Coronation Year, page 25
She climbed into bed and drew the covers up beneath her chin, and the moment she closed her eyes she could see them. Mamma and Papa, exactly as they had been on a gorgeous July day so long ago, when life had been an endless summer afternoon filled with sunshine and laughter and the bluest of blue skies.
She slept well, and had dressed and was brushing her hair before she happened to notice the envelope pushed under her door. For an instant her heart seized in dread, but then she saw the name at the left-hand corner of the envelope. A. J. Geddes.
Inside was a drawing. It was the image from her photograph, only now it was better, for something of Jamie’s genius as an artist had infused the whole. There was also a note.
Dear Stella,
Edie showed me the photograph when she first came across it. I was struck then by its composition, and of course the joyful expressions on your faces. I hope I have managed to capture a good likeness of your parents, but if I have been less than successful I will certainly rework the drawing to ensure it is as good a match as possible to the photograph that was stolen from you. In the meantime, remember that you have many friends here at the Blue Lion, myself included.
Yours faithfully,
Jamie
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jamie
Sunday, May 31, 1953
He hadn’t slept at all the night before, for he’d been driven to restore some version of Stella’s photograph to her. He’d finished the drawing just as the sun was rising, and after putting it in an envelope and slipping it under her door, had decided to press on with his day. A hot bath had helped, and then he’d set out on a long walk along the Embankment. In two days’ time it would be a sea of smiling faces and waving flags, and he would be in his eyrie overlooking Northumberland Avenue awaiting the queen in her coach, and rather to his surprise he realized he was looking forward to it.
Back in his room, he made the mistake of stretching out on his bed. Only for a few minutes; only long enough to rest his eyes. Instead he was catapulted back to the cellar, to the weight of the tomb that surrounded and suffocated him. He was alone in the dark once more, and though he tried to break free, the endless night held him ever closer.
“Jamie.”
The voice came from far away, but he could hear it clearly, and that gave him hope.
“Jamie? I’m here. Open your eyes. Come to me now.”
A hand emerged from the darkness, slim and clean and wonderfully strong. He grasped hold of it, and suddenly he was on his feet again, blinking in the light of day, and Edie stood next to him. She had found him in the darkness. She had rescued him.
“There you are,” she said. “Safe and sound.”
“Where are we?”
She looked over her shoulder, her smile ever so wide. “Home,” she said. “Can’t you see? I’ve brought you home to the Blue Lion.”
Someone was knocking at his door. Jamie sat up, heaved his braces back onto his shoulders, and rubbed the grit from his eyes.
“Yes?” he answered.
“Jamie? If you’re busy, I’ll come back later.”
Edie. He was at the door in two long strides. He opened it, beckoning her forward, but she only stood and frowned at him. “I woke you. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep, only I was up too late last night. And I’m that glad you’re here. Can you stay on for a bit?”
“I can, but would you like to go for a walk? Before the rain sets in?”
“I would. Shall we visit the pelicans?”
“I’m not sure I can be away for as long as that. Will the Embankment gardens do instead?”
“They will.”
They walked side by side along Northumberland Avenue to the river and the Embankment gardens, and the peace of being with her, of having time with her alone, was a far more effective balm to his spirits than any amount of sleep or introspection.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“A bit tired, that’s all.”
“Would you like to hear about the television set that now takes up about a quarter of the lounge? It was delivered this afternoon by a very nice man from Empire Wireless and Television Services. The delivery part of things took about two minutes. The setting-up part of things took far, far longer.”
“Temperamental?”
“The television certainly is. The deliveryman was perfectly pleasant. He spent something like half an hour tuning the thing, and all the while promised that it only needed to warm up and settle in, and just as I was about to lose hope it started barking at me. Well, not the television. It was Rin Tin Tin who was responsible for the barking. A few seconds later, the picture came on, and there he was. The dog, I mean.”
“So it works?”
“It does. There’s only the one program for now, so all I have to do is turn it on and let it warm up. But enough of my coronation preparations. How are yours coming along?”
“Good. I’m all set for Tuesday. My sketch pads are at the ready and my materials are laid out like a surgeon’s instruments. The only thing that remains is to capture the feel of things as they happen. I know I can paint Cartwrights’ Hall and the gold coach with my eyes closed, so they aren’t a concern. The queen, too. Even the horses. I’ve been studying a book on equine anatomy that I bought when my father was here.”
“I’m so glad I was able to meet him,” she said. “You’re very alike, you know.”
“Thank you. That’s high praise indeed.”
“Did the two of you have a pleasant day? I’ve been meaning to ask, only I feel we’ve hardly seen each other in days.”
“I know you’ve been busy, Edie. And I’m glad you asked. Seeing him . . . well. It made me think.”
She said nothing in reply, instead choosing to wind her arm through his, and it was all the encouragement he needed.
