The Last Houseparty by Peter Dickinson

Author:Peter Dickinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicken Soup for the Soul
Published: 2015-02-25T16:50:45+00:00

VIII

1

The 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.

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