The Little Hotel (10 page)

Two days after her mother left, Miss Chillard took the train for Zermatt, owing us rent and board for both for two months. But she had showed us letters saying that money was on the way from her mother and we had let her go.

But now, after three months, she was back. The Bank of England had turned down all of her numerous applications. Sick as she was and necessary as the mountain air was to her, she must go back to England, where the air poisoned her she said, and where she would die. I myself was touched.

Mrs Trollope had been sorry for her; now she was startled by the terrible change. In the sagging bed, propped up by pillows, lay a tanned bony church-door martyr, with large bright blue eyes in deep hollows. Her lank hair trailed over the pillows; a loose nightgown with a handsome lace décolletage showed her emaciated neck, bony chest, the wide-set weakened breasts. But the neck had been a column, the chest once broad, deep and strong: there was still determination in this disorder, a high-spirited selfish temper.

Lilia was distressed.

‘Oh, dear Miss Chillard, how are you? You don’t seem well. Have you seen a doctor?’

Miss Chillard said she had seen two. Mr Bonnard had sent for one and some dear dear friends in Vevey, who were devoted to her, had sent another: ‘They are people who would do anything for me. They are moving heaven and earth to get the British Consul to come and see me, so that he will send in a report favourable to my case.’

But she was worried, for she must pay the doctors, this she must do first of all; doctors must always be paid. Her mother had gone home to talk to the Bank; she had received no money from the Bank, the Bank had stopped the money she was relying on to pay her debts here and at Zermatt and she did not even know how she was to get home.

Why did the people at home put up with such a stupid government?

What could you expect from the sons of bricklayers and boot-menders? If there was a change of government, she was sure her friends would be able to help her, get funds out.

She had stopped here in this wretched hotel, on her way home where she now must go, but she would probably die in this rented room, and in rags, because she had left the rest of her luggage at Zermatt as security. The Bank said she could go to mountains in Great Britain, places quite useless to her. They were dragging her back home to die, because the Labour Government did not understand people like her and did not care for her sort. She was half dead now. She had many friends here; hotel-keepers who knew her, respected her, they really adored her and understood her troubles, but she had been obliged to leave them too, friends, hotel-keepers and servants alike, without paying anything, having only the little money left she kept for doctors.

‘I am worried about you, dear Miss Chillard.’

‘Do not worry about me, Mrs Collop. I expect another doctor soon. Dear Madame Blaise is sending me one. Her husband is a doctor and they have friends here. People are always so good to me. But there is someone next door who takes no notice when I knock. It seems strange. I might be very ill.’

‘Oh, that is my cousin Mr Wilkins. He is rather shy with women.’

It seemed to Mrs Trollope that Miss Chillard gave her rather a strange glance, cool and amused. Mrs Trollope blushed.

The invalid lay silent in her bed and her gaze wandered. Her two or three valises stood about on chairs, unlocked. She asked Mrs Trollope to get her several things from them, a teapot, packets of tea and sugar, some talc and perfume. She spoke clearly and shortly, Lilia found everything at once and did not rummage; yet Miss Chillard seemed restless, mocking. Lilia thought, Oh, poor dear, how poor she is; and she thought she would explain to Mr Wilkins what it was to be chased out of one hotel after another, a helpless invalid, unable to pay and yet rich enough at home, one of the miseries of these complicated days, the rich turned tramp and beggar.

‘Just as I was myself, Robert, till my first money came through: you never realized that that was the first reason I acted as companion to that sick old woman in Vevey—I did not want to ask you for money to pay my expenses.’

She had puffed away on those endless walks along the lake behind the invalid chair, thickset, heavy, on her pretty high heels; and she had been treated as helpers are always treated by rich invalids. She said now to Miss Chillard:

‘Won’t your dear mother be glad to see you? Won’t it be better for you, after all, on your lovely farm in Devon, having good country food, better than eating this wretched hotel diet. You don’t even eat: you don’t take as much as my sparrows that come in every day to eat. Now tell me what you have had to eat today?’

Then Miss Chillard mentioned such a poor diet, things that had been brought and taken away untouched, that Lilia felt miserable and asked Miss Chillard if she could not make her tea.

