Wonder Cruise: A heartwarming holiday romance in the 1930s

by Ursula Bloom

  He had arrived in the sitting-room, when he collided with Eva coming in at the open door. Eva was prepared, Herbert was totally unprepared. He said, ‘My God!’ and clasped his head with both hands as though he had suddenly seen a ghost.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Herbert,’ said Eva, which was easy for her seeing that Ann had forewarned her.

  Ann made good her escape. There are some scenes at which you cannot be present, and Eva and Herbert Temple were still man and wife in the eyes of God, however much they might choose to think otherwise. And, as she slipped into her own room, she only hoped that they might arrive at some definite conclusion.

  III

  As Eva explained with rather much emphasis, so Herbert thought, the inn had been her discovery two summers ago, and he had only come across it by accident. She declared that she had a moral right to it, and he had none, seeing that he would never have known of it if that stupid porter in Merano had not told him. She had been here repeatedly ‒ she dwelt on that ‒ and again she brought in the words about it being hers by moral right.

  Herbert didn’t care whose moral right it was; he hadn’t wanted to come at all, which was singularly hard lines. It had been Gwen’s idea. The porter at Merano had said that young students sometimes stayed here, and that it was all very ‘of the country’. That had been enough for Gwen. Personally he had already had quite enough of it. He had had enough of the Dolomites, and the Tyrol, and all the rest of the beastly places on that first honeymoon ages ago, but he could not very well tell Eva that. It was all very fine her kicking up a fuss and insisting that he should go at once. He wanted to go. He hadn’t ever wanted to come, only how could you go when the place was miles from a station, and hadn’t even got a ’bus service? You chartered an old tin car from the village, at a prohibitive cost, and took the funicular down to a town where if you were lucky ‒ and apparently you were not, more often than otherwise ‒ you caught a train. You couldn’t get away from it, and at this time of day it was more than was reasonable to expect there would be any trains. There probably wouldn’t be any funicular. The shades of night were falling fast.

  ‘If you are going to start quoting poetry at me I shall scream,’ said Eva.

  But Herbert hadn’t had any idea that he was quoting poetry. He was just muddled. Gwen had gone out and she hadn’t come back, and he could not go until she did get back, and anyway he couldn’t go to-night.

  ‘She’s out with that young student,’ said Eva coldly; ‘my friend lost her head over him too. He is a dangerous and owl-eyed young man, but he understands women.’

  Herbert had gathered that much. After a few hours in the forest with an owl-eyed young man who understood women, he wasn’t at all sure that she would be willing to go. He did not suppose that he would be able to persuade her. It was all very well for Eva to stand there laying down the law, there was Gwen to be dealt with as well as Eva, and when a man had two wives to consider it made it very much more than twice as hard. Really it did.

  Gwen had never been too pleased about the alimony that went to Eva, and she would probably be very rude ‒ she could be quite insulting ‒ she would be only too glad to say a few things to the point when it came to it. It was extremely unlikely that she would want to curtail her visit. Moral rights and common decency would not worry Gwen. She’d go when she thought she would, and not a moment before. It would be far easier if Eva did the going, though he was not courageous enough to suggest it to her.

  ‘It is almost indecent our all being under the same roof,’ said Eva witheringly. Herbert felt that it wasn’t quite that. They all had separate rooms, hadn’t there been trouble enough about that earlier in the day?

  ‘What’s the first time you can get away in the morning?’ asked Eva.

  Herbert didn’t know. He had only just come, and he knew nothing about arrangements. Mein Herr was called into the argument, for Eva believed in getting things cut and dried. Mein Herr, fresh from the affair in the wood shed, and hopelessly at sea with time-tables, could not understand why there should be such enquiries. You could go to Modzerene and catch the funicular there which would take you to the town where you could get a train to Merano. Where did they want to go from Merano? Herbert didn’t know. He just wanted to get away, he explained; he did not care much where he went. Mein Herr came to the conclusion that they must be quite mad. It was rather an insult to the hostel that they should want to go, and having only just arrived too.

  ‘When you haf Abendessen, you change minds, nein?’ he suggested.

