The Last Houseparty (3 page)

“And a power of harm in others.”

“A young officer who already has an entry into the councils of the ruling family of Sorah. The Emir …”

“Look, I hardly know the blighter. I hardly even played cricket with him because he wasn't at the wicket for more than five minutes. I got him l.b.w. almost at once in both innings.”

“All the better. He'll be eager …”

“Lay off, Hal. I don't want to get involved in the politics of it. I'm a soldier, pure and simple. My job is to do what I'm told by the politicians. Matter of fact, our second battalion was in Palestine till 'thirty-five, so I could keep my end up if I had to, but this week-end I don't propose to make any noises, right or wrong, while the statesmen are holding forth.”

“Okey-doke. I'll tell you my own views some time. I'm really looking forward to meeting Blech. We might get a book out of him—provided, that is, I can persuade bloody old Throck it's his own idea and not mine. I wonder who else she's roped in.”

“Push off and look at Mrs Dubigny's list. I'm going to hang around here, I think. I don't feel like facing Zena till I've cooled off.”

“See you at tea, then. Don't let her get your goat, Vince—she's sure to give it a go.”

“I can cope.”

“Good man.”

When Harry had left Vincent finished putting his clothes away, re-folding every article, even those which would not spoil by creasing, and then placing it with great exactitude in the drawer. When he had finished he slid his case under his bed and did the sane for the one Harry had left lying open on the floor. He went to the window and glanced out as if to check that the garden was also in its proper location, the series of long narrow terraces descending in steps westward along the slant of the hill, all planted out with hybrid tea roses in geometric beds, making a strong but at the same time strangely dead effect with their rather meaty shades—meaty at least when seen from above, en masse, however individually perfect and subtle each single bloom might have proved on closer inspection. Lord Snailwood was visible on the second terrace, personally selecting and cutting the flowers that would greet his week-end visitors in stunning masses all around the house. Thring, the rose gardener, was with him, but only to pull the peculiar trolley built by McGrigor for the special purpose of cradling the cut flowers unblemished. Vincent watched for a couple of minutes, seeming to relax slightly from the stance of soldier pure and simple, as though the sight of his uncle engaged in this familiar ritual allowed him to make contact with the period of his life before his military training had begun. Then he turned, looked round the room, grunted approvingly and went out.

The upper floors of Snailwood—that is those above the levels complicated by the need to accommodate the Great Hall and other high, romantic vaults—were very simple in lay-out. A corridor ran the whole way round, its windows looking out over the cloister roof and the courtyard. Doors in the opposite wall led into the various bedrooms. At each corner where the east and west wings met the south front another passage, dark and windowless, slanted off to serve the room that filled that level of one of the two massive corner towers. What had been known for the last twenty years as “The Boys' Room” lay three doors down the western wing, so on coming out of it Vincent turned right. But when he reached the corner, instead of going on to the main stair or taking the circular staircase down the inner corner turret, he turned up the spur that led to the tower room. Half-way along it he paused and looked at the sepia engraving of Snailwood as it had been before the fire, its details almost invisible in the dimness, but showing when brought into the light a plain brick box of a house, a sailing barge on the Thames below, haymakers in the meadow pasture, and ladies and gentlemen, ludicrously out of scale, walking among the scarce-grown topiary of the terraces.

Without knocking Vincent opened the door at the end of the passage.

“Oh, I'm f-frightfully sorry,” he said.

The tower rooms were kite-shaped, circular on the outside but square on the inner two walls. Though the space was not specially large, the thickness of the outer masonry, manifest in the deep window recesses, gave an impression of ponderous scale. It may have been this that made the child seem so small and vulnerable.

She had looked up at the movement of the door, but her face had fallen on seeing a stranger. She was about seven, primly dressed in a blue pleated skirt and a white blouse. Her dark hair curled around a pallid, mildly sulky face. She had been dressing or undressing a large rag doll.

