Hotel Stardust

by Susan Barrie

  “Good night,” he said again. “Good night, Eve!” Then he went walking briskly away from her out to his car, and she stood and watched his powerful car lights disappearing in the direction of Treloan village.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  YET the next time they met that moment on intimacy at the garden gate might never have existed, for once more his manner had undergone a change, and the circumstances of their meeting might possibly have had something to do with it.

  Eve had been shopping in Truro, with Martin Pope as her escort, and they got back to Treloan in time to have lunch at The Smuggler, where Tom Geake received them with the effusion he reserved for Miss Petherick and her friends these days. Tom had a kind of inner parlor where he served meals to his more favored customers, away from the press of the inevitable hikers and the few odd holidaymakers who spent a night or so in his inn, and he led the way to it with a beaming smile on his face, announcing that they were just in time for the roast duck and apple sauce which his wife cooked better than anyone else for miles around. And while he stood holding the door open for them and thinking that this Mr. Martin Pope was paying a good deal of attention to the little lady who had inherited Treloan, Eve glanced quickly round it and almost recoiled a step at the sight of Roger Merlin, already enjoying the roast duck, at a table in a corner which was also graced by the slight, attractive presence of Annette Le Frere.

  Annette had her elbows on the table, and was laughing, showing her slightly pointed white teeth. She wore burgundy-red lipstick and nail varnish, and her sweater was burgundy also, fitting her like a second skin, and a flaunting primrose scarf was knotted carelessly about her throat.

  “Well, well!” Roger exclaimed, as Tom drew forward chairs for Eve and Martin Pope at the table next to them. “So we’re to have company.”

  Annette jangled her ear-rings and called across to them gaily:

  “So it is that you two escape as well! Rogaire and I we just walk out and leave everything. Everything! Bah!” She spread her hands. “Work it is boring!”

  “Work?” Roger echoed her, with elevated eyebrows. “A fat lot of work you do, my infant! You simply make work! ”

  But as usual he sounded as if the last thing he ever intended to do was to chide her seriously, and knowing that for some reason whatever she did was likely to meet with, if not his approval, at least his affectionate tolerance, she caught his arm and gave it a little hug, while he looked across at Eve with the old, completely mocking look

  in his eyes.

  “Not so busy that you can't steal away sometimes?” he suggested. “Well, it's a good thing not to let business get on top of you, and you're lucky to have Mr. Pope to see to it that all work and no play doesn't make Jill a dull girl !” The eyes were full of a meaning look which Eve could only interpret as unpleasant and intended to cause her embarrassment, so without making any response she took her seat at the table and deposited her parcels neatly on a vacant chair near her.

  She was looking particularly attractive this morning, in a crisp linen suit of a shade of pink which did not fight with her hair, and there was no doubt about it, Martin Pope had all the appearance of a man who was exceedingly proud to be seen with her. He picked up the wine-list on their table, and called Tom Geake back into the room to order a bottle of light wine to be served with the main course, and dry martinis to encourage their appetites. Then he sat back and beamed pleasantly at everyone in the room — sparing a few moments of extra admiration for Annette, who certainly earned the caption “glamour girl”, and looked as if she ought to be on the cover of a magazine, with a cigarette in a long amber holder dangling negligently from her lips.

  “This is quite a delightful little place,” he pronounced. “And I particularly like this room. It's cosy and tucked away.”

  It certainly was. There were hunting prints on the walls, and plush-covered chairs, and stout beams crossing the ceiling. There was a ship in a bottle on the mantelpiece, and an old blunderbuss over the mantelpiece, and a year- before-last’s calendar hanging on the wall. But everything was free from dust, and despite a slight smell of mothballs, it wasa place in which to relax and temporarily forget one’s cares while enjoying an excellent repast. For the standard of food at The Smuggler never dropped below the high level Tom Geake and his wife had set for it.

  “Possibly you frequent it almost as much as I do — when I’ve someone like Annette to bear me company!” Commander Merlin remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette from the end of his old one and tossing the old stub into the fireplace.

  Martin Pope looked at him rather curiously for a moment.

