Chapter Five

‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you were going to ask him?’

Rosa’s shriek was so loud that it might easily have been heard all the way down in the Grand Ballroom, where London’s lords and ladies danced. Here, in the chambermaids’ kitchenette, it drowned out the sound of the BBC News, which played over the wireless radio in the corner.

‘And why not?’ Ruth chipped in, from her armchair in the corner. She was busily knitting the jumpers she’d give to her legion of nephews and nieces next Christmas. ‘A woman ought to be able to do anything a man can. We’ve got the vote, haven’t we? Fought for it, tooth and nail. So if a woman wants to propose, then—’

‘I heard a girl can only pop the question in a leap year,’ said Rosa. ‘But Nance, you’ll make a beautiful bride.’

‘Or groom,’ grinned Ruth, half-hidden behind her knitting needles.

The kitchenette was busy with the clinking of crockery as the girls got ready their suppers of teacakes and toast, clotted cream and Cornish butter salvaged from the kitchens. All eyes turned to Ruth. Nancy had to admit she was relieved: she’d been clinging on to the secret of Raymond’s proposal for so many days, building up to the moment she told Rosa and Ruth, that the attention was almost unbearable. All Rosa seemed to be able to talk about was the wedding: the dress, the guests, the flowers, whether Mr Charles might – on account of the groom being his head dancer – lend them the Grand Ballroom for their first dance together as husband and wife.

‘And, of course,’ said Nancy, ‘there are bridesmaids to be thinking about.’

It was the only thing that could silence the girls in the kitchenette.

‘Well, I’ve already asked my Frank to be the one who gives me away. The question is, who else might be helping me down the aisle?’

Nancy knew she was playing with them, but she enjoyed the look like adulation that had come across Rosa’s face in particular.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘you’ll be getting formal invitations soon, but I’d love it if you two could be my bridesmaids—’

She might have said more, then, if Rosa hadn’t flung her arms around her and the whole kitchenette erupted in squeals of delight.

The truth was, Rosa and Ruth weren’t the first she’d asked. She’d been at the Daughters two nights ago and, telling Vivienne the good news, had asked the very same question – but the look that had flickered across Vivienne’s face was not the delight that had erupted on Rosa’s, but a kind of shock and fear.

‘Oh, Nancy,’ she’d finally said, catching her breath. ‘After everything we’ve done together, I would be honoured, but .?.?.’

She’d trailed off. Catching the anxiety in her voice, Nancy had said quickly, ‘Of course, I understand if it would cause trouble for you at the hotel, or with your stepfather. I wouldn’t want to put you in a difficult position.’

Vivienne had hesitated. ‘I’m sure some of your chambermaid friends would love to be your bridesmaids,’ she had said at last.

At least the sting of it was gone, now that Rosa was dangling from her with such excitement. Sometimes, when she was with Miss Edgerton, Nancy quite forgot that there were rules to life – that those a cut above shouldn’t really mix with those ‘down below’, that there were conventions you had to observe. Nancy knew that Vivienne didn’t think like that anymore, but her family did, and that was enough.

Nancy was pleased to be able to forget about it now.

‘Have you picked a church?’ Rosa asked.

‘We’re thinking of the town hall, in Marylebone. Well, Raymond’s from a Jewish family, and my father was a Presbyterian. But with the town hall, we could do it the way we wanted.’

‘Not a church?’ gasped Rosa.

‘Good for you, Nance,’ Ruth chipped in. ‘Sticking it to tradition again!’

‘Our Ruth here,’ said Rosa to Nancy, ‘is one of these that hate tradition. As for me, I’d be perfectly happy if my Frank got down on one knee one day! But Ruth, you’ve hardly even looked at a boy since we’ve been working here, have you?’

Ruth shrugged, refocusing on the half-jumper in her hands. ‘I got better things to think about than boys.’

Rosa rolled her eyes – as if to say that there wasn’t a better thing to think about in all of the world.

