A Convenient Gentleman
‘Mrs Wilks?’
There was reluctant movement under the pile of clothing and linen on the bed.
‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice asked croakily. She sounded cross, too, and it only then occurred to Caro that there would be only one reason why someone would still be in bed in the middle of the day.
‘I’m sorry if you’re not well, Mrs Wilks.’ Caro backed towards the door. ‘I’ll call later.’
The bedclothes were pushed back and a scowling face appeared. Caro’s mouth dropped open. For a few seconds it looked exactly as if her mother were lying there, blinking sleepily at her, except that her mother’s hair was red, not yellow, and her mother’s nightgowns were considerably more modest than her aunt’s. Then Mrs Wilks propped herself up on one elbow and Caro swiftly averted her eyes. Her aunt’s nightgown was not immodest, it was non-existent.
‘You,’ her aunt said flatly after a moment, ‘have to be one of Ben’s children.’
‘I’m Caroline,’ Caro said carefully. ‘The eldest.’
‘Mmm.’ Her aunt eyed her balefully. ‘So what are you doing here? I suppose it’s too much to hope that your father has at last decided to act like a human being and apologise for everything he’s done to me?’
This was much, much worse than Caro had dared dread. She took a deep breath and said somewhat shakily, ‘I don’t know, Mrs Wilks. He…he doesn’t know I’m here…’
‘Really?’ Her aunt sat bolt upright and again Caro had to avert her eyes. ‘You mean you’ve run away from home?’
‘Yes…’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because…because my father is unreasonable and unfair and…and…’ Her voice gave out through a combination of nerves and sudden, unexpected homesickness. There was a rustle of silk as her aunt mercifully pulled on a pink gown and then enveloped her in a soft, rose-scented hug.
‘You poor darling. He’s a brute of a man, I know. An unfeeling, callous bastard! Oh, what you and my poor sister must have had to put up with all these years…’
This was not strictly fair, but as Caro carefully extracted herself to say so, her aunt smiled at her with all the charm that had seen her through forty-four years and hundreds of men, and Caro felt herself melt into an adoring puddle. With her long, tousled hair tumbling over her pale-blue silk dressing-gown, and her eyes glowing with warm sympathy, her aunt looked like just like an exotic version of her beloved mother. Only the lines of experience and worldliness around Charlotte’s eyes and mouth were different, giving her a wistful, rather vulnerable look.
Charlotte watched the awestruck look on her niece’s face with satisfaction.
‘It’s lovely to meet you at last, Caroline.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Wilks…’
‘Aunt Charlotte, please, darling!’ She glanced swiftly over her shoulder at what looked to be a dressing-room door, and added, ‘Now, why don’t you go and tell Oliver downstairs that you want something hot to drink—your poor face is frozen!—and I’ll get dressed. Just give me half an hour, hmmm?’
Out in the hallway again, Caro hesitated. Who was Oliver? She raised her hand to knock on the door, but the sound of murmuring voices from inside her aunt’s bedroom made her pause. Perhaps her aunt was given to talking to herself. Caro shrugged her shoulders and went back downstairs.
The man who had first greeted her looked up from the papers on the registration desk. ‘Yes, miss?’
She had not imagined it before—his tone was distinctly chilly. ‘Are you Oliver?’
‘Yes, miss.’
Caro bit her bottom lip. ‘My aunt, Mrs Wilks—’
‘Your aunt, miss?’
There was a wealth of frosty disapproval in the question. Caro drew herself up to her full and impressive height and looked down at the top of his head.
‘Mrs Wilks, who is a guest of this hotel—’
‘Oh, no, miss—she’s not a guest.’ Oliver looked up at her searchingly, seemed to come to a conclusion and suddenly there was a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. Whether it was malicious or not, Caro couldn’t tell. ‘She’s the owner, miss.’
‘The owner,’ Caro repeated blankly.
‘Yes, miss. Since Mr Wilks died six months ago and left the hotel to his widow.’ He shut the registry book carefully. ‘What can I do for you, miss?’
‘Ah…Mrs Wilks suggested perhaps a hot drink while I wait…’
‘Certainly, miss. Please come with me.’
She followed his stiff, black-clad back as he led her through the doors into the dining room. Her first impression of opulence was tempered a little when she saw the dining tables at close quarters. The tablecloths were stained, and the silver looked to be in dire need of a good polish. A general air of neglect lay over the room, from the crumbs lying unswept on the floor to the spiders in the chandelier above. Automatically Caro righted a spilled glass as she passed.
