Dorothy Quentin - The Inn by the Lake

by The Inn by the Lake (lit)

  He was tall, but not as tall as Jonathan, and his good looks were more obvious. He moved with a certain grace by her side as they walked down the grass path between the roses, and he talked casually to put her at her ease. She was a funny little thing, old-fashioned one moment and blunt the next. Pretty ... ? Well, perhaps not pretty; but there was an undeniable charm about the girl, and the way she moved, and on the rare occasions when she forgot to be dignified and chuckled, she was delightful. Nicole Berenger. . . . Nigel had been intrigued, greatly intrigued, about her. A little while ago, when he'd heard that Jonathan Grant was bringing the child home after all he'd mentally kissed good-bye to his hopes of the Stannisford money. Then his mother crudely, and Aunt Helen more subtly, had hinted that there was plenty for both of them if he played his cards cleverly. Nicole intrigued him more now that she was actually here. She might have been so much worse, he acknowledged in the privacy of his own mind.

  "These roses are Crabtree's pride and joy; they're at their best now," he was telling her. "Isn't it funny, the way gardeners' names so often go with their jobs? Crab-tree! It describes him, too. Do you know, he will not allow even Aunt Helen to pick the flowers, until he ha9 shown her the ones available for the house?"

  Nicole chuckled. She thought of her own efforts with the wilderness behind the albergo; there was never enough time to do all she wanted to do there. She sympathised with Crabtree; it he could make a garden like this, enclosed between the soft grey walls that shone like silver in the twilight, he had a right to be autocratic.

  "What are you laughing at?" Nigel demanded, opening a wrought-iron gate for her at the top of some brick steps that led down into the sunken garden, with miniature conifers growing about a lily pool.

  "Oh, this is beautiful! How could anyone build a house like that in a place like this?" Nicole exclaimed, and he touched her arm to indicate a seat by the pool. Her skin beneath his fingers was warm and firm; even in this light it looked golden. Sitting by the pool she looked just right—a fairy child in a fairy world. I could fall in love with her, Nigel thought, and was conscious of a grim amusement at the idea. How many of them would believe that? Least of all his mother. . . .

  As if coming back from her wonderment, Nicole said practically, "I was laughing because—rich people have so little freedom! My—the friends I have been living with— they are poor and hard-working, but they are so free, they have everything!"

  "What do they have?" Nigel asked curiously.

  Her face, bent a little towards the lily pool, had a little smile on it. The sky was still softly lighted from the afterglow of the magnificent sunset, and it seemed reflected on the face of this young girl. Nigel discovered that there was some elemental wisdom in her simplicity, that she went straight to the heart of things, without sentiment and without the blindness of social prejudices. Her small, thin brown hands made a gesture that seemed to embrace all the world, all beauty and love and happiness. She said simply, "They have faith, they know that whatever happens, nothing can separate them from the love of God. They are blessed, too, with sunshine and the mountains and the lake. It is very beautiful, in Lugano."

  It was as if she was talking to herself. Nigel felt a momentary discomfort. He argued more to comfort himself than to convince her. "It's not much fun being poor in this climate, believe me. And I bet your friends could use a little money as well as the rest of us."

  She thought of Emilio and the motor-boat, and the publicity over Pietro's operation, and laughed softly. "Oh, yes, they can use money! But they are not prisoners to it like rich people are—you see, my grandmother can afford a gardener, but she cannot pick her own flowers! And I think her servants cheat her in the house. That was a poorly-cooked dinner. At Emilio's inn we would have served a better meal with half as many things in it."

  "Phew! You are going to be popular with Mrs. Moore and the cook." Nigel grinned, swinging round on the seat to look at her again, to offer his cigarette case. "You don't smoke?" he demanded incredulously when she shook her head.

  "Sometimes. I don't like it very much, and after only one cigarette one's hair smells of smoke," she answered absently, and he wondered who had told her that her hair smelled of smoke. . . . How little they all knew of this girl.

  "Look here, Nicole, I don't want you to think I'm responsible tor the set-up here," he began almost brusquely, and at the change in his tone she liked him better. Now, at last, he was speaking the truth.

  "Set-up?" she queried, puzzled.

  He grinned again briefly. "The layout, the family arrangements—our being here to welcome you, and all that."

