One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

  ‘But who were they?’ she whispered. ‘He’s mixed up in something, isn’t he, Billy? Something bad.’

  ‘You can’t think of it, Nance.’

  ‘But he’s one of us!’ She stopped dead. What did I mean by that? ‘I mean to say . . . one of the Buckingham. He’s one of ours, Billy, and they—’

  Billy reached up and brushed the hair out of her tear-stained eyes. ‘Louis Kildare will get him back here. You can be sure of it. But, Nance, you can’t let on where you were. Promise me you won’t. Get to your quarters, and get up tomorrow morning as if nothing ever happened.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come and find you tomorrow. See that you’re well . . .’

  Nancy looked up at the gleaming white facade of the hotel. ‘You don’t need to do that, Billy.’

  ‘Nance, I want to,’ Billy said. Then he was gone.

  Nancy approached the Buckingham with her heart still pounding, the image of Raymond covered in blood still flashing in front of her eyes. So lost in the images was she that she thought nothing of it as she tramped up the grand marble staircase and pushed through the revolving Art Deco door. She registered nothing wrong as her heels clicked across the red and black chequers of the reception, past the striking obelisk and towards the golden guest lift. The first moment she understood anything was wrong at all was when the hand of Mr Simenon landed on her shoulder and spun her bodily around.

  ‘Nettleton!’ he gasped. ‘What in the name of all that is holy do you think you’re doing?’

  As his eyes bored into her, Nancy had the sinking realisation of what she had done. The staff entrance on Michaelmas Mews. She was, she recalled with a terrible finality, supposed to be invisible.

  ‘Come with me, Miss Nettleton,’ Mr Simenon said. His voice had the sibilance of a snake. It was as if he’d been slithering around reception all evening, just waiting for somebody to pounce upon. ‘It’s high time we talked about your behaviour at our proud hotel – and, as fortune would have it, your very own Mrs Moffatt is burning the midnight oil this evening. So perhaps it is just and right that you explain yourself to her. Some of us work like dogs to ensure the smooth running of this hotel, Miss Nettleton, while some of us think we’re better than everyone else, don’t we? Now, come this way . . . ’

  Nancy was shaking as she followed him down the hall, past the hotel director’s office, and to the door marked HOUSEKEEPING. She remembered sitting here on her very first day. Barely two months ago and yet how far away it seemed!

  Mr Simenon instructed her to stand outside and, with barely a knock, he disappeared through the door. Moments later, he reappeared, leaving the door wide open so that Nancy could see Mrs Moffatt still at her desk, the housekeeping ledger open in front of her and various aborted rotas scribbled on pages strewn around.

  ‘Good night, Miss Nettleton,’ Mr Simenon announced with an air of triumph, and marched back along the hall.

  Mrs Moffatt did not look up as Nancy lingered in the doorway. Whatever she was concentrating on, it seemed, was much more pressing than the delinquent chambermaid hanging around outside her office, still smelling of the cigarette smoke and cheap rum of the Midnight Rooms. Mrs Moffatt raised her hand and, still not looking up, beckoned her in. With a sinking heart, Nancy stepped through and closed the door behind her.

  As she fell into the seat in front of the desk, the image of a bloodied Raymond flashed again across her eyes. Things like that didn’t happen all the time, did they? So what was he mixed up in? Raymond said that everyone had stories, everyone had secrets – but what were his?

  ‘Mrs Moffatt,’ she said, ‘I know what I did was wrong. But let me explain. It was a mistake and I made it in the . . .’

  Mrs Moffatt lifted a hand and, after spending a moment ordering her papers, looked up. Making a steeple of her fingers, she considered Nancy.

  ‘It was a mistake, Mrs Moffatt. That’s all. It hasn’t been the most marvellous of nights and I—’

  ‘That’s not what you’re here for, Nancy.’

  Nancy stalled. ‘Mrs Moffatt?’

  ‘You know better than to come through the guest doors, Nancy. You’re an astute, intelligent girl. It’s your rotten luck that Mr Simenon, snake that he is, is working so late this evening – but there are guests coming in on the American Airlines flight. Richard Noble, I understand.’ Noble was a filmmaker who courted his stars in the cocktail bar of the Buckingham Hotel. He was known to take great suites and was never a spendthrift with the credit afforded to him by his studio. ‘Mr Simenon intends to be here to meet them . . . but that is his business and this is ours.’ Mrs Moffatt paused. ‘We can make allowances, Nancy. It takes time for a new member of staff to find their feet in an enterprise as vast as the Buckingham. But you’ve been here two months now, and there are reports.’

  Nancy repeated the word back at her with horror. ‘Reports, Mrs Moffatt?’

  Mrs Moffatt seemed to sense something. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘It isn’t just forgetting your place. The door we might overlook, if that was the only thing. And yet . . . Where have you been tonight, Nancy?’

  ‘I’ve been . . . out, Mrs Moffatt.’ Something hardened in her. Stand up for yourself, Nancy! ‘Why, I’m not a prisoner here, am I? A girl can still go out, if she wants to. I’m not at work until six. I can—’

  ‘It’s things like this, Nancy. This answering back. Do you know what not knowing your place could cost you, Nancy?’ There had seemed such fury in Mrs Moffatt’s voice, but now she softened. ‘I’m saying this because I like you. I’ll talk to Mr Simenon. I’ll smooth it out. But that man, his mother didn’t love him hard enough, or his father was too free with his cane, and he’s a difficult man to convince . . . If one more complaint was to be lodged with Mr Charles—’

  ‘One more, Mrs Moffatt? Who’s . . . ?’ Nancy was about to ask who on earth could have complained about her before, when realisation hit her like a freight train between the eyes. ‘Miss Edgerton,’ she breathed.

  ‘Miss Edgerton is the daughter of the head of the hotel board.’

  Better than me, thought Nancy. Better, and all because of who she was born to, or which family her mother married into. And isn’t that what this hotel is, through and through? One door for the likes of me, one door for the likes of them. One of us to clean their bedsheets; them to sleep, safe and sound.

  ‘You were seen in the ballroom, Nancy. By the look of you, I’m given to understanding that you thought it had not been noticed. Well, I’m afraid that was never the case. Nancy, I’d do anything for my girls. I’ve managed to keep it from Mr Charles, but that was only because Miss Edgerton was so indisposed that evening. Is it illegal? No. Is it against hotel rules? Well, nobody told you not to. There is that in your defence. But some rules don’t need to be written down.’

  Nancy bristled. Beneath her breath, she whispered, ‘Rules like, know your place.’

  ‘It isn’t just Miss Edgerton. The other girls have noticed it, Nancy. Rosa and Ruth, and even Mrs Whitehead. We all think we’re different from the rest, Nancy, when we’re young. It’s as you get older that you start realising: we’re all just the same as everyone else. Isn’t it time, Nancy, to do some growing up?’ Mrs Moffatt leaned across the table to take Nancy’s hand – and, because Nancy had so little alternative, she let her. Mrs Moffatt’s hands were leathery, but the touch was gentle. ‘I’m not trying to be cruel, Nancy. Of all the things I am – old and senile to boot – I am not cruel. As I’ve said, and you can believe this or not, I like you. I may even see a little of myself in the pluck you’ve shown coming down here to our hotel. If you want it, I believe there’s a bright future for you at the Buckingham. There’ll come a day when I won’t be here. Somebody will be needed to fill these shoes. Do you think a girl like Rosa or Ruth, good chambermaids but without a single original thought between them, could do this? No, dear. Housekeeping isn’t just housekeeping. It’s numbers and it’s writing, and it’s confidence and verve. Those things yo
u’ve got, Nancy. But you know what else it takes? Patience. Knowing how to speak to your superiors. Knowing when to speak your mind and knowing when to hold your tongue. Do you understand?’

  Nancy thought that she did, but Mrs Moffatt’s words were not having the effect they might. All she could think about was whether Raymond was still alive. He had looked so beaten . . . there had been so many punches thrown . . .

  ‘Let this be the last mistake. Off you go, then, Nancy, and I’ll put a stop to Mr Simenon. I don’t want you leaving the Buckingham Hotel without a reference. Please, Nancy. Think about it, won’t you?’

  *

  Nancy could not have thought about it, even if she’d wanted to. All she was thinking about as she stepped out of the guest lift and marched to the staff quarters was what had happened to Raymond. At least Rosa and Ruth were already in bed. At least she would not have to face them. With her bedroom door firmly closed behind her, Nancy fell onto the bed. It was only as she lay there that the tears flowed out of her, hot, hard and fast.

  What am I even doing here? she trembled. All those weeks and months of saving and planning. Get a job in London, Nancy. Work hard. Live frugally. Save what pennies you get – and, when you can, send for Frank to come and join you. What was it all for, if it can all be obliterated on a whim?

  After a while, she was able to fight the tears down. Spent, she picked herself up, sat on the end of the bed, and dried her red, raw cheeks. Feeling sorry for herself would get her nowhere. She was tougher than that.

  But the image of her dear Raymond de Guise, lying bloodied and broken on the floor, would not leave her alone.

  Moments later, Nancy was back on her feet. This, she supposed, was what Mrs Moffatt was talking about – how she couldn’t just meekly sit by, how she couldn’t keep herself to herself, how she couldn’t stop caring.

  She had to know if he was all right.

  If she took the staff entrance, Mr Simenon need never know. Despite Mrs Moffatt’s words, she had to see for herself. She had to do something. So, in her black felt coat and embroidered cap, she marched straight back to the service lift and down to the ground floor.

  She got to the staff exit without being seen. Then she was out, back into the chill darkness of Michaelmas Mews.

  As she reached the end of the mews and slipped out into Berkeley Square, she saw the headlamps of an approaching cab. Nancy stopped dead. The cab had screeched to a stop directly in front of the Buckingham Hotel and, as its doors opened, she saw Louis Kildare and Hélène Marchmont scrambling out. It was Louis who heaved the limp form of Raymond out of the back seat. He was bloody and bedraggled and, as Louis tried to hoist him up, he plummeted to the first of the hotel’s marble steps.

  ‘Go!’ Louis said urgently. ‘Hélène, get help!’

  Hélène Marchmont disappeared through the revolving bronze doors. When she returned, dragging Mr Simenon with her, the concierge’s face was a rictus of pure horror.

  ‘What in the Lord’s name happened to him?’

  ‘Help me with him, Albert. We’ll explain later . . .’

  ‘And get blood on this suit?’ Mr Simenon recoiled. ‘Wait here. I’ll fetch . . .’

  Mr Simenon made as if to retreat through the revolving door, but Hélène grappled with his arm. ‘Help him, you fool.’

  ‘Get him to the staff entrance,’ Mr Simenon hissed. ‘If the guests are to see—’

  ‘No!’ Hélène cried. ‘He needs—’

  Mr Simenon seemed animated, hopping from foot to foot with irritation. ‘If you people won’t listen, I’ll simply fetch Mr Charles. I’m waking Mr Charles this instant!’

  As Mr Simenon vanished back through the doors, Hélène clearly decided enough was enough. Dropping down, she inveigled herself under one of Raymond’s shoulders. Raymond dangled between Hélène and Louis heavily as they heaved him up the marble stairs – and the last thing Nancy saw, as the cab took off again with a screech of tyres and a spluttering of exhaust, was Raymond lolling between them as they disappeared through the revolving door.

  He was alive – and, even in spite of how battered and bloody he was, it made Nancy Nettleton’s heart soar.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE SUN HAD NOT YET cast its first glorious light on the trees and rooftops of Berkeley Square, but Mrs Moffatt moved hurriedly through the hallways of the Buckingham Hotel, riding the service lift to the staff quarters, then backtracking down the service stairs until she came to the secluded area where the managers’ residences lay. Behind the first door the night manager, a shadowy fellow who went by the name of Victor Garlick, was fast asleep; Mrs Moffatt fancied she could hear his snoring reverberating along the hall. She hurried past, to the door at the very end of the hall and knocked sharply. When no answer came, she knocked sharper still – and when no answer came again, she did something she had not expected to do. She reached into her pocket, produced a ring of keys as impressive as those of a medieval gaoler, and opened the door herself.

  The suite was empty. Mr Charles was nowhere to be seen. The four-poster bed in which he slept appeared untouched. His desk was neatly organised, with the Monarch typewriter sitting patiently and the ink pot, pencils and ruler arranged at perfect right angles. His evening suit was still hanging on the hanger in the open wardrobe. On the other side of the room, the curtains remained drawn – and it was this, more than any other thing, that convinced Mrs Moffatt that she was right; Maynard Charles had not awoken here in his official quarters, not this morning.

  But there is another place, she thought. Not that anyone knows about it but me . . .

  Locking the door behind her, she marched back to the lift and rode it down a further storey – where, by accessing another locked door, she slipped unnoticed among the guest suites. There was no time to apologise to Mr Levant, the ageing star of the Parisian music halls, as he stepped out of the Pacific Suite with his paramour, a young lady forty years his junior. Mrs Moffatt bustled past and turned the corner, where at last she stood in front of the unassuming door of the Park Suite.

  She knocked.

  She waited.

  She knocked again, more urgently this time, and relented only when she could hear the footsteps approaching on the other side.

  The door opened a crack and Maynard Charles appeared, his jowly face screwed up in consternation. ‘Emmeline,’ he ventured. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’

  There was no other reason that Mrs Moffatt might disturb him so. She knew better than to come to the Park Suite on a whim.

  ‘They’ve been looking for you all night, Maynard. Mr Simenon’s been high and low trying to track you down.’ Maynard Charles’s face curdled, but he gave Mrs Moffatt the nod, as if instructing her to go on. ‘You better see it for yourself, Maynard. It’s Raymond de Guise. Something terrible has happened.’

  *

  By the time Maynard Charles got to Raymond’s quarters, one of the hotel doctors – summoned at dawn from his Harley Street practice – was already in attendance. He sat at his bedside, and de Guise himself was trussed up like a hog. His face, a purpling mess of bruises and abrasions, was patched up in places, and his hair was smeared back to reveal where his scalp had been opened up in what Maynard Charles could only take for a public brawl. One of his arms was hanging in a sling, and he sat on the edge of his bed, stripped to the waist while the doctor – whom Maynard Charles recognised as Evelyn Moore, greying and distinguished after serving admirably in France during the Great War – ran fingers along his ribs and listened to the rattle in his breast.

  Raymond winced as Maynard Charles appeared, with Mrs Moffatt trailing behind. On another day he might have leaped to attention, but Doctor Moore had already told him that at least three of his ribs were fractured. The wrist in the sling was only a sprain, but that was little consolation, for he had already tried to hold a classic ballroom pose with the good doctor and the pain had been excruciating. The reason he did not smile at Mr Charles’s appearance was less
to do with the solemnity of the occasion than it was the fact that one of his front teeth had been sheared off at the root, and – no matter how many times he swilled his mouth out – the rest of it was still rimmed in scarlet.

  ‘Raymond,’ Mr Charles began. ‘You’re . . . alive, at least.’

  ‘Alive he might be,’ the doctor said, ‘but it isn’t good news, Maynard. His arm will take a week to stop feeling as sore. Another blow or two might have seen one of those ribs break fully. I’ve seen lungs punctured by little worse than this. But it’s his foot, Maynard.’ Doctor Evelyn Moore moved aside, to reveal the swollen horror of Raymond’s right foot. ‘I can’t be certain here, but I’d hazard it’s fractured here and here. We’ll have to use a compression dressing. Plenty of ice. Keep it elevated. He can try putting weight on it in a couple of weeks. But as for dancing? Well, if you’re lucky, you can have him at Christmas. If not—’

  ‘Christmas? That’s ten weeks and more . . .’

  Only now did he realise his mistake. When he’d opened his mouth in disbelief, he’d revealed the devastation of his smile. He breathed deeply, but his sinuses were swollen where his nose had been broken and reset – and the thought dawned on him that the handsome, debonair Raymond de Guise of old was gone. It was more like Ray Cohen to get caught in the middle of a public brawl than Raymond de Guise. The thought unnerved him.

  ‘Raymond, you bloody fool!’ Maynard Charles could barely control his fury. It erupted out of the corners of his mouth in a spray of spittle, before he swallowed it back down. ‘What in God’s name have you done to yourself?’

  Raymond uttered, ‘You should have seen the rest of them.’

  If Raymond had thought it might defuse the tension, he was wrong. Maynard Charles balled his fists and, this time, he could not control his explosion. ‘I pay you to be handsome, de Guise. I pay you for your elegance. Any damn fool can put on a show in that ballroom! What did you think it was that set you apart? Your dancing shoes? No, de Guise. Your face. Your beautiful, boyish face. Good Lord, man, was it worth it? Whoever’s wife you touched? Whoever’s sister you were romancing in one of your gentleman’s clubs?’