Hotel Stardust

by Susan Barrie

  There was nothing to stop him. Only the obvious fact that he was in love with someone else!

  If his face was pale, hers was suddenly dyed by almost painful color, and there was so much constriction in her throat that she could not utter a word. She felt that she hated him. Worse, she could never think of him in future without a feeling of humiliation.

  And then the door opened and Martin Pope put in his head.

  “Ah!” he said. “Here you are!”

  It must have struck him immediately that something had electrified the atmosphere between the two who were standing there before the flower-filled fireplace, but if it did he was careful not to give away the fact. His expression was almost suave, his voice quiet and pleasant and almost soothing, like the slow flowing of the evening tide far below the windows. And he did not beat a hasty retreat. He came forward into the room.

  “Miss Barton was wondering what had become of you,” he said to Eve. He proffered his cigarette-case to Roger, but not to the girl, because she did not like his particular brand of cigarettes. ''She’s hoping to make up a four at bridge, but for once Mrs. Neville Wilmott is not in the mood, and she thought perhaps Commander Merlin might be willing to be roped in?”

  “Never in this life,” the Commander answered, his voice so brusque it was almost rude. He directed a keen look at Eve. Her color had receded, and she looked rather white and fragile in her black dress—rather like a graceful flower on a slender stem which had received a sudden buffet by the wind. She was still striving to think calmly, and to behave with the normality which Martin Pope obviously expected.

  “I—I'm sorry you had to come and look for me,” she said. “It was too bad of me to desert my guests.” She hesitated, looking at him, and then slipped a hand inside his arm and seemed to cling to it. “It’s a bit hot in here. I wonder if you’d like to take me out for some air?” she said.

  “Of course,” he answered, and patted her hand where it rested on his arm. His eyes surveyed her almost with a look of concern. “We won’t worry about your aunt for the present. She can make up her own bridge four.”

  And without another word or a look for Commander Merlin he led Eve outside, through the French window which was standing open and on to the paved terrace.

  Roger Merlin, left behind, stood watching their departure with a strange, cold smile on his face, and when they were no longer in sight he tossed Martin Pope’s cigarette into the fireplace and selected and lighted one of his own. His hand was not altogether steady as he lighted it, but when it was drawing steadily, and he had inhaled a few quick puffs, he walked back to the fireplace and looked up at the portrait hanging above the mantelpiece. And he was still gazing up at it when Chris Carpenter looked in to discover why the lights were burning in a room so little used.

  C H A P TE R E I G H TE E N

  A FEW days later Mr. Pope and Dr. Craig both decided that, for reasons which they could not afford to ignore, their presence in London, for a week or possibly longer, was essential, and with many regrets they turned their backs on the Cornish seas and the glory of high summer which was approaching along the colorful coast. Eve drove them into Truro to catch the Cornish Riviera Express, in which they hoped to return as quickly as possible, and when she had waved farewell to them, fluttering her handkerchief until a curve of the line took them out of sight, and Martin Pope had been forcibly pulled back into his compartment by Dr. Craig, anxious lest he should overbalance out of the window on to the track, Eve decided to do some shopping, and made an appointment at the hairdresser’s for Chris Carpenter. Then she had a teashop lunch, and browsed around the shelves of a book-shop for half an hour or so, then realized that it was high time she returned to Treloan.

  But somehow the thought of making a success of Treloan had ceased to be of tremendous importance to her these days, and sometimes she wondered whether she and Aunt Kate had been unwise to invest so much of their money, or, at any rate, Aunt Kate’s money, in such an undertaking. Aunt Kate’s enthusiasm had seemed to her niece to be a little on the wane, too, during recent weeks —especially since their removal to the cottage. Possibly that was because it reminded her of her Surrey cottage, now let furnished for a six-monthly period, which had always appealed to her much more strongly as a mere home than the grandeurs of Treloan Manor. Aunt Kate was at heart a simple soul, and she had simple tastes, which were not easily indulged in an atmosphere of family portraits and spacious rooms, however beautifully proportioned. She much preferred an evening sitting quietly attending to the holes in Dr. Craig’s socks—to say nothing of other items of his underwear, which he handed over to her with the masculine equivalent of a blush—in the serenity of the small sitting-room at the cottage, to an evening spent upon the terrace at Treloan, dispensing afterdinner coffee to languid guests.

