Hotel Stardust

by Susan Barrie

  “But I wouldn’t let anything so universally appreciated as a wedding upset you,” he said. “Your aunt has taken pity on old Craig, and I’m sure they’re going to be happy. She is the right type for him — she’ll bully him when he needs it, and fuss over him when he needs it, and they’ll provide each other with a companionship they’re never had before. You know, it’s a lonely thing to remain single all your life. You’re much too young, and at present life offers you too much, to realize that; but it is so. That’s why it pleased me

  so much to see those two taking each other for better or worse this morning. I like to think that in the future they’ve got something — each other! — to hold on to.”

  Eve had scarcely devoted much time to thinking about the marriage from her aunt’s point of view, but now she could see quite clearly that he was right. Aunt Kate had a right to be happy. She would be selfish indeed if she begrudged her that happiness because it meant that in the future she might see little of her.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said. “But I knew that I’m going to miss her dreadfully just the same.”

  “Oh, well, of course, that’s natural. But supposing you’d got married and left her alone?”

  “I’m not in the least likely to get married.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No; I’m making Treloan my life partner,” with a curious little mirthless smile playing about her lips.

  He smiled at her sceptically.

  “My dear child, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then he suddenly leaned towards her and took one of her hands. “But you can have Treloan, and a life partner at the same time, if you’ll marry me! Will you, Eve? Or will you, at least, think about it?”

  She was taken by surprise, but, even so, she almost instantly shook her head.

  “I’m sorry. I really am sorry,” she said gently, “but I could never marry you.”

  “Why not? Oh, I know I’m much older than you, and that sort of thing, but I can offer you so much. I can buy Treloan from you, and then settle it upon you as a wedding- present! There need never be any question of running it as an hotel. We could live here in a way that would suit you much better than trying to satisfy the whims of people like Mrs. Neville Wilmott, and when you were tired of this part of the world we could go to London — the Continent. Anywhere you fancied. And I’d devote my life to making you happy.”

  “I’m sure you would,” she told him, with the same gentle note in her voice. “But I couldn’t marry you, just the same.”

  “You mean you couldn’t fall in love with me?”

  “It’s not that.” She freed her hand from his hold, and twisted it with her other one together in her lap. ''It’s — oh, well ------ ”

  You’re in love with someone else?”

  For a moment she hesitated, and then she decided to be quite truthful.

  “Yes,” she answered, “I’m in love with someone else!” He gave a little sigh, which sounded rather ragged and as if it had forced its way from the roots of his being.

  “I was afraid of that,” he told her. “It’s been a kind of private nightmare of mine; but now that you’ve admitted it. . .” He suddenly put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an envelope addressed to himself, and placed it in her lap. “Since you’ve admitted it, that might interest you,” he said a trifle obscurely.

  Eve looked faintly astonished, but she removed the half sheet of notepaper from the envelope and read the few lines of writing that were scrawled across it in bold, masculine hand.

  “Dear Dad,” ran the very brief letter, “I know this is a going to be a shock to you, but you’ve got to know all the same. Annette and I were married by special license this morning here in London. She’s a wonderful girl, and you’ll think so, too, when you know her better. We’re trying to find a flat. Write and say you’re prepared to forgive us for springing this on you. Your affectionate son, Laurence.

  Eve could only think that there was something wrong with her eyesight.

  “They’re married!” she exclaimed, almost foolishly. “Annette

  — and your son, Laurence!”

  “Yes; they’re married!” He smiled at her coolly. “She’s a smart little piece, isn’t she? But I’ll admit I thought she was flying higher. In fact, I was almost certain of it.”

  “So was I,” she assured him quickly. “I was certain of it!”

  “And the only one who did not share our views, apparently, is the gentleman we’re both thinking about!” He saw how almost painfully the color flooded her cheeks, and he went on: “And he obviously, never shared them, or I should not have suddenly acquired a daughter-in-law. For I know the Annettes of this world — charming little things though they are! — and marriage for love, and love alone, is not really very much to their taste. But, of course, Laurence is not exactly poor, either. Or he'll be quite well off one day.”

  But she could think of only one thing, and that was that Roger, even though he had remained away for so long, and had never once tried to contact her during that period, was at least entirely safe in future from Annette Le Frere. He would never

  marry Annette! She felt she could scarcely believe it.

  “So that has interested you!” Martin Pope observed, and gave her hand another sudden little squeeze. “Well, I’m glad — but not for myself!’’

  A mist seemed to be blowing in from the sea, and it was filling the garden with a kind of gossamer haze. It also lowered the temperature considerably.

  Martin Pope stood up.

  “Come along in,” he said. “It’s turning quite chill, and you might catch a cold if you sit there any longer.”

  Obediently she rose to her feet and walked at his side along the paths. She could still only think of one thing, but she felt that she had to review the matter from his angle as well. After all, Laurence was his only son.

  “You will forgive them, I expect, won’t you?” she suggested a little diffidently. “After all, they’re very young, and ”

  “Oh, I’ll forgive them,” he answered rather abruptly. “There wouldn’t be much point in my doing anything else.”

