The Empire Trilogy Part 14

There was no sign of the mason. Instead, a plump and pretty girl wearing a straw boater over her stiff pigtails came wobbling up the drive on a bicycle. It was Viola O'Neill, come to play with the twins. The twins gave her a desultory kiss on the cheek and led her away upstairs. As she went her eyes lingered disconcertingly on the Major, who was standing in the foyer listening sympathetically to an old gentleman in stockinged feet. The Major watched her slender white hand trail up spiral after spiral of the staircase and heaved a melancholy sigh. "Why couldn't Sarah want me like that?"

"Do you have any idea where they would be?" the old gentleman asked crossly, not for the first time.

"Where what would be?" The Major's mind had wandered again. "Oh yes, of course, you've lost your shoes. I'll make inquiries."

The old gentleman, a new arrival at the Majestic, had left his shoes outside his bedroom door. Not only had they not not been cleaned, they had disappeared altogether! And all his other shoes were in a cabin trunk that had yet to be delivered from the railway station. The Major left him in the foyer and went to ask Murphy to ask the maids. been cleaned, they had disappeared altogether! And all his other shoes were in a cabin trunk that had yet to be delivered from the railway station. The Major left him in the foyer and went to ask Murphy to ask the maids.

Later in the day, while hunting languidly for the shoes along one of the upper landings, he opened a door and was greeted by cries of surprise and dismay: through a blue mist of cigarette-smoke he perceived three figures in petticoats. He closed the door again discreetly. He was shocked, however, and thought: "I must tell Edward. If those girls go on the way they're going...." But he was annoyed with Edward and did not see why he he should have to bring up his daughters for him; let him see to it himself! Besides, young women these days... should have to bring up his daughters for him; let him see to it himself! Besides, young women these days...

The matter of the shoes was cleared up in the course of the afternoon. It seemed that the cook, on her way down to prepare breakfast, had noticed them outside the gentleman's door and had naturally supposed that he was throwing them away-a perfectly good pair of shoes! She had picked them up and given them to Sean Murphy, who had been digging energetically in them all morning.

At the end of the first week of December Padraig was also sent up to the Majestic to visit the twins, not by old Dr Ryan but by his father who, it turned out, was not only a staunch Unionist but something of a sn.o.b into the bargain. The Major intercepted Padraig (who was looking pale and anxious-it was clear he had little appet.i.te for visiting the twins) to ask him about his grandfather.

"Oh, he's well enough. I don't see him so much now. He has a cook and a maid but he'll hardly let anyone into the house."

"Is he still not speaking to your parents?"

Padraig nodded. "He's very stubborn and bad-tempered.

"He's told my father he's a traitor to Ireland for approving the British the way he does."

"I didn't know he was a Sinn Feiner."

"Ah, you wouldn't mind him," Padraig said, his eyes flickering uneasily to the landing above, where three pretty faces had appeared over the banister. "He's very old."

"Well, here's your guest," the Major called up sternly. "I hope you'll look after him properly and behave yourselves."

Padraig mounted the stairs as if under sentence of death, was seized by the girls and whisked away. The Major went about his business.

Curiously enough, Padraig seemed to enjoy himself. He reappeared on the following day looking cheerful and confident, then again on the day after. Soon he became a frequent visitor. "It was probably just a question of breaking the ice," reflected the Major.

The Major's nerves were once more in a deplorable state. He could hardly bear to open the newspaper, for it seemed that the war, which he thought he had escaped, had pursued and caught him after all. Martial law was proclaimed in Cork, Tipperary, Kerry and Limerick. On the night of December 11th Cork was sacked by Auxiliaries and Black and Tans after a patrol had been ambushed. Reading about it, the Major was reminded of how Edward had once said to him that he would welcome a holocaust, that he would like to see everything smashed and in ruins so that the Irish would really taste the meaning of destruction. He read about the scarlet flames that lit up the night sky as the shopping district of Cork was set on fire: firemen's hoses cut by axes; uniformed police and military staggering through the flaming streets with looted goods; Auxiliaries drunk on looted whiskey singing and dancing with local girls in the smoke. It was said that the clock on the tower of the City Hall, rising out of an ocean of flame and smoke, went on striking the hour until dawn, when it finally toppled into the inferno below.

The Major's sleep was as short and disturbed as it had been during his convalescence in hospital, punctuated by nightmares which continually returned him to the trenches. Any sharp noise, a book clapped down flat on a table or a dropped plate, would have him ducking involuntarily like a new recruit. During the hours of daylight, unless he was in the open air or in the safety and warmth of the linen room, he felt himself compelled to keep moving from room to room, corridor to corridor, upstairs and down. Only now did he consider that this compulsion might stem from the irrational fear that a trench-mortar sh.e.l.l was about to land in the spot where he had been standing a moment before, invisible explosions that tracked him from the lounge to the dining-room to the library to the billiard room, on and on, perpetually allow-ing him to escape by a fraction of a second. "I must pull myself together or Edward will notice that I'm showing the white feather."

He needed some distraction-a visit to the theatre. He consulted the Irish Times. Charley's Aunt Irish Times. Charley's Aunt was being performed at the Gaiety and the advertis.e.m.e.nt said that it was "Enough to make a cat laugh." But the Major dolefully suspected that it would fail to work on him. Besides, there was a special notice which said that the performance ended nightly at 9.15 p.m. sharp, and the idea of s.n.a.t.c.hing a few quick chuckles before hastening home through the lawless streets did not appeal to him. All the same, he must take himself in hand. For an entire morning he forced himself to remain sitting in one place. The ladies, rebuffed in peevish tones, watched him from a distance and supposed in offended whispers that he had "got out of bed the wrong side." After lunch, when he had satisfied his most urgent craving for movement, he did his best to restore himself to their good graces. was being performed at the Gaiety and the advertis.e.m.e.nt said that it was "Enough to make a cat laugh." But the Major dolefully suspected that it would fail to work on him. Besides, there was a special notice which said that the performance ended nightly at 9.15 p.m. sharp, and the idea of s.n.a.t.c.hing a few quick chuckles before hastening home through the lawless streets did not appeal to him. All the same, he must take himself in hand. For an entire morning he forced himself to remain sitting in one place. The ladies, rebuffed in peevish tones, watched him from a distance and supposed in offended whispers that he had "got out of bed the wrong side." After lunch, when he had satisfied his most urgent craving for movement, he did his best to restore himself to their good graces.

Shortly before tea-time he was strolling, hands in pockets, along a corridor on the third floor (since putting his foot through the floor-boards he seldom ventured higher) when a door opened round the corner, releasing a gale of laughter followed by footsteps and a rustling of skirts. A moment later and he had collided with a slim, dark girl who came running round the corner, laughing over her shoulder. In the dim light the Major failed to see her until the last moment. He just had time to catch her in his arms to prevent her falling.

"I beg your pardon!"

The girl's laughter changed to surprise and dismay. She disengaged herself and stood back awkwardly. The Major peered at her in the twilight. She was wearing a charming dress of black velvet with a white ruff and white lace cuffs; from the ruff her neck rose, slender and flushed, to a delicate pouting face. A fragrant perfume hung in the air. Abruptly, she turned and fled back into the room that the laughter was coming from. There was some urgent whispering (it was the twins and Viola, of course) and then the hilarity became greater than ever. The Major, also laughing, put his head round the door. By this time he had realized that the "girl" was Padraig.

"Brendan, what d'you think? Doesn't he make a gorgeous girl?"

"We're all frightfully jealous of him."

Smiling (though still a tiny bit dismayed by the pleasure he had derived from touching "her" soft body a moment earlier), the Major agreed that black velvet suited Padraig to perfection. It was some time before the mortified Padraig could be enticed out of the adjoining dressing-room. Indeed, it took a great deal of cajolery from the girls and a hearty appeal from the Major before he would agree to show himself again. And then what laughter there was when Charity lifted the hem of his skirt to show the Major what slender, well-turned ankles he had! And his hair was so fine and curled so naturally that if he grew it a bit longer he wouldn't have to wear a wig at all! Besides, according to some magazine they'd been reading there were girls in London who had cut off all their hair and wore it short like men.

"So with his lovely soft hair..."

"And his skin and colouring..."

"And his dark eyes with their long lashes..."

"And my ankles, don't forget them," added Padraig.

"And his ankles, of course, we mustn't forget them, and his hands hands, just look how slender and white they are!"

"With all those things there's hardly any difference between him and a girl at all at all!" cried Viola enthusiastically.

There was a moment of silence after this remark, perhaps for reflection that there were, after all, one or two small but essential differences (although a well-brought-up girl like Viola might not be expected to know much about them). However, the general good humour was such that in no time at all everyone was bubbling over with laughter and compliments once more and Faith was showing the blushing but gratified Padraig how a girl should walk: this walking was more like gliding, the twins explained (and they ought to know, they'd been to enough different schools with enough deportment cla.s.ses). They made him walk to and fro with a book balanced on the top of his head until he could move without it falling off. Padraig took to this with a splendid natural apt.i.tude and soon they could safely balance a gla.s.s of water on top of the book without him spilling a drop.

Presently someone decided that Padraig should be taken on a tour of the hotel to see if any of the ladies recognized him. He should go on the Major's arm! What a brain-wave! But the Major turned out to be a spoil-sport and refused point-blank.

"Oh, oh, why why?" pleaded the girls.

"Because."

"Because what what?"

"Just because."

And there was no shifting him. Usually the twins could get round him without difficulty, just by telling him that they thought him handsome and interesting, that he looked like Alc.o.c.k, say, or Brown. But this time, for some reason, he remained adamant. Well, never mind. They would take him on a tour themselves!

The Major, like the spoil-sport he was, tried to dissuade them, but he did not make his case very eloquently. He kept pointing out that although a joke was a joke, enough was enough, and that sort of thing. Padraig, he suggested hopefully, should put his clothes back on and then everyone should think of another, different, game.

"But he's got his clothes on on!" screamed the girls indignantly. The Major was too too boring! boring!

"Yes, I've got them on on," agreed Padraig.

Were there any actual reasons reasons, the girls wanted to know, enunciating carefully, as if to an idiot, why Padraig shouldn't be taken on a tour of the hotel? Well, yes, there were reasons, but they were so nebulous that the Major found it difficult to specify them. They were certainly not tangible enough to satisfy the girls.

So the tour got under way, Viola leading the way with long b.u.t.ton-booted strides, displaying her pearly teeth like the princ.i.p.al boy in a pantomime. Padraig followed with a twin on each arm, chuckling or whispering into one ear or the other while he himself looked as radiant as Joan of Arc and prepared to respond to anything the situation might present.

And as it turned out, Padraig had an enormous suc-cess with the old ladies, which caused the Major to reflect that the twins were probably right: he was a stick-in-the-mud, a spoil-sport and a kill-joy. What a fuss they made of him! They patted his shoulder and kissed his brow and made minute adjustments to his wig, which was the only part of him that "rather spoiled the effect," they thought (it was a cheap theatrical wig stolen by Faith from some school dramatic society). They delved into their handbags and gave him chocolates to nibble that had that rather peculiar musty taste of perfume and moth-b.a.l.l.s that old ladies' chocolates always have. It was wonderful, they thought, how he seemed to know what to do just by instinct, keeping his knees together and sitting up straight and so forth. They were so delighted with him, in fact, that they were loath to let him continue his tour and made him promise to come back. He agreed, of course, and came back quite soon.

