Grand Affair

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Kitty,’ she exclaimed, ‘what are you doing here!’

  Twenty-Two

  ‘My dear little Miss Ottilie, how are you?’

  The newly installed telephone had rung on her newly acquired partner’s desk, the sound seeming to echo round the still barely furnished room making it sound louder and more demanding. Ottilie had stared at it and allowed it to ring several times before she finally picked it up and heard Mrs Le Martine’s voice. She had not heard from her old friend for so long it was almost shocking to hear her again. Too much had happened to her ‘dear little Miss Ottilie’ for her to be able to explain very much, and yet she had to explain something or else why was she answering the telephone? What was she doing back at the Grand?

  But Mrs Le Martine seemed to know more about her than she realized because she said, ‘I heard on the jungle drums that you were back at the Grand, running it once more, and your sainted parents had departed. What a miracle! Have you married a millionaire without telling me, my dear Ottilie?’

  Ottilie felt far too shy to tell her exactly what her new position at the Grand was, so she obfuscated by merely saying, ‘No, I haven’t married a millionaire.’

  ‘What a pity, but you will, n’est-ce pas?’

  Ottilie felt like saying ‘Actually I don’t need to, Mrs Le Martine’ but instead she said, ‘I know you’re just the person who can help me.’

  ‘I love that phrase.’

  ‘We are pulling the old place apart and need someone to help us with drawings and suggested alterations, plans for the builders to work from, and also someone who will know what is needed for new designs for the Grand, someone who will help me furnish it comfortably, but with good taste and a feeling for the past.’

  ‘My dear little Ottilie, but of course! I know everyone. And that is why I have telephoned to you, because I knew you must be in need of me! I think I know exactly who you must want.’

  Ottilie smiled and replaced the receiver. It was quite clear from her immediate resumption of their relationship that Mrs Le Martine must have forgiven Ottilie for whatever she had imagined ‘Monsieur’ in Paris might have told the sixteen-year-old about her starting life as the Countess’s maid, which was good, but it was also clear that Mrs Le Martine was as incorrigible as ever, still doubtless wearing ‘Shah-nelle’ clothes, still gossiping too much, and devouring Charbonnel and Walker chocolates which she kept hidden, for some reason best known to herself, in her lingerie.

  Ottilie looked into Veronica’s office. She was busy typing at her usual breakneck speed of seventy words a minute, despite the hotel typewriter’s being as old as Ottilie herself.

  ‘I think we may have an architect coming to our rescue, and quite soon,’ she told her secretary.

  ‘The sooner the better,’ Veronica told her, stopping briefly to hurl a large book across the room at what she obviously imagined was a mouse. ‘But first a cat. Then an architect.’

  ‘And some dogs.’

  Veronica straightened up, having crossed the room to pick up the book only to ascertain with some disappointment that it had missed the mouse yet again.

  ‘Dogs indeed. What kind of dogs?’

  ‘Black labradors. Very welcoming in the hall, like a real house—’

  ‘As long as they are good at catching mice.’

  Ottilie smiled. She sensed that spring was on its way, and with it that blessed sense of renewal and purpose that makes even the dullest day seem filled with promise. Upstairs Blue Lady would be busy chatting to the ghostly presence of her husband, downstairs Jean and Nantwick were preparing for the arrival of new linen and glass, not to mention new casseroles, new marmites, new batterie de cuisine, for everything that had been there had been so badly kept that in Jean’s opinion ‘It’s a terrible risk to everyone’s health, even the kitchen mice. There’s even verdigris on their traps, Miss Cartaret, and really – that must be a first, wouldn’t you say?’

  Things were beginning to happen, the past was being walled up behind the present. Already she had engaged some builders to come from Plymouth to give estimates and start as soon as possible on the more straightforward tasks around the place. Even the missing gold letters on the façade had been ordered. Now all she had to do was to sit back and wait for the architect-designer that Mrs Le Martine was so keen to recommend.

