Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake

by The Inn by the Lake (lit)

  Certainly, he thought now, if he was shy about that damned basket, he need not be shy about his travelling companion; Nicki was behaving like any other well-bred young girl travelling with an uncle

  He saw his own face, reflected in the window, grinning at him boyishly as he remembered the assistant in the store, and Nicki's teasing, "You're not old enough to be my father, nor even my uncle!"

  "Only short by four or five years," he had retorted, smiling. But he felt quite old enough to be her father. Except at those odd moments when she was very grown-up and wise beyond her years.

  There had been trouble with Pietro. Bianca was de-lighted that Nicki was going to her rich grandmother. She anticipated all sorts of presents in the post, and imagined that she would be able to get round Francesca easier, especially during the first blithe months of her marriage to Emilio. But Pietro, irritable with the limitations of his convalescence, was not consoled easily.

  "I do not want Nicki to go away," he said firmly.

  "You will have the boat, caro, for your own," she had tried to console him.

  "But he—" Pietro was not grateful to Jonathan for saving his life. At ten years old the present is all that matters, and though he liked the Englishman, it seemed to Pietro that Jonathan was the person now restricting his activities. He felt well and strong; it was silly to keep on these two fat nurses, to make him rest so much. "—He says I must not row the boat, not for ages and ages! What is the use of having my own boat if I cannot use it?"

  "Emilio will take you out in it, at first," Nicole suggested quickly. "And after, it will always be yours. That is something, isn't it?"

  Pietro agreed, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. "I'm sorry, of course it is something. Always I have wanted a boat of my own. But I want to run, and row, and fish, and not lie here like an old man!"

  Jonathan grinned. He understood enough Italian now to follow the little boy's disgusted remarks. He knew that it was only natural for Pietro to be disgruntled, a sign of returning strength; naturally the child could not under-stand what a narrow escape he had had, nor how blessed he was to have missed any permanent injury to the brain,

  "Look here, old man, it is just because I want you to be able to do all those things soon that you must be patient a little longer," he said firmly. Pietro stared at him crossly, "And Dr. Adler agrees with me. You believe what Dr, Adler says, don't you?"

  Suddenly the small brown face was irradiated with a smile that made it almost angelic. "He's all right. He knows about fishing and climbing trees, too. Once when he was a boy he fell out of a tree, stealing walnuts, and broke his leg—"

  "Well, you broke your head, and that takes a bit longer to mend," Jonathan reminded him dryly, "and you've been sensible enough. Don't let Nicki go away worrying about you, thinking that as soon as her back is turned you will be up to tricks again."

  "He has promised me to be good." Nicole said it in English and Italian to make sure. "And Pietro does not break his word."

  "All the same, I do not want you to take Nicki away, Those nurses are a bore; she is the only person who has time to read to me," Pietro grumbled sullenly.

  Jonathan was worried about the boy. He did not want to leave him so discontented; it might undo all their careful work. He said impulsively, "Pietro, we have good fishing in England, too, where I live. How would you like to come and stay at Combe Castleton later in the summer, before you go back to school?"

  The question was sufficiently answered by the rapid change in the boy's expression. Behind him Jonathan heard a little indrawn gasp of breath from Nicki, and she spoke for both of them when she whirled round to him, hands outstretched, eyes shining. "Oh, Jonathan, do you think he could? But—would Grand'mère object?"

  The small thin brown hand on the coverlet gripped Jonathan's convulsively, and he grew reckless. He said gaily, "If she does, Pietro can come and stay with me. That is not very far from Osterley House, and much nearer the sea."

  "Thank you—thank you!" Pietro whispered in English, HO that his friend could not possibly misunderstand all he felt. Nicole's eyes thanked him without words, and he knew that however this promise complicated things, however busy he might be when he got home, Pietro must come to Combe Castleton before the summer was over. As he got up he loomed large with mock severity. "Only if you behave yourself now," he warned gently, "and do exactly what Dr. Adler tells you."

