by Susan Barrie
“It’s not very deep, and will only require a stitch or two. Thank heaven it wasn’t an artery!”
“Only a stitch or two!” Gresham exploded volubly “Do you realise that this young woman is quite unsuited for this sort of job, and yet you allow her to act like a barmaid in order to attract custom to your beastly hotel! Toinette, why in the world did you allow yourself to be thrust into this impossible position?”
Toni, feeling slightly sick, realised nothing of what he was saying to her. Antoine picked her up in his arms and carried her along the terrace and into his own private office, where he ordered a hovering waiter to bring her a small glass of Cognac, and placed her on a settee. Then he went to a medicine cabinet in a corner and brought out a roll of gauze and some antiseptic, and knelt down and bandaged her hand.
“We’ll get a doctor to attend to this,” he said quietly, “but this will stop the bleeding and make you feel more comfortable until he arrives.” His dark eyes smiled at her, and although she was in no condition to respond Toni felt as if she was actually warmed and comforted by that smile. She whispered huskily:
“I’m sorry about all that broken glass...”
“My dear girl, accidents will happen, and the only thing that matters is that you weren’t badly cut by it.”
“What about that crack on her head?” Gresham demanded, from behind the settee. The brandy had arrived, and Toni felt considerably revived after a sip or two of it, and she protested instantly:
“But it wasn’t anyone’s fault! Honestly, it wasn’t! I was a little slow in getting clear of the doors, and—”
“Of course you were slow!” Gresham exclaimed, with the same uncontrolled violence. “Who wouldn’t be slow if they were a girl of your size burdened by an outsize tray literally crammed with drinks? I saw it all, so I know!”
“Have another swig of this,” Antoine appealed, almost humbly, to Toni, at the same time supporting her with his arm as she sat up on the settee, and holding the brandy glass to her lips. He ignored Gresham as if he wasn’t in the same room with them. “Believe me, you’re not likely to get tight on it!” smiling once more with his eyes, although his face was still a little white and grim. She felt his arm tighten about her, and unless the blow on her head had had an extraordinary effect, and was causing her hallucinations, he suddenly brought his mouth very close to her hair, and the bump that was rising rapidly underneath it, and said in a choked kind of undertone:
“Oh, darling! ... Oh, Liebling!”
Marianne came hurrying suddenly into the room, and, her face a picture of astonishment, backed by the maximum of impatience, exclaimed with a sharp edge of exasperation to her tone:
“What is all this? Somebody told me Toinette had dropped a tray and had a serious smash! Really, Toinette, you will have to be more careful! What with the breakages, and the loss of an expensive bottle of wine—!”
Antoine stood up, and regarded her with bleak eyes. “Forget the breakages and the wine, and get the doctor on the telephone. Tell him I’d like him to come here immediately.”
“But surely that isn’t necessary...?”
“Do as I tell you,” he snapped, bringing a crimson stain to her cheeks. “And what is the number of Miss Darcy’s room, by the way?”
The crimson stain became a wildly spreading flush. “It hasn’t a number. It’s one of the staff rooms, up in the attics.”
“What!”
She floundered on, looking suddenly defiant.
“You told me she was to be treated as staff, and I have treated her as staff. The attic rooms are quite comfortable, in addition to which they have a superb view ... if Miss Darcy appreciates views!”
“You seem to have forgotten it was agreed when we took over the hotel that the attic rooms were only to be used when the hotel was filled to overflowing,” Kurt reminded her icily. “They have no lift, and few amenities, and certainly I didn’t imagine for one moment that you had put Miss Darcy into one of them. In addition to being on her feet almost all day—or she was until I insisted that she was taken off the floors—she has had to toil up two flights of stairs, since the top floor isn’t yet served by a lift, either, and probably descend to the lower floor for washing facilities.”
Marianne shrugged.
“There is another girl up there who has to do the same.”
“Then that girl can also be removed and accommodated elsewhere. And as for Miss Darcy, you will find her a room on a floor that is served by a lift—one of the lower floors—and you will do it immediately, and report to me as soon as the room is ready. Then you will apply a cold compress to this bump that is rising under her hair, and repeat the process until the doctor arrives.”
“Yes, Kurt,” she said, as if she had suddenly become very meek.
When she had left the room Philip Gresham said with a kind of triumph:
“So you even stuck the poor girl away in an attic! Well, it’s a little late to start the softening-up process now...” He went across to Toni and stood looking down at her. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be deceived by this sudden concern, and I’d be prepared to leave here at very short notice. And, once you leave, you’ll never come back ... I can assure you of that!”
“Have you any authority for making a statement of that kind?” Kurt Antoine enquired, with narrowed eyes.
Gresham smiled in a somewhat peculiar fashion. “Oh, yes, I’ve authority ... But I’m not spilling the beans at this particular juncture!”
Antoine said curtly:
“I think Miss Darcy would feel better if she were allowed a little quiet for a while. Do you mind leaving? After all, this is my private office!”
