The Hotel Hester

by Albert Kinross

 

THE HOTEL HESTER

By Albert Kinross

IT really began when Hester lost the sovereign. She had been in a hurry at Charing Cross, and perhaps she had lost it there. The train went at 2•7, and the office only closed at 2, so she had raced from Bedford Street and taken her ticket breath-less, and next raced down the platform and jumped into her train. She was only just in time.

On the journey she counted her money, and it was a sovereign short. The cashier had handed her the two pounds ten as usual. He hadn't been at fault. She emptied her purse and turned it upside down; she looked in her pocket, where she had thrust the ticket and the change. The money was gone, and there was no help for it; and, as she had just bought herself a new dress and paid the rent of the tiny flat, she felt like returning by the next train, instead of starting out from Elmsford and tramping through the week-end, as was her custom.

She leant back and ruminated. No, she wouldn't go back to London. It was so hot—so deadly hot. All the week, as she had stooped over her typewriter, or made her translations, and taken down pages of shorthand, she had looked forward to these hours of respite—counted the days till they had narrowed to a brief "to-morrow," and then at last had come "to-day." It would have to be a cheap week-end, she concluded—the cheapest week-end there ever was or could be, sustained on fresh air, water, and generous chunks of bread and cheese. Hester Ling, you will observe, lacked neither determination nor courage.

Her luggage consisted of a light handbag, and she was dressed to match her programme. First of all she was going to Elmsford, and then across countrylike, wind-blown down. Elmsford is less than a two hours' run from Charing Cross; and, though the ticket may cost a little, you make up for it by escaping clean away from London. Hester had never visited that country, except upon the map. Her week-end tramps were always started on the map; and, when a place looked nice, she went to it. She had kept an eye on Elmsford for some time past. It proved to be a small market-town of no great interest; yet round about, as she had foreseen, were mile-long woods and old-world parks and drowsy villages, and downs with hidden valleys.

By seven o'clock she was far away from Elmsford, and London was forgotten, and its heat. The clean air, the springy turf, those all-embracing skies, had made a new creature of her, a being who sang and leapt and capered when she felt sure that nobody was looking, and who certainly never bothered about sovereigns. She seemed to have grown suddenly ten years younger, which would have made her exactly eleven, instead of twenty-one.

She came to a village with village children. She was always amused by the friendly little things, with their queer "Hallo's!" their bright curiosity, and rosy faces. An old man on two sticks leant over a gate. He smoked his pipe and ruminated. And then the stillness of the evening air was broken by a far-away hum. It sounded overhead; it came from up above, instead of from the ground. Hester stopped and listened.

"It's too early for a threshing-machine," said the old man; "mebbe it's one o' they traction-ingins."

The children saw it first. They came scampering with the news. "A airship," they cried, "a flyin' machine!" And they were right. In the blue it rode, a huge golden bag with two dark patches. A little boat with moving figures was slung from it. The children shouted. Hester looked and looked till it disappeared. It was the first time she had seen one.

"I wouldn't go up in one o' they things for ten thousand poun'," said the old cottager.

"I'd go for nothing," answered Hester; but age shook its head, and the children agreed with it. "Little cowards!" she cried, and then went on. The episode had lifted her and somehow made her happy.

Next there arrived a very brown young man who had stepped off a motor-bicycle that came whirring down the road. Straight he had ridden towards her and dismounted at her side.

"Do you mind? " he asked. "I've got a large fly in my eye. It's as big as a bird." And he produced a pocket handkerchief.

He was a masterful young man, and Hester obeyed him. The eye was red and inflamed. "It's been in quite a long time," she said, and, while he held the lids open, she manipulated the pocket handkerchief. She found the insect and secured its corpse.

The nut-brown patient thanked her.

"You ought to have got it out before," she remarked.

"I said I wouldn't bother till I met a really pretty girl," he answered with a smile. "You ought to have come earlier." And then he mounted his motor- bicycle, saluted, and was off.

Again she was amused. This would never have happened in London; quite different things happened in London. It made her laugh as she sat out in a meadow of uncut hay, discussing her bread and cheese. And now she began to wonder where she was going to sleep. A bed, and a bed of the cheapest, that was the next question.

