A Change of Pace by Virginia Budd Page B

manservant nodded impatiently and waved them in the direction of a door to the right of the staircase, then promptly disappeared into the surrounding gloom. Nell nudged her mother. ‘Let’s hope there are more like him around, eh, Mum!’ Bernie’s face, already grim, took on an even grimmer aspect. Far away, at the end of a long passage, in another world of warmth and light and laughter, Bet thought she heard the sounds of a party.
    The room into which they’d been ushered so unceremoniously turned out to be a cloakroom cluttered with damp mackintoshes, wellies, old walking sticks and fishing gear; it was freezing cold, and smelt strongly of cat. Too cold to take their coats off, they stood around glumly waiting for something to happen.
    At last — just as Diz, bored with hanging about, had taken down a fishing rod, placed an aged deerstalker on his head and, despite protests from Bet, was about to launch into one of his impersonations — there came a shriek from the doorway. ‘My poor dears! That adorable Alfonso has shown you into the gents! I really am most frightfully sorry. My name’s Sonia Byngham-Smythe, by the way, and you simply must be the party from the Rectory.’
    They nodded, even Pol bereft of words. Mrs. Byngham-Smythe was indeed an apparition. Clad in green lurex tights topped by a tunic of purple silk, her age impossible to determine, she looked Bet up and down, her enormous, mascara-caked eyes taking in every detail of her appearance. ‘And you must be Mrs. Brandon.’ Bet placed her hand defensively over the soup stain. ‘Is that enchanting boy your son? How lucky you are — I’ve only a dismal daughter.’
    ‘Introductions are in order, I think.’ Pol moved gracefully forward, it was time to take over. ‘I’m Polly Redford, this is my husband, Peter, my niece Nell Sparsworth and her husband, Bernard. The boy in the hat is my nephew, Desmond. It’s too awful that there are so many of us, but I gather from my sister that Miss Westover did very kindly issue a blanket invitation. The traumas one has to endure with one’s Spanish staff! So decorative, but their English does sometimes leave something to be desired.’
    Mrs. Byngham-Smythe looked at Pol thoughtfully, acknowledging a worthy opponent, and Bet swelled with pride for her sister. They were ushered upstairs without further ado, leaving Pete, Bernie and Diz to wait for them in the hall.
    The ladies’ cloaks turned out to be a large, gloomy bedroom hung about with depressing prints of a quasi-religious nature and lit again, it seemed, by a forty-watt bulb. ‘Come down, darlings, when you’re ready, Alfonso will show you the way,’ shrieked Mrs Byngham-Smythe with a frightening smile. Her perfume remained behind her, the fumes so powerful they made Bet’s eyes water. She turned to her sister — always give praise where praise is due — ‘Pol you were marvellous, you really were.’ Pol smiled happily; Bet so seldom approved of anything one did. ‘I do occasionally have my uses ... ’
    ‘Whoever can that woman be, Aunt Pol. Is she some sort of relative?’ Pol smoothed her beautifully cut dress over her hips; she didn’t have to look in the mirror, she knew her make-up was perfect. ‘She’s another cousin, the Hon. Mrs Byngham-Smythe, one reads of her occasionally in the gossip columns. She’s been married umpteen times, drinks like a fish and will sleep with virtually anything, including the dog if pushed, or so I’ve heard.’ Bet and her daughter looked at one another in awe; they did not know these things.
    Out on the landing, they peered into the gloom of the hall below; inevitably, there was no sign of Alfonso. Instead they were met with the sight of Diz lying on his stomach, apparently trying to retrieve something from under a rather dusty, rather beautiful, carved oak chest. Crouched beside him, Bernie looked resigned and Pete harassed. ‘He’s only broken a knob off this chest!’ said Bernie in his