Hotel Stardust

by Susan Barrie

  The day they moved in they gave a kind of informal cocktail party in the little lounge. At least, they invited Mr. Pope and his son and Dr. Craig and Mrs. Wilmott and Ann to have drinks with them, to toast the beginning of their occupation of the new house.

  Mrs. Wilmott betrayed by her expression that she did not think much of the house as a house, but even she recognized that it had been furnished with taste, and that it had a sort of cosiness which might appeal to some people. Certainly not to her. Dr. Craig examined the various rooms with a faint gleam like wistfulness in his eyes, and announced afterwards to Miss Barton that it was just such a house as he would have chosen to live in himself, and that he envied her and her niece the ownership of such a place. Not missing the wistfulness, Aunt Kate invited him to look in and see them whenever he felt like it, particularly when he felt like escaping from the other people in the hotel, and he accepted the invitation with alacrity.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I'll be your most frequent visitor!”

  And he was. But even so Aunt Kate did not seem to mind, or find him greatly in the way when he formed the habit of dropping in evening after evening after dinner, and occupying their most comfortable chair while they plied him with coffee and cigarettes and occasional glasses of sherry. He challenged Aunt Kate to games of chess and taught her a new game of patience, while outside Eve labored amongst the weeds and the sunset’s afterglow, and inhaled the salt smell of the sea and listened to the strong surge of it hurling itself restlessly against the granite cliffs.

  On some evenings, when the weather was fine and a young moon hung like a pale brooch in the sky, Martin Pope walked down from Treloan, and they talked softly together in the dusk, and then went for their customary ramble along the edge of the cliffs. One evening when it was almost dusk and the owls were hooting in the little wood behind the house, Eve saw the lights of a powerful car go past on the ribbon of broad main road which skirted the wood, and it seemed to her that they suddenly came to a standstill, although it was too far away for her to hear any noise of an engine or any noise at all save the somewhat mocking calling of the owls.

  She was stowing the garden shears away in the tool- shed when the garden gate clicked open and a tall form came up the path. A voice, in the opening of the tool-shed, caused her to start.

  “Any bats to be disposed of tonight ?” inquired the voice. “This is the hour when they love to make themselves a nuisance.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Eve, looking up at him. “How you— you startled me!”

  “Did I?”

  He was gazing down at her in the gloom, and one side of his mouth smiled in that rather strange fashion of his. She thought that his eyes seemed to be studying her very intently, or seeking to study her in that uncertain light.

  “And I meant merely to be helpful! However”—his teeth gleamed in contrast with his dark face—“I’m sorry if I did startle you. I was passing on the road, and I was not certain whether you had moved in here yet, so I thought I’d come and see. You’ve been busy. I can smell new-cut grass.”

  “It’s all a bit of a mess still, I’m afraid,” she answered. For some extraordinary reason she felt confused, disturbed —as if she had been thrown off balance and was by no means sure of herself. “You saw what a state it was in that day we came here. I don’t think I’ve seen you since.” “No,” He agreed coolly, “you haven’t!” She suddenly recollected her manners, and decided that there was only one thing to do and that was to ask him inside.

  “Won’t you come in?” she said. “And see Aunt Kate. She and I are living here together now.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AUNT KATE was sitting in attractively diffused electric lamplight in the sitting-room, and she had a pile of homely- looking mending on her knee. For once Dr. Craig was not spending the evening at the cottage, and Miss Barton was installed in the chair he usually occupied, her feet on a foot-rest, and a pile of magazines at her elbow for the moment when she decided that she had had enough of utilitarian darning. The whole atmosphere of the sitting- room was bright and attractive, with Sarah sleeping with one eye open in a basket in front of the flower-filled fireplace, and the Buhl cabinet in a comer gleaming with a few choice examples of chinaware. The little rosewood writing-desk beneath the window looked as if it had been recently used, and every article of furniture shone.

  The general effect was most pleasing, peaceful, and inviting, especially to one coming in out or the dusk of the evening.

