Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake

by The Inn by the Lake (lit)

  Gathering the words together carefully, because both Nicole and her mother had taught the Fionettis English, he said politely; "I must go and wash now, have a glass of wine and then—pff !—the last run to Morcoté. We dine early in Lugano, we are back by seven o'clock always. A'riverderci, signore."

  With a little graceful inclination towards the new guest he went away. Nicole gathered the tea things on the tray and looked up in surprise when Jonathan took it from her.

  "I'll carry that for you." For the first time he was slightly embarrassed at her amusement.

  "Here we wait on the men," she acknowledged mischievously, "and I go to help Lucia prepare supper. Will you help Lucia, also, then?"

  "Certainly, if she will allow me in the kitchen!" Jonathan persevered and forgot his embarrassment. As they passed through the dining room they saw Bianca and Pietro doing their homework at the table by the window, arms sprawling and white teeth biting into pencils, and he smiled at them. He liked children much better than he liked most women, which was perhaps the instinctive reason behind his thinking of Nicole Berenger as an attractive child. One could never make that mistake with Bianca Fionetti, though she was years younger than Nicki.

  Lucia was dealing with vegetables and steaks on the scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen. Now the best clothes had gone, the shawl replaced by an enormous and spotlessly white apron. She acknowledged Nicki's introduction of Jonathan with a brusque little nod and a shooing motion of her gnarled old hands, and a long, scolding spate of Italian to Nicole.

  "She says we should have woken her when you came," Nicole translated smilingly as she washed up the tea things, "and now you must get out of her way, she is busy! Everyone comes into her kitchen, but she says Englishmen are no good at domestic work."

  Jonathan laughed. "At least I can peel vegetables and cut up steak," he said quietly, picking up one of the old, thin, sharp knives from the table.

  "Dio mio" Lucia stared at him, at the long, brown fingers wielding the knife so efficiently.

  The old woman laughed suddenly, a dry cackle, and shrugged her shoulders tolerantly. "This one is different," she said to Nicole. "I have never seen a man so neat with his hands."

  "I should know how to use a knife, at least," Jonathan said dryly, when Nicki translated his conquest. "I'm a surgeon." It was some sort of relief to be able to be honest about his work, anyway. Already the Albergo Fionetti was casting some sort of spell on him, so that he felt at home here and subtly guilty when anyone mentioned the name "Johnson."

  "Oh. . . ." Nicole's small face was momentarily serious. "That is an important job. That is why you have a holiday?"

  He knew she meant, that is why you wanted peace and quiet, not the conventional hotel holiday. He went on cutting up the meat into neat cubes, as Lucia indicated, and said briefly, "I was wounded working in a Vietnam hospital. I'm perfectly fit again, but my doctor ordered me to go away for six weeks, somewhere new—somewhere quite fresh where I could do no surgery."

  Nicole nodded gravely, the tears running down her cheeks from the onions she was peeling. "Here you can rest, and paint, and fish—or just go to sleep. Here you can do what you like. If you get bored with us you can go to the town, or up the mountains—there are hotels everywhere."

  Lucia, who would never bother herself to learn English, said, "You silly girl, crying over onions! I put them instead of garlic because this is an Englishman. Is he rich? Will he stay a long time?"

  Nicki laughed through her tears, sniffed and blew her nose on a large, masculine and none too clean handkerchief she took from her pocket.

  "He can stay as long as he wants, and we are not going to skin him. He has been ill and wants a rest, and he is nice, she said firmly.

  "I don't think I shall be bored here." Jonathan was washing his hands at the cold water over the sink, automatically looking for the brush to scrub his nails before he remembered the sort of sink he was using. He wondered what Sister Swanson, that austere martinet of the theatre, would think if she could see him now. Lucia was making the pasta that would eventually envelop the meat, and there was nothing more he could do in the kitchen. He asked permission from Nicole to explore the garden.

  "But—of course! Go anywhere you like. After supper I will take you on the lake, it is pretty at night. A 'riverderci."

  "A'riverderci." Old Lucia's carved face broke into a smile. "Grazie, signore. Benvenuto."

