The Other Miss Donne

by Jane Arbor

  ‘And you’ve experienced the same regrets before?’

  ‘Well, haven’t you?’

  He appeared to consider the question. Then, ‘It’s not an uncommon experience, I daresay. But I know what you mean—except that usually, when I want to detain someone and to see them again, I find I don’t have to look far for the power to do it.’

  ‘Really? You’re fortunate.’ Carey’s tone had an edge of irony.

  ‘I’d rather call it a flair for taking time by the forelock. Take my first meeting with Harvey Maynard, Denise Corel’s grandfather. When I lighted out here, with no ties and an eye for opportunity, our meeting in a Tangier club might have been a hail-and-farewell affair, if I hadn’t seen—not too late—the advantage to us both a partnership in Auto-Maroc which, he told me casually, he was getting too old to manage alone. I had some cash to invest from a lucrative job or two elsewhere abroad, so we made a deal and went ahead. No twisting of arms involved. Simply my seeing that I had happened for him just when he needed someone like me. But I realised it before he did. You see what I mean by muscling-in with the power?’

  ‘Yes. And after you had made a success of Auto-Maroc—then the El Gara?’ Carey queried.

  ‘Not until after he died. Auto-Maroc was carrying people from here to there, and Harvey and I had discussed the idea of a new luxury stopover for them. But we hadn’t developed it, and it wasn’t until his will had omitted any provision for Denise that the need for the El Gara or somewhere like it became a must.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Obvious. She wouldn’t be thirteen—as she was then—for ever. Even for her school holidays I could hardly make a home for her in a bachelor apartment. I wasn’t even her legal guardian. And so a hotel, where she could be seen to be chaperoned by the staff, seemed to be the logical answer. Or would you dispute the logic?’

  Carey didn’t answer directly. ‘I must say,’ she said, ‘it reminds me a bit of the Arnold Bennett character who, when a West End hotel couldn’t take his order for a porterhouse steak for dinner, promptly bought up the hotel, lock, stock and barrel!’

  Her companion’s smile came and went briefly. ‘Exactly. I took that chap as my model and made a home for Denise my justification for going all out to develop this place. Time by the forelock again, you see. If I remember, it worked out for the Arnold Bennett fellow and it has worked out for me. The El Gara won’t look back, and Denise has the security Harvey Maynard forgot to give her.’

  ‘And she was happy about the arrangement?’

  ‘Happy?’ The echo was sharp. ‘She was too young to be consulted. Whether or not the arrangement suited her, I wouldn’t know. It suited me, and she has everything she wants; knows where to come for anything she may imagine she lacks, and the only rule I expect her to keep is that she shouldn’t make herself cheap with the guests. In other words, I’m not having her the target of idle hotel gossip, nor exploited by any of the unattached playboy types any star hotel attracts.’

  As they talked the car had been put to the last slopes of the El Gara hill. At the front entrance, before Carey alighted, she was reminded, ‘That lad’s address—let me have it on my desk in the morning, will you?’ And then, half turned in his seat towards her, Randal Quest added, ‘And by the way, perhaps this would be a good time to make clear that my strictures on Denise must apply to you too, Miss Donne. You understand me, I hope?’

  There was a moment of silence, a moment of recoil for Carey, a moment of panic search for the withering retort which she felt the uncalled-for warning deserved. Nothing presented itself. All she achieved was a very quiet, cold,

  ‘Do you know, Mr. Quest, I understood quite well that they were covered by your last night’s ruling against my standing out from my background, as you put it? I really didn’t need them spelled over to me again!’

  To her chagrin, he appeared oblivious of the ice she hoped had sounded in her tone. ‘No?’ he said merely, and opened the car door for her.

  ‘No,’ she reiterated firmly as she got out.

