Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake

by The Inn by the Lake (lit)

  "He takes her home now. I think Emilio is wasting petrol tonight! Why did you think we were affiancés? Did I not tell you Tia Maria brought us up, like brother and sister?"

  "Yes, you did." Jonathan smiled across the glowing stove at the girl who regarded him with candid amusement. He made a small gesture with his hand. "Yet you're not too closely related. I find you here, running his home, looking after his family, sharing everything, even his business worries! Naturally I thought you might be engaged."

  She shook her head vehemently, the short, fair curls like bells dancing in the firelight. "I told you about my promise to Tia Maria. When Emilio gets married—if he marries the right person—I can go away from here and do what I like .. . and the right person is Francesca. She would manage the albergo even better than I—her family has an inn across the lake and she knows everything. She would also be a good mother to Bianca and Pietro."

  "You have everything planned out." Jonathan was amused, yet still relieved and a little curious. Nicole Berenger took her promise to a dying woman very scrious-ly, in spite of her sudden lapses into childishness. "Sup-posing Emilio marries the wrong sort of girl?"

  "Then I would have to stay here until the children were grown up, naturally," she answered calmly. "There is plenty of room here for one, two families—even three families."

  He acknowledged that, thinking of the rambling old farmhouse, with its capacious storerooms and bedrooms scattered up and down the steps of the uneven corridors above. Yet the idea of Nicole staying here indefinitely did not appeal to Jonathan. He said firmly, "I think you will have done enough or the Fionettis by the time that Emilio marries, Nicki. Has he any intention of settling down soon?"

  She laughed, finishing her coffee and spreading her small brown hands in the gesture he was growing to know so well. "If anyone can make Emilio settle down it will be Francesca—and your coming has made it sooner, I think. When he has paid for Pegasus he can think about marriage."

  "Then I hope he chooses Francesca," Jonathan said dryly, his thoughts flying momentarily to Combe Castleton as he helped wash-up the coffee cups. At home Aunt Bella did not encourage her menfolk in her kitchen, the cook and parlour-maid did not like it. Yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world to help with the chores at the albergo; to peel vegetables for old Lucia, to carry the heavy kettles, to lay the table with the giggling Bianca, to help the children with their English and history homework, to dry dishes for Nicole, to help himself to hot soup or coffee from the stove whenever he felt like it, or to raid the larder when he felt hungry. For the first time since his mother's death Jonathan felt really at home, part of a family. Even Emilio had been very friendly lately.

  He was fond of his uncle and aunt in Combe Castleton, of course, but he would spend most of his time up at the hospitals or in the nursing homes where he operated on private patients. Uncle Steve and Aunt Bella were in their seventies, after all, and most of Jonathan's friends were professional men, many of them married. As an eligible bachelor he received many invitations to dances, bridge and supper parties; most of them he refused, and when he did attend he was bored and cynical because invariably some unmarried woman had been paired off with him. He was sick and tired of being an eligible bachelor, caught as it were out of his generation ... too young to really share his uncle and aunt's social round, too old for the trendy teenagers.

  Jonathan realised suddenly, here in the warm kitchen of the old inn, that he was lonely in spite of the hard routine of his professional life. It was years since he had played... just for the fun of it. It was years since he had helped a woman dry dishes, or helped himself to a snack, or done anything homely, or enjoyed such simple pleasures as filled these days in Lugano so pleasantly . . .

  Since Fay had deserted him, an ambitious, struggling young surgeon, to marry her American, he had not cared much about women; but during his illness he had been able to look back upon the episode of Fay without hurt, without even the cynical disillusionment that she had caused, that had armoured him against women ever since. Tonight he could remember how much he had been in love with her, and how he had dreamed of having a real home and children, and he could smile with a certain sympathy for that young idealist who had built up a dream-woman from very common fabric.

  He had had compensations for his broken dream, great compensations. In his work, at least, he had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations, and he had given all his interest, heart and body and mind, to the task of becoming a great surgeon.

