by P. G. Glynn
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A certain Monsieur Mivart, in 1808, opened a hotel at the south corner of Davies Street and gave London the lavish accommodation and fare that at the time it sadly lacked. He called his hotel Mivart’s and it prospered. The hotel fronted on Brook Street – named after the Tyburn Brook – and some years later a new proprietor passed through its imposing doors. This gentleman’s name was Mr Claridge.
Mrs Claridge helped him further Monsieur Mivart’s original aims and also inject some essential Britishness into the establishment. In time the hotel’s reputation brought the discerning from all over the world.
Though Monsieur Mivart and Mr and Mrs Claridge had died long ago and the original building had been demolished to make way for the current one, their work went on. This was still the hotel where the best of everything was on offer – and Otto Berger never settled for less than the best.
Why should he, when he could afford every luxury? His twenty per cent share in the Berger business concerns brought him an enviable income that meant Otto had no need to bother his head about where money went. And until the introduction of the new currency restrictions he had been free to draw funds in whichever country he happened to be. Now there was less freedom in this respect, though, and in order to replenish his coffers he had to go home.
But the more he saw of Marie the more he regretted being booked to go tomorrow. For a man who never normally regretted anything, this was becoming a big regret. He had no time left in which to woo and win her. That she could be won from Charles Brodie or, indeed, from anyone was not in question. Otto had found that all women succumbed sooner or later and that later was often the better option since a wait tended to whet his appetite for them.
It was quite obvious that Marie would need to be wooed slowly and patiently, which was part of her considerable charm. She was a prize like Lenka had seemed to be and the wait for such a prize was invariably worthwhile. As they made small talk in the hired Rolls Otto even wondered whether he could be falling in love with her. Why, he had felt light-headed with pleasure when she finally agreed to dine with him and had spent the time between then and now counting the minutes until they were due to meet again! Which was most uncharacteristic and it was not as if she were giving him a scrap of encouragement. Otto somehow doubted that her hostility of earlier had been put on. She was the opposite of interested in him and was just coming to Claridge’s because he had suggested making Charles Brodie jealous. Oh, the power of suggestion!
It was lucky that little Nell was otherwise spoken for, as having her hanging on his every word would not be conducive to wooing Marie. Was there any possibility that he could woo and win her in the next few hours? For all Otto’s inherent optimism he somehow doubted it.
Oh, to stroke that silky skin which was so tantalisingly close to him! How, if in different circumstances he did, would she respond to his caress? Otto had a shrewd idea that she would be uninhibited in bed. Handing her a transparent rectangular box tied with red ribbon he said: “I thought a gardenia might complement your hair.”
“Yes, it might,” Marie agreed, graciously accepting the box from him as if accustomed to gentlemen giving her such gifts within chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces. “I suppose the best way to find out is to try it there.”
The white flower, once fixed in Marie’s topknot, helped her look more than ever like a goddess and Otto said: “Perfect! You’re even lovelier than you were at Kew. I’m … hungry for you.”
“You are?” Marie laughed. “It’s so long since our picnic that I should think you’re much hungrier for dinner. I must admit that I’m hungry, too … for food. I feel as if I haven’t eaten for a week. I also feel a bit like Boadicea, riding in this.”
“Who is she?”
“She was queen of the Iceni, or so Pa told me, and led a revolt against the Romans back in the first century. She rode around in a chariot and took poison when her army was crushed latterly.”
“Who were the Iceni?”
“The inhabitants of Norfolk. In the year 60 or so Boadicea rode through London, claiming it as her own.”
Fresh from having his hunger scorned, Otto resisted saying that Marie looked queenly. He said instead: “You and your father were very close?”
“Very!” Marie sighed. “I’ve missed him every day since he died.”
Knowing better than to get involved in any reminders as to how he died, Otto said: “Your uncle is like a father in some respects?”
“Oh yes! Uncle John’s extremely fatherly – and protective. Where I’m concerned, he reminds me of a lion protecting his cub. Not,” she added quickly, “that I need protection from anyone. I’m well able to take care of myself.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Otto grinned. Then he queried: “John is your father’s brother, is he?”
“No, but he should have been! In character he’s much more like Pa than like Mam, whose brother he actually is – and Mam regards him as the family’s black sheep.”
“Really? He seemed kind and sensitive to me.”
“That sums him up exactly.” Marie looked at Otto pensively. “I think, though, that we two are alone in seeing his true colours. Aunt Gwen treats him so badly that at times I could scream.”
“Yet she’s his inferior, isn’t she?”
“That’s putting it mildly! I’ve never been able to think of a single reason as to why he would have married her.”
“Perhaps she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”
Marie laughed and he joined in her laughter. Neither noticed that their car had turned into Brook Street until the chauffeur braked outside Claridge’s.
The doorman who stepped smartly forward to assist their arrival was wearing a knee-length blue frock coat with gold-braided collar and with brass buttons arrayed in twin arcs from his shoulders down to just below the waist. He also wore a tall top hat with a gold band and Marie was very conscious of the fact that he was doing the job Uncle John did at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand. Strange to think that Charles Dickens was once a patron of the place where John Jones worked these days! After the doorman had saluted her and seen her safely on to the pavement Marie asked him: “What’s your name?”