  One undeniable truth was that Aunt Kate was becoming a little tired after the unaccustomed hectic rush of the early spring days, which had allowed her so little time to breathe, or relax, or discover what her feelings were on any particular subject. At fifty-five Miss Barton was still hale and hearty, and she had a tremendous desire to help her niece, but all her life she had been a creature of habit, and now there was no time to keep pace with those old habits or even to form any new ones. She feared sometimes that Sarah was out of her element, too, kept out of the way of guests in case—just in case!—she should have the bad taste to take such a thing as a dislike to any one of them and a resultant unfortunate nibble at an ankle. Sarah was not so young, either, and she missed her regular walks and the constant companionship of her mistress. She slept on her mistress’s bed at nights, but there were days when she scarcely saw her.

  Only Chris Carpenter seemed wholly and completely happy at Treloan, wrapped up in her cooking, and with no other desire, apparently, than to be mistress of the great white-tiled kitchen.

  Eve took the long way back to Treloan, driving herself to the extreme corner of the bay on which the Stark Point. Hotel stood, but careful to keep out of sight of any of its windows. Roger Merlin had mentioned going abroad, and he might possibly have already gone; but she was determined to take no risks. She did not wish to meet him suddenly face to face—not after the night of Dr. Craig’s birthday dinner.

  The day had been one of sudden, intense heat, and she was glad to feel the cool breeze blowing in from the sea as she moved slowly along the coast road. As a road, it ranked as an exceeding bad one, for it was inclined to peter out every hundred yards or so, and the surface of it was appalling for such an antiquated car as her own. But there was plenty of color on either hand, for the sea pinks blazed on the cliff top, and the tiny hare’s-foot trefoil, and golden samphire. And the yellow horned poppies danced in the wind beside the track, and at the foot of the cliffs there was the sea creeping gently into the sandy coves, as blue as a blaze of larkspur.

  As yet the sun was high in the heavens, and the warmth of it filled Eve's car, despite the sea breeze. She stopped the car near the edge of a little headland from which she could still look across at the Stark Point, and think how wonderfully white and well-cared-for it looked, and how its many windows flashed in the sunshine. She felt strongly tempted to pay it a sudden visit, and order tea in one of the cool lounges; but again the thought of coming face to face with its owner prevented her.

  She left the car, and her gaze still remained anchored to the Stark Point as she walked to the edge of the headland and, sinking on to the hot, sweet grass, filled her lap with the dainty trefoil, while the breeze blew refreshingly round her head and lifted the damp hair off her forehead.

  This was as good as playing truant, she realized, but for once she didn’t care much— for, for one thing, with Martin Pope and Dr. Craig on their way to London, Laurence in Oxford, and Mrs. Neville Wilmott dining that night at the Stark Point, there was not a large number to prepare dinner for. Chris and Aunt Kate could cope, if it came to that, with the mere handful who remained to be fed. But she was not in the habit of shirking her responsibilities, and
all in good time she would return and enter into a discussion after dinner with Aunt Kate and Chris as to how they were to get more visitors to replace the ones who were gone, if only temporarily, and how and by what means they should expand their system of advertising.

  It was a nightly subject, or very nearly nightly. And sometimes Eve knew the perverse desire to say that she had no intention of doing anything at all to tempt more visitors to Treloan, that it was not in her to take kindly to strangers taking possession of a cherished house, and rather than go on letting the iron enter into her soul on this account she would let Roger Merlin have it. And he, with his flair for running really successful hotels, would no doubt put it on the map, as Martin Pope had once said he felt sure she would do, in the shortest possible time, and as a result add appreciably to his bank-balance.

