Chapter Fourteen

IT WAS LORD EDGERTON WHO had insisted the board meet away from the Buckingham. Ordinarily, when the hotel board congregated, they did so in the Benefactors’ Study, that palatial conference room behind Maynard Charles’s office. But evidently, for a matter as severe as this, a meeting at the hotel itself would simply not do. Consequently, on a bright summer’s morning, Maynard stepped out of a taxicab on the Mall and, tipping the driver handsomely, warily approached the doors of Boodle’s, Lord Edgerton’s club.

Maynard had never held much truck with gentlemen’s clubs, and Boodle’s was one of the oldest around. As he was welcomed into the plush interior, the air around him was heavy with the scent of the finest continental cigars. There had been a club for fine gentlemen in this town house for nearly two hundred years. The grandfathers of those who had first congregated here had been the Cavaliers of old. Maynard was given to understand that Winston Churchill himself was one of the club’s attendees. No doubt Mr Moorcock had his spies in these halls as well – but the thought brought Maynard little cheer. Today was a solemn day. The future of his hotel – and no doubt the future of his own role at the grand establishment – was suddenly in doubt.

Soon, one of the managers – a dry man in brown tweed, his blond hair trimmed back in a regimented cut – arrived and ushered him onwards, up a crooked staircase to the door of a private meeting room above.

‘My apologies, sir. I’m told you require no introduction.’

Maynard watched as the day manager beat his retreat. Evidently, even he was nervous of what waited beyond those doors.

But the die had already been cast, so Maynard walked through.

Inside, the hotel board was gathered. Evidently, they’d been engaged in fierce debate for some time already, because everywhere he looked – from imperious Lord Edgerton, to the hunched-over Uriah Bell, to the obscene corpulence of Peter Merriweather – faces were etched in various different agonies. Even the lesser members of the board were here. Francis Lloyd, here representing his father, was sitting glumly in one corner, while Dickie Fletcher – the young man Lord Edgerton had once called ‘an idiot with an inheritance’ – sat staring at his lap. Among them all, only John Hastings seemed to have kept his pleasant demeanour. The American industrialist was half the age of the elder men in the group, and yet somehow he showed more maturity than all of them combined.

It was only Hastings who acknowledged Maynard as he closed the door behind him. Maynard inclined his head in a silent greeting, then took the last remaining seat at the table. Unlike the round table in the Benefactors’ Study at the hotel, here the table came to a head – and sitting at it, as if he was the lord and master of all of the rest, Lord Edgerton reigned supreme.

‘Mr Charles,’ Lord Edgerton intoned, ‘you join us at a most opportune moment. We’ve debated the history of this incident’ – he sneered the word, as if it was an insult – ‘for too long already. It’s time we made some decisions. But perhaps, first, you might appraise us of what’s being done at the Buckingham to tidy up this mess?’

Maynard had been ready for this. Too often, being dragged before the hotel board felt like waiting for a caning from his old headmaster; but over the years he’d developed ways to turn these moments to his advantage. The first thing was to show the right deference. In the Buckingham halls, the chambermaids and concierges, the day managers and night managers, dancers and musicians, all paid deference to him; but, in here, it was Maynard Charles who was expected to grovel, with his cap in his hand. The trick, though, was not to grovel too much. Once they saw you had backbone, they started to respect you for it – even if they wouldn’t admit it.

And Maynard had come here with only one ambition in mind: to preserve the career of Hélène Marchmont. Nothing less would do.

‘Miss Marchmont has been on unpaid leave from the Grand for five weeks now. I won’t pretend that the staff at the hotel don’t know why. It was the rumours rippling across the hotel, of course, that forced us to take action. But our action was swift and decisive. It has killed the rumour stone dead. The gossips speak of other things in the hotel now. The Winter Holler Company has landed at last. You’d be surprised how much excitement an event like this causes in a closed establishment like ours. There are new romances to dream upon. Miss Marchmont’s disgrace is forgotten, as it should be. Gentlemen, the world keeps turning, from one day to the next.’

He’d been rehearsing the speech for days and, if it hadn’t come out exactly as he wanted, at least there was bite to it, at least there was passion. He waited – but into the silence that followed, Uriah Bell just laughed.

Uriah Bell: he was the one Maynard hated the most. Lord Edgerton was knowable; Lord Edgerton he understood. Bell was a man completely without vertebrae, whose only real passion in life – now that his riches amounted to untold millions – was bringing others down.

‘Gone, Maynard? Gone, my good man? By the Lord we both love, you’re a fool if you think it’s so. Were she to set foot back in the hotel, it would be the talk of the ballroom again. Hélène Marchmont and her little bastard.’

‘Now, Uriah!’ John Hastings exclaimed. ‘That’s quite enough! I was always given to understand that the English comported themselves with more dignity than this. Miss Marchmont is one of ours. She deserves our respect.’

‘Aye,’ chipped in Peter Merriweather, in his broad Yorkshire brogue, ‘and she’d have had it, too, if only she’d respected us in return. The way I see this, the girl made her choice. She made it when she climbed into bed with that black man. She made it when she lied to us and took our charity, to run away in secret, so that nobody might know of her shame. And she’s been taking us for fools every day since.’ He stopped. ‘We’re good people. Good, English people! It’s bad enough London’s welcomed in all sorts from everywhere. There are places it oughtn’t to touch, and our ballroom’s one of them.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Hastings broke in, ‘might I remind you that we are gathered, here today, in the very same club that once counted none other than William Wilberforce among its members? How can we speak of our fellow human beings like this, in the place where he plotted and planned the abolition of slavery? We are better than this, gentlemen.’

‘So was Hélène Marchmont. She ought to have stuck to her own. By God, she’s a beauty. She could have married a lord! Why would she stoop to this? It must have broken her father, to denounce her like that.’

‘Gentlemen!’ Maynard realised he had leaped to his feet. ‘You’re forgetting the love our guests hold for Miss Marchmont. If I can’t appeal to the decency of your hearts, then let me appeal to your pockets. Miss Marchmont is valuable to our ballroom. She’s its star. How can we begin to calculate what might be lost if—’

‘You can stop right there, Maynard,’ Lord Edgerton seethed. ‘I understand the balance books as well as any man here. I understand Miss Marchmont’s monetary worth. But I also understand how little she’ll be worth once our prized guests learn she allowed herself to mother a half-caste child.’

There was a sharp intake of breath. In the corner of his eye, Maynard saw John Hastings remove his spectacles and slide them into his pocket, then crack each knuckle as if getting ready for a fight.

‘My lord,’ Maynard began, trying desperately to seem contrite, ‘we need Miss Marchmont. The Winter Holler Company have arrived for their residency, but a great part of that depends upon Miss Marchmont being there to dovetail with all they have planned. There’s the Autumn Serenade to think of. And Christmas, already on the horizon. We can’t be without our star.’

‘The way I see it, gentlemen,’ said Lord Edgerton, ‘we have a viable alternative. Mathilde Bourchier is younger than Hélène. Not yet twenty years old, I understand. She is, some might say, an unsullied Marchmont. I’ll grant you that she hasn’t been crowned Queen of the Ballroom at the Royal Albert Hall. I’ll grant you that she doesn’t carry with her the glamour of Harper’s Bazaar. But she has youth with her, and as much beauty as Hélène Marchmont bore in days gone by. Yes, Mathilde – in the arms of Raymond de Guise – might be the thing our ballroom needs. And in that case, what use have we for Miss Marchmont?’

‘I’m minded to agree,’ Peter Merriweather grunted. ‘We’ve already spent hundreds, nay thousands, keeping this tittle-tattle out of the pages of Tatler and The Queen. But those vultures won’t be satisfied forever. If we welcome her back to the ballroom, we’re forever in their pockets.’

‘It’s a price worth paying!’ Maynard barked. ‘By God, you’re men of money! Don’t you see how this world works? In one column – income. In the other – expenditure. To make a profit, you have to spend! That’s the way the world turns round!’

If it was the anger in Maynard’s voice – unheralded, and unheard of – that brought his superiors to silence, it was, at least, the opening that John Hastings had been waiting for. Before Lord Edgerton could remind Maynard of exactly what his position was, Hastings stood up and said, ‘Gentlemen, I’m going to make this decision very simple for all of us. Last year, when the Buckingham was at its lowest ebb, you reached out to me and asked me to save you from ruin by becoming your investor. Now, I understand that this provokes certain tensions in a group like this. I understand that it upsets the fine balance that you esteemed gentlemen have worked towards over a good number of years. But I did not sign up to direct a hotel where we treat our own people no better than those Nazis over the water. Consequently, gentlemen, we will act like all decent men should. We will give Miss Hélène Marchmont a chance – and, if we do not, my company will absolve itself of its responsibilities to this group. And we shall take our money with us.’

There was silence in the room.

‘So,’ said John Hastings, ‘we need a majority decision, based on the value of shares we each hold. Mr Lloyd, Mr Fletcher, I’m afraid this renders your own votes rather mute – though I believe that, as decent upstanding young men, you’ll be voting with me. And that requires two of you gentlemen’ – he turned to Lord Edgerton, Uriah Bell and Peter Merriweather, the three elder statesmen of the board – ‘to make the decent choice. And, if not for decency’s sake, then for the future of your hotel. Because, believe me, gentlemen, I need no further reason to remove myself from this board than the knowledge that I am seated with fascists.’

The word caused a reverberation around the table, for it was no secret that Lord Edgerton dined weekly with his friends from the British Union of Fascists.

‘So, gentlemen, a show of hands?’

Dickie Fletcher’s hand was the first to go up. Francis Lloyd followed soon after, though he was clever enough to look glum about it. Then, after a moment’s rumination, Uriah Bell lifted his arm. When Peter Merriweather did the same, he fixed John Hastings with a look that told him that, though he might have won this one battle, the war was far from over.

‘That leaves just you, Mr Edgerton,’ Hastings said, ‘so it seems that we’re decided.’ He turned to Maynard Charles. ‘Have your man Mr Brogan deliver a letter in person. The Autumn Serenade is but six weeks away, and the Winter Holler Company already in our halls. She’s to start rehearsing, on full pay, by tomorrow afternoon. Gentlemen, good day.’

John Hastings was almost at the door, Maynard Charles excusing himself to follow thereafter, when Lord Edgerton called him back.

‘Mr Hastings,’ he intoned.

John Hastings looked over his shoulder.

‘Have I forgotten something, gentlemen?’

‘Indeed you have. It seems, you Yankee reprobate, that you have forgotten my name.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘I am Lord Edgerton, Mr Hastings. Not ‘Mr’, but Lord. And from now on, whether inside this room or without, you will refer to me by my royally appointed title. Am I understood?’

‘Oh,’ said John Hastings, ‘I believe I understand you very much indeed.’

*

There was a taxicab there to pick her up. Maynard Charles might have planned her exit to perfection, but he’d planned her return down to its most intimate detail as well.

The one thing that she wasn’t expecting was Raymond de Guise.

Hélène was standing at the door of the Brixton terrace when the taxicab pulled up. Sybil, straining in her arms, barely wanted to let her go – and this was the most wonderful feeling of all. Five weeks of lounging with Sybil, going to her when she cried in the night, making her meals and getting her dressed, learning all the little things about her that she’d been missing, had been the most singular joy of her life. And if, in moments, she’d heard that little voice niggling in the back of her head – that imperious, judging voice, telling her that this was a fantasy, that it couldn’t go on forever – it had not diminished the joy and warmth of it one bit.

Only now, with Sybil straining in her arms, did Hélène understand the cost of those weeks as well. For how could she leave her again, and again, and again? Each time was getting more difficult than the last, and this was the worst of them all.

The taxicab window wound down, and there was Raymond.

Hélène froze. She felt as if she was tumbling, tumbling into herself.

Raymond himself had known for two years the secret she was keeping. He was no stranger to secrets himself. She thought, suddenly, of Raymond’s own past, and the lie he’d lived all those years – until the day Nancy arrived at the Buckingham and transformed his life in the most wonderful ways. Being set free from that secret had lifted him. Ever since then he’d soared on air.