The rest of his tour had turned out to be something of an anticlimax. With his retinue he had marched into the ballroom and wheeled several times round Edward's makeshift laboratory. But Edward was engrossed in a.s.sembling some extraordinary piece of machinery with pipes and tubes and an old clockwork barometer with graph-drum and inking-needle and pieces of rubber, evidently for some experiment he wanted to make. Consequently he paid no attention whatsoever. The maidservants, of course, smiled at him and showed their dimples, but they were too shy to speak to him, so that was no good. Curiously enough, Mr Norton showed no interest at all; he merely glanced up from his newspaper and raised his wicked old eyebrows. One had to a.s.sume that after his life of debauchery he must know the difference between Padraig and the real thing, so this poor reaction dampened their enthusiasm a trifle. Back to the old ladies, then, to have their confidence restored. All in all, and taking, as one must, the rough with the smooth, they had reason to be satisfied.

By now, unfortunately, it was time for Padraig to go home for his supper and so he had to get changed back into his other clothes. But he would come again on the following day; there were still lots of different dresses for him to try on-all Angela's clothes, in fact, which the twins still stoutly declined to wear. Viola had to go home too and said she'd escort Padraig back to his house. With all the excitement and amus.e.m.e.nt they had been having, with all the good cheer, one tended to forget that these days the roads could be dangerous.

Soon it was time for dinner at the Majestic and the hotel guests began to a.s.semble in the dining-room. It was cold there. A stiff east wind was blowing off the sea and, filtering in through the cracks between the French windows, caused the heavy curtains to move back and forth like impatient spectators in the shadows. In the branched silver candlesticks the flames constantly sputtered from yellow to blue under the compulsion of draughts; the light they provided was supplemented by an oil lamp on each table. One could see one's breath against the surrounding darkness; the tureen of soup on the table belched steam like a locomotive.

The ladies waited, pinched and shivering in layers of shawls and stoles, fingers buried in m.u.f.fs, crowding all together around the moaning fireplace in which huge, unevenly cut sods of turf blazed without warmth. Now and again a back-draught of pungent whitish smoke would drive the ladies back with averted faces, but somehow this puff of smoke ascending into the darkness, and the smell of turf-ash, made the room seem fractionally warmer. The fireplace groaned mournfully and everyone waited for Edward to come.

It was his habit to appear punctually at seven o'clock. Except when he happened to be away for the day the Major had never known him to miss attending the evening meal. This punctuality of Edward's was the very spine of the hotel: in a sense, it held the whole place together. Slates might sail off the roof in a high wind, the gas mantles might stop functioning on the landings, but Edward's appearance at dinner was immutable. Was there something wrong? An accident? At ten past seven one of the maids appeared with a note asking the Major if he wouldn't mind taking charge. Edward was busy. The ladies exchanged significant glances. It was one thing (said these glances) to be in the trenches with one's commanding officer, quite another thing to be there when one knew that he was toasting himself in front of a warm fire behind the lines somewhere.

While Angela was still alive the Spencers had eaten at a table separated by the width of the dining-room from the guests, but now, drawn together by death, growing chaos, and the advancing winter, everyone ate together at two long tables, Edward normally at the head of one, the Major at the head of the other. According to the ritual the Major now picked up the heavy handbell and rang it vigorously, before crossing to the small door concealed in the oak panelling. He held it open and waited for Mrs Rappaport to step out. She did so, followed by the marmalade "kitten" (now a powerfully built cat). Having taken hold of his arm, she allowed herself to be led to the table. In silence the Major helped her into her chair at the end of the table nearest to the fire, tied a napkin round her neck and put a silver spoon in her hand. A stool had been placed beside her chair for the cat, which had recently become too big and c.u.mbersome to remain on her lap while she was eating. Disasters had occurred; hot soup had dribbled on to its striped back; once while it was sleeping peacefully a portion of scalding shepherd's pie had slid off a fork and dropped like a poultice into one of its ears.) The Major said grace and took his seat at the other end of the table.

"Where's Daddy?" whispered Faith.

Beneath his thick growth of moustache the Major's mouth shaped the words: "Busy. Eat up."

"Busy doing what?"

The Major frowned but offered no reply. It hardly mattered what Edward was doing. The important thing was that he had broken one of his own rules.

"Cheer up, Brendan," said Charity and reached under the table to pat his knee. The Major frowned more sternly than ever and, lifting a spoonful of tepid grey soup to his lips, drank it down with a slight shudder, like medicine. "He's broken one of his own rules," he thought again, not without a certain bleak satisfaction. "He's beginning to go to pieces."

Next day Edward was by turns impatient, irascible and resigned. His experiments were being baulked at every turn. The trouble seemed to be that Murphy, whom he wanted to perform his experiments upon, was being difficult.

"The man has no apprehension of the needs of scientific inquiry," he said. The Major noticed that look of mild self-mockery, which had so surprised him at their first meeting, pa.s.s fleetingly over Edward's leonine features. But then his face hardened and he added petulantly: "Pretty soon the b.l.o.o.d.y servants will be giving us us orders." orders."

"What exactly is this contraption?"

On Edward's table lay the partly dismantled graph-drum from the barometer. The inking-nibs had been rearranged to connect with a tangle of wires and rubber pipes; one of these pipes was attached to a gla.s.s funnel containing water and a wooden float, terminating in a deflated rubber balloon.

"I've been trying to reproduce some experiments Cannon made before the war on hunger and thirst. He was the chap who discovered that hunger-pangs come from a periodic contraction of the stomach. He got one of his students to swallow a balloon like this, inflated later, of course...then with each contraction the balloon in the stomach would be compressed, driving the air up along this tube, pa.s.sing through the esophagus and in turn making the float rise by forcing up the water-level. Pretty ingenious, really. The trouble is that the wretched Murphy simply refuses to swallow the d.a.m.n balloon."

"Ah."

"The point is that Cannon used a young man for his experiments. I wanted to see whether the average sixty-second period between contractions would be different in an old man like Murphy."

Hands thrust in pockets, the Major gloomily surveyed Edward's machine. On his table there was no sign of the dead mouse. Presumably it had been devoured by the cats during the night.

"I took a lot of trouble building this," Edward added with resentment. "One feels badly at being let down at the last moment."

"Look, Edward, I've been meaning to ask you about the mason. Did you ever get hold of him?"

"Who? Oh, yes, you're quite right. It went clean out of my head. Thanks for reminding me. I'll see to it today."

Edward frowned and got to his feet, picking up a gla.s.s measuring-jar which he tossed absently from hand to hand. Presently he said: "There's another experiment I'd like to try...one on thirst. There are lots of conditions that result in thirst apart from the simple lack of water-wounds, for instance. Severely wounded men very often complain of a raging thirst. The one that interests me, though, is the sensation of being thirsty through fear, the mouth going dry and so forth. There are lots of instances recorded but n.o.body has ever actually measured it to my knowledge."

"How can it be measured?"

"Just a question of measuring the amount of saliva available in the mouth in the normal everyday state and comparing it with the amount of saliva produced in a state of fear." Edward's face became faintly animated. "This might be a small but significant contribution to scientific knowledge. Of course Murphy's already deuced peculiar and one doesn't want to give him a heart attack..."

"Look, you won't forget about the mason, will you? We don't want the place to fall down."

"I'll see to it right away."

Unhopefully the Major wandered out of the ballroom, leaving Edward to ruminate.

Meanwhile the days were slipping away towards Christmas and still nothing had been done about decorations. The ladies became sulky and despondent at the comfortless prospect of spending the festival at the Majestic. Miss Staveley talked openly of going to stay at the Hibernian in Dublin where they knew how to do things properly. She might have gone, too, had it not been common knowledge at the Majestic that respectable ladies were being raped by Sinn Feiners every day of the week in Dublin; indeed, the aunt of someone's friend had only the other day been violated by a Sinn Feiner posing as a licensed ma.s.seur. Miss Staveley had no desire to suffer a similar fate, so she stayed on at the Majestic, but with bad grace.