“It made me think about the life he has built for himself. He’s a successful man by any measure, but he is also happy. He’s truly content, and it has very little to do with how others regard him. If you were to ask, I’m sure he’d tell you the central joy of his life is his family. Not his work. Not any material thing he may have earned through that work. Only the people he loves.”
Edie nodded, her expression solemn, and waited for him to continue.
“I’ve also been thinking about what happened a fortnight ago. The men outside the Queen Bess. I know it was upsetting, and I expect a wee bit frightening, and it makes me sick that you had to witness it. But things like that happen to me all the time. Most often it’s straightforward rudeness, or someone shrinking away, but sometimes it’s overt. And I can’t stop it. Do you see? There’s nothing I can do to prevent it.”
“Oh, Jamie. I keep thinking about that night, you know, and how I ought to have said something. Told those louts what I thought of them.”
“It wouldn’t have helped.”
“I know. But would it help, now, if I tell you that I will always be on your side? Always. Because you are the best and bravest man I have ever known, and you are worth a thousand of those horrid men, and I can’t bear that anyone should be unkind to you.”
He was still absorbing the truth and weight of her words when she gasped, clutching even tighter to his arm. “You must tell me—has anyone at the hotel ever treated you in such a way?”
“No,” he said, unwilling to add to her worries. Brooks was rude and disdainful, but that didn’t amount to outright bigotry. Compared to most places he’d lived, the Blue Lion was an oasis of goodwill. “Your hotel is a haven,” he assured her. “I feel entirely at home there.”
“I’m so glad,” she said, her relief palpable.
They walked on, and he willed himself to say more. To lay bare his heart, and in so doing learn if her feelings matched his own. She had called him a brave man, but he felt weak-kneed at the prospect of the risk he was about to take. But what was courage, apart from a willingness to face one’s fears head-on? He had been sitting on the truth of what he wanted since his conversation at the Queen Bess with his father, and that truth had grown and bloomed, and it was enough, now, to push aside the last of his fear.
“When I saw my father, we talked about the life he and my mother have made together. How they support each other, and together are able to keep the bigots at bay. And it made me realize . . .” Jamie paused, willing his voice to a steadier cadence, praying his next words would manage to convey the sincerity of his feelings. “It made me realize that these past months, living at the Blue Lion, I have been happy, and I believe that much of my happiness is because of you. Because of what you have come to mean to me.”
“Oh, Jamie—”
“I don’t expect you to answer me now,” he hastened to add. “Not when you have so much else to think about and do and plan. But perhaps, once the coronation is over, we might talk of this again?”
She halted abruptly, letting go of his arm so she might turn to face him. She was so beautiful, her eyes shining, her smile so wide and true. His hope-stricken heart skipped a beat as he waited for her reply.
“What if I want to answer you now? Because I do. I care for you, too, and once the queen has been crowned and the nice Americans have gone home, and life is rather closer to normal, I hope we can talk about what comes next. To begin with, I very much hope you will stay at the Blue Lion. That’s all I can think of just now. Only that I wish for you to stay.”
“I’ll stay,” he promised.
“I’m glad. Now will you walk me home? It’s almost teatime, and I’ve a hotel full of guests to ply with gingerbread and scones and, heaven help us all, enormous glasses of iced tea. Will you join me?”
“For tea, and for tomorrow, and as long as you’ll have me. On that you have my word.”
Coronation Day
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edie
When Edie opened her eyes at four o’clock in the morning, her first thoughts were of Jamie, the things he had said to her on Sunday afternoon, both wonderful and sad, and the knowledge that he cared for her. He cared for her, and he hoped for a future that included her, and all she had to do was get through the next few days.
Then she woke up a little more, and clarity descended like an anvil, and she remembered it all. The pile of invoices on her desk for things like orange juice and peanut butter and smoked salmon and champagne—she had no memory, none, of ordering two dozen bottles of champagne—and the truly shocking figure of seventy-five guineas for the purchase, delivery, and installation of a television set that she doubted anyone would care to use after the coronation was over.
The absence of any news from Inspector Bayliss about Professor Thurloe worried her, too, though she ought to have preferred no news at all. If evidence were found that linked the professor to the bizarre goings-on, she would feel awful about it, not least because she had missed the signs of his distress and failed to protect him from his worst impulses. If, however, the professor were cleared of any suspicion, she would be delighted for him—and exceedingly anxious for herself and the hotel, since the author of the threats would still be at large and, she could only assume, still bent on upending Coronation Day in some unspecified fashion.
Even the boiler had seen fit to unleash its own form of chaos. When Dolly had gone down to stoke it yesterday morning, there had been water all over the cellar floor. Edie, once roused, had aimed her electric torch at the bottom of the behemoth and there discovered a small but steady stream of water coming from beneath its main tank. Mr. Pinnock, duly summoned, had agreed to an emergency visit, though not before insisting upon and receiving a twenty-five-pound deposit. Having poked and prodded and hummed and hawed for a good half hour, he had informed Edie that the boiler had sprung a leak.
