‘Well, I’m not sure that you can. You seem much too young to be in charge of anything important,’ Mrs Soames declared, her face red and her bosom pushed up high in front of her.
Robyn tried not to bristle at the comment. ‘If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I won’t be of any help at all, will I?’ Robyn said, daring to smile at the old tartar.
Mrs Soames’s chin wobbled a bit and she cleared her throat. ‘I’ve got the same room as last time,’ she said.
Robyn checked her key. ‘Oh, that’s the Rose Room – it’s lovely,’ she said, remembering the pretty wallpaper covered in tiny rosebuds and the rich velvet curtains the colour of the deepest red rose.
‘But I don’t like the view,’ Mrs Soames said.
Robyn did a double take. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t a single bad view from Purley Hall unless you didn’t like country gardens, fields or woods. ‘You don’t like the view?’ Robyn said, unable to disguise her bemusement.
‘No. You can see the compost heap from there,’ Mrs Soames told her.
‘Oh,’ Robyn said in surprise. ‘Well, it probably isn’t quite so big at this time of year. In fact, it’s probably covered in snow.’
‘A compost heap is a compost heap. It’s rubbish. It’s waste. And I haven’t paid all this money to look out of my window to see waste.’
‘Right,’ Robyn said.
Doris Norris patted Robyn’s arm. ‘I rather like a compost heap,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could swap rooms.’
Mrs Soames looked suspicious for a moment as if Doris Norris might be up to something.
‘Which room do you have?’ Robyn asked her.
Doris looked down at her key. ‘The Cedar Room,’ she said.
‘Oh, I had that one at my first conference,’ Robyn said. ‘It’s gorgeous. It looks out over the front driveway and up into the cedar tree.’
‘It won’t be too noisy?’ Mrs Soames asked.
‘Oh, no,’ Robyn said. ‘You can keep an eye on everyone coming and going from there but it’s lovely and quiet too,’ she said, knowing how Mrs Soames liked to know everybody’s business and would appreciate spying down on the world.
‘Well, we’d better have a look then,’ she said and the little group made their way to the Cedar Room.
Mrs Soames didn’t give too much away when she entered the room but walked straight across the plush cream carpet to the sash window which looked out across the front driveway just as Robyn had promised.
‘I suppose this will have to do,’ she said at last and Robyn put her bags down with a sigh of relief.
‘We’ll see you for the welcome reception downstairs, then?’ Robyn said, quickly leaving the room with Doris. ‘It was very kind of you to swap rooms,’ she said as she took Doris’s suitcase to the Rose Room.
‘If I can play my part in making Mrs Soames a little cheery then that’s reward enough for me.’
‘Well, she wasn’t exactly smiling about it,’ Robyn observed.
‘No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her do anything but grimace,’ Doris agreed. ‘I’ve seen happier-looking bloodhounds.’
They giggled together.
‘But you, my dear, you do look happy!’ Doris continued as they reached the Rose Room.
Robyn smiled. ‘I am,’ she said.
‘And this is your home now – with Dan?’
Robyn nodded. ‘We’ve got a little cottage down the lane. It’s tiny but perfect and I love working here with Dame Pamela.’
‘I’m so glad you found the right man for you,’ Doris said. ‘I mean – after that fellow you were involved with.’
Robyn bit her lip as she remembered Jace and the time that they’d broken up during her first Jane Austen conference.
‘Although I’ll never forget him riding into the dining room on that horse!’ Doris said.
Robyn shook her head at the memory. ‘I got a Christmas card from him last week,’ she said. ‘He’s just got engaged to a local girl. She likes pubs and football and I don’t think she’s an Austen fan so that will suit Jace wonderfully well.’
‘That’s nice – everyone deserves to find that special someone,’ Doris said. ‘Remember what Jane Austen said? “Do not be in a hurry: depend upon it -”’
‘”The right man will come at last”,’ Robyn finished with her and Doris nodded in approval.
