Grand Affair

by Charlotte Bingham

  Yet having gone so far a little further was inevitable, and as she picked up the papers the first thing she noticed was that all the letters inside, and the diaries, were addressed to the same person as the label, Miss K. Shelborne. The second thing she noticed was that there were a great many exercise books and that when she picked them up the handwriting inside was more or less the same as that on the luggage label.

  Having piled up the cheap exercise books, none of which were dated, Ottilie started to read. But not without guilt, for it was obvious from the start that these were private diaries and none of her business.

  Part Five

  Love, all alike, no season knows, or clime

  Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time!

  John Donne

  Twenty-Four

  An hour and a half after she had begun delving into Miss K. Shelborne’s private diaries, Ottilie stopped. They were so predictably dull, just endless jottings, day after dreary day, and for all her pains, Ottilie was now stiff with cramp, still sitting in the same position on the floor and wondering why on earth Mrs Ballantyne had seen fit not only to keep but to treasure such boring diaries belonging to this Miss Shelborne, who was some kind of a governess or a nurse to her. It wasn’t as if Blue Lady herself hadn’t kept her own diaries. Ottilie had often seen her consulting her honeymoon diary in order to hold those strange conversations about weather that was not happening, and all the other things that weren’t happening but which annually Mrs Ballantyne came back to the Grand to make happen.

  ‘You meet the strangest people and hear the strangest stories in a hotel, Miss Ottilie,’ Edith used to say sagely. ‘That’s one of its attractions, it’s like it has a great river of stories flowing in and out of it every day, always full of surprises. Mark my words, and I can predict it knowing you as I do, this place will always have a hold on you, because you’re a nosy little imp at the best of times.’

  And knowing her as well as she had Edith must also have known that if she left Ottilie all her money she would end up buying the place, Ottilie thought, standing up and stretching her legs.

  She must have known that all along, but being Edith she would leave that part of the story for Ottilie to find out for herself. Just as she never did say anything about Mrs Cartaret to her, only left Ottilie to find out what she felt about her for herself. Edith didn’t believe in influencing things one way or another, and she often said so. It was because she must have had too much of that herself, being told what to do by her mother, too crushed herself to ever want to crush anyone else.

  Ottilie stooped down and picking up all the exercise books in one guilty armful she started to throw them into a laundry bag retrieved from the bathroom. Perhaps if they had belonged to Mrs Ballantyne they might at least have thrown some light on her character, but as it was they were merely the jottings of a girl whose life had not added up to much, and who, it was obvious, was good but really rather dull. Nothing of real interest seemed to have happened to poor Miss K. Shelborne. Dull school with a dull home, just an orange and a bag of sweets at Christmas, and then thinking all the time that she was so lucky to be sent to look after Mrs Ballantyne who was obviously the ‘Miss L’ that she kept referring to in her later entries. Miss Shelborne had lived for the young Mrs Ballantyne, so admiring was she of her, obviously loving all the excitement her young mistress had brought to her life.

  Once all the cheap little exercise books were in the laundry bag Ottilie pulled the string tight and made for the fireplace on the landing outside.

  Having set fire to everything with the aid of some firelighters and some old newspaper, and feeling strangely relieved, she returned to the Blue Suite and set about tidying it. As she did so she stooped to find yet another of the wretched Miss Shelborne’s – or was it Sherborne’s? – exercise books. Ottilie started to throw it into the wastepaper basket this time, when her eyes were caught by the first of the entries.

  It was actually interesting to her, if only because of the tragedy that she knew had followed this particular event, and yet again she felt as if her blood had changed and she could smell the scent of ‘A La Fuite Des Heures’ upon the air, as she started to read the diarist’s entries. Knowing as she did what had happened to poor Mrs Ballantyne on her honeymoon the entries regarding her engagement became suddenly enthralling and Ottilie herself, reading of it, wanted to step back all those years to 1947 or 1948 or whenever it was and stop it all.