  It was a dark night, without stars or moonlight, and the lamps strung along the stone steps of the waterfront cottages looked attractive. Jonathan had witnessed a magnificent sunset after exploring the tangled garden of the albergo, and seen the mountains and the buildings reflected in the still water of the lake. It had been a full day after a night in the French train, but there was something infinitely peaceful and refreshing about the dark water with its shimmering reflection of the lamps. Jonathan was surprised that he was not tired, but now the sun had gone down the air was like wine—cool and revivifying—and he watched Nicole throwing old cushions and rugs into the row-boat with a whimsical expression on his face. Looking up and catching him unawares the girl smiled suddenly.

  "You don't have to make love to me," she told him casually, in her usual sensible tone. "This is not Venice, and my boat is no gondola. But at night it is cold; I don't want you to be ill again."

  "Thank you, Nicki," he answered gravely, touched by her thoughtfulness; secretly amused by the notion that he might have misconstrued her preparations. The girl had changed back to slacks after supper, and to him she was far too childish for romantic adventure ... yet he found himself wondering if some of the younger tourists tried to make love to Nicole. There was a lot he wanted to know about this strange life of Helen Stannisford's grand-daughter on the shore of a Swiss lake.

  Supper had been an enjoyable meal. Lucia's ravioli and stewed vegetables had been delicious, and Jonathan discovered that he was hungry again. Salad, shredded and tossed in oil, was eaten with the meat, and crisp rolls that melted in the mouth, and the cherry gâteau, Gruyere cheese and coffee that followed completed a wonderfully satisfying repast. Emilia took more trouble to make the Englishman feel at home, and old Lucia presided at the other end of the long table. Nicole faced Jonathan across the soft electric candles, and kept a sisterly eye on the ravages of Bianca and Pietro. Now Emilio had gone off on some errand of his own, the children reluctantly shooed off to bed, the washing-up done, and Nicole preparing to take him for a short row on the lake. It had been, Jonathan thought, as he lighted his pipe, a very special sort of day. It seemed as if the ending was going to match the rest, as Nicole shipped her oars when they were well out on the dark water and said softly, "Now you can look. I wanted you to see the lights. When there is a moon or too many stars, they are not as good as this. This is a good night."

  The town of Lugano wore her lights as a woman wears her diamonds, sparkling and glowing against the darker bulk of the hills behind; reflected in shimmering pillars on the dark waters of the lake. And, as Nicole had told him earlier, there were the star-studded "ladders" of the funiculars climbing Monte Bré and San Salvatore, and behind them, far down on the other shore—the highest ladder of all —the funicular climbing to the hotel on Monte Generoso.

  "From the peak, on a fine day, you can see over three countries—Italy, Austria, Switzerland," Nicole told him proudly. "It is a very fine place, a grand hotel. Maybe you will want to stay there when you see it."

  "I'm not in any hurry to explore far afield," Jonathan said with lazy contentment. It was very peaceful out here on the lake. Cool, but comfortable on the old cushions, and warm enough with the rug she had thrown over his knees. Nicole's small fair head was outlined by the lights of the town, and as she moved there was a nimbus about her hair. Her profile was dainty, clear-cut; her voice gentle to match the quiet of the lake, the only other sound the soft "lap-lap" of the water against the sides of the boat.

  "This is very beautiful." Jonathan added gently, "Thank you for bringing me to see it,
Nicki. Now you'd better go back, you must be tired—"

  She chuckled. "I'm never tired! All this is play for me—easy—not like rowing tourists all the way to Morcoté and back when it is very hot, and they want to stop and take photographs all the time—phew!"

  So they sat for a while, watching the beauty of the lake and talking quietly, and Nicole was surprised to find that it was easy to talk with this Englishman. Usually, in spite of her childish outspokenness, she was reserved about her private affairs. Some of the tourists had poked and pried, amazed to find an English girl living with an Italian family, but she had not discussed the whys and wherefores with them. Somehow this one's quiet questions did not annoy her; perhaps because he was older. Old enough to be sensible, anyway. She had liked and trusted him at once.

  Nicole said practically, "In a few minutes we will go back, the wind from the mountains gets very cold later. Tomorrow I will take you fishing, or painting; what you like—"

  "I mustn't take up too much of your time—if you have a regular daily programme, like Emilio," he answered doubtfully, wondering if she would be offended if he offered to hire the row-boat.

