The Shooting Party by Isabel Colegate

A tragic accident during a shooting party at Sir Randolph Nettleby’s estate leaves the guests in sombre mood. It was an error of judgement which resulted in a death. It took place in the autumn before the outbreak of what used to be known as the Great War.
This is a novel my husband and I have enjoyed equally. I love its craftsmanship: the way in which both time and sense of place are portrayed with such poignancy. It marks the end of the Edwardian era; the long summer is over. Words spoken by Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, standing at a window of the Foreign Office at dusk watching the lamps being lit outside, the day before war was declared on Germany, are but a whisper away. ‘The lamps going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our time’.
The novel reads like a play, with a hand-picked cast of contrasted characters making up the house party, their lives intertwined with their below-stairs counterparts. Loyal Tom Harker, the game keeper, asks his employer to say a prayer for him as his life draws to a close. An ‘unutterable and infinite sadness’ hangs in the air.
The Shooting Party was successfully adapted for the screen in the 80s starring James Mason as Sir Randolph, John Gielgud and Edward Fox. I prefer it to other more well-known adaptations in the country-house genre such as Upstairs, Downstairs and Gosford Park and admire it as much, but for different reasons, as The Remains of the Day, beautifully adapted from Kazuro Ishiguro’s novel: an equally poignant story as war clouds the horizon once more although depicting another era and ‘gathering storm’.
The unspoken love of Olivia and Lionel deepens; they choose to remain close yet distant for the rest of their lives. After his death at the Battle of Loos in 1915 her letters were found in his possession. Their heart-felt restraint, coupled with his sad words, ‘But it is true that we love each other?’ allow the reader to consider what might have been, if circumstances had been different and fate had not intervened.