But his secret – of the East End, of the Cohens, of escaping into the world of dance and changing his name – was not comparable to her secret. And now, of course, they all knew. She didn’t doubt, for a second, that she’d been the talk of the housekeeping lounge, nor that the waiters in the Candlelight Club had made jokes at her expense. Now that she saw Raymond’s face, the scale of the lie she’d been living was too real. Her body throbbed with the shame of it.

But no, she told herself. I’ll not be ashamed. Not of this darling girl in my arms. And no, I won’t be sorry that I lied, either. Because how could any of them understand?

So she wrapped her arms around Sybil, crossed the little brick wall that separated the terrace from the road, and approached Raymond as he stepped out of the taxicab.

‘Raymond,’ she said, with such fierce pride that she was almost beaming with it, ‘allow me to introduce my daughter, Sybil Archer.’

Raymond extended his hand gracefully, as was his way, and took the little girl’s podgy fingers in his own.

‘Charmed, I’m sure.’

After they had said their farewells, and the taxicab was ferrying them back along Brixton Road, Hélène felt herself crumple in her seat. Raymond, who had been respecting her silence, reached out for her hand.

‘She’s beautiful, Hélène.’

She really is, he thought.

He’d quite forgotten the expressions Sidney used to make, the way his eyes focused so intently each time he lifted his trumpet to his lips – but Sybil had the very same expressions, the very same crinkles between her eyes. And there was so much of Hélène in her too. The perfect mingling of two loving souls, thought Raymond – and, with that thought, came the weight of what must have come after. All the grief. The uncertainty. The fear of being exposed.

‘The dancers are on your side, Hélène. They wish you’d told them.’

Hélène drew herself upright. She tried to compose herself, asked the driver if he might permit her to wind the window down and let in a little of the summer air.

‘I couldn’t risk it.’

‘You’re a sister to all of us. Archie Adams most of all. He hasn’t said it, but he’s almost ashamed you couldn’t confide in him.’

She turned to him, lolled her head upon his shoulder.

‘What’s it like, Raymond, at the hotel?’

There was no denying the shock and consternation that had ricocheted through the dressing rooms behind the Grand. Mathilde’s panic at being told that she was suddenly to be principal dancer had been the least of it. There was disappointment and confusion, anxiety for the future. There was disbelief all over.

‘But then there was the guilt,’ said Raymond. ‘And, in the end, the utter admiration. Because not one of us could have done it. Separated from Sybil every day, dancing for her future, and all the while keeping everything hidden. You think they’re things to be ashamed of? Hélène, you ought to be proud.’

‘Maybe it’s that way for the dancers. Maybe for Archie and the rest of them. But they’ll be gossiping about me in the housekeeping lounge. Every concierge and porter will have it out for me now.’

Raymond was silent. The way Nancy had told it, the chambermaids had spoken about little else. To some, it was a romance far greater than any novelette or short story from the Reader’s Digests they collected. To others, a liar was a liar, and would be a liar all of their lives. But he did not say this. He simply put his arm around her instead.

‘Maynard Charles has asked to see me, before the dances tonight. Hastings forced the board to reaccept me, but I’ll be watched. I don’t know if I can bear it, Raymond.’

‘One day at a time,’ said Raymond.

‘Will I be dancing at the Autumn Serenade?’

Raymond held her even more tightly. ‘In my arms.’

‘Look at us, Raymond. You, about to be married, about to build worlds. Me, with mine falling apart—’

‘And yet, the two of us, still dancing together.’

It felt good to hear this and, as they came over the sparkling waters of the river, through the great palaces at Westminster, she began to hope. Hope, she’d always known, was a dangerous thing. It could be like walking along the edge of a cliff in a gale, buffeted backwards and forwards. Hope was the thing that destroyed you. Hope was what killed.

When the taxicab delivered them to Berkeley Square, they didn’t have to go up the marble stairs and through the hotel’s iconic revolving door, for the ballroom’s exterior doors were open to the summer air – and, through them, Hélène could see the dance troupe was already gathered. There was Gene Sheldon, turning with Mathilde Bourchier in his arms. There was Archie Adams and Louis Kildare and Harry Dudgeon, the new percussionist in the orchestra. And there, all around, were dancers Hélène had never seen before.

