26

The Consummate Host

I parted the yellow curtains in my mother’s kitchen and slid open the window, leaning out to observe the expansive front yard. It was an early spring afternoon, sunny and warm, the air fragrant with budding flowers. The Sanghera girls were sitting on the hood of my car, playing race car again. This time they were joined by my nieces and nephews, seven children in all, looking innocent and cute as they scratched the paint and dented the hood.

Janet set a box on the kitchen counter. “I think that’s the last of it. Next time, you’re hiring a moving company.”

“I don’t plan on moving for a long time.”

She came to me and rested her hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

“I miss her.”

“Me too.”

The bullet had cut through Wendy’s left chest, on the same side Mom had lost her breast to cancer, only narrowly missing her heart. Her heart stopped on the way to the hospital. I was tailing the ambulance in my car, careening around debris left by the storm, with Quinn in the passenger’s seat holding on for dear life. As the ambulance swerved into the emergency unit at St. Paul’s Hospital, the paramedics got Wendy’s heart going again. She was resurrected, just like Lord Andrew Graverly.

She wandered into the kitchen now, a copy of The Consummate Host tucked under her arm. It had been over three months since the incident, but she was still recovering. I took the book from her and sat her down in a chair.

Janet was peering through the curtains. “Those little brats are on your car,” she said, opening the window to yell at them.

“It’s okay,” I said, stopping her. “They’re just having fun.”

She shot me a Lambert look. “If you get any more easygoing, I’m calling the hotel police.”

“Wait ’til you see what we got you,” Wendy said, tittering. “Go get it, Janet.”

While Janet went out to her car, Wendy and I unpacked kitchen supplies. Her time in the hospital had been a rehearsal for Mom’s final days. While she was in surgery, Mom, Janet, and I had camped out in the waiting room and made a lot of life-affirming statements. Janet vowed to stop yelling at her kids, and I made her promise never to wear acid-wash jeans again. I vowed to dedicate at least one day a week to family, and she made me promise never to ask for crème brûlée in a roadside café again. Mom vowed not to interfere with our lives anymore. Only Mom kept her promise, although it didn’t stop her from meddling in the lives of others; she spent a good part of her visits counseling patients in other rooms.

In the waiting room, Mom told me everything she knew about my real father, Lord Wakefield Graverly. He had swept her off her feet that night at the Hotel Vancouver, and she had spent the night in his room. The next day, he took her with him to visit his brother’s widow, Lady Elinor Graverly, but the woman slammed the door in his face. For the rest of the day he was brooding and quiet, and only now, almost forty years later, did Mom realize he had recognized his brother in the woman’s heavily made-up face.

Full of remorse for being unfaithful to Charles, Mom refused any further contact with Lord Wakefield. When she found out she was pregnant, she resolved to marry Charles, the man she truly loved, and kept my father’s identity a secret. Twelve years later, overcome by outrage and despair over the state of her life, she used the secret as a weapon to hurt Charles. An hour later, he keeled over and died. Fearing she was responsible, and that if she told me the revelation might kill me too, she vowed never to tell another soul.

When Lord Wakefield died, he left me one thousand pounds in his will, a pittance compared to the millions his dog Regent inherited, but it was his way of telling me the truth that my mother had refused to divulge. His lawyers were instructed to contact my mother to advise her of the bequest and allow her the opportunity to tell me herself. She took me down to the lagoon but lost her nerve when I started talking about my feelings of displacement and how different I felt from my sisters. She walked me past Graverly Manor, intending to use the manor’s connection to my real father as a segue, but was so taken aback when I expressed interest in purchasing it that she lost her nerve again.

Around the same time, Mom had begun to feel ill, and even before the tests came back she knew the cancer had returned. After I moved into the manor, she went to see Lady Graverly to beg her not to tell me about my father until she had spoken to me. Lady Graverly agreed, somewhat reluctantly; she had learned of my existence from Lord Wakefield’s will, and when I introduced myself at the open house, she knew in an instant who I was. Because of Mom’s procrastination and my evasiveness, I figured out who my real father was before Mom got a chance to tell me. Yet rather than drive me further away, as my mother had feared, the revelation helped me understand why I was different from my sisters, why I felt restless and displaced, and it ultimately brought us closer.

Janet carried in a large wrapped gift and set it on the table.

The two girls suppressed giggles as I opened the box and withdrew a thick velvet robe, a matching cap, and a scroll tied with silk ribbon.

