Chapter Thirty

THERE WAS AN EYE IN the middle of every storm – and, for Maynard Charles, Boxing Day had been it. It was traditionally the day when the hotel director retired to his own suite, left the day-to-day running of the hotel to his managers, and took stock of the successes of the year. This year, he’d been grateful for the perfect oasis of peace and quiet. A room service trolley left outside his door had all the provisions he needed for the day and, after he’d collected that, he was able to luxuriate in the time spent alone. It was the restorative he needed.

Now, in the middle of a new day, he stepped out of the guest lift and walked across the reception hall – where, by Twelfth Night, a team of workmen would be rigging up a scaffold to strip the Norwegian fir naked and chop it up for the hotel’s boilers. Billy halloed him from the concierge desk – the poor boy’s duties in the post room were over now – but Maynard paid him no mind as he crossed the hall, following the corridor beyond the check-in desks to the doors of the Queen Mary.

Between services, the restaurant floor was still – but there, around a table in its heart, sat the six representatives of the hotel board. At the head of the table loomed Lord Edgerton, John Hastings at his left-hand side and Uriah Bell at his right. The other members – Merriweather, Fletcher and Lloyd – sat on either side of them, leaving half of the great table empty, with only one seat, at which Maynard was expected to sit. He lingered, for a moment, in the doorway, just to take stock. Though he could hear the clattering of the chefs and sous-chefs through the kitchen walls, working towards the dinner service beginning in two hours’ time, every door but the one he had just stepped through was sealed.

So, it seemed to him now, was his fate.

‘Mr Charles,’ John Hastings began, in a careful tone of voice that made Maynard feel certain he, too, was anxious about the day’s proceedings. As he spoke, his eyes kept scouring his fellow board members, silently gauging the reaction of each. ‘I’m glad you could join us.’

Maynard sank into the seat with his palms upturned and wide and said, ‘Gentlemen, I have nowhere else to be.’

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

He supposed that he did. Jager’s flight from the hotel had replayed, over and again, in his mind across Christmas night. Long into Boxing Day he’d dwelt upon Billy Brogan’s lucky escape, all of the various tortures he’d had to put that boy through. There were things even a learned hotel director failed to see coming.

But he knew what was coming next. He’d known it since Jager’s last words: ‘Your board will hear of this outrage, Mr Charles. A flagrant abuse of my privacy. Lies and blackmail to boot!’ The looks on the members of the hotel board were lofty and imperious. Lord Edgerton had the look of the executioner sharpening his axe, but Maynard remained impassive. He was a hotel director. He understood.

‘Mr Charles, it has been alleged to this board that, within the confines of this hotel, you have, for some months, persisted in a private business of your own – namely, that you have systematically tampered with and scoured the private correspondence of the guests of the hotel, seeking information with which you might blackmail them. Ergo, that you have spent hotel resources – to wit, your time and energies – pursuing personal gain at the detriment of the reputation of this hotel.’

Maynard Charles remembered the age-old advice that Walter Knave, the director who’d shepherded the Buckingham through the years of the Great War, once bestowed upon him: in times of great stress, take a moment, take a breath, and do precisely nothing at all.

At last, he said, ‘Gentlemen, might I ask from where the accusation arises?’

‘You know damn well, man!’ Uriah Bell’s fist flew up and pounded the surface of the table, so that the teacups in front of each board member rattled. Fletcher and Lloyd, the two lesser board members, recoiled from both the elder man’s fury and, evidently, the stench of his breath. ‘It’s here in writing,’ he fumed, flinging a letter into the middle of the table. ‘Formal notification to us all of this scheme you were perpetrating. By God, man, you invited the man in. A refugee, by God! A man the world has spat on and spat out, and he washes up here, and you, spy on him! Accuse him of treacheries and—’

‘There is another charge attached to this, Maynard,’ intoned Lord Edgerton. ‘Namely, that in perpetrating this scheme of yours – and Herr Bauer makes it quite clear in his letter that he believes this is far from the first time you’ve done this to a guest – you have corrupted other members of this hotel’s staff. Principally, Mr William Brogan – our page, turned concierge. Bauer represents to us that you purposely moved him to the post room so that he might systematically open the man’s letters. That you had Brogan following his every move in this hotel, seeking some .?.?. advantage.’

Maynard’s heart had been still, but at the mention of Billy it had skipped a beat.

‘Now, listen here, gentlemen. Billy Brogan is—’

‘Not in this room right now, Maynard. It is you who’s been asked to explain these actions.’ Lord Edgerton stood. ‘There is proof, Mr Charles. I spoke, yesterday evening, with Mrs Farrier. It has been her suspicion, for some time, that young Mr Brogan was stealing from the hotel mail. It first came to her attention, you see, in the unfortunate matter of my stepdaughter, and how all her sordid business was laid bare to this hotel.’ Lord Edgerton’s voice had risen to a crisp ferocity, and his eyes homed in on Maynard now.