  It was only lying in the Ming-Dhu hospital, listening to that coloured sergeant forever singing his plaintive song about freedom, that his feverish mind had grown restless, self-searching.

  Was he missing something in life? The simple yet real pleasures of a home of his own ... ? Some love greater than the foolish dream he had built around the worldly, fickle Fay? He knew he had given genuine pleasure to his aunt and uncle by his success; by coming to live with them; but after all, they belonged to a different generation; they had their own compact world in Combe Castleton.

  And into that rare introspectiveness, the irritability and self-searching of convalescence, had come the haunting tune almost as an answer to his question.

  'I must go where the wild goose goes, I must go where, the wild goose cries ...

  'Wild goose, brother goose, which is best ... a wandering foot or a heart at rest ... ?'

  Here at the Albergo Fionetti he had found happiness—a simple and homely happiness. He could tease the children, make love to old Lucia, talk for long hours with Nicole, and let the sun sink into his bones. Tonight he was suddenly aware of that happiness, as a lovely thing that would soon be only a memory, but something very well worth while. He looked at Nicole, her brown face in the firelight dreaming some dream of her own. Now that he knew for certain she was not in love with Emilio—and already he trusted Nicole's honesty absolutely—he wondered what she wanted to make of her life.

  "If Emilio does marry Francesca," he said gently, with the hint of teasing in his voice that told Nicole he thought of her still as a child—a wise and sometimes clever child, but still not someone of his adult, responsible world, "what would you do, Nicki? Where will you go?"

  She looked up at him, roused from her thoughts. "I told you—no, I didn't tell you." She smiled suddenly, spreading her hands wide, lifting her small, proud head, adding simply, "I would like to do what my father did, before he married my mother. . . . I would like to wander all over the world, painting. Painting real pictures for myself, painting enough silly things to buy my bread—"

  "Man cannot live by bread alone," Jonathan said, and wondered why the quotation came into his head just then. She was so practical, Nicki, and yet such a dreamer. "You can't go all over the world by yourself, even nowadays . . . like a little gypsy. What would happen to you if you didn't sell enough 'silly' paintings?"

  "But I would. There's always a market for rubbish." Nicole shrugged. "I don't think I would be lonely, or afraid, and I want to see everything!"

  "That's rather a tall order." Jonathan did not know that his smile was full of amused tenderness as he imagined this gypsy child wandering over Europe like a troubadour. The wild goose song belonged to her, rather than to a staid, professional man like himself. Little wild goose, he thought, with your quaint mixture of wisdom and childishness, don't you know that one day you will be a beautiful woman, and beautiful women cannot roam the world as gypsy artists ... ?

  "I can take care of myself," she said quietly, as if she guessed some of his thoughts, "and I can paint, in spite of those things you bought from Castiglioni."

  He wondered about that. His portrait of Lucia was coming alive very nicely, even the old woman was pleased with it, and he had promised to give it to her when it was finished. It would hang in this kitchen then, where it belonged, perhaps long after Lucia was dead. He was painting in oils, as befitted the strength of his subject; but painting with Jonathan was only a hobby, a complete change from his usual work. He was very
curious to know what Nicole's 'real' painting was like; he could not forget the garish picture-postcard style of the ones he had bought.

  "Nicki, please show me the one you're doing for me. Don't wrap it up so that I can't see it until I get home. Think of me burning with curiosity—perhaps the douanes at Basle will rip it open!"

  "Oh, I hadn't thought of that!" She was dismayed, hesitant, almost shy. She wanted very much to shine before her new friend, now that she knew him better she cared for his opinion. She wanted to banish from his mind the memory of those awful tourist pictures . . . yet she had wanted, too, to give him a great surprise when he got home from his holiday. She had imagined to herself, many times, his surprised expression when at last he would unwrap her present. . . .

  "Please, Nicki?" Jonathan smiled his lop-sided smile that had won him the undying allegiance of patients and his sorely tried staff at the hospital.

