The Little Hotel (12 page)

‘I don’t see that it is so nice. The sun goes down early behind the mountain range and there is always snow on the hills. They stick up like combs,’ said Luisa nastily.

‘I think it is sad, molto triste, Luisa, that you can see your fiancé only once a year.’

Luisa said quickly, in the mixture of tongues that they spoke: ‘You know, Signora, you say it is lovely here, but winter comes and I only love spring, primavera. Yes, the days are lovely in spring. I don’t mind getting up at six. It is light. The sky is clear and the water is often quite blue. I can go swimming. There are flowers everywhere. I don’t even mind the summer very much, though we work from morning to night and of course we don’t then get the rest we are supposed to have, in the afternoon. But I don’t like the autumn or winter. I can’t love them. Spring, don’t you think, is youth, beauty, it is everything! Here things look pretty—but it is dead. I come from Lago di Garda. You would think the water was covered with white daisies in the morning in spring with the light floating; and at night the stars make thousands of little lights in the water. What is there here to compare with that?’

‘I heard you singing in Miss Chillard’s room this morning.’

‘I sing a little but I do not feel like singing. I sing so that she will feel better. Don’t you go to see the poor English lady?’

‘Oh, I do go and everyone goes, Luisa. I don’t know what she is going to do. She says she can’t pay you anything, you know.’

Luisa said angrily: ‘I don’t care about that. If she is sick, I try to cheer her up. I think once she was beautiful; don’t you think so? But so thin now—ai-ai-ai!—it’s hard to look straight at her. It’s a pity she didn’t marry an Englishman when she was a girl. I think she was disappointed and then she decided to become ill. I think that man who came to see her was the man.’

‘Which man? Her brother-in-law?’

‘Fratello—no!’ said Luisa sombrely. ‘Eh? In-low?’

‘Law—legge!’

‘Ah!’

After thinking it over, she said, ‘No capisco,’ sulkily.

‘You mean, she kissed him—kiss?’ Mrs Trollope acted out a kiss.

‘No, no! She sent him away. She en colère—angry. She say: “Go a-way! I not wish see you.” He say: “Siamo amici, we are friends, surely.” She say: “I have no friends. Solamente uno in Zermatt. In Zermatt one”—I think he is il dottore. Si.’

‘The doctor?’

Luisa said rapidly: ‘Perché, she say: “Just help me to go to my doctor, in Zermatt; I wish nothing more.” ʼ

But Mrs Trollope said: ‘But that is her doctor she had to leave because she could not pay.’

‘No, no, I know; I see, I hear. I know,’ said the perceptive Luisa. ‘I was counting laundry, out in the hall.’

‘And so you think he was the one? The brother-in-law?’

‘Of course. That is why they sent him.’

‘Luisa, ask Madame Bonnard to let me help you with the rooms. If I could work I wouldn’t have these headaches. A man can waste his time and read books but a woman is useful.’

‘Ah, poor Madame,’ said Luisa moodily.

Luisa arranged a few things and then said: ‘I must go. Now you must get up and get ready to eat or you will feel sick, like the other day. And I think you should go and see the poor English lady—is she a signora or a signor-ina?’

‘A signorina.’

‘Yes; I thought so. She must go home and marry an Englishman.’

At lunch Robert was still reading his morning paper. She said:

‘I beg you, Robert, do not read the paper in my face! What will people think? They will say, What a rude man! I am not used to this.’

‘Please let me finish this article, Lilia.’

The habit had grown upon him fast, suddenly, indeed in the past few months. He had not done it when he first came. Mrs Trollope rose and went to Madame Blaise’s table.

‘You would not recognize him, Gliesli; and when I complain he just says, “Our habits are changing because we are getting old”. And now, on account of his British doggedness and pigheadedness, he persists in it. He reads all through the meal. I started to do a thing I have never done, I brought a book to the table. But he did not mind: he read all through that meal. We do not exchange a single word; and after lunch he goes up, and fifteen minutes later he is asleep on the lounge with the sun pouring on his face; and there he rests until it is time for our tea. Ah, if you had known him only three years ago, in Malaya, you would not recognize him now.’

In the afternoon before he went to sleep, he said irritably to Lilia:

‘Do go in and see that woman next to me; she is knocking on the wall again. Does she suppose I am going to visit her?’

