The Little Hotel (22 page)

‘My God, my God,’ said Mrs Trollope to herself. She said to the invalid: ‘I will bring you some food and then I will go and pray for you.’ This is what she did; but the woman did not take the soup Mrs Trollope had begged in the kitchen. She glanced at it indifferently and said: ‘The smell of it makes me sick; throw it down the sink, please.’

Mrs Trollope took Angel in to Mr Wilkins and went to the church, where she prayed for a long time for guidance and help for Miss Chillard. As she knelt there she heard money chinking somewhere and she thought of the money she had in her bag, the thousands of francs from the safe.

‘I will do one good deed and perhaps I will be forgiven for leaving Robert.’

She went back to the hotel, and although she heard Robert calling her and Angel barking she went in to Miss Chillard, and said to her: ‘Miss Chillard, I have had a message from my saint and I am going to give you the money to go to Zermatt. If you get there can you manage?’

‘They can put me out dying at the station. I do not care once I am there. For me it is heaven and earth; that is where heaven opens for me. I was happy there, I never knew what happiness was till then.’

Her large sunken eyes burned. She put out a weak hand to thank Mrs Trollope or perhaps to take the money. Her voice was weak, hardly audible, and her touch was weaker than a leaf.

Mrs Trollope went down to Mrs Bonnard to ask if there was a way of getting Miss Chillard to the station. The hotel-keeper was very glad to get rid of her, very anxious about her; for she looked as if she would die there; so she arranged what she could.

Miss Chillard, supported by Charlie and Mrs Bonnard and Mrs Trollope, was just able to walk out of the hotel and to the station.

‘I am afraid she will die in the train,’ said Mrs Trollope to Mrs Bonnard.

When the train came in, they found her an unoccupied compartment and put in some of her bundles; for she could not take all of her luggage. She said:

‘I wanted this so much! I never thought it would happen. That place was my heaven.’

‘Goodbye, goodbye!’ She did not answer.

‘AND NOW, DEAR
Madame Bonnard, I must tell you that I am leaving you too,’ said Mrs Trollope when we returned to the hotel; and said that she was leaving the next morning for Basel. She had sent a telegram from the station. ‘If Miss Chillard is going to heaven, I am sure I am going to hell, for that’s where it seems to me the Doctor and Gliesli live; but I am going there; I am not waiting on Robert’s pleasure here. I am sorry, Madame Bonnard, you have been so good, a sister. But my position is more than false. I can never bring him to his senses. I haven’t the sense myself, I suppose.’

‘Are you really leaving him?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I think he wants me to. He doesn’t know it himself. But it is his old age that is coming on; and he always was a bachelor. You see how he is rushing off to play cards with his old sister?’

Mrs Trollope was crying; but she wiped her eyes.

‘I am crying and I will be crying, I know. But it is no use. I am grateful for what I had. I had a true love. I can never be angry with him. I must leave you. I am sorry. It is beautiful here. And I am sorry to leave my loved ones, Luisa and dear Charlie and you dear Madame and dear little Olivier. Bless you all.’

MR WILKINS SAT ALONE
at his table. He no longer read the newspapers and magazines which had annoyed Mrs Trollope. He no longer went for his constitutional along the promenade; nor went up to his room after lunch to nap with his handkerchief over his face. He wanted to keep Mrs Trollope’s room, but she was not there to pay for it herself, and he would not pay for it; so it was easy for me to explain to him that the spring season was beginning and that I intended to put two beds into the room; the room would cost double. I said that his own room too might one day be wanted as a two-bed room, but added:

‘Since you and your wife are such good old clients, I will leave your room as it is for a while, until the busy season.’

‘My cousin and I,’ said he.

It was out of courtesy that I called Mrs Trollope his wife; for she was, indeed. Why was he so afraid of the word? Other unmarried couples in the hotel were very pleased to be called husband and wife.

The Princess said: ‘Oh, I know him; it is because he is afraid of common-law marriage.’

‘But we don’t have that here,’ I said.

‘It’s something of the sort.’

‘But why is he afraid to acknowledge his cousin, as he calls her? He is not married.’

