Grand Affair

by Charlotte Bingham

  As she had promised Sir Harold the bar menu was a welcoming choice of soup and salads all for one price and dinner a simple classically based menu. In fact everything had turned out how she had hoped. The reception rooms painted in old-fashioned pale colours, the flagstone floors laid with faded rugs, candlesticks commissioned from a local potter arranged on the dining tables with the new cypher Ottilie had designed set in the middle of their bases; and what with the old cream holland blinds that she had found in the attics cleaned up, and parchment lampshades over pink light bulbs softening the look of everything, it was probably not surprising, so speedy is ‘word of mouth’, that the Angel rarely had a table free.

  Thanks to Lorcan, in a matter of months Ottilie had gone from a sort of hopeless boredom to that state of being happily busy from early dawn to late at night without a moment to think of anything beyond the welfare of her staff and guests. All the more shocking therefore when one night she heard a scream coming from the dining room.

  A childhood spent in a hotel meant that even as Ottilie started to hurry towards the dining room she already knew that it would only be a matter of a moment before she was confronted by a white-faced waitress. At the Grand it had always been known as ‘the spider in the salad scream’ and whenever it had happened Alfred or Mrs Tomber had always sighed and shrugged their shoulders.

  As she waited in the service area for Jean to emerge from the dining room clutching a plate of roast pork and potatoes, half eaten, the knife and fork still on the plate, Ottilie reminded herself that this was always the first symbol of success in the hotel trade.

  ‘I just can’t believe it. I served the lady myself, Miss O’Flaherty, really I did. I know I would have noticed a piece of glass that size. ‘Sides, no-one’s broken anything for days.’

  Quickly calling Veronica to deal with the customer who had screamed, Ottilie herself rushed off to examine the piece. Having satisfied herself as to its exact shape and design she beckoned to Jean to follow her into the main part of the kitchen.

  ‘Crowd round, I want witnesses. Good. Now, Jean, you have not touched this piece of glass since the lady in question found it?’

  ‘No, Miss O’Flaherty.’

  ‘Mrs East,’ Ottilie turned to Cook, ‘please remove the piece with one of your serving spoons, and Martin – come here, please, bringing with you each of our glasses. Now you are all witnesses to this, and thank heavens we opted for the same design for all the glasses so there are definitely no variations in the rims. Now, see, the rim of the plant – because believe me this is what this is – if you look you can see it is quite different from our own, having a rolled edge to the top, whereas you can see our own glasses have no cheap rolled edge, they are quite plain.’

  There was a ripple of relief and then admiration from everyone around Ottilie. Barely able to contain her indignation, she said, ‘If you will please all follow me, bringing with you the plate, and the piece of glass on a napkin, we will see this one down and very publicly too.’

  Yet another murmur and the staff, looking amazed, followed Ottilie back through the service doors into the restaurant. Ottilie clapped her hands for attention as she remembered seeing her father do many times.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I want your attention please.’ She looked sharply round the room as she began to make her speech and saw at once to her immense disappointment that the woman who had screamed, and her companion, were no longer present. ‘As you no doubt just heard the lady who was only recently sitting at that table found a piece of glass in her food. A piece of glass that had no business in her food. A piece of glass, ladies and gentlemen, that had no business not just in her food but anywhere in this hotel since, ladies and gentlemen, and I have seven witnesses here to this effect, not one of our glasses have this design to their top. Hold it up please, Jean. Here is one of our glasses and here is the piece of glass just found. Take them round to each of the tables, please.’

  The strange little ceremony that followed started uncertainly but as each set of guests could see the point of what the management was trying to prove it gained in popularity. Ottilie once more clapped her hands for attention.

  ‘I think we are all agreed therefore, ladies and gentlemen, that this piece of glass did not come into this dining room via the kitchens?’

  ‘I’ve read about this sort of thing happening in restaurants, but never actually seen it for myself, d’you know? Fascinating, absolutely fascinating,’ one guest announced to everyone. ‘People like that should be shot.’

  ‘Yes they should be,’ Ottilie agreed, overhearing her. ‘Only trouble is that some minutes ago “they” disappeared before we could have the satisfaction of shooting them!’

  At which there was general laughter and eventually a return to the sort of heightened normality that always accompanies averted crises.

  ‘What a good thing you dealt with the situation as fast as you did,’ Veronica congratulated Ottilie. ‘Like something in a murder story, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I knew from my previous life at the Grand just what to look for. My father warned me, years ago, that they often make a fundamental mistake – with glass especially. They plant just any old piece, not one that matches the kind used at the hotel.’

  Veronica nodded but looked pensive suddenly. ‘Hope they don’t try again,’ she said, voicing Ottilie’s own fears.

  She had suddenly realized just what the real reason for Mrs Blaize’s sudden departure must have been, nothing to do with a sick husband and everything to do with sabotage. That must also be the reason for the Angel going downhill under previous managements, the usual dirty tricks. They’d already had false bookings but she had paid little attention to them.

  Poor old Geoff and Mrs Blaize, perhaps they had refused to pay protection, perhaps that was indeed why they had been in and out of the place so quickly?

  Ottilie breathed in deeply.

  ‘Do you know who it might be?’ Veronica persisted, her face anxious, her darkly lined eyes frowning, glasses on top of her head, her expression more earnest than ever.

  Ottilie couldn’t say ‘Yes, I have a horrible suspicion I do’ so instead, she said, ‘No.’

  When all was said and done Veronica was far too nice to be told whom it was that Ottilie really did suspect.

  Sixteen

  There it was. Ottilie stared at it hard, convinced just for a moment that it would go away. But no, it stayed. Quite black, confidently black, in fact the figures appeared to be so black that they almost seemed to be sitting up on the page on which they had been typed. But sitting up or lying down there they were and they were insistently exciting, because they meant there was money in her newly opened bank account, and in her name, and she had earned it all for herself, by herself.

  She put the envelope with her bank statement into the top drawer of the old white-painted chest of drawers and sitting down at her dressing table she stared at her image in the mirror in front of her. Things would not continue so well unless she found out, and soon, just who was behind paying that couple to put glass in their food the previous week. It would only take a few more such incidents and trade could be ruined in months.

  After all not every piece of glass could be proved not to be the property of the hotel, or as Veronica said, succinctly, ‘It’s going to be more difficult to prove that, say, a corn plaster in the soup is not the property of the Angel Inn, isn’t it?’

  She was right, and because she was right, Ottilie made, light of it. ‘Yes, that will be difficult,’ she agreed. ‘Still, all is not doom and gloom. I see the share price for the Clover House Group has rocketed.’ She gave a little whistle. ‘It seems Sir Harold’s enthusiasm for the individual is beginning to pay off.’ Ottilie placed the business section of the Daily Telegraph across Veronica’s typewriter.

  From the time she was quite small Ottilie had grown into the habit of consulting share prices, because she had so often been put to read them aloud to the old ladies and gentlemen staying at the Grand.
The habit of reading the business news first had become strangely ingrained.

  ‘Oh dear, have you seen this?’

  This time it was Veronica who laid the newspaper across Ottilie’s own desk. Ottilie picked it up. Amid all the words in front of her, small items of late foreign news, she saw only three – British officer killed.

  Right up until his posting, all through the winter, Philip had occasionally written to Ottilie, letters full of humorous observations and funny little cartoons of himself and fellow officers in the mess, himself with hangover, and all the usual sort of jokes doing the round of his regiment. Ottilie had read and re-read his few letters so often that they had become quite faded with the intensity of her devotion, and since he had been posted abroad she had tried to tell herself that crossing the road in St Elcombe, or driving too fast to London, was probably just as dangerous as being in the Army. Unfortunately, she was unable to convince herself.

  She knew just from the way he talked that being in the Army was all about being killed and no matter what Philip said or wrote to her about ‘keeping the peace’ in reality his life was all about being shot at. So that try as she might again and again, in the middle of the night, or when there was a slight lull in the day, she would find herself turning away from the image of Philip’s flag-draped coffin arriving back at St Elcombe station.

  Sometimes Ottilie had longed to ring Constantia, knowing that she was most probably more up to date with news about the conflict and surmising that she would doubtless have the kind of news that would never reach a newspaper. Most of the Granvilles’ friends were in the Army. Constantia would know wives with husbands in the same regiment as Philip, be friends with other sisters whose brothers were his fellow officers.

  Yet much as Ottilie longed to ring Constantia she knew that to do so would be to risk a rebuff. Philip’s disappearing to the island with Ottilie the night of the dinner dance would have been too public a display of ardour for Constantia. She was Philip’s only sister, his only real relative – his falling in love with Ottilie would not have been something she could welcome. Which was obviously the reason that Ottilie had not heard from anyone at Tredegar since the night of the party, which made it all the more surprising when minutes after seeing under ‘Late News – British officer killed in Cyprus’ Veronica, having answered the telephone, called quietly across the office, ‘A Miss Granville on the line for you, do you want to speak to her?’

  Ottilie nodded and took the receiver from Veronica, but as she did so she was so sure that Constantia was telephoning to tell her that Philip had been killed that she found she could not find her voice enough to say ‘hello’.

  Constantia spoke first, not bothering with ‘hello’. ‘No longer a Cartaret, eh?’ she said in her strangely boyish voice. ‘Well, never mind. Whatever you are now come to lunch tomorrow, will you?’

  Without saying any more she replaced the receiver, and Ottilie handed Veronica back the telephone. It was not until a few seconds had elapsed that she realized with relief that Constantia had never even mentioned Philip.

  She must have looked shaken because Veronica asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  Ottilie nodded, but Veronica could not have believed her because seconds later she sprang up and going to their refreshment cupboard quickly poured her a glass of water.

  Twenty-four hours later Ottilie found herself looking round the Angel’s restaurant and imagining what Constantia might be doing at that moment. Preparatory to their luncheon she would probably have been woken at around eight thirty by her maid bringing her the newspapers and a Lord Roberts Workshop tray laid with fresh orange juice, fresh coffee and some healthy toasted homemade bread.