‘I told her to knock if she wanted anything, and you would call me.’

‘And yet you do nothing but fuss about people knowing our relationship!’

‘But this is a case of sickness.’

Robert laughed impertinently, lay down on the lounge and put a handkerchief over his face.

‘Robert, I myself don’t feel well. I think I must see a doctor.’

‘Oh, I think you will pull through.’

‘Robert, your unkindness is killing me. I can feel my love slowly dying.’

‘Lilia, go and exorcise that blessed poltergeist. I shall have her moved.’

Lilia went quickly away, heart-struck by his unflinching cruelty. Miss Chillard required some trifling service. Afterwards Mrs Trollope went down to the office, and though I was at work she interrupted me to tell me about her health and ask if I knew a reliable doctor. ‘Madame Blaise knows one, but I am becoming a little wary about her advice. I wish Mr Wilkins would see a doctor; I am sure he is getting liverish.’

I gave her the addresses of two doctors and told her to use the telephone. Mrs Trollope began to weep; she put her arms around my neck and said:

‘Oh, dear Madame, I hope you will never be as unhappy as I am. You will never know, thank God, my agony and shame.’

‘Everyone admires and respects you both, I assure you.’

‘Ah, but I don’t feel it. What have I done to live like this? Mr Wilkins was so delightful to me before. Now I think he is just a photograph in a window: he seems to stand up, but he is held up by a bit of cardboard. He is nice to look at and seems kind and cheerful, but if that were so, how could all this be? What did you think of me, when I came and asked you for two rooms communicating, and us with different names; and said we were cousins, though we at once began to live a married life? He always makes me do it. He will not go himself first. And I am obliged to call him my cousin. Thank God there are more kind people in the world than you would imagine. Can you imagine, Selda, what my feelings were that day?’

‘Really, you exaggerate. You are unwell and so you feel low in spirits. Everyone likes you.’

‘I don’t think life is worthy of us. If I did not have my religion, I could not drag myself along another mile of my road. For example, that money in the safe: he will not give it to me. He says I am just a child, a babe in the woods.’

‘You must insist upon getting your own money, Madame.’

‘In Malaya you see, he told me, “Do not worry, Lilia, I have provided for you. My will is always kept up to date and you will benefit by it. You will never have to worry.” I always said, “Oh, my dear one, my beloved one, do not mention these things to me. I cannot discuss such terrible things with you, your will and what it all means.” But he always came back to it: “Do not worry, Lilia, you will get a large share of my money, because of what you have been to me; and you will never have a thing to think about.” I was contented just the same and did not say anything. But, Madame, when my husband, Mr Trollope, gave my money back into my hands at the time of the divorce, and provided for his three children, too, Robert changed. He suggested we should come abroad. I did not know why, but I thought, knowing his mother’s objections, that we would get married quietly and no one would suffer for it. But I did not mention it to him—it was a delicate subject. Well, when he returned to Yorkshire at last, to see the family he had not seen for over twenty years, he said not a word about me, and they were pleased. They thought that at last he had got rid of me and was coming home to them and to spend his money on them. So these three or four poor old women told everyone that Robert had now retired and was coming home from the East and was going to help with the garden and to can raspberries and to help them with the sick bedridden old mother. I must not say anything against them. I loved Robert and it is such a pain to me—they had always despised that East he worked in and in one room he found all the cases and packages he had ever sent them. I think they were afraid to undo them for fear of catching an eastern disease. But who knows? I myself, Madame, sent them silks and carved boxes. Then, when they found out, they refused to believe that I was divorced, because I am a Catholic; and when Robert went to the pantry door to get me a jar of chutney, homemade English chutney they had made, Chrissie, the eldest sister, locked the pantry door in his face and said: “It will rot there rather. Not one thing of ours will go to that woman. You may have it but you may not share it with her.”

‘Robert was very angry—you do not know him. This is one of the reasons I cannot talk to him, he has an ugly temper—he was so angry that he went to his satchel and took out a long envelope. Out of the envelope he took his latest will which he showed to them. He made them put on their glasses to look at it and said: “This is my last will and testament. In it I named you four beneficiaries and you were generously provided for. Now, this is what I do.” And before their eyes he tore the thick paper into little pieces, collected the pieces and burnt them in the fireplace.’

