The Hotel Under the Sand (5 page)

“There’s quite a lot to do,” he called in to her. “I hope you’ll excuse me, Miss Emma, but I’ve got to put things to rights.”

“That’s all right,” said Emma. Winston came out carrying the vase and put it back on the table beside the great front doors. He looked at her, blinking as though he’d just woken up.

“Good lord,” he said. “It’s only now sinking in. Here I am, back in the Grand Wenlocke, and—and where did you come from? I’ve never even asked you, have I?”

“You were a little confused,” said Emma. “I don’t mind. I washed up on the beach.”

“Oh! Were you in a shipwreck?”

“No,” said Emma, scowling down at the inlaid pattern on the marble floor. She didn’t like thinking about what had happened to her. “I was in a bad storm. Can I help you tidy things up?”

“Certainly,” said Winston tactfully. “I’ll start in the Bar—some bottles have spilled in here, and I can see some books that have fallen off the shelves out in the Smoking Lounge, and, oh, my, I can’t imagine what it must be like in the Library—”

“I’ll tidy the Library, then,” said Emma, because she loved books.

“It’s just up the Grand Staircase, to the left,” said Winston, pushing one of the sofas back into place. Emma ran up the Grand Staircase to the Mezzanine, her bare feet pattering on the parquet floor, and saw rooms stretching away to both right and left. The first door had a sign above it that said
LIBRARY
.

She opened the door and went in. The Library was a long room, with a big window at its far end that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It was a stained-glass window depicting a lady in a Greek helmet. There was sky behind the lady, and blue sea, with little stained-glass ships with striped sails on the sea. The lady was holding out a book as though offering it to Emma.

Along either wall were high shelves of books. These were indeed a mess, with big leatherbound volumes spilled off the shelves, flooding around the armchairs and reading tables. So Emma set to work putting them all back, going up and down a ladder on wheels.

She only slowed down once, when she came to the children’s section. Many of her favorite books weren’t there, of course, because they hadn’t been written yet when the Grand Wenlocke sank. Still, she was happy to find
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
and
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. There were strange old books with beautiful gold lettering on their spines, and titles like
The Princess and the Goblins, The Water-Babies
, and
The Chatterbox Annual
.

It was tempting to think of stopping and taking a book to one of the big chairs. The chairs were upholstered in leather just the color of caramel, and looked very deep and comfortable. But Emma made herself finish tidying up first.
After all
, she thought,
who knows how long I’ll be here? I might have time to read everything!

The thought made her happier than she had been in days and days. Emma hummed to herself as she ran down the Grand Staircase again. She noticed the hotel’s big front desk and wandered behind it.

There were rows of pigeonholes full of old-fashioned long keys, which she expected to see. But there was also a glass-fronted box covering a big brass lever, which she didn’t expect to see. Underneath it, in curly script, were the words
In Case of Pirates, Break Glass
. Emma wondered whether the box used to connect with a police station and whether there had ever really been any pirates in the Dunes.

She stood on tiptoe to see the guestbook. It was open to the first page, snowy white and unmarked, still waiting for a guest to check in. Emma found the old-fashioned wooden pen with its steel point, and had just dipped it in the inkwell to write her name in the book when she heard an unexpected noise.

It was a creaking, and a little pattering clicking, and a heavy footstep. It wasn’t coming from the Bar, where she could hear Winston sweeping up broken glass. It was coming from the opposite direction.

Emma turned her head. In the hall leading off to the right of the Lobby, she could see a flight of stairs leading downward. A sign over the stairway said
TO THE KITCHENS
.

Someone, breathing heavily, was coming up the stairs.

E
MMA GRIPPED THE
pen until her knuckles were white, but she did not scream. She watched the stairway, as the noises grew louder, and in a moment she saw who had been making them.

It was a middle-aged lady, rather stout, with a round red face. She wore long skirts and a shawl over her shoulders, which wasn’t surprising to Emma. Her hair was fastened up with long pins in an old-fashioned way, which wasn’t surprising either. But the black eye-patch she wore
was
a bit startling. A little dachshund scrambled up the stairs after her.