  “Well, perhaps I do,” he agreed. He looked across at Eve. “When Miss Petherick can be persuaded that Treloan isn’t likely to run away during her absence, or some dire catastrophe overtake the inmates!”

  She smiled as he picked up his martini and toasted her in silence.

  “Let’s hope nothing goes wrong with the party tonight, anyway.”

  “Party?” Annette pricked up her ears and looked keenly interested. “Are you having a party? What fun!”

  “Well, only a little dinner-party,” Eve explained, experiencing a slight difficulty over making conversation. Ever since she had entered the room and seen Roger Merlin there with Annette her spirits had received something in the nature of a cold douche, for although she was fully aware that Annette attached herself to him on every possible occasion, she never found it a particularly attractive sight to watch them together. And somehow, since the other evening when he had called at the cottage, without Annette, not even seeming to miss her greatly. . .

  But she realized that she was being absurd. Commander Merlin had a habit of flirting light-heartedly with most women who were reasonably attractive, and with whom he came in contact, possibly for the purpose of whiling away a dull half-hour. Of that she felt suddenly certain. In his walk of life, where it was his job to be charming to women, he no doubt exerted himself a good deal — unless, of course, they had red hair and he took a dislike to them on sight, as he had done with her! But he hadovercome his dislike! They were reasonably friendly now. And the other evening....

  She took a gulp at her drink, feeling that he was watching her, and there was no noticeable friendliness in his eyes, she was sure, for some reason. What a perplexing, confusing person he was. He did not flirt with Annette — Annette seemed, somehow, almost to belong to him, and possibly would belong to him before long. No doubt he intended to marry her. But such women as Mrs. Neville Wilmott knew how to persuade him to be consistently charming. He was always courteous and attentive to them. They brought out the best in him. But she, apparently, brought out the worst!

  “A dinner-party?” Annette echoed, even more eagerly. “For some special purpose?”

  “Yes; it’s Dr. Craig’s birthday, and we want to celebrate the occasion. We’re even giving him a birthday-cake,” Eve smiled a little wanly.

  “But how delightful!” Annette showed her little teeth again as she laughed. “And candles? Of course he is having candles! How many will he require? Fifty, sixty, seventy? He is not young, that one — he will require a great many candles.”

  “That’s quite an idea,” Martin Pope said, as if the idea appealed to him, and smiled with a strong surge of humor. “We mustn't forget the candles, Eve” — he did occasionally drop the “Miss Petherick” — “and if it’s not too late I suggest that we collect some before we return to the Manor.

  It might mean slipping back into Truro, but we can do it before tea, and the place will survive without you a little longer. Now that Miss Le Frere has reminded me of them, we simply can’t do poor old Craig out of his candles.”

  “No, no, of course not!” Annette cried, clapping her hands together childishly. “And,” she added naively, “I would like to be there to see them!

  “But of course you must be there! Eve turned to her, and for a moment she quite liked her. “You must come to dinner, if you will? And Commander Merlin?” she added, meeting hi
s eyes fully and directly for the first time and reading in them a look which puzzled her, for it was not so much mocking as speculative. “Would you find it very dull to be a guest at Dr. Craig’s birthday dinner, Commander Merlin? If, of course, you can spare the time!” “Any opportunity to have dinner at Treloan is an opportunity I wouldn’t miss.” he replied, with a quite surprising touch of gravity. “And as for this impudent miss here, she has already invited herself.”

  “Which is better than not being invited at all,” Annette declared with gamin pertness.

  Martin Pope agreed with her. He thought her attractive but a minx, and decided that the job of taking her on as a wife would prove no sinecure. But possibly this fellow Merlin knew what he was about.

  “Then that’s settled,” Eve said, as if the addition of two hitherto unconsidered guests to the party quite met with her approval. “And all that remains is to get the candles. But I don’t imagine the cake Chris has baked for Dr. Craig will hold very many; and as he might not like to think we’ve been trying to guess at his age it might be wiser, and kinder, to add a token candle.”

