The Little Hotel Read Online Free Page B

more when he is going to have a fit of the blues. As for me I was glad to have the Mayor, who now occupied two adjoining rooms. He said he must have a bedroom and a study.
    The morning this arrangement was made, he rang all the bells, assembled the whole staff and showed a pair of shoes, one shoe outside each door.
    ‘Those shoes are not to be touched; I have staked my claim.’
    We sent up the bill; he paid it at once. He insisted however upon keeping the pair of shoes in their position outside the doors. He said, ‘In case you are tempted to give the rooms to another German family.’
    ‘That was a Greek family.’
    So far, all was easy. We had at that moment only five permanent guests in the hotel. There was Mrs Trollope and her cousin Mr Wilkins, English people from the East, who had been with us for over a year and who occupied two adjoining rooms. On the same floor, next to Mrs Trollope was Madame Blaise, who had been with us the whole winter. Next to her was the large corner room, a double bedroom with a fine view, which Dr Blaise occupied every second weekend when he came over from Basel.
    On the other side of Mr Wilkins at this moment was Miss Abbey-Chillard, an Englishwoman who was a great worry to us. A custom began during and after the war of allowing some English people to stay on at the hotels with only promises to pay, for it was felt that ordinary exchanges would soon be re-established and the English visitors would be allowed to pay their bills in Switzerland. Switzerland received many English visitors in the old days. The English like to come away and stay in a place for a long time. For example there was a couple, a Major and his wife, seen every day along the esplanade, who had been on this part of the lake shore for over forty-five years. They were beginning to worry about dying among foreigners; but they were afraid to go home for they believed the Labour Government would enrol them at the labour exchanges and send the man out to work on the roads, since he had no occupation. These were fancies they had among themselves.
    Thus Miss Abbey-Chillard was troublesome; but one never knows; a hotel-keeper cannot be too cynical or harsh. People who do nothing for a number of years are naturally eccentric. Miss Abbey-Chillard wanted invalid dishes and wished to pay less for them because they contained no meat. At first she ate in the dining-room and then in her room, and we had too few servants for that. Her meals often enough were brought back untouched; and then she did not want to pay anything for ‘this beastly swillʼ.
    Francis the French cook would howl when he heard what she wanted for lunch; and I or one of the girls would prepare the soup or milk dish on a small burner. Hence, it was not always very good.
    Then Madame Blaise, who had poor mountain girls to work for her in Basel, expected abject servility. She always quarrelled with Rosa, a maid we then had from Lucerne who was a schoolteacher’s daughter and had come to learn French. Educated servants are always more difficult than the others. Madame Blaise and Rosa quarrelled in public. Rosa tramped and swirled round the dining-room, pleasant to some, rude to others. Madame Blaise, sitting at the table, as always, in her jacket and dress and even in fur coat, with her big hat and bags and shawls hung round the chairs, made service difficult. Rosa took advantage: she shoved Madame Blaise and spilled the dishes on her shawls. Madame Blaise took advantage: she sent back the dishes three or four times. While all this was going on in the dining-room, Francis the chef, a very nervous and proud man, would be creating scenes with the Italians and Germans. One day Gennaro, who had been scrubbing the floors, had to peel the vegetables. He took hot water in a basin in the kitchen and washed his arms up to the elbows in it. Francis was just coming in to prepare lunch. He instantly flew into a temper saying he would not tolerate dirty—I leave you to