So this is what this is, thought Maynard – not only concern for the reputation of the Buckingham Hotel, but an act of vengeance for which he’s been searching for months.

‘A letter torn open that found its way around this hotel, and all of this happening but moments after you insert Master Brogan into the post room. A coincidence, Maynard? Evidently Mrs Farrier thought not. She’s had her eagle eye on Brogan—’

‘I’ll stop you there, my lord.’ Maynard had betrayed his own first rule, because there was too much emotion frothing up in his voice. He, too, rose to his feet – even while John Hastings, wearing the most pained expression Maynard had ever seen, implored him not to. ‘Brogan acted on my instructions, and my instructions alone. The boy did not know what he was doing. He’s slavishly loyal to this hotel.’

‘A loyalty you have abused. Do you deny anything we have put to you, Maynard?’

He was trapped, then; pinioned by his own decisions. Maynard looked at each of the board members in turn. Lord Edgerton glowered down. Lloyd and Fletcher dared not return his gaze. Uriah Bell was purpling with fury; Peter Merriweather as disconsolate as a newly widowed woman; John Hastings, all at sea, as if the things he’d been hearing were too disappointing to imagine.

Maynard returned his gaze to Lord Edgerton. Hastings’s disappointment was the only look in this room that truly pained him, but perhaps he could deal with that later.

‘Gentlemen, I deny that I have ever attempted to blackmail a single one of my guests. For the rest – I do not deny a thing.’ He heard Hastings sigh, but ignored it and ploughed on, ‘Gentlemen, most of us here remember the Great War. Some of us fought there. All of us lost people we loved. We remember the ruin of that generation. The echoes of it live in us today, whether we were born high or low. So perhaps you might understand why, when an opportunity arose to help waylay the ruin of another generation – of boys like Billy Brogan or Frank Nettleton, men like our own Raymond de Guise – I seized it with both hands.’

‘Might I interject?’ John Hastings began. ‘Maynard, my good man, my best man, be careful what you say.’

‘No,’ said Lord Edgerton, with a finality that shook each one of them on the restaurant floor. ‘Speak freely, Maynard. Please do. I would know how you have abused the trust we put in you to run this hotel.’

‘I have been doing what my conscience told me I must, gentlemen. The Buckingham Hotel is a second home for aristocrats from every English shire, and from the Continent’s many countries. Men like this will always survive the war to come, but countless millions will not. These whispers of war, the fires that are being stoked upon the Continent, they have turned our hotel into a place for the world’s power brokers to congregate and have conversations that will affect the lives of generations. And I am not the only one who knows this. Foreign elements know it too. His Majesty’s enemies, all around us. Tobias Bauer was one of these, gentlemen. Not an aged exile, but a saboteur in the pay of Herr Hitler’s government, who sought to learn secrets from the guests at this hotel. His real name is Lukas Jager. When the opportunity arose to play him at his own game, sirs, I took it – because my head and heart were in alignment. Because it was the right thing to do. Because if, in some small way, I could help prepare us for the future, I knew I had to do it. I am not claiming heroism, gentlemen. I cannot change the tragedy about to befall us – but perhaps all it takes is the small acts of a few good men to tip the balance.’

‘The man’s a lunatic,’ Bell declared, turning to his fellow senior board members. ‘You see it, don’t you, Bartholomew? John? Peter? We trusted him with the reputation of this hotel and he’s squandered it, trying to play God.’ Bell looked back at Maynard. ‘I know you suffered, Maynard. I know what that war did to you. But to risk the hotel, to ruin its reputation, all for a game of spies? Maynard, you’ve lost your marbles! Reputation, reputation, reputation! That’s what you ought to have been thinking about – not about .?.?. changing history!’

‘Now, now, gentlemen!’ exclaimed John Hastings, rising to his own feet and turning out his palms, as if to invite calmness back to the table. ‘Mr Charles has been this hotel’s champion for nearly twenty years. Think of the triumphs he’s won for this hotel. This is the man who sailed your ship through the Great Depression. The man who preserved its reputation, even during the Abdication Crisis. He deserves to be heard – and I, for one, would hear every word that Mr Charles has to say.’

Maynard’s eyes had landed on John Hastings. He nodded, sadly, as if in thanks – and made a silent entreaty for the great American to sit back down. This, Hastings did.

Lord Edgerton’s eyes arced around the table, taking everybody in.

‘Your prevarications cannot change the bare facts of the matter, Mr Hastings .?.?.’ He paused. ‘It seems to me, Maynard, that, after many years of salvaging the various petty scandals of this hotel, you have put yourself at the heart of the greatest scandal we have ever faced. A hotel director must be above reproach. Instead, you have turned this great establishment into a sickbed of secrecy and sedition. No matter what your political leanings – and we are none of us politicians in this room—’

‘I beg to differ, sir,’ said Maynard.

