Chapter Four

By Invitation Alone

The Buckingham Hotel invites you to the

HASTINGS BALL

In celebration of the reopening of the Grand Ballroom

The Society Event of the Season

RSVP, via Mr William Brogan, Buckingham Hotel

IN THE DRESSING ROOMS BEHIND the Grand Ballroom, the dancers gathered. Out in the ballroom, the applause was reverberating around the refashioned hall as Archie Adams and his orchestra took to the stage. Archie Adams – he’d done so much to cultivate and grow the legend of the Buckingham ballroom, and the applause that filled the Grand was recognition that here was one of London’s finest bandleaders, coming back to claim his throne. Raymond de Guise stood at the head of the dancers, Hélène Marchmont at his side, and beamed at them all.

‘We’ve come a long way together,’ he began.

In moments, the doors would open and the dancers would fan out onto the ballroom floor to demonstrate for every lord and lady, every knight of the realm, every industrialist and dignitary from home and abroad, that the Buckingham might have been cowed by the arson attack of last year, but it was never defeated.

‘Through fair weather and foul, through triumph and disaster,’ Raymond continued. ‘And I’m proud to stand here – not as your leader, but as your friend – so that, together, we can return to triumph again. There might be dark days coming, my friends, but here, tonight, we can make our own light.’

Simple words, but what an effect they had. The way Raymond spoke drew all the dancers in.

Next it was Hélène’s turn.

‘There’s nothing I can say to you, here, that isn’t already in your hearts.’

Outside the dressing rooms, the applause had died down. Archie Adams had announced their first number, a fast, frenetic version of the old standard, ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, with one of the night’s guest vocalists about to join in. Any moment now, that would be their cue.

‘Go out there,’ Hélène continued, ‘and let the music pour through you.’

‘We’re ready,’ said Raymond, with one ear to the door.

Raymond and Hélène took each other’s hands and the dancers fell in line behind them. As they waited for the doors to open, Hélène tightened her fingers around him.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Raymond whispered. ‘You haven’t been yourself for days. Are you all right, Hélène?’

‘I am,’ she said.

‘Not nervous?’

‘It’s nothing, Raymond. I promise.’

‘Is it Sybil?’ he whispered – for Raymond was one of the very few to keep Hélène’s secret.

‘She’s well. It’s .?.?. nothing, Raymond.’

She was lying. Raymond could tell. You didn’t spend years of your life dancing in somebody’s arms and not get to know the measure of their hearts. But before he could probe her further, she said, ‘Am I to understand congratulations are in order, Raymond?’

It was the only thing that could divert Raymond’s attention from whatever was plaguing Hélène.

‘How did you .?.?. ?’ He paused, unable to keep the smile from his face. ‘We haven’t told anybody yet. Nancy’s nervous of what the management might think. And Mrs Moffatt—’

‘Oh, Raymond.’ She laughed. ‘You’d better start telling people soon. It’s written all over you. You’ve been giddy as a schoolboy. And the way she holds her hand, as if she can feel the ring on it, even though she takes it off every morning. If I can guess, why, anybody can.’

At that moment, the dressing room doors opened. Waves of music and applause crashed over them, sweeping down from the edges of the dance floor where all the lords and ladies, politicians and dignitaries of London gathered. For now, the dance floor itself was an empty expanse – the freshly sprung eye of the storm.

But all of that was about to change, for Raymond and Hélène were waltzing their troops out to battle.

*

At the balustrade above the dance floor, Maynard Charles was gripped by a strange feeling. He had to drain his glass of brandy, a 1920 vintage Albert Simpère, before he understood what it was.

It was his nervousness draining away.

How could it not? The opening performance was a fantasia magical enough for him to believe, for a moment, that the world outside the Grand did not exist. Hélène was turning in Raymond’s arms, then she was gliding around him as he lifted her from the ground. The other dancers in the troupe parted every time the King and Queen of the Ballroom waltzed through, until finally, when the music came to its climax, it seemed that the whole dance floor was for Hélène and Raymond alone.