  When they reached the front of the house they found Tom Geake’s car parked at the foot of the steps, and Mrs. Neville Wilmott, radiantly attired for the evening, about to step into it. She directed a keen look at both their faces, and then said with elaborate casualness:

  “Such a good thing I telephoned to book a table at the Stark Point. Commander Merlin has returned, and he has invited me to have dinner with him. Isn’t it pleasant to think that I shall be hearing all his news?” She smiled almost triumphantly at Eve. “Apparently his visit to Switzerland has been most successful, and his new hotel is running smoothly.”

  As she stepped into the car, Tom Geake looked about him at the mist, traveling like the expelled breath of a giant all over the garden, and then he looked at Martin Pope.

  “If this lot gets any thicker,” he said, “I shan't be bringing the lady back here tonight. I’ve got a kind of feeling you're going to be cut off up here.”

  “Well, that won’t upset Mrs. Wilmott,” Martin Pope thought to himself a little cynically. “The beds at the Stark Point are even more comfortable than up here!”

  And then, as he followed Eve indoors, a new train of thought started up in his mind.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E

  DINNER that night seemed a restrained meal, after the excitements of the day and with the depletion in their numbers. Eve managed to persuade Chris to join her at her table in the dining-room, and after dinner she handed round coffee in the drawing-room, because the mist was now thick outside the windows and the terrace was simply blotted out by it. It seemed a little uncanny, that silent wall of clinging white vapor pressing in on them, and when the monotonous wail of a fog-siren lifted up its voice it was almost like the unnatural crying of human voices in the mist.

  Mrs. Joseph Brownrigg laid out patience cards in a corner she had adopted for her ow
n in the drawing-room, and a young couple who were enjoying a late holiday became engrossed with one another in another far corner of the great room. Ann Wilmott and her playwright discussed the latest book reviews — and, of course, the newest plays — on a chesterfield which normally commanded a fine view of the terrace and the gardens; and Eve, when she ceased dispensing the coffee, sat composing a brief letter to her aunt which might or might not reach her before she left England, and in which all the good wishes that had been left unsaid were expressed, and only the merest hint of self-pity crept in when she mentioned that the house seemed very empty, somehow, tonight without her, and that the fog outside was the worst they had experienced since coming to Treloan.

  Martin Pope had seemed unusually preoccupied during dinner, and after dinner he wandered out into the hall and to the glassed-in cabinet which contained the telephone. He got through to the Stark Point Hotel, and asked to be put through to Commander Merlin. When Commander Merlin answered he sounded a little detached until it was made clear to him who his caller was, and then he said rather sharply, with a note of interrogation in his voice:

  “Yes? Can I do anything for you?”

  “Not specially,” Pope answered, his North-country accent a little more noticeable than usual. “But I’d like to have a talk with you when you can spare the time. It’s a bit foggy tonight, but if I can get over to you, will you be free?”

  “I can be free all right,” Roger replied, after a moment of hesitation, during which he either got over a certain amount of surprise or stopped to consider his engagements. “But although it’s more or less clear on this side of the bay, you seem to be wrapped in mist. Do you think it’s wise to risk taking a car out? Won’t tomorrow do?”

  “It will, of course,” Martin Pope admitted. “But I’d like to see you tonight if it’s at all possible. I’m not going to take any chances, naturally, but if this stuff lifts suddenly, or shows signs of thinning, I’ll be over.”

  “All right,” Roger answered, and then replaced his receiver. Eve encountered Martin Pope on his way across the hall from the telephone box when she was on her way to the kitchen to speak to Chris.

  “Are you going to the cottage?” he asked. “Because, if so, would you like me to see you safely there?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she answered, “I haven't quite made up my mind. Chris is busy, and its rather a beastly night. I don’t altogether fancy the cottage on my own. I may decide to spend the night here, in my old room.” “Well, I think that’s sensible,” he agreed. He looked down at her, in her plain dark evening gown, with her distinctive hair and her rather wistful grey eyes, and an expression that was almost paternal crept into his eyes. He patted her gently on the shoulder. “Stay here,” he advised. “It’s early days to start cooping yourself up in the cottage after your aunt’s departure. I may be going out for a short while, but when I come back we’ll have another little talk. You mustn’t be left to brood.”

  Eve stared after him a little curiously as he went on his way across the hall, and she wondered as she saw him disappear through the front door. Surely he wasn't going out on such an inclement evening as this?”

  Outside with the eerie feel of the fog on his face, Martin Pope made his way to the garage. It was a nuisance, this mist, but it was decidedly patchy, and in parts it was almost clear. When the lights of his car shone across the drive he could see quite clearly where he was going, even though the fog-sirens out in the bay continued to wail fitfully every few seconds, like lost souls.