  "Si, si! Bianca will want to come too, but a girl is a nuisance when men want to go fishing."

  "Bianca has not had to lie still for so long," Jonathan smiled down on the boy in a purely masculine conspiracy, "so you shall come alone this time. Next summer perhaps we can have Bianca, too."

  Satisfied, already dreaming dreams, Pietro had lain back on his pillow and they had left him. Outside the door Nicki had asked nervously, "Is he not a little young, to travel alone?" and Jonathan had shaken his head. "He can be put in charge of one of the couriers; he is perfectly sensible, and I think the responsibility will do him good."

  So in the end they had left everyone at the albergo reasonably happy, though there were tears in old Lucia's eyes as she stiffly embraced them, and Bianca cried copiously when she actually saw Nicki stepping into the motor-boat.

  Nicole had no qualms about watching Jonathan asleep, later, when he returned to the carriage and composed him-self in his corner opposite, and after a little while she woke up. In the dim blue light from the small bulbs everything looked strange, unreal, and the elderly man in the other comer was snoring in his sleep. It took Nicki, who had been dreaming of climbing San Salvatore in search of gentians, a few seconds to remember where she was. It must be late, for there was no chatter down the length of the train, and no lights shone through the dark night outside, yet it was not midnight or they would be drawing into Basle.

  Nicole was concentrating on Jonathan, trying not to think about the Fionettis, about leaving the albergo. Everything was unreal in this strange blue light, and most of all the fact that she, Nicole Berenger, was actually at last on her way to England, to visit the house wherein she had vowed hotly never to set foot! Sometimes her sense of fairness told Nicki that she was doing the right thing, sometimes she almost hated Jonathan for having broken down the emotional barriers she had erected so carefully against her English grandmother. . . . But most of all, when the realisation of what she was doing flashed upon her, she was frightened.

  Frightened of the unknown.

  What did she know, after all, of her grandmother, except that she had allowed her own daughter to be treated very badly, and was now a regretful, frail old lady longing to make amends ... ? Everything nice about Helen Stannisford had come to her from Jonathan and hit Uncle Steve, and men were so easily taken in, especially nice men. . . .

  Yet, looking at the firm, assured sleeping face opposite her, Nicole could not really believe that Jonathan was easily taken in by women's lies. Once upon a time, perhaps, but not now— She wished he had treated her as a grown-up confidante, and told her about the woman who had made his mouth set in that firm line; he was sufficiently fond of her now to talk to her about so many things, but Nicole knew that he still thought of her as a child. How could she ever convince him, she thought despairingly, that she was a woman grown, capable of loving a man, of making him happy, of bearing his children, of comforting him when he needed comfort, of flying to him for succour when the roles were reversed? But perhaps he truly was content with his work; it was a very wonderful work to be doing in this troubled world.

  She felt like a child now0 alone in this dim, blue world with two sleeping men, while the train went swiftly right across Switzerland from the south-east corner to the northwest. Her beloved Switzerland, her adopted country... Soon they would be at the frontier, and then in France. But after what had happened to her father in his own country, Nicole had no nostalgia for France. Clean, kind, friendly Switzerland was her home now. . . .

  They had promised her she could go back to Lugano if she grew too home-sick, if the experiment at Os
terley House failed; but it would never be the same again. In a few weeks Emilio would be married to his Francesca; they would not need her any more. Lucia in her great age, Bianca and Pietro in their childhood, lived wholly in the day and would soon forget her. Nicole realised for the first time in her life that she was indeed an orphan, without a home, without relatives, except this stranger who was her grandmother. She had been happy enough until Jonathan had come and exploded her fairy-tale. For a moment she almost hated him, she was so scared of the immediate future. She wondered if it would be possible to run away at Basle, to lose herself in the crowd when they changed trains, until she remembered that her basket had gone on ahead. That basket contained all her few treasures, she could not leave it abandoned at Victoria

  "Cheer up, Nicki, we'll soon be there," a deep voice said quietly, and Jonathan was leaning across the compartment to hold her trembling hands in his strong ones that were so firm and warm, so she was not alone after all.