‘Nancy, we’ve been dancing, we’ve been picnicking in Hyde Park, we’ve been all over – and every time a boy makes eyes at her, she goes all cold. Nobody’s good enough for Ruth!’

‘Well, not all of us can fall into the arms of Raymond de Guise!’

If Ruth was trying to deflect the attention by invoking his name, it did the trick perfectly. Rosa immediately flashed back to Nancy and the simple ring on her finger. Nancy blushed, and busied herself pouring tea.

‘Oh, balderdash!’ Rosa exclaimed. ‘You don’t need a debonair dancer to fall in love. You barely even need to go dancing or picnicking, or strolling around London town. There’s plenty of eligible young bachelors right here in this hotel.’ She paused, her eyes revolving to the kitchenette door. ‘Look, here comes one of them now!’

Standing in the doorway was the concierge Billy Brogan, with his mop of wiry red hair and his face spotted in freckles. Gangly and lean, Billy was a couple of years Nancy’s junior and, however hard he tried to brush up smartly in his uniform of ebony waistcoat and crimson bow tie, he never quite managed to look like anything other than a member of the Brogan family. He stood slightly crookedly, with one hand stuffed in a pocket. The watch dangling from a chain on his lapel was an affectation, intended to make him seem a cut above – only Billy hadn’t noticed it was back to front and, besides, it had stopped working last summer and had never been repaired.

Another figure waited behind Billy. Rosa bustled past him, out into the hallway, and came back with Frank Nettleton on her arm.

‘Sit yourself down, Frankie, we’ve got tea and toast coming.’

‘Not like that lot have down there,’ said Billy, sashaying past Frank and Rosa and, oblivious, taking the seat Rosa had intended for her sweetheart. ‘They’ve got caviar on little biscuits. Chicken livers crowned with little sprigs of parsley.’ Billy reached up and grinned when Nancy appeared with a plate of toast and butter. ‘But this will suit me just fine. How many chicken livers do you need just to feel full?’

‘I been down in the Grand, Nancy,’ said Frank.

Rosa looked up. ‘Well, go on! What’s it like?’

Ruth simply settled down with her knitting – hardly interested in the Grand Ballroom, or the boys, at all.

‘Frankie’s a Nettleton through and through,’ declared Rosa, with pride. ‘You were one for sneaking down into the Grand Ballroom when you first arrived, wasn’t you, Nance?’

Nancy nodded. ‘An adventure I never intend to repeat.’

‘Well, go on, Frank! What was it like, this opening night of yours?’

‘You shouldn’t be sneaking around, Frankie,’ whispered Nancy.

‘Oh, I wasn’t, Nance, I promise. I had a message for Mr Charles. Couldn’t wait, could it, Billy?’

Billy, his face stuffed full of toast, spluttered out an answer that nobody could understand. On the other side of the kitchenette, Ruth looked up from her knitting, saw the toast crumbs showering out of Billy’s bristly lips, and shook her head, as if to say that here was the reason she wasn’t in any rush to find herself a gentleman friend.

‘Well,’ Frank went on, ‘it was another world, Rosa. Even more splendid than it used to be. You think the rest of the Buckingham’s beautiful? Just take a sneaky peek around the doors of the Grand Ballroom. Even the chandeliers are new! And the dance floor, it’s been sprung by a team that came from Paris especially for it. And the orchestra, and all the dancers, they’ve been doing nothing but practise for months – so you should have seen the way they turned, and—’

‘You want to take me down there for a dance, Frankie?’

‘You’ll have to show him that ring on your finger first, Nance!’ Ruth called out.

Nancy came and put her arms around Frank.

‘He already knows, silly.’

‘Gerroff me!’ Frank said, wriggling out of her embrace. Then he cocked his head to one side and said, not for the first time, ‘I’m pleased as punch for you, Nance. Now we’ll have two dancers in the family.’

‘Only one a hotel dancer,’ said Ruth. ‘You remember that, Frank.’