“Herbert, madam,” he responded gravely.
“Mine is Howard – Marie Howard.” She smiled and he found himself beguiled as he opened the hotel door for her.
Then Otto was taking her arm and transporting her into a new world.
This was a world of thick carpets, of silken wallpaper and of massive crystal chandeliers. It was Monsieur Mivart’s world, and Mr and Mrs Claridge’s, with French furnishings and a harmonious atmosphere. The unobtrusive staff were so efficient that they anticipated needs almost before the need was there. Marie felt as if this world had been created especially for her. She was perfectly at ease in these rarefied surroundings, breathing the air that the privileged breathed. As to all the interest she was receiving: had her fame penetrated even here? While being shown by the maitre d’hotel to Otto’s table Marie was pleasurably conscious of rapt attention from fashionably bobbed ladies and from admiring gentlemen. She had as yet seen no sign of Charles and Madeleine. She was confident, though, that whether or not Charles was present someone would bring to his notice the fact that Marie Howard had been seen dining at Claridge’s with an eligible bachelor.
The Saumon Fume Ecossaise and the Filet de Boeuf Bouquetiere were recommended but since Marie was unfamiliar with French and awed by the menu’s length she told Otto: “As long as you don’t order pork for me, I’ll leave the choice to you.”
At her allusion to pork he voiced a thought that had not crossed his mind before: “Are you a Jewess?”
“No, I’m chapel – but once had a pet pig who turned up on my plate without any warning.”
“How distressing for you!” He grimaced much as she was grimacing. “Where did you live, with your pet pig?”
“In a village in Wales, where my mother and sisters still live.”
“Wales is a country
I’ve never visited. What have I missed?”
“I’d hardly know where to begin. It’s a country with everything … except theatres, although it does have a few of those, in Cardiff and Swansea and some other places, I suppose. It has mountains galore, with Snowdon the tallest – that’s in the north – and there’s sea on three sides, from Cardiff right round the coast to Flint. When I was at the Grand Theatre in Swansea I went sometimes to a nearby peninsula where there’s a bay called Three Cliffs which must be one of the most spectacular bays anywhere, with its river and white sands and the dunes where one can sit right out of the wind. Oh,” Marie ended as the waiter arrived to take their order, “and in Wales we also have a thriving mining industry!”
“‘We’?” he queried once they were alone again. “If you are as proud to be Welsh as you sound, why did you leave your country to come to London?”
“I can be proud without wanting to stay there forever. London is the place for an actress to be. Everything in the theatre is happening here. Besides which I haven’t exactly left my country since it’s part of Great Britain.” Deciding that she was doing more than her share of talking, Marie asked him: “Are you looking forward to going home to Bohemia?”
She would laugh again if he told her that he had been, until meeting her. So Otto answered: “In some ways, not in others. From your description it sounds as if our countries have a lot in common – except, of course, for the sea. Czechoslovakia is right in Europe’s interior, with countries such as Hungary, Poland, Russia or Austria beyond each of her borders.” Having deliberately omitted mention of Germany he now hastened to say: “It feels odd not to be Austrian any longer. And it feels even odder to know that Austria has lost both her Empire and her Emperor. When I was conscripted into the Dragoons, in Vienna, one of my duties was to guard old Franz Josef and his Empress Elisabeth.”
“Was it?” Marie was astonished. “I thought you said you’d never worked.”
“That wasn’t work, but it was dangerous … for my horse.”
“For your horse yet not for you?”
“Yes.” Otto smiled engagingly. “You see, my horse was in danger from me! As a cavalryman I carried a sabre – and these were so lethal that during manoeuvres many a mount lost its ear. There were more one-eared horses in Vienna than in any other city anywhere.”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“Come with me to Vienna and see for yourself.”
He was joking. He must be. Yet for some inexplicable reason she felt threatened, in a sense. “No … never!” she said.
With a whimsical expression Otto told her: “‘Never’ is a word to be used with great care. It has an uncanny habit, I’ve found, of rebounding on the user.”
12
The more Otto considered it, the more feasible it seemed to him that he could lure Marie to Austria. Unless the war had changed it beyond recognition she would love Vienna – and he could wine and dine her there as she had never been wined and dined before. Vienna, after all, was his city or he had always thought of it as his. Prague might be nearer geographically to Schloss Berger but Vienna’s culture, her coffee houses, her palaces, her essence ensured that she remained closest to his heart. Yes, Vienna had a unique atmosphere and it was a wonder that Otto had been able to stay away so long.
He had left to lick his wounds after discovering that the girl he was about to marry had slept with half his regiment and he had then been overtaken by world events. Well, thanks to the war and to the distance he had put between himself and Lenka, he had had both time and opportunity to get over her. Otto could now look back on his wedding plans and see them for what they were: a boy’s infatuation with a dream-girl. He, naïve youth that he was then, had been preparing to marry someone with no substance in reality. The Lenka he thought he knew and loved was a different species from the woman revealed by the fellow officer who had opened his eyes for him.