  After that she would most likely have gone for a ride around the estate on her part-thoroughbred, jumping logs, cantering across meadows, her hair streaming out behind her, before returning to throw the reins at the groom and walk slowly up to the house for a long soak in a bath. Next she would dress slowly and carefully, probably choosing a plain silk shirt and immaculately cut trousers, which, after she had carefully knotted an Hermès scarf around her neck, would make her look just as everyone, everywhere, wanted their daughters to look. Correct, conservative, beautifully dressed, obviously and becomingly well bred and immensely suited to country life, and most particularly the front picture of the magazine of that name.

  By contrast, in order to take the necessary time out to go to lunch with Constantia at Tredegar Ottilie had had to set her alarm an hour earlier – at five o’clock instead of six. She went to market to buy all the fresh flowers preparatory to arranging them, and then checked with Mrs East as to the state of breakfast, especially for those guests who were having it in their rooms. The quality of the bread rolls and brioches must always be tested daily. (Two of Ottilie’s many hatreds were over-baked breakfast rolls or a brioche that was in any way greasy.)

  Next would be the luncheon dishes – which cold or hot soup they would be making, and which salads; and it never went amiss to check on the quality of the vegetables and taste the stock. Again, Mrs East, if not watched like a hawk, had the shocking habit of using cooked bones for stock which gave the soup a greasy edge.

  After this Ottilie had hopped upstairs to the dining rooms and checked on the table settings, the state of the cloakrooms and the bookings for the day, and popped in to see Veronica – this morning she had been in fine fettle, the inn having received a strong commendation in Saxone Addington’s Guide to England. Although not a Michelin star, they both agreed it was at least something.

  After all this Ottilie had just enough time to run up to her newly painted white room and throw herself into a cotton dress, at the same time pulling on her new navy shoes – which had to double both for good occasions and work – and equally hurriedly brush her hair, freshen her lipstick, jump into Oscar and drive herself to Tredegar, and so it was only as she was heading out through the high hedges, her mind still back at the hotel, that Ottilie realized with a sudden rush of feeling that she was, after all this time, actually on her way to Philip’s old home, and that even if he himself was not there, something of him would be.

  More than that perhaps something of both of them would still be there? Perhaps their auras had been left on the island dancing to his small portable gramophone. As Oscar chugged noisily through the winding lanes, Ottilie once again lived through waiting in Philip’s car at Tredegar while he said goodbye to family and friends. She remembered the way they held hands even when he changed gear on the way to the station, and how the sounds of the train doors closing seemed so final as they clung to each other. And then the sight of his fair hair out of the window and his hand still waving, until the railway track turned and sloped away and the train disappeared from sight.

  Ottilie felt sure that all that part of her life would still be there waiting for her at Tredegar, and suddenly she felt so excited it was almost as if she was driving to meet Philip himself. Being at Tredegar again would be like holding hands with Philip. It would be magical.

  There was a mile-long drive at Tredegar but no way that visitors could arrive outside the Elizabethan front door except on foot, feet that took them over an old, worn, and slightly sloping stone path flanked on either side by immaculate lawn, a walk which was so quietly executed in the quiet of the English countryside that Ottilie imagined that not even the dogs could have heard her, yet somehow Constantia had – managing to throw open the old oak door the moment Ottilie stretched out her hand to reach the door knocker, able to stand framed in the old entrance with her family’s coat of arms over the front door and greet Ottilie as if she had known to a second when she would arrive.

  ‘Ot-ti-lie. How good of you to come. And at such short notice.’

  Ottilie had forgotten Constantia’s habit of breaking up her name into three syllables making it sound strangely foreign and Frenchified. As a child Ottilie had found it vaguely irritating, as she did now, but they bumped cheeks adroitly in greeting, neither of them wishing to leave lipstick on
the other’s face.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ Constantia beckoned to Ottilie, even though she was already stepping over the threshold into the cool air of the still familiar large hall with its rush matting, its suits of armour, but no dogs. ‘Both the dogs died, I’m afraid,’ Constantia said, as Ottilie’s eyes looked and did not find. ‘Danes don’t live that long, and what with Philip being away I didn’t know what new beasts to order, really.’

  She was speaking of the magnificent Great Danes with their dark grey-black coats and their yellow eyes as if they had been part of the inanimate fire ornaments, iron ‘dogs’ or toasting forks or pokers, not the beautiful creatures that Philip loved so and upon whose heads he and Ottilie had used to lean and stare into the fire while they toasted muffins or roasted chestnuts.

  ‘Tredegar doesn’t seem Tredegar somehow without Great Danes,’ Ottilie told Constantia who immediately looked irritated, her eagle’s eyes becoming cold and dismissive, and once again Ottilie realized just how quickly things changed within only a few months.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs to my private sitting room. We’re lunching in the breakfast room, or if it stays fine we’ll eat out under the mulberry tree in the Courtyard Garden, if you like.’

  But seconds later the heavens appeared to have opened, so that when they approached the landing and turned to go down the main corridor off which Constantia had made herself a sitting room, Ottilie could see the rain bouncing erratically off the old diamond-shaped window panes, and lightning zedding across from the sea that lay beyond the trees. Lunching outside did not seem to be going to be an option.