  "All right—I'll get it." She was up from the rocking-chair and out of the room with swift grace, like a small wild animal, on noiseless feet. Little wild goose. . . . Now the phrase attached itself to Nicki for all time. Jonathan waited, half afraid that he would have to produce banal praise for something inferior, half excited. Nicole was so innately honest that she would not pretend to a talent she did not possess, but was her self-judgment to be relied upon?

  "It's not yet finished," she said quietly, propping the water-colour on the kitchen table for him to see, switching on another, stronger light.

  Jonathan stared, enchanted. Here was a delicacy of touch that far surpassed his own. Nicole had caught the charm of the rambling old inn leaning over the lake, the glimmering reflection of the soft afternoon shadows, the rosy glow behind Monte Bré, the quieter mauves and greens of the still water wherein everything was mirrored. A couple of small row-boats were moored to the stone wall, and at the head of the lake the hills rose sharply from the water. Even the peeling pink stucco was there, the sprawling grace of the wistaria. But the painting was more than a photographic reproduction of Gandria ... it had caught the stillness, the peace of the place, yet withal there was a hint of life going on beneath the tranquillity.

  Jonathan could say nothing for a long time. Nicole, watching his face, was satisfied. This absorbed silence was tribute enough, better than all her imaginings.

  "This is lovely—and it is Gandria," he said at last, and turned to her. "And I thought I could paint! I owe you an apology Nicki. I shall always treasure this."

  She smiled. "It is the Albergo Fionetti, for you to keep with you always," she acknowledged. "When one likes a place very well, it's good to take it with you always."

  She added briskly, "It's not yet finished, of course. But now do you see why I want to go everywhere, paint everything?"

  He shook his head, lighting his last pipe. "I see that you love this place, Nicki. Surely you want to stay in your home?"

  "Of course this will always be ray home, if I need it—" The girl hesitated, looking away into the glowing embers of the stove. "Emilio and Bianca and Pietro would always let me come here. But you don't understand—I have no real home. When Emilio marries he will not want another woman helping here. Now I'm earning my keep, but Francesca can do all my work and do it better. I don't want anyone's charity! I can earn my living in my own way—"

  "But " Jonathan was troubled. If Helen Stannisford knew that her granddaughter proposed peddling her wares round Europe like a gypsy because she had no home, it would break her old heart. Now, at last, was his opportunity to plead with the child to return, in the name of common sense and humanity. Living here with the Fionettis, who were after all a sort of family for her, was one thing; this plan for her future was another; a very different and dangerous matter. Jonathan retracted his decision not to interfere. He said quietly, "But I understood you have a home, Nicki. Your English grandmother wants you, doesn't she?"

  The small fair head went up, the blue eyes blazed suddenly. "My English grandmother," she said angrily, "employed an enquiry agent—a private detective—to come and spy on me! She couldn't send for my mother when she was sick, when she was longing to go home—"

  "Perhaps she never got the letter. Letters do go astray sometimes," he argued quietly.

  "Pph! She must have had the letter! How else did she know where to send her beastly detective to look for me?" Nicole contended furiously. "Oh, if you'd seen him! Such an imbecile, so impertinent! I sent him away with a face like that fire—and Emilio knocked him into the lake to cool off!"

  Jonathan tried not to laugh. "Not exactly tactful. The poor chap was only doing his job." No wonder, he thought, that the agent's bill had been so enormous, that he had refused absolutely to revisit his client's granddaughter.

  Nicole chuckled. "He was very important when he came, very patronising. He didn't look so important when we fished him out of the lake!"

  "Nicki——" Jonathan began pleadingly, knowing that the time had come to tell her the truth about himself, yet strangely reluctant to face the anger and disillusionment that would certainly follow.

  "No——" She shook her head firmly. "Don't tell me I have committed the bêtise, that I should be nice to my so-rich grandmother! Would you go back and eat humble pie if they had treated your parents so?"

  "Perhaps not. But "

  "If my grandmother wants me, she should take the trouble to come and see me herself," Nicole interrupted him.

  "She may be too old—or ill—" It was extraordinarily difficult to tell Nicole about Helen.