‘Well, that’s all right,’ I said to Mrs Trollope.

‘But in that will, Madame, I was named for my share and you see they will now inherit everything as next of kin and there will be endless trouble if Robert should die intestate. What am I saying? Think what has happened to me to bring me to say such a thing! He has never made a will since. You don’t understand why I worry. He has a lot of my property in his hands; he controls it and can make it his if he wants to. For since the time we left Malaya he has made every effort to get my property slowly into his hands. He has so changed.’

Mrs Trollope wrung her hands.

‘All that I held onto myself is some ten thousand pounds which I am gradually bringing to Switzerland. But now I have refused to bring out any more. Supposing I am left alone? And he can’t forgive me. I gave him control of everything in the beginning, for I thought of him as my husband. I don’t want to wander all over the world and calculate those “switches” as Robert calls them. I would rather lose half my money. He does not trust me now. I have made such arrangements with him that I cannot get my money back without a lawsuit. And that I could never bring myself to do.’

‘Go to a lawyer anyway, it won’t come to a lawsuit,’ I said, looking at her face, and troubled.

Suddenly, she exclaimed: ‘Why, it’s getting dark! Oh, what did the poor sparrows think of me? Robert must be waiting for his drink. He never drinks without me.’

She ran upstairs.

Upstairs she said: ‘Oh, Robert, let us think of somewhere better to go. Let us find a livelier place.’

‘Yes. You know, out there, I fancied I could never drink anything but whisky, and then you know, the few small gins half an hour before dinner. And I’ve got quite used to them; but I fancy I could change.’

‘Oh, Robert, I have never got used to this lonely life. Out there, people were dropping in all day. I was happy all day, laughing. You remember? Here it is silence from morning to night. I never had to think of getting friends; and I had my dear children with me. Now, I talk to anyone.’

‘Well, perhaps next year we will go to Tangiers or Marrakesh. I don’t want you to feel miserable.’

‘That is a very kind word, Robert.’

‘If you buy me the car,’ said Robert.

But the next morning Mrs Trollope came back looking very tired. She had been to church, where she had spent a very long time praying to Saint Anselm, her own particular saint. Her name as a girl had been Anselm. Somehow she had got no hope from him. She had begged him to show her what to do about Robert and her future life; she had begged him too to help her in finding the lost hundred francs; but no help had come to her.

She had gone to the hairdresser’s where she met Madame Blaise, and afterwards they had taken too long a walk. Madame Blaise had gone into one of the big jewellers in town, and though she was always short of cash she had had a hundred-franc note changed, when she bought some of the snake rings they were all mad about then.

She lay down after lunch, for that evening they had the dinner for the Blaises, to which they had now also invited the Pallintosts and their acquaintance Princess Bili di Rovino, who had just come back to the hotel. The Princess was an American, rich, old and the widow of an Italian prince. Lilia said to Robert:

‘I am going later to spend the afternoon with the Princess. We are having tea at the Lausanne Palace. Shall you come?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Lilia. I went to the bank this morning and I don’t know what is the matter with that chap; his rates are wrong. So I must go this afternoon and see the manager.’

‘The Princess thought you were going to take Angel for a walk,’ said Lilia, referring to the Princess’s pet Sealyham. ‘Couldn’t you take him with you to the bank? I should like to have a quiet chat with Bili.’

‘Oh, I hate to be bothered with any more nonsense about Angel. Yesterday I had to buy him a worm-powder and a leash. Do you think I enjoyed that?’

‘Yes, but the Princess has been so good to us.’

‘No, I shall not take him to the bank.’

‘But you know the Princess must leave him in her room. He howls; well, she says he is singing; and he spoils the bedcovers and they are going to charge her double. Do please, Robert, take him; you promised.’

‘Oh, very well; but it’s a nuisance; and I shall lose my nap.’

When Mr Wilkins had gone off to get the dog, Mrs Trollope lay down and called Luisa, who was counting the hotel laundry.

‘I am too nervous, Luisa, to sleep. So tell me when you are going to take your holiday. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you with my poor head. But then you need it. Look at your legs.’