  It was only when she found herself frowning through the upper half of the old glass into the lounge bar the following week that Ottilie realized that relying on her old friend’s choice might not have been so very sensible. Not only did the man whom she could hear saying, ‘Coffee would be fine’ sound resoundingly American, he looked far too young. Ottilie had hoped for a conservative, older man, someone with greying hair and highly polished laced shoes and dark socks, not a dark-haired restless young man in a suede jacket and polo-necked sweater.

  ‘Mr Justin?’

  He turned and Ottilie stopped frowning.

  ‘Mr Pierre Justin?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he agreed, a little absently, still looking round at the lounge in which he stood as if he could not quite believe what he saw. ‘I’m waiting for Miss Cartaret, and someone is already fetching me coffee, thank you.’

  ‘I am Miss Cartaret,’ Ottilie told him, lifting her head, and looking at him slightly sideways which was a new habit she had adopted in the hope of making herself seem older and more remote in manner. If she looked too young to own and run an hotel, Pierre Justin could hardly have been more than twenty-five or six.

  ‘You are – Miss Cartaret?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes, I am, that’s one thing I am quite sure about.’

  ‘I see.’

  She felt he looked let down, disappointed, and that the ‘I see’ meant ‘If you are Miss Cartaret you are far too young to own this place’, so she said crisply, ‘You don’t, Mr Justin, but you will.’

  Ottilie sat down determined to be all proprietor while he too sat down, pushing at his small, gold-rimmed spectacles and frowning as if he was still sure that she must be the wrong person. Seconds later he sprang up again as Jean came in with coffee on a tray, and in an effort to clear the coffee table he managed to throw a pile of Country Life magazines under her feet, and all this before he lit a cigarette which threw sparks all down his sweater, not to mention all over the old Persian rug which was about the only one Ottilie actually wanted to keep in the whole hotel.

  ‘I expect you’re regretting that Mrs Le Martine recommended me already, Miss Cartaret,’ he joked, stamping on one of the larger sparks and at the same time pushing his spectacles up his nose again. ‘Don’t worry – places do recover from me, eventually.’

  He looked across at her, suddenly helpless, frowning past Ottilie’s shoulder as if he had seen something of great interest, and then cleared his throat as if preparing to say something which he then quite forgot and so quickly frowned again.

  ‘Mr Justin, let’s start again. I am Ottilie Cartaret. Hello.’

  ‘Good idea. Hello.’

  They leaned towards each other and shook hands this time. As they touched he suddenly smiled at her, a wonderful smile full of modesty and kindness. It was a smile that was reflected from eyes that had never felt anything but warmth towards the world and its inhabitants, the smile of a boy who had always been loved. A smile quite at odds with his nervous behaviour.

  Ottilie frowned momentarily. Something about that smile reminded her of someone she had once known, but for the life of her she could not remember who it was, except that she was quite certain that the smile had belonged to someone she had really liked.

  ‘Are you engaging that funny American man for the refurbishments?’ Veronica asked Ottilie.

  ‘I am engaging him for the refurbishments, Veronica, and what’s more today we are going to try and find some furniture for this barn of a place. Pierre says the only good thing about it is that it’s big and the bigger the pieces of furniture the cheaper, because nowadays people only want small pieces for their refurbishments.’


  Veronica started to laugh as Ottilie said ‘refurbishments’ yet again. It was ridiculous but for some reason at that moment they were both going through a phase when they found the word ‘refurbishments’ terribly funny.

  Actually Ottilie was quite relieved to be able at last to laugh directly at something, because she had spent the previous half-hour consciously trying not to look happy in front of Veronica and she felt that Veronica knew it and was eyeing her beadily. She turned from the office mirror, pulling yet another of her high-necked dresses right up to her chin and tightly re-tying the black velvet bow that held her long brown hair in check, and faced her secretary.

  ‘Pierre Justin’s so frightfully good-looking, I have a feeling that he must be one of those,’ Veronica said in a warning voice. ‘Do you think he is?’

  Ottilie frowned. She had not thought of Pierre Justin as being anything but now she did she said, ‘I don’t know – hadn’t thought.’

  ‘Interior decorators usually are, aren’t they?’