As the rest of the guests made themselves at home in their rooms, changing from snug travelling clothes into elegant dresses and smart trousers, Dame Pamela was pacing up and down her office. Every now and then, she would stop, pick up the phone and hit the ‘redial’ button but there was never any answer.
‘Oh, Benedict!’ she cried into the empty room before walking over to the bookcase. She reached up to a shelf just above her head and pulled out a thick photo album bound in leather with gilt lettering. She took it across to the desk and sat in the chair, flipping through the pages and staring at the photographs.
‘So many brothers,’ she said with a little laugh.
Depending on how you looked at it, her father had either been one of the world’s worst philanderers or one of its greatest romantics. He had married four times and had had two other lovers who had given him children too. Dame Pamela often lost count of them all but she thought there were at least nine of them in total with her being the eldest and Dan being the youngest. Benedict was somewhere in the middle and was in his forties now but he still behaved like a teenager with his money-making schemes and his belief that a great fortune was owed to him without him actually having to work for it.
She looked at her favourite photo of him in the album. It had been taken on a holiday somewhere on the south coast. Dame Pamela had forgotten where. Her father had hired a huge house overlooking the sea and had filled the place with his children. It had been chaos but a wonderful sort of chaos.
She looked at the young boy in the photograph with his cheeky grin and mop of badly-behaved hair. What age would he have been there? Ten maybe eleven? Even then, he’d been trouble. Dame Pamela shook her head as she remembered Benedict marching up and down the beach trying to sell shells and stones to the tourists.
She turned the page and there was a photo of the two of them together, standing on the balcony of the holiday home, the brilliant blue sea behind them. She looked more like his mother than his sister and she’d been forced into that role through the years as Benedict had lurched from one financial disaster to the next.
‘And what sort of trouble are you in now?’ she asked the photograph before gazing out of the window into the white landscape beyond.
Chapter 5
Higgins the butler, who was sporting a cherry-red waistcoat with bright silver buttons, cleared his throat and a hush descended on the room as twenty pairs of eyes fixed themselves on the door.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘Dame Pamela Harcourt.’
As ever, Dame Pamela entered the room like an empress and was greeted by much applause. She was wearing a pale gold dress draped with a crimson shawl and her hair was swept up and pinned with an enormous diamond clip. She was famous for her diamonds and there were gasps from the audience as she walked to the front of the room, her eyelashes batting as she drank in the adoration of her guests. Nobody would have guessed that, just ten minutes before, she’d been having a nervous breakdown in the privacy of her study. “The show must go on” was a phrase that every actress knew and Dame Pamela had lived her life by it.
She took a deep breath and began. ‘I can’t tell you what a delight it is to welcome you all here for our special Christmas conference! We’ve been discussing having one for some time now and I think it’s particularly appropriate as it’s also the month of Jane Austen’s birthday.’
There was a cheer and Dame Pamela clutched a hand to her heart and her eyes rose towards heaven as if communing with the great author herself.
‘So this conference is going to be extra special as we celebrate our favourite author’s birthday. There will be the usua
l talks and readings and film showings, and we have some very special guests lined up for you. And, because this is Christmas, there will be plenty of food and drink but we will also have lots of dancing too so that our waistlines don’t suffer too much!’
There was another round of applause and then Higgins got to work with the silver tray, distributing glasses of the cocktail which Dame Pamela had named the Fitzwilliam Fizzer. There was also a non-alcoholic alternative that Dame Pamela called a Pink Bingley but it wasn’t proving quite as popular as the Fitzwilliam Fizzer but it got everybody talking about cocktails.
‘I think a Wicked Wickham would slip down rather nicely,’ Roberta told her sister Rose who had the good grace to blush at such a suggestion.
‘What about a Tickling Tilney?’ Doris Norris suggested.
‘Or a Wentworth Wallbanger,’ Roberta said.
Mrs Soames, who was in earshot, tutted loudly and sipped at her Pink Bingley without joining in with the chatter.
After circulating amongst her guests, Dame Pamela walked over to the window and looked out over the snow-covered garden to the fields beyond. She was thankful that her guests had had problem-free journeys and that everybody had arrived safely but there were two guests who hadn’t arrived yet – the actress, Gemma Reilly, and the uninvited brother, Benedict Harcourt.
‘Madam,’ Higgins said, appearing by her side, ‘I’ve just had a call from Master Benedict.’
‘Please tell me he’s been snowed in and can’t possibly make it,’ Dame Pamela said, knowing it was deeply uncharitable but quite unable to stop herself.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Higgins said. ‘He just wanted to let you know that he’ll be here in time for dinner.’
Dame Pamela sighed. ‘He always did have an uncanny ability to arrive at precisely the wrong moment.’
But Benedict Harcourt didn’t arrive in time for dinner and the guests enjoyed a carefree and very splendid meal by candlelight before the first evening’s activities got under way. There was a showing of Miss Austen Regrets in the drawing room whilst Regency parlour games were on offer in the library.
Kay and Adam had chosen the parlour games but Adam had missed his cue at a game of cards twice now and Kay looked concerned as he checked his phone again.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s Gemma – she’s stuck somewhere outside London. I don’t think she’s going to make it tonight.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Kay said. ‘Perhaps the roads will be better in the morning.’
Adam sighed. ‘But our talk’s at eleven o’clock.’
‘She’ll be here,’ Kay said, reaching across the round table to squeeze his hand.
‘I won’t be able to do it without her,’ he said, blinking hard behind his glasses.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she told him but she knew that he’d rather walk naked through the snow than give a talk on his own in front of a room full of people.
Adam Craig was the sweetest man Kay had ever met but his crippling shyness had almost stopped them from getting together and Kay had actually believed him to be in love with Gemma the actress. When he’d walked into her bed and breakfast in Lyme Regis during the filming of Persuasion, she hadn’t really noticed him at all because she’d had a big crush on the actor Oli Wade Owen. Well, what Janeite wouldn’t fall in love with a handsome actor playing Captain Wentworth?
But sweet, kind Adam had been there for her when it had all gone wrong and she couldn’t envisage them ever being apart now.
‘Gemma will make it,’ Kay told him again. ‘She’s a very determined woman.’
Adam nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Okay.’
‘And, if she doesn’t make it, I’ll do the talk with you.’
‘Really?’ Adam said, his eyes lighting up.
‘You’re forgetting that I lived through the whole film experience too,’ she said.
He smiled at her. ‘I could never forget that,’ he said, leaning forward and kissing her.
They then proceeded to slay each other at piquet.
Later that night, after all the food had been eaten, all the drinks had been quaffed and all the card games played out, the guests at Purley Hall lay sleeping in their beds, unaware that the snow was falling thick and fast, smothering the landscape under a glistening white blanket.
In a pink and white bedroom at the back of Purley Hall, Dame Pamela was just dreaming about an actor she’d dated in her twenties called Piers Dalrymple when there was a faint tapping on the door.
‘Madam?’
Dame Pamela groaned as she slowly began to wake up, leaving the arms of Piers Dalrymple and switching on her bedside lamp. It flooded the room with soft amber light.
‘Higgins? Is that you?’
The door opened and Higgins stood there in his long paisley dressing gown. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, madam, but I think Master Benedict has arrived.’
Dame Pamela sat up in bed and yawned. Her hair was full of large curlers and her face was flushed with sleep.
‘What time is it?’
‘A little after three,’ Higgins said.
‘Oh, why couldn’t he have arrived at a more civil sort of hour?’ Dame Pamela said, swinging her legs out of bed. Higgins handed her the pink robe with the feather collar and she wrapped herself up in it, placing her feet a pair of cerise slippers which sparkled with sequins.
‘I think, perhaps, that the snow impeded his journey,’ Higgins said.
‘Oh, I suppose so.’
‘It’s falling quite thickly now.’
Dame Pamela walked across to the window and peered out through the curtains and a swirl of snowflakes greeted her.
