The Little Hotel

by Christina Stead

  ‘Well, that’s all right,’ I said to Mrs Trollope.

  ‘But in that will, Madame, I was named for my share and you see they will now inherit everything as next of kin and there will be endless trouble if Robert should die intestate. What am I saying? Think what has happened to me to bring me to say such a thing! He has never made a will since. You don’t understand why I worry. He has a lot of my property in his hands; he controls it and can make it his if he wants to. For since the time we left Malaya he has made every effort to get my property slowly into his hands. He has so changed.’

  Mrs Trollope wrung her hands.

  ‘All that I held onto myself is some ten thousand pounds which I am gradually bringing to Switzerland. But now I have refused to bring out any more. Supposing I am left alone? And he can’t forgive me. I gave him control of everything in the beginning, for I thought of him as my husband. I don’t want to wander all over the world and calculate those “switches” as Robert calls them. I would rather lose half my money. He does not trust me now. I have made such arrangements with him that I cannot get my money back without a lawsuit. And that I could never bring myself to do.’

  ‘Go to a lawyer anyway, it won’t come to a lawsuit,’ I said, looking at her face, and troubled.

  Suddenly, she exclaimed: ‘Why, it’s getting dark! Oh, what did the poor sparrows think of me? Robert must be waiting for his drink. He never drinks without me.’

  She ran upstairs.

  Upstairs she said: ‘Oh, Robert, let us think of somewhere better to go. Let us find a livelier place.’

  ‘Yes. You know, out there, I fancied I could never drink anything but whisky, and then you know, the few small gins half an hour before dinner. And I’ve got quite used to them; but I fancy I could change.’

  ‘Oh, Robert, I have never got used to this lonely life. Out there, people were dropping in all day. I was happy all day, laughing. You remember? Here it is silence from morning to night. I never had to think of getting friends; and I had my dear children with me. Now, I talk to anyone.’

  ‘Well, perhaps next year we will go to Tangiers or Marrakesh. I don’t want you to feel miserable.’

  ‘That is a very kind word, Robert.’

  ‘If you buy me the car,’ said Robert.

  But the next morning Mrs Trollope came back looking very tired. She had been to church, where she had spent a very long time praying to Saint Anselm, her own particular saint. Her name as a girl had been Anselm. Somehow she had got no hope from him. She had begged him to show her what to do about Robert and her future life; she had begged him too to help her in finding the lost hundred francs; but no help had come to her.

  She had gone to the hairdresser’s where she met Madame Blaise, and afterwards they had taken too long a walk. Madame Blaise had gone into one of the big jewellers in town, and though she was always short of cash she had had a hundred-franc note changed, when she bought some of the snake rings they were all mad about then.

  She lay down after lunch, for that evening they had the dinner for the Blaises, to which they had now also invited the Pallintosts and their acquaintance Princess Bili di Rovino, who had just come back to the hotel. The Princess was an American, rich, old and the widow of an Italian prince. Lilia said to Robert:

  ‘I am going later to spend the afternoon with the Princess. We are having tea at the Lausanne Palace. Shall you come?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Lilia. I went to the bank this morning and I don’t know what is the matter with that chap; his rates are wrong. So I must go this afternoon and see the manager.’

  ‘The Princess thought you were going to take Angel for a walk,’ said Lilia, referring to the Princess’s pet Sealyham. ‘Couldn’t you take him with you to the bank? I should like to have a quiet chat with Bili.’

  ‘Oh, I hate to be bothered with any more nonsense about Angel. Yesterday I had to buy him a worm-powder and a leash. Do you think I enjoyed that?’

  ‘Yes, but the Princess has been so good to us.’

  ‘No, I shall not take him to the bank.’

  ‘But you know the Princess must leave him in her room. He howls; well, she says he is singing; and he spoils the bedcovers and they are going to charge her double. Do please, Robert, take him; you promised.’

  ‘Oh, very well; but it’s a nuisance; and I shall lose my nap.’

  When Mr Wilkins had gone off to get the dog, Mrs Trollope lay down and called Luisa, who was counting the hotel laundry.

  ‘I am too nervous, Luisa, to sleep. So tell me when you are going to take your holiday. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you with my poor head. But then you need it. Look at your legs.’