At length the Major decided that something must be done, so he took the twins, Viola, Padraig, and Sean Murphy into the park to collect holly and mistletoe, while he himself chopped down a puny and naked Christmas tree he had noticed near the lodge. At the sight of this activity the ladies cheered up and soon they were helping to make paper decorations. The residents' lounge became a hive of industry. Miss Johnston mounted the largest and most drastic shopping expedition hitherto, and returned from Kilnalough with a great supply of gla.s.s ornaments and coloured ribbons. In due course this enthusiasm spread to everyone, servants and guests alike; even the newcomers became eager to lend a hand. The old ladies underwent a gay metamorphosis and showed themselves full of energy, humming and singing as they worked, reach-ing up with trembling hands to pin mistletoe strategically over doors or intrepidly making their way up shivering step-ladders to hang coloured paper streamers. The Major watched them and admired their daring. Whenever a step-ladder began to get a fit of the shakes he would spring forward and anchor it firmly, but then perhaps another step-ladder would begin to rattle on the other side of the room and he would have to watch helplessly, with that mixture of resentment and admiration one feels as one watches trapeze artistes sailing dangerously here and there under the circus roof.

There was only one casualty. One of the less prominent ladies, Mrs Bates, fell off a high stool while trying to deposit a gla.s.s fairy on top of the grandfather clock in the writing-room and broke her hip. By an unusual stroke of luck there happened to be a young doctor staying in the hotel overnight on his way back to Dublin. He took charge of everything and Mrs Bates was whisked out of sight before her fate had time to affect the morale of her fellow-guests. A few days later the Major motored over to visit her in the Valebridge nursing-home...but he was too late. She had caught pneumonia and died in the meantime. "Poor Mrs Bates." Ankle-deep in a drift of dead leaves, he stood outside the nursing-home and sucked his moustache distractedly.

In the midst of all this cheerful activity and confusion Edward moved like a sleepwalker, silent and remote. If you called to him: "Where's the hammer?" or "Have you seen my scissors?" he would shake his head wordlessly, not bothering to understand. He seemed unaware that the grim walls around him were blossoming into festive colour. He remained where he was, at his table in the middle of the cavernous ballroom, slumped in a chair with a book open on his knee. The ladies, awed by his silence, tiptoed around the perimeter of the room as they executed their decorations. One day Miss Archer came to the Major and said: "He has a shotgun."

"Who has a shotgun?"

"Edward. It's on his table in the ballroom."

"Good G.o.d, what does he want that for?"

They stared at each other in consternation. Later, while Edward was out visiting his piglets, he went to have a look. It was perfectly true. On Edward's table there lay a shotgun, broken and unloaded. Beside it a dead frog lay on its back with its legs in the air, exposing a flabby white stomach.

All this time Padraig and Viola O'Neill visited the Majestic every day and roamed around with the twins, who had swiftly tired of helping with the decorations. For a few days they continued playing their game of dressing up Padraig as a girl. All of Angela's clothes were spilled out of their trunks, cupboards and packing-cases; the dresses that suited him were put in one pile, those that didn't in another. For a while they found this engrossing enough, but presently the job was finished. Just as interest was once again beginning to subside Viola remembered that they still had to consider the rest of Padraig's clothing, his underwear, petticoats, corsets and so forth. Soon they were all bubbling with hilarity as they struggled with eye-hooks and tugged on the strings of Angela's corsets-not that Padraig's shapely body needed any artificial correction of course, but they thought they might as well do the thing properly. After a day or two of trying to persuade the Major to go upstairs and have a look at Padraig clad variously in a camisole, a nightdress, and Angela's 1908-style swimming-costume (all of which invitations the Major declined firmly) the question of underwear similarly began to pall. It was clearly time to look for a new game.