“Here, let me help you,” said Wendy, draping the cloak over my shoulders and placing the cap on my head.

Janet unraveled the scroll. “We hereby bestow upon you the title Lord Trevor of Lambert Manor, of Surrey, in the Province of British Columbia.”

“It’s an authentic title,” Wendy said. “We bought it on the Internet.”

“I’m deeply moved,” I said.

“Just remember,” said Janet, “we too are ladies of this manor, so you can’t banish us like peasants. Abuse your authority, and we’ll send you to the guillotine.”

“You have my promise,” I said, bowing to each of them.

They curtsied back.

We ordered takeout and called the kids inside, eating pizza and drinking canned sodas while sitting on boxes, crates, and the cushionless sofa. Quinn and Aiden had gathered up cushions, pillows, and blankets to make a fort, and we took turns crawling through it, admiring their work.

“I better get these monsters home,” Janet said, picking at a remnant of melted cheese in the empty pizza box. “Kids, you better dismantle that fort or your Uncle Trevor is going to freak.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll do it myself later.”

“Suit yourself,” Janet said. “You coming, Wen?”

Wendy checked her watch. “Oh jeez, I’m going to be late for my shift.” She came over and gave me a hug. “Don’t forget the hockey game on Monday. You sure you can handle all the boys on your own?”

“No problem.”

Janet came up behind her, frowning. “Are you going to be okay here all by yourself?”

“If I said no, would you stay?”

“No, but I’d leave my kids here and pick them up next week.”

“I’ll be fine. Derrick’s going to swing by later.”

At the front door, I handed Wendy the stack of empty pizza boxes. “Drop these in the garbage on your way out, will you? And don’t back into my car this time.”

“You really are the consummate host,” she said wryly, trotting off in her Crocs.

I waved goodbye as the panel van lurched off, trailed by Janet driving Mom’s Audi. I was standing in the exact place my parents had waved to us each morning as we drove off to school. I saluted the Sanghera girls playing in the front yard and went back into the house.

Nuggle was stalking the hallway. Scooping him up, I carried him into the living room and sat on the floor in front of the fort. Are you going to be okay here all by yourself? Part of me wanted to crawl into the fort and stay there, like I had done as a kid. I began tearing it down, replacing the cushions on the sofa and folding the blankets. Carrying a stack of pillows into my old room, I imagined that my mother was there, sitting on the bed, sorting through old photos, with Nancy beside her, giggling at pictures of me as a kid.

Since Mom died, I have felt her presence everywhere. It’s not an eerie feeling, it’s a comforting one. My sisters and I were with her during her last moments, and when she finally let go I felt all the energy in the room dissipate, like a beloved tour leader had checked off the last item on her agenda and left, leaving participants wanting more. Last week, as I left the Four Seasons with an employment contract in hand, I sensed she was with me, and Nancy too, both of them cheering me on.

Like Clarissa, I believe that there are no haunted places, only haunted people. Ghosts are memories, reminders of our past. If we have guilt or remorse, they haunt us, lingering in the air like a bad smell, piercing our ears like a shriek in the night. If we learn to accept our past and follow our hearts, they become our guardian angels.

Enough. I’m starting to sound like my mother.

The manor sits empty today, ravaged by the now-legendary storm that destroyed over a thousand trees in Stanley Park. Soon bulldozers will arrive, and the home that my uncle, Lord Andrew Graverly—or Lord-Lady Graverly, as Wendy calls him—had reigned over for almost fifty years will be replaced with a luxury condo tower. As detestable as his actions were, I better understand his motives now. Born into privilege, he was different from his brother—effeminate and probably gay, with a penchant for women’s clothing, a valiant soldier who entertained the troops with performances as the fictional Lady Andrew Graverly, a snobbish, blue-blooded aristocrat. Disowned by his father for his flamboyant ways, he was sent away to Canada.

Spurned, he resolved to seek vengeance by regaining his rightful place in the family. When it became evident that his brother would not have children, Lord Andrew conspired to impregnate the housekeeper, Sarah. When she refused him, he raped her. She became pregnant but refused to marry him, threatening to leave him and take her baby. In a fit of rage, he murdered her and stole the baby. To avoid prosecution, he reinvented himself as his alter ego, Lady Elinor Graverly, fresh from London with her newborn child, and in one bold stroke he created a wife, a legitimate child, and an alibi.