She gained what looked like a main road, and the problem solved itself. She had felt it would. For, only a hundred yards beyond the stile, she discovered a lodge and a broad white gate that led to a private carriage-way bordered with silver birch, and fronting the road was an announcement which indicated that at the end of the carriage-way was a large and imposing modern mansion, and that said residence was standing empty, and would be let or sold to anyone who could pay the price. And with it went an enclosure of seven-and-twenty acres, and more could be had if wanted, and there were thirteen bedrooms and five reception-rooms, et-cetera, et-cetera, et-cetera.

Now, an empty house away from the road, as has already been broadly hinted, had suggested things to Hester. Why not sleep there, to begin with? It was the very place. No one would be a penny the worse, would they? And if you have lost a sovereign, and ought by rights to have stopped at home—— Perhaps, after all, she mightn't be able to get in, but she would try it. And, thinking these thoughts and several others, she entered at the broad white gate and strolled down the carriage-way which led to a winding avenue, whereon she disappeared.

From one of the lodge windows a little man was watching her. He was a tough and wiry little man with hard grey eyes and a greyish beard. "H'm!" he grunted. "So she've come, have she?" And with that he summoned his wife and daughter, and sat down to what they would have called their "tea." Most of it was pudding and tinned salmon and ale.

Hester continued down the drive. It opened at last into a wide and well-kept garden, with lawns and gravel paths and pergolas with roses. And in the background stood a huge and hideous modern mansion, built of dark red brick, and with heaps of windows and "glass," and a block of stabling and what the advertisements call "offices." Not a soul was about. There was only Hester Ling.

She began by stuffing herself with strawberries and raspberries. It was very wrong of her, and she didn't mean to. But who could resist, and here they were, all handy? She had only intended to take one, or at most a couple. They shouldn't have put a kitchen-garden in between her and the house. And here was a yellow gooseberry bush and a dark red one. If anybody came and caught her, it would serve her jolly well right.

She stole out at last from behind the shrubbery which screened these treasures. It was time to get to actual grips with her problem. Here was the house. She peered in through windows and saw the empty rooms fast darkening. The windows were fastened and some were even shuttered. She could smash a pane of glass and so let herself in; but that would hardly be decent, would it? There was a summer-house in the garden. They were always full of insects. Three times she made the tour of that empty house before discovering a window that was actually open.

She had looked at the ground-floor windows, and this one was on the first floor. There was nearly a foot of space between its framework and the sill. And here stood a ladder. One had only to climb and push the window quite open.

Hester climbed the ladder and found that the sash rested on a good red brick. Someone had placed it there, perhaps, to make sure that the window wouldn't close. Perhaps they wanted to give the room an airing. The motive did not matter. Hester lifted the window wide open. She stepped inside. She took the brick and laid it on the floor, and next she shut the window behind her and fastened the catch. In the morning she would put everything back in its place, just as she had found it.

She was in the empty house, and outside the dark was gathering. She went through room after room. The water was actually laid on in the bath, and that was a delightful surprise for her. There was a great hall down below, and a room—it had evidently been a billiard-room—with fixed settees down one side of it, good, padded, springy settees. They were built into the wall, and, no doubt, had been left there and would be sold to the next tenant if he would take them. They solved the question of where to sleep. And, better still, they had covers that fastened and unfastened. These would serve admirably for sheets and blankets. "Now, I'm quite all right!" she chuckled gaily. "Here's my hotel. The Hotel Hester; moderate tariff; fixed charges; no tips—I can't think of any more, but it's all just right and simply spiffing!"

II.

The door had opened, and there was someone with a light. She had meant to lock the door, but it was only a moment ago that she had selected her room and made up her bed. It seemed as though she were not the only guest in the Hotel Hester.

The door stood wide open, and, framed by it, she saw a group of three persons. First and foremost was a little man carrying a lantern—a tough and wiry little man with hard grey eyes and a greyish beard. Behind him came a middle-aged woman with a large flat face, and, staring over his other shoulder, a girl with small features and tow-coloured hair. They stood and gazed, till the little man broke the silence.

"I give you a fair start," he said. "So you ain't begun yet."

Hester's puzzled countenance was a sight for gods and men. .

"Begun what?" she stammered.

The three had stepped inside, and were now quite close to her.

