A Christmas to Remember by Anton Du Beke EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Anton Du Beke
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.4 MB
- Price: Free
‘SHOW HIM IN, BILLY.’
Billy Brogan gave an ostentatious bow and backed out of
Maynard Charles’s office, leaving the door ajar as he scurried back to the
mahogany reception desks of the Buckingham Hotel. Sitting at his desk,
where his morning had so far been spent immersed in the hotel accountants’
forecast of the year ahead, Maynard Charles rolled his eyes. He’d been
telling young Brogan, the Buckingham’s most junior – and most ambitious
– concierge, that he didn’t need to bow for nearly a year, but the boy never
listened. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the pomp with which he inhabited his
role. Deference like that could help a boy go places, especially in an
establishment like the Buckingham Hotel – there was nothing the European
gentry liked more than to be assured of their superiority – so Maynard had
never been too insistent with the boy. He might have looked foolish, but his
heart was in the right place.
A few moments later, Billy Brogan’s knuckles rapped at the door again.
‘Come in, Mr Brogan,’ Maynard intoned – and, when the door drew
back, there stood the gangly, red-headed Brogan at the side of a much older
and more esteemed gentleman, his face framed in coils of grey hair and a
neatly trimmed silvery moustache poised delicately on top of his red lips.
‘Mr Charles,’ Billy began, ‘may I introduce Mr Tobias Bauer.’
Tobias Bauer was a small man, slight in stature, and walked with the aid
of a cane, whose head was carved into the shape of an otter. As he came
forward – oblivious of Billy giving another flowery bow at his side – he
teetered slightly on his heels. Maynard, already on his feet, stepped around
the edge of his desk and pulled out the seat. With whispered thanks, Tobias
Bauer sank down.
‘That will be all, Billy.’
‘At your service, Mr Charles.’
Then, with another well-practised bow, Billy retreated.
After he had gone, Bauer ventured, ‘Your young man is a credit to you
all.’
Tobias Bauer was a regular visitor to English shores, but he had never
lost the cadences of his Austrian homeland. He was softly spoken, but there
was a quavering in his voice as well. As Maynard already knew, it was born
of real fear.
‘I’m given to understand you have a problem, Herr Bauer.’
‘Well, quite,’ Bauer began. Maynard saw how he caressed the head of
his walking cane, as though it might help him find the confidence to say
what he had to say next. ‘It all began with that damn vote, you see. From
that moment on, I knew I would never be able to go home. All the lies and
counter-lies of those damned politicians! Well, it’s a story as old as time,
isn’t it? And here I am – stranded. Yes, quite stranded!’
Maynard knew a little of Bauer’s story already. As hotel director, his job
was not only the management of the twelve hundred staff who made up his
retinue at the Buckingham Hotel.
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