  ‘I am not going to take my holiday,’ said Luisa shortly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t wish to.’

  ‘You can’t work the whole year day and night and take no holiday.’

  ‘I don’t wish to. It doesn’t please me.’

  ‘You don’t want to see your mother, father, fiancé, your little sister?’

  Mrs Trollope heard Clara out on the landing and called her:

  ‘Clara, come here, venez ici.’

  She expostulated, explained that Luisa would not go and see her parents. She kissed Luisa on the cheek and hand, begged her to go, said she did not know what a mother felt, told Clara she must force Luisa to go. The wiry weathered blonde grinned, stood with her arms akimbo, said in her slapdash manner:

  ‘You are quite right, Luisa, not to take your holiday. I had two weeks’ holiday in the beginning of the year and I assure you I only just got my bones undone when I had to put them together again; and when I came back it took me a week to recover. Now, Thursday was my day off and I spent the whole day in bed. That made me unfit for work. On Friday I felt worse and I took some vermouth with Charlie, so that things would not look so black, and on Saturday I felt worse than Friday. The same thing when you sleep. Lots of nights you don’t sleep. Then you can easily get up at six, but you don’t feel well; and you walk about with your eyes half shut. People are not to be blamed for thinking you went on the binge the night before. Other nights you sleep and you try to wake up at six; but it is perfect misery; you wish you were dead. One morning I overslept, Madame bawled me out; the next night I stayed up all night; at least I was good and drunk at six o’clock; and things didn’t seem bad; but later on, oh, my. So what is the use of sleeping, what is the use of a day off, what is the use of holidays? Work until you drop, until the doctor has to come, I say; and then perhaps you can get a whole month’s holiday in bed, which is the only place to spend it. Once I broke my legs on the stairs and got three months’ holiday. Now Charlie nearly broke his back, has had a floating kidney, and his heart is thumping, and I think it was carrying the new elevator up from the lower street-level, where they left it. Mr Bonnard said: “Bring up the lift, Charlie.” I saw him and I said: “You’re crazy, Charlie, let it rot downstairs; let them get some men. You’re a porter but not an elephant. Why don’t they ask you to shift the whole hotel to another site?” He said: “I used to be able to lift more than this, I was so strong, but now I’m sixty-nine.” I said: “You’re mad, Charlie; no one will wear his eyes out weeping for you when you’re dead; even I won’t. I’ll say, That crazy Charlie.” He said: “Oh, they expect me to do it.” Then he was in bed ten days. I swear that finished him. He’s a wreck now. They’ll throw him out of here. But he said: “You see, I got ten days in bed.” I said: “They’ll throw you out for loafing on them.” He said: “So I’ll get a good rest before I take to the road.” Eh! What do you think of that, Madame?’

  Luisa said: ‘You see, Madame, I like a holiday at home; but my sister is married and can only see her husband two weeks a year; so this year she can have my holiday too, four weeks.’

  The two servants went out and began again on the laundry lists.

  Mrs Trollope turned restlessly till it was time to get up. She was nervous and undecided what to tell Princess Bili. She had made Bili
a promise before Bili’s last trip to Rome; and she had not been able to carry it out. Presently she went out up the hill and met the Princess in the tea-room, where they had a long talk; and then they both came back to the little hotel, to get the dog. Bili took the dog from Mr Wilkins and went to her room till it was time for drinks. Mrs Trollope went to her room.

  ‘I’m afraid Bili insists upon bringing Angel to the dinner. She thinks someone may see Angel and want him.’

  ‘Oh, blast Angel. Do you know what happened? You know that leash I bought him yesterday for two francs fifty. I was sitting on the bench on the esplanade; and he chewed it off and ate it right up to my wrist. I had to buy him another which cost me six francs fifty.’

  ‘He is such a naughty boy. I knew that thin leash would not hold him.’

  Lilia went into her room and shut the door. It was not long before she heard Madame Blaise’s signal.

  ‘Liliali, wherever have you been? Come and fix my hair for me, something special for dinner. If we are to have the Princess with us and the English people. Dr Blaise and I fancied we were going to dine with you alone.’