  “Oh no,” Martin Pope disagreed with her. “I don’t have to guess: I know!” He chuckled suddenly. “I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to get back on him for one or two of the things he’s done to me in the past

  — such as putting me on a strict diet at one period, and not letting me off until I was practically reduced to a shadow! And insisting on this prolonged holiday for another. Not,” he added, glancing quickly at Eve, “that I have any regrets where that’s concerned. It’s the best holiday I’ve had for years.” Eve felt herself growing slightly pink, for there was no misreading the look in his eyes, and she knew that Commander Merlin could translate that look as well.

  “Well, I’m glad that you can say that,” she murmured hurriedly.

  “And I’m certainly indebted to Dr. Craig, because if he hadn’t suggested your taking a holiday, Treloan Manor would never have had any of you as guests.” “Which, of course, is important from Miss Petherick’s point of view,” Commander Merlin observed smoothly.

  “And mine!” Pope declared quite fervently. “In fact, if I was at all superstitious, I would say that I could quite clearly discern the hand of providence in all that has happened to me since I left London. And even though the poor old Rose has been laid up in Falmouth ever since as a result of those happenings, I don’t think I would complain!” “No?” Roger murmured, smiling with the merest touch of sarcasm clinging to the corners of his mouth. “And, no doubt, when she's seaworthy once more, you and the Rose will disappear again into the blue?”

  “I don't know. I don't think so. Unless ... ” He paused; once more glanced at Eve, glanced at the wine clinging to the bottom of his glass, and then away from the table at the ship in the bottle on the mantelpiece. His face was thoughtful, but his voice gave away nothing. “It all depends,” he said. “It all depends!” ;

  “On what?” Roger could have inquired, although he was almost sure he knew the answers. A honeymoon in the yacht would be ideal. But, on the other hand, if he had to go away and nurse a broken heart, the Rose of Sharon would be ideal for the purpose. Yes; ideal for both purposes!”

  Roger thrust back his chair and stood up.

  “Well, come along, infant,” he said, almost curtly, to Annette. “We'd better be going. I can’t devote my entire day to doing nothing.”

  Annette smiled at Eve in almost the same friendly fashion that she had smiled at her at the very beginning of their acquaintance.

  “An revoir,Mademoiselle Eve, and Monsieur Pope,” she said. ‘Tonight I shall insist that Dr. Craig blows out all the candles!”

  When Eve returned to Treloan, she found that her aunt was exercised by a problem. Indeed, Miss Barton was greatly concerned because the present she had bought for Dr. Craig’s birthday did not now strike her as entirely the right sort of present for an elderly spinster lady to give to an elderly bachelor gentleman, and she wanted her niece’s opinion on it.

  “It was those dreadful pyjamas he wears,” she confessed, “that put the idea into my head. You must have seen them!

  That night when they all came here after the storm, I could hardly

  take my eyes off them. Simply terrible purple stripes, and he has another pair that look exactly like a particularly lurid sunset. I mean, supposing he was ill — what on earth would they think of him if he had to be taken to hospital wearing those things?”

  ‘Tm sure I don’t know,” Eve admitted. “But does it matter?” she added. “After all, they’re probably his own choice.”

  “Much more likely to have been the choice of some relative with a shocking taste — a nephew, or someone, who wanted to borrow some money. Anyway, I hope mine will strike him as much more suitably subdued.”

  “Yours?” Eve inquired, surprised. And then she stared as her aunt unwrapped a parcel, bearing the label of an exclusive gentlemen’s outfitters in Truro, and displayed to view two chaste, cellophane-wrapped subsidiary parcels containing two separate pairs of men’s heavy silk pyjamas in discreet shades of pale lavender and a kind of biscuity-beige.

  “There!” Miss Barton exclaimed. “What do you think of those?”

  Eve endeavored to keep an absolutely straight face as she examined the garments; but try as she would a faint smile would not be denied. “Why, I think they’re very nice indeed,” she said.

  “Do you?” Aunt Kate looked at her. “Truthfully?”

  “Yes; truthfully.”

  “And you don’t think he’s likely to think it a little bit odd?” A flush actually overspread her weather-beaten face and disappeared under her smartly-cropped hair. “I mean, I know I’m not even a married woman, and — and he’s not a married man, but...”

