The Daisy Club (6 page)

‘Hallo, Bob. I hear you're in a bit of trouble, so we have come across to help out. Is Mr Athlone here, do you think?'

‘He's through there,' the old man told her, pushing a large carving fork into the side of the beef to see the colour of the juices that ran out, for despite the fact that the vast joint looked blackened to a cinder, it smelt wonderful. ‘In the Big Room, as they call it. You can have a gander at the placings in the dining room on your way. Twelve tonight, and eight tomorrow night, and Cook passed out in the wing from doing too little during the week, Mr Athlone says, and the caterers gone to help the Duchess of Who Knows Where, so it's all ends to the middle, and no mistake.'

Freddie paused, looking back at the others, eyebrows raised. Laura looked past her, interested only in seeing more of the house, which seemed to be long and rambling and made up of many previous buildings, not quite a proper house the way the Court, or the Hall, were, but nevertheless atmospheric, intriguing, with meandering corridors and uneven floors, the whole painted in warm colours. They passed, as instructed, through the dining room, which was beautifully laid with glass and silver, linen and lace, all placed upon long lace-edged cloths, in the French style. No formal portraits, though, only large silver-framed mirrors, perhaps to increase its proportions? Or perhaps, Laura suddenly thought, for some other reason? She frowned. Why would she think that?

She did not have time to question herself before she was following Freddie down three or four steps into the largest, whitest room she had ever been in, filled with the largest whitest furniture she had ever seen – it must surely have been specially made for the room? At the farthest end, dominating the whole, on a raised platform, stood two very, very large shining pianos, placed back to back.

All in all it was a room befitting a famous playwright, songwriter, and actor, and undoubtedly a room that would be greatly enhanced by other brilliant people, or even people who might find that they rapidly changed once they were in it, their conversation becoming faster and wittier, as befitted the place they were in – just as those who walk in hallowed places, churches and museums, find their voices dropping along with their eyes, taking on an awed demeanour in keeping with their surroundings.

Guy Athlone, tall, elegant, dark-haired, arose from behind one of the pianos, and walked with what Freddie observed was almost self-conscious precision towards the new arrivals, while for her part Daisy could not help noting that his shoes were made of fine, black suede, which was so soigné, and that they looked really rather perfect as they moved – almost floated – across the thick white carpet.

As he advanced towards his improvised waitresses for the evening, Guy himself found he was having a pretty hard time of it not to burst out laughing. Happily both his good manners, and his stage training, prevented his being so unkind, and yet gracious though it had been of Jessica Valentyne to offer him help, to be quite truthful, a less authentic gaggle of young waitresses he had yet to see.

First of all there was, necessarily, because of their backgrounds, a general air of innocent amazement about them, so they looked a little like a bunch of startled fawns staring out from under their awkwardly tied waitresses' hats. And then there was their air of sophisticated appreciation as they looked from him to their surroundings, their quick surreptitious glances appreciating everything around them in a way that professional waitresses would not, professionals finding, as they always did, one rich man's house really very little different from another, the only thing of interest being their pay cheques.

‘Is that a Boudin, sir?' one of them asked, after he had introduced himself to them.

‘I believe it is,' he agreed. ‘Very much so. Do you like it?'

Laura smiled.

‘Oh yes, very much. We have one at home rather the same,' she told him, and immediately coloured as she realised, too late, from his look of mild astonishment, that she must have stepped out of turn talking about a painting, that this was not what was expected of a waitress.

‘Now, let me see, I must remember you correctly. So I will start again. Freddie Valentyne, I know, of course.' Guy nodded at Freddie, and she smiled. ‘But – but you are Laura Hambleton? And you, Daisy Beresford? And finally, Aurelia Smith-Jones. Please correct me if I am wrong.' After they had affirmed that he had remembered their names correctly, he continued. ‘Freddie here can show you the ropes, of course, since she has served at dinner before, but tonight we have an added excitement, I am afraid, and no, it is not royalty. Cook has done a vanishing act, fallen into a bottle and disappeared, so we only have old Mr Bob in the kitchen, and Edie who is only partially here, and by that I mean on this planet, and from Friday to Monday even less. So who is good at knowing what sauces go with what, and what plates go where, and not to serve the meat before the fish? If we can find any, that is,' he concluded gaily.

