The Last Houseparty (15 page)

“Apparently it's Eton slang for anyone who talked differently from the way they did.”

“Ah … I reckon we'd have spotted him.”

“He'd have had three or four years to practise.”

“That's so … Tell you what, Miss Quintain. I told you I'd a good head for names. I think I could get you out a list of everyone was with us in 208—that wing 208, at least.”

“That would be marvellous. And how old and how tall they were, if you can remember.”

“Scuse my asking, but are you aiming to find this Vincent Masham?”

“Yes, of course. I know it's a very long shot, but I think he might tell me much more about Harry than you can, Mr Mason. And there's something else … I don't know. In any case, we'll look at some of the photographs when we go back up.”

They fell silent. The serious part of the interview seemed suddenly over. Miss Quintain, who had hardly eaten a mouthful so far, methodically disposed of a roll. Mr Mason, who had used food almost as punctuation to his story, sat watching Jo-jo as she scrambled around the tree. The fingers of his right hand caressed his jaw-line with slow, unconscious strokes.

“Were you a clockmaker before the war?” said Miss Quintain. Mr Mason withdrew his hand from his face and looked at it as though it were a stranger's.

“I was just a general mechanic,” he said. “Garage hand and such, up Leicester way. Joined up a bit before the war. When I was demobbed … well, I didn't know what to do with myself. I'd been all right in the Air Force, but now I'd lost my moorings, you might say. Got into a bit of trouble…Well, 1948 I found myself in Lichfield, no job, no family, all at odds with myself inside. More than once I'd thought quite serious about jumping off a bridge or something. I wandered into a big church. They used to keep churches open then. No one around, but I heard thumpings up in the tower, so up I went. Tell you the honest truth, I was hoping to meet the vicar or someone, bum the price of a meal off. What I found was Sid Lauterpracht—little man, bit of a hunch to his back—having a go at the clock. I asked him for a bob or two, and he said no, but he'd pay me to fetch and carry for him a couple of hours seeing his regular man was off sick. That was my turning point. That was when I started to come back. I got interested in the gearing of the clock and when I asked a couple of questions Sid could see I knew what I was talking about, so he took me on temporary while the other fellow got over his influenza. I stayed thirty-two years and ended up owning the business.”

“It says Lauterpracht and Mason on your card.”

“Sid passed away, you see, 1959. Mrs Lauterpracht was wanting to keep the firm going, so she took me into partnership. Matter of fact, make sure of me, she went and married me. Funny when you think she hid the spoons that first night Sid brought me home to sleep on the sofa.”

As soon as he spoke about his wife a certain joviality, vague but perceptible and probably intended to be perceived, tinged Mr Mason's voice, revealing a side of his life hitherto unsuspected. He took a wallet from his inner pocket and withdrew a photograph, which he looked at for a couple of seconds before passing across. It was a snapshot, evidently taken in some public park. To one side was part of a flowerbed, planted with scarlet tulips and blue forget-me-nots. On the tarred path a woman was hunkered down, facing the camera but not looking at it as she attempted to coax a pair of mallard to eat from her fingers. She was more than plump, but just short of that state of fatness where the rolls of flesh oscillate according to their own harmonics with the movements of the body. The yellowness of her hair could not be wholly natural. She looked about fifty-five, immensely strong and healthy, and though concentrated on her battle of wills with the ducks, expressed an attitude of easy cheerfulness towards the world.

“Did they?” said Miss Quintain, handing the photograph back.

“They did not,” said Mr Mason. “I tell her I carry it round to remind me of the only time I remember she didn't get her own way.”

He started to gather his share of the picnic mess back into the basket. Miss Quintain stood up and shook the crumbs out of her apron.

“I forgot to ask,” she said. “What sort of state was the Lysander in? I'm sure it was as good as you could make it, but I don't suppose the desert was particularly kind to aeroplanes.”

“You're right there. But all things considered she was in pretty good nick. I've always reckoned they must have run into an Italian fighter. Me, like you say, I'd done the best I could.”

