‘No, no, please, I like detours.’
‘At the end of last year when my father died I returned to France from America not just for the funeral, but to pack up everything, and to sort through his personal effects with a view to giving as much as was possible to his so-devoted friends and staff, and of course his servants on his estate. It was while I was going through his things that I found the same drawing as you have, except in mine – or rather in his – you are actually wearing a towel, exactly, I suppose, as you were that evening when you and he first met. He must have done two drawings, because the one that he gave you, you know how he loved to tease – it seems he has removed the towel!’
They were walking down the beach hand in hand. Back at the hotel breakfast would be being served but Ottilie did not care if the croissants were too brown and the toast stiffening, all she could think about was her evening with Pierre’s father and how when she had met his son she had indeed had the strangest feeling that they had somehow met before.
‘As soon as I saw that drawing,, in grief as I was, I knew that I had to meet this girl that my father had drawn with such obvious delight. But I did not know who the girl was, can you imagine anything so irritating? I knew from his friends and servants that there had been no young mistress in his life, so who was the model for this so joyous drawing? Who had so captured his imagination that he had been able to go away and draw her with such tenderness, whom had he known, whom had he seen, that had such an innocent look to her? And then Mrs Le Martine came to the funeral and we talked, and she came back to our family home and I showed her the drawing and she laughed so much – she knew you straight away, and that is why when she heard that you were looking for a designer she sent me hotfoot down here on her recommendation, because she knew I longed to meet you.’
‘That’s why you were so nervous that morning. You must have been in dread of my being a disappointment, and let’s face it – I was.’
‘No, you were no disappointment, but you were a shock. I could see that something terrible had happened to you. You were so thin, and you had the haunted look of someone who appeared to have been very ill and was only now getting better.’
‘I had been ill. And now I am better.’
‘So now we know everything that there is to know about each other, will you marry me? Preferably by special licence, tomorrow?’
Ottilie shook her head. ‘I can’t marry you, Pierre, at least not yet, not until I’ve found out who I really am. Coming back here to the Grand, seeing everything again, but through such different eyes, I know now that I have to know who I am before I go any further, or make any more changes in my life.’
‘But I thought – you just said earlier that the past didn’t matter!’
‘No, not my past,’ Ottilie agreed. ‘But their past. The people who made me. I must know where I came from, why I’m here at all.’
Pierre looked down at her and carefully brushing back the hair that was blowing across her face he sighed and warned her, ‘Be very careful of the past, Ottilie, anyone’s past. It can sometimes prove to be more hurting than your own.’
But Ottilie had hardly heard his last words before springing back and putting her hand across her mouth as she remembered. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, Blue Lady is due tonight, I must have everything ready for her. It’s so important that she likes the way you’ve done the suite, everything must be perfect for her.’
She turned. ‘Jean is in dread because Mrs Ballantyne’s so set in her ways and since she came back – before you, as it were, sent the troops in to pull the suite all apart – Blue Lady’s been going dottier than ever. We warned her the suite would be changed, when she came back, but you never know how much she takes in.’
Ottilie started to run back towards the hotel, Pierre following her and calling, ‘But I thought she’d left?’
‘She has, for her time in Devon. It’s difficult to – too difficult to explain now.’
Pierre shook his head, but he refused to follow Ottilie any further, and realizing that their time together was temporarily at an end he turned back to the beach to continue their walk alone, although calling back with an attempt at humour, ‘I could learn to hate this woman, Blue Lady, and really quite quickly too. And Ottilie, don’t forget we’re invited to the mighty Granvilles for lunch today. Or as they said in Jane Austen’s day, to Tredegar we are invited, Miss Cartaret.’
Who could forget it, Ottilie thought, as she jumped back up the steps of the hotel, realizing that because of all the love-making and the wonder of last night and this morning she had nevertheless nearly forgotten Mrs Ballantyne’s all-important return.
