Hotel de Dream by Emma Tennant Read Free Book Online Page A

the Poynter Residence, Sir.”
    Poynter’s shoulders sagged. When the dream got into one of its self-repeating states urgent measures were called for. The people became discontented and sometimes actually rebellious at the total sameness of things, booing their leader’s speeches on reforms and progress from the balcony. The lack of darkness (or light, if this catastrophic event occurred at night) threw out their digestions and there were complaints of eyeache and headache. Barricades could only too easily go up in the ghetto, if the streets happened to be narrow at the time, and home-made weapons were directed at the troops. Usually, there was a short insurrection, and much bloodshed. Mrs Poynter hated violence; so, Poynter remembered from his conversation at morning tea, did Cecilia; and a bad impression of the City would be registered on the novelist. Further, and here Mr Poynter stopped cursing and groaned aloud, it was his daughter’s ball tonight. Nothing appeared more squalid, in a peaceful, well-run State, than the sight of the Top Rank cavorting in a surround of Security Guards. To cancel the ball was out of the question, even if it had to take place in the light from the early morning sun. It would be an admission of weakness, of fear at the consequences. He thought of giving orders to leave the candles in the great chandeliers unlit, but realised he was already admitting defeat to himself. Something must be done; and quickly and subtly now, before the populacelooked up to see the sun at its zenith and understood the truth. He took the chauffeur’s arm and led him a few steps to the side of the car, out of earshot of the sentry.
    â€œI don’t want to go to my wife’s house at the moment. Do you hear me? I want to be taken to the park, and then on to Lady Kitty Carson’s. Possibly the Portrait Gallery. And be sharp about it, will you?”
    Poynter went to the car and opened the door himself. He was convinced now that only Cecilia Houghton could solve this problem for him. With her ingenuity and love of moderation … he swung himself half into the deeply padded seats and then stopped, his body in the position of a sitting man but only air under him and the surprised face of the chauffeur looking down into his eyes.
    â€œI’m sorry sir. But those were Orders. It’s your wife’s Residence we’re going to.” The chauffeur climbed into the driving seat and instantly Poynter was released from his discomfort and found himself sitting in the back, the car purring softly at a ceremonial ten miles an hour towards the smart district. He gritted his teeth in rage.
    â€œDidn’t you hear me?”
    â€œYou remember what happened last time, Sir.”
    So the man knew! Perhaps it was later than Poynter thought—after noon and trouble already brewing in the ghetto. Perhaps he even knew of the terrible time when Mr Poynter had found himself stuck there, endlessly repeating the Victorian fetishistic fantasies which had seemed so entertaining at the beginning of the evening—it had been touch and go then, with Poynter’s First-in-Command having to quell the insurrection while the leader went on hands and knees, again and again, to kiss the dainty laced boots and frilled camiknickers of the exhausted girls, as to whether the City would fall to the revolutionaries or control would be regained. Mr Poynter shuddered. Rumours travelled fast in the City, however hard he tried to repress them.
    â€œVery well then.” He spoke in a dignified tone. It wastrue that the re-enacting of the preceding sequence had never worked before, and things had always remained stubbornly stuck until the use of violence was the only means, but it was worth trying. Cecilia would almost certainly approve of his efforts, he reflected as the car carried him inexorably past the neat front gardens and down Rainbow Avenue to his wife’s house. He would have done what he could. But