  “Good evening, Commander Merlin!” Aunt Kate exclaimed, as if she was not greatly surprised to see him. “It’s quite a long time since you came to lunch with us.”

  But he was gazing about with obvious approval at what he saw. There was even some astonishment plainly written on his face.

  “Why, you've worked wonders!” he told them. “I always realized that this place had possibilities, but you’ve certainly made the most of them. I congratulate you both.”

  “Thank you,” Aunt Kate replied complacently. “Eve and I are certainly quite well satisfied with what we’ve managed to achieve. Do sit down, Commander Merlin,” she added. “You happen to find us alone tonight, without any of our guests in close attendance. Usually this cottage is like a magnet, attracting either Mr. Pope or Dr. Craig, or both. But tonight I’ve been able to pay some attention to my wardrobe”—holding up a serviceable lisle stocking which had already received some treatment in the shape of a miraculously neat darn— ”and I must ask you to forgive me if I carry on with the good work.”

  “Why, of course,” he answered, sinking into a chair and looking as if he was grateful for the comfort of the deep upholstery. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, and a short sigh escaped him. “This is an oasis of quiet after living in a maelstrom of perpetual motion,” he said. “Perpetual comings and goings, and minor and major crises, and every sort of unwanted distraction, and never a moment to call one’s soul one's own. That, at least, is my own impression of what running an hotel at the beginning of the holiday season means. But you seem to be more fortunate than I am. You can escape.”

  Aunt Kate looked at him rather shrewdly. He certainly appeared a little tired, and his blue eyes looked a little darker and deeper than usual, and there were faint lines of weariness at the comers of his mouth.

  “Yes; we can escape,” she echoed him, and instructed her niece to go and make some fresh coffee for the Commander. “Unless you'd prefer something stronger?” she suggested. “With so many visitors we always keep some alcoholic refreshment on hand, and we can offer you sherry —or even a whisky and soda?”

  “No, thank you,” he answered, and looked up at Eve as she was about to disappear into the kitchen. “But I won't have you bothering about making coffee for me, Miss Petherick. I looked in out of curiosity, because I wasn’t sure whether you were living here yet, and I refuse to make myself a nuisance. It's sufficiently delightful to be permitted to relax here for a short while, since you don't object to my doing so.” And he smiled in the way that did odd things to the usually calm breathing arrangements of Miss Barton's niece. Indeed, when she saw the softened way that that smile played round his mouth, and the strangely direct and even faintly penetrating regard he bent upon her as she hovered behind her aunt's chair, Eve was conscious of something fluttering excitedly in the spot where a pulse beat in her throat. And to hide the fact that she could not quite meet his eyes, she turned away hurriedly.

  “Of course I'll make coffee,” she said. “It won't take me a minute.” When she returned with the tray in her hands, her aunt and Roger Merlin were indulging in a friendly argument as to the best method of encouraging visitors to hotels, and the important “don'ts” that prevented their staying for any length of time, and he looked up with a sudden laugh in his eyes as Eve handed him his coffee.

  “Miss Barton, I can see, is becoming really keen on her new job,” he observed, “and unless I'm really careful I shall have to think about shutting up the Stark Point when Treloan Manor beco
mes the most popular holiday haunt along this coast. Some of your aunt's ideas, Miss Petherick, are quite revolutionary, and as I believe she has the strength of mind to carry them out, it looks as if I shall soon be folding my tents and retreating to the fastnesses of the one or two little places I own on the Continent.”

  “And the fact that you own places on the Continent means that you're already amassed sufficient money to buy Eve and me out probably half a dozen times over!” Aunt Kate offered with her unfailing shrewdness. “For one thing, I happen to know that they're not 'little', and for another, it would take more than our poor little

  effort to cause you even a moment's uneasiness!”