  "But you are relations; you have the right to be here," she answered, still a little puzzled, "only I think that your mother does not like me. Perhaps she thinks—perhaps they all think—I have come to get what I can of the money?" She asked it as a question, so flatly that Nigel was nonplussed.

  She added quietly, with immense dignity, "I do not want the money. Any of it. It could have helped my mother and my father once, if it had been given with love, but I do not need it."

  If anyone else had said those words Nigel would have laughed aloud. All he said, almost reverently, was, "Well, we need it all right."

  Nicole smiled faintly. "Then take it. I came only be-cause—because Jonathan said Grand'mère was old and sick, and needed to make her peace with me because of what my grandfather did to my parents."

  The man beside her crushed out the butt of his cigarette and was silent for a while. He was thirty-two, and since he had been a boy of twelve his mother had impressed upon him that the Stannisford money was the most important thing in the world. And here was this girl—this child— tossing it into his lap as carelessly as if it were one of old Crabtree's roses. He had always considered the family feud ridiculous—blatantly unfair to Evelyn—but the prospect of inheriting a quarter of a million pounds was not ridiculous. Even the moneylenders had been generous on the strength of the will . . . until Henry's death. Now, knowing that Helen Stannisford could leave the lot to a cats' home if she wished, they were drawing in their horns. Nigel's affairs were pretty sticky just now.

  He said almost roughly, "Don't you realise how much there will be? Over two hundred thousand pounds, if that means anything to you—"

  She tried to work it out in francs or lire and failed. It did not mean anything to her. She said again, "Rich people are always worrying, they are slaves to their money. I don't want to be a slave. I think you're foolish if you're willing to give up your freedom for this—you're young and healthy and nice-looking, you can earn your living."

  "Thank you," he answered dryly, but he knew she was not being ironical. She literally had no idea what it cost to live, to have a bit of fun, to run a car. ... He added grimly, "I have a job of sorts. I work in an office in Exeter. Uncle Henry saw to that—though I wanted to be a pianist."

  Nicole turned to him impetuously. "There are are, already you are a slave, not doing what you want!"

  "Well, I've been a slave for so many years now, I'd hate to think I wouldn't get the stuff in the end," Nigel admitted with rare honesty. "And I'm heavily in debt. Don't you see, now you've come back, Helen may leave the lot to you? That's why my revered mama doesn't love you!"

  "Oh. . . ."

  It was a very small word, full of understanding. Nigel went on, a little embarrassed in the face of her child-like honesty, to explain the terms of his uncle's will; that will that had been so unfair to Nicole's mother.

  "There's plenty for both of us," he concluded a trifle shamefacedly, "though of course you're entitled to the lot."

  "But I've told you, I don't want any money!" Nicole shrugged, with a hint of exasperation. "I'm only here for a visit. In a while I shall go away."

  "It doesn't matter where you go, Aunt Helen can still leave you the money. Probably she will, anyway, to wipe out the past—My only hope is for her to realise that we get on well together, you and I. Then she may compromise and split it between us."

  "Oh," Nick
i said again, with a different inflection. It was growing dark now and she could not see his face, but she felt the effort it had cost him to be honest. She liked him much, much better than she had thought she would. She was also sorry for him, in a way that would have made his ears burn if he could have read her mind.

  "If we go about together," he added awkwardly, "and Aunt Helen is pleased ... if she thinks—well, it will do no harm if she thinks—"

  "That we're going to be married?" she demanded, amused.

  "Oh, we needn't commit ourselves," he answered hastily, and Nicki jumped up from the seat, still laughing.

  "Your debts must be very heavy."

  "They are." He stood close to her, rueful, yet relieved that they knew where they stood. "And you will be friends, Nicole? After all, it will only make Aunt Helen happy—"

  I have to do such a lot to make Grand'mère happy, she thought suddenly; I have to buy clothes I do not want, and behave like a young lady, and pretend I am liking very much this cousin. . . . Yet it was what her mother would have wished, she felt certain, allowing Helen to die happier. Besides, it was rather fun; it appealed to a mischievous streak in her nature. Also she appreciated the position of the man standing so close, waiting.