The kitchen was no improvement on the dining room: dirty pots and pans covered the benches and food scraps filled buckets by the door. The huge ovens were lit and had their doors open. The heat was welcome, but not the smell of rotting food wafting on the warm currents of air.
The two women sitting toasting their feet by the ovens looked up as Oliver banged the door shut.
‘Who’s this, then?’ demanded the older of the women. She was a tall, hatchet-faced woman with heat-reddened cheeks. Her rolled-up sleeves and voluminous apron marked her as a cook. The other, who was little more than a girl, smiled shyly at Caro and wiped her nose on a sooty shirtsleeve.
Oliver motioned Caro politely enough towards a chair by the table and moved to rub his hands together before the fire.
‘This, ladies, is Mrs Wilks’s niece. Miss…?’
‘Miss Morgan. Caroline Morgan.’ She waited for him to introduce the other women, but when no introduction came, she sat down in the indicated chair. It looked as if she was not going to be offered a cup of tea, either, but there was a teapot and pile of cups sitting on the table. The teapot was still warm and so Caro helped herself, discarding several cups until she found one that bore no obvious marks of recent use.
The silence dragged on, but Caro was determined that it was not going to be she who broke it.
‘You’re one of the rich relations, aren’t you?’ said the Cook at last, her voice fairly dripping with sarcasm. ‘Come to bail Madam out, I hope.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Caro said politely.
The Cook’s chin came up pugnaciously, and the girl with the sooty dress gave a nervous giggle.
‘You’re one of them Australian relations Madam tells us about. The ones that kicked her out of her home in Sydney when she were first widowed and left her penniless on the streets.’
Caro frowned. ‘I don’t think that was us. I can’t imagine my mother ever doing that to anyone, let alone her own sister.’
The Cook nodded slowly. ‘Well, she did. Leastways, according to your aunt, your father did.’
‘Oh.’ Caro put her cup down carefully. ‘My father. Yes, I suppose he could have done. He’s very unfair like that.’
She tried to imagine what poor Aunt Charlotte could possibly have done to infuriate her father so. Probably very little. Really, Caro thought, she and Aunt Charlotte had a lot in common—both forced out of their home by Ben’s total lack of reason. It was extraordinary that Charlotte had found it in her heart to welcome Caro as she had!
‘So,’ said the Cook, ‘you brought any money with you?’
‘No,’ Caro said blankly. ‘Well, I’ve got twenty-five pounds…’
As her aunt’s three employees all sat back in their chairs with various sounds of disgust and dismay, Caro gained the distinct impression that she was proving a great source of disappointment.
‘I suppose,’ Oliver said heavily, ‘it would have been too much to hope for, that you might have been the answer to our prayers.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Caro said sincerely. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been the answer to anyone’s prayers.’
From behind the Cook’s forbidding exterior came an unexpected chuckle. ‘Never mind, dear. Miss Morgan, was it? Not your fault if Madam’s living beyond her means now, is it? Agnes—’ she elbowed the young girl off her chair with a degree of viciousness that Caro took to be habitual ‘—Agnes here will fetch you a fresh pot of tea. And some of those scones I made yesterday, too.’
Agnes wiped her nose on her sleeve again and scurried around the kitchen, setting out a fresh pot of tea and a plate of rather stale but nicely risen scones.
‘Got no butter, Miss Morgan,’ the Cook commented as she saw Caro look around her for a butterdish. ‘Got nothing very much of anything, come to mention it. No more tea leaves than are in the jar, no meat, no milk, no cheese…’
‘No wages,’ Oliver chipped in glumly.
‘But that’s dreadful!’ Hungry as she was, Caro forgot all about butter for her scones. ‘Is no one paying you? Not my aunt?’
Her aunt’s employees looked at each other and then moved their chairs closer to where she sat.
‘Mrs Wilks is a most attractive woman…’ Oliver began.
‘Handsome is as handsome does,’ the Cook said darkly. ‘She’s got not so much as a pinch of business sense!’