Back then, he would almost have preferred to keep them closed and not know about Lenka’s whoring. Otto had, in fact, thumped Fritz Meyer soundly for imparting the information and had only recognised much later that Fritz had done him a favour. How hard it had been, coming to terms with the truth and telling Lenka there would be no wedding, then or ever! After telling her, he had seen another side to her … heard stories from her lips that had haunted him ever since. To think that she had been born a peasant and that her sultry, southern beauty hid dark and dreadful sins! Otto tried not to think about this, or about how that once proud woman had prostrated herself to him asking forgiveness. He might have forgiven the things she had once done to exist but could not forgive her for making a laughing stock of him within his own regiment. Lenka should have seen that that was too much to expect.
Well, she was the past and Marie was the present. He, additionally, was a man now with a man’s knowledge not a boy’s. Since Lenka he had known many women and had loved none of them. He supposed he had used them, in a sense. He could hardly help it if women fell at his feet and more or less begged him to make them his. It would be ungallant to refuse, wouldn’t it? But as for commitment, or marriage: he had long ago decided to leave such things to fools like Ludwig.
A man was entitled to change his mind, though, and Otto’s mind had been whirling since Marie’s arrival in his life. It was not just her beauty that fascinated him. Everything about her was so intriguing. She was so aloof yet so vivacious, so worldly yet so … so virginal. Could she be a virgin, despite her seeming involvement with Charles Brodie? There was no knowing, in this country, with its Victorian values still intact superficially but with emotions certainly running deep. In Bohemia you knew where you were with people but over here there was so much hypocrisy. Marie of course was no hypocrite. Quite the opposite: she was far too open, far too direct to be anything less than wholly honest. And it didn’t much matter to him whether or not she was a virgin. If she was he wouldn’t complain, but then neither would he if she was not. He didn’t wish to be guilty of hypocrisy and would be in agreeing with one rule for men and another for women. He had indulged in lovemaking so why shouldn’t she have done? With the upbringing she had been describing to him she would surely always stop short of promiscuity. Otto had a shrewd notion, in fact, that Marie Howard was a one-man woman.
Before the dessert was served he acknowledged that he wanted to be her man. Which could not be the champagne talking. He was well accustomed to champagne, even if Marie was not. She obviously wasn’t or wouldn’t be mentioning that she was floating and could see two of him. Had her uncle not seen Otto as an honourable man it would have been tempting … No, it would not. He could never take as his a woman who wasn’t wholly (and soberly!) willing. A man needed to draw a line somewhere and he drew his there, besides which taking Marie while she regarded herself as Charles’s would bring no pleasure. So the winning must come before the loving … but how … where … when … given that he would be aboard a boat bound for Hamburg by this time tomorrow?
He could of course return within a month or so. That would be one way round the problem – not one much to his liking, though. Otto was not used to waiting for something. If he wanted it he wanted it now and now was normally not a problem. There was the added fact that Marie might well have forgotten him by the time of his return, necessitating his having to start wooing her again from the beginning. Which would be a pity since he seemed to be making measurable progress. She appeared to like him more than she did at Kew, rather than less. He had seen plenty of smiles and very few glares, which was the reverse of earlier. So it should be within his power somehow to tempt her to Vienna!
“I’ll never forget tonight,” he said, adding wistfully: “Shall I be leaving you with any good memories of me?”
“I’ll see if I can think of any,” Marie giggled, thinking it odd that Otto was gazing at her like a faithful dog. Not that her thought-process was too logical! All the bubbles in her drink seemed to have risen into her head where they were bringing the weirdest effects. “Yes,” she said, by some me
ans avoiding this emerging as ‘yesh’, “there is something. You did Uncle John a power of good earlier on – which I’ll remember long after I’ve forgotten Kew.”
Relieved to realise she had not said ‘forgotten you’, Otto was despondent too. Was his treatment of her uncle all Marie would remember of him? If so, that was very depressing. “How did I do him good?” he asked, perplexed.
“By treating him as an equal, instead of as some inferior being.”
“But he is my equal, isn’t he?”
“Yes, though not the Jamiesons’s, funnily! Aunt Gwen and her parents have somehow got it into their heads that they’re a cut above him and can’t see that he’s worth a hundred of them. You helped him see how things are really.” Marie reached for her glass again and, raising it, said: “So thank you for that and for this meal … and here’s wishing you a safe journey back to Bohemia!”
They both drank and then Otto said impetuously: “Come with me! Marry me, Marie, and come to Schloss Berger as my wife!”
She smiled. “Champagne has its own language, hasn’t it?”
“That wasn’t the champagne talking,” he protested. “I’m bewitched … and have fallen in love with you, I think.”
“You’d know, if you had, and wouldn’t just think it – besides which I’m already married.”
“You are?”
She saw his shock and shrugged it off, enlightening him: “Yes, to the theatre. I’m an actress first and foremost – and, even if I were in love with someone, about the last place on earth I’d go with him is Czechoslovakia.”
