The Little Hotel (20 page)

‘Well, yes, if you like; but why not stay here.’

‘Robert, and you such a great one for walking!’

‘Let’s shelter in the kiosk. There’s a bit of a
bise
today.’

‘I wondered why I seemed to have a little headache.’

‘Now, Lilia, let’s have no more of that headache today.’

‘But, dear, it is real.’

‘Then let us walk. It comes from not walking.’

‘Yes, you asked me to walk. It’s a lovely morning, a lovely Sunday. I love Sundays; I feel more loved. I feel there are not so many troubles in the world.’

‘Well, that is just your idea.’

‘Yes, I know I shall be just as unhappy tomorrow.’

‘Why be unhappy, Lilia?’

‘You know why, Robert. Don’t let us talk about it.’

‘Very well; if you wish it.’

‘But you know so well that you could make me so happy.’

‘Don’t you rather hug your misery? Come, let us walk a little way. If you don’t cheer up, I’ll have to get another wife.’

‘Don’t use that word, Robert.’

He burst out into frank laughter. She looked down.

‘Well, yesterday you made me wait two hours for my tea and there wasn’t any tea. I didn’t know what had happened to you. I thought to myself, Well, Lilia has deserted me at last; now all I must do is to go and get a girl with long blonde hair. I love long blonde hair; it’s nice to dance with. We’ll go walking and we’ll come home and talk—somewhere. I’ll go to New York, if Lilia has left me, I’ll go to Alassio, or to Marrakesh and get a society blonde; or a bambina in Italy and all night we’ll just take a walk, sit on the beach, in the starlight. You know, like we did in Tahiti that year? You remember that weekend? We motored out, and when we got to the end of the beach someone asked for a ride? Remember how fast we went? We thought it was a hold-up! You were so late yesterday, I didn’t know what had happened. I thought you had got under a car.’

‘Robert, you know you are only teasing me. I won’t go any farther. I have to meet the Princess.’

She turned away.

‘Lilia!’

She turned back.

‘Lilia, come and kiss me; don’t be such a silly girl.’

She came back to him: ‘Well, if you wish it, Robert; but it doesn’t mean anything. You have lost me. I’ll kiss you, but it’s finished. I’ve been meaning to tell you. I loved you, I was loyal to you, and there never was another man for me. But you have lost me. You let me down, Robert. I’ve been waiting and praying the last few years, for some way to get out of it. These two or three years.’

Robert kissed her and said:

‘You foolish girl. Where will you find someone better for you than me? Where will you find him?’

‘Oh, I won’t find anyone, Robert. There isn’t anyone. I must just go and leave you and be miserable the rest of my life.’

He started after; but she begged him to stay behind. He stood looking after her and then began walking up and down, puzzled and anxious. At last he sat in the glass kiosk looking in all directions. He said to himself:

‘It’s that interfering Princess.’

But he went to lunch with her as arranged.

The Princess had brought Angel with her.

‘Then you and I can take a little walk afterwards, Robert; I want to discuss some plans with you.’

They began with aperitifs at eleven-thirty and had a delightful luncheon ordered beforehand by the Princess. This took place at a small restaurant called the Lake Club, which had once been a kiosk and had been turned into a pretty, lively dining place by an enterprising cook, a Monsieur Raoul Raymond who had once been a chef on the railways. The Princess was amusing, calling the Soviets ‘Asia and Tramps Incorporated’, and telling them people relied upon her for everything, race-track touts, stock exchange tips, black market places if they went abroad, the best cabins on boats. They told her their favourite anecdotes, forgetting how many of them she had heard before.

Mr Wilkins said: ‘I wrote to that man in Alassio I mentioned, to ask if the lira was still a buy; and meantime I heard from a man in Kuala Lumpur about our business there. He is sending a man to see me about the rubber business, but I very much fear he is going to tell me what I know already. I don’t mind doing a stroke of business now and then; in fact, I must be continually in business to get the rest of my money out of the East; but it really is strange the things business people expect you to do.’

The Princess said: ‘I really don’t understand why you don’t go and live in my house in Venice. It’s on a canal and I simply have no use for it. Part of Lilia’s objection to living here, Robert, is that you have no friends and have nowhere to receive any.’

‘But, Bili, I don’t feel like taking a whole house. I have never lived with anyone. You know, in the East I lived at first in a chummery, but after my friend left I moved away to bachelor quarters and found out I was a natural bachelor. Odd, eh? I suppose it is in one.’

‘Well, why don’t you take a brace of apartments in that Alassio place in that case? You could be separate and together. You would live a private life and be together without the publicity of a hotel. Lilia is such a dear girl; I am so fond of Lilia. And she is a shrinking sort of woman, Robert.’

‘Oh, everyone is fond of Lilia: she has the art of making friends.’

Lilia said: ‘You are talking about me as if I were not here. I am going to church to pray to my saint and I hope this time he will tell me what to do. I will see you for drinks, Robert.’

‘Oh, don’t—’ said Robert, rising; then he sank back. ‘I know I cannot stop Lilia going to church.’

‘And now, Robert, let us have a little chat. Let’s have some more coffee and some brandy. You see, Robert, though you call yourself her cousin, everyone knows the situation and it is an absurd one. Don’t say anything. I am going to have my say.’

‘Did Lilia know you were going to have your say?’

‘She knew and she forbade me. But for me, I am fond of arranging things for people that they can’t do for themselves, and I feel sorry for dear Lilia, such a dear natural woman. You know how she feels about her children’s estrangement?’

Mr Wilkins laughed easily. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t bother too much about that. It’s Madeleine, I’m sure. She’s a spoiled brat but a nice girl, she’ll come round. Her mother must simply stand firm. If I had had the arranging of her affairs, I should have had Madeleine married long ago. I am afraid Madeleine is a little like me. I was fond of the children as children, I suppose there is a lot of me in them. Children are imitative. I know those children, Princess; I held them on my knee.’

‘Yes, Lilia said you were like a father or an uncle to them.’

‘Oh, I am afraid I was not like a father to them. I have led a selfish life, Princess; entirely for myself. Whether it was good or bad for me I can’t say. I lived for myself. Lilia’s children were the only bright spots in my life. I think I can say I was not selfish about them. I liked to visit them and bring them toys. I could wield safety-pins and that sort of thing. I gave them treats. I won’t say I never spent my money on others. I’ve made a loan or two, not always to the most reliable sort of chap, and I’ve wagered a bit and even played cards a bit; and I’ve spent a bit of money on short ones and small gins and little dinners at the club, and naturally when my turn came round I always gave a party; and I was always chummy with people and paid my scot; but I’m selfish in the sense that I never did marry and I’m not sure I ever wanted to. My money came and went. Naturally I kept some; but I was responsible to no one. That is what I don’t like—being conscious of a responsibility to someone. Then I should feel my selfishness very acutely. You see I was very selfish. Oh, don’t mistake me, Bili, you can do nothing with me. I am a selfish man.’

‘Still, I am going to take Lilia’s part; there is no need to put her case. Every servant in the hotel, even old Charlie, could tell you that you are doing wrong.’

‘Old Charlie!’ He laughed.

‘Oh, don’t snap me up; everyone knows that Charlie has a mistress in the south of France who kept him for years under the occupation and that he won’t go near her to marry her; and that he takes little girls up to a room in that horrible flea-bag; but he’s a respectable man just the same. And you are not respectable, Robert. You can easily get married here, secretly, never telling your mother and sisters; it can last for years. You will not suffer; I am sure Lilia will be no burden to you; and she will stay here and bring out her money.’

‘Oh, she will bring out her money, my dear Bili. I am seeing to that.’

‘You are crowing too soon. But Robert, I must go up to Lausanne; will you walk Angel part of the way with me?’

‘Oh, no; I must take my nap. It’s a new habit I’ve developed and I don’t seem able to do without it. I’ll see you this evening at the Café Grand Palace.’

Mrs Trollope came home from church looking very tired. She was troubled that she had had no answer from her saint; and she worried about Madame Blaise, who would be angry that they were spending so much time with the Princess.

She came home at five o’clock, at which time Madame Blaise was usually in the Old English Tea Room, having tea and cakes. But no sooner did she enter her room than Madame Blaise knocked on the wall; and in a moment they both appeared at her door, Dr Blaise with a remarkable twinkle in his eye. He said:

‘You see, I decided to stay the week and take a little holiday for once; and then I am taking my wife home with me.’