‘…but she is being poorly served by her business adviser,’ Oliver went on doggedly, ignoring the Cook’s rude snort of derision. ‘When the late Mr Wilks left this hotel to her, it was in fine shape, Miss Morgan. Dunedin’s finest hotel, it was called, and rightly so. But since he died…’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Things are not good, Miss Morgan. Not good at all. We served the last of the meals in the dining room last night, there are creditors at the door day and night, Mrs Wilks can’t and won’t see them, we haven’t had a paying guest under this roof for a week now…’
‘There’s a non-paying guest I’d like to see the back of,’ the Cook snapped. She fixed Caro with a piercing stare. ‘Did you see him up there?’
‘Who?’ Caro was by now thoroughly bewildered.
‘Mr Thwaites. Up there. With her.’ Caro shook her head and the Cook slumped back in her chair. ‘Hmmph. Well, I dare say you’ll meet him soon enough if you stay on. You are staying on, are you?’
‘If my aunt invites me to,’ Caro said earnestly. ‘If I can be of any use, that is. I can cook and clean, and I’m sure I could learn to wait, too…’ Her voice faltered as she saw the expressions of the faces of the others. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No, Miss Morgan,’ Oliver said after a moment. ‘It’s just that a lady like yourself, coming from a privileged home, could hardly be expected to lift a broom or a duster. It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Oh, we all had our tasks at home,’ she assured him. ‘Mother didn’t believe in other people doing work we were quite capable of doing ourselves. “Hard work is good for the soul, the figure and the complexion”, she always used to say, and I’m sure my aunt believes the same.’
The Cook spluttered into her tea and Oliver rose creakily to his feet.
‘Well, I’m sure Mrs Wilks will be ready to see you by now, Miss Morgan. I shall take you to her rooms, if you wish.’
‘Oh, please don’t trouble yourself! I remember the way very clearly. And thank you for the tea and scones, Mrs…’
The Cook smiled. ‘Mrs Webb, dear. Now do make sure you call in after you’ve seen your aunt, won’t you? On your way back to Australia,’ she added darkly as the door closed after Caro.
‘Ooh, I thought she were nice.’ Agnes sniffed dejectedly. ‘I hope she don’t go.’
‘She might be nice, but she came down in the last shower,’ Mrs Webb informed her. ‘Gawd help her, she’s still sopping wet! I give her a day before He tries to put one over her…’
‘You mean across her, Mrs Webb,’ interjected Oliver.
‘That, too, Mr Oliver,’ the Cook snapped. ‘Oh, it’s better by far that she leaves here with her virtue than That Man has his way with her. Just look at Madam.’
Oliver leaned forward to prod the embers in the stove. ‘You’re right, of course, Mrs Webb. It will be in her best interests to leave as soon as possible. She won’t be safe here, not with her looks and Madam and That Man…’
They all nodded in sad accord and sat staring at the dying fire, lost in their own thoughts.
Chapter Two
C aro tapped on her aunt’s door and, hearing no response, opened it slowly.
Her aunt was standing before the long mirror, smoothing her pale ringlets over her shoulders. She was dressed now, in an elegant gown of dark blue that enhanced her milky skin and slim figure. Deep ruffles of ivory lace covered any victory of gravity around her neck and décolletage, and provided a perfect frame for her heart-shaped face. There was much more than a passing resemblance to Caro’s beautiful mother, but Charlotte had an air of fragility and wistfulness that was all her own, and Caro felt a surge of protectiveness towards this glamorous relative she barely knew.
‘Come in, darling. Sit down.’ Charlotte waved a lethargic hand in the general direction of the bed. Caro carefully moved aside a few of the dresses and assorted slippers lying in disarray over the eiderdown and sat.
‘Now, you must tell me all about yourself and what wonderful stroke of fortune has delivered you to my door!’ Charlotte perched herself on her dressing-table chair and regarded her niece with tilted head and affectionate smile. ‘Do you know, you were only six months old when I last saw you? What a perfectly beautiful girl you’ve grown into! You obviously favour your father’s side of the family. My darling first husband, Edward—who was, of course, also your grandfather! Just fancy that!—had the same chin as you, you know, with that little dimple. Your fair hair, of course, you got from my side of the family… On the other hand, your father is fair, too, isn’t he? Or…I imagine he’s gone grey by now…’
‘Only a little bit,’ Caro assured her.
Charlotte turned and began fiddling with the hair-brushes on her dressing table. ‘Has he gone bald?’
‘No.’
‘Has he got fat?’
‘No.’