‘Oh, no, thank you, thank you so much, oh, no, I shall manage; you are so sweet,’ said the woman in her high sweet boarding-school manner.

‘Well, can’t I get you anything?’ said Lilia, oppressed by what she saw. The afternoon sun, hot, brilliant even at this season, poured at the window but not through the window, which was tightly closed, the heavy winter curtains half drawn. It was already sunset in the room. Miss Chillard replied:

‘Oh, nothing, thank you—but there is something if you would be so generous, just get me two ounces of water-biscuits, I saw them once before when I was here, rather sweet without any flavouring, or just a mild one. I know the name. I shall look for it in my notebook and tell you. I shall make my tea and that is all I really want; and if you would get me my medicine. My purse is in the corner of the green valise, just there in the corner,’ she ended sharply as Mrs Trollope lifted the lid of the green valise.

‘Oh, but dear Miss Chillard, I brought you some dry biscuits, the sort you said you liked.’

‘Oh, how good of you, oh, how lovely of you. But I cannot really eat. I shall keep them for the servant, Luisa, as I have really nothing to pay her with and I expect she will be glad of something to eat.’

After a few more words, Lilia left Miss Chillard, went to her room and spoke to Mr Wilkins through the open door, waking him up. There she detailed to him the condition of Miss Chillard and her idea of getting a third doctor.

‘But of course, Robert, I am not sure she would not be a world better if she ate some soup and had a little sun. She has half a balcony. I think it very nice of Mr and Mrs Bonnard to give her that balcony room when she is in debt to them. The biscuits should have been water-biscuits: I made a mistake.’

‘Well, get her a few and see if she can digest them before you buy half a pound of the things,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘Robert, there is one thing about you that comes out and that is your country origin, that grasping farmer strain. One must not look at every penny. When a poor Englishwoman is here and cannot eat anything, there is no harm in making her feel a little happier.’

‘Get her her medicine and get her one hundred grams of biscuits. She won’t eat them. This is a come-on, you’ll see: she is leading up to a loan. Buy the biscuits if you must play the Good Samaritan.’

‘You know I must have something to do, Robert. The thing about our lives now, living abroad, retired, is that I am completely useless. I would rather go and help them peel vegetables in the kitchen. I’ll ask Mrs Bonnard.’

‘Oh, I’d rather you went and bought Miss Chillard a few biscuits every day. But she is leading up to a touch. I know you’d give away your last shilling and it’s a good thing I’m here to see you do not.’

A little flushed, Mrs Trollope again went up the street, to get the medicine and the water-biscuits. When she returned, she was surprised and embarrassed to find two strangers in Miss Chillard’s room, a French couple who were trying to speak English. They were poor tourists. The woman, in a black toque and grey suit, was offering a small bottle of liniment to Miss Chillard, and Miss Chillard was explaining in English, though she spoke French, that she needed Vitamin A and not liniment:

‘My fingers are so cold; I wish you had brought that instead.’

She turned to Lilia, coldly: ‘They don’t seem to understand. Would you tell her that, Mrs Collop? But don’t refuse the liniment, take the liniment, I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Put it on the glass shelf above the basin, with the other bottles, where I can get it. I shall ask the Italian maid to rub me. Perhaps I shall get some feeling back into my legs and arms’; and she said to the French couple:

‘My maid will rub me with it.’

They at once looked at Mrs Trollope and drew together a bit.

The French husband, in a shop-made striped suit and pointed shoes, with a thin harassed face, had brought Miss Chillard some chocolates, an offering which he had shyly put out of the way on the table, for he could see it was not appropriate to her grand manner. The French couple looked at Lilia with such reticence that Lilia felt she was intruding. Perhaps there was a secret between the three. She excused herself after putting the water-biscuits on a bedside table and saying:

‘I should be glad to make tea for you.’

Oh, no, thank you. I am trying to explain to them what I want but they don’t understand. I met them at Zermatt and they were very good to me. They are generous creatures, but they don’t know what I want.’

The French couple were saying: ‘Oh, but you must eat; pills are a poor substitute for food.’