  The sea outside the window was pounding and disintegrating against the rocks as Ottilie sat down, this time at the repainted boudoir desk, and started to read. The wind too was howling as if in prepared grief for the tragedy that Ottilie knew had to be about to unfold. And now too it seemed to Ottilie more than ever that Blue Lady was standing behind her, and she was crying.

  Monday 15 November

  Engagement announced. Both very relieved. This will make old Mr Waldo keep in his place and stop pestering. Fiancé a picture I keep telling Miss L, everything a man should be, tall, handsome. Much older of course, but then, as we keep saying, much richer too! No bad thing as I keep saying, no bad thing at all. Newspapers all very interested because of Mr Waldo himself being so recently married to Miss L’s mother. Meanwhile Miss L miserable but sees sense. Because it is sense, nothing she can do now except marry. Nothing else will keep Mr Waldo’s hands off of her. She pretty miserable and lonely too. But there. There may still be a happy ending I keep telling her. Fiancé very much the gentleman.

  Wednesday 29 November

  Engagement continues still. D.V. Mr Ballantyne took Miss L to choose trousseau and they came back and I did Miss Lavinia’s hair. Mr Ballantyne is a very nise (sic) gentleman, very nise indeed. He interviewed me about the future. Full of kindness he was, and Miss L said behaves like a gentleman all the time they was shoppin’. No hanky panky. Which is good. Good things can come out of bad, then, I say. They are to be married in New Year, but not in a church, just ordinary with only myself and Mr B’s valet as witness. No fuss. He is very old fashioned and shy Miss L said. Just as well, I say. Honeymoon to be spend (sic) in Paris and Rome, and then back to good old Blighty which I personally think will be the best bit. But then. None of my business.

  30 December

  Soon be New Year and get on with it I say. Miss L delighted with her trousseau what Mr Ballantyne ordered. Her mamma disgusted. She don’t agree with it, the New Look, skirts practically down to the ankles and clothing coupons and rationing still on, she don’t agree with it at all. But she can be stuffy poor lady. New Look she kept saying to me, whatever next? But she is old and Miss L and I think she looks perfect, and does she. Course she does. She looks good in anything I say. Only two weeks and we will be leaving good old England for France and the frogs, but Parker, the valet, he says there is food in Paris and fuel and we will like it much better than London, which is good I say. You wouldn’t have thought it was us that won the war my mother keeps writing to me, would you? What with all. the money going to Germany and all the food to France? What was it all for? Never mind, I say to Miss L, we’ll soon be free of Hitler which is what we have nicknamed Mr Waldo. He was sniffing round yesterday, sniff, sniff, sniff he goes outside her door, and us on the inside, locked it, thank God, both thinking back sniff, sniff, sniff you can bugger off Mr Waldo.

  14 January

  Tomorrow is the great day what we have all been looking forward to so much. When I say we; I mean Miss L and I. Everything’s packed and we’re as excited as snakes, wondering what the ‘Trifle Tower’ as Miss L calls it will look like but most of all thinking ‘no more Mr Waldo, no more Mr Waldo’. It’s a shame that Miss L had to marry so young and to such an old man really but on the other hand he’s a nise man really he is. And he still has his hair, and old as he is and old in his ways I’d rather him than most of the younger men. Specially when he’s in evening clothes. You can see he was very handsome in the old days then.

  PARIS!

  Miss L sick as a dog on its last legs
all the way over on the boat. We were warned by her mother I must say about how it would be in January, but Miss L didn’t care she just wanted to be out of that place and away from Mr Waldo – Sniff Sniff we called him. Sniff Sniff Waldo. I held her head and Mr Ballantyne most kind and nise. He is nise. Really really nise. We are to stay here in the hotel until she is better and then see the sights. The valet is also nise, Mr Parker, but he does like his drop. Still, he is older and as long as Mr Ballantyne stays sober we should be all right. Miss L still being sick and not up too much. Not very romantic really but there it is. He’s an old man. What can you expect I say.