I still have a difficult time thinking of Lady Graverly and Lord Graverly as the same person, so I refer to them in whichever persona they occupied at the time. When Lady Graverly’s claim to the estate on behalf of her son was overruled, she realized her only hope was to resurrect Lord Graverly and sent word through a lawyer that he was alive and ready to come forward to claim his rightful title and inheritance. To secure Lord Graverly’s innocence, Lady Graverly confessed to Sarah’s murder and then staged her own death. Positioning me in the minds of others as having ambitions to the Graverly estate, she framed me for killing two potential obstacles in the path to my ambitions: Agnes and Alexander, whose medication had been replaced with poison. Lady Graverly had turned on her own son. He was no longer of use to her after the courts had established that he was illegitimate, and she grew to resent and despise him. He knew all her secrets and had grown to fear her, and his ability to communicate, despite her efforts to keep him docile through medication, had improved far too much for her comfort. Fortunately, the poison I had administered was a low-enough dosage that he survived. He lives with Lincoln now, and proceeds from the sale of the manor have ensured him the best of care from a team of doctors and nurses. I visit him regularly, and his mobility and speech are remarkably improved.

Lady Graverly might have gotten away with everything had she not taken the wrong notebook. At the airport, having reverted to Lord Graverly’s persona, as he prepared to board a flight to London to attend the inquiry, he realized his mistake and came back to the manor to find the evidence and destroy it. There, he discovered Shanna and me in the cellar, Alexander drugged and barely alive, and the diary on the nightstand. He pushed Alexander into the cellar with the diary, intending to incinerate all of us, and then Wendy and Quinn showed up looking for me.

During the subsequent investigation, authorities found prescriptions for the female hormones Lord Graverly had been taking for decades to soften his skin, to grow breasts, and to reduce body hair, as well as evidence of electrolysis treatments and facial feminization procedures. Lincoln was tracked down at his girlfriend’s, and after some cajoling he confirmed that Lord Graverly had lived as Lady Graverly for almost five decades, only occasionally appearing as his former self, usually in the anonymous environs of the Four Seasons Hotel. Lincoln had turned a blind eye, but after Lady Graverly announced her intention to resurrect Lord Graverly and then Agnes disappeared, he began to fear for his own safety and fled.

I had planned to send my father’s bequest to Agnes’s son, Brandon, until I heard his family was expected to be awarded damages from the Graverly estate for the wrongful deaths of his mother and her sister. So I sent the money to the Stanley Park restoration fund. Lost Lagoon was mostly spared in the storm, but across the park great swaths of old-growth trees had been leveled, some of them irreplaceable.

Clarissa helped me to face my inner demons and exorcise them, and I’ll always be grateful, but I don’t think she’s the girl for me. Hopefully she’ll be able to do the same for Sir Fester, who arrived at her door at the Sylvia Hotel much like he had arrived at Graverly Manor—in the middle of the night, during a storm, demanding to be taken in.

After her time at the manor, Shanna put her Santa Monica condo up for sale and started looking into bed-and-breakfasts to purchase. She tried to convince me to partner with her, but I had already come to the realization that I’m a hotelier, not an innkeeper. No longer do I feel like a restless traveler, like a hotelier without a home. I have accepted that the hotel business is in my blood, much like it was in my father’s blood. In time, Shanna realized it wasn’t the life of an innkeeper she was enamored with, but the rediscovery of her love of caring for others. Like me, she had abdicated her role in her family years ago, and now both of us are determined to reestablish our roles, to become consummate hosts to the people who mean the most to us.

Lately, Shanna has been lobbying me on various schemes: to open a resort in Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island; to manage a five-star hotel in Manhattan; to run the Millionaire Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Her latest scheme is to start a hotel inspection company. “We could be mystery shoppers,” she said, flashing her lopsided grin. Yesterday, the director of sales at the Four Seasons Vancouver resigned. I might just ask Shanna if she’s interested.

Whether I will live the rest of my life in this suburban neighborhood, in this house steeped in memories of my childhood, I cannot say. For now, I’m content to stay in Vancouver. I’ve learned that home is as much a state of mind as a place. If I have inner peace, I can find contentment wherever I live. My home doesn’t come with a lofty title or a sprawling estate, but right now it’s perfect for me.

For, as they say, a man’s home is his castle.

the end