(From _The Story-Teller_)
1922
It was the maddest and most picturesque hotel at which we have ever
stopped. Tony and I were touring North Wales. We had left Llandudno
that morning in the twoseater, lunched at Festiniog, and late in the
afternoon were trundling down a charming valley with the reluctant
assistance of a road whose surface, if it ever had possessed such an
asset, had long since vanished. On rounding one of the innumerable
hairpin bends on our road, there burst upon us the most gorgeous
miniature scene that we had ever encountered. I stopped the car almost
automatically.
"Oh, George, what a charming hotel!" exclaimed Tony. "Let's stop and
have tea."
Tony, I should mention, is my wife. She is intensely practical.
I had not noticed the hotel, for before us the valley opened out into a
perfect stage setting. From the road the land fell sharply a hundred
feet to a rocky mountain stream, the rustle of whose water came up to
us faintly like the music heard in a sea-shell. Beyond rose hills--hill
upon hill lit patchily by the sun, so that their contours were a
mingling of brilliant purple heather, red-brown bracken, and indigo
shadow. Far down the valley the stream glinted, mirror-like, through a
veil of trees.
And Tony spoke of tea!
I dragged my eyes from the magnet of the view and found that I had
stopped the car within a few yards of a little hotel that must have
been planted there originally by someone with a soul. It lay by the
open roadside five miles from anywhere. It was built of the rough
grey-green stone of the district, but it was rescued from the
commonplace by its leaded windows, the big old beams that angled across
its white plastered gables, and by the clematis and late tea roses that
clung about its porch.
I could hardly blame Tony for her materialism. The hotel blended
admirably with its surroundings. There was nothing about it of the
beerhouse-on-the-mountain-top so dear to the German mind. It looked
quiet, refined and restful, and one felt instinctively that it would be
managed in a fashion in keeping with all about it.
"By Jove, Tony!" I said, as I drew up to the clematis-covered porch,
"we might do worse than stop here for a day or two."
"We'll have tea anyhow, and see what we think of it." I clattered over
the red-tiled floor, and when my eyes had grown accustomed to the dim
light that contrasted so well with the sunshine without, found myself
in a small sunshiny room, with a low ceiling, oak-rafted, some
comfortable chairs, an old eight-day clock stopped at ten-thirty-five,
and a man.
He was a long thin man, clean-shaven, wearing an old shooting coat and
a pair of shabby grey flannel trousers. He smoked a pipe and read in a
book. At my entrance he did not look up, and I set him down as a guest
in the hotel.
One side of the room was built of obscured glass panes, with an open
square in the middle and a ledge upon which rested several suggestive
empty glasses, so I crossed to this hospitable-looking gap, and tapped
upon the ledge. Several repetitions bringing no response, I turned to
the only living creature who appeared to be available.
"Can you tell me, sir, if we can have tea in the hotel," I asked.
The long man started, looked up, closed his book, and jumped to his
feet as if galvanized to life.
"Of course, of course, of course," he cried hastily, and added, as by
an afterthought, "of course."
I may have shown a natural surprise at this almost choral response, for
he pulled himself together and became something more explicit.
"I'll see to it at once," he said hurriedly. "I'm--I'm the proprietor,
you know. You won't mind if we're--if we're a little upset. You see,
I--I've just moved in. Left me by an uncle, you know, an uncle in
Australia. I'll see to it at once. Anything you would like--specially
fancy? Bread and butter now, or cake perhaps? Will you take a seat--two
seats." (Tony had followed me in). "And look at yesterday's paper. Oh
yes, you can have tea--of course, of course, of course. Of----"
His words petered out, as he clattered off down a like-flagged passage.
I looked at Tony and raised my eyebrows.
"Seems a trifle mad," I said.
"How delightfully cool," said she, looking round the old-fashioned room
appraisingly, "and so clean! I think we'll stop."
"Let's have tea before we decide," I suggested. "The proprietor is
distinctly eccentric, to say the least of it."
"He looked quite a superior man. I thought," said Tony. "Not the least
like a Welshman."
Tony herself comes from far north of the Tweed.
The hotel was small, and the kitchen, apparently, not far away, for we
could not avoid hearing sounds of what appeared to be a heated argument
coming from the direction in which mine host had vanished. We were used
to heated arguments in the hotels at which we had put up, but they had
invariably taken place in Welsh, whereas this one was undoubtedly in
English. Snatches of it reached our ears.
"... haven't the pluck of a rabbit, Bill."
"... all very well, but----"
"I'm not afraid, I'll----"
Then our host returned.
"It's coming, it's coming, it's coming," he said, his hands thrust deep
in his trousers pockets, jingling loose change in a manner that
suggested agitation.
He stood looking down at us as though we were something he didn't quite
know what to do with, and then an idea seemed to strike him, and be
vanished for a moment to reappear almost immediately in the square gap
of the bar window.