“I just wanted a qu-quick look,” said Vincent. “I used to use this room rather a lot.”

“Was it your nursery?” said the child.

“Sort of. This isn't really my home, but Harry and I spent most of our school holidays here. Have you got everything you want?”

“No. It's all boys' things.”

“'Fraid so.”

“There isn't anywhere for Mary to sleep.”

Vincent glanced at the bed—nearly full-size but still cot-like with its beechwood rail all round—that jutted from the wall on his right.

“Oh, I see, Mary's your doll,” he said.

“Course she is. It's time for her rest and there isn't anywhere for her to sleep.”

“I could make her a c-cradle, if you like, supposing my Meccano's still there.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well?”

“What?”

“Would you like me to make Mary a cradle?”

“If you want to,” said the child, not yielding anything.

Vincent closed the door and crossed to the central window, where he lifted the cushioned lid of the window-seat and took out from the space below a round-topped wooden chest, painted with skull and cross-bones. This he placed in the centre of the room, then sat on the floor beside it a few feet from the girl. When he opened the lid she did not even glance to see what was in the chest. Whoever had last been playing with the set—or sets, for there was evidently more Meccano than in the largest box sold in shops—had put everything away with extreme neatness. Though well used, so that round many of the holes the gold or red paint was worn through, all the strips and girders had been graded to size and fastened with elastic bands, the wheels matched and packed on to axles, bolts and clips sorted into match-boxes, the clockwork motors wrapped in grease-proof paper.

“I've never built a cradle before,” said Vincent. “I shall have to think it out. Do you want one that rocks?”

“If you like.”

“I suppose I could make it so that it rocks itself when you start the motor.”

“Yes, please.”

“Lend me Mary a mo to measure for size. Thanks … Not bad, but it's going to be a bit knobbly for her unless you can find something to make a mattress.”

The child did not react or move. For a while Vincent did nothing either, apart from staring into the box while his fingers teased unthinkingly at his moustache, but there was a sense of dormant energies coming to life and focusing to a sharp-seen point. Then he took a bundle of short girders out, opened a couple of match-boxes and began to assemble an end-frame, his large fingers handling the miniature nuts and screws without fumbling, every movement looking in fact as though he had been fibbing about not having done this before, and had really been practising regularly for this moment.

“When's Mummy coming?” said the child suddenly.

“I'm afraid I don't know. Is your mother staying here?”

“We live here now. Mummy works for the Countess.”

“Oh … Mrs Dubigny?”

“Yes.”

“What's your name?”

“Sally.”

“I'm Vincent. Vincent Masham. My friends call me Vince.”

“She said she wouldn't be very long.”

“I met her in the courtyard about half an hour ago. She was going to show my cousin something. I expect she'll come after that.”

“She usually forgets.”

“If I see her I'll remind her.”

“I'm not allowed downstairs alone. The Countess says I might knock things over.”

“I'm sure you wouldn't.”

“I'm not allowed in the garden alone. The Countess says I might walk on the flowerbeds.”

“That's too bad. The garden's the best thing about Snailwood. I expect she'll change her mind when she's used to you. There haven't been children here for ages. We used to run all over the garden. There are some corking trees to climb in.”

“That's a boys' thing.”

“I suppose so. Lend me Mary again, for a try. She is going to need some kind of mattress, you know.”

“She's only a doll. She can't feel anything.”

“If you say so.”

A few minutes later, when the two end-frames had been joined by longer strips and girders to make a shape like a truncated canoe, Sally rose, went to the child-size chest of drawers beyond the bed, tugged open the top drawer and came back with a yellowish Chilprufe vest which she folded slowly, trying several methods, until she had a shape which fitted the bottom of the cradle. Settling the doll into place she sat down again, now leaning against Vincent's arm and watching while he worked at the first support.

“We'll need another of these,” he said. “Would you like to find the pieces for it—just the same as I've got here?”

“No, thank you.”