‘The Winter Hollers,’ said Raymond, ‘getting ready for the Autumn Serenade. They’re good, Hélène. John Hastings was right. He saw them on his tour of the Continent last year. He knew they’d bring some spectacle. Some continental glamour. God knows, we need it, after all the bad news pouring out of there.’

Hélène’s eyes roamed further.

‘She’s beautiful,’ she whispered, with her eyes on Karina Kainz, tall and lithe and blonde and swooning in the arms of Jonas Holler. ‘They look angelic. One of them dark, and one of them light, like in all the best stories.’

‘Dancing with disaster.’ Raymond smiled. ‘That’s what Mr Schank – he’s the company director, over there – calls it. They talk about dancing at the edge of things, going as far as they can go, making people hold their breath.’

Like walking on a clifftop in a gale, thought Hélène.

There were others in the company too. On the other side of the dance floor, hanging from the balustrade, she saw a young man with a mop of black hair, and the soft features of somebody who ought, really, to still have been hanging from his mama’s apron strings. Probably he was closer to Sybil’s age than he was to Hélène’s – and this made her feel truly old.

‘Why’s Frank Nettleton talking to that boy?’

‘Oh,’ said Raymond, ‘that’s Ansel Albrecht. The youngest of the Winter Hollers, but a boy with great talent. He had to choose between ballet and the ballroom, but ballet’s loss is the ballroom’s gain. Frank’s adopted him. Well, it’s Mr Charles’s fault, really – I do believe he has a soft spot for young Frank. He’s given him the responsibility of being personal page to the Winter Hollers, to run whatever errands they need running, but the truth is this normally results in young Frank loitering in the ballroom and just .?.?. watching. Ansel’s been a good friend to him. They’re .?.?. er .?.?. teaching Billy Brogan to dance.’

Hélène laughed. She couldn’t help herself. It was so unexpected that it caught Raymond off guard.

‘Come,’ she said, ‘why don’t you introduce me?’

Together, they stepped into the Grand. They hadn’t yet reached the edge of the balustrade, where Maximilian Schank was deep in thought, when the dancers on the floor came apart and looked up.

‘Mr Schank,’ Raymond began. ‘Mr Holler. Miss Kainz. Mr Albrecht .?.?.’ On the other side of the dance floor, Ansel Albrecht – who had been guffawing at something Frank said – suddenly stood to attention. ‘May I introduce the one true Queen of the Grand Ballroom, Miss Hélène Marchmont?’

‘Mrs Archer, don’t you mean?’

The dancers were surging up to introduce themselves, but all that Hélène heard were these chuckled words, coming from one of the hotel joiners, who was fixing the hinges on the ballroom door. Her eyes flashed towards him, her skin burning scarlet – but then the dancers were all around her, smothering her with their welcoming love, and when she looked again, the joiner was gone.

It wasn’t the only chuckle she’d hear. She was certain of that. She was going to have to be bold, if she was going to be here at all. She was going to have to survive. So she drew herself up, painted a new smile across her face, and said, ‘So, who’s going to show me what I’ve missed? How many weeks until the Autumn Serenade are there? People, we have work to do!’

*

Soon, both Mathilde and Karina Kainz were taking Hélène down onto the dance floor, while Raymond remained above with Jonas Holler and Maximilian Schank, to talk about how the entrances of both the Buckingham dancers and the Winter Holler troupe might be staged.

On the dance floor, she felt free. On the dance floor, she could almost forget. Here, three women together, there was nothing to talk about but the turns and lifts, the chassés and glides, the promenades and changes of which their performances would be comprised. And here Hélène Marchmont was in her element. Here she could be queen.

An hour later, with the ballroom being cleared for the afternoon demonstrations, Hélène took her leave and disappeared through the dressing rooms beyond. For a moment, she was grateful for the emptiness. She felt as if she’d survived a storm. Then, if only to reclaim the sense that this used to be her home, she slipped out, rode the service lift upwards, and returned to her suite.

It was here that Archie Adams was waiting.

‘Archie?’ she ventured, when she saw him at her door. He must have slipped out of the Grand before her. ‘Archie, is everything all right?’

