by Ann Bridge
‘Unless they do what we were planning just now, and walk all the way across and down to Wahnegg.’
‘Oh, she couldn’t. She was wearing the silliest little high-heeled shoes. Here we are’—and as they swung into the shed she called to one of the men who were manoeuvring the seats round the circular rail leading to the lower section to unclamp her bar and let her out. ‘Der Herr auch?’ the man asked.
‘Nein, not the Herr.’ She sprang out. ‘Stick to them like glue,’ she called to Colin as he swung out of the shed and off into space.
There was some difficulty about getting a seat up to the summit of the Niederhorn again; though an occasional passenger got off at the halt to walk up the last stretch over the alpine pastures far more, with return tickets, had walked down half-way, and wished to finish their descent airborne. Julia had a booklet of the invaluable Ferien-Billets (holiday tickets), which, issued to foreign tourists, enable them to make mountain excursions at half the official price; she produced this, and after some fuss a ticket was accepted—usually they were only taken at the top or the bottom, she was told. She had to wait some time for a seat, and employed this interval, as was her habit, in ingratiating herself with the people on the spot, men in blue dungarees who manipulated the seats at the halt; from them she enquired about the milk-churns. Oh, those were for water. There was no water at the summit; every drop had to be carried up in the evening after the Sessel-Bahn was closed to passengers, in the churns, and manhandled from the station some hundred yards to fill the cisterns of the restaurant. ‘Both guests and Geschirr’ (kitchen utensils) ‘need water for washing,’ an elderly man said, grinning.
At last she secured an empty half of one of the twin seats, and was again borne upwards. She was tremendously excited—the more so after the delay at the halt; by keeping a sharp eye on the descending seats she had established that the pair she sought had not yet come down, nor did they pass her in the air. ‘Just keep your eyes open—that’s all you can do,’ she adjured herself as she got out at the summit and began to walk up towards the restaurant.
This activity brought an immediate reward. A little below the path she saw on the grassy slope the sham Aglaia, a bunch of Gentiana verna in her hand, being violently scolded by one of the Nature-Reserve wardens. She ran down to them. The girl was in tears; obviously she could not make out what it was all about. There was no sign of the dark young man.
‘The Fräulein does not understand,’ Julia told the official.
‘The notice forbidding to pick flowers is also in English,’ he said indignantly.
‘Jawohl —but the Fräulein must not have looked—I think it is her first journey abroad. Is there some fine to pay?’ she asked, opening her bag.
‘Nein. But let das Mädchen not do this again.’ He stumped off.
‘Oh, thank you ever so! What did you say to him?’ the girl asked Julia, as they began to walk up towards the restaurant. ‘He was being as nasty as anything, and I couldn’t understand a single word!’
‘He was scolding you for picking those flowers,’ Julia said.
‘Why ever?’
‘Because this is a Nature-Reserve, like our National Parks, and picking flowers is forbidden; there’s a big notice in English to say so, just by the station. But I told the man that you hadn’t looked at it, because it was your first trip abroad. Is it?’ Julia asked, with a friendly smile.
‘Well yes, ackcherly. I don’t like it much, either—the food’s so funny, and I can’t talk to people, except the porter in the hotel, silly old thing! He does talk English, though.’
The imitation Aglaia was obviously the commonest of little Londoners; too suburban for anything as genuine as a Cockney, and not very intelligent. Julia was thrilled by this piece of luck, but a little worried about the dark young man. She tried to play her hand carefully.
‘Did you come up here alone?’
‘Oh no. Mr. Wright’—she corrected herself hastily—‘I mean Mr. Monro came up with me; but he likes climbing up things, and he’s gone off. He said I was to stay on the terrace and look at the mountains—but I hate those old mountains, all snow and ice, and when I saw these little flowers in the grass I came down to pick some. I didn’t know it was wrong. I ‘spose I’d better throw them away, if there’s all this trouble.’
‘No, give them to me,’ Julia said, and stowed G. verna in her capacious bag.
‘Well, that’s a good idea. Aoh!’ The girl gave a little scream, and nearly fell—Julia put out a hand and caught her. One of her idiotic high heels had turned on a loose stone, wrenching her ankle; between pain and shock she could hardly walk. Julia, an arm round the tiny figure, dragged her up to the restaurant and sat her down on a stool in the wash-room; she borrowed a pantry-cloth from the cheerful Swiss maids and applied this as a cold compress, tying it in place with her own head-scarf.