  "I was frightened," she admitted in a small voice. "I think it's this horrible blue light."

  "I'll get you a hot drink at Basle; you'll feel better when you can go to bed properly."

  The old man in the corner grunted, and Jonathan withdrew his hands unhurriedly, with a little reassuring pres-sure. "You can see the lights of the station now."

  It was true, and all at once Nicole's fears diminished, and she busied herself putting on the absurd hat, ashamed to meet his quizzical regard. She had been telling herself that she was a woman grown, but always with Jonathan she behaved like a child! Yet she wished secretly he had not reserved wagon-lits for the next part of the journey. They would be shut up in separate boxes until daylight, and she would be alone again.

  It was a ghostly business, changing trains at midnight, carried out swiftly, almost silently, except by a group of English tourists who made a great fuss about finding their couchettes; there was apparently some confusion over numbers, and strident middle-aged voices argued interminably in the quiet station, in atrocious French that had to be shouted for the benefit of apparently deaf officials.

  "Silly cackling hens! Can't they see people are trying to sleep in both these trains?" Jonathan commented irritably. The Customs examination of their hand baggage was swift and perfunctory. "Now you see why it is sensible to register the big stuff right through," he added with a smile at Nicole. "It gives us time here for a drink. Come on."

  She chuckled, completely restored to equability. Silly cackling hens was so apt a description of the fluttering, arguing, over-tired females on the platform outside. In the all-night buffet it was bright and warm, and their coffee and sandwiches arrived promptly. A young Swiss courier sat at their table, bolting coffee and yawning. He told them he was a university student who took on this job during the vacation to earn a bit extra. "But I had to meet a train at six this morning," he grinned engagingly, "and I feel as if I had not seen my bed for a week! Now for those—" and he used a word that was far more uncomplimentary than cackling hens, leaving Nicki and Jonathan convulsed.

  "He is bavard, that one, but nice," she said, and he was conscious of a faint prickling feeling of jealousy. The young student's eyes had hardly left Nicole's face.

  Jonathan pulled his thoughts up smartly. Nicole Berenger was an attractive girl, naturally people would stare at her; he was taking her out into the world, helping her towards a life in which she would take her place in society, equipped with the cash, the clothes, the grooming that was her right; from now on young men would certainly pursue her. He wasn't in love with the child himself; he must not be a miserable dog-in-the-manger. Yet some-how Jonathan felt that Nicole was his discovery, his little protégée, and he did heartily dislike that gleam in the young fellow's brown eyes.

  "What's the matter, Jonathan?" She was looking at him with startled amusement. "You look as though you want to go and—and fight with someone!"

  He grinned disarmingly. "Maybe I do. But there isn't time." He felt in his pocket and slipped a tablet into the remains of her drink. "That is to make you sleep on the train. I can't produce you looking a wreck."

  "But we have a night in London?" she asked faintly. Their English train did not get to Victoria until four in the afternoon, and Jonathan had decreed that they stay in the capital overnight. He had wired reserving rooms at a quiet but good hotel in Park Lane.

  Now he nodded. "Yes, but all these hours of travelling are tiring, little one. Drink that up like a good girl."

  Their wagon-lits were already made up for the night, and they were not adjoining. The attendant accepted Jonathan's tip with smiling thanks and fussed a little over seeing that Nicole had everything she required—enough blankets, fresh water in the carafe, the promise of morning tea. It amused her that the man took her for an English girl, but she was too sleepy to startle him with a spate of French. Jonathan bade her good-night almost formally. "We will have breakfast in the dining-car, and lunch at Calais."

  She was asleep almost before the attendant had closed the sleeping compartment and she had climbed into her night-wear. It was funny, going to sleep on a comfortable bunk in this little box, she thought dreamily, and blessed Jonathan for his tablet. She was more tired than she had realised. When she woke it was to find the bright morning sun streaming in at the window, and the flat landscape of northern France flashing past, and the attendant at her elbow with the promised cup of tea.

