The Empire Trilogy (3 page)

Abruptly Ripon was in good spirits, almost jubilant (perhaps even a little drunk? wondered the Major) and kept recognizing landmarks of his childhood. Pointing at the middle of a flat, empty field he told the Major that that was where he had flown his first kite; in a hawthorn hedge he had once shot a rabbit as big as a bulldog; in the barn over there he had had a rewarding experience with the peasant girl who in those days used to be cast in the role of the Virgin Mary every year for the Christmas pageant mounted by Finnegan's Drapery Limited...and yes, in the copse that lay on the other side of the barn young Master Ripon, watched by all the servants and all “the quality” from miles around, had been daubed with the blood of the fox (a not dissimilar experience, he added cryptically)...and on this very road...

Not far away the two massive, weatherworn gateposts of the Majestic rose out of the impenetrable foliage that lined the sea side of the road. As they passed between them (the gates themselves had vanished, leaving only the skeletons of the enormous iron hinges that had once held them) the Major took a closer look: each one was surmounted by a great stone ball on which a rain-polished stone crown was perched slightly askew, lending the gateposts a drunken, ridiculous air, like solemn men in paper hats. To the right of the drive stood what had once no doubt been a porter's lodge, now so thickly bearded in ivy that only the two dark oblongs of smashed windows revealed that this leafy mass was hollow. The thick congregation of deciduous trees, behind which one could hear the sea slapping faintly, thinned progressively into pines as they made their way over the narrowest part of the peninsula and then returned again as they reached the park over which loomed the dark mass of the hotel. The size of the place astonished the Major. As they approached he looked up at the great turreted wall hanging over them and tried to count the balconies and windows (behind one of which his “fiancée” was perhaps watching for his approach).

Ripon brought the trap to a halt and, when the Major had alighted, kicked his suitcase off the back on to the gravel (causing the Major to wince at the thought of the fragile bottles of cologne and macassar that it contained). Then without getting down himself he shook the reins and moved away, calling that he had to take the pony round to the stable but that the Major should go ahead without him, up those steps and in through the front door. So the Major picked up his suitcase and started towards the flight of stone steps, pausing on his way to inspect a life-size statue of a plump lady on horseback, stained green by the weather. This lady and her discreetly prancing horse were familiar to him from Angela's letters. It was Queen Victoria, and she, at least, was exactly as he had expected.

The Major had considered it possible that his “fiancée” would be waiting to embrace him inside the front door, a massive affair of carved oak which was so heavy that it was by no means easy to drag open. There was no sign of her, however.

In the foyer at the foot of the vast flowing staircase there stood another statue, this time of Venus; a dark shading of dust had collected on her head and shoulders and on the upper slopes of marble breasts and buttocks. The Major screwed up his eyes in a weary, nervous manner and looked round at the shabby magnificence of the foyer, at the dusty gilt cherubs, red plush sofas and grimy mirrors.

“Where can everyone be?” he wondered. Nobody appeared, so he sat down on one of the sofas with his suitcase between his knees. A fine cloud of dust rose around him.

After a while he got to his feet and found a bell on the reception desk which he rang. The sound echoed over the dusty tiled floor and down gloomy carpeted corridors and away through open double-leafed doors into lounges and bars and smoking-rooms and upwards into spiral after spiral of the broad staircase (from which a number of brass stair-rods had disappeared, causing the carpet to bulge dangerously in places) until it reached the maids' quarters and rang in the vault high above his head (so high that he could scarcely make out the elegant gilt tracery that webbed it); from this vault there was suspended on an immensely long chain, back down the middle of the many spirals from one floor to another to within a few inches of his head, a great glass chandelier studded with dead electric bulbs. One of the glass tassels chimed faintly for a brief moment beside his ear. Then all was silent again except for the steady tick-tock of an ancient pendulum clock over the reception desk showing the wrong time.

“I suppose I'd better give this gong a clout,” he told himself. And he did so. A thunderous boom filled the silence. It grew, he could feel it growing throughout the house like a hugely swelling fruit that would burst out of all the windows. He shuddered and thought of the first moments of a heavy barrage before a “show.” “I'm tired,” he thought. “Why don't they come?”