  ‘As long as he has an eye for colour I don’t really care if he’s a eunuch,’ Ottilie called back to her, quickly closing the office door.

  Pierre was waiting for her at the front of the hotel and although she was already twenty minutes late for him, he only smiled and pushed his spectacles up his nose, opening the door of his Mini Cooper.

  ‘Morning, boss,’ he said, taking the picnic basket she was carrying from her, and then as he closed the door with a nod towards the sunshine and the sparkling sea, ‘and what a morning, n’est-ce pas?’

  Ottilie pulled up the polo-neck collar of her cashmere dress. Cashmere was one of the reasons that she was enjoying being rich, and expensive perfume, and being able to take the day off whenever she wished. There were a few compensations for all the responsibilities that Edith’s money had brought her.

  If Ottilie had had time to really talk to Veronica about Pierre, she would have told her that, despite his tall, dark good looks, from their very first meeting Pierre Justin had appealed to Ottilie as being perhaps quite the shyest and least confident man that she had met.

  In fact setting fire to his clothes with his cigarette turned out not to be an occasional incident but a regular routine. When he went into a room, any room, hitherto innocent furniture that had never misbehaved itself before seemed to throw itself in front of him as he walked across a room. The handles of coffee cups fractured as he picked them up and rugs equipped with discreet weights became instantly lethal, before fires decided to throw logs out onto valuable carpets in sudden rebellious fury.

  Pierre Justin behaved in such a way that it seemed he felt that any moment he was about to be an embarrassment both to himself and to everyone else, until he started to work. Miraculously, the moment he started to talk about his ideas, about his subject, he became elegant where he had seconds before been clumsy, articulate where he had been hesitant, and supremely confident where he had hardly a minute previously looked as if he wished the earth would open up and swallow him.

  Happily it was evident to Ottilie from the start of their meetings and discussions at the hotel that despite his frequent mishaps – colliding with marble busts which had never before given anyone any trouble, drenching himself with a shower whose water had been turned off, falling over Veronica who had never been known to be under anyone’s feet – he quite definitely had the ‘eye’.

  ‘If there is anything more exciting than a picnic in the trunk of a car, and the idea that you have a whole day ahead in which to search for unknown treasure, I do not know it,’ he told her as he started up the car, and drove swiftly off in the wrong direction.

  ‘Never mind, we can take the scenic route,’ Ottilie reassured him once he realized his mistake. ‘It’s much more beautiful.’

  Ottilie stared ahead at the day, thrilled at the sudden feeling of freedom from everyone and everything. ‘What is the perfect day, do you think?’ she asked him after a long silence in which he took the scenic route past sparkling sea views and deserted white coves.

  ‘Probably going to be today, I think,’ he said, suddenly smiling.

  The moment they had parked in Truro, Ottilie realized that her life was about to become considerably more lively than it had previously been, for once he had confidence it seemed that Pierre could no more stop trying to entertain than he could breathe.

  ‘Right, now what we do here,’ Pierre instructed outside their first antique shop, ‘what we do here is to stand outside and decide how much everything should cost, and then we go inside and ask the price and whoever laughs when they shouldn’t buys both of us coffee.’

  Ottilie had always found it calamitous to be told not to laugh so she took a pin from behind the jacket of her lapel and stuck it into her thumb. She had to prove to Pierre that she had complete self-control.

  ‘Well howdee, sir, I’m from Texas and I would very much apprecia-ate to know the price of this ’ere beautiful chest.’

  ‘The price, sir?’

  For a fleeting second Ottilie wondered why it was that shop assistants always managed to look quite so amazed if asked the cost of something. Surely it was something they must grow to expect at least sometimes?

  Pierre looked unblinkingly at the assistant and repeated his question, but at an even slower pace. ‘Yes, sir, if you don’t mind, I would sure apprecia-ate to know the price of this ’ere beautiful chest, if you would be so good?’

  One glance at the serious face of the supposedly gullible Texan in front of him and the shop assistant in his tight black suit and his large mauve silk tie cleared his throat and said without even a blush, ‘Five hundred pounds, sir.’

  ‘Really, sir? May I repeat that? You want five hundred pounds for this—’

  Pierre touched the chest.