‘For now,’ Frank said, ‘but maybe I’ll get my chance. It’s been done before. Raymond told me himself. There was a porter, Simon Carpenter – he got his break in the Grand three years ago, all courtesy of Mr de Guise. Now he dances at the Imperial Hotel. Calls himself Simon le Strange—’

‘He sounds like a conjuror!’ Rosa said, laughing. ‘And a traitor, to go to the Imperial like that.’

‘Well, all I got to do is practise, and maybe I can get a chance too. Raymond’s been giving me lessons, hasn’t he, Nance? I even got to dance with Miss Marchmont’s new understudy, Mathilde! Of course, all that’s going to stop now the Grand’s open again. They won’t want to dance with a hotel page now the demonstration dances are starting again. So .?.?.’ Frank paused. ‘Stand up, Billy. Go on!’

Billy, who had finished his toast but remained sprinkled in its crumbs, took his cue and leaped readily to his feet. It was as if, thought Nancy, he was standing to attention, her own little brother his sergeant major.

‘The thing is, without a chance to practise dancing in the hotel anymore, I got to thinking we should plan another trip. All of us here, and whoever else we can rustle up from the kitchens or the porters or .?.?. why, anyone who wants to come! Mrs Moffatt and Mr Charles himself – the more, the merrier!’ Frank waited for the laughter to ebb away. ‘Me and Rosa, we went down to the Starlight Lounge just behind Oxford Street one night. I thought we could go back. A little adventure of our own. I could do with the practice.’

Rosa gripped Frank fiercely – ‘Don’t be silly, you’re a natural!’ – and let him spin her around, right there in the kitchenette.

‘Well,’ Nancy ventured, ‘I reckon that’s settled! Raymond won’t be able to come, though, so I’ll be in want of a partner of my own.’ She sidled over to Billy playfully, and put an arm around his shoulder. ‘Well, Billy, what do you say? You’re my oldest friend here in the hotel. It only seems right that you and I .?.?.’

There was something awkward about Billy Brogan today. He felt stiff and ungainly and, when he shook off Nancy’s arm and coughed to clear his throat, his eyes darting nervously into every corner of the kitchenette, Nancy was quite sure that something was wrong.

‘Sorry, Nance. You see, that’s the reason I come up here with Frankie. Me and Frank was talking about the Starlight Lounge, as we do, and I thought I might like to ask’ – his eyes roamed over the kitchenette, until they landed on the corner – ‘you, Ruth, if you’d like to step out with me. Just to go dancing, o’ course.’

Rosa revolved towards Ruth, her eyes wide with excitement.

‘Oh, give over, Billy Brogan!’ Ruth said, waving her hand in dismissal. ‘That smart tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.’

Silence fell.

‘Well, why not, Ruth?’ Billy gave a little example of his footwork, describing a solo box-step on the threadbare rug, but this only confused things further – for, before he’d finished, he’d stumbled and had to steady himself by grasping Frank’s shoulder. ‘You could do worse than me. I scrub up smart.’

Ruth, who was feeling the pressure of a dozen sets of eyes boring into her, had started to flush a deep shade of red.

‘Billy, you’re not serious .?.?.’

The silence had deepened. Nobody else dared breathe a word.

In the end, it was Rosa who broke the silence.

‘Go on, Ruthie.’

But Ruth wasn’t the only one burning a brilliant shade of red. Billy himself had started to go purple and, before Ruth could open her mouth to reply, he said, ‘No, it’s all right, it’s .?.?. good. I was only joking around. I don’t need a girl to go dancing with. We’re all going, aren’t we? All of us, together. Doesn’t mean we have to have .?.?.’

By then, the sentence had died, because Billy had turned and loped hurriedly out of the room.

‘Go on, after him, Frankie!’ Rosa cried, half-pushing Frank towards the door before rounding on Ruth. ‘Well, that was charming, wasn’t it? Ruth Attercliffe, you mean-spirited—’ She caught herself before she said worse. ‘Did you have to make a total fool of the boy? Couldn’t you see he was wearing his heart on his sleeve?’

Evidently, Ruth could – because the colour had drained from her cheeks and, where once she’d been embarrassed, now she was battling back tears.