Lord Edgerton’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, as each man stared at the other across the dining table, it was as if there were only the two of them in the room. Maynard held his gaze.

‘Would you care to expound on that point, Maynard?’

Maynard Charles thought: we are, all of us, politicians at heart. And there you stand, Lord Edgerton, lauded member of the British Union of Fascists. A Blackshirt, through and through. Eager to appease Herr Hitler, just like the rest of them, while he grows stronger and stronger again. You might not have marched on Cable Street, seeking to drive Jewish Londoners out of their homes as they did in Vienna and Berlin – but your blood runs just as cold.

Of all of this, not a word was spoken – but Maynard fancied he was communicating everything with barely a flicker of his eyes.

‘We are nothing without our principles.’ Hastings sighed. ‘Mr Charles has been guided by them throughout. Gentlemen, we owe him our clemency.’

Lord Edgerton’s face made it clear he had never heard anything as preposterous in his life. All eyes in the room wheeled, first at John Hastings, and – once they had found him in want of any sense – back to Maynard.

The rest of the room was sneering along with Lord Edgerton. Even those young pups, Fletcher and Lloyd, were at it too; something in Lord Edgerton had emboldened them both.

‘A principle is a very fine thing. A profit is even better. Maynard, you put this hotel’s reputation at risk – and this, as you are only too aware, imperils its profits. Principles do not take precedence over profitability, my man. And so our problem is simple. There is no greater scandal than a hotel director systematically abusing the privacy and sanctity of his guests, no matter what their political creed. Had Napoleon Bonaparte asked for a suite in this hotel, he would have been given it – and afforded the same duty of care as anyone else. Had the Whitechapel Ripper taken a room, it would not have given us the right to police his private correspondence for our own gain. Now, Maynard, as you know – there are scandals that can be contained. A petty thief among the concierges, an overly amorous hotel dancer, even a boy pushed down the stairs – all of these things can be managed away, brushed under the carpet. But something of this magnitude cannot be controlled so easily.’

‘Reputation, reputation, reputation!’ Uriah Bell lamented.

‘Cannot be controlled?’ Maynard ventured. ‘Why, of course it can – all you need is a little imagination—’

‘We’ve had quite enough of your imagination, Maynard.’

‘My lord, of all the men in this room, it is I who recognise the true importance of this hotel. Not just to bank ledgers and balance sheets, but to the twelve hundred people who work here, and the many thousands more whose homes and lives depend upon the wages they earn. This has been my life’s purpose since I came back from the Great War. For twenty years, I have tidied away the scandals that might disrupt the smooth running of this hotel. Gentlemen, there are yet secrets within these halls that none of you will ever know – secrets that I have hidden away, for the betterment of the establishment. Sirs, I believe I have acted in good conscience, and according to the tenets of what is just and right. But I also acknowledge that the exposure of this, without proper handling, will have a detrimental effect on the Buckingham’s reputation – an erosion of trust and faith that this establishment can hardly afford. That is why, gentlemen, I have come here today to tender my resignation as hotel director.’

Maynard was on his feet, even before the board members had acknowledged what he had said.

Opening his jacket, he reached into an inside pocket. There lay three envelopes, each sealed in wax of a different hue. For a moment, he deliberated each. Then, choosing one of the three letters, he produced it and placed it gently on the table.

‘You’ll find my formal notice here. My severance has, of course, long ago been codified in writing. I trust there will not be the need for the ordinary wrangling that goes along with these things. Gentlemen,’ he said, primly and properly, ‘I wish you all the very best in what’s to come.’

Not a word was whispered in the entirety of the Queen Mary as Maynard Charles turned on his heel and marched away.

*

Frank Nettleton and Billy Brogan were crouching, together, at the doors of the Queen Mary when they heard his footsteps approach. Scrambling backwards – just in time to avoid being knocked over by the swinging doors – they watched as Maynard ambled out across the reception hall, past the glittering halos of light still being cast from the Norwegian fir, and down the corridor into his office.

Once he was inside, Maynard took a small paraffin lantern from the corner, ignited a thin blue flame and proceeded to tear thin shreds off the remaining two letters in his jacket pocket, letting each disintegrate into ash. He’d sat, late into the night, inscribing each of those letters. It was only when he was in the restaurant with them that he’d known which one was right to serve. They need never know what he’d written in the others.

The third letter was nearly gone when a knock came at the door. Maynard Charles knew that knock anywhere.

‘Come in, Emmeline,’ he called – and, when the door was pushed ajar, Mrs Moffatt stepped into the office.

‘Maynard?’

