Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner [65]
It was the very coldness of her common sense that was afflicting her with this almost senile tremor. Abruptly she got up and went to the window; drawing aside the curtain she could see nothing but blackness, and the only sound she could hear was the occasional swish of tyres. For the weather had broken, and the mist had dissolved into a mournful drizzle; the clinging damp had the slow persistence of a climate that has at last found its natural mode of expression. So she would not be able to sit out on her balcony, writing at the green tin table, as she had intended. But in any event the book had not taken off, was destined, perhaps from the start, to be abandoned. And yet I have always, as an act of will, written myself back into a state of acceptance, she thought. Why does the recipe no longer work? Is it because the whole process now seems too much like the hair shirt of the penitent, angling to get back into God’s good graces? Am I just sick to death of making yet another effort? Will it not be very comfortable not to have to make this particular effort any more? And she passed a valedictory hand over her precisely written sheets of manuscript before putting them back in their folder, and putting the folder into the bottom of her travel bag.
This action startled her, as if her plans had been made final without her having reached any conscious decision. Yet the fact that she had accepted them as final was demonstrated by the way in which she started to fold and pack the dresses she would no longer wear here, and, as the process gathered momentum, her almost precipitous bundling together of shoes, books, scent bottles, until all that remained of her life at the Hotel du Lac was her nightgown, her hairbrush, and the clothes she was wearing. Then, having nothing more to do in this room, which was once more impersonal, ready to receive the next guest at the beginning of the new season, she closed the door behind her and made her way down the stairs to the salon.
Here too the absence of activity seemed to signify a general decision to leave. The pianist had worked out his engagement and would now return to his winter occupation of giving private lessons to unmusical schoolgirls. M. Huber, slightly disappointed, as always, at having somehow failed to achieve that ideal and brilliant social mix which is the hotelier’s most persistent wish, viewed the empty salon with regret. He was feeling those rheumatic twinges that heralded both the winter and his exile, for he was to proceed, once the Hotel du Lac shut down, to the Spanish villa of his daughter and son-in-law, where he languished in the eventless sunshine, with nothing to supervise: he was no good at being a guest. In another week they would close down. Mme de Bonneuil would be transported, by her son, to her stoically endured winter quarters, a religious pension in Lausanne. The woman with the dog would go home, a prospect which had already brought a flush of agitation and excitement to her handsome face. Mme Pusey and her daughter, for whom he felt the most affection, would be chauffeur-driven to Geneva, where they would catch a plane and pay a very great deal of money for excess baggage, but he liked to think of them passing directly from his care to the safety of their London apartment. A charming woman, charming; the daughter perhaps a little less distinguished. Cards would be exchanged in due course, for they kept in touch. And they would no doubt meet here again the following year, if they were spared. The other two remaining guests were of little interest to him; they were too recent, and he knew that they would not be back.
The staff, released from the tight restraints of their normal good behaviour, made more noise among themselves, talked to each other quite openly. Alain and Maryvonne, who turned out to be cousins, would be going back to Fribourg, and would spend the winter working in Maryvonne’s father’s restaurant. The manager, as usual, made fruitless plans to persuade his father-in-law to retire for good, while at