"Here's the bag!" cried the little man, pouncing on that receptacle.

Hester was too astonished to protest. She could only sit open-mouthed as the new-comers seized her luggage and went through it in a fever.

"A night-gownd," cried the little man, "an' a brush an' comb an' slippers, an' a pair o' stockings—an' wot's. this 'ere?" he added, displaying each article and holding it up to the light.

"Thats what they cleans their finger-nails with," explained the girl with tow-coloured hair, indicating the manicure set which had perplexed their leader.

A fit of disappointment seized on them.

"Where's the paraffin an' matches, an' the other things?" yelped the little man, sidling up to Hester.

"What paraffin?" she asked, finding her voice, and more amazed than ever.

"Do you mean to tell me you ain't a Suffragette?" snapped the little man.

"Yes, an' come to burn the house down?" asked his wife.

"We been warned against them," added the daughter.

"Oh, I see!" cried Hester. It had dawned upon her at last. Of course she had read all about the "militants," and how they went round burning empty houses in the country. These people were mistaking her for one of them.

"An' didn't you put the brick in the window, an' the ladder just right to climb in? I spotted it! I'm responsible," pursued the little man. "I've been left in charge of this house and garden. An' aren't you one o' them two ladies that come here yesterday to see the house, an' wot my wife showed over?"

"No, she ain't one o' them, George," interposed the wife.

"They was quite different," added the daughter.

"Then 'oo are you?"

Hester tried to explain, while the caretaker scowled at her. "If you scowl at me like that," she broke off, "I won't tell you."

"Go easy, George," whispered the wife.

"I'm sure she don't mean no harm," put in the daughter.

"I ain't scowlin' at you like that," replied the little man, and reverted to his own story.

The day before, it appeared, two ladies had come to look over the house. They said they might be taking it. But they hadn't looked very hard, and, when they were gone, he found that one of them must have unfastened a window-catch on the first floor and left the window slightly open. He had been warned to keep a sharp look- out for Suffragettes, and that had settled it. He knew now who they were and what they wanted. And to-day he had found the same window quite open and with a brick there, so that it couldn't close, and one of the garden ladders in position. They must have sneaked back and done it, so as to have everything ready when the time came. But he hadn't been idle neither. He'd turned on all the water in the house, in case there was a fire, and he hadn't interfered with any of their little plans, and he'd kept his eyes wide open, and as soon as he had seen Hester Ling——

"But why didn't they burn the house down when they came back?" she asked, interrupting.

"I don't know. Perhaps they hadn't got the things wi' them; perhaps they wasn't quite ready. I can't tell you, but as soon as I see the window unlatched and the ladder——" This truce was suddenly broken; for—"What business is it o' yourn? " he ended. "You no business in here! I can't allow tramps in this house, no matter who they is."

He looked a pig-headed little man, hard and obdurate; but perhaps his bark was worse than his bite.

"You're not really going to turn me out at this time of night?" replied Hester, addressing the two women as much as the little man.

"Can't she stay here? She ain't doing no harm as I can see," interposed the wife.

"I'm willing to pay something," observed Hester, feeling that she might at least make the offer.

"You've no right to be here. Blest if I don't give yer in charge! Sleeping' in empty houses!"

The little man, disappointed in the Suffragettes, now seemed inclined to take it out of Hester.

"She ain't done nothing," remarked the daughter.

"She'll stay here in this house!" roared the little man. "I'll lock her in!"

Miss Ling smiled over his shoulder at mother and daughter.

"An' ter-morrow mornin' I'll hand you over to the police!" he cried. "They'll see if wot you tole me's true. They'll a-punish you for trespassin'——"

"Lock her in and be done with it," the wife had interposed.

"I don't see what there is to fuss about—it ain't our house," added the daughter.

"Either we looks after this here house an' garden, or we doesn't," answered the little man. "That's wot we're paid to do. First thing ter-morrow mornin' I fetches the police!"

"Maybe I'll be out by the window then," put in Hester, feeling that she had been bullied sufficiently.

The daughter giggled.

"We'll see about that," barked the little man. "Now I'm a-goin' to lock you in." And he took the key out of the keyhole and seized his lantern; and what next would have happened to Hester and all of them there is no telling, for a tinkle of broken glass rang suddenly through the empty house, and after that they heard a sound of footsteps and of voices.

