The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories, Arnold Bennett [top novels TXT] 📗

and it was arranged that we should meet there and spend at least a week together, and afterwards they were to come to the Five Towns. I suggested we should all stay at Hawthornden's ... Hawthornden's? Don't you know--it's easily the best private hotel in Llandudno. Lift and a French chef and all kinds of things; but surely you must have seen all about it in the papers!

Now that was why I took Ellis with me. I hate travelling about alone, especially when my husband's away. And it was particularly on account of the girl that I stole the blue suit. But I didn't tell Ellis a word about the girl, and I only just mentioned the father and mother--and not even that until we were safely in the train. These young dandies are really very nervous and timid at bottom, you know, in spite of their airs. Ellis would walk ten miles sooner than have to meet a stranger of the older generation. And he's just as shy about girls too. I believe most men are, if you ask _me_.

The great encounter occurred in the hall, just before dinner. They were late, and so were we. I tell you, we were completely outshone. I tell you, we were not _in_ it, not anywhere near being in it! For one thing, they were in evening-dress. Now at Hawthornden's you never dress for dinner. There isn't a place in Llandudno where it's the exception not to dress for dinner. They seemed rather surprised; not put out, not ashamed of themselves for being too swagger, but just mildly disappointed with Hawthornden's. The fact is, they didn't think much of Hawthornden's. I learnt all manner of things during dinner. They'd been in Scotland when I corresponded with them, but before that they'd stayed at the Ritz in London, and at the Hotel St Regis in New York, and the something else--I forget the name--at Chicago. I was expecting to meet "Colonials," but it was Ellis and I who were "colonial." I could have borne it better if they hadn't been so polite, and so anxious to hide their opinion of Hawthornden's. The girl--oh! the girl.... Her name is Nellie. Really very pretty. Only about eighteen, but as self-possessed as twenty-eight. Evidently she had always been used to treating her parents as equals; she talked quite half the time, and contradicted her mother as flatly as Ellis contradicts me. Mr Smith didn't talk much. And Ellis didn't at first--he was too timid and awkward--really not at all like himself. However, Miss Nellie soon made him talk, and they got quite friendly and curt with each other. Curious thing--Ellis never notices women's clothes; very interested in his own, and in other men's, but not in women's! So I expect Nellie's didn't make much impression on him. But truly they were stylish. Much too gorgeous for a young girl--oh! you've no idea!--but not vulgar. They'd been bought in London, in Dover Street. Better than mine, and better than her mother's. I will say this for her--she wore them without any self-consciousness, though she came in for a good deal of staring. Heaven knows what they cost! I'd be afraid to guess. But then you see the Smiths had come to England to spend money, and--well--they were spending it. All their ideas were larger than ours.

When dinner was over Nellie wanted to know what we could do to amuse ourselves. Well, it was a showery night, and of course there was nothing. Then Ellis said, in his patronizing way:

"Suppose we go and knock the balls about a bit?"

And Nellie said, "Knock the balls about a bit?"

"Yes," said Master Ellis, "billiards--you know."

All four of us went to the billiard-room. And Ellis began to knock the balls about a bit. His father installed a billiard-table in his own house a few years ago. The idea was to "keep the boy at home." It didn't, of course, not a bit. Ellis is a pretty good player, but he did nearly all his practising at his club. I've often heard his mother regret the eighty pounds odd that that billiard-table cost.... _I_ play a bit, you know. Nellie Smith would not try at first, and Papa Smith was smoking a cigar and he said he couldn't do justice to a cigar and a cue at the same time. So Ellis and I had a twenty-five up. He gave me ten and I beat him--probably because he would keep on smoking cigarettes, just to show Papa Smith how well he could keep the smoke out of his eyes. Then he asked Nellie if she'd "try." She said she would if her pa would. And she and her pa put themselves against Ellis and me.

Well, I'll cut it short. That girl, with her pink-and-white complexion--she began right off with a break of twenty-eight. You should have seen Ellis's face. It was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. I can't remember anything that ever struck me as half so funny. It seems that they have plenty of time for billiards out in Winnipeg, and a very high-class table. After a while Ellis saw the funniness of it too. He made a miss and then he said:

"Will someone kindly take me out and bury me?"

That kind of speech is supposed to be very smart at his club. And the Smiths thought it was very smart too. Nellie and her pa beat us hollow, and then Nellie began to take her pa to task for showing off with too much screw instead of using the natural angle!

Ellis went to bed. He was very struck by Nellie's talents. But he went to bed. Probably he wanted to think things over, and consider how he could be impressive with her. I should like to have broken it to him about his blue suit, because it was Sunday the next day, and Nellie was bound to be gorgeous for chapel and the pier, and I felt sure he'd be really glad to have that suit--whatever he might _say_ to me. And I wanted him to wear it too. But there was no chance for me to tell him. He went off to bed like a streak of lightning. And usually, you know, he simply will not go to bed. Nothing will induce him to go to bed, just as nothing will induce him to get up. I said to myself I would send the suit into his room early in the morning with a note. I did want him to look his best.

And then of course there was the fire. The fire was that very night. What?...


III


Do you actually mean to sit there and tell me you never heard about the fire at Hawthornden's Hotel last July? Why, it was the sensation of the season. There was over a column about it in the _Manchester Guardian_. Everybody talked of it for weeks.... And no one ever told you that we were in it? Half the annexe was burnt down. We were in the annexe, all four of us. I fancy the Smiths had chosen it because the rooms in the annexe are larger. Have you ever been in a fire?... Well, thank your stars! We were wakened up at three o'clock. It was getting light, even. Somehow that made it worse. The confusion--you can't imagine it. We got out all right. Oh! there was no special danger to life and limb. But after all we only _did_ get out just in time. And with practically nothing but our dressing-gowns--some not even that! It's queer, in a fire, how at first you try to save things, and keep calm, and pretend you _are_ calm, until the thing gets hold of you. I actually began to shovel clothes into my trunks. Somebody said we should have time for that. Well--we hadn't. And it was a very good thing there wasn't a lift in the annexe. It seems a lift well acts like a chimney, and half of us might have been burnt alive.

I must say the fire-brigade was pretty good. They got the fire out very well--very quickly in fact. We women, or most of us, had been bundled into private parlours and things in the main part of the hotel, which wasn't threatened, and when we knew that the fire was out we naturally wanted to go back and see whether any of our things could be saved out of the wreck.

Oh! what a sight it was! What a sight it was! You'd never believe that so much damage could be done in an hour or so. Chiefly by water, of course. All the ground floor was swimming in water. In fact there was a river of it running across the promenade into the sea. About five-sixths of Llandudno, dressed nohow, was on the promenade. However, policemen kept the people outside the gates.

The firemen began bringing trunks down the stairs; they wouldn't let us go up at first. It really was a wonderful scene, at the foot of the stairs, lots of us paddling about in that lake, and perfectly lost to all sense of--what shall I say?--well, correctness. I do believe most of us had forgotten all about civilization. We wanted our things. We wanted our things so badly that we even lost our interest in the origin of the fire and in the question whether we should get anything out of the insurance company. By the way, I mustn't omit to tell you that we never saw the proprietors after the fire was out; the proprietors could only be seen by appointment. The German and Swiss waiters had to bear the brunt of us.

I was very lucky. I received both my trunks nearly at once. They came sliding on a plank down those stairs. And most of my things were in them too. I was determined to be energetic then, and to get out of all that crowd. Do you know what I did? I simply called two men in out of the street, and told them to shoulder my trunks into the main building of the hotel. I defied policemen and the superintendent of the fire-brigade. And in the main building I demanded a bedroom, and I was told that everything would be done to accommodate me as quickly as possible. So I went straight upstairs and told the men to follow me, and I began knocking at every door till I found a room that wasn't occupied, and I took possession of it, and gave the men a shilling a piece. They seemed to expect half-a-crown, because I'd been in a fire, I suppose! Curious ideas odd job men have! Then I dressed myself out of what was left of my belongings and went down again.

All the people said how lucky I was, and what presence of mind I had, and how calm and practical I was, and so on and so on. But they didn't know that I'd been stupid enough not to give a thought to Ellis's blue suit. One can't think of everything, and I didn't think of that. I believe if I had thought of it, at the start, I should have taken the bonnet-box with me at any cost.

I came across Ellis; smoking a cigarette, of course, just to show, I suppose, that a fire was a most ordinary event to him. He was completely dressed, like me. He had saved the whole of his belongings. He said the Smiths were fixing themselves up in private rooms somewhere, and would be down soon. So we moved along into the dining-room and had breakfast. The place was full and noisy. Ellis was exceedingly facetious. He said: