The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [416]
‘Oh no! Not a death as well!’ groaned Mrs Blackett to herself. It was one of those days. Her party had not been a success.
7
Was Mr Webb actually dead or not? It was very hard to say at first. The scurrying cortège that was carrying him into the house made its way, in order not to alarm the other guests, behind the refreshment tent which had been set up on the lawn. From there it made a quick dash for a side door normally used by the servants. Mr Webb’s body was extraordinarily light despite its length: the old capitalist was really nothing but skin and bone. The Major had surrendered his share of it to one of the ‘boys’ and hurried ahead to telephone for an ambulance.
Returning presently to the drawing-room he found that Mr Webb, who was after all still breathing, had been laid horizontal on a sofa which by chance stood so close to the vertical portrait of himself that the heavy shoes he was wearing came within a few inches of the identical shoes in the painting. This coincidence gave the Major the curious feeling that he was looking at a toy soldier that had just fallen over. He rejected this impression immediately, however, and filled with concern, for he was genuinely fond of the old man, he hastened forward to where Walter was unlacing the three-dimensional shoes with respect and taking them off the ancient feet. The Major, determined to be helpful, loosened the old gentleman’s stiff collar and then hurried away once more to see if he could find a doctor among the guests.
Presently, though, an ambulance arrived and events took their course. The old fellow had had a serious stroke and was not expected to survive for very long. Walter gloomily rejoined the garden-party. It was not worth sending people home, even if he had had a mind to: they were beginning to go already. By half-past seven the garden was quiet. The ‘boys’ had finished the task of clearing up after the guests, the caterers had struck their tents, the band had moved on to its evening assignment. Where the rest of his family had got to, Walter had no idea. He suspected his wife had gone to lie down in her bedroom. Having told one of the ‘boys’ to send Joan to him, he himself retired to brood in his dressing-room from where he had a view over the now peaceful garden.
This tiny, high-ceilinged room was the one place, his family and servants knew, where he must never be disturbed without permission, for it was here perched on the arm of an old leather armchair by the window that he did his thinking. This habit of sitting always in the same place had given the dull leather that covered the chair a deep polish on the arm nearest the window. Teak drawers with gleaming brass fittings, their size according to whether they contained shirts, or collars, or handkerchieves, rose in tiers around him. Beside the door in an alcove stood a vast Edwardian washbasin, also with brass fittings and so deep, so capacious that one could have bathed a spaniel, say, or a child in it, submerging them without difficulty.
Now that the garden-party had come to its sad end Walter had a good deal to brood over and not much time in which to do it. Soon more guests would be arriving, or at least he supposed that they would, unless they were forestalled by news of Mr Webb’s stroke. Below in the dining-room eighty places had been laid in silver cutlery on a glistening white table-cloth. A dinner-party had been organized as a preview of Blackett and Webb’s jubilee celebrations, to mark the opening of the campaign, as it were, which would reach its climax in the great parade scheduled for New Year’s Day 1942. To this party the innermost circle of Singapore’s business and governmental community had been invited to offer their congratulations to himself and, in particular, to old Mr Webb whose birthday it was. Walter had instructed his secretary to telephone as many of the dinner-guests as he could find, cancelling the engagement. But undoubtedly at this last minute it would be impossible to locate them all. Well, so much the worse. Those who came would be received and