Three Drops of Champagne

Victoria Ashford's hand struck Ella's shoulder before Ella could put down the tray.

Her heel caught the wet lip of the fountain. For an instant she saw the champagne glasses suspended against the lights of Briarwood Hall. Then the tray hit the paving, and cold water closed over her head.

She came up choking.

The quartet had stopped between songs. In the silence, someone laughed.

Ella planted her left hand against the stone basin. Pain shot through her wrist. Water streamed into her eyes, and the apron tied around her waist dragged against her knees.

Above her, Victoria inspected her champagne-coloured skirt.

Three drops. That was all Ella had seen before the shove. Three small dark marks beneath a bracelet that probably cost more than the entire evening's catering.

"Honestly," Victoria said. "You should watch where you're going."

Ella tried to get air into her lungs without coughing again. Beyond Victoria stood Lucy Mercer, one hand over her mouth. Lucy had turned into the tray. Ella remembered the knock of an elbow, the glasses trembling, her own automatic apology.

She had said she was sorry because something had spilled.

She had not expected to be pushed.

A man near the rose arch lowered his drink. Another guest lifted a phone. Nobody offered a hand.

Ella pushed herself upright. The water was shallow once she found her feet, barely above her calves, which somehow made the fall more humiliating. She had not disappeared into a lake. She was standing in a decorative fountain, coughing in front of a hundred people.

"Are you hurt?"

A young waitress hurried between the guests. Ella had worked beside her for the last two hours. Anna. Twenty-three, perhaps, with a loose pin slipping out of her bun.

Anna put her tray on an empty chair and held out both hands.

"Don't catch yourself on that edge. There's broken glass outside. Here."

Ella took her arm with her uninjured hand and stepped over the rim. Her shoes made a wet sucking noise on the limestone.

Lucy laughed again, then stopped when Anna looked at her.

"You can go back to your tables," Victoria told Anna.

Anna pulled a clean folded cloth from a service trolley and draped it around Ella's shoulders.

"She's freezing."

"And I've had champagne spilled on silk. We're all having difficulties."

The cloth smelled of warm linen. Ella gripped it beneath her chin, furious to discover that her teeth were knocking together. She wanted her voice steady. At the moment she wanted dry shoes more.

"Your friend hit my tray," she said.

Victoria raised her eyes slowly.

"Excuse me?"

"Lucy turned into it. I apologised for the spill. Then you pushed me."

"I moved you out of my way."

"Into the fountain."

A few guests looked down at the glass around Ella's feet. One woman slipped her phone into her bag.

Victoria's cheeks coloured. She glanced towards the terrace, where the bride's parents were speaking to the musicians.

"I don't know what you're suggesting, but you need to lower your voice."

Ella had barely spoken above the water.

"I'm suggesting you apologise."

Lucy shifted away from Victoria. It was a small movement, half a shoe's length, but Ella saw it.

Victoria saw it too.

"This dress was made for me," she said. "You won't earn enough tonight to cover the cleaning."

Ella's wet sleeve clung to the scrape on her wrist. She pulled it back. A thin line of blood ran towards her thumb.

Anna noticed.

"We need the first-aid box."

"We need your manager," Victoria replied. "Both of you are making a scene."

Across the courtyard, a waiter set down a tray and started towards the house. Ella recognised where he was going: the little office beside the east passage, where Harris kept the incident book and a pair of spectacles he was forever losing.

She knew every turn between here and that office.

Tonight she had been glad that nobody had asked why.

"Sit down," Anna murmured. "I'll bring a chair over."

"I'm all right standing. Thank you."

It was partly true. Sitting meant feeling how badly her knee hurt, and Ella was not ready to do that with Victoria watching.

The windows above the terrace glowed gold. In the music room, someone had arranged white roses beneath her grandmother's favourite portrait. Ella had carried flowers through that room earlier without stopping.

Now she fixed her attention on the nearest window until the hot pressure behind her eyes eased.

She would not cry here. Later, perhaps, in a bathroom with a lock.

"What's your name?" Victoria demanded.

"Ella."

"Your full name."

"Why?"

"So I can make a proper complaint."

"Then you'll need to include the part where you put your hand on me."

Victoria gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

"You really don't understand how this works, do you?"

Footsteps crossed the paving behind them.

Mr. Harris came through the guests carrying two towels. At fifty-eight he still moved quickly when he chose, though Ella had noticed him favouring his knee on the stairs that afternoon.

He stopped when he saw her wrist.

"Ella."

Her name came out too sharply. She saw him take in the soaked clothes, the broken glass and the white cloth gathered around her shoulders.

"I'm standing," she told him. "Nothing broken, I think."

He put a towel around her and took the wet cloth from Anna.

"We shall have that wrist looked at. Anna, would you get the first-aid box? In my office, bottom cupboard."

"Of course."

Victoria moved into his line of sight.

"Mr. Harris, finally. Your waitress has been extraordinarily rude."

He looked at her then.

"I have been told someone fell."

"She slipped after spilling champagne over me. Now she's making accusations. I want her removed from the reception."

Harris glanced at Ella. She hated the moment of uncertainty in his face. He knew what she had asked of him before dinner: no introductions, no fuss. Just let her help.

She had never meant that he should leave her to this.

"She pushed me," Ella said.

His expression settled.

"I see."

"No, you don't," Victoria snapped. "I'm asking you to deal with an employee."

"I am dealing with an injured person. Please step back from the glass."

Victoria stared at him.

For the first time all evening, someone had given her an instruction she had not expected to receive.

Anna returned with the green box. Harris opened it, then paused beside Ella, lowering his voice without quite lowering it enough.

"Would you like me to end the reception?"