The Empire Trilogy (55 page)

“What did they do when they were elected?” demanded Edward, mastering himself with difficulty. “They refused to take their seats in Westminster! Is that responsible behaviour? If they were anything but a worthless bunch of braggarts and corner-boys they'd have gone to do their duty by the people who elected them instead of running around with guns.”

Danby had listened to this outburst, nodding and smil-ing at his plate as if this was exactly what he had expected to hear.

“Very well, then. Why didn't they go to Westminster? It's a fair question. Why didn't they? The answer is because they knew it wouldn't do any good. What did Parnell ever accomplish? Nothing at all in practical terms. And Redmond? Even less. The point is that the Sinn Feiners knew very well that they could talk themselves blue in the face in the House of Commons without it doing them the least bit of good. They had to make a stand. Now I don't condone violence, of course, I'm a pacifist...as I think we all are here...” He looked round at the other undergraduates, who nodded their support. “But it can be argued that the source of the violence was not on the Irish side at all. The original and
motive
violence comes from us British who have been violently repressing them since Cromwell and even before that...”

“Don't talk such utter bilge, boy!” snapped Edward, a purple flush rising to his cheeks. “I know a murderer when I see one! If you'd lived in Ireland as long as I have you wouldn't talk such drivel. You talk as if they're patriots when they're just a stupid and vicious rabble, out for what they can get!”

“Well, I don't know that I can altogether agree with you there,” replied Danby with an irritating smile. “Shall we think of a few examples? How about that Lord Mayor of Cork chappie?”

“I know who you mean,” piped Hall-Smith. “The one with the gorgeous name. What was it? MacSwiney...”

“That's the fellow. Went on hunger-strike and starved himself to death for the cause he believed in. To say that he was out for what he could get is absolute tommy-rot, sir, if you'll excuse me saying so.”

“A fanatic! His head had been turned by the priests. Bleeding hearts and crucifixes!”

“That sounds suspiciously like bigotry to me, sir,” intervened Maitland, sweetening his impertinence with a dimpled smile.

“Bigotry be damned!” roared Edward in a voice that made the windows rattle. “What's your name, you ill-mannered pup?”

“Maitland, sir.”

Tight-lipped in an effort to prevent themselves smiling, the undergraduates exchanged covert glances. With a trembling hand Edward reached out for a glass of water and gulped it noisily. Nobody said a word or looked in his direction. Presently he dropped his eyes and seemed surprised to find a plate of roast beef in front of him. Slowly he began to chew it. The meal proceeded in silence except for the chink of plates and cutlery. The blood had drained from Edward's cheeks. His rasping breath was clearly audible.

Little by little, however, casual conversation grew up over this violent outburst like a benevolent cloak of grass and weeds hiding some unsightly abandoned object. The weather was discussed. Miss Archer passed along a message from the far end of the table to inquire whether the young men had had good weather so far during their stay in Ireland. Yes, on the whole, reasonable enough, the answer came back. And soon the other ladies were passing their inquiries along, like so many lavender-scented handkerchieves for the poor undergraduates to wipe their bleeding lips on and return. And then, when this had taken some of the chill from the air and the line of communication had become clogged with too many questions and answers coming and going, they began to sing out their questions directly, person to person. Even some of the ladies at the other table (where the Major sat like a block of salt in front of his untouched plate) were unable to resist carolling a question or two across the intervening space—balm to the wounds of the nicely-spoken young men who had just suffered Edward's boorish outburst. In no time the cacophony had rendered even this method of communication uncertain. “It sounds like the parrot-house at the zoo,” mused the Major grimly. And he glanced at Edward, who was staring straight ahead, features still set in a mask of rage from behind which, for the moment, the fire had consumed itself.

Besides, it was quite plain that the ladies had got the whole thing wrong—that far from being wounded the undergraduates were absolutely delighted with Edward's outburst and were thinking: “What a perfectly splendid old Tory! What a rare find!” The whole thing was priceless: the old ladies, the revolvers (what a shame they weren't loaded!), the decrepit palace around them—and brooding in the middle of it, John Bull! Never-say-die in person! The evening would make a rare saga when retold over beer-mugs in the buttery next term. It might be entitled: “How Maitland Put His Cherubic Head In The British Lion's Mouth...And Got It Bitten Off!” Only Captain Roberts, who had lost his taste for battles of any description (even verbal), felt uncomfortable and heartily wished the meal were at an end.

Coffee, these days, was no longer served in a separate room but wheeled in tepid and acid to the tongue on a trolley by Murphy, who confected it himself out of heaven only knew what ingredients in some little alcove reserved for the purpose. The bright chatter of questions and answers had continued to ring undiminished throughout the dessert of apple fritters and Edward, brooding at the end of the table, was all but forgotten. But hardly had the first acid fumes of coffee from the approaching trolley reached the nostrils of the diners when he spoke again.

His words were lost in the hubbub to everyone except Danby, to whom they had been addressed. A chilled hush fell on the two long tables as Danby, smiling faintly, prepared to reply. At length, flicking aside the long lock of hair that drooped over one eye, he said: “That all depends, sir, from which side you look at it. From the point of view of the Volunteers the Easter Week rebellion must seem incredibly heroic and patriotic. As for being stabbed in the back, I'm afraid I don't quite see how you can justify that as a description of the situation.”

“The British Army fought to defend Ireland against the Kaiser while the Catholics stayed at home safe and sound. Justify that if you can! And then...and then...and then they attacked the very lads who were giving their lives to save them! If that isn't treachery, I'm damned if I know what is!” And Edward sat back quivering with righteous indignation.

“But you don't even know your facts, sir...You don't even know your facts!” cried Danby, raising his voice to the thrilling pitch that had so often brought him deserved applause from the Oxford Union. “I say again, you don't even know your facts...Do you realize that there were a hun-dred thousand, I repeat, a hundred thousand Catholic Irishmen fighting in the British Army? There was no question of treachery at all. The war against the Kaiser had nothing to do with the fight for Ireland's freedom.”

“Pacifists! It's all very well for you lily-livered youngsters who were hiding at home behind your mother's skirts. Think of the men who were risking their lives in France and risking them for
you
! Major, you were risking your life in France... Perhaps you'd tell these young pacifists whether it was treachery or not!”

The Major sat dumbly at the end of his table. There was a long, an interminable silence. Even Murphy, carrying round the cups of coffee, froze in his tracks and arrested his laboured breathing. At length the Major heaved a sigh and said, softly but audibly: “You're perfectly right, Edward. I think we all felt we'd been stabbed in the back.”

“There, you see,” cried Edward triumphantly.

“What did I tell you? Treachery!”

But Danby, his eyes twinkling with the pleasure of doing battle with this redoubtable old juggernaut, appeared not in the least abashed. He smiled impishly at his friends and then said: “Really, sir, you can't classify us all as cowards quite as easily as that. My friend Captain Roberts here, for example, served most heroically in France and I believe he feels, as we all do, that the Easter Week affair was perfectly justified. How about it, Roberts?”

Once again there was a pause and a seemingly interminable silence while everyone held their breath. Captain Roberts blinked and licked his lips. His balding undergraduate head was a great mass of wavy wrinkles as he contemplated the toad which had been put on his plate. For a moment even Danby wondered whether he might not have been over-confident. But then at last Captain Roberts cleared his throat and murmured hoarsely: “Perfectly justified...We all thought so...”

He had opened his mouth wide. He had swallowed the toad. “Good old Roberts!” the undergraduates were thinking and, beside him, Bunny Burdock surreptitiously gave his arm an encouraging, comradely squeeze. But Captain Roberts was careful to avoid the Major's eye.

A thunderous crash cut short the undergraduates' jubilation. It came from Edward's heavy oak chair, which had flown back ten feet and overturned. He was on his feet, his face white and working with fury, glaring at Roberts. But then, without a word he turned and strode out of the room.

The Major, who had glimpsed the expression on his face, hurried after him, napkin in hand—but when he reached the door he thought better of it. He listened to the diminishing echo of Edward's heavy footsteps on the tiles of the corridor and then, folding his napkin, returned to his place.