  She and Aunt Kate were merely depleting their bank- balance trying to keep it going, or doing very little better. It was a depressing thought—or somehow it had become acutely depressing since the night of the dinner-party.

  Sometimes she wanted to leave Cornwall for good, and never see it again. She felt that the very sea mocked her, because it knew she was tackling an impossible task. And the alternative? Marry Martin Pope, when and ifhe asked her, and live there in comfort, as Aunt Kate had suggested. Or the second alternative, and the one she would almost certainly follow if it ever really came to the point, was to return, defeated, to London, and take up her residence once more in a dreary London flat or bed-sitting-room, and get herself a job that would leave her no time to sigh over the memory of larkspur-blue seas and emerald-covered cliff-tops sweet with summer wild flowers.

  She was sinking into a kind of apathetic dream of what her future life would be if and when she decided to give up Treloan, when the loud hooting of a motor-horn caused her to jerk out of her abstraction almost violently. She looked up to see that another car had come to rest behind her own, and that its owner was objecting to the fact that her stationary vehicle was blocking his progress. But what brought her to her feet in a rush, embarrassed pink color rising up in her cheeks and an almost despairing sensation within her that she had dallied too long, was the fact that the car which she had not even heard arrive upon the scene was huge and cream-colored, and its driver was only too familiar, while the outsize bull-dog lolling on the back seat was just as familiar.

  “Oh, I'm sorry!” she exclaimed, and rushed to re-enter her car. But Commander Merlin, descending unhurriedly from his, intercepted her.

  “I wasn't sure it was you,” he said when she reached him. “You looked like a mermaid dreaming on the edge of the cliff, but your hair proclaimed you hailed from Treloan.”

  He sounded perfectly friendly and pleasant, but she deliberately avoided meeting his eyes and her voice sounded stiff as she answered him.

  “I didn’t realize that someone might come along—not another car, I mean. It’s an unfrequented spot, and I thought I had it to myself.”

  “Instead of which I happen to be returning from a visit on the other arm of the bay, and this is my most direct road back to the Stark Point.” A faint note of mockery invaded his voice. “Too bad, isn’t it when I’m the last person you wanted to see just now! ”

  She felt the color deepen in her cheeks, but suddenly she found strength to look at him, and she was faintly surprised to discover that there was nothing in the least mocking in his eyes. Indeed, they might have been the eyes of a casual acquaintance with whom she had never crossed mental swords, or lived through moments of breathless inner excitement, or known the violent disturbances of a kiss. This well-dressed, smiling, affable person would never seize her in his arms and leave his hall-mark upon her out of pure spite—for what other motive could he have had? —or be rude to her because she wouldn’t let him take possession of her home. He was a kind of neutral personality who had no wish to offend and certainly no desire to impress. He was different in some strange way, and she was not sure that she like the difference.

  “Look,” he said, as if he could think of no reason at all why she should be likely to refuse him, “it’s a very hot afternoon, and you don't seem to be in a tremendous hurry, and my hotel is near. Why don't you come with me and have a cup of tea in comfort and coolness, where you can relax for five minutes? I’m sure you do an inordinate amount of rushing about waiting on people who do nothing to merit it, apart from the fact that they pay their bills to you, and it will be a change for you to be waited on. What do you say?” with almost a coaxing note.

  Eve was so surprised that for a moment she could say nothing, and he saw the astonishment brim over her face. He could also see, once her color subsided, that she had rather a wan, tired look about her, and in her simple linen frock she looked very young, and a little forlorn, somehow, and not very ready to do battle with anyone. Indeed, she struck him as being slightly exhausted after some sort of a mental battle, and he actually laid a hand upon her arm and gripped it gently.

  “You’re not terribly busy just now, are you? I know that Pope and Dr. Craig went back to London this morning—oh,” lightly, “my spies are everywhere!—and Miss Barton wouldn’t begrudge you a change of scenery. Besides, I’ve twice enjoyed your hospitality at Treloan; you’ve never had an opportunity to enjoy mine! ”

  “I am rather thirsty. In fact, I was thinking I’d like a cup of tea more than anything else in the world when you came along just now,” she admitted. “But I ought to be getting back, all the same.”

