The Empire Trilogy (15 page)

The Major slipped into a pew at the back and, lulled by the organ's soft piping and rumbling and creaking of pedals, fell into a pleasant and confused day dream about a hiking holiday he had taken before the war, remembering how he had lain on a hillside on a sunny day like this, the long grass combed flat by the wind. It was very peaceful here.

When he looked up at last he saw Edward. Although his face was stony and expressionless he must have been weeping a few moments earlier, for his normally bristling moustache had become sodden and was drooping towards his chin; a drop of water clinging to it caught a ray of sunlight as he passed and glittered like a diamond. With Edward were two slim girls in identical black dresses and black veils that scarcely dimmed their shining blonde curls. They stood there, tall and straight, one on each side of their father, their lovely faces sad and composed as they began to move up the aisle in step with Edward who had an arm over each of their shoulders and was lurching slightly, in the manner of a prize-fighter being helped from the ring. At the end of the aisle they neatly supported him into the front pew, even tilted him forward a little to pray, before kneeling themselves and bowing their shining heads.

The service took its course. The rector had begun to talk about Angela and was evidently having difficulty, not merely in marshalling the dead girl's qualities, but even in thinking of anything to say about her at all. A shaft of blood-stained sunlight crept from the dusty hassock on to the gleaming toe of the Major's shoe. The devoted sister, the rector was saying, of these two lovely children (and of...of this fine young man, he added as an afterthought). The Major's mind slipped away to the windblown hillside, with its scent of clover and wild thyme. The model of the Christian lady, gentle, firm and devoted, whom the Lord in His inscrutable wisdom...

“Ah,” thought the Major, “inscrutable wisdom...” The grey-faced man lay on the pavement spattered with scarlet, a gold watch clutched in his fingers. Goodbye, Angela. He sighed and tried to struggle back to the windblown hillside. He fell asleep, though, before he could get there. He was woken again almost instantly by the crash of his hymn-book which had closed itself and fallen between his knees. The rector was saying: “When Duty called her she answered with firmness and devotion...”

Before the day of the funeral was over the Major had once more left Kilnalough. An hour or two after he had returned to the Majestic with the other mourners word arrived that his elderly aunt in London (whose health had been poor for some time) had taken a definite turn for the worse. Her doctor had decided that it was necessary to summon the Major, who happened to be her only surviving relative. He sought out Edward, who was wandering around the hotel in a sort of agonized daze, trying to avoid the old ladies who kept bounding out of the shadows to present their condolences. Edward squeezed his arm and said that he quite understood—which possibly meant quite the opposite, namely, that he took the Major's dying aunt to be a polite fiction. But there was nothing the Major could do about
that
: to have gone into de-tail would have made things worse than ever. Since he had missed the afternoon train Murphy was ordered to take him across country in the trap to Valebridge from where he might catch a later train which, with luck, might get him to Kingstown in time to catch the boat.

Edward raised his leonine head and squared his shoulders with an effort.

“Angela gave me this for you. A few days before she... you know...”

The Major glanced at the envelope and, although he had felt very little throughout this day of black ties, pale faces and subdued voices (only perhaps a vague dread, a muffled sadness), the sight of his name written in the familiar, meticulously neat handwriting abruptly squeezed his heart. And at last Angela was really dead.

“I'd better get a move on. I must say goodbye to Ripon and the twins.”

The twins were in the writing-room being comforted by a pair of portly gentlemen in tweeds; they had clearly been reluctant to remove the gossamer-black veils which suited them so perfectly and now they sat on sofas, pale and brave, their eyes shining and their slender hands being patted by the rough, hairy paws of their escorts. The Major decided not to disturb them (after all, he had never set eyes on them before today) and instead, while Murphy waited outside the front door with the trap, searched from room to room for Ripon.

He was not in the Palm Court, nor in the dining-room (where one or two pale but hungry-looking mourners were gravely feeding on a cold collation), nor in the residents' lounge, nor in the ladies' lounge, the ballroom, the breakfast room, the coffee room or the gun room. He stood in the corridor, baffled, trying to think where Ripon might be. He ascended to the Imperial Bar, but Ripon was not there either. It was some time since the Major had been here; a new litter of kittens were romping on the floor, charming little ginger fellows. The previous litter had grown considerably in his absence and had abandoned the carpet to the new arrivals. Instead, they dozed on dusty chairs or picked their way among the bottles on the bar, their eyes blazing. The Major was still holding Angela's letter in his hand. He put it down on the bar and stooped to pick up one of the ginger kittens. It squirmed in his palm, mewing feebly, and dug its tiny claws into his fingers. With a sigh he dropped it and looked at his watch. He must hurry. Where on earth was Ripon? He decided, as a last resort, to try the billiard room.