VIII

1

T
he form for one of Zena's “superduperdos” (which, by the way, did not take place every week-end of the season, though there was almost always some kind of house-party at Snailwood—one week-end in three would be nearer the mark—was for some thirty house guests to have gathered at least by teatime on the Saturday. Another thirty would arrive for dinner, but not expecting to stay the night, and between ten and eleven the numbers would double again with the arrival of guests for the dance, most of whom would have dined in parties of a dozen or more in neighbouring houses, though a few might have motored down directly from London.

To somebody merely listening—a tramp, say, who had slipped over the wall to doss down on the soft drift of leaves beneath the magnolias—the confused mess of noises might have sounded like some machine undergoing a series of ultra-slow gear changes, the guests being as it were the work into which the machine was biting, the arrival of a couple of already excited carloads constituting a knot in the grain of the night and causing a sudden rise in pitch, but each main stage going jerkily up from a quiet-seeming hum to straining clamour which could only be relieved by setting the machine to work at a lower ratio.

By half past seven the five-piece orchestra was out on the terrace in front of the morning room, tuning up before the guests arrived. The morning room itself had been cleared for dancing. The Great Hall, which under earlier Lady Snailwoods would have been used for that purpose, was unaltered, a large space in which groups of various sizes could sit out and—Zena's reputation by now strongly suggested—intrigue, in any sense of that word. The gardeners had set lamps out all along the terraces and hung them here and there among the trees below; with dusk they would be going round to light them. The tables for supper were laid in the Orangery. Smollett, the second chauffeur, was out in the courtyard, ready to supervise the parking of cars. Now, with the house guests still dressing and the first gong not yet sounded, it was a period of quiet, of the gears going through neutral before the machine took up the next load.

Vincent stood at the landing of the stairs and looked down the Great Hall, his expression blank. Despite Zena's chintzes and cushions, despite Lord Snailwood's spectacular roses, despite the evening light, golden but as yet undimmed by dusk, the large space did not manage to feel mellow or cheerful. It was still an unsatisfactory room, not merely in the sense of being impractical, but also in its aura. In the absence of living inhabitants one seemed to sense the frustrations of earlier Snailwoods who had tried to live in this room, or if not in it, with it. Vincent appeared to be merely waiting for the gong, a warning to the guests but to the members of the household a signal that Zena expected them to be on hand to cope with any problems that might arise.

Footsteps whimpered on the treads of the upper flight. Vincent turned to see Mrs Dubigny coming down, wearing a cream satin dress, its plainness compensated for by exaggeratedly vivid makeup. She smiled at him with a warmth that was clearly not for him alone, an expression of pleasure with the world at large enhanced by the prospect of a party. She blew a kiss over his head. He looked to discover its target.

The high gothic windows, clear glass below and armorial bearings above, divided the evening light. At floor level things gleamed or glowed, but above that a darker palette prevailed, not dark enough for one to be able to say that the faces of the two spectators in the gallery were lost, or even unrecognisable, only that they were not immediately obvious. Sally blew a kiss back to her mother. The nurse did not smile.

“Poor Sally has such nightmares,” whispered Mrs Dubigny. “It's long past her bedtime but she keeps on crying for me. I told Nanny she could come along there and watch the guests arrive. I do hope I don't have to go up to her—Zena does hate it so. In any case I mustn't let it become a habit, must I?”

“They make children g-go to bed much too early. Harry and I used to talk half the night.”

“It's nice you're such friends—in spite of being so different.”

As she spoke—her tone of general amusement with events sounding for once artificial in its exaggeration—Mrs Dubigny laid her fingertips on Vincent's arm, perhaps merely to feel the nap of his scarlet mess jacket, but at the same time giving the impression that she would like to test whether the man himself was composed of the same materials as Harry—with whom, presumably, she had already made a number of slight, preliminary, accidental-seeming contacts. Vincent looked her solemnly up and down, as if in turn attempting to decide by inspection whether she was good enough for his cousin.

“Everybody's different,” he said.

“Yes, aren't they? But you don't have to be so gloomy about it. It's fun.”

Discussion of the advantages of human variability was prevented by the entry of Prince Yasif, not down the stairs but through the double doors beneath the gallery. He was dressed for dinner, strikingly, in Bedu robes, which until he spoke had the effect of altering his personality from one of softness and affability to one of definite and even slightly sinister severity.

