The New Collected Short Stories (27 page)

Signora Cantù then went on to her own misfortunes, beginning with an account of a landslip, which had destroyed her little farm. A landslip, in that valley, never hurried. Under the green coat of turf water would collect, just as an abscess is formed under the skin. There would be a lump on the sloping meadow, then the lump would break and discharge a slowly-moving stream of mud and stones. Then the whole area seemed to be corrupted; on every side the grass cracked and doubled into fantastic creases, the trees grew awry, the barns and cottages collapsed, all the beauty turned gradually to indistinguishable pulp, which slid downwards till it was washed away by some stream.

From the farm they proceeded to other grievances, over which Miss Raby became almost too depressed to sympathize. It was a bad season; the guests did not understand the ways of the hotel; the servants did not understand the guests; she was told she ought to have a concierge. But what was the good of a concierge?

‘I have no idea,’ said Miss Raby, feeling that no concierge would ever restore the fortunes of the
Biscione
.

‘They say he would meet the diligence and entrap the new arrivals. What pleasure should I have from guests I entrapped?’

‘The other hotels do it,’ said Miss Raby, sadly.

‘Exactly. Every day a man comes down from the
Alpes
.’

There was an awkward silence. Hitherto they had avoided mentioning that name.

‘He takes them all,’ she continued, in a burst of passion. ‘My son takes all my guests. He has taken all the English nobility, and the best Americans, and all my old Milanese friends. He slanders me up and down the valley, saying that the drains are bad. The hotel-keepers will not recommend me; they send on their guests to him, because he pays them five per cent for every one they send. He pays the drivers, he pays the porters, he pays the guides. He pays the band, so that it hardly ever plays down in the village. He even pays the little children to say my drains are bad. He and his wife and his concierge, they mean to ruin me, they would like to see me die.’

‘Don’t – don’t say these things, Signora Cantù.’ Miss Raby began to walk about the room, speaking, as was her habit, what was true rather than what was intelligible. ‘Try not to be so angry with your son. You don’t know what he had to contend with. You don’t know who led him into it. Some one else may be to blame. And whoever it may be – you will remember them in your prayers.’

‘Of course I am a Christian!’ exclaimed the angry old lady. ‘But he will not ruin me. I seem poor, but he has borrowed – too much. That hotel will fail!’

‘And perhaps,’ continued Miss Raby, ‘there is not much wickedness in the world. Most of the evil we see is the result of little faults – of stupidity or vanity.’

‘And I even know who led him into it – his wife, and the man who is now his concierge.’

‘This habit of talking, of self-expression – it seems so pleasant and necessary – yet it does harm——’

They were both interrupted by an uproar in the street. Miss Raby opened the window; and a cloud of dust, heavy with petrol, entered. A passing motor car had twitched over a table. Much beer had been spilt, and a little blood.

Signora Cantù sighed peevishly at the noise. Her ill-temper had exhausted her, and she lay motionless, with closed eyes. Over her head two copper vases clinked gently in the sudden gust of wind. Miss Raby had been on the point of a great dramatic confession, of a touching appeal for forgiveness. Her words were ready; her words always were ready. But she looked at those closed eyes, that suffering enfeebled frame, and she knew that she had no right to claim the luxury of pardon.

It seemed to her that with this interview her life had ended. She had done all that was possible. She had done much evil. It only remained for her to fold her hands and to wait, till her ugliness and her incompetence went the way of beauty and strength. Before her eyes there arose the pleasant face of Colonel Leyland, with whom she might harmlessly conclude her days. He would not be stimulating, but it did not seem desirable that she should be stimulated. It would be better if her faculties did close, if the senseless activity of her brain and her tongue were gradually numbed. For the first time in her life, she was tempted to become old.

Signora Cantù was still speaking of her son’s wife and concierge; of the vulgarity of the former and the ingratitude of the latter, whom she had been kind to long ago, when he first wandered up from Italy, an obscure boy. Now he had sided against her. Such was the reward of charity.

‘And what is his name?’ asked Miss Raby absently.

‘Feo Ginori,’ she replied. ‘You would not remember him. He used to carry——’

From the new campanile there burst a flood of sound to which the copper vessels vibrated responsively. Miss Raby lifted her hands, not to her ears but to her eyes. In her enfeebled state, the throbbing note of the bell had the curious effect of blood returning into frozen veins.

‘I remember that man perfectly,’ she said at last; ‘and I shall see him this afternoon.’

III

Miss Raby and Elizabeth were seated together in the lounge of the
Hôtel des Alpes
. They had walked up from the
Biscione
to see Colonel Leyland. But he, apparently, had walked down there to see them, and the only thing to do was to wait, and to justify the wait by ordering some refreshment. So Miss Raby had afternoon tea, while Elizabeth behaved like a perfect lady over an ice, occasionally turning the spoon upside down in the mouth when she saw that no one was looking. The under-waiters were clearing cups and glasses off the marble-topped tables, and the gold-laced officials were rearranging the wicker chairs into seductive groups of three and two. Here and there the visitors lingered among their crumbs, and the Russian Prince had fallen asleep in a prominent and ungraceful position. But most people had started for a little walk before dinner, or had gone to play tennis, or had taken a book under a tree. The weather was delightful, and the sun had so far declined that its light had become spiritualized, suggesting new substance as well as new colour in everything on which it fell. From her seat Miss Raby could see the great precipices under which they had passed the day before; and beyond those precipices she could see Italy – the Val d’Aprile, the Val Senese and the mountains she had named ‘The Beasts of the South’. All day those mountains were insignificant – distant chips of white or grey stone. But the evening sun transfigured them, and they would sit up like purple bears against the southern sky.

‘It is a sin you should not be out, Elizabeth. Find your friend if you can, and make her go with you. If you see Colonel Leyland, tell him I am here.’

‘Is that all, ma’am?’ Elizabeth was fond of her eccentric mistress, and her heart had been softened by the ice. She saw that Miss Raby did not look well. Possibly the course of love was running roughly. And indeed gentlemen must be treated with tact, especially when both parties are getting on.

‘Don’t give pennies to the children: that is the only other thing.’

The guests had disappeared, and the number of officials visibly diminished. From the hall behind came the genteel sniggers of those two most vile creatures, a young lady behind the bureau and a young man in a frock coat who shows new arrivals to their rooms. Some of the porters joined them, standing at a suitable distance. At last only Miss Raby, the Russian Prince, and the concierge were left in the lounge.

The concierge was a competent European of forty or so, who spoke all languages fluently, and some well. He was still active, and had evidently once been muscular. But either his life or his time of life had been unkind to his figure: in a few years he would certainly be fat. His face was less easy to decipher. He was engaged in the unquestioning performance of his duty, and that is not a moment for self-revelation. He opened the windows, he filled the matchboxes, he flicked the little tables with a duster, always keeping an eye on the door in case any one arrived without luggage, or left without paying. He touched an electric bell, and a waiter flew up and cleared away Miss Raby’s tea-things. He touched another bell, and sent an underling to tidy up some fragments of paper which had fallen out of a bedroom window. Then ‘Excuse me, madam!’ and he had picked up Miss Raby’s handkerchief with a slight bow. He seemed to bear her no grudge for her abrupt departure of the preceding evening. Perhaps it was into his hand that she had dropped a tip. Perhaps he did not remember she had been there.

The gesture with which he returned the handkerchief troubled her with vague memories. Before she could thank him he was back in the doorway, standing sideways, so that the slight curve of his stomach was outlined against the view. He was speaking to a youth of athletic but melancholy appearance, who was fidgeting in the portico without. ‘I told you the percentage,’ she heard. ‘If you had agreed to it, I would have recommended you. Now it is too late. I have enough guides.’

Our generosity benefits more people than we suppose. We tip the cabman, and something goes to the man who whistled for him. We tip the man who lights up the stalactite grotto with magnesium wire, and something goes to the boatman who brought us there. We tip the waiter in the restaurant, and something goes off the waiter’s wages. A vast machinery, whose existence we seldom realize, promotes the distribution of our wealth. When the concierge returned, Miss Raby asked: ‘And what is the percentage?’

