Colin Snipe: How Not to Leave a Country House

i spit the food in her face and tell her it smells like ass

You spit. It lands on her cheek, just below the eye, and slides. She does not flinch. She dabs it off with the corner of her napkin and holds the napkin up to the candlelight as if appraising a wine. "Beef consommé," she says to the table. "Thirty years and no one has ever had the nerve to tell me." Twenty people laugh. She turns back to you, and there is genuine warmth in it, which is the worst thing that has happened so far tonight. "My late husband once said much the same about my mother's soup. He was impossible too." She dabs at her eye with the damp napkin.

fuck your late husband i hope he burns in hell

"The Consommé," she says, tasting the word. "No, I shall keep it." Down the table, the bishop has gone the colour of a damp hymnbook. Two guests set down their spoons. "You know," she says, turning the napkin over, "I need the bishop's signature on the church fete lease tonight, and you have now made that rather harder. So I am cross with you. Truly." She pats your sleeve. "It is a great relief. It has been thirty years since anyone at this table dared to be cross with me." She signals a footman. "Move Mr. Fenwick-Sloane's things to the Blue Room."

i forgot my wallet outside. i would love to sit with you for a long perioud of time i just need to take it really quickly and i will come back

"Your wallet," she says, with the air of a woman who has been promised wit and been handed a coat check. "Thirty years of dinners and this is the first guest to ask me for money." The table waits. She has not laughed this time; she is looking at you the way she looks at the far end of a very long hall. "Mr. Fenwick-Sloane went outside to get his wallet hours ago and was never heard from again. He is my favourite guest in years." She turns to the footman. "It is a fine room, Mr. Pick, and he is in it. Tell the housekeeper we shall need the small dog after all."

i run to the door as fast as possible

You reach the door at the end of the long hall. It is bolted, and the bolts are on the inside, and a footman is already there, holding a fresh glass. "Mr. Pick," Lady Thrubb calls down the table, without turning her head. "Do walk him back, there's a dear. He does this." You are returned to her left hand and seated. She pats your sleeve again, delighted. "The bishop signed," she says. "So it has been a good evening after all. Say something else dreadful — no, wait. Later. The toast is next." A footman sets a small dog on your lap. Nobody has asked about the dog.

i pour water in my lap. 'the dog is peeing hurry open the gates so he can relieve himself!

A footman appears at your elbow and takes the dog before it can form an opinion on the matter. Nothing has happened to the dog, which is now asleep on a footstool, famously dry. "Sir," says Lady Thrubb, without heat, "you have spilled a glass of water on a frock I wore to your memorial service and I am still, somehow, fond of you. Aubrey was impossible in the same way. He never once got the point either." The butler's gloves are already set out on the sideboard. She is looking at them. "Stand up. Fetch your card from the hall table. And when you speak to me, speak to me, not to the dog."

i escape

You make for the door again, but the footman is already there, glass in hand, and the bolts have not moved since your last attempt. Lady Thrubb does not rise. She lifts her glass, and the table follows. "To Mr. Fenwick-Sloane, guest of the season, who has made me laugh, ruined my frock, and reminded me of my late husband. The Blue Room is yours, the dog is yours, and the flower show committee is yours. Nobody leaves until spring." The toast is drunk. The dog is asleep. You are not going anywhere.