Chapter Eleven

‘SIT DOWN, MISS MARCHMONT. We have much to discuss.’

Hélène lingered in the doorway of the hotel director’s office, listening to Billy Brogan’s nervous footfalls retreating along the corridor. It seemed fitting that Billy had been the one sent to fetch her; he had known about her secret for two years already and, in all that time, had never breathed a word. You did not shoot the messenger, not if you had any honour left within you – and, if she was to lose everything tonight, Hélène meant, at least, to maintain her honour. She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.

‘Mr Charles, I mustn’t stay long. I’m due to take to the dance floor in half an hour.’

‘I’m afraid this can’t wait, Miss Marchmont. Perhaps you might take a seat?’

There was an anxious cast to Maynard Charles’s face. The decanter of brandy was open on the desk, and evidently he’d already drunk a stiff measure because a crystal tumbler was sitting empty by its side.

‘You understand, of course, why you’re here.’

‘Mr Charles, let me begin by saying—’

‘That you lied to me, Hélène?’

Hélène had no reply to that. She let it wash over her instead, and waited until Mr Charles continued. The old man had been kind to her in the past, but it occurred to her now, watching him pace the windowed wall with his hands folded in the small of his back, that he was only ever at his kindest when he was doing what was right for the hotel. To Maynard Charles, the Buckingham mattered above all other things: keep it in good health, and you were on his right side; besmirch its reputation, and he was no longer the genial hotel director, obsessing over the Housekeeping logistics or the night managers’ schedule, but a tyrant instead. Suddenly, Hélène remembered the other times she’d been summoned to this office, and told that her weekend leave was to be cancelled, that she was obliged to stay and dance at the request of some valued guest. She’d missed out on so many evenings with Sybil because of that.

Three days had passed since that moment in the Candlelight Club. They had lasted a lifetime. She’d left after the final dance that night, taken a taxicab she could hardly afford all the way to Lambeth, and spent the night at the Archers’ on Brixton Hill, with Sybil sleeping in the crook of her arm.

The sense of restoration it brought her did not last long. The next day, at the demonstration dances, every hope she’d had that her mother’s vitriolic outburst might, by some strange mercy, have gone unheard, were dashed. It was Louis Kildare who took her to one side and told her that the musicians knew; that they’d heard it from the dancers, who’d heard it from the pages, who’d heard it from the porters and the lift attendants, the cocktail waiters and head concierge. She’d strode into the dressing rooms with her head held high, holding it together as she and Mathilde helped each other into their gowns, and it wasn’t until she saw Raymond that all the pain and anger she was trying to keep within came spilling out.

In the corner, he took her in his arms and said, ‘Hélène, I’m sorry.’

His words disintegrated into silence. Hélène extracted herself from his arms, dried her eyes, and out they went to dance.

They were speaking of it in the ballroom. She didn’t need to hear the voices to understand that. She sensed it in the eyes of the waiters who sashayed from table to table, skirting the edge of the dance floor itself. She felt it in the way the musicians watched her between numbers. She fancied she could even feel it in the way the aged Graf K?nig declined to dance with her, and instead passed her off to one of his nephews.

At least Maynard Charles is not sneering, she thought now, though the look on his face was hardly any better.

‘I trusted you, Hélène. You were my star. So precious to the Buckingham that, when you petitioned me for a six-month sabbatical, time to explore your opportunities across the Atlantic, I went in front of the board for you. That was a battle hard fought, but I won it in the end. I did it for you. And now .?.?.’

Hélène thought: you didn’t do it for me. You did it for the hotel. To keep me on a leash, or to have something to boast about, to forge a reputation for the ages.

But the vitriol she felt as those thoughts formed vanished as quickly as it had appeared – because everything he was saying was true. She’d told a lie, and she’d been living one for four long years.

‘Do the board know?’

‘Hélène.’ Maynard sighed, and for the first time she understood there was genuine regret underpinning everything he said. ‘I told them myself. I had to. They have eyes and ears in this hotel. Had I not gone to them, it would have trickled to them all the same – and then where would I be? So, yes, the hotel board know. That’s why you’re here, my dear.’

My dear. It took only those two words for Hélène to understand how this conversation was going to play out. And yet there she remained, cloaked in silence.

‘You know how this world works, Hélène. You know it. You’re not blinkered to what I have to do to keep this hotel alive. Every day, some new scandal to control and contort. A concierge stealing from guests. A chambermaid bedded by some lord, left sobbing in some corner. The arson attack last Christmas. Everything Miss Edgerton used to get up to, before she straightened out her ways. By the Lord above, I’ve been putting out fires in this hotel for nearly twenty years. That’s what I’m here for. But, Hélène, there are some scandals too big to—’

‘What would you have had me do?’ Hélène suddenly snapped. She hadn’t meant to, but the words burst out of her with a savage force. ‘Mr Charles, allow me to explain.’

‘I don’t need an explanation.’

‘You’re not in possession of the facts. Or .?.?. you’re not in possession of a heart. I’d have left, gracefully, if Sidney hadn’t been struck down by that bus. I’d have retired and you’d never have heard of me again. I’d have been off, having my baby, and to hell with the lot of you.’