‘It’s done, Emmeline. I wrote three of these yesterday evening. I did not know what they knew, and I wanted to be ready. So I wrote three letters, from which I might, at the last moment, choose.’ The last ribbon was gone. Maynard dusted his hands of ash and turned to pour a brandy. ‘As it turns out, they need never know the real reason I first started working for Moorcock and his agency. They need never know about Aubrey, about the Park Suite, nor how Moorcock sought to leverage the love of my life against me. To them, I have died on the sword of my principles. That is a fitting end. And I do believe that, by the actions I explained in that letter, I may have saved young Mr Brogan his livelihood.’

‘Oh, Maynard.’

‘The poor boy may not have long before he’s wearing an infantry uniform. He might, at least, have the job he loves until then. His family will be in need of every penny.’

‘You shouldn’t be going anywhere, Maynard. They should have arrested Lukas Jager. They should have—’

‘Oh no, Emmeline. The board would never comply. A murder at this hotel would have been so messy. Better, perhaps, that it did not happen at all.’

‘Then Lukas Jager is free to continue his—’

Maynard drained his glass.

‘We all live to fight another day, dear Emmeline.’ He stopped, considered her carefully. ‘Emmeline, I am aware that, with all that’s been happening in this hotel this year, I have neglected our friendship. That is something I hope I will have the opportunity to put right, very soon. I’m going to miss you.’

She noticed that his hand was trembling, as he tried to work through this particular flurry of emotion. She’d seen him soften before. She’d seen him cry. But there was a tenderness, here, of which she was most uncertain.

‘It brings me a little comfort to know that you have made yourself a new close friend in this hotel.’

She smiled. Evidently, Maynard saw and heard all, even until the very end.

‘Mr Adams has been a welcome companion. He has shown me .?.?. that life doesn’t have to grind to a halt, just because you’ve told yourself it does. And – perhaps there’s a new life for you, too, Maynard?’

‘Perhaps,’ he murmured.

‘I should like to think so.’

‘And the young man you dined with on Christmas Day?’ When there was silence, Maynard went on, ‘Well, I should think I shall hear about him in due course. But until then .?.?.’

There was a little valise under the desk. Maynard was bowing down to take it up when, all at once, the office door burst open and a scramble of bodies burst through. Foremost among them were Frank and Billy, who seemed to have shepherded the rest to the door. But here was Raymond, and Nancy, holding her new husband’s hand. Here, too, was Louis Kildare, Archie Adams and the chambermaids Rosa and Ruth.

‘Out, out!’ Mrs Moffatt cried, as if she was shooing away a stray cat. ‘This is the hotel director’s office, not the Candlelight Club! You can’t just boulder in here and—’

‘Emmeline, please,’ Maynard said softly. ‘Let them come.’

There had been no stopping them, in any case. Soon, with the door still hanging open behind them, Raymond had worked his way to the front of the crowd. He was clasping Nancy’s hand when he said, ‘It’s true, then? You’re leaving?’

‘My dear man, I have no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice, Mr Charles. You can rescind the resignation.’

Maynard’s eyes landed, fleetingly, on Frank and Billy, who had been listening at the Queen Mary’s doors. He supposed he couldn’t be too harsh on them for this; it was he, after all, who had taught them the subtle arts of the spy.

‘There’s a war coming, Mr Charles,’ Raymond said. ‘The Buckingham needs you.’

Maynard set his valise on his desk and took in, for the final time, the confines of his little office. Twenty years, he’d spent between these walls. It had been his life. His brandy decanter, his Olympia Elite typewriter, the files and ledgers and portraits – all the things by which he’d ordered his existence. And now here were the people of the Buckingham Hotel as well. He was going to miss them so very much.

‘My friends,’ he began, ‘I believed I would be here for the war as well. I believed I would be walking these halls, to shepherd you all through it – wherever the next years take us. I believed that, one day, I might go to sleep in my suite here and never wake up. But it is not to be. You all know, by now, the truth about Herr Tobias Bauer. You all know the degree by which I surveyed him, and for whom I was working. My friends, I would do it over again, if I was asked. But in doing so, I have put the reputation of this hotel in jeopardy, and to set this right I must leave you now.

‘Do not be sad for me,’ he went on, though he could see it on their faces, ‘for I did what I know to be right.’ He stopped, faltered, looked at each of them in turn. ‘The Buckingham must survive, so that you – each and every one of you – can survive. So that none of you fall into the cracks that open up in a country at war. So that none of you perish, for want of food in your bellies and roofs above your head. I could not see a soul among you cast into the wilderness, not on the eve of a war. But listen to me, and listen well – you can do this, together. You don’t need your old hotel director, holding your hands. You have each other. Every porter and page, every dancer and chambermaid, every cocktail waiter and cleaner among you – you are as one. There is a thing I’ve learned, in my time at this hotel. Whether low-born or high, we are all a part of this world. Lord Edgerton and his fellows will understand it, soon enough. Not one of us gets to opt out of the war to come. But if you stand together, as I know you can – if you stay strong, remain united, hold yourselves to the very best standards .?.?. If you understand, in your very hearts, that the world out there is just like the world in this hotel – a world where commoners and gentry must work together if any are to survive – well, there’s every chance we’ll be raising a glass together on the other side of it – as friends, every last one of us, together.

