Mountain Magic (5 page)

The atmosphere of strain and frustration continued throughout the day, and Toni was surprised when she was allowed to consider herself free at six o’clock. She hurried up to her room and changed into one of her own cotton dresses, and decided to miss supper—for the guests it was, naturally, dinner—and spend the evening out of doors.

In seven days she had lost a lot of her outdoor tan, and even her cheeks looked thinner. Her hands were calloused and definitely raw-looking, but it was too hot to conceal them inside gloves. When she went downstairs she thrust them into the pockets of her gingham skirt, and was glad there was a side entrance for the
staff, which
meant she need not encounter anyone of more importance them one of her own fellow workers.

She decided to walk in the pine wood that bounded one
corner
of the hotel grounds. It would be deliciously cool there, and she could lie stretched out on the pine needles and gaze straight up at the sky.

She was so excited by being out of doors that she felt like someone who had inherited the earth. It no longer mattered to her that she had descended to the level of scrubbing and polishing her way through life, and it didn’t even matter that she had not so far been given any intimation of the size of the salary she would receive as a reward for performing so many menial tasks.

All that mattered was that she was away from the hotel, and there was no one at all to disturb her. At least, not for the first half-hour
... Then a man coughed near her, spoke in an amused voice, and she sat up as if she were a rabbit that had been shot.

“Why, it’s Toinette! It really is Toinette! And she’s pretending to be a dryad in the woodland!”

Toni scrambled frantically to her feet. The occupant of room twenty-six was standing so near to her that she could see how his blue eyes smiled, and the slight twist of his lips as they parted over his even teeth. He was already formally attired for the evening, and his dinner-jacket was beautifully cut, and his linen immaculate. He stood leaning against a tree-trunk, and at Toni’s unguarded movement he put out a hand to prevent her from running away.

“No, don’t try the same trick you tried before, Toinette! When you promised to bring my coffee, and
then sent a waiter with it instead
!”
At the uneasy look in Toni’s face and her obvious urgent desire to escape, he spoke more soothingly. “Now, don’t get any wrong ideas! Perhaps I was a little impulsive the other day when I grabbed you as I did, but it never occurred to me you would panic and refuse to come near me again. By the way,” a shrewd look creeping into his eyes, “is that waiter Pierre your boy friend?”

“No, of course not,” she answered, amazed that he should ask.

“Well, he gave me a distinctly dirty look when he brought my coffee, and I’ve an idea that, but for his subservient position, he’d have punched my head for me there and then. You must have quite a shattering effect on the male population round here.”

“Please don’t be absurd,” she said. “I have no effect whatsoever.” She attempted to move past him. “Please, Mr.—?”

“The name is Philip Gresham,” he supplied. “And you are Toinette—
?
”

“Darcy,” she supplied.

He looked intrigued.

“I once knew a General Darcy
... or rather, my father knew him well. But I don’t suppose a chambermaid in an Austrian hotel would have any connection with him, would she?”

Toni looked slightly startled.

“Would she
?
” he asked softly, moving a little nearer to her. “Tell me, Toinette, what are you doing here? And don’t you think it’s an impossible position for a young woman like yourself? That fellow Antoine, who owns the place, engaged you, I suppose
... But I’m amazed that he did so! Or was it left to the fair Marianne to add you to the staff register? She’s the type of woman who would enjoy seeing a girl like you performing menial duties.”

Toni looked away from him rather desperately, wondering what she could say to induce him to let her escape; but as she made no reply about how, and by what means, she came to be employed at the hotel, he looked even more intrigued, and very successfully blocked her outlet from the wood.

“Hm,” he murmured, “there’s a mystery here, and I’d like to be in on the ground floor. Won’t you take me into your confidence, Toinette, and then perhaps I can give you some advice?” Before she could anticipate his move, he had picked up one of her hands and examined it. “I don’t like to see a girl like you with hands like these! What do they keep you at for ten hours out of twelve?” He frowned. “Scrubbing floors, or holystoning the kitchen premises?”

She snatched away her hand, and hid it behind her back.

“There’s no disgrace in scrubbing floors,” she said with noticeable stiffness.

“I quite agree,” he answered, “if you’re the type to scrub floors.” He glanced at his watch. “Come and have a drink with me on the terrace. You look as if you could do with one, and I’ve got to hear more about you. Please, Toinette,” he said, with sudden softness.

