At Bertram’s Hotel

‘Does she ever want to see me?’

Her limpid gaze met his. He didn’t know what to reply. Was this a moment for truth? Or for vagueness? Or for a good thumping lie? What could you say to a girl who asked a question of such simplicity, when the answer was of great complexity? He said unhappily:

‘I don’t know.’

Her eyes searched him gravely. Luscombe felt thoroughly ill at ease. He was making a mess of this. The girl must wonder—clearly was wondering. Any girl would.

He said, ‘You mustn’t think—I mean it’s difficult to explain. Your mother is, well, rather different from—’ Elvira was nodding energetically.

‘I know. I’m always reading about her in the papers. She’s something rather special, isn’t she? In fact, she’s rather a wonderful person.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the Colonel. ‘That’s exactly right. She’s a wonderful person.’ He paused and then went on. ‘But a wonderful person is very often—’ He stopped and started again—‘it’s not always a happy thing to have a wonderful person for a mother. You can take that from me because it’s the truth.’

‘You don’t like speaking the truth very much, do you? But I think what you’ve just said is the truth.’

They both sat staring towards the big brass-bound swing doors that led to the world outside.

Suddenly the doors were pushed open with violence—a violence quite unusual in Bertram’s Hotel—and a young man strode in and went straight across to the desk. He wore a black leather jacket. His vitality was such that Bertram’s Hotel took on the atmosphere of a museum by way of contrast. The people were the dust-encrusted relics of a past age. He bent towards Miss Gorringe and asked:

‘Is Lady Sedgwick staying here?’

Miss Gorringe on this occasion had no welcoming smile. Her eyes were flinty. She said:

‘Yes.’ Then, with definite unwillingness, she stretched out her hand towards the telephone. ‘Do you want to—?’

‘No,’ said the young man. ‘I just wanted to leave a note for her.’

He produced it from a pocket of his leather coat and slid it across the mahogany counter.

‘I only wanted to be sure this was the right hotel.’

There might have been some slight incredulity in his voice as he looked round him, then turned back towards the entrance. His eyes passed indifferently over the people sitting round him. They passed over Luscombe and Elvira in the same way, and Luscombe felt a sudden unsuspected anger. ‘Dammit all,’ he thought to himself, ‘Elvira’s a pretty girl. When I was a young chap I’d have noticed a pretty girl, especially among all these fossils.’ But the young man seemed to have no interested eyes to spare for pretty girls. He turned back to the desk and asked, raising his voice slightly as though to call Miss Gorringe’s attention:

‘What’s the telephone number here? 1129 isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Miss Gorringe, ‘3925.’

‘Regent?’

‘No. Mayfair.’

He nodded. Then swiftly he strode across to the door and passed out, swinging the doors to behind him with something of the same explosive quality he had shown on entering.

Everybody seemed to draw a deep breath; to find difficulty in resuming their interrupted conversations.

‘Well,’ said Colonel Luscombe, rather inadequately, as if at a loss for words. ‘Well, really! These young fellows nowadays …’

Elvira was smiling.

‘You recognized him, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘You know who he is?’ She spoke in a slightly awed voice. She proceeded to enlighten him. ‘Ladislaus Malinowski.’

‘Oh, that chap.’ The name was indeed faintly familiar to Colonel Luscombe. ‘Racing driver.’

‘Yes. He was world champion two years running. He had a bad crash a year ago. Broke lots of things. But I believe he’s driving again now.’ She raised her head to listen. ‘That’s a racing car he’s driving now.’

The roar of the engine had penetrated through to Bertram’s Hotel from the street outside. Colonel Luscombe perceived that Ladislaus Malinowski was one of Elvira’s heroes. ‘Well,’ he thought to himself, ‘better that than one of those pop singers or crooners or long-haired Beatles or whatever they call themselves.’ Luscombe was old-fashioned in his views of young men.

The swing doors opened again. Both Elvira and Colonel Luscombe looked at them expectantly but Bertram’s Hotel had reverted to normal. It was merely a white-haired elderly cleric who came in. He stood for a moment looking round him with a slightly puzzled air as of one who fails to understand where he was or how he had come there. Such an experience was no novelty to Canon Pennyfather. It came to him in trains when he did not remember where he had come from, where he was going, or why! It came to him when he was walking along the street, it came to him when he found himself sitting on a committee. It had come to him before now when he was in his cathedral stall, and did not know whether he had already preached his sermon or was about to do so.

‘I believe I know that old boy,’ said Luscombe, peering at him. ‘Who is he now? Stays here fairly often, I believe. Abercrombie? Archdeacon Abercrombie—no, it’s not Abercrombie, though he’s rather like Abercrombie.’

Elvira glanced round at Canon Pennyfather without interest. Compared with a racing driver he had no appeal at all. She was not interested in ecclesiastics of any kind although, since being in Italy, she admitted to a mild admiration for Cardinals whom she considered as at any rate properly picturesque.

Canon Pennyfather’s face cleared and he nodded his head appreciatively. He had recognized where he was. In Bertram’s Hotel, of course; where he was going to spend the night on his way to—now where was he on his way to? Chadminster? No, no, he had just come from Chadminster. He was going to—of course—to the Congress at Lucerne. He stepped forward, beaming, to the reception desk and was greeted warmly by Miss Gorringe.

‘So glad to see you, Canon Pennyfather. How well you are looking.’

‘Thank you—thank you—I had a severe cold last week but I’ve got over it now. You have a room for me. I did write?’

Miss Gorringe reassured him.

‘Oh yes, Canon Pennyfather, we got your letter. We’ve reserved No. 19 for you, the room you had last time.’

‘Thank you—thank you. For—let me see—I shall want it for four days. Actually I am going to Lucerne and I shall be away for one night, but please keep the room. I shall leave most of my things here and only take a small bag to Switzerland. There won’t be any difficulty over that?’

Again Miss Gorringe reassured him.

‘Everything’s going to be quite all right. You explained very clearly in your letter.’

Other people might not have used the word ‘clearly’. ‘Fully’ would have been better, since he had certainly written at length.

All anxieties set at rest, Canon Pennyfather breathed a sigh of relief and was conveyed, together with his baggage, to Room 19.

In Room 28 Mrs Carpenter had removed her crown of violets from her head and was carefully adjusting her nightdress on the pillow of her bed. She looked up as Elvira entered.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear. Would you like me to help you with your unpacking?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Elvira politely. ‘I shan’t unpack very much, you know.’

‘Which of the bedrooms would you like to have? The bathroom is between them. I told them to put your luggage in the far one. I thought this room might be a little noisy.’

‘That was very kind of you,’ said Elvira in her expressionless voice.

‘You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to help you?’

‘No, thanks, really I wouldn’t. I think I might perhaps have a bath.’

‘Yes, I think that’s a very good idea. Would you like to have the first bath? I’d rather finish putting my things away.’