Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake

by The Inn by the Lake (lit)

  Jonathan smiled down at her, relieved that the awkward moment had passed. That detective Helen had employed must have been an oaf. Just now the child—she looked such a child standing there in her shabby clothes— had looked both proud and frightened. He felt almost tempted to explain right away who he was, to seize this opportunity; the idea of gaining her confidence by a masquerade seemed suddenly the basest sort of trickery. Yet the child could be frightened so easily back into her shell, and he guessed that if she knew, now, that he was an emissary from her grandmother, she would have nothing more to do with him. Remembering the sadness in Helen Stannisford's faded eyes, Jonathan hardened his resolution. It was a ridiculous situation, a stupid misunderstanding; an old woman and a girl hurting each other through mistaken pride. It would be best to go slowly in the affair, and if he decided later not to interfere he could leave the Albergo Fionetti with no harm done.

  "You speak English very well," he said gently, and the girl smiled.

  "I speak French and Italian as well," she said indifferently, and pulled a childish face, "but German I hate! My father was French—perhaps that's why I can't get my tongue round the German gutturals. But come on inside, you're tired and hot—"

  Leading the way past the shuttered windows of the ground floor she drew him into a big, dim kitchen with a red-tiled floor and a gigantic old stove. A carelessly fastened shutter let in a shaft of sunlight, but the room was cool and clean and smelled faintly of garlic and cheese and the wood used in the ancient stove.

  "Ssh!" She halted on the threshold, smiling towards the old woman fast asleep on a rocker by the stove. "Lucia—she didn't mean to have her siesta today because you were coming, but sleep has overtaken her!"

  Sleep has overtaken her . . . Jonathan savoured the poetry of the phrase together with the rich colouring of the scene in the quiet kitchen. Nicole spoke without a trace of accent, like any well-educated English girl—she had Evelyn to thank for that. He wondered whether she thought in English, or French, or Italian. One day, when he knew her better, he would ask her. Little Nicole Berenger—half boy, half girl; half English gentlewoman, half gypsy—intrigued him. There was something honest and brave and wholly enchanting about her.

  "She has dressed up for you," Nicole whispered gently, and he looked again at the old sleeping woman before following her up a stone staircase. Lucia's face was lined with years, but strong and clean-featured still. Her beak of a nose and firm mouth might have been engraved on a coin, her breathing was deep and even. A black lace mantilla covered her iron-grey hair, a red woollen shawl was draped about her thin shoulders over her best alpaca frock; the thin, black-stockinged legs were thrust into red felt slippers. Her hands, folded in her lap, were brown and scarred with years of hard work, but there was in her whole pose an immense strength and dignity. She seemed part of the big, shadowed kitchen, with its red-tiled floor and the glow from the stove, the stone arches that served as doorways to the larder and dining room, the deep green of the Chianti bottles suspended from hooks in a beam. It reminded Jonathan of the old Dutch masters.

  "I would like to paint Lucia," he said quietly when they had reached the upper landing, which to his surprise was tiled like the kitchen. It ran from the back to the front of the house, up and down odd steps here and there, and turned a corner suddenly.

  "Lucia has been painted many times, but not asleep," she told him seriously. "I don't think she would like to be painted asleep—"

  "It does seem unfair—one is so unguarded, asleep," Jonathan agreed quietly. "Yet that old woman is very dignified and strong, even in her sleep. Not many of us could relax like that, without snoring, or gaping."

  Nicole chuckled. "Do you snore? Emilio does, you can hear him all over the house. It's very quiet at night here."

  "I hope not. I don't really know." He was amused.

  "Then you're not married, if you don't know whether or not you snore," she announced matter-of-factly, and opened a door into a big, shadowy room at the corner of the inn. "But in here it doesn't matter. This room is over the stable—this used to be a farm—and you can make a noise like thunder if you wish!"

  "Thank you!"

  Jonathan put down the cases he carried, carefully because he could only see dimly a great four-poster bed, a table and a few odd chairs; until Nicole threw open the shutters suddenly and the octagonal-shaped room was flooded with clear light. Moving instinctively over to the windows, Jonathan uttered a small exclamation of delight. The room seemed to hang over the water, and across the lake the valleys between the mountains were beginning to take on the shadows of evening.

  "In the morning you'll see the sun coming over the shoulder of Monte Caprino," Nicole told him, and turned back into the room with a small hostess-like gesture of her brown hands. "It's very—simple—here. No carpets, the tiles are cooler. And the small room through there is your bathroom." She smiled suddenly, mischievously. "If you decide to return to Lugano, you can go tomorrow."

  "I shall stay here, if you and Lucia can put up with me, Nicki."

  The diminutive slipped out so naturally that neither of them noticed it. Jonathan also used his hands to express something of his delight. "I like—simple—places. And with a view like this—" He chuckled suddenly, boyishly, "This room is fit for a millionaire! Now run along. I want to wash and get into something cooler."

  Nicole was listening to the church clocks chiming in the clear quietness. She nodded gravely. "I should wear very old clothes here. If you want to paint we'll be using my boat—and your good clothes will get spoiled. That's half-past three. At four o'clock there will be tea, down in the loggia."

  "Don't make it specially for me, I can last out until— until you have supper," Jonathan suggested, trying to save trouble, though the idea of tea was very welcome.

  Nicole chuckled again, and he thought how pleasant her chuckle was, before a wistful expression crossed her small face. It was expressive like a child's face, with sunlight and shadows chasing across the fine features. "You think we can't make you good tea!" she accused directly. "But we can. Every day at four o'clock I made it for ray mother. In the town they charge you two francs extra for afternoon tea; English tea is very expensive; but here I won't charge you extra," she added, as he started to thank her dryly for the privilege. "It wouldn't be fair. Every day I make a pot of tea for myself. It's nice to share it with someone."

  She whisked out of the door and closed it behind her, leaving Jonathan to unpack and explore his new domain. Every day at four o'clock I made it for my mother . . . Sometimes I think she was very homesick, my mother. . . .

  Gradually Jonathan, who could only remember Evelyn as a young girl, was building up a picture of this exile she had shared with her own daughter. It gave him an extraordinary feeling, remembering the gay, enchanted Evelyn, very much in love with her Frenchman; twenty-three years ago . . . almost a quarter of a century—and he had been fifteen. How old that should make him feel. But it did not. Today Jonathan felt young—younger than he had done for years. His boyish memories of Evelyn were merging with Nicole, who was so like and yet so different from her mother. And quite apart from his mission for his uncle and an old, lonely Englishwoman, Jonathan found himself enjoying a new experience. The rambling, dilapidated Italian inn on the shore of a Swiss lake, an old farm that was yet surprisingly solid inside; the extraordinary beauty of deep, still water lapping the feet of the mountains surrounding it; that ancient woman asleep in the kitchen; these things were so far removed from his recent experiences in Vietnam and the long years in hospital that he found himself looking forward to six weeks of freedom here as an adventure.

  And that, he told himself dryly, is exactly what the doctor ordered! He grinned at his wet face in the spotted mirror above the deep stone sink in his 'bathroom'. The sink was fed by a single pipe and tap, presumably pumped from the lake, because the water was icy cold. In another corner of the tiled room was a concrete square with a drain, above it a shower. If it was going to be as hot as it
was today for the whole of his holiday, that shower would be more than welcome. Nevertheless, he understood now Nicole's brusque references to plumbing. In the Lugano hotels there would be gleaming chromium taps, porcelain basins, hot and cold in every room. Yet already he would not have exchanged the Albergo Fionetti for a Hilton hotel. He hoped the family would accept his presence as easily as Nicole had done, and wondered just what her position was in the household. She said she took tourists about the lake, and painted bad pictures to sell; did she pay the Fionettis for her board, then? And who was Lucia . . . the grandmother, or a domestic? Jonathan whistled as he put on a soft shirt and thin, ancient slacks and combed back his thick hair which had been liberally wetted during his ablutions. It occurred to him that he must not seem to take too personal an interest in Nicole Berenger, so when he joined her for tea he was content to sit and enjoy just looking about him.

  The loggia was a sort of wooden verandah built in the middle of the house, slightly protruding over the lake, its three sides formed by the walls of the house itself. On the ground floor there were arched doorways but no doors, so that one could command cool-looking vistas from the loggia. Nicole had changed into a faded blue cotton frock and sandals to preside over the tea tray, but with her bare brown legs and arms she still looked a child. A child washed and brushed and on its best behaviour, copying the grown-ups, but still a child who would suddenly run off to its own world of make-believe where the grown-ups could not follow.

  The loggia was open to the sky, though there were canvas blinds that could be drawn across it in bad weather, and as he sprawled comfortably in one of the swinging chairs he could see Monte Caprino across the lake, framed by the wistaria clambering over the rough log posts of the loggia. At their feet bark boxes were filled with petunias, pansies, gentians and lobelia, and on odd stools about the place stood pots with begonias and geraniums and ferns in them. There was a sweet tranquillity about the whole scene that arrested him on the threshold. He had followed his nose through the kitchen, where Lucia had vanished from her rocking chair, into the dining-room with its old refectory table and heavy carved chairs, into this courtyard.

  Nicole looked up from her serious preoccupation with the tea tray, staring at him with a child's frank approval. "Now you dress sensibly," she said, "and you feel better?"

  "Much better, thank you. What a nice place this is"— he accepted the swing chair she indicated—"in fact, I'm glad you took me in, Nicole. I much prefer this to any hotel in the town—and the bathroom will suit me perfectly!"

  "Oh"—she bit her lip suddenly, flushing beneath her, tan—"I forgot to offer you hot water! I am sorry. We always use the cold, but there are copper cans in the kitchen and the fire is always under the big kettles. Will you please take a can when you want hot water?"

  "Of course I will. Don't worry, the cold was very refreshing."

  Nicole soon forgot her embarrassment. They had never had an Englishman at the albergo for more than the odd meal, and the fishermen and artists who occasionally stayed were used to helping themselves to what they wanted.

  "How do you like your tea?" she asked, so gravely that Jonathan wanted to laugh. This was an Englishwoman in exile ... and afternoon tea a function. He thought of the tea he had drunk, hot and strong and sweet, from tin mugs during brief snatched intervals in the incessant work at Ming-dhu hospital.

  "Oh—milk and a little sugar, please."

  To his surprise—he had noticed the thick local pottery on the dresser in the kitchen—it was handed to him in an exquisite fluted cup of Sèvres china. Nicole saw him appreciating it and smiled suddenly. Not her gamine grin but a real smile, warm and tender and mischievous.

  "My mother's. We're not complete savages here."

  "I beg your pardon," Jonathan apologised gently, "I don't think you're savages at all—merely wonderfully— free."

  He was just going to tell her that the tea was perfect when the Fionetti family descended on them, a sudden cascade of noise and rapid Italian and laughter, after the motor-boat had been tied up. Nicole's face brightened. "Emilio has brought the children from school."

  "Hola! Nicki—Nicki!"

  "A'loggia—"

  A dark, good-looking boy with snapping brown eyes jumped the wooden steps to the balcony, his white shirt making his skin seem almost black; he was followed by two tall children, fighting for possession of a mysterious package which they deposited at Nicole's feet before turning to survey the stranger with curious, impudent eyes.

  Emilio shouted in Italian. "Where is your precious Englishman, Nicki?" before he saw Jonathan and Nicki's warning frown. Immediately he smiled and held out his hand, "Benvenuto, signore—"

  Almost amused by the sudden change of tone, though he had not understood the previous sentence, Jonathan shook hands. And meeting Emilio's eyes he was suddenly shocked by the realisation that beneath the boy's courteous welcome as host there was an instant antagonism. Emilio might be glad of visitors to his inn, his living was earned through ministering to tourists, but as he took in the little domestic scene on the loggia he was not pleased that an Englishman was having tea with Nicole. Jonathan had no means of knowing that Emilio was scared that Nicole would one day leave the Albergo Fionetti, that she would return to her own people. But his instinct told him correctly that this Italian boy—a young man really—was jealous. Probably he was in love with Nicki.