“Ah, there you are!” he cried. “Just the chappie I was looking for!”

They met at the foot of the stairs, Mrs Dubigny stooping into an experimental curtsey as soon as she was down. The Prince laughed, clearly excited.

“We don't have to start on any of that yet,” he said. “The show's not on the road for twenty minutes, what?”

“Are you going to sweep us all off to your tent on your camel?” said Mrs Dubigny, managing to give the word “us” a gender implication beyond the normal resources of English grammar.

“Vince's camel, actually,” said the Prince, grinning to show his disappointingly yellow teeth. “I say, old chap, I've been trying to use that contraption in the hall, but I haven't any change. Can you …”

“There's a telephone in my office,” said Mrs Dubigny. “Provided we don't let on to Lord S.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” said the Prince. “The hospitality of the host is paramount. I must not abuse his trust, you know.”

“That's OK,” said Vincent. “Purser has a box of change in the pantry just for that. Hold on a tick.”

“I'll come with you,” said the Prince. “Mustn't keep Mrs Dubigny hanging about, you know. I expect she's masses to do.”

“All done, please heaven,” said Mrs Dubigny.

She watched the two men leave through the smaller door beneath the curve of the stairs, her hand moving to her mouth as if she was attempting to conceal a smile. She converted the gesture into another kiss to her daughter, answered this time by a stodgy wave, then walked across the room to smell the immense mound of scarlet roses in the bronze urn. The band by now was playing a definite tune, “I've got a thing about you”. The drub of the first gong rumbled from the entrance hall.

Lord Snailwood's only serious resistance against Zena's invading armies—his Thermopylae, so to speak, eventually outflanked by Purser keeping small change in the pantry—had been the installation of a coin-box telephone for the use of guests. It stood in its own booth in the entrance hall, and despite the inconvenience—felt by Bernard Shaw to be a positive outrage—of guests having to pay for their own calls, it did at least give total privacy, at least from the ears of other inhabitants at Snailwood, though one cannot speak for the operators at the Marlow exchange. Perhaps it was this aspect that made the Prince prefer to use the otherwise demeaning system.

As they made their way back from the pantry Vincent said, “What's that about my c-camel?”

“Your car, old man. I was hoping you'd let me borrow it this evening.”

“You're off?”

“No, of course not. I'll do my stuff here. But, tell you the truth, Dolly Flitwick-Johnson was teasing me about not being a proper desert Arab, and I told her I'd show her I was tonight. Now I learn she's not coming, and it's struck me I wouldn't be missed for an hour or so if I nipped over to Bullington. I might even manage to bring her back for a dance. Do you think that would be all right with our hostess?”

“More a q-question of if it's all right with her husband.”

“Oh, he's in town, writing a leader for tomorrow's paper.”

“I don't think Zena … She's having a tiff with Dibbin. Honestly, you c-can't tell how she'll react to anything. But you c-can have the AC if you want. I'd better just nip out and see Smollett doesn't box it in when the g-guests arrive.”

“Splendid. And you can show me the controls. Meet you out in the courtyard in five minutes?”

“Right-oh.”

No power on earth, possibly no power in heaven, could have made Smollett smart. If Sir John Dibbin's chauffeur had had the dressing of him, had his buttons and shoes been burnished by other hands and every crease of his uniform been sharp-pressed, there would have remained something in his appearance recalcitrant to such influences, something earthy, shambling, vague. He was one of those men inadequately described as having no ambition, but in Smollett's case this certainly did not imply physical laziness—he was a steady workman, a competent rough mechanic and a very safe driver—and probably not moral laziness either, but rather an inner stability, an acceptance of his own relationship with the world as satisfactory in its present form, and therefore in no need of “bettering”. Harry claimed that McGrigor was Snailwood's representative of the urban proletariat, and Smollett of the rural; it was true that even at the wheel of the Sunbeam he retained an archetypal peasant air, a look of concern more with the seasons than the years. This characteristic tended to cause those giving him instructions—especially Lord Snailwood—to repeat them several times.