  Nicole smiled. "I work as I please, and we shall charge you for this as well. Would fifteen francs a day be too much? For that you will get full board, and I will take you everywhere—for fishing, or painting, or climbing, what you like—"

  "That will be quite all right." Jonathan smiled, too, but he was careful to keep the amusement from his voice. "Are you sure it will be enough?"

  She nodded vigorously, "Quite enough," and added honestly, "For thirty francs a day you could stay at a better hotel in Lugano, a good second-class hotel, with hot and cold water in your bedroom. But the trips would be extra ... and, of course, with us, you can go in the motor-boat when you like, without paying. Emilio will be pleased—"

  Jonathan laughed. "I doubt it. Somehow I think Emilio does not like Englishmen. But would you rather I went to Lugano, Nicki? It will make a lot of extra work for you and Lucia if I stay at the albergo."

  Nicole made little waves with her hand in the lake and answered candidly, "We do not mind a little more work, and it is good for the albergo if you stay. Six weeks at fifteen francs a day is a lot of money; it will help Emilio to pay for Pegasus. We are very lucky to have you, and you must not mind Emilio—he is only afraid you will make me homesick for England, as my mother was homesick. . . ."

  She had given him the opening he was seeking, yet Jonathan found himself oddly reluctant to ask the questions seething in his brain. This child trusted him; she might be—he guessed she would be—-very angry if she thought he had come as a spy from her English grandmother.

  He said diffidently, "These Fionettis—they are not relations of yours, are they? Yet you help run the inn, you look after the children—"

  Nicole smiled again and there was warmth and pride in her voice as she spoke of the Fionetti family. "My father was French, but he had some Italian blood, too. They are my very dear cousins. Before my father died he begged Maman to bring me here if she could not take me to England—he knew Tia Maria would make us welcome ... and she did. She had just lost her husband, too, you see, in an avalanche—she always said God had sent us for company, to console her. She and my mother were great friends—Pietro was born soon after we came—" Nicole laughed gently and now she did not sound at all childish; she was speaking with maturity, with the Continental woman's acceptance of the ups-and-downs of life. "He was my —, my little brother! There was not much money, but we were used to that. We missed my father so much—it was nice having brothers and a sister when we came here."

  She added softly, as if she had momentarily forgotten she was talking to a stranger, telling him things she had never discussed with anyone, even Emilio. "She was a darling, Maria Fionetti—and almost a saint. She shared everything she had with us. Mother worked hard, helping with the albergo—we children had to go to school, of course, we could only help in the holidays—and she did exquisite embroidery to sell to the tourists. But she was not very strong even in Paris—my father's atelier was at the top of a very old house in Montmartre, and she used to sit and rest at the top of each flight of stairs." Nicole touched her chest briefly. "She had a weakness here, that was perhaps why Papa wanted her to come to Switzerland if she could not go home. But it didn't save her life. The doctors said she died of broncho-pneumonia. I think she died of a broken heart."

  Nicole said it matter-of-factly, but with a conviction that startled Jonathan. He was finding this girl, with her odd mixture of common sense, basic simplicity, and deep religious feeling, extraordinarily interesting. An anachronism in the modern world; she must have met and mingled with hundreds of tourists every year, yet their casual permissiveness seemed to have made no impact on her. She seemed completely uninterested in sex or fashions.

  He refilled and lighted his pipe, glad that she was talking to him of her own free will yet wishing that he had met her as a friendly stranger; he dreaded the day when she would find out—as she must—that he had come from the enemy camp.

  "Why did you father die, Nicole?" he asked gently. "He must have been quite young."

  "Yes, he was too young to die," she said brusquely, so brusquely that he realised she had loved her father passionately and bitterly resented his death, "there was a bad fire one night in the old house—the sculptor on the ground floor had sold something, and had a party to celebrate. I suppose they'd had too much to drink . . . when we woke up our place was full of smoke and the staircase was blazing—" She paused, staring at the distant lights of Lugano. Jonathan said quietly, "Don't talk about it if it hurts too much, Nicki."