‘In time, there will be a new director in this office. I pray, for you, that John Hastings gets his way in making an appointment, and not Lord Edgerton. But whoever it is, they’re going to need your help.’

He opened his valise, took out a pen and notepaper, scribbled out a message, signed it, and handed it over to Frank.

‘Mr Nettleton, in my last act as director of his hotel, I am giving you an audition as a hotel dancer. Let your talent speak for itself. Your fate, after that, young man, is in your own hands.’

He took another sheet of paper, hurried another note, and delivered this one to the hands of Nancy de Guise.

‘My dear, consider this letter an assurance that your job here is not at risk, neither because you have become a married woman, nor because of the help you have afforded Miss Edgerton at the Daughters of Salvation. The Buckingham Hotel will need its talented female staff when war descends. You can be certain of that. Young lady, should you so desire, a career is waiting for you in these halls. I shall leave the rest to the ever-resourceful and excellent Mrs Moffatt to work out.’

He turned to Raymond, at last.

‘Raymond,’ he said, ‘my friend. It took you some time, I know, to convince me of the wonders of that ballroom of ours – but, by God, you convinced me in the end. I have already sent a letter to Miss Marchmont. It is a matter of some regret that I could not protect her, too, in the end, although’ – he flashed his eyes at Archie – ‘she has friends to support her, all the same.’ He paused. ‘It is time, now, my friends, for me to leave.’

The crowd parted, revealing the office door, and as Maynard passed between them, he plucked his bowler hat from the stand and, placing it squarely on his head, stepped into the corridor. For a time, he did not hear the footfalls behind him. Then, as he reached the reception hall – where the board, still fevered from their hurried conversations in the Queen Mary, were themselves preparing to disappear into the growing dark – he looked back, and saw all of the familiar faces of the Buckingham Hotel gathered like a group of mourners, to make their goodbyes.

It was enough. He nodded once to them all, then ambled calmly beneath the boughs of the Norwegian fir, past the bank of faces of the board, and through the revolving brass door.

Berkeley Square was still cloaked in snow, and the street lamps just flickering to life. The doorman, who had no knowledge of the tragedy that had just unfolded inside the hotel, doffed his cap graciously to Maynard as he appeared, and in return Maynard gave him a smile of farewell. Then he tramped down into the snow.

What a thing was life! The December cold was soon working its way into Maynard’s bones, but by power of will he managed not to look back at the old, familiar fa?ade of the Buckingham.

Not one of them had asked him where he would spend the night. He was grateful for that. He did not want to have to lie.

He left Berkeley Square by one of the avenues leading south towards Piccadilly and Green Park – and there, in a pool of darkness between two street lights, sat a black Rolls-Royce. He approached it slowly, without breaking his stride, opened the passenger door and slipped inside without a word.

In the driver’s seat, behind the wheel, the light of a single White Owl cigar flared.

‘I didn’t think it would be you,’ Maynard began.

‘I’m your man.’ Mr Moorcock smiled. ‘How does it feel, Maynard, to have torn up your life?’

‘I feel light,’ he whispered. ‘I feel untethered. Floating away. But you told me I’d be provided for. You told me there were provisions.’

Moorcock said, ‘We at the Office have no intention of leaving you to rot, Maynard. You and I have not always seen eye to eye, but you did good work for us at the Buckingham. Good work does not go unrewarded.’

‘I want you to leave Billy Brogan out of it from now on. He may get away with it all and keep his job, if the board believes what I wrote. It will stymie his career, of that I’ve no doubt – but I should like it if he could keep his livelihood. He has a family that depend on him.’

‘I’ll speak to my superiors,’ Moorcock said. ‘But Brogan would be a useful asset.’ He paused. ‘And you, Mr Charles?’

‘I want a bed for the night. I’ll need to take stock. I’m not like my old friends in there. My family are long gone. My lover .?.?.’

There was silence in the Rolls-Royce, as Maynard dwelt, momentarily, upon things he could never get back.

‘Mr Charles, I didn’t come here to provide you board and lodging for the night. I think you understand that. You and I both know the scope of things to come. The Office is in the epicentre of the biggest recruitment drive in its history. Enemies, at home and abroad, need monitoring. Influencing, even. The British fascists remain on the rise. There is, we believe, the beginnings of a Nazi fifth column, right here in London. What I am saying is, there are uses for a man of your intellect. A man who has already marshalled the kind of army you had in the Buckingham. A man who, though he would not describe it as such, has already been running secret agents of his own.’ He paused. ‘There’s a war to be fought. We’re fighting it already. I’m authorised to ask you – what would it take for a man like you to enlist?’