Yet she doubted very much that she could possibly have forgotten that they were invited to Tredegar since it was after all Ottilie who had found Philip and Constantia wandering round the hotel. Happily the knowledge that she owned the place in which they stood meant that when she bumped into them she felt quite able to stand tall and look both of them in the face, and it was they who looked away, dropping their eyes as dogs do, knowing that they might well be, indeed were, not just caught in the act of snooping round the hotel, but highly unwanted by its new owner.
‘We just had to come and look, we heard so-o much about what you were up to, Ot-ti-lie dear,’ Constantia drawled, puffing a little too hard on her cigarette.
Ottilie could see Veronica hovering protectively some yards away. She would know immediately that the Granvilles were snooping and would be waiting to see if Ottilie wanted them shown the door.
Constantia smiled at Ottilie, mouth only, eyes as hard as ever, her thoughts reflected in the hardened expression and it wasn’t difficult to read at least one of them. ‘Who would have thought you would have done so well for yourself, Ottilie Cartaret?’
‘Thank you, Veronica,’ Ottilie said smoothly, turning and pulling a gargoyle’s face at her behind the Granvilles’ backs.
As Veronica bit her lip and hurried off Ottilie turned back to the Granvilles.
‘Now how can I help you?’ she drawled in a fair imitation of Constantia herself.
Philip, realizing what she was doing, reddened, but Ottilie stared at him stonefaced. She was determined to show him that she had changed completely. The damaged goods were now whole again. And yet, proud of her professionalism as she was, Ottilie would not deny them access to her hotel, for to do so would be to give them far too much importance. Constantia and Philip might be the Granvilles of Tredegar, but they were only human beings, and as such she had found them wanting in both kindness and tolerance, believing in rumours, rather than the person they had once known so well and, in Philip’s case, even loved.
The hotel, because its structure was so sound, because all the doors were good thick polished Edwardian mahogany made from wonderful, aged wood, must now seem like a palace to the Granvilles compared to how it had been recently during its bad sad days. Pierre had hardly even begun but the little he had accomplished nevertheless was already reflecting his determination to bring about an atmosphere of, as he called it, ‘being aboard a luxurious liner before the war’. And, although working to a self-imposed tight budget, he had actually wrought miracles with the paintings and furniture that he had already bought on Ottilie’s behalf, not to mention the ubiquitous Ming vases.
Nevertheless, proud as she was of Pierre’s achievements in such a short time, all the while Ottilie was proudly showing the now rather effectively silenced Granvilles the just completed new dining room, she kept praying that Pierre would not bump into them.
It wasn’t that Ottilie was ashamed of having once imagined that she was in love with her old childhood friend, or that she was not proud of Pierre, it was just that she had every idea that Pierre would loathe the Granvilles and their haughty ways, and wonder how she ever came to be friends with them in the first place, and nowadays that was something which Ottilie herself found difficult to explain. Thankfully by the time the tour ended Pierre had yet to be seen and Ottilie had every hope of sending the Granvilles on
their way.
Until Constantia – and she would – doubled back to the dining room saying, ‘I just must see that marvellous Fowler pink that your designer has used. Just the same colour as Roberts Animal Ointment, I always think.’
And suddenly there was Pierre in the middle of the dining room talking to Alanna and staring at some china that had newly arrived and as always on seeing him Ottilie immediately felt immensely glad despite not wanting him to meet the Granvilles. She couldn’t help being glad because every time she set eyes on Pierre anew, it seemed like both a wonderful surprise and a reaffirmation, and yet at that particular moment she wished him a million miles away.
Pierre himself had seemed benignly oblivious of the Granvilles’ patronizing attitudes, waving a swatch of silk and saying, ‘Look, Ottilie, that stupid old Knightsbridge fruit has come good at last.’
‘This is your designer, is it? We must be allowed to meet him, surely?’ Constantia immediately insisted as she saw Pierre, his spectacles on his nose, Alanna hovering with her clipboard, as always her hair scraped back, face scrubbed and generally shining with devotion.