They were dressed to go out. The doctor invited Mrs Trollope and Mr Wilkins for cocktails at about six-thirty, then to dinner and to a cabaret or dancing-place. Leave it all to him, he said; he would fix it up. Madame Blaise also seemed to be in the best of humours. Mrs Trollope was very much embarrassed and went in to consult Robert. Robert said:

‘Tell them we shall be delighted. We’ll meet them here. And I shall fix it up with Bili—I shall tell her—yes, I shall tell her my sister is coming.’ He laughed in delight.

‘Your sister!’

He laughed. ‘Since it is so unlikely, she must believe it. And I should like to miss Bili and the Angel this evening.’

They accepted, and the Blaises then went off arm in arm and began laughing heartily, the doctor shouting with laughter as they reached the lobby. Mrs Trollope was disturbed, then shocked. What could it mean? However, she told Mr Wilkins that she had been wrong, the Blaises were in a good mood and wanted to pay them back in the grand manner for the entertainment of the other evening. She said: ‘I think better of them; I had the queer idea they would do us some hurt.’

Mr Wilkins laughed, scolded Lilia for her imagination, ‘always worrying about insults and offences,’ and said he supposed that Dr Blaise, one of the best-known doctors in Switzerland, would have some mental balance and social nous; he was not to be judged by his wife. Lilia must have noticed that what she said often didn’t make sense.

‘We must be charitable, Robert: she is a drug-addict, though in a small way. She merely takes it to steady her nerves and she is in the doctor’s care.’

She sat down to drink with Robert, ruminating.

‘But, Robert, what do you make of it? He was so coarse in the café that night, saying, “I am a slave and so are you”; and saying they had decided to live separately and she would never see the Basel house again. We decided, you know, that he had caught her in some situation—she talks so much about gigolos. Though it seems unlikely. Though she said to me once, “My son is my only gigolo.” But there they were arm in arm like thief and—h’m—and thief and laughing loudly at the whole world. She told me only yesterday that she was never going back there; yet the day before she invited me to stay there. And now he says she is going back.’

‘Oh, they have made it up. And I believe, Lilia, that people tell you fairy tales to see your eyes pop open. They see you are gullible. They had a quarrel and now it is made up. You are always so imaginative, Lilia; it is one of your feminine traits. It is the kind of thing that men like, but it would never do in business. By the by, the Princess has taken to lecturing me about you, I am not sure it is not without your consent. I can do without another curtain lecture this evening.’

Mrs Trollope said nothing. Mr Wilkins telephoned the Princess. They had to be careful. The Princess lived near enough to mark their comings and goings. Mr Wilkins said that one of his sisters, the very old one, was coming from Yorkshire that night to stay in Montreux; and that they both had to go to the station to see her to her hotel and see that she had some dinner. She was an old-style Englishwoman who had never been abroad and would rather be with her own family; and in fact was only coming to make sure she had a place in Robert’s will.

He laughed to Lilia: ‘The Princess will understand that; and she will think we are all being reconciled and so I shall hear no more about marrying you. Do you know that Bili has actually consulted a lawyer about it?’

Lilia said she would go to church tomorrow and beg to be forgiven for this lie.

They changed their clothes and were ready by six-thirty. Mr Wilkins was called to the telephone in the office and came back looking rather pale and stiff; he also looked as if he had had a revelation. He said:

‘Really, Lilia, really, you will not have to go to church tomorrow to talk about the lie. Let us have a short one before the Blaises get here. I have seen the long arm of coincidence operate, but by Jove I turned cold at this one. I shall believe in table-turning. That was a longdistance telephone call from my sister Flo. She is using up her travel allowance to come to Switzerland with her old school-friend, Miss Price. I think they met at a young ladies’ establishment on the south coast about fifty years ago; and they are coming here, not to Montreux, but here, tomorrow, by the midnight train. Oh, my aunt!’

‘What for, in heaven’s name?’

Mr Wilkins said in anxious tones: ‘If I knew, Lilia, I should tell you. Still, I am glad we did not tell a lie. Or only half of one.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep
; yes, and when I call them, they do come.’

He slapped his knee. ‘Oh, by James, that’s ripe. I had a Scots grandmother, but as for second sight—’