Come If You Must

A telegram is a poor welcome: COME IF YOU MUST. DO NOT BRING FRUIT. Imogen Standen, recently redundant and reluctantly the owner of one-ninth of a crumbling Derbyshire spa hotel, arrives at the Marlbeck Hydro to sell up and flee. Instead she finds a mourning cook, a hosepipe therapist, a great-aunt ruling by dumbwaiter, and one immovable guest paying nine shillings a week. Selling, it turns out, is the one thing nobody will permit.