Of course as soon as Philip saw Pierre walking towards Ottilie with his face lit up he knew. And as soon as Pierre saw Ottilie with Philip he knew that Ottilie had once thought herself in love with Philip, and that being so as they shook hands Pierre removed his glasses and put them on top of his head, as if he did not want to appear disadvantaged by them. And Philip having engaged Pierre in conversation kept referring to his occupation in thinly veiled sarcastic terms, using the words ‘interior design’ and ‘interior designer’ with a lightly sarcastic emphasis that was nevertheless unmistakable in its meaning. So much so that had Pierre not frowned a warning at her Ottilie would have felt tempted to say something, but that was before Constantia knocked one of the Ming vases ‘by mistake’ to the floor and it broke into several pieces.
‘Oh I am sorry!’
She leaned down to pick up some of the pieces while essaying to look remorseful.
There was a small silence as Ottilie stared at the pieces, and then at Constantia, knowing that what she had just done had been far from a mistake. Philip at least had the grace to look embarrassed for the first time, before Pierre said, stooping down to help Ottilie pick up the pieces, ‘Don’t be sorry, Miss Granville. Ottilie certainly won’t be. She hates these vases, as soon as I bought them I could see they set her teeth on edge. Besides, they’re actually worthless, one of them having a crack in it. Not only that but they’re fakes – all so-called Ming is fake as you know. As it happened these were rather good fakes, but fakes none the less. As I am sure you will appreciate one would never dream of putting out the real thing in a hotel.’
There was nothing but good humour in Pierre’s eyes as he said all that, whereas Ottilie had the feeling that there was a look of something near to defeat in Constantia’s, and she suddenly remembered seeing Constantia, when they were much younger, scratching a mark with a red Biro down the back of a friend’s new cream winter coat simply because it was new and pretty and did not belong to Constantia.
At long last, feeling embarrassed by his sister’s obvious lack of grace, Philip had quickly diverted the conversation and asked Ottilie and Pierre to lunch the following Sunday. ‘We must at least try to make it up to you both,’ he said with a gracious smile, as if Pierre and Ottilie were badly in need of a hot meal.
‘Don’t let’s go,’ Ottilie had begged, but not nearly hard enough she realized as Pierre drove them both towards Tredegar, and anyway it was useless, because Pierre was avid to see such a famous old house, particularly since it was still in private hands.
Soon they were standing outside the old oak doors that were so familiar to Ottilie and he was saying, ‘This is a pretty perfect example of Elizabethan domestic architecture.’
‘Hi.’ Constantia opened the door herself, although there was a maid hovering in the background.
She smiled, which for Constantia was quite something, except that it had to be faced that Constantia’s smile was a little like that of an alligator, one third on the top, two thirds concealed. Right from the start she addressed herself solely to the man, ignoring Ottilie, which Ottilie had noticed some women have the habit of doing, and which she, at the hotel, was most careful not to do. Not that Constantia’s lapse of manners was important. After all they were not going to be staying at Tredegar, just having to suffer a meal there.
Compared to Pierre’s work on the Grand, Tredegar with its too-crowded walls and dark wood, while undoubtedly beautiful, appealed to Ottilie as being gloomy and claustrophobic, so she was glad to follow Pierre and Constantia quietly round, all the while feeling doubly glad that she did not live there.
‘I expect Ottilie told you that we invited you especially early knowing that you would probably enjoy a quiet ride with Philip before luncheon while Ottilie and I catch up with our gossip?’
Constantia turned as they returned once more to the Great Hall, and before Ottilie could say ‘You never mentioned riding when you phoned to confirm, Constantia’ she beckoned Pierre to follow her upstairs.
‘No riding clothes,’ Pierre told his hostess, as Ottilie reflected that there was nothing she cared for less than what Constantia called a ‘quiet gossip’.
‘Borrow some of Philip’s riding clothes, no problem. Ottilie doesn’t ride, I know, but Philip has plenty that will fit you, and we have a whole family of riding boots,’ she went on, glancing at Pierre’s elegant feet. ‘But perhaps you don’t, ride I mean, perhaps you can’t?’
‘Of course I can. Sure I ride. I spent much of the American half of my childhood riding on a horse farm.’