“I think something must have happened, Shorty,” she was saying to the little dog. “Where has everyone gone?”

The dachshund spotted Emma and ran forward, barking ferociously. The lady peered at Emma with her one eye.

“Behave yourself, Shorty, it’s only a child,” she said. “Hello? What are you doing there, child?”

Winston, who had heard the barking, came running in with the broom and dustpan. “Mrs. Beet!” he exclaimed. “I thought you got out with everyone else! Did you die too?”

“I
beg your
pardon?” Mrs. Beet’s face paled to a salmon pink. “I never! I was working late in the Kitchens, to get ready for today. Just settled down to put my feet up for a moment, after I put the last loaves of bread in the oven. And I suppose I, er, must have dozed off. Had the most horrid dreams that the bread was burning. Couldn’t seem to wake up for ages.”

“It
was
ages, I’m afraid,” said Emma. “You must have been frozen in time with the hotel!”

“Frozen in time? Whatever do you mean, child?” said Mrs. Beet.

“Well…” Emma wondered what was the best way to break the news. “Your bread’s been in the oven for about a hundred years. But at least it didn’t burn.”

“What!”

“Perhaps you’d better sit down, Mrs. Beet,” said Winston tactfully. “We need to explain a few things.”

Poor Mrs. Beet! When everything had been explained to her, she was so shocked that she became quite faint, and in a feeble voice begged Winston to fetch her a drink of rum from the Bar. He kindly brought it for her, and in no time it restored her natural color, which was a delicate shade somewhere between brick red and boiled lobster.

“Dear, dear, what a dreadful thing!” she said, looking sadly at her empty glass. “I’ve been marooned in time! This is just the sort of thing that keeps happening to me!”

“It does?” said Emma.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Beet, waving her empty glass until Winston got the hint and refilled it for her. “I’ve had a most unusual life, you know.”

“I guess you must have,” said Emma, trying not to stare at her eye patch.

“It didn’t start out that way,” said Mrs. Beet.

“Were you an orphan, like Winston?” Emma asked.

“What? Why, no. There were the most appalling crowds of babies in my family, and not enough food to go around. So when I was a little girl, I was put into service. I became an under-backstairs chambermaid for a rich family with a lot of spoiled children. I scrubbed the little spaces between the stair railings, and crawled under furniture to dust the back legs, and other things small hands were needed for. I used to sneak into the nursery at night, when the children of the family were asleep, and play with their toys.”

“Did they mind?” said Emma.

“I suppose they would have, if they’d ever noticed. But they were given new toys so often they never even looked at most of them. I thought it was very unfair, and I detested those children. I detested being an under-back-stairs chambermaid, too,” said Mrs. Beet.

“Now, the Cook in that household was a very important person. She was a good Cook, and knew lots of secret recipes. The master and mistress of the house gave her all sorts of things to keep her from leaving and going to cook for somebody else: holidays, her own room, oodles of money. It seemed to me that it would be much better to be a Cook than a Maid, for a Maid simply spends her life cleaning other people’s houses, and what does that get her?”

“A nice, clean house,” said Winston.

“But it didn’t get
me
a nice clean house,” said Mrs. Beet. “It was my master’s house, after all, not mine. I resolved to become a Cook too, to change my lot in life. I made myself useful in the kitchen by crawling under the stove to find dropped jar-lids that rolled back there. I did tedious tasks for the Cook, like pitting cherries and shelling peas. By the time I was eight I could make a white sauce without any lumps in it; by the time I was nine, I could steam a pudding. The Cook was so grateful for my help, she taught me some of her secret recipes.