  "I think if you have waited so long for your fortune," she said definitely, "you should have it." She did not add what was in her heart: that she thought he was making a bad bargain with life. "And of course I'll be friends. I can't promise more."

  "Thank you, Nicole, that's all I want."

  She moved beside him up the long, smooth grass path with the unselfconscious grace of a wild creature. She did not know that she had shocked Nigel tonight, by her simple creed that was the antithesis of his own sophisticated one, and he had no idea that she was pitying him from the bottom of her heart; pitying a boy whose dreams had been torn from him through the spite of an old man. For to Nicki the integrity of the artist, though she did not use those words, was far more valuable than any amount of money in the bank. And somehow she knew that Nigel, and perhaps his father before him also, could have been an artist with music if he had been left free to choose. . . .

  Nevertheless she was grateful to him for being frank. It cleared the air and she did not feel so bewildered, so lonely, so full of dread for tomorrow. This new life was only a game, a sort of game, after all. She gave a tiny skip that was wholly childish, chuckling, "Now I have two friends. You and Jonathan. I shall tell him tomorrow."

  "For heaven's sake don't!" Nigel answered, more sharply than he intended. "He doesn't approve of any of us; he's a smug devil. I think he despises us all—Mother and Father and me. It's all right for him to be superior, sitting at the top of his profession!"

  "Jonathan isn't—smug," she said hotly, "and he has worked hard to get where he is; he is a wonderful surgeon!"

  Nigel laughed shortly. "Quite your hero, isn't he? But I wouldn't get too fond of him, if I were you. You're a nice kid, Nicole, but Jonathan has no use for women. It'd be a pity if he broke your heart as well as all the others."

  With her hand on the door that led indoors from the conservatory, Nicole swung round to look at her cousin. She did not like his tone when he spoke of Jonathan; yet tonight he had been honest about his own affairs. What, after all, did she know of Jonathan's life in Combe Castleton, both professional and private? She had only known him on holiday, recovering from an illness. Yet it hurt her inexplicably to hear him spoken of in that casual fashion.

  "What do you mean?" she demanded bluntly. "Jonathan doesn't seem the sort of man to enjoy breaking hearts!"

  Nigel laughed shortly. "He does it, all the same. He's quite a lion here, you know, and in Harley Street circles. Women throw themselves at his feet, and old Jonathan just smiles and passes on."

  He saw the unbelieving expression in her eyes. Until now he had been half teasing, but he thought suddenly that it would be a nice mess if she fell in love with Grant seriously. Aunt Helen would probably be delighted ... the nephew of her oldest friend and all that. And then he could kiss his share of the money good-bye...

  "I don't believe you!" Nicki cried softly. "Jonathan is never cruel!"

  "I didn't say he was." Nigel felt uncomfortable again. This child was disconcerting. "A man can't help being attractive to women, you know, any more than a woman can help being beautiful. To do him justice, Jonathan avoids all social life when he can—but naturally he can't live entirely like a hermit."

  "Why should he want to live like a hermit?" she demanded suddenly. This conservatory was stifling her, the scent of the flowers was overwhelming; not fresh and sweet, like the rose garden outside. She could feel the pounding of her own heart, and was afraid of losing her temper. "He is young and kind, he likes his work—and life—and people ! Why should he want to live like a hermit, Nigel?"

  She felt she had to know. There was something in Jonathan's life that was the key to his almost bitter absorption in his work, that lay behind his teasing irony.

  Her cousin shrugged, narrowing his eyes as he looked at her. "I believe you're in love with him, Nicole! If you are, I advise you not to wear your heart on your sleeve. Don't show him what you feel"—he grinned suddenly—"partly because it would finish my prospects with Aunt Helen, but partly because you'd only get hurt, my dear. Jonathan, for all his kindness, does not trust women. I told you, he has no use for them—"

  "But why, why?" Nicole demanded again, appearing to disregard his advice about wearing her heart on her sleeve. She had no trace of coquette in her, she could no more pretend she did not love Jonathan than she could say she had forgotten her parents . . . but until this moment she had not realised the strength of her love, nor had she any hopes that it would be reciprocated.

  Yet, perversely, her cousin's high-handed opinions roused her obstinacy. She defended Jonathan swiftly. "Someone has hurt him," she said thoughtfully, with conviction, "some woman. He's not like that, Jonathan; I tell you, he likes people, Nigel. . . ."