  ‘Oh, Robert thought we would have an all-in party; it will be gayer.’

  At five-thirty they passed through the two doors into Mr Wilkins’s room as usual for their drinks. About six-thirty there was a knock at the door and in came the Princess in dinner dress, leading Angel by the new leash bought by Mr Wilkins that afternoon.

  ‘Bili, I do wish you would leave that dog at home,’ said Mr Wilkins.

  The Princess exclaimed at once:

  ‘Now, Robert, do not make a fuss about poor Angel. I cannot leave him at the hotel. He has been running up and downstairs all day, no one could catch him, he ran in and out of the dining-room and kitchen. He is so very naughty. The maids say they won’t go into our room to make up our beds, for he runs out. Then when I am away they say he practises singing to try to call me back. Sometimes he howls sadly, they say, and the guests complain. There are old people in these hotels who are very touchy. Herr Altstadt complained today. He knows us and he will be good with us. Everyone loves you, Angel.’

  The old doctor smiled maliciously, while Mr Wilkins looked down his nose.

  Madame Blaise said: ‘Lilia, why didn’t you tell me you were going to dress? I shall go and put on my new hat. You know you prevented me from wearing it and now I shall ruin my lovely hair do.’

  Lilia, after looking for a moment, said:

  ‘Bili, we weren’t dressing, dear.’

  Bili said: ‘Oh, I got dressed now; I can’t undress. I shall stay as I am; no one will mind. Why don’t you put on a dinner dress, Lilia?’

  ‘Please go back and change, Princess,’ said Mr Wilkins drily.

  ‘I really feel myself this way; do let’s have a pleasant evening,’ said the Princess.

  They argued with her and it ended with Madame Blaise going out to put on her new hat, and Mrs Trollope changing her dress. The Princess remained. The setting sun shone from their right into the room, and the Princess standing at the window could see an enormous Roman pillar of fire, immensely high, apparently reaching beyond the lake into the deep mist which hung above it and hid the mountains of Haute-Savoie. The sun was pale blood-red and so was the pillar of fire. Flights of sparrows flying home dispersed as raindrops. In a few minutes the first bat would appear. Blackbirds were tinkling and fighting round the lawns and trees. The setting sun made a pillar of fire of the Princess too, a tall figure surrounded with small running fires.

  Her bright yellow hair was dressed with flowers and gauze. She wore a pink tulle and silk dinner-gown, very décolleté, an amethyst necklace, a spray of silk, wisteria diagonally across the left breast to the stomach. This spray she had added herself, to match the necklace. She had amethyst suede gloves wrinkled to the elbow, numerous expensive bracelets and pretty little burgundy shoes. For a moment she was a delightful vision, for the sun glared on the glass, a vision of youth; thus for a moment she was what she wished to be, young, beautiful and wonderfully dressed. A second look showed her cavernous blue eyes, the heavy flesh-coloured make-up, the thin cords and the other marks of her years. Even as they saw her, she was a remarkable creation; a painter would have painted her. There was not only a reminiscence of vivid youth in her dress, but something burning still; a burning-glass that looked through the rags and tatters of her flesh. They knew very little about her. Mrs Trollope and Mr Wilkins had met her some years ago on the Côte d’Azur, been taken up by her. She fascinated Lilia with her chatter of race-courses, stock-exchange board-rooms, promoters, automobile-owners, millionaire owners of horseflesh, all fashionable society; and she knew not only the elegants, the cream, but the go-betweens, those one has to know to get money exchanged at the best rate, little private businesses done. She interested Mr Wilkins too with this.

  The Blaises had only just met her.

  Mr Wilkins said:

  ‘I say, Bili, you will put us all to shame. Do go and put on something suitable. I assure you it is just an ordinary restaurant in Lausanne. You will look like the Queen of England at a ragpickers’ tea. You have time; please do as I say.’

  ‘No, I shall not disappoint myself just to please you, Robert. I know what is behind it. You are a Protestant and pinched, you want life to be a suit of dull grey. I know what is done and worn. I have moved in the most fashionable circles in Cannes, Nice, Biarritz and in Rome; and I do not see why I should not wear a dinner-dress when I get a chance.’

  ‘But, my dear Bili, this is a ball-dress.’

