depressing depths of the Holland Villas Road, with the bath-tap broken and the water coming through. He will wander hopefully into Mayfair, decoyed by the prospect of living “off Park Lane” in a “bijou” establishment—
Stop! I really must break off here to deliver a solemn warning against this word “bijou.” Beware of it!—all good patient folk who go house-hunting, beware of it! Fly from that fatal expression as you would from the plague! “Bijou” has a delightful meaning in ordinary French parlance; it signifies a “jewel” and, when used as a term of endearment, a “darling.” Charming!—oh, yes!—quite soothing to the mind is this pretty word in French. But in plain, downright, house-agenty English it means “den,”—“hole,”—or “rather dark cellarage.” It has nothing to do with jewels or darlings. It implies a want of room and a bad smell. It does indeed. It is like the frequently advertised “Artistic Residence,”—which means dark corners and small windows,—namely, very little air and no light. Once understand these things, and you will not be twice deceived. And this brings me round to the subject I started with—“care-takers,” because it was at a “bijou” place I came into collision with the first example of that species. The “bijou” in question was near the Park; a small house squeezed in between two monster ones. The street-door looked like a narrow slit in the wall, and the windows were black with soot that had accumulated surely for several years,—months could hardly have done it. I rang the cracked bell, and waited some ten minutes,—finally a shuffling step was heard inside (care-takers always walk with a shuffle like a certain genus of baboon), and a female appeared, hastily pulling her dress over a somewhat décolletée bosom. Her hair was wildly negligent,—her eye bloodshot and severe,—one tooth projected over her underlip,—the rest of the dental arrangement was missing. She surveyed me with a malign and discouraging aspect, apparently scorning to open the conversation. So I began:
“This house is to let, I believe? Can I see it?”
“Where’s yer order?” demanded the lady.
I produced it.
She sniffed at the paper suspiciously, and then preceded me into a sort of square pantry called by courtesy a “hall,” and flung wide open two doors, one of the dining-room, the other of the drawing-room, out of which apartments rushed a fine aroma like that which arises from the canals of Venice on a very hot day.
“Are these all the reception rooms?” I inquired.
“Hall?” she echoed, staring at me—“hall? Yes, hall!”
I said, “Thanks! I will not trouble you further.”
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!