  "Then she should send someone—a relation or friend— not a paid agent," Nicki said proudly, and he thought, here we go, this is it . . . and gathered his breath to speak. But the tension was shattered dramatically by an appalling crashing noise in the back garden. Nicole and Jonathan were out of the inn before another word was spoken.

  "Dio mio. It's the rotten brach—Pietro has been out again, up to his tricks!" Nicki cried, as she ran swiftly down the garden, Jonathan hard on her heels. Sure enough the big branch of the tree that normally reached to Pietro's bedroom window was lying on the ground, and beneath it the still form of the boy.

  "Carissimo mio," the girl whispered, stooping over him, but the child was unconscious. She said with a little caught-back sob in her voice, "Sometimes he goes out at night, when he is supposed to be in bed, and climbs back along that branch. I begged Emilio to cut it down!"

  The moonlight shone down clearly on the pathetic scene, the broken jagged branch, the still boy. Jonathan said quietly, "He fell on the stones—his head is cut," and picked him up very carefully, carrying him into the kitchen and laying him flat on the table. In the glare of the two electric bulbs the injury was very plainly seen, and Nicole gave a small gasp and turned green. Jonathan paid no attention to her, he was busy exploring the gash in the boy's scalp with sensitive, probing fingers, after a rapid scrubbing up.

  His examination and the boy's breathing told their own story. There was a jagged fracture of the parietal, with the bone pressing on the brain. Very soon the boy would sink into a deep coma and die very quickly unless that pressure on the brain was removed.

  Jonathan thought quickly, assembling the facts. The boy should go straight into hospital, but by the time a motor-boat could be found he might well be dead. Again, he weighed the probable risk of moving the boy, of carrying him down the stone steps, of holding him for perhaps half an hour in the open, before he could be got into the hospital theatre at Lugano. There was no telephone within a mile of the albergo, and Jonathan did not know whether there would be a specialist of the sort he needed in a small town like Lugano. This was definitely an emergency such as he had dealt with often enough in the bombed villages around Ming-Dhu, under much worse conditions than the kitchen of the Albergo Fionetti; he decided that the risk of performing an immediate trephine here was less than the risk of waiting for transport. The medical etiquette of the situation might criticise his action, but the boy's life was at stake.

  He blessed himself suddenly for bringing his ins
truments with him, and Lucia for her everlasting kettles of boiling water.

  He said crisply to Nicole, "He has a bad fracture which is pressing on the brain; it needs lifting immediately—"

  "You will operate? Jonathan, you will do it yourself, quickly?" she beseeched him. Glancing at her, momentarily touched by the faith in her voice, he was pleased to see that the colour had returned to her face. His tone was grim, a trifle ironical, as he scrubbed-up again. So Lucia's kitchen sink was to be a theatre sink after all. Fortunately the table had a good surface, and was kept immaculately scrubbed; and the two electric lights were fairly bright.

  "Yes, I'll operate. God knows what they'll say about it at the hospital, but we have to hurry—"

  "Dio mio! Il poverissimo e morto!"

  Lucia, hastily dressed, stood in the doorway wringing her hands. Bianca, in her nightgown, peeped over her shoulder, her brown eyes bright with excitement and curiosity.

  "Take that child back to bed," Jonathan said harshly, and for once Lucia understood English, "and come and help Nicole. Pietro is not dead, but he has hurt himself badly. Subito, Lucia, pronto."

  "Si, si!" The old woman, vastly relieved that her ` was not dead and that the signore spoke with the voice of recognisable authority, bustled the staring Bianca away, and Jonathan turned to Nicole again.

  "I shall need help," he said clearly, almost gently, wondering if he was asking too much of this untrained girl. "Can you help me, or do you faint at the sight of blood ?"

  Her face was pale but composed. "I can help you," she answered quietly.

  "Good. Get my case down, will you? There are sterile gowns and masks, everything we shall need—" But she was gone, light of foot as a young deer, before he had finished. Good girl, he thought absently, as he moved a small table closer to the big one for his instruments and got his patient into a better position under the light. As long as she can obey orders without dithering or fainting, we may get through this. . . .