‘Is that any easier?’ she asked.
‘Yes, a bit.’
‘Then let’s go out and have some coffee on the terrace. Do you like coffee?’
‘Not all that much—but the tea here is so lousy! You are being kind.’
Julia ordered coffee for two. Perhaps she was being kind; certainly she was enjoying a most blessed stroke of luck, and set about profiting by it. ‘How long have you been in Switzerland?’ she asked.
‘Nearly three weeks. Mr. Borovali said it would be a nice holiday for me, but it isn’t being, not so very—and now I’ve gone and hurt my foot.’ She showed signs of tears starting afresh. ‘I expect he’ll be cross! They said at the Agency that he’d be so nice, and give me a lovely time, but he’s very often cross.’
Julia was riveted by the word agency, and asked about it.
‘Oh, the “Modern Face Agency”, off Shaftesbury Avenue. I get my modelling jobs through them. Oh, not artists or the nude, or anything like that!—just modelling for the ads, you know. I tried for a mannequin, but I’m too small, even for Small Woman clothes. But I get a lot of quite good modelling jobs, shoes or jewellery, mostly—my feet are a treat for shoes. Oh, do you think this ankle will swell?’ Tears again threatened. ‘My feet are my fortune, as you might say’—half giggling.
Julia realised that the little thing really had had quite a shock, and while she tried to console her about her ankle she ordered Kirsch for them both. ‘Put it in your coffee—it will do you good,’ she said. She was beginning to see a flood of light, and while the girl sipped, she thought hard about safe questions.
‘Oh, that does taste funny! No, it’s nice, really. Ta.’
‘Does Mr. Borovali pay as well as the Agency?’ Julia enquired.
‘Not quite—only £6 a week; but of course I get my keep for the month, and I’m to keep my outfit.’
‘Mr. Borovali has good taste, has he?’
‘Oh, perfect. Some exquisite things I’ve got.’ The pretty little thing looked dreamily out at the glorious forms of the Bernese Alps, shining under the sun like the ramparts of Heaven. ’Exquisite,’ she repeated rapturously—’Evening frocks and all. Mum wasn’t so keen on my coming, just with two gentlemen, but really, the clothes alone have been worth it—and they’ve been quite all right,’ she added confidentially. She paused, and sipped again at her coffee and Kirsch.
‘Mum isn’t all that keen on the modelling either,’ she pursued, ‘but a girl’s got to live, hasn’t she? I’m no good in shops, I simply can’t get the bills right! And since Dad died I have to help Mum; I usually give her £3 a week.’
This was said proudly, but very nicely—Julia was rather touched. She asked what ‘Dad’ had done.
‘Oh, in business.’ This too was said rather proudly. ‘Well ackcherly he was a traveller for a surgical equipment firm, really quite high-class. I sometimes wish he’d travelled in the garment trade; then Mum and I might have got things on the cheap.’ She looked wistfully at Julia. ‘That’s a heavenly suit you’ve got on—d’you mind if I ask where you got it?’
Julia glanced down at her own soft, plainly-cut grey-green t
weed. In the context she suddenly did mind telling this eager candid child its origin, but she couldn’t think of a probable lie in time, and said ‘Hartnell.’
‘Never! Well, it looks it.’ She figured the stuff almost reverently.
‘Where did Mr. Borovali get your things?’ Julia enquired hastily. ‘That’s such a pretty dress.’
‘D’you really like it? I am glad. He got them at a very good wholesale place, only they all had to be taken in, of course. But by the way, I oughtn’t to call him Mr. Borovali—Mister de Ritter he likes to be known as, on this trip—in case you should meet him.’
‘I’ll remember—though I don’t expect I shall meet him.’ She was thinking how to frame her next question.
‘How shall you get back, with that foot?’ she asked. ‘Have you far to go?’
‘Only down to Interlarken. The bus goes from the bottom of this swinging-boat affair—goodness, isn’t it ghastly? As bad as the Wall of Death, I think. And from the bus-stop in Interlarken I s’pose Mr. Wright—sorry, I mean Mr. Monro—will just have to take a taxi to the hotel.’