  “All the more reason why I think you should give him the pyjamas,” Eve said. “He obviously requires someone to look after him, and it’s very nice of you to take an interest. Depend upon it, he’ll think so! And you might even persuade him to hand over those other monstrosities, and we could burn them in the boiler fire.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Aunt Kate said doubtfully. “They’re quite good material. But these men who live alone, without the influence of any woman in their lives, do seem to form the most extraordinary notions as to what suits them. And although Dr. Craig is a medical man I'm quite sure he doesn’t look after himself properly. Only the other day I had to insist on his changing his wet shoes when he came in after a walk, and he suffers very badly from dyspepsia, you know, but the last thing he bothers to do is to look after his diet. I’ve been watching it for him lately, however, and I’m insisting on his cutting out pastry and other starchy foods.”

  “Well, I’m sure he ought to be very grateful to you,” Eve murmured, still struggling with a desire to grin openly, for the extreme seriousness of her aunt’s face was, she thought, very revealing. Miss Barton had lived for nearly fifty years without betraying any interest whatsoever in any member of the opposite sex, preferring the companionship of a dog like Sarah to even the thought of a husband in her cosy Surrey cottage, but now she was actually concerning herself with the diet of an amiable elderly gentleman who wore lurid pyjamas and ignored the consequences of getting wet feet! Eve could not help wondering what, precisely, had happened to her aunt, and whether it was a condition which was likely to grow worse.

  Miss Barton suddenly caught sight of the twinkle in her niece’s eyes, and the color in her cheeks deepened to quite a wild blush.

  “I can’t imagine what you find even slightly amusing in the idea of my taking pity on the poor man,” she declared, with a touch of tartness. “Anyone would, when he’s so pathetically helpless. And at least he’s grateful to me for doing his mending, and little jobs like that.”

  “Of course he is, darling,” Eve soothed her, passing an arm around the thick waist and giving it a squeeze. “But I was only wondering whether the day might dawn when I’ll have to live alone here at the cottage, or get Chris to
come and live with me, while you and Dr. Craig ------------------------------------------------------------ ”

  “My dear child, don’t say such a thing!” Aunt Kate implored her. “If Dr. Craig heard you, what wouldhe think of me?”

  “Pretty much the same as he thinks now, I imagine,” Eve answered, with an amused smile. “But the important thing is what do you think of him? By the time you’ve made yourself indispensable to him, that’s going to be the important question.”

  “I think you’re being absurd,” Aunt Kate said shortly, and she went to her dressing-table and started to busy herself opening and shutting drawers, and fussing with some toilet articles on the kidneyshaped top. Then she suddenly whirled on her niece. “But while we're on the subject of the men in this house, what about Martin Pope?”

  “Well, what about him?” Eve asked, looking completely innocent.

  “What about him!” Miss Barton scoffed. “As if it isn't obvious to everyone—and certainly must be to you!—that he’s head over ears in love with you, and merely waiting for you to fall in love with him! And are you going to do so? I’ve been wondering for several weeks now. You’d be foolish not to have a good try.”

  “What do you mean?” Eve demanded, also walking to the dressing-table and picking up a bottle of eau-de-Cologne and

  examining it thoughtfully.

  Aunt Kate made an expressive movement with her shoulders, and started to brush her hair vigorously.

  “It's so simple that you don't need me to cross your t’s for you, and dot your i's. Marry Martin Pope, who is really quite charming, and you can turn all those people (including myself and Dr. Craig) out of Treloan, and live there yourself, in dignified style, as I'm sure you would like to do—as your uncle Hilary Petherick did! Treloan is such a delightful house that it would make a wonderful background for a home, and with Martin’s money it could be made even more delightful. The gardens, for instance, want money spent on them, and so soon will the exterior walls of the house, which deteriorate quickly in this salt atmosphere. We have no money to do these things. As Martin’s wife you could have a simply superb time, spending, spending, spending. . . . And it would let that Roger Merlin man see that he’s not the only pebble on the beach!”