Love at the Ritz Read online

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to the most famous, most comfortable and most glamorous hotel in the world.

  I always recommend that everyone should go on honeymoon every year, preferably always to the same place, to rekindle their love and passion for each other.

  I spent my honeymoon at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and I went back every year except during the War for another honeymoon with my husband, who died after twenty-eight blissful years of marriage of his war wounds contracted at the Battle of Passchendaele.

  The Ritz has a magic for me that no other hotel has and this book is therefore a tribute to the wonders created with love by César Ritz, the great hotelier himself.

  Author’s Note

  I have been visiting the Ritz Hotel for sixty-six years and it is without exception the most comfortable and, I think, the most attractive, hotel in the world.

  It always delights me to think that it is really unchanged since it was designed by César Ritz and opened in June 1898.

  César Ritz was, in fact, a genius and far in advance of his time.

  Nobody had ever envisaged a hotel with a bathroom to every bedroom and one that was decorated in such perfect taste.

  When I lie in bed in the Ritz, looking at the plain walls, which were a great innovation in César Ritz’s day, the fine silk curtains with no frills or furbelows and the beautiful chandelier that is part of the story I have just written, I think how lucky we were that César Ritz created a revolution in the hotel business.

  He had an obsession with cleanliness, which again was new, and he was later to make the Carlton Hotel in London, which now has been demolished, a replica of The Ritz in Paris.

  The Ritz has a history of its own, from the time that the Prince of Wales became its most important client to when the Germans took it over as their Headquarters when they reached Paris in World War II.

  I have spent some of the happiest days of my life in the Ritz, as I stayed there on my honeymoon. Every year my husband and I went back for a second honeymoon to revive our romance and to keep our love even more entrancing than it had been when we first married.

  If we ever lost the Ritz, it would not be only a loss to France but to all the people like myself who have enjoyed it generation after generation.

  Chapter One ~ 1898

  The Earl of Cuttesdale was in an exceedingly bad temper.

  He had been in a rage when he left London because his back was hurting him so much that it was an agony to make even the slightest move.

  At least, he told himself, he would try something new.

  At the same time he continued to abuse the English Medical Profession all the way over the English Channel and again on the train journey to Paris.

  His daughter, Vilma, who was with him, was quite used to his rages and so paid little attention to him.

  His valet, Herbert, who had been with him for years, had learnt to say nothing until the storm was over.

  When they neared Paris, the Earl had said to them both,

  “Now you quite understand, as I have no wish for anyone to know that I am like a broken doll, I am from this moment Colonel Crawshaw and Lady Vilma is Miss Crawshaw.”

  As he had already stressed this at least a dozen times, Vilma thought that neither she nor Herbert were likely to forget it.

  They drove to Paris to the luxurious house which the Earl had borrowed on previous occasions from his good friend, the Vicomte de Servaiss.

  The Vicomte, at the moment, was in the country.

  He had, however, replied to the Earl’s letter saying he was only too delighted for him to use his house in the Rue St. Honoré.

  Vilma had never been there before and she was delighted with the beauty of the rooms and the way they were lit in the new fashion by electricity.

  “It is very pleasing, Papa,” she said, “to see that the way we have done this at home is absolutely correct for I believe that the French are more advanced in electrical matters than we are.”

  The Earl merely glowered in reply and after a good dinner he was assisted up to bed so that he could rest his back.

  In the morning he was slightly better-tempered when Vilma brought him the newspapers.

  “It is so thrilling, Papa,” she enthused. “The new Hotel Ritz was opened yesterday and apparently all the important people we have ever heard of were present.”

  “I dislike hotels!” the Earl retorted firmly.

  “I know, Papa, but they say that the Ritz is quite different from any other hotel that there has ever been. Can you imagine that there is a bathroom for every bedroom?”

  For a moment the Earl looked as if he admitted that this was a good innovation.

  Then he said,

  “The Prince of Wales is perfectly content to stay at the Bristol Hotel, where there is only one bathroom on each floor.”

  Vilma was not listening to him as she was reading the newspaper. She could read French as easily as she could read English.

  After a long pause she said,

  “Fancy! The Vanderbilts were at the opening and so were the Grand Dukes Michael and Alexander and the beautiful Otero. I am sure I have heard of her before.”

  “If you have, you should not have,” the Earl snapped.

  “Why not?” Vilma asked.

  The Earl paused for a moment to search for the right words.

  Then he said,

  “She is a courtesan, I admit a grand one, but nevertheless her name would never have been mentioned by your mother or by your grandmother.”

  Vilma laughed.

  “You know, Papa, that you and I can talk about everything and anything and that is what I enjoy more than anything else.”

  The Earl’s eyes softened.

  He was, in fact, very fond of his only daughter.

  He thought her so beautiful that it was unlikely, now that she was launched into Society, that he would keep her for long.

  He had, however, by taking her away in June, made her miss some of the most important balls that were taking place in the London Season.

