photographers and these tedious little men from television saying, 'Now, Doctor, will you explain how you happened to be here with a trained nurse-''
'Please be quiet for a minute. I'm doing my best.'
I rang the bell again, as though vending muffins. With the other hand I rapped the frosted glass, and Nurse Macpherson tapped a large and greasy gong with her foot.
'Yes?'
The coffee-room door had opened. Through it poked the head of an old man, in no collar and a railway-porter's waistcoat.
'We want a room.'
'I'll fetch Mrs Digby,' he said, disappearing.
We waited in silence for some minutes. I was beginning to wonder whether it would be less trouble to bundle Nurse Macpherson into Haemorrhagic Hilda and turn her out at the Nurses' Home, when the glass suddenly shot up beside me.
'Yes?'
I turned to meet one of the most disagreeable-looking women I had seen in my life. She had a thin peaky face, cropped hair, a gold pince-nez on a chain, and a dress apparently made from an old schoolmaster's gown.
'Oh, er, good evening. You're Mrs Digby?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Well, you see, I wanted a room.'
'Yes?'
'You have a room?'
'Yes.'
I was now plainly nervous, for we had reached the point in our adventure that I had rehearsed the most in, the secrecy of my room. It all seemed so easy in novels and the Sunday papers: once the initial difficulty of persuading the girl was overcome, the rest of the trip was sheer enjoyment. I had hoped at least for a genial boniface at the reception desk, but now I felt more confident of seducing a hundred women than convincing this sharp-eyed shrew that we were married.
'What name?' she demanded, opening as ledger like the Domesday Book.
'Phillimore,' I said. I had decided that was the most natural-sounding alias I could imagine.
'Sign here.'
She handed me a pen, and spattering ink freely over the page I anxiously filled in the name, address, and nationality. I noticed that the last column left a space for 'Remarks.'
The manageress blotted the book. 'Which of you's Framleigh?' she asked, frowning.
'Eh? Oh, yes, of course, I am. I'm Framleigh. Mr Framleigh. The young lady's Phillimore. Miss Phillimore.'
I cursed myself. Framleigh had been my second choice of _nom d'amour,_ and in my agitation I had scrawled it over the visitor's book. Mrs Digby was now looking at me like Hamlet sizing up his uncle.
I tried to smile. 'We want two rooms,' I said.
'And I should think so, too!'
I put my hands in my pockets, took them out, and scratched the back of my head.
'The young lady must register.'
Mrs Digby handed the pen to Nurse Macpherson, who coolly wrote across the page 'Hortense Phillimore. Park Lane, London. Manx.' Feeling I should offer some innocent explanation of a young unmarried couple arriving for a single night in an unfrequented hotel in mid-winter, I said, 'We happened to be travelling north. We're cousins, you see. We're going to our uncle's funeral. Charming old gentleman, in the brass business. You may have heard of him. We both work in London, and to save the expense we decided to come up together by car, and we asked a man on the road for a good hotel-'
'Er-nest! Mrs Digby poked her head out of the hatch like a cuckoo-clock. 'Er-nest! Where are you, Er- nest?'.
The head reappeared from the coffee-room. 'Yes?'
'Ernest take up the baggage.'
Ernest, who looked unfit to carry anything heavier than a letter, creaked arthritically across the floor.
'The lady's in number three,' said Mrs Digby, taking from the rack behind her a key secured to a steel flag nine inches long. 'And the gentleman-' She carefully went to the far end of the rack. 'Is in number ninety-four.'
'Right, said Ernest, picking up our cases. 'Foller me.'
'We happen to be cousins,' I told him as he stumbled up the stairs. 'We're going north for our uncle's funeral. He used to be in the brass business, poor fellow. We happen to work in London, so Miss Phillimore and I decided to come up together. On the road we met a man, and I asked him to recommend a good hotel, He said, 'You can't beat The Judge's Arms-''
'Number three!' Ernest interrupted, as though announcing the winner of a raffle. He threw open the door and switched on the light. We found ourselves in an apartment the size of a billiard-room, lined with dark-brown wallpaper and containing a pair of marble-topped tables, a bowl of waxed fruit, a dressing-table ornamented with cherubs, a wash-stand with a mauve jug and basin, and sufficient solid wardrobes to lock up a gang of burglars. In the centre of the room was a large knob-garnished brass bedstead.
Nurse Macpherson, who had said nothing since signing the register, drew in her breath.
'I don't believe it,' she muttered.
'Foller me,' Ernest repeated.
'I'll see you downstairs in five minutes for a drink,' I said. 'Hope you'll be comfortable.'
'Oh, I'll be comfortable all right. I'm used to sleeping in the middle of St Paul's.'
'Foller me!' Ernest insisted.
Number three was on the first floor, but my room appeared to be at the far end of the latest extension to the building, several of which had been added with floors at different levels.
'Don't know why she put you up here,' Ernest grumbled, pausing for breath half-way up a narrow staircase. 'There ain't been no one in ninety-four since the Farmers' Union.'
Number ninety-four was immediately under the roof, a narrow, cold, low, damp room, with a bed, a commode, and a wash-stand topped with a marble slab that reminded me of the post-mortem room. I gave Ernest a shilling, which he looked at carefully before saying, 'Goodnight!' and disappearing. I sat heavily on the bed. If this was romance, I could understand why Casanovas flourished only in warm climates.
20
I reached the ground floor before Nurse Macpherson. As the hotel had resumed the sullen silence with which it had greeted us, I decided to explore the door marked 'Lounge'. This led to a small room with some furniture arranged haphazardly, like the bodies of mountaineers frozen to death where they stood. There were three or four more palms, and in the corner was an iron grate, bare of fire irons, in which a tiny fire blushed with shame.
I was now feeling really ill and I needed a drink desperately. There was a bell by the fireplace labelled 'Service', but knowing the hotel I supplemented a ring on this by opening the door and shouting, 'Hoy!' several times loudly.
From the coffee-room, which was now lighted as a preparation for dinner, came a thin, dark, short young man in a tail-suit that stretched almost to his heels. 'What'll you be wanting?' he asked, with the amiability of citizens of the Irish Republic.
'I want a drink.'
'Sure, you can have a drink if you want to.'
'What have you got?'
'Oh, anything at all,' he told me expansively.' There's gin, whisky, rum, Guinness, crиme de menthe, port, egg nogg-'
'I'll have whisky. Two doubles, in one glass. And have you any aspirin?'
'Wouldn't you be feeling well?'