"They've come! " whispered the little man, husky with emotion. "I'd best put out my lantern!"

III.

They waited in the dark. The Suffragettes, apparently, had mounted the ladder, to find the window fast and the brick removed. But evidently, though this might mean detection, or, at least, suspicion, they had decided to go forward with their enterprise. The billiard-room windows were shuttered, so they had not seen the caretaker's light, and while he and his party had come in by the front door, now standing unlatched, it had not occurred to them to attempt this usual method of entry. They had broken a pane of glass on the ground floor, unfastened the catch, flung up the window, and now were safely in the house.

Hester could hear them.

"It's so risky. I feel sure "somebody noticed that window," urged one voice, obviously a woman's.

"Then we're in a trap, and shall have to fight our way out again," replied another voice, obviously a man's.

"Oh, do let's go on, whatever happens!" added a third voice. She sounded like a very enthusiastic girl. "There's no one nearer than the people in the lodge—the woman said so."

"We're going on," answered the man. "After all the trouble you've taken—you and Miss Bulteel!"

"I don't believe in running unnecessary risks." That was Miss Bulteel, Hester felt sure.

"Oh, don't let's argue! Let's go ahead and chance it." That was the enthusiast.

"You'd like to be sent to prison—for nothing?" asked Miss Bulbeel severely.

"I'd love it! Oh, do let's go ahead!"

And ahead they went; and now Hester and the others could see them by the light of the two electric torches which they carried.

"It's the same ones," whispered the caretaker's wife.

"Them wot come here," added the daughter.

Most probably they had a car outside. It was just like one of the outrages Hester had read of in the newspapers, except that here was she with the little gardener-caretaker and the two women.

First of all she saw a lean and intellectual-looking man, with a long, white neck and hair all over his face. It was the kind of matted hair that grows on a face that has never been shaved. He was fearfully tall, but thin-shouldered and lanky, and he carried a large faggot of brushwood, which filled up both his arms. Behind him came a delightful girl with a tin can and one of the electric torches. She was very pretty and very young, and her eyes blazed and her cheeks were full of colour. With these marched a tough-looking lady loaded with papers. She peered nervously around. She flashed her torch everywhere. She wore thick boots, a tailor-made suit, and her face was puffy, especially the lower half of it.

"The dining-room's the place!" cried the young girl. "It's all bad panelling, with a low ceiling and varnished beams. It would burn like furjy if the faggot and the petrol gave it a start."

They were terribly excited, and moved as though embarked upon the wildest enterprise in all the world.

"We ought to light it on the ground floor," said the man, "and let it work upwards."

"Oh, Mr. Farmer, this is really thrilling!" cried the girl.

"I don't think there's anybody about," said the tough lady. "It would go more quickly if we chose a smaller room. There was one I saw yesterday with quite a lot of wood in it."

"Do you think you could find it?" asked Mr. Farmer.

"It was on the first or second floor—I'm not sure which it was."

"I vote the dining-room!" cried the young girl.

"Lead on, Macduff!" replied Mr. Farmer. And across the hall they went into the dining-room. "Good!" exclaimed Mr. Farmer, apparently delighted with the girl's selection.

He laid down and cut his bundle, which the girl started to sprinkle with petrol out of the can. The tough lady commenced to spread her papers.

"I got yer—in the very act!" The caretaker had rushed in out of the darkness and sprung upon Mr. Farmer's shoulders and borne him down. They were struggling on the floor amid the faggot-wood, when the caretaker's wife approached the tough lady, and the caretaker's daughter advanced upon the very young girl. If Hester joined in with the home side, they would win. If she kept aloof, things might go differently. She held what statesmen call "the balance of power."

The tough lady had struck a light and was holding a box of matches. "Would you?" cried the caretaker's wife, and seized her. The tough lady, it seemed, wasn't half as tough as she looked. The caretaker's wife was far and away the tougher. And Hester, who had no wish to be burnt alive, had stepped hastily forward and secured the box of matches. It occurred to her that if she could secure all the matches these people had brought with them, the Hotel Hester would be safe for the night, if for no longer. To that end she investigated Mr. Farmer.

