One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

  *

  In the ballroom, the guests had got to their feet as soon as the dressing-room doors opened and the orchestra walked out to take their places. Then, as soon as they were assembled, a single spotlight flared, picking out the dressing-room door. The doors swung open again – and, into the halo, stepped Archie Adams himself. It was then that the applause went up, filling the ballroom with appreciative thunder. The legendary bandleader paused to soak it up – this was his moment, the finest of the year – and walked purposefully to the stage. The applause was still rolling as he settled behind the gleaming white lacquered grand piano. His orchestra were arranged around him, resplendent in their snowy white jackets and golden collars.

  The first tune struck up, to be met by a wall of applause. The band would begin the evening gently, with their ‘Californian Serenade’. Maynard Charles had heard it a hundred times before, but tonight it was only the hors d’oeuvre. He himself had signed the invoices to pay for the guest singers. Alfredo Bianchi had played the game well, countering the Buckingham with an offer he’d received from the Savoy. Tonight, the music would be perfect. The guests here could dance until the band played their big band version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Then they could dance on into the dawn.

  The band played on, but no dancers had appeared.

  Maynard Charles cast his eyes around the room. The longer the music played, the more bewildered the glances that came his way. He crossed the ballroom to where Lord Edgerton reclined with his wife at his side and his entourage around him. The royal party themselves were on their feet, waiting for the doors to open and the dancers to appear. Until they did, the night had not formally begun.

  ‘Is something the matter, Mr Charles?’ Lord Edgerton intoned.

  ‘Nothing, sir. The Buckingham runs like clockwork.’

  ‘You are behaving in a most skittish manner for someone who believes there is nothing wrong, Mr Charles. Need I remind you . . .’ Lord Edgerton’s eyes rolled over to where the royal party gathered. The crown princess was a vision of vermillion, holding her mask on a stick in front of her eyes. ‘Find out what’s wrong,’ Lord Edgerton hissed. ‘Music in a ballroom without dance is a farce, not a celebration.’

  Maynard nodded. He felt the sweat gathering at his collar. He cast his mind back, to Aubrey sitting up high in the Park Suite, to the visions of foreboding he’d had last night. Somebody would know what was going on back there. Where was Billy Brogan when you needed him?

  Maynard Charles stomped across the ballroom – but he had not gone halfway when the doors at the head of the Grand burst open, and from them appeared two dancers, frantically turning around each other until they reached the centre of the floor. Behind them came the rest of the troupe. Each partnership spiralled away from the others in a flourish, perfectly synchronised.

  The band struck up a new song. The guests were suddenly on their feet. Couples rushed to the edge of the dance floor, eager to see the performance before they too could get lost in the music. Maynard muscled through them to do the same. But there was something bothering him about the two principal dancers who had led the others out onto the ballroom floor. They were wearing masks so he could not see their faces, but there was something about the way they held themselves, something about their statures and shapes. He lifted his half-moon spectacles up from the bridge of his nose.

  His jaw dropped. No, he was not mistaken. He glanced feverishly around, in case Lord Edgerton too had noticed. The atmosphere in the ballroom was thrilling at last – but the two dancers leading the show were not Nathaniel White and Hélène Marchmont.

  *

  Vivienne had already crashed into the guest lift by the time Nancy reached the reception hall. She saw its golden cage closing as a sobbing Vivienne disappeared into the uppermost reaches of the Buckingham Hotel. Nancy careered across the red and black chequered tiles, hurling herself through housekeeping until she reached the service lift. The cage itself was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it was being loaded on one of the other storeys. She prowled the corridor for only a second, before deciding that any second she waited here was a second too long. There were still stairs. Her leg would not like her for it, but the pain would not last for ever; and, no matter what she’d done, no matter what kind of girl she was, Vivienne Edgerton needed a friend now.

  Nancy reached the stairwell, took the steps two at a time. Miss Edgerton, please. Please wait. You don’t need your drugs. All you need is . . .

  By the second storey her leg was already putting up a protest, but she hurried on. By the fourth, she had slowed. The staircase seemed interminable. She clung to the banister and heaved herself up – and, by the time she reached the sixth storey, her leg was throbbing with pain.

  No matter. Vivienne’s suite was only yards away. She could see its door hanging open.

  In the moment before she reached it, Nancy had a terrible vision: Vivienne lying pale and white on the bed, all of the life drained from her body.

  Is it that bad, Vivienne? Is your life really that bad?

  Nancy crashed through the open door – and there she was. The drawer from the bottom of her dresser had been upended on the bed. Vivienne was manically rifling through it. As Nancy staggered to the foot of the bed, Vivienne found what she was looking for: a little lavender pouch. She opened it up and emptied its contents into her palm: two tiny phials of crystalline powder.

  ‘Vivienne.’

  Vivienne looked up. Her face was red and raw. Her eyes were smears of black where her make-up had been kneaded away. She was beautiful, thought Nancy, but she was feral as well.

  ‘What are you doing here? Get out. Get out! I’ll have Maynard Charles summoned. I’ll have you fired. I’ll—’

  ‘No,’ said Nancy, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Vivienne, I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘You’ll call me Miss Edgerton, or you’ll—’

  ‘Your name is Vivienne. I’ll call you Vivienne. Vivienne, you can summon Mr Charles. You can make it so that I never set foot in the Buckingham Hotel. It doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Would you put them down, Vivienne? You don’t need to do this. You’re better than it. Stronger.’

  ‘Stronger?’ she gasped. ‘Better? What does it even mean? I am what I am. Look at me. Here I am. This is me. This is all there is.’

  Nancy inched around the edge of the bed. ‘That isn’t it at all. That stuff in your hand, it’s not you. I said it to my father once and I’ll say it to you now. You can take those powders, or you can throw them away, be done with them forever. That choice – that’s what you are.’

  Vivienne wheeled around. The top of her dresser was a chaos of Maybelline face powders and Guerlain lipsticks, the bottle of Chanel, all the little odds and ends she’d been given for Christmas. She swept it all aside, glass shattering and powders puffing into the air as the bottles and boxes hit the floor. Then, settling down, she took the stoppers out of each of the phials and carefully laid a trail of the white powder on the surface of the wood.

  Nancy dared come no closer. There was a look of such concentration on Vivienne’s face.

  ‘You didn’t deserve it,’ Nancy blurted out.

  Vivienne froze.

  ‘Nathaniel White. He used you to get into the ballroom. He cheated and he connived. You didn’t matter to him. Nobody does. And Vivienne – you didn’t deserve it.’ She enunciated the last words so clearly that they seemed to punch their way through Vivienne’s armour. She turned away from the intoxicating drug for the first time. ‘You’ve been resisting it, haven’t you?’ Nancy ventured. ‘Billy Brogan procured you those drugs before Christmas. And that means . . . You want to stop, don’t you? You know you nearly died right here – right here on this carpet! – and you want to stop.’

  ‘I should have died here,’ Vivienne trembled. ‘If it wasn’t for you, I would have. And then I wouldn’t feel like this, would I? I wouldn’t feel anything at all. And God knows, I don’t want to feel it. I don�
��t want to feel a thing . . .’

  Nancy had been holding back, but something told her that now was the moment. She stepped forward, sat on the bed at Vivienne’s side.

  ‘Why would you help me? Why would you pick me up off this carpet? What are you doing here, even now? I was horrible to you. I was wicked.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nancy. She dared lift an arm and put it around Vivienne’s shoulder. ‘But it doesn’t matter. It’s only words. Words can be undone. But this thing? This thing you’re about to do? That can’t be undone, Vivienne. And, Vivienne, the world doesn’t want you to die.’

  ‘The world doesn’t want me at all. You don’t know what I did . . .’

  Nancy was still.

  ‘I sent that poor girl out into the snow. I made her think her baby was dying. And for what? So that he might dance with me? So that it might be me out there in the ballroom? So that, for just one evening, my mother and the others might have seen me, thought something good of me, realised what she did when she chose him over me . . .’

  The sobs erupted out of her in a great geyser. She crumpled, and at last she was in Nancy’s arms.

  ‘I hate this hotel,’ she uttered. ‘I hate being here, in this country, where I don’t know a soul. I hate my stepfather for bringing me here. I hate my mother for letting him. I hate it every time I breathe them in, those powders Mr Simenon brings. I hate it every time I ask for another cocktail in the Candlelight Club and some waiter comes running. And the men. They don’t want me for me. I . . .’ For a moment she was lost for words. She sank further into Nancy’s arms. ‘I hate myself,’ she sobbed – and after that she said no more.

  Nancy held her softly, then held her tighter still. Vivienne’s body quaked up against her until, after a time, she was as still as a child.

  *

  The dance was almost at its end. The two principals turned, came apart, and came back together again. The male lead swooped his partner forward, then back, lifting her from the ground as they spiralled together, hitting the final beat in perfect harmony. Then, in a fanfare of trumpets and Archie Adams’ hands ricocheting up and down the piano, the music came to an end. An explosion of applause erupted. On the ballroom floor, the dan-cers stopped, breathless, each couple clasping hands and bowing towards their principals.

  The masked male lead released the hand of his partner and strutted along the gleaming wooden squares, the rest of the dancers forming an aisle around him. As he reached the edge of the dance floor, his chest puffed out – and, from the balustrade where he watched, Maynard Charles thought that he held himself like a hero from classical myth.

  At the very head of the dance floor, the Norwegian royals stood together, proudly joining in the applause. Märtha, the crown princess, was up against the balustrade, beating her hands more fervently than the rest. The lead dancer stopped at the bottom of the stair. He bowed and, upon rising, extended his hand to her.

  ‘Your Highness,’ he ventured, ‘shall we?’

  The orchestra were striking up another tune. The guest singer Alfredo Bianchi had emerged from the ranks to stand beside Archie Adams. He crooned the opening words of Archie’s first ever hit.

  The crown princess took the principal’s hand – and it was then that, with his free hand, he reached up and took the mask from his face. Dark almond eyes stared out. Black hair sailed wild around his perfectly imperfect face.

  ‘Your Highness,’ the principal dancer began, ‘my name is Raymond de Guise. Welcome to the Buckingham Hotel. For the rest of the evening, I remain at your service.’

  All across the dance floor, the professional dancing couples came apart as the guests streamed down to meet them. Still at the balustrade, Maynard Charles watched Raymond de Guise guiding the crown princess to the dance floor. And, in that second, all of the worry, all of the anxiety, all of his fear for the future of his hotel and country, evaporated away. Whatever had happened backstage at the Buckingham ballroom, and whatever was coming, outside in the real world, could wait. For now, Raymond de Guise was where he belonged, the king of the dance floor, putting on the performance of his life – and, if only for a fleeting moment on this most tempestuous night, everything was right.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  BY THE TIME THE OMNIBUS reached Westminster, Hélène Marchmont knew it could go no further. The snow that tumbled down had turned the abbey into a castle plucked straight out of the pages of the fairy tales she used to read – the fairy tales she one day wanted to enjoy with Sybil – but it had transformed other things too. London was swiftly becoming iced in white, and the windows of the omnibus were plastered in snowflakes so that she could barely see the streets outside. ‘We’re not going over the bridge,’ the driver said in his gruff Glaswegian accent, stepping outside to see the state of the road for himself. ‘I’m taking her back to the depot before I have to spend the night with her. All change!’

  Some of the rag-tag of other passengers put up a protest, but Hélène did not have the time to lose. Reeling out into the falling snow, she pulled down her cloche hat – it provided so little comfort from the cold – and peered up and down the Horse Guards Road. Ribbons of white were twirling everywhere, St James’s Park itself hidden behind the shifting veil. As the rest of the passengers fanned out, some bound for Westminster Bridge, some back the way the omnibus had brought them, Hélène looked desperately for a hansom cab. But it was all so futile. It was New Year, and London was a fantasia of white. She may as well have looked for a single specific snowflake among the many millions that fell.

  She stopped dead. She wanted to scream. She wanted . . .

  She needed to get to Sybil before this night was out. Anything less and all of this – the secrets, the lies, the double life she had been living – was in vain. Anything less and she was not fit to be a mother.

  She turned to face the river. The Palace of Westminster was above her, crowned in ice. If there were no more taxicabs, she decided, she would just have to walk. She took her first steps, felt the chill of the snow creeping up over her feet. She looked down. The snow was clinging in clumps to her dainty dancing shoes. She’d left in such a hurry that she hadn’t thought to take them off.

  The snow hardened as she stepped out onto Westminster Bridge. High above, Big Ben began tolling out the hour.

  Over the river, through the warren of Lambeth town, there was at least some shelter from the snow. From the taprooms she passed she could hear the sounds of music, of song and dance and cheer, and fleetingly she cast her mind back to the Buckingham and the Masquerade Ball. It would not have taken long for them to realise she was gone. She could imagine the panic that had ricocheted around the dressing rooms. She could imagine the way Nathaniel White’s face would have paled to think that his routine, his chance at glory, was being scuppered. But Hélène cared nothing for that. Better out here, the cold already deep in her bones, than quickstepping around the ballroom on the arm of one of Lord Edgerton’s cronies.

  She was fighting her way down the Albert Embankment when she became aware of the headlamps behind her. She looked over her shoulder, uncertain what to expect, and saw the cab grind to a halt. Out of the window, a voice cried out, ‘Where are you going, love?’, and Hélène called back, ‘Brixton Hill!’

  ‘You’d best hop in then. You’ll catch your death out there.’

  Hélène thought that was true. The fire in her heart still burned brightly enough, but her fingers, the tips of her toes, all of them were numb.

  By the time the cab slid past the great grey churches of Brixton Hill, Hélène’s heart was beating hard.

  Finally, they came to the corner of Sudbourne Road. There were lights on in the Archer place. She could see the silhouette of their Christmas tree up against the curtains. Was it really only a week since she’d come here, since she’d held her darling Sybil in her arms?

  ‘Is something the matter, love? Is it anything I can help with?’

  Hélène froze. She would not look up.

>   After a time, the taxi driver said, ‘Have you got plans, love? I promised the wife I’d be home for midnight so we’d see it in together. For the kids, you know. Have you got any children yourself?’

  Hélène crumpled the telegram in her hand. All of those nights, waltzing in the ballroom. All of those afternoons demonstrating dances alongside Raymond de Guise. All of those dignitaries and statesmen who requested her by name when they came to grace the Buckingham Hotel. What was it all for, if not this? She closed her eyes and, fleetingly, imagined life as it might have been: she and Sidney and Sybil, in a little house of their own. In her mind, Sybil was toddling along a burgundy carpet, and Hélène was in the kitchen – no longer a dancer, nor a model staring out of the pages of a magazine. Simply a mother. An ordinary, decent, loving mother . . .

  The taxi driver was waiting. Hélène steeled herself. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘let me . . .’

  She was fumbling in the pocket of her woollen coat for whatever payment she could find, when the taxi driver put his hand over hers and whispered, ‘Off with you, now. You don’t owe me a penny. Happy New Year, Miss.’

  Moments later, Hélène heard the car wheels whining as the driver took off. She stood in the snow and looked up at the face of the house, afraid of what she might find.

  She knocked.

  She knocked again.

  She knocked, harder and harder, so hard that lights came on in the neighbouring houses.

  Her heart was beating a thousand different rhythms.

  There came a clatter of footsteps on the other side of the door and it drew open, spilling the light from within. Noelle Archer was standing there with the most inscrutable expression, as if she hadn’t expected Hélène at all.

  ‘Noelle, I got your message. Am I . . . Am I too late? Noelle, is she…’

  Hélène wanted to say more, but the cold had robbed her of all breath. She strode through, Noelle’s face opening wide as she floundered past, and took off up the hall . . .