Gresham looked meaningly across at Toni.
“For once, my dear, you’re allowed to disturb the sanctity of the private office!” he observed. “Don’t let it go to your head!”
As soon as they were alone Antoine returned to Toni’s side, and picked up her bandaged hand and held it very gently between both his own.
“Would you like to think you were going to leave here soon, and never come back again, Toinette?” he asked.
She shook her head. Through the bandage she could feel the strength and the warmth and the protectiveness of his hands, and her heart expanded as it had never done before in the whole of her lifetime. “No,” she said.
His eyes glowed at her as if warm fires lurked at the back of them.
“I’m glad of that,” he said softly. “Very glad!
And he carried the bandaged hand up to his face and held it there.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE room Marianne prepared for Toni had the same amount of luxury as all the hotel bedrooms, and when Toni saw it for the first time she could hardly believe her eyes. She was borne up to it in the lift, with her employer’s arm supporting her; and no sooner was she installed than the doctor arrived, and pronounced that there was no glass in the cut on her hand, and that the lump on her head would soon subside.
“Carry on with the cold compresses,” he said to Marianne, who had had a pail of ice brought to the room, “and then let her rest. She’ll probably have a nasty headache for a day or so, but it’ll wear off in time.” He smiled at Toni. “In any case, I’ll send along some tablets that will help matters considerably.”
In the morning Toni felt so much better that she wanted to protest when breakfast was brought to her in bed.
Marianne carried the tray to her, and looked at her critically as she placed it on a small table which was slung across the bed.
“I should remain where you are until the doctor has seen you again,” she advised. “You look all right to me, but I’ve already incurred the wrath of our joint employer for treating you as I would treat any other girl who was employed here, and I don’t wish to have the matter raised again.”
She left the room with tight lips and reserved eyes, and Toni tackled the rolls and coffee on the tray and was surprised to discover that she had quite an appetite.
At eleven o’clock he
r room telephone rang, and her employer enquired whether she had had a good night.
She was already bathed and dressed, and waiting to receive some sort of summons to his office, and she answered swiftly that she had slept very well and was feeling like someone guilty of a piece of deception.
“I’m quite capable of getting on with the job, if you agree,” she said. “In fact, I’d prefer it to pretending to be an invalid up here.”
But he answered with a crisp note in his voice; “You’ll do nothing of the kind! You’ll do no work at all for the next forty-eight hours, at least. And I’d like to have a talk with you if you don’t mind my coming upstairs to your room.”
As well as the crispness in his voice there was a touch of the old formality. For some reason her heart sank. She even felt curiously disappointed.
“Of course,” she answered. “But there’s no reason at all why you should come up here to me. I could come down to you.”
“Very well,” he replied, and the formality seemed more noticeable. “But don’t forget to take the lift.”
In his office he placed a chair for her. It was a sparklingly beautiful mountain morning, with a buzz of conversation outside the windows. As yet the heat was not really great, and it was too early for aperitifs. Toni had a mental picture of the terrace, with couples lounging comfortably in long chairs and the low murmur of mountain cascades filling the air around them.
Kurt Antoine looked at her almost as long and as critically as Marianne had done. She was wearing a blue dress, and it made her look pale—in fact, definitely fragile. There were slight shadows under her eyes, and the eyes themselves looked very large and a little on the defensive. She was conscious of his look focusing on her bandaged wrist.
“Is that giving you any trouble?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“None at all.”
He paced up and down the room for a minute, and then took his place behind his desk.
“How do you like your new room?” he asked.
Instantly her whole face registered pleasure.
“It’s a beautiful room. But I don’t know why you thought it necessary to give me anything so luxurious.”
“Don’t you?” His dark eyes flashed to her face and then he looked away again quickly. “Toinette, I would like you to believe me when I tell you I had no idea you had been stowed away up there in the attics. You should have protested ... At least, you should not have suffered in silence. And then I could have ordered your removal to a more suitable room long ago.”
She answered gravely:
“But I never expected luxury, and the only real trial about the room was having to climb up to it. As Mademoiselle Raveaux said, there was a wonderful view.”
“Not strictly necessary when you’ve been on your feet all day and are feeling tired,” he observed.
A whimsical expression crossed her face.
“I was never given one of the best bedrooms when I was working for Mrs. Van Ecker,” she remarked.
His face looked cold and forbidding.
“I dislike to think of Mrs. Van Ecker,” he replied.
Suddenly he pushed away a letter in front of him, rose and once more stood in front of her.
“For the next few days you will take things easily,” he said—or rather ordered. “You will behave as if you were a guest in the hotel. I shall be very annoyed if I catch you doing anything at all that could be described as work. Do you understand?”
Dark eyes and large, faintly bewildered ones met, and then Toni—wondering with a sharp sensation of wryness what had happened to the man who had whispered something like Liebling against her hair nodded.
