Diana Glass
The Help
As I hand over the passports to be checked, I gaze about me at our surroundings: a mix of the grand and the rustic that seems peculiarly Alpine.
At the long desk before us three receptionists work busily away, all dressed in the red and gold regalia of the hotel.
Patterned Persian rugs reveal glimpses of an intricate parqueted floor, chandeliers coruscate above our heads and wood panelling makes the whole room glow with a rich amber light.
Antlers bristle from brackets and pine branches intertwine in picturesque arrangements about sconces.
The scent of their resin fills the air, mingling with woodsmoke and the various perfumes worn by the guests.
Paintings showing forbidding mountain scenery are hung all about and to the right, huge windows display the real thing: a view of three white peaks that seem to fit the apertures so perfectly they seem hardly real, as though they too have been painted on the glass in tromp l’oeil.
Staff flit hither and thither in what seem almost choreographed movements, collecting luggage on golden carts, leading guests into lifts or to the bank of phone booths tucked away beyond the Reception desk.
‘Look at that funny little dog!’ Mrs Bantry says.
I watch as an older gentleman with something regal about him – perhaps the long, fur-trimmed cape about his shoulders – walks in with a tiny dog in tow, spilling snow onto the richly patterned rugs at the entrance.
One of the staff dashes over and begins to clean the snow from the animal’s fur with a brush that looks specially made for the purpose.
‘That,’ murmurs a little man with the authoritative air of a hotel manager, appearing as though from nowhere, ‘is one of our most distinguished guests. Prince Gustav of Yugoslavia. And Heracles.’
It takes me a moment to understand that the latter refers to the dog.
Now the hotel manager begins his introductions. He is a compactly rotund, neat-looking man with a luxuriant moustache and a slightly fastidious manner.
‘The whole resort is built upon its tradition first as a site of holy pilgrimage and then as a spa resort,’ he tells us.
‘And though we find ourselves situated a little way up the mountain we have a spa par excellence here: all of the latest thérapies available.’ He pronounces ‘therapies’ in the French way.
‘There is skiing – two marked runs and some excellent hors piste on the glacier,’ he looks at us doubtfully, ‘and of course never forgetting the Verglas toboggan run. It was the English that brought it here. Late in the last century our founder persuaded some English guests to stay for the winter – gratis – to show them the beauty of the mountains at that time. They introduced the toboggan racing as a way to pass the time. Then of course the skiing followed.’ A tight little cough.
‘Do any of you mesdames … ski?’ He looks as though he can hardly bring himself to ask such an absurd question.
‘Or …’ he says, with the same pained expression, ‘sled?’
‘Oh, I used to go sledding as a girl,’ says Miss Marple. ‘Didn’t you, Dolly? But I rather think the relatively gentle Downland slopes don’t quite compare to the sort of thing you have here, Monsieur.’
‘Indeed,’ the manager says, swiftly. ‘Perhaps you would rather … spectate? In two days’ time we will have our first race event of the season. You have heard of the Cresta Run, in St Moritz?’
Miss Marple shakes her head. ‘I am afraid,’ she says, very apologetically, ‘that you will think us very stupid. But speaking for myself, I am so very unworldly …’
‘Well, Madame,’ says the manager with a rather studied patience, ‘you will discover that ours, like the Cresta, is made by hand from the snow and ice itself. A very beautiful piece of design. Speeds of forty miles per hour have been achieved on it. It is open to all, unlike the Cresta, which is barred to women and … to all ages. But I think perhaps—’
‘We will spectate,’ Miss Marple says, firmly, reassuringly. ‘Won’t we, Dolly?’
‘Goodness, yes,’ says Mrs Bantry. ‘I have come to look at mountains, to be among mountains, not to hurl myself down them risking life and limb. If man were meant to travel at breakneck velocities down slopes of frozen water, one does rather think the Lord would have made him with skis or a toboggan attached.’
The manager gives a tight little smile. Behind it I sense something sorrowful, as though he wishes we were more glamorous, like the couple who have been talking to his colleague at the next desk along.
‘Well, we have an excellent library and reading room. And the spa – I think perhaps that will be more to your liking. It is situated just a little above the hotel, only a twenty-minute walk away, so’ ? he casts another dubious eye over Mrs Bantry and Miss Marple – ‘it should be easy for all to access.’