  Behind her she heard him summon a boy to carry in her parcels. But even to thank him, she would not allow herself to look back.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BY the sober light of morning there seemed less sting to the implied rebuke which had so nettled Carey overnight. She still felt it might have been left unsaid until some behaviour of hers had earned it. But if the man believed in prevention rather than cure, he probably hadn’t meant to insult her by it, she conceded in more tolerant mood. The job was, after all, rather vague and double-edged in its relationship to the guests, and if someone before her had violated its unwritten, unsuspected taboos, then perhaps the warning was understandable—if only just.

  Carey found herself wondering about that ‘someone’— if there had been anybody for whom she herself had taken the rap at her employer’s hands last night. Rosalie of course had offended in a different way—by daring to lift her eyes to his brother. And so possibly—the social hostess before Rosalie? If there had been one, Denise Corel would know, and though Carey despised herself for wanting to probe, she was curious all the same.

  She found she was wishing the job was better defined. For instance, this morning she had only one task in view—to take young Seid’s address to Randal Quest. Yes—another; to thank him for taking her over to Tangier. But after that—what? Her previous job had been elastic enough, goodness knew, but there had on and off-duty hours, the Purser’s Office was a kind of common-room, and the assistants’ trim uniforms had lent status to their job. Whereas this mingling and merging that was expected of her sounded like a round-the-clock assignment. Was she to work, for instance, mainly hand-in-hand with the household staff or the reception desk? Who was her immediate boss? And where ought she to be available to any guests needing her help?

  Remembering she had not yet had much advice from Denise, she took the problem with her to their shared breakfast-table, only to meet with frustration.

  Denise said indifferently, ‘You must ask Randal yourself. How do I know how he expected you to tick over? Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘Only in a general way when he engaged me, though I’m to see him this morning. I just thought you might give me one or two hints. For instance, there would have been other hostesses before my sister, wouldn’t there? How did they work?’

  ‘Only one, and she didn’t last long when Randal was managing the place before, while he’d sent Martin on this course in London.’

  ‘So that it was the vacancy she left which my sister filled?’

  ‘In a way, though this girl had gone some time before. And practically overnight, at that.’

  ‘She left suddenly? Why?’

  Denise shrugged. ‘Officially to go to nurse a sick aunt or someone. Actually because the poor gosse had developed a crush on Randal, as everyone knew. One was sorry for her, of course. Just her misfortune—having to learn the hard way that for Randal there are a few people who are people; the rest are only pawns whom he moves about. Poor Jeanne-Marie Coppard! Making the mistake of thinking she was “people”, when all she was to him was a kind of upper servant ... So sad—’

  As Denise touched her napkin to her lips, stood and left the table, she left Carey in little doubt of the meaning behind the pseudo-compassionate words. They hadn’t been talking about Jeanne-Marie Coppard at all. It was quite another girl, named Carey Donne, who was being warned against the folly of expecting to achieve a personal relationship with Randal Quest. What was more, as Carey watched Denise cross the dining-room, she was wondering what particular lesson had taught the other girl such cynicism so young.

  When she went later to Randal Quest’s office she found him prepared to deal with her questions without their having to be asked.

  She should regard herself at the service of the guests at any time within reason, although, without making a definite rule about it, she was at liberty to suggest tactfully that the siesta hours of the afternoon were her own. She must decide for herself which w
ere household problems and which were reception, and refer them accordingly. Otherwise she would solve them herself to the satisfaction of the guest. In the absence of a manager, she was directly answerable to himself. She could take her breakfast coffee and rolls in her room, but normally she would lunch and dine in the dining-room. At any social affair, such as evening dances, her role would be that of any hostess—making introductions; being seen to be there among the guests.

  When his secretary returned from a week’s leave, she would get her contract and she would find that she could turn in a monthly clothes’ expense account over and above her salary. She would of course be debited with the advance already made to her. She would have the use of a room adjoining his secretary’s, but when she was away from it, as she mostly should be, she must leave word with Michael where she could be found.

  ‘With—Michael?’ Carey queried the name she hadn’t heard before.