  “Would it?” But his smile gave away nothing as he bent forward and offered his cigarette-case. “All the same, one can never afford to ignore a rival, and I have always regarded Treloan as being ideally situated for an hotel of the type that, shall we say, attracts the nicer kind of holidaymaker. Which means, of course, the wealthy kind— the kind who do not object to paying for the dignity of a gracious old house and all its amenities, to say nothing of a superb situation. A situation, I don’t mind admitting, that is superior even to that of the Stark Point.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Aunt Kate observed.

  “It is,” he agreed. “And it’s even more when you happen to possess a charming small cottage like this one, where you can make your own home away from all the involved running of the hotel itself. If I had a small place like this within reasonable distance of the Stark Point, I wouldn’t be occupying a flat on the top floor, which was at one time relegated to the use of servants. Or, at least, it was in my father’s and mother’s day.”

  “It doesn’t sound entirely ideal,” Miss Barton admitted, while Eve sat quietly sipping her coffee and listening to their conversation—and thinking that after tonight the tapestry chair in which the Commander lounged, so much at his ease, would have a particular kind of interest for her. “And I wonder what your father and mother would think if they could see the magnificent thing into which you have turned their old home? They weren’t, I suppose, alive when you first had the idea?”

  “No,” he answered quietly, “they were both dead.”

  “Otherwise you might have—hesitated?”

  “I don't know. I don’t think so.” He crushed out the stub of his cigarette in the ash-tray, and then stared hard at the plain grey carpet which had come from Uncle Hilary's study at Treloan. “It was better than seeing the place go—perhaps turned into some sort of an institution. And at least it is still mine.”

  “Yes; it is still yours!”

  Aunt Kate felt a kind of softening round her heart as she looked at him, for there must have been a time when he experienced many pangs over what he was doing to his old home. For a home is a home, and it is not easy to share it with a large number of other people, even if they do pay you handsomely for the privilege. And she had a kind of “hunch”, as an American would have said, that Roger Merlin had been more than ordinarily devoted to the place where he had probably first seen the light of day, and where his boyhood had been spent, and where so many pleasant and strictly private memories were stored away, like faded brocades in a dower chest. Memories of uncaring youth, before the dark days of war, in which he had served so magnificently and which had altered the fortunes of his parents. Memories of a well-tended paradise beside the sea, where he had wandered freely, hunting for birds’ eggs along the shore, fishing, sailing, learning to swim like an eel. Memories of days that had nothing to do with his present responsibilities. Days that he was so loath to forget about entirely that to preserve something of them he had turned the place into an hotel.

  But an hotel was not a home!

  Looking at him as he automatically lighted another cigarette Eve could see that he was frowning a little, his dark brows so closely together that the scar showed up almost painfully, while the jut of his chin seemed suddenly much more noticeable.

  He was trying to persuade himself, she thought, that he had done the right thing, and that even if it was possible for his mother and father to behold the result of all that he had attempted, they would not be shocked, or displeased, and would perhaps feel a little bit proud of him. But he was also regretting the loss of a home, and that was something self-persuasion could not alter. It was something that would affect him more acutely as time went on, unless, of course, he married and started a fresh home of his own, away from the atmosphere of his work and away from constant reminders of less exacting and more leisurely days.

  But for the present he was a bachelor—whether by choice or not it was impossible to tell—and his home was the top floor of Stark Place, which was now the Stark Point Hotel. And although it was much more luxuriously furnished than in the old days, when it had been used to accommodate staff—probably more luxuriously furnished, according to modern standards, than any part of the old place as it was in his parents' days—yet it lacked something. It was never meant to be lived in as a home, as this cottage was meant to be lived in. And both Eve and Aunt Kate realized that their visitor was making mental comparisons, and that in a way he was envying them. He who had been ready and willing to buy up Treloan, and every stick of beautiful period furniture it possessed, without making serious inroads into his bank balance, envied them their right to do as they pleased in this small, simply furnished house discreetly tucked away behind the more ostentatious skirts of Treloan!

  Aunt Kate thought it was slightly pathetic.