  ‘Oh, what nonsense, Robert. You were never at a ball in your life.’

  Mrs Trollope laughed and said:

  ‘That is quite true. Robert hates balls and only likes to dance in bars and cabarets. But you must remember, Bili, that now in Paris you can practically go to a ball in a tailormade.’

  ‘Not in the Paris I know,’ said the Princess, lifting her head so that the dewdropped tulle and the little butterflies twinkled.

  They were having a drink, when in came Madame Blaise with a beautiful evening hat on, a toque of feathers and gauze with two drooping plumes and a diamond in her hair. It was a French hat and the diamond looked well in Madame Blaise’s hair; but Dr Blaise took exception to the get-up, said the hat did not suit her dress, nor the occasion, and certainly not the Princess’s costume.

  The Princess said: ‘We women shall do just as we please and I shall make Angel sing, too. You two drab men have nothing to think about but making money and you are not the arbiters of taste. I assure you we are not going to have our evening spoiled by you. Lilia dear, let us go and make you up. You look so tired, and being constantly in the sun and wind has done nothing for your skin.’

  ‘Now you know quite well, Bili, there’s scarcely a breath of wind here for days,’ said Mr Wilkins.

  Nevertheless, the Princess installed Lilia before a looking glass in the next room, shut the door and the hum of their voices could be heard for some time. The men paid no attention and they and Mrs Blaise were talking about where they should move their main funds, to the Argentine, Colombia, the United States, South Africa? No one thought it was going to be safe in the end to leave them in Switzerland. How long would the world allow Switzerland to remain neutral? Switzerland was gorged with gold: wasn’t that too great a temptation?

  Said Mr Wilkins: ‘I have transferred my pounds into dollars and Swiss francs and if I could induce some fellow to say his country was going to withdraw all his funds from the U.S.A., or to make an investigation into financial skullduggery in this country, or if I could get some dictator or president to declare that Switzerland is going to be first victim in the next war—so that the Swiss franc would drop and we could get it cheap—then we would be rich, transfer back into dollars, go abroad—for I do not think Switzerland is safe at all. About this gold hoard in the mountains, there are only four or five persons know its whereabouts—one of them must be a friend of the Russians, there’s always one—if the Russians want the money
they’ll take it; and if they don’t want it they’ll blow it sky-high to ruin us all. Eh? And the Swiss franc falls to less than the weight of paper overnight.’

  Meanwhile the Princess said: ‘I had to get you alone, Lilia; did you put the question to him?’

  ‘I could not, Bili. It is so hard for me. I can’t ask him to marry me. It’s so bold. I couldn’t do it.’

  They conversed for some time about this.

  Presently, Lilia came in made up by the Princess. Her dark skin was creamed a thick pale olive matt and thickly powdered with a pale rachel powder, her eyebrows were unnaturally arched, a small birthmark obliterated, the hairline had been curved into a widow’s peak, she wore mascara. Her fingernails, generally a dark alabaster or pale pink, were now rose-red.

  ‘Good God, Lilia, is that you?’ said Mr Wilkins.

  ‘I told you, Bili,’ said Lilia in an agony.

  ‘Lilia looks lovely; but naturally you don’t want her to be truly attractive to other men,’ said the Princess.

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks,’ said Mr Wilkins.

  In the end poor Lilia, in tears, with her mascara already running, went back, wiped it all off and went off with them with nothing but a trace of dark powder and lipstick and on her head a black scarf run with gold thread. Her face was weary from the trials of the day and evening.

  When they got downstairs, the Pallintosts, an English couple in their mid thirties, Aline and Tony, were waiting in the little parlour, which became a second dining-room in the busy season.

  The drive up town, though short, was pleasant. The doctor was a smooth fast driver. Mr Wilkins sat in front with him. They did not discuss business with the three women there. Mr Wilkins charmingly discussed what was proper at that time of the day and in those circumstances, in the East—various old eastern acquaintances, football and polo games he had played and witnessed in the last thirty-five years. He not only pretended to be but he was an unassuming man; and to be an unassuming man of his worth was his highest ambition. His other ambition, the making of a modest but solid, respectable fortune, he had almost achieved.