Maynard’s face turned as purple as a bruise, but his hands still strained in the small of his back.

‘But then he died, and what was I to do next? Throw myself on the charity of the parish? Mr Charles, try and see it from my perspective. Sidney was dead, and his child was growing within me. My own mother and father exiled me from their estate. I didn’t have a choice. I did the only thing I could to look after that little girl – and I certainly won’t apologise for it now. She’s healthy and she’s happy and I did every last thing I could to make that happen. Give me my time again, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘You should have come to me, Hélène,’ he murmured. ‘Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about forbidden love.’

Hélène stared at him. ‘Mr Charles?’

‘If I’d known what you were going through, I’d have .?.?. found a way.’

‘A way to what?’

‘To help, Hélène. I’d have helped .?.?.’ He sighed. ‘You’ve been a fool.’

‘I’ve been a mother.’

‘And a damn fine one, I shouldn’t wonder. But to bring them here, to welcome them into the Candlelight Club and just—’

Hélène softened. ‘I wanted to meet them in a place that was mine. Surely you can understand.’

Maynard nodded. ‘I’ve kept other secrets in this hotel, Hélène. I should have liked the opportunity to do it for you as well.’

For the longest time, she simply sat in her seat, face creasing in confusion, until finally Maynard went on, his voice scarcely a whisper now.

‘I could have controlled it.’ He was quaking. ‘I spend my days controlling scandals.’

‘Not ones like this,’ Hélène whispered, and she saw real tenderness in Maynard Charles’s eyes. ‘A black man having a child with your principal dancer? No, Mr Charles, if I’d come to you, I’d have made you a part of it. After Sidney died, there was only one person in this hotel who could control this scandal. Me. So I set about it, in the only way I knew how.’ She paused, but when he said nothing, she went on. ‘Please believe me – I didn’t want to mislead you. I didn’t want to live this lie.’

Maynard took a deep breath, drawing himself upright once more.

‘Hélène, I really am sorry. I don’t want to do what I’m about to do either.’

The colour had drained from his face. Hélène parted her lips to speak, but he lifted a hand, begging for her silence. What he was about to say was obviously causing deep distress. He was not an inconsiderable man, but in that moment it seemed he could be pushed over by a stiff breeze.

‘I’m to go before the board in the morning and tell them how this happened. I’m to tell them, too, what I’m doing to stem this tide. The recoil from this could be severe, but I need to show them it can be contained, that there’s life in the ever-after. If I can do that .?.?.’ He stared at her, not unkindly, and went on. ‘The Buckingham Hotel depends on the reputation of the ballroom. That ballroom dragged this hotel up out of the Depression. It’s the ballroom that brings the high and mighty to us. It’s why kings and crown princes call the Buckingham suites their home away from home. The board will want to see me protecting that reputation, Hélène.’ He hesitated. ‘At all costs.’

‘Mr Charles, please.’ Suddenly, Hélène was on her feet. She reached out, as if she might take his hand, but the chasm between them was too vast. ‘My daughter needs the ballroom too. I need it. There has to be a way—’

‘I’m suspending you from dancing in the Grand Ballroom for a minimum of two weeks. In that time, you are not to remain inside the hotel. I’ve arranged for Billy Brogan to pack you a bag from your quarters while we’ve been speaking, but you have my permission to return there and collect any important possessions he’s overlooked. You’re to leave a forwarding address with the concierge desk, so that I might summon you in due course, and so that we might – if there’s a way – come to some better resolution.’

It was the formality of it that stung her the most. How could he go from such understanding – such depth of feeling and emotion – to this, in only a few fleeting seconds? She supposed it was what he had to do. The stiff upper lip, the decorum of it – Hélène knew more than most about putting on a brave face.

Maynard reached for the telephone on his desk and dialled a single number.

‘Send Billy Brogan in,’ he said, and promptly put the receiver back down. ‘I’m going to do my best for you, Hélène. That’s my promise to you.’

‘Mr Charles, you can’t do this to me. I’m lost without it. Sybil and her grandparents, they depend on me to .?.?.’

He could hardly look her in the eye – but, by sheer power of will, he forced himself to meet her gaze. His own eyes were glistening now.

Fingers rapped at the office door and, when it swung open, there stood Billy, with a leather bag at his heel.

‘I think I collected everything, Miss Marchmont.’

Hélène said nothing. Refusing to let Billy carry the bag one more step, she hoisted it up and marched along the corridor, out across the black and white chequered tiles of the hotel reception, past the obelisk where the waters still cascaded down, and out through the revolving brass doors, into the Mayfair night.

This time, as she marched, her head was not held high.

This time, she let it hang low, the better to hide the tears.

At the bottom of the sweeping marble steps, a taxicab was waiting. The hotel doorman, dutifully not acknowledging that this was Hélène Marchmont, star of the Grand Ballroom – and just as dutifully not noticing the sobs she was trying to keep in – opened up the door for her.

There was one thing to say for Maynard Charles. Good or bad, angel or devil, on her side or standing shoulder to shoulder with the hotel board, he had planned her exit to perfection.