  It was a lonely coast, this Cornish coast, and on such a night as this there was something about it which gave one pause. Scattered with prehistoric remains, lonely, cut off— invaded by tourists for only a very few weeks in the year

  — and with the sea surging tirelessly somewhere out there beyond that blanket of mist, even Martin Pope, hard-headed business-man and dour North-country man, would have been glad of a companion on this rather reckless drive — or, at least, someone to shatter the silence which enveloped him in his car. It pressed upon him as he went at a slow and infinitely cautious pace down the drive, thankful for his powerful headlights, and aware at the same time that he was being a little bit foolish, tempting providence, perhaps.

  But, on the other hand, providence didn't seem to have much to offer him, so ... !

  It was always his way to getsomething over and done with when he had once made up his mind to do it. And he wanted to talk to Roger Merlin, study the fellow in his own home, try to form some conclusive opinion of him, and without involving Eve

  — and certainly without mentioning her name! — try to glean some idea at least of the value which might be set on the man's preferences. Whether he preferred a life which had no ties and was free from even the thought of domesticity, or whether such a superficial charmer as Mrs. Neville Wilmott could ever make any serious impression upon him, now that that odd little affair with Annette Le Frere was over. Martin Pope had never quite liked the idea of the French girl so openly chasing a man who was so many years older than herself, and whose mental outlook was certainly far above the level of her own. And yet she must have been encouraged! Or hadn't she needed any encouragement?

  And he wanted to find out just where, and how, Eve entered into the picture.

  Confound it, he thought, as he came out on to the cliff top. The fog wasthick, and it seemed to be drifting towards him, like a myriad derisive demons trailing filmy draperies. His car slowed almost to a crawl and he could scarcely see the road, but he knew where the grass verge began.

  The sensible thing, of course, would be to turn back, he told himself; but that wouldn’t be so easy now that he was out on the exposed cliff. So he went on, trusting to luck and his guiding star to enable him to make progress, and after a hundred or so yards the mist thinned again, and he was able to shoot forward at an increased speed. But the sudden realization that he was free to step on the accelerator had the effect of diminishing his caution a little, and he made no allowances for a car approaching him from the opposite direction with its lights dimmed by the chancy

  white vapor, and as that car was approaching with rather more recklessness than his own, disaster was inevitable.

  Martin jammed on his brakes, and they screeched in his ears as the realization smote him that it was too late and the other car was already on top of him. He wrenched at his wheel, but whether it obeyed him or not he never properly knew, for the next thing he did know was that the oncoming vehicle seemed to be tearing right through his windscreen, and following a series of bumps which must surely have forced his spine through the top of his head he was somersaulted out through the windows of what remained of his car, and he found himself lying prone on the wet grass of the cliff-top.

  But he was still alive. He was even conscious and aware of what had happened. He crawled a little way over the grass, and in the light of one headlamp which belonged to his car, and which was still burning crazily, he could make out the wreckage of the other car, more battered than the wreckage of his own, but still vaguely familiar as a car he had seen more than once in a state of trim and gleaming perfection. A powerful, expensive, cream-colored car.

  He managed to get to his feet and staggered over to it. Ironically enough there was practically no mist where the accident had taken place, and he could see what he was doing. He bent over and felt gropingly for the form of the driver, in the space behind the wheel, and as the car was on its side the driver was also lolling sideways, and he was pinned by the wheel into the seat in which he remained motionless. Martin Pope felt an icy chill of horror strike through him as he touched the sleek, dark head, and his fingers came away wet. . .

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - TWO

  EVE did not change her mind about spending the night in Treloan. Somehow the absence of her aunt, combined with the collapse of the weather, made her curiously loath even to think about returning to the cottage, and at ten o’clock, since Martin Pope did not return for the further conversation he had said he w
ould like to have with her, she went up to her old room to bed.

  Before actually undressing, she looked out at the night. Although the mist was much thinner now, the prospect without made her shiver somehow, and she was glad to draw the curtains

  and switch on all the lights.

  This room she was occupying was one of the pleasantest in the house, and it made her think of those early days when she and Aunt Kate had first come to Treloan, and of all the little hopes and schemes they had formed over pots of tea in the evenings, whilst sitting beside the fire in their dressing-gowns. But Aunt Kate was gone now, and the hopes and schemes might or might not come to fruition. She hardly knew if she cared whether they did or not. But she did know that she was tired, even exhausted, after the emotional demands of the day, and she was glad to crawl into bed after a hot bath, with a book over which her eyelids very quickly drooped. She did not even know when she fell asleep, with her light still burning, and she certainly heard none of the unaccustomed noises which reawakened Treloan to activity at an hour when it was customarily falling into a pleasant, lethargic doze.

  Noises of lights switching on all along the corridors, and footsteps hastening rapidly to and fro. Of doors opening; and shutting with a kind of sinister care to preserve the silence, and voices also low-pitched but anxious. Chris Carpenter once gently opened Eve’s door, but when she saw that the other girl was asleep she turned out the lamp and went away again. And Martin Pope — looking quite unlike the Martin Pope Eve knew — grey-faced and haggard, and with large portions of sticking-plaster adhering to one side of his face and his head, applauded the decision to let Eve sleep peacefully, if possible, until morning, while he drank cup after cup of strong sweetened coffee in Chris’s little sitting-room, and they waited for news from a far corner of the house.