  "Of course it hurts!" she flared, turning to stare at him in the reflected lights angrily. "I was twelve years old, not a baby. I shall never forget—but sometimes it helps to talk, doesn't it? Now I am older ... for a long time my mother and I—we could not talk about the fire, even to each other. Always we talked of the happy times, before—"

  He nodded, smoking, waiting for her to unburden herself.

  It was strange, Nicole thought, but she wanted to talk to this quiet man with a glint of humour in his grey eyes; perhaps because he was a surgeon there was a kind of strength in him, understanding ... he must be used to human suffering. She didn't want anyone's pity, but she was only just realising how she had longed to talk over her affairs with someone older, preferably someone English; she had been very much alone, boxed-up inside herself, lately.

  "It was a very bad fire," she continued in a small, tight voice, "the house was very old and it was full of rotten wood—that was why it was cheap, it should have been pulled down long ago. It blazed like a bonfire. Papa got us out over the roofs—" she choked a little and plunged on almost aggressively, "then he had to go back to help the Buvais across the landing—they had three small children. He died in hospital three days later, of his bums."

  "That was a brave death, Nicole." Jonathan wished that Helen Stannisford could have heard the story just as Nicole had told it. "If there is a war on, a soldier who behaves like that is decorated for heroism."

  "Pph!" Nicki snapped her fingers contemptuously. "He was an artist, not a soldier! And a good one, too—but because he painted people and places as they are, and not women as triangles with currants for eyes and bananas for breasts, he did not sell many of his pictures."

  He made a sympathetic grunt, disliking the Impressionist school as much as Jean Berenger had done. He liked the human anatomy to be dealt with faithfully, in life and art.

  "What happened to Maria?" he asked after the boat had drifted a while on the quiet, dark water.

  "She was very sad when my mother died, and four years ago—"

  Nicole waved towards the other end of the lake. "They are buried side by side up there, in the cemetery on Morcoté; one day I will show you their graves."

  "You poor child," Jonathan said gently, without patronage, seeing the glint of tears against the background of lights. He wanted to touch her hand, to co
mfort her, but she was somehow removed from the sympathy of a stranger. "You have suffered far too much for a girl of your age."

  "I have not suffered at all," she said austerely, "it was the old ones who took all the burden. Me—I have been loved, and spoiled, and taken into the Fionetti family like one of themselves. It is right that now I should look after them. Tia Maria asked me when she was dying . . . she knew Emilio is headstrong, and Bianca a silly little thing, and Pietro—" Her voice softened again, but now there was laughter in it. "Pietro thinks he is a man! Always he is trying to do too much! Emilio need not worry that I will run away to England!"

  No, Jonathan thought ruefully, Emilio need not worry ... all her love and loyalty lay, naturally, with the Fionetti family. Nevertheless, it seemed an appalling burden for a girl of twenty-two to shoulder ... and there was that other "old one," lonely and regretful for the past, in Osterley House. Old Henry's vindictive wilfulness had caused a nice tangle for his descendants to unravel.

  Love and loyalty towards the family which had befriended her beloved mother were quite enough to keep Nicole here, especially when one remembered the way her father had been treated by her English grandfather. But Jonathan was somehow deeply pleased that the possibility of inheriting a fortune had not made Nicole swerve from her loyalties. That she was essentially practical about money was obvious—she was as open and honest as a child—but the bait offered by the private detective had not made her swerve a hair's breadth from her promise to Maria Fionetti. He wondered how long she would consider herself bound by that promise. . . . Bianca was thirteen, she would probably marry young. But Pietro was only ten ... it would be long before he was grown up. Emilio ... ? Emilio, who was actually a fraction younger than Nicole, but like most Italians, already a man at twenty … was Emilio in love with his cousin? If so, it would be an admirable arrangement for the Fionettis. That they all loved Nicole was obvious; she was their little mother. If she married Emilio she would continue to make a home or the younger ones, to run the inn, to share Emilio's tourist-conducting business. After ten years she belonged here, it was all natural enough, and Jonathan found him-self more and more in sympathy with her attitude. Yet he could not help hoping that she would not marry Emilio; she was half English, more English than she realised, perhaps, and her rightful place was at Osterley House. Secret amusement shook him as he tried to imagine the attitude of the staff there if Nicole should ever appear as their future employer.