  “Any time you’re not too busy to look us up here, we shall be delighted to see you,” she told him, speaking with sudden sincerity. And it was true that she no longer thought of him as the arrogant, demanding male who had

  ruthlessly sought to deprive them of Treloan, but as someone who could be quite pleasant on occasion. And with half an eye on her niece, who was rather like still water, and gave away little on the surface, she wondered whether, perhaps, Eve. . . . Eve was inclined to agree with her. . . .

  “That’s very kind of you,” he said, and stood up. “Very kind!”

  He smiled down first at Miss Barton, and held out his hand, which she took without rising from her chair— largely because it would have meant upsetting the pile of mending.

  “I’m afraid we started off rather badly,” he recalled, with a faintly whimsical, faintly reminiscent smile. “But I’ve a feeling that you’ve forgiven me for wanting to take Treloan from you.”

  “Oh, I certainly have,” Aunt Kate admitted at once, frankly. “And I don’t altogether blame you for wanting Treloan!”

  “And you, Miss Petherick?” looking at her with his head held slightly on one side and a quizzical gleam in his eyes.

  “Oh, I — I think it was quite understandable that you should want Treloan,” she answered, a little taken aback.

  “But much more understandable that you should want to keep it!” He gave her his odd, inscrutable look as they moved towards the door.

  Outside, on the path, they stood looking up at the moon, in its first quarter, which seemed to be caught up in the gnarled and neglected branches of an ancient apple tree. Behind it the sky was as soft and blue as turquoise velvet, and it had a strange, luminous quality about it, which seemed to cast its mantle about them. Eve almost gasped because the loveliness was a loveliness which had the power to hurt. It made one hungry for more.

  Inever watch the scattered fire of stars, or sun s far-trailing train,

  But all my heart is one desire—

  But all in vain!

  Only we happen to be looking at the moon!” he added, with a onesided twist to his lips.

  Eve stood clutching the rickety garden gate, and her heart seemed to be pounding heavily inside her. It was unpleasant, because it seemed to be thundering in her ears as well, and she hoped he could not hear it. She hoped also that the knowledge that the faint, elusive scent of his pipe tobacco, which clung to him, and the mixture of shaving cream and hair lotion which he used, and which also floated in
the atmosphere around them, had a disturbing effect on her was not communicated to him as a result of their standing so close together.

  He bent his sleek, dark head and looked down at her, and he thought that her pale skin looked unnaturally fair and pure in that transforming light.

  “Remember,” he said, “if Treloan gets too much for you, I’ll always take it off your hands!”

  “Thank you,” she answered, not daring to look at him. “But I don’t think I shall ever want to part with Treloan.” “Well, perhaps not,” he agreed. “But you never know.” The song of the sea came up to them

  — the slow, seductive surge of it. “I think I do know,” she told him more firmly. “I could never bear to leave this part of the world now.”

  “Couldn’t you?” looking down at her again. His voice became almost gentle. “Well, that’s the way I feel about it. Although I have to go away from it sometimes — but I always come back!” Irrelevantly she wondered what he was doing up here tonight, and why he had been driving his car on that lonely stretch of white cliff road which led to nowhere in particular. And without Annette! Where was Annette, she wondered.

  “I’m going abroad in a few weeks’ time,” he told her. “I have interests in France and Switzerland. But I shall be back.”

  With or without Annette, she wondered ? And would he be taking Annette with him? But naturally she could not ask.

  “Good night,” he said, taking her hand and retaining it for longer than was strictly necessary while he inspected its well-formed shape in the moonlight. “You'd better not stand out here too long. There's a fresh breeze blowing in from the sea, and you might catch cold — or a bat might get caught up in your hair! ” as one swooped above them.

  She said nothing. She remembered the time when the bat had swooped down upon her in the hall of the cottage, and how he had put his arms about her for a few —or so she though now! — all too brief seconds. And she wondered whether he remembered it, too, for his deep blue sailor's eyes were smiling at her rather strangely as he gave her fingers a little squeeze.