‘We’re going to be snowed in at this rate,’ she said. ‘I’m glad we bought all the food and drink we did.’
The two of them left the bedroom and walked along the corridor before heading down the staircase to the front door just as there was a loud rapping on it.
‘Quick! Before he wakes up the entire house!’ Dame Pamela whispered.
Higgins unlocked the great door and there, standing under the light of the porch lamp, was Benedict Harcourt, his round face red with cold.
He strode into the hallway and stamped his boots on the beautiful floor, leaving little piles of melted snow everywhere. Dame Pamela tried not to grimace and Higgins made a mental note to grab a mop at the earliest convenience.
‘So good to see you, Pamsy!’ Benedict said, dropping two suitcases down before stepping forward and squashing his sister in a hug. His coat was thick and wet with snow and instantly flattened Dame Pamela’s feathery neckline.
‘Benedict!’ she cried. ‘What a – surprise!’
‘Ah! You know me – could never resist a surprise.’
‘Indeed,’ Dame Pamela said.
‘And Christmas is the time for surprises!’ he said, removing his woolly hat and shaking his hair. Droplets of snow sprayed outwards catching both Dame Pamela and Higgins.
Higgins was just about to lock the door when a slender figure appeared around it.
‘Hello?’ she said, her eyes blinking in the sudden brightness of the hallway light.
‘Gemma?’ Dame Pamela said, stepping forward.
Gemma removed her stripy hat and Dame Pamela hugged her, impervious now as to how bedraggled her feathers had become.
‘Ah!’ Benedict cried. ‘This is the lovely lady who came to my rescue. My car broke down about five miles away and there was nobody about but then this dear soul turns up and blow me down if she wasn’t heading for Purley!’
‘I came in my four by four and it’s a good job I did,’ Gemma told Dame Pamela. ‘Some of the roads are pretty much blocked now and we had to leave the car at the end of the driveway. I hope that’s all right?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that – come and get warm, for goodness’ sake. Higgins – see if you can get the fire going again in the drawing room.’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘And some drinks.’
‘Good idea, P
amsy! A whiskey – that marvellous single malt you have - would go down a treat.’
‘I was thinking more of a hot chocolate,’ Dame Pamela said.
Benedict’s face filled with disappointment as he followed his sister into the drawing room and they sat down as Higgins got the fire going, his bare knees protruding from out of his dressing gown.
‘I’m so thrilled you made it, Gemma,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘We were getting worried about you, weren’t we, Higgins?’
‘Yes, Madam.’
‘All this snow! You are a brave soul!’
‘I didn’t want to miss this,’ Gemma said, unwinding her scarf from her neck as the fire got going. ‘I’ve heard so much about your gatherings and I’ve really been looking forward to it.’
‘But I must take you to task first,’ Dame Pamela said, tightening up a curler which had worked its way loose.
‘Oh?’
‘You’re not acting anymore, are you?’
Gemma shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.
‘After the performance you gave as Anne Elliot, I have to say that it’s positively a crime!’ Dame Pamela shook her head in disapproval.
Gemma gave a little smile. ‘I guess acting just wasn’t for me,’ she said. ‘I used to get so nervous.’
‘But we all get nervous,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘That’s what drives a great performance. It’s when you start to relax that it all goes horribly wrong.’
‘Yes but I was nervous all the time even when I wasn’t performing. I’d get nervous just thinking about the next job and what I might have to do and what would happen if it all went wrong. I’d have nightmares and get myself so worked up that I couldn’t think about anything else.’
‘Oh, dear!’ Dame Pamela said.
‘I never get nervous,’ Benedict chipped in, taking a hot chocolate from the silver tray that Higgins had brought into the room.
‘No,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘You’re always filled with total confidence that things will go your way.’
‘I am indeed, Pamsy,’ he said. ‘Any chance of a splosh of brandy in this?’
Christmas with Mr Darcy (an Austen Addicts story) Page 3