Maynard said, ‘To come and work for you—’

‘With me,’ Moorcock corrected, ‘and many others embroiled in the same endeavour.’

‘And that is?’

‘The endeavour of saving Great Britain.’

In the Rolls-Royce, there was silence – until, at long last, Maynard Charles turned to his companion and, lifting one hand, said, ‘Mr Moorcock, I think I should enjoy one of your White Owl cigars.’

Across the town houses outside, fat flakes of snow had started to fall.

*

The postman who trudged up Brixton Hill, the third day after Christmas, had red and ruddy cheeks, as befitted the labour of his day. It was already afternoon when he reached the snows of Sudbourne Road and knocked at the door of the basement flat. The elderly couple who lived inside were always cheery, and on this occasion they even gave him a quick glass of port to warm him on his way.

Inside the terrace, where tinsel garlanded the walls, Hélène Marchmont was on the hearthrug with Sybil, trying to assemble a wooden jigsaw puzzle that the Archers’ youngest son, Joseph, had cut and painted himself. Christmas Day had been a cramped, chaotic – and completely jubilant affair. The sitting room had welcomed not only Maurice and Noelle, but Joseph, his sister Samantha and her husband Dickie as well. Samantha, who had helped with Sybil so much in the early days, had news of her own: a baby on the way by summer. So there were other things to toast beyond the Yuletide this year.

Other things to lament, as well.

Hélène had woken on Christmas morning and taken Sybil to the tree to find her stocking – but, even as the wrapping paper was torn and the new presents revealed, there had been a sadness in the air. It had barely been mentioned since Hélène arrived, but Chicago had been at the forefront of every mind in the house.

Noelle Archer came back from the front door, having foisted a mince pie on the postman before sending him on his way.

‘It’s for you, Hélène,’ she said, and passed her a fat letter, its envelope imprinted with the copper crown crest of the Buckingham Hotel.

Inside the envelope lay a second envelope, and folded around that a letter in the hand of none other than Maynard Charles.

Dear Miss Marchmont,

I am writing so that I can myself break the news that, as of this today, 26th December, 1938, I am no longer to be director of the Buckingham Hotel.

Formalities aside, I want you to know that I wish you all the best in your new life in Chicago. It was with great sadness that I watched events unfold for you this year; had it been in my power to preserve your position in the Grand for longer, I would gladly have done so. You have my utmost respect for the experiences you have lived through, and the person who has shone so vividly throughout it all. I have known secrets in my life, but few carried, like yours, with such grace and dignity. Would that there were more like you in the world, Miss Marchmont.

With the hope that, one day, the stories of our lives may intersect again.

Yours, with affection,

Maynard Charles

PS. Please find enclosed correspondence that arrived in the hotel post room before Christmas.

Hélène had to take a moment, lingering over Mr Charles’s news, before she turned her attention to the second letter. The Buckingham Hotel without Maynard Charles – it was as unthinkable as the Grand Ballroom without Raymond de Guise and Hélène Marchmont. But the century marched on apace. Time, like music, never stood still.

She recognised the writing, of course. It was this same writing that had undone her life in the last year: Aunt Lucy’s handwriting, sent out into the world to destroy her. It was for this reason that Hélène did not open the letter, not at first. She returned to playing with Sybil, helped Noelle make the tea, straightened the blanket on Maurice’s lap, where he slept in his armchair by the fire – and only then, because she could not ignore it any longer, did she sit down again and, with Sybil squirming in her lap, open it up.

Dearest Hélène,

It is Tuesday evening, 20th December, and I am writing to you, having been up to London to visit the offices of Messrs Lawton Lawton, your father’s solicitors since he was a young man. We laid your father to rest two days ago, and it was indeed a bleak midwinter day that saw him committed to the ground in the graveyard at Rye. That you were not there brings shame on us, Hélène, though not on you. Your mother and I carry this shame alone.

I had hoped to be writing to you with better tidings. I had thought – though you may think me a fool – that we would arrive at Lawton Lawton to discover that my brother never truly wrote you out of his last will and testament. But, on the reading of this, it was revealed that your father left but two beneficiaries in his will: half the estate to your mother, and half to me, that it might exist in the Marchmont line a little longer. My brother died a stubborn man with a broken heart, breaking further hearts with his last breaths. I am sorry, Hélène.

Noelle had noticed that Hélène was shaking. From the other side of the room, she said, ‘Hélène, is everything all right?’

Hélène just looked back, with shimmering eyes, and said, ‘I don’t know why she even wrote. The story’s over. It’s finished.’

Then she returned to the letter.

