“Can they have got out?”
Frowning, Edward lifted the lantern and took a few steps forward on to the squelching straw. The Major, who had stayed where he was (the thought of treading in that mess revolted him), watched the rim of light creep up the far wall—on which, crudely smeared in scarlet, were the words: SPIES AND TRAITORS BEWARE! And he knew instantly what the scarlet was and where it had come from. Edward’s eyes were on the ground, however, expecting to see sleepy piglets emerging to greet him, so he continued to advance until his lantern light stole over a friendly, pliable snout, on to illumine the sleepy eyes and drooping, pointed ears...and then over emptiness (except for a dollop of intestines and a discarded corkscrew tail). Between the ears and the tail there was no longer any pig. The pig had gone.
A sharp intake of breath—a sound which the Major never forgot. And then Edward stumbled forward with his wildly swinging lantern, making the walls rock.
When Edward emerged and stood beside him once more (not yet having spoken a word) the Major glanced down and noticed that his shoes were bright scarlet, oozing, the lace-holes bubbling with scarlet liquid. On the threshold of the door he left one, two, three red footprints...But then they dissolved under the lashing rain.
“If she looks at another man he knocks her cold!” Of all the Major’s troubles (of which there was no shortage) this was the one which preoccupied him the most. It was also the one he could do least about. More precisely, it was the only one which he could do nothing at all about, except wonder and distress himself.
He knew that it was futile. After all, he was not a complete fool. He knew that now there was really no further hope on earth of a successful union with Sarah. Apart from everything else, he now bore her a considerable resentment. Even if they met, this resentment would prevent him (probably against his will) from being friendly. Doubtless one day it would fade into indifference and allow him to be friendly again; but it would only disappear on one condition: namely, that he was no longer in love with her. Thus, his only hope of success depended on his not wanting to succeed! An appalling but not uncommon situation in the game of which the Major was so painfully learning the rules.
Meanwhile, although he did his best to put her out of his mind by concentrating on the other manifold troubles at large under the roof of the Majestic, she continued to emerge in random but painful thoughts that sprang sharp-clawed out of the hidden lair in his mind to which they had been banished.
“What sort of gentleman would ‘knock a girl cold’?” he found himself wondering with amazement, even while he was examining a truly alarming crack which he had discovered in the wall of the writing-room behind the faded tapestry. But for all he knew this crack might have been there for years! And then, what sort of girl would allow herself to be repeatedly “knocked cold”? It was all quite beyond him, both the man and the girl (and, come to that, the crack in the wall). He simply did not understand. He tried to imagine himself knocking a girl cold; but it was easier to imagine himself flying up into a tree and singing like a blackbird.
Then, later on, while he was standing, hands thrust gloomily into the pockets of his jacket, by the gatepost at the end of the drive and looking up at the notice posted by Edward: TRESPASSERS FOUND TAMPERING WITH THE STATUE OF QUEEN VICTORIA WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT. BY ORDER and thinking: “But he’s gone clean out of his wits! He’s trying to provoke them!”—while staring up at this defiant and reckless object, he found himself thinking instead: “But how often does she ‘look at other men’? How often is she ‘knocked cold’? Is it likely to damage her brain?” And his thoughts would meander away, low in vitality, convalescent, as if he had really been sick (and perhaps he really was sick), round and round like tired animals in a circus ring...to arrive at last at the exit (which looked strangely similar to the entrance), concluding that it certainly couldn’t be very good for one to be continually knocked senseless.
But no, it wasn’t that at all...It was the intimacy which distressed him. Sarah felled in a restaurant for fluttering her eyelashes at a head-waiter; Sarah felled among the teacups at a Viceregal garden party for a lingering glance at some young officer; Sarah felled in Jury’s Hotel for looking out of the window...His mind, tired and dutiful, furnished him with any amount of these images. And they were always together, Bolton and Sarah, and he was always excluded (attempts to imagine himself stepping forward to correct Bolton with a classic uppercut proved hopeless). Bolton and Sarah...
Late in the evening, while listening patiently to Miss Bagley complaining that a maid had taken up residence in the room next to hers and the cook in the room opposite, it occurred to him that now, at this very moment, it was quite likely that Sarah and Bolton were preparing to get into bed together. His vitality dropped a few points lower and the muscles of his face became numb with despair; the moustache on his upper lip felt as heavy as antlers. He explained carefully, nevertheless, to the indignant Miss Bagley that the servants’ wing was uninhabitable: the roof had been taken off as cleanly as the top off a boiled egg.
On returning from the squash court his watery footprints had diverged from Edward’s bloody ones and made their anxious way along dim corridors to “below stairs” where they were baulked from proceeding any farther. A foaming cascade of water was pouring down these stairs, and farther on down where they continued into some cellars which he had never visited. Odd bits of bric-à-brac slipped gently down from one stair to the next: pieces of wood, a coloured picture of the Holy Virgin, scraps of newspaper, rags of cloth that might have been underclothes or antimacassars, a sodden Teddy bear.