The girls mooned about aimlessly for the next three or four days, telling people that they were bored and asking them for money-so that they could run away to Dublin and get raped like everyone else (they weren't too sure what this meant but it sounded interesting). Padraig, however, continued to dress up and sit with the ladies or glide along corridors with whispering skirts. Indeed, he had become such a familiar sight that scarcely anyone paid any attention to him now beyond, say, an absent-minded smile or a "Yes, dear...that is is a lovely dress." The truth was that most of the ladies had probably forgotten by this time that he wasn't, in fact, a girl. Only once did he provoke a strong reaction: Mr Norton unaccountably exploded with anger one day and shouted: "Get out of my sight, you filthy little swine!" Everyone considered this to be amazing behaviour, but then old Mr Norton had always been considered uncouth, in spite of his mathematical genius. Padraig was made a special fuss of that day to compensate for his hurt feelings. a lovely dress." The truth was that most of the ladies had probably forgotten by this time that he wasn't, in fact, a girl. Only once did he provoke a strong reaction: Mr Norton unaccountably exploded with anger one day and shouted: "Get out of my sight, you filthy little swine!" Everyone considered this to be amazing behaviour, but then old Mr Norton had always been considered uncouth, in spite of his mathematical genius. Padraig was made a special fuss of that day to compensate for his hurt feelings.

One bright, chilly December afternoon the Major came upon Padraig on one of the upper landings, standing mournfully by a window. He was dressed in a glistening evening dress of powder-blue satin with gloves to match and he wore a string of pearls round his neck. The Major felt sorry for him. He looked very lonely standing there by himself. With a sigh the Major moved to the window to see what he was looking at. The view from here was almost identical with that from Angela's room: there stood her "two elms and an oak," the oak supposed to be a hundred and fifty years old, the edge of a path where the dogs sometimes wandered...and beyond, beyond what Angela's clouding eyes had been able to descry, the ground sloped down to a wood. Walking up from this wood were the twins and Viola, escorted by a couple of young Auxiliaries who were laughing and prancing about them, throwing their berets in the air like schoolboys. The girls clung tightly together but looked charmed nevertheless. They had found a new game.

In the course of the next few days the Major glimpsed them all together once or twice again, walking and laughing in some distant part of the grounds. Sometimes Padraig would be in the vicinity too, not with them but sulking hopefully at a distance (ignoring them when they shouted at him, however). The Major clicked his tongue. He should really tell Edward that the twins were meeting the young Auxiliaries. But these days it was no use telling Edward anything! Moreover, Edward was taking advantage of his good nature, there was no doubt about it, leaving him to do everything while he amused himself chopping up rats in the ballroom. Depression came down on the Major like a blanket of fog, suffocating him. What dreadful days these were! The future of the British Isles could never have seemed so dismal since the Romans had invaded; there was trouble everywhere. The ultimate stunning blow arrived just two days before Christmas with the news that, in spite of courageous resistance by Hobbs and Hendren, England had been defeated in the first test match in Australia by the appalling total of three hundred and seventy-seven runs.

And then it was Christmas, which, at least to begin with, turned out to be a more cheerful day than anyone had the right to expect. Edward, who had been expected to spend the day in the ballroom with his rats ignoring the festivities, surprised everyone by the way he bustled around full of cheerful greetings for whoever crossed his path. His good spirits persisted throughout the morning service in church: he l.u.s.tily sang the Christmas hymns and repeatedly nodded with agreement during the sermon (the pleasure and virtue to be found in turning the other cheek). He cast twinkling glances at the surrounding pews and smiled indulgently at the young children fretting impatiently beside their parents. Certainly he talked too loudly at the church-door afterwards, and again during the gathering for sherry in the lounge before lunch, but compared with what one might have expected...! The Major heaved a genuine, though tentative, sigh of relief.

After lunch it occurred to the Major to ask Padraig how Dr Ryan was getting along. It was a considerable time since he had heard any news of the old man.