‘We all are, Mr Athlone,' Freddie told him, raising her head a little. ‘And what is more, we felt jolly sorry for you when we heard that you had been so let down by the catering people, and that they had absconded to help out at the Duchess of Charlbury's masked ball.'

‘How very charming of you, but I am happy to tell you that revenge is indeed a dish best eaten cold – I happen to know that the dear Duchess never pays her bills, so, little do they know it, but the benighted caterers will be working for her tonight, not for shillings, not for pennies, but for nothing. Ah me, it is just a little bit sad, but as I understand it, nowadays everyone is let down by caterers. Caterers, like hairdressers and couturiers, and, well, just about everyone in power, know when to flex their muscles. Life is only really tolerable if one does everything oneself. Unfortunately, giving a dinner for a dozen people, and being the terribly famous Guy Athlone at one and the same time, is impossible, so when Miss Valentyne's aunt, Jessica Valentyne, heard of my misfortune and offered me your services, I could hardly believe my luck. The only trouble being that at that precise moment I did at least think I had a cook in residence, but no.' He lit a cigarette, took out a small aide-memoire from his inside pocket, and started to flick through it before reading out. ‘First course was, rumour has it, to be quails' eggs in pastry baskets, followed by fillet of sole and asparagus in a prawn-flavoured sauce. The entrée is beef, with all the usual ghastly over-cooked English vegetables, and then Queen of Puddings.' He looked up. ‘Has anyone here by any utterly brilliant chance ever made the lovely Queen of Puddings?'

Freddie put her hand up.

‘Yes, many times for Aunt Jessica at the Court—'

Guy lowered his gaze and stared at Freddie. It was the look he always gave terrified actors at auditions.

‘Recipe, please?'

‘For twelve? Let me see, three pints of milk, twelve ounces of white breadcrumbs, one and a half of butter, six of sugar, six eggs—'

‘“
The Mole could only hold up both fore-paws and gasp,
‘
Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!
'”' Guy raised both his hands in delight. ‘To the kitchen, my girl, and a bonus is yours tonight if you can deliver the goods. The very moment when the last dessert spoon is lowered, the pumpkin in the vegetable basket will turn into a coach, and the rats in the larder into high-stepping ponies, and you will go to the ball – although not here! Off you go to your tasks. I know you will defeat the evil caterers and send all home singing!'

They all turned and fled after Freddie, and Guy watched them for a moment, feeling both amused and grateful.

Once in the kitchen Freddie hurried out to the cold larder, followed by Laura and Daisy, leaving Aurelia standing wordlessly in the kitchen, which was where they found her as they all turned back to fetch forgotten trays to carry the necessary dinner ingredients.

‘Come on, Relia, come on, we are in a bit of a tight squeeze, you know. White sauce with prawns for the fish, but clean the asparagus first.' Freddie stared at the still-frozen Aurelia. ‘You
are
up to helping Laura here do that course, aren't you? You do remember Aunt Jessica's rudimentary cooking lessons at the Court, don't you?'

Aurelia nodded silently at Freddie. Daisy shoved a tray at Aurelia. Aurelia took it, and followed her friend to the cold larder, where she obediently loaded up with the necessary ingredients for the fish course.

‘Something wrong, Relia?' Daisy demanded. ‘You're looking more than a little grey about the gills. In fact, now I come to look at you, you seem to have taken on the same colour as the fish.'

Aurelia remained silent, hurrying back to the kitchen. She could say nothing, she would say nothing, she would tell no one. It was only too lucky that she had not made a fool of herself already, and passed out. She half-closed her eyes at the thought of how terrible that would be, even more terrible than what had just happened to her.