He had shaken off most of the caretaker, who now had to content himself with clinging desperately to the enemy's long legs. Mr. Farmer kicked and squirmed amid the faggot wood, and the caretaker clung as a drowning man clings to a surging, storm-tossed piece of wreckage. Mr. Farmer waved enormous hands and writhed like a serpent, and at last he started to pull the caretaker's head off. This was Hester's opportunity. Deftly she went through his pockets, and two further boxes of matches were her reward.

Now there remained but the young girl.

"I'm on your side—give me the matches!" cried Hester.

The caretaker's wife and daughter turned reproachfully.

"Here they are."

The girl had managed to fling them over. Hester caught them. Her stratagem had succeeded. Next she gathered all four boxes, seized the tough lady's electric torch, and fled upstairs.

Up and up she raced and down two passages, till she came to the bathroom discovered on her preliminary tour. She turned the tap and dropped all the matches in the water. She watched them soak, then turned the water off again. The Hotel Hester was safe.

Below, when she came back, a single electric torch illuminated the scene, and you couldn't set anything on fire with that. The tough lady's hat and clothes were in sad disorder, Mr. Farmer's long white neck was a bright and ham-like pink, and he was accusing the caretaker of having bitten him in the calf. "It isn't fair fighting," said Mr. Farmer.

"You ain't a fair fighter yerself ," answered the caretaker—"twistin' the livin' head off me!"

The caretaker and all his family looked as though they had been mauled or shaken. Only the young girl seemed to have escaped. "Traitor!" she cried, with flashing eyes, as she caught sight of Hester; and then, to the tough lady: "If Mr. Farmer hadn't been rolling in that faggot-wood, I could have set it alight a dozen times. Why didn't we drag them out of it?"

"Men always spoil things!" shouted the tough lady.

The caretaker shot suddenly across the floor, and Mr. Farmer sat up, looked round the room, congratulated himself, assumed a standing position, and made an announcement.

"We can't do it to-night," he said; "I'm sorry."

"I told you what would happen," cried Miss Bulteel.

"And after all the trouble we've taken!" added the young girl.

"Anyhow, it will be a lesson to them," pursued Miss Bulteel, scattering the last of her papers, every one of which was calculated to remove all doubts as to the nature and the object of this raid. "Brute beasts!" she ended. "Worse than savages!"

"We're doing it for your good—you who took our matches away," cried the young girl, addressing Hester, "and all you women!"

"She did get their matches away from them!" exclaimed the caretaker.

"What have you done with them?" cried the young girl. "Let's search her?"

But Mr. Farmer had had enough.

"We'd better be going," he concluded. "They may get help." And he himself led the retreat to their starting-point, and took up a defiant position beside the open window. The tough lady went first before anyone could stop her.

The young girl followed.

"Now we got him!" cried the caretaker. But he had only got the back part of Mr. Farmer's tweed coat, which had ripped right up to the shoulders. The rest was gone. And then the remaining electric torch was put out, and they only had Hester's. They could hear a sound of running, and, after that, the starting of an automobile upon the gravel.

"They've gone back to their car. They come in by the lane," observed the caretaker. "Anyhow, we beat 'em."

"An' we got the faggot and the oil-can to show," added the daughter.

"Farmer—Bulteel—Macduff—that was the names of 'em," pursued the caretaker.

"And without this lady's steppin' in as she did, we'd all ha' been burnt alive," remarked his wife.

"Yes, that we would!" echoed the daughter.

"I'm glad you come," admitted the caretaker. "If you hadn't come an' we seen you, they might ha' nipped in on the quiet, an' then I might ha' missed 'em."

"And after that," said Hester, telling her story at the office on the Monday morning, "after that we all became quite friendly. The caretaker didn't want to hand me over to the police—I asked him. And the daughter offered me a share of her bed, and the wife asked me to come to the lodge and have a bite of something and a cup of tea, and, of course, I did prefer it to sleeping in an empty house. I had to leave my address in case they catch the people, but I gave a wrong one—I liked that Suffragette girl. And all yesterday I was out of doors and enjoying myself till it was time to race to the station. I found the sovereign; it had slipped down——" The chief had interrupted them, and Hester was now required to turn her thoughts in the direction of a long and hideously uninteresting translation from the French.