But she shook her head firmly.

“If I were seen having a drink with you on the terrace I’d probably get the sack.”

“Why? Aren’t the staff allowed to fraternise? But that’s absurd!” He frowned again. “Anyone can see you’re not just ordinary staff!”

“But at the moment I am just ordinary staff,” she reminded him. And she thought with acute regret: He’s spoiling my evening! My first free evening. I wanted to go for a walk, and it will be dark in another few minutes!

He laid a hand coaxingly on her arm.

“Come and sit in a sheltered
corner
of the garden, then, if you won’t risk the terrace.”

“No.” She realised that she could pass him if she moved swiftly, and suddenly she moved very swiftly indeed. “Goodnight, Mr. Gresham,” she called, as she flew past him, and before he could recover from his surprise she was at the far end of the wood, and her voice came echoing back to him, “I really must go!” Unfortunately for her, on emerging from the wood she was not as cautious as she might have been, and she ran full tilt into her employer, standing at the edge of an emerald sweep of lawn, and admiring a bed of scarlet geraniums.

He put out a hand to steady her, and at the same time he looked his surprise.

“Are you taking your daily exercise, Miss Darcy?” he enquired politely.

She flushed brilliantly. She was so taken aback that she couldn’t even apologise, and he surveyed her with a somewhat ironic gleam in his eye.

“You look thinner, Toinette. Is that due to this obvious passion of yours for exercise, or have you been
toiling
very hard in my service?”

She swallowed. Somewhere along the woodland path a man’s voice was calling her.

“Toinette! Come back, Toinette!...”

Antoine’s eyebrow
’s
arched.

“I’ve an idea that you’re being pursued! Have you been keeping an assignation
?
And is the gentleman to be disappointed?”

Toni blurted out the truth.

“It’s one of the guests! I don’t know anything about him, but he asked me to have a drink with him on the terrace. I knew you wouldn’t approve, and I—”

“Ran away?”

She couldn’t tell by his face whether he was pleased or displeased, but she felt him grasp her arm and lead her forward along the path.

“You are perfectly right
... I wouldn’t have approved. My staff never mix with the guests, and if they do they receive notice immediately. In your case I might not have given you notice, but I would have warned you never to do it again.” Glancing sideways at him, she thought his lips were a little thin, and he was also frowning. Apart from that he was as beautifully turned out as Philip Gresham had been, and it made her heart ache in a queer sort of way for one single moment while she looked at him. “Tell me, Toinette, what have you been doing in the past week?”

“Working,” she answered, rather feebly.

He smiled grimly.

“If you didn’t work you wouldn’t be here, my dear. I allow no drones in my hive of industry. But what I want to know precisely
is
...
what kind of work have
you been doing
?
I know it was agreed that you should do bedroom work for a time, but I didn’t think that was a particularly good idea. Do you find making beds exhausting
?
”

“I haven’t made any for the last five days,” she admitted. “One of the girls had an accident, and I took over her duties.”

“And what are those duties?”

She flushed a little. It seemed so poor-spirited to admit that she was willing to be more or less pushed around.

“I’m a kind of odd-job girl in the upper corridors.
look after the floors, polish them, and so on, and keep so many bathrooms clean. Then, when I haven’t anything better to do, I sort dirty linen, and fill the baskets for the laundry. Sometimes I do darning—sheets, you know—and check stores. I’m a kind of assistant to the linen-keeper, amongst other things..
.”

His frown was extremely noticeable.

“It seems to me that the ‘other things’ should be quite enough to fill your day! How much free time do you have?”

“This is my first free evening. I stopped work at six o’clock.”

“And normally you work from
...?”

“Half-past six until half-past eight. Sometimes a little later, if we’re rushed
... But
of course I get time off for meals—and one hour in the afternoon to do my own room. It’s really meant for a rest period.”

“And when are you to be permitted a whole day
off?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “No one has mentioned that.”

“But this is ridiculous,” he exclaimed, “and quite exceptional! Hours of working are clearly laid down, and rest periods, and so on. When do you get time for exercise, anyway?”

She smiled a little grimly—a thing she had never been able to manage before.

“Oh, I get enough of that in the upstairs corridors!”

“No wonder you look pale!” he exclaimed shortly. Suddenly, like Philip Gresham, he pounced, and one of her hands was carried up to the light and examined. His face grew grimmer than hers as he allowed it to fall back to her side again. “Hasn’t Marianne told you that there will be a vacancy in the office before very long?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve had no conversation with Mademoiselle Raveaux since the first day I came here.”