She started to shave the asparagus stalks, and to curl up the tender pieces of fish, whose skin, thankfully, had already been removed, before buttering a large dish and placing the fish and the asparagus in it. White sauce made with stock boiled from fish bones and skin, prawns to scatter in the white sauce. If anything went wrong with
her
course she was quite, quite sure she would commit suicide.

‘I wonder who is coming to the dinner. Did you manage to have a peek at the
placement
– see who is next to whom?'

Daisy looked up from chopping vegetables, and raised her eyebrows in anticipation of hearing some famous names. As far as she was concerned it had been heady enough meeting the famous Guy Athlone, and now it seemed she would be placing food in front of people who had their names up in footlights outside theatres in Shaftesbury Avenue, whose names appeared regularly in the gossip columns of the
Daily Mail
and the
Daily Express
, people who were friends of the most famous English playwright of the time – Guy Athlone.

She waited for Freddie, who had popped out of the dining room to give them all the exciting news, eyes wide.

‘
Well?
'

It seemed that everyone was looking at Freddie, even as they could all hear the guests arriving and being let in by Mr Athlone's secretary, who they understood was posing as a stand-in butler for the evening.

Freddie made a little moue with her mouth, before twisting it into a silly shape.

‘Well, dears,' she said, acting up like mad. ‘If I said George Arletti and that well-known entertainer Azure La Monte, not to mention Miss Gloria Martine herself, would you be satisfied that you are about to serve the crème de la crème, not to mention the Vere de Veres, and many another? Of course the under-secretary to the foreign secretary, too, will be here, and other such members of His Majesty's government, but they will not be of the least interest to all of you
Tatler
readers and theatre snobs, I know. Nevertheless try very hard not to drop asparagus and roast beef in their laps, because, with the coming emergency, we might well all find ourselves behind bars.'

This last was greeted with nervous laughter, because, as they all knew, there was a dreadful truth behind the jokes. A state of emergency meant that anything could happen, and might.

As it transpired, nothing untoward, at least as far as the dinner and the serving of its courses went, did occur that evening, at least nothing of which the girls could have, or would have, been aware.

The dinner party went swiftly through all the usual motions that, Daisy noted, dinner parties held at English country houses always do. People drank wine, they ate, they turned first to the right, and then to the left, they conversed, they aired their opinions, they agreed with each other, and after dinner they strolled in the evening air in their host's garden, before coming back in and listening to him playing some of his frightfully amusing songs.

‘That all went like clockwork, then,' Guy's secretary, Clive Montfort, murmured, as the last of the guests' motor cars drove away into the darkness.

‘Oh yes,' Guy agreed, lighting up a cigarette as he watched the tail lights of the cars disappearing, and a strange silence fell in the Big Room, broken only by the distant sound of the young waitresses and old Bob in the dining room and kitchen clearing up, their murmured conversations rising in a late-night chorus of sporadic chatter above the sound of boiling kettles and doors banging as water was brought in from the well in the yard. ‘Yes, it all went just like rusty old clockwork, all right. And not one guest trustworthy, all appeasers to their lily-white cowardly gills.' Guy drew more strongly on his cigarette. ‘All still clinging to the idea that Mr Hitler will back down this side of Christmas, that the poor Czechs could not have been saved whatever we did, and that now Herr Hitler has what he wanted all along, he will be a good little boy and toddle along when he is told.'

He threw his half-finished cigarette into the fire, went over to the piano and closed the lid – then to his own and his secretary's surprise, he locked it – before going to the sister piano, and locking that too. ‘Mark my words, by this time next year, Clive, this will all be in storage, and you and I God knows where. Write that down, Mr Secretary: I said it here, at one o'clock in the morning of a September night in 1938.'

Freddie drove the girls home at a much slower pace than earlier in the evening, first of all because it was dark, and second because they had all been given a glass of sherry by old Bob, who, being well-pleased with their work, had toasted their health in front of the great kitchen fire.

It was early in the morning, and dark, but the stars above them had never seemed brighter to them all, most of all Aurelia. She knew now that she had met the love of her life; that she had seen and fallen in love with someone who could and would never love her did not seem to matter. She knew she had to do something to get close to Mr Athlone.