Weeping and shivering, a young girl in maid’s uniform, drenched to the skin, sat with her ankles in the torrent. The Major, still wearing his oilskins, had picked her up since she refused to move by herself and carried her back and down the other stairs to the kitchen, which was fortunately still warm and dry, depositing her without explanation on the kitchen table before the astonished, wild-eyed cook (who had never entertained a high opinion of the Major’s morals and sanity). Heaven only knew what she had thought!
He described the pertinent parts of this experience to Miss Bagley, and to Miss Johnston, Miss Devere (who had returned to the Majestic after a brief and unsatisfactory flirtation with the outside world) and Mrs Rice, who had come forward with similar grievances. And he listened carefully while they demanded with indignation whether it was a “free-for-all,” guests henceforth to “fight it out” with the servants for the use of bathrooms and other amenities; and said that no, of course not, that he was sure they wouldn’t want the poor servants to sleep out under the stars and catch pneumonia (even though, as the hastily arriving Miss Staveley had just pointed out, “they were only servants”) and that it was, again of course, only a temporary measure, while the roof of the servants’ wing was rebuilt. But they knew, and he knew, that the roof would never, this side of paradise, be rebuilt—which weakened his argument to some extent.
And all the time, even while he listened to the reassuring tones of his own voice, he could feel the extraordinary sloth of the hurt muscles of his smile, unable now to prevent himself from thinking of Bolton and Sarah making love. But perhaps, finally, the searing quality of this thought had a good effect. It helped to cauterize his festering emotions. At first he imagined that Sarah, with brutally parted thighs, was being violated—but later, simply worn out with caring, he became hard-hearted with this weakness and said to himself harshly: “Look, she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t enjoy it!”
True, Sarah was a woman. Therefore she was physically suited to accommodate men. There was no violation, except to the Major’s feelings.
On his way to bed the Major, who had by now stayed in so many different rooms at the Majestic that he very often became confused, absent-mindedly presented himself at the door of a room he had been occupying a few days earlier. In the light of a candle he was astonished to see a young girl standing naked by the wash-basin. Without embarrassment she turned and smiled at the startled Maj
or—who withdrew with a hasty apology. There must be a new guest in the hotel whom he had not yet come across! But surely that was impossible, for nowadays the servants came directly to him for their instructions. He found the incident most puzzling.
He had reached his room (the right one this time) before he realized who this new guest must be. It was simply one of the maids who had been obliged to move out of the servants’ wing. And this was the very matter that he had spent the evening discussing with the old ladies.
Later, lying in bed, he mused: “She could have been a lady for all the difference there was...Of course, without clothes on everybody looks the same. They look just like we do.” And he remembered thinking on some occasion during the war how, with all the distinctions of class effaced, one dead body resembles another...and...and...
These democratic notions must have soothed him, for he began to feel drowsy. Yet even as, hands in pockets, he strolled peacefully away into the tall waving grass of sleep, baleful yellow eyes were watching him, and then...Ah! The thought of Sarah once more pounced and clawed his sensitive heart.
“You really sympathize with Sinn Fein in many ways, is that not so? No, no, don’t bother to deny it, Major. With me... och, I’m just a useless old man, you know, everyone says so...with me you don’t have to pretend. Well, you must leave now before it’s too late. This wretched affair in Ireland is none of your doing. No doubt you haven’t helped matters, but that’s neither here nor there. Now, if you’ve a grain of sense, you’ll leave while you still have a chance.”
“I can’t leave with the way things are. The hotel’s in a dreadful mess.”
The Major had called on old Dr Ryan to ask his advice on what should be done with Edward, about whom he was becoming progressively more concerned. Edward was seldom to be seen these days. He spent a great deal of time out of doors engrossed in some work he had undertaken in the grounds (not even Seán Murphy had been able to tell him just what this work was). Once, on his way up the drive, the Major had glimpsed Edward’s massive silhouette standing on the topmost roof, outlined against a bank of white cumulus clouds over Wales. On another occasion, while feeding the dogs in the yard (Evans the tutor had left on the day after the ball without waiting to be sacked, taking with him all Mr Norton’s silk shirts which had been drying on a line), he had heard harsh laughter echoing amid the slates and turrets overhead—but then there had been silence, and no reply when he had called Edward’s name.
What could be done to improve Edward’s state of mind? But Dr Ryan, who as usual appeared to be fast asleep, had shown himself disinclined to talk about Edward. Instead, he had kept on insisting that the Major should leave, which for the Major was quite out of the question.
“Very well. If you want to act like a young fool and get yourself in a scrape...!”
Yes, yes, but about Edward? If, for example, he could be persuaded to take a holiday for a few weeks? But the old man was impatient with the Major’s theories and laborious qualifications as to Edward’s state of mind. Edward was a confounded nuisance and had been raving for years!
“But the holiday?”
“Yes, yes, take the old divil away and see he never comes back!”
The Major ground his teeth with exasperation and thought that it was really high time the old buffer retired. He was becoming more senile every day.
Naturally, when the Major suggested to Edward that it might do the twins good if he took them away for a few days or even longer (“I could look after the hotel while you’re away”) Edward looked at him in amazement. Leave Ireland at a time like this! At the very moment when one must stand firm! Only yesterday his property had been abused; a warning notice he had placed on the gate-post had been removed. The guilty party must be found and punished!