  “Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “And, what’s more, I’m not going to allow you to go back—not without some tea! That is, if you can face having it with me?”

  She found herself smiling at him unwillingly.

  “Oh yes, I can face it!”

  “Good!”

  His fingers released their hold of her arm, but before they did so they increased their pressure slightly.

  “Now, hop into that antiquated car of yours and see if you can get the engine started. I’ll follow behind. But give me plenty of warning if you feel you’re about to disintegrate. I don’t trust these models of ancient vintage.” But despite his uncomplimentary remarks about her means of transport, Eve, for once, could take no offence at anything he said, and she preceded him down the cliff road to the Stark Point Hotel, where raised eyebrows greeted their arrival as they drove into the courtyard.

  The two cars, parked one behind the other, certainly looked a trifle incongruous, especially as Eve had found little time lately to carry out her daily routine and smarten the appearance of hers with a duster. But as she stepped out and stood looking up at the imposing white facade of the hotel, there was nothing wrong with her appearance for all the simplicity of her attire. Roger Merlin released Jocelyn from the back of his car, and together they all three entered the welcome coolness and shade of the perfectly planned entrance.

  Eve felt as if she was living and moving in a dream as they were carried up in a lift to somewhere far above the ground floor. The lift-boy, in his smartly tailored uniform and little cap, with the name of the Stark Point in gilt letters above the peak, the glimpse of expensively carpeted corridors through the lift gates, and white doors stretching away in all directions, made her realize how puny were her efforts to compete with so much established success. And the man beside her, looking down at her from his superior height with what she felt sure was a slightly humorous twinkle in his eyes, did he know that she was already feeling several sizes smaller as a result of the perfection which he had achieved?

  “This way,” he said when they stepped out of the lift, and he placed his hand beneath her elbow and guided her along a corridor noiseless with crimson carpet. “This floor was once dedicated to our domestic staff, but in these days they occupy rooms on the floor below. I have my being up here amongst the chimney-pots.”

  But, even so, it was a distinctly pleasant being, or so Eve instantly decided when she was permitted her first glimpse of his combined sitting-room-living-room, which had an outlook uninterrupted by anything whatsoe
ver far across the bay. And the furnishing was in such excellent taste, although sufficiently masculine to please her somehow, that her eyes actually widened with her approval. He saw the little pink flush of excitement which rose up in her cheeks, and her delicately formed lips fell a little apart.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed, “it is nice!”

  “Do you think so?” he asked.

  Actually, it was a room designed by an artist with due allowance made for the sloping roof, and the harmonizing tone of the curtains, carpet, and chair-covers was neutral and soothing; a kind of pearly grey, which went very well with the unstained oak of the small sideboard and bookshelves. There was a bowl of deep purple violas on an occasional table, and Eve noticed a pipe-rack against the wall, and a knee-hole desk equipped with a business-like green-shaded lamp at which he probably sometimes worked late in the evening. But when she was led out through a doorway which opened outwards on to a kind of roof-garden, her appreciation mounted by leaps and bounds. The roof-garden was equipped with sun-umbrellas, comfortable wicker lounging chairs, and little tables. There was a high parapet to prevent any sensation of dizziness, and dwarf shrubs in gaily-painted tubs, and a powerful long-range telescope set up for the obvious purpose of viewing any chance shipping which entered the bay.

  “Better and better,” Eve exclaimed, as he drew forward one of the most comfortable chairs for her. “I’d no idea you could be so completely self-contained, and yet still live in an hotel.”

  “I’d rather have your cottage,” he answered. “It’s not even on the telephone, and you can’t be disturbed once you’ve settled down to enjoy your evening.” He touched a bell push, and a waiter appeared. “Bring tea,” he ordered. “And an especially nice tea for this young lady!”