The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [86]
Back in the drawing-room she found there was talk of a game. Those who were keen half-smothered their interest, and those who weren’t pretended blandly that they didn’t mind. Louisa, who hated to waste time, was hemming a handkerchief for the British Legion sale. “Wotsit?” she said, squinting down her nose as she tied off the thread.
“Well, I wonder,” said George, with a look that Daphne had known since childhood, the concealed excitement, the cool smile that warned them that, should he condescend to play, he would certainly win.
“Before the War,” Louisa explained to Sebby Stokes, “we played Wotsit for hours at a time. Dudley and Cecil went at it like rabbits. Of course Cecil knew far more.”
“Cecil was so terribly clever, Mamma,” said Dudley. “I’m not sure rabbits are specially known for their General Knowledge, are they …?”
“Or what about the adverb game,” said Eva, “that’s always a riot.”
“Ah yes, adverbs,” said Louisa, as if recalling an unsatisfactory encounter with them in the past.
“Which ones are they?” said Tilda.
“You know, darling, like quickly or … or winsomely,” said Eva.
“You have to do something in the manner of the word,” said Madeleine, unenthusiastically.
“It can be rather fun,” said Revel, giving Daphne a sweet but uncertain smile: “it’s about how you do things.”
“Oh, I see …,” said Tilda.
Daphne felt she didn’t mind playing, but she knew that Louisa wouldn’t like anything boisterous or dependent on a sense of humour for its success. They had played the adverb game once with the children, Louisa baffling them all by picking seldom. And in fact she said now, “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I bid you all goodnight.” The men leapt to their feet, there was a warm overlapping chorus of goodnights, light-hearted protests; amid which Sebby said quietly that he had papers to read, and Freda too, with a sadly cringing smile at Dudley, announced that she had had a lovely day. Daphne went out with them as far as the foot of the stairs, with a certain apologetic air of her own; though she was grateful of course to see them clamber off to bed.
They all had another drink, the idea of a game still hanging in the air. Madeleine started prattling, in a painful attempt to ward off the threat. Tilda asked if anyone knew the rules for Strip Jack Naked. Then Dudley rang for Wilkes and told him to get the pianola out; they were going to have some dancing. “Oh, what fun,” said Eva, with a hard smile through her cigarette-smoke.
“I’m going to play it for my guests,” said Dudley. “It’s only right.”
“And the carpet …,” murmured Daphne, with a shrug, as though she didn’t really care, which was the only way to get Dudley to do so.
“Yes, remember my carpet!” said Eva.
“In the hall, Wilkes,” said Dudley.
“As you wish, Sir Dudley,” said Wilkes, managing to convey, beneath his rosy pleasure at the prospect of the guests enjoying themselves, a flicker of apprehension.
The pianola was kept in the cow-passage. In a minute Dudley came out into the hall to watch Robbie and another of the men wheel it roaringly across the wide oak floor. He went down the passage himself, and came back with an awkward armful of the rolls: he had a wild look, mockery mixed up with genuine excitement. It was the moment when Daphne knew she had lost what frail control of the evening she might ever have had—she gave it up in a familiar mixture of misery and relief.
Some of the rolls were just well-known numbers, foxtrots and the like; one or two were the special ones made by Paderewski, of short pieces by Chopin, which were supposed to sound like him playing it himself. Dudley only ever played these to send them up with his absurd imitation of a wild-haired virtuoso. Now he threaded a roll in, drunkenly concentrating, smiling to himself at the treat he was preparing for them, smiling at the machine itself, which he had a childish reverence for. Then he