  ‘Michael Croft—the hotel secretary. He’ll be back this evening. Now, anything else you want to know which I haven’t covered?’

  ‘I—don’t think so,’ Carey hesitated. ‘Or yes—if anyone offers me hospitality, do I accept or not?’

  ‘You mean drinks at the bar?’

  ‘Or, say, in their suites, if I’ve been called there?’

  ‘It depends. I leave it to your own discretion. In your previous job I daresay you had to grow enough savoir-faire in such situations to guide you. Anything else? No? Then I suggest you first contact Madame Brunet, our head housekeeper, and then check with Reception for any complaints or comments they may want to pass on. And by the way, if you find it odd that the how and why of your appointment isn’t questioned by anyone, it’s because the whole staff, from Madame Brunet downward, have had a directive from me that the affair isn’t to be publicly discussed.’

  Carey’s brow puckered. ‘You mean your appointment of me in Rosalie’s place as hostess isn’t to be discussed?’

  ‘Nor Martin’s defection with her. You understand?’

  ‘I see.’ Grateful for a heed which she supposed was aimed at saving her embarrassment, Carey added, ‘Thank you. That was kind.’

  ‘Kind?’ The echo was a small explosion. ‘What do you mean by kind?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought perhaps—’

  Evidently he read her meaning, for he shook his head. ‘You shouldn’t leap to give credit where credit isn’t due. My main concern, believe me, is that this piece of domestic nonsense of ours doesn’t turn into a major talking-point of scandal and speculation for the whole place. It wouldn’t do our image any good.’

  Carey puzzled, ‘But everyone on the staff must know what has happened?’

  ‘And no doubt are gossiping their heads off in private. That can’t be helped, but it’s to be kept strictly under wraps, saving the need, I hope, of enlarging on the El Gara’s change of manager and hostess to our guests.’

  ‘Though there must be some guests, surely, who’ll wonder about it and ask?’ Carey objected to that.

  ‘A negligible fringe, as it happens. There was a pretty general exodus at the weekend. Anyway, the staff will all plead ignorance of the circumstances; I’ve offered suitable evasions to Denise, and I doubt if you need worry that people are going to care overmuch about a switch of Miss Donnes as long as they get service—and a rather better service, I trust, than they had from your sister. Denise’s story, by the way, will be that a family crisis called Rosalie away, and you have come out from England in her place. Yours should be the same. In any case, it will cease to be a problem when the present overlap of guests leaves.’ Randal Quest paused. ‘That’s all then, I think. Unless—have you yet been in touch with Ibiza?’

  ‘Not so far. I meant to try today.’

  ‘Good. You don’t want to have your sister trying, and failing, to reach you in London, which could happen from now on.’ He lifted the receiver of the telephone at his elbow, nodding to Carey. ‘I’ll put through the call for you and speak to Martin first myself. So if you’ll go back to your room, I’ll transfer to you, which will give you privacy for talking to your sister from there.’

  When Rosalie came on the line, as was to be expected, she was almost incoherent with surprise.

  ‘Carey! Martin says—I mean, Randal has just called him and told him—You went out there to find me? Yes, I know I never posted a letter I began to you when we had made up our minds to go. I couldn’t risk that it might get to London too soon, and that you might find some way of stopping us. But according to Randal, you’re staying on at the El Gara! You are taking over my job—No, I mean the job I got in your name. Oh,

  Carey darling, did you have to? Did he make you—out of revenge? You’ll never stick it. You’ll never stick him. He’s a monster, no less. In that letter I didn’t send, I told you about him and about Denise Corel—Carey, if you can ever forgive me, do try to see that we had to do it. And we’re so blissfully happy, it just isn’t true—What, Carey? What did you say? Stop talking for a minute and listen? Yes, of course I will!’

  Though Carey did not find it easy to say what she had to say, she realised now the sanity of Randal Quest’s advice to wait until some of the pain of Rosalie’s rejection of her had passed. For Rosalie sounded neither deaf nor blind to the consequences, and with no enduring harm done, Carey found she had little heart for berating her.