“And then the master and mistress of the house and all their unpleasant children went for a holiday to the seaside. One night, most unexpectedly, pirates came ashore and broke into their lodging-house and carried them all off as prisoners,” said Mrs. Beet, smiling fondly at the memory. “So we servants were all given our notice. I pretended to be older than I was and answered an advertisement for a merchant ship that needed a cook on board. They didn’t want to hire a lady, but I made them a Spotted Dog Pudding, which all sailors love. They liked it so well I became Cook on the
Flaming Disaster.”

“Did you enjoy it?” asked Emma.

“Oh, pretty well,” said Mrs. Beet. “I got to visit foreign countries and see the sights, you know. Had lots of unusual adventures. Mostly good ones, though there were storms, to be sure, and giant squid, and the
Flying Dutchman
, which was a great nuisance. I had to kill a mad elephant with a skillet once.

“And once I fell in love with a boy ashore, and he was in love with me, but he couldn’t bring himself to run away to sea. So he stayed there, and I sailed on, until one day there was a dreadful accident when a Spotted Dog exploded in the galley. A volley of currants put my eye out. It was very painful. The rum sauce got everywhere, causing the
Flaming Disaster
to catch fire and sink. Luckily we all escaped in the lifeboats, but that spoiled my taste for a nautical life.”

“I should think so!” said Winston.

“But I had a generous insurance policy on my eye, luckily, so I bought a dog and went on a nice holiday with the money. Walking on the beach one day, I met Mr. Wenlocke. He needed a cook for the kitchens of his new hotel, so he hired me. I don’t generally like wealthy folks, but Mr. Wenlocke was a charmer, so he was. And everything went smoothly until
this
dismal occurrence! Whatever shall we do now, Winston? Or, at least, what shall this castaway child and I do? For I suppose you ought to go on up to heaven, if you’re dead.”

“Aren’t you scared that he’s a ghost?” asked Emma, who was surprised that Mrs. Beet wasn’t more upset.

“Looks all right to me,” said Mrs. Beet. “I mean, if I’ve been marooned in time, a ghost is the least of my problems. Mr. Wenlocke did ask me if I minded working around strange folk!” She laughed and shook her head. “And I’ve seen stranger folk than Winston, when you come down to it.”

“Well, I believe I
am
in heaven,” said Winston. “This is just the sort of place I’d want to go, after all. And as for what we’ll do, isn’t it obvious? We’ll do our duties!”

“But the hotel’s abandoned and utterly deserted,” said Mrs. Beet. “For whom shall I cook?”

“For Miss Emma!” said Winston. “She’s the only guest we have, after all.”

“Oh, yes, please,” said Emma, who had been making friends with Shorty while they talked. “Except I don’t have money to pay for anything.”

“That’s all right, Miss Emma,” said Winston. “Complimentary service for castaways! Now, Mrs. Beet, perhaps you’d be so kind as to prepare luncheon? And I’ll get to work tidying up around here. The storm made a terrible mess.”

“Very good,” said Mrs. Beet, standing up. She looked at Emma and frowned thoughtfully. “You might think about a bath and a change of clothes, dearie.”

“Oh,” said Emma, looking down at her dress, which had been through a storm, slept in, and stained with blackberries, machine oil, and tar from shipwrecks. “But I don’t have any other clothes.”

“Well, there were all sorts of trunks delivered for the rich guests as was coming to the grand opening,” said Mrs. Beet. She chuckled, and her one eye gleamed. “I don’t imagine they’ll need them now, after a hundred years have gone by! So just you go upstairs and look around in the rooms. I’ll wager you’ll find yourself something to wear. Give the child a pass key, Winston.”

“Dee-lighted,” said Winston, and pulled an old-fashioned long key from a pigeonhole behind the registration desk. He presented it to Emma with a bow. “You have your choice of rooms, Miss Emma.”

“Thank you very much,” said Emma. She tried to remember how little girls curtseyed in the movies, and made a pretty good attempt.

Mrs. Beet went back down to the Kitchens, and Winston hurried off to continue tidying up. Shorty followed Emma as she climbed the wide staircase and set off to explore the hotel.