There he found him, throwing a jack-knife from one end of the room to the other trying to make it stick in the oak panelling. His hand was raised to throw as the Major stepped across the threshold.

“Steady the Buffs!”

“Oh, it's you. I just thought I'd come down here for a while. All those morbid old ladies, you know.”

“Just called to say goodbye. I've got to go back to England to see a relation who's been taken ill.”

“Oh, I see,” nodded Ripon, putting on his jacket and for some reason patting his pockets anxiously. “I don't blame you, really. It's awful here, isn't it? I'm thinking of trying to get out myself while the going's good before the bloody ship sinks, so to speak. Matter of fact I'm glad you came because I've been wanting a word with you.”

For the second time in less than ten minutes the Major considered defending the innocence of his motives for leaving, but thought better of it.

“Well, I haven't got much time. In fact, I haven't got any time at all. You see, I missed the train from here and I've got to get myself over to Valebridge before, let me see...” He looked at his watch.

“You've heard the news, of course,” stated Ripon, ignoring the Major's remarks. “It's all over town, I expect.”

“Heard what news?” demanded the Major anxiously.

“About me and Máire Noonan. I'm sure that little bitch Sarah will have told you.”

“Yes, I did hear something. But look here, Ripon, you mustn't go around calling girls bitches like that...I mean, really! Besides, she's a cripple, more or less, and if
you
had her disability...”

“I suppose you know Máire's a fish-eater...an R.C.?”

“Yes.”

“So there's going to be an unholy row sooner or later. Or maybe I should say a
holy
row. And just at the moment it's not such a good time, you know, what with poor old Angela and so on...But old man Noonan has been putting on the pressure, d'you see, and something's got to be done.” Ripon paused and jabbed the knife violently into the oak panelling. “Can you lend me a couple of fivers, by the way?”

“No.”

“Just one fiver would be a help.”

“No.”

“It doesn't really matter, of course, if you're short.”

“Why has Mr Noonan been putting on the pressure?”

“It's this R.C. business. He thinks that maybe I'm not going to...Well, what it all boils down to is that he wants me to make it public and the main thing is...”

“To tell your father?”

Ripon nodded gloomily.

“Well, I'm sure it will all turn out all right. After all, the Noonans are rather wealthy from what I hear. I don't see why Edward would have any real objection once he knows you're serious.”

“It's this stupid religious business, Major. The point is, you see, that I've been trotting along to see the old priest for what they call ‘instruction' (they're frightful sticklers for the rules). Not my idea, I can assure you. Old man Noonan insisted on it. It's a lot of rot, really. I mean, frankly it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to me where we're married, couldn't care less about that sort of thing. The snag is that Himself is going to get into a fearful wax when he hears about it...and to tell the truth, I don't quite know what to do.” He paused, avoiding the Major's eye. “Fact is, I was rather hoping you might do something to help me...tip the wink to Himself and so forth.”

“Oh really! That's out of the question, Ripon. Look here, I'm in a dreadful hurry at the moment and I simply can't afford to miss this train (this business with my aunt is perfectly genuine, I can assure you). If you want me to give you advice I'd be glad to help you in any way I can; in fact, I'll give you my card and you can put it all down in black and white.”

Ripon took the Major's card and looked at it without optimism.

“If you spoke to Father he might not take it so hard, you know. If you pointed out that it's not the end of the world and so forth. I know he respects you. I'm afraid he won't listen if I tell him.”

“I'm sorry, but it's out of the question,” repeated the Major, becoming agitated. “It won't do at all if I miss this train, as I'm sure to do if I stand here talking any longer. And so, well, I just wanted to say goodbye...I'm sure everything will turn out all right in the end. Goodbye, Ripon.”

And without looking back the Major hastened along the corridor, up the stairs three at a time, through the residents' lounge, took a short cut through the orangerie and emerged beside the statue of Queen Victoria where Murphy was waiting for him with the trap.

As they reached the last point of the drive that afforded a view of the building the Major looked back at the grey, battlemented mass that stood there like a fortress among the trees.

“Stop, Murphy!” he cried suddenly. He had just remembered: he had left Angela's letter in the Imperial Bar!