It was at this moment that Maitland, who had taken a sip of Murphy's bitter brew, took the lid off the sugar-bowl in front of him. Instead of lumps of sugar it contained a pile of dully glistening metal lozenges...revolver bullets! Making a droll face he picked one up, dropped it into his coffee and began to stir it with the barrel of the revolver beside his plate.

This was altogether too much for the undergraduates. They had been close to bursting all evening. Now all they could do was throw back their heads and howl with laughter till their ribs ached.

This great gale of youthful laughter filled the dining-room and echoed away down dim, empty corridors, ringing faintly through all the familiar sitting-rooms, dusty, silent and forgotten; penetrating to the floors above with their disused bedrooms and dilapidated bathrooms and to the damp, sleeping cellars, quiet now for eternity, unvisited except by the rats. It was such healthy, good-natured laughter that even the old ladies found themselves smiling or chuckling gently. Only Captain Roberts at one table and the Major at the other showed no sign of amusement. They sat on in silence, chin in hand, perhaps, or rubbing their eyes wearily, waiting in patient dejection for the laughter to come to an end.

The body might well have been left in the potting-shed where it had first been carried, or dragged rather, and laid out on a pile of old potato sacks. But the shed was a damp and draughty place, smelling strongly of earth and rotting vegetation. Gardening implements hung from nails, some of them so rusty that they were now only skeletons of themselves: a spade with its broad face eaten away, a rake with its teeth flaked into threads as thin as needles, all thanks to some gardener who in happier times had been too idle or trusting to oil the metal. Not so long ago, perhaps only two or three years earlier, some lazy person had dumped a pile of grass under the work-bench, the mowing from one of the lawns. In the interim it had turned into a yellowish, putrid mass with a hard outer crust indented with the print of a boot.

Altogether the potting-shed had seemed to the Major too stark and comfortless a place to leave a young man's body, even for so short a time. So with the help of Seán Murphy he had carried it into the house and placed it on a side table in the gun room. Here at least one could be fairly sure that the sight of it would not disturb the ladies. All the same, once it had been laid out on the table and Seán Murphy had retired, his friendly face still registering shock at this sudden contact with mortality, the Major found himself wondering whether it might not have been better to have left it where it was. The ragged clothes of a labourer, the muddy boots laced with string, the threadbare jacket and patched trousers—all this seemed out of keeping with the gracious oak panelling and the antlers on the walls, even when stretched horizontal with death on a side table. It was almost as startling, mused the Major, as finding a chimney-sweep lounging on the sofa in one's drawing-room. Now that it was here in the gun room the body seemed to have been more at ease in the potting-shed.

He stood back, head on one side and finger to his mouth. Well, it would be absurd to have it carried back to the potting-shed now. He would have done better to leave it as it was, perhaps, but there was no point in worrying about that. His eye fell on another incongruity: above the body on a shelf there were a great many tarnished silver cups, for Edward had been a marksman in his day. Still was, apparently, in spite of his shaking hands. But the less one thought about that the better.

Shaking his head wearily he looked round for something to throw over the dead man. But there was nothing, so he left the room for a moment and returned with a clean tablecloth which he unfolded and threw over the body, taking another look as he did so at the young man's white face and bright red hair, at the bluish eyelids which he had closed himself. The mouth was hanging open, however, and this gave the face an imbecile appearance. Turning, the Major's eye at this moment encountered the resentful, open-mouthed pike in the glass case over the mantelpiece and he thought: “That won't do at all. I must close the poor lad's mouth before it gets too stiff.”

Touching the face gave him an unpleasant shock. The skin was still soft and pliable to his fingertips. It so obviously
belonged to someone
! He shuddered as he gently squeezed the chin until the lips closed.

But when he took his hand away the mouth fell open once more. He tried again and the same thing happened. The position of the head was wrong, that was the trouble. On the shelf below the silver cups he found a copy of
Wisden's Almanac
for 1911 which he judged to have the right thickness. He blew the dust from it and slipped it under the boy's head. This time the mouth stayed closed. Taking a deep breath, the Major went to sit down in one of the armchairs by the empty grate.