There had been no introduction and Mrs Trollope knew she was taken for a maid, a common trick of genteel women down on their luck. Sometimes Madame Blaise tried it on, when they were shopping in Lausanne, making out that Mrs Trollope was a professional guide or shopper: once Mrs Trollope had been offered a buyer’s percentage.

Shortly after, she heard the French couple on the landing. She looked out with the idea of asking them a question; but as they stood dubiously and dowdily side by side, deploring something, and as they huddled together when they saw her, she withdrew.

After a time she went back and said to Miss Chillard, who was lying flat on her back staring in front of her:

‘You know, our rooms are next to yours. Just knock if you feel faint in the night and I will come.’

‘Oh, thank you so much; oh, I think I would rather rouse the night-watchman than you.’

‘Oh, no. That’s Charlie. You know he is also the porter and is ill. He sleeps on the couch in the parlour. He needs sleep. He should be in hospital. Please call me. My husband’s room is next to yours.’

‘Yes, I know, thank you,’ said Miss Chillard, still staring in front of her. Mrs Trollope was unhappy. She did not like to say Mr Wilkins was her husband, but she did not like to tell her story immediately to a stranger, and she felt ashamed of herself with unmarried women: she thought they suffered so much. But Miss Chillard, a roomer in hotels, pensions and friends’ houses since a child, might understand?

When they were having their rum, she said to Mr Wilkins:

‘We are English; shouldn’t we do something about poor Miss Chillard?’

‘Why? She has survived to the age of thirty-five without us.’

‘But it is different now. And I feel for the honour of the English on the Continent. It is the unpaid bills.’

‘Frankly, Lilia, what honour do you think the English have ever had on the Continent?’

‘That’s a strange thing to say.’

‘The English have always been mocked as unreliable, awkward, ignorant, provincial and poor.’

‘Robert, it is the Scot in you that says that.’

He said nothing.

‘If she knocks in the night, let me know.’

‘I shall probably not hear a sound.’

‘I am afraid she is really ill, though.’

‘If she dies, what difference will it make to you, Lilia?’

‘You make friends so easily, Robert. People remark about your charm and ease of manner. They do not see you as you really are.’

‘Let’s go and rest. Tomorrow we have this dinner with the Blaises.’

‘And, Robert, we must take out this man who is trying to sell you a car; we must take out the Pallintosts.’

Wilkins said: ‘Yes. Well, I have invited them for tomorrow evening too. It is my party. I drew out a bit more money than I expected. I think it a bit stiff that when they are here to sell me a car I should have to take them out as well, but I shall take it off his commission, Pallintost’s I mean.’

Lilia went into her room and shut the door. Immediately, she heard a knocking on her wall; it was Madame Blaise’s signal. Lilia looked haggard. She opened the intervening door and went in to Madame Blaise. Madame Blaise addressed her in a society voice,

‘Liliali, what have you been doing? Come and arrange my hair for me.’ Madame Blaise seated herself before the wooden table on which was a large square mirror in a silver frame, brought from her house in Basel. She had spread out her toilet articles, which were to match in heavy silver. She handed the brush to Lilia, saying:

‘Hair first; and then we can try another make-up.’

Madame Blaise was a tall heavy woman of German type, with blue eyes and white hair. Mrs Trollope set to work. It was a long job. They tried the thick straight hair this way and that. In the meantime Doctor Blaise, a brisk, elderly but dark-haired man with an amused smile, kept coming in through the door leading to his double room at the corner of the building which was kept for him on his weekends. The Blaises had a villa on the other side of Switzerland, four hours away by train, where Dr Blaise had his practice; but he was so well-known that he visited patients here too. Doctor Blaise teased the two beauties, as he called them.

At five-thirty they passed through the two doors into Mr Wilkins’s room, where they had rum, sugar, water, lime-juice and after that a vermouth chaser, Robert’s own recipe. Afterwards, Madame Blaise returned to her room, put on her outdoor clothes, and went down with them to dinner in the dining-room.

In the morning early, Robert looked in at her door and said the woman next to him was rapping on the wall again—‘The woman’s a blessed poltergeist!’—and at this very moment, Madame Blaise, hearing them, started rapping on her wall: