The Golden Peaks (7 page)

“One or two things. Nothing important. Most of it I can manage, but perhaps you would take a look at this.”

He took the papers in his hand.

“Anneliese,” he said, “since you cannot spare the time to go to the Mirabella with me, I have decided to take Celia. She is a secretary and will do very well. Will you see Johanna about it?”

Anneliese stood quite still, staring at him.

“Celia?” she said, after a moment.

“Yes. It is convenient that she is able to do the work. Maria is—well, you know Maria. I think
that.
Celia’s discretion is to be trusted. Don’t you?”

Anneliese shrugged her shoulders lightly.

“I suppose so,
”
she said. “I do not know her very well.” The telephone bell rang once more. This time, it was for Kurt, and he took the receiver from Anneliese’s hand. Anneliese stood silent while he answered inquiries, filled with a completely unaccountable dismay. A
nd
, she thought impatiently, now it can’t be altered, it has been arranged, but if I had known he would do this, I would have made the time mys
el
f.

She thought of the long drive over the beautiful route. She thought of the necessary pause for luncheon. She thought of the hours of sitting together in the car, of the conversations and silences; and these hours, she had, in her stupidity, presented to Celia when she might have enjoyed
them herself. The first definite feeling of enmity towards Celia stirred in her. “What possessed me to help her get a post here?” she wondered. “What a fool I was.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Celia took
her bag downstairs and put it in Mr. St. Pierre’s waiting car. The top of the car was down, and
she
was glad to see it. Every part of this elegant juggernaut gleamed and shone, and it seemed to Celia that it could scarcely restrain the power that would cut a way through Switzerland, and soar over the mountain roads. She looked about her, and was delighted. Here, in the wide courtyard, there were masses of spring flowers, even the tall pillar at the end of those old fashioned stone water troughs had its crown of brilliant flowers, and the water, pouring into the first trough, and down from that into the second, before it was carried away down the mountainside, made a
peasant
accompaniment to the beauty of the morning. The snow-peaks shone in the rarified air, and contrasting shadow spread purple patches among them.
Celia
took a deep breath of satisfaction. It was good to be alive. What a morning to be driving among those mountains! What a piece of superlative luck!

She was not aware of the curiosity aroused in the staff of the hotel. She was not aware of the many
glances
thrown at her from many windows as she waited by the car. The whisper had gone quickly round. “Mr. St. Pierre is taking
Celia
to the Mirabella.” “Anneliese is staying here, and Celia is going to the Mirabella.” They saw her waiting there, and they whispered: “How she dresses! She cannot be really so poor.
Th
ere is
something
strange about Celia.” Inga was scornful of their whispers. “There is no mystery,” she said. “All is quite simple. Anneliese was asked to go but she is much too busy, and you all know it. So Celia goes instead, because she is
cl
ever at being a secretary and has languages.”

“But there is Maria already there—she could do the work.”

“Ach, Maria! Yes, she can work, but she can talk, too. Like all you silly girls.”

They were a little shamefaced, and went about their
work.
Anneliese, too, saw Celia standing by the car, from the office window. She took in every detail of the suit, the hat, the good shoes and gloves and bag; the beautiful English
complexion.
She was thrown into a mood of irritation which lasted most of the day. She knew she had been right in refusing to go on account of the work, but she also knew
that the
work would have been of no importance if she had
foreseen that Celia would be asked to go instead.

Kurt
came
out to the car. He handed Celia in, seated himself at the wheel and drove away quickly. Celia,
deciding
that she could not struggle with her nervous system for hours of swift driving, relaxed and left it to
h
im. Not that the driving would worry Kurt—he had long been used to all that Swiss geography or Swiss climate could do to the roads. He settled himself more comfortably at the
wheel and spoke to Celia.

“
You are going to see a lot of Switzerland today,
”
he
said.

“I am looking forward to it,” she replied. “I have seen
little enough since I arrived.”

“No, you haven’t had much time to look about you. Is there anything you really want to do?
”

“Dozens of things. The trip to the Jungfraujoch; the
chair hoist, the cog railway.”

“All the things that everybody does.
”

“I
haven’t done than before.”

“All among the orange peel and luncheon bags and walking-sticks,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she protested.

“Oh, yes. At least at some times of the year.
”

Celia sat in thought for a moment.

“You see,” she said, “you a
r
e an expert, Mr. St.
Pi
erre.
I expect you like a whole mountain to yourself. It wi
ll
be enough for me simply to see the mountains before I go back to England.”

“No ambition to climb them?
”

“Well, it's rather one of those things that it
’
s no good having aspirations about. When one works at a job in
England, a fortnight is about the average holiday,
and
one is lucky to have three weeks or longer. Not much time to master a thing like mountain climbing. I imagine you must serve an apprenticeship of years to be good at it
.
”

“Yes, that is certainly true; but you can get a great deal of pleasure from climbing the hills and the lower slopes and tackling the less difficult things. Though one’s reward, the exaltation, is more and more as the climbs get harder and harder.”

“Yes, I can imagine that,” said Celia, and sat at his side trying to picture him as he tackled one of the most difficult ascents. There came into her mind the picture of him as she had first seen him, and she thought he would be determined and resourceful, cool-headed and courageous.

As they drove, he identified for her the snow-peaks that they could see—the magnificent range of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, the soaring peaks of the Wetterho
rn
and Schreckho
rn
and Finsteraarho
rn
. “Those are their north faces,” he said, “and so you have all the snow. The south faces will soon have flowers blooming in the crevices and cracks.”

“And those peaks are
cl
imbable?”

“But of course they are.”

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

‘To all but a few, perhaps, it is impossible.”

She wanted to ask him if he had climbed them, but not wishing to give him the embarrassment of a possible denial, she refrained.

“
They
are
so beautiful," she said.

“Today, more than usual,” he told her. “There has been fresh snow on them, and places that often show dark, are covered today with rime and hoar-frost
.
That is why they are so brilliant under the sun.”

“I would like to go to a glacier, to go on one. To you it sounds a small ambition, but I have never seen one; except from the windows of the hotel. You have crossed many, I suppose?”

He smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “It is inseparable from any mountain climbing. That peak there—the Eiger. One of the worst climbs of my life was up to the Mittelegi ridge
of the Eiger—partly owing to the weather conditions—and the glacier of the Eiger is terribly crevassed.”

She knew then, instinctively, that he would not ha
v
e been embarrassed by her question, had she put it. He would not have had to make a denial. She knew then that he must be in the top ranks of climbers. She grew silent, suddenly afraid to show her almost total ignorance of the subject, and gave herself up to admiring the dazzling peaks from this respectful distance.

After a while, he said:

“So you have never been to this country before
?”

“No. The war, and post-war problems, haven't made holidays easy for me. It has usually been enough to get away from town, to the sea somewhere, and rest.
”

“You are a swimmer?”

“Yes
.
Well,
I
swim—
enough
to
enjoy
it;
and can sail
a
boat with fair efficiency but the number of my accomplishments is very small.”

“It does not seem so to me. I think you told me you worked in a hospital, then drove for a general, and then became a secretary. And you swim and sail a boat.
”

“And wait at table,” she said, and then, the next second, was sorry that she had said it
.
For it seemed, at one stroke, to put her back to her job; seemed to be a com
plaint,
an odious comparison with what she had been doing; served to remind him that he was driving with one of his waitresses. She wished she could recall it
.
He said,
merely in a dry tone:

“Ah yes, and wait a
t table; a
nd that isn’t always
easy
work, is it, Celia?”

“It goes,” she said lightly, using his own idiom.

“You are becoming accustomed to it?
”

“Yes, thank you.”

The spontaneity with which he had been talking was now gone. She had been the cause of it herself, and was sorry. They went on in silence until they came
to the hotel where they were to have their luncheon. This was an immense and old chalet many-windowed, deeply rooted, with carvings more beautiful and complicated than any
Celia
had yet seen. The name of the builder was carved along the wall, with the date of building, and the hope that God’s blessing would rest on all who lived within its walls. The customary flowers bloomed on all the balconies.

The proprietor came to meet them and take them into the
d
ining
room. There were hearty greetings and exchanges. The men were Kurt and Georg to each other, and Georg produced an excellent wine which did not usually appear for guests. They discussed the prospects of the coming season, and Georg asked after the Fraulein Anneliese. He was a little curious about the girl with Kurt, and Kurt, seeing it, smiled a little and said:

“Fraulein Dorrelson is taking Fraulein Anneliese’s place as she was far too busy to come this time.”

“I believe the Fraulein has not been here before?” asked Georg of Celia, and she smiled as she answered him and admired his hotel. Miss, Mademoiselle, Fraulein—she was all of them in turn, and no doubt, at the Mirabella, she would be Signorina too. Quite suddenly, a freakish joy took hold of her. She thought back to the winter she had left in London, the grey and the cold and the damp; her anxiety and the strain. Now here she was in a world of sunshine and clear skies, of beautiful chalets and smiling politeness, of glittering snow peaks and soft green valleys, of spring flowers and cleanliness. She smiled so brilliantly across the table at Kurt that his eyes narrowed in surprise. “What is it?” he asked.

“I am just realizing how much I owe you,” she said. “This job, this heavenly drive, this beautiful building which I would never otherwise have seen.”

“You owe me nothing,” he said. “Anything I have done has been as much for my convenience as for yours.”

Celia’s happiness faded a little. He was withdrawn. Something she had done or said had offended him, but what was it? Was it something in her manner? Was she being too forward, too frank with him, forgetting her position here? Had she, as once before, all unwittingly appeared to be rude in her impetuosity? She could not think so, but she could not be sure. She had no wish to appear too frank or in any way pushing; but she admitted to herself that she had difficulty in remembering to be suitably subservient. She must, apparently, make an effort to remember her place.

So the rest of the beautiful drive was inclined to be silent, and they came to the Mirabella in the evening, as the sun went down in splendor over the lake.

The
M
irabella was indeed a surprise to
Celia
. Gone was the
simplicity
and homeliness of the
Rotihorn
. This was expensive and exclusive and
extrem
ely
grand, and everything
that
Celia encountered was in the tradition of the most de luxe hotels, from the man who ran to open the door of the car for them, the wide entrance hall, thickly carpeted and banked with flowers, and the gilt and mirrored lift; to the softly carpeted corridors with the discreet
lighting,
and the luxuriousness of the small, peach-colored nest into which she was shown by a small and deferential
page.

“Well, well,” she said to herself,
in
surprise, as she stood in the middle of the small room and looked about her. “This is a surprise. I had no idea that the Mirabella would
be
like this.”

The same
s
mall
page came back a little later, to conduct her downstairs
for dinner. Kurt himself was standing
in one of the flower-decked rooms they traversed, and he
excused himself
to the man with him, and intercepted her. He
escorted her
to the dining room, and looked about him. Immediately, the
maître
d’hôt
el
was at his side. Kurt
asked
for a table for Miss Dorrelson, and accompanied her
to the one chosen.