Chapter Sixteen

THE AUTUMN SERENADE WAS A NEW addition to the roster of balls and soirées that featured in the calendar of the Grand Ballroom – yet, to Maynard Charles’s eyes, it could not come round quickly enough. Last Christmas, when fire had torn through the dance studio and dressing rooms, he’d wondered if they’d ever reach this point. He’d looked at the devastation, studied the ledger books long into the dark, lonely nights, and thought that, perhaps, the great game was finished, that the Buckingham Hotel was being consigned to history. They’d lost so much: Christmas cancelled, the New Year’s Masque a non-event. Kings and queens and crown princes, lords and ladies, dukes and counts from across the Continent had chosen to spend their Christmases elsewhere instead. The Savoy, the Ritz, the Imperial – all, and more, had benefited from the disaster that was the Buckingham’s last winter.

But you wouldn’t think it now, thought Maynard Charles as he stood by the doors of the Grand Ballroom, all the great and good of London society fanning out around him, and took in the splendour that was his Autumn Serenade.

Plans had been afoot for an autumnal celebration, even before the last whisper of winter left Berkeley Square. Every ballroom had a Christmas extravaganza. Every ballroom sought to seduce the scions of society for their New Year masques. There were Summer Balls aplenty, Spring Fancies, celebrations on Midwinter’s Night. But, in London this year, only the Buckingham was celebrating the way the leaves were turning to russet and red around the town houses of Mayfair; only the Buckingham would garland its hall with wreaths of crisp autumn leaves, red berries, and pine cones glittering in gold. Here the guests were now – industrialists and baronets, men from the ministries and embassies, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk and their heir apparent, and around them a coterie of other dukes and consorts from all the English shires. The Grand Ballroom was bustling with activity – bustling with promise – and no sight had made Maynard happier for years.

The clock above the dance floor was counting down towards seven, and the start of the evening’s festivities. Feeling the anticipation in the air, Maynard picked his way along the grand curve of the cocktail bar, towards the place where Lord Edgerton and the rest of the hotel board were waiting, partitioned off by a velvet rope. They stuck out like a sore thumb in the Grand Ballroom – like ghosts at the feast, thought Maynard; not one of them was truly looking forward to the dancing.

The Buckingham had spared no expense this evening. The guest singers brought in to accompany the Archie Adams Orchestra were feted across London and beyond – and the Winter Holler Company, who would soon make their long-awaited debut on the dance floor, had made such a dent in the Buckingham’s finances that it had taken passion and grit to get the hotel board to sign off on them at all.

‘We need glamour,’ Maynard had told them, though it was an argument that had been wearing thin over the years. Every aristocratic Englishman knew the value of reputation, but with the Continent closing down, every Englishman knew the value of guarding his financial reserves closely as well. Lord Edgerton, in particular, had been like a dragon with his hoard.

But it will all be worth it, Maynard thought. He looked upwards, waiters waltzing around him as they delivered magnums of Mo?tetChandon and vintage Veuve Clicquot to the assembled guests, and saw how the chandeliers had themselves been turned into great autumnal wreaths. It was details like this that made him the proudest of all.

Tobias Bauer shuffled past, dressed in an expensive evening suit that made him look twenty years younger, and stopped to say hello. Waylaid on his way to the members of the board, Maynard inclined his head in a greeting. The board could wait; it was guests that mattered most of all.

‘You’ve outdone yourself, Mr Charles,’ Bauer began. ‘And a chance to see dancers from my very own Vienna! I feel as if it is entirely in my honour.’

The old man’s cheeks flushed red.

‘A happy coincidence, Herr Bauer, but the joy it brings you makes it all worthwhile.’ Maynard was adept at saying exactly what his guests wanted to hear, but this time he meant every word. If the world was soon to be full of exiles like Bauer, he meant to do everything he could to help. ‘I trust you will enjoy your evening.’

Maynard had only just extricated himself from the conversation when another hand clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see John Hastings standing there with his wife. In a gown of chiffon and lace, Sarah wore a line of simple pearls around her neck, and two smaller pearls in her ears. The ring on her finger was clasping one of the biggest single diamonds he had ever seen.

‘Are we all set, Mr Charles?’

‘Your fellow board members are congregated, Mr Hastings. Lord Edgerton was doing the rounds earlier.’ Maynard lowered his voice. ‘It’s his old trick – stay aloof so that, if the night’s a failure, he isn’t touched by it. But, if the night’s a success, he can stride out and seize it as his own.’

John Hastings grinned. ‘I seem to remember him balking at the very suggestion of the Autumn Serenade. And the idea of adding to our financial disadvantages by summoning the Winter Hollers .?.?.’ He turned to his wife. ‘I came across them when I was in Vienna last year. The moment I invested here, I knew they had to be a part of it. They’ll be with the hotel until the Christmas season. They’ll win us guests from the Continent, you can be certain of that.’

‘Darling,’ Sarah began, ‘might you talk business later? I want to dance.’

‘As soon as the music begins, my dear!’

Maynard averted his eyes. He had always known John Hastings to be a man driven by his head over his heart, but in the presence of his wife he seemed quite the opposite. Well, he thought, there are two sides to all of us. I know that more than anyone.