‘Oh, he is not married. Depend upon it, it is something to do with money. He is very greedy. Perhaps the old hag can cut him out of the estate if she wants.’

‘What old hag?’

‘Why his mother of course. His father was rich, a leader of the community; he must have left it all to the mother and she tied a noose round all their necks.’

‘Is that true?’

‘I know nothing about such wretched people,’ said the Princess.

Before she went, she gave Robert several curtain lectures; but he had little time for her and avoided her. It was easy for him. All his time was spent with his sister Flo and Miss Price, who were staying at the Old English.

The old ladies had got Mr Wilkins into an almost perpetual card game at this hotel. For a short time the White Russian who ran the card club, a Monsieur Nemazashto, had operated his little club in our hotel. It became so popular that he needed more space. He could be seen very often along the promenade or the principal lakeside street, very busy, with a large tram-conductor’s cashbag on a canvas strap slung over his shoulder. Mr Wilkins seemed pleased by the new company, though he assured his friends that the old ladies were overstaying their time and their resources, and though it was intended as a raid on his cash he was not going to let them damage his assets. He came home each evening the first week radiant with his success at cards; he must have been a very good player. He won from his sister and Miss Price. He could not wait to rush out again after dinner to the Old English Hotel, to join them again. When did any of them see the lake?

When I asked him friendlily about the game, he said:

‘Oh, I am enjoying myself, Madame. I am thankful that my cousin is not here. She would be very lonely and I could not take her with me of course. It would create a fearful scandal; and how thankful I am that interfering woman has left.’ He meant the Princess. He continued:

‘It is really a new life for me. My cousin does not care for cards. Now it happens that I have always been very handy with the cards and, touch wood, I have good luck usually; and if not, I can turn a bad card into a fairly good one.’

When the Princess left she cautioned him about his new life:

‘You are retreating from life more and more, Robert. You will not face any issue. Lilia is an issue: she is human. But you prefer a dream-world.’

He said: ‘But I rather think that if Lilia had played cards I should not have got into these lazy habits.’

The Princess said: ‘Lilia is not a great gambler. I am. But not with cards. Life can only be played for big stakes. Lilia for you is a big stake; and you will lose her.’

He said: ‘Oh, Lilia will never leave me; she does not know life. I have always managed for her. Life would terrify Lilia, without me. As you say, she is not a gambler.’

The Princess left for Paris. Mr Wilkins had a few letters from Mrs Trollope; and when I asked after her he said:

‘I am afraid she has made a mistake: they are not people one can live with.’

Madame Blaise sent for all her luggage. This relieved my mind. I had not known what to do about their rooms. I had written to Dr Blaise and Madame, but had never had a reply. I wrote another letter to Mrs Trollope asking about their plans. She sent me a letter at once, saying:

My dear Selda,

I wish I could talk to you, you have seen so much, though you are so young, and you understand people without criticizing them. This is no place to stay, I am very unhappy. But I am a temporizer. I know when I leave here I must face a new, empty life. I know I will find some trifles to fill it with and I have my religion and my dear children, who say they will take me back as soon as I make a clean break with Mr Wilkins. I think I have made a break, and I have suffered a little, dear Selda; but Mr Wilkins will not believe me. I have been so weak in the past, I do not blame him. As for coming back—I am not coming back. I am glad you have rearranged my room. About the house here, I am so troubled. One cannot be sure. Some days, Dr Blaise and his wife seem so friendly and I can imagine them going back to you for some summer weeks. At other times, dreadful things are said. I am a guest here and must not be a spy and informer, though they are very open, and do not seem to care. I am, alas, a ‘witness’ as Madame Blaise said I should be. I am quite afraid and much embarrassed. But when I say I am going, Madame Blaise begs me to stay; ‘you are my only defender and my only witness,’ she says. I think she is a neurotic, perhaps; but she is unhappy. People suffer and we call them names; but all the time they are suffering. I know I am not clever: it is partly because I cannot believe that life is meant to be ugly. I cannot understand the position of the housekeeper here, Selda. If you were here you would understand at once. One cannot imagine that she attracts Dr Blaise; and she seems to be close, even too close, to Madame Blaise. She helps her, does things for her, lets her have things that the doctor forbids her to have. But there is a bad feeling. Madame Blaise says it is because of that woman that she left home, that is Ermyntrud; and then she says she could never leave Ermyntrud again, that she is her safeguard. How can I be her only defender and her witness? Against whom and about what? I like to do what I am asked if it is in my power; I feel it is a message, that my saints are talking to me and that they will look after me. But, for one thing, Ermyntrud, the housekeeper, is very unpleasant to me; she was from the beginning. I was very sorry for her, because she is a servant and very often they both, when they are getting on well, treat her like a dog from the street; and then—but I don’t understand people, Selda. I will say no more. I do not really think you are to blame if you let their rooms. They did not answer you. But of course, I cannot ask them if they are going back to the hotel. I can only tell you about myself. I was warned by someone long ago, that if I did not make a life for myself, but remained so dependent on Mr Wilkins, I should be very sorry later on, ‘when it is too late ’. I am not sorry; though I know it is very late; but with the help of those I always can depend on, I am going to strike out for myself now. How strange we must seem to you, Selda, in your hardworking busy life! I wish I had a life as busy. I will write to you from England. Do not tell Mr Wilkins yet that I am going there. I don’t know what day yet; but it will be soon. And then if he wants to, he can follow me. I feel sure he will not. I hoped for it at first. As the days pass, I feel sure he will not; and I am beginning at last to hope that he will not. Love to Olivier and my regards to your dear husband.

Your friend,

Lilia Trollope

However, Mrs Trollope must have written to Mr Wilkins that day; for the next morning Mr Wilkins was very disturbed. He asked me if I had had a letter from his cousin about her room and I said yes, she was not keeping it on.

‘Well, I am staying on,’ he said; and then I told him that he would be charged double for the summer season; it always was so. He said that I should wait till the other rooms were taken before ‘this holdup’; and he said the town was not even half full, the great hotels along the lake were empty. I said: ‘But that is all changed now, Mr Wilkins. These days are gone. It was the British who used to stay here in villeggiatura; now they have not the money. The Americans and French all run through in their cars; they do not even stay one night. Now those hotels are being taken over by the trades unions for their members and taken up in block bookings by the travel agencies. They are being converted as holiday centres. This means that we who remain will be doing a splendid business forever for those few people who want to stay.’

He said he was most certainly not going to stay here alone; and he wrote at once to Mrs Trollope to come back to us. She did not answer. She had already left for London. He wrote to Madame Blaise about her plans; but in reply all he had was a newspaper cutting which said that Madame Blaise had died of heart disease and that her entire estate, except for two settlements, had been left to the housekeeper Ermyntrud, if she married Dr Blaise. No doubt a wedding took place.

‘I do not know what I am going to do without Mrs Trollope,’ said Mr Wilkins, when he came down to pay for his room. He continued:

‘She should never have left me. I arranged my affairs to include her and she knew it quite well. This has upset all my calculations. I shall have to reorientate my whole plans. It is most inconsiderate; but she never had any ballast. At the same time, I shall not go to England. I should have to return all the capital they allowed me to bring out; I shall certainly not do that; and for her sake I shall keep hers here too. She does not know what trouble she is in for, having to explain why she exported capital and then came home without it. She is going to write to me to help her out of the pickle. But I shall say simply, Lilia, you must come abroad again.’

He went on talking, but at this moment there was some trouble going on in the foyer. The Admiral was going upstairs to her room. She had brought the lift down, she went in and tried to slam the door. She could not get used to the electric eye and wanted it taken out. She thought she might be trapped in there. She shouted:

‘The lift is out of order, I can’t slam the door.’

‘She can’t see that it is closing,’ said Mr Wilkins.

One of my lodgers, a young man, Mr Forel, who was sitting in his shirt-sleeves writing a letter in the writing-room, rushed out and shouted in French:

‘Let it close and don’t slam it! It’s a mechanism; it can’t be managed by brute force, brute force!’

The Admiral started to come out. ‘It’s out of order; eh, l’homme!’