I think he continues to talk them through the facilities, but I have stopped listening.
I’m watching the couple at the next desk.
She wears an elegant interpretation of mountain attire: wool slacks and a powder blue cashmere sweater with a small grey fur tippet around her neck that sets off the immaculate chignon of dark hair pinned up from a long, slender neck.
She brushes invisible threads from her shoulders with a manicured hand and the lights catch and glitter on a huge diamond on her ring finger.
Everything about her speaks of refinement.
It’s impossible to imagine her bleeding or sweating like the rest of us.
She moves with precise, economical movements, back straight as a ballet dancer’s.
He, meanwhile, is patrician of profile and elegant as she, but in an entirely masculine vein: broad-shouldered and long-legged, his hair a reddish gold: handsome as the hero of a wartime poster with a well-moulded chin and strong brow.
It’s not like me to stare at men like some schoolgirl but I find it hard to take my eyes off him.
‘Isn’t that …’ Mrs Bantry is looking at them too. ‘I’m sure it is. Jane, do look! Isn’t that man something in politics? Something … Narracott.’ To Miss Marple: ‘Oh, what was his name … Alistair?’ Miss Marple looks blank.
‘Anthony,’ I say. ‘Anthony Narracott: new candidate for leader of the Conservatives. He works in the War Office, so I occasionally see him about the building.’
‘Yes!’ Mrs Bantry exclaims. ‘Of course it is.’ She turns to Miss Marple. ‘But Jane, I’m embarrassed that neither of us could name him!’
‘Well,’ Miss Marple says. ‘I’m afraid I’m rather ignorant about that sort of thing.
I just like to know that the country is being well taken care of and my taxes well invested.
The ins and outs of Westminster are a different matter.
If you were to ask me who the new mayor of Much Benham is, then I could tell you everything about him.
Sir Hodgson – a fine cricketer and collector of rare orchids, something of a roguish little boy in his youth but very much a reformed character …
at least one certainly hopes so. Goodness me!
Here I go, twittering away and you undoubtedly know all this anyway, Dolly, and you, my dear’ – this to me – ‘have I’m sure no interest whatsoever in the subject.
Oh dear …’ Her fingers flutter in the air like startled birds for a second and then settle upon the clasp of her sensible handbag.
She is the very picture of a slightly dithery village spinster, prone to rambling and finding herself in confusing conversational cul-de-sacs. But I remember that assessing look on the train; those soft china-blue eyes suddenly turned as bright and cool as ice.
‘Anthony Narracott’s rather impressive from what I remember,’ Mrs Bantry says. ‘Wartime hero – escaped a prisoner of war camp, the story goes. Oh—’
I look up and realise he is approaching our group. He limps slightly, but there is an elegance to the movement, like a panther with a thorn in its paw.
‘An old war wound,’ he says as he draws near, with a rueful smile.
‘Gives me more trouble in the cold. But luckily it doesn’t give me any jip skiing or even climbing.
In fact, I think it’s positively good for it!
May I introduce myself?’ He does so, with a great deal of modesty.
But surely, I think, he senses that we’re all aware who he is.
‘What an unexpected joy it is to hear other British voices in this out-of-the-way place!’ He smiles graciously at us all. ‘What brings you here?’
I turn to collect the passports from the receptionist, but can still overhear the conversation.
He is so interested, so solicitous, asking Miss Marple about the village she hails from.
‘Near Much Benham, you say? I think I have heard of it. I’m almost certain.
Well, what a pleasure to meet you all. I am sure we shall all become great friends staying here together. ’
He turns back to his wife, who is looking at a spot beyond us, through us – one of the mountain scenes on the wall, perhaps – as though she is completely unaware of our existence.
Just then another man enters the room. His eyes are fixed on Anthony Narracott.
He is as coarse as Narracott is elegant: large and ungainly, a snub nose that looks like a mistake in his wide, pitted face.
Every item of clothing he wears seems ill-fitted, either too tight (his trousers) or too loose (his jacket, with the creasing and shapelessness of cheap old wool).
His expression is wary. I sense he is enjoying having the opportunity to size up the other man before he has been spotted in return.