  Nigel laughed shortly. "Then you've seen a different side of him from the good ladies who pursue him so desperately for their daughters and friends!" He added, lighting a fresh cigarette, "I believe he was jilted once. He was engaged to a smashing blonde who married a rich American instead—that was in the days before he made his name, of course."

  "Aah. . . ." It was a tiny sigh on the perfumed air of the conservatory. I would like to kill her, the beast, Nicole thought passionately. She wished with all her heart that Jonathan was not a rich and successful surgeon pursued by women, that he had come to Lugano while he was still a struggling young doctor. . . . She would have given him love and life and laughter, and in those days he would not have thought of her as a child to be teased and petted and looked after. . . .

  Her cousin touched her shoulder lightly. "Don't pay too much attention to that old story, my sweet. If Jonathan had wanted to salve his pride he could have married some very attractive women. I honestly think he prefers his freedom, and that the old scar over Fay has healed long ago. Maybe he finds it very useful. I think he's a born bachelor."

  "Maybe." Nicole did not agree with him, but she was learning rapidly. "Anyway, he is my very good friend, Nigel—and I promise not to embarrass him by—by wearing my heart on my sleeve!"

  "Good girl," he answered approvingly. "Remember that for the present, anyway. I'm the interesting male in your young life!"

  She chuckled. "You make it sound very unromantic!"

  "Well, if you want it with soft lights and sweet music, you'd better let me take you to the Milburs' dance tomorrow," Nigel grinned down at her. "Very county. Old friends of Aunt Helen's and all that—sent the invitation as soon as they knew you were coming." He looked at her closely, suddenly, "You'll have to run the gamut of all the old biddies—the dowagers—but, lord, you'll give 'em a shock, Nicole! Do you know you're a very pretty girl?"

  "No, I'm not pretty." She shook her head definitely. "And I don't want to impress these old ladies! Besides, I have nothing to wear."

&nbs
p; "Ah, now I know you're human!" Nigel was suddenly delighted with her. "I was beginning to wonder if you were an angel! Let Mother choose a frock for you tomorrow— she has decent taste, you know. And if she thinks you're going with me she'll find something just right."

  Nicole could not think of anything she would like less than to go to a private dance that was "county"; to run the gamut of a lot of elderly women who knew the story of her mother's runaway marriage, who would be curious and critical; to wear a gown chosen for her by Nigel's mother, that woman with the cold, unsmiling eyes. . . . She would rather, oh, infinitely rather, have gone out with Jonathan in one of the little boats she had glimpsed down in the harbour. But perhaps here at home he would not have time to go out with her in rowing-boats. . . .

  "Aunt Helen will be pleased if you come," Nigel urged. He was, suddenly, inexplicably eager to take her to this dance. It was not the sort of dance he could have taken any of his girl friends to, but Helen Stannisford's grand-daughter would be accepted without question. It would be amusing to see how she behaved herself with the old biddies, how she danced

  "Please, Nicole. It will be a good way of breaking the ice, and Fourways is a lovely old house, a Tudor manor. You'll be interested in that, anyway."

  "Yes, I will come, thank you," she answered at last in her quaint, old-fashioned way. "Good-night, Cousin Nigel."

  "Good-night, Cousin Nicole." He was laughing down at her as he opened the door for her. "Sleep well, for tomorrow you go to the ball!"

  She would not sleep well, she thought, in that dreary bedroom with its heavy Victorian furniture looming over her; but she was tired out with all the experiences of the past three days, and she was asleep before she had time to think it all over, as she had intended.

  CHAPTER SIX

  NICOLE awoke in a panic, to a strange room in a strange house. She had a terrible sensation of loss; she had lost Emilio and Bianca and Pietro, and the albergo and her old rowing-boat, and every dear familiar thing she had ever known. She had even lost her friend, Jonathan, she thought wistfully, remembering Nigel's careless confidences. Yesterday Jonathan had gone away, back to hit own place, leaving her with all these strangers. . . . Even Jonathan had deserted her. And she had almost promised her grandmother to fall in with all the old lady's plans for her future life—she had quite promised Nigel to go to this big dance tonight in the old manor house. . . .