‘I’m sure he will. Is it a nice hotel?’
‘The Flooss? Oh, not too bad. It’s right on the river, and you can see the steamers coming up to the quay, and watch the people going on and off. But Flooss is ever such a silly name, don’t you think?—makes one think of floosies.’ She giggled.
From this description Julia surmised, rightly, that the party must be staying at the Hotel zum Fluss in Interlaken, much praised by Baedeker, and was delighted to have this concrete piece of information for Colin. She felt it safe to ask this obviously foolish child how long she was staying?
‘Well I’m not sure. We should have been going home day after tomorrow, but some friends of Mr. Bor—I mean Mr. de Ritter’s, that he wants to meet, haven’t turned up, so we must stay on till they do.’
‘Oh well, if you’re staying on we might meet again,’ Julia said brightly. ‘I’m up here at Beatenberg, at the Hotel Silberhorn, but if I come down I might look you up, Miss—?’ Her voice hung on the query.
‘Phillips—June Phillips,’ the girl said briskly. ‘I’d love to see you again—you’re so kind.’ Then her face fell. ‘Sorry—I am too silly, with this foot hurting so! June Phillips is just my trade name; only I get so accustomed to using it. My real name is Aglaia Armitage.’
‘So if I came to the hotel I should ask for Miss Armitage?’ Julia asked carefully. Presumably they were still using the forged passports, but she wanted to be sure.
‘That’s right.’ Then the pretty face clouded again. ‘D’you know, I’m not sure you’d better do that,’ June Phillips said worriedly. ‘Mr. B. doesn’t seem to care for me to talk to people; there are some English people at the Flooss, but if they start talking to me, he makes some excuse to get me away. Oh, I am so dull!’
How right Mr. B. was, Julia thought—in the circumstances he could hardly do otherwise, saddled with this witless little creature. But she was sorry for poor June, wearing her pretty new clothes in vain. Before she had settled on some suitable response the girl pulled out an envelope with an English stamp on it.
‘You write your name and address on that, do,’ she urged. ‘And your ‘phone number. Then I could ring you up, if I was free any time.’
After a moment’s hesitation Julia did as she was asked—after all it didn’t involve Colin in the least. As June Phillips pocketed the envelope Julia put a further question. ‘Surely Mr. Monro is a pleasant companion?’
‘Well not all that much. He’s all right, and of course he looks ever so distinguished; but if we come out like this he always wants to go off scrambling on rocks, or climbing up some mountain—which is no fun for me,’ June said energetically. ‘And the rest of the time he’s generally binding away about a situation he lost in one of those Arab countries, and how unfair it was.’ She paused, and then leaned confidentially across the table. ‘I don’t think he’s really enjoying this job any more than I am, except the climbing—though he’s paid much more than me.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes!—and I do think that’s unfair, too. After all, he isn’t like anyone.’ She caught herself up, dismayed. ‘Sorry—I didn’t mean that. I’m just silly today!’
Julia hastened to help her out. ‘Perhaps Mr. Monro is an expert about something,’ she said.
‘Oh I don’t think so, really, or why was he fired? But he has lived in these outlandish countries, and I think he knows these people that Mr. de Ritter is waiting for.’
At this point the young man himself appeared on the path leading up to the restaurant; he was some hundred yards away. June Phillips gave a little gasp.
‘Oh! There he is! D’you think you’d p’r’aps better go away? I mean, he mightn’t like to see me talking to anyone. Only you’ve been so good.’
‘No. I shan’t go away,’ Julia said firmly.
‘Well, you explain, will you?—how we met, I mean,’ the girl said nervously. ‘And by the way, on this trip he’s supposed to be my fiancé,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Oh, it is all so difficult.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Julia just had time to say before the young man rounded the corner of the restaurant and saw them. He paused, scowled, and strode over to their table. Julia spoke before he could.
‘Mr. Monro?’ He nodded, his relief evident at once.
‘Miss Armitage has had an accident,’ Julia pursued blandly— ‘she has sprained her ankle rather badly. I happened to be close by, and did what I could for her, but I think she ought to get back to her hotel as soon as possible, and see a doctor.’