Caro was almost certain her aunt said ‘Damn!’ under her breath, so hastened to add that her mother and her mother’s younger sisters were all happy and in good health. Her aunt, though, didn’t seem to be listening with any great attention. She showed a little more animation when Caro went on to describe her own family, and got her niece to repeat several times the information that Caro had seven sisters and no brothers. For some reason she seemed to find it most amusing.
‘Poor Ben,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I’ll wager he’s not happy about that!’
‘He isn’t,’ Caro agreed. ‘He says he has to take great care about who we marry as a result. That’s what I’m doing here.’
‘You didn’t like his choice, hmm?’ Her aunt watched Caro’s reflection in the mirror pull a face. ‘Ben never did like being thwarted.’ She sighed prettily. ‘I’m living testament to that, my dear.’
‘My parents never spoke of you, Aunt Charlotte,’ Caro said hesitantly. ‘Was there…ah…I mean, I don’t know what happened between you…?’
Charlotte gave a light, brittle laugh and waved her hands dismissively. ‘Darling, it was all a long time ago, and all really rather silly. Your father never did forgive me for marrying his father, you see, and when Edward died on our honeymoon to England, and I had to come back to Sydney, he cut me off without a penny. If it hadn’t been for some very kind friends I would have…well, I would have starved on the streets, darling.’ She gave a little sniff as her eyes filled with bright tears, and she went on bravely, ‘But I survived and married again—to the sweetest man imaginable!—and when he died my heart was broken all over again, and so I came here and married again, and—well—I’ve done all right, haven’t I?’
Immeasurably moved by her aunt’s stoicism, Caro leapt to her feet and embraced her warmly.
‘Of course you have, Aunt Charlotte! Oh, you poor, poor thing! But why would Father have done such a thing to you? I can’t believe that he could have been so cruel!’
Charlotte dabbed at her eyes with a scrap of lace. ‘I couldn’t say. Well, I shouldn’t say this, darling, but…’ she managed a tight, courageous little smile and said in a rush ‘…oh, I rejected him in favour of his father, and I don’t believe he’s ever forgiven me! Isn’t that silly, to hold such a grudge over so many years?’
‘But Mother and Father have always been so happy,’ Caro said in bewilderment, remembering the easy affection she had always witnessed between her parents, the way her mother’s face lit up whenever her father came into a room, the way their eyes would meet over the heads of their children in amused camaraderie. Lovely as Aunt Charlotte probably used to be, Caro simply couldn’t imagine her father ever looking at any woman other than her mother. Charlotte, correctly reading the expressions on her niece’s face, leaned forward to tap her gently on the wrist.
‘It was years ago, darling, before you were born. Why, I’ve almost forgotten about it myself. Except that…well, things would have been very different if your father had been one to let bygones be bygones. But, here I am and here you are and…oh, isn’t this just lovely?’
She clasped Caro’s hands in hers and smiled warmly. She was being so kind that Caro, remembering what the hotel staff had told her about her aunt’s straitened circumstances, felt a twinge of guilt.
‘Aunt Charlotte, I haven’t any money with me,’ she said in a rush. ‘I can’t pay very much for accommodation, but I can work hard at anything that needs doing…’
‘Oh, darling!’ her aunt chided her fondly. ‘Don’t you even think about such a thing! How could I put my own niece to work? The very idea!’
‘But I know that the hotel isn’t doing very well,’ Caro said bluntly. ‘If I can help in any way at all, then that’s what I want to do.’
‘How terribly sweet of you.’ There was a slightly speculative tone in her voice as she put her head on one side and looked assessingly at Caro. ‘You are a very pretty girl, aren’t you? I’m sure we could find you something to do, if you really want to help. In fact, a friend of mine will know what’s best…’
‘Mr Thwaites?’ Caro asked, and was taken aback by the sudden snap of suspicion in her aunt’s eyes.
‘Who’s been talking to you about him? No, don’t tell me—the kitchen staff!’ At Caro’s nod she heaved a dramatic sigh. ‘Harold’s doing all he can to turn this business around. He runs the public bar and bottle shop downstairs, and if it wasn’t for the profits from that we’d be in even more of a pickle. You’d think the staff would show some appreciation for all his hard work, wouldn’t you?’
‘I think they want to be paid…’ Caro ventured.
‘Oh, the silly things! They’ll be paid, of course, as soon as the business gets back on its feet—and it will, in a few weeks! In the meantime, they’ve got a roof over their heads, and food to eat. I don’t know what they’re complaining about.’ She got fluidly to her feet. ‘Anyway, darling, I’m being a dreadful hostess, aren’t I? I’ll show you to your room—you have a choice, you know. Isn’t it fun?’
