One Enchanted Evening

by Anton du Beke

  I won’t give anything away in this letter, in case you’ve skipped straight to here but I will tell you a bit about the inspiration behind it. The first half of the last century is truly the most fascinating period. So much happened in the world during this time – even without the two World Wars – it is a part of history that I truly love. Back then the ballroom truly was central to your social life, they really knew how to dance back then! Plus dance was evolving, people were starting to travel more and bringing with them new styles of music and, in turn, new styles of dance. The Latin dances we know today were just gaining popularity and were seen as very risqué.

  I always knew I wanted to set the book in a London hotel, not only because of their magnificent ballrooms but because it gave me an opportunity to bring together characters from all of the world and all walks of life. Where else would a cockney lad meet a Princess from Europe? And so much happens in hotels, there’s so many private corners for deals to be struck and gossip to be shared. Raymond De Guise – one of my main characters is a demonstration dancer in the Buckingham’s Grand Ballroom. He gets to see it all – hobnobbing with the highest of society, whilst living in the staff quarters and hearing all the goings on. Not to mention, he’s dashingly handsome and extraordinarily charming – not unlike myself!

  The dancing, London scene, the hotel, the intrigue, the romance, all the characters, the band, bandleader; all of these creations have featured in my life, in some form, at some point – to varying degrees. Well, except for the period, of course. I wasn’t around in 1936.

  I truly hope you enjoy reading about the world of the Buckingham Hotel as much as I enjoyed creating it!

  For all the latest news about my novel (and Strictly, too, of course!) do sign up for my mailing list, details for which you can find on my website: http://www.antondubeke.tv/

  Love,

  Anton

  P. S. Don’t forget to follow me:

  @TheAntonDuBeke

  @MrAntonDuBeke

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  Return to the Buckingham Hotel in . . .

  Read on for an extract . . .

  Prologue

  8 December, 1937

  The Grand Ballroom, the Buckingham Hotel

  FIRST THERE COMES THE CONFUSION.

  Moments later: the screams.

  Welcome to the Grand Ballroom of the Buckingham Hotel, a place of music and magic, of magnificence and splendour. Strung high with decorations for the Christmas festivities, today it is banked in a dozen miniature Norwegian firs, all of them bedecked in crystals and lights – while, gathered around its chequered dance floor, gather the great and good of London town.

  There is nowhere else, no other dazzling palace or mansion in Mayfair, that the finest members of society would rather be.

  But now . . .

  The guests cease their toing and froing and turn to the head of the ballroom, where arched doors lead to a place of enchantment beyond. It is from these doors that the proud musicians of the Archie Adams Orchestra make their daily march. It is from these doors that the Buckingham’s feted dancers glide and twirl to take up their positions on the hotel’s legendary ballroom floor.

  And it is from these doors, now, that a chaos of black smoke erupts.

  The doors explode outwards, disgorging frightened musicians and dancers. On a tide of roiling black smoke, they come, clinging to each other as they escape the blaze behind. Soon, the guests are flocking to the edges of the room, making for the doors. Sensing danger, they take flight, up and out of the Grand Ballroom itself.

  In the middle of the dance floor, one dishevelled figure stops. Doubled over, taking great gulps of air, he gathers his composure and draws himself to his full height. His black hair is unruly, his stature imposing. His sad, dark eyes suggest a certain, tragic kind of beauty.

  He looks back.

  Through the dressing room doors, beyond the churning smoke, somebody is screaming.

  Somebody is screaming his name.

  ‘Raymond!’

  Raymond de Guise, lead dancer at the Buckingham, barely misses a beat. His eyes pan around, taking in the guests and hotel staff who are rushing to the ballroom to lend what assistance they can, and pick out one figure among them. Nancy Nettleton tries to push through the crowd to reach Raymond – but Raymond is already resolved, his mind already made up.

  He turns to face the doors that just cast him out. The flames are fiercer now, advancing angrily through the smoke.

  ‘Raymond!’ the voice calls. ‘Raymond!’

  There are moments in life when you act without thinking, when you forget all thoughts of the future and act now, because you must, before it’s too late.

  Lives change in moments like these.

  For Raymond de Guise, this is one of those moments.

  So he plunges into the fire . . .

  Eight Months Earlier . . .

  April 1937

  Chapter One

  THE INAUGURAL SPRING BALL AT the Buckingham Hotel was about to begin, and in the Grand Ballroom, strings of yellow lights were arranged in garlands.

  The saxophonists, trumpeters and trombonists of the Archie Adams Orchestra had already taken their places on the ballroom stage when the doors opened up and there, framed in their light, stood Archie Adams himself. Distinguished and grey, wearing his trademark black bow tie, with eyes the cobalt of the skies above Berkeley Square, he soaked up the applause of the guests who filled the ballroom. Then, taking up his stool behind the grand piano, he ran his fingers along the ivory keys . . . and the ballroom came alive.

  For a moment, Archie seemed imperious, the king of the ballroom: a god with grey hair and a suit of tailored white silk. Under his direction, the old Duke Ellington number, ‘In a Sentimental Mood’, filled the cavernous interior of the Grand. Excitement stirred around its edges, where lords and ladies – and every debutante recently presented at the royal court – had been holding their breath in anticipation. Conversations were silenced. Heads turned. As one, the hotel’s guests watched, rapt, as the Buckingham’s dancers flocked out onto the floor.

  Hidden among the debutantes stood a tall girl with immaculately sculpted auburn hair and a gown of golden satin, embroidered with strings of pearls along its every seam. Although she looked young enough to be a debutante herself, Vivienne Edgerton could scarcely tolerate the shrieks of delight which filled her ears when, down on the dance floor, the elegant Hélène Marchmont twirled around her partner. Hélène had been a star at the Buckingham ever since the Grand opened its doors, but Vivienne’s eyes were fixed, instead, on Hélène’s partner – the Buckingham’s male principal, with his wild black hair and sad, almond eyes. A girl could get lost in those eyes, thought Vivienne. They invited you to fall in, deep and fast. And those arms . . .

  ‘In A Sentimental Mood’ was coming to an end. The orchestra exploded in a rapture of trombone. On the ballroom floor, the hotel dancers fanned apart, reaching out to partner up with the guests waiting on its fringes, while in its heart Hélène and her debonair partner came to the climax of their dance. Arms around each other, they turned and turned again. Vivienne watched the way they gazed at each other, with such exquisite longing. Then, with the final flourish from the orchestra, they came apart to soak up the applause.

  In the middle of the ballroom stood Hélène Marchmont . . .

  . . . and Gene Sheldon, formerly of the Imperial Hotel, newly made the principal dancer at the Buckingham itself.

  Vivienne watched, with something approaching amusement, as Sheldon waltzed away to accept the hand of the first debutante who reached him. He was a serviceable dancer, she supposed. He’d made a name for himself, romancing the guests at the Imperial. But he was no Raymond de Guise.

  The band was lurching into its next number when Vivienne felt a tap on her arm – and turned to discover Billy Brogan standing at her heel. Brogan was still like a faithful hound, Vivienne decided, even though this new season found him
in the smart black uniform of the hotel’s concierges, not the forgettable grey that the hotel pages all wore. Sixteen years old, and two years Vivienne’s junior, Billy had been a page until his recent promotion. He was not a bad sort, but he had a tendency to hang about like a bad smell.

  ‘What is it, Billy?’ Vivienne asked.

  ‘Mr Charles sent me for you. He’s asked for an audience.’

  Asked for an audience? Vivienne tried to stifle her smile. Ever since Brogan had accepted his appointment as a new concierge, he had been adopting strange airs and graces. The boy thinks he’ll be hotel director one day, if he plays his cards right. But Vivienne knew that, in an establishment like the Buckingham, social climbing would only take errant Irish lads like Billy Brogan so far.

  ‘Haven’t you outgrown being Maynard Charles’s errand boy, Billy?’

  Billy drew himself to his full height and beamed. ‘I’m always eager to be of service, Miss Edgerton.’

  Admitting defeat, Vivienne strode up and out of the Grand, while behind her Gene Sheldon glided effortlessly from one side of the ballroom to another, a beautiful debutante in his arms.

  The Grand Ballroom may have been launching into its spring spectacular, but that did not mean the machinations of the broader Buckingham Hotel could grind to a halt. As Vivienne crossed the glittering reception hall, a party of guests fresh in from Salzburg were being attended to by one of the day managers, while the doors of the golden lift opened to reveal an elderly dowager, weighed down by a gown of ivory silk.

  With the music fading behind her, Vivienne crossed the check-in desks and, following a familiar corridor, came to the office at its end. Many were the times she had attended this office and stood outside its doors as if she were still a despairing schoolgirl awaiting a scolding. But she’d been quiet – quiet and clean – for three months now. The staff and the guests at the Buckingham Hotel must have thought she was a ghost, so rarely was she seen among them. It had never been Vivienne’s decision to come and live at the Buckingham Hotel. That had been the doing of her stepfather, Lord Edgerton himself – who had forced upon her not only his name, but a new residence, a new country, dragging her away from New York and keeping her at arm’s length from her own mother. But she had resolved, after last Christmas, that she did not want any more trouble.

  So what am I doing here at all?

  She knocked and waited for the deep, baritone voice to summon her through. Maynard Charles, the hotel director, was sitting behind his desk – as he did every evening – filling in a variety of ledger books and memos. He bade her to sit. A portly man, nearing sixty, he was wearing his usual pinstriped shirt and braces over his not insignificant belly. A tumbler of brandy was perched on the edge of his desk.

  Vivienne waited until he was done, her eyes roaming the shelves. There were row after row of ledger books, chronicling in columns of profit and loss the peculiar history of the Buckingham Hotel. The head of a stag, shot by one of the hotel’s first directors, was mounted on mahogany and glared down from above Maynard’s desk.

  ‘Miss Edgerton,’ he said at last, ‘I’m sorry to take you from the festivities.’

  Maynard Charles had a paternalistic tone, but Vivienne knew it was calculated; he had never become a father, because his life had been devoted to the smooth operation of the Buckingham Hotel. All twelve hundred of its staff were his children, from its elegant dancers to its porters and pages.

  ‘Am I to understand that I’ve done something wrong?’ Vivienne tried not to, but she needled him further. ‘Committed another great sin, perhaps?’

  Maynard raised an eyebrow, pointedly refusing to be baited. ‘I received a telephone call from your father’s secretary this afternoon – on a matter grave enough that she had thought to query me before involving your father.’

  ‘My stepfather,’ Vivienne interjected, with ice in her voice.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Maynard, standing at last. ‘Might I pour you a drink?’

  ‘I don’t care for brandy. I was happy with the Moët they’re serving up down in the Grand. Mr Charles, if I haven’t done anything wrong – and I haven’t, I’m quite certain of that – might I be permitted to return? I’ve kept myself clean since Christmas. I’m trying my best to . . . go unnoticed. But I’ve been anticipating the Spring Ball and I was looking forward to dancing.’

  ‘This is important. Lord Edgerton’s secretary feels she must take it to him, unless I can tell her robustly that nothing is amiss.’ He paused, composing himself as if for a grand announcement. ‘It hasn’t gone unnoticed, in this hotel, that since the debacle at Christmas – when, let’s not beat around the bush, Vivienne, you were close to perishing from your overindulgences – you have withdrawn from life inside and outside the Buckingham. You haven’t been on lavish spending missions into the Regent Street arcades. You haven’t frequented the Queen Mary, the Candlelight Club, nor any of our other restaurants and bars. Why, I believe your appearance at tonight’s Spring Ball might be the first time you’ve worn a ball gown all year.’

  Vivienne bristled. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Miss Edgerton, you haven’t drawn on your stepfather’s allowance in one hundred and eleven days. The generous stipend he permits you is simply accruing in an account – and his secretary is questioning why. Why would Vivienne Edgerton suddenly stop spending? Why is she ordering simple room service meals instead of sitting at the table of honour in the Queen Mary? Why isn’t she dragging a hotel concierge out with her into the boutiques of Mayfair?’

  Vivienne felt herself growing angry. It was just like her stepfather to have his minions watch her like this. Wasn’t it enough that she was banished from his Suffolk estate so that he could have her mother all to himself?

  The words were rising up her pale, swan-like throat of their own volition. She blurted them out.

  ‘I’m eighteen years old. Nearly nineteen. I’ll not be a kept woman. He’s turned my mother into his pet and he tried to do the same to me. Well, I made a resolution, Mr Charles. I’m through with it. All the money in the world doesn’t matter to me.’

  Maynard Charles remained silent.

  ‘Oh, I know what you think. I’d be thinking it too. Who is Vivienne Edgerton without a new outfit every single night? Well, I’ll tell you who. I’m me. All of that money he throws at me – it isn’t for my benefit. It’s to keep me quiet and pliant. And all the while it’s been . . . rotting me. Yes, that’s the word. Rot! You spend and it fills a hole inside you. But the next time you spend, the hole’s a little deeper, so you need to spend more. Soon enough, you’re destroying yourself – just like I did last Christmas. So I don’t want his money, Mr Charles!’

  ‘Vivienne,’ Maynard began calmly, ‘money doesn’t have to corrode. Money makes the world go round.’

  ‘I’m a leech, Mr Charles. Oh, he makes sure I pay my way in this hotel, and of course you benefit from it too. A permanent guest in the finest suite! But I do not want to remain a leech any longer. I want to contribute. I’m worth more than dresses and pearls, aren’t I? I can . . . help.’

  ‘Help?’ To Maynard, the idea was patently absurd.

  ‘Not the hotel,’ Vivienne went on, ‘but there has to be something for me. Some way of mattering. Not like my stepfather and his parties and his hunts.’

  Maynard rounded the desk and perched on its edge, close to where Vivienne sat. She shuffled backwards; it was just like Maynard Charles to come and patronise her. The old man meant well, and she knew he’d covered for her indiscretions on more than one occasion in the past, but how could he ever understand what it felt like to be trapped like this, trapped in her own skin?

  ‘Let me tell you something, Miss Edgerton. Your stepfather and those like him, men of great means – they do contribute. Without men of great wealth, establishments like the Buckingham would evaporate. Thousands of livelihoods would vanish, just like that. Thousands of families would be back on the breadline. And, without the money they earn, thousands more would feel
the effect – all the bakeries they go to, all the haberdashers they frequent. Great wealth doesn’t sit still. It ripples out, like a stone dropped in a pond. It provides. That’s why . . .’ He paused. ‘That’s why what we do here at the Buckingham is so important. That’s why it has to survive.’

  Was Vivienne mistaken, or was there something faintly anxious in the way Maynard Charles had started to speak? Whatever the case, she had not come here for a lesson in economics. ‘My stepfather doesn’t care for the people this hotel supports. He cares for the way the manager at Lloyds fawns all over him each time he makes an appearance. No, profit isn’t good enough for me, Mr Charles. I want to help.’

  Nodding, Maynard returned to his desk and picked up his fountain pen once again.

  ‘Find a way to satisfy your needs – but, if you would, do it without provoking the attention of your stepfather. There are choppy waters ahead for the Buckingham Hotel. I would rather navigate them without my eye being drawn to another one of your “problems”. Are we agreed?’

  Vivienne stood, smarting as she smoothed down her gown. Only when she was back at the door, listening to the sounds of a Viennese waltz drifting up from the ballroom, did she look back.

  ‘Is everything all right at the Buckingham, Mr Charles?’

  Maynard barely looked up as he constructed his reply. ‘We must achieve some sense of balance, Miss Edgerton. Some new normality. Since King Edward abdicated, we are without our principal benefactor. Reputation matters in an establishment like ours. Hence, efforts like our inaugural Spring Ball. Hence . . .’ He laid down his fountain pen and looked up. ‘You must already know, from rumours in this hotel if not from your stepfather himself, that we are seeking new investment. Our eyes have turned to America, Miss Edgerton – because if I am right, and war is to come to the Continent, we will not be able to count on our German dignitaries for very much longer.’