Ottilie knew that this would appeal to Constantia as being boastful, and she could imagine only too well Constantia, after they had left, mimicking Pierre to Philip using words like ‘horse farm’ and ‘sure’ in a mocking way.
‘Oh I don’t think Pierre wants to ride,’ Ottilie put in quickly, because she knew very well from way back that one of Constantia’s more savage houseparty jokes was to put inexperienced riders up on unrideable hacks, usually hirelings brought in for the weekend, and then watch in glee while they fell off them. This practice had ended rather abruptly when one of the many unfortunates had broken a collar bone.
Pierre frowned a warning at Ottilie, a frown meant only for her, before turning back to Constantia. His voice immediately changed to a higher register, and he flapped his hand at his hostess as he said, ‘It’s ages since I had a ride, darling, do please let me, please!’
In her turn Ottilie pleaded with him with her eyes ‘Please don’t!’ because he just didn’t know the kind of horse that the Granvilles would lend people, he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. But Pierre turned away from her appearing not to notice either her grimace or the pleading look in her eyes.
No sooner had Pierre changed into a pair of Philip’s jodhpurs and some boots than Constantia glanced out of the window and sighed. ‘Oh dear, look, it’s started to rain, would you believe? And not just rain, hail too. That will be no fun to ride in for either of you.’ Ottilie heaved an inward sigh of relief. ‘No, no fun at all,’ Constantia said, smiling up at Pierre. ‘Tell you what, how about some jumping in the indoor school? In view of the weather, eh? You jump, don’t you?’
‘Jump?’ Pierre said. ‘No, I don’t jump, Miss Granville, I soar.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t—’
But Pierre removed Ottilie’s hand from his sleeve, giving it a warning squeeze.
‘I just love jumping, really.’
With that they all set off with umbrellas in the pouring rain across the fields at the back in the direction of a large barn, Pierre, outwardly anyway, as cheerful as ever, and Constantia looking like a cat who has just caught a large mouse and is going to have great fun playing with it before killing it.
The horse that the girl groom led towards them as they entered the barn was a large bay, but it had short ears and plenty of white to its eye. Ottilie knew
nothing about horses but it seemed to her the moment she saw Pierre’s mount that it looked mean and bad-tempered. She wanted to dive at the wretched creature and lead it back out of the great barn that acted as a covered school for the Granvilles and their employees.
Pierre on the other hand seemed blissfully impervious to the obvious imperfections of his proffered mount, merely removing his glasses and giving them to Ottilie while smiling and chatting with Constantia. The groom lowered the leathers and pulled down the stirrups for Pierre to mount, but he turned to her as she led the horse up and said, ‘Oh no, thank you. No saddle, thank you. I always ride bareback.’
The groom looked more than astonished and for once even Constantia seemed silenced, not even making her little ‘oh’ sound, like breaking glass.
‘No saddle?’ she asked, an eye on the distant figure of Philip on a thoroughbred making perfect transitions from trot to canter and back again, while hardly disturbing the sawdust as he rode in perfect unison.
‘Oh you know us Americans,’ Pierre joked. ‘We actually prefer frontier conditions. Plenty of sawdust here,’ he went on, indicating the heaped sawdust on the floor of the barn, ‘all we need now is the saloon and a barman and two fingers of redeye.’
‘You’re going to ride bareback?’ Constantia persisted in asking him.
‘Not ride bareback,’ Pierre called gaily as the groom gave him a leg up and he promptly swung forward clasping his arms around his mount’s neck thereby setting it off at a fast trot, ‘heck no, nothing like that. Jump bareback, much more fun. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am.’ At which he appeared to nearly fall from the horse, leaning and swaying and exclaiming, ‘Oh my, oh my, it’s years since I did this, oh my, oh my. Maybe if I call to it it will stop,’ he shouted, bolting off in the direction of the jumps as Ottilie closed her eyes.
He was going to be killed. Ottilie was quite sure that he was going to be killed and her life would be at an end.
Grand Affair Page 41
