There are a few wooden houses in Remyo, but the majority are merely built of matting, with over-hanging roofs. They are often raised some twenty feet above the ground, and present the extraordinary appearance of having grown out of their clothes like school boys.
The house in which my sister and her husband lived was a wooden erection of unpretentious appearance. I cannot say who was the architect, but a careful consideration of the construction of the house revealed to us much of his method.
In the first place he was evidently an advocate of the benefits of fresh air and light. The house was all doors and windows, not one of them, apparently, intended to shut, and not satisfied with this, the builder had carefully left wide chinks in the walls, and two or three large holes in the roof. The front door opened directly into the drawing-room, the drawing-room into the dining room, the dining-room into the bedrooms, and the bedrooms on to the compound again. Thus we were enabled in all weathers to have a direct draught through the house, and as Remyo is a remarkably windy place, much of our time was occupied in preventing the furniture from being blown away. Whenever anything was missing we invariably found it in the back compound, whither it had been carried by the wind. Life in such an atmosphere was no doubt healthy, but a trifle wearing to the nerves.
The compactness of the house was delightful. All the rooms led out of one another, and there were no inside doors, consequently one could easily carry on a conversation with those in other parts of the house without leaving one's chair or raising one's voice.
The only occasion on which we found this arrangement of the rooms inconvenient was when we stained the dining room floor. The stain did not dry for three days, and during that time all communication between the drawing room and bedrooms was entirely cut off, for the only way from one to the other was through the dining room, and that was impossible, unless we wished our beautiful floor to be covered with permanent foot marks.
Our architect was evidently a dweller in the plains, and the uses of a fireplace were unknown to him. In each of the small bedrooms he had built large open fireplaces, worthy of a baronial hall, while in neither of the sitting rooms was there the slightest vestige of a fireplace of any sort or kind whatever.
This was a little inconvenient. Naturally an affectionate and gregarious family party, we did not like to spend our evenings, each sitting alone before our own palatial bedroom fireplace; being properly brought up, and proud of our drawing room, we preferred to occupy it, and often, as I sat shivering while the wind tore through the rooms, whistling and shrieking round the furniture, and the rain poured through the roof, I wondered what was supposed to be the use of a house at all; we should have done quite as well without one, except, of course, for the look of the thing.
Modern inventions such as bells appear unknown in Remyo. If you want anything you must shout for it until you get it.
When calling on a neighbour you stand outside the front door, and shout for five minutes, if no one appears in that time, you assume they are not at home, put your cards on the doorstep or through a chink in the wall, and depart. It is a primitive arrangement, but still, not without advantages. If you don't wish to find people at home, you shout softly.