A Castle in the Clouds
Page 12
Tristan didn’t seem to take anything or anyone seriously. Maybe not even himself. I just couldn’t work him out, and it was driving me up the wall.
I locked the door behind me with a sigh. I was shivering with cold by now. Yawning, teeth chattering, I climbed the stairs to the second floor. I could have taken one of the elevators, of course, but I didn’t really trust the juddering, rattling old things, and taking the stairs gave me the chance to talk to Ben. He was sitting on the staircase with his long legs stretched out in front of him, thermos in hand. He must be having a midnight feast.
“Sophie!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Have you only just got off work?”
I nodded. “Mrs. Ludwig from Room 107 lost her ring. And then I spent a bit too long outside in the snow cooling off.”
Ben held out the thermos. “Then I’ve got the perfect remedy.”
I shook my head. “I’d better not if it’s coffee.”
“It’s tea. This’ll warm you right up.” He unscrewed the lid of the flask to use as a cup, poured in some of the steaming liquid, and handed it to me.
I sat down beside him hesitantly, took a big gulp from the cup, and immediately started coughing. “Didn’t you say it was tea?” I spluttered, once I’d regained the power of speech.
He grinned. “Tea with a dash of rum.”
Eighty-proof rum, by the taste of it. I took another, much more cautious sip, and the tea ran down my throat like fire. I handed the cup back to Ben.
We eyed each other. “You don’t look very lively, either, I must say.” He had dark circles under his eyes. Again, I was struck by his resemblance to his father. The same well-formed facial features, the blue eyes, the firm chin—and yet they were so different. In Ben’s eyes I could see intelligence, trust, and genuine interest, while his father always came across as cold and disdainful.
Ben looked away before I did and sipped at his tea. “I made the mistake of not taking a nap while I was off-shift and doing some studying for biology instead. We’ve got a test as soon as we get back after the holidays. I need to try and do well on my exams now that I’m…” He broke off and took another sip. Then he grinned at me. “I think there’s more than a dash of rum in here.”
“Now that you’re what?” I asked gently.
Ben sighed. “You know, I always thought my life was all mapped out for me. That I’d finish school and go on to study hotel management and eventually take over the running of the hotel my great-grandfather built.” With a little smile, he filled up the cup again. “But things can change. And suddenly you find you’re a free agent.”
I couldn’t help thinking of what I’d overheard Gordon Montfort saying that morning from the linen cupboard. “And is that good or bad?” I asked.
Ben looked pensively at me. “Good question,” he said. “I have no idea what it means to be completely free. How did it feel to drop out of school?”
“Have you been reading my personnel records?”
Ben blushed slightly. “Um. Yeah. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t need to be sorry; I’d have done the same in his shoes. “It didn’t feel great.” I was surprised to find myself admitting it so openly. Until now I’d always avoided talking to anyone but Delia about it. To be honest, I’d avoided even thinking about it. “My parents freaked out. They couldn’t imagine how you could survive in this world without having a degree. Or a carefully laid life plan. It’s like they knew they wanted to be teachers from the day they were born. But all I know is what I don’t want to do. And sometimes not even that.”
Ben patted my arm sympathetically. “It was different for me,” he said. “It was just always there. It was my past, my present, and my future.”
It was clearly the hotel. I decided to put all my cards on the table, so he didn’t feel he had to speak in riddles anymore. “I know about your dad wanting to sell the hotel.”
“Really?” For a moment Ben looked wide awake again. “Does the whole staff know?”
“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “Probably not. I just happened to overhear…” (just happened to, while I was hiding in a cupboard) “… your dad talking to your uncle about selling the hotel to Burkhardt.”
“Who is going to destroy it.” Ben grimaced. “I’m afraid this place will be unrecognizable by the time he’s finished with it.” After a short pause, in which I visualized again the golf shop in the library, he added sadly, “It seems to be the only way to stop the hotel from going bankrupt.”
“But if your dad sells, you’ll be free to choose whatever job you like and live wherever you want,” I said, quoting what his dad had said that morning almost word for word.
Ben filled the cup again, handed it to me, and took a gulp from the thermos. “But what if this is where I want to live?” He looked at me earnestly. “Has anyone ever told you you’ve got very … lovely eyes? They’re not brown or gray or properly green; they’re somewhere in between. So pretty. And so bright. Like you’re lit up from the inside. When you look at me, I feel like I want to tell you all my secrets.”
He did? Embarrassed, I took another sip of the tea and rum cocktail. And then another. “Mr. Smirnov from the Panorama Suite is actually called Mr. Yegorov,” I said at last. I could share secrets, too. It was my way of telling Ben that I thought his eyes were lovely, too.
But it didn’t win me any brownie points.
“I know,” he said, unimpressed. “He wanted to come here incognito because of the press. And all the commotion he’d have caused otherwise because of the diamond.”
“Diamond?” I sat up straighter.
“That huge rock he bought at auction at Christie’s. It was a present for his wife on their wedding day. Worth as much as a small island, apparently. It used to belong to Catherine the Great, then it went missing for a long time and everyone thought it was lost. And they say it’s cursed, just like any respectable diamond.”
“And it’s here in the hotel?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Not yet,” Ben replied. “But someone’s going to bring it here in the next couple of days because Mrs. Yegorov wants to wear it for the New Year’s Ball. Why? Are you afraid the curse is going to get you?”
“Of course not.” It was just that I happened to have come across someone scaling the walls of the hotel only a few minutes earlier, and he’d been coming from the Panorama Suite. Perhaps he was getting in a bit of practice ahead of time. “Aren’t you worried there might be jewel thieves here, posing as guests or staff?”
Ben laughed. “The press thinks the Yegorovs are spending the holidays on their yacht and in a luxury villa belonging to one of their fashion designer friends in the Lesser Antilles. So the jewel thieves are more likely to be hanging out there. And anyway, almost all our guests are regulars … Oh!”
I jumped, too. The Forbidden Cat had come slinking down the stairs behind us and now barged her way in between us, purring loudly.
“Where did you come from? You were outside a minute ago.” I stroked her back. Of course, she could have come back into the building through a different entrance. Or perhaps there were several ginger cats at Castle in the Clouds. That would explain why people had been seeing them here for decades. I mustn’t forget to tell Pierre about this theory.
The Forbidden Cat rubbed her head against Ben’s shoulder.
“Yes, yes, all right,” Ben murmured. “I’m coming.” He stood up and gave me an apologetic smile. “She sleeps in my bed, you see. It’s very useful, given that there’s no heating up there.” He looked at his watch. “Midnight exactly. The witching hour. Don’t let the Lady in White get you.”
“I thought she only went after people who were unlucky in love.” I stood up, too, and stretched my stiff legs. The cat walked a little way up the stairs and then turned expectantly to Ben.
“It was nice talking to you, Sophie,” he said emphatically. “We should do it more often, intern to intern.”
“Yes, we should.” I passed him the empty cup. “Sleep well.”
“The English professor and his grandson? Not exactly regulars. But Professor Brown has been here once before, twenty years ago. Monsieur Rocher remembers him. The grandfather is an expert in antique jewelry and his grandson is studying at Oxford. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason,” I murmured.
11
The twenty-fourth of December began for me with the shrill beeping of the alarm clock on my phone. I’d slept like a log—if the old pipe had made any noises again in the night, they certainly hadn’t made their way into my dreams. But I would have needed at least another two or three hours’ sleep to get rid of the dark circles under my eyes, and that was never going to happen. I was on the early shift today, and even if my alarm hadn’t woken me up, my mother would have. It was six thirty in the morning and already she was sending me texts and photos clearly designed to make me feel bad that I wouldn’t be home for Christmas. One photo showed my grandma’s Christmas cake in front of the organically grown Christmas tree in the living room, hung with my brothers’ homemade Christmas decorations.
She couldn’t have chosen a better photo to make me feel glad to be spending Christmas at Castle in the Clouds. I couldn’t stand my grandma’s Christmas cake because of all the raisins she put in it, and I’d always hated the forced family Christmas-tree-decoration-making sessions that took place in our house every year. My mother was an art teacher. Every Christmas, she came up with a new crafting project, and we had to implement her vision. However much she said Be as creative as you like!, we knew that what she really meant was You must follow my instructions to the letter! At least she was always creative when it came to crafting materials.
I squinted at the homemade stars in the photo. Just as I’d thought: It looked like this year’s Christmas tree decorations were made of wholegrain pasta.
“Dear Sophie!” her message said. “Mum, Dad, Leon, and Finn wish you a Merry Christmas and hope that in between the festivities up there in the mountains you also find time for some quiet reflection.”
“Quiet reflection. Honestly!” I said to the Hugos on my return from the bathroom. (I’d run into the four hyenas from Lausanne there, but they’d obviously decided to ignore me as punishment for my previous behavior. It was wonderfully relaxing.) The seven jackdaws had arrived promptly on my windowsill at dawn, ready for their breakfast of milk-roll crumbs. As usual, Unbelievably Greedy Hugo ate the most, while Chubby Hugo behaved as if he was on a diet.
I loved this time just before sunrise, when it wasn’t light yet but it wasn’t completely dark, either. The moon had gone down a long time ago, but above Obergabelhorn a single bright star—the morning star?—shone in an almost cloudless sky. Sunshine was forecast for today, but another cold snap was coming and there was supposed to be lots more snow on its way.
“By reflection, she means she wants me to reflect on all my failings.” I was so angry I forgot to talk to the Hugos in a baby voice. “She just can’t accept that the higher-education ship has sailed. All the hard work I’m doing here doesn’t seem to count.”
Hopping Hugo and One-Legged Hugo fought over the last crumb, then they all flew away. Only Kleptomaniac Hugo carried on pecking around in the snow on the windowsill as if he were looking for something else.
“It’d be nice if they could just be proud of me for a change,” I said.
Kleptomaniac Hugo hopped closer and gazed at me with his head to one side. He looked as concerned as a jackdaw can.
“I’m sorry! Super Sophie didn’t mean for her bad mood to rub off on you,” I said contritely. “It’s Christmas, after all! What’s that you’ve got in your beak?”
Kleptomaniac Hugo hopped a little closer, solemnly deposited a button in front of me on the windowsill and looked at me expectantly.
“Thank you!” I was quite touched. It was a shiny round gold button that must have come off a chambermaid’s uniform. Perhaps I’d lost it myself. But I preferred the idea that Kleptomaniac Hugo had stolen it from Hortensia or Camilla. And all of a sudden, I felt almost festive. “That’s a brilliant present. It’s really cheered me up.”
Kleptomaniac Hugo cawed softly, then hopped off the windowsill and flew away to join his brothers.
A few hours later, the jackdaws were still circling on the thermals high above the castle, as if keeping a close eye on everything going on below them. And there was lots for them to look at because the sunny weather had brought everybody outdoors.
Jaromir had been shoveling snow since early that morning. (He no longer had to go around dressed as a ringmaster-doorman now that all the guests had arrived—Gordon Montfort evidently thought a good first impression was enough.) Now the forecourt, the driveway, the sun terrace outside the restaurant, and the ice rink were all clear. Old Stucky had also cleared a path with the snowplow, a long circular walk that snaked its way through the snowy woods. The Von Dietrichsteins had taken their pug for a walk there right after breakfast, and Mara Matthäus’s two poodles could now be seen dragging Nico toward the trees at a breakneck pace.
I’d already ushered my little flock of children outside. My prediction that there’d be enough to see out here to distract them from their excitement about their Christmas presents turned out to have been quite correct. This time I’d been smart enough to put on ski pants and snow boots myself, just in case any of the kids took it into their heads to run off into the woods.
Jaromir had started up the carousel next to the ice rink and, as it turned, barrel-organ music floated across the glittering white landscape and mingled with the soft sounds of the horse-drawn sleigh. Waiters carried tables and chairs out onto the sun terrace and started constructing an ice bar, and Gutless Gilbert supervised the setting out of loungers draped with woolen blankets. If it snowed again tomorrow all this effort would be for nothing, but for the moment all the hard work was definitely worth it. I’d never seen so many happy faces at the same time. Especially not among the adults. People went for walks in the snow, took photos of the snowy fir trees, and found nice spots to sunbathe in. The sunshine grew warmer and warmer as the day wore on.
On the ice rink, Big Daddy Barnbrooke, his son Aiden, and Gretchen’s twin brother, Claus, were playing ice hockey. There was lots of whooping and yelling. Monsieur Rocher and Jonas had fetched two trunks full of ice skates (from the past four decades at least) out of the basement along with some ice hockey sticks, a puck, and two human-sized penguins with runners for feet and handles on their backs; these were for beginner skaters to hold onto so they didn’t fall over. The thriller writer was talking animatedly to the old British actor, while the thriller writer’s wife lay on one of the loungers reading a romance novel.
For once Tristan Brown wasn’t scaling the walls of the building but was sitting at one of the little tables engrossed in a game of chess with his grandfather, who, with his white hair and tweed jacket, looked like a British aristocrat. On the terrace, Gordon Montfort shared a bottle of champagne—first with Don Burkhardt Sr. and his wife, then with the Barnbrooke grandparents. Viktor Yegorov built a snowman with little Dasha and gave it his cashmere scarf to wear. Madame Cléo ushered the waiters back and forth to the guests with trays of canelés, cream puffs, and tiny glasses of Irish coffee.
The most photographed object of the day was the horse-drawn sleigh, pulled by Jesty and Vesty with Old Stucky perched high up on the driver’s seat. The Ball Bearings Baroness from Room 100 went for several extra rides in the sleigh, to make absolutely sure that Mr. Von Dietrichstein got a photo of her smooching passionately with her young lover. I’d even managed to persuade Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig to book themselves a sleigh ride. That morning before my shift, I’d gone down to the spa, where Mr. Heffelfinger had already had somebody search all the filters. But the ring seemed to be gone for good. Mrs. Ludwig had been very dejected all morning, but the sleigh ride worked like magic on her. She held hands wi
th Mr. Ludwig and waved cheerfully as they drove away.
I was still hoping that the ring would turn up somewhere or that there was a perfectly mundane explanation for its disappearance—but I didn’t have much time today to wonder where it might have gone. It was Carolyn the kindergarten teacher’s day off, and I was on my own with the children. Today my faithful band of unicorns consisted of Madison, Gracie, the thriller writer’s two sons, and Faye, the five-year-old daughter of a pharmaceutical executive who was staying with his family in the Fabergé Suite on the first floor. There were also four newcomers—including Don, now recovered from his stomach bug. Although I feared the worst and kept a particularly close eye on him, he behaved impeccably. He didn’t spoil anyone’s fun and didn’t tease the other children (or me). Even his strange habit of addressing people by their full names didn’t bother me today; on the contrary, it helped me remember the new children’s names.
I found it surprisingly easy to keep the kids occupied all day, especially once Amy joined us later that afternoon. From here, she could watch Aiden playing ice hockey from a safe distance and she didn’t have to listen to any of Ella’s and Gretchen’s catty comments. We still weren’t sure whether Aiden’s weird behavior was a good or a bad sign, but Amy was reluctant to take my advice and just ask him. “I’d rather die of a broken heart,” she said. She didn’t seem particularly unhappy, though—quite the opposite, in fact. She had a great day, and so did the children and I. In the morning, we had a snowball fight, fed carrots to the horses, and ate sausages and potato salad together at a big table on the terrace.
In the afternoon, we watched the squirrels, played at curling, rode on the carousel, and built a giant snow dragon out of the snow that had piled up around the edge of the ice rink when Jaromir had cleared it. We got plenty of help from the adults, and our building project gradually developed into a real team effort. By the end, it really looked as though a glittering white dragon had landed in front of Castle in the Clouds and wrapped its jagged tail around the ice rink. It was a shame this magnificent creation would soon be buried under a fresh layer of snow. But it had been photographed from all sides and so preserved for posterity.