A sudden silence was settling over the ballroom, like the snowfall that marks autumn’s end. Maynard pivoted on his heel and looked down, beyond the balustrade, onto the dance floor.

At the back of the ballroom, the doors opened and out filed the orchestra, led by Archie Adams in his immaculate snow-white evening suit. As they filed up onto the stage, there appeared from the dressing room doors two dancing couples, hands already entwined. The first to twirl out across the floor were Jonas Holler and Karina Kainz. As Karina sallied forward, in her partner’s arms, her hair streamed out behind her and it seemed, to the ballroom, as if she might even be flying.

Then, moments later – to a rising crescendo of applause – Raymond de Guise and Hélène Marchmont appeared. The whispers at Maynard’s back told him that Hélène’s appearance was not going to go unnoticed tonight, but whatever they were saying was drowned out by the applause that greeted her too.

‘How is she faring?’ John Hastings whispered.

The band had struck up their first proper number now, and the rest of the Winter Holler troupe – and the Buckingham’s own dancers – were fanning out. Little Ansel Albrecht was guiding Mathilde around the edge of the dance floor, the two of them as light as fawns.

‘One of my principals is riding high on the romance of his lifetime,’ Maynard began. ‘And the other .?.?.’

He stopped. There was no ignoring the trial Hélène was living through. He’d seen it etched on her face, the day he ejected her from the Buckingham. He’d seen it, too, on the evening she returned, when he’d invited her to his office to explain the terms of her readmittance. But how she was faring? Well, she was a practised liar. No matter how high she held her head, did anybody really know what she was feeling inside?

‘Mr Hastings,’ he went on, ‘I believe we are about to find out.’

*

She was aware of the eyes watching her. She always was, when she stepped out onto the dance floor. But tonight the eyes were watching Hélène differently. Tonight, they studied and judged.

A fortnight of rehearsal had been too long. Hélène had been dancing since she was a girl and scarcely needed a day to learn the routines Raymond had planned. But Maximilian Schank, the director of the visiting company, was passionate in the belief that the two troupes needed to spend time together, to mingle and know one another, if they were to dance perfectly. He wanted rehearsals each afternoon, and dinners together each evening, drinks in the Candlelight Club and more. To his credit, he hadn’t once mentioned Hélène’s disgrace – but she’d fancied she could see it on him, every time he looked her up and down. The thing he would never be able to understand was that she didn’t need to know her partners to create the perfect dance. That was her job: to take hotel guests in her arms each night and, no matter what their ability, weave something spectacular out of whatever was in front of her. Competitive dancers like the Winter Hollers would never be able to understand the talent that took.

The Archie Adams Orchestra were superlative tonight. Even Hélène could feel it; the music seemed to envelop her as she sailed across the dance floor, turning in Raymond’s arms. She heard Louis Kildare’s saxophone soaring out of the riot and, for a time, this gave her strength. She danced better when Louis played, and Raymond seemed to be sensing it too. His body relaxed, in perfect symmetry with hers, and he whispered, ‘That’s it, Hélène. We’re here. We’re on top of it now.’

On top of it?she thought. She was always on top of it. She was Hélène Marchmont. The Buckingham ballroom was hers.

Wasn’t it?

The more she thought about it, the more tightly she coiled – and, the more tightly she coiled, the more she could feel Raymond’s arms trying to direct her. She looked up, out of the cocoon she and Raymond were crafting together, and saw two gentlemen staring straight at her. When they saw her looking, the first averted his gaze; the second cupped his hand around his mouth and whispered to his neighbour. They were not the only ones – she could see the scornful look on a middle-aged dowager right now.

‘Hélène, you’re getting away from me.’

It was not like Raymond to speak in the middle of a dance. The little whispers, the winks and nudges – these were not tricks that Raymond and Hélène had ever needed, for their bodies had always seemed to come together by instinct. But now, through pursed lips, he uttered, ‘Slow down. You’re losing the song.’

She tried to wrench herself back.

It had been seven nights since she last saw Sybil.

‘Hélène, they’re watching us.’

‘They’re watching me,’ she snapped, under her breath, ‘not you.’

‘I’m a part of you tonight. Hélène, please.’

For a time, they danced on. She could sense his fear in her body – it was like an echo that passed between them – and, after her anger had died down, she understood it was not fear for himself, but fear for her. Not the fear that he might himself look a fool in front of so many society figures – but the fear that she might look as if she couldn’t cope, the fear that she might give the board an excuse to revoke her ballroom return.

‘You’re too fast again. I can feel your heart. Hélène, please,’ he begged, in fragments of whispers. ‘You haven’t got your heart in the dance.’

It was these words, gentle as they were, that floored her.

‘My heart hasn’t been in the dance for years,’ she whispered – and realised, then, how true it was. ‘I’ve danced a thousand nights with you, Raymond, and my heart hasn’t been in a single one of them. They didn’t know it then, and they won’t know it now. Now dance on!’

*

‘Mr Charles.’