The Major (who was himself the guilty party) sighed and stared at his finger-nails. Edward was clearly inaccessible to reason. But perhaps the whole thing would blow over, the “troubles” would sort themselves out, Edward be restored to his senses. Although mild, the Major was a stubborn young man and determined, in any event, to salvage whatever he could. The twins should be sent to England to stay with their aunt, the one deemed “fast” who was married to a clergy-man, it couldn’t be helped. Besides, she was unlikely, in the Major’s opinion, to prove “faster” than the twins already were. Mrs Rappaport should also be dispatched. Perhaps the guests might be encouraged to leave as well...
“Do whatever you think best, old man. I leave it in your hands,” Edward replied vaguely, with the air of someone who has more important things on his mind. And he stared into the distance, cracking his knuckles and looking insane.
When the day came for the twins to leave neither they nor Edward seemed in the least upset by their departure or by the prospect of separation. On the platform of Kilnalough station Edward grabbed a handful of blonde hair on each side of him and said: “Will you behave yourselves in London?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Will you?”
“Ouch! Daddy, you’re hurting!”
“D’you promise?”
“Yes, yes!”
And with that he bundled them into their compartment and rejoined the Major, who was the only member of the party to be moved by this leave-taking. Still, he was glad to see them out of danger. He only wished Mrs Rappaport had agreed to leave also, but he had only succeeded in arousing her obstinacy. She loathed Calcutta; always had. Refused to go there. The heat was appalling.
“Calcutta? But nobody wants you to go to Calcutta!” A long and debilitating argument had ensued. She agreed that she would be safe there. But safety wasn’t everything. One had one’s duty, after all. She would stay where she was. She remained quite deaf to the Major’s protestations. Once, fleetingly, she seemed to grasp that the Major wanted her to go to England, not to Calcutta, for she exclaimed: “I’m not pregnant, am I?”
“Good heavens! I certainly hope not!”
“Well, the climate here is perfectly suitable.” During this baffling conversation the huge cat that crouched on her lap like a furry bulldog stared piercingly into the Major’s eyes. But at last the Major acknowledged defeat; sensing this, the cat relaxed and rubbed its head against the hard leather holster which Mrs Rappaport now habitually wore strapped round her waist (the calm and practical Mrs Roche had taken care to remove the cartridges, however). The cat yawned and licked its paw to wash its face. The audience was at an end.
One success (the twins) and two failures (Edward’s holiday, Mrs Rappaport). Next the Major turned his attention to the Majestic itself, afraid that the collapse of the building might be imminent. The Major, of course, knew himself to be anxious by nature and inclined to get things out of proportion. Yet he still believed that he could hear the curious cracking sounds which he had first heard during the roar of the storm. Now that all was quiet and tranquil one should have been able to hear them quite clearly. But the fact was that, although he could feel them, he could not hear them at all. It was merely an abrupt sensation of strain, followed by an ominous relief—a sensation that might be represented as the snapping of rotten branches under water. No doubt it was pure imagination. Nevertheless, in order to set his mind at rest he telephoned an architect in Dublin by the name of Delahunty and explained his fears, asking him if he would come down and look the place over.
Delahunty was a confident, jolly man of middle age who had been recommended to the Major by a mutual acquaintance. He laughed at the Major’s anxiety; he knew the place well, he said. He had often stayed there with his parents as a child. Solid as a rock! One might just as well expect Dublin Castle to fall down. But if the Major really wanted reassurance he’d be delighted to come and have a look round. It would be good to see the old place again after all these years. If it was a nice day he might even bring his swimming-costume and take a dip in the swimming-pool...Was it filled at the moment? well, yes...though, strictly speaking...that was to say, there was water in it...Capital! The Major should expect him on Tuesday. And Delahunty
, who was a busy man, had rung off before the Major had time to append any more of his laborious qualifications.
On Tuesday he duly made his appearance, a bald, tubby man with sparkling eyes who greeted the Major as if they were old friends. Splendid to see the old place again. Donkey’s years since he’d been in this corner of Ireland. Needed a bit of spit and polish by the look of it but solid as a rock. After all, it wasn’t the paint that counted but what was underneath. Look, now that he was here why shouldn’t he stay for supper as well? They could put his name in the pot, couldn’t they?
“By all means.”
Ah, they knew how to build in those days. They didn’t just throw a house up with a couple of bricks and a lick of mortar the way they did nowadays. See, Major, listen to that—and he rapped the wall of the corridor with his chubby knuckles.
“It’s quite a relief to hear you say it. I’d begun to imagine things.”
“You haven’t a thing to worry about. Take my word for it.” And Mr Delahunty, with a smile, indulged the Major by going with him, even so, to take a look at the crack behind the tapestry in the writing-room. Nothing structural, he declared, simply an “easing of the brickwork.” Happened in all old places. But the upper storeys? The dry rot? The place the Major had put his foot through?
The Empire Trilogy Page 41