Oriental Hotel Read Free

her, Alex and David and the rest of the board; they pretended her voting shares were of importance – though she knew they could outmanoeuvre her any time they decided to act in concert – and asked her opinion on all manner of things from the decor for the new suite of offices in a London tower block to the final design on the company Christmas cards.
    She still entertained for Sandersons, too, and it gave her the excuse she needed to justify keeping on Durscombe Park. She loved it; she couldn’t have borne to see it sold, but it was much too large for her to live in alone. As a setting for dinner parties and working weekends, however, it was ideal: a rambling Georgian house set in fifteen acres of parkland, with breathtaking views across a valley populated only by grazing cows and a pony or two, yet within easy reach of the motorway. And Elise did so enjoy entertaining, planning menus, mixing guests and engineering conversation. Her dinner parties were always a success and invitations to a country weekend eagerly accepted.
    Yet Geraldine, her daughter, had never made a hostess and never would, thought Elise. Geraldine was pure country through and through – happier mucking out a stable than choosing a fine wine, more comfortable in jeans and gumboots than in designer fashion from Paris, London and Rome. Geraldine resented time spent on herself, on fripperies, on five-course meals or anything else she did not consider absolutely essential, and was quite happy to escape any social commitments which might normally have come her way as wife of the deputy managing director of the company.
    As for Alex’s wife, Laura, she hadn’t the faintest idea how to organise. A startlingly pretty blue-eyed blonde, she was always an enormous success as a guest, but faced with arranging anything more demanding than drinks for close friends panic set in and by the time people arrived she was prostrate with migraine.
    Between them, Geraldine and Laura would have long since demolished the Sanderson reputation for lavish entertaining, Elise believed, and secretly she was glad of their lack of interest. It was nice to feel there was something she could do really well, especially since the younger generation could so easily make one feel intimidated by their accomplishments. Moreover, it meant she was still a part of Sandersons, not merely the widow of the founder, and gave her a reason for still seeing company documents, feeling involved and asking questions.
    Lately, however, Elise had had the uncomfortable feeling that Alex and David were keeping something from her and now, as she waded through the pile of papers beside her, this niggled at her again.
    There was something they hadn’t said, she was sure – and if they were keeping quiet about it, the chances were that it had to do with money or the lack of it. Nothing undermined confidence more quickly than rumour. And during the last few weeks David and Alex had acted very like men out to scotch whatever rumours might inadvertently have begun to circulate.
    Several times over the years similar circumstances had arisen, and always Elise had suspected from the very outset if something was wrong. She had never thought of herself as an intuitive person in other respects, yet where the business was concerned she had been proved right over and over again.
    But there was nothing more concrete behind her anxiety, Elise thought, than this uncomfortable sensation that things were going on around her of which she remained ignorant.
    â€˜You’re getting old!’ she told herself severely. ‘If there are problems, Alex and David can deal with them. And the chances are that they exist only in your imagination …’
    She worked quickly through the remaining papers, marking a point here and there for attention with quick strokes of her pen. Then when she was satisfied she shuffled the papers together, returned them to the soft kid briefcase and reached instead