  The rest of the journey seemed to Nicole to flash past like that landscape. The Channel steamer seemed enormous to her; it was the Cote d'Azur, a new French boat that carried the luxury passengers of the Golden Arrow as well as themselves, and it amused her to see what a fuss the attendants and stewards made over them for the short Channel crossing. The sea was sparkling brilliantly, and she leaned over the railing with Jonathan to catch her first glimpse of the cliffs of Folkestone, excited in spite of her forebodings, and inwardly delighted to hear the chatter of French tongues all about her.

  "What are you so amused about?" he demanded once, pleased to note that the shadows had left her face.

  She chuckled mischievously. "They think, because I am with you, that I am English," she whispered, with a backward glance at a group of stewards, "and they talk perhaps too freely about the passengers!"

  She became more subdued when they embarked on the English train. Jonathan had pointed out the blue skies, the sunshine, the wheeling gulls of the port. "You see, it is not always raining in England!"

  The hop fields of Kent appealed to her at once. "They are like vineyards!" she cried with pleasure. But the tea they had on the English train was served by men with sour faces who did not smile and bow when they were tipped, and all the French people seemed to have disappeared. The sight of her beloved basket in the Customs at Victoria cheered her as much as it depressed Jonathan, and then they were in the taxi, speeding through what seemed to Nicole the biggest city in the world. It was worse than the Paris she remembered as a child, noisier, more filled with people, and enormous red buses and cars—cars everywhere. She became silent and shy in the foyer of the hotel, feeling a gauche schoolgirl again under the hard stares of the receptionist and the commissionaire and the bell-boys, and when she discovered that Jonathan had booked her a room two floors away from his own she was almost panic-stricken.

  "My little goose, you can always use the telephone if you want to talk to me. Uncle Steve and your grandmother would never forgive me if I compromised your—er—reputation," he told her in a dry, amused voice. It was the first time Nicole realised that she had a 'reputation' to compromise, and she could have laughed if she had not felt suddenly alone again, terribly alone in this enormous hotel, with its soft-carpeted passages and masses of flowers and its supercilious staff.

  "Jonathan," she appealed to him suddenly, gently, "must we eat here? This place is so big?" She spoke in French and he was grateful for her tact, and answered in the same language.

  "Of course we can eat elsewhere if you like. Go and have a bath, little one, and change into your blac
k dress. and I will show you something of London. And Nicki—" He moved closer to her, oblivious of the waiting page dangling the key of her room from an impatient hand, forgetting even the amusement her basket had caused. "Don't let a hotel frighten you—or anything, ever! Promise?"

  "I promise," she answered, much more bravely than she felt, and followed the page into the gilded lift.

  Of course, he had been a fool to bring Nicole to a hotel like this, Jonathan thought savagely, as he changed into a dark suit after his bath. That bath, at the end of twenty, four hours' travelling, had been tremendously refreshing. He smiled suddenly at his own reflection in the mirror of the wardrobe, hoping that at least Nicki had enjoyed the luxury of a private bathroom. The change in her way of life, the long journey, the fear of the unknown, were all confusing enough, without having to face unnecessary ordeals like this hotel... though at least he had spared her the Dorchester, he thought dryly.

  It would have been better to book at one of the smaller, family hotels, but he knew so few of them, and he had wired this one with the mistaken idea that Nicki might like to experiment with a little luxury before meeting her grandmother. Jonathan's knowledge of London was limited to two extremes—the poverty of his student days and his mother's tiny flat in Bayswater, and Harley Street and this sort of hotel, where his secretary automatically made his reservations when he had to visit London. Here at least they knew him, and he wondered with genuine amusement what they were now thinking of his latest acquisition, Nicole and her basket. He had been tempted to send that basket straight through to Osterley House, once it was retrieved from the Customs, but the child's joy at seeing it again—and the possibility that she might need some of the contents—made him relent. It had come in the taxi, with his instrument case. Each to his own taste, he thought, and he thought in the French proverb. Nicole was improving his fairly-adequate French daily.