“You are very kind, but it is quite unnecessary to treat me as if I’m an invalid. I’m quite capable of light duties—even strenuous ones if necessary.”
“Nevertheless, you will do as I say.” His tone and look reminded her so much of their first encounter on a mountainside that she recoiled. “You will get up when you feel like it, eat what and when you will behave like all the other guests in the hotel. Anything you require will be brought to you—anything, you understand? I do not recommend that you mix with the guests—certainly not Philip Gresham—” his mouth hardening, “but there is no reason why you should be dull. Take a reasonable amount of exercise, but for the most part rest. And if you have any trouble with that hand—let me know at once.”
“I will,” she promised.
She realised that he was waiting for her to leave the room. The interview was over, and his hand was already hovering over the bell on his desk. He was considerate, punctilious ... probably suffering from a guilty conscience, but withdrawn into himself and no longer really human.
She wondered in a vague sort of a way whether he really had practically carried her upstairs to her room the evening before, and sat beside her bed while Marianne placed the compresses on her head, or whether she had imagined it. But he was certainly treating her with the utmost consideration now.
Outside his door she ran into Pierre, who was full of concern for her and relieved to see that she was actually back on her feet. And as she crossed the main entrance hall she came face to face with Philip Gresham.
Instantly he put an arm about her shoulders, as if quite sure his support was needed.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, “so they refuse to make an invalid of you, do they? You should be in bed, resting.”
“I don’t need any more rest than I have already had,” she answered, withdrawing rather noticeably from his protective hold. “I’ve had a good night and I’m more or less myself again.”
“More or less,” he agreed, studying her with appreciation. “But you’re much too pale, and you look as if you’ve still got a bit of a headache. With the kind of lump you received on the head yesterday afternoon, I don’t wonder at it.”
She attempted to move towards the lift, but he followed her.
“It will only be for a short time longer,” he prophesied mysteriously. “I give you my word they won’t be able to push you around much longer. But be careful of that Mademoiselle Raveaux. She’s quite inhuman, but Antoine has implicit confidence in her. Oh, I know he gave her a bit of a dressing-down yesterday, but that was because you gave him a bit of a fright. For the same reason he put himself out to be human to you. But don’t let either of them deceive you. They’re tough as nuts!”
Toni pushed past him into the lift.
“I’m going to rest in my room,” she said.
He patted her shoulder.
“Poor little soul! How anyone could employ a girl like you as a chambermaid...!” He clenched his teeth. “A barmaid...!”
For the next week Toni led a most unusual life ... for her.
Never in her days of servitude with Mrs. Van Ecker had she known what it was like to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, or make plans for her own entertainment once breakfast was over. Since her arrival at the Hotel Rosenhorn she had certainly had few opportunities to be leisurely about anything until now.
A reproving look and a sharp word would have rewarded her, if she had been caught sauntering leisurely across the main entrance hall.
But now it was just a little difficult to know what to do with her day.
Kurt had made it clear that she was to do nothing, and from morning till night her time was her own. She sat on the terrace and read magazines and books, and enjoyed the sheer loveliness of the hotel setting and the breathtaking beauty of the weather.
The brilliant days held. Only once or twice was there any suggestion of mist about the high peaks, and in the valley in the early mornings. Hotel guests who really were guests had a wonderful time, taking packed lunches with them on to dizzy ledges, and driving into Innsbruck for relaxation in the evenings. Some remained in the hotel, dancing, making love in sheltered corners of the terrace or the gardens. Every night the stars blazed in the clear sky, and the sky itself looked like an inverted bowl of crushed gentians.
It was all right for the holidaymaker
s, for they had lots of clothes to change into and with which to dazzle their fellow guests. Toni, apart from the couple of frocks she had bought in Innsbruck, had very little to change into. She felt slightly noticeable at times, drifting rather forlornly about the hotel, her bandaged hand showing up whitely against her gay cottons. She grew suntanned as a result of taking many walks— particularly on surrounding mountain paths; and at night she tried to look as inconspicuous as possible in the large dining-room.
She had been allocated a small table near the main window, from which she could look out over the terrace and the garden; and she took refuge in the view whenever she felt eyes were on her.
Philip Gresham had wanted to share the table with her, but Kurt Antoine had seen to it that he retained his place at his own table. A waiter, requested to place another chair at the small, flower-decked table near the window, pretended not to see the note that was extended towards him by way of a bribe, and explained that the management preferred the small table to be occupied by one only.
Philip frowned, but beat a peaceful retreat—after bending over Toni and reminding her in a whisper that it would not be for long. She would not have to sit alone much longer!
Toni wished he would not repeatedly make these mysterious references to some future condition which must be pure romancing on his part—or perhaps wishful thinking, since he was undoubtedly rather more than interested in her himself.
His eyes watched her constantly whenever they were in the same room together, and there was a queer, glinting satisfaction in them at times which puzzled and vaguely alarmed her.