  Herbert didn’t see very well how Abendessen could make any difference seeing things were as they were. So Eva, believing that she had gained some ground, and had at least got Herbert to consider an early move elsewhere, dragged her easel and camp-stool upstairs, and she explained to Ann that she had done her best and had so far avoided meeting the chit face to face. Only there was the rather desperate predicament of supper all together in charming intimacy. She and the chit! What a position!

  ‘Have your meal up here, and pretend that you have a headache,’ Ann suggested.

  ‘And let her think that I am frightened? Not me!’ snapped Eva. It was very complicated.

  As she was changing into her solitary pink linen frock, Ann heard Pablo and the chit come in from the forest. She leant over the little balcony and watched them. How young the chit looked! How aggressively young! She came inside her room again and told herself that she had been a fool to look. The chit made her feel old, desperately old, and she knew that Pablo could never really have cared for her. She should not have looked out upon their return, hand in hand, like forest lovers, both full of youth and the dreams of youth, and the brittle, inconsequent magic of youth!

  Somebody else had also been watching the return. It was Herbert. He knew all the signs. He knew the pinkness of cheeks and the sparkle of eyes, and the ‘Reely nows,’ and the ‘Oh, I says.’ The chit wasn’t going to be easy.

  He tackled her the moment he could, going into her room where she was changing. She was clad in cami-knicks, and powdering her back with a huge pink puff, fixed on the end of a ribbon-swathed stick.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Gwen disappointedly, as though she had expected somebody else.

  He stated his case. He thought if they could catch the funicular as mein Herr had suggested, and went back to Merano, they could go on to Garda from there and see the lake, the largest and grandest of all the Italian lakes, he had read in one of Mr. Thomas Cook’s informative little books. Purposely he left Eva out of the question; it would be much better for all concerned if Gwen never knew of the presence of the first wife. If Gwen met her without knowing who she was, she would not be so hostile to the project. Herbert cherished no secret conceits as to his prowess at intrigue, but he thought he could handle this affair with discretion. Eva would hold her tongue because she was a lady. Gwen, he was afraid, could not be trusted on the same score. Frankly, she wasn’t.

  ‘But I don’t want to leave this place, we have only just come here, and I like it,’ said Gwen.

  ‘Yes, I know, but …’

  ‘Oh, that’s all nonsense. It’s so green and naice. I want to stay here for weeks. It’s luverly.’

  ‘I don’t think the drains are good,’ began Herbert. It was the only excuse he could think of.

  ‘Rubbish. You’re always worrying about drains; it is that blasted inside of yours.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like the place, and if you stay here you stay on alone,’ which he knew at heart was impossible.

  ‘That’ll suit me down to the ground,’ announced Gwen, and she went on powdering herself liberally.

  It did not seem to be a propitious moment for argument. Matters were not panning out at all properly according to Herbert. He decided that he would leave it for the moment; after supper there might be a change. A change that he hoped would be for the better. Nothing was to be gained by pressing matters at the moment.

  IV

  Supper was divided into two camps, the one compos
ed of people who were not talking very much, and the other of those who were talking a great deal too much.

  Eva and Ann came down late, to find that the meal had started very gaily in their absence by the chit putting the salt down Pablo’s neck, and by Pablo smacking her gaily, in the way people of such short acquaintance do not usually smack.

  Now he was sitting beside her talking amorously, and on the other side of her was Herbert talking not at all. The Heriots were trying to lead him into conversation and were thinking what a dull man he was, and Madame Heriot what an awful girl the chit was. Monsieur had his own ideas. Once he had been a devil himself! Once he would have fallen for just such a little méchante. A pity he was not younger. Rheumatism baulked you in so much.

  Mein Herr was running to and fro.

  He had high hopes of the success of this supper, and then the English lady and gentleman might perhaps change their minds and not go back to Bolzano to-morrow. There was Kalbfleisch, exquisitely grilled, with gelben Rüben arranged about it. Such sweet little gelben Rüben, young and tender, surely they could not fail to be entranced by such cookery. Mein Herr felt that a great deal depended upon this meal, yet had he only known the truth, nothing depended upon it whatsoever. Nothing would make any difference to the strained relationship around the table.