  ‘It is a very rare Charles II walnut coffer, sir, remarkable of its kind as I am sure you will appreciate?’

  ‘It must be very remarkable of its kind,’ Pierre said in his normal voice, lifting the lid of the piece and closing it again while talking at twice his normal rate, ‘since this is not walnut but oak, and it is no more Charles II than I am. This is a Victorian piece – please look at those hinges and that lock – and undoubtedly Welsh, and you, sir, are equally undoubtedly a charlatan.’

  Ottilie had done very well with her pin stuck into her thumb up until the moment that she saw the expression on the assistant’s face at the word ‘charlatan’. It was as if he had been slapped. He seemed to reel backwards at the word and Ottilie turned and walked quickly from the shop to the street outside where Pierre found her doubled up with laughter a few seconds later.

  ‘Not very good, Miss Cartaret,’ Pierre said, taking her arm and crossing the road. ‘I saw you were gone rotten within a second of my opening my mouth, so guess whose going to be buying coffee?’

  They found a café of sorts and sat quietly working out from a street guide where to go next as the waitress put down a tray in front of them and poured out some black liquid into stoneware cups. She topped them up with milk and then sauntered off, flicking at dirty tables with a tea cloth as she retreated behind a door marked ‘Private’.

  ‘That’s something I miss so much, decent coffee,’ Pierre said, sighing and staring at the over-hot slightly bitter brew which had been carelessly topped up by milk from a pot with little pieces of skin floating in it. ‘The British drink coffee which tastes stewed and then they put boiled milk in it – ah God this is really disgusting.’

  Embarrassed by the awfulness of the brew Ottilie quickly told him, ‘I am ordering proper coffee pots, individual coffee pots, for the hotel from a shop in France – it is ridiculous in this day and age not to get decent coffee. I mean the war’s been over twenty years and you still get that awful stuff with chicory added if you’re not careful, or that bottled coffee, all left over from rationing. But I’m preaching to the converted beause you are half French anyway. Mrs Le Martine—’

  ‘Oh, she told you the awful news, did she?’

  ‘Not awf
ul, no, she just said you were educated in the States, and your mother was American – and then of course she went off on one of her tangents, you know how she is, something to do with Nancy Gordon having a terrific crush on you, and about your brilliance. She was very anxious to sell you to me.’

  ‘Well she would be, she’s an old friend. Do you know you have the most beautiful-coloured eyes?’

  Ottilie stared into her now empty coffee cup. ‘Yes,’ she said, mischievously.

  ‘And absolutely no modesty.’

  ‘None!’

  They both laughed and despite winning the bet Pierre paid for the perfectly awful coffee which said something about him to Ottilie, although precisely what it was she didn’t exactly know.

  ‘Come on, there’s still more fun to be had at the expense of the antique trade.’

  As they walked along Ottilie found herself hoping that Pierre wouldn’t continue to pretend to be a Texan in every shop. Perhaps he sensed how she felt or perhaps he knew enough not to go on, but he dropped the game, obviously now satisfied that he had proved he could make her laugh whenever he wanted, and so began the serious business of buying.

  ‘After our meeting yesterday at least I know exactly what you hate now,’ Pierre told her as they hurried along the streets, stopping, staring and then moving quickly on the moment they discovered there was nothing of particular interest. ‘To recap, as I remember it, you hate overly patterned wallpapers, you hate fringes on sofas and curtains. You hate large ornate vases and lampshades with yet more fringes. As a matter of fact, why is it that I have the feeling that you hate all fringes? You hate still life paintings with dead geese, dead ducks, dead hares – in fact anything dead in a painting, although maybe a dead leaf suggesting decadence might possibly pass. You do not like fuss or clutter – unusual in your sex I have to tell you – oh, and you don’t like patterned carpets either. You know what, Miss Cartaret? I get the feeling that what you really are is – yes, you are – you’re really a Quaker at heart, aren’t you? As a matter of fact, Miss Cartaret ma’am, what is it that you do like, because that is something of which I am beginning to think I am not exactly sure?’