“Of that I am quite aware, Mr. Pinnock. There was a small pond in my cellar this morning. Could you possibly tell me why?”
“I’ll know better once we dig it out. Likely a case of corrosion at the bottom. No concrete pad underneath, you see. That’s a problem.”
“Was it not your own grandfather who supervised the installation of this boiler?” Edie had asked, not bothering to hide her irritation.
“Times change, Miss Howard, and even the best-quality boiler will need to be replaced at some point.”
“I cannot afford to replace it now, nor indeed in the immediate future, so perhaps we might talk instead of repairs. Can you fix it?”
“Not without draining it first and then digging down around the main tank.”
“I cannot manage without hot water. Not until after the coronation. Is it not possible to put in a patch of some sort?”
He considered this, and he hummed and hawed some more, and then he agreed it might be possible. “Only I’ll need to pull up the first row of hearthstones there. Just to get at the edge of that corroded bit. Might make a bit of a mess.”
“Do what you must. Just so long as I have hot water for my guests.”
The remainder of Monday had been a blur, and she’d not slowed down, or even paused for a cup of tea, until well past ten o’clock that night. The staff had organized a small party for themselves in their dining room, which she’d been happy to encourage in light of how hard they’d all worked, and she’d popped her head round the door to say good night and thank you to everyone.
Mick had been about to open several bottles of champagne, which someone had explained was the gift of a guest, only no one could remember which guest, exactly, as the card had gone missing. Another crate of the stuff had been delivered to the kitchen, with instructions that it be delivered to the guests in residence. Even now, Cook explained, Ivor was making the rounds from room to room.
“That’s lovely, but I don’t recall ordering champagne for the guests. It’s far too dear for me to be quite so generous.”
Cook had shrugged, and Mick had shrugged, and Edie had decided that it was a problem best dealt with on Wednesday, after the coronation was over and done with and she and the others weren’t so tired they were about to fall over sideways.
“Won’t you stay?” Cook had asked Edie, and the others had chimed in, too, although she suspected they were only being nice and didn’t truly wish her to remain.
“Thank you, but I still have a number of things to see to this evening. Have a lovely time—and don’t forget that we all need to be up early.”
She might easily have gone to bed at that point, but instead she’d returned to her office, set aside the tedious invoices, and had set about responding to requests for reservations. There had been an increase, although only a modest one, and she feared the profits would scarcely be enough to keep the wolf from the door. But that, too, was a problem for another day.
At one o’clock she’d gone up to her room, by which time the hotel had been quiet, its corridors empty, and she’d been quite alone as she’d had her bath and got ready for bed, taking care to first set out her clothes for the morning and double-check her alarm.
Now it was four o’clock and she was awake and so alert there was no chance she’d fall asleep again. So she switched off her alarm, got out of bed, and drew back the curtains. It was full dark still, and angry needles of rain were beating against the window.
She went to the sink and brushed her teeth, then took up her hairbrush and began to smooth the tangles from her hair. Catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror, she was taken aback by how exhausted she appeared. Her eyes were dull, and the skin around them felt tight and heavy. A hot compress, she decided; that would help, and it would also soothe her incipient headache. She turned on the hot water tap, letting it run, but it was still cold when she dipped her fingers into the stream of water a few minutes later.
“No,” she whispered. Not today.
It had to have been the champagne. Dolly wasn’t used to the stuff, and she had probably been a bit tipsy when she’d gone up to bed, and consequently had forgotten to stoke the boiler. That was all. As long as Edie dealt with it now, there would be hot water in time for morning baths.
She changed into her siren suit, only pausing to gather her hair back with an elastic band and a handful of Kirby grips. Then she hurried downstairs, not bothering to switch on the corridor lights, for the lamp by the back door was more than sufficient to see her to the top of the cellar steps.
She opened the cellar door and was about to switch on the light when, alarmingly, she heard a voice from below. There was no reason for anyone to be in the cellar at such an hour, no one apart from Dolly, who as far as Edie knew was fast asleep upstairs. And it had been a man’s voice she had heard.
Edie would have called out to ask who it was, but something, some instinct, told her that it was better to be quiet. She stood at the door, considering what to do, and when the man began to speak again she gathered up her courage and stepped down into the darkness.
She was almost at the bottom of the steps when the voices become clear, just as Rin Tin Tin’s barks had so abruptly emerged from the ruinously expensive television set only a few days before.
“But I’m not allowed to go into the tunnels. Miss Howard says it isn’t safe. She’ll be cross if we go against her wishes.”
It was Professor Thurloe. Had he escaped? Had he returned to the hotel in search of revenge?
Another voice drifted out of the darkness. “I know, but I thought you would wish to see for yourself. We only need to go a little farther.”
Ivor? Why were he and the professor in the tunnel together? It made no sense, for he knew it was unsafe, and it was the middle of the night, besides, and he ought to have been asleep at his own flat at such an hour.
“What is that?” the professor asked, his reedy voice rising in alarm. “What have you done? What on earth—”