Chatting all the time, her hands fluttering like animated, delicate little birds, her aunt took Caro down to the far end of the hall, and flung a door open dramatically.
‘Here you are, darling! Now make yourself at home. We’ll be dining downstairs around six, I imagine.’
She floated off back down the hallway, leaving Caro staring into a darkened room. The drapes had been pulled, presumably against the cold, and after some groping in the dark Caro drew them back to reveal a surprisingly luxurious little bedroom. Plush rugs lay over the polished floorboards, and the large bedstead and matching washstand were of carved mahogany. Yet every surface had a layer of dust, and the sheets on the bed might have been of the finest quality cotton, but they were unmistakably damp.
The room overlooked the avenue, giving an interesting view of the traffic below. It had stopped snowing and so Caro opened the big, double-hung window as wide as possible. Finding it a positive pleasure to have something to do, she went in search of clean linen and cleaning materials and found both in a cupboard in the hallway. It took almost an hour until every surface was dusted and polished to her satisfaction; by the time she had finished, the pale winter light filtering between the lace curtains had all but gone. Closing the window against the encroaching dark, she lit a small fire in the grate and was soon able to put a warming pan filled with hot coals between the clean sheets to dry them out.
Hands on hips, she surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction. The room looked cosy and welcoming now, and smelt warmly of beeswax polish, just like home. She thought of all the other rooms in the hotel, no doubt waiting to be cleaned, and found herself viewing the prospect with pleasure.
In the hallway she found her bag, sitting forlornly where someone—she suspected Oliver—had left it. It did not appear that the staff here were inclined to be in the least bit helpful. While she unpacked her single change of clothes, Caro thought about that.
The staff had told her that her aunt had no business sense and, as utterly charming as Aunt Charlotte was, Caro could see how that could be true. It would take both business acumen and hard work to keep an hotel this size running, but why the hotel should have run out of funds was a complete mystery to her. There had obviously been a fortune spent on establishing the place, with no cost spared in the furnishings or decor. In a town as thriving as Dunedin, with an all-too-evident accommodation shortage, the hotel should have been fully booked every night. So why was there no food in the kitchen and no guests in the rooms?
Caro had always taken an active interest in the bookkeeping side of her father’s businesses and Ben had been too intrigued by her persistence to really discourage her. She now possessed a sound grasp of the principles of good business, and she had never been afraid of hard work. What better way to repay Aunt Charlotte’s hospitality than by restoring her business to its full health?
The clock in the civic building down the street chimed six o’clock, but for Caro the few unbuttered scones in the hotel kitchen were far too many hours ago, and her stomach rumbled hungrily. Her aunt had said that they would be dining—presumably in the hotel dining room—but the staff had told her that there was no food left. She decided that now was as good a time as any to discover the truth of the situation.
She changed into her second dress, of serviceable green wool, and pulled a shawl around her shoulders against the chill; she had allowed the fire to burn down and the air was now so cold that she could see the mist of her breath.
The foyer of the hotel was deserted, and when she looked through into the dining room it looked as if nothing had been cleaned or moved since the morning. The great chandeliers hung unlit and palely gleaming in the crack of light showing from beneath the kitchen door, but the place was eerily quiet. A single lamp shone forlornly on the registration desk. Caro revised downwards her chances of a gracious meal in the dining room that night.
There was a muffled roar of laughter from somewhere beyond the hotel walls and she remembered the public bar that she had passed earlier in the day, the one that Aunt Charlotte had told her that Mr Thwaites ran. Well, that at least sounded like a thriving business. They would probably have a fire going there. Maybe even something to eat! It was snowing again and she stood for a captivated moment on the veranda, watching the fluffy flakes twirling delicately in the air. Light from the long windows of the bar streamed out over the ground, illuminating the white layer of snow, giving a fairytale appearance to the otherwise mundane street.
She knew she had made a mistake the moment she set foot over the doorstep. The bar was much bigger than she had thought, and filled with men. Dozens of them. One by one they stopped laughing and shouting and put their drinks down to stare at her. The heat and smell of alcohol hit her face like a blow.
However, it was too late now to back down.
She wove her way between the tables, ignoring outstretched hands that would have detained her, to the bar, where a scruffy-looking individual in shirtsleeves was wiping out glasses.