  There was a new distance between them now, which saddened Carey. But wouldn’t that have been inevitable whenever one of them had married? As for Martin, if he had the power to put that bubbling lilt of happiness into Rosalie’s voice, and if he believed he had the means and the will to order his own life, then Carey allowed that he had the right to try. It was not until she and Rosalie had rung off, promising to keep in touch, that she was struck by a bizarre comparison between Randal Quest and herself.

  True, he had made one of his own when he had commented tartly that they had both been the victims of a confidence trick on Martin’s part. But this was different—this sudden awareness of Carey’s that each of them in their turn had tried to play Fate—he to Martin, she to Rosalie. And it hadn’t come off. Martin and Rosalie had escaped their pressures. They had both failed. And though Carey could not see herself reminding Randal of it, somehow it made a wry bond between them.

  Evidently he had schooled his staff well. For throughout her briefing by the housekeeper and the reception desk, outwardly at least she was accepted without comment, whatever their private curiosity about the turn of events. Asking her own questions, listening and taking instructions, Carey found herself speculating with which of these people she might become friendly in time; which of them would show a genuine interest in her instead of, as now, taking their cue and seeing her merely as the second faceless Miss Donne of two...

  From Madame Brunet she learned that one of her daily duties would be to open and man the hotel library for an hour of each mid-morning. She was given charge of the keys and a list of the international newspapers and periodicals which were delivered in duplicate from the town—a copy of each for the library and another for the tables of Shiraz Room—the guests’ reading-lounge.

  She would be expected to oversee the boys’ setting out of loungers and sun umbrellas and enough tables on the swimming-pool patio and she should make an apparently casual tour, at least once every day, of all the public rooms, terraces, bars, gardens, with the object of keeping herself in view and available.

  Madame also opened a door to a smaller room adjoining the public writing-room, containing a deep leather chair, a functional office chair at a desk, a typewriter, a telephone and a library shelf of gazetteers, world timetables and handbooks in several languages. Here, Madame told Carey, the guests could ask for her services as an occasional stenographer, and in that connection, Madame added drily, Carey might be surprised by how many of the El Gara’s wealthy clients weren’t able to leave either their business affairs or their stockbrokers at home when they came on holiday.

  Reception’s instructions to Carey had mainly to
do with the guests’ comfort on arrival and departure, her escort of them on any expeditions organised from the secretary’s office, her general hostess-ship at other times and any complaints which the desk might refer to her or she to the desk.

  It was while she was still in the reception office that she met her first assignment of the day. The French clerk, answering the house telephone, signalled to her to wait and presently passed the message to her. ‘Room Eighteen. Some secretarial work for you. Will you go up?’ he said.

  Carey went, to find her client was an American woman novelist who explained that she had a deadline date for the delivery of a short story of which she hadn’t yet corrected the manuscript in draft. If she coped with it and handed it over, sheet by sheet, she wondered if Carey could type it in time for her to get it away by that day’s airmail.

  Carey agreed that she almost certainly could. In fact there was a secretarial room for just such purposes, she told Mrs. Hobart, who was gratified by the news.

  ‘You don’t say? Secretary service all laid on? Well, of course, it’s routine in most decent American hotels, but I didn’t suppose they’d got around to anything so civilised out here. You mean, dear, you’re not just a little typist from Reception? You’re trained?’ she marvelled.

  Carey smiled. Yes, I’m trained, though I’m not a fulltime secretary here. I’m called the social hostess and I’ve got other duties besides. I’m very new,’ she added. ‘I’ve only been here for a couple of days, and you are my first client for typing work.’

  ‘Me too. New, I mean. I only checked in last night. Well now, suppose I come down with you to this typing-room, and I’ll check my stuff while you type it, so that we’ll be handy for each other if there’s anything you can’t read or don’t understand? O.K.?’