"Oh, much the same really."

"Hasn't he made it up with your parents then?"

"No." Padraig shook his head. He was ill at ease. His parents had given him boxing-gloves for Christmas and they were hung round his neck by their laces like swollen severed hands. A small fat boy in short trousers called Dermot had arrived two days earlier to spend the holiday with his parents and by a singular misfortune he had also been given boxing-gloves. The twins, aided by two attentive, curly-headed young men in mufti (whom the Major recognized, nevertheless, as the Auxiliaries from the garden), were ruthlessly trying to promote an afternoon fight between him and Padraig, an encounter for which neither of them had any stomach.

In the middle of the afternoon the Major took the Standard and motored over to the doctor's house to see how he was faring. Padraig had at first agreed to come with him in the hopes of avoiding his boxing-match with Dermot. But then Dermot's mother had intervened to say that she wanted her son to "save" some of his toys for the morrow, otherwise he would quickly get bored and complain that he had nothing to do. After a period of reflection Dermot elected to save his boxing-gloves. Besides, as Miss Archer pointed out tactfully, it was wrong to fight on Christmas Day...that sort of thing should be postponed until St Stephen's Day.

"Very well, then," said Matthews (one of the curly-headed young men), "the boxing will be for tomorrow." The other curly-headed young man was called Mortimer and his curls were almost as blond as those of the twins. He had frank blue eyes, moreover, good manners and a pleasant smile, not to mention the fact that he had been to a public school. It was clear to the Major that Mortimer did not owe his rank simply to the war-shortage of officers: this young chap was quite plainly officer material and could certainly be trusted to keep his somewhat more dubious companion, Matthews, under control. The Major was relieved about this-there was no telling what the twins might get up to with a little encouragement.

Winking at Padraig, the two young men took the twins off to play touch rugger in the ballroom with Viola and another young man, using an old Teddy bear belonging to the twins as a ball. Dermot and Padraig shyly exchanged a glance of mutual dislike and despair.

The Major found Dr Ryan at home and by himself as he had expected. What he had not expected was to find the old man in the kitchen laboriously trying to prepare his Christmas dinner. Where on earth were the b.l.o.o.d.y servants? the Major wanted to know. They had no business leaving a man of his age to fend for himself.

"Sent 'em home," grunted the doctor.

"But for heaven's sake! You can't cook for yourself! And how about your family?"

The feud with his family was maintained, it seemed. "Unionists!"

"Look here, why don't you come back to the Majestic with me...If you like we could take that chicken of yours with us and get the kitchen staff to see to it."

But the old man was obstinate. He'd sworn he'd not go near the place again! He'd not sit down with the British! He'd not have fellow-Irishmen working to feed his stomach while they had nothing to put in their own! The Major listened to this nonsense with consternation. The old man was becoming a Bolshevist in his dotage!

While they talked Dr Ryan sc.r.a.ped feebly at a potato he was trying to peel. A man of his cla.s.s peeling his own potatoes! This was too much for the Major. Elbowing the old doctor aside, he seized the potato from him and began to peel it in his place, and then another and another (by this time he had taken off his jacket). Dr Ryan, unable to leave well alone, tottered back and forth from the pantry collecting things.

"Will ye not stop and eat with me, Major?" But the Major had eaten already; his only interest was to see that the doctor ate. Still, he might stay to sample a little, see what it tasted like. And he became absorbed in the preparation of the meal -which luckily presented no great difficulties since the servants had left the chicken stuffed and it had only to be put in the oven. Ah, but there was no bread, except for the remains of a pan loaf, hard as steel, that was serving as a paperweight in the doctor's study. They would have to make do with the potatoes and Brussels sprouts. And so he set to work again. But all that peeling and chopping took him an age, and Dr Ryan kept wanting to help, getting in the way and giving advice, as if the Major didn't know what he was doing, which was more than the perspiring and exasperated Major could stand.