UK author Sadie Jones’ third novel The Uninvited Guests (Chatto & Windus, $37.99) is a supernatural drama, set in the early 1900s, played out
against the backdrop of an English country house. But this is no Downton Abbey with ghosts. It is both
more contrived and considerably more eccentric than the hit TV series; a theatrical period piece with moral
undertones influenced by Saki’s stylish short stories.
All the scenes take place in Sterne, a
manor house much loved by the Torrington family who are in dire financial
straits and on the brink of losing their home. It's all simply ghastly but,
while her stepfather is away on a last bid to raise funds, posh Emerald
Torrington is soldiering on with plans to celebrate her 20th birthday with a
small dinner party.
A handful of guests are expected and
the household is busy. Downstairs in the
kitchen the staff are in a frenzy of preparation, upstairs Charlotte, the
mistress of the house, is trying to match-make Emerald with a wealthy local
man. Meanwhile her mischievous youngest daughter Smudge is planning a risky
“Great Undertaking” and her charming but feckless son Clovis (surely a Saki
reference) is pleasing himself as usual. And so the main characters are all on
stage. But the real action doesn’t begin until the strangers appear.
With their dinner guests arrives some
dreadful news. There has been a train accident on the branch line and Sterne
must ready itself to take in some of the passengers. The weather readies us for
a haunting – there are sudden chills and darkness. Then out of the gloom come
the survivors seeking shelter.
At first the Torringtons treat their
uninvited guests rather shabbily, shutting them up in the morning room and
offering only tea as they try to get on with their party. But there is one among
them that can’t be ignored so easily. Charlie Traversham-Beechers is the only
first class passenger and a man of dubious charm. He inveigles his way into
Emerald’s dinner and proceeds to set one guest against the other with a
particularly cruel parlour game. Only Charlotte suspects how destructive he is
capable of being.
As the night wears on secrets are
revealed, love blooms, a child’s pony finds itself in an unusual situation and
more and more demands are made on the Torrington family.
This novel is quite a departure for
Jones whose previous work is more conventional and realistic literary fare. For
a ghost story it is only mildly
spooky but she writes with a light, sure hand, her prose sparkles with wit and
there’s a sense of an author really having fun with her characters. The ending
is gloriously chaotic yet somehow she manages to tie up all her loose ends in
the nick of time.
A diverting read that will entertain
more than it will haunt.
Footnote:
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