But presently a plump, rosy-cheeked maid appeared and asked if he would be the Major Archer? Miss Spencer was expecting him in the Palm Court. The Major abandoned his suitcase and followed her down a dark corridor, vaguely apprehensive of this long-delayed reunion with his “fiancée.” “Oh, she won't bite!” he told himself cheerfully. “At least, one supposes she won't...” But his heart continued to thump nevertheless.

The Palm Court proved to be a vast, shadowy cavern in which dusty white chairs stood in silent, empty groups, just visible here and there amid the gloomy foliage. For the palms had completely run riot, shooting out of their wooden tubs (some of which had cracked open to trickle little cones of black soil on to the tiled floor) towards the distant murky skylight, hammering and interweaving themselves against the greenish glass that sullenly glowed overhead. Here and there between the tables beds of oozing mould supported banana and rubber plants, hairy ferns, elephant grass and creepers that dangled from above like emerald intestines. In places there was a hollow ring to the tiles—there must be some underground irrigation system, the Major reasoned, to provide water for all this vegetation. But now, here he was.

At one of the tables Angela was waiting to greet him with a wan smile and the hope that he had had a good journey. His first impression was one of disappointment. The gloom here was so thick that it was difficult for the Major to see quite what she looked like, but (whatever she looked like) he was somewhat taken aback by the formality of her greeting. He might have been nothing more than a casual guest for bridge. Of course it was true, as he hastened to point out to himself, that their meeting had been both brief and a long time ago. As far as he could make out she was older then he had expected and wore a fatigued air. Though apparently too exhausted to rise she held out a thin hand to be squeezed. The Major, however, not yet having had time to adjust himself to this real Angela, seized it eagerly and brushed it with his shaggy blond moustache, causing her to flinch a little. Then he was introduced to the other guests: an extremely old gentleman called Dr Ryan who was fast asleep in an enormous padded armchair (and consequently failed to acknowledge his presence), a solicitor whose name was Boy O'Neill, his wife, a rather grim lady, and their daughter Viola.

The foliage, the Major continued to notice as he took his seat, was really amazingly thick; there were creepers not only dangling from above but also running in profusion over the floor, leaping out to seize any unwary object that remained in one place for too long. A standard lamp at his elbow, for instance, had been throttled by a snake of greenery that had circled up its slender metal stem as far as the black bulb that crowned it like a bulging eyeball. It had no shade and the bulb he assumed to be dead until, to his astonishment, Angela fumbled among the dusty leaves and switched it on, presumably so that she could take a good look at him. Whether or not she was dismayed by what she saw she switched it off again with a sigh after a moment and the gloom returned. Meanwhile the Major was thinking: “So
that
was what she looked like in Brighton three years ago, of course, now I remember”; but to tell the truth he only half remembered her; she was half herself and half some stranger, but neither half belonged to the image he had had of her while reading her weekly letter (an image he had been thinking of marrying, incidentally—better not forget that this fatigued lady was his “fiancée”).

“Did you have a good crossing, Brendan?” she was inquiring. “That boat can be so tiresome when it's rough.”

“Yes, thank you, though I can't deny I was glad when we got into Kingstown. Have you been well, Angela?”

“Ah, I've been dying”—a fit of weary coughing interrupted her—“of boredom,” she added peevishly.

Meanwhile, without taking her eyes off the Major's face she had stretched out a leg under the table and begun a curious exercise with it, grunting slightly with the effort, as if trying to tread some slow-moving but resilient beetle into the tiled floor. “Is she trying to find my foot?” wondered the Major, perplexed. Then at last, after this curious spasm had continued for a few moments (the O'Neills were either accustomed to it or pretended not to notice), a distant bell rang somewhere away in the jungle of palms. Angela's leg relaxed, an expression of satisfaction appeared on her pallid, fretful features, and an aged and uncouth manservant (whom the Major for a moment mistook for his prospective father-in-law) shambled out of the jungle breathing hard through his mouth as if he had just had some frightful experience in the scullery.