  However she did not seem to mind.

  In fact she was more interested in going to Paris than in attending the elaborate functions given by the mothers of her contemporaries.

  Reading the newspaper again, she exclaimed,

  “The English were there too, the Duke of Marlborough and then the Dukes of Portland, Sutherland and Norfolk, all there with their wives.”

  “That is surely very something new!” the Earl exclaimed. “In my day, when one came to Paris, one left one’s wife behind.”

  Vilma laughed.

  “Now that, Papa, is just the sort of thing you ought not to say to me!”

  “You brought it on yourself,” the Earl responded. “Now, make sure that none of that lot learn that I am here. I have no wish for them to laugh and jeer at me because, for the first time in years, I have fallen off a horse.”

  “It is very understandable, Papa,” Vilma said, “considering how wild Hercules is. But you would ride him.”

  The Earl recognised that this was certainly true.

  He was a magnificent rider and he was quite confident that the stallion he had bought from a friend as he could not control it would be ‘child’s play’ as far as he was concerned.

  Unfortunately, Hercules, a fine stallion, had shied at one of the spotted deer in the Park.

  The Earl, taken unawares, had been thrown heavily to the ground.

  Vilma knew only too well how proud her father was of his equestrian reputation and she knew that he would feel very hurt if any of his friends crowed over him because he was hors de combat.

  “No one will know you are here, Papa” she said soothingly, “and I will be very careful to remember that I a
m Miss Crawshaw. After all I shall not be lying, as it is one of your names.”

  The Earl belonged to a very old family going back to pre-Tudor times.

  ‘Crawshaw’ was one of the titles his forebears had collected over the centuries.

  He regularly used it when he went abroad, especially when he did not wish to be made a fuss of by the British Embassy or pursued by title-seeking foreigners.

  But he had never been more eager to be incognito than he was at this moment.

  He thought with a shudder how the Duke of Marlborough, who had a somewhat spiteful sense of humour, would make the most of his humiliating condition.

  Because he was looking depressed, Vilma went up to his bed and, bending down, kissed his cheek.

  “Cheer up, Papa,” she urged. “I am sure that this man will work miracles on you and you will soon be back riding, as you always do well, to the delight and envy of everyone who sees you.”

  “You are a good girl, Vilma,” the Earl said, “and I will break in that damned stallion if it kills me.”

  Vilma knew only too well that it was no use arguing with him.

  She therefore continued reading about the opening of the Ritz Hotel.

  The newspapers reported how amazed everybody was at what they had found there.

  Because César Ritz had caused such a sensation, the newspapers carried many columns concerning his career.

  They described how he had been determined to build a hotel that was different from all the others.

  Reading on, she learned that César Ritz had been born in the Swiss village of Niederwald in 1850.

  He was the thirteenth child of a peasant couple whose family line was long if humble and the stone stove in their living room bore a unique crest that had been reproduced on the hotel writing paper.

  César had looked after goats and cows belonging to his father, who was the Mayor of the village.

  It had a population of about two hundred and the boy went to a local school, although his father was of the opinion that it was a waste of time.

  His mother, however, was ambitious for her children to make a success of their lives.

  But César, when he was very young, knew exactly what he wished to do.

  When he reached the age of twelve, he was sent to Sion in Switzerland to learn French and Mathematics. He was impatient to get on and became an apprentice wine waiter.

  When she read this, Vilma looked up at her father and suggested,

  “This is a fascinating account of César Ritz’s life in Le Jour, Papa. I just know that you would like to read it.”

  “I am not interested in waiters,” the Earl replied sullenly.

  “He is much more important than that now,” Vilma replied, “although he did spend some time polishing floors, scrubbing and running up and down stairs with luggage and trays.”

  “I cannot think why you don’t read something intelligent,” the Earl said as if he wanted to find fault. “Here we are in Paris, the most civilised City in the world, and you spend your time drooling over some obscure hotel proprietor.”

  Vilma laughed.

  She knew that her father always took the opposite view to herself, which was one of the reasons that always made their conversations sparkle and stimulate.

  They were always antagonists, straining their brains to the utmost capacity to defeat each other in argument.

  “Well, all I can say,” she said, “is that I would so love to visit the Ritz Hotel and see how different it is from anywhere else we may have stayed. Imagine it, Papa, no heavy tapestries, plushes or velvet because Monsieur Ritz says ‘they collect the dust’.”

  “I should think the place looks like an Army Barracks!” the Earl growled.

  His daughter did not answer as she was reading on.

  Then she exclaimed,

  “What do you think it says here?”

  There was no reply from her father, but she continued,

  “The comfortable dining room chairs were only just delivered the day before yesterday and when they were Monsieur Ritz found that the tables were too high.”

  “They must go back to be cut down,” he cried.

  “His wife agreed and he ran outside to see the van that had delivered the chairs moving away. He ran after it in the rain and shouted,

  “‘Two centimetres off every table leg and they must be back in two hours’.”

