The Little Hotel by Christina Stead

Author:Christina Stead [Stead, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6522-2
Published: 2012-09-24T21:44:00+00:00

Chapter 6

THE AFTERNOON BEFORE there had been the usual upheaval, sweeping and polishing between guests; and early in the morning there was a noisy movement and a strong resonant English voice had begun to blow on the landing upstairs, relating some pension story of tipping and service; the old old story of the unhappy hotel-dwellers; and after this story, which boomed through the half-waking hotel, the great voice, the voice of an old sea officer calling down the decks in an early morning fog, said:

‘Thank you very very much; I am very very grateful.’

It was the Admiral; she had returned.

Her voice was answered by a greasy persuasive voice, without timbre, the voice of kindness, the voice of the poor helper, the unwilling travel acquaintance, and this voice said:

‘Now lie down, rest, you had all this fuss and bother, now lie down, it is nearly breakfast time; you will get your cup of tea.’

The great voice shouted:

‘No, thank you very very much. You go back and have yours. I am having mine at the table. Thank you very much. I am very very grateful. Come and see me one of these days—not tomorrow. I am going to see the Edward G. Robinson picture and then going out; but come one of these days.’

The door shut, and the helpers—there were two, a middle-aged couple in the ill-fitting, drab and numerous garments the poor English tripper wears—went down the stairs together holding hands.

Mrs Trollope, who was already dressed, thought she would go upstairs to welcome the Admiral and so distract her mind from her own troubles. She went up to the next floor. There was silence. But suddenly there was a stirring, and she was startled by a mighty squawk, ‘Aw-kh-aw-wkh! Oh-aw-kh! Eh?’ Silence. She waited. A moment later there was a slight movement, a sound like a giant yawning in a limestone cavern, distant and near and echoing, ‘Aw-wh-awh-awh!’ An explosive, sonorous, overpowering and resounding yawn followed it, awesome, disturbing, ‘Aw-aw-awkh-ah-ah-awkh!’ It was the strength that was awesome, for it was a woman in spite of the baritone, and it was sane, capable. It seemed like some limitless being who, for a reason obscure, had taken on the flesh of a superannuated tea-drinking English paying guest. Mrs Trollope retreated, but kept her door open. Then there was a mild roaring in the room upstairs, the lift went down and up, and tea was brought; and then Mrs Trollope, thinking she might perhaps now talk to the poor old lady, alone in the world at eighty-seven, went up again.

There was silence, then a complacent, clanking ‘Aw-whk-awkh-eh-eh!’ Then silence. Mrs Trollope hesitated. It seemed to her she heard her sparrows complaining on her windowsill. The sun was shining in the back of the hotel. ‘Aw-whk-whsk-eh!’ There was a bird somewhere with a musical note. The breakfast bell rang. The voice said:

‘Well, goodbye, little Caroline; don’t be lonely, little Caroline.’

Mrs Trollope feared a familiar spirit. But a canary teeked in the room, so Mrs Trollope made haste and went below.

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