Conversations had died all around him. Every eye was on the two dancers as the music came to its final, long note, and Raymond and Hélène – lost in a world of their own – turned and turned again in each other’s arms.

Then, as the music came to an end, roars of applause filled the ballroom. It was a sound more magnificent than any Maynard had heard in an age. He steadied himself on the balustrade.

If I were a different man, he thought with a wry smile, perhaps I might shed a tear.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ came the voice of Archie Adams himself, ‘please welcome to the stage Mr John Hastings!’

The dancers had parted, forming a narrow aisle down the middle of the dance floor, and into it walked the American industrialist, John Hastings. He did not look like a significant man. He was of distinctly average build, with a round face and spectacles that hid his eyes, but the way he approached the stage – bouncing on the heels of his feet, hands continually clenching and unclenching into fists – gave the impression of somebody sprightly and full of mischief. Scarcely thirty-six years of age, he had the boyish face of someone much younger. The whole Grand applauded him onto the stage.

Maynard felt figures crowding his shoulder. He drew himself upright, only to find himself standing among the other members of the hotel board, which John Hastings had joined only a few short months ago. He’d brought with him the sizeable fortune that had rescued the Grand, and provided the Buckingham itself with the ballast it needed for the difficult months ahead. While the applause continued, Maynard looked each of the board in the eye. If Uriah Bell, who’d made his millions as a financier for the Limehouse docks, looked pained to be here, that was nothing compared to Lord Edgerton, whose dispassionate face had been without expression all evening. Alone among them, only Sir Peter Merriweather – whose family controlled so much of the farming land in the Yorkshire wolds – looked enamoured by the evening. Maynard Charles tried to gravitate towards him, but Lord Edgerton had already fixed him with his eye. Six feet and seven inches tall, with jet-black hair and a striking jawline that, people said, gave him the look of a Roman general, he was an imposing figure.

‘I see we haven’t yet taught our new American compatriot the benefits of English modesty and restraint,’ Lord Edgerton intoned, ‘so let’s leave him to play the peacock up on stage. I should appreciate a word, Maynard.’

Maynard Charles began, ‘My lord, might I—’

‘It is about my stepdaughter.’

It always is, thought Maynard ruefully. He was dog-tired of playing nursemaid to Vivienne Edgerton.

‘If I may, my lord, I—’

In the end, Maynard was saved by John Hastings himself. Up on stage, the American had found the microphone belonging to the ballroom’s roster of special guest singers, and began to speak.

‘My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, friends from home and far away.’

‘He thinks he’s Caesar,’ muttered Lord Edgerton, barely bothering to conceal his indignation. ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen .?.?.’

Maynard Charles thought: that wasn’t Caesar, you fool; it was Mark Antony. But he kept the smile inward. Like every man of good standing, he knew his place.

‘.?.?. lend me your ears!’ finished John Hastings, up on stage – and laughter rippled around the Grand. ‘First of all, let me say, on this very special night, how honoured I am to be standing here with you, alongside my wonderful wife Sarah. There she is, folks – the reason I’m here with you now.’

All of the eyes in the ballroom turned to seek out a petite American lady at the edge of the dance floor, wearing a Parisian gown of chiffon and lace. Sarah Hastings was obviously nervous of the attention.

‘It was Sarah who first convinced me – a man of arithmetic and balance books – of the beauty of dance and song. My darling Sarah – with a little help, I have to say, from your own prince of the ballroom, Raymond de Guise – who convinced me that, in the Buckingham Hotel, my family and I could have a new home away from home. I am proud to be here with you tonight as your newest investor. I am beyond proud that the Grand Ballroom has been reopened, so that once again London can experience its magic. I welcome you all here with that thought alone: we all need a little magic in our lives.’ Here Hastings’s voice darkened. He lifted the glasses from his nose and rubbed his eyes, thoughtfully. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let me not besmirch this occasion with talk of what is going on outside these walls. The world can wait. But one thing I will say is this: let’s seize the moment while we can. Let’s take every ounce of happiness our short lives allow. And let’s .?.?.’ He grinned, putting his glasses back on again. ‘Let’s dance.’