  PARIS

  Mr Parker his valet and I went for a walk to allow them to get to know each other better. Mr Ballantyne had lunch sent up to their rooms and we went for a walk. The French children are very gay and nise, with pretty clothes, but they don’t look bonny like English children and yet there is food everywhere in the cafés and people are looking more cheerful than they are back home. Saw a woman who’d had her head shaved but it is growing again. Mr Parker said this means that she lived with the Gestapo rather than eat rats. I don’t think we should judge starving people myself. Who knows what we wouldn’t all have done in the same place? Back home to Miss L in a right old state. Being sick again. Mr Ballantyne calls the French doctor, but Miss L won’t have it, not at all. She’s too fussy by half about her body she says to let a French doctor give her things that she don’t know what they are. Myself I think she’s nervous. The honeymoon has been delayed so long now and Mr Ballantyne must be wondering? He’s a man after all. Last night she locked herself in and her hands were that cold when she clung to me I felt that sorry for the poor girl. We’re the same age but she’s been brought up different from what I have. Not tough. The things I’ve seen you couldn’t write down.

  PARIS

  Miss L still sick. Doctor came again. Suppositories! That’s all the French think of. They’ve got them on the brain I say. Miss L throws them down the la-la and then pulls the flush hard. But the doctor has told Mr Ballantyne he can find nothing wrong so I think tonight will be the night and I feel that sorry for her. She don’t no (sic) nothing and it’s not up to me to tell her. And saying about thinking of England’s not going to help her or anyone else. Sometimes I’m glad I’m working class after all you know what’s what from the year dot and no mistaking, and nothing more to say on the subject. I can’t tell her what her mother should ought to have done any more than I can fly to the moon.

  PARIS

  Well the deed is done and nothing more to be said. It’s all over and she’s most grateful to me. Although why she should be I wouldn’t want to know. Her husband is the handsomest kindest man and she’s the luckiest young girl you ever did hear about. To marry to get away from Sniff Sniff which let’s face it is what she did and then to end up with such a wonderful lover is more than most women could dream of. She asked me and I came right out with it I must say. I told her. Beautiful. Just beautiful and she looked most surprised and then pleased so maybe she’ll relax now who knows. I don’t care. It was beautiful.

  PARIS

  Still the same. Miss L still the same. I keep telling her but she won’t have it. I’m terrified now that old Parker will discover because he’s a shrewd old man. But as to Mr B he is as happy as I’ve ever seen him. Sings all day and keeps buying his bride everything in sight. I tell Miss L to ask to go to England. There’s a crossing soon. Once she’s back in old Blighty she’ll probably relax. So off we are going and I can’t say that I am that sad to leave the frogs because there might be food here and there might be wine here but England’s England and I start to pine for the old white cliffs. Miss L wants to go to Cornwall where she went as a child. Very nise too. There’ll be butter and cream there all right, not like London. And besides we all like the seaside don’t we?

  ST ELCOMBE

  Arriving here. Straight away we all said what a good idea this is. Hotel is just what it should be. Mr B says it takes him back to before the war. Miss L still low in her spirits though. Myself I don’t know what will bring her round. I tell her if the seaside don’t do the trick what will. Mr B wants to take her to see some place he once used to stay as a boy. Dear old chap he loves to walk along the front with her. Hand in her arm. I could feel jealous but I don’t. Love should be spread around and shared like jam I say!

  That was the last entry. Ottilie put the incomplete exercise book down and stared around the room as someone might who is looking for someone to talk to and only realizes on seeing an empty room that there is no-one else besides themselves in it.

  She stood up suddenly, infuriated with herself. Why had she thrown all the other exercise books out? What an idiot she was. Pierre was always teasing her about her habit of throwing things away, and Veronica too. For some reason no-one had been able to explain to her, the moment Ottilie thought that there was no reason to keep something any more, she threw it away, and now she had set fire to a whole set of diaries one of which, like this one, might have proved riveting.

  Ottilie stared out to sea frowning. She had to find out what had happened to Mrs Ballantyne’s maid. She had never seemed to enter the story before. If they had been so close why had Mrs Ballantyne not kept her on even when her husband had died? What had happened to Miss K. Shelborne that was so beautiful?