The old manservant dragged on the reins and turned slowly to look back at the Major, his discoloured teeth exposed in a ghastly rictus. Was it the effort of reining in the pony that made him look like that or was he laughing hideously? The Major gazed fascinated at the old man's fleshless skull and sunken eyes.

“Never mind. Drive on or we'll miss the train.” And he thought: “I'll get Edward to send it on to me. At this stage it can't contain anything very urgent, after all.”

* * *

IN PRAISE OF BOXING

A man's last line of defence is his fists. There is no sport, not even cricket, which is more essentially English than boxing. Wilde is a national hero because he has shown that in the great sport which is ours, and now is the property of the whole world, we can still produce a champion when it comes to a fight. There is no sport in the world which demands cleaner living. There is no more natural sport. Low cunning will not help him, but a quick, clear brain, a hard body, and perfect training will carry a man a long way.

* * *

The Major now found himself sitting beside his aunt's sick-bed in London and not in the best of tempers. He had very quickly reached the conclusion that his aunt was less sick than he had been led to believe, which irritated him and caused him to suspect a conspiracy between this lonely old lady and her doctor (it was the doctor who had sent the telegram which summoned him). And although within a few months his aunt vindicated herself by dying, the Major was never quite able to discard the faint irritation he had felt at being greeted, as he raced up a beautifully polished staircase (everything looked so clean after the Majestic) beneath sombre, heavily varnished portraits of distant dead relations, and burst into her bedroom, by a wan smile rather than a death-rattle. Meanwhile he sat beside her bed with her loose-skinned, freckled hand in his and murmured rather testily: “Of
course
you'll get better...You're only imagining things.” But even while consoling his aunt his thoughts would very often revert to Edward. “If I'd stayed a little longer,” he kept thinking, “I might have been able to cushion the shock and make him see reason about Ripon and his lady-friend. After all, it can't be as serious as all that.” Nevertheless he knew instinctively that the possibilities of mutual incomprehension between Edward and Ripon would be prodigious, and he continued to ruminate on them as he held a glass of verbena tea to his aunt's faintly moaning lips and commanded her brusquely to take a sip. To tell the truth, he felt rather like a man who has walked away from a house drenched in petrol leaving a naked candle burning on the table.

Here he was in London and nobody seemed to be dying. What was he doing here anyway? The doctor appeared to be avoiding him these days and when they did meet he wore an apologetic air, as if to say that it really wasn't his fault. But at last the day came when the doctor, with a new confidence, informed him that his aunt had had a serious haemorrhage during the night. And even his aunt, though pale as paper, looked gratified. This news upset the Major, because he was fond of his aunt and really did not want her to die, however much he might want her to stop being a nuisance. However, in spite of the haemorrhage, his aunt still showed no sign of passing on to “a better life” (as she unhopefully referred to it herself when, for want of another topic of interest to both of them, she embarked, as she frequently did, on conversations beginning: “All this will be yours, Brendan...”).

The news from Ireland was dull and dispiriting: an occasional attack on a lonely policeman or a raid for arms on some half-baked barracks. If one was not actually living in Ireland (as the lucky Major no longer was) how could one possibly take an interest when, for instance, at the same time Negroes and white men were fighting it out in the streets of Chicago? Now
that
gripped the Major's imagination much more forcibly. Unlike the Irish troubles one knew instantly which side everyone was on. In the Chicago race-riots people were using their skins like uniforms. And there were none of the devious tactics employed by the Shinners, the pettifogging ambushes and assassinations. In Chicago the violence was naked, a direct expression of feeling, not of some remote and dubious patriotic heritage. White men dragged Negroes off streetcars; Negroes fired rifles from housetops and alleyways; an automobile full of Negroes raced through the streets of a white district with its occupants promiscuously firing rifles. And Chicago was only a fragment of the competition that Ireland had to face. What about the dire behaviour of the Bolshevists? The gruesome murders, the rapes, the humiliations of respectable ladies and gentlemen? In late 1919 hardly a day went by without an eye-witness account of such horrors being confided to the press by some returned traveller who had managed to escape with his skin. And India: the North-West Frontier...Amritsar? No wonder that by the time the Major's eye had reached the news from Ireland his palate had been sated with brighter, bloodier meat. Usually he turned to the cricket to see whether Hobbs had made another century. Presently the cricket season came to an end. A rainy, discouraging autumn took its place. Soon it would be Christmas.