"Have a drink while you're waiting?" he asked, much more naturally.
I looked at my watch. It was half-past four. Very free-and-easy with
the licensing laws, I thought.
"I thought six o'clock was opening time?" I said.
The thin man was overcome with confusion. His face flushed red, he shut
the window down with a bang, and a moment after came round to us again.
"Awfully sorry," he stammered apologetically. "Might get the house a
bad name. Deuced inconsiderate of--of my uncle not to leave me a book
of the rules. Very bad break, that--what?"
Evidently Tony was not so much impressed by the eccentricities of our
host as was I. She approved of the hotel and its situation, and had
made up her mind to stop. I could tell it by her face as she addressed
the proprietor.
"Have you accommodation if we should make up our minds to stay here for
a few days?" she asked.
"Stay here? You want to stay?" he repeated, consternation written large
all over his face. "Good G---- I mean certainly, of course, of course."
He bolted down the passage like a rabbit, and we heard hoarse
whispering from the direction in which he had gone.
"Dotty?" I suggested.
"Not a bit of it," retorted Tony. "Nervous because he is new to his
job, but very anxious to be obliging. We shall do splendidly here."
I shrugged my shoulders and said no more, because I know Tony. I have
been married to her for years and years.
Light steps upon the tiles heralded something new--different, but
equally surprising.
"Tea is served, madam, if you will step this way."
She was the apotheosis of all waitresses. Her frock was black, but it
was of silk and finely cut. Her apron, of coarse white cotton, was
grotesque against it. She had neat little feet encased in high-heeled
shoes, and her stockings were of silk. Her common cap that she wore sat
coquettishly on her dark curls, and her face was charming, though
petrified in that unnatural expression of distance which, as a rule,
only the very best menials can attain.
There were no other guests in the coffee-room, and this marvel of maids
devoted the whole of her attention to us, standing over us like a
column of ice which thawed only to attend upon our wants. There was no
getting past her veil of reticence. Tony tried her with questions, but
"Yes, madam," "No, madam," and "Certainly, madam," appeared the sum of
her vocabulary. Yet when we sent her to the kitchen for more hot water,
we were conscious of a whispering and giggling which assured us that
off the stage she could thaw.
"We must stay a day or two," said Tony. "I'm dying to paidle in that
burn."
"My dear, how often have you promised me that you would never subject
me to Scotch after we were married!" I protested.
"When I see a burn I e'en must juist paidle in it," retorted Tony,
deliberately forswearing herself. "So we'll book that room."
At that moment the celestial waitress returned with the hot water, and
Tony made known her determination. I drive the car, but Tony supplies
the driving-power.
"Certainly, madam. I shall speak to Mr. Gunthorpe." Quickly she
returned.
"Number ten is vacant. The boots and chambermaid are both away at a
sheep-trial, but we expect them back any moment. I shall show you the
room, madam, and if you will leave the car, sir, until the boots
returns----"
"That will be all right. No hurry, no hurry."
While we were examining our bedroom and finding it all that could be
desired, I heard a car draw up before the hotel, and the sound of
voices in conversation. A few minutes later, on going downstairs, I
made the acquaintance of the boots. He was obviously awaiting me by my
car, and touched his forelock in a manner rarely seen off the stage. He
wore khaki cord breeches with leather leggings, a striped shirt open at
the neck, and chewed a straw desperately. In no other respect did he
resemble the boots of an out-of-the-way hotel.
"Garage round this way, sir," he said, guiding me to my destination,
which, I found, already contained a two-seater of the same make as my
own.
"Ripping little car, eh?" said the boots, chewing vigorously at his
straw as he stood, his hands deep in what are graphically known as
"go-to-hell" pockets and his legs well straddled. "Hop over anything,
what? Topping weather we're having--been like this for weeks. If you
don't mind, old chap, you might wiggle her over this way a bit.
Something else might blow in, eh?"
I looked at this latest manifestation with undisguised astonishment,
but he was imperturbable, and merely chewed his straw with renewed
energy.
"That's the stuff, old lad," he said, as I laid the car in position.
"What now? Shall I give you a hand up with the trunk, or will you hump
it yourself? Don't mind me a bit. I'm ready for anything."
He looked genial, but I found him familiar, so with a curt:
"Take it to number ten," I strode off to overtake Tony, whom I saw
half-way down a rough path that led to her beloved "burn."
"I've seen the chambermaid," she said, when I overtook her. "Such a
pretty girl, but very shy and unsophisticated. Quite a girl, but wears
a wedding-ring."
I watched Tony "paidling" for some time, but as the amusement consisted
mainly of getting her under-apparel wet, I grew tired of it, and
climbed back to the hotel.
The bar-window was open once more in the little lounge, and Mr.
Gunthorpe was behind, his arms resting upon the ledge.
"Have a drink?" he said, as I entered. "It's all right now. The
balloon's gone up."