A Diamond In The Snow

‘Did you bring your CV with you?’

‘No.’ Which had been stupid of him. ‘But I can access it on my phone and email it over to you.’

‘Thank you. That would be useful.’ Her smile was kind, and made it clear she thought he wasn’t up to the job.

This was ridiculous. Why should he have to prove himself to a woman he’d never met before, for a temporary and voluntary post?

Though, according to his father, they needed help. Having someone clueless who’d need to take up lots of her time for training was the last thing she needed. In her shoes, he’d be the same—wanting someone capable.

‘Let me show you round the house,’ she said, ‘and you can tell me what you want to get out of a three-month placement.’

Proof for his father that he could take direction and deal with ordinary people. If he told her that, she’d run a mile. And he needed to get this job, so he could stay here to keep an eye on his parents. ‘Experience,’ he said instead.

‘Of conservation work or management?’

‘Possibly both.’ He felt ridiculously underprepared. He’d expected a casual chat with a friend of his father’s, and an immediate offer to start work there the next week. What an arrogant idiot he was. Maybe his father had a point. To give himself thinking time, he asked, ‘What does the job actually entail?’

She blew out a breath. ‘Background: we do an annual survey to check on the condition of our textiles and see what work we need to do over the winter.’

He assumed this was standard practice in the heritage sector.

‘My surveyor found mould in the silk hangings in the ballroom. It’s going to cost a lot to fix, so we’re applying for heritage grants and we’re also running some fundraising events.’

‘So where do I come in?’ he asked.

‘That depends on your skill set.’

Good answer. Victoria Hamilton was definitely one of the sharper tools in the box.

‘If you’re good at website design, I need to update our website with information about the ballroom restoration and its progress. If you’re good at figures, then budgeting and cost control would be a help. If you’ve managed events, then I’d want you to help to set up the programme and run them.’

Help to, he noticed. She clearly had no intention of giving up control. ‘Who fills the gaps?’ he asked.

‘Me.’

‘That’s quite a wide range of skills.’

She shrugged. ‘I started helping with the house as soon as I was old enough. And Dad’s gradually been passing his responsibilities to me. I’ve been in charge of running the house for two years. You have to be adaptable so you can meet any challenge life throws up. In the heritage sector, every day is different.’

Her father believed in her, whereas his didn’t trust him. Part of him envied her. But that wasn’t why he was here.

‘I’ll give you the short version of the house tour,’ she said.

Stately homes had never really been Sam’s thing. He remembered being taken to them when he was young, but he’d been bored and restless until it was time to run around in the parkland or, even better, a children’s play area. But he needed to look enthusiastic right now, if he was to stand any chance of getting this job. ‘I’d love to see around,’ he fibbed.

She led him round to the front. ‘The entrance hall is the first room people would see when they visited, so it needed to look impressive.’

Hence the chandelier, the stunning black and white marble floor, the artwork and the huge curving double staircase. He could imagine women walking down the staircase, with the trains of their dresses sweeping down behind them; and he made a mental note to ask Victoria whether any of her events involved people in period dress—because that was something he could help with, through Jude.

There were plenty of portraits on the walls; he assumed most of them were of Hamilton ancestors.

‘Once they’d been impressed by the entrance hall—and obviously they’d focus on the plasterwork on the ceiling, not the chandelier—visitors would go up the staircase and into the salon,’ she said.

Again, the room was lavishly decorated, with rich carpets and gilt-framed paintings.

‘If you were close to the family, you’d go into the withdrawing room,’ she said.

Another sumptuous room.

‘Closer still, and you’d be invited to the bedroom.’

He couldn’t help raising his eyebrows at her.

She didn’t even crack a smile, just earnestly explained to him, ‘They didn’t just dress and sleep here. A lot of business was conducted in the private rooms.’

‘Uh-huh.’ It was all about money, not sex, then.

‘And if you were really, really close, you’d be invited into the closet. This one was remodelled as a dressing room in the mid-eighteen-hundreds, but originally it was the closet.’ She indicated a small, plain room.

He managed to stop himself making a witty remark about closets. Mainly because he didn’t think she’d find it funny. Victoria Hamilton was the most serious and earnest woman he’d ever met. ‘Surely the more important your guest, the posher the room you’d use?’

‘No. The public rooms meant everyone could hear what you were talking about. Nowadays it’d be the equivalent of, say, video-calling your bank manager about your overdraft on speakerphone in the middle of a crowded coffee shop. The more privacy you wanted, the smaller the room and the smaller the number of people who could overhear you and gossip. Even the servants couldn’t overhear things in the closet.’

‘Got you. So that’s where you’d plot your business deals?’

‘Or revolutions, or marriage-brokering.’

He followed her back to the salon.

‘Then we have the Long Gallery—it runs the whole length of the house. When it was too cold and wet to walk in the gardens, they’d walk here. Mainly just promenading up and down, looking at the pictures or through the windows at the garden. It’s a good place to think.’

She flushed slightly then, and Sam realised she’d accidentally told him something personal. When Victoria Hamilton needed to think, she paced. Here.

‘Next door, in the ballroom, they’d hold musical soirées. Sometimes it was a piano recital, sometimes there would be singing, and sometimes they’d have a string quartet for a ball.’

‘The room where you have the mould problem,’ he remembered. Was she blinking away tears? Crying over a room?

‘We’ve tested the air and it’s safe for visitors—you don’t need a mask or anything,’ she said.

He wasn’t going to pretend he knew much about mould, other than the black stuff that had crept across the ceiling of his friends’ houses during his student days. So he simply followed her through.

‘Oh.’ It wasn’t quite what he’d expected. The walls, curtains and upholstery were all cream and duck-egg-blue; there was a thick rug in the centre of the room, a grand piano, and chairs and chaises-longue laid out along the walls. There were mirrors on all the walls, reflecting the light from the windows and the chandelier.

‘It’s not a huge ballroom,’ she said. ‘Big enough for about fifty, and they’d have supper downstairs in the dining room or they’d lay out a standing supper in the Long Gallery.’

‘Is it ever used as a ballroom now?’ he asked, intrigued.

‘Not for years, but I’m planning to use it as part of the fundraising. It’ll be a Christmas ball, with everyone wearing Regency dress, and dinner will be a proper Regency ball supper.’