The first number had come to its end, and the Buckingham dancers were fanning out to accept their allotted guests into their arms. Raymond was taking the daughter of the Marquess of Granby into his arms, while Mathilde Bourchier was bracing herself to step into hold with the Marquess’s much older uncle – who, by the looks of him, could hardly walk, let alone dance. John Hastings was already leading his wife Sarah onto the dance floor, as the first of Archie Adams’s guest singers – Wilf Brimble, the veteran Scottish songsmith – took the stage.

The Autumn Serenade was in full swing, and Maynard looked around to see Lord Edgerton bearing down.

‘Hastings isn’t going to join us, then?’

Maynard directed Lord Edgerton’s gaze to the dance floor.

‘I believe he had a better invitation, my lord.’

‘I was watching our principal, Mr Charles. What do we think?’

Maynard – who thought, in truth, that Hélène was frayed – gave a non-committal shrug.

‘These are nervous times for our dancers. An event such as this. It’s to be expected that she may experience a few jitters.’

‘Balderdash, Mr Charles! She’s a professional. If she’s letting her situation affect her, she’ll need to be removed. By God, the gossip in this ballroom tonight .?.?.’

Maynard – who knew that sometimes, to win a war, you had to sacrifice a battle – said, ‘All understood, my lord. We have contingencies in place.’

‘And Miss Bourchier looks delightful.’

Lord Edgerton’s eyes were roaming all over Mathilde as she led her elderly charge on a quickstep of which he was quite incapable.

‘I don’t see my stepdaughter in the ballroom tonight, Mr Charles.’

There was always venom in his words, even in the most innocuous of questions. Maynard braced himself.

‘She rarely frequents the Grand, my lord. We’ve spoken of this before, but Miss Edgerton has forsaken the glitz in life.’

‘I think, perhaps, you know more about my stepdaughter than you’ve been letting on, Mr Charles.’

Maynard bristled. I know she’s grown up fast, he thought. I know she’s twice the person you are.

Lord Edgerton was silent, expecting some further explanation – but then his eyes were drawn back to the dance floor, and the hotel guest who stood in the centre. Where moments before he had been cantering across the floor with Hélène in his arms, the young cousin of Captain John Manners, the 9th Duke of Rutland, was now alone.

As for Hélène, all that Maynard could see was the fleeting sight of her ball gown disappearing through the stage doors. Then, she was gone.

‘She’s finished, Maynard,’ hissed Lord Edgerton. ‘If she can’t stand the pressure of one night like this, she’s done. And it’s for the better of all of us – no matter what our liberal American friend might think. You control this, Maynard. You seize it by the scruff of its neck. I want this scandal strangled at birth. Christmas is coming. We’re supposed to be rebuilding this hotel’s fortunes. Damn it, man, we deserve a return on our investment. I won’t have Christmas ruined. I won’t risk the New Year Masque. She’s lost her poise, Maynard. She has to go.’

‘I’ll deal with this, my lord.’

‘See that you do.’

Maynard took a step towards the dance floor, if only to shake Lord Edgerton off, and set his mind to working on the way he might navigate this next predicament. He would have to talk to Raymond de Guise.

He was trying to catch the eye of one of the other dancers, hoping they might escort the abandoned guest off the dance floor, when a figure brushed past him, stumbling over his own feet as he staggered away from the balustrade. The last thing Maynard needed was some lord’s errant son making a drunken commotion, so he turned, meaning to help the young fool along – and saw Tobias Bauer, righting himself against one of the tables as he made for the exit.

‘Herr Bauer?’ he ventured. ‘Might I offer you some assistance?’

The old man turned. The tumble he’d taken was evidently not as bad as his embarrassment, for he was flushed red all around his collar.

‘Nothing a stiff brandy won’t fix, Mr Charles. Oh, you’ve put on such a show here! Such an extravaganza! It’s warming an old man’s heart .?.?. perhaps too much!’

Maynard watched him go, and allowed a smile to creep on to his face. There is still joy, he thought. You could be homeless, half a world away from the people and places you loved, and you’d still find the happiness in the small moments. There was something to celebrate in that at least.

Down on the dance floor, there was another commotion. The young dancer Ansel Albrecht had broken from his partner. This solved one problem, at least, for the Duke of Rutland’s young cousin had taken up with Ansel’s former partner and rejoined the fray.

But the look on Ansel’s face was quite the same as the look on Tobias Bauer’s, as he’d staggered past. The look of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stranded alone among all the whirling dancers, his eyes seemed to be fixed on the space where Bauer had been. Perhaps it was only that the old man’s stumble had broken the young dancer’s concentration. Yes, thought Maynard, it could only have been that – because certainly there was no other reason that a guest as old and genial as Tobias Bauer could distract the young man so.

Maynard allowed himself another slight smile, and reminded himself – for the hundredth time – why he kept denying young Frank Nettleton his dream of a chance to dance right here in the Grand. Youth counted for much, in this world – but it mattered not one jot compared to experience. Experience could carry you through disaster. Experience could give you the reserves of strength to survive.

He only hoped Hélène Marchmont had deeper reserves than many, for he wasn’t certain how much longer he could keep her future in the ballroom secure.