A mighty cheer rose up, shepherding Hastings down from the stage and into the waiting arms of his wife Sarah. Back on his stool at his gleaming ivory white grand piano, Archie Adams counted the band in for another number – the fiery bombast of Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ – and the dance floor opened for all and sundry to come.

‘The man doesn’t know the meaning of class,’ Uriah Bell was muttering. ‘He doesn’t know the true costs of elegance and reputation. Americans never do.’

No, thought Maynard Charles bitterly – though, as always, he was wise enough to keep such thoughts to himself. But at least he knows the perils of privation. At least he knows the true cost of a shilling.

Hastings’s family company had somehow survived the Wall Street Crash when so many others didn’t. When the world was collapsing around them, the Hastingses were finding a way to safeguard all their many thousands of employees. Reputation and elegance were vital to an establishment like the Buckingham Hotel – but Hastings’s were the kinds of talents that were going to be indispensable in the months and years to come.

Maynard Charles looked around the swarming ballroom. Tobias Bauer was stepping into the arms of Hélène Marchmont, and she was performing the enchantment she always did – making an amateur dancer, lacking in confidence, feel like a star as she let him lead her around the dance floor. All of the hotel dancers were doing the same, accepting the hands of guests and marching off, with them, into the music.

Raymond de Guise was accepting the hand of none other than Vivienne Edgerton, here tonight at her stepfather’s behest. Vivienne’s mother, Madeleine, who’d moved from New York to be with her new husband and promptly forgotten about her daughter, was here as well, being escorted onto the dance floor by the suave Gene Sheldon. It was a relief, thought Maynard, that Vivienne had condescended to appear at all. Once upon a time, young Miss Edgerton had been unable to ignore the lure of a party; champagne, and worse, had called out to her each and every night. But this year, Vivienne seemed to get her excitement elsewhere – and chief among them was showing her lordly stepfather how little he was needed, nor wanted, in her life. It would have been just like her to dismiss his invitation out of hand, and take joy in the opprobrium that followed.

‘My daughter, Maynard. I see her dancing now, but it’s the first I’ve seen of her in months.’

Maynard had been gazing over the spectacle of the dance floor so intently that he’d quite forgotten Lord Edgerton was looming over him. He turned, forcing himself to keep an emotionless face, and nodded. The fact was, though she might have been a resident in this hotel, Maynard had seen little of her either. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wondered why; he knew all about the nights she spent away from the hotel, the odd hours she returned, the new sense of purpose and direction with which she walked. He knew, in short, that she was no longer the lost little sot who’d been washed up here, desperate for attention, desperate for release. He just hadn’t found out why, because some secrets are better left uncovered.

‘She’s .?.?. different,’ seethed Lord Edgerton. ‘She even looks different, Maynard. I want to know what’s going on with her. There’s been quite enough disturbance to this hotel, courtesy of that girl, and if—’

‘Perhaps she’s simply growing up, my lord. It’s a problem youth seems to have.’

Lord Edgerton was still puzzling over this, trying to decide whether he’d been subtly scolded, when a slight, shaggy-haired boy, covered in freckles, appeared between them and tugged on Maynard Charles’s sleeve.

Maynard looked round. There was little Frank Nettleton, his eyes pleading.

‘Nettleton.’ Maynard sighed. Gathering himself, he looked back at Lord Edgerton and the other members of the accumulated board, said, ‘One moment, gentlemen’, and swiftly ushered Frank back into the throng.

‘Frank, I’ve been too lenient with you. The ballroom’s out of bounds tonight. I know how much you want to dance here, but .?.?. you’re a hotel page. I can’t have you scuttling around the ballroom, least of all when Lord Edgerton and—’

‘Mr Charles!’ Frank piped up, trying hard to keep control of his stutter. ‘You have it wrong, sir. I didn’t come for the d-d-dancing – I came because .?.?.’

Maynard’s face blanched. ‘What is it, Frank?’

‘You have a visitor, Mr Charles. One of your .?.?. associates. I’m sorry, Mr Charles. He said it couldn’t wait.’

*

The ballroom could fend for itself.

The moment Maynard Charles stepped out of it, back to the reality of the hotel reception, he felt the magic dissipate. Back to business, he thought, as he marched gravely behind the concierge desks, down to his office at the end of the hall.

He had not seen the man lurking in the darkness there in some months – and, in truth, he had hoped never to see him again. Mr Moorcock looked significantly older than his middle years. He looked thinner, too, than the last time Maynard had seen him. His grey woollen suit dwarfed him, and the white hair was ragged at the edges. The dark Bollman trilby he ordinarily wore was nowhere to be seen, and in its place was a flat cap of indeterminate design. He was smoking a White Owl cigar.

‘Mr Moorcock, you seem to be sitting at my desk.’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ the man said, with a gravelly drawl.

Even his perfect King’s English seemed ragged, thought Maynard. The years did that to a man. But so too did Moorcock’s profession.

Ignoring the slight, Maynard drew up another chair and sat down.

‘You’ll have to make this quick. We reopened the ballroom tonight, after last year’s little incident. I shouldn’t be missed.’

‘I picked my night carefully, old boy. With so much going on in this hotel, nobody will notice you’re gone.’

Maynard permitted himself a laugh. ‘I can hardly credit how you call yourself a spy at all, with logic as broken as that.’

Moorcock opened his cigar case, offered Maynard one of his White Owls, and shrugged when he refused.

‘Mr Charles, I’m aware that our arrangement has faltered of late. I’m here to discuss—’

‘Arrangement?’ muttered Maynard. ‘You mean to say, the way you blackmailed me into spying on guests in my hotel?’

Moorcock only rolled his eyes in return.

‘We’ve been over this, Maynard. Too many times, as I recall. What you did in your private life is not my concern. But in my profession, one needs .?.?. insurance. We simply had insurance, so that you would help us in our endeavours. And, as I recall, you became a truly willing participant. This hotel of yours, a hotbed of aristocratic gossip – what better place to learn secrets? What better place than this to try and waylay a war?’ He stopped, stood, stared down at Maynard Charles. ‘I’m sorry we held leverage over you, Maynard. It was distasteful. Should it count for anything, I argued vehemently against it. But I’m afraid I am not a superior in my service. I am a journeyman, and so I shall remain. What you did for us here has added invaluable intelligence to the way we understand England’s gentry and their connections with that monster on the Continent. Your efforts have been noted and appreciated. And I come to you now—’

‘You want me to play again. To spy, again, on guests at this hotel.’

‘The world is changing, Mr Charles. The way to war is accelerating. This business in Austria. Mr Chamberlain’s conviction that Herr Hitler will remain true to his words. The complexion of this game we play is constantly shifting. We at the Office fear the tide is turning.’

The Office: that indeterminate name that truly meant Section 5, that branch of military intelligence concerned with affairs at home.

‘The Office is chronically unprepared for what’s coming. If war comes, it will fall to us to round up the enemy agents already seated in our midst. But we’ve barely begun to understand the scale of this thing. I’m speaking the truth to you, Mr Charles, because I need your help. The waves are crashing over us – and you, Maynard, are a good man.’

‘My mind is on other things, Mr Moorcock. My heart as well. You’re not the only ones unprepared for this thing. The Buckingham was nearly on its knees. It’s only the investment of Mr Hastings that keeps us alive. The Grand is reopening, and perhaps that will help. But my people need me here. We have a dance troupe coming in from Vienna – the Winter Hollers, resident with us for the autumn season. There’s Christmas to start thinking about, though we’re not yet in May. I have twelve hundred people here, and all of their families depend upon me to keep the Buckingham alive. I’m old, Mr Moorcock. I feel it, for the very first time. If war’s inevitable, if it cannot be averted, I want to look close to home, to look after the people I love.’