Neither of them spoke until Vincent had finished the second support and attached it and a motor to the base-plates.

“Now comes the tricky part,” he said. “You see, this wheel's going to go round and round and push this crank and I've got to join the other end to this wheel so that it goes round for a bit and then goes back. To make the cradle rock to and fro, you see. If I'm not careful we'll have Mary whirling round and round as if she was on the wheel at a fairground—except the motor isn't strong enough for that, probably.”

“Mummy's not used to having me,” said Sally. “That's why she forgets. I lived with Auntie May, but then the judge said I must come and live with Mummy.”

“Oh, I see. Do you like it at Snailwood?”

“If only I could go in the garden when I wanted.”

“Look, just let me finish this—it won't take five minutes—and then we'll go and look for your mother and ask if I can take you out till tea. O.K.?”

“If you want to,” she said, apparently as dismissive as ever. She contrived to appear as though she was watching Vincent assemble the cradle because there was nothing more interesting to do, but in another sense she was attending closely enough to impede the movement of his left arm.

“Your coat's scritchy,” she said, stroking the tweed sleeve.

“Sorry about that.”

“Take it off.”

“Won't be a sec, and then we're going to go and ask if you can go out in the garden with me. I'll show you the secret path to Far Look-out. Now, here's the key. Do you want to wind it or shall I?”

“You.”

The large spring wound with heavy clicks of the ratchet. When Vincent showed the child the lever for starting and stopping the motor she still refused to take any part in setting the gadget off, so he did it himself. The motor ran with an even whirr, but the crank clicked and clacked as the cradle jerked rapidly through a small arc.

“Not so bad for a first try,” said Vincent, talking as much to himself as to the child. “I'll have to gear it down next time, but …”

“Hello, darling,” said a woman's voice from the door. “I see you've found a friend.”

The child bounced to her feet and sprang across the room. Rising more slowly Vincent saw her thud into her mother, flinging her arms round her legs and burying her head in her stomach. As she staggered with the impact Mrs Dubigny laughed and began to tousle the child's hair in an affectionate but still absent-minded manner, almost as if she had been fondling somebody else's dog.

“What have you two been up to?” she said.

“Building a c-c-cradle for Mary,” said Vincent.

“Oh, that's too good of you! Do look, darling—isn't that clever?”

The child paid no attention at all but continued to cling to her mother like some parasite anchored to its host for both their natural lives.

“I wish we'd had something like that for you when you were little,” said Mrs Dubigny. “Do let go, darling. I've got to take Mr Masham to talk to the Countess.”

“He promised to take me in the garden,” said Sally.

“I said we'd g-g-go and ask if we c-could,” said Vincent.

“Not now, darling, I'm afraid,” said Mrs Dubigny, reaching behind her back and taking her daughter's wrist to pull that arm free.

“He promised,” said Sally. “Why don't any of you keep your promises? Ever?”

“Now don't be silly,” said Mrs Dubigny. “Mr Masham's made you a lovely cradle for Mary, and …”

Sally began to cry.

“I'm so sorry about this,” said Mrs Dubigny, as if apologising for some phenomenon over which she had no control, such as the weather spoiling a tennis party. “She can be very temperamental.”

Vincent knelt and undid the buckle of his watch strap.

“Can you tell the time, Sally?” he asked.

“Course I can,” sobbed the child.

“Look, here's my watch. It says five past four, doesn't it? I'll put it here on the table and you can look after it for me. When it says twenty-five past four—look, when the big hand gets down here—I'll come and take you out. That'll give us half an hour before teatime. Don't forget, I'm going to show you the secret path. All right?”

“You won't,” whined Sally. “None of you ever do—none of you!”

“If I'm not here at half-past four,” said Vincent, “you c-can k-k-keep my watch for yourself.”

“Oh, no, I can't allow that!” said Mrs Dubigny.

“I will be here, so it won't happen,” said Vincent, standing up again.