  Jonathan was troubled. And beneath his own pleasant manner as Nicole introduced the children there was a small undercurrent of doubt. If she was in love with Emilio it would explain her refusal of her English grandmother's overtures. It would also complicate his mission hopelessly.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JONATHAN liked the two younger Fionettis better than Emilio, that good-looking young guide who might have stepped straight from a romantic operetta instead of from a small motor-boat. Bianca at thirteen, small-boned and walking with the step of a dancer, was already a beauty, and she knew it. Beside her dark ringlets and brown eyes and glowing, olive skin, Nicole's fairness was almost Nordic; and suddenly, for no good reason at all, Jonathan was pleased because she looked so different from the Fionettis. He had no stupid prejudices against foreigners, but Helen Stannisford's granddaughter should not look like an Italian peasant. For a few seconds he amused himself by mentally dressing Nicole formally—as she would have dressed to dispense tea at Osterley House—instead of the faded cotton frock. But his imagination, ignorant about women's clothes, boggled at the job. Nicole was here in her old frock, radiantly alive and laughing up at the children, her bare, brown toes snowing in her ancient sandals, and it was difficult, if not impossible, to imagine her wearing formal clothes, perhaps jewellery, and the mask-like-meaningless smile of a society girl . . .

  Bianca curtseyed as she shook hands and said, "How do you do" demurely in English, as Nicole had taught her, but her dark eyes were shining mischievously as she assessed the newcomer. It would be fun having someone staying at the albergo, and she was already enough of a woman to show off to a good-looking man. She thought this Mr. Johnson distinguished-looking, far more interesting than the boys she knew in the village, and perhaps Nicki would let her off her homework tonight ... Lessons, to Bianca, were a wicked waste of time. She knew all that was necessary to catch herself a husband; she could dance and sing, she could also shop and cook and make beds efficiently when she chose. One day she would have lots of bambinos, but before then she wanted to wear clothes like the girls who worked in the shops in Lugano, and have lots of fun. After her beloved madre died, Bianca thought she would leave school and preside over the albergo, but Nicki had persuaded Emilio to make her stay another two years.... It was absurd, and a foolish waste of time, because the things you learned from books were not at all useful for living.

  Pietro, the youngest, a wiry little monkey of ten, also shook hands in the English fashion, and thinking carefully of his words demanded eagerly, "You go fishing? I take you. Pietro"—he banged his small, thin chest arrogantly "me, I'm th
e best guide for the Lago di Lugano!"

  Emilio, who had been lounging against a pillar after refusing emphatically to share the tea party, boxed Pietro's ears gently and told him in Italian, "You won't be any sort of a guide at all unless you get on with your homework. History especially. The inglesi always want to know about the past. . . Now run along, both of you, pronto!"

  Pietro went laughing, Bianca reluctantly, but both of them paused by Nicole's chair and she kissed them lightly on both cheeks, smiling. "Thank you for my lovely gift!" she cried, for the odd-shaped parcel contained a pure white begonia in a pot, a present for which the children had been saving for weeks.

  Emilio stood resting, smoking, and surveying them lazily while they finished their tea. He thought tea drinking at this hour of the day absurd, though Nicki had always kept up the custom her mother had brought to the albergo. To his critical eyes she looked different today; there was something different about her, though she usually changed into a cotton frock at this hour. Naturally, he told himself, she was pleased and excited to have an Englishman here, someone with whom she could talk about things of which he and Bianca and Pietro and old Lucia knew nothing ... the things Signora Berenger had talked about, day after day, at this hour, when he and Nicole had been children, Emilio was a fraction younger than Nicki in years, and he had loved her mother next to his own, they had been brought up like brother and sister ... but now, today, he felt a queer unexpected pang of jealousy while he looked at the small, peaceful domestic scene on the loggia. They were always guiding English people, of course, but this was somehow different; this man looked as if he would be very much at home anywhere, he was not the ordinary tourist. Yet he did not look like an artist either. Emilio hoped he would not make Nicki homesick for the country she had never seen.