‘The very best way you can do that is by accepting that dance and music, and the trials and tribulations of bed linen, are for a lower caste of mind.’ For the first time, Moorcock’s frustration bubbled over. ‘Let me speak to you plainly – and in the strictest confidence. Whitehall has lost control over proceedings. They no longer understand the gravity of what’s happening on the Continent. Mr Chamberlain’s insistence that there can be an agreed peace with Nazi Germany is the greatest fiction of our time. The recent plebiscite in Austria has proven this beyond doubt. And yet Whitehall remains stubbornly committed to brokering a peace with Herr Hitler. It is a peace that will not last. You’ll have read Mr Churchill’s opinions on the matter, of course. Our own analysis says the same: every agreement we make with Herr Hitler, now, only strengthens his hand. We willingly embolden him, under the pretence it will be the last time. But it will never be the last time.’ Mr Moorcock paused. ‘Were you ever bullied as a child, Mr Charles?’

‘I had big fists,’ Maynard replied. ‘I was a stout little fellow. They left me alone.’

‘Well, then,’ he smiled, ‘you understand our principle. When you give ground to a bully, it doesn’t satisfy him. Let him punch you once, and soon he wants to punch you again – only, this time, twice as hard. Give him your pocket money one day, you’ll be giving him your inheritance the next.’

‘What has this to do with me, Mr Moorcock?’

‘There can be a different future.’

Maynard arched a single eyebrow, inviting him to go on.

‘We are not the only ones who doubt the sagacity of Mr Chamberlain’s methods. Lord Halifax, our esteemed Foreign Secretary, is erring to our own line of thinking: that too many concessions are being made. And, believe it or not, there are voices on the Continent who would agree. Elements in Nazi Germany itself who would rather Britain put its boxing gloves on, rather than its mittens.’ Moorcock paused, as if steeling himself for the next secrets he had to spill. ‘Herr Hitler has been supportive, until now, of High German gentry. He sees them as the avatars of his Golden Germanic Age. But they are not all so adoring of him. We believe that some among them can see the writing on the wall – that, soon, the old dynasties will have to fall, so that Herr Hitler’s power can never be challenged. And they would rather he was deposed before this came to pass. Mr Charles, it has become paramount to the work of the Office that we identify such sympathetic voices, so that we might help forge the connections between them and us. There might yet be a way to change history for the better – but I’m afraid we need a little help.’

‘I’m a hotel director, Mr Moorcock. To think that I can—’

Moorcock waved his hand airily, parting the reef of cigar smoke.

‘Your hotel has long been a home away from home for the fascists across the Continent. I happen to know that you have Graf and Gr?fin Schect back for the entirety of the summer season. German dignitaries come and go. That little Napoleon from the Italian embassy dines here in your Queen Mary every Wednesday evening. Your own Lord Edgerton counts himself a member of the British Union of Fascists, and would welcome Herr Hitler with open arms if he was to take his supper upstairs in your Candlelight Club. I am not asking you to change history, Mr Charles. But I’m asking you to listen again. I’m asking you to probe. The hour might already be past to avoid the coming of war. But we can, at least, help the Powers That Be make the right decision about when and where that war is announced. To do that we need those sympathetic voices. To identify them, I need a place like this. I need a man like you.’

Moorcock stood up, grabbed his flat cap, squashed it onto his head and marched past Maynard.

‘It is time for you to come back to work, Mr Charles. Your country is waiting for you. You say you want to look after the people who work for you here, in this hotel. Well, here’s your chance.’

After Mr Moorcock was gone, Maynard made haste back to the Grand Ballroom. There, the Archie Adams Orchestra and its guest singers were in the middle of a set of Cab Calloway’s greatest hits (a tribute to the American businessman who’d helped them resurrect the Grand). Raymond de Guise, Hélène Marchmont and all the wonderful dancers of the Buckingham Hotel were keeping the guests spellbound.

Everybody was dancing, thought Maynard. And perhaps Moorcock was right: it was time that Maynard Charles himself went back to the dance floor, and turned a waltz of his own.