  “He was told that it was quite impossible, but he had his own way in the end and the tables came back. The waiters were finishing laying them as the first of the guests’ carriages arrived.”

  “He should not have left it to the eleventh hour,” the Earl remarked.

  “I think it is a fascinating story,” Vilma asserted. “Please, please, Papa, before we leave Paris, take me to see the Ritz Hotel.”

  “And meet someone I might know there?” the Earl asked. “Certainly not! As soon as I am better, we will then go back to London and you shall dance at what balls are left in the Season.”

  Vilma did not reply.

  She was thinking that she must see a little of Paris before they did return to London.

  She had already made a list of the places that she wanted to visit.

  It started with the Louvre and ended with the Aquarium in the Bois de Boulogne.

  The difficulty, of course, would be to find someone appropriate to accompany her. She knew very well that that she could not go out alone.

  Because her father was determined that no one should gossip about his injuries, she had not been allowed to bring her lady’s maid with her.

  She knew that it would be impossible to make Herbert leave his Master.

  ‘I will think of something,’ she told herself rather doubtfully and went on reading about the Ritz Hotel.

  *

  Later in the day the man who everybody had said was so successful with injured backs arrived at the house.

  His name was Pierre Blanc.

  Vilma saw him first, to explain what had happened and she spoke to him in her fluent French and made him understand how important it was that her father should be able to ride again as soon as possible.

  “He is a famous rider in England,” she said, “and that is why he does not want anyone to know what has happened to him.”

  “I can understand that, mademoiselle,” Pierre Blanc said, “and I promise that Monsieur will soon be well again and he will find it difficult to remember that he was ever frustrated in such an unfortunate manner.”

  He spoke so confidently that Vilma was delighted.

  “I hope you will make my father feel that it will be only a short time before he is well. He very much dislikes being an invalid and it makes him feel useless.”

  Pierre Blanc spread out his hands.

  “What man hates being ill?” he asked. “Especially when he is in Paris.”

  “Now I will take you upstairs,” Vilma proposed.

  “But before we do so, mademoiselle,” Pierre Blanc interrupted, “you must promise me that you will make your father follow my instructions to the letter.”

  “I will try,” Vilma answered him a little doubtfully.

  “The most important thing is for him to rest after I have given him a treatment,” Pierre Blanc said. “In nearly every case the patient goes straight to sleep. But if your father does not, he is to lie quietly on his back undisturbed and not be agitated by anything or anyone. Do you understand, mademoiselle?”

  “Of course I do, monsieur,” Vilma replied, “and I promise you that Papa will be left very quiet with nobody and nothing to disturb him.”

  “That is exactly what is required,” Pierre Blanc exclaimed. “And now, mademoiselle, I am ready to meet my patient.”

  Vilma took him upstairs to the comfortable bedroom that her father was using. It was the largest in the house.

  She knew, although her father would never admit it, that he had been counting the hours until Pierre Blanc arrived.

  As the two men shook hands, Vilma slipped downstair
s.

  Now she was free and maybe she could go somewhere and see just a little, if only a very little, of the City of Paris.

  She wondered whether she could ask one of the maidservants to go with her, but she had noticed that they were all middle-aged or older.

  She thought that they might resent being asked to accompany her in the afternoon when they had been working all the morning.

  ‘I must go out – I must!’ she said to herself.

  To her surprise the door then opened.

  A manservant with grey hair, who she had already learnt had been with the Vicomte for thirty years, said,

  “Monsieur César Ritz to see you, m’mselle.”

  Vilma was so surprised that she thought for a moment that it must be a joke.

  Then a short dark man came into the room.

  She knew from the illustrations she had seen in the newspapers that it was indeed César Ritz himself who stood there in front of her.

  There was no mistaking the high forehead, from which the hair grew back and then the drooping moustache.

  It was the great hotelier in person.

  She could only stare at him as he crossed the room to bow respectfully and say,

  “Forgive me, mademoiselle, for disturbing you, but I have a great favour to ask. It is only just now that I have learnt that this house is not empty, as I had expected, but you and your father are staying here.”

  “We arrived in Paris the day before yesterday,” Vilma explained.

  “That is what the servant told me,” César Ritz replied, “and I must therefore explain to you why I am here.”

  He looked worried as he spoke, as if he feared she might refuse to grant him the request that he was going to make.

  “Suppose you sit down, Monsieur Ritz,” Vilma now suggested. “I have just been reading about your magnificent hotel.”

  As she spoke, she indicated the nearest armchair and, as he sat down, César Ritz said,

  “I was fortunate, so very fortunate. As you can imagine, mademoiselle, there was always the fear at the back of my mind that those I had counted on would not come. But they did! Almost every one of them. But in doing so, they have created for me a problem.”

  “A problem?” Vilma asked.

  “That is the reason why I am here,” he replied.