Vincent found this process in train, his uncle and Smollett standing beneath the clock tower, Lord Snailwood speaking in the softened tone he used when trying to give the impression that he was the only man keeping his head in a panicking multitude, but by his physical twitching and quivering producing exactly the opposite effect.

“Ah, there you are,” he said, as though Vincent had been late for a long-fixed appointment. “I've been trying to get it into Smollett's head about the floodlamps. At least I could rely on McGrigor not to make a potmess of that. Nine sharp, Smollett. At the nine strike, press the switch on the left of the one which isn't the other one. Got that clear?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Lord Snailwood made an exasperated click with his tongue, as if the answer had been negative. For a moment it looked as if he was about to begin the process of explanation again.

“And Smollett's going to have to wind the clock from now on,” he said. “Vincent, I'm relying on you to give him a lesson in that before you go.”

“Right-oh, sir.”

“It struck the three-quarter all right. No trouble there.”

“There shouldn't be.”

“Still … I was going to stay and watch the hour … tell you what, you keep an eye on it. Let me know. Must have it going for the photograph. Don't want to get all these people out, tell them they're going to see something special, and it doesn't … Smollett, listen to this. You're to parade here, ten sharp, and Mr Vincent will show you how to wind the clock. Well, what is it?”

Vincent had made a minor gesture of interruption. Lord Snailwood glared.

“If Smollett's free after the photograph, sir. The noon strike weight has to c-come down before we wind it.”

Vincent spoke as if giving the information for the first time, there being little chance of Lord Snailwood having remembered it from the day before.

“Oh, very well, very well. Not ten, Smollett. Twelve. Twelve. Get that into your head.”

“Very good, my lord. Twelve o'clock.”

Lord Snailwood produced his whinnying snort and strode away, each pace produced by an apparently involuntary twitch of the relevant leg.

“'Scuse my asking, Master Vince,” said Smollett. “Then it's true as his lordship has writ to McGrigor?”

“'Fraid so.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Master Vince.”

“It's McGrigor's own fault, really. He's let the Daimler g-get into a rotten state, you know. And his lordship wanted him here this morning to show me the c-clock, but he sent a message saying he was ill. That was the last straw. But really he's been asking for it for ages.”

“McGrigor's genuine ill, Master Vince. Brought it on hisself, I dessay, but it's by dragging up day in day out to wind thissair clock he's done it. Been at him years to show me how, I have. Last six months he's been sneaking that Mildred in, help him with the big weights, after she brung him his dinner up. She told me. Monstrous heavy, some of them weights.”

“I know. I wound 'em yesterday.”

“Same with thissair Daimler. Take her down to Mowbry's, I been saying. But he's that worried of losing his place soon as his lordship finds out there's others can do what McGrigor's been doing. He's near on seventy, Master Vincent.”

“All right, Smollett. Thank you for telling me. I heard my uncle say he'll k-keep his house and his pension, but I'll talk to Master Harry and we'll see if there's anything else we can do. Now listen. I've a friend who wants to borrow the AC later, so don't box her in. If I move her up here, that won't be in your way, will it, and he c-can just run her out.”

“That'll be all right, sir. Shall I need to know the gentleman?”

“You'll know him all right. He'll be out in a tick for me to show him the ropes. I'll leave the k-keys under the seat. Right?”

“Very good, Master Vince.”

Vincent had just re-parked the car when Prince Yasif showed up, moving more slowly now, even meditatively—a priestlike gait natural to his robes—but still with that air of charged excitement and relish. Vincent was moving to meet him when he stopped and pointed upward. Vincent came on, but watching over his shoulder as the clock went through its rite of autumn in the appropriately golden light, the tanned harvesters dancing with sheaf and sickle, outsize rabbits (their seasonal association rather obscure) gambolling fore and aft, and Ceres, classically crowned with a tower but also usurping functions of her sister Pomona by brandishing a huge apple as if it were a bomb and she an anarchist weighing it before hurling. Vincent reached the Prince and turned to watch in greater comfort as Time savaged the dance away. The white pigeons crooned and burbled.