  So far, the chit had no idea who Eva was, or what was really the matter with Herbert. She thought perhaps he was jealous of Pablo, and with good reason. The chit had had a very happy afternoon with him in the forest, and his kisses had been sublime. There would probably be more later. She filled up her glass with red wine, knowing perfectly well that she could not drink red wine. It always went to her head, but she was prepared to make a night of it.

  The chit was heartily sick of Herbert, whose first clumsy ardour had waned, and who was now only a trying old man she considered, who snored, and had false teeth, and was fussy. The chit liked flirtations; she liked a little more than flirtation if the truth may be known; that was why she enjoyed travel.

  You met with such successes and in such unexpected places. Now who would have thought in this out-of-the-way hotel …? Well, it wasn’t even a proper hotel when you came to see it, stuck in the backwoods of the beyond. It had been different in the Weimar at Rotterdam, where a certain commercial traveller had been so generous, and had come sneaking to her room, carrying his boots in his hand. ‘But why bring your boots?’ the chit had demanded, ‘you won’t want them?’ Or in Standvers Hotel in the cold purity of Norheimsund. You wouldn’t suppose anything like that could happen in Norway, would you? Yet at the very Steindalsfoss she had met that blond young man, a Viking lover, she had sentimentally told herself, and while Herbert had gone back to the Standvers, there had been what the chit could only describe as ‘Oh, such goings-on!’ That had been a wonderful week, for Herbert’s unfortunate stomach had played tricks with him, and he had had to remain in the vicinity of the Standvers, while the chit had taken good care to remain out of the vicinity, with her Viking lover.

  In Italy of course there had been romance everywhere, and she had grown heartily sick of Herbert. It was just that his money was so useful, but really she couldn’t stand the sight of him. So prosy. So old-fashioned. So prim.

  But there had never been so beautiful a lover as Pablo. His dark eyes. His way of saying things. The touch of his hands. The chit was full of delicious plans for the hours to come, and consequently she was more than usually blind to the circumstances which were making the evening such an embarrassing one.

  She just glanced up as Eva and Ann came in, and when Monsieur Heriot, as the father of the family, said, ‘This is anuzzaire Mrs. Temple,’ the chit murmuring, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ went on with her food.

  Eva didn’t reply. She wasn’t pleased to meet the chit. She wasn’t going to make even a pretence of being polite about it. She sat there grimly.

  Ann tried to cover awkward moments by making pleasant conversation in which nobody joined. All the time her eyes were wandering back to Pablo. His attention to the chit was most distressing. If only he wouldn’t! She felt quite humiliated by his ardour, and to think that only a few hours previously she had thought that he was attracted by herself. She must have been mad.

  ‘It’s pleasant weather,’ Herbert observed.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ said Eva, and darted him a look as much as to say, ‘and such a pleasant evening too!’ Herbert in a dilemma had never been able to rise above the weather. It was his be-all and end-all.

  ‘You come from Bolzano?’ asked Monsieur Heriot.

  ‘And we are going back there,’ said Herbert.

  ‘I’m damned if I am,’ murmured the chit carelessly. Mercifully only Ann seemed to hear.

  ‘Delightful there,’ said Monsieur Heriot; ‘did you not admire the fountains? So many of them, and all so old.’

  ‘Do you like old things?’ enquired Eva coldly, knowing perfectly well that Herbert did not know old from new.

  ‘Oh yes, what did you say? No, I don’t understand anything about them,’ said Herbert, who was trying to catch what the chit was saying to Pablo; more than a little difficult, for the chit was past mistress in the art of the sotto voce.

  ‘Are you slightly deaf?’ asked Eva with ice in her voice.

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ said the miserable Herbert.

  Mein Herr congratulated himself. Everything was going splendidly, everybody so glücklicher, no need to worry at all, and the Herr Temple had had two helpings of the little gelben Rüben, really the Frau had excelled herself in the cooking. It was superb. Everything fried in butter, and so rich.