Hélène, my brother’s death will echo in me for some years – but the sins of his life will echo in me further, unless I can do something to set them right. I had not expected to inherit much from my brother. Your grandparents left me their jewellery and some family heirlooms, but beyond that, I have had little. That he has bequeathed me half the Marchmont estate can only be because this was meant for you. And, Hélène, my dear, I have today instructed Lawton Lawton to begin the process of gifting this, in its entirety, to you and your daughter Sybil – in the hope, my darling, that you might come home, and that (though I expect no forgiveness in return for the gift of something which should rightfully be yours), somehow we might be close again; and that, in time, I might walk with Sybil in the orchards as I once walked with you, might picnic with her on the sands, might read with her and teach her arithmetic, and be the auntie I once was, in a better time, to you. I should have fought for you, Hélène. I should have abandoned them when they did not see. But I did not, and this regret burns in me. I hope that there is a way we can begin to put this right.

I am sending this to the Buckingham Hotel, in the hope that it finds you this Christmas. But whether I see you or not, Hélène, your father’s estate will be yours to do with as you wish; and my heart will be yours as well.

Yours with love, always,

Aunt Lucy

As Hélène finished reading, Sybil was wrestling the letter out of her hands. She had little strength left to resist her. She was sitting there still, the heat of the fire crackling over her, when she realised that Noelle had taken the letter from Sybil and was herself reading its contents.

‘Hélène,’ she finally ventured, dropping down beside her. ‘Oh, Hélène .?.?.’

‘I know,’ whispered Hélène.

‘What will you do?’

Hélène fell against Noelle’s shoulder. The year was rushing past her in fits and starts of colour: everything from that first letter to this, from being cast out of the Grand to sitting here, with Maurice and Noelle, and telling them that there was no other option – that she was going to have to go to Chicago.

Now, she heaved a great sigh and let herself sink deeper into Noelle. The elder woman held her fast.

‘I’m going to live,’ she said, and smiled.

On New Year’s Eve, the trains were running slowly into Rye, when they were running at all. Hélène and Sybil took the bus up out of town, with the little red sledge they’d borrowed from the Archers tucked under one arm, and then, once they had disembarked, Hélène towed Sybil behind her, the little girl cheering each time the sledge flew over a new hummock of ice.

The Marchmont manor: how it seemed to have changed, now that she knew her father was no longer here. She did not need to knock, for Lucy had seen her, at some distance, from one of the uppermost windows, and came to join them in the grounds before Hélène drew near.

They froze, ten yards distant from each other. Sybil, however, held no such reservations. She picked herself up from the sledge, staggered in the snow on the way to Lucy, hovered somewhere between them – and, in doing so, brought them together.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d come,’ Lucy began.

Hélène nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she started to say – but Lucy shook her head with the force of an impassioned mother and said, ‘What’s yours is yours. The rest is paperwork. Hélène, can you forgive me? Not yet. But – one day .?.?. ?’

‘I had plans to leave. A job at a hotel in Chicago. Somewhere we could go and be together. It was tearing me in two, Lucy. I’d have had to take her from her grandparents. They might never have seen her again.’ She paused. ‘Is my mother inside?’

In fact, Marie had appeared in the open doorway. She was waving at Hélène, bracing herself against the December cold, uncertain if she should step out or not.

‘She’s nervous of you. She knows what she did. Your father was a strong man. She did it for him, Hélène – I think we both did – but .?.?. There’s still time, isn’t there? In life, I mean. To write new stories. To remember new things. To – not forget the past, but to right it. To come together.’

It was Sybil who answered. Something was drawing her to Lucy. The little girl had her arms opened out like an acrobat as she danced across the top of the snow to meet her. A few moments later, Lucy had dared to crouch down and scoop the child into her arms. And Hélène remembered, then, what it had been like, to feel those hands close around her.

‘We have time,’ she said.

She turned on the spot – her mother was coming out to join them, at last – and took in the whole of the manor grounds. Though it was but a plain of undulating white, by springtime it would be green and verdant, and in the summer filled with the most unimaginable colours.

Her eyes landed on the little snow-capped folly on the other side of the orchards, and further on a single stone abode.

‘Who’s living in the old ground-keeper’s cottage?’ she asked, and when Lucy told her that nobody had lived there since Hélène was small, her mind flashed back to the Archers in their little Brixton terrace, and an idea started to form. If what the newspapers said was true, it might be wise to leave London soon.

Sometimes, life changes overnight. The revelation was that it didn’t always have to be for the worse.

Hélène looked at Sybil being whirled through the air and allowed herself to believe.

*

On New Year’s night, there was dancing in the Grand. The music spilled out across the reception hall, along the Buckingham’s outermost reaches, and for a time it seemed that the whole hotel was luxuriating in the songs and simple joys of that night. But for Raymond and Nancy de Guise, all of that was a world away – for there they stood, on a snow-encrusted doorstep in Maida Vale.

Raymond had picked up the keys in the days after Christmas, while Nancy changed bed sheets in the hotel’s uppermost suites. Now, each wrapped up in new winter coats, he placed them in the palm of her hand.

‘It’s all yours, Mrs de Guise.’