‘I didn’t mean to make him feel silly.’

‘Couldn’t you have just danced with him?’ Rosa softened. ‘Oh, Ruthie,’ she said, rushing to her friend’s side and putting her arms around her, ‘you’re your own worst enemy. Billy Brogan’s not that bad.’

‘He just .?.?. isn’t my type.’

‘He’s handsome enough.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s charming, too,’ interjected Nancy. ‘And his heart’s in the right place – even if, every now and again, it doesn’t seem quite connected with his head. Billy’s got to be worth a shot, hasn’t he?’

‘Nance is right,’ said Rosa. ‘Maybe you just don’t know what your type is. You need to try things! Maybe you’ll kiss a few frogs along the way, but—’

‘It just doesn’t feel right,’ said Ruth. ‘It doesn’t feel magical. And .?.?. I deserve something magical, don’t I? Just like the two of you.’

Rosa beamed and, settling on the arm of Ruth’s armchair, draped herself around her friend like a fur stole.

‘Oh, Ruth, you silly girl! You find magic in the most extraordinary places.’

And Ruth, whose tears were seeping back into her eyes, felt a weight lift off her for the first time that evening.

‘The most ordinary places too,’ she whispered.

*

Billy was already back at the concierge desk when Frank caught up with him. He was so busy, flicking through the guest book and making notes on an adjacent leaf of headed notepaper, that he barely registered as Frank scurried over. It was only when Frank – who saw soon enough that the book Billy was diligently focusing on was upside down – reached out and turned it around that he looked up.

‘You got out of there sharpish, Billy.’

‘Ah, well, you know how it is. All you lovebirds talking dancing and weddings. That’s not for the likes of me. See, I got a business head on these shoulders, Frank. Having a sweetheart would only drag me down. I got important work to do for Mr Charles and—’

‘Oh, Billy,’ Frank said solemnly. ‘You weren’t joking at all, were you, when you asked about the Starlight Lounge?’

Billy’s eyes returned to the guest book. For a moment, he pretended to peruse it again, mouthing numbers to himself as if he was performing elaborate calculations in his head. But his heart wasn’t in the charade and, soon, he looked up.

‘I just thought, what with you and Rosa, and Nance and Raymond, that .?.?. well, it’d be nice, you know. To have someone to love and spoil and .?.?. talk to. Really talk to. And Ruth, well, she’s always had a way about her. She don’t put up with any nonsense, not like the rest of the chambermaids.’ Billy caught himself and added, ‘Your Rosa and Nancy excepted, o’ course.’

‘Billy, I thought you were just playing with her.’

‘That’s what everyone thinks,’ said Billy. ‘Billy Brogan, good for a laugh but not much else. Well, Frankie, I’ve got a lot to offer a girl. I’ve got a—’

‘Billy, you’re .?.?. shy!’

Billy drew himself up to his full height, filled his chest as if it might make him feel braver.

‘Well, take a look at you, Frank Nettleton. When you turned up at this hotel last year, you could hardly speak for that stutter of yours! And now, here you stand, thinking you might even get a chance in the hotel ballroom. It’s funny how the world turns. And me, well—’ He paused, finally feeling his courage return. ‘But I’m a social climber, Frankie. I always have been. That’s why I’m a concierge and you’re a hotel page. I embrace change. And .?.?.’ He grew softer, all the courage draining away. ‘.?.?. maybe Ruth does too.’

The sounds coming up from the Grand Ballroom were glorious. Frank listened to the Archie Adams Orchestra reaching the climax of one of their own hit records, ‘The Lovers in Lambeth’, and thought, dreamily, of what it might be like to be down there now.

Then, snapping back to reality, he reached out and clapped Billy on the shoulder.

‘I’ll have a chat with Rosa. We’ll get her there, Billy, I promise. You and Ruth, dancing in the Starlight Lounge – just a bit of magic in the air. Well, you never know what might happen! In times like these, we’ve all got to seize the day.’