The elder man nodded vigorously, straightening his collar.

‘Hélène, perhaps we could talk?’

She took a stride towards him, closing the gap between them by half.

‘Archie, please understand, we couldn’t tell a soul. It was what Sidney wanted too. If he’d told you, you’d have felt sworn to us. You’d have had to keep the secret. What might Mr Charles have thought of you, then? Or the board? Please, Archie. We didn’t tell a soul, but not just for our sakes. We didn’t want you to be sullied by it either.’

‘Oh, my dear Hélène.’ Archie shook his head sadly. ‘There wasn’t a thing in the world I wouldn’t have done for Sidney Archer – just as for any of my boys. But you had your reasons. I respect that. I daresay I even love you for it. You’ve been a brave woman.’

‘Then, Archie, why are you here?’

Archie gestured to the door. ‘Might we talk in private? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’

Hélène fumbled with her keys and admitted them both to the chambers she had not seen in five long weeks. What an aeon that had been! But here was everything, lying exactly the same as when she’d left it.

Quietly, she closed the door.

‘What’s this about, Mr Adams?’

‘Hélène,’ Archie began, ‘I’ve known you for ten long years. Long before the Grand Ballroom, when I was just a bandleader and you a young dancer, moving from garden party to ball. You know me, don’t you? And you know I have your best interests at heart.’

‘You always have, Mr Adams. Ever since .?.?.’

She said no more. Archie understood what he meant to her. He’d been among the first to tell her she had talent. He’d been among the first to tell her that the world craved dancers just like her – that, with beauty and poise like Hélène had, every ballroom in the world would want her. Oh, there had been other men who came to tell her such things – there always were – but Archie was one of the few who hadn’t done it with a hand on her waist, or another curling possessively around the small of her back, as if she might end up owing them something. Archie Adams: the consummate gentleman. That was why she’d followed him, when he’d asked if he might represent her interests. That was how she’d first come to the Grand, the season it opened, and in doing so had changed the story of her life.

‘An opportunity has presented itself, Hélène.’

It was dark in her rooms. She flurried around, turning on the lamps, before looking back at Archie.

‘An opportunity?’

‘An old associate of mine. A cousin of a cousin. He leads the orchestra at the Court in Chicago. You’ve heard of it?’

She had not. All the stories she’d told of visiting the Americas were lies. She’d been asked before, but that had been in a different world – one where Sybil was yet to exist.

‘It used to be a common hostelry, there in the heart of Chicago. But now, after years of investment, it’s one of the swankiest joints in town.’

When Archie adopted an American accent for ‘swankiest joints’ it sounded almost indecipherable – and that, at least, made her laugh.

‘Why are you telling me this, Archie?’

‘Because they’re to lose their lead dancer. Rachel Adams. She’s fallen in love and is choosing a different life.’ Archie paused. ‘So could you.’

Hélène realised that she was hugging herself. She needed something on to which she could cling.

‘No commissions, no contracts – not between you and me, in any case. I’m not your representative for this one, Hélène. I’m your friend. I could call them right now and they’d put you on an aeroplane to Chicago. Now, I’m not saying these things are without complications, but in Chicago they’d pay you well enough that you might even have a nanny, and live in an apartment away from the hotel, and .?.?. be everything you want to be. Away from all this. A fresh beginning.’

‘To dance .?.?. and be a mother?’ she whispered.

There were other things to think about. Suddenly, her mind was a whirlwind of them. There were Maurice and Noelle. There were her friends, right here in the hotel. There were her dying father, and her mother and aunt – the very people who had pushed her life to the precipice on which she now stood.

And then there was Sybil, who – only hours before – had said her name over and over and over again as she left: ‘Mama. Mama. Mama!’

‘You don’t have to decide now. There’s time. I’m told Miss Adams isn’t to be wed until the spring, and she’ll dance until then. But .?.?.’ Archie stepped back, his hands folded in front of him – like a penitent, Hélène observed, when in truth he had come delivering a dream. ‘Think about it, Hélène. Because, if there’s one thing I’ve learned across all these years on God’s green earth – there isn’t only one way to live a life.’