She asked with the definite intention of disconcerting him, not because she was unkind, but because she wished to discover what qualities, if any, lurked beneath that civil, efficient exterior. And the spirit of her inquiry was sentimental rather than scientific.

With an educated man she would have succeeded. In attempting to reply to her question, he would have revealed something. But the concierge had no reason to pay even lip service to logic. He replied: ‘Yes madam! this is perfect weather, both for our visitors and for the hay,’ and hurried to help a bishop, who was selecting a picture postcard.

Miss Raby, instead of moralizing on the inferior resources of the lower classes, acknowledged a defeat. She watched the man spreading out the postcards, helpful yet not obtrusive, alert yet deferential. She watched him make the bishop buy more than he wanted. This was the man who had talked of love to her upon the mountain. But hitherto he had only revealed his identity by chance gestures bequeathed to him at birth. Intercourse with the gentle classes had required new qualities – civility, omniscience, imperturbability. It was the old answer: the gentle classes were responsible for him. It is inevitable, as well as desirable, that we should bear each other’s burdens.

It was absurd to blame Feo for his worldliness – for his essential vulgarity. He had not made himself. It was even absurd to regret his transformation from an athlete: his greasy stoutness, his big black kiss-curl, his waxed moustache, his chin which was dividing and propagating itself like some primitive form of life. In England, nearly twenty years before, she had altered his figure as well as his character. He was one of the products of
The Eternal Moment
.

A great tenderness overcame her – the sadness of an unskilful demiurge, who makes a world and beholds that is bad. She desired to ask pardon of her creatures, even though they were too poorly formed to grant it. The longing to confess, which she had suppressed that morning beside the bed of Signora Cantù, broke out again with the violence of a physical desire. When the bishop had gone she renewed the conversation, though on different lines, saying: ‘Yes it is beautiful weather. I have just been enjoying a walk up from the
Biscione
. I am stopping there!’

He saw that she was willing to talk, and replied pleasantly: ‘The
Biscione
must be a very nice hotel: many people speak well of it. The fresco is very beautiful.’ He was too shrewd to object to a little charity.

‘What lots of new hotels there are!’ She lowered her voice in order not to rouse the Prince, whose presence weighed on her curiously.

‘Oh, madam! I should indeed think so. When I was a lad – excuse me one moment.’

An American girl, who was new to the country, came up with her hand full of coins, and asked him hopelessly ‘whatever they were worth’. He explained, and gave her change: Miss Raby was not sure that he gave her right change.

‘When I was a lad——’ He was again interrupted, to speed two parting guests. One of them tipped him; he said ‘Thank you.’ The other did not tip him; he said ‘Thank you,’ all the same but not in the same way. Obviously he had as yet no recollections of Miss Raby.

‘When I was a lad, Vorta was a poor little place.’

‘But a pleasant place?’

‘Very pleasant, madam.’

‘Kouf.’ said the Russian Prince, suddenly waking up and startling them both. He clapped on a felt hat, and departed at full speed for a constitutional. Miss Raby and Feo were left together.

It was then that she ceased to hesitate, and determined to remind him that they had met before. All day she had sought for a spark of life, and it might be summoned by pointing to that other fire which she discerned, far back in the travelled distance, high up in the mountains of youth. What he would do, if he also discerned it, she did not know; but she hoped that he would become alive, that he at all events would escape the general doom which she had prepared for the place and the people. And what she would do, during their joint contemplation, she did not even consider.

She would hardly have ventured if the sufferings of the day had not hardened her. After much pain, respectability becomes ludicrous. And she had only to overcome the difficulty of Feo’s being a man, not the difficulty of his being a concierge. She had never observed that spiritual reticence towards social inferiors which is usual at the present day.

‘This is my second visit,’ she said boldly. ‘I stayed at the
Biscione
twenty years ago.’

He showed the first sign of emotion:
that
reference to the
Biscione
annoyed him.

‘I was told I should find you up here,’ continued Miss Raby. ‘I remember you very well. You used to take us over the passes.’