  After this, mein Herr assured himself, they would never be able to leave. They would say, ‘If this is the type of meal, let us see what else the Gasthaus can produce.’ He beamed in high good humour, and with the delicious essence of fried carrots and veal, he did not notice the flagging conversation. He did not see the venomous glances that Eva darted every little while at the chit, nor the miserable looks of Herbert placed in such an unfortunate position. Nor did he observe the unhappiness of Ann, obliged to watch Pablo and his new love.

  Afterwards they foregathered for coffee. Pablo’s ardour had increased. The rising of the moon was significant of the rising of his desire. He watched Gwen across the rim of a cup. His eyes said what his lips could not; at first she pretended not to notice, then suddenly her lids drooped. He knew that she was willing. It sent triumph through him, success, as though he were riding on the clouds.

  ‘Come into the forest, it is most perfect at night,’ he said.

  ‘There is a dew,’ commented Herbert, ‘I don’t want her to go ‒’

  Gwen rose. ‘Don’t take no notice of him. He wants putting back into the oven for a bit. He’s half-baked. It’s liver, that’s what it is.’ And she laughed.

  She went out on to the veranda. Ann, watching her, saw her as she turned and motioned to Pablo. She saw Pablo’s quick response, as he followed her out to the forest itself. Eva was staring after them, and there was a look on her face that the company were not likely to forget in a hurry.

  But in Ann’s heart there was a certain sickness. It was like a pain. She saw youth, the butterfly, flitting by. It would not come back again, she told herself.

  Suddenly she was terribly unhappy.

  V

  That was a wretched evening.

  The Heriots going to bed left Ann as the third in a triangle in which she had no wish to intrude. She made an excuse, and went up to her room, pretending that there was some sewing to be done.

  Downstairs Herbert and Eva jangled. Eva felt that he must have done this despicable thing on purpose. It was inconceivable that any man could have picked on this one inn in the whole of Europe, and she told him so. Herbert protested in vain. He wished he had never seen the beastly place. It had been no wish of his, it was Gwen. Eva shot him a look! Gwen indeed! What a girl to have married! What a chit! And here she was going off spooning in the woods with the fast young man she hadn’t known five minu
tes, and Herbert sitting there like a fool and never saying anything about it, or doing anything to stop it. She hadn’t any patience with him, really she hadn’t. Herbert was feeling too weak to argue. During the year of his marriage with the chit he had at times remembered Eva kindly, and with some regret. He had thought when there had been the trouble with the commercial traveller at the Weimar, and the bother at the Standvers, that perhaps he would have done well if he had clung to the tattered remains of his marriage to Eva, rather than attempt this farcical marriage with the flirtatious Gwen. Now he wasn’t so sure. He recalled the old nagging. Goodness, how she had nagged! Women were all the same. Only this was not a good moment, for he wanted to think. He wanted to invent some suitable excuse for getting Gwen away in the morning. And knowing Gwen, he could think of nothing that would do. She had a little habit of taking root where she thought she would, and there were evident signs of her having taken a fancy to this place.

  ‘And to think that you preferred that girl to me,’ said Eva, and she sniffed.

  Herbert could offer no reply. ‘Let’s say no more about it,’ he pleaded.

  But Eva had a great deal more that she wanted to say. She would have sat up half the night saying it too, save that mein Herr came in, and showed symptoms of wishing to sing to them (he occasionally had musical moments), and that was more than she could bear. This scene and mein Herr sitting at the old yellow-keyed piano and mouthing out Lorelei or Roselein would be more than she could stand. She went up to bed.

  Ann was sitting miserably enough in her own room, and wondering whether she had not made rather a mess of things, and if the arrival of Herbert and his chit at the inn had not been in a way propitious; it had at least shown her that she could not go on as she was doing. She sat down on the simple bed and brushed her hair. Across the forest, on the opposite mountain, a church bell tinkled. It reminded her dismally of Wadfield, as though with reproach. She was depressed almost beyond endurance, and yet she knew that it served her right. She wasn’t young really. She had just been playing at youth. She felt that the glory of her St. Martin’s summer had waned ‒ it is always short-lived ‒ and that now it was over, and she must give up the idea of anything that was really lovely.