‘Oh, thank you, Miss—?’
‘Probyn,’Julia said, studying him. Probably a Greek or a Levantine or something like that, she thought, noting the weak mouth, the big melting eyes, the superb Greek-vase figure—a born gigolo. He thanked her again, rather curtly, and then rounded harshly on June Phillips.
‘How did you come to have an accident? I told you to stay here on the terrace.’ There was no accent, except that it was not a well-bred voice; a Levantine educated at a second-rate English school, perhaps.
Julia’s presence gave the girl courage to defend herself.
‘Yes, but you were away such ages—and you never gave me money to buy a morning coffee, or anything! So I went down and picked some flowers, and a man came after me, and was nasty, and this lady came and sent him off. And then I hurt my foot, and she looked after me. More than you were doing!’ June said, with a small display of spirit, like a kitten spitting.
‘Oh well’—as he paused, rather nonplussed, Julia beckoned up a waitress and paid the bill. ‘Well, we’d better be getting back,’ he said to June. ‘Come on.’
‘Try your foot,’ Julia said to the girl. ‘Can you stand on it?’
June Phillips tried, and cried out with pain. ‘Aoh, it does hurt!’
‘Damnation! What an idiotic thing to do!’ the young man Wright exploded.
‘Oh nonsense,’Julia said coolly. ‘If one neglects people, anything can happen. It’s not in the least her fault.’ He stared at her. ‘Let’s get her down to the Bahn—if we each take an arm she needn’t put any weight on her foot.’
‘I’ll carry her,’ the young man said; ‘she weighs nothing.’ And disdaining Julia’s help he threw June over his shoulder like a sack and carried her, giggling, down to the Sessel-Bahn and in at the entrance on the far side. As the seats came up, were vacated, and pulled round the curve for the descent Julia nipped smartly ahead of the other two, secured a place, and was fastened into it by the attendant; June and Mr. Wright got into the next one. There is usually an interval of fifty to one hundred metres between the dangling seats, so as not to put too great a weight on the cable, and Julia reckoned that she would just have time to get hold of Colin and send him away before Wright could see him; since there was no longer any need to tail the party, it seemed to her rather important to do this. Her seat was launched, and she spun down through the sunny air, over the high pastures, amo
ng the fragrant pines—down, down, down, above the flowery meadows and the Parallel-Weg to the little bottom station. The moment the attendant unclamped the bar and released her she sprang out, waved to June, whose seat was just coming in, ran down the cement steps and walked rapidly along the zig-zag path leading down to the road and the big lay-by where cars and buses wait. From above she saw that Colin was there all right, half-perched on the retaining wall, sweet with plants of thyme and wild phlox, at the bottom of the path; but he was not alone—perched beside him, smoking a pipe and obviously engaged in most cheerful conversation, was the detective.
Annoyance at this inopportune appearance quite overcame her pleasure at seeing Antrobus. What was he doing there, just at this moment? Her original decision to get Colin away before Wright saw him persisted; but as she walked down the path towards the two men it occurred to her that it might be quite useful if she, at least, stayed to watch the impact of the impostor party on Antrobus—she might learn something, or she might not; anyhow worth trying. She slackened her pace—this had got to be planned fast—and glanced up behind her; June and Wright had not yet emerged from the station. In the last twenty-five yards she cast about for an excuse and hit on a poor one—all the same, she must try it on. She rounded the last corner and approached the pair.
‘Oh hullo, Mr. Antrobus—how nice to see you again.’ She turned to Colin. ‘Colin darling, I’m out of gaspers. They have those beastly squashy local ones in that little shop just up the road; do go and get me a hundred, darling—fast, so that we can catch the bus.’
‘I’ve got quite a lot,’ Colin said, looking surprised at her knowing Antrobus.
‘Oh don’t be a clot, darling! I haven’t, though I’ve got everything else.’ She hoped he would take this in. ‘Do please go, darling darling.’
At this key phrase Colin obediently took himself off up the road—Julia was surprised to find that she minded a good deal being forced to use these exaggerated terms of endearment to Colin in front of Antrobus. However, she turned to him calmly.
‘Are you staying in Beatenberg, Mr. Antrobus?’