“Tea, Murphy.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Angela switched on the lamp long enough for Murphy to collect some empty cups in his trembling hands, then turned it off again. The Major noticed that old Dr Ryan was not asleep as he had supposed. Beneath the drooping lids his eyes were bright with interest and intelligence.

“I wish we could trust
ours
,” Mrs O'Neill was saying.

“It is a problem,” agreed Angela. “What do you think, Doctor?”

Dr Ryan ignored her question, however, and silence descended once more.

“In a lot of ways they're like children,” Boy O'Neill said at length and his wife assented. “What an extraordinarily inert tea-party!” thought the Major, who had become aware of a keen hunger and looked up hopefully at the sound of a step. But it was only Ripon, sliding apologetically into a chair beside Mrs O'Neill.

“Did you wash your hands, Ripon?” asked Angela. “After that horse.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” replied Ripon, smiling furtively across at the Major and lounging back in a self-consciously casual manner. A moment later he threw a leg over the arm of his chair, narrowly missing Mrs O'Neill's face with his shoe (which had the wandering contours of a hole worn in the sole). “Where are the twins?”

“They've gone to spend a week in Tipperary with friends from school. But one wonders whether the roads are really safe these days.”

“Trees have been felled on the road to Wexford. It really can't go on. Three policemen killed in Kilcatherine. The
Irish Times
said this morning that a levy of six shillings in the pound has been put on the whole electoral division. That should make them think twice.” Mr O'Neill spoke with the fluted vowels of an Ulsterman; his drawn, yellowish face had reminded the Major of the fact (recorded in Angela's letters) that the Spencer family solicitor was thought to be ill with cancer, had been up to Dublin to see specialists, had even travelled to London to see doctors there. Though the verdict had been omitted from Angela's letters to the Major, this omission was eloquent. Death. The man was dying here in the Palm Court as he nervously discussed the abomination of Sinn Fein.

“Those who live by the sword...” said Mrs O'Neill.

“Ah, more tea,” exclaimed Angela as Murphy once more appeared out of the jungle like some weary, breathless gorilla, pushing the tea-trolley. Mustard-and-cress sandwiches. The Major took one and cut it in half with a small, scimitar-shaped tea-knife. Weak with hunger, he put one half in his mouth, then the other. They both vanished almost before his teeth had had time to close on them. His hunger increased as he took another sandwich from the plate, ate it, and then took another. It was all he could do to restrain himself from taking two at a time. Fortunately it was now getting quite dark in the Palm Court (though still only mid-afternoon) and perhaps nobody noticed.

Meanwhile Angela (who had once, so she said, sat on the lap of the Viceroy) had begun to talk languidly about her childhood in Ireland and India, then with a little more energy about the glories of her youth in London society. Soon she became quite animated and the tea grew cold in the cups of her guests. Ripon, while champagne was being quaffed out of his sister's slippers, kept catching the Major's eye and winking as if to say: Here she goes again! But Angela either failed to notice or paid no attention.

Handsome young rowing Blues in full evening dress plunged into the Isis or the Cam at a word from her. Chandeliers were swung from. Her hand was kissed by distinguished statesmen and steady-eyed explorers and ancient pre-Raphaelite poets and God only knew who else, while Boy O'Neill sucked his moustache and grunted in surprise and alarm at each fresh act of immoderation and his wife took on a primly disbelieving look, rather hard about the mouth, as if to say that not everyone can be taken in by all the nonsense they hear; while Ripon smirked and winked and Dr Ryan appeared to doze, motionless with age. The Major listened with amazement; never would he have suspected that this was the same person (part girl, part old maid) who had written him so many precise and factual letters, filled as they were with an invincible reality as hard as granite. Angela talked on and on excitedly while the Major pondered this new facet of his “fiancée's” character. At the same time, with the gloom thickening into a mysterious, tropical night, he guiltily wolfed the entire plate of sandwiches. At last it was so dark that the light had to be switched on, which brought everyone back to earth with a bump. The sparkle slowly faded from Angela's eyes. She looked tired, harassed and ordinary once more.