She was smiling as she slipped the key into the lock. It fitted perfectly – just, she caught herself thinking, like Raymond did her. What was it her mother used to say? Every old sock needs an old shoe. There were certainly more romantic ways of speaking about love, but none truer, as far as Nancy was concerned.

So she opened the door.

In the end, Raymond de Guise couldn’t resist one more romantic gesture – so, before they passed through the doorway together, he put his arms around his new wife and carried her over the threshold. Inside, all was dark. But the building had been fitted with new electric lights, just as Raymond had instructed, and soon they were gliding from sitting room to study, through kitchen and bathroom, from first bedroom to second bedroom to third. This was not just a home for Mr and Mrs de Guise. One day – perhaps not soon, but one day – this was the home for a family.

‘Empty rooms,’ said Nancy, with a smile, ‘but they won’t be empty for long.’

They drifted together, back to the hall, speaking of the furniture they had to buy, and how all the manifold gifts from the wedding might make this house a living, breathing home – and how, as soon as they got back from their honeymoon in the north country (all of it courtesy of Vivienne), they would set about it with gusto.

Raymond’s eyes drifted down. There, lying on the doormat, was a single envelope.

‘Strange,’ said Raymond, ‘I haven’t told a soul we’re here yet – not except .?.?.’

He had stooped down to pick it up and, by the buzzing electric light, saw the names on the front – MR AND MRS RAYMOND DE GUISE – in an all too familiar hand.

‘Nancy,’ he whispered, and led her by the hand into the sitting room – where the house’s single piece of furniture – a worn old armchair – invited them down.

‘You know that writing, Raymond?’

Raymond nodded. ‘It’s Maynard Charles’s.’

In the end, he left it to Nancy to open the letter. She drew out the single yellow leaf, across which Maynard’s spidery hand had danced, and perched on the armchair’s edge as she began to read.

Dear Raymond, dear Nancy,

It would not do to leave you both without the fondest farewell.

I remember an age when I scorned music and dance as a distraction from the very real business of running the Buckingham Hotel. That age is long gone, my friends, and good riddance to it. Raymond, you will know how my heart feels as I set down these words, but you will also know the joy in which I have spent my years, and the satisfaction I have gained from a life lived in such fine company. I do not mean the lords and ladies we have together served. I mean the good people who man the Buckingham Hotel – and, among them, the good souls I am writing to now: two of the finest people I have had the privilege to know.

Time is marching on. The world will not wait. I am preparing as I must, to look after my friends and colleagues once I am gone. I have today instructed the Queen Mary, French bistro and Candlelight Club that any excess food meant for the refuse will, from this moment on, instead find itself redirected to the Daughters of Salvation charitable organisation in Whitechapel. Let Lord Edgerton discover this, and make of it what he will, at his own pace. I will do what I can for Emmeline and Archie, for Billy and Frank, for all of those who I have come to think of as family over the years. Because, make no mistake, that is what the Buckingham has been to me – a family, where I have none of my own.

I would leave you with one word of advice before I sign off. It is, perhaps, advice you would not expect from the hotel director you have come to know. But, Raymond, Nancy, I implore you: keep dancing. Dance together, in the privacy of your home. Dance together, in the ballrooms and clubs. Dance together, when you wake in the morning and when you prepare for bed each night. Dance when you are weary, and dance when you are not. The world is going to need joy, and it is down to each of us to call that joy into being and keep it alive.

I have little doubt that, in two souls as perfectly matched as yours, there will be joys untold.

Yours, with love,

Maynard

After Nancy had read the letter out loud, she read it again, breathing the words under her breath. Then she shrank into Raymond’s shoulder – somewhere along the way, his arm had curled behind her back – and said, ‘It will be a strange hotel without Maynard Charles, won’t it, Raymond?’

‘It will be the strangest year for all of us,’ he said, ‘but every time there’s an ending, there’s a beginning. Just like this old house here. Imagine what it will be like this time next year, Nancy. A Christmas in our very own home. Maybe Artie and Vivienne will be here, along with the baby. Maybe Rosa and Frank. Because that’s what Mr Charles is telling us, isn’t it? That we can get through it, but only if we do it together. That’s the Buckingham way.’

He stopped, left Nancy on the armchair and drifted to the window, where the hypnotic snow was still falling down.

‘What a year it’s been – but this year just started? Well, things are going to be different. I can feel it in my bones. If there’s one thing a lifetime of dance has taught me, it’s that good times are coming. You’ve got to keep dancing. All this talk of war – well, there’s always another song. There’s always a new refrain. And .?.?. I’m glad to be dancing it with you, Nancy. This next year, it’s going to be the dance of our lives. You’ll see.’ He smiled, turning back to face her: Nancy de Guise, in whom all of his future hopes and dreams were vested. She reached out her hands to him.

‘I’ll show you myself,’ said Raymond. ‘1939 – it’s going to be the making of us.’