He made no comment, but she knew he was not pleased.

“Well, don’t try and be too conscientious, will you?” with a certain dryness. “Exercise a little common sense, as well as enthusiasm for doing your duty!”

Which she considered was somewhat perverse, considering his attitude towards people who failed to do their duty.

The next day the housekeeper sought her out, and informed her that she had an entire free day due to her, and that she could take it the following day, if she wished. She also told Toni that if she made application at the office, she would receive an advance of salary.

When Toni made her application she was surprised to find that in addition to the week’s wages owing to her, the envelope contained a sufficient sum of money to cover two months’ work at the Hotel
Rosenhorn
. At first she was inclined to protest that it was too much, and she hadn’t earned it, but the attractive fair girl who handed her the envelope didn’t seem to follow the point she was trying to make. She shrugged, and suggested that that was not her affair, and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, and Toni went away with the slightly uneasy feeling that, whatever happened, she was bound to work for another seven weeks at the
Rosenhorn
.

“There is a staff car leaving for Innsbruck in about an hour,” the fair girl told her. “If you wish to be one of the passengers you had better be in the forecourt in good time.”

Toni thought the idea a good one, and hastened to change into a more suitable dress for a shopping and sightseeing expedition. For she had made up her mind that, being in possession of a sum of money which she hadn’t earned, she would buy herself one or two badly needed additions to her wardrobe.

The staff car left promptly, and she found she had Pierre as her immediate neighbour on the back seat. He was wearing his best grey flannel trousers, and a thin shirt open at the neck, and he looked delighted at the prospect of sharing a drive of thirty miles with Toni,

“You will, perhaps, let me show you something of Innsbruck?” he said, when they were halfway there. “I have nothing in particular to do, and it would be a great pleasure to act as your guide.”

“Thank you,” Toni returned, smiling at him, “that would be nice. But I’ve a certain amount of shopping to do, and I’d like to get through that first. Could I meet you somewhere for lunch? Paying for my own lunch, of course!” she added, hastily.

Pierre looked slightly wounded.

“But it will give me great pleasure to buy you lunch
... And I know the very place you will like. It is agreed?” he asked eagerly.

Toni replied that it was agreed, so long as she started on her shopping as soon as they arrived.

When the car decanted them, Pierre took her by the arm and led her towards the main shopping centre. On the way she tried to recall her sensations on the morning when Kurt Antoine led her just as purposefully towards his parked car, and she had had no opportunity at all to take in the charm of Innsbruck.

This morning, however, she was able to do so, and she thought it a delightful little mountain town. The mountains seemed so close to Innsbruck that they practically dwarfed it, and it had the same medieval atmosphere as the villages through which they had passed on the way there.

There were a lot of shops designed to attract tourists, any number of restaurants and hotels, and at last she found the very shop she was looking for, one that displayed gay cotton frocks and skirts like mountain flowers; and she said goodbye—or rather,
auf wiedersehen
—to Pierre (who was most reluctant to leave her) and entered the shop.

She was able to ask for what she wanted in her careful German, although the assistant gathered at once that she was English, and insisted on
talking
English. She brought out some of the most attractive frocks the shop had to offer for Toni’s inspection, and the only difficulty the latter had was in making her selection.

In the end, she chose a candy pink with a very full skirt and white trimmings, and a gay scarlet and white that made her look like a scarlet poppy when she had it on. She also bought stockings and underwear, and enquired where she could buy shoes.

When she had bought the shoes—wedge-heeled white casuals, that gave her more height than ordinary flat-heeled sandals—she returned to the dress-shop and asked if she could change in one of their changing
-
alcoves.

The assistant agreed at once, and when she emerged Toni was looking so different that the girl gasped. She had decided to put on the brightest of the dresses, the gay scarlet, and it not merely put colour into her cheeks, but made her eyes look several degrees brighter and clearer.

The assistant nodded with enthusiastic Austrian approval.

“That is good,” she said. “You look charming.” And then she frowned. “But there is one thing,
Fraulein
...”

“And what is that?” Toni asked.

“The hair!” the assistant returned, touching her own exceedingly
modern
coiffure. “It is a little—ordinary
!
And some make-up would be a good thing. You do not use it, no?”