  Something to do with Mr Ballantyne obviously, but why had she disappeared? She turned back to the room asking its ghosts, not caring at all if Blue Lady was with her now, not minding one bit, she just wanted to know what had happened. What had caused the maid to write ‘Well the deed is done’? What deed was it? She went back to the desk and once more flicked through the diary.

  No more entries, nothing except an address written in pencil at the back. It had often struck Ottilie that the sight of addresses and telephone numbers written in haste on anything from notepads to the front of telephone books could seem strangely emotive, but never before had it struck her quite so forcibly as it did now as she stared at the hastily scrawled writing. It was generous if childish writing, not all the letters joined up, and it sloped forward. It was not the writing of the diarist either, but it was writing that Ottilie recognized from bills and cheques over the years.

  Impulsively she went to the telephone and picking it up she dialled Pierre’s office in London. He sounded busy, surprised but nevertheless delighted to hear her even though it was normally he who telephoned her every evening.

  ‘I’m coming to London,’ she told him abruptly.

  ‘You never come to London. Swinging London is just not your city, Ottilie, darling.’

  ‘According to the fiction that is on my birth certificate, I was born at Number Four Porchester Terrace, to a Mrs O’Flaherty, and now I think it is high time I returned there.’

  ‘Darling, do be sensible,’ Pierre begged her. ‘Remember lifting stones is not always a good idea, creepy crawlies so often result.’

  ‘I have just discovered something that I think will stop even you in your tracks. I mean I think even you would be tempted to lift this particular stone.’

  ‘Don’t tell me? Blue Lady has left you all her money provided you become a nun? What could possibly stop me in my tracks besides you, Ottilie Cartaret?’

  ‘Well. I found these boring old diaries in an old vanity case—’ Ottilie could hear Pierre suddenly being distracted by Alanna, probably showing him something, but she continued even so. ‘And I know I shouldn’t have, but I read them, and they were so dull, Pierre, until I came to the end, at least I didn’t come to the end – they were so boring I set fire to them. But then, just as I was tidying up I found another one, and I won’t go into it too much, because you’re obviously busy, but this one’s all about Blue Lady’s honeymoon, you know the famous honeymoon when her husband died?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Ottilie could tell that Pierre’s attention was now very much back on her, and so she continued.

  ‘So it’s all about – this diary is all about the honeymoon and her
being sick and what not – oh, by the way, it’s the maid’s diary, not Mrs Ballantyne’s diary, and it’s actually quite riveting but I won’t go into that—’

  ‘Too late!’

  ‘OK, you can laugh, Pierre, but at the end of this one, and I’ve got it in front of me, the writing stops after Paris, and Mrs Ballantyne being ill all the time, and so on, and then it ends most strangely, because obviously something happened in Paris, but that’s just one thing. The other thing, the thing I want to tell you about, the thing I found, why I just had to tell you, why I have to come to London, was that when I flicked through the book to see if there was any more, guess what I found?’

  ‘Can’t, darling!’ Once more Pierre’s voice rang out gaily.

  ‘I found an address scribbled in pencil. And, Pierre, it’s the address where I was born.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Pierre had wanted to meet Ottilie at the station but at the last minute he could not make it so she went to his office instead. Justin and Gordon was in Pimlico, a chic premises with discreet paint, discreet bells, and a discreet reception. Only Pierre seemed out of place, flinging open the door of his office, his glasses on top of his head, his arms stretched out, but because Alanna was hovering and he had a client in another room he could not linger longer than to kiss Ottilie and beg her once more not to go round to Number Four Porchester Terrace.

  ‘Please, do us both a favour, please, don’t go – please?’ he begged, as they walked along the road, arms around each other, towards the taxi rank. ‘It’s always fatal to go back anywhere, I know, I’ve done it. Even the horse farm I used to go to as a child, looked such a dump – and so small. It’ll look such a dump and so small you’ll destroy all your golden memories in one fell swoop.’