The Little Hotel by Christina Stead Read Free Book Online Page B

it had remained obstinately shut.
    I called Charlie, the old porter. He came laughing.
    ‘Yes, what a card he is! He’s been sitting in the bathroom crying for three hours. I spoke to him through the door. He won’t say anything but this, “How miserable I am, what a rascal I am, I owe my misfortunes to myself”.’
    I told Charlie to get him out at once. The Mayor had just paid his bill, but perhaps he was cleaned out and could not go out for his champagne.
    Charlie and I called out in turn, ‘Mr Mayor, come out, we’re all friends here, come out. What is the matter?’
    But he wasn’t crying then, he was laughing and I thought he might have taken the money. He might have wanted to play a trick on them. At that moment Luisa the chambermaid came upstairs and said:
    ‘Poor man, oh, poor man. I am sure he is in trouble. He was crying all the morning. I knocked at the door and said, “What is the matter, Mr Mayor? I will help you.” But he went on weeping.’
    We all three knocked, but now he sat there laughing to himself and humming a song. I felt sorry. My heart was touched. I said:
    ‘Come out, Mr Mayor. There is someone here wants to see you.’
    I thought he might be drunk. At these words he was quiet. Then he said in a strange tone:
    ‘Who are they?’
    We were all silent, reflecting. Then Luisa said:
    ‘Mr Mayor, it is only the employees of the hotel who wish to thank you for your goodness to them. You know me, Luisa!’
    She whispered to Clara, ‘Go on, go quickly! Get some flowers out of the dining-room.’
    But they were only dried-up everlastings which had been there the whole winter.
    Mrs Trollope quickly unpinned her violets and gave them to Luisa.
    Suddenly the Mayor called: ‘Charlie! Very well, Charlie, go and get me some clothes. I have nothing on. I can’t receive people like this.’
    Charlie winked. ‘How the devil did he get there?’
    Charlie got a dressing-gown, hat, muffler and shoes. The door was unlocked, Charlie handed in the clothes and the Mayor came out dressed in hat, muffler, sunglasses, dressing-gown but with his shoes in his hand.
    Said Charlie: ‘You see, he wore his sun-glasses at any rate.’
    ‘These shoes must stand in front of the doors of my suite,’ said the Mayor severely and replaced them.
    His feet were well-shaped, pale, clean. He was, in fact, a good-looking man in all ways.
    Luisa gave him the violets, making a speech to him in Italian. He smiled. At his door, the Mayor turned and cried:
    ‘Champagne for all! Thank you, friends!’ and then told Charlie to go for champagne. He commanded:
    ‘To the Hoirs! To the Hoirs! I like them. During the street-fair they gave me twenty little bottles for nothing at all.’
    These twenty little sample bottles, wine and liqueurs, he had wrapped into a parcel, which he carried into the sewing-room to give to Lina, ‘For the Italians, you understand’.
    It was as if a little bird had told him about the awful quarrel at that time between the Italians and the French cook. He was a very clever man, I know that.
    The Hoirs he mentioned were just up the street. Charlie lost no time and came shuffling back with four bottles of champagne at eleven-fifty each. Well, to pay for it, the Mayor gave Charlie a hundred-franc note and there were some strange glances at that. But whose really was it?
    Roger was now out frequently with friends in the town. When he returned this time, he got rid of the worry in his usual practical way: ‘The thief is either Mr Wilkins or Madame Blaise, their doors are open into Mrs Trollope’s room. No servant would dare take so much. Mr Wilkins would do it for discipline and Madame Blaise is a big spender. She despises Mrs Trollope and everyone here. For that matter I myself despise rich people who live meanly in a fourth-class hotel.’
    ‘That doesn’t mean you would steal from them.’
    ‘And she takes more drugs than the doctor brings her.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    He said no more.

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